Democrat Chattering Class Talks Up Hillary 2024

BUCK: Is she really gonna do it? Is this possible or is this crazy talk about in the political world with Biden’s just plummeting and really just dropping, it feels like, month after month approval ratings, particularly on things like the economy. His overall rating’s very low. Here is just a smattering of headlines from the last 24 hours. “CNN: Destructing the Case For a 2024 Hillary Clinton Bid.” Wall Street Journal. This was the big one, by the way, the one that got a lot of this conversation going, a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Doug Schoen.

The piece was “Hillary Clinton 2024 Election Comeback.” Daily Mail: “Hillary vs. Trump, the Rematch — Two Democratic Operatives Say Hillary is the Best Option to Win.” Oh, it was Andrew Stein as well as Doug Schoen in that Wall Street Journal opinion piece. So you got the political, chattering classes — of which Clay and I are technically a part, I suppose. We’re more chill. We don’t chatter, but nonetheless, we got people talking about all this stuff.

Here’s what I would say, and it reminds me a little bit of how we learned about some of the other intelligence services throughout history and some of the gray hairs at the agency — CIA when I worked there — they would point out to us that you always have to remember. When I was a CIA, Clay, we had rules right? We had rules we had to operate under. Laws, congressional oversight.

The KGB and various intel services throughout history, they do basically whatever they want as long as the regime is okay with it. So they have a tremendous lauded for operation, they have a tremendous ability to maneuver because they have no integrity or legal system to speak of to protect. Think of the Clinton machine as absolutely bereft of ethics, morals, manners. Whatever works. Whatever will get it done.

I think, Clay, part of pitch here, yes, Biden is weak, he’s plummeting, the whole thing. Hillary still has never really conceded that she lost in 2016, and now that we’ve seen the insurrection narrative come to play, Hillary can say, “I’m the only one who can set right, not only what went wrong in 2020 but with the Trump phenomenon in 2016 that was really a Russian disinformation operation.” I think she’ll say anything, and I think that she has a hole in her soul that will only be filled by being president.

CLAY: So many interesting angles to go through here. So let’s start with this. This is predicated to a large extent on them being able to push Biden to the side — and, remember, there’s a lot of Hillary and Biden drama out there because Joe Biden effectively pushed — sorry, Barack Obama effectively pushed — Joe Biden to the side and said, “I’m supporting Hillary in 2016.”

Now, you can argue there were all sorts of things going on in Biden’s personal life. He had lost his son, and he wasn’t necessarily focused on politics in the same way. But Hillary angled her way in to get the nod from Barack Obama as the heir apparent for a third term of the Obama administration. Hillary then runs, loses to Trump, and basically since then has been quiet in many ways in terms of advancing any sort of political agenda.

Now as we look at Joe Biden: 7% inflation, unable to hand covid in any way, border is a mess, murders are setting new highs. Everything that Biden touches… Somebody sent me a message and said, “You need to start calling it ‘the Bidas touch’ instead of the Midas touch. Everything Joe Biden touches, the Bidas touch, turns to crap,” and now Hillary is younger than Joe Biden just by a couple of years older.

BUCK: She’s 74, right?

CLAY: Yeah, 74 right now. So she’s four years younger than Joe Biden right now, and it seems as if this is an attempt to kneecap Joe Biden, right? You tell me how read this, because I don’t believe that that editorial goes up in the Wall Street Journal without Hillary Clinton’s fingerprints all over it. It’s somebody who has worked closely with the Clintons in the past. The Wall Street Journal, to their credit, furthering the opinion-based conversation.

But she wants it to look like there is a “Draft Hillary” movement. “Oh, I couldn’t say no, right?” We know how this is gonna play out. Hillary’s not gonna be seen as the person who wants to lead the charge. It’s there’s gonna be — I would bet — a steady drumbeat of we need Hillary. Hillary is the best option for the Democratic Party, and that’s because both Biden they’re terrified at 78 of trying to rerun for reelection, and because they have to figure out a way to get Kamala Harris off the stage, because otherwise it’s racist and sexist if she’s not the nominee.

At least you’re just accusing Hillary Clinton of racism, ’cause you at least are putting up a woman. And other than Stacey Abrams — we talked about this yesterday, Buck — I’m not sure there’s a black woman that you could even point to and say, “Okay, she can run against Kamala and be better known,” which is why all this would tie in with — I still think — Justice Breyer stepping down at the Supreme Court and then persuading Kamala to take a Supreme Court seat and be the first black woman on the Supreme Court.

BUCK: Look, it’s a ways away, and as we always say, so much can change between now and then but if nothing else the fact that this is even a conversation that is not… Let’s be clear. Sure, this was published in the Wall Street Journal, which is a right-of-center publication, right? But it was written by two Democrat operatives. Doug Schoen’s a very well-known guy; Andrew Stein is also known in Democrat circles. So these guys have their finger on the pulse. We’ve already gone through a whole cycle of Kamala cannot be the one who steps in, and that was coming from a lot of Democrats that I know.

CLAY: No doubt.

BUCK: There are Democrats who behind closed doors and increasingly out in the open will say — and, remember, what they want first and foremost, more than being consistent, more than being moral? They want power. So if they think Kamala is going to deliver power into the hands of either another Trump four years or some other Republican, they will push her aside, because power is the singular goal for the Democrat Party, above and beyond anything else. It’s not even close.

So then you get to, okay, Kamala already they’ve said, “This probably not gonna work.” Joe Biden is enfeebled, not only by just age and the realities, I think, of his intellectual limitations — to put it mildly — but also by the lack of success of the policies and the fact that as a guy to push forward the Democrat agenda. He essentially sold people on something that isn’t what he offers, and this is what we started out the show talking about.

Biden came in saying effectively… You know, he was hiding in the basement but it was we’ll restore normalcy, we’ll defeat covid an all this anxiety — this craziness that they were fomenting — will be controlled in a Biden presidency. We’ve seen that’s a total lie. You’ve got incredibly aggressive left-wing policy being pushed all across the country by the Democrat Party.

And Biden is effectively a figurehead and not one that anyone particularly respects very much. So this is all lining up as a reality. You say, “Who else?” You have… There will be discussion — you can almost set your watch to it — of the “draft Michelle Obama to run as the Democrat nominee,” and the Obama name is still big. The Obamas are still probably the most formidable brand.

CLAY: That’s how you cancel out Kamala, by the way. That’s the way to just shunt Kamala completely to the side is bring in Michelle Obama.

BUCK: I know people within I’m friends with some Democrats who are friends with some Democrats who know Michelle Obama, and what I’ve always been told by them is that she loves having sky-high elite and Democrat approval ratings and being ultrawealthy and doing whatever she wants and has no interest. That’s what I’ve always been told. Now, maybe that’s just the narrative for now, right, so that there’s no focus on this.

CLAY: It also helps her get drafted to have no interest.

BUCK: Of course.

CLAY: You’re always more attractive if you claim you’re not interested in something.

BUCK: Yeah. You always want to be in the James — what, James Garfield role? “I don’t even want to be president,” and then all of a sudden you end up being the president. Hillary, though, give me your odds. You do a lot of betting in sports. I won’t ask for odds here, but would this be a…? In your mind, is she a formidable opponent for whoever the Republican is, if, in fact, she becomes the Democrat nominee if Joe Biden steps aside? Do you think that Hillary’s got what she needs to make it close?

CLAY: It’s a great question. I think that Hillary is a better candidate than Joe Biden. I think she is a far better candidate than Kamala Harris.

BUCK: I think she’s smarter. I think we need to be honest. I think she’s a smarter person, more capable.

CLAY: There’s no doubt. She has a resume of achievement. She’s been secretary of state. She’s been a senator. Whether or not you believe that that resume was well done, she has that in her background so she’s under… She is well experienced in prominent roles of United States government. Where I would say this gets fascinating to me is how do you get Joe Biden not to run, right?

Because I don’t know that Hillary… Although it would be great for us, great political theater if Hillary would challenge a sitting president, tell me, Buck, can you remember off the top of your head — because I can’t — who was the last sitting president to run for reelection and not get his party’s nomination? Not like Lyndon Johnson, “Hey, I’m not gonna seek reelection” when you could have run. But off the top of my head, I can’t even think of who a sitting president has been that lost his party’s nomination.

BUCK: I think we could see that if Biden decides he’s going for it, I think he is the nominee. But it’s a question.

CLAY: No one’s gonna be able to bump him out.

BUCK: No one’s going to. The power of incumbency is so strong that there’s no way. The only way this happens for Hillary is this Biden steps aside and they figure out some way. Maybe it is that Breyer seat’s on the Supreme Court for Kamala Harris. Look, as remarkable as people might think that plan sounds, Sonia Sotomayor is on the Supreme Court, and she thinks that there are a hundred thousand kids in the hospital with covid.

CLAY: Yeah, right.

BUCK: So, you know, they can make room for whoever they want if the Democrats have the votes, –and they will, especially if some of the identity politics considerations are strongly in favor of the move — and so then you see this pathway opening up. But ultimately, look, I understand that at some level Clay and I are engaged here. There’s a lot of this in politics, as you know: Speculation but informed speculation. But the only reason this is even possible — and no one thinks this is laughable. The only reason this is possible is because the Biden regime is still effectively in free fall, and no one knows how far it’s gonna go before it actually hits the dirt, so to speak.

CLAY: I think it’s also a function, Buck, of how weak the Democrat bench for contenders for president is, right? Let’s just run through. You got Kamala, you got Mayor Pete, you’ve got Castro, Beto. Start to run through the people who ran for president, and you look at them and say, “Man, that’s really weak,” whereas look at the Republicans, regardless of who you might support.

Let’s put Trump off on the side. There are a lot of people out there that would say, “Hey, I would love for Ron DeSantis to run.” There are Nikki Haley people, there are Tim Scott people, there are Marco Rubio people, there are Ted Cruz people. The bench for the Republicans is much stronger, it seems to me, than the bench is for the Democrats, which is why they basically would have to pull Hillary out of retirement.