Kamala Harris (8:38)

So let me say my heart is full today. My heart is full today. Full of gratitude for the trust you have placed in me, full of love for our country and full of resolve. The outcome of this election is not what we wanted, not what we fought for, not what we voted for. But hear me when I say, hear me when I say the light of America's promise will always burn bright as long as we never give up and as long as we keep fighting.

Isaac Saul (9:34)

At 4pm on Wednesday, Vice President Kamala Harris addressed a crowd of supporters at her alma mater of Howard University in Washington, D.C. to concede the election to President Elect Donald Trump. Harris said she called to congratulate Trump on the victory and would help aid his administration's transition, but urged attendees to keep fighting for the issues that motivated her campaign. While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign, harris said. The fight for freedom, for opportunity, for fairness and the dignity of all people. A fight for the ideals at the heart of our nation, the ideals that reflect America at our best. That is a fight I will never give up. Harris initially planned to give remarks on election night, but postponed her speech until the next day as Trump's projected margin of victory increased. Decision Desk HQ and other national outlets have declared Trump the winner of the presidential election with an Electoral college margin of 312 to 226 and a popular vote victory of over 4.6 million votes as of election 11:30am Eastern. While the presidential candidates have accepted the results of the election, several steps remain before Trump retakes the office of President on December 11th. Each state will meet to certify their results, and Vice President Kamala Harris will preside over a joint session of Congress to count the electoral votes and formally certify Trump as the winner on January 6th. Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the 47th president at 12pm Eastern on January 20th in Washington, D.C. today we'll get into what the right and the left are saying about Harris speech and then I'll give my take. We'll be right back after this quick break.

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Isaac Saul (12:30)

First up, we'll start with what the right is saying. In National Review, Philip Klein offered credit to Kamala Harris for conceding Harris will never win any awards for inspiring oratory, but credit where due. It's a good thing that she accepted the results of the election and that she called President Elect Donald Trump and assured him that she would do her part to ensure a peaceful transfer of power, klein said. These used to be routine things in politics unworthy of mention, but in 2016 we had an immediate effort to try to delegitimize Trump's victory by claiming he colluded with Russia to steal the election. And then, of course, we had Trump's disgraceful refusal to admit defeat in 2020 that culminated with the Capitol Riot. One of the risks of Trump's behavior in the post 2020 election was that he would help set a new standard in which disputing election results and refusing to concede just became standard operating procedure, klein wrote. We don't know what the next few months will hold, but at least today Harris deserves credit for setting the tone for a more orderly transition. Hopefully we will revert to this standard in future elections. In the Federalist, Kyle Griswold argued, don't give Democrats credit for conceding they had no other options. Of course they acknowledge that he won after their questioning election results is a threat to democracy rhetoric from the past four years. What the heck other choice do they have? Their we accept the results posture started about five minutes ago, or more precisely, the moment Trump questioned the results of the 2020 election. Before that, Democrats had for decades questioned pretty much every other election they had lost, griswold said. Not only did they insist, against all evidence to the contrary, that the 2020 election was the most secure in American history, but they also vilified anyone who disagreed as an election denier. So they've really backed themselves into a corner on Election results. Now, what choice do they have but to concede in 2024? That's not the only or even the primary reason Kamala Harris and her supporters conceded the election on Wednesday, though they also admitted defeat because they got whooped. Unlike the 2020 election, the margins in 2024 weren't razor thin. Trump beat Harris in a landslide. Democrats got their kaisters handed to them, griswold said. Don't be fooled by Democrats uncharacteristic acceptance of election results. It's their only move right now. In the Washington Examiner, Quinn Hillier said Harris speech struck a near perfect tone. Making a political concession speech is a difficult, emotionally fraught task. In Vice President Kamala Harris concession remarks Wednesday afternoon, she ably upheld the civic imperatives of the moment, hilliard wrote. Let's not parse every word to identify phrases from Harris that critics believe are dangerous. Sometimes the cause of statesmanship requires a sort of civically lofty language that hides policy disagreements and personal grievances. Harris strove for, and almost entirely achieved a constructive tone, an uplifting message and an appeal to the best parts of American tradition. Harris's record and ideology make her, for some of us, political anathema in the immediate aftermath of an extremely divisive election. That status shouldn't matter. What matters is whether Harris used the occasion to reinforce what matters is whether Harris used the occasion to reinforce the ideals of freedom, civil rights and the constitutional system writ large. And, of course, to revalidate, after four years of discredible violations from her Republican opponent, the necessity of respecting the results of an election and encouraging the peaceful transfer of power. All right, that is it for what the right is saying. Which brings us to what the left is saying. The Washington Post editorial board wrote that Kamala Harris concedes with dignity and grace. Harris acknowledged with grace, dignity and a dash of hope that she had lost the presidency to former President Donald Trump. She didn't make excuses. Instead, she set the tone for how Democrats can responsibly approach Mr. Trump in the coming four years, defending their core values while cooperating for the best interests of the country, the board said. She offered a counterpoint to the worst case scenarios circulating on the political left to the effect that this was the last election of a doomed democracy. Most important, she promised to assist in a peaceful transfer of power. This last promise is the hallmark of a Democrat. That Ms. Harris offered it so convincingly was a refreshing contrast to 2020, when Mr. Trump prematurely declared victory, twisted arms of federal and state legislators to reverse his loss, and then incited a mob to riot at the Capitol as Congress counted the electoral votes, the board wrote. In her constitutionally prescribed role as president of the Senate, Ms. Harris will be called upon to oversee the ratification of Mr. Trump's victory on January 6, 2020, and her words reinforce confidence that there can be no repeat of the struggle four years ago. In the New York Times, Jesse Wegman said Harris shows Trump how to concede. Harris performed this task with clarity and grace, a fairly low bar that used to be expected of all losing politicians in this country. And for a simple when you live in a democracy, accepting your losses is what you have to do, not because it's easy, but because it's hard, wegman said. And yet somehow Trump gets a pass from this most basic requirement, not simply refusing to acknowledge his own defeat in 2020, but also for lying about a stolen election, violating the laws in the Constitution, and then inciting a violent insurrection at the Capitol in an effort to overturn it. So forgive me if I scoff at the where is Kamala? Memes that circulated on Wednesday before she went on camera. No one in America is worse at accepting defeat than Trump and his followers, and that's because under his tutelage, most of the Republican Party has come to believe that the only legitimate elections are the ones that it wins, wagner said. This is the world we now live in. One party follows basic rules and norms of democratic politics and loses, and the other lies, cheats and tries to steal and wins. It's reverse accountability and it can't be sustained. In MSNBC, Anthony L. Fisher argued that Harris revived the 220 year old tradition of peaceful transfer of power that Donald Trump broke. Harris brought back from the dead one of America's most storied traditions presidential candidates accepting the results of an electoral defeat, urging their supporters to do the same and promising to cooperate with the incoming administration. Administration, fisher wrote. However one feels about a second Trump presidency, Harris's words are crucially important for the health of American democracy. To various degrees, 2024 will be the first generally accepted presidential election since George H.W. bush decisively defeated Michael Dukakis in 1988. But in all of those elections, the vanquished opponent conceded, and with the exception of AL GORE In 2000, they conceded quickly. It was only in 2020, when Trump lost the close election but decisively, that the 220 year old tradition of peaceful transfer of power was bro, fisher said. The fact that the words peaceful transfer of power generated applause among Harris's supporters at Howard says something important about the state of America right now. A defeated Trump would never say those words. We know this because he didn't when he was defeated. All right, that is it for what the left and the right are saying. Which brings us to my take. So I thought it was a great speech and I think several elements of it are worth calling out. First, so much of each side's campaign has centered on the negative places this country has been or could be going. However, in defeat, Harris expressed her love for her country, resolve and loyalty to the Constitution, all without sacrificing her values or positions. She promised not to concede the fight that fueled her campaign, which is what political leaders should do. Second, she made clear that fighting and politics do not just come down to elections. She called for waging the battle in quieter ways, like how Americans live their lives, treating others with kindness and respect, seeing strangers as neighbors, and fighting for the dignity of other people. It's a message our country desperately needs to hear. Ideally not just from the loser of this election, but from the winner too. More than anything, though, her speech is a reminder that government isn't the solution to our problems. Individuals can be a part of large scale movements aimed at cultural change, but they can also make smaller and equally valuable impacts in their day to day lives and their communities. Third, I appreciated it because it left no doubt A decade ago I was taking concession speeches for granted, but after the last few election cycles I will never take them for granted again. Harris was clear, direct and genuine. It sucks to lose, but she lost. And she unequivocally stated she would oversee and assist in a peaceful and organized transfer of power. This was an important message as I saw some wisps of election denialism, or at least election skepticism, bubbling up online from the left. For instance, several people have been asking what happened to millions of voters who cast their ballots in 2020 but appear to have sat 2024 out? My answer is very clear. First, votes are still being counted and they will be for weeks, so these numbers will grow, likely by more than 10 million. Second, don't you remember 2020? Don't you remember how politics was all anyone talked about and how it totally saturated our lives during the pandemic? Voting was also incredibly easy due to widespread and in many cases temporary mail in adoption. So yes, a lot more people voted in 2020. While we're here, I also think this is the best environment we've had in a long time to enact election reform that ensures ballots are processed and counted earlier, with results released sooner. There is widespread enthusiasm across party lines for this and state leaders in Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania, New York, Calif. California and elsewhere would do us a great disservice by continuing to operate so sluggishly in states with divided legislators where Republicans are demanding voter ID laws. Paired with such reforms, Democrats might be wise to consider some concessions and compromise. Harris's message was a stabilizing one for the country at a time when stabilization will be needed. I've criticized her and Trump a lot in this newsletter, but she does deserve the bipartisan credit she's getting for this. In an election where her opponent has questioned her racial identity, where his supporters have slurred her as an airheaded bimbo, and where she's faced an extraordinary amount of pressure in a very difficult situation, standing up and running a campaign in just over 100 days. And she exited with grace. It's more than a lot of us could have done, and it's a testament to the campaign she tried to win with. We'll be right back after this quick break.

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Isaac Saul (23:59)

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I am going to give you some names, but I just think perhaps because my brain is so trained to be skeptical of all the politicians I follow, when I look at them I just see positions to scrutinize and flaws to highlight. So that makes it hard to pick one I'd really feel confident in or think could help me win an election. But if I had to, my process would start with thinking critically about myself. If I were running for President, my bio would be that I'm a former journalist in his 30s, politically moderate, white, Jewish, inexperienced and from Pennsylvania. I think it's smart politics to diversify a ticket demographically. Not coincidentally, Trump tapped a younger American from rural America, while Harris picked an older white man from middle America. So I'd probably start there. That means no politically inexperienced former journalists, Jewish politicians in their 30s from Pennsylvania, which crosses off pretty much not a single politician that I can think of. So I'll have to consider other facets like track record and personality. Unsurprisingly, I'd shoot for a few political moderates with experience in policy chops. The House of Representatives is a mess these days and I need someone with a big game governing experience. So I'd probably seek out a Governor or a member of the Senate. I'd want someone whose policy perspectives I respect, who has a track record of winning elections and whom I suspect I'd get along with. I think this is underrated, by the way. You definitely want a running mate you like. Given all that, my short list of some of the people from both parties would look something like this. Governor Chris Sununu, the Republican from New Hampshire. Governor Jared Polis, the Democrat from Colorado. Governor Gretchen Whitmer, the Democrat from Michigan, Governor Wes Moore, the Democrat from Maryland, Senator Lisa Murkowski, the Republican from Alaska, Senator Angus King, the Independent from Maine, Senator Deb Fisher, the Republican from Nebraska. Some wild card picks might include Senator Bernie Sanders, the Democrat from Vermont, who has a great working class brand, but you know, would need some moderation. Though I do think I'd get along with him. Some members of the House Problem Solvers Caucus must be considered Representative Jared golden, the Democrat from Maine, Representative Juan Siscomani, the Republican from Arizona, or Representative Donald Davis, the Democrat from North Carolina. Also, I'd be remiss not to shout out Representative Jake Auchincloss, the Democrat from Massachusetts, whom I just interviewed on this podcast. If you go back a couple days, you'll get our interview. He is a Tangle reader, which makes me like him, and he's preaching a sermon I very much enjoy right now. Basically, I'd seek someone with moderate politics, high popularity, serving in a swing ish state, and with serious policy chops and experience because those would be my biggest weaknesses. Despite the election we just experienced, I happen to believe the total electorate is slightly left of center on average, so I'd probably look for a centrist or center left running mate. I'd handle the messaging, the speeches, bringing people together and cleaning up our press messes, and then President Saul, I guess. Finally, I'll just close with this. Call me a coward, but just for whatever it's worth, I would absolutely never want to run for President. It genuinely seems like a terrible job and I much prefer writing, thinking and criticizing politicians than being one. So I love my job and prefer it here all right, that is it for your reader question today, which brings us to our under the Radar section. Tech executives who largely dismissed President elect Donald Trump during his first presidential campaign eight years ago, sought to curry favor with him ahead of the 2024 election, albeit in private. Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Apple's Tim Cook, Google's Sundar Pichai, Amazon's Jeff Bezos and others reportedly reached out to Trump in the weeks and months before November 5th to offer praise and words of support to the now president elect. While none of these executives, with the exception of X's and Tesla's Elon Musk, publicly endorsed Trump before the election, virtually all of them have posted congratulatory messages on social media since his victory. After navigating four years of heightened antitrust action and scrutiny of mergers and acquisitions under the Biden administration, these leaders expect Trump to pivot to a more business friendly approach and aim to establish favorable footing with him and his staff. The New York Times has the story, and there's a link to it in today's episode description all right, next up is our numbers section. The number of times Kamala Harris mentioned democracy in her speech was three. The number of times she mentioned Donald Trump was one. The number of times Harris mentioned fighting in her speech was 19. The number of times she mentioned freedom was 5, and the number of times she referenced the future in her speech was 3. The year that William Jennings Bryan sent his opponent William McKinley, a telegram congratulating him on his election, considered the first public concession in U.S. presidential politics, was 1896. The number of concession speeches given by U.S. presidential candidates in the past 128 years was 34. The number of days between the 2000 election and Al Gore's concession to George W. Bush was 35. That was the longest gap between a presidential election and a concession in US History, which does not include Donald Trump, who never formally conceded to Joe Biden in 2020. All right, and last but not least, our have a nice day Section One Hollywood actress has made an admirable decision to share her recent success. Anna Kendrick, who is known for her roles in comedies like Pitch Perfect, recently pivoted to direct and star in Woman of the Hour, a Netflix true crime thriller. The movie follows the story of Rodney Alcella, a serial murderer who participated in a televised game show amidst a spree of attacks against and murders of women in the 1970s, and it's a hit. But Kendric Patrick reported feeling gross about profiting off of it. She said in an interview, I'm not making money off the movie. The money is going to rain. And the national center for Victims of Crime Relevant has the story and there's a link to it in today's episode description. All right, that is it for today's podcast. We'll be back here tomorrow with some kind of content, either an interview or a Friday edition. And we'll be back on Sunday, of course, with the Sunday Edition podcast. But remember, those are for our members only. So if you want that, you gotta go to tanglemedia.supercast.com otherwise you can keep listening for free and we'll see you on Monday. Have a good weekend. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Issac Saul, and edited and engineered by Dean Thomas. Our script is edited by Ari Weitzman, Will Kabak Daily Saul and Sean Brady. The logo for our podcast was made by Magdalena Born, also our social media manager. The music for the podcast was produced by from Tangle. Please go check out our website at readtangle.com that's readtangle.com.