James Carville: The Democrats, The Republicans, and the Biden Administration

Conversations with Bill Kristol

News, Society & Culture, Government, Politics

4.7 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 8 April 2021

⏱️ 64 minutes

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Summary

How has Joe Biden done in the first months of his presidency? What role might Donald Trump play in the Republican Party as we look ahead to 2022 and 2024? What challenges do the parties face—from the culture wars to economics? We are delighted to be joined for the first time on Conversations by James Carville, the veteran Democratic strategist. Carville expresses cautious optimism about the Biden presidency but highlights the fragility of the Democratic coalition—and the possibility, in 2022 and 2024, of missteps in the culture war overshadowing the successes of a Democratic administration. He warns his party about vulnerability on issues like defund the police and the talk of socialism. As for the Republicans, Carville argues that Trump is in a weaker position than one might have anticipated—and that Republicans have proven surprisingly unable to challenge Biden’s agenda much beyond opposing the Democratic Party and the media on cultural grounds. Finally, Carville shares advice for those aspiring to run for office, and shares fascinating anecdotes from his distinguished career in politics.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, welcome back to Conversations. I'm Bill Crystal. Very pleased to be joined today by James Carville,
0:20.7	who I've known for quite a while, who first met I think in 1991-1992 when he
0:25.6	clobbered us, helping to run, really running the Bill Clinton campaign, and I was there in the
0:29.9	George H. W. Bush White House in reelection efforts, but we've debated many times. We've
0:35.3	been on the same side more recently. But most importantly, for this purpose, I think, James is one of
0:40.0	the most astute analysts, not just practitioners, not just partisans, but analysts of American politics.
0:47.0	And I really want to get his thoughts as we speak in what early April 2021 on, where we stand,
0:52.4	where we're at the Biden administration, the Democratic Party, what are the prospects for the next
0:57.4	short term, but also a medium term for the Democratic Party, but also democracy in America,
1:02.3	and so forth. So, James, thanks for being with me. Good, good. So, where are we? What's
1:07.1	are you? You know, you were very strongly engaged in the fight against Donald Trump. But then
1:13.2	a little disappointed, maybe, by I'm happy that Biden won, worried about the closeness of the election
1:17.9	and the down ballot stuff, but just, where does the Democratic Party stand? You've been involved
1:22.2	in it for a long time. Well, first of all, you know, we won the presidency in 2020, in November
1:30.1	2020 and so a little bit, but other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play? Well, it really
1:35.0	wasn't very good after the fact that we won. I mean, I think you'd have to call
1:40.9	heavy, when the presidency, you can say, we're here to kind of disappoint in here, but it's actually
1:46.0	that's really what happened. And Trump came to send what 42,000 votes and forced them to put a
1:53.1	portion differently in four states. So, I was pretty gloomy, and then January the 5th came,
2:00.7	and lo and behold, Democrats took up two seats in Georgia, which completely, you know,
2:07.7	two seats heard around the world, something significant, probably off the election.
2:13.4	I've got an off the election. It was not, you know, different date. And so you had that,
	...

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