• Vice President Kamala Harris took the stage on Tuesday at a campaign rally in Atlanta in front of a crowd of thousands. She was joined by some celebrity heavy hitters, including rappers Quavo and Megan Thee Stallion. The rally underscores the surge of voter enthusiasm we’ve seen since Harris stepped into the presidential race. Her next major task is picking a running mate, a decision she’s expected to make in the next couple of days. And on the Republican side, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance offers a cautionary tale of how a problematic V.P. pick can drag down a campaign’s momentum. Kadia Goba, political reporter for Semafor, breaks down the Democratic veepstakes.
• And in headlines: The head of Project 2025 is stepping down, the U.S. Senate passed a bill requiring tech companies to actively shield kids from dangerous content online, and Simone Biles led Team U.S.A back to Olympic gold in the women’s gymnastics team finals.

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TRANSCRIPT

Priyanka Aribindi: It’s Wednesday, July 31st. I’m Priyanka Aribindi.

Juanita Tolliver: And I’m Juanita Tolliver and this is What a Day. The show where we’re on the edge of our seats, waiting for Vice President Kamala Harris to pick a running mate. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Yeah, I keep seeing those TikToks of the Trader Joe’s wine section that says interesting whites and just all of the vice presidential potential hopefuls. Very exciting for me, I like it. [music break]

Juanita Tolliver: On today’s show, the Senate passed a bill to protect kids online, and now it heads to the House. Plus, a big congratulations to the USA women’s gymnastics team and other news from the Paris Olympics. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Yeah, listen, if Juanita and I had it our way, this would be a Paris Olympics show. 

Juanita Tolliver: 100%. 

Priyanka Aribindi: The gymnastics team, hype. So exciting. But we have more on that in just a moment. But first, on Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris took the stage at a campaign rally in Atlanta in front of a crowd of thousands, and the vice president was joined by some heavy hitters, including rappers Quavo and Megan Thee Stallion. 

[clip of Megan Thee Stallion] Now I know my ladies in the crowd love they body. And if you want to keep loving your body, you know who to vote for. [song Body starts playing] 

Priyanka Aribindi: Sick. 

Juanita Tolliver: I mean, I’m into hotties for Harris 100%. [laughing]

Priyanka Aribindi: 100%. How are you not hyped just like hearing that. The rally underscored the enthusiasm that we have been witnessing among voters since Vice President Harris stepped into the presidential race. It is palpable in the week after President Joe Biden announced that he was exiting the race, the Harris campaign raised roughly $200 million and signed up more than 170,000 volunteers. Those numbers are bananas, and I’ll just say from an anecdotal perspective, Juanita and I are having a lot more fun doing this show. 

Juanita Tolliver: Yeah. 

Priyanka Aribindi: In the last couple weeks. 

Juanita Tolliver: Yeah. 

Priyanka Aribindi: After this. Meanwhile, former President Trump and his campaign have been spending a lot of the last week defending his vice presidential nominee, Ohio Senator JD Vance. On Monday, Trump went on Fox News and completely misrepresented the numerous negative comments Vance has made about women who don’t have children. 

[clip of Donald Trump] He likes family. I think a lot of people like family, and sometimes it doesn’t work out. And you know why it doesn’t? You don’t meet the right person or you don’t meet any person, but you’re just as good, in many cases a lot better than a person that’s in a family situation. 

Juanita Tolliver: Okay. Number one, where is this loyalty coming from Donald Trump? This feels ridiculous because I’ve never seen him stand up for anybody ever. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Ever. 

Juanita Tolliver: And number two, when did he become the family man? Like. [sigh] What? 

Priyanka Aribindi: No. 

Juanita Tolliver: Now, it won’t take much for whomever Vice President Harris selects to outshine J.D. Vance. But–

Priyanka Aribindi: No. 

Juanita Tolliver: There is still a ton of interest around who will end up being Vice President Harris’s running mate and what they could add to the ticket. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Yeah. Vice President Harris is expected to announce her VP pick within days. According to reports, Harris is scheduled to visit Philadelphia with her VP Pick on Tuesday, August 6th. So that is just next week and tour other battleground states together throughout the week. To dig in a little deeper and make sense of the veep stakes, I spoke earlier with Kadia Goba, a political reporter for Semaphor, and she started by explaining to me what one Democratic strategist meant when she told Kadia that the vice presidential candidates are, quote, “the most exciting group of white men I have ever seen.” 

Kadia Goba: Her point was that historically, typically, white men have been a little more bland in the political spectrum, and these are kind of lively. If you point to people like Walz or Shapiro who have been just very, you know, forward and outspoken about their support for Harris, it’s an interesting phenomenon. Someone asked me the other day, why do I think a woman won’t be on the ticket? I don’t know, right? I can only point to what Democratic strategists and more importantly, people who are influencing the people in their districts, like lawmakers, like people on the ground, what they are saying, and it’s been widely reported that the Harris campaign is looking for someone to even out the ticket. And that probably means that the her perception she’s perceived as being very progressive or much more progressive, I should say, than Joe Biden. So that means someone a little more moderate. 

Priyanka Aribindi: There are a lot of names being thrown around in the mix here. I’m going to ask you to break down more about a few of them in just a minute. But if you had to narrow it down at this point, which of these contenders do you think it will end up coming down to? 

Kadia Goba: You know, based on what people are texting me, people in the know, people that are close to the campaign, I keep hearing the name Shapiro. I also keep hearing the name Kelly. But I also hear Walz, and I think Walz is coming from this person that they just like, who has been very vocal on television, who has been saying the right things. This word weird that Democrats seem to be very excited about, that came from a comment that he made. 

[clip of Tim Walz] These are weird people on the other side. They want to take books away. They want to be in your exam room. That’s that’s what it comes down to and don’t you know, get sugarcoating this. These are weird ideas. Listen to them speak. Listen how they talk about things. 

Kadia Goba: Strategically when I talk to people, they say, you know, it’s probably between Shapiro and Kelly, but they really, really like Walz. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Yeah. So let’s break down some of these leading contenders to join the ticket. No particular order here. Just kind of going down the list. But you mentioned Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. What would he bring to this ticket and what are any potential downsides of adding him? 

Kadia Goba: Sure. Yeah. So people like Shapiro because the first thing they think about is Pennsylvania. I got to be honest, when I talk to Republicans, his name consistently comes up and their argument is, hey, if Democrats win Pennsylvania, that means Republicans are going to have to sweep the other swing states. As you know, Pennsylvania is a swing state. That is pretty, pretty tough, right? So here’s this governor. He’s very popular in Pennsylvania, bringing him on the ticket that could swing that state, which would be detrimental for Republicans. At the same time, he’ll be a first uh he’ll be a Jewish vice president. And people like his stance. He kind of tows the line talking about anti-Semitism. But also one of the drawbacks is, he said, like the students protesting out and about he kind of referred to them as like the KKK, and that probably upset a lot of progressives. 

Priyanka Aribindi: There’s also been a lot of talk about Arizona Senator Mark Kelly. You mentioned him as well. What are the pros and cons about him? 

Kadia Goba: Yeah. So Mark Kelly is a senator um representing Arizona. He is married to Gabby Giffords, um who experienced that horrific shooting a few years ago, who was a member of Congress. So people automatically think, well, in terms of gun safety, his wife has a, you know, a true testament of that. But also, Mark Kelly is one of those rare Democrats in the Senate that was very critical about the border. Now, when you talk to the Trump campaign, that is one of their big things that they tell you that they are going to go after Kamala Harris on. They call her the border czar. Right. And they talk about like the influx of migrants coming across during the Biden administration. So if they, if she has someone, back to that point about evening out the ticket that moderates especially think that will curb or have some influence on her decision making when it comes to the border, he is going to be, you know, a prime candidate there. On the downside. A lot of people don’t want to mess with the Senate balance by removing him. There’s a Democratic governor right now, and she would replace him. Oh, appoint the new person. But if that person has to run again, it could strike an uneven balance in the Senate and mess up the majority. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Totally. Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear is also in the mix, perhaps less well known, like everywhere. But tell us more about him. 

Kadia Goba: Beshear, like Walz, is getting a lot of recognition right now because he I mean, he’s at campaign stumping for the vice president. He is also very good on television and very good at stumping. So, you know, he has gained some popularity. And I will say, a bunch of progressives signed on to a letter saying that him and Walz are their two picks. So that kind of, I would imagine, has some influence on where the vice president is looking for her next V.P. as well. 

Priyanka Aribindi: And then you keep mentioning Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. He is crushing it on TV lately, as you said, I see the clips everywhere, every single day. What kind of put him in contention and you gave a little bit of your breakdown earlier, but tell us more about what he would bring potentially. 

Kadia Goba: You know, he’s just a great spokesperson right now for the um Harris campaign. He is in the middle of this new energized Democratic Party that we’ve seen in the past week and a half or two weeks since Joe Biden said he wasn’t going to run for election. He is right in the middle of it, and people are feeling that. With that said, he is perceived as more progressive than the other people that we just talked about. And for that reason, I think moderates might be a little shy to sort of back him. So it’s kind of a toss up. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Let’s talk about the other side. JD Vance has not exactly been the strongest choice for a VP candidate. He, of course, was a Never Trumper. And all the things he once said about the former president are coming to light, in addition to his very public recent missteps. So tell us more about why he was the pick and about some of those missteps and how they’ve been perceived. 

Kadia Goba: The campaign hasn’t been overtly talking about why, other than he’s just a great guy. But, you know, a lot of people, the scuttlebutt behind the scenes is that he brought a lot of tech money to the campaign, and that could be a benefit for Donald Trump in his campaign. But also, despite all of this stuff about like the childless cat ladies and stuff like that. Before he was picked, I got a lot of red flags from Republicans who said, you know, he just doesn’t move the party forward or add anything to the party. Why bring in someone who just repeats your own rhetoric and has the MAGA contingency in the fold? So he’s not faring well, and I just know that Trump and his campaign would much rather be talking about and slamming Kamala Harris rather than defending their VP pick. 

Priyanka Aribindi: That was my conversation with Kadia Goba, political reporter for Semaphor. 

Juanita Tolliver: That’s the latest for now. We’ll get to some headlines in a moment, but if you like our show, make sure to subscribe and share it with your friends. We’ll be back after some ads. [music break]

[AD BREAK]

Juanita Tolliver: Let’s wrap up with some headlines. 

[sung] Headlines. 

Juanita Tolliver: Paul Dans, a former Trump administration official, has stepped down as the head of Project 2025 at the Heritage Foundation. Dans helped design Project 2025 as a kind of radically conservative blueprint for the next Republican administration. Dan’s exit comes amid repeated efforts by the Trump campaign to distance itself from Project 2025, as Democrats make it a liability for Republicans. In a threatening statement, the Trump campaign said, quote, “reports of Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign. It will not end well for you.” Okay, screech that record. Project 2025 is still very much a real thing written–

Priyanka Aribindi: Yeah. 

Juanita Tolliver: –by former Trump officials. I just want to make that clear. 

Priyanka Aribindi: The only thing that is certain out of all of this is that if you align yourself with Trump and the tides change for whatever reason, he will throw you under the bus without a second thought. Yes, it will not end well for you. That is what we know. 

Juanita Tolliver: But as much as Trump wants to run away from Project 2025, he still supports many of its proposals like mass deportations, rolling back environmental protections and gutting the civil service so Trump can run from it but he cannot hide. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Absolutely not. The US Senate passed legislation on Tuesday that would require tech companies to actively shield kids from dangerous content online. The law requires online platforms to protect children and teens from content that promotes suicide, eating disorders, substance abuse, and other harmful behaviors, as well as targeted advertising. The measure also prevents companies from collecting personal data from users under the age of 17, raising the limit from kids under 13. This is the first time Congress has passed a child online safety law since, get this, 1998. 

Juanita Tolliver: Wow. When the internet was on AOL CDs being mailed to homes.

Priyanka Aribindi: Truly astounding, it is just worlds and worlds apart. Many tech companies like X and Snap, the parent company of the app Snapchat, have shown support for the bill. But Net Choice, a lobbying group that represents some of these social media giants, argues that the law violates the First Amendment because of how it could be used to censor certain user content. Okay, like zero regard for the kids, I guess. Cool. The bill now heads to the House, where speaker Mike Johnson says he’s, quote, “committed to working to find consensus on the legislation.” 

Juanita Tolliver: Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has agreed to pay Texas $1.4 billion to settle a lawsuit over its use of facial recognition data. The deal was announced by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday. He filed the suit back in 2022, accusing Meta of using and storing millions of Texans’ facial ID data without their consent, a violation of a state law. Meta settled a similar suit brought by Illinois a few years ago, paying the state roughly half a billion dollars. The company still faces a massive lawsuit brought by more than 40 states over allegations it purposefully built technology that was addicting to kids and teens and lied about the risks. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Judging by how this has gone so far. Not looking so hot for Meta. And finally, what we are most excited about, your daily dose of Olympic news. Simone Biles added another gold medal to her collection on Tuesday, when the USA women’s team placed first in the gymnastics finals. It was electric. This makes Biles the most decorated American gymnast with a whopping eight gold medals, not just the most decorated woman gymnast, the most decorated gymnast, period. Italy took second place on the podium, this is the country’s first Olympic medal in women’s gymnastics in 96 years. And Brazil finished in third, taking home the country’s first ever team medal in the sport. Just an incredible day all around. Over on the tennis courts, Coco Gauff, the second ranked women’s tennis player in the world left the Games on Tuesday after losing a tough match against Croatia’s Donna Vekic by one point. Gauff was seen arguing with the umpire who made the call that ultimately gave Vekic the win. 

Juanita Tolliver: I’m also so proud of Coco Gauff for advocating for herself. We’ve seen her have to do this multiple times. It’s truly– 

Priyanka Aribindi: Too many times. 

Juanita Tolliver: –unfortunate it’s happening on the international stage, but I’m proud of you, Coco, and one more time for the U.S. women’s gymnastics team because I’m so thrilled for them. This was the best round of happy tears I have cried in a couple of years. I’m so grateful. 

Priyanka Aribindi: I’m crying happy tears every night at the Olympics. These girls, the men’s gymnastics team, everyone is–

Juanita Tolliver: Yes! 

Priyanka Aribindi: –just crushing it. It’s so exciting. The Olympics fever is just like, let it take you over. It’s amazing. 

Juanita Tolliver: And there’s more to come. The team still has to compete in individual events. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Individuals. 

Juanita Tolliver: In a couple of days. Like, I’m really, really excited y’all. 

Priyanka Aribindi: I’m going be glued to my TV. 

Juanita Tolliver: Keep crying everybody. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Keep watching, keep crying. And those are the headlines. 

[AD BREAK] [music break]

Priyanka Aribindi: That is all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe. Leave a review. Keep calling JD Vance a weird Christian nationalist freak and tell your friends to listen. 

Juanita Tolliver: And if you’re into reading and not just about Meta being fined over a billion dollars like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Juanita Tolliver.

Priyanka Aribindi: I’m Priyanka Aribindi. 

[spoken together] And we’re patriotic about Simone Biles. 

Juanita Tolliver: Like exclusively because on one hand, yes, this country is really fucked up. But on the other hand. Go USA! [laughing]

Priyanka Aribindi: Red, white, and blue, go USA, baby! Yes, truly having the best time. It is amazing. [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Bill Lancz. Our associate producer is Raven Yamamoto. We had production help today from Michell Eloy, Ethan Oberman, Jon Millstein, Greg Walters and Julia Claire. Our showrunner is Erica Morrison and our executive producer is Adriene Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka.