• On Wednesday, President Biden addressed the nation in an Oval Office speech — three days after he announced his decision to end his re-election bid and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris. Since the president announced he was stepping aside, the Harris campaign has reported a major influx of donations. As of Wednesday, it had received more than 126 million dollars. But with the election quickly approaching, one of the biggest challenges Vice President Harris will face is winning support from voters outside the committed Democratic base. Craig Snyder, the director of the political action committee Haley Voters for Harris, explains how his PAC is trying to convince people who voted for former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley in the Republican primaries to now vote for Vice President Harris instead of Donald Trump. And Abbas Alawieh, director of the Uncommitted National Movement, discusses whether voters who oppose President Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza could still be convinced to support the Vice President.
• And in headlines: dozens of Democrats boycotted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before Congress, the planet’s two hottest days in recorded history happened this week, and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed a ban on “LGBTQ+ panic” as a legal defense.

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TRANSCRIPT

Priyanka Aribindi: It’s Thursday, July 25th. I’m Priyanka Aribindi.

Juanita Tolliver: And I’m Juanita Tolliver and this is What a Day. The show where we wish we could have been a fly on the wall at the emergency House GOP meeting, where leadership had to tell their caucus to stop saying racist stuff about Vice President Kamala Harris. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Yeah. How long do we think that’s going to stick? Can they make it an hour? 

Juanita Tolliver: [laughing] Absolutely not. Even the one guy who did say he apologized for saying DEI said, but it was absolutely true. Right? Like come on.

Priyanka Aribindi: No, they can’t. They truly cannot. [music break] On today’s show, dozens of Democrats boycotted Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s fiery speech before Congress on Wednesday. Plus, Michigan’s Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed a ban on LGBTQ+ panic as a legal defense. 

Juanita Tolliver: But first, President Biden on Wednesday addressed the nation in an Oval Office speech three days after he announced his decision to end his reelection bid and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris. Biden said it’s been the honor of his life to serve as president, but that defending democracy was greater than any title. 

[clip of President Joe Biden] You know, in recent weeks, it’s become clear to me that I need to unite my party in this critical endeavor. I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America’s future all merited a second term. But nothing, nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy. That includes personal ambition. 

Juanita Tolliver: Biden also said in just a few months, Americans face a choice that will determine the course of the country’s future. 

[clip of President Joe Biden] I made my choice. I’ve made my views known. I’d like to thank our great Vice president, Kamala Harris. She’s experienced. She’s tough. She’s capable. She’s been an incredible partner to me and a leader for our country. Now the choice is up to you, the American people. 

Priyanka Aribindi: As for Harris, she and her campaign have been riding high since Biden officially endorsed her on Sunday. I’m about to throw out a lot of numbers at you, so stick with me here. But within 24 hours, the Harris team raised more than $80 million. It was the biggest single day fundraising haul for either party so far, just a massive amount. And she is still going. Her campaign said that as of Wednesday, it had received more than $126 million in donations. And Vote.org also reported that nearly 40,000 people registered to vote in the 48 hours after Biden dropped out of the race. It was the largest number of new voters registered over a two day period so far in the cycle, and about 80% of those new voters were people ages 34 and under. 

Juanita Tolliver: Okay, I’m so excited about this for multiple reasons, one, young people tap in. Also, according to the campaign, of those millions and millions of dollars that they’ve raised, 60% of those grassroots donors were first time donors tapping in. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Right. 

Juanita Tolliver: And the campaign has seen 100,000 new volunteer shift signups like this is huge. The momentum–

Priyanka Aribindi: Huge. 

Juanita Tolliver: –is with Vice President Kamala Harris. Now, while these are very encouraging numbers for anyone who wants to see Trump lose in November, let me throw another number out there, 102, that’s the number of days until Election Day, meaning Harris has a monumental amount of work to do and not a lot of time. One of the biggest challenges she’ll face is winning support from voters outside the committed Democratic base. So for today’s episode, we spoke with two people who represent major voting blocs that Harris will need to try to win over in the coming months. Moderate Republicans and Democrats who are demanding a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. We wanted to know what they want to see from Harris in order to get their votes. 

Priyanka Aribindi: First up, let’s hear about how some moderate Republicans are feeling with this change. For that, I spoke with Craig Snyder. He is the director of the political action committee, Haley voters for Harris. It’s a pact that’s aimed at convincing people who voted for former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley in the Republican primaries to now vote for Harris instead of Donald Trump. The pack was previously called Haley voters for Biden, but very quickly renamed itself to Haley voters for Harris after President Biden dropped out of the race. I started by asking Snyder what the PAC is doing to support Harris now that she is the presumptive Democratic nominee. 

Craig Snyder: Our plan is to communicate directly with center right voters, including those who voted for Nikki Haley in the primaries, and really just give them what we think is important factual, educational information about the Biden-Harris administration and about the vice president herself, so that they get beyond the caricatures and the half truths, or sometimes less than half truths that are going to come out of the Trump campaign. Folks like this, they’ve already expressed their rejection of Donald Trump by coming out and voting in primaries after Nikki Haley was no longer a candidate. It was really a message that they were sending that they didn’t want Trump to be, you know, the standard bearer and the representative of the Republican Party. So the question is, now, what do they do when they’re presented with this binary choice between Trump and the vice president? And we think that when they really come to understand her record and more broadly, the record of the Biden-Harris administration, that they’re going to be comfortable making the leap over to the other side. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Why Vice President Harris specifically? Why did you want her to be the nominee over many others that could have potentially been in the field? 

Craig Snyder: First of all, it’s the sense that she is the one who is most qualified and most prepared, having been vice president, having really been a governing partner with President Biden and her resume before that. I mean, this is somebody who won three state wide elections in, you know, California, which is large enough to be a major European country all by itself, and then going on to the United States Senate, and then the vice presidency. This is somebody who is prepared on day one to be president. Whereas, you know, there are many fine governors and others, but they just don’t bring that gravitas and that experience. So that’s sort of number one. Number two is just the realities of the political process. We are, what, 104 or 105 days away from the general election and for somebody to start building the apparatus, raising the money, gaining the name ID, it’s just not practical. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Your PAC did not call on Biden to exit the race after the debate, but it did release a statement saying that the Biden-Harris campaign would have a harder time winning support from Haley voters after that debate. Do you think Harris stands a better chance of winning those votes? You know, then President Biden, even though Biden has a stronger reputation as the kind of, you know, centrist who could appeal to Never Trumpers?

Craig Snyder: I do think you’re right that uh, you know, sort of on the superficial level, President Biden has what may be a more attractive image among center right voters, but that was being outweighed, I mean, substantially outweighed by people’s concerns about his ability to, you know, ably serve another four years. I think it sort of canceled it out. When you balance out all the factors, I do think that the vice president is going to present an even more attractive overall picture for these voters. 

Priyanka Aribindi: I want to talk about Nikki Haley for a moment, because she doubled down on her support for Donald Trump to be the Republican nominee during a speech at the party’s convention, and told her supporters that they don’t have to agree with Trump 100% of the time to go out and vote for him. So how much work is it going to take from your PAC to overcome the party’s momentum to kind of rally behind Trump? Especially that’s been supercharged in the last week or so. 

Craig Snyder: Most of the Haley voters that I talked to, they don’t begrudge Ambassador Haley’s sort of decision to go with what is best for her personally and and perhaps for her family. And, but that’s the way they see it. It is not a decisive factor in their decision making process. You know, again, these are folks who felt strongly enough about not wanting Trump to be the Republican nominee, that they went out and voted for a candidate who was no longer a candidate. I mean, it was a pure protest kind of vote. So that’s, I think, the starting position for most of these voters. Yes, some of them will, you know, sort of stay with their Republican DNA and return to Trump. I think most of them are deciding between the Democratic candidate and not voting. And our job is to show them that they can cast a vote for Vice President Harris. It does not make them a woke socialist. It does not make them a Democrat. It just means that in this particular choice, with the stakes being what they are, that this is what’s better for the country at this time. 

Priyanka Aribindi: What does Vice President Harris need to do to convince more Republicans who are opposed to Trump, or even Republicans who are on the fence about Trump to vote for her, rather than to sit out or to vote for a third party, how can she win those voters? 

Craig Snyder: We’re going to try to encourage the vice president to center the centrist aspect of her life and of her record. I mean, this is somebody who was a tough on crime prosecutor for most of her career. That is a message that I think center right voters don’t really know. They don’t really understand. So we’re going to tell them, um and then you have aspects of the Biden-Harris collective record, the administration’s record. Most center right voters don’t know because they’ve been told otherwise, that the United States has had the highest level of fossil fuel production, under President Biden, that it’s ever had. That, you know, essentially, the Biden Harris energy strategy has been an all of the above strategy, not a pure, you know, Green New Deal strategy. They don’t know, uh most center right voters that the immigration law that the Biden-Harris administration wanted to get passed by Congress and which was killed by Donald Trump, would have dramatically increased border enforcement and raised the number of border enforcement agents. I mean, there’s just so many facts, uh that they don’t know that I think once they come to know, they’ll understand. 

Priyanka Aribindi: That was my conversation with Craig Snyder, director of the PAC, Haley voters for Harris. After we spoke with Craig, Haley’s team actually sent the PAC a cease and desist letter. She is demanding that the group stop using her name in support of Harris. She has officially endorsed Donald Trump, but the PAC is vowing to fight on. In a statement, the group said that it is reviewing the letter, but also that, quote, “our rights to engage with like minded voters and encourage them to vote for Kamala Harris, the clear, better choice for the country will not be suppressed.” All right then. 

Juanita Tolliver: Energy. Energy. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Yup. 

Juanita Tolliver: Next up, I spoke with Abbas Alawieh of Michigan. He’ll be one of 30 uncommitted delegates at next month’s Democratic National Convention, and he’s director of the National Movement of Uncommitted Voters, who oppose Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza. I started by asking him about the conversation Michigan delegates had when they voted to endorse Harris on Tuesday. 

Abbas Alawieh: The conversation we had was among the Michigan DNC delegates, and I’m one of two delegates who are being sent there with an explicit mandate to remain uncommitted because people wanted to send a message through the Democratic primary, 101,000 people voted uncommitted in Michigan as a way of saying to our Democratic nominee that they want to see a change in Gaza policy. And so I spoke up yesterday to say, hey, you know, we still haven’t heard from Vice President Harris. We’ve actually put in a request to meet with Vice President Harris and her team, the uncommitted delegates, and we’re hoping we can have a conversation with her. That way, you know, the folks who feel a deep sense of pain and betrayal and who have felt that as it relates to Gaza policy, that way, we can be well positioned to go and mobilize those folks, hopefully around a unified vision heading into November. 

Juanita Tolliver: Okay. You said you submitted a request. Have you heard back from the vice president’s campaign? 

Abbas Alawieh: We haven’t heard back from the vice president’s campaign yet, but I’m hopeful that we will. I was a congressional staffer for a long time. I’ve worked with Senator Harris’s team, Vice President Harris’s team. I know she has an awesome team around her of capable, diverse folks who are in touch with Arab Americans and Muslim Americans and young people who have a variety of views on the issue of Gaza, many of whom want us to stop sending bombs to kill people en masse. 

Juanita Tolliver: And during the call on Tuesday with the other Michigan delegates, I understand there was a difficult, tense interaction that you experienced with someone telling you to shut up and calling you out of your name. What was your reaction to that in the moment, and how did it impact you and the tone for the remainder of the conversation? 

Abbas Alawieh: Heading into the vote, the chair asked if anybody wanted to be recognized to make comments. Several folks were recognized. I raised my hand and was recognized and just saying the things that I just said to you about wanting to make sure that we are listening to the 101,000 antiwar, pro-peace, pro-Palestinian voters in Michigan. And someone did unmute and said, shut up, asshole. We don’t have time for this. Something to that effect, you know, but that the words shut up and asshole were clear. What felt deeply hurtful to me Juanita, is I was on a call with a bunch of Michigan Democratic Electeds, many of whom I’ve worked with over the years, and there was a clear instance of Anti-Palestinian racism, anti-Arab racism and abuse and nobody unmuted to say, hey, that’s not okay. Hey–

Juanita Tolliver: Wow. 

Abbas Alawieh: –uncommitted voters are central to our base. And to me, that’s not a new feeling, especially in the context of a national policy where the killing of Palestinians by the tens of thousands is just accepted as somehow inevitable. It feels like this is part of the larger trend of devaluing Palestinian lives and Arab lives. And I want us to be better as a Democratic party around that. I don’t think there should be any place for that in our politics at all. There should be room for us, especially those of us who are survivors of war ourselves, to be able to speak up and say, hey, we have the opinion that we should stop sending bombs. I think that’s a reasonable opinion, and I think it should be heard by Democratic leaders and hopefully by our Democratic nominee. 

Juanita Tolliver: Now, we know that some progressives and pro-Palestinian advocates see Harris as someone who could potentially be persuaded to be more critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the civilian death toll of Israel’s assault on Gaza. So what are your immediate reactions to Vice President Harris’s candidacy, and what specific policies do you want to hear from her in order for her to earn your vote? 

Abbas Alawieh: I think this is a potentially extremely hopeful moment for turning a new page to a new policy towards Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims and Gaza policy in particular, that is more humane and that is more in touch, especially with the feelings of deep pain and hurt and betrayal that key voters, including Arab American, Muslim, American voters here in Michigan, where I am, have been feeling, you know, like my cousin’s aunt telling me, hey, I wish Biden would just change his policy. Like I’m still going to vote Democrat. No, I have a lot of people who I love who are saying I’ll never vote for a Democrat ever again. So as a Democrat, I helped come up with a strategy through this uncommitted thing so that we can try and change the policy right now to save the lives of people we love who are under those bombs, and so that we can successfully beat Donald Trump. We know how dangerous he is. You know, it’s this weird thing where I feel like I am advocating for something that feels very bare bones, like, very simple. Like I’m just asking that our party stop supporting a policy that kills people I love with impunity without any consequences. I want that demand of not another bomb to the Israeli military that’s committing war crimes. I want that to be engaged with seriously. So my hope is I don’t anticipate that Vice President Harris will adopt the same exact policy line that I want, but I want to be heard. 

Juanita Tolliver: And with this focus on humanity and the human toll of this bombardment of Gaza, we know that Vice President Harris is meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday. We know that she did not attend his joint session address of Congress. And as we wait for the readout of that meeting, how are you hoping the vice president engages with Netanyahu? 

Abbas Alawieh: I’m praying that the vice president feels the wind at her back. We have so much momentum in this moment as Democrats. The last time Netanyahu was here, it was 20 or 30 Democrats who didn’t attend the speech. Now it was well over 100 who didn’t attend the speech. The tide is turning, and so we have momentum as a party to try and have a more accountable relationship with the Israeli government. 

Juanita Tolliver: And the last time we spoke, the Listen to Michigan campaign was just getting off the ground. Since then, hundreds of thousands of voters in primaries across the nation supported the uncommitted movement and voted for no candidate in protest of the administration’s policies related to Israel and Gaza. And as we approach the Democratic convention, how would you describe the impact the movement has had in the 2024 presidential election so far? 

Abbas Alawieh: I mean, I think in a moment of what we were noticing was a great disillusionment and despair. It felt like the uncommitted movement, the uncommitted strategy, gave people for whom Gaza was among their top policy issues, something to vote for when, unfortunately, President Biden wasn’t giving folks something to vote for in that instance. And I feel very proud. Instead of giving into the politics of this illusion, we want a politics of engagement. We want to continue the conversation. And right now we have a bridge to communities for whom Gaza remains a top issue. We have a bridge we’re were like, hey, stay uncommitted with us for a little bit longer. We’re going to try to get an updated conversation with Vice President Harris so that we’re clear on how it is that she’ll listen to us for the next four years. And once we get that updated understanding, we’re going to mobilize to make sure that we block Donald Trump. 

Juanita Tolliver: That was my conversation with Abbas Alawieh, an uncommitted delegate and director of the Uncommitted National Movement. 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]

Priyanka Aribindi: Let’s wrap up with some headlines. 

[sung] Headlines. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Thousands of protesters took to the streets in Washington, DC, on Wednesday to express their opposition to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress and his handling of the ongoing war in Gaza. Yahoo! 

[clip of unnamed protestor] Netanyahu, you can’t hide!

[clip of crowd of protesters] Netanyahu, you can’t hide! 

[clip of unnamed protestor] We charge you with genocide. 

[clip of crowd of protesters] We charge you with genocide.

Priyanka Aribindi: Capitol police officers used pepper spray on some of the protesters near the building. They later claimed that these protesters failed to obey their commands. Roughly half of congressional Democrats boycotted Netanyahu’s speech, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn. One Democrat who did attend, despite her strong opposition to Netanyahu, Michigan Representative Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian-American member of Congress. From her seat, she held up a sign that read War Criminal on one side and Guilty of Genocide on the other. During his remarks, the Prime Minister struck a defiant tone. 

[clip of Benjamin Netanyahu] For the forces of civilization to triumph, America and Israel must stand together. [cheers and applause] Because because when we stand together, something very simple happens. We win. They lose. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Netanyahu thanked President Biden and former President Trump for their support of Israel. He also avoided taking any responsibility for the more than 39,000 Palestinians who have been killed by Israel during the war in Gaza. 

Juanita Tolliver: FBI Director Christopher Wray testified in front of the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, and provided updates on his agency’s investigation into the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump. Wray noted that the shooter’s motive has still not been determined. He also reiterated that the shooter had been searching online for information about both Republican and Democratic leaders, and he revealed another alarming search made by the shooter earlier this month. 

[clip of FBI director Christopher Wray] On July 6th, he did a Google search for, quote, “how far away was Oswald from Kennedy?” And so that’s a search that obviously is significant in terms of his state of mind. That is the same day that it appears that he registered for the Butler rally. 

Juanita Tolliver: Wray also told the House committee that the shooter visited the rally site multiple times before the shooting, and earlier the same day flew a drone about 200 yards from the stage where Trump later gave his speech. Wray also said that a week and a half since the shooting, the FBI is still unsure whether the former president’s ear was struck by a bullet or shrapnel. As more information emerges, it’s been reported that the Trump campaign will no longer hold outdoor rallies. 

Priyanka Aribindi: The tireless efforts of fossil fuel companies have paid off. The planet’s two hottest days in recorded history happened this week, according to the European Climate Change Service. Sunday broke the record, but Monday ended up being even hotter, with the average global temperature reaching 62.87°F. The previous high was last year. Of course, it is news to no one that climate change is human caused, resulting from rising levels of greenhouse gases. For some slightly more upbeat news about our fragile planet, we can turn to the Environmental Protection Agency. That agency announced on Monday that it is granting $4.3 billion to states, tribes and local governments to fund pollution reducing projects. These projects will expand the use of clean energy, reduce agricultural waste and more. That money comes from the Inflation Reduction Act the Democrats passed back in 2022. 

Juanita Tolliver: And finally, Michigan’s governor Gretchen Whitmer signed a ban on LGBTQ+ panic as a legal defense into law on Tuesday. This defense has been used to shift the blame for some violent crimes by arguing that the sexual orientation or gender identity of the victim caused the perpetrator to panic. Shockingly, it was used as recently as 2018 to mitigate a murder charge, according to the LGBTQ+ Bar Association. Michigan is the 20th state to ban this kind of defense. Michigan State Representative Laurie Pohutsky described the new law as, quote, “a huge step toward securing a safe and inclusive state for all Michiganders.” I’m thrilled that Michigan becomes the 20th state, and I hope more states adopt this because– 

Priyanka Aribindi: Yes. 

Juanita Tolliver: –there is no justification for violent crimes due to a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Absolutely not. Thank you for this big Gretch, shout out to you. We appreciate it. And those are the headlines. 

[AD BREAK]

Priyanka Aribindi: That is all for today. If you like the show. Make sure you subscribe. Leave a review. Flip off an oil lobbyist and tell your friends to listen. 

Juanita Tolliver: And if you’re into reading and not just reports of Nikki Haley being a petty, spineless loser 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 cool us down EPA.

Juanita Tolliver: Yeah, keep that grant money going. We want all the clean energy projects. Please. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Yes, please. [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.