There's things to be found over the world that let's rebuild America. Thank you. Thank you. Please. Wow. Wow. Wow. First of all, aren't I like a guy? Isn't she lovely and amazing? Greetings Milwaukee, my fellow Americans and my fellow Republicans. My name is JD Vance from the great state of Ohio. You guys, we're going to chill with the Ohio love. We've got to win Michigan too here, so. My friends, tonight is a night of hope. A celebration of what America once was and with God's grace, what it will soon be again. And it is a reminder of the sacred duty we have to preserve the American experiment to choose a new path for our children and grandchildren. But as we meet tonight, we cannot forget that this evening could have been so much different. And instead of a day of celebration, this could have been a day of heartache and mourning. For the last eight years, President Trump has given everything he has to fight for the people of our country. He didn't need politics, but the country needed him. Now, prior to running for president, he was one of the most successful businessmen in the world. He had everything anyone could ever want in a life. And yet, instead of choosing the easy path, he chose to endure abuse, slander, and persecution. And he did it because he loves this country. I want all Americans to go and watch the video of a would-be assassin coming a quarter of an inch from taking his life, consider the lies they told you about Donald Trump, and then look at that photo of him defiant fist in the air when Donald Trump rose to his feet in that Pennsylvania field, all of America stood with him. And what did he call us to do for our country to fight, to fight for America, even in his most perilous moment, we were on his mind. His instinct was for us, for our country, to call us to something higher, to something greater, to once again be citizens who ask what our country needs of us. Now, consider what they said. They said he was a tyrant. They said he must be stopped at all costs. But how did he respond? He called for national unity, for national calm literally right after an assassin nearly took his life. He remembered the victims of the terrible attack, especially the brave Corey Compertory, who gave his life to protect his family. God bless him. And then President Trump flew to Milwaukee and got back to work. Now, that's the man I've gotten to know personally over the last few years. He is tough, and he is, but he cares about people. He can stand defiant against an assassin one moment and call for national healing the next. He is a beloved father, and grandfather, and of course, a once in a generation business leader. He's the man who was feared by America's adversaries, but two nights ago, and I'll share a moment, said good night to his two boys, told them he loved them, and made sure to give each of them a kiss on the cheek. And I will say, Don and Eric squirmed the same way my four-year-old does when his daddy tries to give them a kiss on the cheek. Sorry, guys. He is all those things, but tonight we celebrate. He is our once and future President of the United States of America. Now, I want to respond to his call for unity myself. We have a big tent in this party on everything from national security to economic policy. But my message to you, my fellow Republicans, is we love this country, and we are united to win. Now, I think our disagreements actually make us stronger. That's what I've learned in my time in the United States Senate, where sometimes I persuade my colleagues, and sometimes they persuade me. And my message to my fellow Americans, those watching from across the country, is, shouldn't we be governed by a party that is unafraid to debate ideas and come to the best solution? That's the Republican Party of the next four years, united in our love for this country and committed to free speech and the open exchange of ideas. And so tonight, Mr. Chairman, I stand here humbled, and I'm overwhelmed with gratitude to say I officially accept your nomination to be Vice President of the United States of the United States. Now never in my wildest imagination could I have believed that I'd be standing here tonight. I grew up in Middletown, Ohio, a small town where people spoke their minds, built with their hands, and loved their God, their family, their community, and their country with their whole hearts. But it was also a place that had been cast aside and forgotten by America's ruling clash in Washington. When I was in the fourth grade, a career politician by the name of Joe Biden supported NAFTA, a bad trade deal that sent countless good jobs to Mexico. When I was a sophomore at high school, that same career politician named Joe Biden gave China a sweetheart trade deal that destroyed even more good American middle class manufacturing jobs. When I was a senior at high school, that same Joe Biden supported the disastrous invasion of Iraq and at each step of the way, in small towns like mine and Ohio or next door in Pennsylvania or Michigan, in states all across our country, jobs were sent overseas and our children were sent to war. I agree. And somehow, a real estate developer from New York City by the name of Donald J. Trump was right on all of these issues while Biden was wrong. President Trump knew even then that we needed leaders who would put America first. Now thanks to these policies that Biden and other out of touch politicians in Washington gave us, our country was flooded with cheap Chinese goods, with cheap foreign labor, and in the decades to come, deadly Chinese fentanyl. Joe Biden screwed up and my community paid the price. Now I was lucky, despite the closing factories and the growing addiction in towns like mine, in my life I had a guardian angel by my side. She was an old woman who could barely walk, but she was tough as nails. I called her Mamal, the name we hillbillies gave to our grandmothers. Mamal raised me as her own, excuse me, Mamal raised me as my mother struggled with addiction. Mamal was in so many ways a woman of contradiction. She loved the Lord, ladies and gentlemen, she was a woman of very deep Christian faith. But she also loved the f-word. I'm not kidding, she could make a sailor blush. Now she once told me when she found out that I was spending too much time with a local kid who was known for dealing drugs, that if I ever hung out with that kid again, she would run him over with her car. That's true. And she said, "J.D., no one will ever find out about it." Now thanks to that Mamal, things worked out for me. After 9/11, I did what thousands of other young men my age did in that time of soaring patriotism in love of country. I enlisted in the United States Marines. Superfied in my fellow Marines. I loved the Marines after four years and went to the Ohio State University. I'm sorry, Michigan, I had to get that in there. Come on, come on, we've had enough political violence. After Ohio State, I went to Yale Law School where I met my beautiful wife, and then I started businesses to create jobs in the kind of places that I grew up in. Now my work taught me that there is still so much talent and grit in the American Heart Land. There really is. These places to thrive, my friends, we need a leader who fights for the people who built this country. We need a leader who's not in the pocket of big business, but answers to the working man union and non-union alike. A leader who won't sell out to multinational corporations but will stand up for American companies and American industry. A leader who rejects Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' green new scam and fights to bring back our great American factories. We need President Donald J. Trump. Some people tell me I've lived the American dream, and of course they're right, and I'm so grateful for it. But the American dream that always counted most was not starting a business or becoming a senator, or even being here with you fine people, though, it's pretty awesome. My most important American dream was becoming a good husband and a good dad, of being able to give. I wanted to give my kids the things that I didn't have when I was growing up, and that's the accomplishment that I'm proudest of. But tonight, I'm joined by my beautiful wife Usha, an incredible lawyer and a better mom, and our three beautiful kids, Ewan, who's seven, Vivek, who's four, and Mirabelle, who's two. Now, they're back at the hotel, and kids, if you're watching, Daddy loves you very much, but get your butts in bed. It's 10 o'clock. But my friends, things did not work out well for a lot of kids I grew up with. And down then, I will get a call from a relative back home who asked, "Did you know so-and-so?" And I'll remember a face from years ago, and then I'll hear they died of an overdose. As always, America's ruling class wrote the checks. Communities like mine paid the price. For decades, that divide between the few with their power and comfort in Washington and the rest of us only widened. From Iraq to Afghanistan, from the financial crisis to the Great Recession, from open borders to stagnating wages, the people who govern this country have failed and failed again. That is, of course, until a guy named Donald J. Trump came along. Trump represents America's last best hope to restore what, if lost, may never be found again. A country where a working-class boy, born far from the halls of power, can stand on this stage as the next vice president of the United States of America. But my fellow Americans here in this stage and Washington home, this moment is not about me. It's about all of us, and it's about who we're fighting for. It's about the auto-worker in Michigan wondering why out-of-touch politicians are destroying their jobs. It's about the factory worker in Wisconsin who makes things with their hands and is proud of American craftsmanship. It's about the energy worker in Pennsylvania in Ohio who doesn't understand why Joe Biden is willing to buy energy from ten pot dictators across the world when he could buy it from his own citizens right here in our own country. You guys are a great crowd. It's about our movement is about single moms like mine who struggled with money and addiction but never gave up, and I'm proud to say that tonight my mom is here, ten years clean and sober. [Applause] [Applause] And you know, mom, I was thinking, it'll be ten years officially in January of 2025, and if President Trump's okay with it, let's have the celebration in the White House. And our movement, ladies and gentlemen, it's about grandparents all across this country who are living on social security and raising grandchildren they didn't expect to raise. And while we're on the topic of grandparents, let me tell you another mammal story. My mammal died shortly before I left for Iraq in 2005, and when we went through things we found nineteen loaded handguns, they were... Now the thing is, they were stashed all over her house under her bed in her closet in the silverware drawer, and we wondered what was going on, and it occurred to us that towards the end of her life, mammal couldn't get around so well. And so this frail old woman made sure that no matter where she was, she was within arm's length, of whatever she needed to protect her family, that's who we fight for, that's who we fight for. Now Joe Biden has been a politician in Washington for longer than I've been alive, thirty-nine years old, Kamala Harris is not much further behind. For half a century, he's been the champion of every major policy initiative to make America weaker and poor, and in four short years, Donald Trump reversed decades of the trails inflicted by Joe Biden and the rest of the corrupt Washington insiders. He created the greatest economy in history for workers. Really was amazing. There's this chart that shows worker wages, and they stagnated for pretty much my entire life until President Donald J. Trump came along, workers wages went through the roof. And just imagine what he's going to do when we give him four more years. Once ago I heard some young family member observe that their parents' generation, the baby boomers, could afford to buy a home when they first entered the workforce. But I don't know this person observed if I'll ever be able to afford a home. The absurd cost of housing is the result of so many failures, and it reveals so much about what's broken in Washington. I can tell you exactly how it happened. All street barons crashed the economy and American builders went out of business. As tradesmen scrambled for jobs, houses stopped being built. The lack of good jobs, of course, led to stagnant wages. And then the Democrats flooded this country with millions of illegal aliens. So citizens had to compete with people who shouldn't even be here for precious housing. Joe Biden's inflation crisis, my friends, is really an affordability crisis. And many of the people that I grew up with can't afford to pay more for groceries, more for gas, more for rent, and that's exactly what Joe Biden's economy has given them. The prices soared, dreams were shattered, and China and the cartels sent fentanyl across the border adding addiction to the heartache. But ladies and gentlemen, that is not the end of our story. We've heard about villains and their victims. I've talked a lot about that, but let me tell you about the future. President Trump's vision is so simple and yet so powerful. We're done, ladies and gentlemen, catering to Wall Street. We'll commit to the working man. We're done importing foreign labor. We're going to fight for American citizens and their good jobs and their good wages. We're done by an energy from countries that hate us, we're going to get it right here, from American workers in Pennsylvania and Ohio and across the country. We're done sacrificing supply chains to unlimited global trade, and we're going to stamp more and more products with that beautiful label made in the USA. We're going to be able to factories again, put people to work making real products for American families made with the hands of American workers together. We will protect the wages of American workers and stop the Chinese Communist Party from building their middle class on the backs of American citizens. Together we will make sure our allies share in the burden of securing world peace no more free rides for nations that betray the generosity of the American taxpayer. Together we will send our kids to war only when we must, but as President Trump showed with the elimination of ISIS and so much more when we punch, we're going to punch hard. Together we will put the citizens of America first, whatever the color of their skin, we will in short make America great again. One of the things that you hear people say sometimes is that America is an idea and to be clear, America was indeed founded on brilliant ideas like the rule of law and religious liberty, things written into the fabric of our constitution and our nation, but America is not just an idea, it is a group of people with a shared history and a common future, it is in short a nation. Now it is part of that tradition of course that we welcome newcomers, but when we allow newcomers into our American family, we allow them on our terms. That's the way we preserve the continuity of this project from 250 years past to hopefully 250 years in the future. And let me illustrate this with a story if I may, I'm of course married to the daughter of South Asian immigrants to this country, incredible people, people who genuinely have enriched this country in so many ways and of course I'm biased because I love my wife and her family, but it's true. Now when I proposed to my wife, we were in law school and I said honey, I come with $120,000 worth of law school debt and a cemetery plot on a mountain side in Eastern Kentucky. And I guess standing here tonight, it's just gotten weirder and weirder honey, but that's what she was getting. Now that cemetery plot in Eastern Kentucky is near my family's ancestral home. And like a lot of people, we came from the mountains of Appalachia into the factories of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Now that's Kentucky coal country, one of the 10, now it's one of the 10 poorest counties in the United States of America. They're very hard working people and they're very good people, they're the kind of people who would give you the shirt off their back even if they can't afford enough to eat. And our media calls them privileged and looks down on them, but they love this country not only because it's a good idea, but because in their bones they know that this is their home and it will be their children's home and they would die fighting to protect it. That is the source of America's greatness. As a United States senator, I get to represent millions of people in the great state of Ohio with similar stories and it is the great honor of my life. Now in that cemetery, there are people who are born around the time of the Civil War. And if, as I hope, my wife and I are eventually laid to rest there and our kids follow us, there will be seven generations just in that small mountain cemetery plot in eastern Kentucky. Seven generations of people who have fought for this country, who have built this country, who have made things in this country and who would fight and die to protect this country if they were asked to. Now that's not just an idea, my friends. That's not just a set of principles. Even though the ideas and the principles are great, that is a homeland. That is our homeland. People will not fight for abstractions, but they will fight for their home. And if this movement of ours is going to succeed and if this country is going to thrive, our leaders have to remember that America is a nation and its citizens deserve leaders who put its interests first. Now we won't agree on every issue, of course, not even in this room. We may disagree from time to time about how best to reinvigorate American industry and renew American family. That's fine. In fact, it's more than fine. It's good. But never forget that the reason why this United Republican Party exists. Why we do this. Why we care about those great ideas and that great history is that we want this nation to thrive for centuries to come. Now eventually in that mountain cemetery, my children will lay me to rest. And when they do, I would like them to know that thanks to the work of this Republican Party, the United States of America, and as strong and as proud and as great as ever. That is who we serve, my friends. That is who we fight for and the only thing that we need to do right now. The most important thing that we can do for those people, for that American nation that we all love, is to re-elect Donald J. Trump, President of the United States. Mr. President, I will never take for granted the trust you have put in me. And what an honor it is to help achieve the extraordinary vision that you have for this country. Now I pledge to every American, no matter your party, I will give you everything I have. To serve you and to make this country a place where every dream you have for yourself, your family, and your country will be possible once again. And I promise you one more thing. To the people of Middletown, Ohio, and all the forgotten communities in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and every corner of our nation, I promise you this, I will be a Vice President who never forgets where he came from. And every single day for the next four years, when I walk into that White House to help President Trump, I will be doing it for you. For your family, for your future, and for this great country. Thank you. God bless all of you, and God bless our great country. Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, 39 years old in the Senate for about a year and a half, introducing himself to the American people and accepting his party's nomination. There he is with his wife, Usha, and attorney, and the mother of their three children. There he is hugging his mom, who is about to celebrate ten years of sobriety. J.D. Vance, basically two parts of his speech. One was autobiographical, explaining who he is, where he comes from, his very compelling personal life story, already as his wife pointed out, the subject of a Ron Howard movie, Hill Billie Elegy, a best-selling book, telling about his heart-scrabble roots in Appalachia, his mom with an addiction problem, and a father who disappeared, he was raised by his grandparents. And part of his biography was cementing himself to three battleground states. The son of Ohio talked about Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. I think I counted four or five times that he referred to those three specific states that President Trump and Senator Vance would like to win in November. The second part of his presentation was as clear as the introductory music we heard, Merle Haggard's America First, which, if you listen to the lyrics, it came out in 2005. That song is a protest song against the Iraq War. That is a song that is explicitly a rejection of George W. Bush, saying that George W. Bush should have been rebuilding America and not Iraq. And in J.D. Vance's message, Dan Abash, not only did he criticize the foreign policy of the Republican Party of old, but the economic policy of the Republican Party of old and the Democratic Party of today, noting how President Biden, as a senator, supported both NAFTA and most favored nation status for China. Those were trade deals that hurt people in Ohio, and, if you weren't sure, he did mention Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. You know, the way that he talked about economic policy was so stunning, Jake, because you almost forgot, for those of us who have covered Republican conventions in the past, that we were actually at a Republican convention. I mean, he was trashing the free trade policies that Republicans espoused for a very long time, went after Wall Street, went after big corporations, and talked over and over about the working man. I mean, aside from some of the other issues that he doesn't disagree with, it doesn't disagree with, Bernie Sanders could have given some of these talking points tonight. Elizabeth Warren could have as well. But the way that he wrapped what I just described into the generational sort of frame, talking about how he was in fourth grade when Joe Biden supported NAFTA. He was a sophomore in high school when Joe Biden gave China a sweetheart deal. So he not only made himself clearly the populist that he is, and Donald Trump is to a lesser extent, but he reminded people throughout that riff how young he is and what a generational difference there is between him, I mean, also between him and his, the guy at the top of the ticket. My favorite line in this speech was what he said, America's ruling class wrote the checks and our communities paid the price. And it, it seemed to me, it really harked back to the original message that Donald Trump made that was so effective back in 2016, which is the idea that there's a kind of rig game in America. There's a ruling class, he used that phrase, and that, that makes the deals, makes the money, and it's the forgottens, he talked about forgotten people, he talked about forgotten communities like his that end up paying the price, and, and he really cemented himself as part of, of that forgotten community and those people who don't feel that they have anybody looking out for them in Washington or Wall Street. I also thought the reference to the cemetery and it specifically was about the idea it seemed to me, he said America is an idea, but it's a lot more than that, it's a nation. It's a homeland, and I think he was saying in effect, you know, there's a lot of principles and social policies and all of that out there, but this is a nation, and we have to protect it and cherish it, whether that's in terms of enforcing our borders, whether that's in terms of, of protecting our jobs and businesses and industries, that, you know, it was a different slant on America first, not isolationist, but protecting what we have and holding it dear. I thought it was a very powerful speech and very well-read. Can I just add one thing that I forgot to mention? You know what we didn't hear at all, when it comes to economics? There was no call for tax cuts. There was not a discussion about the national debt, but specifically in tax cuts, when was the last time you heard a Republican give a speech and not call for cutting up your taxes? Yeah. It's been a long time. Well, that's not, that's certainly not in keeping with his message, JD Pence's personal message. It is certainly what the guy at the top of the ticket Donald Trump has said, two big donors behind closed doors that he wants to give him another big tax cut. It is also interesting, I would note, there was only the briefest of illusions, unless I missed it, about, he didn't say the word Ukraine, I don't think, he is, you know, famously or infamously, depending on your point of view, opposed to military aid from the United States to Ukraine. He did talk about the fact that it is important for the Republican Party to be a place where these ideas can be debated. And I thought that was him, Anderson, leaning into the idea of, I mean, obliquely, but leaning into the idea of, yes, I look at some of these things differently, but let's hash it out. That's my interpretation anyway, Anderson. Jake, thanks very much. John King, I mean, you've heard a lot of Vice President for nominee's speeches, what did you make of this one? Well, let's start with the most important fact. There is nothing in American political history that says a vice president actually makes a difference. Come election day. People vote for president. You can scour the books, you can scour the data, and you will find no compelling case that any nominee for vice president ever has been the factor in making a difference come election day. However, they can hurt, he didn't do anything to hurt them tonight, he gave a very compelling speech we can argue about the policy, that's what debates are about. He told a very compelling story, and the forgotten part, where he's from and where he will be. Look, the people of Erie, Pennsylvania, and Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Oshkosh, Wisconsin are going to see a lot of JD events. And he's going to talk about growing up, and his family grew up in Kentucky. He grew up in Middletown, which was once an industrial town along, there was a canal that ran all the way up the side of Ohio. In the old days, that's where the jobs were. They're all people who worked with their hands and manufacturing jobs. You can go to a lot of those communities across America, Main Street is nothing anymore. And he knows that. He can tell that story, and you find those places in Pennsylvania, in Michigan and Wisconsin. So he's a very compelling campaigner, we're going to see him on local TV markets and all those places forever. So he's a good ad. I don't want to overstate the idea that he's going to make any huge difference, because there's no history. Can I just say something about the, I mean, you're absolutely right about his story, which is compelling, which makes you wonder why his story wasn't his entry point into this speech. This speech had, you know, four or five pages of pay-ons to Donald Trump and his courage and all of that. And I actually was really disappointed. This guy wrote a great book, a great memoir that was moving and filled with stories that told a larger story about the struggles of people. And I was really expecting him to be a great storyteller tonight, and really, this is what you're seeing with somebody who's been on the political scene for less than two years. It's a work in progress, I think, is the best way to describe it. It's also the price of admission to a Trump event, as you say, that all the night thinks about Trump. He just upside down. He should have started with the best part, which is his life, his mama. That story was what lit up this audience. The rest of it kind of fell a little bit flat, but look, I don't think Trump picked him because he was a really great speaker, somebody who could liven up this room. He picked him because he had the right message and the right biography and probably wasn't going to upstage him. And I think he did probably all of those things to him. I mean, look, so J.D. Vance isn't going to be a Vegas act. That's okay. He needs to be vice president. He doesn't need to overshadow Donald Trump. I was listening, I was listening to the song they played when he finished. Don't stop thinking about tomorrow. So now they got Bill Clinton's song, and increasingly, they have Bill Clinton's voters. The people who are gravitating to this ticket are the same people who voted that working class base voted for Bill Clinton in the 90s. They largely gravitated to the Republicans over cultural issues and now Vance and Trump are going to give him the economic agenda to go with it, a couple of issues. I think the riff on the seven generations who built things and made things, I thought that was effective and that will resonate in the kinds of areas where he's going to campaign. And I loved the homage to his mother cleaning sober for 10 years. That was a powerful moment. And that is an issue that every family in this country, some way, somehow is dealing with it. I was going to say, look, when J.D. Vance was strongest out there, he was talking about his mom, his grandmother, his mother, he was related, he was being human. That's what he was the most, when he was giving the raw meat to the base, kind of the off message. It really wasn't his best. I'd like to hear him talk more about his Marie Corps experience. You'll be the first Marie Corps veteran on any major party ticket, which is something in a country that has lots of military veterans. I think he put a very friendly base on a pretty disturbing agenda, a good part of the agenda. I can tell him, guess what? You don't have to run for vice president for the good part of your agenda, you can just vote for Joe Biden. He's talking about supply chains, Joe Biden passed a bill called the Chips Act that takes care of that and moves in the right direction, without his support. He's talking about not buying energy from people that don't like us, we're a net energy exporter. He's talking about manufacturing, the manufacturing peak under Biden is higher than the peak under Trump. So if he wants his policy agenda, he can just stay home and vote for Joe Biden. Joe Biden might not be the candidate, but tomorrow morning, so that's not the problem with the speech. The problem with the speech is, he's putting a very friendly face on a very selfish and narrow vision of what America is supposed to be. And unlike Trump, who is an intuitive, impulsive, instinctive nationalist, this is an ideological nationalist. That's a very different strain of the virus. He can sell this stuff to Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and normal people, but his vision will make America smaller, more narrow, and weaker, and that's the problem. But what Dana said earlier is actually true. His economic agenda sounded just like Bernie Sanders, not Bill Clinton, but Bernie Sanders. And it's fascinating. The problem is that Donald Trump's program as president was very much a Wall Street oriented program. It wasn't a populist agenda. Well, that's why it's fascinating. I mean, if they are, if there is a Trump ban situation, the FTC is going to look just like it does now. Exactly. At least on running it. Yeah, she's actually an ally. It's the quarter of it. But can I say, as this speech is going on, the person I was watching was not always J.D. Vance, but Donald Trump. Because I think the understated part of what Mike Pence did for four years was how he navigated an incredibly challenging president to work with. I mean, ask Catholic cabinet. And when he had started out with everything he was saying about Donald Trump, he kind of have to do that. You work for Donald Trump, that is not just happening at the convention. That is going to be his role over the next four years. I want to bring in senior fact-checker, senior reporter Daniel Dale, who listened to all of tonight's speech. So Daniel was stood out to you. Anderson tonight was a fact-check doozy, a whole lot of false and misleading claims. I want to start with the claim that J.D. Vance made in his speech. He strongly suggested that in contrast to Joe Biden, Donald Trump opposed the invasion of Iraq. Listen. When I was a senior at high school, that same Joe Biden supported the disastrous invasion of Iraq. Somehow, a real estate developer from New York City by the name of Donald J. Trump was right on all of these issues while Biden was wrong. This claim is highly misleading at best. In reality, Donald Trump was supportive of the invasion of Iraq. When he was asked six months before the invasion by Howard Stern, whether he was for an invasion, he said, quote, "Yeah, I guess so. I wish the first time it was done correctly." Then two months before the invasion, he said on Fox News that President Bush, and this is a direct quote, "has either got to do something or not do something perhaps, not the words of an explicit opponent." Now he did become an opponent of the war in 2004, but Vance's suggestion that Trump was on the opposite side of Biden on the question of starting the war, that Trump got this invasion question right while Biden was wrong, and that's just not true. That was not Anderson the only assertion tonight that was misleading or flat wrong, and I'll give you just some of them. A former Trump adviser, Peter Navarro, who's fresh out of prison falsely claimed Jack Smith prosecuted him. Smith did not. A Florida congressman, Mike Waltz, mocked Biden for allegedly being focused on building electric tanks. That is pure fiction. Biden has made no push for electric tanks, though the army does want some other vehicles to be electrified. Various speakers depicted a country with rampant crime and violence without acknowledging that violent crime is now lower than it was in Donald Trump's last year in office 2020. A former House speaker, Newt Gingrich, said Trump orchestrated an orderly end to the war in Afghanistan. Trump didn't actually orchestrate a withdrawal at all. Gingrich also claimed no U.S. soldier was killed in nearly two years there. There was not any two-year period under Trump when zero U.S. troops were killed in Afghanistan. And finally, conservative commentator, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump, Jr.'s fiance declared that Trump handed Joe Biden a booming economy. You might remember what things were actually like in January 2021. The unemployment rate was 6.4%. Anderson. Daniel Dale, thanks very much. We're going to take a short break just ahead as we wrap up. Night three of the Republican National Convention here in Milwaukee. There's new information just coming into CNN about the deeply, or I should say, the deepening divisions among Democrats are going to tell you what sources are now sharing with us about a recent phone call between President Biden and Nancy Pelosi. We'll have that news ahead in a moment. They say opposites attract. That's why the sleep number smartbed is the best bed for couples. You can each choose what's right for you whenever you like. You like a bed that feels firm, but they want soft. Sleep number does that. You want to sleep cooler while they like to feel warm. Sleep number does that, too. You have to feel it to believe it. Find the bed that's for both of you, only at a sleep number store. Nine out of ten couples say that they sleep better on a sleep number smartbed. Only sleep number smartbed lets you choose your ideal comfort and support, your sleep number setting. 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She's an expert in the science behind money and happiness and a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia. Elizabeth Dunn. I'm going to ask her for steps we can all take to spend smarter and be happier no matter how much money you make. Listen to Chasing Life, streaming now wherever you get your podcasts. Night three of the Republican National Convention just wrapped up here in Milwaukee in battleground state, Wisconsin, Senator JD Vance of Ohio introduced himself to the party and to the nation, as Donald Trump's running mate, he accepted his party's nomination formally this evening. There's also news on the other side of the aisle from the Democrat sources sharing with CNN details of a recent phone call between President Biden and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who remains a very powerful and influential Democrat in Congress, CNN's MJ Lee joining us from the White House with more. MJ, what can you tell us about this call? Jake, we are learning that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Biden spoke again recently and that Pelosi told the president that polling shows that the president cannot defeat Donald Trump and that he could destroy Democrats' chances of winning the House if he were to continue seeking a second term. Now we are also told by our sources that the president responded by being defensive about the polling, telling Pelosi he has seen the data polling that shows that he can in fact win and that at one point, Pelosi asked Mike Donald and the president's senior advisor to get on the line to go over the data. Now, none of our sources said whether in this phone call, Nancy Pelosi privately told President Biden that she believes he should drop out of the race, but it's important to note this is the second known conversation now between Nancy Pelosi and President Biden since his debate performance that really shook the party and at the end of June, I should also note the White House wouldn't comment on our reporting in this meeting. They said President Biden is the nominee of the party. He plans to win and Pelosi spokesperson said Pelosi has been in California since Friday and has not spoken to Biden since. Obviously, Jake, we cannot overstate just how important Nancy Pelosi is to all of this. She has so much sway within the party. She probably has the best pulse on where all of her colleagues are on the Biden situation than probably anybody else. And the big question going forward is at some point, does she get to a point where she maybe publicly says that she believes that the president shouldn't stay in the race. All right. I'm Jay Lee. Amazing stuff. Thanks, Ellen, he also has been reporting on the story. Jeff, tell us more about these conversations between former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Biden. Let's take a lot of Democrats have been taking their worries and fears to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. And we have really seen an evolution of her thinking over the last now nearly three weeks since that debate. Now when President Biden said he is going to run, he's not reconsidering, she reopened the door for him and that allowed some other House Democrats to have conversations with her. She has been trying to handle this behind the scenes, if you will. But what we are hearing is that it hasn't worked, so they are being slightly more public with this. But she's not alone. Last Saturday, a key meeting in all of this history may show this to be a pivotal meeting here, depending on what happened. Senator Chuck Schumer, the Senate Majority Leader, traveled to Rohebeth Beach. That's where the president was spending the weekend. He had a private one-on-one meeting with the president expressing concerns of Senate Democrats as well, that they do not think that they can win and are worried about him winning in November. So Jake, taken together all of this, this is a different moment here as we hit the three week period. As for the president, he's back in Delaware. The campaign tells me tonight he's in this race, he's not changing, and they say he'll be the Democratic nominee. Of course, we'll see about that, Jake. We will. Jeff Seleny, let's stick around. Let's talk about this with my panel and Chris Wallace and Dana Batch. I want to show some recent video, the most recent video we have of President Biden. He has COVID. He had to cancel an appearance at an event. Here he is earlier tonight at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, walking down the stairs, looking, I don't know, around, let's say. And it's a very halting procession down the stairs, though. And the reason I wanted to show this video is I'm not sure in all these conversations how much it's being illustrated to President Biden, not just that Democrats worry he cannot turn this around that he's a drag on the ticket that he is going to lose, but that the reason he is the drag on the ticket, the reason that his poll numbers are so bad, is irreversible. It is because the American people think he's too old, not competent to do the job. That was highlighted even more in the debate. But that's where the American people, according to polls, have been for months, if not years. This is not something that he can turn around. We've seen him speak before the NAACP and lose his train of thought. We've seen him give interviews to speedy-- >> Stephanopoulos? >> No, not Stephanopoulos. No, speed, the YouTuber. And he loses his train of thought in those interviews as well. This is not something that he can turn around. You can be Donald Trump, but you can't beat father time. >> Yeah. Listen, I mean, that is why what you are seeing the private conversations that MJ was just reporting on, even more so with Nancy Pelosi. But we know Chuck Schumer, we know that he was very direct with Joe Biden when he spoke with the president on Saturday. And we know about these series of conversations that he's had with House Democrats, particularly the one with some of the frontliners, the more centrist Democrats, who were very blunt with him on the polling, but also on the fundamentals that you were just talking about. I mean, now he has COVID, I mean, we both have COVID, have had COVID, I certainly have not felt great, but this is far beyond the moment that we are in right now. Jake, I have talked to House members, I mean, texting with them, listening to what has been going on publicly, even in the last 10 hours, 12 hours, knowing what has already been going on privately, seeing it become more public. One said to me, the walls are closing in on the president because the desperation, the frustration, and the real, in some cases anger is overwhelming that they can't get through to him. >> You know, sometimes you see an image and it's almost a perfect metaphor for a situation and to see Joe Biden looking so slow, so halting, so old, as he came down the steps. And when it originally happened, CNN put it on live in a split screen, I forget exactly what was going on at the convention at that point, but, you know, there was energy and excitement and a plan for the future, not saying it's necessarily the right plan. And you see Joe Biden as his political support is crumbling, as his financial support is crumbling, as he's suffered a health setback, as he's had a series, as you say, of troubling interviews, as he's making the effort to show that the debate that you co-moderated was somehow a bad night, it isn't going away, and tonight just seemed to be a culmination of it. Having said all of that, you know, it's one thing to say to a guy, "Hey, your numbers in Ohio or Pennsylvania are really, really bad." It's another thing to say, "You're no longer up to the job." That gets to a whole different, not a political level, a personal level, and for him and his wife, Jill, and his family to come to terms with that is going to be very hard, and I'm not sure that he will. Yeah, and Anderson, that's one I'm wondering, these blunt messages that are being given to President Biden from Speaker Pelosi, from Leader Schumer, the Democratic Leader of the Senate, and on and on and on, how many of those messages are performance-based, as opposed to just your polling numbers are bad? How many of them are the kind of blunt conversation that so many of us have had to have with parents or grandparents because of the inevitability, the situation, that if we're lucky enough to get to be that old, we all face? Yeah, Adam Schiff, as well, has come out very publicly. I mean, David Oxrod, of course, you know, Jake makes the point about conversations people have had with family members, that we've all had with family members, and that's what this may boil down to, conversations with Biden family members, and from all the reporting, it seems. His world has shrunk, Anderson, to his family, and a couple of close advisors, and someone has to recognize the reality of the situation. There was a memo circulating today among the congressional leadership done by a PAC for the Senate and House, a PAC for the Senate and House, and in it, it said that 18 percent of people now say they believe the president has fit to serve 18 percent, including just a third of people who voted for him last time. You put that together with the meeting with Katzenberg, which reflects, I think, the reality. The money has dried up, and as I said earlier... There's a report that Jeffrey Katzenberg, a large fundraiser... Who is his key fundraiser? No one has done more for the president than Katzenberg. He's devoted his life to this project. You know, someone has to say, "Here is the reality. There is not a path forward." He said in an interview that he would get out if he was told by his advisors that there wasn't a path forward. If his advisors don't tell him that now, they're not doing him a service, and they shouldn't be his advisors. You know, this is the end game now. He may be able to run out the clock and stay on the ticket, but you've got to lead, and we have a big coalition. You have a lot of African-American voters who are still with Joe Biden. They still want him to stick in there. We're used to seeing our leaders stumble, we're used to seeing our leaders be attacked by the media and ways that aren't fair, and we're slow to let go of somebody's hand. So I'm proud that the black grassroots is standing with Joe Biden, but the party's bigger than that. The donors are walking away. The best people in our party, the smartest people in our party are looking at the math and saying, "The math don't math." And so it's important, I think, that we recognize that this could be -- this is the end game. One way or the other is the end game. And tonight's very important. One just one other thing I want to -- I'm sorry, just one last data point, which is that there was an AP, an ORC poll today that said two-thirds of Democrats want him to drop out. And that, you know, yes, he has got stronger support among African-Americans, but there are a fair number of African-Americans. But that, too, and it's a reflection of what they see. >> Well, and Jeff Belling makes a great point that tomorrow marks three weeks since the debate. And I talked to White House officials. I was at the White House last week. They really thought they were going to hit the ground running coming out of this. He was going to do a lot of public events. He was going to do a bunch of interviews. Well, now he's going to self-isolate for a few days. And every interview and public appearance he's done has not been enough to materially change what you were hearing from Democrats behind closed doors, who do believe that it is up to the polluices and Schumers and that small group of advisors around him, the Mike Donnell and the Steve Richetes, to kind of have that conversation. And even they behind the scenes seem to be getting closer to that point. >> And so add to that what we heard from JD Vance tonight, which is not on Daniel Dills List because it's true, but it is true. We have a big tent in our party. We love this country. We are united to win. The Democrats see this here. This party has rallied around Donald Trump. For all the controversy about Trump in the past, this party is rallied around Donald Trump. So Democrats are looking not just at the polling, but to David's point and to Jake raised this point. If you make a policy mistake or you did something out there, you can change that. You can apologize. You can change your policy. You can have an event. This is a performance question. It's not just that they're telling the president, "You're losing Michigan. You're losing Pennsylvania. You're losing Wisconsin. You're losing Nevada. You're losing Arizona. You're beginning to put New Mexico in play." What? You're beginning to put New Hampshire in play? What? You're put Virginia in play? Hello? It's not just that. They're saying the reason is because the American people, to David's point about the poll and they're showing the data, they do not believe you are up to the job. That's not something you can change. At least, if you come out of the debate, you knew that we're raising that question to Caitlin's point and Abby's point about the interviews and the performances. If you thought you could change it, you have not succeeded because the numbers are getting worse. I continue to think that this is more than just a political problem. I mean, if Democrats are saying that he's not fit to serve in January and we're seeing the rapid deterioration of the president before our very eyes right now, I still think we need to have a conversation about who's running the country today and is he fit to serve for the next few months. I'm just not satisfied that this is only a political campaign problem. To me, the country still has to operate and he's still supposedly the president. I would just say quickly, you know, the split screen of Joe Biden walking off that airplane and the imagery from this evening should have Democrats very concerned. Stay with CNN as the Republican convention heads into its fourth and final night, Laura Coates is at the CNN grill to break it all down. They say opposites attract. That's why the sleep number smartbed is the best bed for couples. You can each choose what's right for you whenever you like. You like a bed that feels firm, but they want soft sleep number does that. You want to sleep cooler while they like to feel warm sleep number does that too. You have to feel it to believe it find the bed that's for both of you only at a sleep number store sleep better together, JD power ranks sleep number number one in customer satisfaction with mattresses purchased in store and now sleep number smartbed starting at $999 prices higher in Alaska and Hawaii for JD power 2023 award information visit jdpower.com slash awards only at a sleep number store or sleep number.com. I'm Oprah Winfrey and I am delighted to introduce you to my podcast super soul conversations. You can listen to some of the most universal, powerful life lessons. I hope these conversations will help illuminate your path to all that you've been meaning to be and all that you were meant to be. You want to feel better about your life where you're headed subscribe to my super soul conversations on Apple podcasts and begin the journey to your best self.
