Will Hillary Be the Democrat Nominee in 2024?

CLAY: I want to circle back around Jen Psaki style on this idea of Hillary Clinton reemerging. She is speaking at a New York Democratic Party event. She has had her operatives in the media float the idea that she is the right choice for Democrats going forward as you saw and see Joe Biden continues to stumble, polling 41% approval from CNN yesterday.

The Lester Holt interview, Buck, I saw the clips from that thing. It did not go well with Biden as almost every interview that he does — go figure — does not go well. We could be, as you just said to finish off the first hour of this program, going back to the future all over again with Trump versus Hillary 2024, the rematch, after taking 2020 out.

The more I think about it, if Joe Biden doesn’t run — and we’re talking a lot about what the midterm outcome is gonna be in November. But remember, Biden probably by February or so in ’23 — that is about a year from now — is going to have to make a decision about whether or not he’s running for reelection. Again, I would bet by around this time next year Biden will officially announce or not.

If he announces that he’s not running, I think Hillary’s gonna be the nominee. Just think about it, Buck. Kamala is a disaster, and it cancels out the woman angle that it would be sexist if she’s not the nominee. And honestly Hillary’s way more qualified, probably, even if you are a Kamala Harris supporter. Mayor Pete is never going to be the nominee, and it’s as if no one will even say why.

It’s because the overwhelming majority of black people who are voting in the Democratic primary are not going to pick a gay guy to be representative of the Democratic Party. It’s as if people won’t even mention that. But all you have to do is look at the results of the South Carolina primary and look at the lack of support that Mayor Pete had from black voters.

He is not going to be the standard-bearer, and who else is there? I mean, Michelle Obama, I guess. But that’s their like, you know, fantasy candidate. Doesn’t seem like she wants it or is willing to do it. Who else is there, Buck? If Biden isn’t running, I think it has to be Hillary.

BUCK: So a lot of this will be determined — and obviously there’s quite a bit of speculation here, and in politics that’s a thing that you do sometimes. But a lot of this is gonna be determined, I think, by how the midterm election goes, right? ‘Cause here’s what ends up happening. If the Democrats lose big in the midterms, how does Biden turn things around between now and when people will be thinking about who the next president of the United States should be?

It seems almost impossible. And in that situation, doesn’t it make more sense for the Democrats to put forward a different candidate and Biden can credibly claim — ’cause he’s almost 80 — that for health reasons… He had said before he would run for one term. People forget that. He said I’ll do one term and then of course changed his mind after he actually got the job.

So, yeah, it certainly adds up as a possibility. But here’s I think the problem, Clay. The Democrats then face the reality of the redo of 2016. That’s not what they want, right? So a redo of 2016 would seem to favor especially if it were Trump, would seem to favor the Republican. But, you know, we don’t even know. We could have… We’ll be talking to the former president soon I think about this.

CLAY: Yeah. We’re gonna break some news on that soon. But here’s the thing, Buck. I think we can reliably say the midterms are not gonna go well, right? It’s a question of how badly they’re gonna go. I know you get nervous ’cause they’re nine months away.

BUCK: I hate celebrating early. I think it’s so devastating psychologically. You never want to be the guy — here you go, Clay — who’s high stepping into the end zone and gets tackled at the 2-yard line. You know what I mean?

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: Sports.

CLAY: I understand the nervousness and the apprehension, even, over what in the world could happen, given what we’ve just been through in 2020 and 2021 nobody saw this covid mesa rising and kind of taking over the country. But I do think we’re not discussing enough — and I mean the larger media apparatus — how quickly Biden is going to have to make a decision right after the midterms regardless of what happens in them as to whether or not he’s gonna run.

‘Cause, think about, we’ve never had the situation where we’ve had a first-term president and we were unclear whether or not he would be running for the second term. I can’t even think of a time… We had the situation, obviously, with Lyndon Johnson where he says, “I’m not going to be running for reelection.”

But when you really look at it, it’s virtually unheard of from president to not be locked and loaded; hey, we know he’s running for reelection. So I think that is going to be a fascinating component here. And he’s gonna have to make that decision really fast. By this next year we’re gonna know whether Biden’s running or not.

BUCK: I feel like you know all these guys. Do we have any Vegas odds on this? Do we have other prop bets on whether Biden is going to step down or let someone else take over the leadership of the Democratic Party before or maybe in the next election cycle?

CLAY: Hillary is surging in the markets in terms of her likelihood to be elected president, and I don’t mean… Right now, the Trump is favored pretty substantially to win the 2024 election. So you can’t bet on elections officially the United States. But in England, they take all sorts of political wagers.

I love to look at the odds markets and just see what they’re expecting. And so Trump is the favorite right now; DeSantis is the second biggest favorite in American politics for Republican. And then you’ve got Biden, Kamala, and Hillary are the three that are in the mix for Democrats right now from an oddsmaker perspective.

BUCK: When was it decided that everyone who runs for president all of the sudden has to be in their seventies? It is a remarkable shift that we’ve seen. It really is among politico Boomers, Nancy Pelosi and —

CLAY: Chuck Schumer.

BUCK: — Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer. Go down the list. Deep into their seventies, even into their eighties to the point now where we say, “h, can Ron DeSantis run for president? Guy’s only like 43 or something.” (laughing) I mean, people in their forties and fifties, throughout history (laughing), there are plenty of them who have been president.

CLAY: The most controversial thing I’ve said on the show, maybe, was that we should have an upper-age limit for president. You remember we had all those angry callers that day when I was like, “Hey, we gotta lower level age limit, 35.”

BUCK: There are 85-year-olds can run six-minute miles and do push-ups that would beat either of us who listen to the show, Clay, so you gotta watch that one.

CLAY: I don’t have any doubt. But if we had like 35 to 65, a 30-year window, it’s funny to me that we have an age limit on the lower side and no age limit at all on the other side, because Joe Biden… Think about this: If they drag him across — I like to say “Weekend at Bernie’s style” — he’s gonna be 86 if he serves two terms, Buck.

BUCK: That’s remarkable.

CLAY: There’s no… He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t! I don’t believe he would be capable.

BUCK: It’s irresponsible —

CLAY: Now!

BUCK: (laughing) Yes. It was irresponsible before he took office. To put him in office for four more years? But look at how reckless they are. Clay, part of the problem we have here — and I feel like everyone with us now, all of our people all across the country, all of our team listening to this, we’re trying to look at this through the lens of people that live in reality and see things for they are and make adjustments based upon what’s actually happening and trying to be rational.

They’re considering firing… I just saw this on CNN as we’re sitting here talking. They’re considering firing 3,000 New York City workers today over vaccine issues? We’re still even having this conversation? We start to get in this place of, okay, so everyone kind of gets that they’re wrong about the stuff and living back in reality. I just bring it up because with Joe Biden, we sit here and we say, “t’s almost like elder abuse watching this guy sometimes on stage and on TV.”

He just had another (impression), “You know, Iraq — I mean, Afghanistan! I mean, Syria. I mean…” Yeah, look, that happens, and I don’t want to be the guy who’s poking fun at somebody ’cause we’re all going there, man. We’re all going there, if we are lucky enough to get there to that place when we’re a little older and it takes a little more time to get some stuff out there. But the libs don’t care. You say the Weekend at Bernie’s. They don’t care. They’ll just push him out there.

CLAY: I just look, Buck, at how much younger, healthier presidents age. Go look at George W. Bush. Go look at Barack Obama. Go look at those guys when they went into office and how much different they looked when they got out. Biden went into office, Buck, at 78, and now they’re gonna take him on the campaign trail in ’23 and then run him on a full campaign in ’24 at 82? I just don’t see any way that it is possible.