This is a night that, what, 72 hours ago,

people said wouldn't happen.

Biden said he was fine the entire time.

Did he know something that we didn't,

or have his hopes just paid off?

No, it's remarkable. I mean, 72 hours ago,

he was down to his last political life.

Now he's probably the front-runner

for the Democratic nomination.

It's a remarkable 72 hours in American politics.

It-it really is an interesting time

where, you know, we're going to witness the Democratic party

once again go on a similar journey

to what we saw in 2016

where it looks like you will have two candidates

who represent two very different ideologies

of what the Democratic party is going to be.

Looking at the race from here onwards,

who do you think has the advantage?

Well, I'm gonna nerd out a little bit on math.

So, you know, if you look at the states

that are coming after today--

Florida, Louisiana, Georgia--

states where got high suburban vote

that Biden did really well in tonight

and a lot of African American vote,

and that's really been the cornerstone of his comeback.

-Right. -I think you give Biden the advantage.

Um, particularly if it gets down to a two-person race.

I mean, Bloomberg, obviously, probably, we can...

He's hours, days at most, before this adventure's over.

-Right. -And Elizabeth Warren's got a tough decision to make.

So, I would give Biden the advantage.

But, listen, Sanders has been a strong candidate.

He's run a strong campaign. He's got a great organization,

and he's not gonna go down without a fight.

What-what do you think that fight looks like, though?

Because this is one of the more interesting conversations

in and around the Democratic party,

is can the Democrats fight but then still come together

the way Republicans did before 2016?

Well, listen, I went through a really tough primary in 2008,

the Obama, Clinton primary.

So I-I think if we lose,

it's not because we didn't come together.

You have to work at it.

But, you know, I think it's really a question between...

Bernie Sanders' campaign manager

actually gave an interview tonight

where he said it's not enough to simply beat Trump.

You know, we have to beat Trump and bring a revolution.

-Mm-hmm. -And so my guess is right now,

about 55% to 60% of the party

is saying it's enough just to beat Trump.

-Right. -Then you've got the Sanders base. So, I think...

Listen, because we're talking about Trump, the menace,

the threat of him getting eight years versus four

-is so profound that I think we'll come together. -Right.

Let's talk about your book,

A Citizen's Guide to Beating Donald Trump.

It's interesting that you say "a citizen's guide,"

as in not parties, not politicians

but just people on the ground.

What do you think people can do beyond just voting

to beat Donald Trump? What does that mean?

You know, you wrote in your book, actually,

the thing we should fear

more than failure or rejection is regret.

And I want people to think

about late on the night of November 3

or early in the morning of November 4,

Donald Trump strides across the ballroom at Mar-a-Lago

with his grifter family

and accepts a second term having won the election.

How will we all feel?

They have Fox. They have Sinclair.

They have Breitbart. They've got Putin.

They've got the Russians.

They've got an incumbent president

who's obsessed with nothing else than winning reelection.

We need all of us to give what time we have

on social media, registering voters,

knocking on doors, getting in the content game

because if we have a disaggregated army

of millions of people, we can fight back.

But he's gonna be really tough to beat.

There's nothing he won't do.

-There's no low he won't sink to to win reelection. -Right.

And so I think

there's enough people out in America to defeat him.

We got to register them, we got to turn them out,

and we got to persuade enough of them.

Some might say, "Yeah, David, I get this,

"but last time, Hillary won by millions more votes,

and it didn't make a difference."

So does that mobilization matter

if people have drawn a map in such a way

that the electoral college defines the victor

more than the popular vote?

Hey, that's the rules we got to play by.

-You know, in America... -So what do you think

-people do in that regard, then? -So, we've got to win...

You know, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania,

Arizona, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia.

-Mm-hmm. -These are gonna come down

to literally a vote or two per precinct.

So, one of the things I write about in the book

is if you go register voters for an afternoon in Michigan,

and you might register two people,

you think, "What does that matter?"

But if five other thousand people

are doing it that same day,

and they do it the next day,

and they do it all through September and October,

that's more than enough new voters to win.

So, you've got to think your contribution in the aggregate.

And my point in the book is

I hope we have a great nominee and a great campaign,

but we can't count on that.

We've got to take ownership of this.

And honestly, if there's more you could do on Election Night

that you didn't do and Donald Trump wins,

my message-- it's a tough message--

is you deserve Donald Trump.

We all have to take this country back,

and it won't happen without that kind of individual effort

by millions of Americans.

You-you were on Obama's campaign.

It was... it was considered by many

one of the most revolutionary grassroots movements.

What do you think the big difference was

with Barack Obama's campaign for president

and what the Democrats did in 2016 with Hillary?

Well, I will say we had a really good 2018,

congressional elections,

in part because so many citizens got involved.

-Mm-hmm. -Listen, Obama inspired millions of Americans

to give time that they didn't have.

They gave financially.

-They really laid it all on the line. -Mm-hmm.

Um, and I think we didn't have enough of that in '16.

I think a lot of people thought that Trump would lose.

-I thought he would lose. -Right.

Uh, and Hillary didn't inspire that same kind of passion.

I hope we have a nominee who makes people excited about them,

but I know eight years of Donald Trump

is not twice the damage.

We will not recover.

The planet will not recover

from four more years of this guy.

This is an existential threat to the entire enterprise.

Uh, and so, I think that...

But my point is yes, you want to be inspired.

-Yes, you want to be asked. -Right.

Don't wait. Take it into your own hands.

Take it into your own hands.

Thank you so much for being on the show.

A really, really fascinating book.

A Citizen's Guide to Beating Donald Trump is available now.

David Plouffe, everybody.