James Carville on Ramping Up the Harris Ground Game and Defeating Trump

James Carville is not known for mincing words. Back in 2021, the legendary Democratic strategist ruffled quite a few feathers when he blamed “wokeness” for the party’s electoral defeats. He still hasn’t backed down from that belief—but he’s also willing to accept that Kamala Harris has a lot more to worry about than safe spaces and language policing when it comes to trouncing Donald Trump. One challenge in particular, he tells Brian Stelter on the latest episode of Inside the Hive, is presenting herself a bold persona with a bright new vision in a period of Trump-era malaise. "I think the best construct for her is ‘fresh versus stale,'" Carville says of Harris. "I've said the most thunderous sound in all of politics is the sound of a turning page."

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What won’t people do for power? On Inside the Hive, Vanity Fair’s editor in chief, Radhika Jones, along with executive editor Claire Howorth and Hive editor Michael Calderone, spotlight the players jockeying for status, the coattail riders, and the ones truly calling the shots. How far will these power seekers go? What rules will they break? And what happens to those who stand in their way? Each week Inside the Hive brings you tales of the rich and fickle. Power brokers eventually fall. Betrayals happen. And plots get twisted.