there is some mystery to what comes next and that is uh that would be if you expect that she is overwhelmingly likely to be the nominee who then is going to be on the ticket with her so what we keep hearing we started uh yesterday four names being floated they all have one thing in common they are white men uh I think that the party feels that for balance and for swing States Battleground States they need that kind of balance and the four are Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona who I'm told vice president Harris knows very well and likes very much that's certainly a swing state and then you have uh Kentucky Governor Andy Basher North Carolina governor Roy Cooper and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro that doesn't mean that there might be someone else but those were the four names that are being floated as really the the leading contenders uh let's bring in David Axelrod I believe he's here with us of course uh a former adviser to a former president Barack Obama David great to have you here we're getting this great reporting from from Jamie gangel who's sitting here with us that uh we're expected to as always great reporting that's right uh that we're expecting to hear these endorsements from Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeff as soon as today we just got this endorsement from Nancy Pelosi there are still eyes on the former president former president Obama what might be going through his head right now as all of these pieces start to to appear to settle into place well I haven't spoken to him today so let me be clear I'm not speaking for him uh but you know he has made clear that he wants to play the role that he's played before which is to help pull the party together uh he didn't want to put his finger on the scale of the of the uh the choice that the party itself would make uh and uh but you know what's very clear now now is uh you there used to be uh Jessica a uh uh a speaker of the house in Illinois years ago who when a legislative deal was coming together he would say I can smell the meat are cooking well the meats are cooking and the deal is done and uh I think that um you know President Obama you know is is is aware of that and I'm sure that he'll have something to say uh soon because um this decision is made every single person who was considered a potential candidate other than kamla Harris has now endorsed her uh Nancy Pelosi uh obviously had been a proponent of a kind of competition for this among some of those contenders is now endorsed her I mean you know you don't you don't have to be a political genius to understand what's going on here totally what would have happened David if there were more options for people which I think ultimately in the absence of there being a President Biden running for reelection a decision that probably some voters wish had been made instead a while ago that they would have actually had had more choices what would have happened if they had that at this point in time well I think you would have had a robust competition the Democratic party has a lot of talent and some of them were just on the screen of that list of potential vice presidential candidates uh that Jamie gangel shared with you um and so uh I think you would have seen some of those people and others uh in an open competition but that's not where we are right now and the vice president has great advantages not just internally but also in terms of the experience of three and a half years of being vice president uh that in this short time frame you know made it a pretty obvious decision so um yeah I mean we can go back in the way back machine and ask what would have happened but what's happened now is a coalescence around her and honestly uh a great deal of enthusiasm and excitement that I've seen uh you know I just think there's a sense of relief a day ago there was a sense of Despair and today there's a sense of possibility uh and excitement and uh you know that's all you can ask for at this juncture a lot of work for her to do ahead of this uh you know after this this is just the beginning and the first order of business in some ways is is may be picking this VP because if they do an early endorsement uh by by uh you know virtual endorsement in the next week um they're going to need a ticket so I would expect that we get a pretty quick answer on the vice presidential nomination