Doc Talk Podcast: James Carville On His Pivotal Role Pushing Biden From The Presidential Race And Why Winning Is Everything, Stupid

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is generally credited (or faulted, depending on your perspective) for orchestrating President Joe Biden’s exit from the 2024 presidential race. But there was someone equally if not more responsible for that titanic political development: James Carville.

The veteran Democratic strategist’s definitive role convincing the party establishment that Biden needed to step aside is explored in the new documentary Carville: Winning Is Everything, Stupid, directed by Matt Tyrnauer. The award-winning filmmaker and his subject – scratch that, his protagonist – join the latest episode of Deadline’s Doc Talk podcast.

Carville, the “Ragin’ Cajun” who oversaw Bill Clinton’s successful White House bid in 1992, explains why he concluded Biden would lose to Donald Trump in 2024 and the intense blowback he faced after he publicly called for the incumbent president to move aside. He also gets into why he thinks “wokeness” is a losing political brand – another outspoken take of his that has upset a lot of Democrats. And he tells us what it’s like to be told to “Shut the f*ck up” by a U.S. senator and being called a “political hack” by another one – a member of his own party.

Tyrnauer (The Reagans, Where’s My Roy Cohn?) reveals what he learned by traveling with Carville to the strategist’s hometown in Carville, LA. It has a lot to do with an old country post office and a former leprosy sanitarium.

The conversation comes as Carville: Winning Is Everything, Stupid opens in theaters in New York and is set to expand to Los Angeles and other cities in the coming weeks.

That’s on the new episode of Doc Talk, hosted by Oscar winner John Ridley (12 Years a Slave, Shirley) and Matt Carey, Deadline’s documentary editor. The pod, a 2024 Webby Awards honoree, is a production of Deadline and Ridley’s Nō Studios.

Listen to the episode above or on major podcast platforms including Spotify, iHeart and Apple.