Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
Speaker 1: It's Friday, October twenty five. Billionaire Richard White has resigned
Speaker 1: from the company that made him one of Australia's richest people.
Speaker 1: He's at the center of a sex scandal and although
Speaker 1: White is not accused of anything illegal, he's taking a
Speaker 1: break and will return as a consultant earning one million
Speaker 1: dollars a year.
Speaker 2: Why have you resigned today, I'm not talking.
Speaker 3: Are you concerned that that more women.
Speaker 4: Are going to come out in slight?
Speaker 1: You can watch that exclusive video by our reporter Leam
Speaker 1: Mendez right now at the Australian dot com dot U.
Speaker 1: Can you believe it? The US election is just eleven
Speaker 1: days away. Kamala Harris has a man problem. Donald Trump
Speaker 1: has a trust problem. Today we meet the correspondents who'll
Speaker 1: be crisscrossing the States to you the best reporting and
Speaker 1: analysis of this crazy campaign.
Speaker 4: You may need to open the aft an the event
Speaker 4: of an emergencygure.
Speaker 1: This is American Airlines Flight five two seventy nine from Washington,
Speaker 1: DC to Atlanta, Georgia, and on board is our reporter
Speaker 1: Joe Kelly oh.
Speaker 4: Best go ahead and stodos either in the overhead compartment
Speaker 4: or completely underneath sing in front of him. Same for laptops.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Joe's recently moved to the States and he's getting his
Speaker 1: head around this vast, messy, brilliant, terrifying democracy. So it
Speaker 1: was nice for Joe to hear a familiar accent from
Speaker 1: the cockpit.
Speaker 5: Weather in the Atlanta area right now, it's a light
Speaker 5: winds out of the west.
Speaker 6: It's a good visibility.
Speaker 4: Cliss Guy's temperature of eighty degrees is please sit back, relax, Joe.
Speaker 6: The flight local book.
Speaker 1: Georgia is a crucial swing state. Donald Trump won it
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen and Joe Biden took it off him
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty, but only just. Joe's flown to Atlanta
Speaker 1: for a Kamala Harris rally as she attempts to bring
Speaker 1: it all back to Trump's character. Do you think Donald
Speaker 1: Trump is a fascist?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 6: I do, Yes, I do. He himself has said he
Speaker 6: would terminate the Constitution of the United States and wants
Speaker 6: to earn your vote. To stand again behind the seal
Speaker 6: of the President of the United States.
Speaker 1: On stage with Harris in Atlanta will be Barack Obama, you.
Speaker 6: Are you running a go?
Speaker 1: A couple of days ago, Obama joined eminem on stage
Speaker 1: in Detroit and wrapped his two thousand and two hit
Speaker 1: Lose Yourself.
Speaker 3: Now, I notice my palms are sweating. Lose Leek, I's
Speaker 3: a heaven, Bama on my sweater, Runner on Spagunna.
Speaker 6: I'm nervous, but I'm a surface. I'm a comb and
Speaker 6: run it.
Speaker 1: The risk of rolling out a political superstar is that
Speaker 1: they upstage the candidate.
Speaker 4: That's problem. I've watched Barack Obama's rally a couple of
Speaker 4: days ago, and the guy's electric. He's completely comfortable, he's
Speaker 4: full of charisma and energy, and he's so persuasive. Barack
Speaker 4: Obama and Bill Clinton are the great persuaders of politics,
Speaker 4: and he looks so natural making all these arguments about
Speaker 4: Donald Trump. What's Donald Trump's plan for healthcare? Well, he
Speaker 4: has for concept of a plan.
Speaker 3: Now I want you all to think about this. Let's
Speaker 3: say your boss gives you an assignment, says, look, I
Speaker 3: need it by Friday. So Friday rolls around. Your boss
Speaker 3: says did you finish that project? And you said, well,
Speaker 3: actually I haven't started, but I do have a concept
Speaker 3: of a plan.
Speaker 4: Obviously, Kammler is trying to use him to the best
Speaker 4: of her ability to help her get over the line
Speaker 4: and deploy him as a political weapon. But I think
Speaker 4: the I think the reality is is that he is
Speaker 4: so much more effective in making these arguments than she is.
Speaker 4: But this is what she needs. She needs to be
Speaker 4: rolling out people like Barrick Obaman out. It really nail
Speaker 4: her message in. With less than two weeks now away
Speaker 4: from November five.
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris is directly appealing to American women on the
Speaker 1: hot issue of abortion rights, but that leaves the Democrats
Speaker 1: exposed with the other half of the population. There's a
Speaker 1: significant differential in Harris's popularity with men.
Speaker 4: I think there's been a problem for the Democrats over
Speaker 4: a long period of time which Trump has exploited. And
Speaker 4: I think this plays particularly towards young men who basically
Speaker 4: have this combative view towards the left now and in
Speaker 4: Donald Trump they see a figure and I conoclastic, irrev
Speaker 4: and political figure who's willing to give the middle finger
Speaker 4: to the left and the sense of political correctness and
Speaker 4: these trends of diversity, equity, inclusion, and some of these
Speaker 4: narratives about toxic masculinity and so on. So I think
Speaker 4: if you look at it from that perspective, this is
Speaker 4: one possible explanation for why Trump has been able to
Speaker 4: say outrageous things from the absurd to the extreme, that
Speaker 4: any other politician would never be able to say and
Speaker 4: get away with, and yet not faced a penalty electorally.
Speaker 5: They're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're
Speaker 5: eating the cats, they're eating.
Speaker 4: In fact, he seems to have been rewarded and edging closer.
Speaker 4: So I don't think that's something that you can really
Speaker 4: arrest in the final two weeks of an election campaign. However,
Speaker 4: I mean, if she loses, I think there will be
Speaker 4: some need to address this issue about appealing to young men.
Speaker 4: You can't just rely on young women to make up
Speaker 4: for young men abandoning you. So I think if they
Speaker 4: actually did something there that would make them more formidable.
Speaker 4: But to look that's said, it's pretty late in the
Speaker 4: dapt for them to be able to rectify that.
Speaker 1: I'd say, in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, Donald Trump was working
Speaker 1: a different angle, frying chips and flipping burgers at McDonald's.
Speaker 5: This is not a normal situation, isn't it. I don't know.
Speaker 5: When you want a good looking family, how did you
Speaker 5: produce those good looking kids? Of course, the whole thing
Speaker 5: was staged. The McDonald's was closed. They weren't real customers.
Speaker 1: Adam Crichton has been the Australians correspondent in Washington, DC
Speaker 1: for the past few years.
Speaker 5: But it completely dominated the news cycle. And despite the
Speaker 5: fact that now he's definitely a politician, he's no longer
Speaker 5: a businessman, but he's still the master showman and he's
Speaker 5: just got his mind on how things are going to
Speaker 5: play in the media all the time. And I think
Speaker 5: that stunt, and it was a stunt, really worked very
Speaker 5: well for him.
Speaker 1: He's got amazing stage presence. He is one of those
Speaker 1: people with the X factor, isn't he. How seriously do
Speaker 1: you think Americans are taking into account the things that
Speaker 1: they learned about him since the twenty sixteen election, For example,
Speaker 1: the events of January sixth, when a mob of his
Speaker 1: supporters stormed the Capitol, his reluctance to concede power. Have
Speaker 1: those things made a difference?
Speaker 5: Yeah, look, I think they have and he must really
Speaker 5: regret his behavior on January the sixth.
Speaker 1: We fight like hell, and if you don't fight like hell,
Speaker 1: you're not.
Speaker 3: Going to have a country anymore.
Speaker 5: Because I think if he hadn't behaved that way, and
Speaker 5: of course he would dispute obviously that he did anything wrong,
Speaker 5: but I'm sure in private he'd be like, oh, if
Speaker 5: I just had have said a few more things, it
Speaker 5: wouldn't be so bad for me. And I think he'd
Speaker 5: be a shoeing to win, because the reality is the
Speaker 5: Biden administration's very unpopular, and Harris is walking on eggshells
Speaker 5: trying to distance herself from it while she still is
Speaker 5: the vice president and she still has loyalty to Joe Biden.
Speaker 5: So it's a hard task. Now you have the huge
Speaker 5: influx of immigrants, which has been very unpopular in the
Speaker 5: southern border, and then of course you had a couple
Speaker 5: of years of nine percent inflation thereabouts, which hasn't happened
Speaker 5: in your decades. So those two things would ordinarily see
Speaker 5: the end of any government. But as you suggest, there
Speaker 5: is all this baggage that Trump has, and it is
Speaker 5: very huge, and it's certainly ways on his candidacy.
Speaker 1: It has to Trump's seventy eight now, and he says
Speaker 1: if he loses, he won't try again in twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 5: He pretty emphatically ruled that out a few weeks ago.
Speaker 5: It wasn't widely reported in the mainstream media, but no,
Speaker 5: he was pretty emphatic. He said, no, absolutely not.
Speaker 2: I will not run again.
Speaker 1: Coming up, can Trump actually win this? While I've got you,
Speaker 1: there's a new episode of our podcast Bromwin coming this weekend.
Speaker 1: It's the cold case investigation by one of the world's
Speaker 1: most famous investigative journalists, our very own Headley Thomas. You
Speaker 1: can check out the latter episode and hear all of
Speaker 1: Bromwin first and read all our exclusive stories by joining
Speaker 1: us subscribers at the Australian dot com dot au. Cameron
Speaker 1: Stewart will bought a plane to America in the coming days,
Speaker 1: where he'll join Joe Kelly and Adam Crichton on the ground.
Speaker 1: His intern will be holding the fort here in Australia
Speaker 1: while he's gone. I like your fairy friend.
Speaker 2: This is Corgy, a cat called Corgy.
Speaker 1: As the Australian's chief international correspondent, Cam's covered his fair
Speaker 1: share of US elections. He was there in twenty sixteen
Speaker 1: and again in twenty twenty. Cam was at Capitol Hill
Speaker 1: on January sixth when a mob of Trump supporters stormed Congress.
Speaker 2: No presidential election has been this closed for so long,
Speaker 2: for sixty years. And what I think is remarkable about that, Claire,
Speaker 2: is We've never really had such leading drama. We've had
Speaker 2: a sitting president at the eleventh hour abandoned his candidacy.
Speaker 2: We've had two assassination attempts, complete with a bloodied the
Speaker 2: year and a defiant vist pump.
Speaker 3: Ready shoot us down.
Speaker 2: And we've had the sudden rise of a black woman
Speaker 2: taking on a newly convicted felon. After all of that,
Speaker 2: you would have thought somehow or either one of the
Speaker 2: candidates would surge ahead. But here we are almost deadlocked
Speaker 2: less than two weeks before the election.
Speaker 1: Over the years, you've spoken to thousands of Americans. Cam
Speaker 1: what's your sense now of where where America is at?
Speaker 1: Are they willing to give Donald Trump another chance?
Speaker 2: I think they are potentially willing, Claire. It's interesting because
Speaker 2: the electric is changing. It's changed from the previous campaigns
Speaker 2: I've covered, and a lot of it has gone in
Speaker 2: Trump's favor to an extent. For example, Trump is now
Speaker 2: winning black and Hispanic votes that he never won before,
Speaker 2: and that doesn't get these and the Hispanic voters are
Speaker 2: still overwhelming with Democrat, but he's peeling off one tenth
Speaker 2: of them or fifth of them's according to some polls.
Speaker 2: And you know that could be a really important fact
Speaker 2: that in a close race like this we're seeing Trump
Speaker 2: his red red meat megabase is very loyal. They will
Speaker 2: never move. The key for Trump is can he win
Speaker 2: back the middle ground which he lost last time. Now
Speaker 2: in areas like the Hispanic vote, the Black volt and
Speaker 2: also just the mail vote. He's got very high support
Speaker 2: amongst men, that fifteen percent advantage compared to Krmala Harris.
Speaker 2: So there are who is a solid constituency for Trump
Speaker 2: and it could be enough to get him over the line.
Speaker 2: But on the other side, we have a gender to
Speaker 2: bide here where Carla Harris enjoys a massive amount of
Speaker 2: support from women. They are of about fifteen percent as well.
Speaker 2: And also we have younger voters. The difference I think
Speaker 2: between this and the twenty twenty election I Coavi Claire,
Speaker 2: is that a lot of younger voters are getting very
Speaker 2: energized and enjoining this. They're registering for voting now, et
Speaker 2: cetera on the Democrat side, mainly because they see Harris
Speaker 2: as a generational change a candidate where they didn't get
Speaker 2: that with Biden in twenty twenty. And I think that's
Speaker 2: something that the Democrats are really hoping will be a
Speaker 2: key factor here, get out the vote amongst young Democrat voters.
Speaker 1: Poles have been getting US voting sentiment wrong now for
Speaker 1: nearly a decade. So can we trust the polls this
Speaker 1: time around?
Speaker 2: There's a critical question because in twenty sixteen, of course,
Speaker 2: the poles famously underestimated Trump. He came and defeated tell
Speaker 2: to read Clinton when he was up to three points
Speaker 2: behind on the day. So the poles were very wrong.
Speaker 2: And then all the posters said, hey, that's okay, we've
Speaker 2: fixed it. We've worked it out. This is the signment
Speaker 2: Trump voter. We're going to adjust our polls accordingly. In
Speaker 2: twenty twenty, they are also disastrous. They underestimated the Trump
Speaker 2: vote by about three point five percentage points on average,
Speaker 2: So that meant that while Biden did win the twenty
Speaker 2: twenty lesion, he went up by far less than the
Speaker 2: poles were suggesting. Now the posters like the boy who
Speaker 2: Crow Will are saying yes, we've fixed it again. Believe
Speaker 2: us this time around. But now if they have, fine,
Speaker 2: But if they haven't, then Trump will win because the
Speaker 2: Poles are simply too close.
Speaker 5: So if the.
Speaker 2: Poles again underestimate Trump, he will win. And that's a
Speaker 2: real wildcard and that's certainly what a lot of Trump
Speaker 2: voters are quite hoping for.
Speaker 1: Of course, you can read and watch all the reporting
Speaker 1: and analysis from Cameron, Joe and Adam for the coming
Speaker 1: eleven days and life coverage of the results as they
Speaker 1: come in at The Australian dot com. Do you a
Speaker 1: day's subscription costs less than a small fry at McDonald's
Speaker 1: and that's not a stunt. Thanks for joining us on
Speaker 1: the front this week. Our team is Kristin Amyot, Leah Sammaglue,
Speaker 1: Jasper League, Josh Burton, Tiffany Demac and me Claire Harvey.