Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, October twenty nine. Unions are using Labour's same Job,
Speaker 1: same Pay laws to try to secure one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty eight million dollars in wage rises for labor higher
Speaker 1: mind workers. It's a big test of the Albanese government's
Speaker 1: signature reform. An investigation has begun into unproven allegations of
Speaker 1: bullying and censorship at the top of the New South
Speaker 1: Wales Prosecution Office following a public interest disclosure. Those exclusives
Speaker 1: alive now at the Australian dot Com dot a U.
Speaker 1: With just over a week to go until Americans cast
Speaker 1: their votes for President, the Senate and the House of
Speaker 1: Representatives on November five, Trump is closing in on Kamala
Speaker 1: Harris's lead. Today we join our correspondent on the ground
Speaker 1: at Trump's New York rally and ask can Trump really win?
Speaker 2: From here?
Speaker 1: Before we start, there are some rude and crude jokes
Speaker 1: in this episode.
Speaker 3: What a.
Speaker 2: Donald Trump Rally opens with a song, Oh God, bless America.
Speaker 1: And a prayer we thank you for blessing us all
Speaker 1: to live in the United States of America. We thank
Speaker 1: you for our founding fathers, who, by your guidance long
Speaker 1: before the man himself takes the stage.
Speaker 4: And I'd like to begin by asking a very simple question.
Speaker 4: Are you better off now than you were four years ago?
Speaker 4: I will end inflation, I will stop the invasion of
Speaker 4: criminals coming into our country, and I will bring back
Speaker 4: the American dream. We need the American dream.
Speaker 1: This is Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden, the most
Speaker 1: famous arena in the world.
Speaker 4: Richer, safer, and nine days from now. It's hard working
Speaker 4: patriots like you who are going to save our country.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Adam Crichton is the Australian's US correspondent and he's fresh
Speaker 1: from the Trump rally at Madison Square Garden. Adam, what
Speaker 1: is it that makes Donald Trump such a magnetic, unmissible
Speaker 1: presence on stage?
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, it's a very good question actually, because he
Speaker 3: speaks for so long at these these events. I mean
Speaker 3: tonight he spoke for over sixty minutes, and of course,
Speaker 3: as someone who follows him, I've heard it all one
Speaker 3: hundred times before. Although the stadium was packed in the
Speaker 3: Madison Square Garden was that capacity twenty thousand people, which
Speaker 3: is quite big. And people were leaving actually, like at
Speaker 3: the start of his speech, which I thought was interesting
Speaker 3: because I was talking to people on the way out
Speaker 3: and they had buses and trains to cash. Because many
Speaker 3: people had come from far, they were not locals. I
Speaker 3: mean I spoke to one woman who'd flown all the
Speaker 3: way from California just to go, and she'd camped out
Speaker 3: the night before to get a good spot in the line.
Speaker 5: But that's not an unusual story.
Speaker 3: Actually, I don't know how to explain it, because he's
Speaker 3: not classically a good speaker. He obviously has a very
Speaker 3: distinctive style, but I think it really just goes to
Speaker 3: the anger that so many Americans feel, and he channels
Speaker 3: their rage and they support him.
Speaker 5: The striking thing to me about today was just how
Speaker 5: long it was.
Speaker 3: I mean I got there at ten am to line up,
Speaker 3: and there were already three or four thousand people in
Speaker 3: the queue, and we didn't get into one, so I
Speaker 3: was literally standing up for three.
Speaker 5: Which was not particularly pleasant, I say. And then we go.
Speaker 3: In and then we go into another hurting pen, and
Speaker 3: then you get searched, obviously for guns and things, which
Speaker 3: makes sense. And then it started at two thirty and
Speaker 3: it went till about eight thirty, so it was like
Speaker 3: six hours of speakers.
Speaker 5: There's so much political rage in America.
Speaker 3: There's anger about inflation, there's fury about the southern border.
Speaker 3: And Trump is the politician that you support if you're.
Speaker 5: Angry about those things. And you know, I don't think
Speaker 5: it really matters how he speaks.
Speaker 3: I don't think it matters about his affairs, about his
Speaker 3: legal cases. Clearly it doesn't because he's now currently the
Speaker 3: favorite to win.
Speaker 1: That vision of people leaving, that's something that Kamala Harris
Speaker 1: go toed him with during the presidential debate quite successfully.
Speaker 1: It seemed to me that when she raised that that
Speaker 1: knocked Trump off his axis a little bit, and he
Speaker 1: became very defensive and kind of lost his thread. So
Speaker 1: what you're saying is it's true people are walking out,
Speaker 1: but maybe not because they're bored.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Look, I don't want to exaggerate the extent, but certainly
Speaker 5: there were.
Speaker 3: I was say, hundreds of people leaving kind of after
Speaker 3: he started, and he was meant to speak at five,
Speaker 3: and he started at seven forty, which is really late.
Speaker 5: Really late. I mean that's two and a half hours late.
Speaker 3: I imagine the average income in that stadium was lower than
Speaker 3: the average income in New York because everyone I spoke
Speaker 3: to was from a different state, mainly from New Jersey
Speaker 3: the ones I spoke to, so they traveled a good
Speaker 3: hour at least to get there, and they probably had
Speaker 3: trains to get.
Speaker 2: The first act was a comedian called Tony Hinchcliff.
Speaker 6: Where are my proud Latinos at tonight?
Speaker 2: What was the reaction of the crowd to those kind
Speaker 2: of jokes?
Speaker 5: I don't even want to say it. Almost Yes, it
Speaker 5: was quite crude.
Speaker 6: It's wild, and these are Latinos. They love making babies too.
Speaker 6: Just know that they do.
Speaker 4: They do.
Speaker 6: There's no pulling out, they don't do that. They come inside,
Speaker 6: just like they did to our country.
Speaker 5: Wins actually.
Speaker 6: Republicans of the Party with a good sense of humor.
Speaker 3: It was pretty distasteful, and of course Democrats seized on
Speaker 3: that straight away.
Speaker 5: And the Puerto Rican joke was somewhat strange.
Speaker 6: There's literally a floating island of garbage in the middle
Speaker 6: of the ocean right now. Yeah, I think it's called
Speaker 6: Puerto Rico.
Speaker 3: And you know, maybe this is because I'm not part
Speaker 3: of us cultural long enough, but you know, I don't
Speaker 3: know what it is about Puerto Rico, but this guy
Speaker 3: described it as a heap of trash.
Speaker 5: I don't know why you.
Speaker 3: Do that, because it's part of the US and there's
Speaker 3: lots of Puerto Ricans in the US, and I don't
Speaker 3: it was just somewhat gratuitous and unnecessary to make that joke.
Speaker 3: But anyway, he did, and I saw numerous high profile
Speaker 3: Democrats on social media saying, if the Dems don't do
Speaker 3: a campaign ad on that joke, they're crazy.
Speaker 5: I think the.
Speaker 3: Republican strategist would have been pretty annoyed about that joke. So,
Speaker 3: you know, for Trump, it was really an fu to
Speaker 3: the establishment in New York.
Speaker 5: And this, of course is the city that he grew
Speaker 5: up in. He knows it very well.
Speaker 3: And it's politically unusual to do a campaign rally in
Speaker 3: a solid blue state so close to voting day, but
Speaker 3: that's what Trump did.
Speaker 5: And I have no doubt.
Speaker 3: It was his decision because all the political people would
Speaker 3: have been saying, why don't you go, and you know,
Speaker 3: do this in a swing state. His media savvy is extraordinary,
Speaker 3: and he knows that the fact he did it in
Speaker 3: New York will be a major media story, and from
Speaker 3: what I've been seeing in the last few hours, the
Speaker 3: whole thing has completely dominated the newest media cycle, the
Speaker 3: whole thing, but it's got far more attention than any
Speaker 3: Harris rally has got in recent days. You know, despite
Speaker 3: the fact she's had all these huge stars.
Speaker 4: I'm Bruce Springsteen, and I am here today to support
Speaker 4: Marla Harris and Tim Watz for President and Vice President
Speaker 4: of the United States.
Speaker 1: Speaking of Harris's rallies, I've been interested to see in
Speaker 1: recent days that the caliber of stars who she's had
Speaker 1: on stage with her, Bruce Springsteen the other day, Beyonce
Speaker 1: more recently.
Speaker 7: Let's do this, Ladies and gentlemen, please give a big,
Speaker 7: loud Texas welcome to the next president of the United States.
Speaker 1: It does make me wonder whether this is going to
Speaker 1: help Kamala Harris or if it's going to make her
Speaker 1: look more kind of elite and out of touch all
Speaker 1: the things that Donald Trump would criticize about her. What's
Speaker 1: your sense of that, Adam, Having lived in the States
Speaker 1: now for a few years, do Americans love Beyonce so
Speaker 1: much that they will change their vote potentially depending on
Speaker 1: who Beyonce endorses.
Speaker 5: No, look my view is that these don't help Haris.
Speaker 3: There was a lot of anxiety amongst Republicans with a
Speaker 3: Taylor Swift announcement when she endorsed Harris very publicly on Instagram,
Speaker 3: but she got no bounce from that. These people are
Speaker 3: very rich, like they are extraordinarily rich. I mean, I
Speaker 3: think Swift and Beyonce are both big inet so the
Speaker 3: ordinary American earning sixty thousand dollars a year or if that,
Speaker 3: I think that they kind of resent those of endorsements.
Speaker 5: That's my sense, and in fact there is also an
Speaker 5: academic literature that says they don't help either.
Speaker 3: The momentum now nine days out, it is definitely with Trump.
Speaker 3: But if you look at all sources, whether it's polls
Speaker 3: or betting markets or even the interesting one is the
Speaker 3: share price of Trump's crappy immediate company, which has no revenue,
Speaker 3: but in the past month it's tripled.
Speaker 5: In price.
Speaker 2: Coming up? So can we believe the polls? And is
Speaker 2: Trump going to win?
Speaker 8: As the end of the election cycle gets closer, the
Speaker 8: focus of voters and campaigns shifts to the polls.
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but I've given up taking
Speaker 1: American political polls.
Speaker 2: Seriously.
Speaker 1: They were wrong in twenty sixteen when Trump first blindsided
Speaker 1: the political establishment to win. They were wrong again in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty when nobody thought Joe Biden could dispatch him.
Speaker 8: Multiple polling averages show a tightening of the race through
Speaker 8: three weeks of October.
Speaker 2: Real clear this campaign.
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris had an early lead, but over the weekend
Speaker 1: some polling indicated that lead was coming back to even
Speaker 1: Nate Silver is an analyst you're shot to fame for
Speaker 1: accurately predicting virtually every state's vote in the two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight election that brought Barack Obama to power. He's
Speaker 1: been right on numerous other occasions too. In twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: just like every other statistician, he didn't think Trump would win,
Speaker 1: but he gave Trump a better chance than almost anyone else.
Speaker 1: So I guess you could say he was less wrong
Speaker 1: than the others. Be is she back then as now?
Speaker 1: Is that you can only deal with what voters are
Speaker 1: telling polsters, and in this case, Harris is trying to
Speaker 1: win over women, including Republican women who've never voted for
Speaker 1: a Democrat, and the Republicans are hoping men will come
Speaker 1: out of the woodwork to vote for Trump. Those things
Speaker 1: are hard to predict because the decisions people might make
Speaker 1: on the drive to the voting booth, or they might
Speaker 1: decide to switch at the last minute or not vote
Speaker 1: at all. Early on Tuesday morning, Silver had Harris at
Speaker 1: forty eight point six percent, just in front of Trump
Speaker 1: at forty seven point four percent. That's a nearly two
Speaker 1: percentage point improvement for the Republicans in the past month.
Speaker 1: I leaned on Adam taking advantage of the fact he
Speaker 1: was exhausted after his big day at the rally to
Speaker 1: make a prediction for us.
Speaker 3: You know, at this stage, I'd have to say Trump
Speaker 3: is going to win. But what I struggle with is
Speaker 3: just that if he wins, it's the most incredible political comeback.
Speaker 5: In world history.
Speaker 3: I would say, I don't think that's an exaggeration, and
Speaker 3: I can't imagine it almost because he's just got so
Speaker 3: much baggage. He's so hatent by a large minority of
Speaker 3: the American population, and it is unfathomable. I mean, you
Speaker 3: think back two years ago when he launched his campaign.
Speaker 3: Everyone derided him, including that as it has been as
Speaker 3: a problem as someone the Republicans need to get rid
Speaker 3: of and he's proved everyone wrong. There's something about him.
Speaker 3: He has the X factor. So if you're forcing me
Speaker 3: to prepict I would say.
Speaker 5: Trump will win.
Speaker 3: But there's still nine days to go and it could
Speaker 3: get very rough and aggressive the next few days.
Speaker 5: Who knows what's going to come out of the news.
Speaker 1: Adam Crichton is The Australian's US correspondent and he's on
Speaker 1: the ground with Cameron Stewart and Joe Kelly. A subscription
Speaker 1: to The Australian also gives you access to all the
Speaker 1: reporting and analysis from our stablemate The Wall Street All
Speaker 1: and it starts at a dollar a week for the
Speaker 1: first four weeks. You can cancel anytime. Join us at
Speaker 1: the Australian dot com dot au