Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
Speaker 1: and we here at Breaking Points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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Speaker 3: But enough with that, let's get to the show.
Speaker 1: Good morning, everybody, Welcome to Breaking Points. I feel very
Speaker 1: weird doing that part. That's normally some Sager is part,
Speaker 1: but he is out sick today and so Emily is
Speaker 1: filling in for him.
Speaker 3: Great to see you, Emily.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me, Crystal, and thank you for sparing
Speaker 4: my ears. Because when Sager does the good Morning, I
Speaker 4: feel like I am dying.
Speaker 5: It is so loud.
Speaker 1: He really leans into it in a way that I'm
Speaker 1: just not actually capable of, because.
Speaker 3: We are the weaker sex.
Speaker 1: I'm just not capable of that kind of vocal oof
Speaker 1: that morning. That's exactly right, That's exactly right. Speaking of ears,
Speaker 1: there was a lot that we were listening to yesterday evening.
Speaker 1: Trump did his big Twitter spaces with Elon Musk it
Speaker 1: went just as well, if not even better, than Ron
Speaker 1: DeSantis's did when he launched his campaign.
Speaker 3: So we we'll share a.
Speaker 1: Little bit of they had massive tech problems, it started
Speaker 1: forty minutes late than when it did start. Trump's sound terrible,
Speaker 1: and there were a lot of interesting things that anyway,
Speaker 1: we'll get into all of that. We're also taking a
Speaker 1: look at some new pulling of where the race stands
Speaker 1: today Emily, and are going to dig into some policy
Speaker 1: stuff too. There's been really interesting conversation about the child
Speaker 1: tax credit. Jaie Vance brought that up in his Sunday
Speaker 1: Show interviews, so we'll talk about that from a left
Speaker 1: and right perspective, how realistic that is. Also, Kamalis still
Speaker 1: hasn't really revealed at all what her policy plan would be.
Speaker 1: Her running mate Tim Wall suggested what he would like
Speaker 1: to see them lead with. There's also a lot of
Speaker 1: discussion among the sort of democratic strategists types of hey.
Speaker 3: Maybe she just really shouldn't commit to.
Speaker 1: Any policy because vibes are easier to get on board
Speaker 1: with than specific policy proposals, So we'll look at that.
Speaker 1: We're also taking a look at something went viral with
Speaker 1: regard to the Olympics, there was a number of athletes
Speaker 1: who were sharing tiktoks and videos of themselves availing themselves
Speaker 1: of the free healthcare that they could get access to
Speaker 1: in the Olympic village there and what that says about
Speaker 1: the American healthcare system. We're also continuing to take a
Speaker 1: look at what is going on in Israel. Huge internal
Speaker 1: battle between the Defense Minister Yo of Goalan and bb
Speaker 1: Net Yahoo as they continue to await whatever the Iranian
Speaker 1: retaliation is going to be. The US military rushing significant
Speaker 1: assets into the region and what is a very scary situation.
Speaker 1: So Omar Badar is going to join us to talk
Speaker 1: about that. And I'm taking a look at the Israeli economy,
Speaker 1: something we haven't focused on too much, but there has
Speaker 1: been massive fallout in the Israeli economy and a potential
Speaker 1: sort of doom spiral that some experts and analysts are
Speaker 1: taking a look at as a result of this war.
Speaker 1: The economic impact of that, and also even before October seventh,
Speaker 1: had a significant outflow of Israeli's who were upset about
Speaker 1: the increasingly sort of religious fundamentalist direction of the country.
Speaker 1: So I'll break all of that down for us in
Speaker 1: a monologue as well.
Speaker 5: Chrystal, that is an enormous amount of news.
Speaker 4: And we're going to start with really what was unfolding
Speaker 4: last night in all of our ears because Donald Trump
Speaker 4: and Elon Musk first were delayed. What I think it
Speaker 4: was forty five minutes. Ultimately forty five minutes. Elon Musk
Speaker 4: blamed a cyber attack. And I have to say, Crystal,
Speaker 4: the group chat was absolutely electric.
Speaker 1: This is the group chat of all of us, Ryan Sager,
Speaker 1: Ellie and I the producers. We were going back and
Speaker 1: forth on this one. So first before the big Twitter spaces,
Speaker 1: this was also consequential. This is actually really probably more
Speaker 1: consequential ultimately than the Twitter spaces. Donald Trump has made
Speaker 1: his return to Twitter, so we can put this up
Speaker 1: on the screen. This was his first tweet back on
Speaker 1: the platform. He says, are you better off now than
Speaker 1: you were when I was president? Our economy as shattered,
Speaker 1: Our border has been a race where a nation in decline.
Speaker 1: Make the American dream affordable again, make America safe again,
Speaker 1: make America great again. I'm sure his investors over there
Speaker 1: at Truth Social, where the platform's sort of entire value
Speaker 1: proposition was having the sole and exclusive Donald Trump content
Speaker 1: resigning There are not too happy about this development. What
Speaker 1: do you think, Emily about the decision for Trump to
Speaker 1: return to Twitter because of you that I know, Ryan
Speaker 1: shares and I think I do too. I think Sager
Speaker 1: does as well. Is that actually kicking Trump off Twitter
Speaker 1: was doing him accidentally a favor because all of his
Speaker 1: most insane ratings were no longer in the public's eye
Speaker 1: twenty four to seven and enabled people to kind of
Speaker 1: put rose colored glasses on about who he was, and
Speaker 1: we saw his favorability ratings rise over time during that
Speaker 1: period that he was off the platform. So to me,
Speaker 1: this is not necessarily a beneficial move for him and
Speaker 1: his campaign.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think there's something to be said for that,
Speaker 4: although I also think with I wonder how much he
Speaker 4: actually uses because he sort of flirted with a Twitter
Speaker 4: comeback before and then it's just like they clearly take
Speaker 4: all of their posts to truth social So he had
Speaker 4: that big post we just put up on the screen
Speaker 4: like you know, we're make the American Dream affordable again,
Speaker 4: and it's supposed to be a very splashy debut boilerplate.
Speaker 4: Yeah right, yeah, So does he is he actually going
Speaker 4: to put all of his various musings that he puts
Speaker 4: on truth Social on Twitter. If he does, I do
Speaker 4: buy into the argument that it probably does him more
Speaker 4: harm than good because Twitter is so forward facing for journalists,
Speaker 4: it's much much easier to pass around his tweet. The
Speaker 4: barrier to entry for like dunking on Trump is much
Speaker 4: lower if you're in the media, and so it just
Speaker 4: drives that stuff that the Trump campaign would prefer not
Speaker 4: be front and center in the media conversation. You know,
Speaker 4: whatever he says about Nika Berzinski's facelift or something like that,
Speaker 4: it's not the stuff that they want to be talking
Speaker 4: about because the media will pick up on whatever dumb
Speaker 4: thing he said, even if to your point, christ like
Speaker 4: he he sometimes makes some pretty serious policy decisions via tweet.
Speaker 4: She hires people, hires people via tweet, But it's always
Speaker 4: the low hanging fruit that ends up becoming front and
Speaker 4: center to the discourse. And that's what the Trump campaign
Speaker 4: would rather not be front and center to the media
Speaker 4: discussion about the candidate at this point. So I don't
Speaker 4: know how much of a different difference it makes, but
Speaker 4: I do kind of buy into that argument.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the quote unquote adults in the room of the
Speaker 1: Trump campaign probably not super psyched about this development. And
Speaker 1: I mean you guys will all recall back in the
Speaker 1: Trump highly on Twitter era, all the journalists in DC
Speaker 1: had notifications set up, so the moment he tweeted something,
Speaker 1: it was right there on their phone. You know, sometimes
Speaker 1: things from true social will still pop and go viral
Speaker 1: and whatever, but it's just not nearly as common. It's
Speaker 1: not nearly as in your face, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: So we'll see how all of that developments. But let's
Speaker 1: get to the main event from yesterday.
Speaker 3: So he decided to do this big interview with.
Speaker 1: Elon Musk on Elon's Twitter spaces year we'll call Ronda.
Speaker 1: Santis also decided to do this very regrettably for him,
Speaker 1: as the launch of his campaign, it was beset with
Speaker 1: massive technical issues. Well apparently they have not worked out
Speaker 1: the kinks in however, many months between then and now,
Speaker 1: because it was again a technical disaster. As you said, Emily,
Speaker 1: I think they started something like forty five minutes late.
Speaker 1: Put this up on the screen. Elon claimed that it.
Speaker 3: Was a d DOS attack, like a cyber attack on X.
Speaker 1: It didn't really add up because the rest of Twitter
Speaker 1: was working perfectly fine. Other spaces on Twitter, I believe
Speaker 1: were working perfectly fine. And The Verge spoke to a
Speaker 1: number of Twitter employees and they said that it was
Speaker 1: ninety nine percent certain that Elon was lying about that
Speaker 1: attack because the rust of bacts did appear to be
Speaker 1: working normally, and a source of the company confirmed there
Speaker 1: was not actually a denial of service attack, So, you know,
Speaker 1: apparently they just still cannot handle the level. I mean,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of people trying to get in
Speaker 1: to listen to this thing. When I was on, it
Speaker 1: was like, you know, one point three million or something
Speaker 1: who were trying to listen to this audio. And this
Speaker 1: was after the forty five minute delay, so it was
Speaker 1: probably even higher when they were trying to start at
Speaker 1: the original time. They clearly just have not worked out
Speaker 1: the tech on this to handle this large a number
Speaker 1: of people coming to listen to any one of their
Speaker 1: audio only streams. And that's the other thing to remember,
Speaker 1: this is not even video.
Speaker 3: It's just audio. It's just audio we're talking about here.
Speaker 4: Right well, and also Crystal Trump, I thought this was interesting,
Speaker 4: clearly bought Elon Musk's claims about there being a cyber attack,
Speaker 4: and Elon Musk, It's not as though he just sort
Speaker 4: of had that as a throw a throwaway line. As
Speaker 4: they finally started, and I think he even posted this
Speaker 4: on X two. He was saying, you know, this is
Speaker 4: proof that a lot of people don't want to hear
Speaker 4: what you have to say. And Trump kept saying, you know,
Speaker 4: congratulations on breaking all the records. And anyway, it just
Speaker 4: at one point they sort of stopped in the middle
Speaker 4: of the conversation because Trump was trying to look at
Speaker 4: the number of concurrence that were in space, and so
Speaker 4: Trump obviously cared a lot about the numbers, and Elan
Speaker 4: obviously knew he.
Speaker 5: Cared a lot about the numbers.
Speaker 4: And I think clearly it was Elon convinced him that
Speaker 4: there was indeed some type of cyber warfare.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I or, I mean that was also convenient for Trump.
Speaker 1: It's also worth keeping in mind as we again to
Speaker 1: talk about this. Elon Musk is at this point a
Speaker 1: major donor to Trump's campaign, perhaps the largest donor to
Speaker 1: Trump's campaign. He is some dispute about how many of
Speaker 1: his millions he's planning to put in. Originally he had,
Speaker 1: you know, the indication when we see was going to
Speaker 1: put in forty five million dollars a month to the
Speaker 1: Trump campaign. So this is a conversation between Trump, and
Speaker 1: they framed it very clearly. Elon start ound at the gates, say,
Speaker 1: this is not I'm not going to ask any hard questions.
Speaker 1: This is going to be a quote unquote conversation so
Speaker 1: that you can get the vibes of what Trump is
Speaker 1: all about. So that's the framework for what we're talking
Speaker 1: about here, a quote unquote conversation between Trump and one
Speaker 1: of his largest supporters and you know, billionaire mega donors.
Speaker 1: And it's also worth recalling when DeSantis did go through
Speaker 1: a similar incredibly glitchy rollout. The Trump team was, of
Speaker 1: course totally relentless. You know, they absolutely savaged him for it.
Speaker 1: We can put this up on the screen as a
Speaker 1: little bit of a reminder of what they said about
Speaker 1: DeSantis's botch Twitter rollout, glitchy tech issues, uncomfortable silence, is
Speaker 1: a complete failure to launch, and that is just the candidate.
Speaker 1: So a little bit of karmic justice, I guess being
Speaker 1: repaid to Trump here from the DeSantis team.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know, even when DeSantis did it, I
Speaker 4: still like Elon Must, we always should mention is also
Speaker 4: a defense contractor. So when he's blaming cyber warfare and
Speaker 4: they're having those types of conversation.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's important.
Speaker 4: On the other hand, I do think Donald Trump, the
Speaker 4: way that Elon Must sort of theoretically said the conversation
Speaker 4: was going to not be quote adversarial. They were going
Speaker 4: to have just a discussion. And theoretically, I do think
Speaker 4: there are too few people who are willing to actually
Speaker 4: engage with Donald Trump, like on a psychological level. Elon
Speaker 4: Musk did at the beginning about how he was shot.
Speaker 4: Of course, Trump said at the RNC that he was
Speaker 4: never going to talk about when he was shot, and
Speaker 4: then sort of recounted it to Elon Musk in great detail. Again,
Speaker 4: and it's just psychologically, I think he's a very interesting character.
Speaker 4: So I was sort of curious to hear that back
Speaker 4: and forth with two psychologically interesting characters who are also
Speaker 4: enormously powerful.
Speaker 5: But then it just we're about to get into this,
Speaker 5: I know, but it just went.
Speaker 4: On and on and it just there was it felt
Speaker 4: like it wasn't, you know, anchored in anything useful, but
Speaker 4: we did, I guess gets some bit some policy substance
Speaker 4: out of it, didn't we Crystal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so a few things. I mean, first of all, yeah,
Speaker 1: it went on for how long. I actually I bailed
Speaker 1: at like ten thirty. I have to go to bed, y'all,
Speaker 1: I have to get up early. So at ten thirty
Speaker 1: I was like, all right, this is this is all
Speaker 1: I can do. I think it wrapped up what Emily.
Speaker 1: You stayed on till the bitter end. Maybe not too
Speaker 1: long after that, ten fifty or something like that.
Speaker 5: And then I had a glass of one. I wow,
Speaker 5: have a glass of one afterwards.
Speaker 3: Very impressive, very impressive.
Speaker 1: So a lot of it my big takeaway, just like
Speaker 1: consuming the as a whole, Most of it was not
Speaker 1: about Kamala Harris.
Speaker 3: The overwhelming majority of the.
Speaker 1: Critique was aimed at Joe Biden, and there was some
Speaker 1: about Kamla Harrison. I'll play, you know, some of his
Speaker 1: better hits on her. He hit her a little bit
Speaker 1: for not doing interviews.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: That was clearly part of the decision to do this
Speaker 1: conversation with Elon Musk was to make the point about, hey,
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris needs to sit for some interviews and get
Speaker 1: some FaceTime. He hit her on the stuff you would
Speaker 1: expect about borders are and she's too liberal, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. But most of what he had to say
Speaker 1: was about Joe Biden, and I think again reflective of
Speaker 1: the fact that he is really struggling to move on
Speaker 1: from his past political opponent. The other thing that you'll notice,
Speaker 1: I'm going to play this clip for you, you know, right now,
Speaker 1: talking about like the quote unquote coup that removed Biden
Speaker 1: from his position, et cetera, et cetera. You'll also probably
Speaker 1: note right away Trump appears to it sounds like he
Speaker 1: has a significant lisp in this entire conversation. That was
Speaker 1: a major also topic of discussion online, et cetera.
Speaker 3: We did some digging.
Speaker 1: We asked our audio engineer, hear A breaking points, what's
Speaker 1: going on with that, because one of the theories was
Speaker 1: audio compression. So in any case, I'm going to play
Speaker 1: for you the SoundBite of him talking about Biden and
Speaker 1: the coup, and then we can talk also about that
Speaker 1: content and about the quote unquote lisp on the other side.
Speaker 3: Take a listen.
Speaker 6: Don't forget I beat I beat Biden. He failed in
Speaker 6: the debate miserably yeh. He hasn't done an interview since
Speaker 6: his whole scam started, and say what you want, This
Speaker 6: was a coup. This was a coup of a president
Speaker 6: of the United States. He didn't want to leave, and
Speaker 6: they said, we can do it the nice way.
Speaker 7: Oh, we can do it the hard way.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I'm going to just talk him out back behind
Speaker 8: the shed and basically shot him.
Speaker 6: Know what they did with this guy? And I'm no
Speaker 6: fan of his and he was a horrible president, the
Speaker 6: worst president in history.
Speaker 1: So emily before we get into the quality of his voice,
Speaker 1: just your reaction to that particular SoundBite, and also the
Speaker 1: overall assessment that he spent way more time on Biden
Speaker 1: than on Kamala Harris.
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, I mean, I think that's right.
Speaker 4: I think the Trump campaign is still clearly trying to
Speaker 4: find its footing with the attack on Kamala Harris.
Speaker 5: They want to build this broader narrative about.
Speaker 4: Her being a chameleon and somebody you can't trust, and
Speaker 4: they want to actually extend that to Tim Wallace as well,
Speaker 4: but they obviously don't. I mean, I think there's a
Speaker 4: lot to work with there politically. I think there's a
Speaker 4: lot to work with there, but it has to trickle up,
Speaker 4: I guess the candidate, and when he's tried it sound
Speaker 4: it still sounds like he really wants to focus on
Speaker 4: Joe Biden. And I guess it's fair to a point
Speaker 4: because Joe Biden is currently the president and there was,
Speaker 4: as we covered here forever, obviously a cover up, and
Speaker 4: Kamala Harris was obviously part of that cover up.
Speaker 5: But I don't know about you, Chrystal.
Speaker 4: I have this sense that a lot of average voters
Speaker 4: have kind of moved on from that and watch it
Speaker 4: like they're just they're so glad to not have to
Speaker 4: vote for a corpse that they're like, actually they want
Speaker 4: to hear plans.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, And it's not just my that is my sense,
Speaker 1: but also the data really backs it up. I mean,
Speaker 1: you've got some close to ninety percent of Americans who
Speaker 1: were glad that Biden stepped aside, so they're not interested
Speaker 1: in going back and reltigating it.
Speaker 3: They're glad that he said, Okay.
Speaker 1: It's actually one of the most popular things he's ever
Speaker 1: done as president is to say I'm not going to
Speaker 1: run again. So no, I don't think that lands we
Speaker 1: covered yesterday some message testing that the Democrats did, a
Speaker 1: democratic firm did of like what attacks land the most
Speaker 1: effectively against Kamala and then how to best parry them.
Speaker 1: And this stuff about oh, is a coup and it's
Speaker 1: so unfair, and the stuff about oh, she's not really black,
Speaker 1: or she you know, changed her identity or whatever. Those
Speaker 1: were some of the worst tested. I mean, they just
Speaker 1: were not good attacks on her. And the type of
Speaker 1: thing that Trump is seems to be fixated right now.
Speaker 1: And also just you know, it's one thing if you're
Speaker 1: talking about Biden and you're just constantly tying Kamala to Biden,
Speaker 1: Kamala to Biden, all the things that you don't like
Speaker 1: about Biden.
Speaker 3: I know that is one of their strategies.
Speaker 1: That sort of the like quote unquote adults in the
Speaker 1: room want him to pursue, which makes a lot of sense,
Speaker 1: But it wasn't even that. I mean, most of the
Speaker 1: time he was just talking about his problems with Joe Biden,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. So in terms of the lisp,
Speaker 1: we also had some videos that were recorded in the
Speaker 1: room because one of the things that was floated is, oh,
Speaker 1: this is an issue with the mic, which again we
Speaker 1: talked to our audio audio engineer, and he thinks that
Speaker 1: is part of what's going on. Because if you listen
Speaker 1: to the clips that were recorded in the room, so
Speaker 1: this would be coming through a different mic, there still
Speaker 1: is a little bit of the lisp, but it's not
Speaker 1: nearly as extreme. So we pulled one of those clips
Speaker 1: just so you could take a listen to what we
Speaker 1: were listening to this morning.
Speaker 7: Well, I think we will. I'm pretty sure we will.
Speaker 6: And congratulations because I see you broke every record in
Speaker 6: the book with the so many millions of people, and
Speaker 6: that's an honor.
Speaker 7: We view that as an honor.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: So we got a quote from our audio engineer, Steve,
Speaker 1: so I don't screw up any of the technical details here.
Speaker 1: He says, the native audio recorded on the camera in
Speaker 1: the room with Trump does suggest he has a slight lisp,
Speaker 1: which is exacerbated by what looks like a common twenty
Speaker 1: dollars wireless love and lossy cell phone data compression, both
Speaker 1: of which can result in smeared sibilants, s's and f's
Speaker 1: a question with plenty of time to correct the bad audio,
Speaker 1: for example, switch to Zoom or Skype audio, or simply
Speaker 1: use the phone's microphone before eight pm or during the
Speaker 1: forty minute delay.
Speaker 3: Why wouldn't they, or better, why.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't two of the most high profile personalities in the
Speaker 1: world bring for a professional audio engineer on one end
Speaker 1: or the other. So Emily, that is the official assessment
Speaker 1: of the breaking points audio engineer.
Speaker 4: That's exactly what I was going to say, Crystal, done
Speaker 4: to every last detail.
Speaker 3: The sibilance, if you were on top of the sibilants.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was going to bring up the sibilants. I
Speaker 5: think that's crucial to this, but you know it is.
Speaker 4: We were just talking about how so many people are
Speaker 4: glad they're not having to vote for a course, Trump
Speaker 4: is old too, and some people were like, are his
Speaker 4: dentures slipping?
Speaker 5: This was like the discourse on X.
Speaker 4: I have no idea, but I do think anytimes it's
Speaker 4: fair game anytime an older person who wants to be
Speaker 4: president of the United States seems to be struggling with basics, words,
Speaker 4: et cetera.
Speaker 1: And it also raises I mean, we had a lot
Speaker 1: of discourse about this with regard to Biden, and it's
Speaker 1: fair game for Trump as well, because and I do think,
Speaker 1: you know, Biden being so old and so obviously in decline,
Speaker 1: it did hide the fact that, hey, Trump is also
Speaker 1: an old dude. To me, what's most noticeable isn't in
Speaker 1: any of these like you know.
Speaker 3: Verbal slips or whatever.
Speaker 1: It's his inability to be nimble and grapple with the circumstances.
Speaker 1: This is something you know, you see in older people.
Speaker 1: You're sort of locked into a routine or you're locked
Speaker 1: into a way of thinking and becomes more difficult to adjust.
Speaker 1: And his inability to move on from Biden seems to
Speaker 1: me to be part of, you know, representative of the
Speaker 1: age bracket that he's in at this point. But it
Speaker 1: also raised questions that you know, we were asking you
Speaker 1: mentioned our group chat. We were asking the group chat
Speaker 1: of like, you know, he only did he did this
Speaker 1: one rally in Montana. He doesn't have any other rallies
Speaker 1: on the schedule for this month. That is a dramatic
Speaker 1: difference from twenty twenty, even more dramatic difference from twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: So it does ask, you know, raise a question in
Speaker 1: your mind of is there something going on here when
Speaker 1: you have you know, this consistent verbal issue that I
Speaker 1: have never really noticed before with him over the course
Speaker 1: of this entire interview.
Speaker 4: I would imagine that security and money are probably involved
Speaker 4: in the rallies. I don't know if it's also an
Speaker 4: energy thing. I do think he sounded, since he was
Speaker 4: literally shot in the head, like he has like less energy.
Speaker 4: He seemed a little like, I don't know, down is
Speaker 4: the right word. That's just something I've picked up on,
Speaker 4: and it's totally understandable if you're a literal elderly man
Speaker 4: who took.
Speaker 5: A bullet to the ear.
Speaker 4: So I get that, although I do also suspect that
Speaker 4: those rallies are just crazy expensive. The security situation is
Speaker 4: now obviously totally different.
Speaker 5: So I don't know what's going on there.
Speaker 4: But he has seemed lower energy, and you know, to
Speaker 4: your point about him being older, he gets caught up
Speaker 4: in these stories like people's grandfathers.
Speaker 5: Do you know what I mean? Like just this.
Speaker 4: I think that's part of the reason why this thing
Speaker 4: didn't end for two hours. They just kept going down
Speaker 4: different off on different tangents. And when people call it rambling,
Speaker 4: it really was and not. You know, Trump can be
Speaker 4: interesting when he rambles sometimes, but this definitely wasn't that.
Speaker 1: Okay, we did get a little bit of I think
Speaker 1: policy news out of this, which is, you know, one
Speaker 1: of the Project twenty twenty five priorities has been eliminating
Speaker 1: the Department of Education. To my knowledge, Trump had never
Speaker 1: verbally signed on and endorsed that idea. He made a point,
Speaker 1: actually brought it up himself in this interview, made a
Speaker 1: point of backing this idea of complete elimination of the
Speaker 1: Department of Education. Let's take a listen to that.
Speaker 6: What I'm going to do one of the first accidents.
Speaker 6: This is where I need an Elon Musk. I need
Speaker 6: somebody that has a lot of strength and courage and smarts.
Speaker 6: I want to close up Department of Education, move education
Speaker 6: back to the states, where states like Iowa, where states
Speaker 6: like Idaho. You know, not every state will do great
Speaker 6: because states that basically.
Speaker 7: Aren't doing good. Now you look at.
Speaker 6: Gavin Newscombe, the governor of California. He's terrible. He's does
Speaker 6: a terrible job, so he's not going to do great
Speaker 6: with education. But of fifty I would bet that thirty
Speaker 6: five would do great, and fifteen of.
Speaker 5: Them, or you know, twenty of them will.
Speaker 6: Be as good as Norway. You know, Norway is considered great.
Speaker 1: Not exactly compelling pitch for this idea, and you're like, well,
Speaker 1: some of the states, you know, the kids in California,
Speaker 1: I guess they're screwed, but others may do okay, Emily,
Speaker 1: But I mean more noteworthy is just him backing one
Speaker 1: of the significant policy ideas on a Project twenty twenty five?
Speaker 5: Did he say Gavin new scum?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 5: Was it supposed to.
Speaker 3: Be a I don't know, did you.
Speaker 5: Just get the name wrong?
Speaker 4: Well, either way, Yeah, So the Heritage Foundation actually back
Speaker 4: in the eighties attacked the Reagan administration, and this is
Speaker 4: it goes along way towards explaining why a lot of
Speaker 4: so called like movement conservatives really latched onto Trump. The
Speaker 4: Heritage Foundation in the eighties, which takes a lot of
Speaker 4: credit for the Reagan Revolution, was attacking the Reagan administration
Speaker 4: for not abolishing the Department of Education. If you go
Speaker 4: back and look at their publications from the mid eighties,
Speaker 4: they were like, what happened? Why has the Apartment of
Speaker 4: Education been abolished yet? And so it's kind of like
Speaker 4: Trump embracing this. It's an example of him being sort
Speaker 4: of this willing conduit for ideas that movement conservatives have
Speaker 4: had for a really long time. They just haven't had
Speaker 4: a vehicle for them, because there's no way in.
Speaker 5: Hell George W.
Speaker 4: Bush is going to get rid of the Department of Education.
Speaker 4: So I think it's an interesting example of where a
Speaker 4: lot of people kind of in the conservative movement have
Speaker 4: saw with Trump someone who really will do some of
Speaker 4: those Admittedly, I'm someone who would support scaling the Department
Speaker 4: of Education to a state level.
Speaker 5: But that's admittedly like a radical position.
Speaker 4: That's admittedly like an extreme position and one that no
Speaker 4: Republican would dare touch other than Donald Trump.
Speaker 5: Probably. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, they spent some time too talking about He brought
Speaker 1: up what did he say, like there's a place called
Speaker 1: Argentina something like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, talking about.
Speaker 5: Here that this is one of their tangents.
Speaker 4: They went so deep on la and he said, in
Speaker 4: a place called Argentina, man ran on Maga worked out
Speaker 4: beautifully because to make Argentina great again.
Speaker 5: And they just did that for ten minutes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know, I mean, Javier Malay is you know,
Speaker 1: sort of anarcho capitalist, like hard libertarian, which is the
Speaker 1: opposite of It's funny for Trump to say this is
Speaker 1: Maga when in reality you know, the conception that was
Speaker 1: supposed to exist in twenty sixteen of MAGA was actually,
Speaker 1: we're getting away from these like hardcore libertarian ideas and
Speaker 1: there's more of a place for industrial policy, or we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about JD vans with child tax cred
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. So I mean, to me, it's
Speaker 1: just emblematic, as you said, Emily, of Trump doesn't have
Speaker 1: a lot of his own ideology. It's just sort of
Speaker 1: whatever's laying around, which is why he ends up in
Speaker 1: his first term doing this massive tax cut largely for
Speaker 1: the rich, because this was a project that had been developed,
Speaker 1: you know, Paul Ryan, Heritage, et cetera, had this thing
Speaker 1: locked and loaded, ready to go, and so that's why
Speaker 1: that ends up being the main policy accomplishment of the
Speaker 1: Trump administration. So you know, when there's there's an attempt
Speaker 1: by the Trump campaign to distance themselves from Project twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five, because it's always difficult to defend anything that's
Speaker 1: going to be in a nine hundred page policy document.
Speaker 3: They don't want to have that hung around their neck.
Speaker 1: But it's entire reasonable to look and say, no, this
Speaker 1: is this big, massive conservative project. This is the plan
Speaker 1: that exists and is likely major pieces of it to
Speaker 1: be implemented in your administration. I think this this moment
Speaker 1: is sort of confirmation of that. Moving on to some
Speaker 1: of the attacks that he did manage to make on Kamala,
Speaker 1: some of them were, you know, in the zone of
Speaker 1: what his campaign has tested and what they think will
Speaker 1: work most effectively against her. In particular, he talks some
Speaker 1: about her role as the quote unquote borders are under
Speaker 1: the Biden administration.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen to a little bit of that.
Speaker 6: And she's in charge of it because you know, now
Speaker 6: she's trying to say she had nothing to do with it,
Speaker 6: and she's such a liar because she was called the
Speaker 6: borders are the first day and it was on the
Speaker 6: headlines of every newspaper. She's the borders are and she
Speaker 6: never even went there. She went to one location which
Speaker 6: had nothing to do with where the problem is. You know,
Speaker 6: she went in and out, I guess because she was
Speaker 6: getting a lot of pressure, but had nothing to do
Speaker 6: with the problem was. But here was the borders are,
Speaker 6: and you people can't allow them to get away with
Speaker 6: their disinformation campaign. Now she's trying to say that she
Speaker 6: wasn't really involved, and the whole thing is horrible. She
Speaker 6: was totally in charge. She could have shut the border
Speaker 6: down without him. He didn't know what he was doing anyways,
Speaker 6: he wouldn't have even known what happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think Emilye politically, I do think this is
Speaker 1: one of their moresalient attacks, both because this is the
Speaker 1: one issue where he really clearly has an advantage over
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris in terms of who is more trusted to
Speaker 1: handle the issue, and it's one of the only issues
Speaker 1: that the Biden administration really put into her sphere. She
Speaker 1: benefits from the fact that in a lot of ways
Speaker 1: she was sort of, you know, kept at arms distance
Speaker 1: from most of the Biden administration, and so she doesn't
Speaker 1: get a lot of the blame for anything else that
Speaker 1: he did that may have been unpopular, or just the
Speaker 1: state of the economy which is unpopular. But here, you know,
Speaker 1: she really was put in charge the border. She really
Speaker 1: was sent out to do that interview. She really was
Speaker 1: sent out to, you know, go and try to get
Speaker 1: to the root causes of the problem and so make
Speaker 1: it more difficult for her to distance herself from what
Speaker 1: has been an unpopular track record in the Biden administration.
Speaker 5: Her fingerprints are all over it.
Speaker 4: And I also think what's powerful here is how horrible
Speaker 4: the media covers has been. And that's where he kind
Speaker 4: of started that specific tangent with is that. I guess
Speaker 4: it wasn't a tangent, but that specific line of argument
Speaker 4: with saying the media is covering for her she was
Speaker 4: the borders are and that's going to be really powerful
Speaker 4: for the Trump campaign. I don't know if like journalists
Speaker 4: understand how powerful that is for the Trump campaign.
Speaker 5: But when you're able to put.
Speaker 4: These headlines side by side, and when Trump is able
Speaker 4: to make that point over and over again at rallies
Speaker 4: and interviews, and you know it.
Speaker 5: Trickles into new media spaces.
Speaker 4: It is such a glaring example of media dishonesty that
Speaker 4: it does no favors to Kamala Harris.
Speaker 5: Actually when you're able.
Speaker 4: To call attention to it, because it has been really,
Speaker 4: really bad. The cleanup job and the rehabilitation of Kamala
Speaker 4: Harris's image not just on the border, but definitely on
Speaker 4: the border also though kind of a across the board,
Speaker 4: So I think that gives it an extra as he
Speaker 4: and you can hear it in that interview. It's what
Speaker 4: animates him more than anything. It's hard for her to
Speaker 4: get away from the very bad policies of the Biden
Speaker 4: administration on the border, which even if you're like left
Speaker 4: or right, you have a problem with it. There's basically
Speaker 4: nobody who's happy with the Biden border policies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's true because you know, in my view
Speaker 1: from a left perspective, they just adopted a lot of
Speaker 1: the hardline tactics of Trump, which Kamala Harris ran aggressively
Speaker 1: against in twenty twenty, and even just from political perspective,
Speaker 1: And I talked to Sagera about this some yesterday, so
Speaker 1: I won't totally, you know, relitigate all of it. But
Speaker 1: she's out with this new end that Trump's kind of
Speaker 1: referring to there. It's painting her as really tough on
Speaker 1: the border and basically adopting the Republican framing of you know,
Speaker 1: the thing we need to focus on is just a
Speaker 1: crackdown and effectively seating the ground that oh, immigration is
Speaker 1: just bad in general, and it's not even the most
Speaker 1: effective political message, and it does open her up to
Speaker 1: a very clear attack of this is not at all
Speaker 1: what you sounded like two minutes ago. You know, this
Speaker 1: is very, very different from the way you talked about
Speaker 1: and the way you felt about immigrants and immigration back
Speaker 1: when you were running in twenty twenty. And so not
Speaker 1: only do I think it opens her up to a
Speaker 1: really clear and fair hit on hey, this is you know,
Speaker 1: this is a major flip flop, but I also don't
Speaker 1: think that it is the most compelling political strategy for
Speaker 1: her to just buy into the Republican framing around immigration,
Speaker 1: because you're never going to be perceived as being war
Speaker 1: hardline on immigration than Donald Trump. And again, there was
Speaker 1: some message testing that bore that out that actually the
Speaker 1: most effective message for her to pairing these attacks about
Speaker 1: her being quote unquote borders are was for her to
Speaker 1: talk about make a pathway to citizenship and yes, people.
Speaker 3: Should come here legally. My own parents did come here.
Speaker 1: Legally, but we need to have a pathway that's available,
Speaker 1: and right now that's just not the case. So, you know,
Speaker 1: creating a totally different narrative and vision around immigrants and
Speaker 1: around immigration versus just accepting the Donald Trump framing of
Speaker 1: like immigration is bad and we need to stop at
Speaker 1: period end of story.
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, I completely agree with that I don't think
Speaker 4: it's smart politically for her to do it. I don't
Speaker 4: think it's going to end well politically for her, because
Speaker 4: this is the crux of the argument that the Trump
Speaker 4: campaign is developing. They clearly don't have it like totally
Speaker 4: perfect yet, and that's because of the candidate was sort
Speaker 4: of changed right before I can mention, and they're working
Speaker 4: to develop a whole new campaign strategy. But the centerpiece
Speaker 4: of it is going to be that she's a chameleon,
Speaker 4: that she's a.
Speaker 5: Flip flopper, that you can't trust her.
Speaker 4: That and this goes to the tax on tips thing
Speaker 4: as well, that she's just blowing wherever the political winds
Speaker 4: take her, and doing that on perhaps the central issue
Speaker 4: of the campaign, on the sort of in a way
Speaker 4: that makes your opponent's central argument. It just seems incredibly stupid.
Speaker 4: And by the way, Biden ran against the Trump border policies,
Speaker 4: like all of their rhetorics and Democratic candidates in twenty
Speaker 4: nineteen and twenty twenty, that their voters clearly wanted to
Speaker 4: hear was against it. And grant that we've had four
Speaker 4: years or three years now of a failed experiment in
Speaker 4: terms of Biden's policy, but I think.
Speaker 5: The rhetoric about.
Speaker 4: Again I don't agree with the framing, but the rhetoric
Speaker 4: about compassion and welcoming immigrants, it works really well with
Speaker 4: a big chunk of voters in the suburbs, especially that
Speaker 4: they need.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's popular.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you pull on immigration, it depends so
Speaker 1: much on the question that you ask, because broadly speaking,
Speaker 1: Americans do really value our self conception as a nation
Speaker 1: of immigrants, as a welcoming place, as the great melting pot.
Speaker 1: And so not only did Biden run on that type
Speaker 1: of rhetic in twenty twenty, he won on that type
Speaker 1: of rhetoric in twenty twenty. So, you know, I think
Speaker 1: that this is I think this is an error. You know, morally,
Speaker 1: I object to the policy direction, but I think also
Speaker 1: it's an error politically. And we've seen not just here,
Speaker 1: but there was a study of European parties and leaders
Speaker 1: who tried to move to the right. These were sort
Speaker 1: of like center left type, you know, Emmanuel Macron types
Speaker 1: who try to move to the right on immigration signal
Speaker 1: that oh, actually I'm the hawk on immigration, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't work because it demoralizes their own base and it's
Speaker 1: not credible to you know, voters who are immigration hawk
Speaker 1: voters that they're going to be more hawkish than the
Speaker 1: right wing people.
Speaker 3: My own sense of this politically is that most of
Speaker 3: the people who.
Speaker 1: Are single issue immigration voters, like they're not going to
Speaker 1: be voting for Kamala Harris anyway. So I don't know
Speaker 1: that it has the that it is the salient issue
Speaker 1: or the top issue that Republicans really hope that it
Speaker 1: will be. But there's no doubt in my mind that
Speaker 1: this is one of the places where they can draw blood.
Speaker 1: They're going to draw blood that they're going to lean into,
Speaker 1: and she's going to have to find a better way
Speaker 1: to deal with this, in my opinion, than she has
Speaker 1: thus far. But moving on, Emily, there are also some
Speaker 1: just like really weird moments, of course, in this long
Speaker 1: conversation between these two very you know, unique, we'll.
Speaker 3: Say, individuals.
Speaker 1: One of them, in particular, Trump starts talking about there's
Speaker 1: a new Time magazine cover of Kamala Harris, which actually
Speaker 1: go ahead and put a eight up on the screen, guys,
Speaker 1: just so you can see it. You know, it's this
Speaker 1: very like, hey, geographic puff piece of Kamala Harris. Her
Speaker 1: moment which she didn't even sit for the interview for
Speaker 1: this freaking puff piece, which is kind of pathetic.
Speaker 3: But anyway, she looks great in the cover.
Speaker 1: You know, she's an attractive woman, and they have sort
Speaker 1: of this drawing of her where she looks really you know,
Speaker 1: dignifying and really fabulous. And Trump talks in this interview
Speaker 1: about how beautiful she looks here and how much she
Speaker 1: reminds him of his wife, Milania.
Speaker 3: So let's take a little in that.
Speaker 6: And actually, she looked very much like our great first
Speaker 6: lady Milania. She looks she didn't look she didn't look
Speaker 6: like Camilla.
Speaker 5: That's right.
Speaker 6: But of course she's a beautiful woman.
Speaker 7: So we'll leave it at that.
Speaker 3: Right, Okay, what is he doing?
Speaker 5: What is he doing?
Speaker 4: And then he called her Camilla like does he think
Speaker 4: Camilla bucker bulls?
Speaker 9: Like?
Speaker 4: It's just it was that was incredible, maybe worth staying
Speaker 4: up for.
Speaker 3: There was another moment.
Speaker 1: This was on really on Elon's end, and most of
Speaker 1: the time it was just Trump talking and Elon could
Speaker 1: barely get a word in edgewise. But when they started
Speaker 1: talking about energy, Elon, of course, you know, with the
Speaker 1: evs and whatever, he had a lot of thoughts about energy,
Speaker 1: and he starts going off on this tangent about how
Speaker 1: actually nuclear fallout is not that big a deal and
Speaker 1: it's like overstated how dangerous nuclear fallout radiation is. He's
Speaker 1: talking about Fukushima, you know, the Japanese nuclear power plant
Speaker 1: that melted down, and he starts talking about how even hey,
Speaker 1: Hiroshima and Nagasaki, like they're great cities now, so it's
Speaker 1: really not that scary.
Speaker 3: It was like, what this is total?
Speaker 1: To me, that was the most insane moment of the
Speaker 1: whole thing. Trump just nodded along with it. He didn't
Speaker 1: really like pushback or say anything. It was mostly on
Speaker 1: Elon's But to be like, eh, nuclear weapons, nuclear fallout,
Speaker 1: that whole chernobyl thing, no big deal it was. It
Speaker 1: was really overblown. Was kind of crazy to me, Emily.
Speaker 4: We need to overcome our fears of nuclear catastrophe, like
Speaker 4: an apocalypse.
Speaker 5: It's it's just holding us back.
Speaker 4: But you know what, it came in the context of
Speaker 4: a somewhat interesting conversation because Elon was trying to make
Speaker 4: a point that he believes in climate change, he just
Speaker 4: doesn't see it as a sort of emergency or an
Speaker 4: urgent apocalypse, and I felt like he was trying to
Speaker 4: get Trump's response to that, and Trump just was not.
Speaker 5: Taking the taking the bait. He wasn't willing to.
Speaker 4: Say, yes, climate change is real, and it seemed like
Speaker 4: there I had two guesses. One, Elon Musk was trying
Speaker 4: to signal to everybody listening that, like he repeated over
Speaker 4: and over again.
Speaker 5: I have always seen myself as someone on the left.
Speaker 4: And Trump at one point said, yes, Elon, I've always
Speaker 4: thought of you as being somewhat left, and you know,
Speaker 4: they it was trying to make a point like I
Speaker 4: am not. I have not been this like red meat conservative,
Speaker 4: and I felt like he was trying to do that
Speaker 4: with the climate thing, or he was like, you know,
Speaker 4: I'm not maybe Ted Cruz or whomever. But Trump just
Speaker 4: didn't take the bait at all, and they ended up down.
Speaker 5: This like little detour.
Speaker 4: I guess it wasn't a detour, this little uh, what's
Speaker 4: the right phrase, what's the right metaphor for that, crystal?
Speaker 5: But it's not a detour.
Speaker 4: It was like a wrong turn down the road about Fukushima.
Speaker 3: Right right exactly.
Speaker 1: And then yeah, as part of that, Trump responded that, hey,
Speaker 1: if the oceans rise a little bit, I guess there'll
Speaker 1: be more ocean front property. So he definitely was not
Speaker 1: going with Elon along the Yeah, climate change, you know,
Speaker 1: it is a thing. It is a thing maybe we
Speaker 1: have to be concerned about. So in any case, before
Speaker 1: we move on to some of the latest pulling, any
Speaker 1: other reflections or overall takeaways on the big the big
Speaker 1: Twitter spaces here, there's a lot of propaganda on Twitter
Speaker 1: this morning.
Speaker 3: Oh billion people's et et cetera.
Speaker 1: These numbers are totally faked, by the way, and also
Speaker 1: because they usually count, they put it on everyone's timeline, right,
Speaker 1: So it was like unavoidable. So I don't doubt that
Speaker 1: there were you know, a lot of people that scrolled
Speaker 1: by it or saw that it existed, or like popped
Speaker 1: in for five seconds and then we're like, this is horrible.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm not.
Speaker 1: Sitting through this three hour discussion as we did. But
Speaker 1: what is your own overall takeaway on the success or
Speaker 1: impact or lack thereof of this conversation?
Speaker 4: You know, I thought overall it could have been really interesting,
Speaker 4: but I guess maybe it never could have.
Speaker 5: Been really interesting, if that makes sense.
Speaker 4: Like it they're two interesting people It reminds me of
Speaker 4: those SNL sketches where they put like Born together with
Speaker 4: Charles Barkley on that old It's like a mocking sketch
Speaker 4: of something that used to be on I think Bravo,
Speaker 4: and they put them both together and they have these
Speaker 4: like they take them to in the SNL sketch a
Speaker 4: cheesecake factory, and it's just mocking this idea that you
Speaker 4: put to totally like interesting people together, you don't always
Speaker 4: get something interesting. And that was you know, there was
Speaker 4: so much just agreement. There was so much signaling, like
Speaker 4: they were trying to both I think really signal to
Speaker 4: different you know, maybe it was donors or their peers
Speaker 4: that you know they.
Speaker 5: Were doing one thing or the other, like with the
Speaker 5: climate stuff.
Speaker 4: And you know, it's just important to remember that a
Speaker 4: tiny fraction of the public is on X a tiny
Speaker 4: fraction of the public, let alone in primetime on a
Speaker 4: spaces So I don't think it's going to move the
Speaker 4: needle much in either direction. And I do think it's
Speaker 4: interesting that Elon Musk was willing to do this experiment
Speaker 4: again after the DeSantis one had so many issues getting
Speaker 4: off the ground, and that Trump I imagine his team
Speaker 4: was reassured over and over again that they would not
Speaker 4: have any issues getting off the ground. And when you
Speaker 4: have a source in that Verge article saying there wasn't
Speaker 4: a cyber attack.
Speaker 5: I don't know. I don't know how that ended up happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think you know to the extent that
Speaker 1: this has any longer term repercussions. It's just listen, this
Speaker 1: is a campaign that doesn't have a lot of time.
Speaker 1: You know, they've already wasted a number of crucial weeks
Speaker 1: where the public is deciding what they think about Kamala Harrison.
Speaker 1: Now what they're thinking about Kamala Harris and Tim Walls,
Speaker 1: and the fact that you've spent those weeks, you know,
Speaker 1: spinning your wheels and going on with Aiden Ross and
Speaker 1: launching weird attacks about is she black or is she
Speaker 1: Indian and not.
Speaker 3: Effectively defining her.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's one of the big things that came
Speaker 1: out of the New York Times SIENA battleground poll that
Speaker 1: Saga and I talked about yesterday is you know, they
Speaker 1: tested a bunch of different character character traits on Kamala Harris,
Speaker 1: and she you know, people saw her as intelligent, they
Speaker 1: saw her as caring about people like them. You didn't
Speaker 1: even have a majority saying she was too liberal. So
Speaker 1: there's plenty to work with that's out there. The Trump
Speaker 1: campaign knows that, you know, they've done the testing, they've
Speaker 1: done the polling, they know what the focused group results say, etc.
Speaker 1: But because Trump is such a dominant figure that his
Speaker 1: messaging over whatever the paid communications are, are going to be
Speaker 1: way more effective, and because he really can't grapple with
Speaker 1: it now being Kamala Harris, they have already burned through
Speaker 1: a bunch of time. Now we're headed into the DNC
Speaker 1: and then you're headed into labor day and you're in
Speaker 1: the home stretch, and every day that goes by, where
Speaker 1: the true campaign isn't defining Harrison Walls, you combat the
Speaker 1: Democrats are defining themselves in the most positive way. The
Speaker 1: media is certainly happy to give them an assist, and
Speaker 1: at the same time defining Trump and Jade Vance in
Speaker 1: particular in the most negative way possible, which you know
Speaker 1: we're about to get to.
Speaker 3: So that's to me.
Speaker 1: That's the broader significance, not any particular thing that they said,
Speaker 1: even though some of it was kind of interesting and
Speaker 1: also kind of Wow, some of it. Most of it
Speaker 1: was actually really largely boring and uninteresting. But just the
Speaker 1: fact that they continue to burn time and attention and
Speaker 1: resources that they really don't have at this point when
Speaker 1: you're talking about getting into you know, a home stretch
Speaker 1: in a really condensed campaign timeline.
Speaker 4: I think that's a great point. I think it's a
Speaker 4: great point. And like looking to not seem niche.
Speaker 5: And quote weird. Yeah, there's just a lot of central
Speaker 5: kitchen table issues that need to be emphasized.
Speaker 1: So let's go ahead and get to some of the polling.
Speaker 1: One of the interesting things that can put this up
Speaker 1: on the screen that this individual was noting is Kamala
Speaker 1: has always has obviously turned this race upside down.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Trump had a very clear and consistent lead. He was
Speaker 1: ahead in all the battleground states. You know, it looked
Speaker 1: like things were just going his way indefinitely. Here Biden
Speaker 1: incapable of turning things around. But if you look at
Speaker 1: the top line number here for Trump in terms of
Speaker 1: how he was pulling against Biden, he was at an
Speaker 1: average of forty three point five percent of the vote.
Speaker 1: It's just Biden was down at forty percent of the vote.
Speaker 1: So if you look at the next chart that we
Speaker 1: can put up on the screen, Trump's total actually hasn't
Speaker 1: budged at all with the switch of Kamala Harris into
Speaker 1: the race. He is still averaging forty three point five
Speaker 1: percent of the vote. It's just that Kamala Harris has
Speaker 1: added nearly six points to Biden's total and she is
Speaker 1: up at forty five point nine percent of the vote.
Speaker 1: And I thought that was really interesting, Emily, because you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that has happened for Trump over
Speaker 1: the past several weeks, especially post assassination attempt, his favorables
Speaker 1: are actually some of the best that he's had, maybe
Speaker 1: ever and certainly in years. But his pole position has
Speaker 1: not budged. I do think that he has, you know,
Speaker 1: quite a feeling on his support because while Kamala Harris
Speaker 1: is really being defined right now and Tim Wallas is
Speaker 1: being defined, Jadie Vance is being defined, people know how
Speaker 1: they feel about Donald Trump. There's not much you can
Speaker 1: say about this man at this point that is going.
Speaker 3: To change people's views of.
Speaker 1: How they feel about him, love him, hate him, or
Speaker 1: somewhere in the middle. So if I was the Trump campaign,
Speaker 1: I would actually find this very concerning because they no
Speaker 1: matter what has happened in the race, they basically have
Speaker 1: been unable to move the needle beyond this forty three
Speaker 1: point five percent of the vote total, and obviously that
Speaker 1: would be insufficient to win either the popular vote or
Speaker 1: the electoral College.
Speaker 4: The ceiling is exactly the word that I was going
Speaker 4: to use, and I think that's always been a huge
Speaker 4: problem for Donald Trump.
Speaker 5: And what happens is that you can get to November.
Speaker 4: And if you can successfully define Kamala Harris and maybe
Speaker 4: to something sent Tim Walls as extremists. Trump, on his
Speaker 4: call with Elon referred to her as a San Francisco Liberal,
Speaker 4: which sounds kind of boomery, but San Francisco is such
Speaker 4: a mess right now that it just might work in
Speaker 4: places where, in fact there are a lot of boomer voters.
Speaker 5: And if you can.
Speaker 4: Do that in the weeks up to the leading up
Speaker 4: to the election and really paint them that way, then
Speaker 4: maybe some of that support that has gone to Kamala
Speaker 4: Harris in the aftermath of Biden dropping out leaves her
Speaker 4: and some of it goes to him. Not all of
Speaker 4: it is going to go to him. Some of it
Speaker 4: may go to Jill Stein. Some of it may go
Speaker 4: to just not voting. So if he can do that,
Speaker 4: that's where when people actually go to pull the lever,
Speaker 4: so to speak, he can make gains as people who
Speaker 4: say I.
Speaker 5: Just can't but I don't like Donald Trump, But.
Speaker 4: Man, I really I don't want Kamala Harris to turn
Speaker 4: America into San Francisco.
Speaker 5: Whatever it is.
Speaker 4: That's where the ceiling can suddenly be like budged up
Speaker 4: on election day. But it's tough. I mean, that's extremely
Speaker 4: hard to do. And that was one of his biggest
Speaker 4: problems with Biden. It's that like they were both racing
Speaker 4: to see who had the slightly higher ceiling, who could
Speaker 4: just like find a way to like a herculean you know,
Speaker 4: I can budget up one inch on election day because honestly,
Speaker 4: they both weren't very well liked. And if Kamala Harris
Speaker 4: can be well liked, that sort of game over.
Speaker 5: In my opinion, I don't know how well that's going
Speaker 5: to go for her, because this is what.
Speaker 4: Happened with her twenty twenty campaign. Had a honeymoon after
Speaker 4: a great rollout, was getting amazing media coverage, and because
Speaker 4: she goes into these weird rabbit holes about the significance
Speaker 4: of the passage of time.
Speaker 5: It goes away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, true, No, that's absolutely true. Right now she has
Speaker 1: we're all positive favorability rating. Her faves have gone through
Speaker 1: the roof in a really quite an extraordinary way. Tim Walls,
Speaker 1: also very popular, is actually the most popular person of
Speaker 1: any of these four individuals at this point. So right
Speaker 1: now you have a ticket that has pretty high favorability
Speaker 1: versus a ticket that has fairly low laved favorability, but
Speaker 1: cannot last because right now Kamala Harris is kind of
Speaker 1: in the sweet spot of the generic Democrat. By the
Speaker 1: time you get to November, She's not going to be
Speaker 1: a generic Democrat anymore.
Speaker 3: She's going to be defined.
Speaker 1: So, you know, are they able to bring down those
Speaker 1: favorability ratings and you know, bring back some of the
Speaker 1: concern that surrounded Biden, not about her age, but about
Speaker 1: whatever it is that you know most lands for voters.
Speaker 1: The other person who's a major factor in this, of course,
Speaker 1: is RFK Junior. There was just a court ruling in
Speaker 1: New York kicking him off the ballot there, which I
Speaker 1: think is outrageous.
Speaker 3: By the way. I think this. You know, they make it.
Speaker 1: Far too difficult for third party candidates to be on
Speaker 1: the ballot, regardless of how you feel about RFK Junior
Speaker 1: in particular, but they said that he was using sort
Speaker 1: of a sham address and so got kicked off the
Speaker 1: ballot in New York. It could precipitate other states making
Speaker 1: the same decision. But you know, one of the things
Speaker 1: that's happened post Biden drop out is some of the
Speaker 1: people who were disaffective voters Biden voters who were backing
Speaker 1: RFK Junior have now come home to the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: with Kamala Harris, and so you do have a more
Speaker 1: clear dynamic of RFK Junior taking away from Trump. So
Speaker 1: the other thing that could change that ceiling for Trump
Speaker 1: is if RFK Junior isn't on a lot of ballots,
Speaker 1: that pretty clearly helps Trump and adds you know, a
Speaker 1: couple percentage points potentially to his totals in you know
Speaker 1: states where that could end up really being the difference.
Speaker 1: So that's the other factor to keep an eye on here.
Speaker 1: Harry Enton over at CNN dug into some of the
Speaker 1: recent polling and found that one of the key reasons
Speaker 1: why Kamala Harris has improved so much over where Joe
Speaker 1: Biden was is because more voters now say, of the
Speaker 1: top issues I'm concerned about, she actually is the person
Speaker 1: who is most focused on them.
Speaker 3: Let's take a look out what they had to say.
Speaker 10: Trust more on the issue that's most important to you.
Speaker 10: This is among likely voters. And June, we're gonna look
Speaker 10: at a nationalvert.
Speaker 7: Look at this.
Speaker 10: We see Donald Trump at fifty percent. Look at Joe
Speaker 10: Biden at just forty percent. So Donald Trump had a
Speaker 10: ten point lead on the issue that folks said was
Speaker 10: most important to them. They could list any issue. Jump
Speaker 10: forward now to Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Speaker 11: What do we see.
Speaker 10: We see a completely different ballgame. We see Harris at
Speaker 10: fifty percent. We see Donald Trump at forty eight percent,
Speaker 10: within the margin of our but.
Speaker 5: A ten point advantage for Trump.
Speaker 10: I mean, you you go, and this this is the
Speaker 10: type of stuff that campaigns dream about and the Donald
Speaker 10: Trump nightmares about. Look at this, Harris, now with the
Speaker 10: two point advantage. This is significant movement. This is the
Speaker 10: type of movement that turns losers, which Joe Biden was
Speaker 10: a gunst Donald Trump in the winners, or at least
Speaker 10: leaders in the case of Kamala Harris over Donalds. And again,
Speaker 10: we don't know which issue is most important to each voter,
Speaker 10: but in terms of what they think is most important
Speaker 10: to them, that's where.
Speaker 3: Things have shift.
Speaker 6: So that could be inflation, it could be immigration, it
Speaker 6: could be abortion.
Speaker 10: Could be protecting democracy, it could.
Speaker 5: Be protecting democracy.
Speaker 10: Earn their position. Kamala Harris, forty five percent of voters
Speaker 10: say that she earned her position. Compare that to Donald
Speaker 10: Trump just forty two percent. Donald Trump and his campaign
Speaker 10: is losing the messaging.
Speaker 11: War right here. How about they are weird?
Speaker 10: This is not where Donald Trump wants to be leading in.
Speaker 10: But fifty five percent of voters in those seven states
Speaker 10: say that Donald Trump is weird, compared to just thirty
Speaker 10: nine percent for Harris. So the Harris campaign, their messaging
Speaker 10: or the messaging against them is not working for the
Speaker 10: Trump campaign, and the messaging from the Harris campaign is
Speaker 10: working against.
Speaker 7: The Trump campaign.
Speaker 3: What do you make of those numbers? Emily?
Speaker 4: I think that whole question is extremely useful, actually, and
Speaker 4: I don't think that about a lot of poll questions,
Speaker 4: but that one is super interesting because it's one thing
Speaker 4: to just pull people's top issues and then look at
Speaker 4: how they think, you know, any given candidate is doing
Speaker 4: on that issue.
Speaker 5: We don't know. It just doesn't give us as good.
Speaker 4: Of a window as just plainly asking on your top
Speaker 4: issue and comparing snapshots in time to each other. So
Speaker 4: I think that's very significant. I think it shows, from
Speaker 4: my perspective, how powerfully the media is still manipulating public opinion.
Speaker 5: That's not to say I don't think the Trump campaign
Speaker 5: is making mistakes. I do.
Speaker 4: I also think the Kamala Harris campaign isn't like doing
Speaker 4: incredible just the best campaigning you've ever seen that would
Speaker 4: turn the Titanic of public opinion on her around like this,
Speaker 4: because one of the benefits of that poll question is
Speaker 4: it's such a vibe snapshot. It reminds me of the
Speaker 4: polls about why Romney lost in twenty twelve.
Speaker 5: And then Trump won in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 4: People thought Obama cared more about people like them, People
Speaker 4: thought Trump cared more about people like them in.
Speaker 5: Some of these key swing states.
Speaker 4: So those vibe pole questions are actually really important. And
Speaker 4: this one, I think, you know, the Harris campaign should
Speaker 4: be very cautious because I suspect that they will start
Speaker 4: to see numbers like this going down. On the other hand,
Speaker 4: the Trump campaign isn't you know, doing a slam dunk
Speaker 4: on making their argument right now either. So I think
Speaker 4: it's a little bit of both. But huge takeaway for me,
Speaker 4: and I know we're going to talk about Jendie Vance
Speaker 4: in just a second, is how powerfully this media honeymoon
Speaker 4: is shaping the vibes right now.
Speaker 1: The weird framing is landing. I mean that's what that
Speaker 1: poll shows, basically, like the Democratic frame is landing. And
Speaker 1: then Trump you brought this up earlier, Emily, this his
Speaker 1: fixation and concern that you know, this was a coup
Speaker 1: and she's illegitimate and this was you know, signaled by
Speaker 1: also the argument that she's a quote unquote DEI candidate
Speaker 1: is not landing. You've got more people saying she earned
Speaker 1: her position than Donald Trump, which is pretty incredible since
Speaker 1: he did have to go through a primary process and
Speaker 1: she didn't. But it just you know, there's there's number one,
Speaker 1: it's not a hit that is just landing with the
Speaker 1: American who's not their top concern. They're glad that Biden
Speaker 1: stepped decide. And number two, there hasn't been any consistency
Speaker 1: of messaging coming from the Republican side, which makes it
Speaker 1: much more difficult for any of their attempted framing to
Speaker 1: really land. We were talking the weird thing is, you
Speaker 1: know JD. Vance really sort of propelled that framing of
Speaker 1: the Republican Party to the forefront. In fact, when Trump
Speaker 1: was asked about the weird framing at a donor event,
Speaker 1: he said he basically threw JD under the bus and
Speaker 1: was like, well, they're mostly saying that about JD. But
Speaker 1: there's some new focus group testing showing, you know that
Speaker 1: the Trump campaign's attempts to define JD in context of
Speaker 1: his biography and his story and you know, his bootstrap
Speaker 1: story and the best selling biography and all of these
Speaker 1: things have really not been the thing that have caught
Speaker 1: on with the American public. The democratic framing has been
Speaker 1: much more potent in terms of how people are thinking
Speaker 1: about the JD.
Speaker 3: Vance pick.
Speaker 1: Let's put this up on the screen. Now, this is
Speaker 1: from a Democratic poster, so all the caveats are important here, Semaphore,
Speaker 1: wrote Hoffman Reid Hoffman backed poll of how people are
Speaker 1: viewing JD.
Speaker 3: Vance.
Speaker 1: First of all, this is consistent across a number of polls.
Speaker 1: His net favorability has fallen from minus seven to minus eleven,
Speaker 1: and you have fewer voters unsure either way. That's why
Speaker 1: these early attempts at defining candids are so important, because
Speaker 1: once a particular view is locked in, it's much harder
Speaker 1: to change once you have your first impression versus if
Speaker 1: you're trying to shift down the road what you think
Speaker 1: of a candidate. You know, it's very difficult if people
Speaker 1: already think Hillary Clinton his crooked Hillary Clinton. Good luck
Speaker 1: trying to change that public perception.
Speaker 11: Right.
Speaker 1: So they asked respondence how they viewed Advance, and this
Speaker 1: is the semaphore write up. They say he's become more
Speaker 1: and more identified with his particular brand of conservatism and
Speaker 1: less with his fame biography as an author, veteran, and politician.
Speaker 1: Presented with a list of options to describe Vance in August,
Speaker 1: the most common answers were conservative, anti woman, and weird.
Speaker 1: More positive options like young, smart and businessman declined from July,
Speaker 1: and the percentage calling him extreme shot up thirteen points.
Speaker 1: We could put this next piece up on the screen,
Speaker 1: highlighted by podsaves Tom Here, he says brutal new polling
Speaker 1: presented with a list of options describe Vance in August,
Speaker 1: the most common answers were conservative, anti woman.
Speaker 3: And weird.
Speaker 1: They were also participants were very aware. They were most
Speaker 1: aware of the childless cat lady comments. Fifty percent of
Speaker 1: those surveyed said they had heard the remarks, and fifty
Speaker 1: five percent said that they were bothered by them. Scoring
Speaker 1: worse but less well known, was a twenty twenty one
Speaker 1: interview in which he defended a Texas abortion laws lack
Speaker 1: of exceptions for rape and incests by suggesting pregnancies from
Speaker 1: such circumstances are inconvenient. Sixty two percent of voter said
Speaker 1: they were bothered that Vance used the word inconvenient to
Speaker 1: describe pregnancies that stem from rape and incest, with fifty
Speaker 1: percent reporting it bothers me a lot. So that particular
Speaker 1: comment that he had made hasn't gotten as much traction
Speaker 1: and pick up. People were less aware of it, but
Speaker 1: they're actually more bothered by that than the childless cat
Speaker 1: lady comments, which they were also rather sort of bothered
Speaker 1: and offended by.
Speaker 4: And those with I mean, here's what just drives me crazy,
Speaker 4: and I'm on the right, so obviously everyone could take
Speaker 4: this with a grain of salt.
Speaker 5: But the coverage of Tim Walls has.
Speaker 4: Been I think he is like a fairly talented politician,
Speaker 4: but the coverage of him has been insane. I mean
Speaker 4: down to the like the type of llban barn jacket
Speaker 4: that he's wearing, and there've been like twenty stories about
Speaker 4: his fashion choices. There have been, however, many stories about
Speaker 4: how Kamala Harris is captaigning on joy and how Tim
Speaker 4: Walls is bringing this folksy you know, accent to the ticket,
Speaker 4: whereas I think the only dose of cold water I
Speaker 4: have seen corporate media throw on anything to do with
Speaker 4: Tim waalts sincerely. Other than like, there's some of the
Speaker 4: stolen ballar questions that they've covered a bit, but other
Speaker 4: than that, he is the rural whisper. Except for this
Speaker 4: one segment that we talked about last week that Steve
Speaker 4: Cornaki did showing that Tim Wallas owed his victory to
Speaker 4: running up big margins to his credit in the Twin
Speaker 4: Cities and actually is not super well like outside of
Speaker 4: the Twin Cities and some of these rural counties. And
Speaker 4: it just the side by side of how the cat
Speaker 4: lady comment was bouncing around.
Speaker 5: It was like two years old.
Speaker 4: I thought it was wrong. I've talked about that. It
Speaker 4: bounced all over pop culture. It was, it just took off,
Speaker 4: and you just like I get that.
Speaker 5: JD.
Speaker 4: Vance is absolutely a movement conservative like new right kind
Speaker 4: of guy. I think the people like us are weird. Like,
Speaker 4: don't get me wrong, I do think that's all weird.
Speaker 4: But at the same time, it's like, good lord. The
Speaker 4: juxtaposition of coverage here has been infuriating, and I think
Speaker 4: it does contribute to some of these these imbalances, and
Speaker 4: it just it's been watching the shifts has reinforced to
Speaker 4: me that these gatekeepers are still powerful. They've never been
Speaker 4: less powerful, but they're still powerful enough to make a
Speaker 4: difference in manipulating public opinion to some extent. That's not
Speaker 4: to excuse the errors that Republicans are making, because they
Speaker 4: are making them, but.
Speaker 1: You know, I mean, listen, there's there's no doubt like
Speaker 1: the MSNBC and CNNs of the world, they're liberal inclined, right,
Speaker 1: They're very pro democratic is now, there's no doubt about that.
Speaker 1: But also like Republicans know that going in, you know,
Speaker 1: so it's true, it's and it's not like Republicans have
Speaker 1: never been able to make their messages land about candidates.
Speaker 1: Before the entire country thought Joe Biden was really old,
Speaker 1: even though you know, even though the media for a
Speaker 1: while didn't really want to cover it or say anything
Speaker 1: about it, the public really thought Hillary Clinton was corrupt
Speaker 1: and crooked and you know, had real issues in terms
Speaker 1: of her sort of honesty. And that wasn't a narrative
Speaker 1: that the mainstream press wanted to push, but it was
Speaker 1: what people had observed. And let's not forget conservatives have
Speaker 1: their own very powerful media organs at this point too.
Speaker 1: I mean, Fox News much larger than CNN or MSNBC.
Speaker 3: So I don't know. I I'm sorry, Emily. I think
Speaker 3: it's cope because I think.
Speaker 4: Most Americans also thought thought Kamala Harris was kind of
Speaker 4: a joke until the media started to cover Kamala Harris
Speaker 4: really powerfully and she replaced Joe Biden, which I understand.
Speaker 4: But I do feel like there's been an element of
Speaker 4: the media really rehabilitating her image successfully with some people,
Speaker 4: not with everybody.
Speaker 5: That's with some people, though.
Speaker 1: I think there's some fairness to that. But also I
Speaker 1: do I anticipated, and I think you did as well,
Speaker 1: that people would just be so happy to have another
Speaker 1: option that.
Speaker 3: There would be.
Speaker 1: You can't fake the level of enthusiasm that exists for her,
Speaker 1: like the media can't manufacture. If they could, they would
Speaker 1: have manufactured it for Hillary Clinton, you know, they would
Speaker 1: have manufactured it for Joe Biden and they couldn't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so yes, they're getting a media assist. There's no doubt
Speaker 1: about it. There's any number of like glowing profiles and
Speaker 1: the conversations about the vibes and oh my god, who's
Speaker 1: behind her social media brilliance? And very few critical questions
Speaker 1: that I want to see asked about what is your
Speaker 1: policy right? Are you going to give in to the
Speaker 1: billionaire demands to fire Lenacon for example?
Speaker 3: What are you going to do on Israel? What are
Speaker 3: you going to do on Ukraine?
Speaker 1: I want to see those critical questions ask too. So
Speaker 1: I'm also very you know, I'm not happy with the
Speaker 1: way that the media has approached this, but I also
Speaker 1: don't think you can deny there's a genuine enthusiasm for her.
Speaker 1: There's a genuine enthusiasm for Tim Wallace, who is a
Speaker 1: very talented politician, does have a way of speaking that
Speaker 1: has worked for him politically, not just in terms of
Speaker 1: that gubernatorial race. But this is a guy who won
Speaker 1: a district that Trump won by I think twelve points.
Speaker 1: He outperformed Hillary Clinton in a you know, pretty red
Speaker 1: district that has only been one in terms of the
Speaker 1: Democratic side, has only been won by him over the
Speaker 1: past number of decades.
Speaker 5: So I never performed Joe Biden though, which is interesting.
Speaker 3: He in twenty twenty. When are you talking about in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty, ye perform job?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Compared to it?
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, So when he won his gubernatorial election, he
Speaker 4: was underperforming compared with Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: But when you look at his overall, you know, electoral
Speaker 1: track record, this is someone who does have a track
Speaker 1: record of appealing to voters that you know, politicians like
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris has struggled with. All he has to do
Speaker 1: is help to return to the Joe Biden levels of
Speaker 1: like white rural.
Speaker 3: Working class support.
Speaker 1: It's not like anyone is expecting Democrats to win those groups. So,
Speaker 1: you know, if you look at the ticket right now,
Speaker 1: he is the most popular of all four. He is
Speaker 1: the most popular. He's plus like eleven in the state
Speaker 1: of Pennsylvania. And you don't get there by only appealing
Speaker 1: to the suburbs, so you know, as a media part
Speaker 1: of them, of course, of course. But you know, I've
Speaker 1: seen Republicans be very capable at driving a message in
Speaker 1: the past, and so far they just have not really
Speaker 1: landed on a consistent message that has worked to dg
Speaker 1: up either one of these And as you're pointed out
Speaker 1: with like the stolen valor quote unquote questions about Tim Wallas,
Speaker 1: it's not like when pressed they won't bring up some
Speaker 1: of these points and put Democrats in a difficult position
Speaker 1: have to answer for it. And I guess we'll wait
Speaker 1: and see what the polls say in a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks now that those attacks have a chance to sort
Speaker 1: of like you know, be processed by the broader electorate,
Speaker 1: whether that has been a successful line of attack to
Speaker 1: you know, dig him up and bring down some of
Speaker 1: his favorability ratings.
Speaker 4: And we forgot to mention actually one of the strangest
Speaker 4: moments in the spaces last night was Trump talking about tampons.
Speaker 5: Obviously tampon Tim, Yeah, tampon Tim.
Speaker 4: I think he said the line was something like, you
Speaker 4: know what, he puts tampons in boys bathoms.
Speaker 5: That's all I needed to know. Something like that that
Speaker 5: was yeoint, But yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3: There's not to be charges with that one.
Speaker 4: Talking about tampons with Elon Musk, Yeah, it doesn't doesn't help.
Speaker 5: Probably, all right.
Speaker 1: Let's talk some more policy because this was interesting. Jade
Speaker 1: Vance did a bunch of Sunday Show interviews and you know,
Speaker 1: really leaning into his role as the attack dog on
Speaker 1: the Trump campaign. In fact, at this point he's way
Speaker 1: more out there invisible than even Trump is in terms
Speaker 1: of the number of interviews he's doing, and he's doing rallies.
Speaker 1: Trump is not doing rallies, but he's doing all these rallies.
Speaker 1: So it was really interesting to hear how he parried
Speaker 1: some of the attacks that were coming his way on
Speaker 1: childless cat ladies and on the overall ticket. But he
Speaker 1: made one significant policy pronouncement that he would like to
Speaker 1: see a larger child tax credit. Let's take a listen
Speaker 1: to what he had to say.
Speaker 12: It's called the child tax credit, and we should expand
Speaker 12: the child tax credit.
Speaker 11: If you think about what the child.
Speaker 3: Tax you had the Bido administration agree on the.
Speaker 5: Childcare tax credit, Well, we think it should be bigger.
Speaker 12: I think President Trump and I believe in expanded child
Speaker 12: tax credit, but we also importantly want to actually get
Speaker 12: this thing done. The child tax credit has languished thanks
Speaker 12: to the Biden administration because Harris has failed to show
Speaker 12: fundamental leadership. Chuck Schumer's have been unable to get it
Speaker 12: through the United States Senate. And we want to have
Speaker 12: a more pro family policy.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 3: Now, there was you know that, and we weren't. We
Speaker 3: weren't there, but it was a messaging bill.
Speaker 5: I'll give you that.
Speaker 11: It was a show vote. I'm with you, and if
Speaker 11: I had been there, it would have failed.
Speaker 1: And I specifically what you want to do to expand
Speaker 1: the childcare tax credit because it's like two grand per
Speaker 1: kid right now.
Speaker 12: Well, I think one of the things you can do
Speaker 12: is make it bigger per child. I think we'd love
Speaker 12: to see at a higher dollar value. And again President
Speaker 12: Trump and I have proposed that. I mean, look, I'd
Speaker 12: love to see a child tax credit that's five thousand
Speaker 12: dollars per child, but you, of course have to work
Speaker 12: with Congress to see how possible and viable that is.
Speaker 12: We've also proposed legislation, Margaret, to end this practice of
Speaker 12: parents getting these surprise medical bills where they go to
Speaker 12: the hospital they have a baby, they chose an out
Speaker 12: of network provider, and they come home with unexpected bills.
Speaker 12: I've actually sponsored legislation to end that practice. So we
Speaker 12: have a whole host of pro family policies that are
Speaker 12: out there.
Speaker 11: And again on the Harris administration, I got to push back.
Speaker 12: Against something a little bit, Margaret, because when these comments
Speaker 12: where I said parents should pay lower taxes via the
Speaker 12: child tax credit came out, the Harris administration immediately jumped
Speaker 12: and said we disagree with this. The Harris campaign said
Speaker 12: we disagree with this, so that they want the elimination
Speaker 12: of the child tax credit or were they just being
Speaker 12: careless and responding to remarks that I made three years ago.
Speaker 1: Emily, what did you make of these comments and their significance.
Speaker 4: I thought he did a really good job in that exchange.
Speaker 4: I thought he did, and that's another reason. Sorry not
Speaker 4: to bring it back to the media conversation, but I
Speaker 4: actually think jad Vance has been as there have been
Speaker 4: all of these conversations about how Trump might want to
Speaker 4: ditch him from the ticket and he's dragging everyone down.
Speaker 5: And his unfavorables are dipping.
Speaker 4: There's this other storyline that while that's happening, the Trump
Speaker 4: campaign is putting him on all the Sunday shows, and
Speaker 4: he's doing a fairly good job, which is an interesting
Speaker 4: I mean, it signals confidence and signals that the campaign
Speaker 4: still has confidence in Jadie Vance. And I don't know
Speaker 4: if he can turn his own numbers around by being
Speaker 4: forward facing in the media like this, but I actually
Speaker 4: thought he handled that really well. One of the big
Speaker 4: overlying questions though, is whether there are enough Republicans who
Speaker 4: Donald Trump would surround himself with in the second Trump
Speaker 4: administration who go along with this. Now, the tax bill
Speaker 4: in this that passed through under the Trump administration did
Speaker 4: have a meaningful child tax credit in it because Marco
Speaker 4: Rubio and some other sort of new right guys pushed
Speaker 4: for it, but a lot of them wanted it to
Speaker 4: be bigger. And there's a huge question as to whether
Speaker 4: those kind of conservative movement folks we talked about earlier
Speaker 4: in the show actually who Donald Trump would surround himself with,
Speaker 4: are good with a five thousand dollars child tax credit,
Speaker 4: which is extremely generous. Another thing that's kicked around in
Speaker 4: the New right is free births. If you go to
Speaker 4: a hospital and give birth, you don't have a bill
Speaker 4: that is totally subsidized and covered by the government. These
Speaker 4: are ideas that I think are fantastic. They're easy to
Speaker 4: sell on shows like this, but are they viable with
Speaker 4: other Republicans. I still have huge questions about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean the recent voting history would suggest no.
Speaker 1: And also listen, Jade Vance can support whatever Ja d
Speaker 1: Vance wants to support. I've never heard Trump talk about
Speaker 1: a child tax credit. He had four hours or whatever
Speaker 1: with Elon Musk on X yesterday to talk about it,
Speaker 1: and it did not come up, at least unless it
Speaker 1: was in the last ten minutes when I tapp down.
Speaker 5: Now it wasn't. It wasn't.
Speaker 1: So you know, ultimately what Jadie Vance says on the
Speaker 1: topic is not all that important. And as I was
Speaker 1: just alluding to, you know, Democrats expand the child tax
Speaker 1: credit was expanded during the COVID crisis. Democrats wanted to
Speaker 1: extend it and it was blocked by Republicans and they
Speaker 1: just had a vote. Jady actually brought this up because
Speaker 1: he got pressed on a little bit. They just had
Speaker 1: a vote on expanding the child tax credit. He didn't
Speaker 1: show up for the vote. Okay, that's one thing that
Speaker 1: you can sort of like guess, okay, we don't know
Speaker 1: which way he would have voted, but it was overwhelmingly
Speaker 1: Republicans who blocked it. I think there were forty eight
Speaker 1: votes against it, and they were almost all Republicans. So
Speaker 1: you know, there's also not to get to Wonky in
Speaker 1: and the Weeds or in Casts, who we've obviously had
Speaker 1: on this show and who is one of sort of
Speaker 1: the leading thinkers in terms of this new direction. The
Speaker 1: Republican Party wrote up a post in response to Jad's
Speaker 1: Commentsary we could put this up on the screen on
Speaker 1: his substack newsletter, which is called Understanding America, I says
Speaker 1: the one big thing from Jade Vance's Sunday show tour.
Speaker 1: There also is a difference between how Democrats want to
Speaker 1: approach a child tax credit versus how Republicans typically want
Speaker 1: to approach a child tax credit. Even something like Jadie Vance,
Speaker 1: who wants it to be relatively generous or in Casts
Speaker 1: who wants it to be relatively generous, they want to
Speaker 1: see a work requirement, so the very poorest families wouldn't benefit.
Speaker 1: And you know, to me that isn't pro family because
Speaker 1: you know, if you have a single mom, for example,
Speaker 1: you're really prioritizing her being in the workplace wherever that is,
Speaker 1: versus being able to be with her kids and raising
Speaker 1: her children. So, you know, I'm a universalist on all
Speaker 1: of these policies. That's why I support like Tim Walls's
Speaker 1: free lunch for all kids type of programs because I think,
Speaker 1: first of all, taking out all that bureaucratic you know
Speaker 1: means testeds neoliberal, actually stuff is beneficial to everyone, makes
Speaker 1: the programs much more simple, makes them much more beneficial
Speaker 1: in terms of the number of children you would lift
Speaker 1: on a poverty it's a massive difference, and also just
Speaker 1: makes it so the programs are more pops because everyone
Speaker 1: benefits from it, and there isn't this weird like you
Speaker 1: deserve it, you don't deserve it cliffs, cutoffs, et cetera.
Speaker 1: That again have been a really typical feature of the
Speaker 1: new liberal era.
Speaker 4: And I think this is a really helpful discussion actually,
Speaker 4: because not only are those the fundamental disagreements between people
Speaker 4: who support a child tax credit like you and me,
Speaker 4: they're also the fundamental disagreements between Republicans.
Speaker 5: And so the big.
Speaker 4: Backlash to the Biden increase was over some of those
Speaker 4: like you say those new liberal I think it's fair
Speaker 4: to call them half measures that Honestly, I have a
Speaker 4: hard time conceiving of supporting a child tax credit without
Speaker 4: some of that, and so do most Republicans. And from
Speaker 4: my perspective, it's not the same reason as you know
Speaker 4: why a lot of Republicans want to do it, which
Speaker 4: is because they're stingy with our own tax payer money.
Speaker 4: It's more just because I think that's important a family formation,
Speaker 4: and Orren would agree with this too. It was one
Speaker 4: of the big divides between when Mitt Romney came out
Speaker 4: with a child tax credit plan and Marco Ubio.
Speaker 5: Marco Rubio and.
Speaker 4: Ted Cruz at the time jumped on the Romney plan,
Speaker 4: and this became a historic dust up in the brief
Speaker 4: history of the New Right, was over this very question
Speaker 4: whether Republicans were going to move towards that universalist, populist,
Speaker 4: genuinely populist economic policies away from saying we do also
Speaker 4: ideologically believe that there's something anti family about sort of
Speaker 4: creating systems of dependency, which I know you and I
Speaker 4: disagree with. Priscilla, I disagree on and I think I
Speaker 4: probably disagree with you. Ryan Ansager on that question. But
Speaker 4: so do Republicans now disagree with each other on that
Speaker 4: and even the new right people who have gone to
Speaker 4: bat for the child tax credit like Mark Rubio did
Speaker 4: back in twenty seventeen, even they can't get on board
Speaker 4: with super mainstream democratic policies. They are absolutely popular, no
Speaker 4: question about it, on the child tax credit. So it's
Speaker 4: actually a pretty interesting clash ideologically and for the future
Speaker 4: of both parties.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's go ahead and talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about how the politics of this could play out.
Speaker 3: Let's get ahead, guys, to this SoundBite. We have B
Speaker 3: three B. He gets Jade.
Speaker 1: Gets asked about, you know, as child was cat ladies'
Speaker 1: comments and specifically about, Hey, Kamala Harris is a stepmom
Speaker 1: like Pete Boodhagidge has adopted kids. Do not consider them
Speaker 1: to be parents. And let's just take a listen to,
Speaker 1: you know, how he perries those attacks and how he
Speaker 1: describes what he was trying to say with those comments.
Speaker 9: You called out Kamala Harris and Pete Bootagidge in particular,
Speaker 9: Kamala Harris has two step children. Pete Bootagidge and his
Speaker 9: husband have adopted twins. Do you recognize them? As parents
Speaker 9: and more broadly, as being part of families.
Speaker 11: Well, of course I do, Dana. I mean, you know
Speaker 11: my life story. I was actually raised. I was raised,
Speaker 11: but Dana, I was raised.
Speaker 12: One of the first people that I gave a hug
Speaker 12: to after my my RNC convention speech was my step mom,
Speaker 12: who's been an incredibly important person in my life. My kids,
Speaker 12: my kids call her mamma. Of course she's not childless.
Speaker 12: But again the criticism, I certainly not call.
Speaker 11: My own step no.
Speaker 5: Kamala Harris.
Speaker 12: I criticized Kamala Harris for being part of a set
Speaker 12: of ideas that exists in American leadership that is anti family.
Speaker 12: I never Dan, I criticize people for not having kids.
Speaker 12: I criticize people for being anti child And I do
Speaker 12: think that Kamala.
Speaker 11: Harris said bizarre statement.
Speaker 12: She has said things like it's reasonable not to have
Speaker 12: children over climate change. I think it's the exact opposite
Speaker 12: message we should be sending to our young families. I
Speaker 12: want to expand the child tax credit. I want to
Speaker 12: stop those surprise medical bills. I want to make housing
Speaker 12: more affordable, so if you have a young family, you
Speaker 12: can actually afford to put them in a home, and
Speaker 12: I think that it is unfortunate that so much of
Speaker 12: our public leadership has become anti family.
Speaker 1: So I think I think he does the best there
Speaker 1: with you know what he can given the nature of
Speaker 1: comments where I mean you very clearly said like Kamala Harris,
Speaker 1: Pete Boddages, these are you know, childless cat ladies that
Speaker 1: are running our country, et cetera, et cetera. But so
Speaker 1: I sort of feel about this framing of the election
Speaker 1: in the contest the same way I feel about Democrats
Speaker 1: leaning into an immigration issue. If this election is about immigration,
Speaker 1: Democrats are losing, Like no matter how good their rebuttal is, etc.
Speaker 1: If that comes down to that's the number one issue
Speaker 1: people are concerned about, chaos or the butt like it's over.
Speaker 1: It's not happening, right because you're you're never going to
Speaker 1: overcome Republicans natural advantage on this issue.
Speaker 3: I think it's the same.
Speaker 1: I think this is very poor ground for Republicans to
Speaker 1: fight on. I recognize it's not exactly what they chose,
Speaker 1: it's these comments were unearthed, et cetera, et cetera. Now
Speaker 1: JD's trying to grapple with them and make them more palatable.
Speaker 1: He was using the language of effectively like a niche
Speaker 1: online subculture that is very popular and very commonplace in
Speaker 1: that subculture and sounds horrible to the rest of the public,
Speaker 1: and takes issues like a child tax credit that are
Speaker 1: you pull that it's a seventy percent issue and it
Speaker 1: sound like something that is radical, fringe, weird, like out
Speaker 1: of step with mainstream America, et cetera.
Speaker 3: It's the worst possible messaging you could possibly have, right,
Speaker 3: But if you.
Speaker 1: Pull Americans on who has better like pro family and
Speaker 1: pro child policies, I have zero doubt that Kamala Harris
Speaker 1: comes out wildly on top of that conversation, and having
Speaker 1: Tim Walls on the ticket only helps with that because
Speaker 1: you know, he did paid family leave, paid work lee,
Speaker 1: he did a child tax credit in the state. He did,
Speaker 1: you know, a community school for people who are under
Speaker 1: eighty thousand dollars a year. He did the free lunch
Speaker 1: for all kids. And so to me, this is a
Speaker 1: very this is very difficult ground for Republicans to fight
Speaker 1: on because not only do Democrats just have a sort
Speaker 1: of natural advantage, and you have the salient culture war
Speaker 1: issue of like you know, jd Vance voted against I
Speaker 1: protecting IVF in the Senate, and that's become very salient
Speaker 1: as well. But you also have even Republicans like him
Speaker 1: a little hamstrung in terms of how much they can
Speaker 1: say about this without their policies just sounding like Democratic policies,
Speaker 1: which again are popular. But who are you going to
Speaker 1: trust more to do a child tax credit? Are you
Speaker 1: going to trust Donald Trump, who when he was an
Speaker 1: off you know, and the Republicans who typically vote against
Speaker 1: these things and block the child tax creditor? Are you
Speaker 1: going to trust Kamala Harris and Tim Walls, who have
Speaker 1: consistently supported it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think actually there's no question defending the
Speaker 4: childless cat ladies comment is going to play like it
Speaker 4: is not a politically wise strategy.
Speaker 5: It's obviously not one that they had.
Speaker 4: An option, like, they weren't choosing to lean into the
Speaker 4: childless cat ladies thing. They still aren't. He's just kind
Speaker 4: of responding defensively to questions. But that is not a
Speaker 4: good position to be in for all of the reasons
Speaker 4: that you just listed. That said, I think ideologically, not
Speaker 4: politically in the long term, it is a it is
Speaker 4: a question, you know, some of the things that Kamala
Speaker 4: Harris has said that Jade Vance tried to raise there
Speaker 4: about talking about children.
Speaker 5: And climate change.
Speaker 4: I remember the RNC before the Dems rolled out this
Speaker 4: weird messaging line around the childless cat ladies uproar. Republicans
Speaker 4: were trying to make this the election of weird versus normal,
Speaker 4: and that It's been so interesting to hear that shift
Speaker 4: because this is one of the reasons that Republicans kind
Speaker 4: of wanted to lean into that message. And I've heard Honestly,
Speaker 4: I've talked to Marian Williamson about this. I remember I
Speaker 4: talked to her on a podcast about this a couple
Speaker 4: of years ago. It is a real fear that serious
Speaker 4: people on the left half that, you know, why are
Speaker 4: young people not wanting to have children? Why are they
Speaker 4: talking in ways that you sometimes hear, not from everybody,
Speaker 4: but you sometimes hear from people on the left that
Speaker 4: just makes it sound miserable to be a wife or
Speaker 4: a mother and.
Speaker 5: Almost demonizing it.
Speaker 4: Sometimes not everybody, again, but I do think ideologically, if
Speaker 4: not politically.
Speaker 5: There is something serious.
Speaker 4: It's just when you try to take niche podcast conversations
Speaker 4: and then turn them into a presidential ticket, it's not.
Speaker 1: Going to go, well, that's and I think that's you know,
Speaker 1: that's part of what they're struggling with, you know, just
Speaker 1: a last piece here, you know, to to not leave
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris unscathed, Like, we don't have a policy agenda
Speaker 1: from her, right, we don't know what she Now. You
Speaker 1: may say, Okay, she just jumped into this thing, and
Speaker 1: you can just kind of assume she's going to continue
Speaker 1: what Biden was doing more or less. That's probably a
Speaker 1: decent assumption. But there are some specific issues where it'd
Speaker 1: be really good to know. And there was a piece
Speaker 1: that came out actually that said a bunch of these
Speaker 1: democratic consultant types are saying effectively like say as little
Speaker 1: as you can, because the more that you get nailed
Speaker 1: down on an issue, the more devices device of it becomes.
Speaker 1: You know, then you are litigating the details of this
Speaker 1: or that plan, et cetera, and that can create democratic
Speaker 1: party rips. So just go with the vibes, go with
Speaker 1: the general values, rather than actually being upfront with the
Speaker 1: American people about what your policy plans and ideas are.
Speaker 1: I think that that's outrageous. I don't think the media
Speaker 1: should let her get away with that. But we did get.
Speaker 1: You know, we got an indication from Tim Walls, who
Speaker 1: has a try record of very different from most Democrats
Speaker 1: of when he had power actually using it, you know,
Speaker 1: total counter to most Democrats in Washington. When they have power,
Speaker 1: they find every excuse not to do the things that
Speaker 1: they claim that they support. And he expressed a very
Speaker 1: definitive opinion about what they should lead their policy agenda with.
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen to that.
Speaker 13: I think one of the things is that people really
Speaker 13: see because it empowers their family. At Joseph, I think
Speaker 13: the paid family and medical lead where the last nation
Speaker 13: on earth basically to not do this. It is so
Speaker 13: foundational to just basic decency and financial well being. I
Speaker 13: think we should do paid family medical leave across the country,
Speaker 13: and I think that would start to change both Finance's
Speaker 13: attitude strengthen him. This is one if jd. Aanswers right
Speaker 13: about this, that we should make it easier for families
Speaker 13: to be together. Then make sure that after your child's
Speaker 13: born that you can spend a little time with them.
Speaker 13: That'd be a great thing.
Speaker 1: I do think if they just picked a few of
Speaker 1: these like bread and butter are like really popular issues
Speaker 1: and just relentlessly message and lean into them. I think
Speaker 1: it will be very potent for.
Speaker 4: Them agree completely. I think Tim Wallis is really good
Speaker 4: at that. I have long thought Tim Walls is really
Speaker 4: good at that. And Ryan and I talked about this
Speaker 4: last week. But there's the Reagan line of bold colors
Speaker 4: not pale pastels, which is that you can be principled
Speaker 4: and sell your principles politically, even if they're not super
Speaker 4: popular with a broad swap of the public. You can
Speaker 4: actually make a more persuasive case by saying, listen, I
Speaker 4: actually really believe in this stuff, and I think you're
Speaker 4: gonna like it.
Speaker 5: And I was elected and I'm going to do it.
Speaker 4: I'm going to pass this stuff through the duly elected legislature.
Speaker 5: I don't like Tim Walls. I don't agree with a
Speaker 5: lot of his policies.
Speaker 4: I think some of his stuff is going to undercut
Speaker 4: some of his culture stuff is going to undercut some
Speaker 4: of this populous stuff when he's trying to sell himself
Speaker 4: to the public. But serious credit to being a Democrat
Speaker 4: who believes in the bold colors not pale pastels. I
Speaker 4: think argument because that's where you find politicians that are
Speaker 4: both principled and smart politicians, and that's a rare combination,
Speaker 4: and I think he does understand that.
Speaker 1: Let's gotten onto this story that went viral from the Olympics,
Speaker 1: which really caught my attention, and put this up on
Speaker 1: the screen.
Speaker 3: So, if you're an Olympic.
Speaker 1: Athlete, you actually get access to all kinds of healthcare services.
Speaker 1: And some of these athletes made great use of that
Speaker 1: because number one, you know, even a lot of the
Speaker 1: medal winners in sports that are less popular, that aren't
Speaker 1: the main line, you know, basketball, etc.
Speaker 3: They don't earn a lot of money.
Speaker 1: I mean, these are incredibly high level, exceptional athletes, but
Speaker 1: they may not have the money to afford healthcare in
Speaker 1: the United States of America. And so you have this
Speaker 1: headline here that American and athletes were radicalized by free
Speaker 1: healthcare available to them at the Olympics. And in particular,
Speaker 1: you had a rugby player, I believe, who realized that
Speaker 1: she could go and get like all of her appointments
Speaker 1: and whatever, and was shocked to find that there was
Speaker 1: no cost to her whatsoever. And she started making tiktoks
Speaker 1: about this that went viral. Let's take a listen to.
Speaker 14: That, Okay, y'all so not only in the village do
Speaker 14: we have free food, but we have free dental, free healthcare.
Speaker 14: I literally just got a Papchmere for free, and I
Speaker 14: have a densit's appointment and I exam next week.
Speaker 1: Like what and Emily, like we're the only developed country
Speaker 1: in the world that doesn't have free healthcare. There were
Speaker 1: all kinds of comments about basically like oh, Americans discover healthcare,
Speaker 1: but you know, it's a national embarrassment that our top
Speaker 1: elite athletes who are going here to represent our country
Speaker 1: don't have access to like a basic gynecological exam and
Speaker 1: a PAPS mirror back of the United States of America.
Speaker 4: So again like this is the biggest handicap in the
Speaker 4: world for Republicans, and they legitimately have no idea, Like
Speaker 4: elected Republicans in Washington, DC have.
Speaker 5: Absolutely no idea.
Speaker 4: How seriously this issue is weighing on the minds of voters,
Speaker 4: how heavily it's weighing on the minds of voters. And
Speaker 4: you can see it by the fact that they even
Speaker 4: made these videos, like the Olympians made these videos because
Speaker 4: it struck them immediately. And Democrats you see the Harris campaign,
Speaker 4: you see Tim Walls starting to talk a lot about
Speaker 4: freaking healthcare. How came Jeffries is coaching his candidates to
Speaker 4: talk about healthcare. Republicans have no answer to this, and
Speaker 4: they are the ones then, because they have no answer
Speaker 4: to this that'll end up looking like the supporters of
Speaker 4: our legitimately cruel current system. Basically, everybody agrees that our
Speaker 4: current system absolutely sucks and is a disgrace, and because
Speaker 4: Republicans have nothing to offer, they're the ones that look
Speaker 4: like they own the system that these Olympians are going
Speaker 4: viral for being like, man, this is so much better
Speaker 4: than what we have. Well, Republicans are the defenders of
Speaker 4: the status quo on healthcare just by default.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that is true, just by default. But I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't want to let Democrats off the hook here.
Speaker 1: Joe Biden claimed in his presidential campaign that he was
Speaker 1: going to fight for a public option, and then the
Speaker 1: minute he even got the Democratic nomination, he stopped talking
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 3: And obviously even in.
Speaker 1: The midst of you know, there were some changes attempted
Speaker 1: changes to healthcare, expanding Medicare in particular to include dental
Speaker 1: and vision and ears as if your ears in your
Speaker 1: eyes and your mouth aren't part of your body, but
Speaker 1: expanding medicare to include those things. There was a push
Speaker 1: for that, but it wasn't ultimately successful. There also has
Speaker 1: been some success, limited very limited success in terms of
Speaker 1: bringing down prescription drug prices and specifically in the case
Speaker 1: of insulin, but any of the broader sweeping changes Democrats
Speaker 1: have just sort of given up on as too difficult,
Speaker 1: as too much intra party friction in terms of what
Speaker 1: the right solution is. And so Kamala Harris, in terms
Speaker 1: of her rhetoric on this campaign trail, has just been
Speaker 1: about like Republicans are going to get rid of the
Speaker 1: Affordable Care Act. Now, Trump tried to do that, so
Speaker 1: she had some grounds to say that he did attempt
Speaker 1: to do that in his first term, But you know,
Speaker 1: is that going to be another push that he makes.
Speaker 3: I don't think.
Speaker 1: I don't hear Republicans talking about health care at this
Speaker 1: point at all. They've just also been happy to sort
Speaker 1: of let the matter drop. And meanwhile, this continues to
Speaker 1: be if you're thinking about, you know, families, if you're
Speaker 1: thinking about working class, middle class people, just a basic
Speaker 1: quality of life issue, this continues to be a massive
Speaker 1: pain point that both parties find it too difficult or
Speaker 1: too inconvenient politically to try to address, not to mention
Speaker 1: the massive array of moneyed interest who benefit, who get
Speaker 1: unbelievably rich off of the current system, who are very
Speaker 1: happy to have any conversation about reform completely buried.
Speaker 4: And who got really rich and benefited a lot from
Speaker 4: the Obamacare system. And Matt Stoler has written about this,
Speaker 4: Our friend Massaller has written about this, and his research
Speaker 4: and writing here is excellent. And I think that's really
Speaker 4: important too, because it creates vulnerabilities for Democrats. But it
Speaker 4: just shows, you know, we talk about the uniparty a
Speaker 4: lot in the context of foreign policy, but when interests
Speaker 4: are so tangled on lucrative issues like this, you end
Speaker 4: up with stasis. You never get anything done. Because healthcare
Speaker 4: is legitimately a very complicated issue. There's a lot of
Speaker 4: money to be made on it, and so that is
Speaker 4: a recipe for absolutely nothing ever changing. And even the
Speaker 4: Affordable Care Act, which was supposed to be this radical, sweeping.
Speaker 5: Change, it's been incremental at best.
Speaker 4: It's changed the system in some ways for the better,
Speaker 4: but in some ways for the worse, and in some
Speaker 4: ways just really not much change at all. So it's
Speaker 4: so depressing to think about how we are. Probably I
Speaker 4: don't know, Chrystal, I feel like we're never going to
Speaker 4: get out of this mess. I just don't see a
Speaker 4: light at the end of the healthcare tunnel, which really
Speaker 4: sucks for normal people because it's extremely expensive and we're
Speaker 4: lucky we still have a high quality care in the US,
Speaker 4: but I'm not optimistic that we stay at that level.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with all of that. I mean, on Obamacare,
Speaker 1: I think it's undeniably better than the disastrous system we
Speaker 1: had before, just in terms of, you know, you can
Speaker 1: no longer be denied for preconditions and some of those
Speaker 1: systemic changes that were made.
Speaker 3: But it was designed to be.
Speaker 1: Good for the health insurers so that they wouldn't stand
Speaker 1: in the way, and that was always going to really
Speaker 1: curtail how much you could do with it.
Speaker 3: You know. It's interesting.
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi, I think, talked recently about how she still
Speaker 1: regrets not being able to get a public option at
Speaker 1: least into Obamacare, and it's certainly not a major push,
Speaker 1: and then that means that the sailings of the issue
Speaker 1: too in terms of people's focus and what they're voting
Speaker 1: on also drops, because that's the only thing that would
Speaker 1: really change this at this point is a massive national
Speaker 1: backlash that could overcome those powerful interests. All right, Emily,
Speaker 1: and know we have to say goodbye to you a
Speaker 1: little bit early. Thank you so much for filling in
Speaker 1: for soccer today. It's always fun debating these issues with you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and thanks for letting me do it.
Speaker 4: Remotely, I have something to tape here, so it just
Speaker 4: worked out that way. But Sager is so rarely takes
Speaker 4: a sick day, so you know, it's serious with him,
Speaker 4: and we hope he feels better and rests up because
Speaker 4: we all have a big week in front of us
Speaker 4: with the and Stay coming up in a few days.
Speaker 1: That's right, It's going to be big, and we will
Speaker 1: see you and Ryan for counterpoints tomorrow. So we are
Speaker 1: still awaiting that potential Iranian response to the Israeli provocation.
Speaker 1: Of course, the assassinated top hamas leader on Iranian soil
Speaker 1: the day before Irani's president inauguration, and there's a lot
Speaker 1: to sort through here, so I brought an expert to
Speaker 1: help us understand what is happening with regards to Iran. Also,
Speaker 1: what is happening domestically with regards to Israel. Also, what
Speaker 1: is happening with regards to Kamala Harris and how she
Speaker 1: may approach this conflict. Omar Badaar Palaestinai, American political analyst
Speaker 1: and great friend of the show.
Speaker 7: Great to see you, sir, Absolutely great to be with you, Crystal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so let's start with this.
Speaker 1: The US military rushing all kinds of assets into the
Speaker 1: region in anticipation of this Iranian response. In fact, yesterday
Speaker 1: everybody was on pins and needles thinking that the response
Speaker 1: was incredibly imminent. You had a lot of American soldiers
Speaker 1: who were deeply concerned about potential attacks on American military
Speaker 1: basis in the region.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 1: To this Fox News clip setting up what assets are
Speaker 1: moving into that right now.
Speaker 15: Israel putting their military on Hiler once again, as Israeli
Speaker 15: intelligence is picking up signals that Iran and one of
Speaker 15: their terror proxies has the law are now poised to
Speaker 15: attack at any moment. Really, the Pentagon is now racing
Speaker 15: to send more firepower to the Middle Eites to defend
Speaker 15: Israel and our assets and bases in the region. So
Speaker 15: they have sent a submarine that is loaded with a
Speaker 15: reporting one hundred and fifty cruise missiles, as well as
Speaker 15: speeding up now the arrival of the USS Abraham Lincoln
Speaker 15: Carrier Stripe Group, which is now near China but is
Speaker 15: heading quickly to the region, and that adds to the
Speaker 15: wide range of American force that is already there.
Speaker 1: In addition, let's go and put D two up on
Speaker 1: the screen. The White House is saying that they agree
Speaker 1: with the Israeli intelligence that is increasingly likely Iran will
Speaker 1: attack Israel this week. Put the next one up on
Speaker 1: the screen. We also have indications Ron has taken quote
Speaker 1: significant preparatory steps in its missile and drone units, similar
Speaker 1: to those that had taken before the attack on Israel
Speaker 1: in April. Israel and US officials tell Barack Revi. They stress, however,
Speaker 1: that Israel and the US do not know the exact
Speaker 1: timing of the attack. So Omar, if you could just
Speaker 1: react to sort of where we are and what is
Speaker 1: expected at this point.
Speaker 16: Sure, and honestly, just a part of what you said
Speaker 16: in the setup I think is really important to emphasize,
Speaker 16: which is that this all started with that assassination in
Speaker 16: the Iranian capital, and you can imagine if another country
Speaker 16: had set up a bomb in Washington, d C. What
Speaker 16: the American reaction would be. We would instantly be bombing
Speaker 16: whatever country is responsible, and the same for any European capital,
Speaker 16: the same for Israel. Also, you constantly have the US
Speaker 16: officials saying things like, well, Israel has to respond to this,
Speaker 16: There's no way they can let something like that go.
Speaker 16: And here you have a situation in which the Iranian
Speaker 16: capital is hit and the Liberty's capital is hit by
Speaker 16: a missile, and rather than a super targeted assassination that
Speaker 16: take somebody out out in a car or in a
Speaker 16: military base, they bombed a civilian building in Beirut and
Speaker 16: they killed multiple women and children in the process. And
Speaker 16: yet you have everybody right now talking about and you
Speaker 16: saw it in a statement that Biden also put out
Speaker 16: with some European allies talking about the need to defend
Speaker 16: Israel from Iranian aggression. I mean, the entire thing is
Speaker 16: backwards and it's insulting to the intelligence of anybody who's.
Speaker 7: Actually paying attention.
Speaker 16: So what the US position right now, what they are defending,
Speaker 16: is a situation in which there is different rules for
Speaker 16: different people. We say, if this were to happen to us,
Speaker 16: we have to respond. If it happens to Israel, Israel
Speaker 16: has to respond. But when it happens to Iran or
Speaker 16: to Lebanon, then you need to take it. And if
Speaker 16: you do react to that, then that's an active aggression
Speaker 16: that we have to stand up against. And that really
Speaker 16: is such a microcosm of American policy in the region
Speaker 16: at large, of the fact that we don't value life equally,
Speaker 16: we don't value sovereignty equally. We constantly treat Israel like
Speaker 16: a country that is above the rules and above the law,
Speaker 16: and that is why we have this conflict that we're in.
Speaker 16: You can diffuse all of it simply by insisting that
Speaker 16: Israel behave within the bounds of international law, respect human rights.
Speaker 16: And in this case and the genocide in Gaza, the
Speaker 16: solution is so simple that you simply need a ceasefire
Speaker 16: for this onslaught that has lasted for nearly a year.
Speaker 16: And yet instead we're seeing this rush towards further militarism
Speaker 16: and confrontation, all in defense of an order in which
Speaker 16: we and our friends get to do whatever the hell
Speaker 16: we want to and nobody else gets to.
Speaker 7: Object to it.
Speaker 1: And I think it's important to remember too, you know,
Speaker 1: we have a number of soldiers who are stationed in
Speaker 1: the region who are very much.
Speaker 3: Put at risk by these provocations.
Speaker 1: And yes, last time around, you know, the US rush
Speaker 1: to Israel's rescue and was able to repel, and I
Speaker 1: think it seems there was some back channel coordination even
Speaker 1: with the Iranians, to make sure that that would be
Speaker 1: the end result. There's no guarantees of that this time around.
Speaker 1: And so not only is it obviously grave danger for
Speaker 1: our soldiers stationed in the region, but grave danger for
Speaker 1: the potential escalation that we could see apism. I mean,
Speaker 1: let's be clear, this has never been a conflict that
Speaker 1: has stayed within the borders of.
Speaker 3: Gaza and Israel.
Speaker 1: However, you could have a much bigger and much even
Speaker 1: more deadly and destructive war than what we've already seen.
Speaker 16: It's honestly difficult to put into words how significant it
Speaker 16: would be. I think Americans have a memory of what
Speaker 16: a war in Afghanistan look like, what a war in
Speaker 16: Iraq looked like, and frankly, a full scale war with
Speaker 16: the Iran would be fundamentally different. It is far more
Speaker 16: destructive and devastating than anything that we've seen, simply because
Speaker 16: Iran and its allies in the region have such a
Speaker 16: massive capacity for launching rockets that can target just about
Speaker 16: any spot in the region. You can think of any
Speaker 16: part of Israel, all American military bases in the region,
Speaker 16: the major cities of other countries that are allied with
Speaker 16: the US. If this thing blows up, it really it
Speaker 16: could lead to the deaths of millions of people, literally,
Speaker 16: not figuratively. It's a very, very dire situation. And it's
Speaker 16: kind of crazy because neither the US nor Iran want
Speaker 16: this war. They made it clear that they don't want it.
Speaker 16: You saw it in the communication behind the scenes about it.
Speaker 16: And yet we're put in a situation right now where Iran,
Speaker 16: feeling compelled to respond to a major assassination in their
Speaker 16: capital city, is pushing us to a potential confrontation between
Speaker 16: the US and Iran. And it's utterly insane that you
Speaker 16: allow Israel that much leverage over American politics and policy
Speaker 16: to the point to where we're willing to go to
Speaker 16: a war that we don't want to go to against
Speaker 16: the country that doesn't want war in defense of a
Speaker 16: regime that is currently committing genocide in Gaza and engaging
Speaker 16: in these propagations to spread that war. And it's worth
Speaker 16: noting what Netanyahu's thinking in all of this. He is
Speaker 16: stuck between a rock and a harp place. There is
Speaker 16: no political way out of the situation that he found
Speaker 16: himself in. That genocide has been going on for over
Speaker 16: ten months, killed endless countless people in Gaza, tens of thousands,
Speaker 16: and those are the low estimates. The official estimates are
Speaker 16: almost certainly an undercount. He hasn't defeated Hamas militarily, has
Speaker 16: not been able to retreat the hostages militarily, and the
Speaker 16: only way out of this is basically a ceasefire. But
Speaker 16: a ceasefire also means the end of Baba Nataniahu's career
Speaker 16: and his entire legacy as the person on whose watch
Speaker 16: everything fell apart. This promise of Israeli secure already did not,
Speaker 16: you know? Just he knows that this is the end
Speaker 16: for him, and he is willing to provoke a regional
Speaker 16: war in order for him to find a political way
Speaker 16: out of it, because ultimately, for natania Who, the only
Speaker 16: victory there is there is to successfully complete the genocide
Speaker 16: in Gaza, and with a Biden administration that means endless time.
Speaker 16: He wants to be able to drag this out for
Speaker 16: as long as possible, or if he gets a Trump
Speaker 16: administration in then they might have a complete loosening of
Speaker 16: the reins and for them to simply go to Brazerk
Speaker 16: and actually start massacring people at far, far greater numbers,
Speaker 16: which is kind of crazy to think because what's already
Speaker 16: happening is a horror beyond imagination, and.
Speaker 1: Likely accelerate the annexation of the West Bank as well,
Speaker 1: which is something that Miriam Adelson, who's huge donor to Trump,
Speaker 1: has said that she you know, that's basically what she's
Speaker 1: asking for in exchange for her campaign.
Speaker 16: Cash, and Israeli policy has been they have not been
Speaker 16: squeamish about being open about that. At this point, you
Speaker 16: have the entire Cannescid voting in opposition to a two
Speaker 16: state solution or Palestinian state even in the future, and
Speaker 16: a situation frankly right now where there are running literal
Speaker 16: rape camps and torture camps for Palestinians, and when news
Speaker 16: of that breaks and gets out, the reaction is not
Speaker 16: to deny or be embarrassed, but to basically flaunt it
Speaker 16: and be proud of it. You have massive riots in
Speaker 16: defense of the rapists taking place in Israel, and members
Speaker 16: of these raelly parliament the Knesset also saying openly that
Speaker 16: they defend this kind of policy. And you know, they're
Speaker 16: basically on track to let these people off either on
Speaker 16: no charges at all or in extremely light charges, simply
Speaker 16: because they have that little value for Palestine life. And
Speaker 16: that's the regime that we're going to bat for. It's
Speaker 16: just utterly insane. It makes absolutely no sense.
Speaker 1: So yesterday you brought up the ceasefire talks which are ongoing,
Speaker 1: and I think very pretty helpless at this point.
Speaker 3: I mean, for one.
Speaker 1: Thing, Israel assassinated the top Hamas negotiator, who you know,
Speaker 1: in the context of Hamas was more of more interested
Speaker 1: in those peace talks, and now you have yeah, Yah Sinowar.
Speaker 1: It was the direct you know, negotiator, the top top
Speaker 1: communicator in terms of those talks. We got one of
Speaker 1: these rapports. It's yesterday that we've gotten a million times. Well,
Speaker 1: Biden's really frustrated with bb this time, and there's really
Speaker 1: tough conversations happening behind the scenes, and this time allegedly
Speaker 1: the Americans were going to indicate that it's not only
Speaker 1: Hamas that's the problem in the ceasefire talks. They're going
Speaker 1: to admit that Bibnatiaho is a problem in the ceasefire talks.
Speaker 1: And low behold this morning in the New York Times
Speaker 1: we get this report that I'm sure was, you know,
Speaker 1: an intentional administration leak. The headline here is Israel was
Speaker 1: less flexible in recent causes. Cease fire talks documents show
Speaker 1: basically indicating that Israel came in and after they offered
Speaker 1: a proposal that Hamas Biden large basically accepted, then bb
Speaker 1: came in and added all these additional demands that his
Speaker 1: own negotiators knew were effectively poison pills to try to
Speaker 1: kill these talks.
Speaker 3: This is no surprise to you and me, Is it real?
Speaker 3: Is it actually a surprise to them?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 3: Are they that dumb? Yeah, that they really.
Speaker 1: Didn't see these dynamics which have been in place the
Speaker 1: entire time.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 16: This honestly for people who have been paying attention, that
Speaker 16: has also been obvious for a very very long time
Speaker 16: that Hamas has made clear early on that they're willing
Speaker 16: to give up all the hostages in exchange for a ceasefire,
Speaker 16: and that Tanyahu kept looking for reasons to put up obstacles.
Speaker 16: And the big sticking point for many months was that
Speaker 16: Hamas wanted the permanency's fire and Antaniahu wanted only a
Speaker 16: temporary cease fire where Hamas releases all the hostages and
Speaker 16: then he goes back to finishing genocide in Gaza. That
Speaker 16: was a non starter position, and insanely enough, Hamas was
Speaker 16: finally under enough pressure to actually agree to it, the
Speaker 16: idea of simply a temporary cease fire with a possibility
Speaker 16: of it extending, and Ntaiaho still found a reason to
Speaker 16: say no to that. So I believe that Biden is
Speaker 16: deeply frustrated with the fact that he does want the ceasefire.
Speaker 16: But the question is are you willing to use the
Speaker 16: leverage of the United States has the only leverage With
Speaker 16: somebody as recalcitrant and rejectionist as Nataniahu, none of this
Speaker 16: is going to matter unless you cut off the weapons supply.
Speaker 16: What obviously needs to happen right now is for the
Speaker 16: United States to make clear that the US is not
Speaker 16: going to send another penny or another bomb or another
Speaker 16: bullet to the Israeli military until Israel ends that genocide
Speaker 16: or takes very meaningful steps indicating that they're moving in
Speaker 16: that direction, which right now there is none of. So
Speaker 16: that's the contrast, is that you have a US administration
Speaker 16: that is willing to share its frustration more publicly now
Speaker 16: because they are feeling under pressure and they do see
Speaker 16: where what Natanyahu's plot is and where this is heading,
Speaker 16: and yet they're not willing to use meaningful leverage. I
Speaker 16: don't think that Taniajou gives a crap whether Biden.
Speaker 3: Leaks unhappy, leaks this or that or no.
Speaker 16: Yeah, it's much leader stakes for Nathaniajo. He's going head
Speaker 16: and into further war and conflict and violence, and it's
Speaker 16: going to take a meaningful change in American policy for
Speaker 16: that to actually.
Speaker 7: Change for them.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think an argument can be made pretty
Speaker 1: compellingly that you know, the instances where Biden has expressed
Speaker 1: displeasure about this or that, or leaked displeasure about this
Speaker 1: or that, and bb has gone ahead and bucked him
Speaker 1: and done what he wanted to do have actually bolstered
Speaker 1: him politically that it has actually improved his approval ratings
Speaker 1: within the State of Israel.
Speaker 16: It's incredibly humiliating for the American president that just for
Speaker 16: that dynamic between us and a client state that they
Speaker 16: constantly tell us to shut the hell up.
Speaker 7: They don't want our advice on what to do.
Speaker 16: They just want us to keep paying, you know, paying
Speaker 16: for the weapons and sending them over.
Speaker 7: That's a stupid dynamic.
Speaker 16: It's fine if you want to say that Israel's a
Speaker 16: independent country and they can make their own decisions, fine,
Speaker 16: but certainly American taxpayer should not be funding their crimes.
Speaker 16: That's the problem here, is that we have a dynamic
Speaker 16: in which we constantly insist that Israel's independent country, they
Speaker 16: make their own decisions.
Speaker 7: All we can do is advise them.
Speaker 16: Meanwhile, American taxpayers are picking up that tab and instead
Speaker 16: of taking care of Americans at home with we were
Speaker 16: just talking about in the previous segment about the fact
Speaker 16: that we're the only country developed country that doesn't.
Speaker 7: Have health care.
Speaker 16: All that stuff is set to aside, and in Israel,
Speaker 16: everybody has public health care. And that's the country that
Speaker 16: we're sending extra weapons and money to to make sure
Speaker 16: that they can commit atrocities with impunity. That's an extremely
Speaker 16: stupid and broken dynamic that Americans ought to object to
Speaker 16: if they were more familiar with actually how it works.
Speaker 1: That is such a great point. I wanted to get
Speaker 1: your assessment of how the switch of Biden for Kamala Harris,
Speaker 1: how that changes both the potential trajectory of Israel policy
Speaker 1: here in the US, if it does represent any type
Speaker 1: of the potential shift. And also I was curious from
Speaker 1: your perspective how bib Nanna who may be assessing that switch,
Speaker 1: and how that may have changed his calculus here as well.
Speaker 16: Yeah, I think that there is the potential for a
Speaker 16: change with Kamala Harris. It was quite obvious that Biden,
Speaker 16: in addition to carrying out a terrible policy, also did
Speaker 16: not know how to talk about this with any kind
Speaker 16: of empathy towards Palestinians.
Speaker 7: It was fundamentally clear.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 16: I don't know whether it's him deeply ideologically from his background,
Speaker 16: or it's his mental decline or whatever it might be,
Speaker 16: but he always spoke in a very humanizing way about
Speaker 16: israelis utterly dehumanizing of Palestinians, whether you can believe them
Speaker 16: or their numbers and all that. And it's obvious that
Speaker 16: it's just empty rhetoric whenever he expresses concern for Israel
Speaker 16: engaging in discriminate bombings or all that, it did not
Speaker 16: have any emotional content behind that. He did not speak
Speaker 16: with any real or meaningful empathy. And on top of that,
Speaker 16: repeated every Israeli lie about Palestinians, whether it's the forty
Speaker 16: beheaded babies he claimed he saw the pictures of them.
Speaker 16: That was an Israeli lie about what took place on
Speaker 16: October seventh, about the Hamas headquarters being under a hospital.
Speaker 16: All that stuff was stuff that Biden was willing to endorse.
Speaker 16: And the only meaningful shift that we've seen so far
Speaker 16: between Kamala Harris and Biden is that Kamala seems to
Speaker 16: appreciate the magnitude of the crimes that Israel is committing,
Speaker 16: and even though she's not offering a different policy, she's
Speaker 16: speaking about it with greater empathy. She is talking about
Speaker 16: how utterly unacceptable it is that people are behaving in
Speaker 16: that fashion, the fact that so many Americans of Palestine
Speaker 16: in origin are losing family members, and how devastating that is,
Speaker 16: and how it desperately needs to come to an end immediately.
Speaker 16: She's able to express some more empathy. But whether that's
Speaker 16: just campaign rhetoric because they look at the polls and
Speaker 16: they see how deeply a problem it is, or whether
Speaker 16: Kamala Harris is actually interested in a meaningful policy change
Speaker 16: is something that remains to be seen. And I think
Speaker 16: that just the fact that it's not Biden on the
Speaker 16: ballot at this point will bring a portion of progressives
Speaker 16: who've been deeply troubled by his policy to be able
Speaker 16: to stomach the idea of voting for Democrats.
Speaker 7: But it's basically hers to.
Speaker 16: Win or lose, and I think it really depends on
Speaker 16: how she behaves between now and the election. Yeah, and
Speaker 16: how strongly she signals a major shift in American policy,
Speaker 16: or whether they can even get a ceasefire between now
Speaker 16: and the election, that could have a very very significant impact.
Speaker 1: So, speaking of that tone, we had an instance in
Speaker 1: Detroit where there were propal Sinne protesters and she took
Speaker 1: a very dismissive, condescending, i'm speaking tone, and there was
Speaker 1: a backlash to that.
Speaker 3: Then she goes to another rally I.
Speaker 1: Don't know if this was the Phoenix or the Las
Speaker 1: Vegas one, where she's again faced with protesters and she
Speaker 1: clearly had developed a different strategy to address the protesters.
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen to how she handled this one La.
Speaker 17: Chang clothes, respecting the voices that I think that we
Speaker 17: are hearing from. And let me just say this on
Speaker 17: topic of what I think I'm hearing over there, let
Speaker 17: me just speak to that for a moment, and then
Speaker 17: I'm going to get back to the business in hand.
Speaker 5: So let me say I have been clear.
Speaker 17: Now is the time to get a ceasefire deal and
Speaker 17: get the hostage deal done. Now is the time, and
Speaker 17: the President and I are working around the clock every
Speaker 17: day to get that ceasefire deal done.
Speaker 5: And bring the hostages home.
Speaker 17: So I respect your voices, but we are here to
Speaker 17: now talk about this race in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: So on the one hand, Omar, you have better tone there.
Speaker 1: You have her comments after her meeting with bib Nania,
Speaker 1: who I also thought, we're you know, well executed. You
Speaker 1: have her choice of Tim Walls over Joshapiro. Walls was
Speaker 1: much more empathetic towards the committed movement. Shapiro of course,
Speaker 1: compared to palestudent protesters to the KKK. So you have that,
Speaker 1: you have actually a new choice of a liaison to
Speaker 1: the Jewish community that people were favorable towards. That seemed
Speaker 1: to be a positive indication as well in terms of
Speaker 1: her direction. One of her top policy advisors is more
Speaker 1: of the like Obama school foreign policy, which was, you know,
Speaker 1: a runnie and nuclear deal. A little better on these
Speaker 1: issues than the Biden foreign policy team has been. On
Speaker 1: the other hand, even when she says there, that's just
Speaker 1: the Biden policy. So it's not like we've had any
Speaker 1: actual concrete indication.
Speaker 3: Of a shift.
Speaker 1: So how do you look at this constellation of events
Speaker 1: and signals.
Speaker 16: She's savvy, right, she watched the backlash to her first
Speaker 16: reaction to protesters and realized that she had to make
Speaker 16: an adjustment, and she made it. And I think that
Speaker 16: the VP pick actually is not that trivial either. Yeah,
Speaker 16: it's funny because both Tim Waltz and Shapiro are both
Speaker 16: your standard pro Israel Democrats, right. Both of them are
Speaker 16: kind of soft and accountability for Israel, and none of
Speaker 16: them is eager to cut off military aid or any
Speaker 16: of that stuff.
Speaker 7: Literally, the only difference.
Speaker 16: Between them is that emotional intelligence on how to address
Speaker 16: the deep anger among young people in this country about
Speaker 16: what's happening in Gaza. And in one case, you've got
Speaker 16: the standard pro Israel line of tumult, that is, we
Speaker 16: support Israel, but we understand why people are angry and
Speaker 16: why this means a lot, because the situation is unacceptable.
Speaker 16: It's again just speaking about it with empathy versus Shapiro,
Speaker 16: who speaks about it basically like a monster, just going,
Speaker 16: you know, dismissing those people and ascribing racist intentions on
Speaker 16: their part and basically even suggesting policies that might curtail
Speaker 16: their free speech. So that's a deep contrast on a
Speaker 16: domestic level, not on a foreign policy level. And yet
Speaker 16: you have the entire Republican conversation again amplifying the ridiculous
Speaker 16: charge of anti Semitism being alive in the Democratic Party.
Speaker 16: And part of this decision ironic is hell, given that
Speaker 16: Donald Trump by nobody comes even close to him in
Speaker 16: the conversation in terms of anti Semitic engagements. He accused
Speaker 16: the American Jewish community of you know, they keep saying
Speaker 16: Israel your country, as opposed to America being their country.
Speaker 16: A meeting with Republican Jewish donors, said you don't like
Speaker 16: me because I don't need your money again, playing into
Speaker 16: that trope.
Speaker 7: For the idea you liked. I think he may have
Speaker 7: even said the.
Speaker 16: Words, you like to control your politicians with your money,
Speaker 16: and I'm not game for that. This kind of rhetoric
Speaker 16: from Trump and the fact that there isn't anybody you
Speaker 16: know when you look at that ticket with Vance and
Speaker 16: you contrast it with the Democratic ticket, with Kamala Harris
Speaker 16: having a Jewish husband, with the Secretary of State under
Speaker 16: Biden being also Jewish, with the fact that the leader
Speaker 16: in the Senate is Jewish, all of that, and to
Speaker 16: still be able to have Democrats panic in reaction to
Speaker 16: that charge of anti semitism in a way, it's troubling
Speaker 16: to me. I mean, you should be able to just
Speaker 16: laugh off that kind of accusation from Republicans and shut
Speaker 16: it down because it's utterly baseless. It's just on its
Speaker 16: face the behavior of clowns when they bring that up.
Speaker 16: And instead you constantly see this pressure. And my speculation
Speaker 16: is that the initial bad reaction from Kamala Harris to
Speaker 16: protesters came on the back end of all that backlash
Speaker 16: of how came it didn't pick a ship z as
Speaker 16: your running mate, And I think she felt the need
Speaker 16: to compensate there, and at some point I really wish
Speaker 16: that Democrats would just develop a backbone and start dismissing
Speaker 16: the bullshit charges that are directed at yeah, and start
Speaker 16: owning their the progressive positions that you know, again a
Speaker 16: lot of it is rhetoric, not enough of it as policy,
Speaker 16: but at least in positions to advocate for progressive policies
Speaker 16: in which you treat everybody equally. That's something to be
Speaker 16: proud of, not something to shy away from. And they
Speaker 16: have to develop more resilience to this smear machine that
Speaker 16: we see, especially in relation to Israel, where it's a
Speaker 16: edge issue that Republicans constantly use to bludge in Democrats,
Speaker 16: and every time they do, rather than own a policy
Speaker 16: of accountability for Israel, theymediately panic and say, we have
Speaker 16: to prove that we're more pro Israel.
Speaker 7: It's just it's a losing strategy.
Speaker 16: In the long term. We're seeing the beginnings of it,
Speaker 16: and there's an obvious, you know, demographic shift among young
Speaker 16: people who see this issue.
Speaker 3: Very very differently.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I've seen with regard to
Speaker 1: defend AMLA is this idea we'll listen Biden's the president.
Speaker 1: She can't really publicly under cut him, like she's trying
Speaker 1: to do her little tone shifts and pick the people
Speaker 1: that seem to indicate a different direction potentially, and of
Speaker 1: course we're very pragmatic about what that they're not gonna
Speaker 1: be where we are, but you know, maybe a little
Speaker 1: more Obama versus Biden. But she can't undercut Biden, so
Speaker 1: she can't actually come out and set forth a policy
Speaker 1: that is different than what he has expressed. Do you
Speaker 1: think that that's fair or do you think that she
Speaker 1: does have some room to set herself apart from his policy.
Speaker 16: Yeah, she's in a tough spot percisely because of that.
Speaker 16: I think that is fair, But it's incumbent on her.
Speaker 16: There's just the reality that the Israeli policy is absolutely intolerable.
Speaker 16: It is completely morally indefensible. And yes, you do have
Speaker 16: the constraints of currently being vice president serving to a
Speaker 16: president that feels maybe a little bit differently about this.
Speaker 16: But it's really on her to draw the contrast between
Speaker 16: now and the election. Really, it's a dynamic where voters
Speaker 16: are paying attention and they've lost many of them over
Speaker 16: this issue, and it's really on her to try to
Speaker 16: figure out a corrective course. And yeah, she's not in
Speaker 16: an easy position, but you can't expect people who have
Speaker 16: been deeply frustrated with this administration and the way that
Speaker 16: they have dealt with this issue to basically simply be
Speaker 16: threatened with the prospect that Trump is worse. There's no
Speaker 16: doubt that Trump would be worse on every issue, including
Speaker 16: this one, frankly, but still, for a lot of people,
Speaker 16: genocide is a red line. And I think one way
Speaker 16: that Kamala Harris could potentially do something meaningful is apply
Speaker 16: internal pressure within the administration right now to get that
Speaker 16: cease fire done, and maybe that it's something that ends
Speaker 16: up swinging a little bit more in the Democrat's direction
Speaker 16: for progressives come election day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, i'll tell you, Omar, my highest aspiration is
Speaker 1: just that you would have someone who's not ideological on
Speaker 1: the issue. Biden clearly very ideological, and I think Josha
Speaker 1: Piro also threw his you know, repeated expressions and the
Speaker 1: way that he approached the issue was also clearly very ideological.
Speaker 1: Because if you have just your sort of replacement level Democrat,
Speaker 1: they can read the polls and see that this policy
Speaker 1: forget about I'm not counting on their morality, right, They
Speaker 1: can see this policy has been politically disastrous for them
Speaker 1: and created this potential, you know, massive war which would
Speaker 1: be even more politically disastrous for them. So my highest
Speaker 1: aspiration is that in Kamala Harrison Tim Walls, you just
Speaker 1: have two.
Speaker 3: People who are not ideologically.
Speaker 1: Committed to the issue, who see Bebe as the partisan,
Speaker 1: far right fascist figure that he is, who wants to
Speaker 1: elect Donald Trump, by the way, and can read the
Speaker 1: polls and respond to the pressure and realize that this
Speaker 1: is a politically foolish direction because as I said, I'm
Speaker 1: not counting on anyone's morality here winning the day.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think that's exactly right.
Speaker 16: And I think in a way, Biba Nataniaho is paying
Speaker 16: attention to the fact that this is the trend. It's
Speaker 16: escalating pressure way too slow for my taste. I think
Speaker 16: you should have pulled the plug on genocide from day one, right.
Speaker 16: But Netaniahu is noticing the fact that there is growing
Speaker 16: frustration in the Biden administration, which is why he's pushing
Speaker 16: for this regional war to blow things up. And it's
Speaker 16: not surprising that it came on the back of his
Speaker 16: visit to Washington. By the way that he did the
Speaker 16: bombings in Beirut and Tehran. It you wonder what conversations
Speaker 16: may have been had with the Trump team while he
Speaker 16: was here, because he did actually meet with Trump as well.
Speaker 16: And it seems like the Republicans seem to think that
Speaker 16: for things to blow up. This rhetoric from Trump has
Speaker 16: been all in the direction of we have all this
Speaker 16: chaos in the world because of Biden, and if I'm
Speaker 16: in power, then I'm going to restore peace and order
Speaker 16: and all of that. You can't believe a word of
Speaker 16: what Trump is saying, but nonetheless, if he can demonstrate
Speaker 16: more chaos in the world while Biden is still president,
Speaker 16: that's a strategy that Republicans think play in their favor,
Speaker 16: and it seems to be one that Viba Nataniajo is
Speaker 16: running with. And here's the insane part is that after
Speaker 16: those profigations and the prospect of regional war expanding under Nataniajo,
Speaker 16: what did Biden do. He released the two thousand pound
Speaker 16: bombs he's been withholding from Israel's in preparation for that
Speaker 16: regional war. So in a way, the for Natiaho is
Speaker 16: the more you escalate the more you're going to get
Speaker 16: about an administration to bend for what you want.
Speaker 7: And yeah, it's a dynamic. It's precisely what you said.
Speaker 16: We have to understand that Natiniaho is interested in electing
Speaker 16: Trump and if Democrats are serious about not allowing, you know,
Speaker 16: not to be taken advantage of in this case, you
Speaker 16: need a real that you need the backbone to do
Speaker 16: not a cosmetic shift in policy, but a meaningful shift
Speaker 16: in policy. And it's just having the foresight. You know,
Speaker 16: politicians are by nature risk averse. It's all about status
Speaker 16: quo is how I got here, and you need to
Speaker 16: stick with the status quo to remain in power. But
Speaker 16: something is happening in the world that is a very
Speaker 16: very significant, major shift and either you adapt to it
Speaker 16: or you keep your head stuck in the sand until
Speaker 16: you pay the consequences and lose over it. And this
Speaker 16: to me is a wake up call of reading the room,
Speaker 16: looking at what's happening in the world and understanding that
Speaker 16: if there was ever it's always been the morally correct
Speaker 16: position to have a major shift in American policy and
Speaker 16: to stop treating an apartheid regime in Israel like it's
Speaker 16: above the law and above the rules. But right now
Speaker 16: that's a political necessity as well, and the question is
Speaker 16: is the Democratic Party going to wake up to that
Speaker 16: shift and the fact that it is a domestic political
Speaker 16: necessity as well at this point rather than just a
Speaker 16: strategic and a moral imperative.
Speaker 1: All very well said, and Omar always grateful to have
Speaker 1: your time and your expertise, so thank you for coming
Speaker 1: in this morning. Israel's assault on Gaza continues endlessly, seemingly
Speaker 1: no end in sight. The US wimply looks on, makes
Speaker 1: some meaningless and disgruntled noises from time to time.
Speaker 3: Some superpower we are.
Speaker 1: The ICJ ordered Israel to stop its genocidal attacks, to
Speaker 1: no avail. The ICCs threatened the rest warrens, while they
Speaker 1: have failed to materialize as of yet, and we all
Speaker 1: wait with bated breath to see if Iron's retaliation response
Speaker 1: to Israel's provocation will plunge the whole region into an
Speaker 1: even bigger and much more deadly war. It often feels
Speaker 1: like the Israeli state can just act with impunity, raining
Speaker 1: tear down on a trapped population with no one and
Speaker 1: nothing able or willing to stop them, but just below
Speaker 1: the surface, a doom spiral for the Israeli state may
Speaker 1: already have been set into motion, a mounting economic calamity
Speaker 1: that threatens to collapse the state entirely. The BDS movement,
Speaker 1: in their wildest dreams, could never have imagined the economic
Speaker 1: toll that the Israeli state is basically inflicting on itself
Speaker 1: right now as we speak.
Speaker 3: So here are the details.
Speaker 1: Mando Wise compiled what data is available on the Israeli economy,
Speaker 1: and the picture is really quite dire.
Speaker 3: Quote, over forty six.
Speaker 1: Thousand businesses have gone bankrupt, tourism has stopped, Israel's credit
Speaker 1: rating was lowered, Israeli bonds are sold at the prices
Speaker 1: of almost junk bond levels, and the foreign investments that
Speaker 1: have already dropped by sixty percent in the first quarter
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty three as a result of the policies
Speaker 1: of Israel's far right government before October seventh, show no
Speaker 1: prospects of recovery. The majority of the money invested in
Speaker 1: Israeli investment funds was diverted to investments abroad because Israelis
Speaker 1: do not want their own pension funds and insurance funds,
Speaker 1: or their own savings to be tied to the fate
Speaker 1: of the State of Israel. Now, those business closures, they
Speaker 1: may actually just be the beginning. An estimate cited by
Speaker 1: the Times of Israel found that up to sixty thousand
Speaker 1: businesses might close before twenty twenty four is over. This
Speaker 1: is a greater impact than the COVID pandemic shutdown, and
Speaker 1: would only be exacerbated by an expanded war with Hesbola
Speaker 1: and with Iran, the impacts of which frankly would be unfathomable.
Speaker 1: Just think about the realities right now though for the
Speaker 1: Israeli economy, Israeli workers have been called up to participate
Speaker 1: in the Gaza annihilation, under cutting the country's much celebrated
Speaker 1: tech sector. Another key sector, tourism, has completely dried up.
Speaker 1: Construction is at a standstill because the palaest means that
Speaker 1: Israel relies on as cheap labor. Force have been banned
Speaker 1: from coming to work outside of the occupied territories. Israeli
Speaker 1: attempts to import foreign workers as a new source of
Speaker 1: cheap labor have been largely unsuccessful. Turkey has announced a
Speaker 1: ban on exports to Israel, further crippling the construction industry
Speaker 1: and efforts to import from other nations are hampered by
Speaker 1: the efforts of the Huthis to block shipping into Israeli ports.
Speaker 1: Two hundred and fifty thousand Israelis continue to be internally
Speaker 1: displaced as a result of the tit for tat war
Speaker 1: with HESBLA, and panic is set in as Iran threatens
Speaker 1: a large response to the assassination of Ismaelhania that occurred
Speaker 1: on their soil.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 3: Perhaps the biggest body blow, however.
Speaker 1: Was Intel pulling out of a planned twenty five billion
Speaker 1: dollar investment in the state of Israel, an indication that
Speaker 1: capital is engaged in their own self interested bds weighing
Speaker 1: the ever risking risks, ever rising risks of operating in
Speaker 1: Israel to be greater than the benefits. Even more trouble, though,
Speaker 1: could be ahead here again is Mondo Weiss. Israel's power gred,
Speaker 1: which has largely switched to natural gas, still depends on
Speaker 1: coal to supply demand. The biggest supplier of cold to
Speaker 1: Israel is Columbia, which announced that it would suspend coul
Speaker 1: shipments to Israel as long as the genocide was ongoing.
Speaker 1: After Colombia, the next two biggest suppliers are South Africa
Speaker 1: and Russia. Without reliable and continuous electricity, Israel will no
Speaker 1: longer be able to pretend to be a developed economy.
Speaker 1: So while the US will apparently never cut Israel off
Speaker 1: of literally anything, including the two thousand pound bombs that
Speaker 1: they used to drop on schools where displaced children are sheltering,
Speaker 1: the rest of the world apparently not so keen to
Speaker 1: continue doing business with this terrorist regime. There's another dynamic
Speaker 1: that's a little harder to quantify here, though it came
Speaker 1: up in our recent interview with an Israeli Zionist analyst,
Speaker 1: Isiel ben Ephraim, who we brought in to discuss the
Speaker 1: right wing riots that broke down in Israel to protect
Speaker 1: the right of Israeli soldiers to rape and torture palest
Speaker 1: to me and detainees. I asked Iel what this trend
Speaker 1: meant for the future of Israel, if they continue to
Speaker 1: drift towards lawlessness and a state governed overtly by Jewish supremacy.
Speaker 1: I was frankly a little bit shocked by his response.
Speaker 8: I think there's going to be a lot of people
Speaker 8: in Israel who if this continues to be the kind
Speaker 8: of government that they have in the long term will leave,
Speaker 8: and those will be the most productive members of society.
Speaker 8: Those will be the high tech leaders, those will be
Speaker 8: the professors, those will be the literati, and so on
Speaker 8: and so forth, which is something that I think the
Speaker 8: extreme right and Israel wants because that will help them
Speaker 8: run the country better. And there's an attempt to dismantle
Speaker 8: the Israeli judicial system because that's the one check in
Speaker 8: balance the Israeli system has against this kind of power.
Speaker 8: So right now, Israel, similar to a lot of other
Speaker 8: countries in the West, the United States as an example,
Speaker 8: is having a battle for its soul. And I think
Speaker 8: if the liberal democratic forces in Israel lose, Israel will
Speaker 8: be lost. It's not going to be able to survive
Speaker 8: if it doesn't have allies in the world, and it's
Speaker 8: going to be sanctioned by everyone, treated like a pariah state.
Speaker 8: That liberal part of the country is what kept Israel's
Speaker 8: part of the international community, and what kept it allied
Speaker 8: with the United States, and what kept it as a
Speaker 8: big trade partner for the EU. And if Israel loses that,
Speaker 8: it's not going to be.
Speaker 7: Able to survive.
Speaker 8: The extreme right fringe and the fundamentalists aren't going to
Speaker 8: be able to support the Israeli economy, aren't going to
Speaker 8: be able to supports very deciding not in the long term.
Speaker 8: Many many don't serve in the army. It's a disaster
Speaker 8: for Israel if these people take over, and this is
Speaker 8: a step towards taking over, like make no mistake, they're
Speaker 8: hindering the functioning of the state. If they completely take over,
Speaker 8: the state of Israel will not exist in the long term.
Speaker 8: And I don't think I think that's quite a possible outcome.
Speaker 1: So Chielle alludes there to the fact that the most
Speaker 1: conservative ultra orthodox members of Israeli society are increasingly represented
Speaker 1: in terms of governing ideology, but don't actually contribute too
Speaker 1: much to society. They tend to have large families, rely
Speaker 1: on government welfare, and receive a religious exemption from military service.
Speaker 1: The number supporting this dynamic, we're already getting kind of dicey,
Speaker 1: because this group has much higher birth rates than more
Speaker 1: secular Israeli Jews. If you see a significant brain drain
Speaker 1: due to unending war and overt fascism, according to shiel Quote,
Speaker 1: the state of Israel will not exist in the long term.
Speaker 1: Bolstering this point, Mondo West quoted and Israeli economists professor
Speaker 1: Dan Ben David as saying that the Israeli economy is
Speaker 1: held together by three hundred thousand people, the senior staff
Speaker 1: and universities, tech companies and hospitals. Once a significant portion
Speaker 1: of those people leaves, he says, we won't become a
Speaker 1: third world country.
Speaker 3: We just won't be anymore.
Speaker 1: Has this exodus already begun? Difficult to say, and frankly,
Speaker 1: some of the data is really conflicting. But according to
Speaker 1: the Times of Israel, Israelis have already begun leaving the
Speaker 1: country prior to October seventh due to the net Nyahu
Speaker 1: government's extremism and attacks on the judiciary, which had led
Speaker 1: to a large protest movement for more secular elements of society.
Speaker 1: That outflow accelerated after October seventh, leading to about forty
Speaker 1: two thousand permanent departures from November through March of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four, and one can only imagine what an all
Speaker 1: out worth Husbaland and or Iran could due to those
Speaker 1: numbers in a country where a significant minority of the
Speaker 1: population hold multiple passports. By enabling the worst of Israeli
Speaker 1: atrocities and excesses. Self proclaimed Zionist Joe Biden may have
Speaker 1: unintentionally helped to galvin as a force that could actually
Speaker 1: destroy the Israeli state. We may be watching in real
Speaker 1: time as Israel collapses under the weight of its own
Speaker 1: internal divides, capitals, aversion to risk, and the world's revulsion
Speaker 1: to apartheid and genocide. That's a show for today, guys.
Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning in. Emily did a great job. Is
Speaker 1: always fun to get to talk to her. She and
Speaker 1: Ryan are going to be back with a great counterpoints tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Sager hopefully be feeling better and be back in his
Speaker 1: chair on Thursday, and I will see you then