Speaker 1: All right, good morning, and welcome to the counters. This
Speaker 1: will be the last Counterpoints on a Wednesday before the election.
Speaker 2: Was going to say exactly a week from right now
Speaker 2: as we are speaking, the election results.
Speaker 1: Will be asleep. Hopefully.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I doubt it. The election results will be in.
Speaker 2: It doesn't mean we will know who the president is
Speaker 2: because that wasn't the case last time. There were really
Speaker 2: tight margins and it's looking very similar, if not even
Speaker 2: closer than it was in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: And happy Steve Bannon released from prison today.
Speaker 3: Wow, that's a big deal.
Speaker 1: I used to do his podcast this morning. Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: a free man. I have so many questions about his
Speaker 1: time in prison. Did he wear two prison outfits the
Speaker 1: way he wears two? For people don't know he wears
Speaker 1: two of the button down shirts.
Speaker 2: And for the record, Bannon going to prison because he
Speaker 2: didn't respond to a subpoena. Right, There are other cases
Speaker 2: against Bannon, but the one he went to prison for
Speaker 2: is refusing to reply to a congressional subpoena over jelosty.
Speaker 1: People don't do that, no, tons of people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's as funny as the two jumpsuits is I
Speaker 2: guess the law firm.
Speaker 3: Maybe not so much, but.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk. We're going to talk about Kamala
Speaker 1: Harris's rally, which both Emily and I were at last
Speaker 1: night in Washington, d C. We're going to talk about
Speaker 1: garbage gate. Did Joe Biden say that all of Donald
Speaker 1: trumps supporters are an island or a pile of garbage
Speaker 1: or did he just misspeak? We will, we will parse
Speaker 1: that for you. We'll get to the bottom swing the election.
Speaker 1: So we need to get to the bottom of this.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely. Then we'll be talking about Robert F. Kennedy.
Speaker 2: Jun You're not getting off the ballot in some swing states,
Speaker 2: officially decided by the Supreme Court yesterday. So huge news really,
Speaker 2: even though it could only affect a few thousand ballots,
Speaker 2: it's still really big news.
Speaker 1: We had Emily's friend Ryan Gerdusky booted off the the
Speaker 1: It was great, How how it started, How it's going.
Speaker 1: I'll be on CNN at eight pm. I have been
Speaker 1: banned from CNN. We'll also be talking to Amir.
Speaker 3: To be fair.
Speaker 2: Gardesky and I aren't exactly friends, but Ryan is eluding
Speaker 2: to a debate that we hosted with Zero Hedge Immigration
Speaker 2: that was a Robbie Swave suave versus Ryan Gerdusky and
Speaker 2: Jack Pisobic and the Libertarian presidential candidate.
Speaker 3: It was just Melee.
Speaker 1: I didn't think I could be shocked those Maga dudes
Speaker 1: talking about what they were going to do if they
Speaker 1: win the White House. Yeah wow, okay, ye. Interesting. Then
Speaker 1: we're going to have Amir Tibone, who is an Israeli
Speaker 1: journalist and author of the new book The Gates of Gaza.
Speaker 1: He has not just an incredible story from October seventh,
Speaker 1: he and his family lived in Nahal Oz, which is
Speaker 1: the kibbutz that is closest to Gaza. You may have
Speaker 1: actually heard something about his story about about a year ago,
Speaker 1: absolutely gripping. We're going to talk to him just about
Speaker 1: about his book and also the like unfolding genocide that's
Speaker 1: going on in Gaza now, including some updates from northern Gaza,
Speaker 1: as well as my interaction yesterday with Matt Miller in
Speaker 1: the State Department press room. And then we've got Emily
Speaker 1: interviewed Eric Schmidt, Missouri Senator.
Speaker 3: And more importantly friends with JD.
Speaker 2: Vance probably Jdvan's closest friend in the Senate, so had
Speaker 2: him on undercurrents and asked him a little bit about
Speaker 2: whether Elon Musk undercuts the drain the swamp message and
Speaker 2: if he's worried actually, as Matt Stoler is about Trump
Speaker 2: telling this wonderful story and how the Google CEO keeps
Speaker 2: calling him to tell him the McDonald's.
Speaker 3: Thing was the biggest.
Speaker 2: Who knows whether or not that's actually true, but it
Speaker 2: was a good conversation about the realignment some insight into
Speaker 2: the campaign as we get closer to election day. So,
Speaker 2: speaking of which, Ryan, should we start with the A
Speaker 2: block here and the rally we were both at last
Speaker 2: night on the National Mall.
Speaker 3: The Ellipse is that.
Speaker 1: Part put does vo up here while going right.
Speaker 2: You're gonna want to see this, and if you're listening,
Speaker 2: we'll describe it a little bit. But the Ellipse is
Speaker 2: the park that's directly south of the White House and
Speaker 2: Kamala Harris hosted a very well staged rally that ended.
Speaker 3: Up drawing a massive, massive audience.
Speaker 2: The sun was setting on a quite literally perfect fall
Speaker 2: day in Washington, amazing weather, and it stretched all the
Speaker 2: way back to the Washington Monument.
Speaker 3: It's got sparser.
Speaker 2: Towards the Washington monument, which is still an impressive feat
Speaker 2: because that's just a lot of a lot of ground
Speaker 2: to cover and to have it.
Speaker 3: That tightly packed. RN, what did you make of the
Speaker 3: rally last night?
Speaker 1: And it and they had a they had a handful
Speaker 1: of kind of regular people who would tell stories about uh,
Speaker 1: kid who you know, needs insulin and gets it cheaper
Speaker 1: because of Biden's uh and Congress under Biden, you know,
Speaker 1: cracking down and making insolent cheaper and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: But in general, nobody else, Like there was no Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: There were no senators, there were no members of Congress,
Speaker 1: there were no labor leaders. So it wasn't that sense
Speaker 1: of rolly just like, oh here's here's the vice president
Speaker 1: and that's it.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: The one takeaway we were talking about before the show started,
Speaker 1: she did her thing where she talked about how Trump
Speaker 1: got in the way of Democrats wanting to crack down
Speaker 1: on the border and this really tough immigration bill that
Speaker 1: they had negotiated with Republican immigrant immigration hawks, and the
Speaker 1: crowd is just like dead silent, like we don't want
Speaker 1: to hear this, and then she says, and of course,
Speaker 1: we are a nation of immigrants, and the crowd erupts
Speaker 1: at that. So it was interesting to see that while
Speaker 1: the Democratic elites have done a complete one to eighty
Speaker 1: when it comes to immigration policy and the approach to
Speaker 1: immigrants on the border, that at least this kind of
Speaker 1: demographic of the Democratic base was like, no, no, no, we
Speaker 1: actually meant it when we said all are welcome here,
Speaker 1: Like we're not actually with you on this pivot that
Speaker 1: you've done.
Speaker 3: So Kamala Harrison the parts of the speech.
Speaker 2: She was billing this as a kind of democracy speech,
Speaker 2: billing it as her closing argument, and started off making
Speaker 2: a very direct parallel to January six. She said, right
Speaker 2: here where we're standing right now, Donald Trump, you know,
Speaker 2: encourage her supporters to go down to the Capitol. And
Speaker 2: then she pivoted to the meat of the speech being
Speaker 2: way more about like you were saying, healthcare costs, childcare costs, inflation,
Speaker 2: home prices and all of that, and brought it back
Speaker 2: to these questions of democracy and everything at the end.
Speaker 2: Literally as she was speaking, and we'll get to this,
Speaker 2: but as she was speaking, Joe Biden was on CNN
Speaker 2: like one hundred yards behind her making his like weird
Speaker 2: garbage comment about Trump supporters, we will parse that, don't fear.
Speaker 2: But that was happening at the same time as Kamala.
Speaker 2: Harris had this line where she said, I have it
Speaker 2: right here. The fact that someone disagrees with us doesn't
Speaker 2: make them the enemy within.
Speaker 3: So talk about stepping on the messaging.
Speaker 1: And that was a theme of the speech that you know,
Speaker 1: she's not gonna put her opponents in prison, She's going
Speaker 1: to give them a seat at the table. Otherwise, standard Kamala.
Speaker 3: She's coming in with a to do list, to do.
Speaker 1: List on Edie's list. There's a little bit of Kamala
Speaker 1: from last night.
Speaker 4: We know who Donald Trump is. He is person who
Speaker 4: stood at this very spot nearly four years ago.
Speaker 3: And sent an armed mob to.
Speaker 4: The United States capital to overturn the will of the
Speaker 4: people in a free and fair election. And our democracy
Speaker 4: doesn't it doesn't require us to agree on everything. In fact,
Speaker 4: we like good arguments from time to time. Just think
Speaker 4: of your own family, right, It's not the American way
Speaker 4: to not have disagreements. We don't shy away from robust debate.
Speaker 4: Robust debate. Effect We like a good debate, don't we
Speaker 4: We like a good debate, and the fact that someone
Speaker 4: disagrees with us does not make them the enemy within.
Speaker 4: They are family, neighbors, classmates, coworkers. They are fellow Americans,
Speaker 4: and as Americans, we rise and fall together.
Speaker 2: So I think it's worth being very clear. And we
Speaker 2: were talking about this a little bit earlier. Kamala Harris
Speaker 2: being able to draw a massive crowd in Washington, d C.
Speaker 2: On a nice day is really not a sign that
Speaker 2: sort of we do the same thing with Trump rally
Speaker 2: sizes too. It's not a sign that she's necessarily going
Speaker 2: to win. That she just was able to draw a
Speaker 2: bunch of people from the Beltway whose livelihoods are connected
Speaker 2: to the federal bureaucracy that Donald Trump is threatening quite explicitly.
Speaker 2: Lots of defense people, defense industry people out here. So
Speaker 2: it's not hugely impressive as a feat. But I thought
Speaker 2: they'd put it together very well.
Speaker 1: Sure, well, except I don't. Oh, I guess you weren't
Speaker 1: inside the case. Then at the end they only had
Speaker 1: like one place to leave. Oh really, that's like they
Speaker 1: were afraid we're going to go sack capital or something.
Speaker 1: It took longer to get out and it was to
Speaker 1: get in.
Speaker 3: They knew what you were up to.
Speaker 1: They knew, what if I'm not on arrest, you need
Speaker 1: to let me go right.
Speaker 2: You know, there was a pretty rowdy cohort of Palestinian
Speaker 2: activists who were outside the gates of the rally, and
Speaker 2: I caught on video a couple of times.
Speaker 3: I mean, it got it.
Speaker 2: Got tense because people were waiting in a really long
Speaker 2: line to get into the rally, and the Polstadian protesters
Speaker 2: did strategically a great job of setting up camp right
Speaker 2: in the high traffic areas, and so as people are waiting,
Speaker 2: they're shouting shame and are you okay with genocide, which
Speaker 2: is really riling up.
Speaker 3: The Kamala bros.
Speaker 2: As you can imagine, who starts saying like you're pro Trump,
Speaker 2: And you know, it was this interesting split screen of
Speaker 2: sort of people in their like dockers and barber jackets
Speaker 2: yelling at the Palestinian activists who had pictures of babies
Speaker 2: that have been you know, injured, killed in the war,
Speaker 2: and they're being yelled at by in some cases these
Speaker 2: just like pasty white I can say that because I'm
Speaker 2: pastry white, but these like pasty white rich.
Speaker 3: Kids who just made them to vote for Kamala Harris,
Speaker 3: so it got they did a really good job.
Speaker 2: If you could actually hear them all the way back
Speaker 2: at the Washington Monuments, like strategically. I heard that you
Speaker 2: could even hear them inside the rally from the press pen,
Speaker 2: so they were maybe.
Speaker 3: Loud throughout the entire the entire rally. You could hear them.
Speaker 2: They had bullhorns and were genuinely I think they genuinely
Speaker 2: did what they sought to do. But it was another
Speaker 2: great split screen because when I stood in the same
Speaker 2: spot as I stood on January six, I was watching
Speaker 2: and I was trying to compare what I was seeing.
Speaker 2: The most well off crowd I've ever seen at a
Speaker 2: rally ever. And that doesn't mean there weren't people who
Speaker 2: flew in private jets on January six, of course there were,
Speaker 2: but it was a much more.
Speaker 3: Sort of hard scrabble crowd. And it was all.
Speaker 1: With last night. It's people who live in d C.
Speaker 1: Or suburban Maryland or suburban Virginia.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I just thought it was a similar dynamic actually though
Speaker 2: with the Palestinian activist and you've probably seen this before,
Speaker 2: it was like scrappy people who weren't, you know, making
Speaker 2: these big paychecks. And getting shouted down by people who
Speaker 2: felt entitled to have everyone vote for Kamala Harris.
Speaker 1: I didn't see it. Yeah, where I was, I didn't
Speaker 1: see any friction between the protesters and the I mean
Speaker 1: I saw some people saying, like, we agree with you.
Speaker 1: I saw that too, and I think they understood, like,
Speaker 1: there's not They're not gonna win an argument at that
Speaker 1: point anyway. Yeah, and they don't, and they probably actually
Speaker 1: do agree that. What they disagree with is they're like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're just gonna we're just gonna swallow this and vote
Speaker 1: for this person anyway totally.
Speaker 3: And then they're showing up at a rally.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And so, uh, Trump was in the Lehigh
Speaker 1: Valley last night. My dad and my brother went to
Speaker 1: that rally actually just to check it out, just to
Speaker 1: check it out. But Kamala has a new act kind
Speaker 1: of targeting Trump people just making the rounds here. Let's
Speaker 1: roll that.
Speaker 6: Your current, honey, in the one place in America where
Speaker 6: women still have a right to choose, you can vote
Speaker 6: any way you want and no one will ever.
Speaker 1: Know did you make your right choice?
Speaker 6: Share it in, honey, Remember what happens in the booth
Speaker 6: stays in the booth. Vote Harris Well, vote coming Good
Speaker 6: is responsible for the contents.
Speaker 1: Of this ad. What'd you think of that?
Speaker 2: You know, I think it's almost insulting to women. I
Speaker 2: see what they're doing. I think it's insulting to It's
Speaker 2: also like a huge l on mail in balloting, because
Speaker 2: that's a huge problem with mail in balloting is you
Speaker 2: potentially have someone like watching over your shoulder and or
Speaker 2: filling out the ballots for you and saying, oh, this
Speaker 2: is a I know how you're voting, ballots filled out,
Speaker 2: put it in the mail, don't worry about it. But
Speaker 2: on top of it, it's just like I think a
Speaker 2: woman can like tell her husband she's not voting for Trump.
Speaker 2: I know that that does get tense in people's marriages.
Speaker 2: I understand that, but like, you don't need Julia Roberts
Speaker 2: to tell you it's okay to go against your husband.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wonder who that ad.
Speaker 3: Is for suburban women right who are.
Speaker 1: Already voting for Harrison, making them feel even better about it.
Speaker 1: Like maybe a comparison would be the way that Obama
Speaker 1: has been saying, if you're Muslim, how can you vote
Speaker 1: for the guy who did the Muslim band like, I
Speaker 1: don't think that's actually aimed at Muslim voters. It's aimed
Speaker 1: at other people who might feel like, because of their
Speaker 1: solidarity with the Arab or Muslim American community, that they
Speaker 1: might not be able to vote for Kamala Harris, even
Speaker 1: though they themselves are like, well, you know, I prefer
Speaker 1: Kama over Trump. And it's regrettable what's going on in Gaza,
Speaker 1: but it's not really my main issue. But then if
Speaker 1: they feel a sense of solidarity with their friends in
Speaker 1: the Muslim rabbit community, then they might with them. And
Speaker 1: I think what Obama was doing with that one line
Speaker 1: saying if you're Muslim, how can you vote with a
Speaker 1: Muslim band guy? It gives the non Muslims then this
Speaker 1: permission structure to say, yeah, you're right, that is crazy.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be an ally by voting against the
Speaker 1: Muslim band guy. So maybe this makes some suburban women
Speaker 1: feel better. Maybe maybe works.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 3: We'll see. Yeah, I don't know anything.
Speaker 2: I mean at this point, any tiny little demo you
Speaker 2: can pick off when you have a statistical dead heat,
Speaker 2: essentially is if that works on a couple thousand women,
Speaker 2: it may.
Speaker 3: Be the difference.
Speaker 2: So even though that seems unlikely, I guess they're throwing
Speaker 2: everything at the wall, getting Julia Roberts out there now,
Speaker 2: speaking of which we don't have to just go by
Speaker 2: crowd size or advertisement messaging. Let's take a listen here
Speaker 2: to Harry Enton, who gave a pretty interesting breakdown of
Speaker 2: where the polls are right now on CNN yesterday.
Speaker 7: That's all we hear about, Oh, Donald Trump's going to
Speaker 7: out perform his polls. So I went back and checked
Speaker 7: out whether or not a par already outran the polls
Speaker 7: three presidential election cycles in a row in the key
Speaker 7: battleground states.
Speaker 1: It's never happened.
Speaker 7: It's never happened zero times, zero times since nineteen hundred
Speaker 7: and seventy two. So if the polls are going to
Speaker 7: underestimate Donald Trump once again, that would be historically unprecedented. Now,
Speaker 7: maybe you want to make the argument that Donald Trump
Speaker 7: himself is historically unprecedented. But what normally happens is the
Speaker 7: posters catch on, hey, we're underestimating, We're not taking into
Speaker 7: account some part of the electorate. They make adjustments, And
Speaker 7: I think that helps to explain why we have never
Speaker 7: seen that the same party has been underestimated three times
Speaker 7: in a row in presidential elections, at least over the last.
Speaker 1: Fifty two years.
Speaker 7: And what do we see in twenty twenty two in Michigan, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 7: and Wisconsin. Well, it turns out that the average poll
Speaker 7: in those states actually underestimated Democrats by four points. It
Speaker 7: underestimated Democrats by four points. And I want to apply
Speaker 7: that to the electoral map, because if it turns out
Speaker 7: that the polls underestimate Donald Trump are underestimated the Democrats
Speaker 7: excuse me, like they did in twenty twenty two, what happens, Well,
Speaker 7: Kamala how ruins as sweet because she wins all these
Speaker 7: great battleground states. She wins down in the Southeast, and
Speaker 7: she wins down in the Southwest, and she gets the
Speaker 7: three hundred and nineteen electro votes.
Speaker 2: Okay, so that's actually some pretty interesting historical context there, Ryan,
Speaker 2: And another thing I wanted to add is my colleague
Speaker 2: at the Federalist, former colleague John Daniel Davidson, wrote a
Speaker 2: piece really interesting in terms of polling. It's not a
Speaker 2: piece about polling, but it's called the social stigma of
Speaker 2: being a Trump supporter is Gone, which I think is
Speaker 2: probably true.
Speaker 3: On a national level. Maybe it's not true.
Speaker 2: In everyone's marriage, but that actually, if we're trying to
Speaker 2: figure out whether this polling is accurate, a lot of
Speaker 2: that inaccuracy in the polling was attributed to the quote
Speaker 2: shy Trump voter phenomenon. So when even you have the
Speaker 2: Federalists saying they feel like the social stigma would be
Speaker 2: a Trump supporter is gone, I do wonder if we
Speaker 2: look back a week from now and see that that
Speaker 2: affected the polling.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Federalists would know, right, So it's true, and
Speaker 1: I think it's true, like people are for better or
Speaker 1: worse if they like Trump. They're more willing to say
Speaker 1: it now than they certainly I think in yeah, say
Speaker 1: October of twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3: Totally. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2: Well, let's get to our next block because we have
Speaker 2: Shelby Talcott in studio and we're going to run down
Speaker 2: some Trump updates.
Speaker 3: Stay tuned for them.
Speaker 2: We're excited to be joined in studio by one of
Speaker 2: our favorite return guests, Shelby Talcott of Semaphore Semaphore shallby
Speaker 2: correct me on air, it's Semophour four.
Speaker 8: I guess semaphore a lot, but I didn't come up
Speaker 8: with the name to be clear.
Speaker 2: Okay, well we'll blame Ben. I've heard it both ways. So, Shelby,
Speaker 2: you are doing a lot of reporting on the Trump
Speaker 2: campaign and the vibe check and the Trump campaign with
Speaker 2: less than a week ago before election day.
Speaker 3: Let's put b one up on the screen.
Speaker 2: This is a tear sheet from Politico, just reporting a
Speaker 2: little bit on how the fallout from the Tony Hinchcliff
Speaker 2: joke about Puerto Rico is now quote spreading like wildfire
Speaker 2: in Pennsylvania. Now that may seem interesting to people outside Pennsylvania,
Speaker 2: who say, how could a joke about Puerto Ricans be
Speaker 2: difference in Pennsylvania? But my understanding, Shelby, based on your reporting,
Speaker 2: is that the Trump campaign recognizes, with tight margins which
Speaker 2: we likely expect a week from now, the Puerto Rican
Speaker 2: demographic in swing states is big enough to really perhaps
Speaker 2: make a difference.
Speaker 3: What are you hearing from them? Yeah, listen.
Speaker 8: And I was surprised by how many Puerto Ricans are
Speaker 8: in Pennsylvania. In fact, I think the number was like
Speaker 8: half a million. But the big thing is that Donald
Speaker 8: Trump's campaign recognizes that this is essentially a tied race,
Speaker 8: and so anything that could swing some of these voters
Speaker 8: either against voting for Donald Trump or even getting off
Speaker 8: of the couch and deciding to vote for Kamala Harris
Speaker 8: is notable. And what Kamala Harris's campaign has tried really
Speaker 8: hard to do, and Democrats have tried really hard to
Speaker 8: do with some success, is to tie that comedian's joke
Speaker 8: directly to Donald Trump, because of course it was at
Speaker 8: his rally, and that was not the only sort of
Speaker 8: controversial hot comment of the evening. You had the anti
Speaker 8: christ comment, you had some sort of other speakers who
Speaker 8: made these certain remarks that a lot of people were
Speaker 8: offended by. And so the campaign has really tried to
Speaker 8: distance itself from this comedian's comment. And I talked to
Speaker 8: Donald Trump's political director James Blair yesterday and I asked
Speaker 8: him about this, and he argued that it's they're not
Speaker 8: concerned that it's going to affect the vote, because at
Speaker 8: the end of the day, Donald Trump himself did not
Speaker 8: say it, and they have disavowed the comment. But it's
Speaker 8: clearly a concern. And you can tell that because the
Speaker 8: campaign typically doesn't even go so far as to disavow
Speaker 8: themselves from certain things, so when they do, it's notable.
Speaker 1: And so I as I know, as I grew up
Speaker 1: partly in Allentown, was born there, and my dad and
Speaker 1: brother went to the Trump rally in Allentown last night,
Speaker 1: and I can tell you, yeah, Allentown and the entirely
Speaker 1: High VALI are is like half Puerto Rican or more,
Speaker 1: even from back when I was there. These are people
Speaker 1: who have been there for a very long time. I
Speaker 1: think the way that the comedian made the joke, he
Speaker 1: connected it also to people Latino being here illegally. And
Speaker 1: I won't even get into like the crew joke that
Speaker 1: he told ahead of it, which has been going like
Speaker 1: wildfire to that one.
Speaker 9: It's but also so the Puerto Ricans who heard that
Speaker 9: are like, how dare you?
Speaker 1: We're Americans, what are you talking about?
Speaker 9: And also they've been living here since the seventies in
Speaker 9: the Lehigh Valley.
Speaker 8: And I think the big thing is these jokes maybe
Speaker 8: are fine for like a bar scenario or a comedy
Speaker 8: club tony, but we're a week and a half out
Speaker 8: from the presidential election and this is a political campaign.
Speaker 8: And when I talked to people on Donald Trump's team,
Speaker 8: They've conceded that, yeah, okay, this was a mistake. We
Speaker 8: probably shouldn't have had not only a comedian, but an
Speaker 8: edgy comedian at our political rally, because inevitably it's going
Speaker 8: to get tied to Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: Of course.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, and they got a gift that they've been
Speaker 2: going absolutely wild with just in the last like twelve hours.
Speaker 2: We're recording this in the morning, and it happened around
Speaker 2: nine o'clock in the evening. Actually, as Kamala Harris was speaking,
Speaker 2: Joe Biden was on CNN and had this to say, Listen.
Speaker 1: This is what Kama gets for not inviting him to
Speaker 1: the rally.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 5: Let's roll be two or Puerto Rico, where I'm in
Speaker 5: my home state of Delaware. They're good, decent, honorable people.
Speaker 5: The only garbage I see float down there is his
Speaker 5: supporters is his demonizational scene is unconstable.
Speaker 2: So this is a wild, right, wild frenzy because the
Speaker 2: Biden campaign is now doing cleanup and saying that Joe
Speaker 2: Biden said supporters with an apostrophe on the end of it,
Speaker 2: meaning the garbage was Trump supporter's possessive.
Speaker 8: Garbinization, referring to the comedian like the singular.
Speaker 2: Right, that it's possessive that it's like this is there,
Speaker 2: it belongs to them, not that they themselves are garbage,
Speaker 2: which is what the Trump campaign understandably because when you're
Speaker 2: listening to it, he said exactly, that is what he said,
Speaker 2: although media outlets have run with the Biden version of
Speaker 2: it and have actually like tried to explain why in
Speaker 2: wass don't these are gymnastics. I don't think would be
Speaker 2: happening if the parties were reversed there. But Shelby, just
Speaker 2: take us through a little bit and everyone here can
Speaker 2: watch it. If you're watching this, we're gonna put B
Speaker 2: two A. Let's put this up on the screen. This
Speaker 2: is jd Vance's response. This started happening immediately. He started
Speaker 2: criticizing the media for media for cleaning up this is
Speaker 2: a Jonathan Lamuir story and in Politico and jd Vance
Speaker 2: criticized them almost immediately on X last night for writing
Speaker 2: in a way that he felt was doing cleanup for
Speaker 2: the Biden campaign. And then he posted this one another morning.
Speaker 2: Her son who died of a fentyl overdose is not garbage.
Speaker 2: A truck driver who can't afford rising diesel prices is
Speaker 2: not garbage. A father who wants to afford groceries is
Speaker 2: not garbage. And we have one Trump tweet to put up.
Speaker 2: I guess a Trump truth. Maybe it was a tweet. Okay,
Speaker 2: he posted this on x as well.
Speaker 1: Well, that's how you know he's feeling really good.
Speaker 3: He's going to well, I'm running a campaign.
Speaker 2: I'm running a campaign of positive solutions to save America.
Speaker 2: Kamala Harris is running a campaign of hate, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 2: Not on top of everything, Joe Biden calls our supporters garbage.
Speaker 2: Don't you can't lead America if you don't love the
Speaker 2: American people, Shelby, that tone is one.
Speaker 3: I watched the entire rally. You were actually there.
Speaker 2: I watched the whole thing from start to finish, and
Speaker 2: I wasn't on Twitter while I was watching it, so
Speaker 2: I wasn't sort of seeing the real time feedback. That
Speaker 2: was the messaging that Trump just put in that tweet.
Speaker 2: Somewhat amusingly, they were going for at the rally unity love,
Speaker 2: the party of peace, the candidate of peace. So they
Speaker 2: feel like they've gotten a real, like last minute gift
Speaker 2: here that actually could be they believe more effective than
Speaker 2: the deplorable moment was for Republicans.
Speaker 3: Is that what you're hearing.
Speaker 8: Yeah, last night, actually when I was texting people on
Speaker 8: Donald Trump's campaign, they kept comparing it to that Hillary
Speaker 8: Clinton deplorable's moment, And listen, this is a really big
Speaker 8: gift for the Donald Trump campaign. Simply whether it ends
Speaker 8: up influencing votes or not, who knows.
Speaker 1: We're so close to the actual election day.
Speaker 3: But what it does is.
Speaker 8: It shifts the storyline from a pretty positive news cycle
Speaker 8: from Kamala Harris in the with the comedian situation, and
Speaker 8: so now everybody is focused on Joe Biden calling his
Speaker 8: calling Donald Trump supporters garbage. And again you can debate
Speaker 8: on what he meant. I think it's a little bit
Speaker 8: of spin from the White House. You can hear it
Speaker 8: when when you listen. But yeah, this is a really
Speaker 8: big gift, and they're not going to let this go.
Speaker 8: I think you can expect to see it in last
Speaker 8: minute adds, in last minute you know, posts on social media.
Speaker 8: We're seeing it all over. They're not gonna they're not
Speaker 8: going to die down on this.
Speaker 1: My own theory on it is that he was I
Speaker 1: think he was trying to say the only thing that's
Speaker 1: garbage is his supporters demonization of the American people. Because
Speaker 1: he then goes into the demonization. It seems like he's reading,
Speaker 1: but it's not. It's a lot of what it's politics.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter what he meant to say.
Speaker 3: And well, this is also who's the genius.
Speaker 9: Who's the genius that's writing like a complicated script for
Speaker 9: this guy?
Speaker 1: He can't.
Speaker 8: This is the problem with having Joe Biden on the
Speaker 8: campaign trail. That's exactly why Kamala Harris has kept her
Speaker 8: distance from having Joe Biden on the campaign trail because
Speaker 8: they don't believe he helps her.
Speaker 3: And we've seen that time and time again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this seems like something that the Trim campaign rightfully
Speaker 2: understands will help turn out, Like this is what gets
Speaker 2: your base to not stay home? Is Joe Biden calling
Speaker 2: your supporters of garbage literally at the moment that Kamala
Speaker 2: Harris is saying, nobody is the enemy within Yeah, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Let's roll this clip of John Stewart responding to the
Speaker 2: Tony Hinchcliff joke. This is B three and John Stewart
Speaker 2: had a surprising take actually on what happened.
Speaker 10: Now obviously in retrospect, having a roast comedian come to
Speaker 10: a political rally a week before election day and roasting
Speaker 10: a key voting demographic. Probably not the best decision by
Speaker 10: the campaign politically, but to be fair, the guys really
Speaker 10: just doing what he does. I mean, here he is
Speaker 10: at the Tom Brady roast a few months ago.
Speaker 1: The great Jeff Ross.
Speaker 11: Ladies and gentlemen, Jeff is so Jewish he only watches
Speaker 11: football for.
Speaker 1: The coin toss. Gronk, you look like.
Speaker 11: The Nazi that kept burning himself on the ovens. Kevin
Speaker 11: is so small that when his ancestors picked cotton they
Speaker 11: called it deadlifting.
Speaker 10: Yes, yes, of course, terrible boo. Yes, there's something wrong
Speaker 10: with me. I find that guy very funny. So I'm sorry,
Speaker 10: I don't know what to tell you. I mean, bringing
Speaker 10: him to a rally and have him not do roast jokes.
Speaker 10: I had to be like bringing Beyonce to a rally and.
Speaker 2: Oh, okay, that was pretty good.
Speaker 3: Shelby to a point.
Speaker 2: We were having actually before we went to air, as
Speaker 2: we were chatting getting the mics on.
Speaker 3: Those are funny jokes.
Speaker 2: The Trump campaign seems to now be realizing they were
Speaker 2: funny jokes for a comedy set, and maybe as Trump
Speaker 2: is throwing together this genuinely I think interesting coalition of
Speaker 2: people at Madison Square Garden doctor Phil. He had everyone
Speaker 2: from doctor Phil to like hedge fund guys and Ilon
Speaker 2: Pogan was there.
Speaker 3: It was a little bit of the RNC again.
Speaker 2: But it's interesting because the Trump campaign is kind of
Speaker 2: operating on the fly. It's just a totally different world.
Speaker 2: So do you sense that this was you said this earlier,
Speaker 2: but maybe they realized that it kind of These things
Speaker 2: can be funny, but that doesn't mean that they're political
Speaker 2: campaign funny.
Speaker 8: I think they've realized that there's a time and a place,
Speaker 8: and you know, nine however, nine ten days out from
Speaker 8: a presidential election where the polls are essentially tied and
Speaker 8: the both sides are going at each other pretty aggressively,
Speaker 8: already not the place to bring in a super edgy
Speaker 8: comedian who makes racially insensitive jokes.
Speaker 1: Although if it ends up that Biden garbage comment, then
Speaker 1: it's like the hand of God.
Speaker 8: Yeah, but cancels each other out or maybe the Biden
Speaker 8: thing becoming a bigger deal, because I do think again,
Speaker 8: you look back at twenty sixteen, the Hillary Clinton deplorable's
Speaker 8: comment that ended up being a huge deal at least.
Speaker 1: The difference with Hillary is like she meant it, and
Speaker 1: she said exactly what she meant, whereas you know, what
Speaker 1: Biden said is in contrast and in conflict with what
Speaker 1: their whole messaging is.
Speaker 8: But Biden's criticized Trump supporters in the well, so you
Speaker 8: dous sort of line up with like past things he says,
Speaker 8: whether he meant.
Speaker 9: Do you remember some of the worst stuff he said,
Speaker 9: some blunt stuff he gave that.
Speaker 3: Big speech in Philadelphia.
Speaker 2: Remember it was the dark branded speech with the red
Speaker 2: lights behind him outside Independence Hall. Yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 2: think this actually speaks to something that Harris Biden camp
Speaker 2: is struggling with.
Speaker 3: And I saw it at the Rattle last night.
Speaker 2: It was like they can't side whether they think that
Speaker 2: Trump supporters are fascists or that they're just you.
Speaker 1: Know, deserve a seat at the table and they're part
Speaker 1: of our family exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is a.
Speaker 8: Fine line, and I don't know how you can do
Speaker 8: it successfully and clearly this and the problem shows that
Speaker 8: they're they've struggled to do.
Speaker 1: They're probably also legitimately ambivalent on the question, but they're
Speaker 1: not quite sure. Actually, yeah, they would stick a knife
Speaker 1: in them.
Speaker 2: So Donald Trump then in Allentown in front of Ryan's family,
Speaker 2: started talking about how Democrats have quote already started cheating.
Speaker 3: Let's rule this last clip here.
Speaker 10: If you have a mail in ballot, get that damn
Speaker 10: ballot in pleaze immediately because.
Speaker 12: Because they've already started cheating.
Speaker 1: In Lancaster, they've cheated. We caught it with two thousand
Speaker 1: and six hundred. So Shelby, you've you've seen him so
Speaker 1: many times now is he just doing Trump impressions?
Speaker 5: Now?
Speaker 1: It feels like he's just doing his own.
Speaker 3: Impression the mail in ballot.
Speaker 1: Ionators, and he's like, that's even better, like it?
Speaker 8: Yeah, Well, the thing when you when you go to
Speaker 8: a lot of these Trump rallies, a lot of them
Speaker 8: are similar. This is, you know, not a new speech.
Speaker 8: This specific allegation of courses is newer. But in general
Speaker 8: he talks a lot about the twenty twenty election. He
Speaker 8: talks a lot about uh, you know, he has a
Speaker 8: lot of claims.
Speaker 1: Must be so happy to have new cheating and new
Speaker 1: election ringing to talk about.
Speaker 8: Well, it's interesting too, because when I talked to James Blair,
Speaker 8: Trump's political director, I asked him one of the questions
Speaker 8: I asked him towards the end of the interview was
Speaker 8: what if in eight days from now, Kamala Haris wins, Like,
Speaker 8: what would the big thing be and what's your biggest concern?
Speaker 8: And on the biggest concern part, he started pointing to
Speaker 8: Pennsylvania and talking about exactly what Donald Trump was talking
Speaker 8: about last night, and so that was really interesting.
Speaker 3: And then I sort of asked a follow up.
Speaker 8: I said, you know, are you saying that if Kamala
Speaker 8: Harris wins, it's going to be because of voter interference?
Speaker 8: And he said, I'm not saying that. That's not what
Speaker 8: I'm saying. I'm just saying that in the days leading
Speaker 8: up to the election, we want a free and fair election.
Speaker 8: We want the rules to be followed and then let
Speaker 8: the chips fall where they may.
Speaker 3: See.
Speaker 2: This is so interesting because let's bring it full circle.
Speaker 2: It's like the Tony Hinchcliff set in that you don't
Speaker 2: it's the double edged short of Donald Trump. You do
Speaker 2: not get the benefits politically of trump Ism without this
Speaker 2: part of trump Ism. Meaning they can script a great
Speaker 2: Madison Square Garden rally and speech for Donald Trump, but
Speaker 2: because it's Donald Trump, they're still going to have the
Speaker 2: free wheeling and they're going to have the comedians and
Speaker 2: the entertainers and the whole cogans like. They can script
Speaker 2: it as well as they want, but if it's if
Speaker 2: it's fundamentally Trump, if it's fundamentally Trumpy, it's still also
Speaker 2: going to have this. You can script something for Donald Trump,
Speaker 2: He's still going to talk about what he wants to
Speaker 2: talk about, and that's going to take you where it does.
Speaker 8: His campaign has learned for a long time now to
Speaker 8: that they could do whatever they want and they can
Speaker 8: sort of guide Donald Trump. But at the end of
Speaker 8: the day, Donald Trump runs the campaign and part of
Speaker 8: their job is reacting to what Donald Trump may or
Speaker 8: may not say. And when I've been out on the
Speaker 8: campaign trail over the past year and a half, that's
Speaker 8: a big reason that some of these undecided voters are
Speaker 8: not so sure about Donald Trump because they don't love
Speaker 8: when he goes off script. And so that's been something
Speaker 8: that the campaign has tried to sort of figure out,
Speaker 8: how do we get around that, how do we realize
Speaker 8: Donald Trump is going to be Donald Trump. Some people
Speaker 8: are going to love it, some people are going to
Speaker 8: be put off by it. How do we get some
Speaker 8: of those voters who are put off by it to
Speaker 8: still vote for him because they're, for example, more worried
Speaker 8: about the economy and jobs.
Speaker 1: So what's the mood among kind of the Trump brass
Speaker 1: now October thirtieth, twenty twenty four. How are they feeling,
Speaker 1: How do they feel about the early vote, How do
Speaker 1: they feel about the polls and heading into election day?
Speaker 8: The phrase I've heard used most often is cautiously optimistic.
Speaker 8: But it's really interesting because at the same time, I
Speaker 8: would say there's an equal amount of skepticism. Because for
Speaker 8: Donald Trump's campaign aids who have been here before, who
Speaker 8: have worked with him in twenty twenty and twenty sixteen,
Speaker 8: they've never been in this position where the polls are
Speaker 8: looking this good, and so they're almost like freaking out
Speaker 8: a little bit because they're like, what are we missing?
Speaker 8: They're going over the data, they're going over their internals,
Speaker 8: they're exactly they're they're just like, they're suspicious.
Speaker 3: Essentially, you seem this good.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Well, so this confidence is matched with an equal
Speaker 8: amount of skepticism, and I thought, I think that's really notable.
Speaker 1: But also they're.
Speaker 3: Feeling good about the early vote.
Speaker 8: Of course, there's a lot of you know, nuances with
Speaker 8: the early vote, and we're not really going to know
Speaker 8: where things fall until after the election. But they're they're
Speaker 8: really happy with the early vote, particularly because, of course,
Speaker 8: for years Donald Trump told his voters don't early vote,
Speaker 8: and so they're feeling really good that they have the
Speaker 8: numbers that they have in some of these states. They're
Speaker 8: feeling good about the tide race. I think their internals
Speaker 8: are showing that Donald Trump is a little bit more
Speaker 8: ahead than the external numbers. But yeah, cautiously optimistic is
Speaker 8: the phrase I hear most often.
Speaker 1: Can you stick around for a minute to talk Michigan Wisconsin? Sure?
Speaker 1: All right, then let's put c one up on the
Speaker 1: screen here. So our RFK RFK Junior tried tried to
Speaker 1: this kind of hail Mary attempt to the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: to try to get off the ballots in Michigan and Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: And because of the timing of him dropping out and
Speaker 1: endorsing President foreign President Trump, that meant that in some
Speaker 1: states he can't get his name off the ballot.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: You have to be pretty clueless at this point to
Speaker 1: not know that RFK has dropped out. So how much
Speaker 1: do you think that this could affect Michigan and Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: because I can see it a couple of different ways,
Speaker 1: And I'm curious what the campaign thinks if you've if
Speaker 1: you've heard from them on this. On the one hand,
Speaker 1: I think rf K Junior will get a decent number
Speaker 1: of votes, like in the thousands, maybe even the tens
Speaker 1: of thousands in these states. But then the question is what
Speaker 1: would those people have done if his name was not
Speaker 1: on the ballot. They might have just written in Weed,
Speaker 1: or they might Bryan Graham, they might have voted for
Speaker 1: another third party or just left it blank. So people
Speaker 1: kind of automatically think, oh, well, he endorsed Trump, and
Speaker 1: they have voted for RFK Junior on their ballots. That
Speaker 1: means if he wasn't there, they would have automatically voted
Speaker 1: for Trump, And I think that's a leap that you
Speaker 1: can't make. But I'm curious how obviously they care because
Speaker 1: they went to the Supreme Court. So how big of
Speaker 1: a handicap is this for Trump Michigan and Wisconsin.
Speaker 8: I mean, I think it's an open question. Right, As
Speaker 8: you said, they clearly care because they tried to get
Speaker 8: his name removed but I remember months ago when Kennedy
Speaker 8: first got into the race, there was real debate over
Speaker 8: who he would hurt more. Donald Trump's campaign at one
Speaker 8: point had internal data that they would that he would
Speaker 8: hurt them more. And so I think that's important. And
Speaker 8: now as people heard from Kennedy Moore, I think, you know,
Speaker 8: some of these he garnered more Republicans and Democrats. But
Speaker 8: I think there are a small number of people who
Speaker 8: might vote for Donald Trump or might stay home who
Speaker 8: we're backing Kennedy, And so any vote, I think any
Speaker 8: number in this presidential election when it's so close, if
Speaker 8: the public pulling is to be believed, can influence it.
Speaker 8: And so I do think that Donald Trump's campaign is
Speaker 8: somewhat concerned about it doesn't help them, and I do
Speaker 8: expect that we'll probably see Kennedy out urging those voters
Speaker 8: in those states to vote for Donald Trump in the
Speaker 8: next few days.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And you know, in politics, I think the biggest
Speaker 2: bias that you have, especially in media, is just working
Speaker 2: in media, and you are so disconnected from the mind
Speaker 2: of the average voter, who has a million different things
Speaker 2: going on, may genuinely start tuning into the election. I
Speaker 2: mean We've been covering this every single day for over
Speaker 2: a year, but may genuinely start tuning into the election
Speaker 2: the day before they vote and looking like google Donald
Speaker 2: Trump versus Kamala Harris, immigration numbers, healthcare, all of those things, inflation,
Speaker 2: and are like looking at the charts and whatever. But
Speaker 2: there are also people who go in there aren't happy
Speaker 2: with the candidates are voting for. Maybe they're going to
Speaker 2: vote for Tammy Baldwin Wisconsin, and they see Robert F.
Speaker 2: Kennedy Junior's names on the ballot, and they like Robert F.
Speaker 2: Kennedy Junior, and they don't like Donald Trump Kamala Harris.
Speaker 7: Robert F.
Speaker 2: Kennedy Junior was campaigning pretty hard against Donald Trump just
Speaker 2: about a year and a half ago. That stuff does happen.
Speaker 2: People really aren't happy with these two candidates. That's what
Speaker 2: he was originally campaigning on, in fact, So that stuff
Speaker 2: can make a big difference. When we looked to twenty
Speaker 2: sixteen when the margin in Michigan, do you remember exactly
Speaker 2: how many votes it was? It was such a tin
Speaker 2: thousand issues, so so small, So obviously it can make
Speaker 2: a significant difference. Now, Shelby, another thing I'm curious about.
Speaker 2: Let's first roll this next thot. This is Robert F.
Speaker 2: Kennedy Junior talking about what he's been promised in a
Speaker 2: Trump administration.
Speaker 13: The key that I think, you know, the President Trump
Speaker 13: has promised me is is control of the public health agencies,
Speaker 13: which are HHS and as sub agencies, CDC, FDA and
Speaker 13: IH and a few others, and then also the USDA,
Speaker 13: which is which you know, is key to making America
Speaker 13: healthy because we've got to get off of seed oils.
Speaker 3: Shelby.
Speaker 2: This is something I actually asked Senator Eric Schmid, who's
Speaker 2: a very good friend of Jade Vance on Undercurrents recently,
Speaker 2: what it's been like to marry the RFK Junior camp
Speaker 2: to the MAGA camp, bringing MAHA and MAGA together make
Speaker 2: America healthy.
Speaker 3: So how are these two very disparate groups?
Speaker 2: I mean, when I went to the Rescue of the
Speaker 2: Republic rally to report on it a few weeks ago,
Speaker 2: I literally saw barefoot hippies and MAGA evangelicals together like
Speaker 2: backslapping and having fun. But internally on the campaign side,
Speaker 2: how's everybody getting along in both of these like pretty
Speaker 2: different universes coming together.
Speaker 8: I know that there are people on Donald Trump's campaign,
Speaker 8: who are huge fans of Kennedy, And to the point
Speaker 8: where I've heard, you know, he just talked about positions
Speaker 8: that Donald Trump has promised him. Whether or not he
Speaker 8: would get confirmed is an open question. You have American
Speaker 8: Collins on a help committee. They're not going to vote
Speaker 8: to get Kennedy into any conformable position. But I've heard
Speaker 8: that Trump's campaign believes that it is worth the fight,
Speaker 8: and so if he were to win, I wouldn't be
Speaker 8: surprised if there is a fight and a debate over
Speaker 8: Kennedy being in a conformable position. But what's also notable
Speaker 8: is the Maha thing. As you noted, Donald Trump really
Speaker 8: never mentioned that before Kennedy got on board. But they've
Speaker 8: really embraced Kennedy's sort of obsession with public health and
Speaker 8: with the obesity crisis and with childhood chronic illnesses. And
Speaker 8: that's what the campaign has added in the last few
Speaker 8: months upon bringing Kennedy on board, and they're really letting
Speaker 8: Kennedy sort of run that aspect of their campaign.
Speaker 3: From my understanding, that's really interesting.
Speaker 1: Actually, Yeah, from my perspective of heightening attention on all
Speaker 1: of those chronic problems is a wonderful thing. His solutions
Speaker 1: sometimes like kind of coming out. I'm not so sure
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 3: Well, well, I think it's interesting about it.
Speaker 1: It's like attention on it.
Speaker 2: Just the idea of the like we all know Republican
Speaker 2: campaign operatives and we know Republican campaign consultants like really
Speaker 2: blue Blazer crowd. That changed a little bit when Trump
Speaker 2: got into the picture, but not entirely. And so to
Speaker 2: even have them to the point you just made like
Speaker 2: genuinely outsourcing some outreach to Robert F. Kennedy Junior and
Speaker 2: his motley band of hyder docks interesting eccentrics. That's actually
Speaker 2: a pretty crazy dynamic, I would imagine.
Speaker 8: Yeah, And I think it just goes to show a
Speaker 8: how close this presidential race is. But be how the
Speaker 8: thinking inside Trump world has really changed. You have Tulca
Speaker 8: Gabbart also that they brought in, so you do have
Speaker 8: some of these folks that you know, in twenty sixteen
Speaker 8: it would have been it's still eyebrow raising, but in
Speaker 8: twenty sixteen it would have probably been unheard of. I
Speaker 8: can't imagine that have happening and have being happened in
Speaker 8: twenty sixteen, and now you're seeing it with Tulca Gabbard,
Speaker 8: you're seeing with RFK Junior, You're seeing all of the
Speaker 8: sort of folks that never would have been involved in
Speaker 8: a Trump campaign are now involved in a Trump campaign,
Speaker 8: and they're not only involved, but there really are being
Speaker 8: embraced by Donald Trump's folks and his longtime aids.
Speaker 1: While we've got you and we've mentioned Michigan, I'm curious
Speaker 1: how the campaign is interacting with the kind of Arab
Speaker 1: American and Muslim American vote that you had a rally recently,
Speaker 1: you know, where they had a decent number of Muslim speakers.
Speaker 1: Many American group has endorsed at Trump administration. This pack
Speaker 1: pack which is hilariously named Pakistani American Political Action Committee,
Speaker 1: they endorsed Trump. Uh, I'm curious, like from internally, how
Speaker 1: do they how do they think about this kind of
Speaker 1: unexpected support that they're getting from that community and do
Speaker 1: they actually talk about what they would do when it
Speaker 1: comes to the approximate cause of this support, which is
Speaker 1: the genocide and Gaza. Do they talk ever? Do you
Speaker 1: ever hear like, oh, if we win, we actually have
Speaker 1: to do something about this question? And like what would
Speaker 1: they do or is it more like, we'll think about
Speaker 1: that later.
Speaker 8: I think it's more And to be clear, this is
Speaker 8: not like my key focus, so I don't always ask
Speaker 8: about this. But when I do talk to the Trump
Speaker 8: campaign about the issues they are most focused on. This
Speaker 8: is not necessarily in the top three or four, because
Speaker 8: they look at what the majority of voters are worried about,
Speaker 8: and so what you hear them talking about publicly a
Speaker 8: lot is oftentimes what they're talking about privately, which is
Speaker 8: the economy, which is the borderslation exactly. But they're seeing
Speaker 8: this as a gift. Again, They'll take whatever voters they
Speaker 8: can get. And so if all of these people are
Speaker 8: really frustrated at Kamala Harris for her non action or
Speaker 8: non comments and are willing to give Donald Trump a chance,
Speaker 8: they're totally fine with that.
Speaker 3: Now whether or not.
Speaker 8: If Donald Trump wins, that ends up with some sort
Speaker 8: of serious new legislation that they will like, I'm not totally.
Speaker 1: Convinced, but it or does it even blunt? Like So meanwhile,
Speaker 1: like over a drops yesterday, we just reported on this
Speaker 1: thing Project Esther that the Heritage Foundation is putting out,
Speaker 1: which is basically saying we're going to try to round
Speaker 1: up and deport anybody who's like on a student visa
Speaker 1: or on any kind of visa and is protesting on
Speaker 1: behalf of Palestinian rights, and otherwise do a kind of massive,
Speaker 1: kind of legal and political campaign to dismantle any criticism
Speaker 1: of Israel.
Speaker 2: So if they can connect it to like what's called
Speaker 2: by like we know how these designations work, Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: these dubious sort of sometimes dubious, sometimes serious connections to terrorism.
Speaker 1: Right, so there'll be this pressure from that wing of
Speaker 1: the kind of right. But does the fact that he's
Speaker 1: up on stage with a bunch of Muslims change that
Speaker 1: at all or no?
Speaker 2: My understanding is that this outrage campaign is being led
Speaker 2: by Tiffany Trump's father in law. Right, So these are
Speaker 2: literal family ties.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, they're families.
Speaker 1: He's Lebanese, is that right? Yeah?
Speaker 8: Whether it makes a difference, I don't know, Right, I
Speaker 8: don't know if any To be clear, I don't know
Speaker 8: if anything at this point race is going to make
Speaker 8: a significant difference. I think the vast majority of voters
Speaker 8: have already made up their minds. And for what it's worth,
Speaker 8: when Donald Trump's campaign is talking about some of those
Speaker 8: persuadable voters this late in the race. You know again,
Speaker 8: James Blurry yesterday told me that what they're mostly focused
Speaker 8: on is a group of younger under fifty, mostly white,
Speaker 8: but still like a quarter of them are minorities, men,
Speaker 8: and so that's the group that they're viewing as the
Speaker 8: most persuadable for their campaign. So it's not necessarily Muslims,
Speaker 8: it's not necessarily women. It is men under fifty, mostly white,
Speaker 8: but a solid number of them are black and Hispanic
Speaker 8: as well, and so that's where they see those persuadable
Speaker 8: voters a week out of the presidential race.
Speaker 3: Well, Shelby, if you couldn't tell, we find your reporting
Speaker 3: very valuable that we kept going.
Speaker 2: I'll ben that so I keep my job, shall we, Talga,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for stopping by and giving us
Speaker 2: some of your time on this very very busy week.
Speaker 3: Anytime, all right, we'll be back with more soon.
Speaker 1: Mega pundit Ryan or Dusky has gotten himself booted from
Speaker 1: c n N. Let's take a look at why and
Speaker 1: then we'll talk about where this came from. If you
Speaker 1: don't want to be cooled Nazis, stop doing.
Speaker 7: More than table and people know by me, I never
Speaker 7: called you.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not saying her saying.
Speaker 3: I'm of the Pubestinians. I'm used to it.
Speaker 1: Well, I hope your beaper doesn't go off. The thing
Speaker 1: is is that.
Speaker 3: You should not know. You just said I should be
Speaker 3: kill No.
Speaker 1: I did not say, let me talk about TV said.
Speaker 3: Let me let me just.
Speaker 14: Guys?
Speaker 3: Are you.
Speaker 14: Ryan?
Speaker 3: That is completely apologies.
Speaker 13: The first blow.
Speaker 5: The Muslim guys should be blown up.
Speaker 1: I apologize on TV.
Speaker 14: Don't say, don't say then I apologize you literally, I thought.
Speaker 3: You didn't think said.
Speaker 12: Because what's funny is rudy he said, said you're a
Speaker 12: great guest to be here.
Speaker 3: Nine ones today, and so.
Speaker 15: This is where we're in there, this is America.
Speaker 12: Forget the racism.
Speaker 1: That's which I should die saying that.
Speaker 3: He said, what does bea mean? Don't give me? Why
Speaker 3: did you say?
Speaker 1: What did you mean by the beepa?
Speaker 3: What did you mean?
Speaker 5: You didn't?
Speaker 12: You said, PA doesn't know at least have the guns
Speaker 12: to support your racist from.
Speaker 15: This is why, this is why yesterday's rally was discussed.
Speaker 12: Don't call us Nazis, but I'm gonna threaten the brown
Speaker 12: guys terrorist and kill.
Speaker 15: Him because I didn't ever say Donald Trump was hitler,
Speaker 15: But do you know who sat on a stage, stood
Speaker 15: on a stage yesterday and said, I want to come
Speaker 15: to the Nazi rally. I don't have to make up
Speaker 15: words and call you something. You're saying it for youself
Speaker 15: and what you just said apologize, but I will tell
Speaker 15: you I don't accept that apology. And you didn't even
Speaker 15: say it's fine. That was disgusting. But I can be
Speaker 15: offended when you don't even stay it to me. I'm
Speaker 15: not Puerto Rican, but I was offended by what he
Speaker 15: said yesterday, and I'm offended that the former president and
Speaker 15: potentially future president would allow it and go for twelve
Speaker 15: hours and not say I don't care because you know what,
Speaker 15: when Kala Harris put out statements about switching up opinions,
Speaker 15: it wasn't good enough.
Speaker 3: For republic because you said it. So that don't get
Speaker 3: me to watch CNN. I'll be honest, tryan that was.
Speaker 1: I'm a cluster.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was the.
Speaker 2: Reality television version of political news that we've gone so
Speaker 2: far astray from but can be entertaining at the very least.
Speaker 1: So then he they came back after the break without
Speaker 1: him there anymore. Let's go back to Abby Philip.
Speaker 14: We're back here, and before we get started, I want
Speaker 14: to just address what happened in the last segment. First,
Speaker 14: I want to apologize to Medi Hassan for what was
Speaker 14: said at this table. It was completely unaccepteople when we
Speaker 14: get this discussion started, you'll see that Ryan is not
Speaker 14: at the table. There is a line that was crossed
Speaker 14: there and it's not acceptable to me. It's not acceptable
Speaker 14: to us at this network. We want discussion, We want
Speaker 14: people who disagree with each other to talk to each other.
Speaker 14: But when you cross the line of a complete lack
Speaker 14: of civility, that is not going to happen here on
Speaker 14: this show. It's a heated time. We're in the middle
Speaker 14: of a political season. We are eight days from a
Speaker 14: presidential election. But we can have conversations about what is
Speaker 14: happening in this country without resorting to the lowest of
Speaker 14: the lowest kind of discourse. I want to address that,
Speaker 14: and I want to apologize to the viewers at home,
Speaker 14: because we want to be able to hear each other.
Speaker 14: We want to be able to talk to each other,
Speaker 14: and we plan to do that in this next segment.
Speaker 1: And you know what, maybe this is a side note
Speaker 1: but one point here, this is not a new dig.
Speaker 1: So several weeks ago and The National Review ran a
Speaker 1: political cartoon that had Rashida Talib with a pager kind
Speaker 1: of blown up on her deskh.
Speaker 3: We talked about it at the time.
Speaker 1: And we talked about at the time, and the way
Speaker 1: that CNN handled that was actually, instead of condemning that cartoon,
Speaker 1: they picked up on what Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessl
Speaker 1: said about the political cartoon, which was that she said,
Speaker 1: just like Rashida Talib should not be attacked over her religion,
Speaker 1: she should not accuse me of charging pro Palestinian protesters
Speaker 1: simply because I'm Jewish. She just completely fabricated and manufactured
Speaker 1: something like that Rashida Tleeb had never said, and used
Speaker 1: that political cartoon as a way to kind of wedge
Speaker 1: her own grievance against Rashida Talib. And then CNN for
Speaker 1: days just covered Dana Nessil's charge and.
Speaker 2: Then kind of didn't Dana bash come out and then
Speaker 2: kind of make a semi care action that wasn't a
Speaker 2: full yeah, because.
Speaker 1: They had to eventually really say, actually, Rashida Tlive never
Speaker 1: said that, right, But and they kept saying, well, we
Speaker 1: reached out to Rashida to leave for clarifications, a clarification
Speaker 1: what shouldn't say that anyway? So it's interesting then see
Speaker 1: it on CNN's own air.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it is interesting because like we
Speaker 2: moderated a debate with Ryan for Zero had a couple
Speaker 2: of months ago.
Speaker 1: It was on immigration, and that guy was unhinged.
Speaker 2: It turned out similarly to that, he's had some moments
Speaker 2: on CNN recently and they kept bringing him back because
Speaker 2: he is super super maga, ultra maga as they say
Speaker 2: in the streets, and he is like totally tries to
Speaker 2: constantly be flipping the script and going full on offense
Speaker 2: no matter what, which CNN obviously thinks makes for engaging television.
Speaker 2: So even though he's ultra maga, to keep bringing him
Speaker 2: back and bringing him back, And in this case, I
Speaker 2: don't think there's any way he thought Meddi said that
Speaker 2: he was pro Hamas. The idea that Meddi would go
Speaker 2: on TV.
Speaker 1: That they did the page your attack on it's point.
Speaker 2: The idea that Maddie would come on TV and just
Speaker 2: be like, listen, I'm pro Hamas on a CNN panel,
Speaker 2: nobody actually thought that. But what's interesting is Ryan apologized
Speaker 2: on air, probably because he wants to.
Speaker 3: He wanted to keep going back on CNN, so.
Speaker 2: He apologized on air, said that he thought he was
Speaker 2: pro Hamas, when actually what he means is that when
Speaker 2: he says he's pro Palestinian, Ryan believes that means you're
Speaker 2: pro Hamas, which is what the National Review cartoonist believes.
Speaker 2: That's like, you can make that argument. I don't agree
Speaker 2: with categorically making that argument, but a lot of people
Speaker 2: on the right actually do, and that's where that comes from.
Speaker 1: The apology. The apology was pretty pitiful, but also I
Speaker 1: thought kind of instructive because you did watch him kind
Speaker 1: of start to grovel like on set, as if like
Speaker 1: he knew he was in trouble. He realized, oh, the
Speaker 1: thing I just said is not actually defensible and I
Speaker 1: can't and he's like this this is actually going to
Speaker 1: have conquences for me. Yeah, oh yeah, But the graveling
Speaker 1: apology was not gonna be the way to do it.
Speaker 2: It reminds me of like, you know, you're about to
Speaker 2: get called to the principal's office and they're going to
Speaker 2: call your parents and you're.
Speaker 3: Like, no, no, that's not I didn't mean it like that.
Speaker 3: That was me. It was me sarcastic.
Speaker 1: Really, it really did feel like that. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know if we'll be seeing him on CNN's hair.
Speaker 2: No, I think he was totally banned that that said,
Speaker 2: for me, the reason that is, I mean is the
Speaker 2: joke is dumb, and then the the outrage is so
Speaker 2: insufferable too, And it's just like everyone not from me,
Speaker 2: I mean, I understand it was made directly to Meddi,
Speaker 2: but from Abbey Phillip, who then also posted a very
Speaker 2: self serious Instagram video about it. It's like, just get
Speaker 2: over it, like, let's let's move on.
Speaker 1: It was a joke, right for seeing it. For Maddy fine,
Speaker 1: like it was directed to you, is that you get
Speaker 1: to take offense. But yes, CNN you invited this guy
Speaker 1: on what they were doing because he does this kind
Speaker 1: of thing. Yes, you're upset that he went a little
Speaker 1: bit over the line because.
Speaker 3: It made you look bad, not because you went on.
Speaker 1: The one drawing is weird lines where like this other
Speaker 1: insane stuff that he's saying is okay, but this insane
Speaker 1: thing is not is not okay.
Speaker 3: You either want the clash of ideas or you don't.
Speaker 2: And you either want people to like, actually, like that's
Speaker 2: the thing. You want people to actually be revealing what
Speaker 2: they really think. And there Ryan revealed what he really thought,
Speaker 2: and I get CNN needing to say, we have to
Speaker 2: assert some boundaries.
Speaker 3: Whatever. They can do that if they want a business.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, it's just the I just find
Speaker 2: the moral sanctimony from them afterwards to be a little insufferable.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you saw this thread, but a
Speaker 1: former Rising producer had an interesting thread. Did you see
Speaker 1: this one? I did see this one for people who
Speaker 1: missed it. He was making the point that it's difficult
Speaker 1: to book non crazy right wing people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know which.
Speaker 9: Is which is not entirely untrue because like so many
Speaker 9: people who are on the right and are like hardcore
Speaker 9: supporters of Trump also either in the past or currently
Speaker 9: have like Richard Spencer associations, which doesn't which I think
Speaker 9: Ryan Gardusky does. I didn't look into that or and
Speaker 9: or have said other things where you're like, oh, that's
Speaker 9: like beyond the pale. It's hard to find like since
Speaker 9: we have moved the pale so far, it's hard to
Speaker 9: find people who are representative of that pale, but not
Speaker 9: beyond what we consider to be beyond it. So't you
Speaker 9: didn't like that bread or what?
Speaker 2: But yeah, I thought the tho it was kind of bullshit, honestly,
Speaker 2: because I mean, there are plenty of times where it
Speaker 2: would have been hard to book someone who didn't think
Speaker 2: Donald Trump was a full blown Russian asset who was, but.
Speaker 1: They don't, they don't care about that. Well, that's what
Speaker 1: I'm said within the pale.
Speaker 3: But that's what I'm saying, like or who thought that?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: I mean, I could go into all kinds of different
Speaker 2: issues I'm thinking particularly of like.
Speaker 1: I'm accepting, I'm basically accepting see, and it's premise.
Speaker 2: Right, which the threat is not the threat is saying
Speaker 2: that it's there's a specific and unique problem on the right,
Speaker 2: which I don't disagree. I mean, I don't disagree that
Speaker 2: there are problems on obviously of booking people who are
Speaker 2: willing to defend both.
Speaker 3: Political parties, because I think we.
Speaker 2: Agree that both political parties have some incredibly deep and
Speaker 2: serious problems. But to act as though it's unique to
Speaker 2: the right, I disagree with that. I think it's I
Speaker 2: think it's problem like across the board, I just don't accept.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think Trump is his own thing. But
Speaker 2: if anything, I think a lot of the sort of
Speaker 2: professional pundits on the right are like not even representative
Speaker 2: of the right. So it does mean that there's room
Speaker 2: for more crazy people than to come in and go
Speaker 2: through the gates and be like, well, I'm representative of
Speaker 2: a real voter because I'm pro Trump, when you know
Speaker 2: that's a lot of Republican voters are not super hardcore
Speaker 2: mega They just kind of tolerate Trump, whereas a lot
Speaker 2: of the punditry absolutely detests Trump and is you know,
Speaker 2: pro Pentagon with every breath they have, and is pro J. P.
Speaker 2: Morgan with every breath they have. So it just to me,
Speaker 2: it just doesn't reflect what I see.
Speaker 1: But what I guess the way to put it would
Speaker 1: be that over the last like fifteen twenty years, as
Speaker 1: you've had the kind of the Great Awokening and the
Speaker 1: rise of identity politics and a focus on equity as
Speaker 1: kind of a shared narrative that CNNMSNBC, The Times, the
Speaker 1: kind of establishment pricess said, look, we're turning the page
Speaker 1: on the Jim Crow era. We're moving into an era
Speaker 1: of equity and people who are not willing to be
Speaker 1: on board for that. Those are outside the boundaries. You
Speaker 1: can say whatever you want about Russia or whatever else
Speaker 1: that's within that's within healthy civil debate, but outside of
Speaker 1: civil debate as any you know, it became eventually if
Speaker 1: you were opposed to marriage equality, like a lot that
Speaker 1: would almost be kind of now it looks like they're
Speaker 1: kind of pushing, like letting those people back in a little,
Speaker 1: but they were drawing that boundary. And within the Trump
Speaker 1: world a lot more, you know, lots of his kind
Speaker 1: of high level, high profile supporters would be outside the
Speaker 1: bounds of that reasonable what they just what they just
Speaker 1: what they considered to be civil discourse.
Speaker 2: Well, and if you're not going to let Tom Cotton
Speaker 2: publish an essay in the pages of the New York Times,
Speaker 2: then you're either going to be left with insane people
Speaker 2: or people who don't represent actual Republican voters.
Speaker 1: So Tom Cotton example is a good one. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I just like don't have a lot of
Speaker 2: sympathy for that worldview because it just to me is
Speaker 2: there's so many problems with it.
Speaker 1: But I mean that you're Druski is out there and
Speaker 1: CNN was just asking for it.
Speaker 2: The magic component of the like if you're a genuine,
Speaker 2: true believer in Donald Trump, I think that does legitimately
Speaker 2: present certain problems if you like accept some of the
Speaker 2: twenty twenty election stuff in a way that's not you know,
Speaker 2: like how jd Vance talks about the tech interference and
Speaker 2: the Zuckerberg interference in an election. If you take that
Speaker 2: like almost defensive of Trump platform being Sidney Powell and
Speaker 2: Himmember else Rudy at the time, I think that does
Speaker 2: present legitimate problems in the same way I think there
Speaker 2: are legitimate problems for people who fully defend Russia.
Speaker 1: Gate and all that stuff.
Speaker 3: So anyway, those are my thoughts.
Speaker 1: All right, Well up next Amir to Bone, author of
Speaker 1: the new book, The Gates of Gaza. Stick around for that.
Speaker 1: Joining us now from Israel is journal how Retz journalist
Speaker 1: Amir Tabone, author of the new book, and we can
Speaker 1: put up e two here, The Gates of Gaza, which
Speaker 1: is part memoir, part history of Israel, part history of
Speaker 1: Israel Palestine. Terrific book. Amir, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining us, really appreciate it.
Speaker 5: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and just to set the context for people. I
Speaker 1: don't know if if you even remember this, it was
Speaker 1: so long ago. If we can put up E four here,
Speaker 1: This is an old magazine that I co founded called
Speaker 1: huff Post Highline U. Amir wrote this, this really great
Speaker 1: profile of the relationship between Benjamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama
Speaker 1: and how it really collapsed in acrimony over the course
Speaker 1: of his of his presidency. And if you squint there
Speaker 1: you can see contributed reporting by Ryan grimm Uh.
Speaker 9: Indeed, yeah, so Amir and I worked on that, on
Speaker 9: that story together, and a few few collaborations afterwards. I
Speaker 9: always followed your your work from Israel.
Speaker 1: Amir is one of the best sourced reporters kind of
Speaker 1: in the political space over there. And I still remember
Speaker 1: waking up on Saturday, October seventh, and because we are
Speaker 1: but I guess six hours or so, you know, I
Speaker 1: had so much had unfolded while while we slept in
Speaker 1: the United States. One of the first things that I
Speaker 1: saw on social media was that you and your family,
Speaker 1: you know, had been trapped in this safe house, in
Speaker 1: not safehouse, safe room in nahl Oz, which is the
Speaker 1: kibbutz which is closest to the border of Gaza and
Speaker 1: I can only imagine how many times you've you've told
Speaker 1: this story by this point a year later, and the
Speaker 1: book is heavily you know, weaves this story through. But
Speaker 1: for viewers who are unfamiliar with it, can you just
Speaker 1: tell them what is what is nahal Os? And you
Speaker 1: know what briefly, what was like? What was October seventh like?
Speaker 1: And people should really read the book and get the
Speaker 1: full story, but I wanted people to have the context
Speaker 1: for this conversation.
Speaker 5: Well, thanks for the opportunity to discuss it. And as
Speaker 5: much as it's not easy to talk about it again
Speaker 5: and again, I also feel it's an obligation I have.
Speaker 5: So Nahalos is a small Israeli community. You can think
Speaker 5: of it as a village or a very small town,
Speaker 5: located within the internationally recognized borders of Israel, right across
Speaker 5: the border from the Gaza Strict. It's home to about
Speaker 5: four hundred and fifty people, including my family, me, my wife,
Speaker 5: and our two young daughters. We have a four year
Speaker 5: old and a two year old. And this community was
Speaker 5: attacked by Hamas on October seven, as part of that
Speaker 5: widespread Haramas invasion into Israel. On that Saturday morning, within
Speaker 5: our community. Out of four hundred and fifty people, fifteen
Speaker 5: were murdered on that day. That would be three and
Speaker 5: a half percent of the total population. So try to
Speaker 5: think of a small town, a village, or a neighborhood
Speaker 5: in the US losing three and a half percent of
Speaker 5: the population in one day. That's basically what happened in Ahalos.
Speaker 5: Seven people were kidnapped from the Kibuts and out of them,
Speaker 5: five were released alive in late November, after more than
Speaker 5: fifty days held by Flamas thanks to the hostage deal
Speaker 5: orchestrated at the time by President Biden. There are still
Speaker 5: two hostages from our community, fathers of young children friends
Speaker 5: of mine, mariem Iran and Sachidan, who are in the
Speaker 5: hands of Hamas. And my family survived that day, and
Speaker 5: I tell in the book the story of how and
Speaker 5: what happened, and how we were forced to remain in
Speaker 5: this little room in complete darkness, no electricity, no food,
Speaker 5: with the two girls at the time three and a
Speaker 5: half and two years old, for the entire day, basically
Speaker 5: and to keep them quiet so that the terrorists who
Speaker 5: were firing in our living room will not hear us.
Speaker 5: Quite a story, and like you said, Ryan, what I
Speaker 5: tried to do in the book is to tell that story,
Speaker 5: but also the history that preceded it, and in my analysis,
Speaker 5: led to the history of the conflict between Israel and
Speaker 5: the Palestinians and the relationships across the two sides of
Speaker 5: the Israel Gaza border.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I have the book open in front of
Speaker 3: me right now. It's really gripping.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of people who purport to speak
Speaker 2: for the victims on October seventh, people who.
Speaker 3: Lived through the horrors that you live through.
Speaker 2: How different and even just the people who've been rescued
Speaker 2: as hostages for example, as you mentioned, you're in touch
Speaker 2: with people. In fact, you are one of the survivors
Speaker 2: of October seventh. How different do you feel the conversation
Speaker 2: has been among people who survived that day versus sort
Speaker 2: of the broader media discourse.
Speaker 5: And that's such a smart question. And I think that
Speaker 5: anybody who has lived through an event will often feel
Speaker 5: that the media coverage of the event is a bit weird.
Speaker 5: And I've been hearing that for years as a journalist
Speaker 5: writing about many different things. I've also covered wars in
Speaker 5: Ukraine and Syria and the Court region and This is
Speaker 5: not necessarily a criticism, but a comment that I've heard
Speaker 5: from people over the years that when you are actually
Speaker 5: part of a story, the weight portraying the media, even
Speaker 5: if it's the greatest reporting and the most professional and
Speaker 5: accurate description, it sometimes feels just a little off. And
Speaker 5: I think that when I talk to my neighbors, my
Speaker 5: friends who survived this attack, or when I talk to
Speaker 5: friends who lost their loved ones on that day, who
Speaker 5: had people from their family kidnapped into Gaza, there's just
Speaker 5: some kind of an understanding between the people who went
Speaker 5: through this that it's very, very hard to summarize in
Speaker 5: articles or television segments. And I felt like the book
Speaker 5: was my attempt to also bring that story in more words.
Speaker 5: It's not a very long book, but still, you know,
Speaker 5: it offers more space than a regular newspaper article to
Speaker 5: describe the events, the emotions, and also the aftermath and
Speaker 5: the scars that had lived on all the people who
Speaker 5: were the things.
Speaker 1: And so another thing that struck me about October seventh
Speaker 1: and the Victims was the way that so you can
Speaker 1: explain more of the kind of political details around the
Speaker 1: political kind of texture around this, but a lot of
Speaker 1: the people in your community and the and a lot
Speaker 1: of the other kidbut seem in the surrounding area are
Speaker 1: kind of left wing, liberal leaning people who are supportive
Speaker 1: of Palestinian rights, of Palestinian dignity, opposed to in general
Speaker 1: the occupation and would like to see a two state solution,
Speaker 1: both sides living side by side. Some of them are
Speaker 1: were active in, you know, in activism within Gaza, like
Speaker 1: taking patient you know, because if you're in Gaza and
Speaker 1: you have a life threatening illness or health compliction, you
Speaker 1: need the permission you know, of Israel authorities to travel
Speaker 1: outside of it. And so some would like would go
Speaker 1: in and help bring people out. Some of those people
Speaker 1: ended up being either taken hostage or victims of this.
Speaker 1: And so it's not as if somebody who has right
Speaker 1: wing like terrible politics deserves to you know, be killed
Speaker 1: as a civilian or taken hostage. But there's something extra
Speaker 1: kind of poignant about people who are you know, kind
Speaker 1: of sympathetic to the pal steating cause being and who
Speaker 1: are deeply hostile to net Yahoo government being the victims
Speaker 1: of of net Nyah whose failure down in the South.
Speaker 1: And then I was as I was thinking that through
Speaker 1: and I'm curious for your answer to this, why do
Speaker 1: those types of people live there in the first place,
Speaker 1: like so close to this kind of constant reminder of
Speaker 1: the horrifying reality of the occupation and this and this siege,
Speaker 1: Like how did that happen?
Speaker 5: Yeah? I know this is one of the complexities of
Speaker 5: Israeli politics and society and how it is wildly different
Speaker 5: in many ways than the politics and the culture of
Speaker 5: the United States. And just to give perhaps a name
Speaker 5: and a face to this discussion before I get into
Speaker 5: the politics of it, you can think as an example
Speaker 5: of vv and Silver, very famous peace activist from baire
Speaker 5: He Botes, fifteen minutes from natal Oz, you know, not
Speaker 5: from my home. And she was one of the founders
Speaker 5: of an organization called Women Wage Peace, which was fighting
Speaker 5: against the occupation in favor better relations between Israel and
Speaker 5: the Palestinians and of attempting to help bring about peace
Speaker 5: in the region. And she was murdered on October seven, Bifamas,
Speaker 5: women who devoted her life really to promoting peace between
Speaker 5: Israels and Palestinians, and eventually was murdered by these terrises
Speaker 5: in her house in Kiboard's Dailey Now, if you know,
Speaker 5: we take her as an example, you can ask Ran, well,
Speaker 5: why would a person who has devoted their life really
Speaker 5: to the purpose of peace decide to live in this
Speaker 5: border community that, to many Israelis is a signal of
Speaker 5: the need for security and protecting the border from the
Speaker 5: enemies on the other side. But you know, a way
Speaker 5: that is unique to this conflict and to the geography
Speaker 5: of this land, The two things to an Israeli would
Speaker 5: actually really make sense because communities like national o's, like
Speaker 5: the re like a keybots Nils, which was also attacked
Speaker 5: on that day and had the highest number of casualties
Speaker 5: people were murdered or kidnapped. These were communities that were
Speaker 5: built on the Israeli side of the border, not within
Speaker 5: the Gather Strip, not on disputed land that Israel took
Speaker 5: after the Sixth Day War. And these are not communities
Speaker 5: that were built out of some desire to, you know,
Speaker 5: basically strip the Palestinians off their rights, but actually out
Speaker 5: of the belief that Israel needs to have a border
Speaker 5: and that on the other side of that border you
Speaker 5: can have an independent Palestinian state that we can have
Speaker 5: peaceful relations with, just like the US has a border
Speaker 5: with Canada, and France today has a border with Germany,
Speaker 5: although that's a very very relaxed border. Maybe one day
Speaker 5: the very Palestinian border will be the same and we
Speaker 5: won't even need a passport to move between the countries.
Speaker 5: I don't foresee that very soon and be an ambition
Speaker 5: for the future, and so for the people living there,
Speaker 5: it actually made sense. This ideological zionist really that's the
Speaker 5: word to use, belief in the importance of strong, secure
Speaker 5: borders for the state of Israel. And at the same time,
Speaker 5: I believe in the necessity of peace and dignity and
Speaker 5: the good life for the people on the other side,
Speaker 5: because without that we are doomed to come instant cycles
Speaker 5: of war.
Speaker 1: And you talked you talk in the book about the
Speaker 1: decision to move down there from Tel Aviv in twenty fourteen,
Speaker 1: and just around the time as we're doing the reporting
Speaker 1: for that piece, and you talk about how there was
Speaker 1: this several month long invasion war in twenty fourteen, and
Speaker 1: a laws was evacuated during that because it's under constant shelling,
Speaker 1: and as people thought that the war was approaching a ceasefire,
Speaker 1: people had been away for so long that they were
Speaker 1: impatient to return. One family came back early a shell,
Speaker 1: landed in no laws, exploded, went through trapped and went
Speaker 1: through a window and killed, I believe, a four year
Speaker 1: old child who became the face of the kind of
Speaker 1: the tragedy of that war across across Israel and led
Speaker 1: to then a number of families leaving that community. And
Speaker 1: then later you just you know, later that year, you
Speaker 1: decide you're gonna you're gonna move in. And what struck
Speaker 1: me and probably you too as you were writing this,
Speaker 1: I'm curious, was that this is that this was a
Speaker 1: horrifying tragedy that captivated the attention of the entire country
Speaker 1: while dozens of children were killed yesterday in Gaza kind
Speaker 1: of namelessly, not namelessly to the families of those in Gaza.
Speaker 1: But we're not leading the press coverage with them here
Speaker 1: in the United States. This is one we can tell, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're not it's not it's not international attention. Uh, And
Speaker 1: we're approaching probably in Gaza a similar percentage. You talked
Speaker 1: about three and a half percent of the community being killed.
Speaker 1: The death rate in Gaza may maybe that at this
Speaker 1: point of the two million people we were talking before
Speaker 1: you join here about how because this is still going on,
Speaker 1: nobody has really had a chance to kind of process
Speaker 1: what has happened because we're still living through it. So
Speaker 1: how do you square in your mind the horrific tragedies
Speaker 1: that you've lived through and that you've witnessed and square
Speaker 1: them with the kind of exponentially greater scale just a
Speaker 1: mile away.
Speaker 5: So I'll divide this into three levels. Perhaps First of all,
Speaker 5: there is the emotional left and putting aside the politics
Speaker 5: and the justifications that Israel had for the war. And
Speaker 5: to be frank, I supported the war in the beginning
Speaker 5: after October seven because I really felt Israel had no
Speaker 5: choice but to retaliate militarily, very strongly to what Ramas did.
Speaker 5: But I'll get to that in a second. On the
Speaker 5: emotional level, it's terrible, it's horrendous, it's an immense tragedy.
Speaker 5: It's heartbreaking, and you know, I can go on and
Speaker 5: on with the words, but you know, the pictures themselves,
Speaker 5: I think speak longer than anything. And by the way,
Speaker 5: I've visited many times since October seven, we don't live
Speaker 5: there at the moment. The keyboats cannot really be inhabited
Speaker 5: by families with children. But whenever I go there, I
Speaker 5: see the destruction on the other side Becausehalo is so
Speaker 5: close to Gaza that you can really see with your
Speaker 5: eyes the destruction on the other side of the border.
Speaker 5: And you know, I'm not happy about it. I don't
Speaker 5: find anything to celebrate about it. I think it's heartbreaking,
Speaker 5: and I understand also that it will have repercussions for
Speaker 5: the future because now the Gaza strip is home to
Speaker 5: more than two million people who are living among this
Speaker 5: epic destruction. On the logical level, I do understand that
Speaker 5: after October seven, Israel had to go to war against
Speaker 5: Tamas because what Ramas did on that day, you know,
Speaker 5: massacre of civilians, a breach the border, and the kidnaping
Speaker 5: of more than two hundred people, that was not something
Speaker 5: Israel could just say, well, okay, it happened, and now
Speaker 5: we're moving on, you know, fresh page. We can debate
Speaker 5: whether the war should now continue or not. I'm on
Speaker 5: the camp that says the most urgent thing to do
Speaker 5: right now is a deal to end the war and
Speaker 5: release the hostages. And I've been writing this for months, actually,
Speaker 5: I've been writing this for months in Haharet and I've
Speaker 5: been speaking about it in other platforms. I really think
Speaker 5: the urgency ending killing and the suffering, and bringing back
Speaker 5: our hostages to Israel and allowing the beginning of a
Speaker 5: process to rebuild, reconstruct, you know, fix the damages on
Speaker 5: both the border is really really urgent. That's the best
Speaker 5: I can say about it. And then I think on
Speaker 5: the third level, this is the geopolitical level, I think
Speaker 5: we need a plan to rise from this disaster, because
Speaker 5: if we spend now all of our time debating who
Speaker 5: had it worse and who committed bigger crimes, there are
Speaker 5: no winners in that debate, and it doesn't really lead
Speaker 5: us to a place where people in Gaza and in
Speaker 5: Israel can get over this disastrous, horrendous, ongoing event. What
Speaker 5: we really need is a plan for the day after.
Speaker 5: We need to finish the war, release the hostages, and
Speaker 5: then start thinking about the day after, what do we
Speaker 5: do to improve the reality in Gaza and in Israel
Speaker 5: and to make sure that something like this never happens again.
Speaker 5: And honestly, right now, that's my biggest concern, apart from
Speaker 5: the again urgency, stopping the kil bringing back the hostages,
Speaker 5: including my two friends, my biggest long through concern is
Speaker 5: we don't really have any kind of plan or what
Speaker 5: comes next and how we avoid this situation repeating itself
Speaker 5: in a year or two or three down the road.
Speaker 2: And Rand, do you want to cue up this clip
Speaker 2: of you talking to Matt Miller at the State Department
Speaker 2: briefing yesterday about the UA Sure Israel, Yeah.
Speaker 1: We get your reaction to this, so we can roll
Speaker 1: the mercenaries plan. Yeah, well it's part of the mercenaries plan. Yeah,
Speaker 1: or it appears to be we roll this side from
Speaker 1: the State Department yesterday earlier on how the letter that
Speaker 1: you guys sent in mid October tod Israel mentions the
Speaker 1: suggest that they not pass the unreband right above that
Speaker 1: in that same letter, at bullet point three of the
Speaker 1: three bullet points says that is what should also end
Speaker 1: isolation of northern Gaza by reaffirming that there will be
Speaker 1: no Israeli government policy of forced evacuations of civilians from
Speaker 1: northern to southern Gaza. Sure humanitarian organizations have continuous access
Speaker 1: to northern Gaza through northern crossings and from southern Gaza. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the thirty days isn't up, but two weeks ago the
Speaker 1: situation in Northern Gaza was bad. Like today, it's utterly dystopian.
Speaker 1: The opposite of making progress has happened there. Somebody mentioned
Speaker 1: the one hundred and nine civilians killed in this residential
Speaker 1: building is part of this forced evacuation. So it seems
Speaker 1: like neither of those two things have happened, and in
Speaker 1: fact they've gone the opposite direction. Do you need the
Speaker 1: thirty days to make an assessment on it? At least
Speaker 1: that bullet.
Speaker 12: So we have made clear that the situation in Northern Gaza,
Speaker 12: which is what that bullet refers to, needs to change.
Speaker 12: And Secretary Blincoln made clear directly to the Prime Minister
Speaker 12: last week that the situation in Northern Gaza needs to change.
Speaker 1: That we need to see.
Speaker 12: Everyone in Northern Gaza, every civilian in Northern Gaza, have
Speaker 12: access to food and water and other humanitarian assistants. And
Speaker 12: we're going and continue to make that clear.
Speaker 1: You started with the RSF and the most recent Wark crimes.
Speaker 1: UAE is one of the strongest backers of the RSF.
Speaker 5: You guys are very tight with the UAE. Why can't
Speaker 5: the US pressure of the UAE to put a stop
Speaker 5: to this.
Speaker 12: We have made we have made clear to every country
Speaker 12: in the region, every country around the world, that no
Speaker 12: country should do anything to prolong this conflict, including providing
Speaker 12: arms to either of the warring parties.
Speaker 1: It just seems like countries in that region just aren't interested,
Speaker 1: like the kind of maybe they listen, but they just
Speaker 1: don't follow the advice that works.
Speaker 12: Like every country, every country makes its own decisions on
Speaker 12: a host of foreign policy issues. But I can tell
Speaker 12: you that the thing that the Secretary heard time and
Speaker 12: time again is we were in the region last week,
Speaker 12: is that partner after partner welcomed our engagement because we
Speaker 12: are the only ones who could play this critical role
Speaker 12: of trying to in conflicts in goz It.
Speaker 1: So about two weeks ago there was this big letter
Speaker 1: from the Secretary Austin and Secretary Blink and really laying
Speaker 1: down the gauntlet. These are the things that we really
Speaker 1: must see or there are going to be consequences. And
Speaker 1: two of them that I mentioned there in the State
Speaker 1: farm yon one, do not ban on RA and do
Speaker 1: not do a force evacuation of northern Gaza. In the
Speaker 1: two weeks sense they banned on Ra and they did
Speaker 1: a forced evacuation of the north. Can you tell us
Speaker 1: from like from the Israeli government perspective, how do they
Speaker 1: why do they keep doing this? Like what happened to
Speaker 1: the US, That the US isn't kind of calling the
Speaker 1: shots anymore here? Or is the US okay with this?
Speaker 5: First of all, I'll say about UNRA that this is
Speaker 5: bigger than the US because on the UNRA legislation, Israel
Speaker 5: has also heard from other allies, the UK, Germany, Arab
Speaker 5: countries that we have close relationship with everybody advocated against
Speaker 5: this legislation and the government ignored it. Regarding the forced
Speaker 5: evacuation in northern Gaza, here, I have to say, I
Speaker 5: do think Biden did get something with that warning, because
Speaker 5: the punpulation that was removed from the area of Jebalia,
Speaker 5: which is north of Gada City, was not pushed south
Speaker 5: of the Netsam corridor, which is today the main dividing
Speaker 5: line between northern and southern Gaza. And there is this
Speaker 5: plan advocated by the far right elements of the Natania
Speaker 5: government to push the population from northern Gaza thross that
Speaker 5: specific corridor that rode into southern Gaza. That has not happened,
Speaker 5: and I do think the letter by the Secretari has
Speaker 5: had an impact because the population moved a little south,
Speaker 5: but still within the boundaries of what we would call
Speaker 5: northern Gaza. So that's just, you know, to put the
Speaker 5: difference between the two things. And now on the big picture, Ryan,
Speaker 5: I'll tell you honestly, I think that Natania at some
Speaker 5: point during the war, I would say around December January,
Speaker 5: decided to take a bit, and the bat was on
Speaker 5: Donald Trump winning the election in the United States. He
Speaker 5: told himself, I will now suffer through a year of
Speaker 5: you know, condes, all kinds of you know, messaging, and
Speaker 5: they'll tell me that I'm doing terrible things, you know,
Speaker 5: and Blinking will call, and Biden will call, and pay
Speaker 5: Department will call me out in the briefings, and maybe
Speaker 5: they'll hold some weapons at some point, which they did
Speaker 5: for two months before invasion of Rafiles. But at the
Speaker 5: end of the day, their fear of losing the election
Speaker 5: to Trump will allow me to get away with a
Speaker 5: lot of things, and eventually, if he will win, I
Speaker 5: could get away with even more. I think this is
Speaker 5: the bit that he played. You'll know next week if
Speaker 5: it actually worked out for him.
Speaker 1: So what does that mean?
Speaker 2: Then?
Speaker 1: What let's say is bad is wrong and Kamala wins.
Speaker 1: What does that mean for his strategy going forward?
Speaker 5: I believe if Kamana Harris wins the US election, Antaniell's
Speaker 5: government will collapse within a matter of very few months.
Speaker 5: In order to remain in power, Nataniel needs to do
Speaker 5: two things. First of all, it's important for the view
Speaker 5: understand how different Israeli politics is than American politics. Right
Speaker 5: in your politics, we have an election four years, somebody
Speaker 5: gets elected president and unless they are impeached or they die,
Speaker 5: they will serve out their term. In Israel, we have
Speaker 5: coalition politics. We have a multi party system, and the
Speaker 5: Prime Minister is very powerful, but at the same time
Speaker 5: can lose power any second if the parties that basically
Speaker 5: make up his coalition decide they no longer align with him.
Speaker 5: Netaniao's survival in power after October seven relies on two
Speaker 5: political forces within his coalition, the ultra religious far right
Speaker 5: and what we call the ultra Orthodox, which is another
Speaker 5: very very religious segment of the Jewish population. Both of
Speaker 5: these parties have very specific interests and demands from Nataniel
Speaker 5: that require him ultimately to do two things. Number one
Speaker 5: is to build settlements Ina. This is the demand of
Speaker 5: the far right elements of his coalition. Number two is
Speaker 5: to significantly weaken the democratic guard rails within Israel, like
Speaker 5: the Supreme Court and all the other mechanisms that really
Speaker 5: separate Israel from the other countries in the region, making
Speaker 5: it the only democracy in the Middle East, as we
Speaker 5: like to pride ourselves, and you may recall and the
Speaker 5: viewers may recall that before October seven, for an entire year,
Speaker 5: the biggest news story out of Israel was the attempt
Speaker 5: by Nathaniel's coalition to weaken Israel's democratic institutions and provide
Speaker 5: much more power to themselves to the government. If Kamala
Speaker 5: Harris wins the election, both of these things would simply
Speaker 5: not happen. He will not be able to build settlements
Speaker 5: in Gaza because the US will put a glaring red
Speaker 5: line on that, and there will be no more elections
Speaker 5: to take into consideration, and the fear of being tough
Speaker 5: on Israel and then losing middle of the road voters
Speaker 5: for Trump that will be out the window. Settlements in
Speaker 5: Gaza will simply not happen, and she will be able
Speaker 5: to use leverage to stop that. In ways that I
Speaker 5: think Biden has been hesitant or fearful of doing because
Speaker 5: of the election. And the same goes for crushing the
Speaker 5: democratic institutions inside Israel, which is really necessary for these
Speaker 5: ultra religious parties because they want to reshape the country.
Speaker 5: So I think that from his point of view, he
Speaker 5: knows pretty much that if she wins, his coalition collapse.
Speaker 5: He will not be able to fulfill the demands of
Speaker 5: his partners. If Trump wins, Honestly, it's anyone's bet what
Speaker 5: will happen. I mean, the guy so unexpected, so unstable,
Speaker 5: has a history of specific on the Israeli issue, by
Speaker 5: the way of you know, saying one thing and then
Speaker 5: saying the opposite and doing you know, I mean, everything
Speaker 5: is up in the air. But I do believe that
Speaker 5: Nataniel thinks he can get away with a lot more
Speaker 5: with Trump and that he can fall to him the
Speaker 5: settlements in Gaza as condos on the beach, which it
Speaker 5: will be anything. But but you know, think about Trump
Speaker 5: and that Trump really, yeah, I really wouldn't care if
Speaker 5: Israel became more like Russia and less like the Western
Speaker 5: democracy that it wants to be. He wouldn't shed a
Speaker 5: tear right. So that's Nathaniel's gamble basically, And.
Speaker 1: So if Kamala wins and Yao's government does collapse subsequently,
Speaker 1: what what what political forces are ready to be able
Speaker 1: to replace it?
Speaker 12: Like?
Speaker 1: What comes next if that happens is a is Do
Speaker 1: those two forces in the far right have enough other
Speaker 1: access to power? Or would there be some type of
Speaker 1: center right your Lapede situation?
Speaker 12: What what?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 1: What replaces him?
Speaker 5: It would not be replaced by a left wing progressive government,
Speaker 5: I can tell you it's a left wing Israeli. This
Speaker 5: is not realistic right now, not at all. But I
Speaker 5: do believe there could be a center right government that
Speaker 5: would be more like the government we had in Israel
Speaker 5: for about a year year and a half after Nathaniel
Speaker 5: lost power in twenty twenty one and before his comeback
Speaker 5: in late twenty twenty two. It was a centrist government
Speaker 5: that had a moderate right wing element and moderate left
Speaker 5: wing element, and it was in terms of policy much
Speaker 5: more let's say, perfol and certainly on internal issues, much
Speaker 5: less provocative and extreme. And I do believe that a
Speaker 5: coalition like that could rise to power again in Israel,
Speaker 5: and it will not include Nataniel himself or the far
Speaker 5: right ultra religious elements that he relies on to have power.
Speaker 5: It could, by the way, include once again a party
Speaker 5: representing segment of the Arab Muslim population in Israel. I
Speaker 5: mean that previous government we had about two years ago.
Speaker 5: It was historical in one sense that there was a
Speaker 5: cooperation there between right wing centrist, left wing parties and
Speaker 5: also one party representing Arab Muslim citizens of Israel. And
Speaker 5: even after the shocks of Goober seven in the war,
Speaker 5: I can still see that configuration returning. But you know,
Speaker 5: all of this is hypothetical. First of all, we have
Speaker 5: to see what happens in your election, and then we
Speaker 5: get to a point where Israel also has an election.
Speaker 1: We still don't have confirmation about anyone would that post
Speaker 1: that yahoo government move toward ending the war? I think
Speaker 1: the war it seems like the support tell me if
Speaker 1: I'm wrong. Support for the continuing the war seems almost universal.
Speaker 1: Not universal, but close to it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's complicated. I think most Israelis, if you just
Speaker 5: ask them right now, do you agree to stop the war,
Speaker 5: they will say no. But if you ask them, do
Speaker 5: you agree to stop the war in return for a
Speaker 5: deal that brings us back all the hostages? Palling in
Speaker 5: Israel shows an overwhelming majority for this position. We're talking.
Speaker 5: Some polls have it in the high fifties, others in
Speaker 5: the sixties, and I've even seen in the seven things
Speaker 5: in terms of percentage of our population that would say, okay,
Speaker 5: you know, regardless of the fact that there are still
Speaker 5: terrorists in Gaza. Course, I mean, look what's happening there,
Speaker 5: but regardless of the fact that there's still a threat
Speaker 5: to Israel from other enemies in the north, in the East.
Speaker 5: We have one hundred hostages there and if we don't
Speaker 5: bring them back soon, they are all going to die,
Speaker 5: and we will not even be able to locate some
Speaker 5: of their graves because the people who help them are
Speaker 5: also dying in the world. So when you present it
Speaker 5: like that, you actually have a majority the Israeli society
Speaker 5: that will say, okay, for a deal that brings us
Speaker 5: back to hostages, we are willing to stop this war.
Speaker 5: The problem is that for Natanielle, stopping the war basically
Speaker 5: means losing power. If he stops the war, the far
Speaker 5: right elements in his coalition immediately bring down the government,
Speaker 5: and it's heartbreaking and enraging. But in making the choice
Speaker 5: between his own political survival and the fate of the hostages.
Speaker 5: He has made his choice, and it's not the patriotic Zionist,
Speaker 5: you know, Israeli loving choice that I would expect the
Speaker 5: leader of this country to make and to you know,
Speaker 5: to prioritize the lives of our hostages.
Speaker 1: Well, we'll see how it goes. And Amir would love
Speaker 1: to have you back on keeping something one of the
Speaker 1: best sourced reporters I think in in Israeli politics, and
Speaker 1: the book is called The Gates of Gaza. Whether you
Speaker 1: agree or disagree, wherever you sit on the spectrum, I
Speaker 1: think it's it's not only is a gripping read, but
Speaker 1: it's you know, I think you've come away, you know,
Speaker 1: understanding more about the situation.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much, guys for having me really appreciate
Speaker 5: it well.
Speaker 2: On Undercurrents this week, around the Undercurrents YouTube channel, I
Speaker 2: hosted Senator Eric Schmidt for a conversation about the election,
Speaker 2: just to do a sort of mood check similar to
Speaker 2: what we did with Shelby earlier in the show. But
Speaker 2: Schmidt is a personal friend of jd Vance. They were
Speaker 2: called by CNN or Schmidt was called by CNN arguably
Speaker 2: his closest friend in the Senate. They were both entering
Speaker 2: around the same time and similar ages. So Schmid's been
Speaker 2: campaigning with JD. Vance, and I wanted to throw a
Speaker 2: couple of questions of him about what's happening behind the
Speaker 2: scenes of the campaign. And one question I had was, just,
Speaker 2: you know, the closing message of the Drain the Swamp
Speaker 2: movement in twenty twenty four taking place at Madison Square
Speaker 2: Garden with a billionaire like Elon Musk, with Lutnik, so
Speaker 2: somebody who's a Titan of Wall Street, lots of wealthy celebrities,
Speaker 2: and so I wanted to ask the under Schmidt if
Speaker 2: he thinks that that risks undermining the drain the Swamp,
Speaker 2: anti establishment central message of the Trump campaign.
Speaker 3: Here's what he had to say.
Speaker 2: I do want to say, though, from the standpoint of
Speaker 2: someone kind of on the populist right, I wonder that's
Speaker 2: where I'm coming from. I wonder if you think that
Speaker 2: Donald Trump's kind of drained the swamp message, is it
Speaker 2: all undermined in the minds of voter when you're trotting
Speaker 2: out celebrities, billionaires from Silicon Valley? And also, I think
Speaker 2: it was Howard Latnik Wall Street kind of CEO. Does
Speaker 2: that hurt the drain the swamp message? Does it? Were
Speaker 2: you as somebody who has come to this from a
Speaker 2: position of a sort of an anti establishment position when
Speaker 2: it comes to the economy as well, is there anything
Speaker 2: to that?
Speaker 16: I don't think so. I think it's bringing new people
Speaker 16: into the fold. I mean one of the markers of
Speaker 16: the movement over the last whatever six seventy eight, almost
Speaker 16: ten years now is that new people have entered the
Speaker 16: process right. They're frustrated with things that have happened. It
Speaker 16: system hasn't worked for them. So to the extent you've
Speaker 16: got like Elon Musk, who I think he's voted Democrat
Speaker 16: most of his life or at least recently, He's seen
Speaker 16: the excesses of the left. He's seen what they really
Speaker 16: want to do. And I think that more than even
Speaker 16: r D or Red Jersey or Blue Jersey in some ways,
Speaker 16: where we're at now is kind of this permanent Washington
Speaker 16: Democrat allies in the media and Democrats themselves as this
Speaker 16: sort of alliance, this establishment alliance versus the disruptors, the
Speaker 16: people who want to see real change. And I think
Speaker 16: that that bodes well, in this election cycle, that's seen
Speaker 16: as an election cycle, and Trump's viewed by it like
Speaker 16: a two to one margin.
Speaker 3: Okay, but remember the case Missouri v.
Speaker 2: Biden that was kicked off by Eric Schmidt when he
Speaker 2: was the Attorney General of Missouri, which was pushing against
Speaker 2: censorship obviously, and when it was changed into a bigger
Speaker 2: case of Supreme Court ended up losing.
Speaker 3: Just in the last term.
Speaker 2: Donald Trump has been talking about his conversations with Google CEO,
Speaker 2: who is allegedly, according to Trump, been calling to kind
Speaker 2: of butter him up, and Matt Stoler, friend of the program,
Speaker 2: has been saying, this is a worrying sign for mega populists.
Speaker 2: Let's listen to Eric Smith responding to a question about that.
Speaker 2: Trump also keeps mentioning the story about how the CEO
Speaker 2: of Google has called him a couple of times to
Speaker 2: say that his McDonald's trip was like through the roof
Speaker 2: on Google. They haven't seen searchas like that forever. And
Speaker 2: some on the left have said, is this a sign
Speaker 2: that you know there's Trump is warming up towards Google,
Speaker 2: that Google is warming up towards Trump. Some people have
Speaker 2: said that with the Washington Post non endorsement as well
Speaker 2: that Jeff Bezos, you didn't want to frustrate Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: You're kind of one of the anti trust guys. You've
Speaker 2: really helped the Republican Party get tougher on big tech
Speaker 2: in particular.
Speaker 3: Does any of that worry you?
Speaker 2: Do you worry that Donald Trump would go soft on
Speaker 2: big tech in another administration? Or is this sort of
Speaker 2: like what you said before, it's a bigger tent and
Speaker 2: a new coalition.
Speaker 16: Yeah, I wouldn't be too concerned about that. I think that,
Speaker 16: you know, some of those big tech giants ought to
Speaker 16: be a little bit concerned because their behavior has been exposed.
Speaker 16: You mentioned kind of my role in that. When I
Speaker 16: was Attorney general in Missouri. We brought that Missouri Versus
Speaker 16: Biden censorship lawsuit that exposed even before the Twitter files.
Speaker 16: This is before Elon Musk bought Twitter. It was further
Speaker 16: amplified by the Twitter files. But what we've found in
Speaker 16: the discovery in that case, this is back in twenty
Speaker 16: twenty two, was shocking. I mean, you had direct communications
Speaker 16: between high ranking Biden administration officials with you know, vice
Speaker 16: presidents and these organizations that could control content. Take this down, Okay,
Speaker 16: we'll do it.
Speaker 5: What else can we do.
Speaker 16: I think kind of COVID exposed a lot of these excesses.
Speaker 16: People were shut down, they were shut out, they were
Speaker 16: trying to be silenced, you know, the kind of counterculture
Speaker 16: tendency that a young person might have to be a contrarian. Look,
Speaker 16: the Democrats have adopted this position, along with some of
Speaker 16: the biggest companies in the history of the world, to
Speaker 16: kind of shut down and silence people. And you hear
Speaker 16: Elin Must talk about it. JD talks about it in others.
Speaker 16: But I certainly saw that firsthand in that lawsuit. So
Speaker 16: I'm not sure what their game plan is afterwards. But
Speaker 16: to the extent they're working with government or abusing their
Speaker 16: own rules to shut people down, they ought to be
Speaker 16: concerned because we ought to have some reforms in that regard.
Speaker 2: So nothing super explosive there, Ryan, But I do think
Speaker 2: some of these questions about Donald Trump's closing message and
Speaker 2: involving you know, talking about getting buttered up by the
Speaker 2: Google CEO and covorting with one of the most powerful men,
Speaker 2: if made me the most powerful man in the entire world,
Speaker 2: a massive government contractor somebody who's benefited from a lot
Speaker 2: of taxpayer subsidies like Elon Musk has. It's a tention
Speaker 2: for sure and his messaging. And the other thing Schmid
Speaker 2: said is that it feels quote more like twenty sixteen
Speaker 2: than twenty twenty to him on the ground, he feels
Speaker 2: like this campaign is going in the right direction for
Speaker 2: Trump at the right time, with about a week to go.
Speaker 2: And that's similar to what Shelby said she's hearing from
Speaker 2: the Trump camp internally. They're quote cautiously optimistic, is what
Speaker 2: she reported here earlier in the show. So they don't
Speaker 2: seem to be worried that it's backfiring.
Speaker 3: But I don't know.
Speaker 1: I feel like I feel like Trump has just dropped
Speaker 1: a lot of the economic populism. Yes that Jade Vance
Speaker 1: kind of likes. Like the best example was, to me,
Speaker 1: the the speech he gave where his campaign advertised that
Speaker 1: he's going to he's going to go out and he's
Speaker 1: going to talk about how he's going to defend SOLL security,
Speaker 1: He's going to defend Medicare, is actually going to expand Medicare,
Speaker 1: is even going to make the Affordable Care Act better.
Speaker 1: He's going to do tariffs, He's going to like you know,
Speaker 1: crack down on people are ripping us off with our
Speaker 1: trade deficit. That was the theme of the speech, and
Speaker 1: it was written and he read it from a teleprompter,
Speaker 1: but he would pause on the teleprompter every now and
Speaker 1: then to do a riff on the Laura details of
Speaker 1: victims of crime by illegal immigrants. And when he would
Speaker 1: pause there he pause for half an hour and just
Speaker 1: and just go in on that point, that point, that issue,
Speaker 1: and he would become animated. You could tell like this
Speaker 1: is the thing that was really getting him excited, and
Speaker 1: he and he felt like the crowd was with him
Speaker 1: on this one. And then he'd get back to you know,
Speaker 1: and I'll bring down your copays and and I'll you know,
Speaker 1: I'm also going to go after big Pharma and I'm gonna.
Speaker 2: It Actually reminds me of the Hairs campaign a way
Speaker 2: we talked about earlier, that they get really animated when
Speaker 2: they're talking about how Trump is a fascist, and then
Speaker 2: they kind of like, we'll get into the meat and
Speaker 2: potatoes too, you know, like everyone is really i mean,
Speaker 2: it's understandable, right, Like everyone feels like this is an
Speaker 2: existential moment, and so they get really caught up in
Speaker 2: those particular arguments.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and my yeah, my right right wing populism can
Speaker 1: either be like this economic nationalistic part of it that
Speaker 1: you know, Steve Bannon has talked about, like yeah, or
Speaker 1: it can be the other Steve Bannon element, which is
Speaker 1: just going after the other. Uh, and it feels like
Speaker 1: that they're they're they're leading into the other.
Speaker 2: Well, there's a Leninist component to what Steve Bannon wants
Speaker 2: to do in the kind of heightened contradiction sense, meaning
Speaker 2: you have to otherize people and then you open the
Speaker 2: gates to economic populism and economic revolution. Which is an
Speaker 2: interesting way to look at it because the risk is
Speaker 2: obviously that you otherise people, open up the gates, and
Speaker 2: then you just don't do any of the economic stuff
Speaker 2: because the corporate capture is so strong in Washington, and
Speaker 2: I mean, the Trump campaign is signaling that might genuinely
Speaker 2: be the dynamic if he has another administration. Because to
Speaker 2: your point, was he still talks about his potential two
Speaker 2: hundred percent tariff, like that's what he said at Madison
Speaker 2: Square Garden on certain items they're trying to revive American manufacturing.
Speaker 3: You hear him talk about that stuff.
Speaker 2: But Stolar actually went back and looked at his speeches
Speaker 2: from twenty sixteen and compared them to a speeches to
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four, and you can see pretty clearly when
Speaker 2: he pulls out excerpts that the economic policy, the economic
Speaker 2: populism of twenty sixteen is muted this time around. It
Speaker 2: is just not a central feature of the messaging like
Speaker 2: it was in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: Right and Democrats were always dismissive of it, would joke
Speaker 1: that economic anxiety doesn't have anything to do with why
Speaker 1: people are supporting Trump. And then it's actually just you know,
Speaker 1: code for racism and bigotry and xenophobia. But now they
Speaker 1: you don't even get the code. He's pulled out. He's
Speaker 1: stripped out the code. It's just the straight xenophobia.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean there's still it's still some some of
Speaker 3: that is still there.
Speaker 2: It's just he's not it's stuff there. It's a question
Speaker 2: as to what enough. That's what I think was interesting
Speaker 2: about the Eric Schmith thing is like the question is
Speaker 2: what do they do? Like is the messaging indicative of
Speaker 2: something that would happen differently? And Schmid has talked about
Speaker 2: his potential attorney general, so for him not getting any
Speaker 2: of these questions. I mean, I thought it was important
Speaker 2: just to hear what he would say to that question,
Speaker 2: because nobody's asking those questions from the sort of conservative
Speaker 2: point of view, like are you abandoning what MAGA was
Speaker 2: supposed to be about On the economic front, it's just
Speaker 2: constantly taking Trump's bait and asking questions about culture war
Speaker 2: and blah blah blah. But they're not feeling the heat
Speaker 2: about what their voters might want to actually see them
Speaker 2: do if they take office.
Speaker 3: And he's, as you.
Speaker 1: Mentioned, the billionaires would rather they talk about immigrants.
Speaker 2: If you're outsourcing a department to Elon Musk, who has
Speaker 2: a million conflicts of interest, come on, there's some legitimate
Speaker 2: questions to be raised there.
Speaker 1: All right, So Friday show will be an actual show
Speaker 1: and it's exciting. Friday. We will will have Crystalin Saga
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 3: We are kindly hosting Friday before the election. We're kindly
Speaker 3: hosting a real show.
Speaker 2: We extended an invitation of Crystalin Sager out of the
Speaker 2: kindness of our own hearts and said, hey, you guys
Speaker 2: were doing.
Speaker 3: The show us.
Speaker 2: You guys want to come on, get their take, get
Speaker 2: some exposure. It would be good to like, get them
Speaker 2: in front of people here. People want to hear what
Speaker 2: they have to say.
Speaker 1: I'm sure if you want to hear that, they'll be
Speaker 1: back here tomorrow morning.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: But that's our Friday show, and we've got all kinds
Speaker 2: of fun election coverage show next week. So Breaking Points
Speaker 2: dot com if you want to become a premium subscriber
Speaker 2: and support the show otherwise, we'll see you back here
Speaker 2: on Friday, all right, See that