Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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Speaker 2: the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that,
Speaker 2: let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday.
Speaker 2: We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do
Speaker 2: we have, Crystal, indeed we do.
Speaker 1: We are awaiting tonight the long anticipated Kamala Harris interview.
Speaker 1: She amazingly hasn't given one since Biden dropped down, which
Speaker 1: now feels like eighty three years ago. So that's happening
Speaker 1: alongside her vice presidential picked Tim Walls, so we will
Speaker 1: preview that. We also have finally, actually a significant amount
Speaker 1: of polling coming out post DNC, especially some Fox News
Speaker 1: swing state poles that are very interesting, and also some
Speaker 1: voter registration data that is worth digging into, so we'll
Speaker 1: get into that. We're also taking a look at a
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal poll of how Americans are feeling about
Speaker 1: the American dream seems kind of important, so we're going
Speaker 1: to dig into that. We've got some Trump indictment news,
Speaker 1: a superseding indictment issued in the election interference case. We're
Speaker 1: also going to take a look at Trump's economic plan.
Speaker 1: Since we've been focused a little bit on what Kamala
Speaker 1: Harris is up to, we'll contrast what Trump's plans are.
Speaker 4: As best you can decipher.
Speaker 1: Not that you ever really know what that man is
Speaker 1: going to do, but we should take him at his
Speaker 1: word that these are the things that he plans to
Speaker 1: implement if he is once again elected at president of
Speaker 1: the United States. We also have some news coming out
Speaker 1: of Israel. There's kind of sort of maybe a temporary
Speaker 1: partial ceasefire in order to vaccinate some Palestinians for polio.
Speaker 1: There is now a polio outbreak in the Gaza Strip.
Speaker 1: So we'll take a look at that. And I am
Speaker 1: doing a monologue today on whether or not the Bernie
Speaker 1: to Trump pipeline is real. This, of course Zaga being
Speaker 1: relevant in the wake of the RFK Junior and Tulsi
Speaker 1: Gabbard Trump endorsements.
Speaker 3: There's something going on there. We could talk about it.
Speaker 4: I apologize Evan.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the monologue is way too but not when I
Speaker 1: scratched the surface, there was too much.
Speaker 4: I want to well, there's.
Speaker 2: Been a fun split and you know, it's like it's
Speaker 2: almost like a it's one of the it's almost like
Speaker 2: a study of religion or something, and to see like
Speaker 2: the fractionalization of all of it. So anyway, I'm interested
Speaker 2: and I'm excited to talk about it. Thank you to
Speaker 2: all of our premusbscribers Breakingpoints dot com if you want
Speaker 2: to go ahead and sign up and help us out here.
Speaker 2: But why don't we begin with Kamala the Big Interview.
Speaker 4: Yes, today tonight at what nine pm?
Speaker 3: It's tonight. I unfortunate it would be on a plane,
Speaker 3: but Crystal will have a.
Speaker 1: Cover Bana Bash also known maybe as bb Bash because
Speaker 1: of her pro Israel commentary. Anyway, that'll be potentially relevant.
Speaker 1: Let's go and put the announcement up on the screen.
Speaker 1: So Kamala Harris and Tim Walls are in a sit
Speaker 1: with CNN's Dana Bash this evening nine pm Eastern. It
Speaker 1: says it occurs as the candidates embark on a bus
Speaker 1: tour through the battleground state of Georgia. Marks the first
Speaker 1: time Harris I sat with the journalist Born in depth
Speaker 1: on the record conversation. Since President Joe Biden dropped his
Speaker 1: bid for second term and endorse her on July twenty one,
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure on her soccer obviously, to agree
Speaker 1: to do an interview, which seems like kind of the
Speaker 1: basics of what you would expect from a get it
Speaker 1: for president and a democracy so good that this is
Speaker 1: finally happening. A lot made of the fact that she's
Speaker 1: going to have Tim Walls alongside of her. You know,
Speaker 1: one of the risks of waiting so long and doing
Speaker 1: so few at this point zero interviews is that it makes.
Speaker 4: Each one so much more sence.
Speaker 1: Yes, well, if you do a lot of interviews, also,
Speaker 1: it makes the media happier, so they're more likely to
Speaker 1: go a little bit easier on you. When you wait
Speaker 1: so long, you you know, on the one hand, it
Speaker 1: means you don't have an opportunity to make a mistake.
Speaker 1: She's timed this very strategically to be before the Labor
Speaker 1: Day weekend holiday weekend, so if she does stumble, as
Speaker 1: is possible, and as we've seen in previous interviews, it's
Speaker 1: very likely, you know, after the long holiday weekend and
Speaker 1: we'll come back next week on Tuesday, that a lot
Speaker 1: of that will be forgotten. So it's strategically timed, et cetera.
Speaker 1: But there's no doubt that she has built a lot
Speaker 1: of anticipation around this interview simply because of the scarcity
Speaker 1: of Kamala Harris unscriptures.
Speaker 2: That's why risk is there, and so that's why there's
Speaker 2: a criticism that she's doing it with Tim Wallas. It's
Speaker 2: actually apparently I didn't know this. Apparently it is a
Speaker 2: tradition that you're supposed to do a sit down interview
Speaker 2: it's with your running mate. It's just that you usually
Speaker 2: do it like the day after you name your running mate.
Speaker 2: You don't usually wait for several weeks or any of that.
Speaker 2: It's an extraordinary time. I think only sixty eight days
Speaker 2: as of today until the election, I know, which is
Speaker 2: nuts whenever you put it that way.
Speaker 4: Voting starts in some states in like ninety.
Speaker 2: Yeah, nine days, you have early voting reaches out completely crazy.
Speaker 2: But okay, let's come back and think about the interview.
Speaker 2: The real risk here is that one of the major
Speaker 2: benefits for Trump, I think we can always say, was
Speaker 2: the spray and prey strategy where he just does He's
Speaker 2: always in.
Speaker 3: The public eye at all times.
Speaker 2: So I remember when I covered him at the White House,
Speaker 2: he would say something crazy and then we would do
Speaker 2: an interview, get cleared up, or so we would do
Speaker 2: something else and everyone would move on within twenty four hours,
Speaker 2: sometimes even less than that. And that's the thing. The
Speaker 2: risk is if you do one bad one and then
Speaker 2: you are you know, entrenched. Where all the evidence we
Speaker 2: have so far from her campaign, it's very risk averse.
Speaker 2: So they're looking back at all their past interviews. We're
Speaker 2: going to show everybody some highlights and some things that
Speaker 2: they want to do. But given her bad experience now
Speaker 2: so far, it may actually retrench her and then all
Speaker 2: we will have as media and others is this single
Speaker 2: interview where it possibly it doesn't go that well. I
Speaker 2: also do think there's like a real softball element and
Speaker 2: you talk to her about Dana Bash, Jana Bash is
Speaker 2: an incredibly biased figure from her Israel commentary to her
Speaker 2: like masculinity commentary, which we were going to talk about
Speaker 2: last time in our show and eventually will at some point.
Speaker 2: But like this is not you know, some so called
Speaker 2: straight up news anchor, fine if it's one of a lot,
Speaker 2: but it's a little different whenever it's somebody who is
Speaker 2: not on the record praising Tim Walls immediately and I'll
Speaker 2: gamaff immediately after the speech, and then you turn to
Speaker 2: the first interview.
Speaker 3: It's funny.
Speaker 2: Our friend Glenn Greenwald, before the interview was announced, he's like,
Speaker 2: I bet she goes to somebody like Dana Bash, you know,
Speaker 2: and he's as good as he's even more cynical than me,
Speaker 2: which takes a lot of work. But what he's accurately
Speaker 2: pointing out is that you go to the safe route,
Speaker 2: and I think that's one of the reasons that they
Speaker 2: are doing so.
Speaker 3: And I you know, I mean, I don't think that's
Speaker 3: a good thing. I really don't.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think Dana Bash will feel enough pressure
Speaker 1: just given the high profile nature of the event. She's
Speaker 1: going to ask some things that are meant to challenge,
Speaker 1: and you know, in terms of Kamala and how she
Speaker 1: will perform, I genuinely don't know what to expect because, frankly,
Speaker 1: after she did that Lesterhold interview that you know on
Speaker 1: the border that was crashed and burned, she basically didn't
Speaker 1: do any more interviews for like, you know a long.
Speaker 4: Time and I don't.
Speaker 1: So that's my last impression of how she performs in
Speaker 1: these settings, and obviously was very, very poor. But that
Speaker 1: was also probably her most catastrophic interview is incident. So
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if my expectations for her are too low
Speaker 1: because I'm actually biased in terms of thinking like that's
Speaker 1: how her standard performances and in general. Obviously, when she
Speaker 1: was running for president, she gave a lot of interviews
Speaker 1: and most of them were not all that noteworthy.
Speaker 4: She was able to get through it well.
Speaker 1: Enough, so so yeah, the expectations are high. Perhaps the
Speaker 1: Lester Holt interview being the last thing in people's minds
Speaker 1: have set the expectations very low for her, which means
Speaker 1: that she just kind of gets through it with no
Speaker 1: major major stumbles, then I will be relatively inconsequential. But obviously,
Speaker 1: because she's waited.
Speaker 4: So long, she's built up that risk. You know.
Speaker 1: The knock, the very legitimate I think knock on Kamal
Speaker 1: Harris that she and her team themselves obviously must agree with,
Speaker 1: given how cautious they've been about putting her into unscripted settings,
Speaker 1: is that she's not good in interviews and she's not
Speaker 1: good in debates. But again, you know, thinking back to
Speaker 1: how she did against Mike Pints, for example, she did fine,
Speaker 1: and she had some moments that you know, was perfectly
Speaker 1: serviceable performance, and she had some moments that they felt
Speaker 1: good about. Now, those moments are are the sort of
Speaker 1: thing that the media celebrate, a very like girl Boss
Speaker 1: type of moments, and you know that she was proud
Speaker 1: of and sort of reminiscent of that little Girl was
Speaker 1: Me shot that she landed on Joe Biden, etcetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: But CNN was recently reliving some of what they considered
Speaker 1: to be her strongest debate moments against Mike Pence.
Speaker 4: Let's go ahead and take a listen to a little
Speaker 4: bit of that.
Speaker 5: No, but this is important, and I want to add,
Speaker 5: mister Vice president, I'm speaking, I'm speaking.
Speaker 6: You can get fifty more seconds and then we'll give
Speaker 6: the vice president chance.
Speaker 5: Joe Biden has been very clear he will not raise
Speaker 5: taxes on anybody who makes less than four hundred thousand.
Speaker 3: The Trump tax cut.
Speaker 5: Mister Vice President, I'm speaking, well, i'm speaking. The important
Speaker 5: is you said the truth is he only going to
Speaker 5: repeal part of the Trump tax cuts. If you don't
Speaker 5: mind letting me finish, we can then have a conversation. Okay, please, okay,
Speaker 5: let's talk about Yeah, I'm about to.
Speaker 3: I mean it was like.
Speaker 7: Is that it was not just watching you right now?
Speaker 4: That is just what happened right there.
Speaker 8: So so women oftentimes in the workplace try to be
Speaker 8: able to get their voices heard and then men try
Speaker 8: to you.
Speaker 7: Never did you ever notice, Lauren, let me let you
Speaker 7: finish your point, attempted to be here, he has the floor.
Speaker 3: Is that right? I don't.
Speaker 4: That's lovely, thank you.
Speaker 9: No.
Speaker 6: Look, I mean they they are counting on the debates
Speaker 6: being a kind of catharsis for Democrats.
Speaker 4: Now, I remember when people watching, Yeah, just turn on
Speaker 4: cable news.
Speaker 3: You're right.
Speaker 2: I mean they erected a literal I'm speaking mural here
Speaker 2: in Washington, d C. I'm not sure if you remember that.
Speaker 2: But what CNN wants to do, what CNN was highlighting
Speaker 2: is that's what they want. That's part of the reason
Speaker 2: what they want out of the debate. It's part of
Speaker 2: the reason why Kamala wanted unmuted mics. By the way,
Speaker 2: we still have yet to get a actual answer on
Speaker 2: the unmuted microphone.
Speaker 4: I thought they decided they were going to stick with
Speaker 4: the original rule.
Speaker 2: That's what Trump said, But then the Kamala campaign came
Speaker 2: out and was like, no, we still haven't agreed on that.
Speaker 2: But he's like, I will be at the debate whatever. Okay,
Speaker 2: I don't even particularly care at this point.
Speaker 3: Someone let me know.
Speaker 2: Just let me know though, what the actual rules are.
Speaker 2: The point being that, yeah, look, she does fine. I
Speaker 2: mean personally, you know that doesn't do it for me.
Speaker 2: But I'm not the only person who votes in this country.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of people apparently who like it.
Speaker 2: What you want to see from a Kamala Harris is
Speaker 2: just a normal like you want a baseline. But the
Speaker 2: problem is, and this is where it gets to the risk,
Speaker 2: is that she has had many moments where she significantly
Speaker 2: underperforms the politician baseline. And that is the interesting thing
Speaker 2: here where you have somebody who right now you know
Speaker 2: not only is running on vibes but purely on script
Speaker 2: and when you're so defensive. And what we also know
Speaker 2: about her is I think she's a deep, insecure individual
Speaker 2: from behind the scenes. We know this from her interviews
Speaker 2: from the high staff turnover, from all of the leaks
Speaker 2: about the people, about how she explodes behind the scenes
Speaker 2: whenever she feels like she's not prepared. This is a
Speaker 2: very typical politician thing to blame your staff when an
Speaker 2: interview goes badly, even though it's like, hey, you're the
Speaker 2: one on the camera, lady, like you know, you're the
Speaker 2: one who allegedly is trying to get elected. So I
Speaker 2: could see it going both ways. I do think it's
Speaker 2: going to be better for her that Tim Wallace is
Speaker 2: there with her, because frankly is just a far more
Speaker 2: compelling figure. He can he's more affable, he can clean
Speaker 2: some things up if he needs to. And in general,
Speaker 2: my general rule is like, if you really can't sit
Speaker 2: for thirty forty five minutes and not make an idiot
Speaker 2: of yourself, you don't belong in this business period, Like
Speaker 2: you should never have made it this far. So if
Speaker 2: she does fail, I mean that just is real evidence
Speaker 2: about her genuine weakness as a candidate off the cuff
Speaker 2: where look, you can try and hide as candidate, but
Speaker 2: as president it is actually quite literally impossible. The demands
Speaker 2: of the job actually make it. Even Biden, we saw
Speaker 2: they tried their absolute best. We had plenty of evidence
Speaker 2: before we ever set foot on that debate stage.
Speaker 3: He was a long gone man, right.
Speaker 2: And so there is a proven aspect to this job
Speaker 2: where I think some Americans hopefully will be watching, and
Speaker 2: she has set the stakes now so high given that
Speaker 2: she's waited over a month to even have an interview. Also,
Speaker 2: I do think it's a little bs to time it
Speaker 2: right before Labor Day weekend, when people like me are
Speaker 2: getting on a plane and many others are probably jetting
Speaker 2: off or getting in the car and going somewhere on vacation.
Speaker 2: So that's you know, that's another sign of weakness that
Speaker 2: we see there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do think in terms of her public appearances,
Speaker 1: it seems to me Kamala Harris has never had more confidence.
Speaker 4: Than she does right now.
Speaker 3: That's absolutely she has.
Speaker 1: You know, she has a swagger and a command that
Speaker 1: she is kind of like, you know, undefinable X factor
Speaker 1: type characteristics that we didn't really see in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: But just to take relive, you know, what was perhaps
Speaker 1: her worst interview moment and which is really perplexing on
Speaker 1: a variety of levels because the question was totally totally predictive.
Speaker 1: Well question that you received and is just completely flummox by.
Speaker 1: This is the now infamous Lesterholt border interview with Vice
Speaker 1: presid Kama Harrison satalism.
Speaker 8: It's one of the topic I wanted to talk to
Speaker 8: you about it. Let me just quickly put a button.
Speaker 8: Do you have any plans to visit the border.
Speaker 5: I'm here in Guatemala today. At some point, you know
Speaker 5: we are going to the border. We've been to the border.
Speaker 5: So this whole, this whole, this whole thing about the border.
Speaker 5: We've been to the border. We've been to the border.
Speaker 5: You haven't been to the border, and I haven't been
Speaker 5: to Europe, and I don't I don't understand the point
Speaker 5: that you're making. I'm not discounting the importance of the border.
Speaker 8: Well I mentioned because I know Republicans have certainly come
Speaker 8: atch you on this, but Democratic Congressman quare As a
Speaker 8: border district has said to you and the President, come
Speaker 8: you can see this.
Speaker 5: And I care about what's happening at the border. I'm
Speaker 5: in Guatemala because my focus is dealing with the root
Speaker 5: causes of migration. There may be some who think that
Speaker 5: that is not important, but It is my firm belief
Speaker 5: that if we care about what's happening at the border,
Speaker 5: we better care about the root causes and address them.
Speaker 5: And so that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that was a very infamous moment, right
Speaker 2: for a good reason. We inarticulate lack of command of
Speaker 2: the facts, a little bit of arrogant air too. I mean,
Speaker 2: these are these are like the absolute basics, and that's
Speaker 2: part of what why she was the most unpopular or
Speaker 2: vice president in modern history, you know, up until she
Speaker 2: basically got anointed here. And there's no question in my mind,
Speaker 2: I don't think she would win an open primary if
Speaker 2: it were actually opened back in the day, but you know,
Speaker 2: in a real process, not necessarily being anointed.
Speaker 3: And that is why I think we are.
Speaker 2: I mean it's a risky proposition for her and for
Speaker 2: the Democrats. And you see it too, where all of
Speaker 2: the flip flopping on all of these issues, there's almost
Speaker 2: been so many that you'd have to do an interview
Speaker 2: solely focused on that, as opposed to you'd be like, okay,
Speaker 2: medicare for all, talk about medic aw, then let's do fracking.
Speaker 2: Then let's do what the border wall, which you're not
Speaker 2: you're a pro border. Now let's go about the what
Speaker 2: about crime?
Speaker 4: About criminals?
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's cry it's I.
Speaker 2: Mean I could probably spend two hours with that woman
Speaker 2: just being like this, this, this, this, this, this, this
Speaker 2: and this and so do I have confidence that Dana
Speaker 2: Bash is going to do all that? No, And that's
Speaker 2: part of the issue, you know, and part of the
Speaker 2: why she needs to do more interviews, because the other
Speaker 2: danger is that we see her recreate her infamous debate
Speaker 2: moment with Tulci Gabbard where she has no idea what
Speaker 2: to do when called out on her hypocrisy. So with
Speaker 2: Dana Bash, I mean she'll probably hit her on probably
Speaker 2: I'm guessing fracking, just because that's one where we've seen
Speaker 2: them stumble in the past, and probably the border too.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's the most stark one.
Speaker 4: So we'll ask her some at least challenging questions.
Speaker 3: I think, I really hope.
Speaker 1: So now I would be surprised if she didn't, because
Speaker 1: it just as I said, they've kind of pissed off
Speaker 1: the press and so they've made it much more likely
Speaker 1: that the question will be a bit more hostile, even
Speaker 1: from someone like Dana bas But to your point, soager,
Speaker 1: and this is part of why I think there will
Speaker 1: be some at least somewhat challenging questions. You had John
Speaker 1: Berman speaking to a Kamala Harris spokesperson and on the
Speaker 1: flip flopping question, was really pressing him on fracking. Let's
Speaker 1: take a listen to how that exchange went.
Speaker 10: The Vice President has changed her position on fracking in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 3: Do you know why she's changed her position? Listen.
Speaker 11: I mean, she's been very clear here. She's proud of
Speaker 11: the work that she's done as a part of this
Speaker 11: administration making sure that American energy production is at an
Speaker 11: all time high. We want to continue that progress into
Speaker 11: her first term in office. Here and again, I think,
Speaker 11: whether it's energy policy, economic policy writ large, that you
Speaker 11: have a fighter in Kamala Harris who is actually keeping
Speaker 11: these interests of the American people front and center, coming
Speaker 11: together to bring people together in search of solutions that
Speaker 11: actually improve people's quality of life, improve our economy, improve
Speaker 11: energy FORDU.
Speaker 10: But but on frecking, was there something that changed her mind
Speaker 10: specifically during the four years of the Biden presidency.
Speaker 11: Now, listen again, the Vice President is very proud of
Speaker 11: the Biden Harris administration's record on energy production in the
Speaker 11: economy were at large, she wants to continue to build
Speaker 11: upon the progress that we've made here that goes for
Speaker 11: energy production and it goes for the economy across the board.
Speaker 1: Right, So you know he's pressed multiple times there and
Speaker 1: this one of the things that will be interesting is
Speaker 1: like usually when Kamala is prepared, she does well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know when she that first debate in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: in the Democratic primary, you know that little girl was me.
Speaker 1: Moment has kind of like curdled over time, but it
Speaker 1: hit in the moment and she was good. Not just then,
Speaker 1: but she was on it in that debate. She was
Speaker 1: very good because a lot of the fire wasn't trained
Speaker 1: on her, so she could just insert herself when she
Speaker 1: felt comfortable, she could sort of occupy that role as
Speaker 1: the prosecutor. She had clearly like prepared herself very well
Speaker 1: for that and she wasn't caught on off guard for
Speaker 1: whatever reason the lesser whole interview, she was not prepared
Speaker 1: for that question. There's no one to blame but herself
Speaker 1: for that.
Speaker 4: And a lot of.
Speaker 1: The potentially difficult line in questioning here is also very anticipatable,
Speaker 1: like the you know, the flip flop questions are really obvious.
Speaker 1: So if you can't answer that, if you don't have
Speaker 1: a plan for answering that you can't execute in the moment,
Speaker 1: it really would be sort of pathetic. Strikely, it would
Speaker 1: be fairly pathetic. One last point I want to make
Speaker 1: about this, and then I get your final last time
Speaker 1: we can move on to the latest.
Speaker 4: With regard to the polls.
Speaker 1: But part of why, and I think this is unfortunate,
Speaker 1: but part of why I don't think that most voters
Speaker 1: really care that much about how many interviews she does,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera, is because of the fact that
Speaker 1: media is so discredited, you know, like how much punch
Speaker 1: does it really pack when Republicans are on the one hand,
Speaker 1: like all of this is fake news media and you know,
Speaker 1: Dana Bash is terrible, et cetera, et cetera, but also
Speaker 1: we really wanted to sit down for an interview with
Speaker 1: the fake news media. And for a long time, liberals
Speaker 1: have been the last bastion of like media trust, and
Speaker 1: that continues to be the case at certainly much higher
Speaker 1: levels than Republicans, but that has eroded. Also, there was
Speaker 1: a lot of I don't know if you guys followed
Speaker 1: this or were in these circles, but there was a
Speaker 1: lot of liberal criticism and continues to be a lot
Speaker 1: of liberal criticism of like the New York Times and
Speaker 1: the wash In Post first over what they saw as
Speaker 1: unfair coverage of Joe Biden's age. They sort of dropped
Speaker 1: that one, but now and some of these are really legitimate,
Speaker 1: Like some of the fact checks that Washington Posts and
Speaker 1: New York Times have been doing have been relatively absurd.
Speaker 1: And so there's a media critique conversation that's happening in
Speaker 1: the liberal side of the equation too that I really
Speaker 1: have never seen before. And of course independents are also
Speaker 1: really disaffected and distrustful Americans in general, just like across
Speaker 1: the board, our mistrusting of the media, and so you know,
Speaker 1: I think that's part of why she feels like she's
Speaker 1: going to check this box, because she's under some pressure
Speaker 1: to do it. But other than that, I don't think
Speaker 1: she feels particularly compelled or pressured to do these interviews.
Speaker 1: And again, that's that's an unfortunate thing. That's a sign
Speaker 1: of the degradation both of our media and of like
Speaker 1: small de democracy in the country.
Speaker 4: But I saw one.
Speaker 1: Journalist describe her as like the first post media presidential candidate,
Speaker 1: and I think in a sense that that is correct.
Speaker 1: She just doesn't feel much pressure and isn't going to
Speaker 1: feel much pressure to have to subject herself to truly rigorous,
Speaker 1: difficult interviews.
Speaker 4: And that's just kind of the new reality.
Speaker 1: In American politics until we the people force a different
Speaker 1: reality from this, just like skating by and not really
Speaker 1: happy part questions.
Speaker 3: Exactly right.
Speaker 2: So I look at the data very recently, trust in
Speaker 2: the media amongst democrats partisan democrats is roughly seventy three percent,
Speaker 2: but it's much higher for institutions like MSNBC and others
Speaker 2: where they feel like some kinship. And in general, what
Speaker 2: you're seeing, especially with younger generations, is that you know.
Speaker 3: Cutting the cord.
Speaker 2: Obviously I support that, and people should and then should
Speaker 2: support the show, but you know, has really led to
Speaker 2: a stratification of news consumption. The only reason that Trump
Speaker 2: is not the first post media candidate is because he's
Speaker 2: so old. He still worships a lot of mainstream media
Speaker 2: brands like the New York Times and Time magazine. I mean,
Speaker 2: in his head, he still thinks Time magazine is relevant.
Speaker 2: I'm like, again, I was born in nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 2: For me, Time is like time for kids. I'm like,
Speaker 2: it's like trash, like something you can throw in the trash.
Speaker 2: Do I know that it once upon a time was relevant? Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's like telling me about somebody being on the cover
Speaker 2: of Life magazine in World War Two. I collect them. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it doesn't mean I care about that. Does it even
Speaker 2: exist anymore? I literally couldn't tell you. Yeah, And that's
Speaker 2: a generational thing. So for Kamala and for a lot
Speaker 2: of her advisors, they are in. The other thing is too,
Speaker 2: is that the Democrats, and Obama was the chief of this.
Speaker 2: Obama had a deep disdain for the media. People don't
Speaker 2: realize this because he privately both would talk with his
Speaker 2: advisors and he was like, why do I have to
Speaker 2: give these people anything. They're gonna basically support me no
Speaker 2: matter what. They hate the Republicans, and why should I
Speaker 2: subject myself to fake scrutinies. So he would do He
Speaker 2: actually pioneered, you know, the modern influenced presidency. Remember his
Speaker 2: videos with BuzzFeed or he was the first person to
Speaker 2: do a Vox interview he actually made history in his
Speaker 2: first question as President of the United States was not
Speaker 2: to the New York Times or the Associated Press. It
Speaker 2: was to the Huffington Post. And that was a very
Speaker 2: clear signal. He was like, Hey, the rest of you,
Speaker 2: I got options now. Yeah, and that I mean that
Speaker 2: was two thousand and eight or two thousand and nine, Yeah,
Speaker 2: the day that happened. To think about how long it's
Speaker 2: been since that. So, Pamla, look at the DNC, you
Speaker 2: had the Creator Lounge and all on that. That is
Speaker 2: a proto of what is to come. That's not necessarily
Speaker 2: a good thing, but you're right in terms of you know,
Speaker 2: partisan distrusted media is at a point right now where
Speaker 2: and the Quentin Tarantino was the perfect thing where he's like,
Speaker 2: why shouldn't you do an interview? He's like, I'm going
Speaker 2: to vote for you no matter what you say. There's
Speaker 2: a lot of a lot of people who actually.
Speaker 3: Think that, and they think that about Trump as a wall. True.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Trump has some elements of this strategy too. He
Speaker 1: is really leaning into and you see this with the
Speaker 1: Tulsi and the RFK junior picks. He's really leaning into
Speaker 1: the sort of like you know, online anti establishment podcast Realm.
Speaker 1: He's doing an interview with Lex Friedman apparently coming up
Speaker 1: as an example of that and betting that that's like
Speaker 1: a significant enough force now in American politics to make
Speaker 1: a difference from him. So interesting experiment that he's running there.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, I mean the previous norms of sitting
Speaker 1: for these interviews and feeling responsibility to do them, and
Speaker 1: like the main networks, you know, getting these interviews regular,
Speaker 1: it's basically over. And so this is this pressure resulting
Speaker 1: in her sitting down and doing this interview with Dana
Speaker 1: Bash is kind of a last gasp of the old
Speaker 1: way of doing things for better and mostly for worse.
Speaker 1: Let's go and move on to the polling here that
Speaker 1: we have. It's been you know, a while now since
Speaker 1: the DNC wrapped, and we haven't had a lot of
Speaker 1: especially high quality polling. We finally got some Fox News
Speaker 1: polls and this is they are quality polster out of
Speaker 1: several battleground states.
Speaker 4: Let's go and put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: These are really interesting and I'll tell you why in
Speaker 1: just a second. So we've got Arizona Harris fifty Trump
Speaker 1: forty nine, so one point difference there Georgia Harris fifty
Speaker 1: Trump forty eight, Nevada Harris fifty Trump forty eight, and
Speaker 1: North Carolina is the one where Trump has a one
Speaker 1: point lead.
Speaker 4: And part of what this really.
Speaker 1: Grabbed a lot of attention saga is that these numbers
Speaker 1: are almost exactly the twenty twenty Biden Trump actual election numbers,
Speaker 1: So a lot of twenty twenty vibes coming out of
Speaker 1: these polls. These were taken post DNC and also just
Speaker 1: after the RFK dropout.
Speaker 4: So they should in theory.
Speaker 1: Although sometimes it takes time for news to know leak
Speaker 1: out people to really get a sort of wrap their
Speaker 1: heads around changing dynamics, et cetera, but they should reflect
Speaker 1: both a potential post DNC bounce and a potential impact
Speaker 1: of RFK dropping out and endorsing Trump.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean that is really interesting battleground polling. And you
Speaker 2: can take it two different ways. You can say, wow,
Speaker 2: that's accurate, it's just like twenty twenty, or you can
Speaker 2: point to the fact that it's so ambiguous and within
Speaker 2: the margin of error it effectively just says, well, we'll
Speaker 2: always stay on the show. It's like coin flip. If
Speaker 2: I look at the Nate Silver projection. His last projection
Speaker 2: that came out after RFK dropped out of the race,
Speaker 2: is not in terms of the national polling, but he
Speaker 2: has in his forecast Harris at a fifty point four
Speaker 2: percent and Trump at forty eight point four And that's.
Speaker 3: As close as you could possibly get for the tie.
Speaker 2: I looked at Polymarket just this morning, the biggest betting
Speaker 2: market site right now, it's about Trump fifty percent t
Speaker 2: Kamala forty nine percent. Same thing, And so I think
Speaker 2: a lot of it will come down to both polling error,
Speaker 2: but a lot of it is also enthusiasm. And enthusiasm
Speaker 2: though is with the Democrats. So right now, the brand
Speaker 2: new gallop Gallop pulling out this morning, US respondents enthusiasm
Speaker 2: about voting compared to different presidential elections is at the
Speaker 2: highest level since nineteen ninety six. Actually, Democratic excitement about
Speaker 2: voting is now surging to two thousand and eight levels. Now,
Speaker 2: that said, one of the reasons why this is very
Speaker 2: different from two thousand and eight is that Republicans were
Speaker 2: not enthusiastic to vote No. Eight while Democrats were, whereas
Speaker 2: this time around, Republicans are actually quite enthusiastic.
Speaker 3: So you actually have the battle of excitement.
Speaker 2: You could say previously it was trending in the direction
Speaker 2: of a lower turnout election of twenty twenty. I don't
Speaker 2: think that's going to be the case this time. It
Speaker 2: may even be higher or matching. And remember twenty twenty
Speaker 2: was the highest level a voter participation that we've had
Speaker 2: in decades.
Speaker 3: So actually, quite a lot of this is actually.
Speaker 2: Going to come down to turning out your own side
Speaker 2: and the traditional coalition. If you're Harris, that's a good thing.
Speaker 2: You're Trump, it's also a good thing. So it really
Speaker 2: puts you in a fighting chance on both sides of that.
Speaker 3: I mean, if I were Trump.
Speaker 2: This is why, you know, with the podcast thing, it's
Speaker 2: easy to cringe all that, but it's one of those
Speaker 2: where is it going to be the you know, is
Speaker 2: it going to be the main reason you win? Absolutely not.
Speaker 2: But in a game of inches, basically everything matters. And
Speaker 2: that's why, you know, RFK is really what brought me
Speaker 2: back to totally Trump fifty to fifty, because yes, he's
Speaker 2: still going to be on the ballot, but you know,
Speaker 2: if he's going to be stumping out there on the
Speaker 2: campaign trail for Trump, and same with Tulsi like listen,
Speaker 2: one percent. That's the difference. That's literally the margin in
Speaker 2: half of these states.
Speaker 1: See, I just I give I actually don't think that
Speaker 1: it is a smart strategy leaning into the Tulsi Gabbard
Speaker 1: RFK junior strategy.
Speaker 3: Well about podcast more, Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 4: The podcasting is interesting. We'll see.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of these a lot of the podcast
Speaker 1: is going on. The people that are listening to them,
Speaker 1: are are you supporting him? But let me go ahead
Speaker 1: and cueue up this this next sound by, because to
Speaker 1: be honest with you, this is more persuasive to me
Speaker 1: than frankly, any of the poles that I've seen because polls,
Speaker 1: we've seen them be all over the place, and I
Speaker 1: don't know what to make of them at this point.
Speaker 1: Are they understanding Trump or the over stating Trump? You
Speaker 1: can look at twenty twenty and say they're understating. You
Speaker 1: can look at twenty twenty two and say they're oversaying.
Speaker 1: Hard to say, right, But there's this data analytics firm.
Speaker 1: Now it is a democratic firm, so keep that in mind.
Speaker 1: But they're just looking at the numbers and crunching the
Speaker 1: numbers around voter registration and who is registering to vote.
Speaker 1: So this is not like, oh, I've got to do
Speaker 1: a likely voter sample and can I get people on
Speaker 1: the phone, et cetera. No, these are the hard, factual
Speaker 1: numbers based on what different states are reporting in terms
Speaker 1: of who is registering to vote now. The firm is
Speaker 1: called Target Smart. They are one of the only outlets
Speaker 1: that successfully predicted that twenty twenty two was not going
Speaker 1: to be a red wave, and the reason they saw
Speaker 1: it coming is because they were looking at this voter
Speaker 1: registration data and saying, listen, this just doesn't fit with
Speaker 1: the metrics of a red wave type of election. So
Speaker 1: the Tom Bonier is the name of the guy you're
Speaker 1: about to listen to. He has new numbers reflecting since
Speaker 1: Biden dropped out and Kamala got in a massive surge
Speaker 1: in Democratic Party registration, but specifically among key demographic groups
Speaker 1: that you would expect to be enthusiastic about Kamala Harris
Speaker 1: and aligned with her and looking to vote for her
Speaker 1: in the fall. Let's take a listen to how he
Speaker 1: breaks down.
Speaker 12: We're tracking something really interesting going on right now. It's
Speaker 12: a surge in voter registration in key groups ahead of
Speaker 12: the November election among young Black women, registration is up
Speaker 12: more than one hundred seventy five percent. You heard that right,
Speaker 12: more than one hundred and seventy five percent in thirteen states.
Speaker 12: That's compared to the same time in twenty twenty. This,
Speaker 12: according to the data firm Target Smart, registration has also
Speaker 12: increased among young Latinas and Black Americans one hundred and
Speaker 12: seventy five percent. Can that possibly be right? If you
Speaker 12: must have triple checked this or many more times than.
Speaker 13: That, You're right to repeat the number, because I have
Speaker 13: more than triple checked it. It's in incredibly unusual to
Speaker 13: see changes in voter registration that are anywhere close to this.
Speaker 13: I mean to remind people, one hundred and seventy five
Speaker 13: percent is almost tripling of registration rates among this specific group.
Speaker 13: You just don't see that sort of thing happen in
Speaker 13: elections normally.
Speaker 1: Let's go and put the charts back up on the screen.
Speaker 1: The next element that we have here, just so people
Speaker 1: can be taking a look at this. This is a
Speaker 1: tweet from the same individual, senior advisor to Target Smart,
Speaker 1: Tom Bonnier. He says the Harris effect in the thirteen
Speaker 1: states that have updated voter files since July twenty First,
Speaker 1: that's when Biden dropped down. We are seeing incredible surges
Speaker 1: in voter registration relative the same time period in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four, driven by women, voters of color, and young voters.
Speaker 4: So if you look across this.
Speaker 1: Graph all the way on the left, the smallest surge
Speaker 1: was among Republicans, the next smallest surge was among men.
Speaker 1: And the more you get to the right and the
Speaker 1: greater surge that you see, the more these groups typically.
Speaker 4: Vote for Democrats.
Speaker 1: And in fact they you know, they not only look
Speaker 1: at states where you have to register as a Democrat
Speaker 1: or Republican, but they also model whether a particular voter
Speaker 1: is likely to be a Democrat or Republican, which sadly
Speaker 1: is actually quite easy to do. We're all very predictable, apparently,
Speaker 1: And fifty one percent surge an increase in registration for
Speaker 1: Democrats post July twenty one, when Biden dropped down, And
Speaker 1: like I said to me, this is perhaps the most
Speaker 1: persuasive data that I've seen that it is possible the
Speaker 1: polls are actually undercounting Kamala Harris support because they are
Speaker 1: very unlikely to pick up new voters. And another point
Speaker 1: he made which was interesting to me. New voters are
Speaker 1: actually more likely to turn out and vote. So first
Speaker 1: time voters are more likely to turn out and vote
Speaker 1: than people who have been registered for a long time.
Speaker 1: So Saga, wondering what you made of this and how
Speaker 1: much significance The other side of the equation would be.
Speaker 1: You know, these groups were so depressed under Biden that
Speaker 1: there's this like just pent up you know, they rather
Speaker 1: than kind of actually registering all the way along like
Speaker 1: you would have expected, there was this pent up demand
Speaker 1: and once Kama comes in and people they would have
Speaker 1: been the ones that registered before under Biden, but they
Speaker 1: were so depressed by him, and so this doesn't reflect
Speaker 1: anything majorly different.
Speaker 4: But to me, these numbers are pretty extraordinary.
Speaker 2: I know there are extraordinary and also because they're real,
Speaker 2: and I mean, the cope if you were a Trump
Speaker 2: person would be, hey, listen, the electric's actually changed.
Speaker 3: You can't necessarily bank.
Speaker 2: On the fact that all young voters are going to
Speaker 2: go for Pa Kamala or for black voters.
Speaker 4: I mean, I saw young black women seeming pretty safe
Speaker 4: that young.
Speaker 3: Black women aby, yeah, but young black men.
Speaker 2: I mean, listen, the last Fox News poll, that's one
Speaker 2: that we showed actually had Trump tripling his black support
Speaker 2: from seven to nineteen.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's pretty crisy.
Speaker 4: But that's not by I launched the group that's ludging here. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now again, I'm just saying, like the cope would be
Speaker 2: that the shift in the electorate has dramatically changed. One
Speaker 2: case for why a lot of this you know, polling
Speaker 2: stuff is Ryan Grodski recently wrote a post about the
Speaker 2: liberal poll response bias. This is not an unskewed in terms. No, no, no,
Speaker 2: it's not about it's about everything. Yeah, I mean, and
Speaker 2: it was accurate in twenty twenty. Is that a bunch
Speaker 2: of older white Liberals were home and they were the
Speaker 2: only ones who were answering in the phone, and that
Speaker 2: was part of the reason that they were off so much. So,
Speaker 2: I mean, I see compelling reason as to why that
Speaker 2: wouldn't replicate itself. I don't see how necessarily they might
Speaker 2: have been able to change it. I'm not saying that
Speaker 2: it isn't tight, or that Trump is winning or losing.
Speaker 2: It's that this voter registration data is very compelling.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I do know that the.
Speaker 2: Republicans have some of their own answer and I've been
Speaker 2: doing this now for two years. There's groups like Charlie
Speaker 2: Kirks and the Scott Presler who have been out there
Speaker 2: for almost two and a half years now just registering
Speaker 2: the shit out of a lot of Republican voters. So
Speaker 2: there was a basically there was a huge recognition post
Speaker 2: twenty twenty. They're like, all right, we got met, we
Speaker 2: got destroyed on mail in voting, and then they were like,
Speaker 2: well we'll try and beat them and you know, win
Speaker 2: a midterm and then you get killed in the midterms,
Speaker 2: Like okay, well we're going to go to war with
Speaker 2: the army that we have under the current rules, and
Speaker 2: so they're trying to register as many seniors as possible,
Speaker 2: you know, have mail in voting, of target targeting with mail, etc.
Speaker 2: I think that the case would be that, you know,
Speaker 2: the Republican turnout machine is not as ideologically against the
Speaker 2: current voting system, and so that's one of where the
Speaker 2: corrective could be as well. So anyway, I mean, look,
Speaker 2: in general, voting participation is good, so I'm haster I
Speaker 2: want people to be more registered to vote.
Speaker 1: So, to be honest with you, I was thinking about
Speaker 1: this if I put the polls aside, right, because it
Speaker 1: Like I said before, which direction are they off at
Speaker 1: this point? No one can sell right, No one knows.
Speaker 1: If I put the polls aside and I look at
Speaker 1: the fundamentals, the race actually looks pretty simple. Kamala Harris
Speaker 1: is more popular than Donald Trump. Tim Walls is more
Speaker 1: popular than jd Vance. The issue set she's running on.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about more about this with the
Speaker 1: Trump economic block. The issue set she's running on is
Speaker 1: more popular, including her economic plans and leaning into abortion.
Speaker 1: He's old, she's young. And the big advantage that he's
Speaker 1: always had on the economy, which he maintained against Joe Biden,
Speaker 1: and Joe Biden was able to overcome that advantage is
Speaker 1: basically gone. She's neutralized it. So the more I look
Speaker 1: at the fundamentals, the more I feel like the only
Speaker 1: reason that I'm you know.
Speaker 4: So reluctant to be like, it looks.
Speaker 1: Like she's in the lead and she's you know, has
Speaker 1: the edge in terms of winning, is just because it's
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and who the hell knows what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: But to be honest with you, we may be over
Speaker 1: complicating this because when you look at all those factors
Speaker 1: lined up she When you test, you know, all the
Speaker 1: different presidential characteristics that people want to see in a leader,
Speaker 1: she wins on almost all of them. The one where
Speaker 1: he usually gets her as like strong leader, but on
Speaker 1: all of the other ones she outperforms him.
Speaker 4: So this is someone who people like more.
Speaker 1: They like her policies more, she's more useful.
Speaker 4: She's captured that.
Speaker 1: Like we want change spirit, even as she is in
Speaker 1: some ways an emblem of the status quo, She's captured
Speaker 1: that like change spirit. And so looking at those voter
Speaker 1: registration numbers, it gave me more of a sense that
Speaker 1: those fundamentals actually do reflect reality.
Speaker 2: You could be right, I mean, the counter would be,
Speaker 2: you know, the immigration situation is crazy. We're going to
Speaker 2: talk about the polling later with Trump, that has been
Speaker 2: a massive change. The other thing is we live in
Speaker 2: a way more divided country than it ever before, where
Speaker 2: a lot of those fundamentals don't actually matter all that
Speaker 2: much sometimes for partisan people whenever they go to vote.
Speaker 2: And you know, look at the way that people even
Speaker 2: perceive the economy depending on who the president is in power.
Speaker 2: The economy situation over the last three years still was
Speaker 2: not good. So she may be running on something, but
Speaker 2: she's got the Biden baggage, and if Trump could successfully
Speaker 2: tie her, then you don't even need to win the
Speaker 2: popular vote. You only need to win by one vote
Speaker 2: in all these three states. So that's one where I
Speaker 2: still see, you know, a major electoral college advantage that
Speaker 2: Donald Trump has Pennsylvania in particular. The Senate races are
Speaker 2: actually narrowing in some respects lately, depending on where you
Speaker 2: look at. And so I see three scenarios. I see
Speaker 2: dem out. I see like extremely tight and narrow where
Speaker 2: whoever wins only wins by you know, two to five
Speaker 2: electoral votes. But I could also see a major Republican
Speaker 2: of victory as well, where there was a significant underestimating
Speaker 2: of a lot of this discontent a La twenty and sixteen,
Speaker 2: just because you know, polling as we know, doesn't necessarily
Speaker 2: capture a lot of stuff. And Trump is such a
Speaker 2: unique and dynamic figure that he is so able to
Speaker 2: always defy expectations at the ballot box. I mean again,
Speaker 2: though we don't have a lot of data. That's part
Speaker 2: of the issue with elections. It only happens every four years,
Speaker 2: so you can you can conjure a narrative like I
Speaker 2: just did out of two freaking elections. It's just not
Speaker 2: a lot, you know, for us to make any sense
Speaker 2: of you know.
Speaker 1: The one thing though that the Trump people, and you
Speaker 1: always point this out in twenty twenty, would point to
Speaker 1: when we come on, when they come on rising, it
Speaker 1: was the economy. Yeah, they'd be like, he still vastly
Speaker 1: outperforms Joe Biden on the economy. And we were sort
Speaker 1: of like whatever, because the polls were so clear at that,
Speaker 1: I mean, Biden was winning by nine points, ten points whatever.
Speaker 1: COVID was a catastrophe. Were like, it's over for your cannon.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, But actually they were right. I mean they
Speaker 1: still lost, ye, but the economic numbers were one of
Speaker 1: the things that kept him in the game.
Speaker 4: So when I see and actually we can put yeah, it's.
Speaker 1: A nine the last element in this black eyes throw
Speaker 1: this up on the screen. When I see and this
Speaker 1: isn't the only poll that reflects this, When I see
Speaker 1: her pulling close or even or even or on that
Speaker 1: question of who would be better on getting prices down,
Speaker 1: she pulls a little bit ahead. When I see that,
Speaker 1: I feel like that is maybe as consequential a poll
Speaker 1: number as I have seen because that was the one
Speaker 1: thing that they were like, No, but people care about
Speaker 1: the economy. It's always the number one issue, and they
Speaker 1: still like Trump on the economy. That she has managed
Speaker 1: to neutralize his advantage on what has always been his
Speaker 1: strongest issue, I think is quite remarkable. And you know,
Speaker 1: with regard to immigration, no doubt that's her weakest issue.
Speaker 1: They know that's her weakest issue. I think they're handling
Speaker 1: it very poorly. We'll talk more about that in a
Speaker 1: later block. However, I just don't see evidence that this
Speaker 1: is a big issue for swing voters. I think abortion
Speaker 1: is a much larger, more consequential issue in terms of
Speaker 1: driving enthusiasm and in terms of swing voters, especially given
Speaker 1: the fact that the immigration you know, the border numbers
Speaker 1: are down at this point.
Speaker 4: You don't have you know, there was a peak.
Speaker 1: Of concern previously when there were all these buses go
Speaker 1: into blue cities and there was a real you know,
Speaker 1: there's a real concern and frenzy about that, and understandably
Speaker 1: so I think that has peaked. And again, the most
Speaker 1: hawkish immigration voters are already voting for Donald Trump. So, yes,
Speaker 1: it's her weakest issue. Yes, it's a problem for her.
Speaker 1: I just don't see it as being as consequential as
Speaker 1: Republicans hope it will be.
Speaker 2: It's like I said, if it's an abortion election, the
Speaker 2: Democrats are going to win. This's just no question in
Speaker 2: my mind, considering every state data that we know at
Speaker 2: this point, the super majority.
Speaker 3: If it's an immigration election, I think Trump is gonna win.
Speaker 3: If it's an economy election, it's very down the middle,
Speaker 3: and I could see it. Yeah. I mean, look, there's.
Speaker 2: No question that Kama is a way better Canada than Biden,
Speaker 2: and that's why the GOP should be more afraid. They
Speaker 2: shouldn't be doing. It's like vice versa. They should just
Speaker 2: not talk about abortion period as much as they possibly could,
Speaker 2: like what do you mean? Oh did you say immigration?
Speaker 2: Was that what you meant? And then vice versa. If
Speaker 2: I were the Democrats, I wouldn't even try to compete
Speaker 2: unless you're a Ruben Gego because that guy is what
Speaker 2: a unique race we should talk about it at some point,
Speaker 2: the only candidate where what was it? The Arizona Police
Speaker 2: Association is endorsing Trump and Ruben Gyego Lake, and he
Speaker 2: put out an ad in Spanish talking about hiring more
Speaker 2: border agents I mean, I couldn't love that more from
Speaker 2: a realignment perspective, but it does show you why, to.
Speaker 4: Say, Arizona politics, that's.
Speaker 2: Why is up eleven points, up eleven points in the
Speaker 2: state of Arizona, while Trump is basically tied with Kamala Harris.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's shocking, you know, just to behold some
Speaker 2: of what that looks like. And there's a case that
Speaker 2: performance by Diego would actually help Kamala Harris by. So
Speaker 2: you know, this is where a strong or a week
Speaker 2: Senate candidate can really be. It could make the deciding
Speaker 2: factor just because split ticket voting in a presidential year.
Speaker 2: Not saying it can't happen, but you know it's it's
Speaker 2: relatively rare. So listen, I wouldn't I wouldn't deny you
Speaker 2: know that there are some fundamentals on the Democratic side.
Speaker 2: I just am always very very cautious. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: we live through twenty sixteen, we live through twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: and you know, getting the pulse in the mood of
Speaker 2: the country, foreseeing those Latino shifts in South Texas and
Speaker 2: all of that, or foreseeing the white liberal wave in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty twenty two, we're so so unexpected with so
Speaker 2: tiny little bits of data to be able to point
Speaker 2: to it is. It's more about like, let's just see,
Speaker 2: I guess where the chips fall.
Speaker 3: That that's really all we can do.
Speaker 2: We can do Yeah, difficult, right, difficult for people like
Speaker 2: us especially all right, let's go to the next part
Speaker 2: on the economy. This was actually could be consequential as well.
Speaker 2: This is another reason actually to really to our previous
Speaker 2: discussion about while I'm always just a little bit skeptical
Speaker 2: about counting all these fundamentals for the Democrats, let's put
Speaker 2: this up there please on the screen. There is an
Speaker 2: overwhelming amount of discontent within the American public right now
Speaker 2: about quote the American dream feels out of reach for most.
Speaker 2: And what is really interesting to me is both about
Speaker 2: how people define the American dream and I think.
Speaker 3: We're basically talking about the most basic things here.
Speaker 2: So, for example, when it comes to achieving your own
Speaker 2: vision of the American dream, how is important is each
Speaker 2: of the following? So nearly one hundred percent, say financial
Speaker 2: security is essential or important, but is essential and or important?
Speaker 2: Comfortable retirement almost one hundred percent, home ownership almost one
Speaker 2: hundred percent, annual vacation something like eighty percent. Things go
Speaker 2: down a little bit more whenever it terms to talking
Speaker 2: kids and or having marriage, but financial security, retirement, home ownership,
Speaker 2: annual vacation. So basically like decent life, quality of life,
Speaker 2: those the things, and then the ability to support a
Speaker 2: family is somewhat less. So that's what people define as
Speaker 2: the American dream. Now, do you think the American dream
Speaker 2: that if you work hard you'll get ahead still holds true?
Speaker 2: The precipitous drop in numbers really, I think feeds the
Speaker 2: anti establishment sentiment that I can't let go of. So,
Speaker 2: for example, in twenty and twelve, the first time that
Speaker 2: they asked this question, fifty three percent of Americans said
Speaker 2: that the American dream quote still holds true. About forty
Speaker 2: two percent said once held true, but not anymore, and
Speaker 2: never held true was four percent. Well, now, if we
Speaker 2: look at twenty twenty four numbers, forty nine percent, so
Speaker 2: the majority actual or the plurality here say it once
Speaker 2: held true but not anymore. Only thirty four say that
Speaker 2: quote it is still holds true, and some seventeen percent
Speaker 2: say it never held true. So the nihilism is very high,
Speaker 2: but probably even worse than nihilism is once held true,
Speaker 2: but not anymore. And that is where you know, I
Speaker 2: could just see that make Up America Great Again messaging
Speaker 2: as it did in twenty sixteen, resonating just enough with
Speaker 2: people who have been priced out of the American dream.
Speaker 2: Don't forget that the mortgage rate continues to remain high. Yes,
Speaker 2: an interest rate cut is coming, but that doesn't mean
Speaker 2: that the prices changes or anything or that will be
Speaker 2: in the foreseeable future. Home prices have either stabilized or
Speaker 2: have gone up. Grocery prices and all the inflation whenever
Speaker 2: we peg two four years ago is not good. Up
Speaker 2: almost twenty five thirty percent. The fundamentals of a lot
Speaker 2: of where people see in life is still high, to
Speaker 2: the point where they feel discontent.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: The problem for Trump is that Biden was so tied
Speaker 2: to the twenty twenty status quo, but he was such
Speaker 2: a winner on change, where Kamala has a chance to
Speaker 2: compete on change here and make it a little bit
Speaker 2: more of a contest. But in general, this is why
Speaker 2: I never count out Trump and the discontent feeling of
Speaker 2: actually building something new.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean this is like on a long term decline,
Speaker 1: right and I think it's obviously there's the reality of
Speaker 1: housing has never been more unaffordable. Right, All of the
Speaker 1: things that we think of as the bedrock of a
Speaker 1: stable middle class life have become more and more and
Speaker 1: more and more and more and more.
Speaker 4: Expensive over decades.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: So, yes, we have this very important inflation conversation about
Speaker 1: what you're paying at the grocery store, what you're paying
Speaker 1: at the pump. These are things that are in your
Speaker 1: face every single day and impact your budget every single month.
Speaker 1: But we've missed the inflation conversation that has led, I
Speaker 1: think to this chart, which is Number one, no retirement security,
Speaker 1: right the end of the guaranteed pension, you know, effective
Speaker 1: end of the guaranteed pension, where now it's like you
Speaker 1: got to be out there, save in on your own
Speaker 1: and hope for the market to work out for you.
Speaker 1: And there's just an amazing level of precarity that comes
Speaker 1: with that. Number Two healthcare so expensive and not a
Speaker 1: prayer that either one of these candidates have any interest
Speaker 1: in really fixing it. Kamala Harris wants to extend the
Speaker 1: Obamacare subsidies that were part of the covid era package,
Speaker 1: and you know, Trump last time around, tried.
Speaker 4: To repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Speaker 1: They're trying to say this time maybe he won't do that.
Speaker 1: We don't really freakin now, but there's no plan to
Speaker 1: actually fix the situation. I think that's pretty clear on
Speaker 1: both regards. And as I said, over decades, healthcare has
Speaker 1: just gone wildly expensive. You think about a college education,
Speaker 1: you know, what could be more associated with the like neoliberal.
Speaker 4: Era of the achievement oriented good.
Speaker 1: Life is you work hard, you go to college, get
Speaker 1: that white collar job, you're able to, you know, achieve
Speaker 1: that middle class or upper middle class even prosperity. College
Speaker 1: education so unaffordable, so expensive, and then maybe the most
Speaker 1: egregious rub. At this point, it's obviously more than a rub.
Speaker 1: Housing costs, you know, rent is so expensive to try
Speaker 1: to become a homeowner, which is really.
Speaker 4: The bedrock of that.
Speaker 1: I've got my nest egg, I'm going to be able
Speaker 1: to hand something down to my kids. I'm going to
Speaker 1: be okay through good times in bad. You know, it's
Speaker 1: just become so impossible to be able to put your
Speaker 1: foot on that ladder of home ownership.
Speaker 4: So who can blame?
Speaker 1: I mean, they're right, right, they are correct that it
Speaker 1: is very possible now to work hard, play by the rules,
Speaker 1: go to college, and then what then You're saddled with
Speaker 1: a mountain of debt and your dreams of home ownership
Speaker 1: are only getting further and further and further away as
Speaker 1: the housing prices go up year after year after year.
Speaker 1: So there is a you know, we're we're and then
Speaker 1: you couple on top of that reality just this, you know,
Speaker 1: the vibes that we're in a declining empire and our
Speaker 1: best days are behind us, yea, And that's where how
Speaker 1: you end up with a chart like this now to me,
Speaker 1: just to to touch on the political point that you
Speaker 1: were making, this is an undersold part everyone talks about. Obviously,
Speaker 1: Joe Biden is so old, and the debate and there's
Speaker 1: disaster and feeble all that is really the most important part.
Speaker 1: But this is I think an undersold part of why
Speaker 1: it was so beneficial to ditch Joe Biden and pick
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris because she has not shouldered the blame of,
Speaker 1: you know, the of incumbency, so she has the benefits
Speaker 1: of people being able to see her in the role
Speaker 1: and the confidence she appears to have gained on the
Speaker 1: job without being saddled with the status quo, unhappy legacy
Speaker 1: of you know, Joe Biden or whoever the incombent president
Speaker 1: would be at this point. And I think that is
Speaker 1: an undersold advantage for her because she does have the
Speaker 1: ability and I think has successfully claimed the mantle of
Speaker 1: the change candidate from Donald Trump. And part of her
Speaker 1: campaign theme is like, we're not going back to that,
Speaker 1: you know, the ugliness of the Trump era and all
Speaker 1: that crap that, you know, this era of politics that
Speaker 1: many of us want to be done with. We're not
Speaker 1: going back to that. So, you know, in a certain sense,
Speaker 1: she's sort of ideally positioned by having been able to
Speaker 1: be in the role and people be able to see
Speaker 1: her in the role but not being saddled with the
Speaker 1: burden of actually inhabiting the presidential office.
Speaker 3: That's the only way she has a fighting chance, period.
Speaker 2: And if I Trump wins or if Kamalo wins, ironically,
Speaker 2: a lot of it will actually come down to this,
Speaker 2: because it will be whether people see Trump as a
Speaker 2: change candidate or if people see Trump as a status
Speaker 2: quo chaos candidate and one.
Speaker 4: Of his status quo and chaos.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that is a choice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, part of the whole Trump case under
Speaker 2: the Biden era was what, oh mean, all you had
Speaker 2: to worry about was mean tweets. And there's something to
Speaker 2: that which is like all you had to worry about
Speaker 2: was some dumb ass media controversy or like the current
Speaker 2: parsing of like was he allowed a camera at the Arlington.
Speaker 3: Cemetery or not.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't know, maybe, but the whole point
Speaker 2: is like parsing all of those details as opposed to, hey,
Speaker 2: what was the housing price, what was the inflation, stock market, etc.
Speaker 2: Whereas nowadays the Kamala people, which is interesting. You know,
Speaker 2: under Biden, this the Arlington thing is a good example,
Speaker 2: they would have been obsessed with this. You know, Biden
Speaker 2: himself was obsessed with that my opinion, bs Atlantic story
Speaker 2: about the whole suckers and losers or whatever you know,
Speaker 2: based on the word of John Kelly or somebody else
Speaker 2: like that, and they made it a cornerstone of a
Speaker 2: Hilary esque decency our children are watching now. Don't get
Speaker 2: me wrong, there is a flavor of that to Kamala
Speaker 2: Harris whenever she gives it. Whenever she gave her speech
Speaker 2: for example, or sometimes in terms of democratic media. But
Speaker 2: the general vibe I have seen from her is to
Speaker 2: like roll your eyes at a lot of the Trump
Speaker 2: era controversies and other things like that of the past,
Speaker 2: and just say, Okay, we're not going to focus on
Speaker 2: that this whole quote, We're not going back. And you know,
Speaker 2: this is also where Biden being on vacation is so helpful.
Speaker 2: By the way, if anyone wants to check in on
Speaker 2: the president, he's actually on the beach right now in Rehoboth.
Speaker 3: Must be a nice job. It was on vacation in
Speaker 3: Santa Clara.
Speaker 2: There's a photo of him yesterday hanging out with Jill's
Speaker 2: friends on the beach. I'm like, yeah, if you weren't
Speaker 2: the president, that would be fine. That's probably what you
Speaker 2: should have been doing this entire time. But Biden's literally
Speaker 2: just sitting there doing nothing. He will apparently be on
Speaker 2: the campaign trail, I think with Kama in the state
Speaker 2: of Pennsylvania, I believe next week. But that's the only
Speaker 2: joint of campaign appearance that they have scheduled right now
Speaker 2: so far.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I listen, Like I said before,
Speaker 1: I'm beginning to become convinced that actually the election may
Speaker 1: be more straightforward then I've been portraying at this point,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of twist and turns to come.
Speaker 1: And this data is certainly like, you know, this hangs
Speaker 1: over it in a very profound way that people are
Speaker 1: just generally unhappy with the direction of the country. And
Speaker 1: the Trump campaign will be spending a lot of money
Speaker 1: to persuade voters that they should saddle Kamway Harris with
Speaker 1: the way they felt about the Joe Biden presidency.
Speaker 4: And you know, there's a chance that could work.
Speaker 2: I think so credit card debt all time high, household
Speaker 2: bendattes sheet is all time high. Costs are very very high.
Speaker 2: The home ownership piece is very very difficult.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: The interesting thing that overlays all of this is kind
Speaker 2: of the social conversation because that's where we saw I mean,
Speaker 2: if anything, it was way worse than twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: because that's where Biden was the president. There was not
Speaker 2: I mean, it was the inflation was so in your
Speaker 2: face and so skyrocketing. Immigration situation I was, you know,
Speaker 2: just as bad then, but even more like like.
Speaker 4: There were more numbers of the numbers.
Speaker 2: That were both more in real time, but Also, it
Speaker 2: was a very shocking difference compared to just the last year.
Speaker 2: And that was also the mid the whole like blue
Speaker 2: state freak out amongst migrants being flown in fust here.
Speaker 3: But anyway, I mean, what we.
Speaker 2: Saw is that social issues can trump these economic issues.
Speaker 2: And that's why I just come down to I'm like,
Speaker 2: I really wonder what people are going to prioritize at
Speaker 2: the ballot box, but I know when abortion is there,
Speaker 2: it's a problem. That's actually one thing that a lot
Speaker 2: of us are discounting is this Florida amendment which is
Speaker 2: on the books. So now, do I think Democrats are
Speaker 2: going to win Florida. No, But DeSantis wanted by twenty
Speaker 2: points or something like that. I mean, if Trump only
Speaker 2: wins by three or four.
Speaker 4: But I think this last time Trump did only win
Speaker 4: by three or.
Speaker 3: Fo you know he did, I'm saying this time right.
Speaker 2: Oh, So, amidst the major realignment that's happened, all the
Speaker 2: massive inflow, the fact that it's effectively became a red state,
Speaker 2: but I'm really curious to see what that Florida abortion
Speaker 2: amendment vote does to overall Democratic turnout in the state
Speaker 2: of Florida.
Speaker 1: There's a number of states that have abortion related ballid initiatives.
Speaker 1: I feel like the Arizona one might have gotten pulled.
Speaker 1: Actually have to double check. There was some court case
Speaker 1: about whether or not it actually should be on the ballot,
Speaker 1: But there are a number of swing states that have
Speaker 1: abortion initiatives on the ballot, and so but you know,
Speaker 1: just to go back to the housing thing, I'm surprised
Speaker 1: how much Kamala Harris has leaned into housing in her
Speaker 1: messaging as well, because we've been talking about how that
Speaker 1: lean was wide open and it's such a pain point,
Speaker 1: and so the fact that she's leaning into that and
Speaker 1: talking a lot about it in her ads, I think
Speaker 1: is you know, I think it's intelligent and potentially consequential,
Speaker 1: understated in terms of the level of pain and just
Speaker 1: how central that is to people's lives. But as I
Speaker 1: was saying before, to me, maybe the most astonishing numbers
Speaker 1: we've seen in the polls are pulling even with Trump
Speaker 1: in terms of economic who do you trust on the economy,
Speaker 1: Because even outside of Donald Trump, the businessman, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera, Republicans typically have an advantage on that number.
Speaker 1: And so that's, you know, to me, that's that's quite
Speaker 1: extraordinary that she's even in the ballpark with him, because
Speaker 1: that's always been his biggest strength. I think that's been
Speaker 1: a bigger strength than anti immigrant backlash, even back in
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen when that was obviously a very hot issue
Speaker 1: as well. I think that you know, he's a businessman,
Speaker 1: and he's going to be able to deliver from me personally,
Speaker 1: has been the most compelling part of his pitch.
Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about that. Let's turn down to immigration.
Speaker 2: Let's turn out to some interesting analysis just about where
Speaker 2: Trump stands with some issues that may put him over
Speaker 2: the edge, or where he stands unpopular. This one in
Speaker 2: particular caught my eye. Let's put this up there on
Speaker 2: the screen. This was Vox analysis recent polling quote suggests
Speaker 2: that American public opinion on immigration has taken a quote
Speaker 2: quote sharp right word turn in the last four years.
Speaker 2: So absolutely fascinating to consider this graph. And also I
Speaker 2: want to we should talk about this, what happened in
Speaker 2: nineteen nineties, what was going on?
Speaker 4: Rash Actually don't know.
Speaker 1: Oh, I think that's when the biggest surge of like
Speaker 1: Mexican border crossers in the nineteen nineties. I think in
Speaker 1: the early nineties. I have to look into it.
Speaker 3: That's my anyway.
Speaker 2: So for those who are watching, what we have in
Speaker 2: front of us is a graph that says the percentage
Speaker 2: of Americans wanting lower immigration rose from forty one percent
Speaker 2: last year to fifty five percent, which is now a majority.
Speaker 2: Where things go back is all the way from Gallup
Speaker 2: that has been pulling on the question from the nineteen
Speaker 2: sixties onward. Basically nineteen sixty five, the nineteen sixty five
Speaker 2: Immigration Naturalization Act is what changed American immigration policy and
Speaker 2: basically set the norms as to where they are today.
Speaker 2: It was relatively stable throughout the nineteen seventies up until
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty, but that is when things began to change.
Speaker 2: So the decreased number, currently standing at fifty five percent
Speaker 2: is now back two levels that we saw right after
Speaker 2: two thousand and one nine to eleven, and then actually
Speaker 2: near the top of where it actually peaked back in
Speaker 2: the early nineteen nineties. What's even more interesting is that
Speaker 2: the increase lest number has precipitously dropped since two thousand
Speaker 2: and twenty, roughly around the time that Trump was president.
Speaker 2: And then the keep as is those people who were
Speaker 2: happy with the status quo policy has also dropped pretty significantly.
Speaker 2: But the main divergence that has happened is from the
Speaker 2: Biden presidency onward is the exponential dip and increase in
Speaker 2: the decrease and the increase number. So we have the
Speaker 2: decreased number there spiking from below thirty percent in back
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty all the way up to fifty five,
Speaker 2: and the increased number significantly dropping from above thirty.
Speaker 3: Percent down to just sixteen percent today.
Speaker 2: And so this does remain, i mean, probably the single
Speaker 2: most best issue for Donald Trump, and where the divergence
Speaker 2: kind of stands and is a reflection both of the
Speaker 2: Biden presidency of I think of the current I mean
Speaker 2: obviously different situation in terms of how things are at
Speaker 2: the border.
Speaker 3: And it just comes down to.
Speaker 2: A question of will this issue, you know, will will
Speaker 2: this issue be able to get Republicans to compete with
Speaker 2: frankly better numbers for Democrats on abortion? And that that
Speaker 2: is where I always caution my Republican friends. They're like,
Speaker 2: guys are winning on immigration by fifty or sixty percent.
Speaker 2: I go, yo, dude, the dams are winning on abortion
Speaker 2: by like seventy eight percent. You know, it's like it's
Speaker 2: like it's not just a majority, it's a super majority
Speaker 2: where those people stand. But I mean, nonetheless, that's stunning
Speaker 2: data that's inarguable.
Speaker 4: We put a backup on the SPA are something kind
Speaker 4: of funny that I want to point out, which is
Speaker 4: that so if you look at twenty twenty, that's like
Speaker 4: the peak of you actually have a.
Speaker 1: Brief moment there where the line of the number of
Speaker 1: people who want immigration to increase is higher than the
Speaker 1: one for you know, people who want it to decrease.
Speaker 1: So very ironically, Donald Trump made immigrants way more popular
Speaker 1: and immigration way more popular.
Speaker 3: Were just in negative polarization.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that's exactly it actually is. To me,
Speaker 1: this chart and the dramatic shift reflects two things, one
Speaker 1: more than the other. One is the reality that there
Speaker 1: are more border crossers. And I think significantly the fact
Speaker 1: that you had these you know, the blue state bussing,
Speaker 1: so that it was in these cities and creating a
Speaker 1: genuine like you know, in terms of being able to
Speaker 1: have the services available on them, money that.
Speaker 4: Needed to be spent, etc.
Speaker 1: Like it was in people's faces in a way that
Speaker 1: was that you couldn't look away from right. But I
Speaker 1: actually think more important to that because a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't actually think for themselves, they just follow wherever
Speaker 1: their tribe is going. Is that Back in the Trump era,
Speaker 1: you had a Democratic Party that was staunchly oppositional to
Speaker 1: his immigration policy and his whole way of talking about
Speaker 1: and thinking about immigration as just being a net negative.
Speaker 4: And now you don't have that.
Speaker 1: So when you have both Democrats and Republicans agreeing on
Speaker 1: a hawkish immigration approach, then their partisans are going to
Speaker 1: agree with their party leaders that we should have a
Speaker 1: hawkish immigration approach. And so, like I said, I think
Speaker 1: it's multifaceted. But to me this is very self serving,
Speaker 1: but it sort of validates the point I've been making
Speaker 1: of Yeah, when you have the Democratic Party or the
Speaker 1: center left party just agreeing with the right wing party
Speaker 1: on immigration, then you increase the power of that of
Speaker 1: that issue for your opponent, not for yourself, because no
Speaker 1: one is going no one who thinks, you know, we
Speaker 1: should be and this is their number one issue. More
Speaker 1: hawkish on immigration is going to vote for Kamala Harris.
Speaker 1: So that's what I see going on that chart. They
Speaker 1: the negative polarization thing I think is a. Really it's
Speaker 1: not the only thing, but I think it's a very
Speaker 1: key part of the story of how you end up
Speaker 1: with those lines dramatically shifting. You have a lot of
Speaker 1: Democrats than in the Trump era, when the party was
Speaker 1: you know, doing their high school Spanish on stage and
Speaker 1: speaking about immigrants and how we needed more immigrants, and
Speaker 1: you know, and very oppositional to the cruel policies of
Speaker 1: Trump on the border. They were opposed to that, and
Speaker 1: they thought more immigrants good for the country. And then
Speaker 1: when the Democratic Party under Joe Biden flips and now
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris is like, yes to the border wall, and
Speaker 1: I want to do you know, a border security package
Speaker 1: that doesn't include a pathway to citizenship, which is a
Speaker 1: break in the way that Democrats have always approached this issue.
Speaker 1: You end up with Democratic partisans, you know, agreeing effectively
Speaker 1: with the case that Trump has been making for years.
Speaker 2: You could be right, I mean, I do think the
Speaker 2: reality is also pretty significant. I mean what's also changed
Speaker 2: is even on the policy merits. For example, you know,
Speaker 2: than the same article they have mass deportation is now
Speaker 2: supported by some sixty two percent of all registered voters.
Speaker 2: Fifty three percent actually amongst Hispanic registered or yeah, Hispanic
Speaker 2: registered voters. So and that's mass deportation. That is as
Speaker 2: you know, hawkish as you could possibly get. The big
Speaker 2: difference is about the priority, and that is where people
Speaker 2: who care about immigration by and large, like they are
Speaker 2: really they are Republicans. So, for example, Republicans are more
Speaker 2: likely to prioritize immigration by a massive number compared to
Speaker 2: the rest of the electorate.
Speaker 3: Refer Republicans, it's a forty eight percent.
Speaker 2: It's the top issue for independence twenty five, for Democrats
Speaker 2: just eight. So you can see it's a huge difference
Speaker 2: in priority. And it's something that we've been talking a
Speaker 2: lot about throughout this whole show, which is what do like,
Speaker 2: what are voters, what's going to be at the top
Speaker 2: of mind. It used to be a genuine rule that
Speaker 2: economy is the top of the mind. We know that's
Speaker 2: not true from twenty twenty two, from recent evidence, and
Speaker 2: in fact, if we think back through history, there have
Speaker 2: been social elections before. It's just been a very long
Speaker 2: time since any of us have seen them, just because
Speaker 2: the parties in general, especially post Row, were really locked
Speaker 2: into a consensus. Probably the best you know example is
Speaker 2: going all the way back to the eighteen nineties and
Speaker 2: to think about all of the massive divide that America
Speaker 2: had on Jim Crow and basically the treatment of black
Speaker 2: Americans and how it should look. That's where a lot
Speaker 2: of Southern populism comes from. A lot of realignment politics
Speaker 2: happened back in that time and actually at very similar
Speaker 2: levels of a very high voter engagement, where when people
Speaker 2: care about social issue, they care a lot and they
Speaker 2: are willing to basically vote only on that. Not an
Speaker 2: accident that also coincided with the Gilded Age, when people
Speaker 2: were very distracted from economic issues. So I think there's
Speaker 2: a lot of rhyming that's happening there. The immigration issue.
Speaker 2: It's really interesting just to think about how that will
Speaker 2: be at the forefront of people's minds on top of
Speaker 2: some of the economic stuff, because immigration inextricably is obviously
Speaker 2: is linked from economic policy, but is also divergent in
Speaker 2: terms of the way that Republicans and Democrats look at it. So,
Speaker 2: for example, if you ask a lot of Republican voters
Speaker 2: what the cure to many economic problems is, they actually
Speaker 2: point to immigration as a number one solution, whereas actually
Speaker 2: very different when we look at democratic social policy. So
Speaker 2: actually some of the interesting stuff here doesn't just stay
Speaker 2: with immigration, also goes to tariff. So let's put this
Speaker 2: up there for example on the screen. This was an
Speaker 2: interesting New York Times kind of side by side piece
Speaker 2: about how Trump inherents have a quote stark parts and
Speaker 2: divide on fighting poverty. Immigration is obviously a key part
Speaker 2: of that. But if we look at some of the
Speaker 2: other issues that we see here, there is a big
Speaker 2: change in terms of the child tax credit, which we've
Speaker 2: seen previously. I think we've talked about it a lot
Speaker 2: here on the show.
Speaker 3: What is It?
Speaker 2: Kamala supports a six thousand dollars child tax credit policy.
Speaker 2: We're not exactly sure where Trump stands.
Speaker 14: Jd.
Speaker 2: Vance has been on the record say he supports a
Speaker 2: five thousand dollars child tax credit policy. Where Republicans stand
Speaker 2: on this issue, I'll let you guess where that is.
Speaker 2: I think we can judge.
Speaker 4: By the record of how they have voted in the Senate,
Speaker 4: which is against yes.
Speaker 2: All right, So if we think about if we think
Speaker 2: about tariffs, that has actually been an interesting one.
Speaker 3: Do you weigh on any of this Before I get
Speaker 3: to the tariffstop.
Speaker 4: Go ahead and talk about tariffs, then I can talk
Speaker 4: about the whole thing.
Speaker 2: So, so tariff's actually has been I'm curious to what you
Speaker 2: think because under the Biden administration a huge portion of
Speaker 2: the tariffs were kept in place most of the time,
Speaker 2: which I support. By the way, I'm very supportive of tariffs,
Speaker 2: but I've seen a retrenchment since Kamala has become the candidate.
Speaker 2: Everyone's like Trump wants to increase prices because of tariffs.
Speaker 2: And there was a test exchange here actually between NBC
Speaker 2: Meet the Press and Jade Vance has been very supportive
Speaker 2: of tariff's basically a supporter of the Trump policy. Here
Speaker 2: was the exchange they got into.
Speaker 14: Now, the estimates vary, But how do you respond to
Speaker 14: that charge that Trump's tariffs would hurt the middle class?
Speaker 15: Yeah, so if you step back a little bit Christian,
Speaker 15: there's this whole thing that Kamala Harris did at the
Speaker 15: convention where she made a bunch of claims about what
Speaker 15: would happen and not enough actually reflection on what already happened. Right,
Speaker 15: because Donald Trump was already president, he used tariffs to
Speaker 15: bring manufacturing jobs back to our country, and I think
Speaker 15: he'll do it again, and he did it while keeping
Speaker 15: prices extremely low. Because if you go back to the
Speaker 15: Trump presidency, we had twelve thousand factories that were built
Speaker 15: during Donald Trump's presidency, Inflation never really ticked above two percent.
Speaker 15: His entire administration, in fact, was sort of around one
Speaker 15: and a half percent most of the time that he
Speaker 15: was president. So when Kamala Harris says, if we do
Speaker 15: the thing that Trump already did, it's going to be
Speaker 15: way worse than it was last time, I just don't
Speaker 15: think that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 14: Well, let's talk about Trump's record during his first term.
Speaker 14: He didn't pose rounds of terror and it cost Americans
Speaker 14: nearly eighty billion dollars in new taxes. Do you acknowledge
Speaker 14: that imposing more tariffs will ultimately cost consumers?
Speaker 15: Well, what it really does is it penalizes importers from
Speaker 15: bringing goods outside the country into the country. And I
Speaker 15: think that's just a necessary thing. We know that China
Speaker 15: and a number of other countries are using effectively slave
Speaker 15: labor to undercut the wages of American workers.
Speaker 3: Donald Trump thinks that has to stop.
Speaker 15: And again, and what Kama here is saying, Kristin is
Speaker 15: that if you do this, you're somehow going to cause
Speaker 15: skyrocketing inflation.
Speaker 3: In reality, Donald Trump already did it.
Speaker 15: He brought a lot of jobs back and it didn't
Speaker 15: cause inflation.
Speaker 14: But it caused consumers to pay more. They paid more
Speaker 14: in taxes eighty billion dollars worth. Do you acknowledge that
Speaker 14: consumers ultimately will pay more if.
Speaker 4: There are more tariffs?
Speaker 14: So economists, you just acknowledge that.
Speaker 15: No, I don't, Christian, because I think economists really disagree
Speaker 15: about the effects of teriffs, because there can be a
Speaker 15: dynamic effect. Right, So what some economists will say is
Speaker 15: what you just said, that it will actually raise costs
Speaker 15: for cons But what other people say, and I think
Speaker 15: the record supports what this other view, is that it
Speaker 15: causes this dynamic effect where more jobs come into the country.
Speaker 15: Anything that you lose on the tariff from the perspective
Speaker 15: of the consumer, you gain in higher wages, so you're
Speaker 15: ultimately much better off.
Speaker 2: I have been very interested to see there's been an
Speaker 2: interesting retrenchment, I guess, on the democratic side of being
Speaker 2: anti tariff, despite the fact that Biden actually was very
Speaker 2: supportive of tariffs while he was in office.
Speaker 4: So here's what I would say.
Speaker 1: So let me talk about the politics and then we
Speaker 1: talk about the reality of the policy. So I think
Speaker 1: tariffs are broadly pretty popular. I just saw some pulling,
Speaker 1: you know, in general, like having tariffs is associated with
Speaker 1: the idea of bringing back manufacturing jobs, especially popular in
Speaker 1: the old industrial Midwestern states. I think it's like a
Speaker 1: sixty forty issue basically. So the politics of it, I
Speaker 1: think are fine. What I would say is I was
Speaker 1: supportive of the tariff trumpet put into place, and I
Speaker 1: was supportive of Biden keeping and even expanding those tariffs,
Speaker 1: and of the industrial policy in the Biden era in general.
Speaker 1: You know, really trying to aggressively bring chips manufacturing here
Speaker 1: in particular has been a real push. Trying to protect
Speaker 1: our burgeoning EV industry I also think has been very important.
Speaker 1: But when you're talking about those policies, what you're talking
Speaker 1: about is identifying some key industries.
Speaker 4: Where it is critical that.
Speaker 1: We have domestic manufacturing capability, or a key industry like
Speaker 1: EV's where your sense is, Okay, this is where the
Speaker 1: world is going, and we want to have a piece
Speaker 1: of it applying and across the board. Ten or twenty
Speaker 1: percent tariff, I frankly think is insane. Now, it's not
Speaker 1: the case as the you know, some will argue that
Speaker 1: all of that cost is going to get pushed on
Speaker 1: to consumers, but it is the case that some of
Speaker 1: it definitely will. And when you think about like evs
Speaker 1: are a good example. For example, a lot of the
Speaker 1: parts that go into those vehicles come from they come
Speaker 1: from Canada, they come from overseas, So now you're making
Speaker 1: inputs on these finished goods much more expensive. And there
Speaker 1: are also certain things that like, you know, where it's
Speaker 1: really important we have chips manufacturing here. It would have
Speaker 1: been really important for us to have you know, the
Speaker 1: medical supplies during COVID manufactured here. There are other things like,
Speaker 1: for example, coffee we don't make here, and I don't
Speaker 1: see any reason for us to grow coffee beans.
Speaker 4: So we grew coffee and yet in Hawaii, and true that's.
Speaker 1: Going to be you know, there's going to be an
Speaker 1: added ten percent import tax on coffee too. So I
Speaker 1: don't think that it's you know, a disconnect or retrenchment
Speaker 1: or whatever to say it makes sense to have certain
Speaker 1: industries that you target. It is insane, especially at this
Speaker 1: point in time when inflation and cost increase is the
Speaker 1: number one concern, which is different, by the way, from
Speaker 1: where they were in twenty sixteen when they were initially
Speaker 1: pushing this policy. It is insane to just have an
Speaker 1: across the board tariff policy. And the other thing that
Speaker 1: I would say is the evidence that JD. Van's is
Speaker 1: citing that that Trump brought a bunch of manufacturing it's
Speaker 1: not really true. In fact, Biden has brought more manufacturing
Speaker 1: jobs back than Trump did. The increase in manufacturing jobs
Speaker 1: across the Trump era, and I'm just talking about up
Speaker 1: to COVID, because I don't think it's fair to judge
Speaker 1: him for like the you know, the loss during COVID,
Speaker 1: But if you just look up to COVID, it was
Speaker 1: the same rate of increase that you saw during the
Speaker 1: Obama administration, and you had eighteen hundred factories that disappeared
Speaker 1: during the Trump administration. So, like I said, I'm not
Speaker 1: opposed to tariffs when they're smartly applied, but to do
Speaker 1: it across the board is going to raise prices at
Speaker 1: a time when that is the number one issue for potimers.
Speaker 1: And just one more thing on that. You know, with Trump,
Speaker 1: it's very hard to know if he means what he says,
Speaker 1: it's very hard.
Speaker 4: It's very hard.
Speaker 1: This is an area where he's most likely means what
Speaker 1: he says. But like on the mass deportation thing, are
Speaker 1: you really going to round up twelve fifteen million people
Speaker 1: and throw them in camps and all the expense and
Speaker 1: you know everything that.
Speaker 4: That would entail. Are you really going to do that?
Speaker 1: But that's what he claims he's going to do, and
Speaker 1: he claims he's going to reduce legal immigration. That policy
Speaker 1: is also insane, just in terms to put the morality.
Speaker 4: Of it aside. Okay, you have something.
Speaker 1: Like a quarter of the construction industry is undocumented immigrants,
Speaker 1: half more than half of the agriculture industry is immigrants,
Speaker 1: and a significant chunk of that I think around thirty
Speaker 1: percent is undocumented immigrants. So maybe in the fullness of time,
Speaker 1: Although keep in mind that labor force participation is very
Speaker 1: high and unemployment is very low, so you don't have
Speaker 1: a lot of native born workers just sitting around waiting
Speaker 1: for jobs right now. The impact of that policy also
Speaker 1: is an insane spike in prices. So you know, again,
Speaker 1: on the politics of it, I think he's fine. I
Speaker 1: think he's on perfectly fine ground. With how the public
Speaker 1: will perceive these policies if you were to actually implement them,
Speaker 1: I think they would be an utter, incomplete catastrophe, and
Speaker 1: you would see very significant inflation that people in food
Speaker 1: prices and an even greater construction slow down and in
Speaker 1: housing prices. That would be very, very very unpopular.
Speaker 2: Right, So on the ten percent thing, first of all,
Speaker 2: it's not going to happen, so it doesn't even necessarily
Speaker 2: bear you know, like looking at me.
Speaker 4: So this was the thing that he actually, No, No,
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 3: He believes it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, you don't have the legal authority to put
Speaker 2: a ten percent tariff on everything, although I don't think
Speaker 2: it would be the worst idea in the world. Now,
Speaker 2: that's where I've just significantly disagree, because a ten percent
Speaker 2: tariff already we have a far too globalized economy. Even
Speaker 2: the vast majority of the imports exports that we have
Speaker 2: from Mexico and from Canada. Mexico is our largest trading partner,
Speaker 2: almost entirely because they have cheap labor and because people
Speaker 2: like to use that as an arbitrage opportunity. Will it
Speaker 2: lead to higher prices in the short term, I won't
Speaker 2: deny it. It probably will Now will it lead to
Speaker 2: better and more manufacturing investment in the United States, Absolutely,
Speaker 2: and especially if you change things on the tax code
Speaker 2: with a lot of what Joe Biden did, where you
Speaker 2: had tariff put in place and then you use tax
Speaker 2: credits and other strategic investment to actually direct a lot
Speaker 2: of the revenue into building things here in the United States.
Speaker 3: So that's one number number one.
Speaker 2: Like in terms of the actual tariff policy, legally, the
Speaker 2: way that you're able to put it in place was
Speaker 2: something called three to ZHO one. That's the way that
Speaker 2: Donald Trump put it in place. That's what Joe Biden
Speaker 2: used as well. That's largely going to be national security strategic.
Speaker 2: That's how they were able to apply it to steal Legally,
Speaker 2: that's the only way it's ever going to happen because
Speaker 2: Congress will never you know, apply a quote ten percent tariff,
Speaker 2: although again, you know, I don't think it would be
Speaker 2: the worst idea in the world, especially if we were
Speaker 2: to apply it to let's say, you know, all of
Speaker 2: the countries where we have a trade deficit. That's another
Speaker 2: where where look, I understand the economists are going to
Speaker 2: get upset about this stuff that factory and you know,
Speaker 2: manufacturing stuff. I don't think it's necessarily fair just because
Speaker 2: this stuff takes over a decade to materialize. So for example,
Speaker 2: investment in others can be announced but not even implemented
Speaker 2: on a five to a ten year period. I mean,
Speaker 2: for you know, if you look at the Chips Act,
Speaker 2: if you were to judge the Chips Act on a
Speaker 2: short term basis, but a failure because there's a ton
Speaker 2: of money out and there's no new job created. But
Speaker 2: you know, ten years from now, what are we going
Speaker 2: to say, probably was a good idea, was a good
Speaker 2: investment and even though it cost a lot of money
Speaker 2: in the short term. So that's another area where terriffs
Speaker 2: makes sense. You know, even on ev and all that,
Speaker 2: when do we think about Canada and Mexico and the
Speaker 2: way that they have undermined our auto industry. There's great
Speaker 2: reason where even if we're not national strategy national security,
Speaker 2: what is it like we're allies and we're not adversaries,
Speaker 2: while we still don't necessarily have a strategic interest and
Speaker 2: having so much of a critical industry be outside of
Speaker 2: the country. So that's just on the tariff part specifically.
Speaker 2: Now on immigration. Now again though this just gets to
Speaker 2: the tariff question, where it's like that is frankly in
Speaker 2: a very neoliberal argument. It's like, oh, well, prices are
Speaker 2: going to go up. I'm like, okay, yeah, you're right.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's true, they will probably go up in
Speaker 2: the short term. I think most people support that, or
Speaker 2: most people who support the policy are very understanding of that.
Speaker 2: Have they grappled with the total reality of what it
Speaker 2: would look like. No, but people want like an actual
Speaker 2: process through which people who don't just get to come
Speaker 2: here and work illegally. I mean, when you tell me
Speaker 2: there's thirty percent of the agricultural industry is an illegal workforce,
Speaker 2: that's nuts. And that's obviously just means that illegal immigration
Speaker 2: is a massive corporate subsidy. And Okay, even on the
Speaker 2: labor force participation rate, yea, the labor force or petition
Speaker 2: rate participation rate is still somewhere in the sixties, which
Speaker 2: means that's a huge percentage of the workforce not working.
Speaker 2: But then two, if you support a higher wage, this
Speaker 2: is the easiest way to force these companies like Tyson's,
Speaker 2: Purdue and all these others to actually have to pay
Speaker 2: workers a much higher wage. And if you combine it
Speaker 2: with an industrial policy, which again I support, many Republicans
Speaker 2: do not.
Speaker 3: There are a lot of different ways to come out
Speaker 3: of this.
Speaker 2: At the same time, on the mass deportation policy, even
Speaker 2: people like by the.
Speaker 3: Way, I heavily support mass deportation.
Speaker 2: But the issue, as I know is most people understand
Speaker 2: that emotionally and all that it's probably not going to
Speaker 2: happen in any way. Just for look, Trump buckled on
Speaker 2: child separation, They buckled on the vast majority of the
Speaker 2: policy that they put into place. It's more probably a
Speaker 2: bargaining chip as to trying to get something done in
Speaker 2: the first place. But philosophically, there is a philosophical understanding
Speaker 2: that I saw often during the tariff discussion in twenty
Speaker 2: sixteen seventeen.
Speaker 3: I remember watching MSNBC.
Speaker 2: People would go to a Walmart and they were interviewing
Speaker 2: people about dryers, and they're like, how do you feel
Speaker 2: about the fact that this dryer is more expensive because
Speaker 2: of a tariff that Donald Trump put on China?
Speaker 3: And they're like, that's fine with me. I don't mind
Speaker 3: at all.
Speaker 2: But that sentiment is important, like Americans understand what that means.
Speaker 1: Sure, And so there's a lot to dig into there.
Speaker 1: It's one thing when you're like, okay, the cost of
Speaker 1: dryers has gone up, and actually the cost only went
Speaker 1: up for a short period of time. Yes, okay, so
Speaker 1: I want to include the full picture. The cost of
Speaker 1: a dryer has gone up. It's another thing. And by
Speaker 1: the way, back in twenty sixteen or twenty seventeen, when
Speaker 1: inflation was low and that wasn't a major concern for Americans.
Speaker 1: Now it is the number one concern of Americans. It
Speaker 1: is another thing to say, you're all of your groceries
Speaker 1: are going every good that you can buy in the store,
Speaker 1: the price is going up on what do you think
Speaker 1: about that? And then the other piece, just to reiterate here,
Speaker 1: is yes, the CHIPS tariffs and the ev tariffs like
Speaker 1: that makes sense. These are critical industries that are growth
Speaker 1: industries for the future. If you put a tariff on everything,
Speaker 1: a lot of what the US does in terms of
Speaker 1: manufacturing isn't just creating the raw goods like the steel.
Speaker 1: And by the way, steel traffs also make sense because
Speaker 1: we should have a domestic steel industry and that is
Speaker 1: important to do right, But a lot of the manufacturing
Speaker 1: here is the higher end.
Speaker 4: We're creating the finished.
Speaker 1: Product, you put a tariff on everything across the board.
Speaker 1: That means all of those inputs, the cost of every
Speaker 1: single one is going up. Now, maybe theoretically in fifty years,
Speaker 1: maybe that means there's more domestic manufacturing here, or maybe
Speaker 1: it just means that those automakers or whoever are making
Speaker 1: those finished goods move to another country where they can
Speaker 1: get those inputs cheaper, and then you know where it
Speaker 1: makes sense for them to sell it back into our
Speaker 1: market rather than making it here. So even if I,
Speaker 1: you know, I agree that I do think that the
Speaker 1: Chips Act and these terrors, I do think that over
Speaker 1: time they will increase manufacturing those sector.
Speaker 4: I think they're a good idea.
Speaker 1: I support that sort of targeted tariff, but when you
Speaker 1: do it across the board, it's not even clear that
Speaker 1: you end up with the manufacturing gain that you want.
Speaker 1: And in the meantime, consumers who are already so stretched
Speaker 1: on inflation, are being asked to pay dramatic, significantly higher
Speaker 1: prices across the board. And so, like I said, listen,
Speaker 1: I think politically tariff's popular, but I think if it
Speaker 1: was actually implemented, which you know, we should take seriously,
Speaker 1: what even if you say, Okay, Congress can't do it
Speaker 1: or whatever, whatever, we should take seriously what he says
Speaker 1: and what his plans are, and you know, like take
Speaker 1: it to its life.
Speaker 2: You'll have more tariffs than we have today, most likely
Speaker 2: under a Trump presidency.
Speaker 4: I think if you.
Speaker 1: Did it across the word, I think people would hate it,
Speaker 1: and I think I think it would be catastrophe.
Speaker 4: And you know, also I'll just leave it there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well, I would say it's not going to happen,
Speaker 2: first of all, just because I know how the process works.
Speaker 3: Quite literally, it's just going to be on steel, on.
Speaker 2: Food, the way that we have the retaliatory tariffs, all
Speaker 2: of which I'm totally fine with the Chinese.
Speaker 3: Can you know whatever, your.
Speaker 4: Best case for a candidate shouldn't be well, they're not
Speaker 4: actually going to do what they say.
Speaker 2: They're going to know if we were going to do that,
Speaker 2: I would defend it, but I'm saying it's not going
Speaker 2: to happen. So if we actually look at what the
Speaker 2: reality is with through the executive branch, you have the
Speaker 2: best legal authority under the Commerce Department or USTR section
Speaker 2: or the three to zero one of that, you can
Speaker 2: use like a national security study. You can designate a
Speaker 2: certain industry critical to US national security. That's why food
Speaker 2: and what is it?
Speaker 4: Food?
Speaker 3: Steel?
Speaker 2: Those are the two things that obviously make the most sense.
Speaker 2: The thing is too, though, is that? And in general
Speaker 2: why the ten percent figure is not as crazy as
Speaker 2: people think. Go look at the traft policy of the
Speaker 2: European Union, Go look at terraff policy of South Korea.
Speaker 2: Go look at the tariff policy of China. And then,
Speaker 2: by the way, even if they don't have teriffts, the
Speaker 2: amount of national support that those companies flagships in those
Speaker 2: countries receive compared to US is crazy. Volkswagen might as
Speaker 2: well be a part of the government, like Samsung literally
Speaker 2: might as well be the South Korean state and in
Speaker 2: some cases Samsung executives they run the country, not actually
Speaker 2: the people who are in Korea in Japan, toyota what
Speaker 2: you think? That's not a literal like they're like ambassadors
Speaker 2: for the country. It's very different from the way things
Speaker 2: run here in America to.
Speaker 1: Be more like that in my opinion, But I don't
Speaker 1: know if I want corporate leaders run I mean, it's
Speaker 1: an extept today.
Speaker 4: Are don't at the moment.
Speaker 3: But it's a.
Speaker 2: Little bit different because in those countries the power dynamic
Speaker 2: is very one way, where the government's like, hey, Samsung,
Speaker 2: this is what you're gonna do, and they're gonna be like,
Speaker 2: well this isn't there's like yeah, that's cute, but just
Speaker 2: so you know, like this is what's happening.
Speaker 3: Same whenever it comes to China.
Speaker 2: Now we shouldn't have all of that, but there are
Speaker 2: aspects which are very important for strategic industry and chips
Speaker 2: and elsewhere where our lase fair attitude puts us out
Speaker 2: a major strategic disadvantage. I read a history of TSMC.
Speaker 2: It's incredible it all could have happened here. The guy
Speaker 2: Morris Chang, he was here, he left America to create
Speaker 2: TSMC in Taiwan, and it was just because Taiwan was
Speaker 2: like here's every dollar that you could possibly want. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and you know, reading that history, it's it's sad because
Speaker 2: it's one of those where our lase fare system, our
Speaker 2: government policy and all that has a lot of advantages
Speaker 2: small businesses like us, you know, the tax code, but
Speaker 2: for major strategic industry, where are failures completely.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's nothing that I disagree with it's just
Speaker 1: what you're talking about are strategically intelligent, targeted applied tariffs
Speaker 1: in places that make sense. Just to give one more
Speaker 1: example of what i'm I use the coffee example. Another
Speaker 1: example potash, Right, potash is critical.
Speaker 4: Ingredient for fertilizer.
Speaker 1: We don't have much or any domestic potash production. So
Speaker 1: now maybe you say, like that's critical, we should we
Speaker 1: should focus on that over time, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: But if you if you put a tariff on the
Speaker 1: importation of potash, what that means is all of your.
Speaker 4: Agricultural prices go up.
Speaker 1: And then of course, you know, if you talk about
Speaker 1: immigration and deporting all of the undocumented workers and clamping
Speaker 1: down so you have even less legal migration than previously,
Speaker 1: then you're talking about an even greater price hike on
Speaker 1: all of your agricultural goods. So you know, agreed that
Speaker 1: there's personally in terms of immigration, obviously, I think there
Speaker 1: should be a past of citizen. I think those under
Speaker 1: I think you're right about the way they're exploited, and
Speaker 1: that's outrageous and that can have a wage impact, certainly
Speaker 1: when people are being paid under the table because they're
Speaker 1: not earning the minimum wage. They're not, you know, protected
Speaker 1: by all the labor protections that add additional costs to labor.
Speaker 1: I do think that's outrageous. My solution is a pathway
Speaker 1: to citizenship for those individuals. I think we should have
Speaker 1: more legal immigration, not less, but you know, putting those
Speaker 1: things aside. The big three planks of Trump's economic plan
Speaker 1: are number one across the board tariffs, Number two mass deportation,
Speaker 1: and number three the extension of the Tax Cut and
Speaker 1: Jobs Acts, which was the tax cuts that largely went
Speaker 1: to corporate America. And the two in particular, the immigration
Speaker 1: crackdown and the tariffs. Both of them in the short term,
Speaker 1: I don't think you would deny this. Both of them
Speaker 1: in the short term will spike prices some amount. And
Speaker 1: it was one thing the economic and political climate at
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen very different than now when Americans say the
Speaker 1: number one thing they're concerned about are prices. So that's
Speaker 1: just my sort of summation of how I'm viewing.
Speaker 4: All of this.
Speaker 2: Producers are telling us we're talking too much about fine
Speaker 2: I'd rather talk about terriffs. Yeah, but that's part of
Speaker 2: what the beauty to do in the show is, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Let's get to the indictment counter points and cover this yesterday,
Speaker 2: but still some pretty big news can't take our eye
Speaker 2: off the legal drama involving Donald Trump. People will remember
Speaker 2: there was a Supreme Court ruling which effectively vacated some
Speaker 2: of the Jack Smith indictment against Donald Trump as related
Speaker 2: to January sixth. So Jack Smith actually convened a new
Speaker 2: grand jury and has brought new charges against Trump, which
Speaker 2: he says are in line with that Supreme Court ruling.
Speaker 2: Let's put this up there on the screen. The new
Speaker 2: indictment was actually filed on Tuesday. It includes some of
Speaker 2: the same criminal charges, but actually narrows the allegations quote
Speaker 2: in an attempt to comply the Supreme Court ruling that
Speaker 2: former presidents have brought immunity from prosecution.
Speaker 3: So in the new indictment, one of.
Speaker 2: The reasons they had to set do it was because
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court rule that former presidents quote, are absolutely
Speaker 2: immune from prosecution for official acts that fall within the
Speaker 2: exclusive sphere of constitutional authority. So all of the charges
Speaker 2: have to come from a place where it is not
Speaker 2: a quote, official act of the presidency. The new indictment
Speaker 2: does away quote with any reference to Donald Trump's interactions
Speaker 2: with the Justice Department, whom prosecutors alleged he that he
Speaker 2: was trying to enlist in his effort to under the election.
Speaker 2: By doing that, they take it outside the realm of
Speaker 2: the so called official act and try to kick it
Speaker 2: into the realm of the political when they were talking
Speaker 2: both about language, about coercion and about some of the
Speaker 2: false elector's stuff that was happening under the purview of
Speaker 2: the campaign. So, for example, the first page of the
Speaker 2: old indictment refers to Trump as the forty fifth US president.
Speaker 2: The new indictment only referred to Trump as quote, a
Speaker 2: candidate for president of the United States in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: It also quote deletes all references to any Trump's statement
Speaker 2: made from the White House, so for example, that January
Speaker 2: sixth message that was made on Twitter and instead focuses
Speaker 2: in on the campaign speech at a privately funded, privately
Speaker 2: organized political rally that occurred on that day. What actually
Speaker 2: stayed the same is four counts. It's substruction of official proceeding,
Speaker 2: conspiracy to obstruction official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States,
Speaker 2: and conspiracy against.
Speaker 3: The right to vote.
Speaker 2: So all of those charges they say are within the
Speaker 2: realm of the Supreme Court ruling. Obviously Trump is going
Speaker 2: to challenge them, and we're probably going to have to
Speaker 2: get a new ruling or scrutiny or whatever on this.
Speaker 2: But at the very least, here's what people can say.
Speaker 2: It's not none of this has happening before the election.
Speaker 3: One hundred.
Speaker 1: This is not going to be a short process. I'm
Speaker 1: sure it will go back up the chain in terms
Speaker 1: of appeals and challenges, likely end up back at the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court with them having to weigh in more specifically.
Speaker 1: One thing that you might recall from the decision that
Speaker 1: they issued with regard to presidential immunity is that even
Speaker 1: the conservatives, some of them issued like dissenting concurrences where
Speaker 1: you know, they had a different opinion about how immunity
Speaker 1: would be defined, like which things are actually official responsibilities
Speaker 1: and which are in your personal capacity. So it's not
Speaker 1: at all clear exactly how they would create that dividing line,
Speaker 1: And I mean it's a difficult line to draw. So
Speaker 1: I think it's entirely likely this ends up back at
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. But it's the same for charges. You
Speaker 1: know that hasn't changed. Some of the details, underlying details
Speaker 1: have changed. Some of the phrasing emphasizing he's a candidate.
Speaker 1: You know, this was in his role as a candidate,
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with his official responsibilities. Some of
Speaker 1: that has changed as well. But you know, this was
Speaker 1: separate grand jury, a different grand jury than issue the
Speaker 1: initial indictment that returned this now superseding indictment. And there
Speaker 1: was an interesting segment on CNN that we want to
Speaker 1: highlight for you all. So Ty Cobb, who's like a
Speaker 1: big shot Washington lawyer, US Trump's lawyer, very well known
Speaker 1: here and was for a time Trump's lawyer when he
Speaker 1: was in the White House, he was interviewed on CNN
Speaker 1: and he was like, these charges are very strong and
Speaker 1: he's likely to face six to nine years in prison
Speaker 1: as a result just of this particular case. Let's take
Speaker 1: a listen to what he had to say.
Speaker 6: Does this indictment make a clean cut case that the
Speaker 6: acts were personal?
Speaker 8: I think it does.
Speaker 16: I think you know, some of the editing you highlighted
Speaker 16: in your intro is spot on, emphasizing the private nature
Speaker 16: of many of these acts, the private funding.
Speaker 17: Of the speech at the before the Capital intrusion, Prince's
Speaker 17: ceremonial role, the non government roles of the co conspirators,
Speaker 17: which they can now say categorically, And now that Jeffrey
Speaker 17: Clark is out because he was the only government official
Speaker 17: who was actually in the original indicty's no longer in
Speaker 17: this indictment.
Speaker 9: You know, whatever the indictment was going to look like
Speaker 9: after it went through whatever hearings the judge Chuck is
Speaker 9: going to have and she still will have a hearing
Speaker 9: on that it was. This indictment, you know, it does
Speaker 9: have you know, there is an interlocuatory appeal available at
Speaker 9: least as I read the Supreme Court decision, and that
Speaker 9: doesn't mean the Supreme Court has to take it if
Speaker 9: the DC Circuit acts before and they're content with whatever
Speaker 9: they do. But this is definitely this has never this
Speaker 9: hasn't been on course to go before the election for months.
Speaker 16: This was never going to that was never going to happen.
Speaker 9: But as you point out, I mean, this is a
Speaker 9: very forceful document.
Speaker 3: It's pared down.
Speaker 16: Every sentence is you know, crisply worded.
Speaker 17: It's a tight narrative.
Speaker 9: You can't read this and not understand the crimes that
Speaker 9: Trump actually committed, and you say, as you pointed out,
Speaker 9: fifty five years is exposure.
Speaker 3: He's not going to get fifty five years.
Speaker 9: But he'll get six.
Speaker 4: To nine on this, I mean, and it's pretty confident there.
Speaker 4: I don't know, if you know, I don't know, but
Speaker 4: six to nine is a lie. Is like he's going
Speaker 4: to get six to nine.
Speaker 2: Years helped negotiate on the again. I mean, I just
Speaker 2: see that so massively unlikely. But listen, he's the.
Speaker 3: Former Trump attorney, so we should at least take it seriously.
Speaker 1: The other thing he said that was interesting to me
Speaker 1: is he was like, Trump's not going to take this
Speaker 1: seriously until it's like the sentencing happens and it's inescapable
Speaker 1: and he's headed to ber like, he is not going
Speaker 1: to take this seriously until it's undeniable, which I thought
Speaker 1: was just having, you know, the fact that he worked
Speaker 1: closely with Trump, I thought was an interesting like intellectual
Speaker 1: insight to the way that Trump approaches.
Speaker 4: All of this.
Speaker 3: Certainly true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the last thing that I'll mention here, it's a
Speaker 1: little crazy. I mean, the way we thought this election
Speaker 1: would go and the way it is actually gone have
Speaker 1: been two very different things. We really thought, and for
Speaker 1: good reason, that these trials and his you know, indictments
Speaker 1: and potential convictions whatever, would be so central to the
Speaker 1: election season, and it really is such a side note.
Speaker 4: Now, the one.
Speaker 1: Thing I will say, you know, the discounter to that
Speaker 1: is he does have a sentencing date coming up in
Speaker 1: that Alvin Brade case on September eighteenth, which will reinsert
Speaker 1: this back into the political conversation. So we'll see what
Speaker 1: happens there and how significant. I think is very unlikely
Speaker 1: he ends up with this. It's a relatively minor charge
Speaker 1: that he was found guilty of. I think it's very
Speaker 1: unlikely that he would end up facing any prison time
Speaker 1: over it, but I guess you never know. It is
Speaker 1: theoretically possible. So we'll see how all of that goes down.
Speaker 1: But that September eighteenth, that we'll have that sentencing date.
Speaker 1: There was some push to you know, extend that or
Speaker 1: push it off for a while, but they are going
Speaker 1: forward with it.
Speaker 4: So that's next. So significant Trump.
Speaker 2: Legal Georgia's past the election. Now this is past the election.
Speaker 2: I mean the main two ones where he was the
Speaker 2: most in legal jeopardy are now at the very least past. Also,
Speaker 2: if he does get elected president, there will be so
Speaker 2: much considering the Supreme Court ruling and that, you know,
Speaker 2: all of the circus around that being sitting president and
Speaker 2: facing some of this, it will be you know, so
Speaker 2: many novel legal constitutional theories will be tested.
Speaker 1: Well, this one, in particular is a federal case, so
Speaker 1: you know, he theoretically can just barn himself on that
Speaker 1: one and not you know, not face. But and then
Speaker 1: you also have the question of like a sitting president
Speaker 1: and being prosecuted, and that's typically been seen as a
Speaker 1: no no. So yeah, I think him getting elected is
Speaker 1: probably a get out of jail free card for all
Speaker 1: of these things, which of course heightens the importance of
Speaker 1: the election, certainly to the person of Donald J. Trump,
Speaker 1: who I'm sure would prefer not to go to prison
Speaker 1: big time. All Right, we have a few updates we
Speaker 1: wanted to bring in with regard to Israel that are consequential.
Speaker 1: Could put this up on the screen. Channel thirteen, which
Speaker 1: is a Hebrew language news outlet, reported this and it
Speaker 1: seems to be correct. Israel has agreed to a sort
Speaker 1: of kind of temporary humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza to allow
Speaker 1: the administration a polio vaccines. The next tweet down from this,
Speaker 1: which we don't have but I'll just read you it says,
Speaker 1: first report, Israeli's agreed to Tony Blanken's request to implement
Speaker 1: a ceasefire and specific areas of Gaza so not the
Speaker 1: whole thing, not as part of negotiations, but for the
Speaker 1: purpose of vaccinating the population against polio. Decision was made
Speaker 1: by Nannial in the Security Establishment. Anya Who's office responded,
Speaker 1: this is not a truce, but a designation of specific
Speaker 1: areas in the Gaza Strip for vaccination. The matter has
Speaker 1: been supported by the ministers and Sagar. This is obviously
Speaker 1: very significant because of the fact that you have already
Speaker 1: had polio is supposed to be basically eradicated, and you've
Speaker 1: already had a baby at ten month old, so has
Speaker 1: really has known no life outside of this war who
Speaker 1: was born and died because of polio, And they have
Speaker 1: been picking up polio in the sewage in the Gaza Strip.
Speaker 1: So you know, I don't think the Israelis are towing
Speaker 1: the sound of the goodness of their heart. Their soldiers
Speaker 1: have to be operating in the Gaza Strip and are
Speaker 1: also probably concerned about the outbreak that is apparently ongoing
Speaker 1: a polio in Gaza. So that is what we know
Speaker 1: about this theoretical temporary partial ceasefire. It was not enough
Speaker 1: of a ceasefire, apparently, and put this up on the
Speaker 1: screen to keep them from continuing to target AID vehicles.
Speaker 1: This is the World Food Program run by the UN
Speaker 1: temporarily suspended activities surround Gaza after one of its vehicles
Speaker 1: was hit by at least ten bullets. They went on
Speaker 1: to say, despite the World Food Program's coordination with Israel
Speaker 1: and Gaza deconfliction and that its vehicle was marked and
Speaker 1: cleared by Israeli authorities, it was directly hit by Israeli
Speaker 1: gunfire as it was moving towards an Israeli army checkpoint.
Speaker 1: This of course recalls that multiple drone strike on the
Speaker 1: World Central Kitchen vehicles, and of course the fact saga
Speaker 1: that we've had hundreds, dozens and many more than one
Speaker 1: hundred AID workers who have been killed by Israel in
Speaker 1: this conflict. So you know, at a time when, of
Speaker 1: course the starvation and overall humanitarian conditions for Palestinians are
Speaker 1: horrific shape, now you have the World Food Program unable
Speaker 1: to operate because once again one of their vehicles was targeted.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was really it was actually crazy to see
Speaker 2: Cindy McCain, who I always think it's ironic is the
Speaker 2: literal head of the World Food Program, especially because their
Speaker 2: daughter is probably one of the most pro Israel people
Speaker 2: that's out there. Anyway, she says, this quote is totally unacceptable,
Speaker 2: the latest in a series of unnecessary security incidents that
Speaker 2: endangered the lives of the World Food Program team in Gaza.
Speaker 2: So overall, the situation in Israel is still quite crazy.
Speaker 2: I mean, Ryan and Emily covered this yesterday. There's this
Speaker 2: major west Bank operation which is happening there. The government
Speaker 2: is also, you know, saying all kinds of crazy stuff.
Speaker 2: We had this major Lebanon situation, the ceasefire talks.
Speaker 3: I don't even know where we can Where do we
Speaker 3: currently stand with that? I don't actually know where.
Speaker 2: As well, even though yeah, literally basically total limbo. Joe
Speaker 2: Biden and still at the beach though, so don't worry
Speaker 2: about that in terms of executing anything in American power,
Speaker 2: I don't know. It feels like there is a level
Speaker 2: of stasis that things have reached. It is August twenty ninth,
Speaker 2: and I was thinking about that. I mean, we're coming
Speaker 2: up on one year you know, since October seventh, which
Speaker 2: is genuinely stunning and crazy to consider. But and you know,
Speaker 2: not only all that it's rot there, but in terms
Speaker 2: of our politics and foreign policy and the change and
Speaker 2: what all of that has looked like. But in a
Speaker 2: certain sense, it does feel like things are both calming
Speaker 2: down in Gaza but now expanding in terms of Lebanon
Speaker 2: and the West Bank.
Speaker 3: That's what it really looks like right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, just to go back to that World
Speaker 1: Central Kitchen things. I was thinking about this, you know,
Speaker 1: at the time, because this was the outfit associated with
Speaker 1: Jose Andres.
Speaker 4: There was a hole. This was a big deal here
Speaker 4: in d C.
Speaker 1: People know him personally. He was out giving interviews, speaking out.
Speaker 1: There was a big focus, you call the triple tapped
Speaker 1: that vehicle convoy and that was clearly marked. They'd gone
Speaker 1: through the deconfliction and they made sure that everyone was killed.
Speaker 1: The survivors would move from one vehicle to the next,
Speaker 1: and then they would target that vehicle. And so there was
Speaker 1: massive outrage and yet you know, their calculation was we
Speaker 1: can let that die down, and it served their ultimate
Speaker 1: interests of and I mean this is very clear from
Speaker 1: the way that they've operated the entire time and the
Speaker 1: public pronouncements they've made about effectively starving Gosins. They succeeded
Speaker 1: in diminishing the number of aid workers who were able
Speaker 1: to do the job and the amount of aid that.
Speaker 4: Could be distributed.
Speaker 1: And so you know, this is just the latest incident
Speaker 1: and what has been a successful strategy of making it
Speaker 1: impossible and deadly to try to distribute and even the
Speaker 1: wildly inadequate amount of aid that gets into the Gaza
Speaker 1: stroup also just in a sign of again, I think
Speaker 1: any society can like I don't think that Israelis as
Speaker 1: human beings are any different than any other people around
Speaker 1: the world, but this society, in terms of what they
Speaker 1: have come to accept and embrace a majority of Jewish Israelis,
Speaker 1: it is profoundly disturbing the dark things that they now
Speaker 1: accept an embrace, including We've discussed this incident on camera
Speaker 1: of gang rape of a Palestinian, documented that this has
Speaker 1: occurred multiple times, and there was a new poll can
Speaker 1: put this up on the screen asking how Jewish Israelis
Speaker 1: want to handle those soldiers who gang raped Palestinian detainees
Speaker 1: at that prison torture facility. Almost two thirds, sixty five
Speaker 1: percent of Jewish Israelis say there should be no criminal prosecution.
Speaker 1: They prefer them to be handled in a disciplinary manner.
Speaker 1: Only only twenty one percent of Jewish Israelis thought that
Speaker 1: there should be a criminal trial for gang rape. I
Speaker 1: don't even know what you say about that. You know,
Speaker 1: the extremes have clearly taken over, and you can see how,
Speaker 1: you know, in Bibe's actions and the way he's prosecuted
Speaker 1: the war, and the way he's really you know, leaned
Speaker 1: into the Bengevie and Smotrich like literal terrorists, their view
Speaker 1: of how to prosecute this assault on Palaestudians in the
Speaker 1: Gaza strip. These are the types of numbers he's responding to,
Speaker 1: and it has been Politically, it has worked out for him.
Speaker 1: He had two goals. One was to just hold onto
Speaker 1: power as long as possible. Okay, well he's doing that well.
Speaker 1: And two, by satiating this desire for just horror and revenge,
Speaker 1: he was hoping that he could regain his political position.
Speaker 4: And guess what, it's kind of worked. His poll numbers
Speaker 4: have come up significantly.
Speaker 1: From where they were after October seventh, because recall, you know,
Speaker 1: he was mister Security and it was his entire philosophy
Speaker 1: that you know, obviously that Hamas is responsible for their actions.
Speaker 1: I'm not taking away from the horrors that they committed,
Speaker 1: but in terms of his theory of what would provide
Speaker 1: security for Israelis, it completely failed and there were massive
Speaker 1: public recriminations. Plus there was, you know, already this massive
Speaker 1: backlash over the like judicial coup that he was trying
Speaker 1: to effectuate that was deeply unpopular as well.
Speaker 4: His position is recovered quite a bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, his position is not only recovered, it's largely
Speaker 2: the strategy is working for him now currently, and there's
Speaker 2: been you know, we wanted to also put some other
Speaker 2: troubling precedents in here and to look into.
Speaker 3: Let's put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: There was a major report that Binance, the cryptocurrency exchange,
Speaker 2: was quote under scrutiny for seizing Palestinian crypto funds. Now
Speaker 2: Finance is disputing this, basically saying that they're in compliance
Speaker 2: with anti money laundering, anti monitoring lot for example, let's
Speaker 2: go to the next part. Please, They say the Binance
Speaker 2: CEO dismissed it, said that it was basically only in
Speaker 2: compliance with anti money laundering funds, saying, quote, only a
Speaker 2: limited number of users were blocked from transacting. There have
Speaker 2: been some incorrect statements about this. As a global exchange,
Speaker 2: we have to comply with internationally accepted money laundering legislation
Speaker 2: just like any other financial institution.
Speaker 3: Will continue to educate users.
Speaker 2: What this is highlighting is just like the power of
Speaker 2: the Israeli government right now in trying to deny and
Speaker 2: use its sovereign status in the conflict, not only over Binance,
Speaker 2: but Elon Musk previously had this issue with Starlink as well,
Speaker 2: for example, because he was like, Hey, I want to
Speaker 2: give starlink to Gaza, and they were like, yeah, that's
Speaker 2: not going to happen unless we give permission basically, And
Speaker 2: it's one of those where it shows the power of
Speaker 2: a nation state whenever they want to, you know, whenever
Speaker 2: they want to act. Yeah, they've done it with Facebook,
Speaker 2: They've done it with a couple of other places as well.
Speaker 1: I read the replies by the way to that tweet
Speaker 1: saying like this is fun and we only did for
Speaker 1: a few and the people were not buying it for
Speaker 1: whatever that's worth. The crypto world saw it as quite
Speaker 1: a betrayal, as they should, because one of the key
Speaker 1: selling points of crypto is that it would not be
Speaker 1: that outside of these various nation state pressures. And it's
Speaker 1: not very clearly way.
Speaker 3: Like it's just not that simple.
Speaker 4: Maybe it could be, but it's not.
Speaker 3: No, I'm saying it can be.
Speaker 2: Like you got to use it in a VPN like you
Speaker 2: gotta go to great length listen. In general, if you
Speaker 2: want to transact when the government doesn't want you to transact,
Speaker 2: good luck even with crypto.
Speaker 3: And I do.
Speaker 2: Look, but you can do it with crypto. I will
Speaker 2: just say that it's still very difficult. It's not the
Speaker 2: easiest thing in the world. I'm not going to give
Speaker 2: away any secrets here on the platform, so the FBI
Speaker 2: comes at me. But there are definitely ways to get
Speaker 2: around it if you want to. If you want it
Speaker 2: to be easy, like with a bank or something, then
Speaker 2: use the legitimate system. The problem with the legitimate system is, well,
Speaker 2: you know, the government at any time they want boom,
Speaker 2: your entire account is completely shut down. And we saw
Speaker 2: that with Canada the whole freedom protest thing.
Speaker 3: But you're right.
Speaker 2: I mean in terms of finance and just the way
Speaker 2: that a lot of these international exchanges in particular portray themselves.
Speaker 2: They always say like, we're above government institutions, and they
Speaker 2: do need to be honest about Listen, if you're trying
Speaker 2: to evade like the long arm or the law.
Speaker 1: Process, sanctions or whatever targeting by the Israeli state, who
Speaker 1: you know, makes up whoever they want to deem as terrorist.
Speaker 1: Crypto is obviously not. And the other thing is, you know,
Speaker 1: on the one hand, they want to be like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're you know, we're outside of the system, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. On the other hand, I believe this is correct.
Speaker 1: No industry has spent more in this election than crypto.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure that.
Speaker 4: Look it up.
Speaker 3: I'd have to look back.
Speaker 4: Look it up.
Speaker 1: They've spent, I believe, more than any other industry. And
Speaker 1: you know they want to They're here with their own
Speaker 1: lobbyist outfits and play in the same Washington influence game
Speaker 1: to get their goodies and their perks and their loopholes
Speaker 1: and whatever is everybody else.
Speaker 4: So I don't see them as much different.
Speaker 2: Well the real okay, well, the reason on that is
Speaker 2: that there's a big divide in crypto also because what
Speaker 2: you're talking about is the reason that they're spending money
Speaker 2: is not to transact on crypto.
Speaker 3: It's specifically for sec.
Speaker 2: Rulings about how an asset is governed and the ability
Speaker 2: to tokenize. That is actually really what's more at stake.
Speaker 2: That's not really crypto per se. This is more like
Speaker 2: blockchain related tech. And then also the issuance of tokens,
Speaker 2: which has its history in crypto, but it has much
Speaker 2: more application to like web based transacting.
Speaker 3: This is part of the whole like Web three movement. Anyway.
Speaker 2: I know this is very confusing and in the weeds,
Speaker 2: but there is a significant difference between that. There's also
Speaker 2: a big divide in crypto itself between like institutional crypto
Speaker 2: people like the WINKLEBI and others. I mean, for example,
Speaker 2: being able to buy like a what is it an
Speaker 2: ETF that just tracks bitcoin a lot of og bitcoins, Like, hey,
Speaker 2: we didn't get into this to like have an et
Speaker 2: step of sec regulated stock market fund just to track bitcoin.
Speaker 2: This also gets to the differences, and I mean, let's
Speaker 2: be honest, there's hundreds of billions of dollars now and yeah,
Speaker 2: so there's a very different stakeholders.
Speaker 1: It's used much more as just like a thing to
Speaker 1: bet on than it is as a currency that's just undeniable.
Speaker 12: No.
Speaker 1: I found the stat big Crypto now spending more on
Speaker 1: US elections than any other industry. They funneled some one
Speaker 1: hundred and nineteen million dollars into federal elections, cording a
Speaker 1: public citizen from four days ago. So they're big piet
Speaker 1: players here, and they're winning too. It looks I mean,
Speaker 1: this is one area Trump has already dropped his opposition to.
Speaker 1: He's you know, he went and spoke at their conference.
Speaker 1: He's basically like, whatever you want me to do or believe,
Speaker 1: I'll you know, do and believe. And it looks like
Speaker 1: the Harris people are more Crypto favorable than the Biden
Speaker 1: people have been.
Speaker 4: So Lenz well spent. Looks like they're winning, all.
Speaker 3: Right, Chrystal, what are you taking a look at?
Speaker 1: In the past week, two significant formerly leftish figures decided
Speaker 1: to throw their lot in with the reigning global symbol
Speaker 1: of right populous authoritarians, Donald Trump. Now that would be
Speaker 1: former twenty twenty four presidential candidate RFK Junior and former
Speaker 1: twenty twenty presidential candidate Tulci Gabbard both appeared to travel
Speaker 1: a kind of similar journey from dissident left to right wing,
Speaker 1: and so they sparked a round of online discussion about
Speaker 1: these supposed Bernie to Trump pipeline. There's a lot, of course,
Speaker 1: that this formulation leaves out. For one thing, Tulsi's most
Speaker 1: recent presidential endorsement in twenty twenty, while Bernie was still
Speaker 1: in the race, went to Joe Biden. Yet there are
Speaker 1: no thing pieces on the Biden to Trump pipeline, at
Speaker 1: least one that I've seen. I can actually find a
Speaker 1: record of who RFK Junior supported in twenty twenty. Someone
Speaker 1: can message me and let me know, But I know
Speaker 1: his similarly read pilled vice presidential pick was a Mayor
Speaker 1: Pete backer, former and never Trump resistance figure. Jade Vance
Speaker 1: is now literally Trump's VP pick. In other words, there
Speaker 1: are many ideological and ambition driven paths between the two political.
Speaker 4: Parties back and forth.
Speaker 1: I could also point out that by the numbers, actually
Speaker 1: more Hillary voters, bitter over her loss to Obama defected
Speaker 1: to McCain in two thousand and eight than angry Bernie
Speaker 1: Brose defected to Trump in twenty sixteen. In fact, with
Speaker 1: the new coconut pilled inspired unity, if anything, the problems
Speaker 1: closer than the one Matt carp identifies, which is that
Speaker 1: too many online Bernie bros. Are demanding too little from
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris for their support. All of this is true,
Speaker 1: and if I was writing this monologue a few years ago,
Speaker 1: I would have penned a blistering screed filaying these shit
Speaker 1: libs for their unending animus and bias towards the left.
Speaker 4: But the truth is, we got a.
Speaker 1: Few too many examples now, several of which I've been
Speaker 1: personally burned by, to totally dismiss the Bernie to Trump
Speaker 1: pipeline as a baseless mainstream media plot. To describe it
Speaker 1: the left, it pains me to admit it. But the
Speaker 1: libs are not entirely wrong. There is former Communists, no
Speaker 1: Trump supporter Russell Brand, There's former TYT progressive host Jimmy
Speaker 1: Durr's politics now just seem to be centered around hating
Speaker 1: libs and being anti COVID vacs. There's, however, you want
Speaker 1: to describe Twitter ubiquitous, Jackson Hinkel, I'm sure you've got
Speaker 1: your own examples that come to mind. I think the
Speaker 1: online influencer horseshoe journey is likely more common than the
Speaker 1: regular person horseshoe journey is best I can tell by
Speaker 1: the polling data. But it'd be foolish to assume that
Speaker 1: none of these influencers flock followed them from dissonant left
Speaker 1: to trumpy and right. Probably some of you listening to
Speaker 1: me right now. In terms of the horseshoe influencers, most
Speaker 1: of them would claim that their politics haven't budge ninch.
Speaker 1: It's that, in fact, the Democratic Party left them just
Speaker 1: zoming in on RFK and Tulci, these claims are pretty
Speaker 1: hard to take seriously, especially at this late date and
Speaker 1: trump Ism, when few if any, real populous elements remain
Speaker 1: I have instead been replaced by standard Boomer Cohn attacks
Speaker 1: on imaginary communists. But a quick look at the statements
Speaker 1: of both RFK and Tulci will leave you pretty convinced
Speaker 1: that to back Trump, they changed or abandon their principles.
Speaker 1: I guess it's also possible that they've thoroughly confused themselves
Speaker 1: about who Donald Trump actually is and what the Republican
Speaker 1: Party actually stands for. Remember Tulci's most memorable moment of
Speaker 1: righteous indignation at Kama's expense during the twenty twenty primary.
Speaker 1: Let's just take a listen to that again.
Speaker 6: I want to bring the conversation back to the broken
Speaker 6: criminal justice system that is disproportionately negatively impacting black and
Speaker 6: brown people all across this country. Today, Senator Harris says
Speaker 6: she's proud of her record as a prosecutor and that
Speaker 6: she'll be a prosecutor present.
Speaker 3: But I'm deeply.
Speaker 6: Concerned about this record. There are too many examples to cite.
Speaker 6: But she put over fifteen hundred people in jail for
Speaker 6: marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was
Speaker 6: asked if she ever smoked marijuana.
Speaker 4: She blocked evidence.
Speaker 6: She blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man
Speaker 6: from death row until the courts forced her to do so.
Speaker 6: She kept people in prison beyond their sentences to use
Speaker 6: them as cheap labor for the state of California. And
Speaker 6: she fought to keep cash fail system in place that
Speaker 6: impacts poor people in the worst kind of way.
Speaker 1: It's impossible to imagine Tulci Gabbert critiquing Kamala on criminal
Speaker 1: justice or much of anything from the left at this
Speaker 1: point and by endorsing Trump, Tulci signing up with a
Speaker 1: man who called for the now exonerated Central Park five
Speaker 1: to be executed and a man who has already threatened
Speaker 1: to use the Insurrection Act to launch a military crackdown
Speaker 1: in Chicago and other American cities in response to crime
Speaker 1: as part of this current presidential bid. With regard to
Speaker 1: RFK Junior, just a few mon months ago, he was
Speaker 1: absolutely ripping Trump on a wide variety of fronts, including
Speaker 1: Trump's militarism and corporatism.
Speaker 4: Quote.
Speaker 1: If you think a second Trump term would be any different,
Speaker 1: you are engaging.
Speaker 4: In wishful thinking.
Speaker 1: Well now RFK Junior has flipped from blasting Trump for
Speaker 1: turning his foreign policy over to the worst warmongers and
Speaker 1: neocons to absurdly claiming that Trump is anti war. He
Speaker 1: also claimed that Trump would combat censorship and wild insanely
Speaker 1: dishonest claim that Kyle did a fantastic job of debunking
Speaker 1: in reality. Of course, Trump, among other things, wants to
Speaker 1: punish flag burning with a year in jail. Soon's CNN
Speaker 1: for four hundred and seventy five million dollars for calling
Speaker 1: election denihalism the Big Lie soon. Bill Maher over a joke,
Speaker 1: supports opening up the libel laws, called for jailing journalists
Speaker 1: who reported on the Scotus abortion ruling once, to deport
Speaker 1: pro Palestine protesters, etc.
Speaker 4: Etc. You get the point.
Speaker 1: So, at least for these two, the claim they're just
Speaker 1: consistently following their long held principles, it's pretty preposterous. So
Speaker 1: it's really going on here. Everyone calls everyone a grifter
Speaker 1: of these days, how we would be naive to overlook
Speaker 1: the pull of commercial and career incentives since we're talking
Speaker 1: about a bunch of hyper online influencers. Algorithmic rewards and
Speaker 1: audience capture are pretty compelling, if not totally complete answers.
Speaker 4: Look, I'm in this game. I know what clicks.
Speaker 1: I can see it in our metrics every single day.
Speaker 4: If I was simply following the anti establishment money, my politics.
Speaker 1: Would look a lot like Tulsi or RFK Junior or
Speaker 1: the others. And there are few things more irresistible to
Speaker 1: the entire right wing universe than a why I left
Speaker 1: the left narrative arc. That's why the Trump campaign has
Speaker 1: confused themselves into thinking that our pay Junior, who has
Speaker 1: a deeply negative approval rating, and a rash of perplexing
Speaker 1: and horrifying stories about his past, not to mention a
Speaker 1: set of deeply unpopular ideas and Tulci Gabbard, a former
Speaker 1: Democrat who garnered a whopping point seven percent of the
Speaker 1: primary vote, will be powerful campaign additions. Their brains have
Speaker 1: been cooked by the stew of right wing traditional and
Speaker 1: social media. Naomi Klein digs a layer deeper into this
Speaker 1: reward system in her terrific book Doppelgang. In it, she
Speaker 1: details hey phenomenon in which she is constantly confused with
Speaker 1: Naomi Wolf led her to think more deeply about what
Speaker 1: she describes as the quote mirror world that some like
Speaker 1: Wolfs have tumbled into. Now Naomi Wolf followed that horseshoe
Speaker 1: arc from Al Gore advisor and leading feminist to Bannon
Speaker 1: War Room regular and right wing COVID era celebrity influencer.
Speaker 1: In the book, Naomi Klin describes how during COVID she
Speaker 1: became somewhat obsessed with the confusion between herself and this doppelganger,
Speaker 1: and especially obsessed with the journey that that other Naomi
Speaker 1: had traveled.
Speaker 4: What happened? How did she justify it?
Speaker 1: One of the things that Naomi Kline found is that
Speaker 1: the mirror world or horseshoe or burn you to Trump phenomenon,
Speaker 1: it's actually not just a US dynamic. Similar movement in
Speaker 1: Germany labels itself querdenkin, taking a stab at the pronunciation
Speaker 1: there meaning outside the box or diagonal, and combines neo
Speaker 1: fascists with hippie type health obsessives. Other similar movements have
Speaker 1: sprung up throughout Europe as well, As Klein writes in
Speaker 1: her book, despite claims of postpartisanship, it is right wing,
Speaker 1: often far right, political party around the world that have
Speaker 1: managed to absorb the unruly passions and energy of diagonalism,
Speaker 1: folding its COVID era grievances into pre existing projects, opposing wokeness,
Speaker 1: and drumming up fears of migrant invasions, alien abductions as
Speaker 1: well as climate lockdowns. Still, it is important for these
Speaker 1: movements to present themselves as and to believe themselves to
Speaker 1: be ruptures with politics as usual, to claim to be
Speaker 1: something new beyond traditional left right polls, which is why
Speaker 1: having a few prominent self identified progressives and or liberals
Speaker 1: involved is so critical. In other words, these movements need
Speaker 1: former Democrats so they'll scoop up a discredited Naomi Wolf
Speaker 1: or a failed and scored presidential candidate or two, and
Speaker 1: embrace them, download their podcasts.
Speaker 4: They'll push them to stardom.
Speaker 1: They'll replace the scorn and derision of liberals with the
Speaker 1: praise and adoration of the right. That's an intoxicating brew
Speaker 1: for anyone, but may prove completely irresistible depending on a
Speaker 1: set of life experiences and personality traits. As Naomi Klein
Speaker 1: rights quote, I could offer a kind of equation for
Speaker 1: leftists and liberals crossing over to the neo fascism and
Speaker 1: authoritarian right that goes something like narcissism times grandiosity plus
Speaker 1: social media addiction plus midlife crisis divided by public shaming
Speaker 1: equals right wing meltdown. She was joking, but it does
Speaker 1: ring a little bit true. I want to dwell on
Speaker 1: that public shaming piece, though, because I think it's important.
Speaker 1: Gives me an excuse to get back on the more
Speaker 1: comfortable ground of criticizing liberals. Since the Clinton era, the
Speaker 1: entire Democratic Party establishment has been dedicated to a project
Speaker 1: a punching left, deriding anyone who questions the narrow confines
Speaker 1: of their cramped worldview. As a villain, and this project
Speaker 1: of derision and excommunication got turned up to eleven. During
Speaker 1: the Bernie era, we weren't just people who wanted healthcare.
Speaker 4: We were toxic Bernie bros.
Speaker 1: Hell bent on electing Donald Trump or turning the country
Speaker 1: over to Vladimir Putin or whatever. At every opportunity, Democratic
Speaker 1: Party elites trashed us, personally mocked our priorities, undermined our
Speaker 1: candidates to the point of outright rigging. It's not an
Speaker 1: excuse for people to abandon their principles to throw in
Speaker 1: with Trump, but it is highly predictable that this process
Speaker 1: of scorn and shaming will in fact lead to some
Speaker 1: folks embracing the side that is there waiting with open
Speaker 1: arms to praise and uplift them and their conversion story,
Speaker 1: not to mention to validate their online battle hardened worldview
Speaker 1: that liberals were always and forever the root of all evil.
Speaker 1: On the contrary, in the new Kamala Harn's era, it
Speaker 1: has taken remarkably little extension of the tiniest bit of
Speaker 1: goodwill to get many disaffected Bernie type young people and
Speaker 1: not so young people back on board. I was personally
Speaker 1: shocked that Kamala picked Tim Walls for VP simply because
Speaker 1: he was the candidate the left wanted, and typically Democrats
Speaker 1: make a show of humiliating the left for sport. In addition,
Speaker 1: after an initially ugly response to pro Palestinian protesters, Kama
Speaker 1: clearly heard the feedback and adjusted her tone to be
Speaker 1: more compassionate in future interactions. Now, doi' mistake what I'm
Speaker 1: saying here. These gestures are far from enough, but that's
Speaker 1: kind of my point. As the old saying goes, you
Speaker 1: catch a lot more flies with honey than with vinegar.
Speaker 1: Kamala is trying the tiniest bit of honey, and judging
Speaker 1: by the polls and the Democrats that are coming back home,
Speaker 1: it's actually working like a charm. This monologue already too long.
Speaker 1: A lot more I could say about the peal of
Speaker 1: conspiracy and autopsy turvy world, about the particular characters who
Speaker 1: are involved here, about how Trump and then COVID just
Speaker 1: really broke a lot of people's brains, But I'm just
Speaker 1: going to end with this. The COVID era is over,
Speaker 1: the Bernie versus Hillary era.
Speaker 4: I think it's actually over.
Speaker 1: And so while there may still be various pipelines to
Speaker 1: the right wing TULSI and RFK. They're probably more emblematic
Speaker 1: of the last gasps of some phenomenon than a new
Speaker 1: wave of some phenomenon, as evidenced by the fact that
Speaker 1: anyone excited about their embrace of Trump was really already
Speaker 1: supporting Trump.
Speaker 4: We'll have to await what.
Speaker 1: Strange new political phenomenon our AI algorithmic overlords are going
Speaker 1: to cook up next. All right, Sager, there was a
Speaker 1: lot there. But anyway, Bernie to Trump pipeline.
Speaker 4: Is it real?
Speaker 2: Yes, to the extent that Bernie is like Trump in
Speaker 2: his twenty sixteen campaign was a catch all for a
Speaker 2: lot of different stuff. So some people were there for
Speaker 2: Medicare for all, some people were there because they hated
Speaker 2: Hillary Clinton, and some people were there because I hate
Speaker 2: the left right, the establishment left.
Speaker 3: And so today, if you hate.
Speaker 2: The establishment left because they hate liberals, because they hate liberals,
Speaker 2: you should support Trump, like if that's your number one
Speaker 2: thing you hate.
Speaker 1: If your whole politics is just I hate. I mean
Speaker 1: a lot of people think that a lot of people
Speaker 1: that is their polity.
Speaker 2: Yeah and yeah, especially online, like in particular, then that
Speaker 2: pipeline makes a lot of sense. Trump was a much
Speaker 2: more marginal figure in twenty sixteen. Bernie obviously was a
Speaker 2: catch all of the Democratic Party. These were traditionally people
Speaker 2: who came up hating the Bush Republican Party. It wasn't
Speaker 2: exactly clear yet that that was going to be demolished.
Speaker 2: It would make a lot of sense to back a
Speaker 2: Bernie Sanders. It also would make a lot of sense
Speaker 2: then to back a Donald Trump in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: And that's the thing. Look, a lot of people don't
Speaker 2: vote on policy. A lot of people are oriented towards
Speaker 2: hating the left. So if you hate the left, yeah,
Speaker 2: you should vote for Trump, I mean honestly. And that's
Speaker 2: why I actually think the Tulsa and RFK phenomenon does
Speaker 2: entirely make sense to me, because I never thought any
Speaker 2: of it really was about criminal.
Speaker 3: Justice reform or any of that stuff.
Speaker 2: A lot of it really was just about the establishment
Speaker 2: being anti establishment.
Speaker 3: One is sticking it to the man.
Speaker 2: And like in a realm where we are where Bernie
Speaker 2: is now endorsed Trump, where like you know, AOC is
Speaker 2: on the d NC stage, a lot of it does
Speaker 2: make sense for the figures who were most attracted to them,
Speaker 2: again not for policy reasons, but for standing up to
Speaker 2: the establishment left to liberals. Then yeah, for vibes, then
Speaker 2: you entirely tracks that you should vote for Donald Trump
Speaker 2: and to support them. So yeah, I mean this is
Speaker 2: like former this is like former Trump supporters.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to think about this.
Speaker 2: It's you know, we make a lot of the phenomenon
Speaker 2: of like former McCain people who are now Democrats. Everyone's like,
Speaker 2: how is that possible? Like no, it's entirely like it
Speaker 2: totally makes sense.
Speaker 4: Maybe support like the McCain to Harris.
Speaker 2: There's so many of those people. Stephen's the Lincoln project.
Speaker 2: I think that is entirely tracks.
Speaker 1: But part of it is part of it is number
Speaker 1: one with a lot of those people. Part of what
Speaker 1: drives it is also an ambition rewards calculus because in
Speaker 1: the same way, you know, you're fetied if you do
Speaker 1: the why I left the Left thing and you're suddenly
Speaker 1: you're you know, you're popular, and you have a podcast
Speaker 1: that's in the top whatever, and you're getting your presidential
Speaker 1: endorsement matters Like if Tulci Gabbard and endorsed Kamala Harris,
Speaker 1: no one would give a shit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, but that she endorsed Trump.
Speaker 1: He brings her up and stands a big she's on
Speaker 1: the transition team, she's a hero, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: There's a similar like, yeah, former Republican to resistance figure
Speaker 1: that's also very profitable and that you know, absolves you
Speaker 1: of all of your past sins of you know, supporting
Speaker 1: the Iraq war and justifying it and all of that
Speaker 1: as well. And so that's certainly a part of it,
Speaker 1: which is I think part of why you know in
Speaker 1: the same way that it's not exactly the same because
Speaker 1: the never Trump phenomenon is we're talking about elite media predominantly,
Speaker 1: and here we're talking about like online media predominantly. But
Speaker 1: I do think it is more of a top level
Speaker 1: influencer phenomenon because of the specific rewards and incentives that
Speaker 1: are involved in those structures than it is a broader phenomenon.
Speaker 1: I think it's if you just look at the numbers,
Speaker 1: far more former Bernie supporters have traveled the path to
Speaker 1: be like aoc Nancy Pelosi Coconut Hills far more than
Speaker 1: are like yes with RFK Junior joining Trump and Tulci
Speaker 1: Gabbert joining Trump. Now that's not to say those people
Speaker 1: don't exist.
Speaker 4: But you know, I do go.
Speaker 1: Back to like part of why I was reluctant to
Speaker 1: delve into this is because I do think the phenomena
Speaker 1: is vastly overstated by, you know, people who have an
Speaker 1: ideological act to grind against the left and have always
Speaker 1: hated Bernie and Bernie supporters whatever, and I think ignores
Speaker 1: other like ignores for example, that Tulsi endor Speiden time around,
Speaker 1: you know, and that many other figures have moved to
Speaker 1: the right who were not burning people.
Speaker 2: But there's a quote going around that Tulca actually said
Speaker 2: to us in twenty nineteen, Oh, really think about Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I see it all the time.
Speaker 4: Oh what was it?
Speaker 3: Let me find it?
Speaker 4: It takes well, well you're looking that up.
Speaker 1: I'll also tell people The New York Times actually quoted
Speaker 1: the last interview that you did because I was out,
Speaker 1: I don't know where. It was, on vacation or something
Speaker 1: with RK. Junior was apparently the last time he criticized
Speaker 1: Trump was on our show with you in that interview
Speaker 1: and he said he was a quote terrible president.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it wasn't very long ago.
Speaker 3: Guys, twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: Look, there is no question in my mind, Donald Trump
Speaker 2: is unfit to service president commander of Chiefs. I've said
Speaker 2: this over and over again, Gabbart told host Crystal Ball
Speaker 2: at Soccer Jetty.
Speaker 3: So that was I mean, it was twenty nineteen. So
Speaker 3: a lot of things have changed.
Speaker 2: But again, if you look at the reward system and
Speaker 2: you the same thing that we think about of Nicole
Speaker 2: Wallace of the bill, Crystal pipeline completely applies the other
Speaker 2: way around for voting block, I mean, and the same
Speaker 2: way the voting blocks all so does not follow elite
Speaker 2: opinion or that type of opinion. Most people who supported
Speaker 2: McCain support Trump. Now, did he loose some people on
Speaker 2: the margins, Yeah, but vast majority of Republicans are still Republicans.
Speaker 2: Vast majority of burning people are mostly still Democrats. So
Speaker 2: if you look at the voters, it's different. There's another
Speaker 2: thing too where look, you know, since we're being honest
Speaker 2: about the open online phenomenon, sometimes, you know, if you
Speaker 2: want to keep your channel growing, by definition, you have
Speaker 2: to bring the more people in. And so if you
Speaker 2: see a drop in left whatever, then what do you do.
Speaker 2: You kind of chase whatever continues and then you lean
Speaker 2: into a little bit of that anybody is guilty of it.
Speaker 2: And you know, obviously, like you said, it'd be very easy,
Speaker 2: actually be to grow the channel even more to just
Speaker 2: post about certain subjects. It doesn't take a genius to
Speaker 2: figure all of that. We resist quite a bit of
Speaker 2: it here, and.
Speaker 4: We can because we have insights that you can see
Speaker 4: so clearly which channels are just yeah, just writing the
Speaker 4: algorithm right.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, in general, though, the caution is you're probably going
Speaker 2: to get burned, you know, in the long run. The
Speaker 2: people who do that, you get burned, and you almost
Speaker 2: never make it in the.
Speaker 1: Long because it becomes clear to the audience as well,
Speaker 1: and you're just become predictable to you know. It's like
Speaker 1: if you're just always riding the wave of whatever is
Speaker 1: the popular online thing, then eventually, yeah, it's going to
Speaker 1: become unsustainable. People are going to get bored with it,
Speaker 1: they're going to move on whatever. So it is a
Speaker 1: short term strategy that can be very successful.
Speaker 4: Long term strategy not I.
Speaker 2: Don't think it works, but you know, there's been a
Speaker 2: decent amount of money to be made in the short term.
Speaker 2: That's usually the analysis that all those people have. We're
Speaker 2: already running late, so we can cut it here. Everybody
Speaker 2: have a good Labor Day weekend, Chrystally, you'll have analysis
Speaker 2: on the common.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm I'm going to react to the interview. Soccer's
Speaker 1: gonna be out, so it's not that I'm kicking out
Speaker 1: from responding to, you know, comrade.
Speaker 3: Harris flying to London.
Speaker 4: Everybody leave me, but yeah, so I'll react to that.
Speaker 1: We are going to be off on Mondnday, that's right,
Speaker 1: So we'll see you back here on Tuesday.
Speaker 3: See you Tuesday.
Speaker 11: Inst