Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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Speaker 3: But enough with that, let's get to the show.
Speaker 2: Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday. Have an amazing show for
Speaker 2: everybody today.
Speaker 3: What do we have, christ Pal, Indeed we do.
Speaker 1: Dave Wagel is going to be here in studio. He
Speaker 1: is just back from Wisconsin. He was hitting some doors
Speaker 1: there talking to actual voters about how they're thinking about
Speaker 1: this election. We're going to talk to him about that,
Speaker 1: the gender gap, the new Trump Epstein groping allegations, and
Speaker 1: how much that plays or doesn't play into this election.
Speaker 4: So that'll be interesting.
Speaker 1: We're also taking a look at new comments from John Kelly,
Speaker 1: who was Trump's chief of staff, saying that Trump was
Speaker 1: a fascist, also saying that he thought.
Speaker 4: That Hitler did some good things and wanted.
Speaker 1: Hitler's generals to his generals be more like Hitler's generals.
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris really leaning into this as the campaign is
Speaker 1: in its wanning days, so a lot to get into there.
Speaker 1: Kamala also had a CNN town hall last night, so
Speaker 1: we pulled some of those sort of highlights and low
Speaker 1: lights and interesting moments from that to break down for
Speaker 1: you as well. There's another thing we wanted to take
Speaker 1: a look at here, which is both the substantive issue
Speaker 1: of housing affordability and also how that may really be
Speaker 1: impacting the vote, especially in Sun belt states and perhaps
Speaker 1: in particular in the state of Nevada, something that we've
Speaker 1: been wanting to tackle for a while, and obviously we've
Speaker 1: been talking about housing here for quite a while on
Speaker 1: how this was a sleeper issue it seems to be
Speaker 1: playing out in terms of the election right now. Also
Speaker 1: wanted to take a moment to focus on the former
Speaker 1: CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch who has now been charged
Speaker 1: with sex trafficking. The allegations are horrifying, They are quite stunning.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously this was and is an iconic American brand,
Speaker 1: especially like when I was growing up, when soccer was
Speaker 1: growing up as well. So I'm going to dig in
Speaker 1: to that, we also have some updates for you. Out
Speaker 1: of the Middle East is really propaganda about a Lebanese
Speaker 1: hospital debunked live by BBC. Quite interesting there, and Sager
Speaker 1: is taking a look at how we should think about
Speaker 1: our votes. I'm looking forward to that one.
Speaker 2: How to vote, but not it's an instruction guide on
Speaker 2: how to vote.
Speaker 4: You're not like telling people who to vote for.
Speaker 2: That's exactly I would never pray tell people how to
Speaker 2: vote for to help people evaluate exactly right, which I
Speaker 2: think is helpful. As Crystal said, we're going to get
Speaker 2: to Dave Wygel before we get to that. Thank you
Speaker 2: so much for our premium subscribers, everybody who's been taking advantage.
Speaker 2: We will reveal our exclusive maps and predictions here for everybody.
Speaker 2: Just twelve days to go until that election. How many
Speaker 2: shows is that for shows until the presidential elections.
Speaker 3: We'll think about it that way.
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Speaker 2: Dave Wygel. Joining us now is Dave Weigel. It's semaphorrescritch
Speaker 2: to see you, man.
Speaker 5: It's good to see you. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Absolutely so let's break down a little bit of a
Speaker 2: media and a Trump accuser story kind of broke out
Speaker 2: yesterday started off with a lot of speculation from Mark
Speaker 2: Halprin over at Worldwide News his substack, and he said
Speaker 2: that there was a story floating out there that if
Speaker 2: it came out, it would end Trump's campaign. Let's take
Speaker 2: a listen.
Speaker 6: These last two weeks are going to be filled with
Speaker 6: things like this. And I can tell you with that
Speaker 6: going into detail, that I've been pitched a story about
Speaker 6: Donald Trump now for about a week that if true,
Speaker 6: would end his campaign, and there's all sorts of things
Speaker 6: like that flying around.
Speaker 5: I'm not the only one who's been pitched it if true.
Speaker 3: Was going to end the campaign.
Speaker 2: People said, wow, it must be really some of there's
Speaker 2: all these rumors flying around out there day. I'm sure
Speaker 2: he saw. And then finally it came out. And I'm
Speaker 2: not going to diminish per se, but like you know,
Speaker 2: it's certainly not campaign ending in.
Speaker 4: Mind for Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's put this up there on the screen. This
Speaker 3: was a Stacy Williams.
Speaker 2: She is a ex model and a former associate of
Speaker 2: Jeffrey Epstein. She says that Donald Trump quote Groape mean
Speaker 2: what felt like a twisted game with Epstein. This was
Speaker 2: back in nineteen ninety two at a Christmas party, she says,
Speaker 2: after being introduced to him by Epstein in a Trump
Speaker 2: tower or elevator. So, I guess there's a couple of
Speaker 2: things we wanted to talk to you about. First of all,
Speaker 2: both the details of the story this alleged like would
Speaker 2: it end his campaign? Just news wise? I checked of
Speaker 2: the morning newsletters. I think it was only Politico Morning
Speaker 2: Playbook that even linked out to the story in the bottom.
Speaker 2: So it doesn't seem to be taking all that seriously.
Speaker 2: So what's your perspective here?
Speaker 5: He didn't in the campaign yet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, still waiting.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I don't think I've been pitched the thing that
Speaker 7: help he's talking about.
Speaker 5: I saw Tom BEBVAM talked about it too.
Speaker 7: Yes, all of us who've been out there talking to
Speaker 7: vout talking to voters. I was in Wisconsin this last week.
Speaker 7: It's hard for us to imagine a story that would
Speaker 7: qualify it like this because Trump, this is this is
Speaker 7: the oldest news in the campaign. Trump Trump can survive
Speaker 7: all sorts of things because there's a heuristic for his
Speaker 7: voters and the voters who moved to him in the
Speaker 7: last year or two years, that whatever he does wrong,
Speaker 7: whatever his personal failings, look at his record, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 7: And and this is something that was true when Bill
Speaker 7: Clinton was running for reelection in different ways. I'm not
Speaker 7: trying to be too glib and compare them, but voters
Speaker 7: have set up in their mind things were good enough
Speaker 7: when he was president to spit all that scandal. I
Speaker 7: cannot pay attention to it. Would this work if he
Speaker 7: was if he was a random guy running for Senate,
Speaker 7: probably not. Doesn't work if it's Donald Trump? Yes, So
Speaker 7: what you can name a few things in the last
Speaker 7: few weeks that someone running for a lower office might
Speaker 7: have been wrecked by and they don't wreck Trump because
Speaker 7: of that, because of that mindset voters have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, are we convinced like this is the story.
Speaker 3: He'll oh from what I asked around broadcast. Yeah, also
Speaker 3: all this.
Speaker 1: Like Charlie Kirk and all these like you know, pro
Speaker 1: flitzers who said something about like an aide fake. So
Speaker 1: I don't anyway, I don't know, but yeah, I agree
Speaker 1: with the analysis.
Speaker 3: You've both offered.
Speaker 4: Let me play devil's advocate, which is.
Speaker 1: The Harris campaign really seems to be banking on the
Speaker 1: sort of like moderate female character, Yeah, like Nicky Hayley
Speaker 1: type voter. And at the same time, Trump's approval ratings
Speaker 1: are a little bit higher than they were last time around,
Speaker 1: and certainly they were in twenty sixteen. So I think
Speaker 1: part of that is people have kind of memory hold
Speaker 1: some of the most salacious allegations, some of his most
Speaker 1: silacious and horrifying acts, and so this again brings up like,
Speaker 1: this is a guy who's been seriously accused of this
Speaker 1: type of behavior, sexual assault, groping, et.
Speaker 4: Cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: You throw in there at Jeffrey Epstein connect this former
Speaker 1: model alleges that they were very close friends, Donald Trump
Speaker 1: and Jeffrey Epstein, and it does sort of potentially exacerbate
Speaker 1: that gender divide, which is what the Harris campaign is
Speaker 1: really banking on, being able to get enough women on
Speaker 1: their side between Trump's behavior and the issue of abortion
Speaker 1: to be able to put them over the top.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you can go too far and make some voters
Speaker 7: think that he's being put upon, that he's being falsely accused.
Speaker 7: The idea of the AI video that would be smart.
Speaker 7: I think to fight a video that's damaging and claimant say.
Speaker 7: I was at the Post when Amy Gardner, my colleague,
Speaker 7: got the audio of Trump pressuring Brad Raft, and immediately
Speaker 7: saw people try to spin.
Speaker 5: That out of consistence.
Speaker 7: You can have something rock solid and people will say
Speaker 7: it's not true. But that's what they're trying to do, right,
Speaker 7: freezing people's minds before they vote. Do you really want
Speaker 7: to go through all of this for four years? You're
Speaker 7: really going to go for all of it with a
Speaker 7: seventy or eight year old president with somebody in the wings.
Speaker 7: If he's damaged, would Jadvans take over? They do want
Speaker 7: to throw not in the way that a confident campaign
Speaker 7: that's going to win and it feels like it feels
Speaker 7: like it's locked up.
Speaker 5: Not in that way.
Speaker 7: They are trying to draw attention to think you saw
Speaker 7: this with the Vice President yesterday putting out a statement
Speaker 7: on this Jeffrey Goldberg Atlantic article that is not an
Speaker 7: article that forty eight percent of the country is going
Speaker 7: to take seriously. They have a mechanism by now which
Speaker 7: they don't take it seriously, But that is what they're
Speaker 7: trying to do. And I saw some of that Wisconsin.
Speaker 7: They are getting some Republican endorsements, people who were even
Speaker 7: on the fence or voted for Trump in twenty twenty.
Speaker 7: They are getting that with the argument that, look, whatever
Speaker 7: her faults, do you really want to put up with
Speaker 7: this sky again? Is that compelling? It has papered over
Speaker 7: some of her issues and it's a lot. Maybe it's
Speaker 7: allowed her. Maybe she she'd be doing better, she she
Speaker 7: had more of this to appeal to those Republicans without
Speaker 7: specifically saying yes, I'm going to give up on not
Speaker 7: restoring remain in Mexico or yes I'm going to I'm
Speaker 7: going to forever give up on a thing that me
Speaker 7: and Biden did. She's not going that far. The replacement is,
Speaker 7: look at this crazy stuff that you don't want with Trump.
Speaker 2: You brought up Wisconsin trying to scribe our Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: you just spent a long time there. Yeah. So, and
Speaker 2: we were talking a little bit behind the scenes about
Speaker 2: all of the Trump ads against common Yeah, so what
Speaker 2: do the Kamma ads against Trump look like? Are they
Speaker 2: equally as inundating and argues it the character argument, because
Speaker 2: that's what they're.
Speaker 3: Closing on, that's what they've decided.
Speaker 7: So interestingly, they're not response ads, which is what you
Speaker 7: see in a lot of races. I'm being attacked with
Speaker 7: three different ads on something negative, in this case government
Speaker 7: funded sex surgeries for prisoners right not to really get
Speaker 7: the entire issue, but there are three ads on that,
Speaker 7: and the campaign's not putting out ads saying no, I
Speaker 7: didn't or here's why I did that. It's putting out
Speaker 7: ads one about her economic agenda too, about kind of
Speaker 7: January sixth, Trump's character, and that is after twenty twenty two.
Speaker 7: You can't tell Democrats that people don't care about this
Speaker 7: told nobody cares and then it was decisive in a
Speaker 7: lot of suburbs. But they are They're letting a lot
Speaker 7: of attacks go by or to connect on her on
Speaker 7: that record. They really are not doing a lot, and
Speaker 7: you've seen it. It's been the hardest question for her
Speaker 7: to answer interviews is where she would where Biden got
Speaker 7: something wrong, where she would change from Biden.
Speaker 5: She's not doing that with the advertising.
Speaker 7: She is just saying and I would actually say the
Speaker 7: future forward, pack especially the super Pac very economic focus message.
Speaker 7: So you do hear if you're watching TV, you're watching
Speaker 7: Packers game. I guess it's got lucky because very exciting
Speaker 7: one on Sunday, you do see, okay, she'd have this
Speaker 7: kind of tax cut for me. I don't know how
Speaker 7: sticky it was, because I went out with people canvassing too,
Speaker 7: and you were finding voters who's at this point still
Speaker 7: didn't know what her economic plan was, still didn't know
Speaker 7: exactly how she'd restore row. But that's the strategy. It's
Speaker 7: not let's hit back at everything Trump says. Let's just
Speaker 7: come up with something that maybe the voter who's undecided say, well,
Speaker 7: I'm just talking about crazy, negative stuff and she has
Speaker 7: a plan. That's the impression they want people to leave,
Speaker 7: not that she's fighting back on everything.
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like, in a sense, the Liz
Speaker 1: Cheney tour is an effort to fight back against because
Speaker 1: what is that the you know, transgender surgery. At Yes,
Speaker 1: it's about the issue, but it's also about like, she
Speaker 1: is this liberal San Franciscan who doesn't connect with American values.
Speaker 1: And to me, the effort with the Liz Cheney tour,
Speaker 1: which I have a million issues with I've talked about before,
Speaker 1: but anyway, the effort with that is to be like,
Speaker 1: look at these modern Republicans who are super comfy with me.
Speaker 4: So I can't be that.
Speaker 1: Crazy if Liz Cheney is willing to, you know, hang
Speaker 1: out with me and endorse me and go and do
Speaker 1: those town halls, et cetera. So in a way, I
Speaker 1: feel like that's her effort to blunt the core of
Speaker 1: that attack, which is like, you're too liberal to represent
Speaker 1: all of America.
Speaker 5: That's how it felt.
Speaker 7: I went to one of those events in the in
Speaker 7: the Milwaukee suburbs, and you did meet I met there
Speaker 7: people who've been Republican up till twenty twenty and then
Speaker 7: and then bailed.
Speaker 5: But that's what I mean.
Speaker 7: She wasn't saying here's a promise you can take home.
Speaker 7: She was offered a couple of chances. She was better
Speaker 7: at a couple of the other Cheney events. Hey, my
Speaker 7: neighbors worried about something that you did in your past.
Speaker 7: She didn't say what she would do differently. She didn't
Speaker 7: even mention I'd put a Republican in the cabinet. I
Speaker 7: think maybe because the Trump campaign has fed this idea
Speaker 7: that she'd put chaining in a national security position, which
Speaker 7: Democrats say they would not do. But you got her
Speaker 7: on stage. Yeah, not a good topic to bring up
Speaker 7: at that moment, but she's not. That is what's different.
Speaker 7: Whereas Trump, whether you think it's credible or not, Trump
Speaker 7: will just promise something. Trump will say, yes, I'm going
Speaker 7: to get this thing that the culinary union wanted, this
Speaker 7: tax cut.
Speaker 5: I'm going to do it. Don't ask me how I'm
Speaker 5: gonna do it. I'm gonna do it.
Speaker 7: And Democrats are so much more cautious just generally. There's
Speaker 7: the Trump campaign takes a lot of risks, puts out
Speaker 7: a lot of ideas that might be hard to implement.
Speaker 7: It knows that I think Republicans won't say how you
Speaker 7: pay for that, because that's.
Speaker 5: Not how they run. They want him to win.
Speaker 7: And her campaign is much more cautious in saying no,
Speaker 7: we will make some hard break, which is this lego less.
Speaker 7: Chaney tour was a little more confounding because they were
Speaker 7: getting a hit on one end for having Cheney campaign
Speaker 7: aid pack, this Arab American pro Trump pack was running
Speaker 7: ads in Michigan and I only saw photos I've been
Speaker 7: Michigan yet that are just pictures of Cheney and and
Speaker 7: hers together in Arab American neighborhoods. What is the are
Speaker 7: they getting the gain on the other side by saying,
Speaker 7: and Liz Cheney will validate Harris, don't worry about X issue.
Speaker 5: It's not the issue.
Speaker 7: It's just it's just democracy. I'm not it sounds too
Speaker 7: plus eight, but it really is just the democracy issue
Speaker 7: as opposed to the Hey, she's learned her lesson on immigration.
Speaker 5: Hey, she's learned her lesson on crime.
Speaker 7: Some of the ads do say that, but they're really
Speaker 7: not delivering the stuff that somebody really on the fence
Speaker 7: might might say, Oh, I'm confident I'm not going to
Speaker 7: see ten million border crossers if she's president. That hasn't
Speaker 7: happened yet.
Speaker 2: So I saw Nate Silver make a point which is
Speaker 2: contrary to this whole is change. He said, look, guys,
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, I think that these
Speaker 2: people are already called Harris voters when you don't need
Speaker 2: to go after them. And that's I mean, intuitively kind
Speaker 2: of accepts my bias towards the issue. But while you
Speaker 2: were there, were they already Harris voters? Like what are
Speaker 2: these people genuinely undecided? Like how do we square that question?
Speaker 7: They were they felt odd about voting for a Democrat,
Speaker 7: but they just couldn't bring this sullt to vote for Trump.
Speaker 7: They probably were Harris voters because she's and you see
Speaker 7: this now that now that the polling, I think there
Speaker 7: are a couple of errors with the screens or a
Speaker 7: couple of pickups with the voter screens, registered versus likely.
Speaker 7: She is doing better in a lot of places with
Speaker 7: the people more likely voters. And those are the guys
Speaker 7: who were Republican twenty years ago, the women who were
Speaker 7: the women who voted for Mitt Romney, who always vote,
Speaker 7: who vote in school board elections, They have been fishing
Speaker 7: in that pond while Trump goes for the less. I mean,
Speaker 7: this is what the Trump Rogan interviews is about. Absolutely,
Speaker 7: very obviously, there are people who hate politics, don't trust politicians.
Speaker 7: I'm going to introduce myself and hey, maybe the registered,
Speaker 7: maybe they'll turn out. This campaign is no, there is
Speaker 7: an electorate. We've we know how to win this electorate
Speaker 7: in twenty twenty barely. If we get ninety five percent
Speaker 7: of that vote out, then we win. That is the theory.
Speaker 7: It's much it's much more rebuilding than addition.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you a little bit more about that,
Speaker 1: But I'm also curious about your time going out with canvassers.
Speaker 1: What type of doors were you hitting? Were they like
Speaker 1: persuasion or were these you know, we got to get
Speaker 1: you to turn out. And was there any particular issue
Speaker 1: that was really being brought up again and again at
Speaker 1: the doors.
Speaker 5: These were It was a mix of so.
Speaker 7: With Democrats, I did with Republicans in Arizona, mostly people
Speaker 7: who were registered but hadn't turned their ballot in yet,
Speaker 7: and they had they were they just needed the kick,
Speaker 7: but they were going to vote for Trump. With Democrats,
Speaker 7: I was with mostly Democratic household, some people who they
Speaker 7: think voted Democratic because there's no party registration in the state,
Speaker 7: and it was I need the people who were on
Speaker 7: the fence needed clarity about what she was going to
Speaker 7: do about the economy and prices, needed clarity.
Speaker 5: About her abortions.
Speaker 7: One stuck with me and in one part of kind
Speaker 7: of central Wisconsin, a woman who just she was pro choice,
Speaker 7: but she wasn't sure what Harris is actually going to do,
Speaker 7: which is amazing they didn't break through how much time
Speaker 7: they spent on it. I don't want to overestimate that
Speaker 7: one thing, but I did put it into my data
Speaker 7: base of voters are busy and not paying attention to
Speaker 7: every promise they make.
Speaker 5: She's not repeated enough.
Speaker 7: I was not seeing I was not seeing huge shifts
Speaker 7: from this. I remember going in twenty sixteen, and every
Speaker 7: Democrat had this experience, including the ones I was canvassing with,
Speaker 7: of going to what was a Obama neighborhood and finding
Speaker 7: Trump voters, and that wasn't happening. It was These are
Speaker 7: the voters who voted against Scott Walker in Wisconsin. These
Speaker 7: are the voters who were, you know, gett able for
Speaker 7: Ron Johnson but might have been voted for the governor Evers.
Speaker 7: It's the margin of maybe five percent of the electorate
Speaker 7: they were going for as opposed to Big Surprise. If
Speaker 7: somebody wants to show me the big surprises, take me
Speaker 7: to it. But they were, in this context going to
Speaker 7: central Wisconsin white voters who were undecided. Democrats admit they're
Speaker 7: not going to get the twenty twenty margin with black
Speaker 7: men in Milwaukee. That is baked into the assumption that
Speaker 7: these voters, who are pretty reliable and turn out but
Speaker 7: have a couple of questions about what her agenda is,
Speaker 7: they're easier to get than the black voters in Milwaukee
Speaker 7: who are just done with politics and here more hear
Speaker 7: nothing that they did that was that was good.
Speaker 5: They haven't given up.
Speaker 7: There are groups focused on that effort, but they're assuming
Speaker 7: they're going to underperform.
Speaker 2: The interesting secondary things sometimes is a seneate conversation, what
Speaker 2: did you see there that was interesting?
Speaker 7: Oh, it is a competitive race with Baldwin the advantage
Speaker 7: and she's she sanator Baldwin Tamy. Baldwyn going for a
Speaker 7: third term has been winning because she's getting five to
Speaker 7: seven percent of Trump voters and Harris is getting two
Speaker 7: percent That Delta Republicans are.
Speaker 5: Trying to shrink.
Speaker 7: So the ad part of it, what do you see
Speaker 7: a lot is a sort of anti corruption, clean hands,
Speaker 7: rich guy argument, which you see a lot in campaigns.
Speaker 7: Hubby is personally very wealthy CEO of a bank and
Speaker 7: is run he and Pacts have run several ads pointing
Speaker 7: out that Baldwin has a girlfriend in finance and is
Speaker 7: because they're not married, has not revealed her her girlfriend's finances.
Speaker 5: Who knows what that means? Question?
Speaker 7: And I asked, Hubby, are their votes she's taken? You
Speaker 7: think are connected to her girl and in finance and
Speaker 7: Democrats think that this is about reminding people that Baldwin
Speaker 7: is gay. She's been elected as an op gate for
Speaker 7: twenty some years, but they that has been the effort
Speaker 7: to say, this is a corrupt Democrat who you can't
Speaker 7: trust to deliver for you. If you're a Trump voter,
Speaker 7: she's that's the reason you should bail on her. Maybe
Speaker 7: vote on her twice, but bail now. But also very close.
Speaker 7: I didn't see again in evidence of twenty sixteen style
Speaker 7: massive shift somewhere, and even in the third district where
Speaker 7: Republicans flipped it last less cycle and Trump won it,
Speaker 7: they're very competitive. I was at with a Democrat the
Speaker 7: Already we're seeing people who you'd think could be Republican,
Speaker 7: rural voters very far from a city like a high vs.
Speaker 7: Twenty minutes away, pretty happy with the Democrat because they
Speaker 7: think Trump and the Republican incumbent were too rude and
Speaker 7: they were too anti immigrants. So there's still the Wisconsin mix.
Speaker 7: It just has really not their states were you know,
Speaker 7: one hundred thousand people moved in and changed the alchemy
Speaker 7: of the electorate. That's not happened to Wisconsin. It's very
Speaker 7: frozen for twice.
Speaker 2: Question important blue Wall dynamic is that they have not
Speaker 2: had the same knit migration. They don't have a flute
Speaker 2: like as an economy, so it's actually a little bit
Speaker 2: more frozen in time, which is very much to Harris's benefit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, last question for you, what do you make of
Speaker 1: the podcast strategy because I'm just a little skeptical because
Speaker 1: I've seen these candidates who have really leaned into like
Speaker 1: new meat. I mean, that's very self serving. I would
Speaker 1: love if we're very powerful, right, But you know, the
Speaker 1: Vake Ramaswami was a podcast candidate. We saw how I
Speaker 1: worked for him, Ronda Santis was like a podcast candidate,
Speaker 1: Andrew Yang Toulci Gabbard and they generate a lot of
Speaker 1: online enthusiasm and then they get like one percent in
Speaker 1: the polls. So do you think that there's you know,
Speaker 1: a significant group that is persuadable that's going to turn
Speaker 1: out to vote, Like, do you think that this is
Speaker 1: a fruitful strategy really for either campaign in large numbers?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I'm less confident about the second part that somebody
Speaker 7: is going to listen to this on their commute or
Speaker 7: their drive and say, well, I was totally unengaged before
Speaker 7: and now I'm going to vote for Donald Trump. Yeah,
Speaker 7: that unless as a strategy of getting of getting the
Speaker 7: campaign's daily message out and finding in the news cycle.
Speaker 7: I think it's it's this was the cycle where it
Speaker 7: changed over just the the benefits. What are going to
Speaker 7: be the benefits of a Trump podcast appearance again Rogan
Speaker 7: coming up versus the benefits of the Harrison town hall.
Speaker 7: What is she trying to do in her media appearances.
Speaker 7: It's it's not not make mistakes and look confident.
Speaker 5: Uh, the Rogan.
Speaker 7: Appearances, podcast appearances, that's part of that's that's built in
Speaker 7: unless unless you're really tanking, you're in a in a
Speaker 7: setting where people see you as as more human, you
Speaker 7: deal with questions that are not got that are not gotcha's,
Speaker 7: or not trying to pin you down on something. And
Speaker 7: I think I think it's been if it's been effective.
Speaker 7: Her most effective interviews have usually been those the podcasts.
Speaker 7: Are they finding brand new people? No, But I think
Speaker 7: they're trying to do different things. Trump is trying to
Speaker 7: reassure people, uh, and and look likable and again fit
Speaker 7: every problem you have with them in the in this
Speaker 7: in this box. That that that's that has a bumper
Speaker 7: stick here. Uh, I'll take more t more mean tweets
Speaker 7: and cheap gas right now, That is every Trump message
Speaker 7: with her. It is how do people look at her
Speaker 7: and say, yeah, she can go toe toe with Putin?
Speaker 5: I really do think.
Speaker 7: And even at the DNC, which some people didn't like
Speaker 7: the emphasis on defense and military, the reason they do
Speaker 7: that is because she one is a woman and two
Speaker 7: is not like a swaggering Hillary Clinton type does She's
Speaker 7: not somebody who has been in a decision decision room
Speaker 7: and may and people think, and you hear this anecdotally,
Speaker 7: you'll hear where cause voters who say I'm not sure
Speaker 7: how she'd handle a crisis, She's still tried to do that.
Speaker 7: So that's what her interviews are about, not bump mop up,
Speaker 7: messing up a question do that. Podcasts probably less useful
Speaker 7: for that, And she does need to show that she
Speaker 7: can say I can and I think this is why
Speaker 7: Fox in the long run was good for her. And
Speaker 7: though people want to be a disaster, oh, she could
Speaker 7: handle that. She talked over him, she didn't let herself
Speaker 7: get interrupted. Really, that atmospheric I heard more about from
Speaker 7: voters than anything said.
Speaker 8: In the interview.
Speaker 3: That is such a good point.
Speaker 2: Dave always read to talk to you man, and we'll
Speaker 2: see you soon and hopefully thank you.
Speaker 3: So, as we just discussed.
Speaker 2: With Dave Weigel, there's being a lot here made of
Speaker 2: Kamala and her attack on Donald Trump in the closing
Speaker 2: days is all about character. So that has really come
Speaker 2: into focus with some more recent allegations by General Kelly,
Speaker 2: former Trump chief of staff. Kamala Harris took advantage of
Speaker 2: that at a town hall yesterday. We're going to show
Speaker 2: you more of the town hall later in the show.
Speaker 2: What we wanted to start with this part. Specifically, she
Speaker 2: says Donald Trump is quote a fascist. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 8: We know that is why Mike Pence is not running
Speaker 8: with him again, why the job was empty. And then
Speaker 8: today we learned that John Kelly, a four star Marine
Speaker 8: general who is his longest serving chief of staff, gave
Speaker 8: an interview recently in the last two weeks of this election,
Speaker 8: talking about how dangerous Donald Trump is. And I think
Speaker 8: one has to think about why would someone who served
Speaker 8: with him, who is not political, a four star Marine general,
Speaker 8: why is he telling the American people now? And frankly,
Speaker 8: I think of it as he's just putting out a
Speaker 8: nine to one to one call to the American people.
Speaker 8: Understand what could happen if Donald Trump were back in
Speaker 8: the White House. And this time we must take very seriously.
Speaker 8: Those folks who knew him best and who were career
Speaker 8: people are not going to be there to hold him back.
Speaker 9: You've quoted General Millie calling Donald Trump a fascist. You
Speaker 9: yourself have not used that word to describe him. Let
Speaker 9: me ask you tonight, do you think Donald Trump is
Speaker 9: a fascist?
Speaker 3: Yes? I do, Yes, I do.
Speaker 2: All right, So all of this comes back from to
Speaker 2: General Kelly, who was the chief of staff, longest serving
Speaker 2: chief of staff under Donald Trump. A lot of these
Speaker 2: comments came to light in an Atlantic article with Jeffrey Goldberg.
Speaker 3: I will reserve some of the problems.
Speaker 2: With that article for a little bit later, and at
Speaker 2: least just play the audio from General Kelly himself. This
Speaker 2: was audio that he is allowed to be released from
Speaker 2: the New York Times talking about this alleged incident.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 10: She would a world once that you know, the Hitler
Speaker 10: did some good things too, And of course, if you
Speaker 10: know history, again, I think he's lacking in that.
Speaker 11: But if you know what his you know, Hitler was
Speaker 11: all about Uh, you'd be pretty hard to make an.
Speaker 12: Argument that he did anything good.
Speaker 13: So what would you What would you say when he
Speaker 13: said to you that Hitler did a lot of good things?
Speaker 12: Well, I tell him that, I said, you know, if
Speaker 12: you first of all, you should never say that.
Speaker 5: But if you knew what.
Speaker 12: History Hitler was all about, from the beginning to the end, Uh,
Speaker 12: everything he did was in support of his racist fascist
Speaker 12: uh life, you know, you know philosophy, so that nothing
Speaker 12: he did you could argue was good. It was certainly
Speaker 12: not done for the right reason. And but he would
Speaker 12: occasionally say that.
Speaker 13: What would he say when you would lay that out
Speaker 13: to him?
Speaker 12: He just, you know, end of the conversation. Usually, certainly
Speaker 12: the farmer president is in the far right area. Certainly
Speaker 12: an authoritarian.
Speaker 11: Admires people who are dictators. If he has said that,
Speaker 11: so he certainly falls into the into the general definition
Speaker 11: of fascists for sure.
Speaker 7: If he was left to his own devices, would he
Speaker 7: be a dictator if he didn't have people around him.
Speaker 13: Oh, I think I think you'd.
Speaker 12: Love to be. Uh, I think he'd love to be
Speaker 12: just like he was in business. He could tell people
Speaker 12: to do things and they would do it, and not
Speaker 12: really bother too much about whether, uh what the legalities were.
Speaker 3: And what all right? So there you go.
Speaker 2: Would we want to react to this Crystal before we
Speaker 2: play this? She made a big moment about this is
Speaker 2: a press conference yesterday at the Vice Essential Residents. We
Speaker 2: were on pins. We're like, oh, what is it? It
Speaker 2: could be something big. She's she's going to come out,
Speaker 2: she's doing a press conference. She was never does a
Speaker 2: press conference. Didn't end up any taking any questions. It
Speaker 2: was only like, you know, maybe a few minutes recounting
Speaker 2: these comments. But what we seem to take away is
Speaker 2: that because that article had come out from the Atlantic,
Speaker 2: there was not as much media coverage I think as
Speaker 2: the Democrats would have liked about it. So she was
Speaker 2: trying to force the conversation both with I think the
Speaker 2: fascist term and then also trying to get people, I
Speaker 2: guess successfully for us to talk about it, because that
Speaker 2: is her closing argument. Now with twelve days to go,
Speaker 2: it's full on character. January sixth Dictatorship. I mean, listen,
Speaker 2: I think it's been tried before. I don't think it's
Speaker 2: going to work, but I'm curious what you think.
Speaker 4: Well, it did work in twe twenty two.
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, but he wasn't on the ballot. So
Speaker 3: that's what I just keep going.
Speaker 4: So let me just say that was on the bout.
Speaker 1: My own political bias is that this is not a
Speaker 1: smart strategy. That is, my bias is to buy into
Speaker 1: the research that Matt Carr brought us on the show
Speaker 1: that shows that, you know, the most effect of messaging
Speaker 1: in wist swing voters in the state of Pennsylvania is
Speaker 1: about populist policies and progressive economics. I do have to
Speaker 1: say I think her closing ads that Wygel reference when
Speaker 1: we just talked to them, focused on taxes and Trump
Speaker 1: being for the billionaires.
Speaker 4: I do think that that is an effective pitch.
Speaker 1: And so my political bias is to look at this
Speaker 1: and go listen, people who think this through think Trump
Speaker 1: is a fascist in my opinion, Accurately, they are already
Speaker 1: in your camp. You're not really persuading anyone. But you know,
Speaker 1: I have to say, like I was wrong in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, so I do have some humility about my
Speaker 1: own assessments.
Speaker 4: So let me talk about the political strategy a.
Speaker 1: Little bit, and then you know, we can also talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about the substance. Here on the political strategy,
Speaker 1: Weigel mentioned something that hadn't really occurred to me, which
Speaker 1: is that it's her, you know, doing this big press
Speaker 1: conference yesterday at the vice presidential residence, her plan to
Speaker 1: do the you know, the big closing speech in the
Speaker 1: ellipse where January sixth occurred. This is, yes, it's about
Speaker 1: the message itself, but it's also about I look presidential.
Speaker 4: You can imagine me.
Speaker 1: In this role, and they feel like that is still
Speaker 1: a question that remains for some voters who don't like
Speaker 1: Trump but are not sure that they're ready to vote
Speaker 1: for Kamala Harris. And that kind of landed with me
Speaker 1: as like, oh, that's an important part of what they're
Speaker 1: doing here. Trump is trying to go hang out with
Speaker 1: the bros and say, look, I'm not this scary, dangerous
Speaker 1: character that they're painting me on as here I am
Speaker 1: hanging out like how scary can I really be? And
Speaker 1: her focus in the waiting days is envision me as
Speaker 1: president and look, we haven't ever had a female president before,
Speaker 1: and she is has been knocked rightly at plenty of
Speaker 1: times as kind of a lightweight. So that kind of
Speaker 1: landed for me as part of the thinking going into
Speaker 1: this in terms of the messaging. Their theory, which again
Speaker 1: goes against my own views and instincts on these.
Speaker 4: Things, but hey, you never know, maybe they're right. Their
Speaker 4: theory is.
Speaker 1: That there exists a quote unquote shy Kamala voter who
Speaker 1: is a kind of like that the Nicki Haley voter right,
Speaker 1: who is a conservative woman who has voted Republican most
Speaker 1: of her life, whose husband is likely voting for Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: and who is in a lot of circles in her
Speaker 1: community where everybody is basically a Republican and supporting Trump,
Speaker 1: and she really can't come out publicly and say she's
Speaker 1: supporting Kamala Harris and maybe needs a little bit of
Speaker 1: a reminder of this is who this guy is. Remember
Speaker 1: January sixth, look at the people who served with him,
Speaker 1: Madis Millie, now Kelly all coming out and saying, hey,
Speaker 1: I was in the room with this guy, like I
Speaker 1: actually saw how he operates, and yeah, your worst fears
Speaker 1: that he is actually a fascist are true.
Speaker 4: And by the.
Speaker 1: Way, yes, okay, plenty of bad things did happen last
Speaker 1: time around, but the republic did not end. But guess
Speaker 1: what this time we're not going to be there. It's
Speaker 1: going to be all the loyalists. They're going to use,
Speaker 1: you know, Schedule F to dismantle the administrative state. So
Speaker 1: whatever institutions and checks and bulwarks were inhibitors were there
Speaker 1: last time are gonna be gone and it's just going
Speaker 1: to be you know, there's a whole project, concerted project.
Speaker 1: That's the real takeaway from Project twenty twenty five. There's
Speaker 1: a concerted project to make sure that none of those
Speaker 1: restraints from last time are in place. So that's their
Speaker 1: theory of why they're leaning into this messaging because they
Speaker 1: think number one, Kamalin needs to put herself in these
Speaker 1: sort of like presidential settings and prove herself there as
Speaker 1: this like tough, credible leader. And number two, because Trump's
Speaker 1: approval rantings have ticked up a bit, you need to
Speaker 1: remind people of what it was that they found most
Speaker 1: disturbing about him last time that he held the office
Speaker 1: and make the case that next time around he would
Speaker 1: actually be worse.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, you know, and I think that's the
Speaker 2: only interpretation we can come away from. I feel so
Speaker 2: distanced from this campaign. Usually I can fee and understand
Speaker 2: why people are doing what they're doing back in twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: the Biden Basement strategy. Criticized it a lot, obviously on empirical,
Speaker 2: but it was the correct strategy.
Speaker 3: Right, it was obvious. This one. I just don't get it.
Speaker 2: I mean, I understand the twenty twenty two thesis. I
Speaker 2: understand that that coalition they really believe they can bring
Speaker 2: it out. But in an era where Donald Trump increased
Speaker 2: the amount of votes that he got by almost ten
Speaker 2: million in twenty twenty, has always had a track record
Speaker 2: of driving out these lower propensity voters and shaking up
Speaker 2: the political establishment. Maybe there's not evidence for it, but
Speaker 2: there's been so many polling misses and there's still so
Speaker 2: many things that could happen. I mean, nobody saw the
Speaker 2: Latino shift in Texas and elsewhere happening back in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: Was a shock on election night. If it was one
Speaker 2: of the biggest shocks I experienced, I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 2: maybe you know it's one of those where is it
Speaker 2: really going to land? It just seems so played out,
Speaker 2: so driven home by the media to me, I mean
Speaker 2: I called it on Twitter the Jennifer Rubin campaign, Like,
Speaker 2: to me, it really is like the apotheosis of this.
Speaker 2: Jennifer Ruben like media critique that the media actually doesn't
Speaker 2: talk enough about how Trump is a fascist. I saw
Speaker 2: yesterday it was like Van Jones was like, Kamala has
Speaker 2: to be flawless. Well, Donald Trump is lawless. And yet
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, I know. But went on his Instagram
Speaker 2: and he's like, it's feeling like twenty sixteen again. You
Speaker 2: got to get out there and vote, like we're looking
Speaker 2: down fascism in the barrel. And I mean the whole
Speaker 2: country experienced two and seventeen to twenty and twenty one
Speaker 2: when Trump was actually a president, none of that stuff happened.
Speaker 2: Their argument as well, will be different this time around,
Speaker 2: but people look back on those years actually quite fondly.
Speaker 2: And then even with Trump people himself, a big criticism,
Speaker 2: including mine, would be that he did have people like
Speaker 2: General Kelly Maddison others who didn't agree with him on anything,
Speaker 2: and who at many times actively thwarted a lot of
Speaker 2: his better orders, like to withdraw from Afghanistan or whatever.
Speaker 2: So I just look at it as very different from theirs.
Speaker 2: Of course, they're not trying to win me over that coalition.
Speaker 2: I just keep thinking, aren't these people, Harris voters already
Speaker 2: aren't they already Democrats? Like who is being convinced by this?
Speaker 2: But look, if they win by one in all the
Speaker 2: blue Blueell states, I'll say it right here, they were right.
Speaker 1: I mean the difference between twenty twenty and now is
Speaker 1: that in twenty twenty eight, January sixth hadn't happened. Yeah, true,
Speaker 1: so it was, you know, I mean, you could you
Speaker 1: could point to like Trump did weaponize the Department of
Speaker 1: Justice against you know, launching investigations against John Kerry and
Speaker 1: against Komy. And it's not like there was nothing you
Speaker 1: could point to, but there was nothing as shocking as
Speaker 1: what happened on January sixth. And you know, and now
Speaker 1: we've learned more and more details about No, he really
Speaker 1: was serious about, for example, calling the militarian to shoot
Speaker 1: protesters in the legs during the Black Lives Matter protest.
Speaker 1: He really was serious about these plans to attempt to
Speaker 1: like use the National Guard to seize ballot boxes. He
Speaker 1: really did try to overturn the election using these fake
Speaker 1: electors slates.
Speaker 4: We really did watch a crazed.
Speaker 1: Mob run around the Capitol calling for his own vice
Speaker 1: president to be hang and him sit back and you know,
Speaker 1: allow it to happen, if not be actively like in
Speaker 1: support of that sentiment.
Speaker 4: So you know, that is a significant.
Speaker 1: Shift from where we were back in twenty twenty, which
Speaker 1: even in twenty twenty obviously he lost, so even before
Speaker 1: people had that incredibly jarring experience. So again, my instinct
Speaker 1: is similar to your Sagert and it was in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two to be like, I don't know why you're
Speaker 1: focused like I to me, I think this is important, right,
Speaker 1: I think actually the argument is correct that you know,
Speaker 1: all of any sort of institutional guardrail and check that
Speaker 1: was in place that checked his worst instincts last time around,
Speaker 1: they have made a concerted effort to dismantle those. You
Speaker 1: also have a Supreme Court decision basically saying, hey, whatever
Speaker 1: you do in office, basically you're immune. Like you can
Speaker 1: do basically whatever you want. So it is a different
Speaker 1: landscape in that regard that resonates with me. My instinct
Speaker 1: is to say you should be. You were better off
Speaker 1: when you were framing him as like weird versus this,
Speaker 1: you know, giant threat. You're even better off when you're
Speaker 1: leaning into bread and butter issues inflation, which we have
Speaker 1: to say too. I mean, she has closed the gap
Speaker 1: with him on economics, so some of what she's saying
Speaker 1: is landing. But I just I can't be so certain
Speaker 1: about it because their analysis was more right in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two than mine was. And I think what Wygel
Speaker 1: points to is they've effectively already baked into the calculus,
Speaker 1: like we're losing Arab American voters, We're just gonna try
Speaker 1: to make it up somewhere else. We're not going to
Speaker 1: hit our margins with black men in particular, We're also
Speaker 1: going to try to make that up somewhere else. And
Speaker 1: they're say, all right, well, where do we make that up.
Speaker 1: The largest group of voters in the country is white people,
Speaker 1: and white women in particular are the single largest demographic group.
Speaker 1: So if we can pull in another couple percentage points there,
Speaker 1: then it's enough to make it work, especially in the
Speaker 1: blue wall states. And you know, I can't say definitively
Speaker 1: that they're wrong about.
Speaker 3: That again extraordinarily possible.
Speaker 2: It just seems like such a tremendous gamble, Like I
Speaker 2: would you know, if we're gambling and we're looking at
Speaker 2: margins and ways to win, it just seems totally different,
Speaker 2: both the way I would.
Speaker 3: Do it and others.
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess why I come back to it
Speaker 2: in terms of why it's all baked in is we
Speaker 2: have heard this all so many times, and by the
Speaker 2: way I would point out, this whole Atlantic article has
Speaker 2: some serious like issues. Let's put a six please on
Speaker 2: the screen. Nick Ayers, who I covered at the White
Speaker 2: House and was the deputy chief of staff while General
Speaker 2: Kelly was also the Chief of Staff, says quote, I've
Speaker 2: avoided commenting on interstaff leaks or rumors, but General Kelly's
Speaker 2: comments regarding President Trump are two egregious to ignore. I
Speaker 2: was with each of them more than most, and his
Speaker 2: commentary is patently false. There is an anecdote in the
Speaker 2: Atlantic article which is alleged that Trump didn't want to
Speaker 2: pay for this soldier's funeral. The sister of that fallen
Speaker 2: soldier says that is absolutely not true.
Speaker 3: I would The reporter who.
Speaker 2: Was in the room during their meeting says absolutely not true.
Speaker 2: Now all these people have certainly an incentive, right, But
Speaker 2: Nick ayris it was like some never Trump Mike Pence
Speaker 2: type guy who I covered at the White House and
Speaker 2: eventually left. He has not in any way some sort
Speaker 2: of like Maga warriors. So when the guy says this,
Speaker 2: to lie like, I tend to believe it. At the
Speaker 2: end of the day, only General Kelly and Donald Trump
Speaker 2: actually know what was allegedly said in some private conversation.
Speaker 3: You can make up your own mind. Can I ask
Speaker 3: you that?
Speaker 1: Like we weren't there. I was like, it is just
Speaker 1: like he said he said. He said, does it strike
Speaker 1: you as now landish? Though that Trump could say like,
Speaker 1: it's to me, it's not that crazy or unimaginable given
Speaker 1: some of the things he said in public, that he
Speaker 1: could have said something like this, and so you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't like blow my mind to imagine him being like,
Speaker 1: you know, I want some generals like the German generals.
Speaker 1: That sounds very much like something Trump'll say.
Speaker 2: It doesn't that kind of lose when he's like what
Speaker 2: even listen to Kelly said, He's like, I want somebody
Speaker 2: who takes orders. It's like, well, I mean, for example,
Speaker 2: let's think about what maybe the context like maybe when
Speaker 2: Trump was like, hey, you need to withdraw from Syria
Speaker 2: and James Madison the Pentagon hide the number of troops
Speaker 2: in Syria and don't withdraw and execute a lawful order, Like, well,
Speaker 2: which side would you rather have the per person who
Speaker 2: actually obeys the commander in chief or not?
Speaker 3: Like that? That's what I mean.
Speaker 4: But why you got to go to Hitler's generals?
Speaker 3: Okay, the point is about I mean, by the way, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I've been trying to avoid the discussion. But you know,
Speaker 2: what's his name? Kelly brought up? He's like, oh, did
Speaker 2: you mean Bismarck's generals. Did you mean the Kaiser's generals
Speaker 2: or do you mean Hitler's generals. There is a discussion
Speaker 2: to be had about who the best generals were between Bismarck,
Speaker 2: Kaiser and Hitler or whatever. Don't forget Heinz Gudarien was
Speaker 2: never prosecuted by the Nuremberg trials. He was the chief
Speaker 2: of staff of the Wehrmacht under Hitler. So all I'm
Speaker 2: saying is that if you actually look at so called
Speaker 2: like the context of I'm trying to issue orders or whatever, Yeah,
Speaker 2: don't you want a general officer who does obey like
Speaker 2: the whatever the order, a lawful order at least from
Speaker 2: the president.
Speaker 4: Probably, so you also would like Hitler's generals.
Speaker 2: No, I didn't say I would like Hitler's generals. But
Speaker 2: I'm saying it's a stupid What I'm saying, is this
Speaker 2: a stupid and contrite way of being like, oh, it's
Speaker 2: it is evidence so that he would like pursue a
Speaker 2: holocaust or some sort of like ridiculous and the most
Speaker 2: smearing way. We have to be adult in the way
Speaker 2: that we can talk about that conversation.
Speaker 3: And so, like what I just pointed.
Speaker 2: Out with the Seria thing is a perfect example of
Speaker 2: why I liked schedule AFT. I'm like, yeah, it's good,
Speaker 2: get them out of there. They're actively subvert the commander
Speaker 2: in chief. Bigger than Trump too. This is a Biden problem.
Speaker 3: This isn't everybody problem.
Speaker 1: The last time we discussed this, you know, you said
Speaker 1: you had some you thought Trump would be basically a
Speaker 1: dictator if he got I don't want to put work
Speaker 1: that's I said.
Speaker 2: Trump would pursue many of the most outlandish things if
Speaker 2: he could. But I have enough faith in American institutions
Speaker 2: that that's not going to happen.
Speaker 1: So to me, the issue with that analysis to me
Speaker 1: is that you can't, on the one hand, say like, oh,
Speaker 1: the institution's held last time, and he was held in
Speaker 1: check bye by the way some people like Kelly and Mattis,
Speaker 1: et cetera, and Millie, But also I want none of
Speaker 1: those people in this administration, and I want them to
Speaker 1: just destroy, actively destroy the institutions that did keep him
Speaker 1: in check last time. And also it also leaves out
Speaker 1: the fact that the landscape is different since you have
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court decision that basically says you're immune for acts.
Speaker 4: That you take in office.
Speaker 1: So to me, that's kind of trying to have it
Speaker 1: both ways of saying, yeah, well, the institutions held last time,
Speaker 1: but also I don't want those institutions around this time
Speaker 1: to hold them in check.
Speaker 2: Very easy to explain in terms of what is it,
Speaker 2: Like what did you reference, like shoot people in the
Speaker 2: lag or whatever. Yeah, that's not going to happen, even
Speaker 2: under so called Schedule F. But the example I gave of, hey,
Speaker 2: you need to withdraw from Syria and then they fake
Speaker 2: the numbers is specifically in the Pentagon and then give
Speaker 2: them false information to the Commander in chief and don't
Speaker 2: carry out that order.
Speaker 3: I think that needs to go. That's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 3: Why I don't think that those are actually mutually exclusive.
Speaker 1: Why are you so confident that if you so. Last time,
Speaker 1: when you know, when Trump was like, why can't the
Speaker 1: military just come in and shoot shoot protesters in the
Speaker 1: legs or something that was you know what he said,
Speaker 1: would I?
Speaker 4: I believe that he.
Speaker 1: Said that you had Milli in place to be like,
Speaker 1: you can't do that, right, And the whole goal of
Speaker 1: the you know Project twenty twenty five and many of
Speaker 1: the most organized conservative efforts in the meantime is to
Speaker 1: make sure that you don't have someone like Millie in
Speaker 1: place who can say like, no, we're not doing that,
Speaker 1: that you have quote unquote loyalists, like that's Trump's number
Speaker 1: one goal. You see it already, you know, in the
Speaker 1: choice of like jd Vance as vice president. The number
Speaker 1: one goal is to make sure that the people who
Speaker 1: are in place this time will do whatever he says,
Speaker 1: whether it is appropriate, lawful, moral, or not. And so
Speaker 1: that's why I don't think you can have so much
Speaker 1: confidence that like, if he you know, wants to go
Speaker 1: in that direction next time, you're going to have someone
Speaker 1: in place who's going to be like, no, you can't
Speaker 1: do that. And you know the context of John Kelly,
Speaker 1: the quotes that we played for you, the audio we
Speaker 1: played for you. That was in an interview with the
Speaker 1: New York Times. He apparently, you know, this reporter had
Speaker 1: been trying to get him on the record for a
Speaker 1: really long time, and he didn't want to do it,
Speaker 1: didn't want to do it, didn't want to do it.
Speaker 1: And then what he says triggered him to come out
Speaker 1: now is Trump's repeated comments about using the military against
Speaker 1: the enemy within and for him, a bright red line,
Speaker 1: which it should be for all of us, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: in American public life, is turning the military against civilian populations.
Speaker 1: So when you know what he tried to do last time,
Speaker 1: when you know what he's saying publicly, when people who
Speaker 1: know him way better than we do and have been
Speaker 1: around him and seeing him in action way more than
Speaker 1: we have, when all of them are saying this like it's,
Speaker 1: you know, whether you want to use the F word
Speaker 1: fascist or not, like this guy is want to be
Speaker 1: dictator and really could be very dangerous next time around.
Speaker 1: I just I can't hand wave that away given what
Speaker 1: we've seen him already do at this point.
Speaker 2: Again, I understand, but it just substantively seems very different
Speaker 2: to me than I mean. Okay, let's say the theoretical
Speaker 2: chain of command. For you need to go shoot people
Speaker 2: on American streets, you would need the general to carry
Speaker 2: it out. You would need to pass it down to
Speaker 2: the National Guard, and the individual soldiers would actually carry
Speaker 2: carry that out. Call me crazy, too optimistic, don't think
Speaker 2: it's going to happen.
Speaker 1: We did see protesters quite viciously attacked out front of
Speaker 1: the White House during the Black Lives Matter.
Speaker 2: By the decent police, not on the order of the
Speaker 2: President or the National Guard.
Speaker 4: It was.
Speaker 1: It was the National Guard. There were federal law enforcement
Speaker 1: officers there. It was right outside.
Speaker 3: Done by it. It was done.
Speaker 1: You're forgetting it was done in the service of enabling
Speaker 1: that bizarre Trump photo off with the Bible. So that
Speaker 1: was done at Trump's behest, and that it was.
Speaker 4: At a time. Yes, I know plenty of the protests
Speaker 4: were violent.
Speaker 1: It was at a time they were completely peaceful, and
Speaker 1: you know they were viciously attacked. So I don't again,
Speaker 1: I just to say it's impossible, I can't imagine it happening, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: I given what we've already seen, I just I just
Speaker 1: don't have that book.
Speaker 3: I mean, And that's fine. People can vote the way
Speaker 3: that they want.
Speaker 2: There's a big difference to me between DC cops and
Speaker 2: local cops tear gassing some people to get them out
Speaker 2: of a square or whatever. So Trump can take a
Speaker 2: photo op and literally trying to shoot people and occupy
Speaker 2: the country. Like, if you believe that, then, frankly, I
Speaker 2: have my whole voting GUYE today, go vote for Kamala.
Speaker 2: If you don't believe that, and you think it'll work
Speaker 2: its way out in the way that I laid out
Speaker 2: in terms of the President's going to issue an order
Speaker 2: and we're going to actually see the deep state or
Speaker 2: whatever maybe come to heal and execute these orders, and
Speaker 2: you should vote for Trump or vote you know, it's
Speaker 2: up to you. But my point is that it seems
Speaker 2: very clear that there's obviously like an Overton window within
Speaker 2: what we're talking about here, and that this idea of
Speaker 2: literally shooting people or enemy from within camps of US
Speaker 2: citizens is not going to happen.
Speaker 3: If you believe it's going to happen, then don't vote
Speaker 3: for him.
Speaker 2: I really don't know what to tell you. Like, that's
Speaker 2: the argument that I think is very clear. I think
Speaker 2: that's how the government should work. Specifically, both within the
Speaker 2: bounds and then also you know, disobeying so called unlawful orders.
Speaker 2: What I saw when uncover the White House is the
Speaker 2: General McMaster, General Kelly, and General Madis willfully undercut the
Speaker 2: President of the United States and tried it every turn
Speaker 2: not to execute his foreign policy. My criticism of Trump
Speaker 2: actually would be that you such a fool that you
Speaker 2: allowed them to do so for two years, and that
Speaker 2: you didn't use the full force of your office to say,
Speaker 2: who were you? Get out of here. The guy comes in,
Speaker 2: he says, I want to withdraw from Afghanistan. McMaster's like, no,
Speaker 2: you need to surge in Afghanistan. And Trump signs that off.
Speaker 2: So that's my criticism of Trump. But that's not the
Speaker 2: criticism that media and Kelly and all these other people were.
Speaker 2: It's very much like, oh, you need to trust me,
Speaker 2: you know, because I was some four star general, and
Speaker 2: you know that's another thing, these four star generals like, well,
Speaker 2: you think they're the greatest people in the world.
Speaker 3: I covered the Pentagon. There's some of the biggest liars
Speaker 3: out there.
Speaker 2: Go look at the way that they all talked about Afghanistan,
Speaker 2: Like why will you trust exactly what everything these people say,
Speaker 2: this isn't even about General Kelly per Se, But it's
Speaker 2: like anytime some general on CNN or whatever is like
Speaker 2: talking about his past service and how we're supposed to
Speaker 2: revere them. I just can't help but think the Afghanistan
Speaker 2: papers and I read about him, every single commander of
Speaker 2: that are of the US forces in Afghanistan lied to
Speaker 2: the American people. So what credibility do you have with me?
Speaker 2: So I guess it just comes down to like what
Speaker 2: you really think is going to have and within this
Speaker 2: specific situation, and also whether you find these people as
Speaker 2: eminently credible and you want them to run the country
Speaker 2: for me, absolutely not.
Speaker 3: I don't want these people around.
Speaker 1: What do you make though of the fact that so
Speaker 1: many of the people who you know, who supported, I
Speaker 1: mean voted for Trump last time, who were lifelong Republicans,
Speaker 1: who were you know, as comfortable enough with his leadership
Speaker 1: that they were willing to serve in his administration, that
Speaker 1: they all have very similar things to say.
Speaker 2: I make of it exactly what I just said. I
Speaker 2: think that their neo institution or their deep institutionalists, that
Speaker 2: they have a committed internationalist worldview, having covered and even
Speaker 2: been in off the record conversations with General Kelly, with
Speaker 2: General Madison, all these other people. They they saw their
Speaker 2: role as very specific, we need to protect the republic
Speaker 2: from Donald Trump. I don't think that these people should
Speaker 2: be quote unquote protecting a democratic elected leader from any
Speaker 2: or the republic quote unquote from a democratic elected representative
Speaker 2: they like. For example, Mattis saw his entire role as
Speaker 2: stopping Trump's blunt America first instincts and don't forget resigned
Speaker 2: over what over the ceial withdrawal order that eventually came
Speaker 2: to a head. General Kelly, same thing, General McMaster, same thing.
Speaker 2: They saw their.
Speaker 3: Role as Mikes. So what's up.
Speaker 4: How about Mike?
Speaker 2: Well, Mike Pen's a different story. And actually, I think
Speaker 2: that criticism is pretty legitimate. I mean, I've never sat
Speaker 2: here made some stop.
Speaker 1: That's the thing, is what they are saying is honestly
Speaker 1: very similar to what Mike Pence is saying. And you know,
Speaker 1: I would have put a lot more stock in the
Speaker 1: argument you're making prior to January sixth. And you know,
Speaker 1: we were very lucky that at that time there were
Speaker 1: still a few people to tell Donald Trump no that
Speaker 1: it wasn't even you know, worse than it ended up being,
Speaker 1: and it was.
Speaker 4: It was a horrifying day.
Speaker 1: It was it was bad, Like the attempt to steal
Speaker 1: an election was really bad. So I just can't be
Speaker 1: so blase at this point of like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't want anyone around who is an institutionalist. I
Speaker 1: want Donald Trump to be able to exercise his most
Speaker 1: unchecked impulses this time. I just can't, Like, I just
Speaker 1: can't at this point.
Speaker 3: I get where coming from. I laid out in a
Speaker 3: January six position.
Speaker 4: He didn't change her what the January analysis.
Speaker 2: At all, of course, But what happened then was the
Speaker 2: result of the democratic process.
Speaker 12: Right.
Speaker 2: Well, well, let's look at the current landscape of January
Speaker 2: sixth and whether it can happen again.
Speaker 3: The Electoral Count Act has passed.
Speaker 2: The Vice President can no longer have any ambiguity on
Speaker 2: certifying the election. Five out of the seven swing states
Speaker 2: are ruled by Democrats, which would require certification under the
Speaker 2: Electoral Count Acts.
Speaker 3: So that's not going to happen.
Speaker 2: Number Three, Rudy Giuliani and all of the other legal
Speaker 2: associates who helped Trump do this are literally bankrupt. Rudy
Speaker 2: was ordered yesterday to turn his Mercedes over to the
Speaker 2: Department of Justice. Jenna Ellis had to plead guilty, Sidney
Speaker 2: Powell had to plead guilty. They're all completely bankrupts. What's
Speaker 2: his name, John Eastman has basically been run out of town.
Speaker 2: I believe he's either been disbarred or not. I forget
Speaker 2: Rudy's been disbarred. Every person who's been connected to that
Speaker 2: has suffered massively at the hands of state, and Trump
Speaker 2: himself is under federal indictment and it's not like he
Speaker 2: didn't pay a price for So do I think it's
Speaker 2: going to happen again, No, I absolutely don't.
Speaker 3: That was This is a case.
Speaker 2: Of genuinely institutions coming together, I think in a totally
Speaker 2: legitimate way of trying to constrain the universe where anything
Speaker 2: like this could happen. So that's what I would say.
Speaker 2: I'm not that worried about that playing out like this again.
Speaker 2: If you want to say, an extraordinary circumstance of something different, okay,
Speaker 2: maybe you know Again, I think within the gut bounds
Speaker 2: of the system, people have really learned their lesson from
Speaker 2: January sixth, And if they haven't, then I think they're
Speaker 2: going to pay a big price for it. So that
Speaker 2: would be my response on a lot of that, Like
Speaker 2: just mechanically, a lot of the things that happened last
Speaker 2: time cannot happen again. And if they want to see
Speaker 2: in state court and lose every single case like they
Speaker 2: did last time around, be my guest, I guess you
Speaker 2: know you want to waste some legal fees.
Speaker 1: Fine, it just feels like you're talking about, you know, Okay,
Speaker 1: the exact set of circumstances that led to the exact
Speaker 1: situation of January sixth have you know, have been somewhat mitigated, so.
Speaker 4: We don't have anything to worry about.
Speaker 1: And when I think about that, about the events of
Speaker 1: January six and stop the steal in all of that,
Speaker 1: it's less about Okay, Can that exact sequence of events
Speaker 1: happen again?
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Probably not because he's not president right now, so that
Speaker 1: makes things that, you know, makes things different right there.
Speaker 1: But can is that indicative of the type of thing
Speaker 1: that he can foment when he's at his worst?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 1: And is that indicative of you know, when you put
Speaker 1: that together with what the people many people who are
Speaker 1: in his administration, including his own vice president who stood
Speaker 1: by him through everything up into the very end, what
Speaker 1: they say about his worst impulses. You know, I think
Speaker 1: that that is I think that is very troubling and
Speaker 1: should be taken seriously. And then, you know, the last
Speaker 1: thing I'll say that we can move on to to
Speaker 1: Cammalist town Hall and take a look at what she's
Speaker 1: saying in her closing closing pitch and also some of
Speaker 1: the latest polls. But the last thing I'll say is also,
Speaker 1: you do have a different landscape now with the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court really saying like you have carbe blanche and so
Speaker 1: even that theoretical institutional chet of you know, the highest
Speaker 1: court in the land is now effectively gone. So if
Speaker 1: you're taking that away, you're taking away any of the
Speaker 1: people who were like, you know, institutionalists who were writing
Speaker 1: memos to him saying, you know, like Don McGahn writing
Speaker 1: memos to him saying was you cannot just turn the
Speaker 1: Department of Justice into your own like like toy to
Speaker 1: prosecute your political enemies. You just literally can't do that.
Speaker 1: You take those people out of the picture. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think it is I think it is a dangerous
Speaker 1: situation and one that people should take into consideration.
Speaker 4: Now, I'm not telling.
Speaker 1: People how they have to vote, or that this has
Speaker 1: to be their number one issue, et cetera. But you know,
Speaker 1: a factor in the people who were in the room
Speaker 1: with him, who saw how he operates and how he thinks,
Speaker 1: and to take into consideration what we've seen happen and
Speaker 1: his own public comments. You know, I don't think it's
Speaker 1: like dranged, dur insane. Oh to take those things very
Speaker 1: seriously given what we've seen at the time.
Speaker 3: I don't think is dranger insane. People can make up
Speaker 3: their minds themselves.
Speaker 2: All right, let's go to the town hall, like you said,
Speaker 2: And before we get to that, we're going to start
Speaker 2: with a little bit of polling. There was a fun
Speaker 2: analysis here by Nate Silver. Let's put this up there
Speaker 2: on the screen. Silver writes in a new column, quote,
Speaker 2: here's what my gut says about the election. But don't
Speaker 2: trust anyone's gut, even mine. And actually, if you read
Speaker 2: the column, Crystal, he basically says, if you asked me
Speaker 2: to trust my gut, I've been vacuuming so much media
Speaker 2: and looking at so much disparate data that I think
Speaker 2: that Donald Trump is going to win. But that's exactly
Speaker 2: why you shouldn't even trust my gut. I mean, I
Speaker 2: don't know, what do you think the fact that he
Speaker 2: says his gut thinks that Trump is going to win,
Speaker 2: it means something to me. I don't actually take seriously
Speaker 2: his whole don't trust my gut. Sean Trendy over at RCP,
Speaker 2: somebody who was a real canary ahead of the twenty
Speaker 2: sixteen election.
Speaker 3: So I've always trusted what he has to say. He
Speaker 3: actually said the same thing.
Speaker 2: He's like, Yeah, if you asked me to put my
Speaker 2: chips on something, I would put it on Trump. And
Speaker 2: he's like, but the smarter move, if I was at
Speaker 2: the table, would be to get all my chips and
Speaker 2: walk away, and for what the outcome would be. So
Speaker 2: I can't totally handwave it away. And there are signs,
Speaker 2: you know, there are signs everywhere. Harry Enton, for example,
Speaker 2: over at CNN talking about independence and some of the
Speaker 2: movement away from Kamala Harris, Let's take.
Speaker 14: A listen center of the electorate.
Speaker 15: You go last time around, Joe Biden won these voters
Speaker 15: by eleven points. You look at September of twenty twenty four,
Speaker 15: a month ago, Kamala Harris was up five points among independents.
Speaker 15: You look now, though, look at this, she's only up
Speaker 15: by two points among a key block center of the electorate,
Speaker 15: down nine points where from Biden was at the end
Speaker 15: of the twenty twenty campaign. Of course, this is a
Speaker 15: national picture. This is a national picture. What is going
Speaker 15: on in those key battleground states Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, the
Speaker 15: Great Lakes, that blue wall, right, Joe Biden last time
Speaker 15: around one and by five points over Donald Trump. Look
Speaker 15: at where we are today. This is the type of
Speaker 15: movement Donald Trump likes to see in the center of
Speaker 15: the electorate. Up by a point now, of course that's
Speaker 15: well with than any margin of arra right. But again,
Speaker 15: it's the movement. It's the trends, mister Verman, that we're
Speaker 15: looking at.
Speaker 14: And when you.
Speaker 15: Flip a group from going plus five Biden to now
Speaker 15: plus one Trump, that's the type of movement Donald Trump
Speaker 15: loves to say. And it's a type of movement that
Speaker 15: I think gives democrats some ageitiz use. Usually the way
Speaker 15: independence go so goes the nation. So candidates who won
Speaker 15: independence and elections since nineteen hundred and fifty two, look
Speaker 15: at this one independence won the election fifteen lost the
Speaker 15: election despite winning independence just three so it is possible
Speaker 15: to lose independence and win the election. But the bottom
Speaker 15: line is that's only happened three times. It was Nixon
Speaker 15: in sixty eight, it was four and seventy six, and
Speaker 15: it was carrying two thousand and four.
Speaker 2: There you go, and if you take a lot of it,
Speaker 2: that data coming out, We're going to talk about it
Speaker 2: in our next block about Nevada. Things are looking very
Speaker 2: very good for Republicans, at the very least clearly the
Speaker 2: movement amongst Latinos and all there is very obvious, and
Speaker 2: for traditional blue demographics not coming out to vote or
Speaker 2: at the very least being outnumbered pretty dramatically. So I
Speaker 2: put all that together and I mean, it's relatively a
Speaker 2: good situation for Trump, but of course, you know, a
Speaker 2: lot can happen. And what we talked about with Dave
Speaker 2: Wigel remains a key point. Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina
Speaker 2: can all go Trump and calmuck. It's still with in
Speaker 2: the election. As long as the Nebraska what is it
Speaker 2: Nebraska one?
Speaker 3: Is that what it is? I've forgot whatever that Nebraska.
Speaker 4: Whatever, the one that's the swing district question.
Speaker 2: Swing district as long as it goes there to go
Speaker 2: two hundred and seventy electors, and.
Speaker 1: The poll that one looks like pretty much it's in
Speaker 1: the bag for them based on what we've got, what
Speaker 1: I've seen right now. But yeah, so if you get
Speaker 1: that and you get the Blue Wall States, and I
Speaker 1: do feel like based on the polling we've seen and
Speaker 1: based on the tea leaves you can read from the
Speaker 1: early vote, the Blue Wall States are going in a
Speaker 1: different direction than the sun Belt state, which was hard.
Speaker 2: To say in PA, but in the in the rest
Speaker 2: of them, in Michigan specifically, it does look good for them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it would make some sense, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: just given the different demographic groups, how they're shifting and
Speaker 1: realigning the campaign's different strategies, et cetera. But you know,
Speaker 1: if you want to understand the Kamala Harris strategy down
Speaker 1: the stretch of like the Liz Cheney tour and the
Speaker 1: you know, the going on Fox News and the fascism
Speaker 1: democracy pitch here at the end, I think it's all
Speaker 1: because they see those numbers with independence and they feel
Speaker 1: they need to shore them up, and they're concerned that
Speaker 1: people's top two. You know, the things that are holding
Speaker 1: them back from Harris are number one, Trump's favorability creeping
Speaker 1: up a little bit, so he doesn't seem like as
Speaker 1: bad as he used to seem, so trying to you know,
Speaker 1: remind people of like the worst parts of him. And
Speaker 1: number two that they can't quite envision Kamala Harris in
Speaker 1: the commander in chief role and so you know that
Speaker 1: she's too liberal and she's a lightweight if that's the
Speaker 1: core of the campaigns and analysis of why they think independence
Speaker 1: aren't quite as firmly in her camp as they were
Speaker 1: with Joe Biden. Like that's what is leading them to
Speaker 1: the strategy, which again it's not a strategy I'm particularly
Speaker 1: in love with, but that's I think the way that
Speaker 1: they're thinking about these things.
Speaker 4: And so we'll see the big question.
Speaker 1: And you know, one of the big questions with independence
Speaker 1: is previously a lot of times there were significant numbers
Speaker 1: of independents who were just like basically Republicans who just
Speaker 1: didn't really want to call themselves Republicans but then always
Speaker 1: voted for the Republican. Now with you have a trend
Speaker 1: of a lot of young voters who are new into
Speaker 1: the system who don't want to identify call themselves Democrats
Speaker 1: and have all kinds of issues with the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: or Democrats, but will vote Democrat. And who are you know,
Speaker 1: who are ultimately like you know, a lot of Bernie
Speaker 1: type young people who are like, no, I don't really
Speaker 1: associate with the Democratic Party. But there's no way in
Speaker 1: hell they're voting for Republicans, especially young women.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I think that's particularly like a significant trend there, And
Speaker 1: that was one thing we're going to talk some about
Speaker 1: the Nevada early vote numbers, which, by the way, I
Speaker 1: do think, look, you know, good for Republicans. I don't
Speaker 1: think there's any like spinning that away. But one of
Speaker 1: the things that was being pointed out is a lot
Speaker 1: of the independents who are voting in Nevada are pretty young,
Speaker 1: and there is this trend in American life now of
Speaker 1: young people identify as independence but disproportionately voting Democrats. So anyway,
Speaker 1: we'll see how it all shakes out. We'll see if
Speaker 1: those people show up to vote on election day or before.
Speaker 2: That is a good corollary, and that is one way
Speaker 2: where Nevada could still go blue is if the what
Speaker 2: is it called other? I think on the ballot it's
Speaker 2: not independent. It actually is like unidentified.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's what it is.
Speaker 4: But anyway, other, let's go with that.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's get to the town hall. This is really
Speaker 2: it was interesting stuff. So CNN last night was supposed
Speaker 2: to be a debate, and previously had been one that
Speaker 2: they had floated where Donald Trump would appear. They ended
Speaker 2: up turning it into a town hall and there were
Speaker 2: a couple of different areas which we thought were interesting.
Speaker 2: First and foremost is one that Kamala has really struggled on,
Speaker 2: this question of what would you do differently from Biden?
Speaker 3: And then also have you ever made a mistake?
Speaker 2: What I put in those two is the category of
Speaker 2: like political introspection and the opportunity to clean up something
Speaker 2: that you see with the American people. Frankly, I thought
Speaker 2: she had a terrible answer, but you'd make up your mind.
Speaker 2: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 9: I don't think i've ever heard the former president had
Speaker 9: made a mistake. A lot of politicians don't. Is there
Speaker 9: something you can point to in your life, political life,
Speaker 9: or in your life in the last four years.
Speaker 14: That you think is a mistake? That you have learned from.
Speaker 8: I mean, I've made many mistakes and they range from
Speaker 8: you know, if you've ever parented a child, you know
Speaker 8: you make lots of mistakes too. In my role as
Speaker 8: vice president, I mean, I've probably worked very hard at
Speaker 8: making sure that I am well versed on issues, and
Speaker 8: I think that is very important. It's a mistake not
Speaker 8: to be well versed on an issue and feel compelled
Speaker 8: to answer a question.
Speaker 1: You know, It's so funny because she struggles the most.
Speaker 1: I feel like almost in friendly settings.
Speaker 3: I totally agree.
Speaker 1: When you know, when she sat down with Brett Barry,
Speaker 1: you and I had a different analysis of that interview,
Speaker 1: but you could when we shared the assessment of was
Speaker 1: her debate performance right? She knew it was going to
Speaker 1: be adversary, though she prepared like crazy, and the questions
Speaker 1: none of them are like this sort of soft and squish.
Speaker 1: She like, tell me about you, And that's when she struggles.
Speaker 1: Is when you get the softball, like tell me about
Speaker 1: a mistake you made, or tell me about you know,
Speaker 1: something personal that requires you to be like have say
Speaker 1: something that wasn't in the briefing book, that's when she
Speaker 1: really struggles. And also I think in these settings that
Speaker 1: are more friendly. I also don't think she prepares for
Speaker 1: the same degree and comes in with the She doesn't
Speaker 1: come in in the same mental space and with the
Speaker 1: same level preparation that she does for a breadbare or
Speaker 1: a Trump interview. So yeah, when you ask her just
Speaker 1: to say something like normal and human, she hasn't studied
Speaker 1: the answer and she struggles.
Speaker 2: The crazy part about preparation, she didn't do anything yesterday.
Speaker 2: If you look at her schedule, she had one thing,
Speaker 2: that three minute press conference on John Kelly.
Speaker 3: She took no questions. That was it.
Speaker 2: She was at there at her house preparing for the
Speaker 2: CNN town hall. So what were you doing when you
Speaker 2: were preparing? It's mystifying. Another area where Cooper really caught
Speaker 2: her was on em This was actually a fun short
Speaker 2: circuit moment because Democrats and Kamma clearly are used to
Speaker 2: four years of making fun of Trump on the border wall.
Speaker 3: And of being totally opposed to his border policy.
Speaker 2: Of course, ever since she became the candidate, she's like, no,
Speaker 2: I agree with the border bill, and that at the
Speaker 2: very least contains some of Trump's border policy. So she
Speaker 2: is short circuits halfway in between because she has the
Speaker 2: old routine and Cooper's like, hold on, wait a second,
Speaker 2: don't you also support a border wall? And you can
Speaker 2: watch like the gears turning in her head. Let's take
Speaker 2: a listen.
Speaker 14: Is a border wall stupid?
Speaker 8: Well, let's talk about Donald Trump and that border wall?
Speaker 8: So remember Donald Trump said Mexico would pay for it.
Speaker 8: Come on, they didn't. How much of that wall did
Speaker 8: he build?
Speaker 14: I think the.
Speaker 8: Last number I saw I was about two percent. And
Speaker 8: then when it came time for him to do a
Speaker 8: photo up, you know where he did it in the
Speaker 8: part of the wall that President Obama built.
Speaker 9: But you're agreed to a bill that would ear mark
Speaker 9: six hundred and fifty million dollars to continue building that way.
Speaker 8: I pledge that I am going to bring forward that
Speaker 8: bipartisan bill to further strengthen and secure our border. Yes
Speaker 8: i am, and I'm going to work across the aisle
Speaker 8: to pass a comprehensive bill that deals with a broken
Speaker 8: immigration system. I think Jackson's question part of it was
Speaker 8: to acknowledge that America has always had migration, but there
Speaker 8: needs to be a legal process for it. People have
Speaker 8: to earn it, and that's the point that I think
Speaker 8: is the most important point that can be made, which
Speaker 8: is we need a president oh is grounded in common
Speaker 8: sense and practical outcomes, like let's just fix this thing,
Speaker 8: Let's just fix it. Why is there any ideological perspective
Speaker 8: on the let's just fix the problem.
Speaker 9: To fix the problem, you're doing this compromise bill. It
Speaker 9: does call for six hundred and fifty million dollars that
Speaker 9: was ear marked under Trump to actually still go to
Speaker 9: build the world.
Speaker 8: I'm not afraid of good ideas where they occurred.
Speaker 14: You don't think it's stupid anymore. I think what he.
Speaker 8: Did and how he did it was did not make
Speaker 8: much sense because he actually didn't do much of anything.
Speaker 8: I just talked about that wall, right, we just.
Speaker 9: Talked about it.
Speaker 8: He didn't actually do much of anything.
Speaker 14: But you do want to build some wall.
Speaker 8: I want to strengthen our border.
Speaker 4: See this is brutal.
Speaker 1: You know, I've been a critic of this major immigration
Speaker 1: imagine going back to twenty sixteen and telling us that
Speaker 1: a Democrat would flail around and stumble and not know
Speaker 1: what to say on.
Speaker 4: What is the border wall? Good or back? Like smart?
Speaker 1: And you know, I know what they're doing is their
Speaker 1: ideas like let's try to blunt this idea that she's
Speaker 1: too liberal and just going to open the borders and
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. But I just think this answer right
Speaker 1: here simplifies why. I mean, obviously I have issues with
Speaker 1: the morality of their new like we want to be
Speaker 1: more hawckey, We're going to try to get to Trump's
Speaker 1: right on immigration policy.
Speaker 3: Like I have more going to fish at.
Speaker 1: But on the this answer exemplifies why the politics of
Speaker 1: it are.
Speaker 4: A mess too.
Speaker 1: And you know, she goes back to this tick of
Speaker 1: when something's uncomfortable, she laughs.
Speaker 4: So we saw this in both of the last two questions,
Speaker 4: and I do it too.
Speaker 1: She's trying to make a joke about Trump and just
Speaker 1: try hope that Anderson is going to move away. And
Speaker 1: to his credit, he's like, but wait a second. You
Speaker 1: used to say the border wall is dumb. Now you're
Speaker 1: saying you need money just before the border wall. And
Speaker 1: she can't say anything other than like, well, the way
Speaker 1: he did it is bad because he didn't build enough
Speaker 1: border wall, but also not willing to go back on
Speaker 1: me saying that the border wall was dumb and bad.
Speaker 1: So it's just it's just a mess, and it exacerbates
Speaker 1: the issues around She doesn't stay for anything, and she's
Speaker 1: a bit of a lightweight. That's what kind of comes
Speaker 1: across in this question. So yeah, again, to me, this
Speaker 1: is example number one of why I think the way
Speaker 1: that they have approached immigration by just totally ceding to
Speaker 1: the Republican argument, has been a moral number one, but
Speaker 1: political mistake because it opens you up for moments like
Speaker 1: this which are really fundamentally unanswerable given the position they've
Speaker 1: stayed down.
Speaker 3: I O, well, a twofold.
Speaker 2: So you either own it and then you don't start
Speaker 2: out by reverting to your twenty sixteen talking points about
Speaker 2: the border wall and then get called out there almost immediately,
Speaker 2: or like you said, you don't change your position or
Speaker 2: whatever in the first place, but when you try and
Speaker 2: do both, you look like an idiot, and that that's.
Speaker 3: Really yeah came.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're really going to do this pivot,
Speaker 1: probably the best thing to do would be like, look,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 4: What I was wrong?
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly what hers with Ben here.
Speaker 1: We saw that and we adjusted, and that's what I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna I learn I'm not.
Speaker 1: So ideological that I don't adjust for new facts and
Speaker 1: realities and the reality is blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: Blah' where I was like, yeah, and that's a good answer.
Speaker 4: That would be a lot better.
Speaker 1: But you know, politicians, they never want to admit that
Speaker 1: they got anything wrong. They think it makes them look
Speaker 1: weak and bad, whereas stumbling around like this in a
Speaker 1: completely nonsensical way just makes it look like you don't
Speaker 1: stand for anything.
Speaker 4: And there you go, you probably don't.
Speaker 2: All right, she got a question two on high prices
Speaker 2: and inflation from these were all, by the way, actual
Speaker 2: unregistered voters, at least from what we can tell, they
Speaker 2: don't seem as planted as last time.
Speaker 3: So let's take a listen.
Speaker 14: Let me just ask you about price gouging. I looked
Speaker 14: at your plan.
Speaker 9: You talk about going after price gougers, and I'm quoting
Speaker 9: from the plan on essential goods during emergencies or times
Speaker 9: of crisis.
Speaker 14: I get that.
Speaker 9: How does that help though, someone like Eric with prices
Speaker 9: that for years the grocery price has just been high.
Speaker 8: Well, first of all, Anderson, as you know, and obviously
Speaker 8: Sann has been covering extensively what has been happening in
Speaker 8: the state of Georgia. North Carolina, Florida. It's a real issue.
Speaker 8: I was Attorney General of California. I was the top
Speaker 8: law enforcement officer of the biggest state in the country.
Speaker 8: I took this issue on because it affects a lot
Speaker 8: of people. And I'm not going to apologize for the
Speaker 8: fact that we need to actually deal with accountability when
Speaker 8: these not all in fact most don't. But when companies
Speaker 8: are taking advantage of the desperation and the need of
Speaker 8: the American people. We saw it actually during the pandemic
Speaker 8: as well, where because of supply chain issues there was
Speaker 8: a reduction of supply and then they would inflate the
Speaker 8: price of everyday necessities. Not to mention, by the way, again,
Speaker 8: Donald Trump should be here tonight to talk with you
Speaker 8: and answer your questions. Not he refused to come. But
Speaker 8: understand that part of his plan is to put in
Speaker 8: place a national sales tax of at least twenty percent
Speaker 8: on everyday goods and necessities, and that by economist estimates
Speaker 8: independent economists, would cost you, as the American consumer and
Speaker 8: taxpair and additional four thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 2: So you know, that remains one of our better moments
Speaker 2: now in terms of what they're closing with you hear
Speaker 2: some of that. You're hearing a lot of the character
Speaker 2: stuff as well. Maybe that's a media thing. I'm not
Speaker 2: so sure, but you know, I wanted to do at
Speaker 2: least I guess a fair presentation.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 1: First, well, I think it appears that they're spending a
Speaker 1: lot of money in swing states on ads that focus
Speaker 1: on that.
Speaker 3: Message right there.
Speaker 1: And it also appears from the polling on who do
Speaker 1: you trust on various economic issues that some of this
Speaker 1: messaging has broken through. There was a Bloomberg Swing state poll.
Speaker 1: Maybe we can add this in post guys so people
Speaker 1: can see, But on every economic issue that they surveyed,
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris had closed the trust gap or even surpassed
Speaker 1: Trump as the candidate that swing state voters trust. More so,
Speaker 1: on taxes, Kamala Harris had a little bit of an
Speaker 1: advantage on interest rates, It was very close. On housing costs,
Speaker 1: she had an advantage on cost of everyday goods. They
Speaker 1: were basically tied on healthcare costs. Advantage gas prices was
Speaker 1: the one where he had the largest gap, but even
Speaker 1: there she had closed it significantly. So you know, I
Speaker 1: do think some of this is breaking through I think
Speaker 1: the relentless focus in terms of the ad dollars has worked,
Speaker 1: and it has become an area that is less of
Speaker 1: a vulnerability for her than it might otherwise have been.
Speaker 1: And I think that the other question that people have is, like,
Speaker 1: you know, they may like her plans better, they may
Speaker 1: not have confidence that any of it is really going
Speaker 1: to have And I think that's a general statement about
Speaker 1: the sort of reasonable, like pragmatic nihilism that people have
Speaker 1: about anything getting done in Washington at this point, which
Speaker 1: is not you know, which is not illogical given the
Speaker 1: given how there's just nothing but good luck as far
Speaker 1: as I can see in Washington, DC. So in any case,
Speaker 1: I do think that she deserves credit for the set
Speaker 1: of policies.
Speaker 4: She's put together.
Speaker 1: The ads that they're running on these issues are actually
Speaker 1: very effective, I think, and the way that she's messaged
Speaker 1: on it has clearly done her some favors.
Speaker 2: With us, it's done a little bit favorite and she
Speaker 2: just closed that gap on the economy critical if she
Speaker 2: does end up squeezing it out, that's actually gonna be
Speaker 2: a key reason.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Why, So, final thing I just.
Speaker 2: Wanted to show was David Axelrod just admitting some of
Speaker 2: the unmittable previously about quote word salad city from Kamala
Speaker 2: Harris and is after action on the town hall, Let's
Speaker 2: take a listen.
Speaker 13: When she doesn't want to answer a question, her habit
Speaker 13: is to kind of go to world word salad city.
Speaker 13: And she did that on a couple of answers. One
Speaker 13: was on Israel. Anderson asked a direct question, would you
Speaker 13: be stronger on Israel than Trump? And there was a
Speaker 13: seven minute answer, but none of it related to the
Speaker 13: question he was asking.
Speaker 3: True, I mean Salid City. It was clear too.
Speaker 2: You know, other people there felt kind of uncomfortable, and
Speaker 2: I saw Van Jones say that as well.
Speaker 3: That's where the whole like she has to be flawless.
Speaker 2: He's like almost doing a media criticism element there, but
Speaker 2: actual Rod ran the Obama campaign and he gets it.
Speaker 1: I do think that it is fair to say Trump
Speaker 1: is just how to He just is a unique polity.
Speaker 4: He is held to a different standard. There's no doubt
Speaker 4: about it.
Speaker 1: You know, if a story like the one we cover
Speaker 1: with Dave Weigel, the equivalent of that, I don't even
Speaker 1: know what it would be with Kamala Harris came out,
Speaker 1: it would be a big story like a close Jeffrey
Speaker 1: Epstein associate and some sort of you know, sexual scandal,
Speaker 1: like it would be a big media story, and because
Speaker 1: of Trump, it's not. Trump is given all kinds of
Speaker 1: interviews where you read his words and you're like, I
Speaker 1: just literally don't even know what you are talking about
Speaker 1: right now, And again, it just doesn't get the same
Speaker 1: level of attention and scrutiny as when Kamala Harris goes
Speaker 1: to Ward salad ditty. But I mean that's kind of
Speaker 1: just the political reality and landscape that we live in.
Speaker 1: He does have his own set of unique standards that
Speaker 1: he is held to that are just different than literally
Speaker 1: any other politician, Republican or Democratic, exist.
Speaker 3: Absolutely like again, ye Shakespeare wants
Speaker 12: Speaks