Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm Kitty Couric and this is next question.
Speaker 1: What was that song Maureen McGovern sang in the Poseidon Adventure?
Speaker 1: Am I dating myself?
Speaker 2: This got to be a morning of if we can
Speaker 2: hold on?
Speaker 1: Then This isn't exactly the morning after, but it is
Speaker 1: the night after the twenty twenty four presidential election, and
Speaker 1: I'm talking and debriefing with my good friend Brian Goldsmith. Brian,
Speaker 1: I am so happy to have you here. There's so
Speaker 1: much I want to talk to you about what happened,
Speaker 1: how the country feels, and where we're going with the
Speaker 1: future Trump administration.
Speaker 2: So good evening, good evening, not much to discuss. Kind
Speaker 2: of a slow week, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, really, let's you know. I want to dis first
Speaker 1: start by asking your general reaction to this massive Trump victory.
Speaker 1: I think people thought it was going to be very close,
Speaker 1: and maybe you're going to tell me it was close,
Speaker 1: But when you look at that electoral map, you're like,
Speaker 1: holy shit, that's a lot of red.
Speaker 2: What happened, Well, we may have overcomplicated this election. You
Speaker 2: had an incumbent president with a forty percent approval rating.
Speaker 2: You had sixty five seventy percent of the country saying
Speaker 2: we're on the wrong track. Stuff costs about twenty percent
Speaker 2: more than it did before COVID, and people were broadly
Speaker 2: dissatisfied with the status quo and the party in power,
Speaker 2: so they voted for the out party. Any political scientist
Speaker 2: would tell you that that is the most normal thing
Speaker 2: in the world. But of course Donald Trump is the
Speaker 2: least normal candidate imaginable, and given all of the as
Speaker 2: he would say, huge baggage that he's bringing into this
Speaker 2: race and now into the White House. I think a
Speaker 2: lot of Democrats, including me, thought this time would be different,
Speaker 2: but it wasn't.
Speaker 1: Do you think that a lot of pundits and political
Speaker 1: experts such as yourself, Brian, thought that again his lunacy
Speaker 1: would outweigh people's pain at the pump and the grocery store, etc.
Speaker 2: Well, we thought a couple of things. We thought the
Speaker 2: load was just too much for voters to bear at
Speaker 2: a certain point, the load of Trump right, all his problems.
Speaker 2: You know. We saw a version of this in North Carolina,
Speaker 2: where people wanted to vote for change. The state voted
Speaker 2: Republican for president, and yet they elected the Democrat Josh
Speaker 2: Stein as governor by a pretty big margin, because.
Speaker 1: Well, fairness that his opponent was insane. If Mark Robinson,
Speaker 1: if hadn't been revealed that he was called himself a
Speaker 1: black hitler and liked to watch transgender people have sex,
Speaker 1: you know that was part of his choice in pornography.
Speaker 2: Well, that's just an example of the load is too
Speaker 2: much to bear. So the load was too much for
Speaker 2: voters to bear with Mark Robinson. I think democrats thought,
Speaker 2: just as Mark Robinson was ultimately rendered unelectable based on
Speaker 2: his problems, Donald Trump would be rendered unelectable based on
Speaker 2: his problems. And yeah, he didn't call himself a black Nazi,
Speaker 2: but he did try to overturn a free and fair
Speaker 2: election and instigate a violent insurrection. So you know, Potato Patado.
Speaker 1: Well he's done a lot more than just that massive thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you just look at the last ten
Speaker 1: days of the campaign, and we've talked about this Brian,
Speaker 1: it seemed he was making no effort, as Maureen Dowd
Speaker 1: wrote her Nerd column, to expand his base, to widen
Speaker 1: the net, to get any voter he could, and he
Speaker 1: just drilled down on this sort of obnoxious browie. I
Speaker 1: can say anything and there are no repercussions unhinged kind
Speaker 1: of weird behavior from Philating. I never knew that was
Speaker 1: the verb. By the way, I learned something this week
Speaker 1: filating a microphone and you know, making all these disgusting,
Speaker 1: gross comments called, you know.
Speaker 2: Russ should be shot, saying that his opponent should be arrested.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, Nancy Pelosi is a bitch, Kamala is trash,
Speaker 1: you know, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and more seriously, you know, promising all sorts of
Speaker 2: illegal actions as president. And so you know, to step
Speaker 2: back to answer your question. Yeah, we thought, despite broad
Speaker 2: dissatisfaction with the direction of the country, that Harris had
Speaker 2: run a pretty good campaign. She tried to position herself
Speaker 2: as a change candidate. She closed some of the gap,
Speaker 2: a lot of the gap on handling the economy, and that,
Speaker 2: just as in twenty twenty two, Democrats would overperform because
Speaker 2: of the Trump factor. And what I think we know
Speaker 2: pretty definitively now is that Trump is a unique political
Speaker 2: animal who is kind of untouchable to his supporters no
Speaker 2: matter what he says or does, and brings out a
Speaker 2: pretty big coalition to the polls no matter what. Now,
Speaker 2: his coalition this time is actually pretty different than his
Speaker 2: coalition in twenty sixteen. And we'll get into all of that,
Speaker 2: But to your original point, it was a broad based
Speaker 2: victory in the Swing States. It was a series of
Speaker 2: narrow victories, consistent victories across the Swing States. But he
Speaker 2: wasn't winning the Swing States by five or ten points.
Speaker 2: He was winning them by one or two points. He
Speaker 2: had bigger gains in places where the campaign wasn't actually
Speaker 2: being fought between Harris and Trump on the airwaves, but
Speaker 2: the whole country did seem to move in his direction.
Speaker 1: There is so much to unpack, Brian. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: the constituencies that came out and supported Donald Trump. He
Speaker 1: did surprisingly well or better. I guess it's all relative,
Speaker 1: and you can put this into context for us with
Speaker 1: a lot of groups. Let's first talk about black voters,
Speaker 1: black women. I think ninety percent came out for Kamala Harris.
Speaker 1: Is that correct?
Speaker 2: Yeah, about ninety percent, maybe eighty nine or eighty eight,
Speaker 2: but pretty close to that.
Speaker 1: And that held steady correct for Joe Biden.
Speaker 2: Well, we saw a pretty significant deterioration among black men.
Speaker 2: And I should just say at the outset that this
Speaker 2: data is a little bit early. It still needs to
Speaker 2: cook for a couple of days, a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2: These numbers will change a bit. But directionally, we're talking
Speaker 2: about stuff based on the exit polling that is conducted,
Speaker 2: you know, right after the election. So to answer your question,
Speaker 2: black men, Harris probably only won them by about fifty
Speaker 2: six points. Clinton won them in twenty sixteen by sixty
Speaker 2: nine points. Biden won them by about sixty points, So
Speaker 2: you can see the line going down a little bit.
Speaker 2: Black women, there was some deterioration too. Clinton won them
Speaker 2: by ninety points, a nine zero point margin, went down
Speaker 2: to eighty one points under Biden, went back up a
Speaker 2: little bit for Harris, another black woman, that makes sense,
Speaker 2: to an eighty four point margin. But the significant deterioration
Speaker 2: was among black men. And where I'm sure you're going next,
Speaker 2: Latino men.
Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about Latino men and compare what they
Speaker 1: did in twenty twenty versus twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: Well, this is huge, This is a historic realignment of
Speaker 2: Latino voters. I think political scientus and historians are going
Speaker 2: to be talking about this for a long time because
Speaker 2: what's happening, and it's consistent with the sort of the
Speaker 2: broader story of America. As immigrant groups settle here, have children,
Speaker 2: have grandchildren, they assimilate, and the second generation, in the
Speaker 2: third generation start to vote like white people. And so
Speaker 2: you are seeing non college educated Latinos begin to vote
Speaker 2: like non college educated white voters. And that is bad
Speaker 2: news for Democrats because non college educated white people are
Speaker 2: at the core of the Trump coalition. So let's go
Speaker 2: back to twenty sixteen again. The first time Trump was
Speaker 2: on the ballot, Hillary Clinton won Latino men by thirty
Speaker 2: one points. Then Joe Biden won Latino men by a
Speaker 2: little bit less, by twenty three points. What happened this year,
Speaker 2: Donald Trump won Latino men probably by about a dozen points.
Speaker 2: That is like a thirty five point swing in four years.
Speaker 2: And we can talk about some of the factors that
Speaker 2: might have gone into that, but it's just stunning. And yes,
Speaker 2: her advantage among Latina women narrowed as well, to about
Speaker 2: half of Biden's margin from four years ago.
Speaker 1: So as you say, that's a significant shift that's going
Speaker 1: to be studied by historians, but it's not just a
Speaker 1: generational explanation or assimilation. Are there other reasons for this
Speaker 1: gravitational pull that Latinos had and Latina's had toward Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: We're moving toward educational stratification is the fancy term, but
Speaker 2: sort of sorting in our politics where we have one
Speaker 2: coalition for the college educated and another coalition for working
Speaker 2: class voters who don't have a college degree. That is
Speaker 2: the single best way to figure out today whether someone's
Speaker 2: going to vote for a day Democrat or Republican. Do
Speaker 2: they have a college or an advanced degree. The vast
Speaker 2: majority of Latinos do not. They are increasingly starting to
Speaker 2: vote based on cultural and economic factors more like other
Speaker 2: voters without a college degree, and I think Trump really
Speaker 2: hammered home a number of messages that resonated with that group.
Speaker 2: They feel the pain of higher grocery costs, higher gas
Speaker 2: prices like other working class people do, because they're living
Speaker 2: paycheck to paycheck, and it's not just an inconvenience, it's
Speaker 2: a disaster in their lives when those costs go up
Speaker 2: so substantially. And on cultural issues, they've always been more
Speaker 2: culturally conservative despite voting heavily Democratic, and so you know,
Speaker 2: on issues like transgender care, which the Trump campaign just
Speaker 2: hammered for the last two months, they sided with the Republicans.
Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about college educated Latinos. When you look
Speaker 1: at that group, I don't know if you have numbers
Speaker 1: for them, but does it change dramatically and does that
Speaker 1: college education mitigate some of the cultural issues that make
Speaker 1: them tend to be more conservative.
Speaker 2: So it's interesting what the exit poll provides is voters
Speaker 2: of color, black and brown with a college degree versus without,
Speaker 2: and that the difference is really striking. Harris won voters
Speaker 2: of color who are college graduates by thirty three points.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Voters of color with no degree, she won by a
Speaker 2: narrower margin, by like twenty nine or thirty points, But
Speaker 2: that's largely because you have, you know, black voters in there.
Speaker 2: I think AAPI is included in there. I wish they
Speaker 2: broke out just the Latinos because I think you would see,
Speaker 2: you know, you would see a pretty dramatic difference.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about white women. Hillary Clinton did not win
Speaker 1: the election. One might argue, I'm wrong about this, Brian
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen because the majority of white women voted
Speaker 1: for Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: Well, you're right about that, but white women writ large
Speaker 2: have always been a Republican constituency. They voted for Romney,
Speaker 2: of Robama, for McCain of Robama, et cetera. People thought,
Speaker 2: because Hillary was a white woman, she would narrow that
Speaker 2: gap a little bit more.
Speaker 1: But did she.
Speaker 2: No, she didn't. She basically landed where, you know, where
Speaker 2: Biden did, and that was a you know, that was
Speaker 2: a significant problem. But again you'll see a huge education gap.
Speaker 2: I mean, one of the few areas, maybe the only
Speaker 2: area where Harris grew Democratic support compared to sixteen and
Speaker 2: twenty is among white women with a college degree. White
Speaker 2: women with a college degree were like Kamala Harris's base.
Speaker 2: She won them by sixteen points compared to Biden winning
Speaker 2: them by nine Hillary winning them by about that margin.
Speaker 2: But among white women out a degree, zero improvement. Despite
Speaker 2: Harris being you know, only the second woman to be
Speaker 2: nominated for president, she basically performed the same among that
Speaker 2: group as Biden did four years ago and as Hillary
Speaker 2: did eight years ago.
Speaker 1: When it comes to white women with a college degree,
Speaker 1: if rove Way had not been overturned, do you think
Speaker 1: she would have fared as well with that demographic.
Speaker 2: No, I think Dobbs was a clearly a factor powering
Speaker 2: overperformance among that group, which is strongly pro choice. I
Speaker 2: think that improved her standing among men with a college
Speaker 2: degree as well, but it just wasn't enough. You know,
Speaker 2: you have states like Florida where there was an abortion
Speaker 2: referendum on the ballot. Fifty seven percent of Floridians voted
Speaker 2: the pro choice position and Harris got just shell act
Speaker 2: in Florida, So a lot of voters, I think was
Speaker 2: twenty eight percent of pro choice voters according to the
Speaker 2: exit polling we have voted for Trump. So clearly that
Speaker 2: was just not the most important issue to them.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about young people because I read an article
Speaker 1: before we hopped on about gen Z not really coming
Speaker 1: out for Kamala Harris. Do you have any numbers about
Speaker 1: young voters and what they ended up doing well.
Speaker 2: There are two ways of looking at these groups. There's
Speaker 2: the turnout that is how many people were actually showing
Speaker 2: up to vote, and there's the share that is what
Speaker 2: percentage of the voters who do turn out of somebody
Speaker 2: getting And the turnout was clearly not as big as
Speaker 2: what Democrats were hoping for and expecting. They thought that
Speaker 2: Trump would drive historic turnout and that doesn't seem to
Speaker 2: have happened. And then secondly, Harris performed substantially worse than
Speaker 2: Joe Biden did and worse than Hillary Clinton did among
Speaker 2: a teen to twenty nine year olds. She probably only
Speaker 2: won them by about ten or eleven points. Biden won
Speaker 2: them by twenty four points four years ago. Hillary won
Speaker 2: them by almost twenty points eight years ago. She made
Speaker 2: up for that to a degree by overperforming among seniors.
Speaker 2: There was probably a tie among senior citizens, whereas Trump
Speaker 2: won voters over sixty five in both sixteen and twenty,
Speaker 2: but the change just wasn't nearly as dramatic.
Speaker 1: This is what Peter Hanby wrote in Puck Kamala's Wasted Youth. Sure,
Speaker 1: young white dudes broke for Trump, but Harris also underperformed
Speaker 1: with almost every kind of young person, young white women,
Speaker 1: young black voters, and young Latinos.
Speaker 2: Why well, we're going to be sorting through that for
Speaker 2: a while. I would say a couple of things. One,
Speaker 2: if you're a young person, you're just starting out economically.
Speaker 2: The majority of young people in the country still do
Speaker 2: not have college degrees, and so so they feel stressed
Speaker 2: and burdened by higher costs. They're saddled with more student debt.
Speaker 2: And even though Joe Biden did a lot of stuff
Speaker 2: around student debt. I don't think they felt like their
Speaker 2: economic pain was substantially alleviated. There may have been some
Speaker 2: backlash to Israel Gaza, although we can talk about that
Speaker 2: a little more. I'm still skeptical that that was a
Speaker 2: high priority for a lot of voters. And I also
Speaker 2: think there wasn't like a clear agenda that Harris was
Speaker 2: presenting to them about how young people's lives were going
Speaker 2: to get better and how her administration would represent a
Speaker 2: change versus the last four years the Biden administration.
Speaker 1: We have a lot to unpack and just that answer,
Speaker 1: but just staying with young people, Biden won eighteen to
Speaker 1: twenty nine year olds by a massive twenty five point margin.
Speaker 1: She won them only by thirteen points, so that's a
Speaker 1: significant drop.
Speaker 2: That margin was cut in half.
Speaker 1: If you want to get smarter every morning with a
Speaker 1: breakdown of the news and fascinating takes on health and
Speaker 1: wellness and pop culture, sign up for our daily newsletter
Speaker 1: wake Up Call by going to Katiecuric dot com. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about the Middle East, And as you said, I
Speaker 1: think the economy in most polls was the top priority
Speaker 1: for young people, but Obviously, we had a lot of
Speaker 1: controversy following the attack on Israel of October seventh, with
Speaker 1: protests on college campuses as the war continued, people protesting
Speaker 1: the number of civilian casualties and deaths in Gaza. How
Speaker 1: did Kamala Harris do navigating that? Because I feel like
Speaker 1: she tried to express her support of Israel but also
Speaker 1: her sympathy to the people in Gaza, and it turns out,
Speaker 1: it seems to me, Brian, she pissed both groups off.
Speaker 1: There was that abandon Harris campaign in Michigan. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure how significant that ended up being in the vote.
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about that and then,
Speaker 1: and maybe it's because I live in New York and
Speaker 1: follow a lot of Jewish people on Instagram, and you
Speaker 1: know many Jewish people, and if you're Jewish, so you
Speaker 1: probably talked to people who felt this way supported Trump
Speaker 1: because they felt he would be better for Israel, and
Speaker 1: they became single issue voters on that. So how much
Speaker 1: did this trying to please everyone in a way hurt
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris in your view?
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, I think she was probably expressing
Speaker 2: what her real position is. You know, for twenty years.
Speaker 2: Kamala Harris has been a pretty stalwart ally of Israel
Speaker 2: and Jewish Americans. Her relationship with Jews in the Bay
Speaker 2: Area goes back decades. She actually took her Jewish husband
Speaker 2: on his first trip to Israel after she became a senator.
Speaker 2: So I think that's real. And I also think that
Speaker 2: the Biden Harris administration had real issues with the way
Speaker 2: that Biebe was prosecuting the war and not developing a
Speaker 2: clear goal and an endgame. That said, I don't think
Speaker 2: it was a top concern for a large number of voters.
Speaker 2: The polling was pretty consistent about this. There were a
Speaker 2: lot of people who were very loud on social media
Speaker 2: on one side or the other. I think in New York,
Speaker 2: which is home to the largest Jewish community in the
Speaker 2: United States, there was clearly deterioration of Harris's position versus
Speaker 2: Biden four years ago or Clinton eight years ago.
Speaker 1: In New York City.
Speaker 2: In New York State, Yeah, New York City and Long
Speaker 2: Island and and throughout the state. New York City in
Speaker 2: the suburbs primarily, which is where Jews tend to live,
Speaker 2: But we don't see evidence of that yet. Nationally, in Pennsylvania,
Speaker 2: for example, which has a very substantial Jewish community. She
Speaker 2: seems to have performed about as well as Joe Biden
Speaker 2: did four years ago. So maybe in the New York
Speaker 2: media market, the New York echo chamber, this was a
Speaker 2: bigger deal than it was in California or Pennsylvania, for example.
Speaker 2: And it's interesting. In the exit polling, they asked the question,
Speaker 2: is US support for Israel too strong, not strong enough,
Speaker 2: or about right? Well, sixty one percent of voters thought
Speaker 2: it was not strong enough or about right. Only thirty
Speaker 2: one percent, less than a third thought American support for
Speaker 2: Israel was too strong, and Harris actually won that group
Speaker 2: by like two to one, By more than two to one.
Speaker 2: We did see clearly in Michigan in Dearborn, some pockets
Speaker 2: in certain precincts of Jill Stein's support and a collapse
Speaker 2: in Harris's support. I don't think it was enough to
Speaker 2: have made the difference statewide. I also think it's notable
Speaker 2: that Alyssa Slotkin, who is a pro Israel Jewish woman,
Speaker 2: was elected to the Senate from Michigan on the same
Speaker 2: day and the same election when Kamala Harris lost. So
Speaker 2: if that was the driving issue they wouldn't have voted
Speaker 2: for Slotkin either, So I'm a little skeptical.
Speaker 1: Well, did they vote for Slotkin and Dearborn? No?
Speaker 2: But it was clearly not enough to deprive her of
Speaker 2: a victory. There were enough Trump Slotkin voters that she
Speaker 2: was able to overcome that.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about the polls. You and
Speaker 1: I seemed to talk about the polls every election. Were
Speaker 1: they accurate? This time?
Speaker 2: They look pretty accurate, although misleading, which sounds like a
Speaker 2: contradictory answer. And let me unpack it slightly. What the
Speaker 2: polls essentially showed in the seven battlegrounds. Again, I don't
Speaker 2: really care about national polling because this election is fought
Speaker 2: in seven states, and it's about the electoral college, it's
Speaker 2: not about the national popular vote. So the best polling
Speaker 2: was of these seven states, and essentially what it showed
Speaker 2: was a tie in almost all of these states. And
Speaker 2: the thing that people often forget about polling is the
Speaker 2: margin of error applies to each number, not to the
Speaker 2: margin between the two numbers. So if you see a
Speaker 2: poll that's one candidate at fifty another candidate at forty eight,
Speaker 2: with a margin of plus or minus three, you know
Speaker 2: that means the spread could be fifty three forty five
Speaker 2: and it would still be statistically the same poll that
Speaker 2: you're seeing. And so people overread polling, people ascribed polling
Speaker 2: powers and precision that it doesn't have. And it is
Speaker 2: also the historical pattern that in the end, presidential elections
Speaker 2: tend to move one way or the other. That sounds
Speaker 2: like a very obvious statement, but that is to say,
Speaker 2: it is very rare that you would have of the
Speaker 2: seven battlegrounds three going one way, four going the other.
Speaker 2: It's usually like six to one, seven to zero, because
Speaker 2: the voters are similar and the undecided usually break kind
Speaker 2: of in one direction. And that's what we saw here.
Speaker 2: We saw a pattern of consistent but narrow Trump wins
Speaker 2: in the battlegrounds. And so, you know, people don't like
Speaker 2: in Wisconsin right now it's a you know, it's a
Speaker 2: less than one point Trump win. In Michigan right now,
Speaker 2: it's a one point and change Trump win. In Pennsylvania
Speaker 2: it's a one point you know. So these are tiny margins.
Speaker 2: So you can't say the polling was wrong because this
Speaker 2: was well within the range of what the polling was showing.
Speaker 1: There has been a ton of Monday morning, Wednesday morning quarterbacking,
Speaker 1: and everyone is now setting their sights on the Democratic
Speaker 1: Party and on the way Kamala Harris ran the campaign.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the campaign first, and then we'll talk
Speaker 1: about the larger Democratic Party. If you were giving Kamala
Speaker 1: Harris feedback or the campaign feedback, what would you tell
Speaker 1: them they could have done better or differently?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, we're all geniuses in retrospect. And there's
Speaker 2: a famous JFK story. Right after he won super narrowly
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty, Time magazine called him and his advisors
Speaker 2: chorus skatingly brilliant. I've never heard the word chorus skatingly, Katie.
Speaker 2: You're kind of a vocab nerd, so you probably have.
Speaker 1: I've never heard of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I should look it up. I did years ago.
Speaker 2: And I think it just means like resoundingly impressively something
Speaker 2: like that. And I'm allowed to swear on this podcast,
Speaker 2: aren't I?
Speaker 1: Yes, you are?
Speaker 2: Brian Okay. Well, apparently what JFK said upon reading the
Speaker 2: article is he looked up, he smirked, and he said,
Speaker 2: a couple of votes in the other direction in Texas
Speaker 2: and Florida, and we'd have all been coruscatingly fucking stupid.
Speaker 2: And you know, I think there's something to that. You're
Speaker 2: a genius when you win and you're an idiot when
Speaker 2: you lose. And that having been said, I think the
Speaker 2: macro thing that the Harris campaign missed was broad dissatisfaction
Speaker 2: with Biden and the direction of the country. And she
Speaker 2: never broke from him. She had that horrible moment on
Speaker 2: the view that played in a thousand Trump commercials about
Speaker 2: she couldn't think of a thing she'd have done differently,
Speaker 2: and so she seemed in the end like more of
Speaker 2: the same. And Trump, for all of his flaws, was
Speaker 2: the asshole who brought you lower gas and grocery prices,
Speaker 2: and the change candidate exactly, and the candidate of change.
Speaker 2: And so if you were to rerun the Harris campaign
Speaker 2: and just based on what happened, which was Biden dropping
Speaker 2: out in July and Harris becoming the nominee at that
Speaker 2: point because there was really no time for a process
Speaker 2: and she was the sitting vice president and so it
Speaker 2: couldn't really go to anybody else. She needed to do
Speaker 2: a couple of things, One more definitively break from the
Speaker 2: policies and the record of the Biden administration a little tricky,
Speaker 2: since there's not like a huge historical record of Harris
Speaker 2: disagreeing with Biden about any of those policies, but at
Speaker 2: the very least signaling substantively, not just rhetorically, that the
Speaker 2: next four years would be quite different from the last
Speaker 2: four years, maybe criticizing Biden on something like waiting too
Speaker 2: long to lock down the border or waiting too long
Speaker 2: to pivot to fighting inflation. The second thing is I
Speaker 2: think she should have pushed off clearly against the far
Speaker 2: left of the Democratic Party. She never had a sort
Speaker 2: of Sister Soldia moment, as people described, you know, Bill
Speaker 2: Clinton standing up to Jesse Jackson or this one rap
Speaker 2: star in nineteen ninety two. She could have done that
Speaker 2: on some element of the agenda of the left. She
Speaker 2: could have said, you know what, I was wrong to
Speaker 2: say that there should be taxpayer funding of gender reassignment surgery,
Speaker 2: or I was wrong to have taken the position that
Speaker 2: I did on medicare for all or banning fracking, and
Speaker 2: I will never take that position as president. Instead, she
Speaker 2: sort of tried to thread the needle. She abandoned those
Speaker 2: positions through like statements that are campaign made, but she
Speaker 2: never explained why she abandoned those positions. They just looked
Speaker 2: like political expedients. And I think a lot of voters
Speaker 2: believe that in her heart of hearts, she was more
Speaker 2: of a kind of left wing Canada. And one thing
Speaker 2: we saw on the exit polling is among that critical
Speaker 2: group of voters in the middle who thought that both
Speaker 2: Harris and Trump were too extreme. Trump won those voters
Speaker 2: by a substantial margin. So she really needed to do
Speaker 2: more to push herself to the center.
Speaker 1: Why do you think she didn't And do you think
Speaker 1: she was afraid of alienating voters who still had a
Speaker 1: soft spot for Joe Biden and by the way, despite
Speaker 1: his unpopularity. I mean, I think she was legitimately proud
Speaker 1: of some of their accomplishments, you know, the Infrastructure Bill.
Speaker 1: I think she was probably proud of the Chips Act.
Speaker 1: They are very theoretical things that obviously you can't measure immediately.
Speaker 1: It's not like paying a lot more for eggs or
Speaker 1: yogurt than you did, you know, a year ago, and
Speaker 1: having to really kind of figure out your household budget.
Speaker 1: But there were some pretty impressive accomplishments, weren't there In
Speaker 1: the Biden administration. I feel like they are really getting
Speaker 1: beaten up, maybe unfairly or am I wrong? No?
Speaker 2: I think you're right that there were enormous legislative accomplishments.
Speaker 2: I'm just not sure voters really pay attention or care
Speaker 2: about those, you know, when the retrospective approval of the
Speaker 2: Trump administration is close to fifty and the current approval
Speaker 2: of the Biden administration is close to forty. And Trump
Speaker 2: essentially failed on everything as president except a big tax
Speaker 2: cut for big corporations and the wealthy. And Biden had
Speaker 2: the best sort of record of legislative success of any
Speaker 2: president since LBJ with infrastructure and the American Rescue Plan
Speaker 2: and the Chips Bill and the Electoral count Act and
Speaker 2: just one thing after another. He was like a magician
Speaker 2: dealing with a very closely divided Congress, getting things done,
Speaker 2: getting big things done. You know. I think a lot
Speaker 2: of the political strategy the White House was sort of
Speaker 2: based on the theory that we if we deliver a
Speaker 2: lot of legislation benefiting working class voters, they will reward
Speaker 2: us with their votes. And the problem was, yeah, the
Speaker 2: roads and bridges were getting rebuilt in town. I'm not
Speaker 2: sure people really credited Joe Biden for that, but every
Speaker 2: time they were driving on those roads to the gas
Speaker 2: station of the grocery store, they were punishing Joe Biden
Speaker 2: for that, and by extension, Kamala Harris. And so I
Speaker 2: think Harris did feel a deep sense of loyalty to
Speaker 2: Joe Biden. I think she does think he was a
Speaker 2: very good president. I also think, you know, like a
Speaker 2: lot of vice presidents, it's really awkward. You know, you
Speaker 2: start to say, okay, well, I disagreed with the president
Speaker 2: on X Y or Z. Is there a record of
Speaker 2: you disagreeing with the president on X Y or Z?
Speaker 2: Or are you just saying this out of expedience? Now?
Speaker 2: Are you pissing off constituencies within the coalition to try
Speaker 2: to reach for, you know, theoretical voters in the center.
Speaker 2: Does it seem disingenuous and kind of hurt you more
Speaker 2: than it helps you? I'm not sure. I think she
Speaker 2: could threaded the needle by just more definitively describing why
Speaker 2: and how the next four years would be different than
Speaker 2: the last four years. And it was just it was
Speaker 2: like generalities and nothing like clear.
Speaker 1: It was really strange to me and frustrating. And I've
Speaker 1: said this before on this podcast that she wasn't better
Speaker 1: at answering some of these questions, that she didn't seem
Speaker 1: to be able to communicate a clear, specific vision and
Speaker 1: she doesn't have to get in the weeds on policy,
Speaker 1: but you know, just one or two proposals, or as
Speaker 1: you said, saying, you know, I think we probably made
Speaker 1: some mistakes on immigration early in the administration, right, and
Speaker 1: I feel like she didn't take accountability for anything. And
Speaker 1: if she had admitted maybe some mistakes and things that
Speaker 1: she would like to do differently moving forward, as you say,
Speaker 1: she could have threaded the needle more effectively. And you know,
Speaker 1: couldn't David Pluff and Kamala Harris get together with Joe
Speaker 1: Biden and say, listen, we have to separate ourselves from you.
Speaker 1: Couldn't they have those kinds of conversations and kind of
Speaker 1: agree on some of those things or is that not possible.
Speaker 2: I'd like to think it would be possible. I'm not
Speaker 2: sure whether it's actually possible. Joe Biden is a very
Speaker 2: proud guy with a real chip on his shoulder, and
Speaker 2: I'm not sure he'd appreciate his own vice president pushing
Speaker 2: off against him. But you know, I think you sort
Speaker 2: of ask forgiveness, not permission. You got to win the election.
Speaker 2: That's your job. And if Biden's a little miffed, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe you kiss and make up at the meeting when
Speaker 2: you're president elect. And I just think it's also really
Speaker 2: kind of shortsighted conventional political advice that you never admit
Speaker 2: a mistake because it shows weakness. I actually think it
Speaker 2: shows strength when you admit a mistake. I think it
Speaker 2: breaks through because it doesn't look like typical politicians speak.
Speaker 2: So if Harris had said, you know, I think we
Speaker 2: got that wrong, or I think I was wrong on
Speaker 2: some of the positions I took in twenty nineteen, I learned,
Speaker 2: I grew, I got better.
Speaker 1: And also, I think you have to remember the moment
Speaker 1: we were in culturally right, or.
Speaker 2: The moment we thought we were in in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: As it turns out, Joe Biden read the moment for
Speaker 2: voters a heck of a lot better than like Elizabeth
Speaker 2: Warren and Bernie Sanders, and the editorial page of The
Speaker 2: New York Times did but yes, meaning explain meaning the
Speaker 2: conventional wisdom among like elites and journalists and people who
Speaker 2: live where you and I live in LA and New
Speaker 2: York City in twenty nineteen was we're in the middle
Speaker 2: of this cultural revolution and the country and the Democratic
Speaker 2: Party are moving dramatically to the left, and you've got
Speaker 2: to accommodate this. And you know, Kamala Harris heard that,
Speaker 2: and she responded by taking a whole series of like
Speaker 2: Bernie Sanders positions on a wide variety of issues. Joe
Speaker 2: Biden heard that and ignored it and thought that that
Speaker 2: was wrong and thought that that's not actually where his
Speaker 2: voters were. And Biden was right and Harris was wrong,
Speaker 2: and Biden, you know, resuscitated Harris's career after she completely
Speaker 2: flamed out. I mean, she dropped out of the Democratic
Speaker 2: contest before a single caucus or primary in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: I remember I worked in that primary campaign for another candidate,
Speaker 2: and you know, she she'd started with such promise. She
Speaker 2: took a bunch of far left positions that didn't seem
Speaker 2: authentic to her, and she was kind of between a
Speaker 2: rock and a hard place with voters. Biden saved her
Speaker 2: political career, made her vice president. She adopted Biden's positions
Speaker 2: on just about every issue, which actually did seem more
Speaker 2: authentic because you know, here in California, Harris is not
Speaker 2: known as a far left politic by any strength. She's
Speaker 2: known as a kind of mainstream democrat who was a
Speaker 2: longtime prosecutor.
Speaker 1: And a law and order and made people mad for
Speaker 1: minimum mandatory sentence singing stuff. Right.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, there was a whole kind of series of
Speaker 2: left wing memes in twenty nineteen when she was running
Speaker 2: of Kamal as a cop. I mean, what she actually
Speaker 2: tried to do when she was Attorney General and DA
Speaker 2: of San Francisco was kind of create a third way
Speaker 2: that she called smart on crime, and without belaboring the
Speaker 2: point too much, it was not a far left plan.
Speaker 2: It was a kind of a center left reformist approach
Speaker 2: to criminal justice that was very authentic to who she was.
Speaker 1: Do you think she emphasized abortion too much and not
Speaker 1: pocketbook issues enough.
Speaker 2: I don't know, which is an unsatisfying answer.
Speaker 1: No, that's okay, It's honest.
Speaker 2: I'd like to see more data about the voters who
Speaker 2: were pro choice and voted for Trump. Any are the
Speaker 2: voters who voted for abortion referenda in various states but
Speaker 2: voted for Trump, maybe she should have talked about abortion more.
Speaker 2: That was clearly a big change that favored her. You know,
Speaker 2: she was like wrestling a bear on the economy. Immigration
Speaker 2: was a loser for her. Abortion was the one issue
Speaker 2: where she was clearly in the stronger position. And there's
Speaker 2: a part of me that thinks maybe she should have
Speaker 2: just hammered abortion every day.
Speaker 1: We'll see, because it didn't seem to be a top issue.
Speaker 1: I mean, again, you'll have to go through the data
Speaker 1: from these exit polls because I think the referenda in
Speaker 1: various states, I'm not sure what they'll tell. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'll leave it to that political brain of yours. Let
Speaker 1: me ask you about Joe Biden, though, I mean, there
Speaker 1: was a segment of the population pretty upset about Joe
Speaker 1: Biden kind of waiting till the last minute to drop out,
Speaker 1: and his so called to nablers in the White House
Speaker 1: not being honest about, you know, the fact that he
Speaker 1: was getting older and less capable to do this very
Speaker 1: demanding job. Susan Glasser Steve Schmidt basically were just railing
Speaker 1: against Joe Biden for letting his ego get in the
Speaker 1: way and for not stepping aside a year before, so
Speaker 1: there could have been a proper primary, so the Democratic
Speaker 1: Party would have been able to find the strongest candidate
Speaker 1: who was best equipped to beat Donald Trump. I don't know,
Speaker 1: how are you feeling about all that, Brian.
Speaker 2: I agree with that. I'm mad at Joe Biden. He
Speaker 2: was very clear in twenty twenty that he was going
Speaker 2: to be a one term president. That's what it meant
Speaker 2: when he said he was just a bridge to the
Speaker 2: next generation. That's what it meant when he had that
Speaker 2: big event in Michigan at the end of the primaries
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty, with Whitmer and Corey Booker and Kamala
Speaker 2: and all these people standing behind him saying they're the
Speaker 2: future of the party. You're going to see a lot
Speaker 2: more them than you are of me. I'm just a bridge.
Speaker 2: Voters thought he was too old four years ago, but
Speaker 2: you know, they were willing to sort of go with
Speaker 2: it because he seemed sharp and he wasn't Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: It was just the height of ego folly, willful ignorance
Speaker 2: to think that an eighty one year old could get
Speaker 2: re elected as president of the United States to another
Speaker 2: four year term, especially when the decline was so clear
Speaker 2: and so obvious to everybody except to him. We verged
Speaker 2: into don't believe your lying eyes. And I do resent
Speaker 2: that the team around him apparently never had the cajones.
Speaker 2: As hard as this would be to go to the
Speaker 2: sitting president and say, look, I just don't think this
Speaker 2: is a good idea. Mister President. You've been a great president.
Speaker 2: I know you feel sharp today, but I just don't
Speaker 2: think this is going to work. And this is a
Speaker 2: gamble with the democracy, with the United States of America,
Speaker 2: with the Western Alliance that you cannot take.
Speaker 1: I know this is that could have, would have, should have.
Speaker 1: But if he had dropped out earlier and there had
Speaker 1: been a primary process, do you think we would have
Speaker 1: ended up with Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee.
Speaker 2: No, I don't because I think the question for primary voters,
Speaker 2: who are actually pretty pragmatic in the Democratic Party would
Speaker 2: have been the same as it was four years ago,
Speaker 2: which is who can beat Donald Trump? And I don't
Speaker 2: think she would have been the answer to that question.
Speaker 2: And it's not really her fault. I think it's more
Speaker 2: the fact that she was just you know, she's part
Speaker 2: of the Biden Harris administration. It was very clear the
Speaker 2: Biden Harris administration was just consistently congenitally unpopular. And so
Speaker 2: I think, you know, a Whitmer Warnock ticket, or a
Speaker 2: Shapiro Klobashar ticket, or a you know, boodhagige whatever to
Speaker 2: I mean, you would have had a lot of strong
Speaker 2: candidates running, all of whom would have represented change from
Speaker 2: the status quo and wouldn't have had the baggage on
Speaker 2: inflation and immigration that Harris did.
Speaker 1: And also might that have given her time if she
Speaker 1: was competitive, to hone her message, to introduce herself to
Speaker 1: the public, to become more of a national figure, if
Speaker 1: she hadn't had to do a campaign over the course
Speaker 1: of one hundred and eight days or whatever.
Speaker 2: It was totally and it represents more dumb political conventional
Speaker 2: wisdom like don't admit a mistake, the oh, we can't
Speaker 2: have a primary that would be too divisive. Actually, when
Speaker 2: was the best democratic performance in modern times? Two thousand
Speaker 2: and eight, when we had this ferociously competitive primary that
Speaker 2: went all the way until June between Hillary and Obama,
Speaker 2: it made both of them dramatically better candidates. Obama emerged
Speaker 2: far stronger from that process. Than when he'd entered it.
Speaker 2: So you do need competition, and you do need to
Speaker 2: There's a huge difference between a theoretical candidate and a
Speaker 2: real candidate, and sometimes a real candidate needs some time
Speaker 2: to hone their act and get better. Obama was actually
Speaker 2: a pretty crappy candidate for the first three four months,
Speaker 2: maybe six months that he was running in two thousand
Speaker 2: and seven, and it was the process that made him
Speaker 2: dramatically better and made him find his message.
Speaker 1: There's also some serious soul searching going on about the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party and if it's lost its way. As we've
Speaker 1: noted before, there's been a significant shift. It used to
Speaker 1: be the party of union blue collar workers, and that
Speaker 1: has really shifted over the last few decades, right, and
Speaker 1: now it does seem brian. It is the party of
Speaker 1: college educated, liberal coastal elites.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the urban cosmopolitan party, and they're just not
Speaker 2: enough white, college educated coastal voters to win a presidential election.
Speaker 2: It reminds me of the story of Adlai Stevenson, who
Speaker 2: ran for president twice unsuccessfully, whom the Republicans derided as
Speaker 2: an egghead, and some voter came up to a mintern
Speaker 2: event and said, you know, everythinking American is for you,
Speaker 2: and Stevenson said, well, thank you, ma'am, but I need
Speaker 2: a majority. So I think, you know.
Speaker 1: This is why I love you, Brian, because you know
Speaker 1: stories like this.
Speaker 2: And I think, by the way, some of that disdain
Speaker 2: for working class people comes through among not from Joe Biden,
Speaker 2: not really even from Kamala Harris this time out, but
Speaker 2: from a lot of Democrats. And I think a lot
Speaker 2: of working class voters can see it, can smell it,
Speaker 2: and they don't like it.
Speaker 1: And I would say, I mean Joe Biden made that
Speaker 1: slip about garbage or trash, you know. The last week
Speaker 1: of the campaign, Mark Cuban said he never sees Donald
Speaker 1: Trump with intelligent women. You know. I think those are
Speaker 1: taken as real insults for people who feel dismissed and
Speaker 1: look down upon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Donald Trump never insults any group of voters.
Speaker 2: They all feel very respected by him.
Speaker 1: Well that's the mystery. You know. He is more Teflon
Speaker 1: than Teflon, and I still will never quite understand why
Speaker 1: he is never punished or held accountable for the horrible
Speaker 1: things he says. I think maybe people eat it up
Speaker 1: and they love that he says what they're thinking, and
Speaker 1: that he doesn't have a filter, and he is the
Speaker 1: antithesis of political correctness. And so I think that brings
Speaker 1: me to my next question about sort of woke culture.
Speaker 1: You know, I met Dasha Burns, who's this very good
Speaker 1: young reporter for NBC, and I had dinner with her
Speaker 1: a couple of I guess the night I was interviewing
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi at the ninety second Street Why and I
Speaker 1: asked her because she covered the Trump campaign. He told
Speaker 1: her if she had beautiful skin, because I said, your
Speaker 1: skin is so pretty? She said, funny, Donald Trump told
Speaker 1: me the same thing.
Speaker 2: Must have. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was like, this is really weird. But anyway, you.
Speaker 2: And Trump you really think very similarly about a lot
Speaker 2: of stuff.
Speaker 1: I said, we must have similar taste in women, right,
Speaker 1: So so anyway, I said, why do you think so
Speaker 1: many people are attracted to him? And she said, well,
Speaker 1: I think a little bit. It's lefty lecture culture. And
Speaker 1: I think that was obviously another way of talking to
Speaker 1: about woke culture, this kind of holier than thou self righteous.
Speaker 1: I am much more sensitive and aware and ocurant, you know,
Speaker 1: than you are, And I know all these terms, and
Speaker 1: I do my pronouns, and I do this, and I'm
Speaker 1: much more aware and sensitive and caring and educated than
Speaker 1: you are, right, which I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: felt that way, and I sort of thought that the
Speaker 1: pendulum had swung back a little on that was this
Speaker 1: sort of a woke hangover that was still in the
Speaker 1: ether that turned a lot of voters off.
Speaker 2: Maybe. I mean, I don't think Harris ran a woke
Speaker 2: campaign this time at.
Speaker 1: All, No, but I think they associate it with Democrats,
Speaker 1: you know, even if she didn't do that.
Speaker 2: Well, and there's a lot of video of her saying
Speaker 2: a lot of crazy shit from twenty nineteen, back when
Speaker 2: that was okorant and when people were using French as
Speaker 2: you know, the language of world diplomacy and you know,
Speaker 2: communicating coastal elites. But I think there's a there's a
Speaker 2: healthy part of this, and there's an unhealthy part of this.
Speaker 2: The healthy part of this is we shouldn't get to
Speaker 2: a point where, you know, everything is like pointing fingers
Speaker 2: and assigning blame and just because you're not kind of
Speaker 2: one hundred percent jibing with the latest and greatest way
Speaker 2: of describing diversity, that means you're a bad person that
Speaker 2: that kind of you know, twenty nineteen, twenty twenty culture
Speaker 2: was terrible and exclusionary and pushed a lot of good
Speaker 2: people away from, you know, the Democratic Coalition. The unhealthy
Speaker 2: part is, I do think Trump is a racist and
Speaker 2: a bigot, and I think, you know, he's not only
Speaker 2: sort of a giant middle finger to the establishment in
Speaker 2: Washington and institutions that have let people down. He exposes
Speaker 2: or draws out the sort of the unhealthy, the inner
Speaker 2: id of a lot of people. You know, I think
Speaker 2: the job of a leader is really to bring out
Speaker 2: the best in other people, and he really brings out
Speaker 2: the worst in a lot of other people. You know.
Speaker 2: You see the behavior of a lot of his supporters
Speaker 2: at these rallies before and after, the way that they're
Speaker 2: engaging with other people online, and it's just very nasty
Speaker 2: and very toxic. And so I hope that you know,
Speaker 2: the pendulum doesn't swing so far in the anti woke
Speaker 2: direction that we go back to racism, sexism. I know
Speaker 2: that's not what you were saying, but like, we do
Speaker 2: have a tendency as a country to sort of overreact,
Speaker 2: and I think, you know, it is going to be
Speaker 2: fascinating that, Like, I think it's one in four Latinos
Speaker 2: in America have at least one undocumented family member. So
Speaker 2: if some of these like Latino men who voted for
Speaker 2: Trump to to you know, stick it to woe culture,
Speaker 2: you know, all of a sudden have their abuela deported
Speaker 2: because of the guy that they voted for, that's going
Speaker 2: to seem like a bigger problem than what pronoun you use.
Speaker 1: And we're going to talk about what a Trump administration
Speaker 1: is going to look like in a moment. But getting
Speaker 1: back to the Democratic Party, what can they do to
Speaker 1: attract maybe a different coalition or win back some of
Speaker 1: the voters that were once solidly in their corner. I
Speaker 1: heard Jesse waters is at his name on because sometimes like.
Speaker 2: Full political commentator.
Speaker 1: Yes, hey, yeah, he is sort of you look up
Speaker 1: smarmy in the dictionary and you see his face. But
Speaker 1: he was saying that if the Republicans can hold on
Speaker 1: to this new coalition, it's going to be transformative for
Speaker 1: not only the party but for the country. So how
Speaker 1: does the Democratic Party redefine itself?
Speaker 2: Well, that's going to be obviously the great conversation that
Speaker 2: happens over the next months and years, and there's not
Speaker 2: like an easy, you know, one, one simple trick to
Speaker 2: fix your problems as a Democrat. I think there's a
Speaker 2: lot of stuff. I think we do have to reclaim
Speaker 2: a lot of voters in the center who think that
Speaker 2: we've gone, you know, off the rails on a number
Speaker 2: of these cultural questions and have taken like weird and
Speaker 2: extreme positions. When you see polling that shows voters thinking
Speaker 2: that the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are equally
Speaker 2: out of touch, equally ideological, equally extreme, that's got to
Speaker 2: be very concerning when you're running against Maga, you know.
Speaker 2: And so there's an ideological component to this. I think
Speaker 2: there's also just a you know, a cultural component to this.
Speaker 2: It means nominating candidates like the ones who performed really
Speaker 2: well earlier this week, who are in touch with regular
Speaker 2: Americans and the struggles and the concerns that they have.
Speaker 2: I mean, I would listen to people like Jared Golden
Speaker 2: and Maine who wan one as a House Democrat, even
Speaker 2: in a district that Donald Trump carried by twenty points.
Speaker 2: I would listen to Marie Glusen camp Perez in Washington State,
Speaker 2: who I think is an auto mechanic and is really
Speaker 2: you know, that interesting kind of female working class person
Speaker 2: who's a moderate Democrat and has consistently won a Trump district.
Speaker 2: I would go to the people who are in the
Speaker 2: hard places, who are succeeding in Trump states and Trump districts,
Speaker 2: and watch what they're doing, and then do a lot
Speaker 2: more of that. And that, by the way, stands in
Speaker 2: start contrast to what Bernie Sanders was saying. You know,
Speaker 2: he put out a statement earlier today basically saying Democrats
Speaker 2: have abandoned working class people in our agenda. You should
Speaker 2: adopt my agenda essentially, and you'll reach working class people.
Speaker 2: That would be all well and good if he could
Speaker 2: come up with a single example of a Bernie Sanders
Speaker 2: style socialist who won a swing state or a swing district,
Speaker 2: and he can't because there isn't one. So, you know,
Speaker 2: this fantasy of the kind of the far left that
Speaker 2: you have all of these you know, far left voters
Speaker 2: just waiting to be energized with the right agenda, it
Speaker 2: has never happened. And in fact, when those candidates are nominated,
Speaker 2: Democrats tend to lose in swing districts.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the future and what a Trump administration
Speaker 1: is going to look like. So many people voted for
Speaker 1: him because they believe he will bring prices down, you know,
Speaker 1: at the pump, at the grocery store, right. And I'm
Speaker 1: curious if you think that will happen, because I've also
Speaker 1: read on the other end that if he's so crazy
Speaker 1: about tariffs, those costs are going to trickle down to
Speaker 1: the consumer. And if he does, in fact deport a
Speaker 1: lot of these people, then a lot of agricultural jobs
Speaker 1: that are being done by immigrants will then make food
Speaker 1: prices go up even more. So will you help me
Speaker 1: understand this?
Speaker 2: No, you understand it perfectly. So he's promised one thing,
Speaker 2: and then the stuff that he's going to do will
Speaker 2: produce the opposite effect, so people vote for lower prices.
Speaker 2: He's promised tariffs which will raise prices dramatically, which are
Speaker 2: also inflationary. He's promised mass deportation, which will constrain the
Speaker 2: labor force and also raise prices. His economic agenda has
Speaker 2: been you know, studied by independent economists who say that
Speaker 2: it will spike inflation and potentially throw the country into
Speaker 2: a recession. So you know, he might change his view.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people are a little bit
Speaker 2: too quick to kind of console themselves by saying, ah,
Speaker 2: he doesn't really mean it. You know, his team announced
Speaker 2: today that's starting on day one, January twentieth, he is
Speaker 2: going to begin the largest mass deportation of immigrants that
Speaker 2: the United States has ever seen. So the effect in
Speaker 2: cities like la and Chicago and New York is going
Speaker 2: to be unbelievable. I mean, those cities could be ground
Speaker 2: to a halt, and economic activity in those cities, which
Speaker 2: are the growth engines of the country, could also be
Speaker 2: ground to a halt. So we are in store, I
Speaker 2: think for a level of chaos, confusion, and economic pain
Speaker 2: that is very different from even his first administration. But
Speaker 2: maybe I'm being too negative.
Speaker 1: Now not to mention sort of the heartache on a
Speaker 1: human level.
Speaker 2: Not to even mention that. I mean, you remember those
Speaker 2: heartbreaking pictures of kids getting separated from their parents at
Speaker 2: the border. Well, those were migrants. Those weren't American citizens.
Speaker 2: What he's promising is to deport eleven million American undocumented immigrants.
Speaker 2: As I said, a lot of whom have US citizens
Speaker 2: and their families. So you could see on an industrial
Speaker 2: scale in images and video of children who are US
Speaker 2: citizens being separated from their parents in US cities. So
Speaker 2: I think the parade of horribles here is big and
Speaker 2: it's real, and I fear the consequences.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you about foreign policy Ukraine and the
Speaker 1: Middle East? What are we likely to see in both
Speaker 1: of those situations? And he has expressed his hostility toward NATO.
Speaker 1: What does it mean for sort of our position in
Speaker 1: the world.
Speaker 2: I was at lunch a couple of weeks ago with
Speaker 2: a former senior German official who was saying, you know,
Speaker 2: you guys didn't really know you Americans what you were
Speaker 2: getting into with Trump in twenty sixteen. You narrowly elected him.
Speaker 2: You corrected the problem four years later. Life goes on.
Speaker 2: NATO is strong, but knowing what you know now, and
Speaker 2: given everything he's saying about blowing up NATO and deferring
Speaker 2: to Putin, if you guys elect him again, that is
Speaker 2: the end of NATO. That Europe will make a deal
Speaker 2: with China, Europe will know that it can't rely on
Speaker 2: the United States of America, Ukraine will have to cut
Speaker 2: a bad deal with Putin. God knows what that'll look like.
Speaker 2: So I think the consequences globally are immense. I think,
Speaker 2: you know, superpowers don't just you know, continue by default.
Speaker 2: They continue because they have to continuously earn that position.
Speaker 2: And if America isn't you know, leading with our allies,
Speaker 2: if we're thumbing our nose at democracies and embracing authoritarians
Speaker 2: around the world as Trump always seems to do, if
Speaker 2: our wallets and bank accounts are open to bribes basically
Speaker 2: from foreigners, as the Trump families wallets and bank accounts
Speaker 2: seem to be open, that also creates a climate in
Speaker 2: which our allies are going to be very distrustful. I mean,
Speaker 2: somebody told me the other day, and I don't know
Speaker 2: whether this is true, but it sounds true that, you know,
Speaker 2: Trump is selling these hundred thousand dollars watches that actually
Speaker 2: cost like five or ten grand to make. And the
Speaker 2: person told me that he has heard that a lot
Speaker 2: of foreigners who want to influence Donald Trump have been
Speaker 2: buying these watches just as a way to bribe Trump
Speaker 2: and the Trump family. Because every time you buy a watch,
Speaker 2: you know, seventy eighty grand goes into Donald Trump's pocket. So,
Speaker 2: you know, if you were a foreign leader and you're
Speaker 2: looking to get in good with the President of the
Speaker 2: United States, the most powerful man in the world. Why
Speaker 2: wouldn't you just buy a hundred watches? And by the way,
Speaker 2: is anyone going to know that you did? No? Or
Speaker 2: why wouldn't you like invest another billion dollars or two
Speaker 2: billion dollars in Jared Kushner's private equity fund.
Speaker 1: What about the Middle East? Obviously, I think people have
Speaker 1: described Netanyaho as Israel's Donald Trump. How do you see
Speaker 1: that planet.
Speaker 2: Well, they both have to stay in power so that
Speaker 2: they can stay out of jail. They have that in common,
Speaker 2: and they're both very cynical operators. There was a statement
Speaker 2: today that perhaps Bib would end the war by the
Speaker 2: time Trump comes to office as a sort of favored
Speaker 2: him to allow him to start from a clean slate.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure about that though, because if bb ends
Speaker 2: the war, it would produce a reckoning in Israel that's
Speaker 2: been sort of deferred by the war into Bibe's conduct
Speaker 2: pre October seventh, how he allowed that to happen, and
Speaker 2: his management of the war, and so I don't know
Speaker 2: where that's going to go. I do know that you
Speaker 2: know people who are anti Israel who either you know
Speaker 2: stayed home or voted for Jill Stein or whatever because
Speaker 2: they thought somehow that Trump would be better than Harris.
Speaker 2: Are going to be in for a very rude awakening
Speaker 2: once Trump is in power. Why because I don't think
Speaker 2: Trump is going to stand up to BB at all.
Speaker 1: You're saying voters who are concerned about Gaza and what
Speaker 1: happens next and civilian casualties who voted against Kamala for
Speaker 1: that reason.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Trump's not going to be a check on BB.
Speaker 1: Right, And when he went to Dearborn, Michigan, I thought
Speaker 1: that was interesting, Right, didn't he win Dearborn?
Speaker 2: I think he did win at least East Dearborn. I
Speaker 2: haven't seen the results in all the precincts, which is tiny.
Speaker 2: But you know, conversely, Jewish voters who held their noses
Speaker 2: on abortion and character and all sorts of other issues
Speaker 2: to support Trump on Israel, I wonder what happens when
Speaker 2: Israel throws out Bibe and elects somebody more centrist like
Speaker 2: Benny Gance, or when the interests of the Saudi's and
Speaker 2: the Kataris, who are literally funding the Trump family run
Speaker 2: crosswise with Israel's. Will Trumps stand with Israel at that point,
Speaker 2: I really don't think so. So I think he's a
Speaker 2: very fair weather for I think it's very dependent on
Speaker 2: bb being the one in charge, and I'm not sure
Speaker 2: any of that's going to last.
Speaker 1: Two other questions, are we going to see a national
Speaker 1: abortion ban given that the Senate is controlled by the
Speaker 1: Republicans now, or minimum standards like a six week abortion
Speaker 1: ban or a fifteen week abortion ban.
Speaker 2: The answer is, we don't know. He promised at the
Speaker 2: very end of the campaign that he would veto a
Speaker 2: national abortion ban, but it sort of depends how you
Speaker 2: define a national abortion ban. I mean, maybe if it's
Speaker 2: a twelve week ban or a fifteen week ban, he
Speaker 2: won't view it as a ban. He'll view it as
Speaker 2: like a minimum standard. And he's just against late term abortion.
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 2: The problem with all of that is, if you actually
Speaker 2: look at this issue, later term abortions happen through these
Speaker 2: sort of, as you know, Katie, heartbreaking scenarios. It's not
Speaker 2: as though the mother wants to have an abortion at
Speaker 2: that point, it's there's some grievous health problem, either with
Speaker 2: the mo other or the fetus that creates the situation
Speaker 2: out of medical necessity, and so you put in place
Speaker 2: an arbitrary limit, and you take options out of the
Speaker 2: hands of a woman and her doctor, and it's really
Speaker 2: dangerous and I'm not at all confident that he's going
Speaker 2: to stop something like that from happening.
Speaker 1: Last question, I saw an Instagram post that said, convicted
Speaker 1: felons can't vote in this country, but a convicted felon
Speaker 1: can be elected president. Please explain.
Speaker 2: Well, in some states, convicted felons can vote. We learned this,
Speaker 2: by the way, in Florida, where Trump lives. It depends
Speaker 2: on what you're convicted of.
Speaker 1: So, oh, is that why he was able to vote.
Speaker 1: I thought it was because he was appealing the verdict.
Speaker 2: No, it's because it depends on the type of felony.
Speaker 1: Okay, In many states, convicted felons can't vote, but a
Speaker 1: convicted felon can be elected president of the United States.
Speaker 1: The question is, will he ever face any consequences for
Speaker 1: his actions or even for the you know, crimes he's
Speaker 1: been convicted of.
Speaker 2: No, I don't think so. I think he's gotten out
Speaker 2: of it by being elected president. I think that's his
Speaker 2: get out of jail free card. And you know, not
Speaker 2: to sound too conspiratorial, but he just said last week
Speaker 2: that his biggest mistake was a leaving office in January
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty one. What do we think the odds
Speaker 2: are that he's going to leave office in January of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty nine. Is it one hundred percent? Is it
Speaker 2: eighty percent? The fact that there's some doubt about that,
Speaker 2: because you know, God knows what would happen to him
Speaker 2: if he left the White House again, you know, creates
Speaker 2: all sorts of scary scenarios, like what if he says, well,
Speaker 2: you know, I was denied a second term in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty that I rightfully won. I should be allowed. You know,
Speaker 2: the Constitution says, you know, no two consecutive terms, but
Speaker 2: I should be allowed a second consecutive term. Who's going
Speaker 2: to stop the Supreme Court, the Congress. I'm just not
Speaker 2: sure that these guard rails are strong enough anymore to
Speaker 2: withstand what's about to be thrown at them.
Speaker 1: Well, that's why I wanted to end with this quote
Speaker 1: by FDR in a fireside chat he gave. He said
Speaker 1: democracy has disappeared in several other great nations, not because
Speaker 1: the people of those nations disliked democracy, but because they
Speaker 1: had grown tired of unemployment and insecurity of seeing their
Speaker 1: children hungry while they sat helpless in the face of
Speaker 1: government confusion and government weakness through lack of leadership and government. Finally,
Speaker 1: in desperation, they chose to sacrifice liberty in the hope
Speaker 1: of getting something to eat. We in America know that
Speaker 1: our own democratic institutions can be preserved and made to work.
Speaker 1: But in order to preserve them, we need to act
Speaker 1: together to meet the problems of the nation and boldly,
Speaker 1: and to prove that the practical operation of democratic government
Speaker 1: is equal to the task of protecting the security of
Speaker 1: the people. I thought that sounded very prescient in some ways,
Speaker 1: and perhaps an explanation to why some people seem to
Speaker 1: gravitate towards an authoritarian figure like Donald Trump. We haven't
Speaker 1: protected the people enough.
Speaker 2: Right even though of course we have record low unemployment
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 1: But you just run my very dramatic and.
Speaker 2: You know, here's another here's another line that I'm going
Speaker 2: to steal, which is, if liberals don't secure the border,
Speaker 2: fascist will I don't know who said that, but I
Speaker 2: thought that was really smart. You know, there's certain things
Speaker 2: that people expect of their government that you know, even
Speaker 2: liberals have to deliver when they're in power as learning.
Speaker 1: And I think what's really challenging as we approach a
Speaker 1: second Trump administration is he is so unpredictable. Nobody really
Speaker 1: knows what he's going to do. And on that hopeful note,
Speaker 1: thanks Brian.
Speaker 2: Thank you Katie. Always a pleasure.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening everyone. If you have a question for me,
Speaker 1: a subject you want us to cover, or you want
Speaker 1: to share your thoughts about how you navigate this crazy
Speaker 1: world reach out. You can leave a short message at
Speaker 1: six h nine five P one two five to five
Speaker 1: oh five, or you can send me a DM on Instagram.
Speaker 1: I would love to hear from you. Next Question is
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartMedia and Katie Kuric Media. The executive
Speaker 1: producers are Me, Katie Couric, and Courtney Ltz. Our supervising
Speaker 1: producer is Ryan Martz, and our producers are Adriana Fazzio
Speaker 1: and Meredith Barnes. Julian Weller composed our theme music. For
Speaker 1: more information about today's episode, or to sign up for
Speaker 1: my newsletter, wake Up Call, go to the description in
Speaker 1: the podcast app or visit us at Katiecuric dot com.
Speaker 1: You can also find me on Instagram and all my
Speaker 1: social media channels. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.