Speaker 1: Hey everybody, Jon Stewart here bringing you an episode of
Speaker 1: my podcast, The Weekly Show for all of you TDS
Speaker 1: Ears Edition listeners. We drop new episodes every Thursday in
Speaker 1: our feed, so I would be joining us over there.
Speaker 1: For today, we are bringing you our latest episode, which
Speaker 1: we dropped after the debate to the Ears people. So
Speaker 1: here you have it. Hey, everybody, welcome to the Weekly
Speaker 1: Show podcast with me John Stewart. We are back. We
Speaker 1: are back with Brittany Memdwick, Lauren Walker, our aristwhile producers.
Speaker 1: We have been away for months, for years. When we left,
Speaker 1: I don't even know who was in the race. It
Speaker 1: was it was Donald Trump versus Michael Ducacus, and then
Speaker 1: things switched around. Now it's Donald Trumkamala Harris. We've only
Speaker 1: been gone for two weeks, and now we come back
Speaker 1: to the earthshaking debate, which will as ABC told us,
Speaker 1: we'll change everything. Nothing is the same. No, it's raining dogs,
Speaker 1: night is day. Nothing is the same.
Speaker 2: Our lives are changed forever.
Speaker 1: I assume that you both watched with baited breath. I
Speaker 1: found myself really nervous based on just how consequential the
Speaker 1: last one was, where two minutes into it, I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: he's going to have to leave, he's not going to
Speaker 1: be able to run for president. So I was happy
Speaker 1: to see it not necessarily be revelatory or answer a
Speaker 1: lot of questions, but at least bring us back to
Speaker 1: a slightly more normal cycle, even if that meant Donald
Speaker 1: Trump yelling about people eating pets.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's weird that that's normal, Like that's where the
Speaker 3: bar is.
Speaker 1: I think we've gotten to this point where, because there's
Speaker 1: so much coverage of every everything, there is an expectation
Speaker 1: that everything is the super Bowl, and I guess the
Speaker 1: debates are probably the closest thing that you can have
Speaker 1: to that. But I do think it might be nice
Speaker 1: to get back to the idea that these political campaigns
Speaker 1: are grinding it out, convincing people that you've got policies
Speaker 1: that are going to positively impact their lives, rather than
Speaker 1: a series of gala events that will change everything and
Speaker 1: do that because I think that drama feels very manufactured.
Speaker 1: Where did you Where did you watch a debate? Long?
Speaker 3: Oh, just my house to watch Party of One. I
Speaker 3: ate a sandwich and I kind of like white knuckled
Speaker 3: it for two minutes because it seems like the energy
Speaker 3: was nervous right the handshake thing.
Speaker 2: I was like, I liked the handshake, John, What did
Speaker 2: you think I would have done?
Speaker 1: Bro hug? I'm always I'm a big bro hug, Like
Speaker 1: if I were her, I walk it. First of all,
Speaker 1: I love the way she did it because it was
Speaker 1: very clear that she had decided on a game plan.
Speaker 1: And it's sort of to me it set the tone
Speaker 1: for this idea that she had a very clear idea
Speaker 1: of what she wanted to execute. And he really was like,
Speaker 1: what time's the debate? Yeah, let me show up at eight,
Speaker 1: and whatever happens happened. So I like that It sort
Speaker 1: of set this idea that she was going to be
Speaker 1: intentional and purposeful throughout it.
Speaker 2: He wouldn't look at her for the entire debate.
Speaker 3: It was so weird.
Speaker 1: I thought that was super odd. But I can't remember.
Speaker 1: He did look at Biden a few times, but I
Speaker 1: think that was more like, is this dude all right?
Speaker 1: I never felt like he had that relationship with like
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton, so you could say, like, well, she's a strong,
Speaker 1: smart woman, so maybe he's intimidated by that. But with
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton, like he followed her around like a looming shadow.
Speaker 1: I don't think he would have done that to Kamala Harris.
Speaker 1: I do think he's oddly kind of not sure what
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 2: He isn't he dated.
Speaker 3: He can't be normal?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know what to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah. That could be the title of his biography. I
Speaker 1: can't be normal, Donald Trump. I really can't be normal.
Speaker 1: I have a very difficult time being normal. Well, we've
Speaker 1: got two reporters that are actually covering these campaigns that
Speaker 1: are going to give the inside because we can all talk.
Speaker 1: I talk all the shit I want, I very rarely
Speaker 1: know what's actually going on with any of those. So
Speaker 1: our two guests today are reporters, and we're going to
Speaker 1: get their thoughts on what the hell happens. So let
Speaker 1: me jump let me jump in on that, and I'll
Speaker 1: see you guys on the other side. All right, everybody,
Speaker 1: we are in post debate glow, Aura enjoyment. We are
Speaker 1: going to be joined by Ashley Parker, senior national political
Speaker 1: correspondent for The Washington Postman's covering elections won Pollit serprises
Speaker 1: as team covering elections. We've got David Graham, staff right
Speaker 1: of The Atlantic, written about Harris and Trump and following
Speaker 1: these things very closely, guys, thank you very much for
Speaker 1: joining us. David and Ashley, of.
Speaker 4: Course, yeah, thanks for having us.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the debate. And I feel sorry for
Speaker 1: the national political reporters, the people that are following refters.
Speaker 1: This may be the last event that we have. It
Speaker 1: may now be just ten weeks of following people around
Speaker 1: on a bus. Have you interviewed both candidates extemporaneously? Have
Speaker 1: you spent time with Trump with Kamala Harris?
Speaker 4: I have spent a tremendous amount of time with Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: I started, I'm gonna.
Speaker 1: Stop you right there. I hear the exhaustion and the
Speaker 1: pain in your voice. I see it in your demeanor change.
Speaker 1: When I said have you spent time? You said it
Speaker 1: in the way of someone that perhaps has been at
Speaker 1: the DMV for thirty to thirty five years, and there
Speaker 1: was there was a pain in your voice. I could
Speaker 1: feel it.
Speaker 4: Not gonna weigh in, I mean, I will just say
Speaker 4: I started covering this was when I worked for the
Speaker 4: New York Times. But I started covering Donald Trump two
Speaker 4: days after poor sad, curmudgeonly but ultimately sweet Jeb Bush
Speaker 4: dropped out, and I have basically covered him in some
Speaker 4: capacity ever since.
Speaker 1: Imagine you start your presidential campaign with the high hopes
Speaker 1: of adding an exclamation point to your name. That's how
Speaker 1: well you thought, there's what what? What punctuation should we
Speaker 1: use here? Question mark period? Jeb Bush put an exclamation
Speaker 1: point next to his name on the posters, and two
Speaker 1: days after running into Trump he had to leave. Why
Speaker 1: was Donald Trump so successful in sort of steamrolling all
Speaker 1: of the Republicans back in those days?
Speaker 4: I think, I mean a couple of reasons. One and
Speaker 4: this is why he's still fairly successful. A certain thing
Speaker 4: is I think shamelessness is his superpower, and he covering
Speaker 4: previous candidates, right, we might do if I covered Mitt Romney.
Speaker 4: You might do a fact check on Mitt Romney something
Speaker 4: he's saying, and you say, well, actually, Massachusetts wasn't always
Speaker 4: number one in job creation, you know that year was
Speaker 4: tied with Texas, or that other year it actually came
Speaker 4: in third. And Mitt Romney would then change what he
Speaker 4: was saying on the stump. Not because he cared that
Speaker 4: the Washington Post had given him four pinocchios, though we
Speaker 4: think those noses.
Speaker 1: Matter, solid, solid rating system, but because.
Speaker 4: He believed he would pay a penalty with voters for
Speaker 4: seeming dishonest, and Trump sort of realized that there would
Speaker 4: be no penalty that with his base in his voters,
Speaker 4: that if he just repeated something enough and confidently enough
Speaker 4: and forcefully enough and shamelessly enough, that it could become
Speaker 4: a certain type of truth.
Speaker 1: That I got to tell you that's the com But
Speaker 1: what was most surprising was Donald Trump immediately in the
Speaker 1: spin room confidently saying, I don't think there's going to
Speaker 1: be another debate because I won this. So I believe
Speaker 1: the phrase was tremendously. I believe he said he wanted
Speaker 1: tremendously and it was such a knockout that he didn't think.
Speaker 1: You know, he said, the only people that asked for
Speaker 1: rematches are the losers I've so clearly wanted. Is that
Speaker 1: the process that he was going through sort of what
Speaker 1: Ashley was saying, which is, I'm shameless. I know, I
Speaker 1: got my ass kicked. I'm just going to run out
Speaker 1: there and go, wow, I'm awesome.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean it's amazing.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: Even his allies were saying, well, you know, he had
Speaker 5: a hard time he was going against. It was three
Speaker 5: on one because the moderators and you see Trump's being like, no,
Speaker 5: I won I had that. I think that is very
Speaker 5: much the kind of bravado and the willingness to say
Speaker 5: whatever he feels like he's got to say.
Speaker 1: What about the Harris campaign, what was your feeling of
Speaker 1: how their team was reacting to it?
Speaker 5: I mean, I think they were already kind of floating,
Speaker 5: and then to receive the Tailor Swift endorsement on top
Speaker 5: of that, I don't think their spirits could have been
Speaker 5: a whole lot higher.
Speaker 1: Is that actually met? What is the Taylor Swift endorsement act?
Speaker 1: Like I knew it was a nice piece of pop culture,
Speaker 1: and I know that she obviously has very dedicated fans,
Speaker 1: But is there any thought that there were Taylor Swift
Speaker 1: fans sort of in the Venn diagram that were not
Speaker 1: you know that she was going to say, you really
Speaker 1: should look at this Kamala Harris character, and her fans
Speaker 1: would be like we no, no, no, I've been really leaning
Speaker 1: Trump on this one, Like is that a meaningful thing?
Speaker 5: I think meat, And I think the reason is it
Speaker 5: turns people out. It's not about persuasion, it's about whether
Speaker 5: people will do it. And so you know, she puts
Speaker 5: in a link to voting registration website, and the government
Speaker 5: said I think they'd gotten three or four hundred thousand
Speaker 5: hits on that side just from her Instagram post, So
Speaker 5: you know, enough of those votes in swing states could
Speaker 5: make a difference, not because she's going to persuade anyone,
Speaker 5: but just because maybe if they were kind of on
Speaker 5: the fence out whether to vote or feeling blaise, that
Speaker 5: I'll get them fired up.
Speaker 1: I was struck during the debate by which subject areas
Speaker 1: the candidates were most confident, And it was very clear
Speaker 1: during the abortion part of the debate that Kamala Harris
Speaker 1: was feeling it on a visceral level was able to deliver.
Speaker 1: I thought maybe her best moment maybe that in Ukraine,
Speaker 1: where she was she was confident, she was purposeful, she
Speaker 1: was visceral in her response, and I thought it put
Speaker 1: Trump back on his heels. I thought Trump was most
Speaker 1: confident in the warning for people's pets. Ashley, in your mind,
Speaker 1: what were the areas that you thought were most confident
Speaker 1: and least confident.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I think you're absolutely right on abortion. It
Speaker 4: was interesting because the Vice president, her first kind of
Speaker 4: broad answer, you could tell her voice was like a
Speaker 4: little shaky, a little nervous, and then abortion came up
Speaker 4: right afterwards. She won one hundred percent hit her stride,
Speaker 4: and I feel like that sort of gave her the
Speaker 4: confidence and sort of just the sense of grounding to
Speaker 4: proceed with that vibe throughout the debate. I mean the
Speaker 4: other thing where I thought she was very confident and
Speaker 4: in talking to her team, this is something they practiced.
Speaker 4: They rehearsed from that opening handshake right which they described
Speaker 4: as a to me as a power move.
Speaker 1: There into wait was so so the handshake is everything
Speaker 1: is choreographed like that. You're going to walk out there
Speaker 1: and no matter what, you're going to him and you're
Speaker 1: hitting them with a handshake.
Speaker 4: Yes, they I mean their their goal was to make
Speaker 4: sure and this started before the debate. Their goal, and
Speaker 4: it was born out as successful, was to make sure that,
Speaker 4: as they put it, that Trump was triggered by the
Speaker 4: time he walked on stage. So that started with they
Speaker 4: released an ad featuring president former President Obama talking about
Speaker 4: crowd size on the morning of the debate. They they
Speaker 4: they with Obama, I'm not right doing that hand motion.
Speaker 4: They blanketed, They blanketed Philadelphia where the debate was held
Speaker 4: with billboards and ads designed to troll Trump right. One
Speaker 4: had was a crowd sized one that featured a full
Speaker 4: Philadelphia pretzel for Harris and then a piece, just a
Speaker 4: mere piece of a Philadelphia pretzel that looks like a
Speaker 4: Limp Pretzel for Trump right. And so so the idea.
Speaker 1: Being ass he's being driven in a van towards the venue,
Speaker 1: He's going to look at that and go limp pretzel. Wait, yes, no, yes,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm a full pretzel right.
Speaker 4: Like limp Pretzel. I have to abandon all self discipline
Speaker 4: and control when I step on that debate stage. So
Speaker 4: then and you could you could watch it from that again,
Speaker 4: that opening handshake, walking over, getting in his space, introducing herself,
Speaker 4: pronouncing her name correctly. Then there was some shoot.
Speaker 1: She she literally was going up to mantrolling him with
Speaker 1: the pronunciation. This is unbelievable, I have to say, coming
Speaker 1: off of the NFL's first weekend, this is sounding so
Speaker 1: much like when you listen to football analysts talking about
Speaker 1: schematics and a game plan for there. I mean it is,
Speaker 1: we have a scripted first fifteen plays. You're going to
Speaker 1: go in there. They have a weakness in the backfield,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is it really feels like a football
Speaker 1: game plan.
Speaker 4: And they had I mean, I won't take you through
Speaker 4: all of them, but you could watch that debate step
Speaker 4: by step. They had these little easter eggs things she
Speaker 4: would say and do that they had practiced and believed
Speaker 4: that Trump, and they were almost always correct, would be
Speaker 4: unable to resist wasting time digressing into that. So a
Speaker 4: very subtle one that people might not have noticed was
Speaker 4: when she used, you know, there's a million analyzes you
Speaker 4: can pull on. But when she wanted to rebut his
Speaker 4: economic plan, she did so by mentioning Wharton, which is
Speaker 4: of course where Trump famously went and takes a lot
Speaker 4: of pride. And you saw him he kind of rears
Speaker 4: back and says, well, I went to the Wharton School.
Speaker 1: As That's when she said, the nineteen Nobel Prize economists,
Speaker 1: including ones from Wharton, and he couldn't help him.
Speaker 4: He couldn't help himself. That was the first one. That's
Speaker 4: very subtle for those of us who have been covering
Speaker 4: Trump since twenty fifteen. A more obvious one was when
Speaker 4: she invited people to watch his rallies and then right
Speaker 4: the crowd size, says people are leaving out of boredom.
Speaker 4: That first he responded to that, and it.
Speaker 1: Was the first time he saw his eyes went wid.
Speaker 4: Yes, you saw the eyebrows went up, the eyes went wide.
Speaker 4: He adopted that like ten thousand foot gaze, scolar, and
Speaker 4: it was that thing that then led him into the
Speaker 4: now most viral digression about our nation's cats and dogs.
Speaker 1: Which, by the way, as a pet owner, as somebody myself,
Speaker 1: I was watching with my dog and there was a
Speaker 1: lot of I could see a lot of fear. That's
Speaker 1: actually been my favorite thing from them. If you go
Speaker 1: on like a TikTok or an Instagram, they're putting out
Speaker 1: these reels of Donald Trump saying that, and it's just
Speaker 1: reaction shots of pets who are looking unbelievably frightened. David,
Speaker 1: you're you were kind of writing more about Trump during
Speaker 1: all this. Did they have a similar Belichick like game
Speaker 1: plan as they walked in down to I mean, everybody
Speaker 1: talks about his game planning, as you know, he's ready
Speaker 1: for anything. Did they do any of that? Right?
Speaker 5: They say, you know, he's been preparing for this his
Speaker 5: whole life. And while the Harris campaign was letting it
Speaker 5: be known that she had spent all this time and
Speaker 5: talking about who was doing the prep and and how
Speaker 5: you know there's an aid dressed up like Trump in
Speaker 5: a boxy suit, you know, with a whole nine yards.
Speaker 5: They totally went and they wanted people to know they
Speaker 5: were going method.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Sure, Trump is blustering about, oh, I don't need to
Speaker 5: prep and it was interesting to see. You know, you
Speaker 5: could hear his ally, some of them saying, Oh, He's
Speaker 5: gonna be fine, and then other people a little bit
Speaker 5: nervous about that in the moment that he started to
Speaker 5: get off track, you know, the moment we started hearing
Speaker 5: about the cats and dogs. Then you see the recriminations
Speaker 5: and you see people thinking, you know, is it really
Speaker 5: too much to ask him to prepare? And what we've
Speaker 5: seen from a decade of this is it is too
Speaker 5: much to ask him to prepare. And if Joe Biden
Speaker 5: collapses on stage, that works for him. But if Joe
Speaker 5: Biden doesn't collapse on stage, then he tends to kind
Speaker 5: of struggle.
Speaker 1: Right. I thought he did have a good first. I
Speaker 1: thought two and a half to three minutes. I thought
Speaker 1: then as it you know, his preparation for that early
Speaker 1: two and a half to three minutes I thought worked
Speaker 1: out very nicely. But then you can see he started
Speaker 1: to get distracted and things started to collapse and fall apart. Okay,
Speaker 1: we got to take a quick break. We're back. I
Speaker 1: want to talk about the people around them and how
Speaker 1: that manifests for the candidates, Psyche and I want to
Speaker 1: start with Trump. My sense of him is, look, a
Speaker 1: monarchy makes a lot of sense to him. He runs
Speaker 1: the Try organization. He doesn't even run. It's not a
Speaker 1: public company. He doesn't have a board of directors. It's
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. When he hosted The Apprentice, My favorite part
Speaker 1: of the Apprentice is after he mediated a dispute between
Speaker 1: Meetloaf and Gary Busey, you know, and the end and
Speaker 1: Bucy had to leave and Meet Loaf was going to stay.
Speaker 1: There was always two people next to him at the table.
Speaker 1: There was always that last coda of the end of
Speaker 1: the Apprentice, and it was either you know, Avanka or
Speaker 1: that dude George or somebody else. And he would go,
Speaker 1: oh that was tough, and they would go, you made
Speaker 1: the right you made the good call, Boss, well done.
Speaker 1: That was He couldn't have done anything else. Is that
Speaker 1: the vibe around him? Are there people there who tell
Speaker 1: him the truth or is he bathed in the kind
Speaker 1: of you are our little prince world that seems like
Speaker 1: has been following him his entire life.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he gets a lot of that. I mean, there
Speaker 5: are people who try to tell him the truth, and
Speaker 5: what happens is they to fall out of favor, they
Speaker 5: don't hang around long, or as is the case with
Speaker 5: a lot of Trump people, they sort of cycle through.
Speaker 5: So they come back again, but but they don't, they
Speaker 5: don't stay long. And I think you know, what you're
Speaker 5: describing of his experience of the Trump organization has been
Speaker 5: born out in how he runs campaigns, and it was
Speaker 5: how he was president too. I mean you'd see him
Speaker 5: frustrated that he couldn't just do things unilaterally like he
Speaker 5: he had not watched The Schoolhouse Rock, and he couldn't
Speaker 5: believe that he couldn't just do things with the power
Speaker 5: of the presidency. And and that's just his attitude is
Speaker 5: you know, he knows best and and he wants to.
Speaker 1: Do his way. Is that in some ways comforting and
Speaker 1: that maybe his authoritarianism isn't malevolent, it's born of spoiltness,
Speaker 1: It's it's born of a more adolescent view based on
Speaker 1: being the golden child. Noakes time, take your time on
Speaker 1: this right away.
Speaker 4: I think the result is the same.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, right It's so there is the but the anger
Speaker 1: is real, the malevolence is real. Yeah, boy, that's for
Speaker 1: those of you who are on the podcast. David is
Speaker 1: just nodding enthusiastic about that. Ashley, what about the Harris campaign?
Speaker 1: Can she be told the truth? Is she surrounded? You
Speaker 1: know how much of this? I'm always struck by how
Speaker 1: insulated and isolated these politicians are.
Speaker 4: So a couple of things. It's different from the Trump campaign.
Speaker 4: First of all, because she, on the one hand, she
Speaker 4: is cycled and churned through a tremendous amount of staff,
Speaker 4: going back to her days in California to the Senate,
Speaker 4: to the campaign to the vice presidency, which is normally
Speaker 4: an indictment of someone's management style. But all of that staff,
Speaker 4: and this is something she has done very deliberately, is
Speaker 4: she is elevated and surrounded herself by women, by people
Speaker 4: of color, by women of color. So her staff just
Speaker 4: look like they look different than Trump's staff, and they
Speaker 4: bring different perspectives and life experiences. So that's one thing.
Speaker 4: The second is recently after she moved to the top
Speaker 4: of the ticket. A small handful, but a significant handful
Speaker 4: sort of top people from Obama World and one from
Speaker 4: Clinton World came in, right, So, David.
Speaker 1: Pluf Obama World and Clinton World. They sound like closed
Speaker 1: down amusement parks where they oh, they came in. There
Speaker 1: was Obama World. It was opened up in Nashville for
Speaker 1: a while, but then it closed down. So she brings
Speaker 1: on people who have run or have been involved in
Speaker 1: other campaigns for Democratic leaders.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and not just that, I mean the thing that's
Speaker 4: striking to me, especially about the Obama people, and she
Speaker 4: brought in Jennifer pal Mary, who was key in Hillary
Speaker 4: Clinton's unsuccessful campaign, is these are people who have done
Speaker 4: two things successfully that she will likely need to do
Speaker 4: successfully to win. And it sort of the question can
Speaker 4: they recreate that magic? One is they were able to
Speaker 4: harness Obama's sort of authentic excitement and enthusiasm into actually
Speaker 4: like getting information from vote and mobilizing that to the polls.
Speaker 4: That's something she'll need to do. And the other thing
Speaker 4: is Obama and Clinton took a very different approach and
Speaker 4: got a very different electoral outcome. But Obama sort of
Speaker 4: did not make race the center the historic nature of
Speaker 4: his candidacy the centerpiece.
Speaker 1: Of liff Lees that speak for itself.
Speaker 4: Yeah, his view as people would look at him and
Speaker 4: understand he was a black guy, right, and so he
Speaker 4: didn't need to constantly talk about it, And he talked
Speaker 4: about race in a way that too many Americans felt
Speaker 4: inclusive and inspiring. And that's also something you're seeing Kamala
Speaker 4: Harris doing with her historic candidacy.
Speaker 1: David, is it in your mind? You know, we talked about, Boy,
Speaker 1: that was a terrible night for Trump. He's going to
Speaker 1: have to do something? Does he have to do something?
Speaker 1: It in some measure the day he came down the
Speaker 1: Golden Escalator and said, I think most Mexicans are rapists,
Speaker 1: but like sometimes they send some good people. From that
Speaker 1: moment on it it became somewhat clear this was an
Speaker 1: antibiotic resistance than candidate. The normal things that would take
Speaker 1: out a candidate have no idea. Oh, the access Hollywood
Speaker 1: tape and all those different things. Well that was twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: He's been through more of this than anybody. It doesn't
Speaker 1: seem as though these moments that would be disqualifying. I
Speaker 1: mean and honestly, in any other political campaign, in any
Speaker 1: other environment, if you stood on the stage, true or
Speaker 1: not and just shouted immigrants are eating dogs and people's pets.
Speaker 1: I mean, Howard Dean was a little loud with a scream,
Speaker 1: Michael Jacakis somewhat answered a question intemporately like they'd be done.
Speaker 1: It doesn't seem to have any impact in any way,
Speaker 1: shape or form on his political fortune.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, the amazing thing about him is just
Speaker 5: how how consistent his support is. He's always there in
Speaker 5: the mid forty percent when he's winning, when he's losing,
Speaker 5: it just doesn't move no matter what he does. And
Speaker 5: I don't think we've ever seen anyone like that in
Speaker 5: American politics who has such stable approval. He can't get
Speaker 5: above fifty percent and he can't fall below forty, so
Speaker 5: it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: But even within that stable approval, it seems, you know,
Speaker 1: now they talk about he's picking up more support in
Speaker 1: the black community or the Hispanic community, or but he's
Speaker 1: losing more support women. There are groups that move in
Speaker 1: and out, but he is consistently reckless right, and it
Speaker 1: seems to matter not.
Speaker 5: I think one thing we're seeing this campaign from Democrats
Speaker 5: is a realization, and it took a long time for
Speaker 5: them to get to this that there's not going to
Speaker 5: be like the moment or the gaff that doesn't Trump.
Speaker 5: I think there was always this hope like, well, you know,
Speaker 5: he's going to do it this time, and they seem
Speaker 5: to have realized that just it's not a thing.
Speaker 1: Fa My favorite thing about Democrats. My favorite thing about
Speaker 1: Democrats was that he got indicted. Now we've got him right,
Speaker 1: Like there's all these things that there was always that
Speaker 1: moment where like as soon as that Muller report comes out,
Speaker 1: goodbye Donald Trump. Like at each turn, they always seems
Speaker 1: like this is the conclusive moment. Look, he's on tape
Speaker 1: saying I want Putin to win because I love him,
Speaker 1: and just everybody's like, oh, that'll do it. None of
Speaker 1: it doesn't right exactly. And so he what pressure does
Speaker 1: he feel? What does he think he has to do?
Speaker 5: I think he thinks he has to turn out the base.
Speaker 5: He consistently does not do things that would look like outreach,
Speaker 5: and he you know, people make fun of his kind
Speaker 5: of silent majority rhetoric as being out of touch and
Speaker 5: being like Nixonian, but that doesn't mean, he doesn't believe it.
Speaker 5: For all the things he will say that he doesn't
Speaker 5: believe it. I think he really thinks that is why
Speaker 5: should want to win.
Speaker 1: He should believe it because they always underestimate him in polls,
Speaker 1: and when the elections come out, he always has that
Speaker 1: silent base. I wouldn't call them the majority, but they're
Speaker 1: certainly yeah there.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think the reason he shouldn't believe it
Speaker 5: is in twenty sixteen, he won less of the vote
Speaker 5: than Hillary Clinton. In twenty eighteen, when he made himself
Speaker 5: the center of their campaign, Republicans did poorly. In twenty twenty,
Speaker 5: he lost in twenty twenty two when he made himself
Speaker 5: the center of the campaign, again, Republicans did poorly. So
Speaker 5: there's evidence for it, but he still is really he
Speaker 5: believes it right.
Speaker 4: It's fascinating. I never understood. In addition to the belief
Speaker 4: that Donald Trump would win and become presidential, there was
Speaker 4: also this belief that he could win and move to
Speaker 4: the center, which seemed a little more legitimate because.
Speaker 1: Oh dear God, how many times has Van Jones given
Speaker 1: you that dewey I'd CNN, I believe Donald Trump today
Speaker 1: has become the unifier for it, like there's always that
Speaker 1: moment where somebody's like, he's really different now never.
Speaker 4: But what is fascinating is that his base is immovable.
Speaker 4: He is almost certainly never going to lose them, and
Speaker 4: so there is this world where he could maybe bring
Speaker 4: them along a little bit. But since covering him, there's
Speaker 4: all these moments. And so the second thing is Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: The way to understand him, or one way is he's
Speaker 4: always trying to win like the minute, the hour, the day,
Speaker 4: the person directly in front of him. Right, this is
Speaker 4: not like four dimensional chests. So people would never understand. Well,
Speaker 4: why when he was talking to the dreamers, did he say,
Speaker 4: you guys are wonderful valedictorians. Of course you should stay
Speaker 4: in the country. And then ten minutes later, when they
Speaker 4: brought in a group of sheriffs, was he like, the
Speaker 4: dreamers are just out in the outer off all, let's
Speaker 4: round them up and send them back, right, Like it
Speaker 4: makes no sense. But he's always trying to win the
Speaker 4: people in front of him. But when he is faced
Speaker 4: with those two things, as we've seen ense abortion, where
Speaker 4: he's been all over the map, he will always always
Speaker 4: ultimately retreat back to what his far right base wants
Speaker 4: he'll move to the middle, The right wing echo chamber
Speaker 4: will freak out at him, and he will ultimately come
Speaker 4: down on their side.
Speaker 1: Does he though, You know, so let's talk about that.
Speaker 1: Is that a purposeful move? You know? Is it the
Speaker 1: idea that he so understands how loyal his base is
Speaker 1: that he can stand up on a debate stage and say,
Speaker 1: I actually created IVF. I will personally inseminate any woman
Speaker 1: with sperm that wants it. That's how much I believe
Speaker 1: in IVF. I love it. Does he do that because
Speaker 1: he thinks I've delivered so well for my base, they'll
Speaker 1: never leave me. I can say whatever I want.
Speaker 4: No, because then he freaks because.
Speaker 1: So this even that's not strategic, because.
Speaker 4: Then he freaks out right, Like he said something on
Speaker 4: the Florida abortion rule. He thought it should be longer
Speaker 4: than six weeks.
Speaker 1: Six weeks is too short.
Speaker 4: Six weeks is too short. Then his base flipped out,
Speaker 4: and then he came out and said, well, actually I
Speaker 4: am going to vote that seems very reasonable, right.
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting that, you know, look what has
Speaker 1: been the Trump or far right kryptonite. It would seem
Speaker 1: to me as the court system, so anybody can say
Speaker 1: anything about anything on the radio or on Fox News
Speaker 1: other than you know, the false claims about dominion and
Speaker 1: getting sued. But it's very clear that when they talk about, oh,
Speaker 1: the fraudulent voting and there were so many legal immigrants,
Speaker 1: and then when they go to court, they get thrown
Speaker 1: out because they have no proof and they get laughed out.
Speaker 1: I do think her style as a prosecutor, Kamala Harris,
Speaker 1: in some ways embodies a little bit of that kryptonite,
Speaker 1: and I thought in the debate she could even do
Speaker 1: more of it in the way. I was struck that,
Speaker 1: especially when talking about the economy. When you talked about abortion,
Speaker 1: she took that prosecutorial style. When she talked about the economy,
Speaker 1: she didn't, Ashley, is that because they don't they lack
Speaker 1: the confidence in that narrative, or they hadn't thought through
Speaker 1: that litigation yet.
Speaker 4: I mean, the economy is an incredibly tricky issue for
Speaker 4: the Biden Harris administration because there's an actual there's a
Speaker 4: lot of economic indicators.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: If you're like pointing to these tangible things, you can
Speaker 4: argue that the economy has improved under their administration versus
Speaker 4: former President Trump. But the things that people actually feel
Speaker 4: right which they vote on, which is like what are
Speaker 4: interest rates? And can you afford to buy a new
Speaker 4: house or do your three kids still have to share
Speaker 4: a bedroom? And what is the cos I mean this
Speaker 4: sounds cliche, but what is the cost of eggs and milk?
Speaker 4: And when you're driving? You know, I had someone in
Speaker 4: the Biden administration to say, every single gas station with
Speaker 4: the cost of gas is a billboard that hurts us
Speaker 4: when you're driving. Those things have not changed yet, right
Speaker 4: because they're.
Speaker 1: Lagging welltain has the billboards for that has but.
Speaker 4: Sort of again like the vibes, the feel and the
Speaker 4: sense people feel that things felt better under Trump. And
Speaker 4: so there's something incredibly insulting to voters who are stressed
Speaker 4: about money or stretched to get to the end of
Speaker 4: the month to hear Harris saying things are fantastic now.
Speaker 4: So it's hard to prosecute that case.
Speaker 1: All right, we'll be right back. We're back, so let me.
Speaker 1: I think this is a great place for us to
Speaker 1: talk about a little bit because I think this talks
Speaker 1: to how you just described it, Ashley. Sounds perfectly reasonable
Speaker 1: to me, and I don't understand why a candidate feels that,
Speaker 1: at least that beginning framing is something that they are
Speaker 1: not allowed to do. You know that they're not allowed
Speaker 1: to say, Look, the economy is incredibly complex. I think
Speaker 1: we've made some strides in the right direction through the pandemic.
Speaker 1: Let me walk you through what some of those decisions were.
Speaker 1: I know that if you're at home and it doesn't
Speaker 1: feel that way to you, you know, the economy is
Speaker 1: very personal to people. Why can't that be the discussion
Speaker 1: instead of of are you better off than you were
Speaker 1: four years ago? And the first thing is I'm going
Speaker 1: to give everyone six thousand dollars for childcare? And you're like, wait,
Speaker 1: what just happened, David? Why can't candidates? And I thought
Speaker 1: this was a real issue during the pandemic with our
Speaker 1: healthcare officials. Why can't they trust us enough to talk
Speaker 1: to us like human beings in those areas where they
Speaker 1: feel like it's not completely black and white.
Speaker 5: The people who they're talking to, they think are not
Speaker 5: the most sophisticated voters, and I think they are probably right,
Speaker 5: like undecided voters are now the people who are paying
Speaker 5: close attention, they don't necessarily some of them may have
Speaker 5: really no ins views, but a lot of them don't,
Speaker 5: and so there's a certain amount of they're pandering to
Speaker 5: the lowest common denominator and they feel like they can't
Speaker 5: they can't get nuanced.
Speaker 4: It's not that they're dumb, or that the Harris campaign
Speaker 4: thinks they're dumb, but they do understand that this is
Speaker 4: a group of voters who is not particularly tuned into politics. Right,
Speaker 4: They're not paying a ton of attention. They don't really
Speaker 4: they have other things on their mind, including the cost
Speaker 4: of groceries. Right, Like they're going to tune in at
Speaker 4: the very end of the election. They're also, and this
Speaker 4: is kind of fascinating, one of the most skeptical groups
Speaker 4: of voters. I was talking to a Democratic strategist. You said,
Speaker 4: when we do focus groups with swing voters, and I say,
Speaker 4: you know, you know, well, what if I told you
Speaker 4: that Donald Trump appointed the three most conservative justices who
Speaker 4: helped overturn Roby Wade with that change your view of him?
Speaker 4: And the first thing out of these voters' mouths is like, well,
Speaker 4: if that's true, I'm going to have to go home
Speaker 4: and google it. Right, So they're also dear God, so
Speaker 4: it's a group of voters who are very distrustful of institutions,
Speaker 4: of political parties, of the media. So that is all
Speaker 4: part of the discussion of how do we message to them,
Speaker 4: how do we win them over? When do we win
Speaker 4: them over? When do we hit them with this message?
Speaker 4: When do we just get them to trust that, you know,
Speaker 4: we're someone they should considers. That's absolutely all part of
Speaker 4: the discussion.
Speaker 1: See, this is the most fad anything. I am so
Speaker 1: struck by. You know, every debate and all the things.
Speaker 1: You know, we all have kind of now a boilerplate
Speaker 1: format that we go through. There's the debate, then we
Speaker 1: go to the pundits, and then immediately you go to
Speaker 1: and now we've got our own polster and he's with
Speaker 1: a group of undecided voters and they do that, and
Speaker 1: that always struck me as one of the most ridiculous
Speaker 1: exercises in nothingness that I have ever seen in my life. Well,
Speaker 1: I listened to it. How many of you now are
Speaker 1: for Kamala Harris? Oh whatever, we just watched. Sure, that's fine,
Speaker 1: aren't we infusing that undecided group of voters as an
Speaker 1: idea that they've been vetted for their indecision? Whereas like
Speaker 1: half the time it's political operatives just standing there or
Speaker 1: the same person on the panel every four years. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a certain when you put somebody on a news channel,
Speaker 1: there's a sense that that has been vetted, and when
Speaker 1: you really drill down into it, it doesn't seem that
Speaker 1: way at all, Ashley, Is there is there any value
Speaker 1: in those kinds of theatrical moments with the panels?
Speaker 4: So I think there's tremendous value in focus groups? Is
Speaker 4: there value in those TV focus groups immediately after debates
Speaker 4: with undecided voters? And like, also, let's just puss like,
Speaker 4: like what does it actually mean to be undecided in
Speaker 4: the Year of Our Lord twenty twenty four? When your choices,
Speaker 4: regardless of what you think, like are so diametrically opposite
Speaker 4: that like like you're just truly like it's sort of
Speaker 4: like a like an existential question of like how does
Speaker 4: this even happen? But but focus groups in general are
Speaker 4: incredibly valuable and insightful, and whenever anyone lets me sit
Speaker 4: in on one, I always do so.
Speaker 1: And like, what is the difference between one that you've
Speaker 1: seen on TV and one that you've sat in on
Speaker 1: so often?
Speaker 4: Ones you know, campaigns, and these groups are running them
Speaker 4: for different things, Like they're not trying to find out
Speaker 4: who after this debate, who are you going to vote for?
Speaker 4: You know, they're trying to find out like how do
Speaker 4: you feel about these issues, for instance, and what might
Speaker 4: be a compelling message? Right, So one thing I think
Speaker 4: of a democratic strategist. I was not in this group,
Speaker 4: but he told me. He said they were talking to
Speaker 4: some voters and they said, you know, let's say Kamala
Speaker 4: Harris comes to your town and you get to do
Speaker 4: an activity. You get to bring her and show her
Speaker 4: something in your town. What would you show her in
Speaker 4: A voter said.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's like a bachelorette hometown. Yes, Oh that's lovely.
Speaker 1: Now I'm going to I'm going to take them to
Speaker 1: beat my family and then we're going to go to
Speaker 1: the custard shop.
Speaker 4: Right. But but this voter said, I want I would
Speaker 4: I would bring her to work with me. I would
Speaker 4: bring her to my first job, and then I would
Speaker 4: bring her to my second job. Right, we would take
Speaker 4: the three buses it takes to get from my first
Speaker 4: job to my second job, because I want her to understand,
Speaker 4: like how hard I am working and how I am
Speaker 4: still barely surviving. So that is kind of relevant and
Speaker 4: useful information of where voters are and what they need
Speaker 4: from the candidates in their lives.
Speaker 1: You know, for me, it's shocking that that's what it
Speaker 1: would take for a candidate to understand what people's working
Speaker 1: lives are. Like the idea that that would be revelatory
Speaker 1: speaks almost more to how insulated politicians are from the
Speaker 1: day to day lives of their constituents. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: what I seem to have learned from my time in
Speaker 1: Washington is how unbelievably eccentric the culture of Washington is
Speaker 1: and how easily it sets up barriers between the people
Speaker 1: you represent and the culture of the town that you
Speaker 1: live in. Washington runs on a completely different currency than
Speaker 1: the rest of the world. Let me ask you both then,
Speaker 1: having experienced these campaigns, to you do you feel the
Speaker 1: disconnect that candidates have with the constituents or in the country,
Speaker 1: and for your experiences, what has struck you as the
Speaker 1: biggest disconnect between Washington in general and the country at large.
Speaker 4: I'll start because I can double advocate it. I in
Speaker 4: before Trump was even like the word on people's tongues
Speaker 4: as a politician. I did a road trip in like
Speaker 4: twenty fourteen, driving like the old route sixty or sixty
Speaker 4: six out to Indianapolis is where I flew home. And
Speaker 4: it was just talking to voters. It was talking to
Speaker 4: like hundreds upon hundreds of voters. And the thing I
Speaker 4: picked up, because again it's always good to talk to voters,
Speaker 4: was this sense that like these people, Democrats, Republicans whoever,
Speaker 4: were furious right, like you would go to these houses
Speaker 4: and they all had I was with a photographer who
Speaker 4: noticed this, Like visually, it wasn't me. They all had
Speaker 4: like bits of Americana right, like flags and things like
Speaker 4: that on house, and a lot of houses that you know,
Speaker 4: maybe needed like a new code that were kind of crumbling, right,
Speaker 4: And they what they were furious was, and what they
Speaker 4: said was, look, I did everything right right, Like I
Speaker 4: got a job, I worked nine to five, I had
Speaker 4: a pension. I moved to this district to go to
Speaker 4: the right school. I bought a house that my bank
Speaker 4: told me I could buy right that it would be
Speaker 4: irresponsible for me not to buy. Now, look, every single
Speaker 4: house on my block is foreclosed. And those clowns in
Speaker 4: New York and Washington, who you know who ruined my
Speaker 4: four oh one k and now I can't retire who
Speaker 4: burned you know, who did all of this, Like there's
Speaker 4: no consequences for them, and they were furious and they
Speaker 4: didn't have the language, but they wanted to like burn
Speaker 4: it all down and drain the swamp. And that was
Speaker 4: something for instance that Donald This was not a disconnect
Speaker 4: at all Donald Trump. And again I don't think it
Speaker 4: was from doing a road trip and talking to hundreds
Speaker 4: of voters, but he viscerally, instinctually understood that anger, understood
Speaker 4: that frustration with the system.
Speaker 1: But that's my point. How is it that, I mean,
Speaker 1: after the two thousand and financial crisis and everything that occurred,
Speaker 1: how is it that Washington did not understand that? And
Speaker 1: the problem with Trump is not necessarily what his diagnosis is,
Speaker 1: it's what his prescription is. Look, the idea that he
Speaker 1: figured out people were disconnected and angry and all those
Speaker 1: things and they wanted to drain the swamp is one thing.
Speaker 1: But he doesn't look like someone who wants to reform
Speaker 1: the system in a positive way to take the corruption out.
Speaker 1: He wants the deed to the swamp signed over to
Speaker 1: him because he wants full and total, you know, monarchical
Speaker 1: control over everything. So I think that's we're sort of
Speaker 1: talking about the same thing, which is how to fuck
Speaker 1: does Washington and politicians who are from these districts not
Speaker 1: understand that in their bones and try and reform this
Speaker 1: system that's created this anger rather than just take it over. David.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think one thing that struck me when
Speaker 5: I first moved to Washington was how how actually most
Speaker 5: of the people in politics are totally normal, Like they're
Speaker 5: you know, when you're reading about them from Afar, they
Speaker 5: seem like they're special, and then you get there and
Speaker 5: you're like, oh, these are just these are just ordinary jerks,
Speaker 5: Like they're as a as everyone else. And I think
Speaker 5: part of the problem is as you elevate, you do
Speaker 5: get further removed from those things. You have fewer opportunities
Speaker 5: to to be a normal person and to be around
Speaker 5: normal people. You're around the same people in politics, and
Speaker 5: they start to rub off on each other, and like,
Speaker 5: I don't know how you saw that, Because if you're
Speaker 5: running the government, you have to run the government, Like
Speaker 5: I need my senators to be paying attention to the legislation.
Speaker 5: They're dealing with and also to like actually be in
Speaker 5: touch with real people. I think that's a tough thing
Speaker 5: to do, and I think the structures of government push
Speaker 5: against that. And I also think like the pandemic was
Speaker 5: a problem for that. I think a lot of politicians
Speaker 5: just recently lost touch because they were not, especially Democrats,
Speaker 5: were not actually campaigning outside of zoom, and I think
Speaker 5: that has created a disconnect and they're they're they're having
Speaker 5: to work hard to try to rebuild that and to
Speaker 5: like remember how to talk to civilians right.
Speaker 1: Ultimately, I think that these are these are great points
Speaker 1: in getting out there and in your minds, you know,
Speaker 1: would more debates be more helpful? Do you think for
Speaker 1: voters would you like to see more? I don't know
Speaker 1: that I would want to watch another one because I
Speaker 1: don't feel that I would learn anything particularly astonishing, And
Speaker 1: it would be like watching in the way that people
Speaker 1: watch sometimes motor races, which is like I just want
Speaker 1: to see somebody spin out and flip over, you know,
Speaker 1: and have something unbelievably terrifying or exciting happening. Is there
Speaker 1: more to learn in your minds from that that we
Speaker 1: haven't seen already, or would it be an exercise and spectacle.
Speaker 5: Why not both? I think they're important.
Speaker 1: I think you have it all.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I do think they're valuable. And I think part
Speaker 4: of that is.
Speaker 5: Because the candidates, both of them, spend so little time
Speaker 5: in situations where they don't get to choose the question
Speaker 5: or they don't get to pick a friendly person. Is
Speaker 5: not a controlled environment, and so whether they're taking questions
Speaker 5: from David Mure and Lindsay Davis or taking questions from
Speaker 5: the other candidate, it forces them to do something they
Speaker 5: don't do all the time, and that provides us a
Speaker 5: better sense of like what their character is, how they
Speaker 5: think on their feet, what they actually believe.
Speaker 1: And so I think it's worthwhile, Ashley, what do you think? Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean, would our debates is helpful with getting more
Speaker 4: information than if, say, each candidate sat down with like
Speaker 4: the subject matter experts at the Washington Post, The Atlantic,
Speaker 4: the Wall Street Journal. No, absolutely not. But are those
Speaker 4: two candidates going to do that?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 4: Absolutely not. So to David's point, debates maybe the best
Speaker 4: of like the not particularly great.
Speaker 1: Focus it right, Ashley, as somebody who's had the pleasure
Speaker 1: of moderating one of those, is there a change that
Speaker 1: you would make in the formats. I mean I think,
Speaker 1: you know, unfortunately, moderating a debate is like hosts and
Speaker 1: the oscars. There's really not much of an upside. And
Speaker 1: you know, I thought they did a fine jobs, as
Speaker 1: most of the people that have done it have done
Speaker 1: a fine job. Is there a change that you would
Speaker 1: make in the format that you believe would make it
Speaker 1: more informational, more revelatory, more insightful.
Speaker 4: It's a good question. I mean I actually thought they
Speaker 4: I mean, moderating in a debate, right, it's sort of
Speaker 4: like being a kicker in football, right, Like you're only
Speaker 4: remembered if you go wide, you know, right, Yeah, So
Speaker 4: the best thing for debate moderators to be on memory.
Speaker 4: You know, you remember the debate, you remember the moments,
Speaker 4: not the moderators. I mean, I thought David Muir and
Speaker 4: Lindsay Davis did a fantastic job including it is it
Speaker 4: is incredibly difficult, as someone who was interviewed him to
Speaker 4: fact check Donald Trump in real time, and they in
Speaker 4: certain key moments they were prepared. And David Muir, especially
Speaker 4: in some of those moments like with the cats and dogs,
Speaker 4: I mean, he had the information at his disposal from
Speaker 4: a verified, reliable source, and he he was so he
Speaker 4: was so sort of calm, which is not easy to
Speaker 4: do those situations.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, absolutely. Do you think would it be possible
Speaker 1: to do, you know, sort of two candidates sitting in
Speaker 1: front of each other just talking. Is that something that
Speaker 1: we could even pull off in a modern political era?
Speaker 5: Can you imagine Donald Trump doing that?
Speaker 1: Personally? I cannot imagine him doing anything where he is
Speaker 1: not the sole arbiter of the rule book and the
Speaker 1: rules of engagement. I just think, I mean, it gets
Speaker 1: back to what we had said earlier. I think his
Speaker 1: entire upbringing has been as the inheritor of the castle
Speaker 1: and that everything that's been done has been to his. Look,
Speaker 1: his first mentor outside of his father was Roy Kohane, Like,
Speaker 1: you don't do that when your methodology is collaboration and openness.
Speaker 1: Like you do that when you want to get away
Speaker 1: with shit as best you can and go scorched earth
Speaker 1: on everybody else. So I just think that's his methodology.
Speaker 1: But as a country, it seems like we might be
Speaker 1: better served, you know, if if they could.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I think it's tricky because the reason
Speaker 5: that they the reason that you see people, you know,
Speaker 5: candidate's demagoguing and bending the truth and doing whatever in
Speaker 5: these things is because the cameras are rolling, and also
Speaker 5: they're valuable because the cameras are rolling and voters can
Speaker 5: see that. If you could somehow get them to forget
Speaker 5: what was going on, I think that would help. But
Speaker 5: it's a you know, in the same way that c
Speaker 5: SPAN you just blew my mind.
Speaker 1: Like so it's almost like Schrodinger's candidate, Like if we
Speaker 1: if we weren't watching this and we weren't filming it, So,
Speaker 1: how much has coverage do you think changed our politics?
Speaker 1: Like we all talk about sunlight is the best disinfectant
Speaker 1: and transparency, but has our transparent Like would these guys
Speaker 1: be much better if we weren't there?
Speaker 5: I mean, I think you can make a pretty convincing
Speaker 5: argument that c SPAN helped break Congress because suddenly.
Speaker 1: You can watch them do it. So, yeah, that's funking Span.
Speaker 1: I knew it, those pricks. We've been all looking in
Speaker 1: the wrong direction to blame somebody. It's s SPAN's fault
Speaker 1: for putting security cameras up and turn the camera around.
Speaker 4: That sounds like a sleep pitch to me.
Speaker 1: David done se SPAN's fault. Well, guys, I know you've
Speaker 1: got another what is this ten weeks of this? What
Speaker 1: do we got now somewhere around there?
Speaker 2: Who?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you guys aren't doing it like your prisoners, where
Speaker 1: you're just checking off days as you go along. You're
Speaker 1: just in it right now, and that just is what
Speaker 1: it is.
Speaker 4: Well. Also, I will just say I think people are
Speaker 4: skeptical that it necessarily ends on election day.
Speaker 1: Oh right, I keep forgetting that. That's yeah. Are you
Speaker 1: seeing the campaigns being as aggressive with the post election
Speaker 1: strategizing and scheming and game planning as they are for
Speaker 1: the debates and such?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Absolutely, And again it's not just until the electoral right,
Speaker 4: It's like, will if Donald Trump loses, will he accept
Speaker 4: the results? He's shown no indication. What will his supporters do?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: Like that's another open question.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah. I mean you've got the legal war rooms,
Speaker 5: but you also just have this sort of like contingency planning.
Speaker 5: I like to take a vacation after the election because
Speaker 5: I'm usually exhausted and I'm just like, when is that
Speaker 5: is that?
Speaker 1: Is that? Ye?
Speaker 4: January seventh?
Speaker 5: January?
Speaker 4: Like when can I use my Marriot points?
Speaker 1: Thank you both? Very much for joining us and talking
Speaker 1: about that. Ashley Parker, Senior national political correspondent for The
Speaker 1: Washington Post. David Graham, staff writer at the Atlantic, Guys,
Speaker 1: your insights into what Thank you for giving a much
Speaker 1: clearer perspective having been involved in all this, uh and
Speaker 1: and really helping us understand sort of what's what's going
Speaker 1: on behind what c SPAN is showing us. I really
Speaker 1: do appreciate it.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 1: I don't what they do the day to day. I
Speaker 1: could not do that. I would lose my shit.
Speaker 3: It already feels too much.
Speaker 1: I lost my shit just being in the conversation with
Speaker 1: them for an hour. It's so claustrophobic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, props to them.
Speaker 1: I thought it was really interesting though. They were like,
Speaker 1: I don't know when to plan the vacate, Like your
Speaker 1: whole life is consumed by sort of these endless campaigns.
Speaker 1: And they're like, oh, yeah, we used to know November eighth,
Speaker 1: I could get a club, med in turks of cake
Speaker 1: cooasts and decompressed for five days. And now they're like,
Speaker 1: could be January. Might have to then jump in and
Speaker 1: cover the Civil War, Like we don't even know what's
Speaker 1: going to happen, topsy Turvy, topsy Turvy? What else we
Speaker 1: got as we roll on? Now? Yeah, we're back weekly
Speaker 1: show pod banging out the episodes every week. What else
Speaker 1: we got?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 3: While we were gone, we put out a call for
Speaker 3: our listeners to either give us some suggestions, what we
Speaker 3: should cover, why they might be upset with you, et cetera. So,
Speaker 3: I I think, just to get started, I'm going to
Speaker 3: start with someone had a really interesting new idea for
Speaker 3: how we should handle debates, which I think is cool.
Speaker 3: They said, if anything productive is going to get discussed,
Speaker 3: we need two desks, two pens, one prompt, five paragraphs dueling,
Speaker 3: five paragraph essays. If we asked that of our children
Speaker 3: to graduate high school, it's fair to ask that of
Speaker 3: our elected reps.
Speaker 1: Boy, what a nice idea. You give them a prompt,
Speaker 1: you give them forty five minutes, pencils down, and then
Speaker 1: they have to read their essay and discuss it.
Speaker 2: But can you imagine Trump doing that?
Speaker 1: Can you? Is there anything more exciting than watching people write? Oh?
Speaker 3: Actually, this person went on and said we should do
Speaker 3: asmr of the pen and paper. You could cut that
Speaker 3: up on TikTok.
Speaker 1: You know this is a person that clearly put in
Speaker 1: a lot of thought into this and in many ways
Speaker 1: should be called upon. Forget about the legal women voters
Speaker 1: or the debate Commission. I think we should put whatever
Speaker 1: it is at Banana twelve of you know, he should
Speaker 1: be there or she should be the producer of the
Speaker 1: next Yes, that's lovely.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, we have a good question, and actually
Speaker 2: this is something that we've talked about. But how this
Speaker 2: person wants to know? How do you talk to someone
Speaker 2: who believes conspiracy theories?
Speaker 1: Oh? I don't think you can. I think it depends
Speaker 1: on how far gone they're going. But you know, one
Speaker 1: of the things you realize about people who believe conspiracy
Speaker 1: theories is they're not because they always say, I'm just
Speaker 1: asking questions. But when you ask questions, if you're not
Speaker 1: willing to hear answers, then you're clearly not just asking questions.
Speaker 1: What you're trying to do is just so doubt. The
Speaker 1: thing that always strikes me about conspiracy theories because I'm
Speaker 1: generally skeptical, right, and that's always the basis of a
Speaker 1: conspiracy theory. The official story that you've been told is
Speaker 1: not the total story, which I is an ethos. I
Speaker 1: believe in that. I believe that oftentimes generally, I don't
Speaker 1: believe it's through malevolent although I think at times it's
Speaker 1: through malevolence. I think it's either through in competence or
Speaker 1: that generally stories are not linear and there are facts
Speaker 1: that are inconvenient or don't quite fit in. But the
Speaker 1: problem I have with conspiracies is they don't apply the
Speaker 1: same skepticism to the counter narrative. And it's very hard
Speaker 1: to permeate that. And it's not to suggest that people
Speaker 1: shouldn't be skeptical or that they shouldn't challenge the official line,
Speaker 1: and they shouldn't be where, but what they should understand
Speaker 1: is very rarely do official lines have their shit together
Speaker 1: to the point that there won't be inconsistencies. But those
Speaker 1: inconsistencies are different than a malevolent and surefooted interpretation that
Speaker 1: it was actually fully this other thing that's hard.
Speaker 3: I think a new trend is that the conspiracy theory
Speaker 3: minded people don't necessarily have a counter narrative. They just
Speaker 3: poke holes in in the narrative and say something else
Speaker 3: is true true. Yeah right, You don't need to have
Speaker 3: like a full narrative anymore, do.
Speaker 1: You have friends that are conspiracy theorists in those areas,
Speaker 1: and what would those be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's why this question really stood out
Speaker 2: to me, was like, you know, holidays and I it's
Speaker 2: people I love, people I'm very close with. And it
Speaker 2: also goes to like coffee's going to kill you, right,
Speaker 2: Like the COVID vaccine is the reason that you're getting
Speaker 2: skin cancer whatever. Like all of these things are on
Speaker 2: Instagram and I'm seeing it on the internet. I mean
Speaker 2: we even sawd on the debate, like he was like
Speaker 2: I saw it on TV. So it becomes like a
Speaker 2: real problem where you're like, I love these people, but
Speaker 2: I just can't you.
Speaker 1: Know, how do we find that balance between questioning whether
Speaker 1: or not like a COVID vaccine can cause you know,
Speaker 1: bad effects. Yeah, and every time a football player gets
Speaker 1: injured it's because of that. Like there's there's got to
Speaker 1: be a space for for skepticism. It's such an important
Speaker 1: part of discourse, but it can't fall into that. Maybe
Speaker 1: that's it, maybe saying to them, you know, I appreciate
Speaker 1: your skepticism on that. I feel I have questions about
Speaker 1: what you're saying. There's certain I have a certain maybe
Speaker 1: that's a way to diffuse it. I have no fucking idea. Yep,
Speaker 1: that's a tough one.
Speaker 2: I know. Yeah, let me know when you figure it out.
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving is coming. I gotta figure it out quickly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you got to get this done.
Speaker 3: Do you have room for one more?
Speaker 2: John?
Speaker 1: One more? Bring all right? Bring it.
Speaker 3: People want to know what is the toughest enery you've
Speaker 3: ever done? And why?
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you Harry Reid was a tough one
Speaker 1: because Harry Reid was the Senate Majority leader, senator from Nevada. Yeah,
Speaker 1: passed away, but had a really interesting life and had
Speaker 1: written a book about it. Was raised in a literal
Speaker 1: dirt floor shack in you know, the desert, and you know,
Speaker 1: really the kind of poverty that you know is dust bowldy.
Speaker 1: And so he brings on and he comes on to
Speaker 1: sit down, and I'm sitting with him and I start
Speaker 1: to you know, you were raised on a dirt floor
Speaker 1: and to come from that to go and he really
Speaker 1: did not seem familiar with the story. And it was
Speaker 1: when it wasn't a tough interview and that it was combative,
Speaker 1: it was more bewildering. Like I think it was about
Speaker 1: three minutes in, I was like, have you read this book?
Speaker 1: Because it's fascinating, it's it's your story. You should really
Speaker 1: look at it because it's remarkable. But it was just
Speaker 1: one of those like look, man, these guys are They're
Speaker 1: running around all day, they're busy, they're up on a
Speaker 1: book store, and I think he just was in like
Speaker 1: a brain fart era. But for me, I had been
Speaker 1: invested in reading the whole thing and I'm parsing it
Speaker 1: with him, and he really was like, where was that now, Nevana.
Speaker 2: He was giving you nothing.
Speaker 3: We have to find his ghostwriter.
Speaker 1: Nothing. Yeah, but those those are the tough ones. And
Speaker 1: then there's always the combative ones. The ones I hate
Speaker 1: the most are there'd be people that write the books
Speaker 1: that are like liberals skull fuck children, And then you're like,
Speaker 1: why would you say that, And you go, well, I
Speaker 1: don't think we're that far apart liberals and conservatives. I
Speaker 1: think where you know, it's they take an incredibly strong
Speaker 1: position for their reactionary audience in the book, and then
Speaker 1: you bring them on and they're like, ah, people are
Speaker 1: just people, and if we all just I'd like to
Speaker 1: get back to that feeling. On September twelfth when we
Speaker 1: were all one nation and you're like, well, then maybe
Speaker 1: you shouldn't write that liberals are an enemy column within
Speaker 1: the United States that are trying to destroy it from within. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so those are also those are the ones that also
Speaker 1: can give you problems.
Speaker 2: Sounds fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fun, but it's all good and we've had
Speaker 1: another lovely pod. We are back now, our break is over.
Speaker 1: As always, I want to thank lead producer Lauren Walker,
Speaker 1: producer Britney Memedowick, video editor and engineer Rob Vittolo, who
Speaker 1: I want to tell the audience survived in earthquake during
Speaker 1: the recording of this podcast. Rob, are you still there?
Speaker 1: Are you alive? Hang it in there. We're hanging in there. Rob,
Speaker 1: You've survived a five point one earthquake while we were
Speaker 1: talking and didn't lose internet. Yeah.
Speaker 5: I don't want to give any utility too much credit there,
Speaker 5: but I.
Speaker 1: Do appreciate it. You're probably right, but you are. You
Speaker 1: are safe, and you continue to operate in the genius
Speaker 1: manner that you always do, and we appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Rob's always killing it.
Speaker 1: He's always killing it. Audio editor and engineer Nicole Boys,
Speaker 1: researcher and as social producer Gillian Sparent has always executive
Speaker 1: producers Chris Pick, Shane and Katie Gray. What are the socials, Brittany.
Speaker 2: We are Weekly Show pod on Twitter, Weekly Show Podcast
Speaker 2: on Instagram, TikTok, and The Weekly Show with John Stewart
Speaker 2: on YouTube.
Speaker 1: And if any of you are listening to this or
Speaker 1: seeing this right now, that means that there was no
Speaker 1: follow up giant earthquake and that Rob was able to
Speaker 1: get this thing together enough to send it out over
Speaker 1: the airwaves. Thank you, guys very much, and we shall
Speaker 1: see you again next week. And thank you for listening
Speaker 1: to the episode. If you liked it, please follow The
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Speaker 1: Show with John Stewart is a comedy Central podcast is
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