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Transcript

Is Trump God's Gift to Women? · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pond Save America. I'm John Lovett.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: And I'm Erin Haines.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's show, Kamala Harris tries to raise Donald Trump's
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: advantage on the economy with a big policy speech in Pennsylvania.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Trump keeps up the creepy hypnotist routine with his new
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: approach to women. And the liberal who's made a name
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: for herself taking the fight to Fox News' most irritating personalities,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Jessica Tarlow, stops by to talk about surviving life as
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: a host of The Five. With me to get into
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: the latest with Harris and Trump is our friend Aaron Haynes,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: editor-at-large of The 19th, which covers politics and policy through
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: the lens of women's experience and a reporter who is
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: just deeply immersed in and how women are thinking and
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: feeling about this election. Erin, welcome back to the show.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: You know, it's good to be with you. And let
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: me just say for the record, you were robbed on Survivor.
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: I just want to put that on record.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: I watched you. You were phenomenal.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for saying that. And I appreciate that.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: And that's the kind of journalistic, sort of unbiased take
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: that we're coming to you for. So first of all,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: we haven't talked to you in a while. The last
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: time you were on the show, July 19th, that was
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: in Madison. Joe Biden was two days away from dropping
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: out of the race, which felt like It might be happening,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: but wasn't guaranteed. We talked about whether, if it did happen,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: there would be an open process, how Black Moon reactive
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Kamala was passed over. Just for starters, how are you
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: feeling right now? How different was this than you expected
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: from what you imagined a Harris candidacy might look like?
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: Okay, so I think the words that you're looking for
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: is Aaron is right. Always listen to Aaron. I know
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: it's not your fault. You had a lot of curdled
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: buttermilk that night, if I'm recalling. So your brain, I
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: don't know what was going on.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: But, you know, it's okay. You know, we know better.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: We're doing better.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: So now that we've gotten that little matter of business
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: out of the way, listen.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Wait a second.
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: Wait a second.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: I don't remember. Was it like, I don't think I
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: was on the other side of that debate.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: I think we were still looking for maybe somebody else.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: We were entertaining other folks as if, you know, it
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: was not going to be Kamala Harris. And now that
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: it is Kamala Harris, look. I think some things are
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: playing out the way we expected, like absolutely black women's
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: excitement and enthusiasm about her candidacy was immediate from like
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: minute one. But I think if you had told me
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: that we were going to have white dudes for Harris
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: or nerds for Harris or Liz and Dick Cheney for Harris, like,
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: or that joy was going to be a strategy.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Or a plan, right? No, those things were not on
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: my 2024 bingo card.
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: I think, I feel like even people who were very
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: excited about Vice President Kamala Harris and who believed that
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: there would be a flood of enthusiasm for her or
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: for any replacement, could not have known how bright they
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: would have been.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: No, I think that's true.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think just seeing how strong of a
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: candidate she's been in such a short time, like she
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: really seems to be meeting this moment and passing a
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: lot of those kind of big tests in a way
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: that conveys like a real sense of the stakes and
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: the urgency of particularly for Democrats, right, like that record
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: fundraising that we saw. Her debate performance, obviously, was really
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: pretty incredible, I think we can agree. Also, her DNC
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: speech and just the delivery of that and how folks
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: really responded to that entire week, but obviously culminating in
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: her speech. So, yeah, I think that's probably why you
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: have Democrats responding the way they are to her candidacy
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: and people being comical curious, you know, with six weeks
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: to go.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: So speaking about the stakes, today, the vice president is
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: going to Pittsburgh for a major economic address. That's how
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: the campaign is billing it. Dan and John will dive
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: into more of the details tomorrow. But I did want
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: to talk a bit about the context in which the
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: speech exists. From the jump, the race looked like it
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: basically it's going to be won or lost on the economy, prices,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: cost of living, jobs, whether things were better under Trump.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Harris started in a pretty deep hole on who voters
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: trusted on the economy, with Trump leading Biden by 12
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: points earlier this year. Now Harris has closed the gap
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: to just six points, according to The Washington Post. Three
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: potential explanations for that. One, sentiment on the economy is
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: just improving. People are having a better view of inflation.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: They see that coming down. Consumer sentiment is rising. Two,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Kamala has laid out a bunch of policy specifics, and
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: that serves to be both a contrast with Biden and
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: kind of pitches this into a contrast with Trump about
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: the future. And then three, she's a different person. She
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: isn't Joe Biden. At the same time, we just had
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: another round of polls that made clear voters still do
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: trust Donald Trump on the economy. They trust Donald Trump
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: on the economy more than they trust Kamala Harris. What
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: are you hearing when you're on the trail directly from voters?
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: And what do you hear from volunteers? Because I know
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: you've been talking to some volunteers trying to persuade their
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: friends and neighbors on the economy.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think her talking about affordability and
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: also really kind of leaning into her lived experience, her background,
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: and how that's really informing how she's thinking about policy
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: and how she's thinking about governing. Like, that's also a
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: message that her surrogates, that these volunteers and these organizers,
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: that's something that they can take to everyday Americans who,
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: you know, may be feeling the pinch in this economy,
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: even as the economy, you know, has improved overall. Like,
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: is it improving an individual American's lives? That is really,
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: I think, why we've seen that kind of intractability on
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: how people, feel about the economy. So, you know, when
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: she is talking about not even being in a home,
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: you know, being a renter, her mom being a renter
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: until she was a teenager, like that's something that other
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: Americans can identify with. When she, you know, tries to
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: draw the contrast between, you know, her kind of earning
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: where she has gotten to in life as opposed to
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: former President Trump, who, you know, was born rich, you know,
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: that is, you know, a contrast that makes her more relatable,
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: even as she is kind of starting to put some
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: meat on the bones with these specifics in terms of
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: what the opportunity economy is going to mean and how
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: different kinds of Americans can see themselves fitting into that.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So in the speech, she's obviously going to put,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: I think, some more sort of meat on the bone
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: around affordability, around investing in entrepreneurship, around manufacturing and infrastructure.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: But in just how the speech is being framed, it
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: does seem like one goal of it is to just
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: drive the idea that she's not a radical, right? The
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: release talks about how she's a pragmatist and a capitalist.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: What do you make of that? What do you think
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: they're trying to address? What do you think the concern is?
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think this kind of goes to
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: some of the polling that we've seen that say, you
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: don't feel like they know enough about her. Like she's
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: still kind of an unknown. And she is, people were
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: not paying that much attention to her as vice president.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: She wasn't the main person that was making policy. And
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: her opponent is somebody who was president before, who people,
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: you know, for better or for worse, do have a
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: sense of, especially in terms of how they feel about
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: what the economy was like for them under his presidency.
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: They don't have that experience with her, right? And so
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: her trying to reassure people, her trying to convince people,
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: that she is reasonable, that, you know, the opportunity economy
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: is not some kind of pie in the sky thing,
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: but that, you know, trying to kind of ground that
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: in reality, you know, about what is possible. But I
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: do think that it is interesting that she is talking
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: about the economy, not just in a way that talks
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: about people getting by or getting back to something, but
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: really being able to build wealth and have real, like
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: that is certainly something that feels different in tone than
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: what we heard before she was the candidate.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we even maybe talked about this the
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: last time we were on the show. I've noticed that too,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: there's a real focus on wealth building. There's some data
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: coming out about how Trump's positioning on the Affordable Care
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: Act will take away health insurance from entrepreneurs who use
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: it to get coverage while they're building small businesses. One
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: big part of what she's gonna talk about today is
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: trying to get to 25 million new small businesses the
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: talking about being a capitalist, being a pragmatist, it did
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: feel like the first time, like this campaign has been
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: so good about brushing Donald Trump off. And I don't
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: think this is at all defensive at all. I think she's,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: you know, there was just another poll. There was a
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: poll that came out the other day that showed like
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: capitalism being very popular, socialism being very unpopular, less popular
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: than J.D.
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: Vance.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: So they're clearly trying to speak to sort of a
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: broad cross-section of America. But it was the first time
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: I thought, ha, I wonder if, whether they're seeing an
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: effect of it or not, that they want to make
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: sure they're rebutting this idea of like Comrade Kamala, some
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: of these allegations from the right that she's a radical. Yeah.
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: And I think, too, just like you have everyday Americans
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: who are saying, well, yeah, well, where is my piece
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: of capitalism, right? I mean, when Kamala Harris is talking
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: about $ 25, 000 homeownership assistance, like that is, oh, so I
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: might be somebody who may be able to become a homeowner, too,
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: when she's talking about, you know, $ 50, 000 instead of $ 5, 000
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: for people who want to start a small business.
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: And talking about, you know, the healthcare piece of folks
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: having a small business, like that, making that a reality
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: as opposed to just talking about things like lowering the
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: unemployment gap or, you know, making it possible for you
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: to afford eggs or milk.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: Like, no, I.
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: Don't just want to do that, right? Like, I actually
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: want some shit in this economy.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: Like, where's my American dream, right?
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: Like, so making that pitch to people, I think, is
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: something that's resonating and is a contrast to somebody who
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: was talking a lot more about his American dream.
• 9:42
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: I also do think it's, it's a bit about like
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: men who have maybe been drawn into like the, like
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: the manosphere, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. You know,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: you can get, you have to get ahead on your own.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: You have to do this yourself kind of thing. And like,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: they want to hear like, oh, I'll have, like I'll
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: have opportunity in a Kamala Harris administration.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: Definitely.
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: I mean, so much of, she has been talking about,
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: talking about and talking to American men about, you know,
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: what this, what it means for them when she talks
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: about the economy that she, you is pitching if she
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: is elected president. You hear her talking to black men
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: in particular, a group of voters that she needs to
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: shore up who is wondering, you know, where do I
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: fit in to a Kamala Harris presidency? Or, you know,
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: she's going on, she's going on podcasts as well. I mean,
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: certainly we've seen Donald Trump, you know, wading into the
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: maniverse to talk about, you know, his version of masculinity
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: in the economy. But she's doing some of that too.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: You just saw her, you know, doing that podcast with
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: a couple of former basketball players. Like that, that is
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: to a very specific audience. Like she does that just
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: after she sits down with Oprah. Like, you know, I
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: think she's trying to appeal to as broad a coalition
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: as possible in the time that she's got left, right,
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: as people are already voting.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: So I actually want to put side by side how
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Kamala is talking about the economy with how Trump is
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: talking about the economy. Here he was in Savannah, Georgia,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: and he rambled endlessly. He did every one of his
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: conspiratorial lines. But mixed into that was the message his
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: campaign actually wanted him to deliver, which is some version
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: of this.
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: So, as your president, here is the deal that I
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: will be offering to every major company and manufacturer on Earth.
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: I will give you the lowest taxes, the lowest energy costs,
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: the lowest regulatory burden, and free access to the best
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: and biggest market on the planet, but only if you
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: make your product here in America. It all goes away
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: if you don't make your product here.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: So what I find interesting about that is like, we're
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: so used to Trump being weird and every election with
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: Trump being weird. But if you strip out the Trumpiness,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: what you have is Kamala Harris saying she wants to
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: lower costs through tax breaks for the middle class, make
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: housing more affordable, tax breaks to start new businesses, lower
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: prescription drug prices, and industrial policy, investments in infrastructure, clean energy, manufacturing, right?
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Then you have Donald Trump basically doing Paul Ryan economics.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: I will do unbridled capital, right? Like you can count on,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: you don't have to worry about taxes as much or
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: unions or workplace safety or environmental rules. Like you will
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: be unleashed. Like the wealthiest interest in the society will
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: be unleashed and that will trickle down to working class
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: and middle-class people. Oh, and just as a little bonus,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: icing on the cake, I'm going to do mass deportations
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: and I'm going to do tariff's as some promise to
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: increase domestic manufacturing and increase wages for the middle class.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: And Donald Trump is obviously his worst enemy, but so
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: is his agenda. And I'm just wondering what you see
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: when you put aside the Donald Trump noise and just
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: get to the actual substance of that side-by-side contrast. Yeah.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: I mean, first of all, John, let me just say,
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: That contrast that we just heard, like that is the
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: main case for why we need another debate. Like we
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: barely got into the economy in that first debate. Like
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: that was like the first question. Then we moved on
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: to all kinds of other stuff. And then we got into,
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: you know, pet eating and it went totally off the
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: rails from there.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: But like. Yes, we need to hear more.
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: About what both of these candidates are talking about in
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: terms of the economy because they are two starkly contrasting visions,
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: as I think we just heard. So there's kinds of
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: things he is talking about. How is the everyday American
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: supposed to understand what that is going to mean for them,
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: how that is going– to translate into their daily lives.
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: I don't think that that is what they are hearing.
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: And meanwhile, you have Vice President Harris continuing to talk
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: about what she wants to do for the American people.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: That is really what feels different. I don't know that
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: that's necessarily what we're going to get in this speech
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: out of Pittsburgh.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: I'm very curious to hear that.
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: But there are not enough opportunities for us to hear
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: more specifics, right? I mean, what you just played was
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: not a concept of a plan.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: Like, that is a.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: Very clear vision of what he plans to do should
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: he return to the White House.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: And that just really does not.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: Have very much to do with the everyday American who
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: was sitting at their kitchen table trying to figure out
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: how they're managing their own economy.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting, right? Because that message that Donald Trump
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: was trying to deliver in Georgia, it's drowned out. It
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: was drowned out by this. This was what surrounded what
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: he was saying in Savannah.
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: For years, they knocked the word. The word tariff, properly used,
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: is a beautiful word. One of the most beautiful words ever.
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: I've ever heard. It's music to my ears. I find
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: it very hard to sleep.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: I get so many ideas.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: I'm thinking all the time.
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: I'm going to McDonald's over the next two weeks and
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: I'm going to stand over the French fries because I
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: want to see what her job really wasn't like. Your
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: wages will rise.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Your costs will fall.
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: Your job opportunities will grow because we will conduct the
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: largest deportation operation, sadly, in American history.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: We have no choice. So You've written about the election
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: entering its dark phase. I was like, oh, were we
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: in the fucking light phase? Was this the rainbow phase?
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: The joy phase.
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: You know, that was kind of the beginning. And now, yeah,
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: the clouds are definitely rolling in. Can I just say,
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: you know, look, I too, like former President Trump, do
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: like to stand at McDonald's and smell the fries.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: It's delicious. And frankly, right now I am starving.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: But no, I mean, like that again, a contract like
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: Kamala Harris actually worked at McDonald's. He's talking about going
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: there to smell the fries to see what that maybe
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: might have felt like. Look, this is the kind of
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: thing that gets applause lines from his faithful at the rally.
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: But like he needs to actually expand his voters beyond
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: that base of people, beyond that kind of 70 million
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: voter threshold, like if he is going to win in November.
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: And so what additional support? voters, I guess, who are
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: not familiar with him for whatever reason since he's been
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: in the atmosphere for the past decade. Like, what number
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: of those voters does that kind of message appeal to?
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so basically he's just joking about how, oh, she
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: didn't really work at McDonald's, just part of his unending
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: series of ways in which he's trying to say, you know,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: attack her on a race. But who are.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: Tariffs exciting also? Like, tariffs are exciting.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, that's sort of the strange thing about this,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: because on the one hand, there's been a bunch of
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: stories about how his campaign can't figure out how to
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: get this guy on message. He's not doing as many rallies.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: When he does, he is unhinged. He talks about, obviously,
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: eating cats and dogs, the tale of which, no pun intended,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: I think has continued. At the same time, his agenda
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: is deeply unpopular. And even just as we watch those
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: two clips, I don't know what's actually worse for him.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump rambling incoherently in a way that reminds people
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: of why they don't like him personally, or Donald Trump
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: putting attention on the contrast between him and Kamala Harris
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: on the economy. You know, Donald Trump, the two moments
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: in his presidency when he was basically at his most
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: unpopular were around the insurrection and around the effort to
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: repeal the Affordable Care Act, right? Which tells you something
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: that like this idea that like Donald Trump being off
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: message is inherently bad for him. Like, I don't know
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: when his actual economic message, I think if it actually
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: gets in front of people, if you actually draw that contrast,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: is pretty unpopular.
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: It is, and yet this race is still going to
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: be a matter of inches.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Like, how?
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: I mean, like, what is it that, I guess, first
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: of all, I mean, hearing from undecided voters at this point,
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: wherever they are, whoever they are, about what they're still
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: on the fence about, I think that's really important in
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: this moment because I do think when we talk to
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: voters on the ground, the things that they are focused
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: on really are the issues of affordability, first and foremost.
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, yes, things like access to reproductive care, absolutely
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: important to people, issues of gun violence, political violence, democracy,
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: all that stuff matters, but they really are thinking about
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: what this election means for them and not necessarily for
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: either one of those candidates.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: And the economy is just... central to that.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it makes me wonder about what the actual value
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: is of a big, serious policy address about all these
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: different pieces of it, when on some level, there are
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: a lot of voters out there that just need to hear,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: I'm going to make everything more affordable. That's my focus.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: That's what you care about. That's what I care about.
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, yeah, voters are definitely focused on affordability
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: and more to the point, like whether she gets that
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: this is their priority and whether they feel like it's
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: going to be her priority if she is their next president, right?
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: But I do think, I mean, yes, like this speech in.
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: Pittsburgh is partly for a political press corps who's looking
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: to hear more from her on specific policies. She's been
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: talking a lot about this opportunity economy. Like you said,
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: some of the folks that are in that room are
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: looking to maybe hear a little bit more, get some
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: more meat on the bones and understand that she is
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: sensible and pragmatic and At the end of the day,
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: her tone around the economy has also been something that
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: has felt different, like that focus on affordability. You had
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: President Biden really touting Bidenomics and how good the economy was,
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: and that was not something that a lot of everyday
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: Americans were saying that they felt.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: So we don't really hear so much about. that anymore, right?
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: She's focused on the future, not just their record together.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: There are some lines that Trump does manage to read
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: off the prompter and, uh, One new part of his
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: stump speech is a direct appeal to women that we've
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: been talking about. He started doing it over the weekend.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: It sounds like this.
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: Business.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: I always thought women liked me. I never thought I
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: had a problem.
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: But the fake news keeps saying women don't like me.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: I don't believe it.
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: I think they like me because I represent something that's
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: very important. I make this statement to the great.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: Women of our country.
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: You will no longer be abandoned, lonely, or scared. You
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: will no longer be in danger. You're not going to
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: be in danger any longer. You will no longer have
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: anxiety from all of the problems our country has today.
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: You will be protected, and I will be your protector.
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: Women will be happy, healthy, confident, and free. You will
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: no longer be thinking about abortion. It's all they talk
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: about abortion.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: So Erin, you're a woman. One less thing to worry about.
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: Well, first of all, let me just like, like the
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: way that the, the volume went from like the volume
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: of my calm app to the all caps that he's
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: doing on true social. Like that was a lot. Uh,
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: let me just say that. Um, He's not, I mean,
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: that's not the teleprompter. That's directly from his Truth Social
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: post from over the weekend where, I mean, he just
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: really could not, he didn't have enough, he couldn't say
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: enough about women, which kind of signals to me that
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: he clearly knows that he needs women to win in
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: November and that there is this huge gender gap right now, right? So,
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: you know, him saying that he's going to be their
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: protector and they're going to be so happy that they
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: won't be thinking about abortion anymore. Like, I don't, Again,
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: outside of the women who are already planning to vote
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: for him, I don't know who that message is supposed
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: to appeal to. Not to mention that it really is
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: just kind of the concept of an idea as opposed
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: to how he plans to do any of that.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: It's so creepy. It's creepy as fuck. Like, it sounds
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: like he's about to offer to give you a tattoo
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: of his name on your inner thigh. It's like the
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: weirdest fucking thing I've ever, like, I will be, you'll
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: never be lonely. Like, who is, like, I, it is
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: a bath, like, it is, Like I like find it
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: like so strange. It is so like intimate and like patronizing.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: Like I and it's written down like this is not
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: he didn't he's not riffing like this is a message
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: they're trying to deliver. And like, OK, like I can't imagine,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: you know, we're not going to as you said, like
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: this is not for anyone other than his diehard fans.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: But like, is there some logic to it? Is there
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: some way it's a it's an argument for men?
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: Maybe that is the audience.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: I really don't know.
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, we went into this year at the
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: 19th saying gender was going to be on the ballot, right?
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: Like there were these two contrasting, really contrasting versions of
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: masculinity when it was Biden versus Trump. And now you
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: have Kamala Harris on the ticket and an even more
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: striking gender contrast.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: To say the least.
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: Like his brand of masculinity rubs a lot of women
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: the wrong way and reminds them of the freedoms and
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: rights of that they, you know, that have been eroded
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: as a result of his policies and actions. And so
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: that is certainly Harris's case to women, you know, kind
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: of framing this election in terms of protecting those rights
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: and freedoms that she says he has helped take away.
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: But like, you know, I don't I don't know which
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: women this appeals to. And clearly it's young men who
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: are kind of gravitating to Trump in in. in numbers
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: larger than, than, than women. So, you know, there's like
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: a version of strength here or, or a version of
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: what his understanding of women or gender is that, that is,
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: is maybe appealing to them. But I know, because no,
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: I don't, I don't think that this is appealing to
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: the vast majority of women in this country.
• 24:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: Like, I don't want to be another person kind of
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: saying Washington Trump and helping make sense of his sort
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: of musings, but clearly like, Democrats are telling women, protect yourself,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: protect your basic bodily autonomy. These people want to control you.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Vote for the Democrats. And Trump is trying to say
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: some version of you're at risk because of immigrants, right?
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: Of migrants, of crime. And like, I will protect you
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: from that. And I do think that like, there is
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: a less creepy, fascistic, version of something to say to men,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: which is the kind of protection Trump is offering, this
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: way of controlling and being in charge of women. That's
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: actually weakness. That's not strength. That's a weak form of masculinity.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: That's what insecure men do. That's the cyber truck of masculinity.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: And what we're saying is if you really want to
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: show how strong you are, if you want to show
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: that you want to support, respect, and protect women, how
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: you do that is standing with them in this election. Like,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: to be a man is to, to be a good husband, boyfriend, father, son,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: is to stand with the women in your life who
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: are telling you that they want your support. And I
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: don't know that we're doing that enough.
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and also just that we're seeing two very different
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: understandings of the meaning of the word safety, right?
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: So that's one thing.
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: But I think, you know, the other thing about this
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: is this version of masculinity that doesn't really work for
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: a lot of women. You're seeing Governor Walz and Second
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: Gentleman Imhoff really kind of exhibiting some very contrasting versions
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: of masculinity that.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: Are really challenging what our ideas of masculinity can be
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: as leaders. Also, I mean, I think this upcoming vice
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: presidential debate is going to be very consequential in terms of,
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: you know, two contrasting versions of masculinity as.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Well, right?
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: And just, I mean, his vice presidential, Trump's vice presidential nominee, J.D. Vance,
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: certainly doesn't do him any favors with women either, just
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: in terms of how he, I mean, he may be
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: trying to emphasize families. I guess that's the point of it,
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: but- doing that at the expense of women who do
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: not have families as if they are worth less or
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: their votes are worth less, their value is less in
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: our democracy, in our society. Like that is not, that's
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: certainly not a message. I mean, that's a message that's
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: galvanizing women, but probably not in the way that they
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: would want.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, look, there is this sort of like Republicans, conservatives,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: this conservative ecosystem, the one that J.D. Vance was so
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: plugged into, they didn't realize how weird he sounded when
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: he became a national figure, they are feeding off this
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: uncertainty that men have that we have talked a lot
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: about toxic masculinity. And it's hard to come up with
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: the good qualities of masculinity that you wouldn't also celebrate
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: in women. It's hard to come up with the good
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: qualities of femininity you wouldn't also celebrate in men. And
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: there is a way in which Republicans are really are
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: latching onto something that isn't false, which is like these
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: fundamental ideas are under attack. And we do need to
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: be kind of offering a positive vision on these topics.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: Well, here's what's wild, John.
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: I'm old enough to remember when we were in Milwaukee
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: at the RNC, when there was a, look, you talk
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: about saying on message, there were surrogates throughout that week
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: who tried to paint a very different picture of President Trump.
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: The President Trump that we didn't know was what they
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: were billing to us, right? The President Trump who cares
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: a lot about women, who empowers women, you know, professionally, personally.
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: Laura Trump, you know, got up there and talked about
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: the Donald Trump that she knew, the family man that
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: she knew, the grandfather that she knows and loves, right?
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: The father-in-law who has been supportive of her in her career.
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: Sarah Huckabee Sanders also was somebody that talked a lot
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: about how the former president empowered her when she was
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: in that administration. So like that feels like so long
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: ago now. And it, you know, I think about, cause
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: I thought a lot about the audiences who might've been
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: tuned in during that week who were maybe just kind
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: of checking in for the first time on the election
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: and were, you know, maybe, you know, some number of
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: them could have been persuaded, you know, right. That, that, that, that,
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: you know, maybe we were wrong about him. Maybe we
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: missed some things about him, but yet, you know, because
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: he's really not able to stay on script. I think we,
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: you know, he has been at odds with the messaging
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: that we saw just a couple of months ago.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Before we let you go, Trump gave his economic speech
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: in Georgia. We had some new polling this week that
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: had Trump up on Harrison, Georgia, North Carolina, and Arizona.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about Georgia and North Carolina specifically.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: What are you seeing or hearing from voters in those
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: states that we might be missing? And why do you
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: think North Carolina is Yeah.
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: North Carolina is interesting. I mean, especially for the Mark
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: Robinson of it all, right? I mean, I think I
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: will continue to be interested in polling kind of on
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: the other side of that scandal, whether or not he,
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: Mark Robinson, and Donald Trump are kind of successfully tethered together.
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: But I mean, look, the reality is that the former
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: president is somebody who does have strong support in both
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: of those states. And so Kamala Harris is trying to
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: make up ground in those places. She has certainly kind
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: of clawed back the Black voters that maybe were not
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: as enthusiastic when President Biden was still on the ticket.
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: But yes, I mean, to build the kind of coalition
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: that it's going to take for her to win in
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: places like Arizona, North Carolina, and Georgia, I think the
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: campaign is clear that they still have a lot of
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: work to do to get that coalition going. together because
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: of what the former president's strength has been in those places.
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: On Mark Robinson, I feel like....
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: What about on Mark Robinson?
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: I feel like this is maybe, you know, like a
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: little bit indelicate. But I do think one part of
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: this story that like, I don't know, is being sort
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: of assumed without being discussed is like how somebody like
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: this went from clickety clacking on the keyboards on the
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: forums to being the current lieutenant governor. He's not just
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: a gubernatorial candidate. He's the current lieutenant governor. And, you know,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: there's this clip that I'm sure we are going to
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: be seeing between now and November of Donald Trump calling
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: Mark Robinson, Martin Luther King on steroids. I do think
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: it's pretty revealing that I think One part of this
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: is like someone went from this unqualified person rocketed up
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: through Republican politics in Georgia because he's a black Republican
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: and they were excited to throw their arms around him.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: And I wonder like what you what you make about that,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: what you think of that and like how that has
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: impacted this story as it's unfolded.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. I mean, come on, John.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: We're old enough to remember Herschel Walker, candidate for Senate
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: in Georgia, who also had some problems, to say the least,
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: going into that election, which he lost. So like Herschel Walker,
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: Mark Robinson is somebody who really kind of embraced the
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: Trumpism model of politics. And him being a black Republican
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: made him only more appealing, I guess, to some number
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: of Republican voters in North Carolina who chose him to
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: be lieutenant governor and then made him the Republican nominee again.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: For a governor.
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: And by the way, I mean, he certainly was problematic
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: on gender even before we got to- A.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: Ton of this shit was out there.
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: A lot of this was already out there.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: But none of that was a non-starter.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: None of that was a deal breaker for those voters
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: up to that point. It was not a deal breaker
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: for former President Trump, who emphatically endorsed him, again, calling
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: him Martin Luther King on steroids. By the way, his
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: daughter has said, please cease and desist from aligning my
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: father with this man.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: So yeah, it.
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: Has all been okay, I guess, is kind of what
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: I would say to this. And it'll be interesting to
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: see if these latest revelations are a bridge too far
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: for general election voters. But I mean, nothing he had
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: done prior to this point was a bridge too far
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: for those primary voters.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, he was down by, in some cases, double
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: digits before the latest or as the latest scandal was breaking.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: The Times poll, I believe, had some of its sample
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: taken after these latest revelations. So it's not looking good
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: for him in the governor's race. I think the question is,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: how well can Robinson be tied to Trump by the
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Harris campaign, which has put out a strategy to do it.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: Erin Haynes of the 19th, thank you so much for
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: being here. It's always good to see you. And are
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: you going out on the road?
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I expect that I will be getting
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: back out on the trail here soon to see, I mean,
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: really just, I am on the lookout for any and
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: all undecided voters.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: Call me. My DMs are open.
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: I want to hear where you are at this point
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: and what the thing is going to be that gets you,
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: you know, across the finish line for either one of
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: these candidates. Because people, you know, people are starting to
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: vote and people are starting to make up their minds
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: right now. The thing about election season is we have
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: a target-rich environment to talk to people who are already
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: casting their ballots or trying to make up their minds.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: And I'm just so.
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: Curious about where people are and what it is that
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: is helping them make up their minds.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: Because I'm just trying to.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: Why and how this election is still so close, I
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: need to solve this mystery.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: It's a little bit like in an old sitcom when
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: the couple is fighting over a dog and they're in
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: the courtroom and everyone's watching and there's a little puppy
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: between the two parents and they both have treats. They're
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: trying to get to talk to them, except in this case,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: one of the parents is a wheat thresher. And it's like,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: come on, come on over. We have a nice sign.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: That's a wheat thresher.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: What have you been binging?
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know. This is just old.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: I think this is old 80s sitcoms from my childhood.
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: Wow, you're on like YouTube. You're down the YouTube rabbit
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: hole over there.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: I have been getting the conspiracy theories that TikTok believes
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: I'm interested in. Saturn isn't real. Jim Carrey and Joe
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: Biden are the same person. The conspiratorial mindset that the
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: algorithm sees in me I'm excited. I'm excited for the direction.
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: I look forward to your full radicalization and what that
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: means for the Podsafe audience.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: I'm sure that we're all looking very forward.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, something to look forward to. We're not going back.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: Erin Haines, thank you so much. Okay, when we come
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: back from the break, we're going to hear from Jessica Tarlow,
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: the token liberal on Fox News, who may be pulling
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: an inside job. But before we get to Jessica, as
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: the new Supreme Court term approaches in early October, now
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: is the perfect time to catch up on strict scrutiny.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: Learn about the last term's biggest rulings. Get a preview
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: of what's on the docket next and laugh so you
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: don't cry about the absolutely wild judicial antics on the
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: current court. Tune into Strict Scrutiny on Amazon Music or
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. And on October 2nd, I
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: am hosting a Trek the Vote. It's a live comedy
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: show and fundraiser that will have politics, games, high-octane nerd business.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: We will have incredible Star Trek icons like Jonathan Frakes,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: Gates McFadden, Will Wheaton, Jerry Ryan, Tawny Newsome, and so
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: many more. All funds are going to go to Vote
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: Save America in support of the highest impact down ballot
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: races and state level grassroots organizing, voter protection efforts. So
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: please join us. If you go to votesaveamerica.com slash trek,
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: please buy tickets. You can come see it live or
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: you can watch the stream. It's all going to support
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: Vote Save America. We've got a really incredible item. It's
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: going to be a really fun show. So do me
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: a favor and sign up at votesaveamerica.com slash trek. This
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: message has been paid for by Vote Save America. You
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: can learn more at votesaveamerica.com. And this ad has not
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: been authorized by any candidate or candidates committee. When we
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: come back, Jessica Tarloff. Joining us now, Fox News' own
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: Jessica Tarloff. Jessica, welcome to the show.
• 37:21
  Speaker 6: Thank you for having me. Super psyched to be here.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: So I make a podcast a couple of times a
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: week with dear friends who basically agree with me on everything.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: And there's still mornings I wake up questioning my life choices.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: Did you do a hit and run in a past life?
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: What happened?
• 37:37
  Speaker 6: And lots of chatter about Stockholm syndrome, like what may
• 37:39
  Speaker 6: have happened. No, I don't think so. I believe in
• 37:43
  Speaker 6: past lives. I think I've been pretty good. Maybe I
• 37:45
  Speaker 6: was a squirrely animal of some kind. But no, this
• 37:49
  Speaker 6: is just where I ended. And I think it's a
• 37:52
  Speaker 6: bit of good fortune, actually.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: Why is that?
• 37:56
  Speaker 6: Well, A, I have a lot of fun at work,
• 37:57
  Speaker 6: and I think a lot of people don't have a
• 37:59
  Speaker 6: lot of fun at work. B, I get to advocate
• 38:03
  Speaker 6: for things that I believe in and I think will
• 38:05
  Speaker 6: make the world a better place. C, I get to
• 38:07
  Speaker 6: do it in front of 3 million people every day. D,
• 38:10
  Speaker 6: I actually haven't done it in an ABCD format yet.
• 38:13
  Speaker 6: I have a lot of reasons. D, persuadable voters are
• 38:17
  Speaker 6: the ones watching Fox. Obviously, there are a lot of conservatives,
• 38:20
  Speaker 6: but a lot of liberals and a lot of persuadables. E,
• 38:24
  Speaker 6: I will never feel like I did in 2016 again
• 38:27
  Speaker 6: because I know what's going on on the other side.
• 38:29
  Speaker 6: There's no surprises to come. Like during the debate, all
• 38:33
  Speaker 6: of my friends who aren't really tuned into politics and
• 38:36
  Speaker 6: the way that we are texting me saying like, what
• 38:38
  Speaker 6: is he talking about? The cats and the dogs and
• 38:40
  Speaker 6: the transgender surgeries for illegals in prison. And like, I
• 38:45
  Speaker 6: knew what all of it meant. I don't know if
• 38:47
  Speaker 6: that's an advantage, but it's what's.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: In there now. So I wanted to ask you about
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: this and persuasion. Like the strange part about your role
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: on The Five is what it seems to me, and
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: you can tell me if I'm wrong here, but that
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: your sparring partners are unpersuadable. And even in the rare
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: cases where you kind of gain ground, it feels like
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: you're having an argument you can't win as a way
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: of getting to people who might actually be persuaded by
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: what you're saying. So how do you think about that? Like,
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: You're basically talking to people whose job it is to
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: not be convinced.
• 39:26
  Speaker 6: Well, I think that there's actually two parts to the mission.
• 39:30
  Speaker 6: So the first part and something that I think that
• 39:32
  Speaker 6: is really important is to show people that folks with
• 39:35
  Speaker 6: different points of view can actually get along. And if
• 39:38
  Speaker 6: you watch the entire show, you see that, that there
• 39:41
  Speaker 6: is a camaraderie, there's a collegiality to it. There's a
• 39:43
  Speaker 6: lot of personal information that's floated around, you know, people
• 39:46
  Speaker 6: talking about so-and-so's pet, my daughter's. I've had two kids
• 39:51
  Speaker 6: in the last two and a half years, so been
• 39:53
  Speaker 6: pregnant a lot on the show, things like that. And
• 39:56
  Speaker 6: I think that that's something that really resonates with the
• 39:59
  Speaker 6: audience and something that connects differently actually about Fox as
• 40:02
  Speaker 6: a network.
• 40:04
  Speaker 5: As a whole.
• 40:06
  Speaker 6: The second part is that you can persuade them insofar
• 40:11
  Speaker 6: as they can take your point or say, I agree
• 40:14
  Speaker 6: with a piece of this. but that people at home
• 40:18
  Speaker 6: aren't necessarily as dug in as the people that they
• 40:21
  Speaker 6: see on television. So they're somewhere in between, right? They're
• 40:24
  Speaker 6: obviously going to be the diehard MAGA folks and they're
• 40:27
  Speaker 6: going to be diehard liberals that, you know, Monday night,
• 40:30
  Speaker 6: nine o'clock, they're like, oh, it's Rachel night, right? And
• 40:33
  Speaker 6: they're going to sit down and they're going to hang
• 40:34
  Speaker 6: on to every single word that Rachel Maddow has to say.
• 40:37
  Speaker 6: Those people aren't persuadable, but the vast majority of people,
• 40:41
  Speaker 6: their views are somewhere around the center. Some are center-right,
• 40:44
  Speaker 6: some are center-left, especially now that we talk about issues
• 40:47
  Speaker 6: like abortion all the time, which has motivated so many
• 40:50
  Speaker 6: center-right people to end up voting for Democrats. And so
• 40:54
  Speaker 6: I don't think it necessarily matters as much what happens
• 40:57
  Speaker 6: on screen as what happens on screen affecting the people
• 41:01
  Speaker 6: at home or how it makes them feel about the
• 41:04
  Speaker 6: type of argument that you're making, the way you're putting
• 41:06
  Speaker 6: it together, the type of persuasion, I guess, that you're using.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: So for a long time, there was this argument that
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: basically said, like, Democrats shouldn't go on Fox News because
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: they're just going to be punching bags. And there was
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: Al Franken famously wrote about Hannity and Combs, and he
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: put Combs in a really small font.
• 41:26
  Speaker 6: Like the tiny font, yeah.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: Tiny font. And Combs was a punching bag. And I
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: want to put that aside. Like, obviously, I don't think
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: it is valuable for progressives to go on Fox News,
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: have the ever-loving shit beat out of you, and then
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: go home. But I want to talk about the best cases, right?
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: I think you are the best case, I think, when
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: Secretary Pete goes on and does a great job. That's
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: a best case. I think John, my co-host, went and
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: talked to Jesse and gave as good as he got.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: But even in those cases, I personally worry that like, hey,
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: like this is a network that exists, that has a goal, right?
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: And the goal is to elect Republicans. And even if
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: there are moments where you are pushing back inside of
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: that organization, the organization has a purpose. And by lending
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: credibility to it, by participating in it, you are helping
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: that organization succeed in its larger mission. And I don't
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: say that with judgment. I say that to like to wonder, like,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: how do you how do you think about that? Wanting
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: to win the battle that you're in, but maybe contributing
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: in a in a negative way to a larger war.
• 42:34
  Speaker 6: So I wouldn't say that that's necessarily the mission of
• 42:37
  Speaker 6: the organization. News Corp operates like a lot of major
• 42:41
  Speaker 6: corporations across the country. They have great benefits packages. They
• 42:45
  Speaker 6: have tons of people who work there that don't necessarily
• 42:48
  Speaker 6: subscribe to the political views of the hosts that are
• 42:50
  Speaker 6: on air. In fact, most of them don't, right? People
• 42:53
  Speaker 6: who work in television tend to be pretty liberal. So
• 42:56
  Speaker 6: that's the same there as it would be anywhere else.
• 43:00
  Speaker 6: the hosts or a majority of them, sure, they want
• 43:03
  Speaker 6: Republicans to get elected. But as we've seen in the
• 43:05
  Speaker 6: last series of elections, so 2020, 2022, all of the
• 43:10
  Speaker 6: referendums that we've seen on the Dobbs decision, special elections,
• 43:14
  Speaker 6: Democrats have been overperforming. And they've been able to do
• 43:17
  Speaker 6: that because persuadable voters have been hearing from Democrats. Now,
• 43:21
  Speaker 6: I don't think that I've changed the course of history
• 43:24
  Speaker 6: in any way. But I do think it's meaningful for
• 43:27
  Speaker 6: people who enjoy center-right viewing, let's say. Again, I'm excluding
• 43:33
  Speaker 6: diehard MAGA fans that are not going to listen to anything.
• 43:36
  Speaker 6: But when they see a reasonable and data-driven representative of
• 43:42
  Speaker 6: the left who can also get along with their colleagues,
• 43:46
  Speaker 6: that makes them sit up and listen. And I've had
• 43:48
  Speaker 6: that experience all across the country when I run into
• 43:51
  Speaker 6: Fox viewers. you know, everybody, not an unkind word. I've
• 43:55
  Speaker 6: had someone actually apologize to me for how they behaved online.
• 43:59
  Speaker 6: They can't, they can't said, you know, I've been calling
• 44:01
  Speaker 6: you the C word online for like three years. And
• 44:03
  Speaker 6: I'm like, well, I wouldn't have known that. So I'm
• 44:05
  Speaker 6: not sure why you're telling me. She said, I just
• 44:07
  Speaker 6: want you to know that I've watched you now and
• 44:11
  Speaker 6: the way that you interact with people. And I feel
• 44:13
  Speaker 6: really bad about it. I haven't taken down the tweets.
• 44:15
  Speaker 6: I'm like, I don't care, you know, add it to
• 44:17
  Speaker 6: the pile, but people do recognize that. that I have
• 44:22
  Speaker 6: a different mission in all of this, but that I
• 44:25
  Speaker 6: can still be part of the fabric and I think
• 44:29
  Speaker 6: an effective part of.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: It as well.
• 44:32
  Speaker 6: And what are you going to do? So you're just
• 44:33
  Speaker 6: going to sit around in an echo chamber, right? You're
• 44:36
  Speaker 6: going to go to safe places that are not representative
• 44:39
  Speaker 6: of the electorate to get your message across. That doesn't
• 44:43
  Speaker 6: seem particularly useful. I'm not saying there isn't a place
• 44:47
  Speaker 6: for it. And I'm not saying there aren't certain days
• 44:48
  Speaker 6: where I'm like, you know what, I would just really
• 44:51
  Speaker 6: love to sit around the Pod Save America table, right?
• 44:53
  Speaker 6: And we could just all make fun of the same.
• 44:55
  Speaker 6: I mean, it sounds great. You guys are always having
• 44:58
  Speaker 6: a good time. But I see meaning in it. And
• 45:02
  Speaker 6: I don't think that you should agree with everything that
• 45:06
  Speaker 6: the people that you work with represent or are espousing.
• 45:10
  Speaker 6: And you want a good check on things that are
• 45:13
  Speaker 6: out of line.
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no. And I agree with all of that. But
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: I still feel like that I want to come back
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: to this other problem because you talked about how valuable
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: it is to model, oh, look, we have a different
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: set of views. We have a different outlook on life,
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: but we can still be friendly. We can still talk
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: to one another. I think that's a good thing. That
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: obviously is a good thing. But that is meant to be...
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: When people tell pollsters, when we all have a naturally
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: positive response, just our feelings, when we see Republicans and
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: Democrats getting along. It's not because that's a good in
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: and of itself, or it's not only a good in
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: and of itself. It's meant to represent something about the
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: kind of politics we want to see, which is a
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: politics in which both in our interpersonal relationships and in
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: our policy preferences, in the kind of world we want
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: to build, we respect each other, see each other as
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: human beings, value each other, even the people we don't
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: see face to face, right? And the issue I have,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: and I think this gets to the larger question I'm
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: trying to get at, and again, not like just out
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: of genuine interest in how you see this, is you
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: will have a lovely personal interaction, jokey interaction. I also think,
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: by the way, sometimes progressives who only see clips of
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: the five sometimes do not understand that there's some tongue-in-cheek
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: joking going on for sure. But at the same time,
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: some of the most despicable views are espoused against people
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: who aren't at that table about whether it's immigrants or...
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: gay people or non-binary people or trans people or lefties
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: or whoever it might be. And that makes me, is
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: the modeling of we can all just get along kind
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: of lending, I don't know, good vibes to people trying
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: to do something pretty terrible?
• 47:10
  Speaker 6: Well, first of all, I just want to say that
• 47:12
  Speaker 6: the vast majority of people that you would come across,
• 47:14
  Speaker 6: I think, even in Republican circles don't hold those views
• 47:18
  Speaker 6: like Donald Trump's views I think are actually an outlier
• 47:23
  Speaker 6: for the average Republican like talking about immigrants as vermin
• 47:27
  Speaker 6: and you know echoing 1930s rhetoric and but I guess
• 47:32
  Speaker 6: I return to the point that I just made and
• 47:35
  Speaker 6: say I don't want to necessarily model a white picket
• 47:40
  Speaker 6: fence situation and that this is like the best Thanksgiving
• 47:42
  Speaker 6: dinner you ever went to there's friction and And that's
• 47:46
  Speaker 6: very real friction. Like Judge Pirro and I get along
• 47:50
  Speaker 6: very well in real life and have very real fights
• 47:54
  Speaker 6: on air that are rooted in deeply held beliefs that
• 47:58
  Speaker 6: we've both had for a really long time. And that
• 48:01
  Speaker 6: is also part of what the audience gets to see
• 48:04
  Speaker 6: and understand. Like no one thinks that I'm faking it
• 48:08
  Speaker 6: and no one thinks that they're faking it. And I
• 48:10
  Speaker 6: think that authentic back and forth is what's important It
• 48:15
  Speaker 6: creates content that resonates with people, but I think that
• 48:19
  Speaker 6: also moves hearts and minds because the number one thing
• 48:22
  Speaker 6: that people hate is inauthentic communication. And just being inauthentic
• 48:27
  Speaker 6: in general, that's why people hate politicians, right? Their approval
• 48:29
  Speaker 6: rate in Congress, it's like 13% or something. And I mean,
• 48:33
  Speaker 6: I don't know what my Q rating is, but I
• 48:35
  Speaker 6: know that the audience believes that I believe what I'm saying.
• 48:41
  Speaker 6: and that that's a key component of this. So it
• 48:43
  Speaker 6: might be that for some liberals, this is not an
• 48:46
  Speaker 6: environment that they can work in. They take it too personally.
• 48:49
  Speaker 6: And I think that that's something that does happen. I
• 48:51
  Speaker 6: happen to not take it personally, born with the thickest
• 48:54
  Speaker 6: of skin or just the fact that I've really only
• 48:56
  Speaker 6: worked at Fox. So I've never been in a non-adversarial
• 49:01
  Speaker 6: media environment. But I don't, like my mom will text
• 49:04
  Speaker 6: me and she'll be like, are you okay? And I'm like, well,
• 49:06
  Speaker 6: what happened? And she's like, were you not alive during
• 49:08
  Speaker 6: that last exchange? And I, it just, it's commercial break,
• 49:12
  Speaker 6: checking my texts, looking at, you know, whatever piece of
• 49:14
  Speaker 6: overpriced jewelry I won't be able to afford that I want,
• 49:17
  Speaker 6: you know, and then you move on to the next segment. And,
• 49:20
  Speaker 6: I don't think that that undermines how passionate people are
• 49:24
  Speaker 6: about it or how I passionate I am, but just
• 49:29
  Speaker 6: a capacity to be able to have those tough conversations
• 49:32
  Speaker 6: and move past them.
• 49:33
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, but I get it.
• 49:37
  Speaker 6: I'm, I'm, I would bet I am not going to
• 49:39
  Speaker 6: persuade you of this point. And I do know a
• 49:41
  Speaker 6: lot of liberals who feel that way, that it's not
• 49:45
  Speaker 6: the right place for it. But I really think that
• 49:48
  Speaker 6: it is.
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: I don't know that I disagree with you. I think
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: you do an excellent job pushing back on this. I'm
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: more interested in just sort of how has it changed
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: how you view politics? How has it changed how you
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: view persuasion to be surrounded by these views all the time?
• 50:08
  Speaker 6: I think it's made me a lot more tolerant of people.
• 50:11
  Speaker 6: I grew up in New York City in Tribeca, like
• 50:14
  Speaker 6: the most liberal of bastions, went to private school. I
• 50:19
  Speaker 6: have a PhD. I am the prototypical liberal, like limousine liberal.
• 50:23
  Speaker 6: I don't have a limousine, but like open that door
• 50:25
  Speaker 6: and here I am. And it has made me think
• 50:28
  Speaker 6: differently about people who vote differently than I do, especially
• 50:32
  Speaker 6: in the Trump era where going into 2016, I just
• 50:36
  Speaker 6: couldn't wrap my head around it. The second he said
• 50:38
  Speaker 6: bad hombres, I was like, I'm out. Mitt Romney, I
• 50:42
  Speaker 6: could understand. This was completely different. So I think that it's...
• 50:48
  Speaker 6: created a tolerance and an affection for a different way
• 50:52
  Speaker 6: of life or a different way of looking at the
• 50:54
  Speaker 6: issues than I can understand. Gun ownership is one place where,
• 50:58
  Speaker 6: you know, sensible gun reform, I think it's one of
• 51:00
  Speaker 6: the most important things in the world. I used to
• 51:01
  Speaker 6: work on Mike Bloomberg's polling team, and gun safety was
• 51:06
  Speaker 6: top priority. But I didn't know any real gun owners
• 51:09
  Speaker 6: in my life. I just, I grew up where cops
• 51:12
  Speaker 6: were the ones with guns or people who were the
• 51:15
  Speaker 6: bad guys. knowing people who actually live in gun culture
• 51:18
  Speaker 6: has made me different. Knowing people who believe, who are
• 51:23
  Speaker 6: pro-life because of religious beliefs has made me different. It
• 51:27
  Speaker 6: has made me more dug in in my political beliefs,
• 51:30
  Speaker 6: but it's made me smarter and it's made me more
• 51:33
  Speaker 6: sensitive to the way that I argue. And, you know,
• 51:37
  Speaker 6: I still obviously get accused of being a bit of
• 51:39
  Speaker 6: professorial about things because I try to use so much
• 51:42
  Speaker 6: data to do it like it's a lecture. But I
• 51:44
  Speaker 6: do try to humanize it as much as I can
• 51:46
  Speaker 6: and use human stories as well when I'm trying to
• 51:49
  Speaker 6: make the point and even about my own transformation. But
• 51:53
  Speaker 6: it's not one of those things like there's been an indoctrination.
• 51:57
  Speaker 6: I think if anything, I'm actually more liberal for having
• 52:00
  Speaker 6: been here.
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: What has it taught you about? Look, where are places
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: where you think Democrats, not on policy, but just on communication,
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: are missing in reaching the persuadable chunk of people that
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: you're trying to reach on Fox?
• 52:17
  Speaker 6: Well, I think that they tend to go for themes
• 52:20
  Speaker 6: that just don't resonate with persuadable voters. So there's a
• 52:23
  Speaker 6: ton of polling out there, especially from Blueprint, you know,
• 52:25
  Speaker 6: Reid Hoffman's polling outfit, where they test every message, every
• 52:29
  Speaker 6: type of policy and things like threats to democracy and
• 52:33
  Speaker 6: don't matter to persuadable voters. They've ingested January 6th. However
• 52:37
  Speaker 6: they feel about it, they feel about it. But things
• 52:40
  Speaker 6: that test really well, like lowering prescription drug prices, banning
• 52:43
  Speaker 6: junk fees. I got almost laughed off the set when
• 52:46
  Speaker 6: I brought it up one day last year. I said,
• 52:48
  Speaker 6: banning junk fees is one of President Biden's most popular policies.
• 52:53
  Speaker 6: And they were like, are you out of your mind?
• 52:55
  Speaker 6: Who gives a fuck about that? I was like, well,
• 52:57
  Speaker 6: everyone who's paying... $ 10 a clip, right, when they get
• 53:02
  Speaker 6: a junk fee or have to go back to their
• 53:04
  Speaker 6: banks to say, I don't want to pay $ 3. 75 every
• 53:07
  Speaker 6: time I use an ATM that's out of network. And
• 53:11
  Speaker 6: that's real money to people. So those kinds of issues,
• 53:14
  Speaker 6: the bread and butter of it is what I try
• 53:16
  Speaker 6: to argue. And an issue like abortion, I try to
• 53:19
  Speaker 6: make that also an economic issue or a health care issue,
• 53:22
  Speaker 6: not necessarily a slipped up and I got pregnant issue.
• 53:27
  Speaker 6: And I think the Democrats have done a good job
• 53:30
  Speaker 6: with that. But especially on economic issues, there's so many
• 53:34
  Speaker 6: better ways, I think, to be talking about it that
• 53:36
  Speaker 6: would help the message resonate. I think Kamala has actually
• 53:40
  Speaker 6: been a bit better even than Joe Biden on this.
• 53:42
  Speaker 6: And you can see her cutting into Trump's lead on
• 53:44
  Speaker 6: the economy. I saw you guys were talking about it
• 53:47
  Speaker 6: a couple of days ago on the podcast. That's because
• 53:50
  Speaker 6: she's using the message testing and she's seeing what is
• 53:54
  Speaker 6: actually hitting these persuadable voters versus just talking about the
• 53:57
  Speaker 6: things that you and I might want to say at
• 53:58
  Speaker 6: a dinner party.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: So, you know, you talk about bringing up this issue
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: that really resonates with people that your co-hosts sort of
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: laughed at. Are there other ways in which you see
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: the right paying a price for the bubble that they're in,
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: that you're in?
• 54:16
  Speaker 6: Well, definitely post-Dobbs.
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 54:19
  Speaker 6: I think that that's the smartest of Republicans. And that
• 54:22
  Speaker 6: this includes Kellyanne Conway, who you could say whatever you
• 54:25
  Speaker 6: want about her, but she certainly gets it. And she
• 54:27
  Speaker 6: knows what electorally works. They know that sending it back
• 54:31
  Speaker 6: to the states is not the win that they expected.
• 54:33
  Speaker 6: So it's a win for the pro-life movement. And the
• 54:36
  Speaker 6: activist class is happy about that. The Lila Roses of
• 54:39
  Speaker 6: the world. But Republicans who actually want to try to govern.
• 54:44
  Speaker 6: Have essentially been shitting their pants since this happened. And
• 54:48
  Speaker 6: we've been good at capitalizing on it and making sure
• 54:51
  Speaker 6: that it's an issue and that's on as many ballots
• 54:55
  Speaker 6: as possible. But that's one where, you know, I think
• 55:00
  Speaker 6: that was done at their own peril. And, you know,
• 55:03
  Speaker 6: Republican women get pregnant too. I think I've said that
• 55:05
  Speaker 6: on air. You know, this is not just a problem
• 55:08
  Speaker 6: for loosey-goosey Democrats.
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: So you talked about having real arguments with Jeanine Pirro.
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: When the lights come down, when the cameras are off,
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: are there ever moments where the kind of facade breaks
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: a little bit, where, like, just in watching you on
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: The Five, I take you as being sincere. My honest
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: feeling is that I think a lot of the objections
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: and views that are expressed in your direction are sincere,
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: but a lot of it just feels like bullshit, right?
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: Just feels like defending Trump because that's their job or
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: kind of attacking Democrats because that's their job. does that
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: facade ever break?
• 55:46
  Speaker 6: I wouldn't say, I don't think it's fair to say facade.
• 55:49
  Speaker 6: I think that people who are arguing on TV, and
• 55:51
  Speaker 6: this is wherever you're doing it, are going to be
• 55:55
  Speaker 6: as dug in and passionate about it because that's also
• 55:59
  Speaker 6: how you create the best content and how you get
• 56:01
  Speaker 6: people to be tied into your show and to feel
• 56:04
  Speaker 6: like this is a place that they can go to
• 56:07
  Speaker 6: hear passion and that that's lacking in a lot of
• 56:09
  Speaker 6: the communication that people are absorbing. But it's not a facade.
• 56:14
  Speaker 6: I'm sure people are more reasonable about things maybe in
• 56:19
  Speaker 6: their daily life. And I'm talking about like a real
• 56:22
  Speaker 6: extreme kind of fireworks thing. But the thing that Janine
• 56:24
  Speaker 6: and I fight the most about is the character of
• 56:27
  Speaker 6: Donald Trump. She's very personally close with him. She swears
• 56:32
  Speaker 6: that he is the kindest, most generous guy, that he
• 56:34
  Speaker 6: is the grandpa that shows up, you know, sometimes when
• 56:37
  Speaker 6: they take pictures of him with his kids. Or Like
• 56:39
  Speaker 6: he was on Gutfeld last week. He did the whole hour,
• 56:42
  Speaker 6: I think Thursday night. And I don't know if you
• 56:46
  Speaker 6: watched it, but he was pretty charming. He was very
• 56:50
  Speaker 6: at ease. He was with people who all liked him.
• 56:52
  Speaker 6: It was a live audience who didn't even know that
• 56:54
  Speaker 6: he was going to be coming on. And they got surprised.
• 56:57
  Speaker 6: Like they showed up and thought they'd get Brian Kilmeade
• 56:59
  Speaker 6: or something. And they got Donald Trump for an hour.
• 57:02
  Speaker 6: And when he's at ease, he was not.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: It's a good trade, I think, actually. Yeah.
• 57:07
  Speaker 6: If I were a Trump voter, I would have been
• 57:09
  Speaker 6: thrilled with the swap for sure. And Brian's great, but
• 57:11
  Speaker 6: he's no Trump. But if you saw him in that
• 57:14
  Speaker 6: kind of environment, you could understand a Trump voter a
• 57:18
  Speaker 6: lot more than seeing him in a rally environment, at
• 57:21
  Speaker 6: least for me. I'm not a persuadable, but I saw
• 57:24
  Speaker 6: a kindness to him that Janine is always talking to
• 57:27
  Speaker 6: me about. It didn't change how I argue about him
• 57:31
  Speaker 6: or what I said the following day, but it was
• 57:34
  Speaker 6: notable to me. And a moment of confirmation that the
• 57:38
  Speaker 6: world that they live in is a real world, too.
• 57:41
  Speaker 6: You know, I think that liberals sometimes, and perhaps I'm
• 57:44
  Speaker 6: guilty of it as well, just saying, well, this is
• 57:47
  Speaker 6: exactly how it is. This is what the numbers say.
• 57:49
  Speaker 6: You know, how could you possibly think this? And it's
• 57:51
  Speaker 6: a lot more complicated than that, especially with a figure
• 57:55
  Speaker 6: like Trump, who is so polarizing and the number of
• 57:58
  Speaker 6: people who say, I don't like him personally, but I
• 58:00
  Speaker 6: like these policies. Or he has the kind of attitude
• 58:03
  Speaker 6: that I think a world leader would. needs to have.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I do think, I do think liberals
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: sometimes ignore how charming Trump is. Like, I don't, I
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: don't disagree. I've said that before. I think I get
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: some shit for saying it, but like, yes, he's charming.
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: He can be very funny. But I think that sort
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: of gets at the problem, right? Like, no, no, no,
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: he's actually very funny. He's actually very, well, does it,
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: does it really matter?
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: No, it doesn't.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: I know you don't, I know you don't think it matters,
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: but it is not a, oh, we just don't understand
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: their world situation. It's, Trump is a despicable figure, like
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: a sort of, and we know that, I think most
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: independent voters know that personally, his character, right? Everybody's kind
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: of come to the same conclusion. But like Janine's, you know, time,
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: you know, at dinners with Trump aside, I think even
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: most of the people advocating on behalf of Trump on
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: Fox News know that this is a despicable human being
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: that they've thrown their lot in, that they're trying to justify.
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: And I guess I wonder if that ever comes across,
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: if like that truth, it's not a liberal or conservative truth,
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: but like this man is unfit for office. You've made
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: your deal and he has some policy positions or qualities
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: or he has the right enemies, whatever, whatever it may be.
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: But like, you're not actually being honest about Trump, the man,
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: you're not actually being honest about what you think about
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: him as a human being.
• 59:26
  Speaker 6: Well, I don't think someone's going to sit up there
• 59:27
  Speaker 6: and say he's a despicable human being. What they do
• 59:30
  Speaker 6: say is, I wouldn't have said that necessarily. And people
• 59:34
  Speaker 6: even like Jesse Waters will say that. And I think
• 59:36
  Speaker 6: it's part of why Jesse's able to have conversations like
• 59:39
  Speaker 6: with John at the DNC. And both of them actually
• 59:42
  Speaker 6: come out looking pretty good. Or you take someone like
• 59:46
  Speaker 6: Kayleigh McEnany, who has been through a lot with Trump
• 59:50
  Speaker 6: and has offered some of the most honest commentary about
• 59:54
  Speaker 6: how he's running his campaigns, like how he's resonating with women.
• 59:59
  Speaker 6: She's the one who goes the deepest into the internals
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 6: of the polls and brings it out and says, okay, well,
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 6: this is something that's resonating with white men, for instance,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 6: but you see this as really hurting him with minority
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 6: voters or with female voters. So I don't know. It
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 6: would be tough for me, and they're not comparable. This
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 6: is what happens, and I don't know if you get
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 6: this as well. Someone says, well, what would you do
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 6: if there was a Trump on the left? I'm like, well,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 6: what is that? Like Bernie Sanders, like that's the most
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 6: extreme person that we have, like a really nice guy
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 6: that wants free healthcare. But there would be a lot,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 6: I think, of center-left Democrats, independents who are left-leaning, for instance,
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 6: that would consider a normie Republican on the other side,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 6: like a Mitt Romney, if there was someone that they
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 6: felt was an extremist on the left. But again, we
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 6: just don't have a comp.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: But yeah, well, I think that points to the issue here, right?
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: There isn't a comp because obviously these are not, like
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: equivalent movements in many ways. We are, we're, I know,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: you know, that I'm just sort of like Donald, like, Oh,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: like let's look at the crosstabs. How can Donald Trump
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: do a better job appealing to women? Like the, even this,
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: what you're, even what you're describing, right. Is lending kind
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: of nuance and complexity to what is ultimately a very
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: simple choice here, right? Donald Trump, has promised mass deportations.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: He has threatened to overturn the election. He talked about
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: just the other day, jailing people for criticizing judges. He
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: is promising something very, very dangerous and very, very dark.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: And on the other side, we have a traditional center-left
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: democratic figure, right? And any effort that is about kind
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: of trying to figure out ways to put a to
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: make that into any kind of a difficult choice is
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: an effort to obfuscate what's actually going on in our politics. Okay.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: So I.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 6: Don't want to come off as an apologist for Trump
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 6: or Trumpism because I dislike him at the top tier,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 6: like the top 1% of people. And I have dug
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 6: into basically every single thing that he has said in
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 6: the political arena and, to make sure that I have
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 6: informed opinions about this. And I know the couple of
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 6: things that he's done that I think are decent. And
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 6: I know that the vast majority of them are complete garbage.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 6: But when you paint that picture as clearly or as
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 6: black and white as you just did, I think you
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 6: miss the fact that there are policy preferences embedded in
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 6: what he's saying that appeal to a lot of people.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 6: So not mass deportation. I was just having this conversation
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 6: with someone actually who I had no idea how they voted.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 6: I actually thought that they were pretty nonpartisan. I didn't
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 6: know if she voted or not. Suddenly we start talking.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 6: She felt comfortable. I was glad that she did. It
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 6: turns out she's voting for Trump and she's voting for
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 6: Trump on the immigration issue. Her sister lives in Queens.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 6: Kids public school is flooded with migrant kids who don't
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 6: speak the language. She feels like goods and services are
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 6: being taken away from Americans to benefit a population that
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 6: came here illegally. Now, I said, well, how are you
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 6: going to round up 13 million people and throw them
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 6: out of the country? And is that what you want
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 6: to do? Because this is someone else, an urban person
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 6: who lives and works and respects people who are here
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 6: for a better life and have been for years and
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 6: pay into Social Security, et cetera. She goes, well, he's
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 6: not really going to do that. And that has always
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 6: been the issue with Trump because people can just say,
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 6: he's not going to do the things that I don't
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 6: want him to do, but he is going to do
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 6: the things that I want him to do. And what
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 6: I want him to do is build a wall or
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 6: what I want him to do is to make sanctuary
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 6: cities go away. And I don't know if I can
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 6: really fault them for that or if, I guess I
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 6: don't feel like I can talk down to someone in
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 6: the terms that I naturally feel, which are just as
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 6: you put out there by saying he tried to overturn
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 6: the election. He, you know, the racism, the sexism, the misogyny,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 6: the antisemitism, all of it is real, but it's, it
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 6: gets to a point where it's not even useful. And
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 6: I guess that's a lesson that I've learned.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: But I, so that's what I, but this is what
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: I think this is. I'm glad that's where you land
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: on because that, that's sort of what, what I was,
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: what I was coming to as well. Like, I think
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: in part because we're all, our brains have all been,
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: I think, pickled by decades of the way politics is covered.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: We jump straight from what is true, what is ethical,
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: what is, um, um, desirable to what is useful, what
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: is pragmatic, how we persuade. I think you're absolutely right.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: Like I think painting this as some kind of Manichean
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: choice is probably not like the best way to reach independent,
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: persuadable voters. Um, Kamala Harris has come out in favor
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: of the bipartisan border security bill. That's ultimately, I think,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: a conservative bill. Democrats are coming to realize that we
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: need to separate the debate about the border from the
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: debate about immigration reform. People want a more secure border.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: They trust Donald Trump on the border. At the same time,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: they continue to tell pollsters that they want a generous
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: immigration system. They believe immigrants are good for the country,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: not bad for the country. There's a conflict there that
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: you have to respect. You have to meet people where
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: they are, right? That is the politics. That's the pragmatism, right?
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: But we're, we're jumping to that because that's the conversation
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: we have to have. That's where the equity is, but
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: that doesn't change the underlying reality, right? We shouldn't lose
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: sight of the underlying reality. Donald Trump stopped that border bill, right? Personally,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: he did not successfully build the wall or secure the border.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: He is not going to keep any of his promises.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: He has no idea what he's going to do on immigration, right?
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: He said everything about actual immigration reform, um, likely would not, would, would, would, uh, um,
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: you know, Like he's promising a vast deportation force.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 6: That most Americans don't want. Well, he's going to destroy
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 6: the economy with his immigration bill.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: And destroy the economy. If he gets his.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 6: Way, which he's not going to, which is what people think.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: So I guess what I'm trying to do is separate
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: out what's useful, right? The arguments, why it is valuable
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: to kind of give credence to Trump to like go
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: to get into the details here to try to sort
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: of like coax some people over to our side. While
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: at the same time, you're sort of, We all are, right,
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: collectively part of a big media ecosystem that is sort
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: of creating nuance and dynamism where really what we have
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: is a pretty simple and stark and ultimately static choice,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: a center-left Democrat versus an authoritarian and extremist right.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 6: I agree, but it doesn't change the reality on the
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 6: ground that, you know, we can mock persuadables or, you know,
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 6: like who's actually, how did Stephanie Ruhle put it on
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 6: Bill Maher? She's like, I've been wondering who that person is, right,
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 6: that watches the debate and says, you know, I just
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 6: don't know. And then it's Bret Stephens. And I think
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 6: Bret Stephens will probably end up voting for Kamala when
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 6: push comes to shove. He's not going to vote for
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 6: Donald Trump. But my guess would be after doing the
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 6: Latino town hall, more interviews, et cetera, that he'll get
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 6: enough of a picture or confirmation at least that she
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 6: is this normie Democrat. And I've been saying on air
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 6: that you can like Kamala Harris, but you can also
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 6: just like generic D. And Kamala Harris is doing her
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 6: best generic D impression. And she's been doing a really
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 6: good job. And she has to get around a lot
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 6: of the things that she said in 2019 and early
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 6: 2020 in the primary when she ran to the left
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 6: of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. And that kind of
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 6: stuff is what haunts her, especially in a conservative media ecosystem.
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 6: But the neat bows about all of this doesn't reflect
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 6: the reality of how complicated humans are. Even just not
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 6: in terms of politics. Think about relationships. Why we fall
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 6: in love with somebody. You know, why we can't get
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 6: over somebody.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: Because they're hot.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 6: But then why do we stay? Because people get less hot.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Not us.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: Because they're scared to leave.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 6: Just everyone else.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 6: Maybe that was a bad example. But it's... It's just
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 6: a lot thornier. And people have been a part of
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 6: a group for decades. And we're just asking them to
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 6: give that up. So let's say they voted for Trump
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 6: in 2016. They dabbled with the Democrats in 2020. And
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 6: a lot of that, I think, was due to the pandemic.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 6: I really feel like Donald Trump, odds are he was
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 6: going to win in 2020 if we hadn't had COVID.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 6: Like if it was a normal campaign and they were
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 6: both out there doing their thing, that Trump would have
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 6: been able to get reelected. I hope Biden would have won.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 6: We'll never know. It was a special election. So we
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 6: got these four amazing bonus years where Biden accomplished more
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 6: than I think anyone expected that he ever would have
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 6: been able to. And we ended up with the right thing,
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 6: which is a new nominee for 2024. But for us
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 6: being on the good side, right? Like if on our shoulders,
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 6: we have the angel and the devil, we get to
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 6: be on the angel side, right? To say we're on
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 6: the side of the person who respects the rule of law,
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 6: the side of the person who believes in everyone getting
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 6: a fair shot and an economy that works for all
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 6: Americans and for getting more people healthcare, not less healthcare,
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 6: whether we're talking about reproductive healthcare or just expanding Medicaid.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 6: And Republicans are sitting there thinking, Like, I got into
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 6: this for Reagan or something like that. Or I thought
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 6: I was the party of Lincoln. And now I'm stuck
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 6: with Donald Trump. And it's a lot to ask of
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 6: someone to come over and to come over in a
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 6: sustained way. You know, these are loners at this point.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 6: And I think that this election will really signal whether
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 6: we're getting a long-term lease or this was just for
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 6: a few cycles. That's a harder job to close. I
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 6: was in Iowa for the caucuses, and I met a
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 6: lot of women who had traveled from all over the
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 6: country to get out the vote for Nikki Haley. These
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 6: are women that are not going back. These are suburban
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 6: women from outside of Atlanta, some who are there in Iowa,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 6: coming from Arizona, all of the places that you want
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 6: to see these people. And they're like, Nikki Haley, Nikki
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 6: can do it. And I'm like, okay, but Nikki can't
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 6: do it, right? But that was clear even from the
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 6: first moment of this race that Nikki Haley's not going
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 6: to do it. And I see her leadership now has
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 6: endorsed Kamala, like 300,000 of them. But it's still.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 6: Asking a lot of people to take off that jersey
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 6: that they have loved and that their parents probably loved
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 6: for someone that has a lot of positions that are
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 6: incompatible with the way that they've seen the world their
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 6: whole lives.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: Last question. You're talking about identity, the ways in which
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: politics intersects with identity. Abortion ballot measures, union ballot measures,
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: minimum wage ballot measures, weed ballot measures. They do well
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: even in the reddest of red states, but Democratic politicians don't.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: What do you think Democrats don't understand about political identity
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: that would make us more competitive in those conservative places?
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 6: I think sometimes we don't understand the complexity of of
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 6: those identities going back to what I was just talking about.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 6: And that's really present, especially when we're dealing with Latino voters,
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 6: for instance, and we're doing better this cycle. I think
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 6: on that kind of listening to the consultants who have
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 6: been screaming that your point of origin makes a big
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 6: difference in all of this. And, you know, that abortion is,
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 6: is not a topic that can be used to glaze
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 6: over everything else. And for a lot of people I've
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 6: been told, and, you know, I'm, in a lot of ways,
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 6: a single issue voter on choice. And that that is
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 6: a privilege to be able to do that. That same
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 6: woman that I was having the kind of immigration fight
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 6: with told me that. She goes, well, you can do
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 6: that because you don't have other problems. And I have problems,
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 6: but I don't have as many problems as someone in
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 6: Queens who has a kid in public school where the
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 6: school is being overrun. So I think that we don't
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 6: understand the complexity of it. And I think that we
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 6: also don't understand how much it matters to just act
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 6: like a normal person. And I say act, and I
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 6: probably shouldn't, so to be a normal person. You know,
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 6: we're probably going to lose Jon Tester's seat, but I
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 6: think that he has been such a great example of
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 6: just being yourself and that that can connect with anyone.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 6: It seems like Tim Walz has been doing a really
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 6: good job of that, or even a Mark Kelly, who
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 6: is naturally quite stiff. But if you listen to him
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 6: talk about immigration issues, you can see that he has
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 6: listened intently to people on both sides of the debate
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 6: and understands what's wrong with the Republican position and what's
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 6: wrong with the Democratic position. So being normal goes really far.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 6: Not nationalizing your races. I mean, this was something one
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 6: of my colleagues pointed out the other day. I haven't
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 6: heard anyone talk about agriculture on either side.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 6: And it's a huge problem. Farmers vote. Farmers generate tons
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 6: of money for the economy. China's buying up our farmland.
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 6: I think Trump just brought it up yesterday for the
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 6: first time, which seems like a miss on his side.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 6: So thank you. Every time he misses something, an angel
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 6: gets its wings. But we should be leading on that.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 6: There's no reason that we shouldn't. There are all sorts
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 6: of subsidy programs the Biden-Harris administration has for farmers. Why
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 6: isn't she leading with things like that and having those
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 6: kinds of town halls or meet and greets with voters.
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 6: So the national stuff takes care of itself because people
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 6: like us will talk about it. And that'll get disseminated somehow,
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 6: whether it's clips or people listening to podcasts. But the
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 6: underlying issues that are really representative of the core of America,
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 6: in a lot of ways the American ethos, I feel
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 6: like get left out of the discussion. I mean, Union
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 6: stuff has gotten big because of the Teamsters brouhaha. But otherwise,
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 6: there wasn't as much conversation about it as I think
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 6: that there should have been. Millions of people are part
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 6: of unions. And I feel like we've taken it for
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 6: granted a little bit. Biden was great, obviously, with the
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 6: autoworkers and showing up on the picket line. But that's
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 6: somewhere where Republicans definitely feel like we have a vulnerability.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: Jessica Tarloff of The Five. Taking a break from getting,
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: I don't know, Trump said his debate at ABC was three-on-one.
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: You do four-on-one every single day.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I do.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 6: And it wasn't three-on-one.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: I can't say that.
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 6: No, it absolutely wasn't. But it was great to be
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 6: with you. So thank you for the invitation.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 4: Thanks.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: That is our show for today. Thank you so much
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: to Aaron Haynes for co-hosting. Thank you to Jessica Tarloff
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: for joining. John and Dan will be back in your
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: feeds on Friday morning. Bye, everybody.
• 1:15:38
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