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Transcript

Trump's Halloween Costume · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's show, with the election just days away, days away, Dan.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: With the election just days away, the Trump campaign closes
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: with sanitation worker cosplay and a full embrace of anti-vax
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: conspiracy theories. Kamala Harris prepares to rally with Cardi B
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: and continues to hit Trump on abortion and health care.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: And because it's our final Friday show before Election Day,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: you and I are going to take a look at
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: the battleground map, Dan, and talk about what we're watching
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: for on Tuesday. You know what I'm watching for? More
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: votes from Kamala Harris.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: Done.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: We've done the segment. Let's wrap this up with the
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: outro and be done.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: And then after that, Nebraska Independent Senate candidate Dan Osborne
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: stops by to talk about how he's fought to a
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: tie in one of the reddest states in America and
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: what you can do to help. But first, Donald Trump
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: showed up at one of his final rallies dressed as
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: a garbage truck driver and delivered a compelling argument to
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: undecided women.
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: And my people told me about four weeks ago, I
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: was saying, no, I want to protect the people. I
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: want to protect the women of our country. They said, sir,
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: I just think it's inappropriate for you to say pay
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: these guys a lot of money.
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: Can you believe it?
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: I said, well, I'm going to do it whether the
• 1:37
  Speaker 4: women like it or not.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: I'm going to protect them.
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: Is there any woman in this stadium that wants to
• 1:42
  Speaker 4: be protected by the president?
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: No, thank you. Of course, Kamala Harris jumped all over this,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: first at a press conference and then during her rally
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: in Phoenix on Thursday. Let's listen.
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: And Donald Trump's not done.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Did everyone hear what he just said yesterday?
• 2:00
  Speaker 5: That he will do what he wants, quote, and here's
• 2:04
  Speaker 5: where I'm going to quote, whether the women like it
• 2:07
  Speaker 5: or not. He does not believe women should have the
• 2:13
  Speaker 5: agency and authority to make decisions about their own bodies.
• 2:18
  Speaker 5: This is the same man who said women should be
• 2:22
  Speaker 5: punished for their choices. He simply does not respect the
• 2:30
  Speaker 5: freedom of women or the intelligence of women to know
• 2:35
  Speaker 5: what's in their own best interest and make decisions accordingly.
• 2:40
  Speaker 5: But we trust women.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: So obviously in the closing days, there's a whole bunch
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: of things you can choose to make news on. If
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: you're the Harris campaign, especially with Trump, he and his
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: goons have given plenty of material to the Harris campaign
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: over the last week. But they chose this comment about
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: women protecting them, whether they like it or not. What
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: does it tell you that the campaign saw an opportunity there?
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: I think it's three things. One, just tactically, you want
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: to be on offense for every minute of this campaign
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: because of the Madison Square Garden rally, some other things
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Trump has said and done recently. There is this sort
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: of emerging narrative of, I don't know why it's emerging narrative,
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: but it is in the press coverage of this cycle
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: of Trump saying outlandish things that are politically damaging to him.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: That makes it, and then when you write, and the
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: conversation is, looks like Kamala Harris is ascendant and Trump
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: is crap in the bed. And so that's one. Two is, obviously,
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: this has tremendous echoes of Dobbs and everything that's in
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Project 2025 about abortion and women's reproductive freedom and women's
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: health care. This is a chance to go with that.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: And the third thing is, and it dovetails with some
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: polling that I've seen that clearly the Harris campaign has
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: seen as well, because it shows up in some of
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: their more recent ads, is this idea of extremists like
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump with total control, unchecked power, controlling your lives,
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: really resonates with a real segment of voters. And One
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: of the groups, the Harris campaign, is courting at the
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: end here. We talk a lot about these Haley Republicans,
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Bulwark Republicans, as I think Tim Miller called them on
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: the Wednesday pod. But there's also a subset of that group,
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: which are working class white women who disagree, who may
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: have had some disagreements with Kamala Harris on some issues,
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: particularly some cultural issues, but firmly disagree with the Dobbs
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: decision and these Republican abortion bans. And that is a
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: target audience here in the final days.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: And it's it's pretty clear by now that it's not
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: just Trump who's stepping in it with women and his
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: comments about abortion and his record on abortion. It's a
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: lot of his bros, too. So we have a super
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: cut of J.D. Vance, who sat down with Joe Rogan today,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: I guess, for four hours. And then and then you're
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: going to hear Charlie Kirk. who's basically running Trump's ground
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: operation or helping to run, helping Elon run Trump's ground operation,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: their forces combined. And then you're going to hear my pal,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Jesse Waters. Let's listen. At the very best, if you grant,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: I think every argument of the pro-choice side, it is
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: a neutral thing, not something to be celebrated.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: I think there's very few people that are celebrating.
• 5:15
  Speaker 6: I think it's so just nauseating where this wife is
• 5:20
  Speaker 6: wearing the, you'll show it, wearing the American hat. She's
• 5:22
  Speaker 6: coming in with her sweet husband and, who probably works
• 5:25
  Speaker 6: his tail off to make sure that she can go,
• 5:26
  Speaker 6: you know, and have a nice life and provide for
• 5:29
  Speaker 6: the family. And then she lies to him saying, oh yeah,
• 5:31
  Speaker 6: I'm going to vote for Trump. And then she votes
• 5:32
  Speaker 6: for Kamala Harris as her little secret in the voting booth.
• 5:35
  Speaker 6: Kamala Harris and her team believe that there'll be millions
• 5:37
  Speaker 6: of women that undermine their husbands. and do so in
• 5:41
  Speaker 6: a way that it's not detectable in the polling.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: And if I found out Emma was going into the
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: voting booth and pulling the lever for Harris, that's the
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: same thing as having an affair.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: That, to me... Oh, my God. Let him finish.
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: Go, Jesse.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: That violates the sanctity.
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: Of our marriage.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: I don't know why you're friends with that.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: Why are you friends with that guy?
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Emma, vote Harris, whoever you are. In the middle there,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Charlie Kirk was referencing this Harris campaign ad that Julia
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Roberts does the voiceover. And it's these women are walking
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: to the voting booth and there's a husband there too.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: And he's obviously like a Trumper. She goes into the
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: booth and she like looks at another woman and she
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: sort of just she votes for Harris and the other
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: one votes for Harris and they give they exchange a
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: knowing look. And conservatives are outraged about this ad. And then,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: of course, there's J.D. Vance saying that women are it's
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: it's too much that women are celebrating the Dobbs decision
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: because they think it's politically advantageous to them. And then
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Joe Rogan's like, I don't think people are celebrating. I
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: don't know if any of that's going to help with women.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: I don't know. What do you think?
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It doesn't seem that way. Or with men, frankly.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: That was a really interesting part. I only saw the clips.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: I've not buckled up for the four-hour Joe Rogan, J.D.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: Vance podcast yet.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Do not intend to.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: But the way that Rogan, in the clips that I saw,
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: went after J.D. Vance on... Dobs, and particularly the idea
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: that some of these states would prosecute women for traveling
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: to states where abortion is legal to have abortions, does
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: speak to that we think of Dobs entirely, or too often,
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: I guess, primarily in the context of how it is
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: motivating women to vote for Kamala Harris. I just mentioned
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: these working class white women, but young men too, right?
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: And there have been some ads that address this. Some
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: of those ads are pretty bad, but there are ads.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: And if you remember, when Dobs happened, one of the
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: people who came out and spoke uh, most aggressively about
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: it was Dave Portnoy, the founder of Barstool Sports and
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: sort of the, he is the leader of the manosphere
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: in a lot of ways along with Joe Rogan. And so, yeah,
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: I don't think it's helping with women. And I don't
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: think actually a focus on Dobbs helps them with anyone
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: at the end. I think that is purely bad for
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: the Republicans.
• 7:59
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: And JD Vance saying that, oh, I haven't heard of
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: any of this. Like there's states all over the place now,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: red states that are, uh, considering passing legislation so that
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: women can't even go over state lines to get abortion.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Ken Paxton, the attorney general of Texas, currently has a
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: lawsuit to try to get private medical information from women
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: to see if they've gone over state lines to get abortion,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: which Liz Cheney brought up in one of her events
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: with Kamala Harris, even though Liz Cheney has said that
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: she's been pro-life for most of her career. So I
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: do think that the extreme consequences of Dobbs and sort
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: of the level of control that the government now has
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: over women, women's lives, people trying to plan families, medical
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: care that women desperately need if they're miscarrying. It's just,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: I think it's resonating. It has resonated with a lot
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: of people. It has since 2022. And I don't think
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: closing on that is what the Trump campaign wants necessarily.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: We talked a lot about earlier in this campaign about
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: issue salience and what issues are in voters' minds when
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: they make their decision. The economy is in most people's minds,
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: but there has been this battle for the number two
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: slot between immigration and abortion. And during the peak of
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: the surge of the border and the migrants showing up
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: being bused to towns, immigration became the number two issue
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: by far. It's been about tied recently. And if you
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: have a protracted conversation about Dobbs over the last few days,
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: inches up a point or two here in some of
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: these states, that could be the difference.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: There's been a lot of focus on Trump's apparent polling
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: gains with younger men, but much less on Harris's and
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Democrats' advantage with women, which we've seen show up in
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: polls and election results, more importantly, since Dobbs. Do you
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: buy that we may be headed for the biggest gender
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: gap ever, as you see in some analyses?
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: It seems very possible that we're going to, if not
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: the largest, we will have a historic gender gap. That's
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: happening in part because it's two ways, right? A gender
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: gap happens because you have movement in both directions. We are,
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: if the polls are correct, right, which is the question
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: looms over everything we say and think, you are seeing
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: a huge surge of young women, millennial and Gen Z
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: women to Kamala Harris, but you are seeing Trump make
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: gains with Gen Z men over what Biden and previous
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: Democrats had gotten. So if you have those two things,
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: you're going to end up with the largest gender gap.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: It's always hard to tell in the polling. There's been
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: some good, large sample youth polls, like the Harvard poll,
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: for instance, and NBC did one as well. But in
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: a lot of these polls, if you take the under
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: 29 group and then you slice it in half, you're
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: looking at a margin of error of like nine, sometimes more.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: And so it's sometimes hard to get into.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: If you don't break it down by age and you
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: just do, what is the gender gap? between women and men.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: So 2020, women went for Biden by about 12 points, 56-43.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: That's like, you know, Catalyst, Pew, those are sort of
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: months after the election, they get the best read on
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: what happened. So that was 12 points. And then men
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: went for Trump by 52-46. That's about four points, right?
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: So far, the polls right now, because I was looking
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: at the average of all the crosstabs for all the
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: gender splits, Women, Harris is winning by about 10 points, 53-43.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: So still smaller than the Biden margin with women. And
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: then men, so far, Trump is 52-44, around eight points.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: So it's actually not bigger right now, at least according
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: to the polls. But these are the polls. These are
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: not the sort of final results. So I do wonder
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: that if like, you know, all of the what we're
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: hearing on the ground, everything we've seen in 20 elections
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: in 22 and 23, uh, if that bears out, will,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: especially among women, will that gap, will that margin get
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: bigger for Harris? And then that might help, you know,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: push her over the edge. That's, that's what we got
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: to see on Tuesday, but there's been a lot of
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: tea leaf reading of the early vote, uh, data in
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: terms of gender breakdown. Uh, should we just continue to
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: ignore that early vote, uh, early, early vote anecdotes. People
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: are writing stories about it in Politico and Dempsey signs
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: of optimism with gender and early vote. I don't know.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: I don't, I don't want to indulge.
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: It's, I think the one person who I think is
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: worth listening to on the early vote is John Ralston
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: from Nevada. I say that even though his reports for
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: Democrats are not good, but there's a lot going on
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: here that makes the early vote confusing. And you only
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: know party breakdown, and that's not even in every state,
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: of how many Democrats, how many Republicans voted. Another thing
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: is there is no benchmark to compare things to because
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: 2020 was incredibly unique. And since 2020, Republicans have started
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: voting earlier, and you've seen a lot of tried and
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: true stalwart Republican Election Day voters just vote early. And
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: so for people like you and I and reporters covering it,
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: we don't know a ton of information. The campaigns, however,
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: and I think it's worth explaining, After you vote, your
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: name is now public as having voted. It doesn't say
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: who you voted for or for whom you voted, but
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: it is public. The campaign takes all information. The campaign
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: has a model. For everyone listening to this who lives
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: in the United States, the campaign has a model for you.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: They have two models. They have a support score and
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: a turnout score. And that's based on your vote history.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: It's based on your partisan registration. It's based on any
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: demographic and geographic information they have. And if you live
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: in a battleground state, it's probably based on some consumer
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: data they have purchased. to understand that in the old
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: days would be the magazines you subscribe to would be
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: the information you use. In this day, it might be
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: the websites or the things you buy and stuff like
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: TV shows you watch, stuff like that. And then so
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: they rate you on how likely you are to vote
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: for Kamala Harris from a score of one to 10
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: and how likely are you to vote from a score
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: of one to 10. And so the campaigns know in
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: the States, if as the very evocative phrase Plouffe used,
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: if an army of incels are turning out for Trump,
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: They know if we are getting our lower propensity voters
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: turning out. And the big mystery is the campaign has
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: a support score for the independent or nonpartisan voters, but
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: they don't know for sure who they're actually voting for.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: Sometimes that support score is six, right? So you don't
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: really know for sure what they're going to do. And
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: so even the campaigns don't have a ton of information
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: and they won't know whether their model is right until
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: The polls close, and in states like Florida, where they
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: dump in all the early vote data and the vote-by-mail
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: results right away, and they see those numbers, and they'll
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: know whether they correctly calculated support scores and turnout composition.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: So for people like us, I think if you want
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: to read it to look for something positive, go for it.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: If you want to read it and look for doom,
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: that's your choice, but it's really sort of a black box.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Or if you want to just reach out to everyone
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: you know and everywhere you can post about why Trump
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: and J.D. Vance would be horrible... for women and issues
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: that women care about, you can do that too.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's, that is another option other than pouring
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: for the illegal data.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: I'm just going to say that for all the things
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: we talk about today, you know, we're so close.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: As I mentioned, Trump did talk about protecting women against
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: their will while wearing an orange vest. Why was he
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: wearing an orange vest, Dan? Because he had just climbed
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: out of a garbage truck, obviously. Why was he in
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: a garbage truck? Because a comedian at his Madison Square
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: Garden rally called Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: which led to days of bad headlines, which led to
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden saying something unintelligible on Zoom that sounded like
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: he might be calling Trump supporters garbage, which has led
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: the Trump campaign to engage in two of their favorite pastimes,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: playing victim and running against Joe Biden. It was a
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: theme Trump hit again on Thursday at an event in,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: of all places, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Here he is driving
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: that message and talking about why he made a stop
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: in Albuquerque.
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: New Mexico, look, don't make me waste a whole damn
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: half a day here, okay? Look, I came here, you know,
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: we can be nice to each other, or we can
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: talk turkey.
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: Let's talk turkey, okay?
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: First of all, Hispanics love Trump. So I'm here for
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: one simple reason. I like you very much, and it's
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: good for my credentials with the Hispanic or Latino community.
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: Two days ago, Joe Biden called our supporters Garbage, you're garbage.
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: She called all of us garbage.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: We're garbage. I remember the word deplorable. Do you remember
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: the word deplorable?
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: How did that work out, Hillary?
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: Not too good.
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: But they mean it, even though without question my supporters
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: are of far higher quality and I think much smarter
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: than Crooked Joe or Lion Kamala.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, what did you think of his Halloween costume?
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: I'm glad my son didn't see it.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: I know. I purposely didn't show Charlie the pictures of
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Trump in the garbage truck because I thought that it
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: might make him like Trump more.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, Holly and I were looking at it. I
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: was showing it to her on my phone while we
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: were sitting on the couch and Jack ran over to
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: see like, what are you guys looking at? I was like, nothing, nothing.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: Anyone driving a garbage truck is automatically his hero. And
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: so I was like, you cannot see that. So if
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: three and four year olds could vote, this would be
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: a masterstroke. But alas, they cannot.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: I am confused. as to why they want to continue
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: to keep the Puerto Rico garbage story in the headlines
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: now for the fifth day. I know they think that
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: they've got their deplorable moment, even though it's Joe Biden
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: sort of stumbling over his words on a Zoom and
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: he's not the fucking candidate. And I get it. Right-wing
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: media is just running wild with this. Part of the
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: reason I think they're running wild with it is because
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: They all know how bad and damaging the Madison Square
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Garden rally was, even like Megyn Kelly was complaining about
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: it on her show, saying that the Trump campaign was
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: stupid for, you know, it was like too broed up
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: to have all those comedians there and making terrible jokes.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: And so I think they finally see this as an
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: opportunity to turn the page, to borrow a phrase on
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: all that. But. I don't know if it really does that.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: I think I'm sure that there's like Trump supporters who
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: are like, don't call us garbage. But I don't think
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: anyone's like, oh, Joe Biden mumbled on a Zoom. And
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: so meanwhile, that must that must mean that Kamala Harris
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: thinks that, too.
• 18:25
  Speaker 7: OK.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: A couple of things here. First, there is no evidence
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: whatsoever that Hillary Clinton's deplorables comment mattered at all.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Well, that's a good place to start.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: Yes, because it has become a fact in the minds
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: of Republicans and the media that that was the moment
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: when the election fell apart for not, I don't know,
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: Jim Comey's ill-timed letter to Congress that led the press
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: to lose their fucking mind 13 days before the election.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: Maybe that was a thing. But the deplorable comment, not
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: a real thing. When you're in a bad news cycle,
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: you're always looking for something to turn the page, be
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: a circuit breaker on what's happening. Generally, you want to
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: look for something that does not include the word that
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: is most associated with the scandal you're trying to avoid, right?
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: So this is a suboptimal choice here.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: And not literally wear that word.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Just drape yourself in it.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: The place, and right-wing media went nuts for it, because
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: for all the reasons you said, I would say traditional media,
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: the political media, didn't exactly color itself in glory. I mean, Playbook,
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: on the morning after Kamala Harris's closing argument speech had
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: like 17 paragraphs of insanity of, we don't know what
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: he meant, but it could matter. And here's how it
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: could matter. And here's the spectacle. There's a New York
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: Times story that was so infuriating.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: I know, I know, I know, I know. All of
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: them were like, they were reaching to, you can say
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: whatever you want about Biden and analyze him in the pieces.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: But it was such a reach to tie it to
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris, who gives a speech at the same time
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: that Joe Biden is saying this, where over and over
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: in the speech, she talks about reaching out to the
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: other side and stuff like that. And then is asked
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: about Biden's like, well, he clarified. But let me just
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: tell you, I think it's, you know, like totally wrong.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: did the right thing here. And they're like, yeah, but
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Biden's gaffes are trailing Harris. Like they're personifying Biden's gaffes.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: The gaffes are just walking around behind her. What the
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: fuck are you talking about?
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: But also any story that says something like it could
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: spark a backlash or could, well, no, that's not your
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: job to predict what voters may do. Your job is
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: to wait until they do it and then cover that.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: And maybe if it's on a fake bullshit issue, they
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: won't do it because you did your actual fucking job
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: and you explained what really happened as opposed to just
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: doing preemptive political prognostication. Okay, rant over.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: And I also, when it happened, I actually, when the
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: Biden thing happened, I was like, you know, I rolled
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: my eyes. But I actually wasn't worried for Kamala Harris
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: because I was like, this is, if anything, an opportunity
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: for her. She just gave a speech where she was like,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: I want to reach out to the other side. I
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: want them to have a seat at the table. Donald
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Trump wants to put them in jail. his political opponents
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: and so she can now say, you know what, if
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: you don't like what Joe Biden said, I'm the person
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: that you get to vote for. And as I've said
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: in this campaign, I am not Joe Biden and you've
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: all wanted me to separate myself from Joe Biden. Well,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: here I am. I gave this speech and that's a
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: different message than what some people heard from Joe Biden. Again,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: we don't even know what Joe Biden really meant. I
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: would not imagine Joe Biden would call Donald Trump's uh,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: voters and supporters garbage because that's not who Joe Biden is.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Right. Everything he ever says.
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: But clearly he was just, you know, doing the Biden
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: thing on zoom. So there you go. I put a.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: Mega hat on. He put a Trump campaign hat on
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: at a firehouse like a month ago.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: I know it's just, come on.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: It's stupid.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Um, let's back up for a second and talk about
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump in New Mexico. Uh, you know, you heard
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: in that clip, he, as usual reads the stage directions, uh,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: I'm here to get some, to boost my credentials with Latinos.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: But what... The New Mexico thing. He's not winning New Mexico.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: There's my prediction. He's not winning New Mexico.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: Oh, now we make predictions on this podcast?
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: You know what? He's not winning Massachusetts.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: I guess what? If he wins New Mexico, you saying
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: he was going to win New Mexico is really low
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: on the list of problems we have.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: That's what I was going to say. No one's going
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: to remember that. No one's going to remember that.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: Oh, well, I just clipped it right now, but yes.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: It's good for the pundies.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so he's just head fakes? Show of confidence? What
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: do you think?
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: I think– I mean he told us why he's doing it.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: It is to build credibility with the Latino community because
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: I'm sure that morning he woke up. He's like, where
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: are we going, guys? And they're like, New Mexico. He's like,
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: why the fuck are we going to New Mexico? And
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: they're like, to build credibility with the Latino community. And
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: so he just said those words.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: It's weird.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: It doesn't make a ton of sense. I don't know
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: how much credibility you're building with the Latino community. The
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: Trump campaign clearly has a thesis that's somewhat to a
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: certain extent shared by the Harris community that I think
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: is correct, which is all politics is kind of national now.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: The value of these local stops has gone down for
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: a couple of reasons. It's gone down because local media
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: just matters less than it did before. There's less of it.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: And when you've been to Green Bay, Wisconsin, for the
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: ninth time in the last four months, how much coverage
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: are you getting? It's not the same. It doesn't have
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: the same sort of impact you did before. So he
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: goes there. More people pay attention to it. And he's
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: trying to craft a narrative that his campaign's ascendant and
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: they're competing in these blue states that were, uh, that Republicans,
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: traditional Republicans can't compete in, but he can because he's whatever.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: I don't think it's a great use of time. And, uh,
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: I saw someone say that if he, oh, this was
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: a former aide to Marco Rubio said if he loses
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: Pennsylvania by a thousand votes, he's really going to regret
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: not going to Pennsylvania in the final weekend.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, I just, Mark Caputo just had a story
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: about this in, uh, the bulwark and he sort of
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: asked around the Trump campaign and he, Someone said to him,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: we're the Trump campaign. We're going to go where the
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: fuck we want to go, and too bad if you
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: don't get it.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: Okay, that's cool.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: And then I guess a couple other sources said to him,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: just like, this is Trump. He wants to project confidence.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: He thinks that he can win some of these states.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: It's just in his head, in his gut, he thinks
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: he can. And I think this is also like a,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: they're trying to show confidence so that if he loses...
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: He can say, well, I was in New Mexico and Virginia.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: I thought I could win those. It's impossible. They cheated.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: That's the only way they can win is if they cheated.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: It's helping his stop the steal narrative if he ends
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: up losing. All right. Speaking of the Trump campaign's supreme confidence,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Trump transition co-chair Howard Lutnick, the billionaire CEO of an
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: investment bank, he's out and about previewing Trump's policy agenda
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: for the second term, feeling confident. You guys all heard
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: tape of him on the Wednesday pod. scream-asking Elon Musk
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: at the Madison Square Garden rally how much funding they
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: could cut from federal agencies. The answer was apparently $ 2 trillion,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: a sum that would almost certainly decimate people's health and
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: retirement benefits in this country. On Wednesday night, Lutnick did
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: a CNN sit-down with Caitlin Collins. She asked him several
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: direct questions about Trump and RFK Jr. 's claim that
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: RFK will be basically in charge of public health in
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: some capacity in a Trump administration. And here's how it went.
• 25:26
  Speaker 8: So I spent two and a half hours this week
• 25:29
  Speaker 8: with Bobby Kennedy Jr. And what he explained was when
• 25:32
  Speaker 8: he was born, we had three vaccines and autism was
• 25:36
  Speaker 8: one in 10,000. Now a baby's born with 76 vaccines.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: RFK Jr. is a vaccine skeptic.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: He pushes lies about vaccines.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: And I don't even think if Republicans.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: Why do you think he pushes lies? I don't know
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: why he pushes them.
• 25:49
  Speaker 8: You said, I'm not a scientist, and you aren't.
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but scientists say he pushes lies.
• 25:54
  Speaker 7: He says, if you give me the data, all I
• 25:56
  Speaker 7: want is the data, and I'll take on the data
• 25:58
  Speaker 7: and show that it's not safe. And then if you
• 26:01
  Speaker 7: pull the product liability, the companies will yank these vaccines
• 26:04
  Speaker 7: right off of the market.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: All right, so there you go. Vote Donald Trump if
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: you want... your kids not to be vaccinated anymore. Because
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: if he wins, RFK Jr. is going to get to
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: be in charge of public health. And Howard Lutnick says
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: that RFK Jr. wants to get the vaccines yanked from
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: the market.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: Smallpox in every pot.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, first of all, why should people care what
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: this guy Lutnick thinks?
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: He's the chair of Trump's transition. And so for weeks now,
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: if not months, there's been a group of people in
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: an office somewhere in New York, I think is where
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: Trump's is, that is plotting Trump's administration. Now, primarily they're
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: taking Project 2025 and just sort of scratching, they're just doing,
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: rewriting Trump over it. But what they're really doing is
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: they're putting together lists of people who are going to
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: staff the Trump government. And this is not just the
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, the CAD members we know,
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: it's the undersecretaries, the administrators, the people that we pay
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: no attention to, but have tremendous power over things like
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: vaccine policy, prescription drug approvals, all of these things. And
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: so if the person who is in charge of putting
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: this whole operation together, who is signing off on these
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: lists of possible names that'll go to Trump, is someone
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: with the not very well-informed views of Howard Lutnick, that
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: bespeaks the kind of administration Trump will have. This is
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: a person with real power to shape government policy through personnel.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: And so Caitlin also asked him, like, you know, is
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: he going to be the health and human services secretary?
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: And Lutnick basically said no. The backstory there is the
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Trump campaign isn't sure that RFK Jr. could actually get
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: confirmed by the Senate to be the health and human
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: services secretary, because even if it's a Republican Senate, you
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: got your maybe your Susan Collins's and your Lisa Murkowski's
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: and even some conservative senators who are probably like, this
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: guy's fucking crazy. He he's an anti-vax loon. So they
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: are not sure they could get him confirmed. But Donald
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: Trump could make him like a czar in the White
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: House over the overseas, the public health agencies. And he
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: could still have a lot of power to, again, take
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: vaccines off the fucking market. Like, do you know what
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: our kids get vaccinated for? Hepatitis, measles, mumps, polio, tetanus,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: chicken pox, whooping cough. And. Robert R. Kennedy Jr. doesn't
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: fucking like these. He doesn't believe in science. He lies
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: about them all the time. He was connected to a
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: measles outbreak in Samoa that killed 83 people, most of
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: them children, because he went down there and talked to
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: a bunch of anti-vax crazies and promoted them, called them heroes.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: And then now he's like, oh, no, I had nothing
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: to do with it, even though at the time he
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: was like, yeah, it's probably the vaccines. They were problematic.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: And then, you know, vaccination rates fell dramatically in Samoa
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: after he went. And then there was a measles outbreak
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: and a bunch of people died. Like this is I
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: know there's just a lot of shit flying around right
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: now because it's the end of the campaign. But if
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: for no other reason, vote because RFK Jr. could be
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: in charge of vaccines and public health and could take
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: vaccines off the market that you need to survive. I
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: just it's wild.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: It's completely wild. Also, I don't think it's very, it's
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: not a politically wise move.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: No, it doesn't seem that way.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: Just looked up, you know, 69% of all adults say
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: that it's very slash extremely important. to get kids vaccinated. Now, unfortunately,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: that number has fallen since the pandemic, but only among
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: Republican voters because we all saw what happened there. But
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: around 70% still saying it's pretty important to get your
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: kids vaccinated. It's a big number. It's a big number.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: Just the theme here of The Madison Square Garden rally,
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: the crazy things Elon Musk has said, Mike Johnson saying
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: affordable care should be repealed, Howard Lutt-Dick deciding to do
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: a CNN interview for reasons that are beyond. Is the
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: Trump campaign really is acting like they have this thing
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: in the bag?
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: And they're all that Chicago Bears quarterback who was taunting
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: the crowd when the Hail Mary was being thrown. It's
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: sort of like what they're doing right now.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: I know. I know. It's wild. Like Elon Musk out
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: there talking about cutting $ 2 trillion and saying that, yeah,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: Trump's agenda would cause a temporary hardship on people. But
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: you know what?
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: Because the economy would crash. We'd crash the economy. We
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: elect us to crash the economy, repeal the Affordable Care Act,
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: take vaccines off the shelf.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: You know, Donald Trump and Elon Musk and RFK Jr.,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: they'll all be fine. They'll all be fine. But everyone
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: else is just going to have to go through some
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: temporary hardship. Our final Friday pod before the election. I
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: thought it was a good time to take one last,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: almost last, whip around to the battleground states, do some
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: final thoughts on what we're seeing, what we're looking for.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: I'm ordering these in terms of what I think is
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: easiest for Harris to hardest.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: But you can tell me if you disagree.
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: I'm going to start with Michigan. I think Michigan is
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: the easiest of the battlegrounds for her, going out there.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: It's her best state in the polls, first of all.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Right now, she's probably got the largest lead there of
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: any battleground state. Of course, that lead is less than
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: one in the New York Times average.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: Right, right.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: But also, Biden won Michigan by the biggest margin of
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: any of the swing states, around three points, 150,000 votes.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Of course, the concerns there, things we'll be looking for,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: Arab American and Muslim voters, upset with the war in Gaza.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: Of course, there's probably about 400,000 Arab American and Muslim
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: voters in Michigan, 100,000 people voted uncommitted in the primary.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: So that is something to watch. I'm also going to
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: be watching union members and just workers in general, because
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: they have been running a Trump campaign, Republicans and super
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: PACs have been running a ton of ads about electric
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: vehicles and telling people that Kamala Harris and Alyssa Slotkin
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: are are going to make you, you know, like give
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: up your gas powered car and you're going to be
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: forced to buy an electric vehicle and China's going to
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: make the electric vehicles and it's going to put auto
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: workers out of business. And so I'm, you know, looking
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: at that. And then I'm looking at, you know, black turnout,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: black voter turnout. You know, my gut is that her
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: margins among black voters are the same, around the same
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: as Biden, but turnout is the one that I I
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: wonder about whether black turnout will be the same. Now,
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: there was a report from Detroit today that they are
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: on pace in that city to already break turnout records
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: from 2020, which would be great, a great sign. Obviously,
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: a lot of black voters in Detroit. So anyway, those
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: are my thoughts on Michigan. What do you think?
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's sort of a lot of the same things.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: How does Kamala Harris do in those parts in and
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: around Dearborn, where there's a large Arab-American population? does she
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: dramatically underperform Biden's numbers there? Does overall turnout go down
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: because people don't vote? Do we end up with people
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: who leave the top of the ticket blank? So I'm
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: very curious about that. And I'm really, because of that
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: and related to that, I'm looking at third party vote
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: in Michigan more than anywhere else. RFK Jr. is still
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: on the ballot in Michigan. Um, and Jill Stein, RFK Jr.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: was getting three and a half percent in a poll
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: I saw the other day in Michigan. Um, where is
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: that vote coming from? The way the poll was written,
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: it seemed it was possible that that was helping calm
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: Harris a little bit. But so that is the place
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: where you have perhaps the largest group of people who
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: voted for Biden who may be looking for somewhere else
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: to go that is not Trump. And so that's a
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: net loss of one for Harris. And can she make
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: up for that? Because for people who listen to the
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: Sunday pod, I talked to Ron Brownstein about demographic changes.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: And the place where there's been the most demographic change
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: where the share of the electorate that is white, non-college educated,
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: has gone down the most is in Michigan. And so
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: can she replace that with new suburban voters and higher
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: turnout in Detroit?
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: And then the counties around Detroit for those suburban voters,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: like Oakland County.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: Kent County, yeah.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: Those are the counties where she really needs to run
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: up the score and could possibly do better than Biden.
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: What do you think about Pennsylvania? That's my next one.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: Is that your next one? Or would you go Wisconsin
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: over Pennsylvania?
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: I would probably just go... For most of this election,
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: I felt better about Wisconsin than Pennsylvania. And actually, that's
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: how both of the campaigns felt. I think that shifted
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: in recent days here. And it's really basically just come
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: down to the fact that Pennsylvania is just more suburban
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: and more diverse. And even though that math is not
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: the same for us, potentially, as it was in previous elections, it's...
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: Wisconsin's just an incredibly white state.
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: And.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: It's very, very rural. They're close, but I'd probably say
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: Pennsylvania is her next best. It's the one Biden wanted
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: by about a point and a half, about 80,000 votes,
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: I believe. Here, it's once again turnout in the collar
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: counties around Philly and then the suburbs of Allegheny County.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: And then can she do well in some of– across Pennsylvania,
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: there are lots of mid-sized cities, cities like Lancaster and Scranton.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: Can she do well in those cities and actually outperform–
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: Biden in those cities, which could make up for some
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: bleed she might have either with black voters, if you
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: are not correct about that, and I hope you are correct,
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: or if she's underperforms Biden with rural white voters. So
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: sort of suburban, the suburban areas around the big cities,
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: and then the small midsize cities have become places where
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: Democrats have gotten a lot of vote from recently. And
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: you got a bunch of those in Pennsylvania.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: I think the bull case for some of these, a
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: lot of these blue wall states is in these rural
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: counties and small towns and small cities where Trump tends
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: to do well, especially in the rurals, he wins with
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: crushing margins, but he doesn't have a lot more vote
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: to squeeze out from the rural areas, from some of
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: the exurban areas he does, the places outside the suburbs
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: that are growing, right? So you could see if the
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: exurbs shifted to the right and Trump got more vote
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: out of there, it could start canceling out some of
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: her gains in the suburbs. But I think population-wise, The
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: southeastern part of Pennsylvania, those suburbs south of Philly, like
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: that has grown a bunch. So there's like an opportunity
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: for her to to have bigger margins than Biden and
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: just get more vote out of there. And that and
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: same thing with Allegheny County around Pittsburgh. So that that
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: like you said, that that cancels out hopefully either his
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: strength in the exurbs or some combo of that. Plus,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: you know, black and Latino voters inching towards Trump.
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: And then obviously the Puerto Rican voters in Philly and Allentown,
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: obviously something we'll be very interested in.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: Can Ben Wickler save America again? No pressure, Ben.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: I know. What you just said, which is demographic-wise of
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: the blue wall states, I'm most nervous about Wisconsin. But
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: organization-wise and turnout-wise, I feel best about Wisconsin because of
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: the organization that Ben and the entire Wisconsin Democratic Party
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: and all the organizers and volunteers who have worked tirelessly
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: in Wisconsin since 2016 have put together.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: So obviously you will want to know what goes on
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: in Milwaukee in terms of turnout and support levels for Harris.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: The other thing is Dane County, where Madison is, has
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: grown a ton in the last four years. Some of
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: that is people moving from other parts of the state
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: into Dane, but it's also a lot of people who
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: post-pandemic moved to other parts of the country. And so
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: you have some in-migration people of more college-educated suburban voters
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: in Dane County? And can that population growth offset further
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: losses in rural areas?
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Because, you know, Biden and Democrats, it's getting to be
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: like Assad margins in Dane County now. And the turnout
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: in Dane County is off the charts. I mean, there's
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: like a few counties that in swing states that have
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: as high turnout with as good margins for Democrats than
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: Dane County.
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, we went canvassing in Dane County, and that was,
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: I would say, not exactly hard work. We've already voted.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: We know when we're going to vote. We have signs
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: for Kamala Harris, Tammy Baldwin, and nine ballot initiatives in
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: our front yard. It's political utopia.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: But again, Biden won it by 20,000 votes. And so
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: the margin in Wisconsin, just for, you know, voters who,
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: if Trump gets more votes or if Trump, you know,
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: if Biden voters go back to Trump or whatever, it's
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: just a smaller margin than it is in Michigan and Pennsylvania.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: 21,000 votes.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that is why it's, you know, it's worrisome.
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: The suburbs in Wisconsin, the suburbs outside of Milwaukee have
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: not moved as aggressively Democratic as they have in Pennsylvania
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: and Michigan and other battleground states. I'm going to be
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: curious to see if you see growth there. There were 76,000
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: Haley voters in the Republican primary in Wisconsin. Can she
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: get 10, 15, 20,000 of those votes? That could really help.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. Nevada, you mentioned earlier that John Ralston's...
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: his blog about that he updates with the numbers from
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: Nevada every night. It's not exactly been great, but one
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: thing we've talked about is that voting behavior has just changed.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: And so Republicans are voting earlier now and it's sort
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: of hard to tell what's happening there.
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: But I don't know.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: What do you want to say about Nevada?
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: I think Nevada is the test case about whether Trump
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: is making real gains with working class Latino voters. Compared
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: to all the other states we're talking about, disproportionately located
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: in Nevada. And if he is, we will see that there.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: It's interesting. I assume you have Nevada in this place
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: in the order because it was the largest margin of
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: the remaining states. And in fact, the second largest margin
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: in 2020.
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: Is that why?
• 40:17
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: But demographically, the hardest, I think.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: I think it's demographically one of the hardest. I do
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: think the turnout, the organization the Democrats have there, the
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: turnout machine there is still pretty strong. It was built
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: by Harry Reid when he was alive and he was
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: Democratic leader, and it's quite effective. And I just looked
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: at it before we started recording, looked at Ralston's blog.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: The The margin is starting to come down. Right now,
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: the Republic, if you just, so the reason that Ralston
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: and Nevada are like the exception to reading the tea
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: leaves on the early vote is that now everyone in
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: Nevada gets mailed a ballot. And a lot of people
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: in Nevada, most people vote before election day. So if
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: you have an early vote, that's like, you know, 65,
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: 70% of registered voters or 65, 70% of the final vote.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: You can make some assumptions on that, right? You can't
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: predict who's going to win, but you can make an assumption.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: The challenge is, as they have automatic voter registration in
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: Nevada as well, and when they automatically register you, if
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: you don't pick a party, you're automatically registered just with
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: no party. And so you're seeing the share of no
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: party voters much higher than it's been in the past.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: And we don't know if those votes from the early vote,
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: we don't know if those votes are for Kamala Harris
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: or for Donald Trump. And so Republicans have quite a
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: lead in ballots right now over Democrats in Nevada, thanks
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: largely to the rural counties in Nevada and Clark County,
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: which is where Vegas is, is sort of underperforming its registration.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: So the percentage of the vote from Clark is just
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: lower than it has been in the past.
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: And the.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: If it stays that way, then it's going to be
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: really hard for her to win. But the idea is
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: that maybe all of these voters in Clark County who
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: voted last time, who just haven't voted yet, are going
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: to either show up in the next couple of days
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: or show up on election day.
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: And if they still live there, right? That's one of
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: the hardest parts about Clark County in particular is there's just,
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: it's very transient. You have people who move in every cycle,
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: people leave every cycle. Whoever, as I have done a
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: couple of times, canvassed in Las Vegas, the addresses are different.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: It's like campus and college time.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: We're about to find out.
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: Yes, we're about to.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: Do it again.
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: I would say it was a real warning sign in
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: my 2016 life if I had paid more attention to
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: the door knocks when I was in Vegas. So it
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: is all hard to tell. Normally, Democrats go in with
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: a big advantage, and then Republicans have to win a
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: shockingly high percentage of the election day vote. And they
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: have failed to do that in most elections of consequence
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: over the last decade or so. Now, that firewall will
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: not exist anymore. of any consequence. It's the opposite.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: It's a Republican firewall now.
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: That may even out by the time this is all done,
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: but we'd bank all these votes and we're not banking
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: a lead here.
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: But so everyone knows, Nevada plays a role in very
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: few paths to 270 for Kamala Harris, just because it
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: only has six electoral votes. There are some. I forget
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: which blue wall state if you lose.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: If you lose Pennsylvania, you can replace it with Arizona.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: North Carolina? Or Arizona and Nevada.
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: Well, if you lose Pennsylvania, you can win North Carolina
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: or Georgia and Nevada and get to over 270.
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: Right. Okay.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: So there's a couple paths it shows up in. I
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: have Georgia next. Would you have Arizona or North Carolina
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: before it?
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: No, I would probably... I think you could flip a
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: coin for Arizona, Georgia here.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: It really depends on... I kind of do too.
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: It kind of depends on what narrative you want to buy, right?
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: If you're correct that Kamala Harris is going to get
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: to basically Biden-level margins with Black voters, then Georgia should
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: be next in line because it is a huge Black
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: voting population. It has obviously turned out in 2020 and
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: 2022 to elect Joe Biden, Raphael Warnock twice, John Ossoff,
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: almost elect Stacey Abrams twice, then Georgia would be the one. Also,
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: very large suburbs, lots of college-educated voters, that is a
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: formula for Democrat success. The reason Harris is not polling
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: as well there is because in the polling, she is
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: not doing as well with Black voters. If that were
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: to level set back to where it was, then it's
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: a true toss-up state with maybe a Harris advantage.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: Well, and the concern I have there is the concern
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: with Black vote everywhere, which is just if she keeps
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: the margins, but one of the reasons she's not doing
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: well in the polls is that some black voters are
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: just end up deciding not to vote and turnout goes down,
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: then that, that is, could be a reason that she
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: loses it as well.
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: I also think that Georgia is a state is like we've,
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: you know, in the Trump era, a lot of the
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: polls we get to election day and it's like, Oh,
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: they've understated Trump support. Georgia is not that case. In fact,
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: sometimes I think a couple of times in Georgia, Georgia,
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: the polls in Georgia have like underestimated democratic support and
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: Biden support, uh, at least in 2020. So, It's sort
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: of a state I watch and don't take the polling
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: too seriously as I do some other places, or at
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: least I'm not as worried about it as in other places,
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: but maybe I should be. But I do think there
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: it's all about blowing it out in Atlanta and the
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: suburbs and in some rural places in Georgia where there
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: are a lot of black voters to see if she
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: can run up the margins there.
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: And in the college towns like Athens and then other
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: places that are small to mid-sized cities with large Democratic
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: populations like Savannah.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: What's going on with Arizona? What do you think? Because
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: I was bullish on Arizona in 2020. You know, we won.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: It was very close. But the polls have been brutal
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: this time around. Well, I don't think they've been brutal.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, it is.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: They've just been so different than they were in 2020.
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but they, I mean, in the New York Times average,
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: Trump has a two-point lead, right? Which is well within
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: the margin of error. It is in the polling averages,
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris's worst state. Now the fact that her worst
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: state is at right around two points is pretty good, frankly.
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: This is another thing, right? Are the polls overstating Trump's
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: Latino support or understating Kamala Harris's, right? Because a lot
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: of times you're getting Kamala Harris at near the Biden number,
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: but Trump is not yet at his 2020 number. It's
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: just they're both under, right? And what's going to happen
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: with that undecided vote? Are people going to vote or
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: are they not going to vote, right? Is Trump going
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: to get over 40 or is he going to be
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: stuck around 38 where he was before? And it's just,
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: you know, just when we talk all the time about
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: the hardest to reach voters, we often, we're always talking
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: about Trump voters, but that other very hard to reach voters,
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: black and Latino voters, right? When we talk, they're talking
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: about the least politically engaged and like, are we actually
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: capturing who that electorate is? And if the, and if
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: her numbers are like Biden's in 2020, she's got a
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: very real shot to it. Now it's a state that
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: Biden won by 11,000 votes. So there's not a lot
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: of margin for error there, but it's just, This is like,
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: there's something the polling is going to get wrong. It
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: happens every cycle, even in a good polling year where,
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: you know, even in 2020, there are a lot of
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: things wrong. But remember, one of the narratives leading into
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: the election was Joe Biden is crushing it with seniors.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: Seniors are going to save America. And it's because everyone's like, well,
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: seniors are very COVID conscious because of the concerns of
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: their health. We have the whole election. Turns out seniors
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: voted at the exact same level they have in previous elections.
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: It was just a fuck up in the polling, right?
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: And what it missed, Trump's gains with Latinos. Totally missed them.
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: There are going to be some things like that this time,
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: where Trump's either going to do better or worse with
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: some of these groups we think he is doing well with.
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: There's going to be another group. Plouffe speculated when he
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: was on our podcast that it would be Republicans or
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: Republican-leading independents. But something's going to be missed. And Arizona
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: will maybe be the state where that is, if it's
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: a Latino vote, where that will be most impactful.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: What's odd is that in the Time Sienna polls of Arizona,
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: which have maybe been the worst high-quality polls for her
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: in Arizona, I think that's what I was getting at
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: with the, it's been rougher just because they're good polls.
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: She's like down five in those. Her Latino number in
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: those polls was like 60%. She was having a problem
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: there with like independence. She was like losing more Biden
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: voters from Biden 2020 voters than in some other states.
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: So I don't know. I don't know what's going on there.
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, there is a strain of McCain Republicans. There
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: is a lot. This is a state that moved, you know,
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: Georgia and Arizona are the states with the most Trump
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: Biden voters. So the states that move the furthest over
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: the course of four years. And so we, obviously we
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: know from focus groups, we hear from Sarah Long and
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: others that we bleed some of those voters. And so that,
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: that could be the challenge there.
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: Uh, finally, North Carolina, the white whale. We always, we're
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: always so close to North Carolina.
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, this one's really hard, particularly because of the,
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: the hurricane and it's really disrupted, uh, People's lives are
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: in a way in which it's hard to focus on
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: politics and elections, particularly if you're in the Asheville area
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: where people are still trying to get their lives back together.
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: Schools open, businesses open, water, gas, all of those things.
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: North Carolina is the hardest state. in this group, not
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: just because it's the one that Biden lost, but in
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: all the demographic changes I was talking about, about how
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: the share of the electorate represented by white working class
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: voters has gone down everywhere else. It hasn't gone down
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: in North Carolina. And this is one of the things
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: that I will never forget Steve Kornacki writing this in
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: a piece that was about why Kamala Harris was doing
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: better in North Carolina than Georgia, which didn't make a
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: ton of sense. One reason he postulated was there are
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: more of the voters who are undercounted in the polls
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: in North Carolina than Georgia. So it's possible it's just
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: a polling problem. But we'll have to see. It was
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: a 70,000 vote margin. If the polls are right about
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: the governance race, you're going to need an unprecedented shitload
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: of split ticket voters for Donald Trump to win the state. Yeah,
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: that is true. Now, that did happen once in 2020
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: in Maine to almost a similar degree. But that's a
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: hard thing. The math is hard there.
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: So overall, you see why the whole thing is close.
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: Because if you don't get all three blue wall states,
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: you need one of Arizona, North Carolina.
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: Or Georgia.
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: Two of them. Oh, I said, if you get, if
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: you know, if you lose one of the blue wall.
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: States, unless that blue wall is Pennsylvania, then you need two.
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah. You need, or, or one in Nevada.
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: One in Nevada.
• 50:40
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: You need, you need two other states. One of those
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: two states has to be Arizona or Georgia.
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: Yes. Right.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: And we just laid out why those are, those are tricky.
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: So that's why, uh, that's why everyone's, that's why it's
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: a toss up right now.
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: The one last thing I'll say about this is if
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: we had an actual accurate perception of what, how close
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: the race was in 2020, uh, Right. We were looking
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: at the whole thing through a funhouse mirror. But if
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: we actually had known how close it really was and
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: we were doing this exact same exercise in 2020, we
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: would have said the same things about Arizona and Georgia
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: and Joe Biden won them.
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: That's true.
• 51:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: And we all would have been feeling just like we
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: are now.
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: This is actually a gift from the bowling industry that
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: we slept better, we felt better, our stomachs hurt less
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: in 2020.
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: I don't remember that, by the way.
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: Oh, you were.
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: I'm still nervous.
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: You were. Was I fine? I wasn't nervous.
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you were totally fine. I was? Yeah, we talked
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: about this all the time. We have conversations with you
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: where you're like, Even if we had the largest polling
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: error in history, he still wins, which was true.
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: I feel less nervous now, even though I feel like
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: it's very possible that he wins. I feel like it's
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: a greater chance that he wins.
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: Than I did in 2020. The polling gods understood in
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: 2020 that with the pandemic happening, we couldn't take it.
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: And so they gave us a gift.
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: All those libs just stayed home and answered the pollsters' calls.
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: Thank you, libs.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: While the Republicans went out and just had a good time.
• 52:10
  Speaker 7: Okay.
• 52:10
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: When we come back, we're going to hear your interview
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: with Dan Osborne. But before we do that, this is, again,
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: the last weekend we get to do everything we can
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: to get persuadable voters to head to the polls for
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris. And so we are asking you to reach
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: out to everyone you know, particularly in the swing states,
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: make sure they're voting for Kamala Harris, voting for Democrats
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: up and down the ballot and get them to spread
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: the word. Every call, every conversation matters at this point.
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: And if you doubt that, if you think everyone out
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: there has already made up their mind, heard all the arguments,
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: take a listen to this clip from one of our listeners.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: Her name's Erin. She's from Massachusetts. Great state. Who just
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: used Vote Save America's last call tool.
• 52:53
  Speaker 9: I used the last call tool to reach out to
• 52:56
  Speaker 9: my sister-in-law in Pennsylvania about voting for Kamala. And we
• 52:59
  Speaker 9: touched on women's health rights and the unrest that a
• 53:02
  Speaker 9: Trump presidency would cause. I used her script to let
• 53:05
  Speaker 9: her know that I was here for any questions she
• 53:07
  Speaker 9: might have. After our chat, she said that although she
• 53:10
  Speaker 9: had been undecided, she would be casting a vote for
• 53:12
  Speaker 9: Kamala and even thought she could get her mom, who's
• 53:15
  Speaker 9: also in Pennsylvania, on board too. Thanks for the push, guys,
• 53:18
  Speaker 9: and for all you do.
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: Love that.
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: Nice job, Erin. Erin, great job doing it. Great presentation, too.
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: You really explained that story succinctly and wonderfully. You should
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: possibly be a podcaster.
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: Great work.
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: More succinct than us. Just loviating on for an hour.
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: I know.
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: It's like I'm already late to trick-or-treating.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: All right. So if Aaron can do it, you can
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: do it. Equally important as reaching out to friends and
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: family is volunteering in the battleground states, either physically there
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: or you can phone bank, text bank, whatever. This weekend,
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: basically everyone at this company is canvassing, including me, Dan, Lovett, Tommy.
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: We're going to Arizona on Saturday. We're going to Nevada
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: on Sunday. We're going to knock on some doors, rally
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: some volunteers. And you can join us for those events
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: or sign up to knock doors in the swing state
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: nearest you, or you can phone bank. It's all critical.
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: And the final day is go to votesaveamerica.com slash 2024
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: to volunteer now. When we come back, Dan Osborne.
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: Joining me today is an independent Senate candidate running a
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: surprisingly tight race to unseat Republican Deb Fischer in Nebraska.
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: Please welcome to Positive America, Dan Osborne. Thanks for being here.
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: Thanks, guys. Thanks for having me.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: Your biography is a centerpiece of your campaign with very
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: good reason. Could you just start by telling our listeners
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: who may not have been following the Nebraska Senate race
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: super closely who you are and why you're running?
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I suppose it would all start, you know, I
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: joined the Navy right out of high school. I come
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: from a long line of Navy people. My grandfather retired
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: from the Navy. My parents, they both met while they
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: were in the Navy. My uncles were all in the Navy.
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: And then my older brother, he joined the Marine Corps,
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: so we don't talk to him much anymore. But I
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: did two Western Pacific cruises aboard the USS Constellation. So
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: I got to travel the world twice over in two Westpacs.
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: And I think that was a good education for a
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: young man coming into the world. But I got out.
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: I came back to Omaha, where I'm from. I started
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: attending the University of Nebraska at Omaha. I then joined
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: the Nebraska Army National Guard to continue my service. I
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: was a 19 kilo on a M1A1 Abrams tank crew
• 55:31
  Speaker 3: during that time. I've always felt compelled to service. But,
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: you know, my life changed when my wife, Megan, had
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: our first daughter, Georgia. So I stopped going to school.
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: I got another honorable discharge, and I started working at
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: Kellogg's as an industrial mechanic because I needed a job.
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: So I'm with some good benefits to help pay for
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: this new family I've started. And one of the first
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: days on the job, an old Polish guy by the
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: name of Ron Jabowski came up to me. He looked
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: just like Tom Selleck from Magnum PI. He said, hey, kid,
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: have you joined the union yet? I said, no, sir,
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: I have not. He goes, well, you might want to
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: think about doing that. And I'm like, well, shoot, Tom
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: Selleck's telling me to join the union. I better go
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: do that. So I signed up. I paid my dues.
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: I worked hard for a lot of years, just provided
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: for my family. But over the years, old guys like Ron, NKA,
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: Tom Selleck started to retire. And Kellogg's became more beholden
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: to their stockholders. And we started to lose on contracts.
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: So I ran for executive board in my local. I
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: got elected as vice president. And about three months later,
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: the president stepped down because you get yelled at a
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: lot in that role by both your members and management alike.
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: But I knew the role was important, so I assumed it.
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: I did that for about a year, and then COVID hit.
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: And COVID has changed a lot of lives, and it
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: certainly has changed mine. You know, we were working. There's
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: four plants under the master agreement, under the umbrella of
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: the master. And as essential workers, we were all working
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: seven days a week, 12 hours a day during that year.
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: At one point in time, 50% of our workforce was
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: forced quarantine and or sick. But we kept all four
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: of those plants running at 100% capacity. And they made
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: record profits. They went from $ 19 billion to $ 21 billion.
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: The CEO gave himself a $ 2 million raise. The board
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: enriched themselves. The stockholders enriched themselves. And then our contract expired.
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: I figured it'd be a no-brainer. We'd get a little
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: sliver of the pie. But instead, they sat across the
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: negotiating table from us. And they said, we're going after
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: your health insurance. We're going after your cost of living
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: wage adjustments. So for me as president, that was my
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: old crap moment. There hadn't been a strike in Nebraska
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: since 1972. So I had to figure out what that
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: all meant and try to drum up all the support
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: and learn as much as I could. So when October
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: 5th midnight rolled around, we couldn't come to an agreement.
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: Still my belief today, Kellogg's had no intention on coming
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: to an agreement. So we shut down four plants and
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: we walked off the job to preserve our wages and benefits.
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: Certainly one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: take 500 of my friends and their family out into
• 58:06
  Speaker 3: the great unknown, not knowing if we're going to have
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: a job at the end of it. But we all
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: felt we were on the right side of history. And
• 58:12
  Speaker 3: I knew out on the picket line, Democrats were going
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: to come out and support. That's traditionally what they do.
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: But I didn't really see my world that way. I
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: didn't see black, white, or women, or men, or Republican,
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: or Democrat. I just saw people that wanted to go
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: to work for a fair wage and some decent benefits
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: in the time that they trade in service to the company.
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: So I set out to make it a nonpartisan issue.
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: I was able to get Republican Congressman Don Bacon out
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: to the picket line and shake hands with the members
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: in favor of what we were trying to do. I
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: was then able to get Republican governor, now U.S. Senator
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: from Nebraska, Pete Ricketts, to draft a letter to the CEO,
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: Steve K. Elaine, imploring him to get our people back
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: to work. But we settled on a strike just before
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: Christmas after 77 days. And I remember walking in my
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: plant just feeling a huge sense of pride we salvaged
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: 1500 good paying jobs around the country and that's why
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: I'm doing this today I haven't always been a political
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: person but you know I see the corporate agenda that
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: our elected officials have my opponents certainly know different it
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: was Robin Williams the late comedian said it best that
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: he said politicians should be wearing NASCAR jackets with patches
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: of their sponsors so we know how they're going to
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: vote That is so true. And my opponent certainly has
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: a lot of patches on her jacket.
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: Talk to me a little bit about the decision to
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: run as an independent as opposed to a Democrat or Republican.
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: It's obviously easier, maybe not easier to be a Democrat
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: in Nebraska, but just to have access to the party
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: machinery and all of that. But you picked a hard
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: path here. Tell me about why.
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: Well, I've been a registered independent from the time I
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: could vote simply because I've never really been behind the
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: whole two-party system. I've never understood why I have to
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 3: have a hard set of beliefs on either that side
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: or that side. I've always find myself more of a moderate,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: working down the middle when it comes to issues and
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: ideas and things like that. But we certainly see this
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: 118th Congress is arguably one of the most inefficient on
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: working together and getting stuff done. The Farm Bill is
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: very important here in Nebraska. And we've seen that come
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: and gone. We're working on an extension from 2018. So
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: our farmers and ranchers are falling behind inflation right now
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: because of that. There's certainly a lot of things we
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 3: need to be doing better for our people. But that's
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: the way I think, you know, the framers of the
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: Constitution intended this to be, right? Government buying for the people.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: Right now, I feel like it's just a government for
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: the uber wealthy and corporations.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: Let's say you win. How does that work when you
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: get there? Are you going to just simply caucus with
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: neither party? Are you going to make decisions based on issues?
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: Have you thought that far ahead?
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, of course. Because I'm going to win.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: That's good. That's the attitude we like.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: I don't know if I like winning better or if
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 3: I hate losing worse. Either way. I think the system
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: needs to be challenged. because I don't feel like it
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 3: works for me and my family. George Norris was the
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: last independent senator from Nebraska. He helped create the nonpartisan
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: unicameral that we enjoy today. He didn't caucus with anybody
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: his last term, so there is some precedence there. Yeah,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: I think it's going to be issue-based. People will say, oh, well,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: you won't get committee assignments. Senate rules say you have
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: to be on at least two committees. I'm pretty good
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: at forming alliances and making friends. But, you know, there's
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: a chance, there's a real chance I could be the
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: 51st swing vote in the U.S. Senate. So people are
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: going to be knocking on my door.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: And you use that for Nebraska, I assume. So that's
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: a little bit of leverage there, I guess.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's how I can deliver for Nebraska
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: if that scenario occurs.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: What would some of your top priorities be when you,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: I won't say if you win, when you win?
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: You know, I'll just start with what's important. Yeah, let's
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: do that. 180 town halls that I hear from Nebraskans.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 3: It's the economy and inflation. Trying to get a hold
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: of that and just, you know, making it so people's
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 3: paychecks go goes further. You know, I hear things like
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: and I read things like, you know, my daughter's generation
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: is going to be one of the first generations of
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: kids collectively that don't do better than their parents. That
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: should scare people. It definitely certainly does me. So we
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: got to do better to turn that around and flip
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: that script. We all want our kids to do better
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: and we all want to protect the environment. So they
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: have a planet to work and planet to live on. Right.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: So extremely important issues. But the economy inflation, number two,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: is border security. and slash immigration. You might be wondering
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: why a landlocked state in the middle of the country
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: like Nebraska, it would be important to people. You know,
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: this is a huge beef state, the industry and farming
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: and ranching, certainly. And, you know, meatpackers employ a lot
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: of people. So they're concerned about it. But I don't
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: think Senator Fisher, she's had 12 years to do something
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: on the border. And I do believe if we don't
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: have a border, we don't have a country. We have
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 3: to secure our ports of entries, not just our southern border,
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: but everywhere. And we need more people to do that. And,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 3: you know, because it's human trafficking, it's sex trafficking, it's drugs,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: it's everything that we need to do better at lessening
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: the flow of all that. So, We need a comprehensive
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: border package that includes drones. But on the flip side
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: of that, there's a 10-year backlog of people waiting to
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 3: get in front of a judge for asylum seekers. Well,
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 3: there's a problem right there. We need to address that.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: But I was watching a debate between Ronald Reagan and
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: George H.W. Bush that came over my feet the other
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: day randomly. And so I got to stop and watch this.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: They were talking about the border, and they were talking
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: about immigration the exact same way we're talking about it today.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: And that was in 1980. So I asked myself, why?
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: Why isn't anybody doing? Well, the meatpackers, the people who
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: benefit from exploiting labor, paying them next to nothing, and
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: they can continue to enrich themselves. And those are the
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: folks that can afford to buy batches on a senator's
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: NASCAR jacket. So it comes full circle.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: People are seeing, I mean, this is a very close
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: race that's caught a lot of people by surprise. We've
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: spent much of this cycle talking about the competitive Senate
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: races being in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada, et cetera, all the
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: ones that people are talking about. And then all of
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: a sudden out of nowhere comes Dan Osborne in Nebraska.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: New York Times poll has this race incredibly close. What
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: is going on in the ground there? What are you
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: hearing from voters that helps explain why this very Republican
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: state is open to replacing their Republican center who was
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: just elected not so long ago?
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's because they're starting to see, you know,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 3: when people hurt, they pay a little bit more attention.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: You know, I I like the phrase, it doesn't matter
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: if you care about politics, politics are going to care
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: about you. And I think people are starting to understand
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 3: that fact a little bit more. Like I said, when
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: your dollar doesn't go near as far. It wasn't that
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: long ago, $ 250 filled up my grocery cart for a
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 3: family of five. Now it barely skims the bottom. That
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: certainly is problematic. But it's our message that resonates with people,
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: that if you work hard in this country, your paychecks
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: should matter. Plain and simple. You know, and I'm going
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 3: to fight to do that. You know, Senator Fisher is
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 3: just going to be a rubber stamp for whoever her
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: party leader is. That's what she's shown. And then, but
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: she's also shown she votes against, she wants to raise
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: the retirement age to 70 years old. And for me
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: as a steam fitter, that's a slap in the face.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: I can't imagine 69 years old turning pipe wrenches on
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 3: a man lift. You know, that's crazy talk. So we
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: need to protect our social security benefits. That's the winning message. People, people,
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: we've got to take care of our retirees. And then
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: she votes against veterans extending, extending healthcare for veterans that
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: are victims of burn pit, toxic burn pits, and then
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 3: dating all the way back to agent orange victims in Vietnam.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 3: Like who is this person? Like, this is, this is crazy.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: You know, and veterans are less than 6% of our population.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 3: And then the burn pick victims got to be even smaller.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 3: So I, I don't understand how she votes the way
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: she votes.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: In Senate race after Senate race all across this country
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: and in the presidential race, abortion is a driving issue.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: What role is it playing in your race in Nebraska,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: and where are you on the issue?
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: Well, there's ballot initiatives, so it's going to play a
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: very important role. There's three ballot initiatives. Well, four, I suppose.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: Two abortion, one... would basically codify Roe standards the way
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: we've done it for the last 50 years. The second
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: is more of a pro-life initiative. And then there's legalizing
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 3: medical cannabis, which I am for. Fisher is against. I
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 3: don't even know what that poll is at, but I'm
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 3: pretty sure if that's your issue, they're definitely going to
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 3: vote for me. Uh, and then, and then there's family
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: paid sick leave. Uh, and, uh, she's definitely, she's against that.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 3: She voted against the railroaders and, uh, to have seven
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 3: days of PTO when that's all they were holding out for. Uh,
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 3: and as somebody who's worked over 3000 hours a year,
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: my whole life, I get the, the work, the need
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: for a work-life balance. But so, but going back to abortion, uh,
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 3: She is for a complete abortion ban. She's said it
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 3: multiple times, even not having any exceptions of assault and
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 3: incest on there as well. So that's who she is.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 3: But I'm the opposite of that. I certainly believe that
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 3: the federal government should stay out of our doctor's offices
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 3: and our bedrooms. but I've been on record many times
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 3: of saying at the federal level, I would go back
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: to the way we've done it for the last 50 years. Excellent.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: Um, I have a very, very important question for you.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: I have been to Omaha many times. I've listened to
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: Tim Walls, uh, talk about this. You got to help
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: me in a little snow. What the hell is a runza?
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 3: It is, uh, it's amazing. This is what it is. Uh, it's, uh,
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 3: It's basically a square, I don't even know, like a
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 3: pie almost, but it's got ground beef and cabbage, and
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: then there's Italian runzas, so it's just this nice, tidy
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: little sandwich that they bake.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: And it's amazing.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 3: It really is, yeah. If you ever come to Nebraska,
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 3: you've got to try it.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: Okay, all right. It's on my list.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: I know you're a very busy man, Dan Asmore, and
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: we're a week before the election. Tell our listeners who
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: may have become interested in your campaign by doing this interview,
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: how they can help you.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you know, I haven't always been a political
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 3: person and being engrossed in this process is... fascinating and
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 3: disgusting all at the same time to see how much
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: money flows into this uh and independent expenditures and citizens
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 3: united and all this it's it's it's crazy but mitch
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 3: mcconnell just threw through deb fisher three million dollars and
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 3: money on her side is flowing in to spread lies
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 3: about me uh and so i got to defend myself
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 3: so you know we have to continue to fundraise we've
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 3: We've raised over $ 10 million, which is insane to say.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 3: My average donation still remains $ 40. So I do believe
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 3: this campaign is powered by the people, the way the
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 3: Framers intended it to be. But you could go to OsborneForSenate.com.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 3: That's Osborne with no E. Sorry, not related to the
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 3: famous football coach. But OsborneForSenate.com. And you can help me
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 3: with $ 5, $ 10, $ 15, or help reach the average of $ 40. Awesome.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: Dan Osborne, thank you so much for joining us, and
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: good luck in the final stretch here.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 3: Thank you. Appreciate you having me on.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: That's our show for today. Dan will be back on
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: Sunday with our final bonus episode featuring Steve Kornacki. Everyone,
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: please call your friends in the battlegrounds. Get out there
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: and get involved this weekend. We'll talk to you soon.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 3: Bye, everyone.
• 1:11:22
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