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All Tied up Before the Debate · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's show, with just hours until the first and
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: maybe only presidential debate, Kamala Harris is out with a
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: new interview. a new policy section on her website, and
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: a new ad designed to troll Donald Trump. Trump, meanwhile,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: is out with new threats to arrest his political opponents
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: and incite violence. Then later, you'll hear Tommy's interview with
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Maryland Democratic Senate candidate Angela Alsobrooks, who's facing a close
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: race against popular Republican Governor Larry Hogan that could decide
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: control of the Senate.
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this one's going to sneak up on people. You
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: should listen to it because it's a much closer race
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: than we want it to be in Maryland. And if
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: we do not win that seat, there is no chance
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: of taking the Senate. Too many close races everywhere. But first,
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: speaking of close races, you know what was fun to
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: wake up to after our live show in Phoenix on
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: Saturday night?
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: A 5.40 a.m. message from Tommy that included a link
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: to the latest New York Times Sienna poll showing Trump
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: ahead of Kamala by one point. 48 to 47 percent.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: Sorry, I was up early.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: 540. 540. It's too early. It's too early to be
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: talking about politics.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's never too early. That's our motto here. The
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: vice president is still up two points in the Times
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: polling average, 49 to 47, and up 2.8 points in
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: the 538 average, 47 to 44. We also got new
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: battleground polls from CBS News slash YouGov. showing Harris and
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Trump tied at 50% in Pennsylvania. Harris up one in Michigan, 50-49,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: and up two in Wisconsin, 51-49, which is also in
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: line with the averages. Since then, right before we started recording,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: there's two new polls out of North Carolina that show
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: her up 49-46 in both polls, SurveyUSA and Quinnipiac. There's
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: another Quinnipiac that has Trump up 49-45 in Georgia. There's
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: a morning consult national poll that has Harris up 49-46.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: It's close. It's a tied race. Yeah, it's... By all accounts.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: Right. Everywhere. Everywhere. That's a lot of money on polling.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: A lot of money on polling, and it's also a
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: lot of polling that could have kind of a short
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: expiration date on it since the biggest event of the
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: campaign is going to happen tonight.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: We all set the table.
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: For the debate, knowing the debate is going to change it.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: I don't know why we do this with polling. Now,
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: I think.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Do you know what I'm going to talk about? Right.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: I think in the case of The Times... They do
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: a national poll before the debate so they can go
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: back and re-interview the respondents after the debate, which is
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: a nice thing to do to see if there's actual movement.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: Right, check in with a friend. Check in with a friend, right.
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: How are you guys, really?
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Any insights from the, we talk about the Times poll
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: here because, you know, it is the A-plus rated poll.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: It's very good.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: By the way, so is SurveyUSA. Did you guys know that?
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: And what's funny is I remember them being made fun
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: of as the worst in 2004. I think they've changed
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: their methodology quite a bit. Yeah.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: But anyway, Times is the, you know, it's one of
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: the top polls, so it gets a lot of discussion.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: It drives a lot of coverage, much to the consternation
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: of some. But for us, we like to talk about it.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: What did you guys take from that poll?
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: My first sort of overall reaction was I was surprised
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: by how many people were either A, caught off guard,
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: or B, like rendered scared because of it. I really
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: was because I honestly, I just sort of dismissed the
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: national polling average. I don't really care about it. And
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: that number looked a little bit off from what other
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: people have and off against their own poll of the
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: swing states, because the swing state numbers are more aligned
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: with other polls that have showed Kamala Harris with a
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: couple point edge in the national electorate. The odds that
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: were tied in all of these battlegrounds and down a
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: point nationally makes me wonder what's going on in New York, California,
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: that kind of thing. So I kind of just put
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: that aside and then dug into the battleground polls, which
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: looked like what you would expect them to look like
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: a terrifyingly close race.
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: Just so the polls that you were referring to from
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: the New York times and Sienna, um, a couple of
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: weeks after the switch, I'm still calling it the switch. Uh,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: they did the blue wall States and Harris was up
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: on Trump 50, 46 and all of those. And then
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: just a couple of weeks ago, they did the Sunbelt States. Um,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: and they were all tied at 48, 48 across the average.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: They were different state to state, but across the average
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: of all States, they were tied at 48.
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: That was just a few weeks ago.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: And I just don't believe the electorate is ricocheting like this.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Right. But that's why there's margins of error in all
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: these polls. And that's why you do averages and you
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: throw them in the averages and you know, it's a
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: fucking close race.
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: Tell me.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: I just whispered like Joe Biden.
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: I know. It's a close race. I'm just noodling on
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: a horrible world of jokes. Sunbelt and road polling. Oh, boy.
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: So this time, we've been podcasting since Saturday at 9 p.m.
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: Never stops. Give us a day off, someone. I've been
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: talking to a lot of smart people who look at
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: polling data all the time, public and private. And someone
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: said to me recently, he thinks this race could be
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: tighter than 2020 ended up being. So that's sort of
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: the lay of the land for people.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Would not surprise me.
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: And the bad news in this latest Times poll is
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: that people do not think the economy is doing well.
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: The Pew poll John mentioned found that only 25% of
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: voters think the economy is in excellent or good shape.
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: The rest do not. And Trump is a double digit
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: lead basically on Harris when it comes to the economy.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: So that's a problem. Trump's approval rating is annoyingly high.
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: 60% of voters want a big change from Biden. So
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: that's a real challenge. And significantly more voters think Kamala
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: Harris is too liberal than think Trump is too conservative.
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: So that's the bad news in the poll. The good
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: news is voters want more information about Kamala Harris, especially
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: swing voters. and voters where Biden was struggling the most.
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: And Trump is basically getting all of his 2020 voters
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: while Harris is getting about nine out of every 10
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: Biden 2020 voters, a little more than that. A little more, yeah.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: So those are 92%. So those should be gettable. So
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: she's got some room to run is basically the takeaway.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: On the too liberal, too conservative, one thing I thought about,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: because I was digging into the CBS battleground states, they
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: asked the questions, who's more mainstream and who's more extreme.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: And Trump was much more extreme to people than Kamala
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Harris was. She was much more mainstream. I do wonder,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: because when you dig into the crosstabs in New York Times-Siena,
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: some of the people, like a third to a fourth
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: of Kamala Harris's voters said that Donald Trump's not too conservative.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Because I do wonder if just in this era, we've
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: sort of gone beyond liberal and conservative, or at least
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: when it comes to Donald Trump and that Republican party.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: And you don't necessarily think of them all as conservative
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: these days. You do think of them as extreme, right?
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Because it's like, not like they have traditional conservative positions.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: The Republican party is totally different now. So that, that
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: could be one thing there. Yeah.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: There's, I was digging into the CBS poll, Pennsylvania for
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: a bit. I just was sort of like, let's, let's
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: see what's going on in there. And let's just, let's
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: look under the hood a little bit. And one thing that,
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: that really struck me. So first of all, on this
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: sort of mainstream versus extreme question. It's young versus old.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: Young people view Trump as more extreme than older voters do.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: But it's interesting that millennials view Trump as being more
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: extreme than even younger voters do. Because we're the best generation.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: We're crushing it.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: The second greatest generation, as Tom Brokaw will one day
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: call us. But there was something that jumped out at
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: me that I hadn't seen before, which is if you
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: ask people if Trump is insulting or respectful towards Kamala Harris... Overall,
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: everybody says 75% insulting, right? But that is true among
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: 30 to 44-year-olds, 45 to 64-year-olds, and 65 plus, about 78, 79, 81.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: Under 30s, it's 45, 55.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because they don't think anyone's insulting to anyone.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: But that's really interesting.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: It's like interesting about- It's like everyone deserves to be insulted.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: But like, I just think that like, The effect of
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: having grown up with Donald Trump in your face since
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: you were a kid is having a real impact on
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: that generation that I just thought was interesting. And one
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: other thing that I was also struck by too is
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: if you ask Pennsylvania voters, most people do not think
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: Trump would help the interest of women, but 84% said
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: he would help the interest of men, which is a
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: really sort of strange result that's sort of hard to
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: explain when at the same time, 85% think he'll help
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: the wealthy and And most it's like 50 50 on
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: the middle class, which is way too high and worse
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: on union members, which means that there's a bunch of
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: people telling pollsters that Trump will be bad for the
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: middle class, bad for unions, bad for the working class,
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: but good for men, which is just a way of
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: kind of.
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: Saying that you think an abortion proxy question.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: Well, yes. And also just a kind of natural, like
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: instinctive zero sum game that if women are more for
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: for Harris. And if we all instinctively, including men, think
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: that Trump is worse for women than Harris and like, well,
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: he must be better for men or like there's something
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: about the way he's appealing to men that's resonating with people.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Wouldn't it just be that people who don't like Trump
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: think that he's for men and men who like Trump
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: also think that he's for men?
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: But I think both of those things are kind of interesting.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: And there's something about like speaking, like you look at
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: this poll and there's this big gender gap. It's in
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: every state. It's in this poll, especially true among non-college men.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: And there's this way in which Trump is going around
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: with this bravado and this bluster that's meant to appeal
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: to men and young men. And I feel like we're
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: missing something around reminding men that one way you be
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: strong is by standing up for women. There's a collective
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: understanding that Trump is worse for women. That is transnationalism.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: it to some sense in which he is better for men.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: It's not true. And we should be speaking to men
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: about how Trump would be worse for them, but also
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: that standing up for women in this election is a
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: manly and masculine thing to do.
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: Wow. That's a lot from one crosstab. Yeah, that's complicated.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: I dug into it.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: You did?
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: But like there's something, there is just something about that
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: that jumped out at me. Like, oh, he's better for,
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: where is that coming from? It's not coming from the policy.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: It's just coming from vibes. Oh, it's total vibes.
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: It's total vibes.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: I think, so look, New York Times-Santa poll, if it
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: had just been 48-47 Harris, which is like a couple voters.
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: Going the other way. The margin of error is three percent.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: No one would have like celebrated the poll, but everyone
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: would have just sort of like shrugged and moved on.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: So that's just something to keep in mind. You know,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: it is in line with what a lot of the
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: polling in the last couple of weeks has been telling us,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: I think, which is, and Tommy, you mentioned this, she's
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: got room to grow probably more than Donald Trump. She's
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: also got more room to fall because she's just not
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: as well known. A question, and we're going to dig
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: into this in a second, but They said, do you
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: want to know more about, do you think you need
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: to know more about the candidate? And many more voters
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: said that they needed to know more about Kamala Harris.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: I think it was like one in three voters said that.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: But those numbers were even higher among 18 to 29-year-olds,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Black voters, Latino voters, and crucially, 2020 non-voters, so people
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: who did not vote in 2020, all want to know more. That,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: to me, is a big opportunity for Kamala Harris.
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: Yes, and for the debate.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: And especially because those are voters that, you know, traditional
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Democratic constituencies, now maybe they're probably much more moderate and
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: less engaged than your typical Black, Latino, young Democratic voter.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: But that does give her an opportunity, whereas I do
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: think that Trump's support is more calcified, but it's also,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: you know, that's good and bad.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: And also a lot of voters in this poll have
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: heard about Project 2025 and they do not like it.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: So those messaging efforts by Biden and by all the
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: TikTokers who were surfacing this stuff early on have worked. Yeah.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: The other piece of this too, I think people are like, well,
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: does that mean the Harris campaign made a mistake by
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: not having a policy platform on their website sooner? Like,
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: I find that all pretty ridiculous. If you go back
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: and look at old polls of previous elections, It takes
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: a while for people to stop telling pollsters that they
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: need to know more. We're just, this campaign is abbreviated.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: This is the cost of having an abbreviated campaign.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I almost went back and then I realized this.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: I wasn't going to go do this. But if you
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: did like the amount of time between the candidate announcing
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: their campaign and when they had a full policy page up,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: I'm sure this broke records for being quick.
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: Yes. In terms of that. This is why this conversation
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: about why hasn't Kamala done interviews is so stupid. I
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: think about like, she hasn't been a candidate for more than,
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: it's been less than two months. She had to plan
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: a convention, pick a VP, do debate prep, think, you know, layout,
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: decide on her policy platform. Like she's going to do
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: a bunch of interviews. I'm sure she'll do a ton
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: of them after the debate prep, which by the way,
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: is going to serve as interview prep as well.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: So it's just like, we're kind of, fast forward.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: In getting mad about something when she's barely been in
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: the race.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Like if we are having this conversation at the end
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: of September and she still hasn't done a bunch of interviews,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: I'll be right there criticizing that.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: You know, it's just, it's just, it's, it's silly to
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: do it now. There's just, there hasn't been time and
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: she's got to, the debate is the most important thing.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Prepping for the debate is the most important thing. That
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: should take precedence over any kind of interview request at
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: this point.
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: Right. Right. She is doing interviews. It's just for some reason,
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: the national media doesn't count like black radio interviews as, as,
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: counting in their little ledger of, you know, which national
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: reporter will ask about, you know, the narrative of the day. Yeah.
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: If you want to hear more about the Times poll
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: from a true junkie, Dan did a special quick reaction
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: episode of Polar Coaster that's out right now. And if
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: you're not a subscriber, you can fix that through Apple
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Podcasts or at cricket.com slash friends. Go be a subscriber
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: if you get Dan's Polar Coaster and all kinds of
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: other great benefits. So we mentioned that one of the
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: big findings of the Times-Siena poll is how a lot
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: of voters say, They need to know more about Harris
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: and her plans. Seems like the Harris campaign knows that.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: In addition to the issues page that they just put
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: up on our website, they released a new Battleground ad
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: on Monday focused on the VP's plans to make housing
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: more affordable, ban price gouging, and pass a middle class
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: tax cut for 100 million Americans. But she hasn't forgotten
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: about Trump. The campaign is also out with a new
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: ad that's running on Fox News, the Palm Beach media
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: market where Trump lives, and the Philadelphia media market where
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Trump will be for the debate. It features the voices
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: of former Trump officials Mike Pence, Defense Secretary Mark Esper,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: National Security Advisor John Bolton, and Chairman of the Joint
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Chiefs Mark Milley. Take a listen.
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: In 2016, Donald Trump said he would choose only the
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: best people to work in his White House.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: Now those people have a warning for America.
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: Trump is not fit to be president again.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: president of the United States.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Do you think Trump can be trusted with the nation's
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: secrets ever again?
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: No.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's just irresponsible action that places our service
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: members at risk, places our nation's security at risk.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump will cause a lot of damage. We don't
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: take an oath to a king, or a queen, or
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: a tyrant, or a dictator.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: And we don't take an oath to.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: A wannabe dictator.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: I had never heard that last one was Mark Milley.
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: I hadn't either.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: I had read it a million times.
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: I never heard it.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: He sounds a little like Joe Biden yelling there.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden was in the room. I love a menacing
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: string section. Me too. Sometimes I was like, is that cello?
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: Are we dealing with viola here?
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: But I loved it. That VO guy is getting so
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: much work in this campaign.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: I know, he's great.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: He's in every single Harris ad. And I think he
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: was in the Biden ads too. What do you make
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: of the Trump ad and the new policy focus? Seems
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: like two different things there.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: I mean, this ad that we just heard, it's what
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: you call a show buy. This is more about driving
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: a media narrative than actually persuading voters in battleground states.
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: The battleground ads are about economic issues that you hear
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: about in the polling, the cost of living, lowering grocery prices,
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: lowering housing. They take a victory lap on insulin, et cetera.
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: So I like the ad highlighting all the national security
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: figures and Mike Pence hating Trump. I think it might
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: annoy him if he sees it, but mostly it's just
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: to get people to talk about it.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Tommy, you and I were talking about this.
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: I was a little.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: surprised that that's not a bigger buy because that seems
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: to me like it would be a persuasive ad, not
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: just for like decided people like us who don't need
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: to be persuaded, but like, you know, some right-leaning, independent, college-educated,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: maybe undecided bulwark listeners. Like, I feel like that would
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: be a good ad for this.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: Are there undecided bulwark listeners?
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. No, I don't know. Yeah, I think about
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: it this way. If someone says to you, what do
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: you think about Eric? Should I date Eric? And you're like, no,
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: all of Eric's exes hate his guts.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: And then you play an ad with the string section
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: and all the, and all the X's are like, yeah, it's.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: When we were playing it in the office and it felt,
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: I was like, Oh, that's like a little bit like
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: between that ad and the other ad about lies. Like
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: they wrote the little bit sort of outside of what
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: we've been seeing and feel more about like political narratives
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: than anything. But then it is very persuasive. And I
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: just find myself just a little bit sort of confused. Like,
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: are there people out there that are undecided because they
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: haven't fully like, internalized how they felt about Trump when
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: he was president, the menace he felt, or are there
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: people that, like, get this, understand this, but they've made
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: a decision that he's better for the economy?
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: I think it's probably that.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: But so it's like, what is the value of this?
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Well, we also didn't talk about this number in the
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Times-Zena poll, but they asked, do you want to know more,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: not just about Kamala Harris, but Donald Trump? And the
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: people who wanted to know more about Donald Trump.
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: which was a.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Smaller number than Harris, but the overwhelming majority of those
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: voters said that they wanted specifically to know more about
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: his plans and policies, which I think points to another
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: goal in this debate is to the extent that she
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: talks about Donald Trump, she's got to talk more about
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: the Project 2025 of it all, what he's going to
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: do in the future, because you need to get people
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: to think, yeah, maybe he'll be better on the economy,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: at least in their opinion, but he's too risky a choice.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: because he might do X, Y, and Z.
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of people with fond, gauzy memories of
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: Trump's economic record that feels soft to me. That just
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: feels like people that can be reminded and gettable. And
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: there's just a lot of them. There's just a lot
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: of them in Pennsylvania. There are a lot of them
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: in Wisconsin.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think we have to tell people, hey,
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: in 2017, the only thing he got done through Congress
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: was this gigantic tax cut for the richest people in
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: the country. And then back in April, he had a
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: fundraiser where he raised $ 50 million from the richest people
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: he knew. And he promised them that he would extend
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: that tax cut. That is the Trump record and that
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: is what he would do in a second term. Tax
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: cuts for billionaires.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: And I think as opposed to re-litigating the Trump term
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: and people's memories of it, you do what Tommy just did,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: which is the reason you think we know he's going
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: to pass another tax cut for the rich is because
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: he did it before. The reason we think he's going
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: to pass a national abortion ban is because he's the
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: one who's appointed the three justices to do it and
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: said he was proud of it. So Kamala also did
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: some radio ahead of the debate. Here she is getting
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: asked about how she'll handle Trump's craziness on the Ricky
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: Smiley Morning Show, which is a syndicated drive time talk show.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: How do you plan to handle him, his attacks, his temperament,
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: being on a stage with him? We have no idea
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: what he might say.
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: How are you prepared for that?
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Well, you're right.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: I mean, he plays from this really old and tired playbook, right,
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: where there's no floor for him in terms of how
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: low he will go.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: And we should be prepared for that. We should be
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: prepared for the fact that he is not burdened by
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: telling the truth.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: He tends to fight for himself, not for the American people.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: That's it. Those are the messages right there. What did
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: you guys think of the answer?
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: Not burdened by what has been? Yeah, I think it's
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: probably honest. I mean, I think she's probably getting a
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: lot of advice that says no matter what happens, you
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: have to stay calm and collected and let him look
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: like he's the angry one. In part because I think
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: as a woman, as a woman of color, she gets
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: less leeway to be a huge asshole on stage and
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: everyone's expecting it from him. So maybe it will bother them,
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: maybe not. But yeah, I mean, I think It's good advice.
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: I mean, the press loves to cover like the optics
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: and the body language and sighing or saying lockbox too much.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: Or was that made up by SNL?
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: No, he said lockbox.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: We were there. Maybe it was only once. Anyway.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: I also think even if she was a white guy,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: that's not the political necessity to be tough. No, it's
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: the economic one. It is to like, she needs to
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: let people know about herself. This is tough because I heard,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: I was listening to the Daily today and they had
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: Nate Cohn on to talk about the poll. And Nate
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Cohn said, If after the debate, we're talking about Kamala
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Harris and the debate was about Kamala Harris, then that
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: is a win for Donald Trump. And if after the debate,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: we're talking about Donald Trump and what Donald Trump did,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: that's a win for Kamala Harris.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: And I'm not sure I agree with that.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Because I think that like, where I agree is that
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: if she spends a lot of time talking about herself,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: which she should, and she spends a lot of time
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: constantly defending herself from his attacks, then it could get
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: a little messier and be about her and the coverage
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: is about her and there's no like Donald Trump moments
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: to talk about. So I get much like the last
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: debate was all about Joe Biden. But I think if
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: it's all about just one zinger and put down after another,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: but you know, where Kamala Harris takes on Trump and says, don't,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: don't interrupt me while I'm speaking and all this kind
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: of stuff. And that gets like everyone on Twitter excited.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: I don't think that's a necessarily a huge win for
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: her either.
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: No. You have to go in and lay a trap.
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: You have a line where you're going to make some attack,
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: maybe about his record, something he's done or said or
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: some policy. And you have in the can a whole,
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: you know, a TV ad, a social media campaign, a
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: bunch of social, like, your surrogates, like, ready to drive
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: that message the next day. That's where I disagree with Nate.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: If the next day we're talking about something really terrible
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: that Donald Trump did, I think that's beneficial for Kamala Harris.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I think what I like about those
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: three lines, tired old playbook has no floor, not burdened
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: by the truth. They're actually all sentences you could deploy
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: a version of after Trump rambles and launches several attacks
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: and then just say whatever you were going to say anyway.
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: Like those are all lines that take you from an
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: attack into a positive message.
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: There it goes again. Right.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: Right. And like, you know, Trump goes on some meandering,
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: rambling thing that nonetheless has a few awful lines that
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: are untrue about immigration, about whatever issue. She could take that,
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: say that, that is the contrast that comes out of
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: the debate.
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: Great.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: If that's about how Kamala Harris responded to Trump's attacks, great.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: I think that if I was her team and if
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: I was Kamala Harris, I'd want to keep in mind contrast, contrast,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: contrast all the time so that every single thing he says, like,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: your borders are, it's the worst border in history. All the,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: you know, it's an invasion. They killed a bunch of Americans.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Be like, okay, here's what you need to know. Joe
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: Biden and I took an action to shut down the border,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: and now we want to pass this plan that would
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: be the best border security ever, and what do you
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: want to do? You killed the plan, right? Because it's
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: an issue for your campaign, right? And when I'm president,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: I'm going to do X, Y, and Z. You just
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: wanted this as a political issue, right? And you do
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: this on every single issue, no matter what he says. So,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: No surprise here, but Trump's rolling into the debate without
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: driving any particular message other than whatever grievance happens to
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: be floating through his addled mind at a given moment.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: On Saturday night, he truthed a long screed promising, quote,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: long term prison sentences for the many people he says
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: are already at work trying to cheat on the election,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: which he specified includes, quote, lawyers, political operatives, donors, illegal
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: voters and corrupt election officials. Those involved in unscrupulous behavior,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: he added, will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: never seen before in our country.
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: It is unfortunate.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Then at a rally in Wisconsin on Saturday, he brought
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: up Colorado for some reason, saying this about immigration.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: There are radicals headed up by a radical governor in
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: Colorado that has no clue how to solve this influx
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: of crime into his state. And by the way, Colorado
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: is one state. It's much worse in other states. But
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: in Colorado, they've taken over. I mean, in Colorado, they're
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: so brazen, they're taking over sections of the state. And,
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: you know, getting them out will be a bloody story.
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: Bloody story.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: So Tommy, you wanted to talk about what's going on
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: with the Colorado thing?
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: So you have to speak right-wing media to understand what
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: he's talking about there. So this is about a story
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: happening in Aurora, Colorado. Philan host for Steve Banner, right? Well,
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: he's doing his time.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: As he should. So there's a landlord in Aurora, Colorado.
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: They claimed that a Venezuelan gang called Trende Aragua had
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: taken over apartment buildings in the city. They said they
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: chased off the management and they started shaking down renters
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: for money. There's also some videos online of heavily armed
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: guys at a door, which is allegedly in this apartment building.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: So there is some truth to like violent people being
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: in this building. The story was kind of like being
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: talked about in local press in Colorado, but then it
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: blew up in the national news when the New York
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: post covered it. And they said they framed it as
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: sleepy suburb overtaken by gangs. Now Aurora is basically part
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: of like the Denver area, but whatever. And so the
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: truth is Aurora police say they've identified 10 gang members
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: and arrested six of them. And the mayor of Denver says,
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: that Tren de Aragua has a much smaller presence in
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: the city than like the Crips and the Bloods and
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: other American gangs. And then also, you know, a bunch
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: of local news outlets went to these buildings. They talked
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: to people there. They went in and out. The cops
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: are going in and out. They're clearly not like whatever
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: controlled by gangs means. These apartment buildings are not controlled
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: by gangs. What residents are really worried about is they're
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: rented by slumlords. The utilities don't work. No one's picking
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: up the trash. Like the residents are worried about the
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: people who own the buildings, not these gangs. So that's
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: where this is coming from. And then the reason this
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: has become a thing for Trump is, remember the Lake
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: and Riley case, the woman who was murdered in Georgia?
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: Her killer was apparently connected to this gang somehow, which
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: is based out of Venezuela. So Trump and these right-wing
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: figures are folding this random pair of apartment buildings in
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: Colorado into their broader immigration and crime narrative to make
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: it one big thing. And so again, like, It's just
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: another reminder that it's this rolling conversation in right-wing media
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: that we're not really always aware of, but Trump will
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: probably bring it to the debate. And this story, as
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: dishonest and sort of confusing as it is, is just
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: like the latest example of how immigration is not just
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: something that's getting talked about all the time in border communities.
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: It is popping up all over the country in communities
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: like Aurora, Colorado, because of stories like this and allegations
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: about Venezuelan gangs.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Or the conspiracy that was all over the news today
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: that there are Haitian immigrants in Ohio town that are
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: eating cats.
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Not true. Elon Musk pushed that one.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Elon Musk, J.D. Vance, Ted Cruz, Jim Jordan. I would
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: not be surprised if that gets brought up at Tuesday nights.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: I think you two are in denial and the Rocky
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: Mountains have fallen under South American Sharia law. That is
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: where we're at.
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: Aurora has fallen.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: I found out about the... So I was scrolling on TikTok,
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: as one does, and someone pushing this conspiracy just popped
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: up in my feed normally. It was somebody saying the
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: mainstream media is not talking about what's going on in Aurora, Colorado.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: It took me like half an hour to untangle what
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: this was.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, the political strategy here from Trump is... He
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: wants his deportation plans to be associated with, like, I'm
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: deporting people who are all violent criminals and they're overtaking
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: our country, stuff like that, and not the idea that
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: a real mass deportation effort with the fact that there
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: are 15 to 20 million undocumented immigrants here would necessarily involve, like,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: a massive police force that, as Trump has said, would
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: be broader than police, would be National Guard, military, knocking
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: on doors, raiding workplaces, offices, and people, undocumented people who've
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: been here for decades would be ripped apart from their
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: families and deported to countries where many of them haven't
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: been for decades, if not ever. And the entire operation
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: would be just like terrifying and unbelievably destabilizing to the
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: whole country. And I think that, you know, if it
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: comes up, hopefully Kamala Harris will do that. The reason
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: he talks about a bloody story, too, is because there
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: is this history of Trump talking about immigration and whether
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: it's using law enforcement, National Guard, whether it's immigration, whether
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: it's crime, is it always necessarily has to be violent, right?
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: And so he's just like bringing up this violence again.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: Do you think there's, there's a pitch. Do you think
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: there's value to, in the debate, Kamala Harris saying, there
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: is a bipartisan border bill. We can sign it today.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: A bunch of Republicans support it, a bunch of Democrats
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: support it. You talk about the border all the time.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: Will you join me in saying we ought to pass
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: this bipartisan border bill? You told some of your friends
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: to hold it up.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: That's crap.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: That's a crap bill. That's not going to do anything.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: That's a fake bill. It's a fake bill. I'll shut
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: down the border. As soon as I get back in there,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: I'll shut down the border. I had the border shut
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: down when I was there, too.
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: I'll do it again.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Everyone knows that I'm going to be stronger on the
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: border than you.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: Come on.
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because I think their argument with the bill was
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: it allowed X number of asylum candidates per day to cross,
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: and he wants that number to be zero. It's awful. Yeah.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: She just got... she's just going to say, like, this
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: is my plan. James Lankford, we had a really conservative
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: Republican senator.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: You're calling these Republican senators saying they're against the border.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: All your Republican friends are against the border. I wouldn't
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: mind a little bit of a fight about that.
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: No, I wouldn't either.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: So there was a lot of Twitter consternation. that the
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: long prison sentence threat for his political adversaries and the
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: bloody story comments didn't get more coverage, though I read
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: about them in just about every major media outlet. But,
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: you know, the essence of the criticism was, if only
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: more voters knew about these things, the race wouldn't be
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: as close.
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: What do you guys think?
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: I just, I feel like we have been through a
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: decade of Donald Trump saying, dangerous, unhinged, violent, vile, anti-democratic,
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: un-American things. And here we are with his ceiling and
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: his floor right where they've been. And maybe there's some
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: truth to it, right? Maybe there is some truth that
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: there are people that aren't paying close enough attention that
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: are undecided that if they knew about this, maybe it
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: would help sway them. I don't know. But I just
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: know that it's very hard to reach those people. And
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: what a lot of those undecided voters are telling pollsters
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: is not, oh, I need to know more about where
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: Trump stands on prosecuting his enemies. It's about inflation. It's
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: about the economy. Like you, you pointed out these numbers,
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: the numbers from Pennsylvania are bleak. 70% of people say
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: the country's heading in the wrong direction. 70% of independents
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: talk about the national and Pennsylvania economy as being very,
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: or somewhat bad. Like that is what is driving this election.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: That is where our problem is.
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, I, yeah, I think she had like the,
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: the first priority of the debate is tell an economic story,
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: talk about what you're going to do to help people.
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: I do think she can find some time to lay
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: a trap and, and maybe highlight some of this violent stuff.
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: Something you said on true social, have an ad ready,
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: you know, backstop it with the big messaging push. I mean,
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: that's less about the night of debate. Like it's sort
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: of what people see than the next day spin and
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: coverage and just making sure it's bad for him. You
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: can kind of do both.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: I also think you got to make it, I mean,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: hate to say this, but I don't think most voters
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: are going to be like, oh, Trump's going to prosecute
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: some Democratic officials.
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: He doesn't like.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of people who don't think
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: that's a good idea, right? But you got to make
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: it personal for people. And if she does bring it up,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: I think it's more like, would you like to see
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: army tanks in the streets of your community and the
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: American military arresting people that Donald Trump just happens not
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: to like? Is that the kind of country you want?
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: There's painting a picture for people that I don't think
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: Democrats have necessarily done yet.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: I also think it goes to the point we're making
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: over and over again, which is like, look at what
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump focuses on. Look at what he cares about.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: He's going to spend all his time talking about his enemies,
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: going after his opponents, people that have insulted him, hurt
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: his feelings.
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: Revenge.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: When I'm president, you never have to worry about my feelings.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: You have to worry about his feelings. You'll never have
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: to worry about mine. I'll just be fighting for you.
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: Matt Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard did a call with reporters
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: on Monday, wild sentence to say, where they said that
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: Trump's debate strategy, because they've both been prepping him for
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: the debate, Matt Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard, they said that
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: Trump's debate strategy is to make Harris, quote, own every
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: Biden policy decision as well as her earlier policy stances.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: Jonathan Chait wrote a piece today titled Kamala Harris Should
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: Cut Joe Biden Loose, where he basically argues that, yes,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: that is going to be the debate strategy. And so
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: she should just unburdened herself from Joe Biden. Do you
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: guys think she can or should do that?
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, come on, pot save America.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we've been unburdened here for quite some time. So
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: first of all, two points about this. One, Tulsi Gabbard
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: and Matt Gaetz prepping Trump for the debate really reminds
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: me of the hyenas in a strategy session with Scar
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: from The Lion King.
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: It's like, what.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: A vulgar and awful group of people.
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: How desperate is Tulsi to just be in the news
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: still to do this? Democratic congresswoman to this.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: My second point and more important point is, what's funny
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: is I was thinking about it as like, what does
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: Kamala say, you know, substantively about Joe Biden? Like, how
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: do you strike that balance? And you see a lot
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: of people making the same point, which is we've made
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: a lot of progress. There's more to do.
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: Here's forward. Here's the contrast.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: And that's like the obvious frame everybody kind of recognizes
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: is sort of where you're headed. But I was thinking
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: about this. It's like, well, what do you get from
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: going a little further? And what you get is a
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: debate about whether or not Kamala Harris has done enough
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: to distance herself from Joe Biden. And I just don't
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: think that that's the kind of conversation you want to
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: have coming out of the debate.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: Even before you get to what do you get from it?
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: My question is, where do you actually distance yourself from
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: a decision that he has made, right? We have been
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: obviously critical of Joe Biden here, but people's main problems
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: with Joe Biden, voters' main problems with Joe Biden is
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: number one, his age, which of course, number two, that
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: the economy and, and inflation has not come down as quickly.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: We would also say that that is an unfair criticism
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: of Joe Biden because he doesn't control this. And the
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: steps that he has taken have been quite good for people,
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: middle-class people, working class people, poor people. And so if
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: she's asked about inflation in the economy, What decision that
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden made does she point to to say that
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: she didn't agree with it? And I think the same
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: is true on the border.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: I don't so I don't I don't actually agree with
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: that in part because I actually think that we've made
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: progress is more to do. Like, I do not think
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: saying something like this is a good idea, but like
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden couldn't get it done.
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: I will.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: There are steps to get what done bringing down costs
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: or passing a child tax credit or a host of
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: other things. I don't think it's a good thing to say.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: I don't think it's a good rhetorical argument to make.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: Just saying, like, if you wanted to say you could
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: be you could be critical of the Biden administration for
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: not getting some of the steps done that you would
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: do in the next few years.
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: I don't think you can do that. I don't either.
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: Like, I don't think you but like you she couldn't
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: she can't say the Joe Biden couldn't pass this.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: I know. I don't I don't think she can. I
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: don't think she should. I'm saying if you wanted to
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: create distance from Joe Biden, I think that's what it
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: would look like. I don't think it's a good thing
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: to do.
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: I think she's already doing it, though, because, I mean,
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: I think when when pressed on the economy, what you
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: would get from Biden is sort of a litany of
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: all the things he's done and his accomplishments and how
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: he deserves more credit for them. She is already not
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: doing that and saying we've done X, but obviously there's
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: much more work to do on costs, on housing, on this.
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: 60% of voters want to change from Biden. You're right.
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: She's not going to be like, Joe was wrong to
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: get out of Afghanistan. I would have kept us there.
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: That's never going to happen. But it is a tonal
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: kind of emphasis thing where she, I think, has just
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: to be willing to be like, yeah, well, we didn't
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: accomplish that as much as I would have liked to,
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: and we're going to do more.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: Afghanistan was the one that I was actually wondering about
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: is that it's not, it was obviously like a bungled exit.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: And he is basically on any foreign policy thing. He
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: is the commander in chief, right? Like I think on
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: some of the legislative stuff, it's just not believable that
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: she could create distance from herself on domestic policy because
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: like she was in the room and she was like
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: negotiating out of that stuff. I'm wondering on the foreign
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: policy stuff, is there any way to create more room
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: on some of this stuff? Or when she gets tagged
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: with When he goes after her in Afghanistan, which he
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: probably will, like, what do you even say to that?
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, I just think saying I disagreed with Joe
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: in Afghanistan is just a bad answer when there's a
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: really good one sitting in front of you, which is, hey,
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump, you negotiated the withdrawal from Afghanistan and your
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: plan that you agreed to with the Taliban, who you
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: fucking invited to Camp David on 9-11, would have gotten
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: us out earlier. Yeah.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: And I think, honestly, I think the way to create
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: distance is just to not be defensive like Biden would
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: be because he just came at all of these criticisms
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: just from an extreme stance, extreme posture of defensiveness. And she,
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: at least on the economy so far, has not had
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: that same stance.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: I do think that there's like some version of like,
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: I'm proud to serve with Joe Biden. I'm proud of
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: the progress we've made on Joe Biden. And I know
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: sometimes you forget you're not debating Joe Biden, but I'm
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris. You know, I think something like that.
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: That would do it. All right.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: Before we go to break. The three of us did
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: go back and dissect hours of Kamala Harris debate footage
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: in preparation for Tuesday night. And we have decided the
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: most critical moment in the VP's political career took place
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: during her 2016 Senate primary debate against Loretta Sanchez.
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: Here it is. Ms. Harris, you have a minute and
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: a half.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: And you have a minute and a half, Ms.
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: Harris.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: So there's a clear difference between the candidates in this race.
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: There definitely is.
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: And I think the voters will make that decision.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: Now, for those of you who are just listening, highly
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: recommend you check out the YouTube version of the show
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: where you will see that Loretta Sanchez, in that pause,
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: inexplicably was dabbing for no good reason.
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: Remember dabbing?
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: Why did she do that?
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: Why did she dab?
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: She went and. It was sort of a mic drop.
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: It was and. Crazy. Do you want to know why? Why?
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: According to a 2016 report by the Sacramento Bee, Sanchez
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: got the dabbing idea from her makeup artist's nine-year-old daughter.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: I was not prepared for that.
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: This little girl comes with her mom, the makeup artist,
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: to Loretta Sanchez's house. She's doing her homework. They start chatting.
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: Somehow her dance class had come up. I guess the
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: little girl had just come from dance class. She shows
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: Loretta Sanchez... how to dab. Lovett, could you dab for
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: us for the YouTube so everyone knows?
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: Absolutely not.
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, just one quick one.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: Nice try.
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: And Loretta Sanchez said to the little girl, I am
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: going to use that at my debate. So they practiced
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: a couple times. She refined her dab. The rest is history.
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: That's kind of sweet.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: But in what context would you use a dab like that?
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: Here's the context. I think we're all forgetting. If we know,
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: context is important.
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: What a big deal the dab was in 2015. Because
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: it started in Atlanta. It came out of a hip-hop
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: scene there. But then Cam Newton.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: history of fucking dabbing now Cam Newton who is.
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: A Google things before the show?
• 39:31
  Speaker 5: Now we're now we're on cereal when dabbing the Carolina
• 39:37
  Speaker 5: Panthers quarterback Cam Newton who went to the Super Bowl
• 39:40
  Speaker 5: that year He's NFL MVP.
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: He was dabbing all the time guys. You don't remember
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: Hillary Clinton dabbed on Ellen. I Yeah, I do. Remember this?
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: How did that go? To Trap Queen?
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: That was the song we were listening to.
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: Kiss to death, the dab.
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: Pokemon, go to the polls. Yeah, after she did it,
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: Charlemagne tweeted, shaking my head, that's it, I'm going with
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: Bernie Sanders. That's how that went over. Don't dab.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: You know what, though? On a more serious note, Kamala
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: Harris's reaction to the dab there, perfect.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: That could be a reaction. that she gives to a
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: lot of what Donald Trump does. Because honestly, Loretta Sanchez
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: dabbing there, it's not that much crazier than some of
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: the shit Donald Trump does. Not most of it, but
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: not some of it.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: You're a normal person. What would a normal person do
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: in response to being in a room with Donald Trump?
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: You'd just be like.
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: What the fuck?
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you wouldn't wind up and unleash some zinger, right,
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: that puts him in his place. You'd just be like,
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: what the fuck is wrong.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: With this guy? I'm going to call you Dapping Duck.
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: Just a dab will do you, Donald. Jesus Christ. What
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: else we got? We're not in debate prep.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: When we come back from the break, you'll hear Tommy's
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: conversation from last Thursday with Angela Alsobrooks, our Senate nominee
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: in Maryland, about why the Democrat Senate hopes may come
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: down to a blue state.
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: Yikes.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: But before we get to the interview, two quick things. First,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: speaking of the debate, our Friends of the Pod Discord
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: community is going to be holding a subscriber live chat
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: where you can process your debate feelings and anxieties with
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: fellow Crooked listeners in real time.
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: Isn't that fun?
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: Head to crooked.com slash friends to sign up for access
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: and other subscriber exclusive content. Also, the first two episodes
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: of Empire City, the untold origin story of the NYPD,
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: are out now. From Wondery, Crooked Media, and Push Black,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: Empire City digs into the hidden history of the country's
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: largest police force, from its roots in slavery to the
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: everyday people who resisted every step of the way. It's
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: hosted by Peabody award winner Chenjerai Kumunika, and it's a
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: must-listen for anyone who wants to understand the true origins
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: of the badge and to contextualize the power it holds today.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: Just last week, the FBI raided the NYPD commissioner's home
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: as part of a corruption investigation. So this story couldn't
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: be more relevant as we continue to grapple with the
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: issue of policing. New episodes drop every Monday. Follow Empire
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: City on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: Listen early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. When we come back,
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: Angela also Brooks.
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: Joining us today in studio in Los Angeles here is
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: Prince George's County Executive and Democratic nominee for Senate in Maryland,
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: Angela Alsabrooks. Great to meet you.
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: Thank you. So great to meet you. And thank you
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: so much for having me on the show.
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: Honestly, it's truly our pleasure. And this is a very
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: important race. I just want to sort of set the
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: stage for why. So I bet listeners think Maryland, blue state.
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: They think Democrats win Senate seats. They're handily. And I
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: want to make sure they understand that this year, This
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: is a dogfight. This is a really tight race. I
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: think the AARP poll in late August said it was
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: a dead heat. And Democrats need this seat to have
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: any hope of controlling the Senate. So folks have to
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: pay attention and, frankly, do what you can to help
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: out to make sure that we win your race. Your
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: opponent is Maryland Governor, former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan. Yep.
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: He's got high name ID. He has worked hard to
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: distance himself from Donald Trump. I think we can talk
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: about whether you think that's been successful or not. Yeah.
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: But he's getting a big chunk of Democratic crossover voters.
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: He's currently getting a bunch of independent voters in these polls.
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: And the first question is just, you know, how do
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: you think we can win these Democrats and independents back?
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: Well, I want to level set, go back to what
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: you said in the beginning. And that is to emphasize
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: again that the stakes in this election are so high.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: And unlike what we've seen in past years, Maryland is
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: now like the center of this race. It is a
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: race that Mitch McConnell said Maryland, Montana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: were the states that he thought he had the best
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: chance of flipping red. And so he picked this state.
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: He recruited my opponent, who is a governor, a two-term governor,
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: who left office with an above 70% approval rating at
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: the time. And, well, you know what? It is, and
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: we can talk about that a bit. He had a
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: Democratic Legislature. that basically kept him in line. We had
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: a veto-proof majority in the legislature. And so the case
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: is that this is a very competitive race. As you mentioned,
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: just a couple of weeks ago, we were in a
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: dead heat in the race. And it is one that
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: will control the Senate, that will determine who controls the
• 44:15
  Speaker 4: Senate at a time where we understand that the two
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: views of America couldn't be any more different, first of all,
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: when we think about gun violence or reproductive freedom. When
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: we think about so many issues, we couldn't be any different.
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: And we are going to elect Kamala Harris as the
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: president of the United States. And we absolutely must give
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: her a majority in the Senate so that she can
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: get things done, appoint Supreme Court justices. So this is
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: a really, really important race.
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a huge, huge race. And so I've heard
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: you talk about how Larry Hogan, you just mentioned he
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: was kept in check by the legislature, Democratic legislature. But
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: you said he wanted to do things to limit reproductive freedom.
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: He wanted to make it easier to get guns, long
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: guns in particular. Can you explain his record on those
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: two issues?
• 45:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, let's talk about what he's already done as governor
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: just two years ago. I think that's important. In 2022,
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: he vetoed abortion care legislation in the state of Maryland
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: that would have expanded abortion access across the state. And
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: when he was overridden, he withheld the funding until he
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: went out of office and Governor Moore came into office.
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: He's a person who at the beginning of this race
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: in his primary election refused to say that he would
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: codify in federal law a woman's right to choose. When
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: he was questioned very directly this year about this issue,
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: he said, quote, I refuse to speculate on any piece
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: of legislation. He has since then, you know, conveniently after
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: the primary, said that he would, he'd proclaimed himself, bless
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: his heart, pro-choice now. But we already know what he's done.
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: And we know that no matter what he says in
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: this moment, whatever he says, we know that he would
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: empower a majority that has already declared war on a
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: woman's right to choose, that he would be empowering Mitch
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: McConnell and Ted Cruz. And they say Lindsey Graham would
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: be over the judiciary. So we know, yeah, it's terrible.
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: Sounds like the future I want. So you had a
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: primary opponent who spent, what, $ 60 million against you?
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: $ 65 million, yes. $ 65 million.
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: Just lit it on fire. That must have been fun
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: for him. I saw Larry Hogan has reserved nearly $ 8
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: million of campaign ads already, presumably to run against you.
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: You've reserved, your campaign has reserved less than half a
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: million so far. This is very in the weeds, but
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: I'm just wondering, like, Is that something you expect to
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: ramp up soon? Is this because people are not focused
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: enough on this race and not donating? What should we
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: make of this?
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: So two things. One is the Republicans are motivated. They
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: are dumping millions of dollars into this race. He has
• 46:49
  Speaker 4: a super PAC, a $ 10 million super PAC. And we
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: see the Republicans are really spending a lot of money.
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: John Bolton just put up an ad for Larry Hogan.
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: So we see that the Republicans are really investing. We
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: are increasing our ad buys. We are on the air now.
• 47:05
  Speaker 4: And we're going to continue to increase the amount of
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: visibility of the campaign and communications of the campaign. And
• 47:11
  Speaker 4: that's going to be really important to be able to
• 47:14
  Speaker 4: not only talk about his record so that people understand
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: what his record is. As I mentioned, vetoing abortion care legislation.
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: He also vetoed legislation that would have implemented simple waiting
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: periods for long guns. He refused to sign legislation banning
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: ghost guns. So he's a person who vetoed legislation that
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: would have allowed for paid and family medical leave. He
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: vetoed the legislation for $ 15 an hour. So this is,
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: you know, a person whose policies are very in line
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: with the Republicans. And so that's going to be important
• 47:43
  Speaker 4: to show his record. But it's also the most important
• 47:45
  Speaker 4: thing people must know is that his election would give
• 47:49
  Speaker 4: a majority to a Senate caucus that is at this
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: point led by Donald Trump. That's what people need to
• 47:55
  Speaker 4: understand is that handing over the majority to the Republicans
• 47:58
  Speaker 4: now puts all these people in charge of the Senate,
• 48:01
  Speaker 4: people who want to take our country backwards.
• 48:03
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: It's so weird to me that Trump's former national security advisor,
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: John Bolton, a man who seems to want to bomb
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: or invade pretty much every country, I think, in the world,
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: is running super PAC ads in Maryland. Why?
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: They all have something in common. Whether it's John Bolton,
• 48:21
  Speaker 4: Larry Hogan, Donald Trump endorsed Larry Hogan, Mitch McConnell recruited him.
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: They want to have control of the Senate. They understand
• 48:29
  Speaker 4: that whoever has control controls the agenda. That's what this
• 48:33
  Speaker 4: is about. It's not that these guys are all necessarily friends,
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: but they definitely on the same team and they share
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: the same goal. And that is to control the Senate
• 48:41
  Speaker 4: and to have a majority there.
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Let's talk about criminal justice reform. There's been kind
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: of the country. I think the Democratic Party has had
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: kind of a winding journey over the last four or
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: five years. There was, you know, the horror of watching
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: George Floyd be brutally murdered by police, followed by protests
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: and calls for reform. That was then followed by, I think,
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: increased concern about crime during the pandemic. Then President Biden
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: has actually pushed for more police funding. So it's a
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: bit head spinning. And I know this debate over policing
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: did not start in 2020, especially in Maryland, where there's
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: been a long conversation. But many of the fundamental problems
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: that emerge. in the public, like national discourse after George
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: Floyd's killing, they've not gone away. There's still racial bias.
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: There's still too much police brutality. You have actually prosecuted
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: criminals as PG County State's Attorney in the Senate. You'd
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: have a chance to write federal law. What changes to
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: policing do you think still need to be accomplished? And
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: how much of that do you think it's driven by
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: local decision-making versus federal law that you would work on
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: in the Senate?
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: Well, you know, I started my career because I believe
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: that everybody deserves to live in a safe community. I
• 49:55
  Speaker 4: still believe this is a basic civil right to be
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: able to walk the street safely, to sit on your
• 49:59
  Speaker 4: front porch. I think that my mother should be able
• 50:01
  Speaker 4: to go to the grocery store without fear of being
• 50:04
  Speaker 4: knocked over the head. And so I started my career
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: In 1997, as the first full-time domestic violence prosecutor to
• 50:11
  Speaker 4: work in the office, I was the elected prosecutor in
• 50:15
  Speaker 4: my county as well. And what I can tell you
• 50:17
  Speaker 4: is that there have been two choices given that I
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: think are kind of false choices. The choice is whether
• 50:22
  Speaker 4: we should have justice or freedom. I would say we
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: have to have both. A system that is just means
• 50:28
  Speaker 4: that a system where the laws apply equally to everyone,
• 50:31
  Speaker 4: where we are policed with the humanity and dignity that
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: we deserve. But that we also should have a system
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: where you should be free. You should be free to
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: not be concerned about carjackings and assaults. And I think
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: it's possible to do both. We have the George Floyd
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: and Policing Act in the Senate that I will be
• 50:49
  Speaker 4: supportive of. We also have to do the work of
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: getting the assault weapons off the streets. We just now
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: saw yet another heartbreaking incident. I'm the mother of a
• 50:58
  Speaker 4: 19-year-old daughter. And I have to tell you, I am horrified.
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: And I think everyone felt horrified. At watching, yet again,
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: you send your kids to school, you expect them to
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: be safe, not hiding up under the desk or some
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: kind of drill they have to do. The teachers should
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: be safe. So we have a lot of work to do.
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: It is to make sure that our system is just,
• 51:16
  Speaker 4: to make sure that we're holding people accountable who break
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: the law, no matter who they are, police officers or civilians,
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: but making sure as well that we should have the
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: right as Americans to be safe where we live. And
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: that means we got to get these guns off the street.
• 51:30
  Speaker 4: The number one way that children die in this country,
• 51:32
  Speaker 4: and it's absolutely unconscionable, We have done nothing about it.
• 51:36
  Speaker 4: It's through gun violence, not by car accident or by illness.
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: But it just makes me enraged to think. I was
• 51:44
  Speaker 4: thinking today about the families. Can you imagine the young
• 51:47
  Speaker 4: kids who are in school and they're killed because we
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: have not removed these assault weapons, the kind that was
• 51:52
  Speaker 4: used again in this school in Georgia? We have the
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: ghost guns that are on the street. And these Republicans, again,
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: when we talk about having the majority in the Senate,
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: They have not only appointed these Supreme Court justices, the
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: same ones who overturned the bump stock decision, but they
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: have no interest whatsoever in even doing what's sensible. And
• 52:11
  Speaker 4: you know what? My opponent, again, is a person who,
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: you know, he got an A-minus from the NRA. So
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: that would be putting the NRA in charge. If we
• 52:18
  Speaker 4: give over this Senate to the Republicans, it's like putting
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: the NRA in charge.
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, somebody who's trying to project as a
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: moderate to get an A-minus from the NRA is pretty extreme.
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: And yeah, I mean, that I think like there's no
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: more frustrating issue than the issue of gun violence, especially
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: these mass shootings in schools. I mean, yesterday was a
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: 14 year old who I believe shot, you know, other
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: 14 year olds and teachers were hurt and just horrific incident.
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: I mean, I have a 21 month old daughter and
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: she started preschool this week. And even I've been thinking
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: about it because of Sandy Hook and because of, you know, nothing,
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: no horror seems off the table in the United States
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: when it comes to gun violence. But also I never
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: feel more cynical about, than I do when hearing about
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: efforts in Congress to deal with gun violence, because I
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: know Republicans seem to block everything. And I guess the,
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: which leads me to a question, which is the, usually
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: they use the filibuster Republicans do to block all meaningful
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: legislation in the U S Senate. Would you support getting
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: rid of or reforming the filibuster to try to make
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: it so Kamala Harris can enact her agenda?
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: Oh, absolutely. You know, we think about the filibuster, um,
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: I believe the numbers go something like 1964 to say 2008.
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: The filibuster was used maybe fewer than 60 times. And
• 53:36
  Speaker 4: then from 2008 until now, it's been used over 600 times,
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: mostly to block civil rights legislation. Yeah, we want the
• 53:43
  Speaker 4: John Lewis For the People Act. We want the For
• 53:45
  Speaker 4: the People Act. We want, you know, a number of
• 53:47
  Speaker 4: pieces of legislation that all have been blocked using this filibuster.
• 53:51
  Speaker 4: So I think we absolutely... going to have to reform
• 53:54
  Speaker 4: the filibuster. And I think we're also going to have
• 53:56
  Speaker 4: to do something about the Supreme Court. You know, I mean,
• 53:59
  Speaker 4: it is outrageous. And I agree with reforming the Supreme
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: Court as well.
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: Love that. A few months ago, I saw an interview
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: you did with WJLA, which is a Sinclair-owned local TV
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: station in Washington. You were asked about the situation in Gaza.
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: You talked about the need to get more aid into Gaza,
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: to get a ceasefire deal that brings back the hostages,
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: and ultimately to achieve a two-state solution in the creation
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: of a Palestinian state. But you also added that you
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: do not believe that Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu is
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: the right partner for achieving a two-state solution. And I
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: just want to put my cards on the table and
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: say I could not agree more. And I'm wondering how
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: that belief might translate into policy. If you're a U.S. senator,
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: does that mean you're open to withholding or conditioning U.S.
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: military aid to Israel as a tool to pressure the
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: government into talks around a two-state solution? Or how are
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: you thinking about this?
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: You know, I think, first of all, let me just
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: say that I think everyone agrees in this moment. The
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: number one thing that has to happen, as we looked
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: at the people who were killed just last week, is
• 54:59
  Speaker 4: we got to get the hostages home. We got to
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: get the hostages home. We have to get to a ceasefire.
• 55:05
  Speaker 4: And as I've mentioned before, I think that the United
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: States and everyone around the world has an affirmative obligation
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: to make sure that we are eliminating the suffering that
• 55:14
  Speaker 4: is happening with the Palestinians in Gaza and a two-state
• 55:17
  Speaker 4: solution between is where I believe we should be focused.
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: That's what tomorrow should look like, is we should be
• 55:23
  Speaker 4: working to have peace and security in Israel and peace, security,
• 55:26
  Speaker 4: and self-determination for the Palestinians in Gaza. I believe I
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: support the U.S.-Israeli relationship, and I support Israel's right to
• 55:36
  Speaker 4: not only defend itself, but I think they ought to
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: have the means to defend itself as well. And I, again,
• 55:43
  Speaker 4: believe that that is not in conflict with the idea
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: that ultimately Israel The aim and the hope is for peace.
• 55:50
  Speaker 4: That is what I believe we ought to be working toward,
• 55:53
  Speaker 4: is de-escalating conflict and making sure, again, that we have
• 55:57
  Speaker 4: peace and security in Israel, and we should have peace, security,
• 56:00
  Speaker 4: and self-determination for the Palestinians in Gaza.
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: But, I mean, if you think Netanyahu has been an
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: impediment to that, I mean, I guess is our only
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: chance just to kind of wait for the government to
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: collapse in a new election? Is it sort of out
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: of our hands? Well, you know what?
• 56:14
  Speaker 4: I think we are seeing now that the people of
• 56:17
  Speaker 4: Israel are also saying that they're very concerned about the
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: form of leadership. I think that they have a democracy
• 56:24
  Speaker 4: and they make a decision about their leaders. I agree
• 56:26
  Speaker 4: with that. But I think we do need leaders who
• 56:29
  Speaker 4: believe we need a good partner. If we are to
• 56:32
  Speaker 4: go to a two-state solution, I absolutely believe that. But
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: Israel is a democracy. They get to choose their own leaders.
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: And I understand that. And I believe that, again, it
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: appears to me that there is growing discontentment With the
• 56:47
  Speaker 4: form of leadership that he has demonstrated. And again, we
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: have to focus first on getting those hostages home. And
• 56:53
  Speaker 4: we got to get to a ceasefire.
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: You've known Kamala Harris for 14 years, I believe.
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: I have.
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: Can you tell the story of like how you guys
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: became friends? And then is there something you know about
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: her that you feel like is just not talked about
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: or doesn't get coverage the rest of the country should know?
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: Well, I met her in– well, I learned about her
• 57:12
  Speaker 4: in 2009. So I was reading a magazine, and they
• 57:15
  Speaker 4: were talking about this incredible woman who was a DA
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: who was using all of these new ideas to keep
• 57:20
  Speaker 4: her community safe. Specifically, I was reading about back on
• 57:23
  Speaker 4: track in her Smart on Crime book. And I was
• 57:26
  Speaker 4: so impressed with it that I was running for state's
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: attorney at the time. I was talking to my constituents
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: all about it, about how I thought we could replicate
• 57:34
  Speaker 4: some of her plans and projects. And when I won
• 57:38
  Speaker 4: the election, two days later, I got a call and
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: the person said, hi, it's Kamala Harris. Really? So she said,
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: tell me what I can do to help. And I
• 57:47
  Speaker 4: told her I wanted to come out to California, study
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: her program and came out here. And she put all
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: the stakeholders together for me. She had one attorney general
• 57:56
  Speaker 4: went by and met with her. But I met with
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: the stakeholders, the judges and everyone. I did replicate that program.
• 58:01
  Speaker 4: And since then, she's really been a friend. I was there.
• 58:04
  Speaker 4: I came to California when she ran for Senate. She said,
• 58:07
  Speaker 4: you should come out and ride the bus with me
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: the weekend before my primary and do some surrogate speaking.
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: So I did that. I came out to California, rode
• 58:15
  Speaker 4: the bus with her and Doug. And Mayor Bass was
• 58:18
  Speaker 4: on the bus at the time. And then, you know,
• 58:21
  Speaker 4: was there the day she was sworn in. And she
• 58:23
  Speaker 4: came over to help me when I ran for county executive.
• 58:25
  Speaker 4: She endorsed me and she met me to go point
• 58:28
  Speaker 4: by point on the legal pad over some of what
• 58:31
  Speaker 4: we would discuss in the campaign. And she's just been
• 58:33
  Speaker 4: a friend since then. You know, she's endorsed me in
• 58:36
  Speaker 4: this race. She gives really excellent advice. I guess the
• 58:39
  Speaker 4: thing I'd say about her that always stands out, when
• 58:42
  Speaker 4: I was on that bus the weekend before her primary
• 58:45
  Speaker 4: for Senate, it occurs to me that she was not
• 58:47
  Speaker 4: talking about herself, not once. I don't think I've ever
• 58:50
  Speaker 4: been in a conversation with her where she goes. Most
• 58:53
  Speaker 4: people may be talking about their race, talking about themselves.
• 58:56
  Speaker 4: She's always talking about others. Tell me about your program.
• 59:00
  Speaker 4: Do you have the right people in place? What are
• 59:01
  Speaker 4: you doing? She is the consummate leader. She's the consummate leader.
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: Why do you think she cold called you like that, right?
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: I mean, you're not, look, the political cynic, if you
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: were like an Iowa state rep, people would say, aha,
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: this was the long game to run for president.
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: You know, you're in Maryland.
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: Like, she just picked up the phone and called you?
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: As it turns out, there are a whole lot of
• 59:20
  Speaker 4: us who she mentors in the same way. I think
• 59:23
  Speaker 4: she is a natural leader and she is a person
• 59:25
  Speaker 4: who very sincerely cares about other people. She called me and,
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: you know, no one would have ever known. No one
• 59:32
  Speaker 4: has known the other times that she's called and reached
• 59:34
  Speaker 4: out to say, I'm just checking on you. Tell me
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: how you're doing. Tell me what's going on. I mean,
• 59:38
  Speaker 4: she has done that. And as it turns out, I've
• 59:40
  Speaker 4: now learned others, you know, you saw Congresswoman Jasmine, who
• 59:46
  Speaker 4: came out and said that the vice president wiped her
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: tears at a meeting. This is a person who is
• 59:50
  Speaker 4: not only compassionate, and maybe that's the thing that people
• 59:53
  Speaker 4: don't get to see as often, She's compassionate, but she's
• 59:56
  Speaker 4: also a deeply principled person, a deeply principled person. But
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 4: she not for fanfare, but she is a person who
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 4: is always mentoring, always guiding. And, you know, I think
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 4: that's what's going to make her a really great president.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 4: She's a very, very thoughtful person, but also just deeply
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: principled person. And I think think about that. A leader who,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: you know, and we've had a wonderful president in Joe Biden.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: But I think our country deserves to continue to have
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: leaders who have integrity, you know, leaders who are decent.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 4: We can never return to the other guy. But I
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 4: think Kamala is going to make a really, really, really
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 4: excellent president.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: Has she ever cooked for you?
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 4: No, she's never cooked for me. I've got to tell
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 4: you a funny story. He's speaking about cooking. So she
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 4: invited me to her home for the holidays. And, you know.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: What year was this? This was....
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 4: This was two years, let's see, not this past year,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 4: the year before I took my daughter to the vice
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 4: president's residence. And she, my daughter, now remember that part, teenager.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 4: So we go and they have it so that you
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: come around, you take the photo.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 4: And I'm thinking this girl, meaning my daughter, is going
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 4: to stand up there and take the photo, right? And
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 4: she jumps back instead and says, oh, my goodness, do
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 4: you know what they're saying about you on TikTok? And
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 4: I'm thinking, oh, my God, like, really?
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 4: Whoa, where are we going here, lady? And she said,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 4: they said, your hair looks amazing. Your silk press is
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 4: right on. And I'm like so embarrassed. I'm like, oh
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 4: my God. But the vice president sprung to action. She
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 4: loves kids. She right away said, oh my gosh, really?
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 4: Is this what they're saying? Maybe I should have you
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 4: on my comms team. Then she tells me, move aside.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 4: So she can take pictures with Alex and they're posing
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 4: and the whole But I'm like horrified thinking this is
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 4: not what we discussed. We're not going to come up
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 4: here and talk. When she said the words TikTok and
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 4: what they're saying, I'm thinking.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: Oh, no. That's not going to be good. Whoa.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: I love that. I love that. You hear a lot
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: of stories like that. Okay. Some lighter stuff. So I'm
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: from Massachusetts. I married a woman from Maryland. So her
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: parents live out.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: So they live out east. They're in Easton. And whenever
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: I visit, we end up. Picking crabs. And I just
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: want to start by saying, like, I hit the in-law lottery. They're, like,
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: the best people ever. Hannah's sisters are the best. But
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: I don't get the crab thing. Like, maybe I'm not
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: good at it, but I feel like you start with
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: this huge pile of crabs in front of you, like
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: a stack of corpses, and you end up hungry unless
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: you eat, like, salads.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: Ah, you know what?
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 4: I understand the misunderstanding here.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: You know what?
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 4: You think crabs are about eating.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: No.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: What's it about?
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 4: It's a thing. It's like a sport almost. It is
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 4: an activity that we do together as families. That's what
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 4: binds us. Now, I like the taste of crabs.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: The whole day.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 4: But if you come to it expecting that it is,
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 4: you're there because it's a meal.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 5: No.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: Oh.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: Just got to do the corn.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 4: When you go back to the family, you have to
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 4: tell them now. You know, I get it. We're like
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 4: here bonding. It's a bonding experience. You pick the crabs
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 4: and you talk.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 4: That's what it is.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: That's true. But it's real. My daughter loved it. She
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: kept saying, crabby time. She was yelling, crabby time, crabby time.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: She was very excited.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: She's our girl.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: 21 months old.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: She's our girl.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: Pick up the mallet, whacking away. It was fun. Okay.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: It was a good lesson.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: Last question.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 3: Baltimore Ravens or Washington Commanders?
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: I have to tell you the Washington Commanders. are in
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 4: Prince George's County where I live. I do support the
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 4: Ravens as well. And we want the commanders to stay
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 4: in Maryland. And I've been a commanders fan like my
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 4: whole life.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 3: Dan Snyder's gone though, right? Is there a risk of
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: them leaving now?
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: You know what?
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 4: We've done a lot of work. We've invested about, we
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 4: have $ 400 million that we're investing in the areas around
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 4: the field there. And we, you know, we expect that
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 4: they may stay there. We think that we are offering
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 4: a lot. You know, Governor Moore says he's also really
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 4: committed to keeping the team. We want the two teams
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 4: to be in Maryland. So we're committed to it and
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 4: we're feeling good. You know, my very good friend is
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 4: Mariel Bowser. She's making plans on the other side, but
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 4: we're planning to keep them in Maryland.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: Keep them in Maryland. I saw Governor Moore put on
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: actual pads in practice with the Maryland football team. Is
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: that something he does a lot?
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 4: Well, we say to that, Governor Youngkin over in Virginia,
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 4: eat your heart out. Like, Maryland, we're lucky, right? We
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 4: have a really great governor who, you know, loves people and,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 4: you know, and it shows.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: Doesn't skip arm day. You could tell that.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He's looking stacked.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 4: But you know what he also did? He was there
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 4: side by side with us and we wrestled away the
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 4: FBI headquarters from Virginia.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: That's a huge fight, right?
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 4: It's a huge fight that we won, and we're going
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 4: to fight to continue to keep the FBI national headquarters
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 4: plans in Maryland.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: I really like the trash talk between Maryland and Virginia.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 3: Poor D.C. is just stuck in the middle, but you guys,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 3: you battle it out.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 4: Well, Virginians said we had an unfair advantage because we
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 4: had Governor Moore and they have Yunkin. You know, we
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 4: need more Democrats. I mean, I think that's just the
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 4: way this goes. We make things happen.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's not your problem. That's what I say to that.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: County Executive Also Brooks, thank you so much for being here.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: How can people support your race if they want to
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: get involved?
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 4: AngelaAlsoBrooks.com. And thank you so much for having me. Everybody,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 4: please go out. This is a really important race. It's
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 4: one we can't phone in.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: Have to win this.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 4: We have to win it.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: Have to, have to win this.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 4: Have to win it.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 3: So if you're thinking about donating, do it now.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: AngelaAlsoBrooks.com.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 3: Yep. Do it soon.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: That's our show for today. The debate is tonight.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 3: Who's ready? I don't think I am. Me neither. I'm excited.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: Hey, I feel better about this one than the last one.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, a little more. Knock on wood. It's hard not to.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: Don't forget to check out the subscriber live chat and
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: then the three of us and Dan. You know it's
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: a big night when Dan's here.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: Dan's in town.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: We'll record the Wednesday pod right afterward. That'll be in
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: your feed Wednesday mornings. Fingers crossed.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: Prayers up. Do your dabs. Talk to everybody soon.
• 1:06:15
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• 1:06:51
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• 1:07:01
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• 1:07:07
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