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Kamala Harris & Liz Cheney Take on Donald Trump · Pod Save America

0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
0:22
Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
0:22
Speaker 1: On today's show, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are each
0:25
Speaker 1: facing multiple October surprises in the final month of the race...
0:28
Speaker 1: And later, I sat down with Stacey Abrams this week
0:31
Speaker 1: to talk about Georgia, the new restrictions on voting and
0:34
Speaker 1: having your vote counted, and what you can do about it.
0:37
Speaker 1: But first, Trump's criminal conspiracy to overturn the last election
0:41
Speaker 1: is back in the news, thanks to J.D. Vance, Jack Smith,
0:45
Speaker 1: and Liz Cheney. Vance kicked off this news cycle during
0:47
Speaker 1: the debate by refusing to say that Trump lost in 2020,
0:51
Speaker 1: which became the night's most talked about moment and led
0:54
Speaker 1: to an ad from the Harris campaign. Then on Wednesday...
0:57
Speaker 1: Judge Tanya Chutkan unsealed a filing from special counsel Jack
1:01
Speaker 1: Smith that detailed lots of new evidence in his case
1:05
Speaker 1: against Trump. And on Thursday, January 6th committee co-chair and
1:09
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris supporter Liz Cheney appeared with the vice president
1:13
Speaker 1: in Ripon, Wisconsin, the birthplace of Lincoln's Republican Party in 1854.
1:18
Speaker 1: Here's some of what they said.
1:21
Speaker 3: One of Trump's aides testified that shortly after that, This
1:26
Speaker 3: aide received a phone call alerting him that the vice
1:30
Speaker 3: president had been evacuated for his own safety from his
1:35
Speaker 3: office off the floor of the Senate. This aide recalled
1:39
Speaker 3: rushing to the dining room to tell Trump, hoping that
1:44
Speaker 3: this information would convince him to take immediate action to
1:48
Speaker 3: ensure the vice president's safety. Instead, after this aide delivered
1:55
Speaker 3: that news, Donald Trump looked up at him and said,
2:00
Speaker 3: so what? That is depravity, and we must never become
2:05
Speaker 3: numb to it. We must defeat Donald Trump on November 5th.
2:10
Speaker 3: There is not an ounce, not an ounce of compassion
2:14
Speaker 3: in Donald Trump. He is petty, he is vindictive, and
2:18
Speaker 3: he is cruel. And Donald Trump is not fit to
2:22
Speaker 3: lead this good and great nation. I tell you I
2:26
Speaker 3: have never voted for a Democrat, but this year I
2:31
Speaker 3: am proudly casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.
2:37
Speaker 4: There are so many powerful forces that have been intent
2:43
Speaker 4: on trying to demean and belittle and make people afraid.
2:50
Speaker 4: There are many who know it is wrong and then
2:53
Speaker 4: there are those who have the courage to speak out
2:57
Speaker 4: loudly about it and the conviction to speak truth and
3:04
Speaker 4: you know it is so admirable when anyone does it
3:08
Speaker 4: and especially when it is difficult to do in an
3:11
Speaker 4: environment such as this but Liz Cheney really is a
3:15
Speaker 4: leader who puts country above party and above self, a
3:18
Speaker 4: true patriot, and it is my profound honor, my profound
3:23
Speaker 4: honor to have your support.
3:26
Speaker 1: Dan, you know what they say, the most successful Democratic
3:28
Speaker 1: campaigns always close with the Cheney. What did you think
3:32
Speaker 1: of the event, the message, and the strategy behind doing
3:36
Speaker 1: this now?
3:37
Speaker 2: I will say I still have this muscle memory that
3:41
Speaker 2: comes from just years of dealing with crazy Republicans, of
3:45
Speaker 2: them shitting on Barack Obama, that I sometimes struggle with
3:48
Speaker 2: these events. It's why you've seen me very visibly on
3:51
Speaker 2: this podcast have real challenges with Mitt Romney's deserved place
3:54
Speaker 2: on the resistance Mount Rushmore that he's currently on. So
3:58
Speaker 2: sometimes I look at this, I'm like, we are really
4:00
Speaker 2: campaigning with Liz Cheney. But then you step back and
4:02
Speaker 2: think about it, it makes incredible sense. She's a very
4:06
Speaker 2: important messenger. The message is right. And ultimately, if we
4:10
Speaker 2: are going to win an election in a political system
4:14
Speaker 2: where the electoral college is biased towards Republicans, we need
4:18
Speaker 2: to build a big tent and we should invite everyone
4:21
Speaker 2: who wants to defeat Donald Trump into that tent. And
4:23
Speaker 2: that includes Liz and I even hate to say it,
4:26
Speaker 2: Dick Cheney.
4:28
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I think you either believe Donald Trump
4:33
Speaker 1: poses a unique threat to the country, to democracy, different
4:38
Speaker 1: than what many of us Democrats believe about Republican policies
4:44
Speaker 1: or other Republican politicians in the pre-Trump era, or you don't.
4:48
Speaker 1: And if you do believe that Donald Trump poses a
4:51
Speaker 1: unique threat that goes beyond just policies, but actually, you know,
4:57
Speaker 1: being willing to break the law, put himself above the law,
5:01
Speaker 1: use the vast power of the federal government to punish
5:05
Speaker 1: people who don't support him, throw our votes away. If
5:08
Speaker 1: you believe all that, Then having someone like Liz Cheney
5:11
Speaker 1: talk about that and showing people that this is not
5:15
Speaker 1: a partisan issue, this is not Democrat and Republican, this
5:18
Speaker 1: is about we can all argue about our policies later,
5:21
Speaker 1: then of course you want Liz Cheney at an event.
5:24
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about all the January 6th stuff
5:26
Speaker 1: being back in the news, but I think it's perfect
5:28
Speaker 1: timing because... The event wasn't about how like, and Kamala
5:32
Speaker 1: Harris is moderate, so I can support her. It wasn't
5:35
Speaker 1: about policy. It wasn't about ideology. It was about one thing.
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Speaker 1: The fact that Donald Trump tried to throw people's votes away.
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Speaker 1: And then when he failed, sent a violent mob to Congress,
5:44
Speaker 1: which is like, you know, should be enough.
5:47
Speaker 3: Yeah.
5:48
Speaker 1: We shouldn't even be having this discussion right now, but
5:50
Speaker 1: we have to anyway. And so I'm glad Liz Cheney's
5:52
Speaker 1: out there doing it.
5:53
Speaker 2: Just two points on the strategy here that, and why
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Speaker 2: this is smart to do is people are so cynical
6:00
Speaker 2: about politics and politicians that they are more likely to
6:02
Speaker 2: believe and be persuaded by people who share their identity
6:06
Speaker 2: in some way, shape, or form. And therefore, there's a
6:09
Speaker 2: whole group of Republicans, Republican-leaning independents, former Trump voters who
6:15
Speaker 2: are going to be more persuaded by a Republican establishment
6:17
Speaker 2: member like Liz Cheney or Adam Kinzinger or some of
6:21
Speaker 2: these other people than they would be by Kamala Harris
6:23
Speaker 2: or Tim Walz or us or other Democrats out there campaigning.
6:26
Speaker 2: And so, She is a trusted messenger to a group
6:29
Speaker 2: of people. To put some numbers on that, in the
6:32
Speaker 2: May Republican primary, Nikki Haley got 76,000 votes in Wisconsin.
6:38
Speaker 2: Joe Biden won Wisconsin by 20,600 votes in 2020. There
6:43
Speaker 2: are voters out there who are uncomfortable with Donald Trump,
6:45
Speaker 2: who are still not comfortable enough to vote in a
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Speaker 2: Democratic primary, and Liz Cheney might be able to get
6:50
Speaker 2: some of them to come over and vote for Kamala Harris.
6:52
Speaker 2: Even if you get a third of those people, that's
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Speaker 2: enough to win this election.
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Speaker 1: And again, I think it's a very powerful message for
6:59
Speaker 1: Liz Cheney to say, like, I've never voted for a
7:01
Speaker 1: Democrat in my life. And she probably wouldn't vote for
7:05
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris in any normal election. But if Donald Trump
7:08
Speaker 1: becomes president again, we might not have another election. That's
7:12
Speaker 1: sort of what it comes down to. I've seen some
7:14
Speaker 1: scattered concern on the left about Harris campaigning with a
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Speaker 1: neocon hawk like Cheney, especially at a time of war
7:21
Speaker 1: in the Middle East. You have any worries about this?
7:25
Speaker 2: You know I never miss an opportunity to worry about something,
7:29
Speaker 2: but I will say this is pretty low on my
7:31
Speaker 2: worry list.
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Speaker 1: Me too. Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, basically all the Republican figures,
7:39
Speaker 1: Cassidy Hutchinson, who was on the pod, she came out
7:41
Speaker 1: today also, said.
7:42
Speaker 2: She was- Sarah Matthews as well.
7:43
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris, Sarah Matthews, Alyssa Farrah Griffin, just a lot
7:48
Speaker 1: of former Trump officials, not just Republicans, former Trump officials
7:51
Speaker 1: have done this. They have demanded- Zero policy changes. No
7:56
Speaker 1: moderation whatsoever. They are not asking anything of Kamala Harris
7:59
Speaker 1: or the Democratic Party at all. They're just saying, I'm
8:03
Speaker 1: supporting them. I'm supporting Kamala Harris. I'm supporting the Democrats
8:06
Speaker 1: because Donald Trump is unfit for office. That's all. So, like,
8:09
Speaker 1: who cares?
8:10
Speaker 5: Yes.
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Speaker 1: Like, the idea that, like, no one's saying that Liz
8:13
Speaker 1: Cheney is now going to influence Kamala Harris's foreign policy.
8:16
Speaker 1: That's not on the table. No one has said that.
8:18
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris hasn't said that. Liz Cheney hasn't said that. So, like,
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Speaker 1: I don't get why you would fucking care. It's just,
8:23
Speaker 1: there are people- It's silly to me. I mean- It's
8:25
Speaker 1: really silly.
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Speaker 2: Some of the complaints I've seen are people who are
8:29
Speaker 2: already legitimately mad about the Biden-Harris administration's foreign policy, right?
8:35
Speaker 2: As it relates to Israel and Gaza. And this is
8:37
Speaker 2: just another way to make that point, but it doesn't
8:40
Speaker 2: change anything that Liz Cheney was on that stage today.
8:45
Speaker 6: Yeah, no.
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Speaker 1: If you're mad about the policy, be mad about the
8:47
Speaker 1: policy and be mad at them for the policy, right?
8:49
Speaker 1: It has nothing to do with Liz Cheney. So the
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Speaker 1: day before the Wisconsin event, Cheney, Harris, and the rest
8:54
Speaker 1: of us got a nice surprise when Judge Chuckin made
8:57
Speaker 1: public Jack Smith's 165-page legal brief where he lays out
9:01
Speaker 1: the evidence he hopes to present to a jury someday
9:05
Speaker 1: in his case against Donald Trump. As we all know,
9:07
Speaker 1: the trial was supposed to happen before the election until
9:10
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court ruled that Trump is immune from criminal
9:12
Speaker 1: charges that result from official acts as president. Smith then
9:17
Speaker 1: dropped those charges from the initial indictment He now argues
9:21
Speaker 1: that all the crimes in this brief and the new
9:23
Speaker 1: indictment were committed by Trump, the candidate, not Trump, the president.
9:28
Speaker 1: But don't take our word for it. Here's how Neil
9:30
Speaker 1: Cavuto of Fox News covered the story.
9:33
Speaker 2: In this newly unsealed court paper, we're learning that former
9:37
Speaker 2: President Trump resorted to crimes that have been to cling
9:40
Speaker 2: to power after the 2020 election.
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Speaker 1: In this indictment, wait, what's this? We're learning that Donald
9:46
Speaker 1: Trump did crimes?
9:48
Speaker 6: Yes.
9:49
Speaker 2: We got, I mean, this is just a classic Posse
9:51
Speaker 2: America episode. We got Liz Cheney. We got Neil Cavuto.
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Speaker 2: What do we got coming up at the back end here?
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Speaker 1: So what were your favorite, before we get into whether
9:58
Speaker 1: this matters, all that kind of stuff. what were your
10:00
Speaker 1: favorite revelations or highlights from the legal brief? Which, by
10:03
Speaker 1: the way, the clip that we played from Cheney, at
10:07
Speaker 1: the beginning of that clip, it was her talking, when
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Speaker 1: Donald Trump said, so what, about Mike Pence being in danger,
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Speaker 1: that was from this brief. That was a new piece
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Speaker 1: of evidence that, just in time for Liz Cheney to
10:17
Speaker 1: talk about it at this event.
10:19
Speaker 2: I find it hard to answer this question because when
10:20
Speaker 2: you say, what's your favorite moment about the details of
10:23
Speaker 2: the former president trying to steal an election with violence?
10:26
Speaker 1: I don't know if favorites are the right term. Maybe
10:30
Speaker 1: we can call them lowlights.
10:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, the lowlights. Lowlights is good. So there are three.
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Speaker 2: One of them is obviously the one that Liz Cheney mentioned.
10:38
Speaker 2: We should just pause for a second on the sort
10:40
Speaker 2: of sociopathic behavior it takes you to say, so what,
10:45
Speaker 2: when you find out that you're Close's co-worker, his life
10:50
Speaker 2: is in danger because of a mob you sent to
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Speaker 2: kill them. There's no moment of compassion, empathy, or self-reflection there.
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Speaker 2: It's just like, so what? Whatever happens, happens. I mean,
10:59
Speaker 2: it is truly deranged and dangerous, and it is, to
11:03
Speaker 2: Liz Janey's point, something like that should be nowhere near
11:06
Speaker 2: power at any level, right? You shouldn't be able to
11:08
Speaker 2: manage Hardee's, let alone be president. It's like, whatever, just
11:11
Speaker 2: like insanity. The second one is... There is a revelation
11:17
Speaker 2: in there about a quote-unquote advisor who people generally believe
11:20
Speaker 2: is Steve Bannon, although he's not specifically identified in the filing,
11:26
Speaker 2: where Bannon told a group of Trump supporters that he's
11:29
Speaker 2: going to declare victory. That doesn't mean he's the winner.
11:32
Speaker 2: He's just going to say he's the winner, which really
11:36
Speaker 2: gets to the heart of just how much bullshit this is.
11:38
Speaker 2: Because one of the defenses of some of these Republicans
11:42
Speaker 2: who are supporting Trump is, no, no, he truly believed
11:45
Speaker 2: the election had been stolen. Now, that does not give
11:47
Speaker 2: you the right to send a violent mob to the Capitol,
11:50
Speaker 2: even if you do believe it, right? That's just not
11:52
Speaker 2: how that works. But the fact that it was all
11:54
Speaker 2: a fucking con from the very beginning is very damning.
11:57
Speaker 2: Then the last one is, there's a reference in there
12:00
Speaker 2: about Trump making fun of Sidney Powell and saying she's bonkers,
12:04
Speaker 2: which is important because if he doesn't believe her, then
12:08
Speaker 2: it's evidence that he doesn't believe that the election was
12:11
Speaker 2: actually stolen. But it says, they don't say what the
12:14
Speaker 2: reference is, but it says he made a Star Trek
12:16
Speaker 2: reference to refer to apparently Sidney Powell's bunkerness. I don't know,
12:21
Speaker 2: but I just can't imagine Donald Trump making a Star
12:24
Speaker 2: Trek reference. Other than Hannibal Lecter, he has no pop
12:27
Speaker 2: culture affinity for anything at all. So like, is he
12:30
Speaker 2: a Trekkie? I'm sort of curious about that.
12:32
Speaker 1: The crazy part about that is he does whatever to
12:34
Speaker 1: communicate that Sidney Powell is crazy, whatever reference. And later
12:39
Speaker 1: he wants to appoint her special counsel Yes. And considered
12:44
Speaker 1: her plan to seize voting machines. This is who he
12:48
Speaker 1: wanted in charge of this, someone that he thought was crazy.
12:51
Speaker 1: I'll just add on the Mike Pence point. So before
12:56
Speaker 1: the aide tells him, you know, Mike Pence has been
13:00
Speaker 1: evacuated because the rioters are 40 feet from where he
13:02
Speaker 1: was sheltering and Trump says, so what? Trump was alone
13:07
Speaker 1: in the White House dining room tweeting, And had been
13:12
Speaker 1: on Twitter. And by the way, it's very interesting that
13:15
Speaker 1: Jack Smith says he has forensic evidence from the phones
13:19
Speaker 1: and from the televisions, basically what Trump was watching, what
13:23
Speaker 1: he was doing on his phone. He was on Twitter
13:24
Speaker 1: the whole time. Who among us, right? And he sent out,
13:31
Speaker 1: after he saw that the Capitol had been breached and
13:34
Speaker 1: that everyone in the Capitol was in danger, that's when
13:36
Speaker 1: he sent out the tweet attacking Mike Pence for not
13:40
Speaker 1: having the courage to uh, to do what's right. And
13:43
Speaker 1: when he knew he was in danger. So that was,
13:45
Speaker 1: that was something. Um, there was also apparently at one
13:49
Speaker 1: point he said to Jared and Ivanka, Trump did on
13:51
Speaker 1: Marine one. Um, it doesn't matter if you won or
13:54
Speaker 1: lost the election, you still have to fight like hell. Uh,
13:57
Speaker 1: and then lawyers and campaign staff also told him that
14:01
Speaker 1: all the election fraud claims were bullshit. And Trump said
14:05
Speaker 1: the details don't matter. Even after they told him it
14:07
Speaker 1: wouldn't hold up in court. They have him berating Pence
14:11
Speaker 1: over and over. All these conversations he has with Pence,
14:14
Speaker 1: he's just berating him.
14:15
Speaker 2: Who could possibly have been the source for those?
14:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, right. Well, Mike Pence testified, of course. And a
14:21
Speaker 1: couple days after Christmas, he has this phone call with
14:24
Speaker 1: Pence where Pence again for like the 10th time tells
14:28
Speaker 1: him he's not going to try to overturn the election
14:30
Speaker 1: for him because he doesn't have that power. And Trump says...
14:35
Speaker 1: People are going to hate your guts. People are going
14:37
Speaker 1: to think you're stupid. You're too honest. And then after
14:40
Speaker 1: he hung up the phone, he tweeted that his supporters
14:43
Speaker 1: should come to D.C. on January 6th because he knew
14:46
Speaker 1: that now Mike Pence wasn't going to do the right thing.
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Speaker 2: You're too honest. You're too honest.
14:52
Speaker 1: You're too honest and people are going to think you're stupid.
14:54
Speaker 1: People are going to hate your guts. And of course,
14:55
Speaker 1: he also knew that the electors were fake and not legal.
15:00
Speaker 1: And so did his whole team. And he wanted to
15:02
Speaker 1: send them to Congress anyway and to have Republicans accept
15:06
Speaker 1: them and to have the fight in Congress, even though
15:08
Speaker 1: he was told and his team knew that they were
15:12
Speaker 1: completely illegal and wouldn't hold up in court. It's just
15:15
Speaker 1: fucking wild, man. Obviously, this is a shitty substitute for
15:19
Speaker 1: the trial we had been promised until the Supreme Court
15:23
Speaker 1: stepped in. But, you know, is this a story that
15:27
Speaker 1: you think Democrats can keep in the news for the
15:28
Speaker 1: next few weeks? Should we even try?
15:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we should absolutely try. And the events
15:33
Speaker 2: of yesterday in Wisconsin are ways in which we continue
15:36
Speaker 2: to do that. Hopefully there are other endorsements that can
15:38
Speaker 2: come out. There are other ways to talk about this.
15:40
Speaker 2: There's this documentary on YouTube called fight like hell, which
15:43
Speaker 2: is a very powerful account of what happened on that
15:47
Speaker 2: day that people should watch and share with people in
15:49
Speaker 2: their lives. I mean, this is an important story. And I,
15:54
Speaker 2: I had this reaction watching, I rewatched the Vance debate
15:59
Speaker 2: after we finished podcasting at a very fast speed. Um,
16:02
Speaker 2: Cause sometimes it's so hard to be like taking notes, watching,
16:04
Speaker 2: and I want to go back and watch it one
16:05
Speaker 2: more time.
16:07
Speaker 1: And my take, you watch the whole thing again.
16:09
Speaker 2: Yeah.
16:10
Speaker 7: 1.75.
16:10
Speaker 2: So it's pretty, pretty fast.
16:12
Speaker 1: No, still a real glutton for punishment. And well, I had.
16:15
Speaker 2: A message box to write. So I wanted to, I need,
16:18
Speaker 2: I needed, I needed to stimulate the, the, stimulate the brain.
16:21
Speaker 2: But one of my takeaways from watching at the time
16:23
Speaker 2: is like, cause if you watch the debate, knowing what
16:27
Speaker 2: JD Vance's answer is going to be about the election
16:30
Speaker 2: and then it just seems so fucking out of touch
16:34
Speaker 2: with reality. It's so normal. They're like, oh, I know
16:38
Speaker 2: what you truly believe in your heart, JD. And JD
16:41
Speaker 2: is being nice to Tim Walls. And the moderators are
16:44
Speaker 2: asking normal questions. We have to get to the 95th
16:47
Speaker 2: minute or whatever it is for this question about the
16:50
Speaker 2: thing that overhangs everything, which is Donald Trump is a
16:53
Speaker 2: person who has been indicted. He is facing charges. criminal
16:58
Speaker 2: punishment for trying to overthrow an election that included a
17:02
Speaker 2: violent assault on one of America's three branches of government.
17:05
Speaker 2: And we hardly ever talk about it anymore. And I see,
17:08
Speaker 2: and I get it. I see all the polling. I
17:10
Speaker 2: know what all the polls say about what people's issues are.
17:13
Speaker 2: And I see the testing. If you watch the ads, right?
17:17
Speaker 2: Forget what people are saying. If you go into a
17:19
Speaker 2: battleground and you watch the ads, it is immigration, abortion, economy.
17:25
Speaker 2: That's what you see. And I see the testing for
17:28
Speaker 2: all those ads and they test very, very well. But
17:31
Speaker 2: does sometimes feel a little bit like we're missing the
17:33
Speaker 2: forest for the trees here.
17:35
Speaker 1: I was just going to say the same thing. Like
17:37
Speaker 1: I've struggled with, this is like the strategic question that
17:40
Speaker 1: I've probably struggled with the most because I've seen all
17:43
Speaker 1: those polls. I have heard from voters that, that say
17:47
Speaker 1: like when they ask them, what's your most important issue?
17:49
Speaker 1: They talk about inflation. They talk about cost of living.
17:52
Speaker 1: They talk about abortion. some even talk about immigration and
17:54
Speaker 1: crime and you don't hear a lot of January 6th.
17:58
Speaker 1: You don't hear a lot of democracy. I've heard people say, oh, well,
18:01
Speaker 1: January 6th happened a long time ago. Like, can we
18:04
Speaker 1: just move past that even though it was bad and
18:05
Speaker 1: Donald Trump was bad because of, right? Like, but like,
18:08
Speaker 1: I think this is, this shows the limits of polling
18:13
Speaker 1: and focus groups. And it's also a language issue. Like,
18:18
Speaker 1: I think there's a difference between asking someone about the
18:22
Speaker 1: future of democracy, or what happened in the past on
18:25
Speaker 1: January 6th, in which they might say, future of democracy?
18:29
Speaker 1: I'm trying to put food on my table, right? I
18:32
Speaker 1: think there's a difference between that and asking them, do
18:34
Speaker 1: you want a president who thinks it's okay to throw
18:37
Speaker 1: away your votes or ignore the law or ignore the
18:41
Speaker 1: courts or shoot you if you go out and protest
18:45
Speaker 1: the government? Because then they might think, you know what?
18:48
Speaker 1: Maybe prices were lower when Trump was president, but I
18:51
Speaker 1: don't know if I can trust him to keep me,
18:54
Speaker 1: my family, the country safe when he's promising to let
18:57
Speaker 1: violent insurrectionists who attack cops out of jail and worse,
19:02
Speaker 1: which is what he's been saying. So, like, I think
19:04
Speaker 1: there is a difference. And I think if you just
19:07
Speaker 1: if just common sense, if you are trying to persuade
19:11
Speaker 1: someone who's about to walk into the voting booth that
19:14
Speaker 1: like who really thinks they're going to vote for Donald Trump,
19:17
Speaker 1: that they really shouldn't do it. Like, what are you
19:20
Speaker 1: going to say? At the very end, right? You're going
19:23
Speaker 1: to say, you're going to do all the arguments like
19:25
Speaker 1: there's going to be a national abortion ban. He's going
19:27
Speaker 1: to try to take away your health care, like all
19:29
Speaker 1: this stuff. But then it'd be like, do you remember
19:31
Speaker 1: what happened? Do you remember how he tried to overturn
19:34
Speaker 1: the election and then sent a mob to the Capitol
19:36
Speaker 1: and he might do it again? Like that's probably the
19:38
Speaker 1: argument you'd make at the end of the day. So
19:40
Speaker 1: I do think that as we get close to election day,
19:45
Speaker 1: like the argument about the threat he poses to our
19:49
Speaker 1: fundamental freedoms and to the country has to be front
19:52
Speaker 1: and center or at least included with those other issues.
19:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with that. This is a real challenge.
19:59
Speaker 2: And if you– like Biden ran his campaign against Trump
20:03
Speaker 2: as a– he was essentially running with– Donald Trump was
20:05
Speaker 2: a threat to democracy. Biden was going to save democracy.
20:07
Speaker 6: Yeah.
20:09
Speaker 2: I never liked that strategy. I've talked about it before.
20:13
Speaker 2: I think it's right that the Harris campaign never talks
20:16
Speaker 2: about saving democracy because it is not that democracy is
20:19
Speaker 2: not on the line here. It's that democracy is a-
20:21
Speaker 2: It's the language.
20:23
Speaker 1: It's too vague and ethereal.
20:24
Speaker 2: And it just makes you the defender of a political
20:26
Speaker 2: system that most people don't think doesn't work. I appreciate
20:29
Speaker 2: that the Harris campaign has transitioned from democracy to freedom.
20:31
Speaker 2: I think that's much better messaging.
20:34
Speaker 1: It is notable.
20:34
Speaker 2: I went back and looked. In their convention speeches, Biden
20:37
Speaker 2: uses the term democracy four times in one paragraph, and
20:40
Speaker 2: Harris uses it twice in the whole speech.
20:42
Speaker 3: Yeah.
20:43
Speaker 2: And both times are not really in reference to this
20:45
Speaker 2: form of democracy. It's about America being the greatest democracy
20:47
Speaker 2: in the world and something else that's very– and I
20:49
Speaker 2: think the other one is in relation to Ukraine. Having
20:54
Speaker 2: said all of that, I think there is a way
20:56
Speaker 2: to take the freedom message– and use it as an
20:59
Speaker 2: opportunity to talk about how dangerous Donald Trump is. Because
21:03
Speaker 2: the big lie stuff is not good for Trump. And
21:05
Speaker 2: when he's talking about the election, it's not good for him.
21:07
Speaker 2: We've seen that in polling before, because it makes him
21:09
Speaker 2: look like a lunatic who has lost touch with reality,
21:14
Speaker 2: who is dangerously dumb, basically. He's not dangerously strong. He's
21:19
Speaker 2: dangerously stupid. And getting him to talk about it helps.
21:23
Speaker 2: And he was at an event today. And what did
21:25
Speaker 2: he do? We went on talking about how he won
21:27
Speaker 2: the 2020 election. And that is good because there is
21:29
Speaker 2: data for progress polling from January 2024, which shows that
21:33
Speaker 2: majority of voters will not support someone who has pushed
21:35
Speaker 2: the big lie. And obviously, Donald Trump is unique in that,
21:38
Speaker 2: but it just shows that only 30% of Republicans, only
21:42
Speaker 2: about a third of Republicans believe the big lie. The
21:44
Speaker 2: vast majority of the country does not.
21:47
Speaker 1: Also, even if you're going just by you know, polling
21:50
Speaker 1: focus groups, dial tests. According to the Harris campaign, Vance's
21:55
Speaker 1: answer on 2020, when he refused to say that Donald
22:00
Speaker 1: Trump lost the 2020 election, scored the lowest rating of
22:04
Speaker 1: the night on their dial tests, lower even than his
22:08
Speaker 1: abortion answer, which was second place. And then Waltz's answer
22:13
Speaker 1: scored the highest. And, you know, we talked about this
22:17
Speaker 1: on the last pod, but in that CNN's focus group,
22:20
Speaker 1: there was that Michigan undecided voter. And he said he's
22:23
Speaker 1: now decided because of what J.D. Vance said about January
22:28
Speaker 1: 6th and how he wouldn't necessarily certify the election in 2024.
22:33
Speaker 1: And that young man clearly knew about January 6th. He'd
22:37
Speaker 1: had all this information before. It's not like it was
22:39
Speaker 1: a new revelation to him. But what it did is
22:41
Speaker 1: remind him that these people are fucking nuts. And he
22:46
Speaker 1: was undecided before then, and now he's not, right? So like,
22:49
Speaker 1: you know, like I said, I don't think, I think
22:51
Speaker 1: that the way Biden did it with democracy, the language
22:53
Speaker 1: was a little too highfalutin, it was a little too
22:56
Speaker 1: John Meacham, and like the sweep of history kind of stuff.
23:00
Speaker 1: And I think that if she can, like you said,
23:03
Speaker 1: if she can sort of bring it down to earth
23:05
Speaker 1: a little bit and talk about it in terms of
23:08
Speaker 1: like how Donald Trump could affect people's lives, just like
23:12
Speaker 1: how his abortion ban could affect people's lives, just like
23:15
Speaker 1: how him taking away healthcare could affect people's lives, then
23:17
Speaker 1: I think it could be powerful. Okay, before we go,
23:19
Speaker 1: one quick housekeeping note. With a little more than 30
23:23
Speaker 1: days to go, some of us sickos are living and
23:25
Speaker 1: dying with every single poll. If you want to understand
23:28
Speaker 1: what all that means, check out Dan's subscriber-exclusive podcast, Polar Coaster.
23:34
Speaker 1: I think on this week, Dan, you dig into the
23:37
Speaker 1: latest polls of the battleground states, and you try to
23:39
Speaker 1: figure out what's going on with the youth and Latino voters.
23:42
Speaker 2: Well, John... There's nothing that will cause the polar coaster
23:46
Speaker 2: bat signal to go up like a New York Times
23:47
Speaker 2: Siena poll, the battleground states. And so we had the
23:49
Speaker 2: opportunity to talk about the Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Nebraska,
23:54
Speaker 2: two polls that came out. And we did dig into
23:56
Speaker 2: a bunch of really good, interesting polling on the Latino
23:59
Speaker 2: vote and the youth vote that came out, including the
24:01
Speaker 2: Harvard youth poll. So it's a very interesting episode that
24:05
Speaker 2: I think will make you better understand the polls, maybe
24:08
Speaker 2: even feel a little bit better about what the polls
24:10
Speaker 2: say is actually going to happen in the selection.
24:12
Speaker 1: Better, you say. Okay.
24:13
Speaker 2: I mean, it depends how bad you feel now.
24:17
Speaker 1: And if you want more news and analysis designed for
24:19
Speaker 1: the folks who want to beat Donald Trump and MAGA extremists,
24:22
Speaker 1: subscribe to the Message Box newsletter that Dan writes all
24:25
Speaker 1: the time for honest analysis of the latest headlines. I
24:28
Speaker 1: start my morning with it every day. You should, too.
24:32
Speaker 1: And if you want to subscribe to all this, head
24:34
Speaker 1: to Crooked.com slash YesWeDan. That's right. It's Crooked.com slash YesSweetDan,
24:42
Speaker 1: and you can unlock a seven-day free trial for both
24:45
Speaker 1: Friends of the Pod and MessageBox. What a deal.
24:49
Speaker 2: Can you imagine how personally painful it was for me
24:52
Speaker 2: to remind the marketing staff to add the horribly cringeworthy
24:56
Speaker 2: YesSweetDan landing page into this?
24:59
Speaker 1: I love it. I love it. I'm going to get
25:02
Speaker 1: my YesSweetDan t-shirt and wear it to Michigan this weekend.
25:06
Speaker 2: Please don't do that.
25:18
Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 45,000 dock workers at
25:37
Speaker 1: some of America's biggest East Coast ports were on strike.
25:41
Speaker 1: Everyone was worried this could lead to shortages and higher prices.
25:43
Speaker 1: But guess what? There's a deal. They got a, I think,
25:47
Speaker 1: I believe a 60-something percent raise. And then they have
25:51
Speaker 1: paused the strike until January 15th after the election to
25:54
Speaker 1: then go back to talking about, so to see if
25:57
Speaker 1: they can settle other issues, because it wasn't just pay,
26:00
Speaker 1: to settle other issues in the meantime. And so the
26:03
Speaker 1: strike is off.
26:04
Speaker 2: You know what that means? Your bananas are safe.
26:07
Speaker 1: Thank God.
26:08
Speaker 2: That was the big concern.
26:09
Speaker 1: I like bananas. Coffee too. There was a coffee issue.
26:12
Speaker 2: Well, the coffee could wait.
26:13
Speaker 1: And medicine. I mean, more importantly, there was a lot
26:16
Speaker 1: of medicine that came in.
26:17
Speaker 2: But the issue was the bananas, which is they don't
26:19
Speaker 2: last very long. And so, because people had, I did
26:22
Speaker 2: a lot of reading on this to see how bad
26:24
Speaker 2: the impact would be on prices because I'm a lunatic.
26:27
Speaker 2: And it wasn't going to be in the initial period
26:28
Speaker 2: that bad because companies had been pretty smart. They knew
26:30
Speaker 2: it was coming. They ordered stuff at stores, stocked in advance.
26:34
Speaker 2: They routed some things to the West Coast ports, but
26:36
Speaker 2: the big issue was bananas. Because the most bananas come
26:39
Speaker 2: in through the port in Wilmington, Delaware, and you can
26:41
Speaker 2: only keep bananas for so long.
26:43
Speaker 1: That is true. That is true. I did read in
26:46
Speaker 1: the New York Times that after a week, everyone could
26:49
Speaker 1: handle basically a week of a strike. And there was
26:51
Speaker 1: also auto parts coming in, so people weren't going to
26:54
Speaker 1: be able to get their cars. It would have been bad.
26:56
Speaker 1: The longer it dragged on, if it dragged on a
26:58
Speaker 1: week or two weeks, three weeks- shit could have gotten bad.
27:00
Speaker 1: So that's really good.
27:01
Speaker 2: And every day of the strike was the six or
27:03
Speaker 2: seven days. It took like six or seven days to
27:06
Speaker 2: untangle the bottleneck from that day.
27:08
Speaker 1: All right. So we've got the hurricane. We've got the strike.
27:12
Speaker 1: Take that off the list. But we still have Bibi Netanyahu,
27:15
Speaker 1: who seems intent on escalating the war in the Middle
27:19
Speaker 1: East after Iran launched a missile attack on Israel this week.
27:23
Speaker 1: So still quite a tinderbox in the Middle East. Trump
27:25
Speaker 1: campaign clearly sees a political opportunity here based on This
27:30
Speaker 1: new ad that Donald Trump posted yesterday.
27:33
Speaker 6: Like us, China also saw their weakness. So did Putin.
27:38
Speaker 6: Then he invaded Ukraine. Hamas saw Harris anti-Israel statements and
27:43
Speaker 6: will use it as a green light to keep murdering Israelis.
27:47
Speaker 6: And Iran thinks Harris is so incompetent, new intel shows
27:52
Speaker 6: they're trying to help Harris win the election. America doesn't
27:56
Speaker 6: need another TikTok performer. We need the strength that will
28:00
Speaker 6: protect us.
28:00
Speaker 1: I'm Donald J.
28:01
Speaker 2: Trump, and I approve this message.
28:03
Speaker 1: Disagree. I think we need more TikTok performers.
28:07
Speaker 2: I like to pull that question.
28:11
Speaker 1: So I usually don't join the New York Times pylons.
28:15
Speaker 1: But I found their story about this quite annoying. Here's
28:19
Speaker 1: a quote from it. The scenes of striking workers, hurricane
28:22
Speaker 1: devastation in the southeast and missiles over Israel are unwelcome
28:26
Speaker 1: complications to Kamala Harris's case to keep Democrats in power.
28:30
Speaker 1: A reminder that while Ms. Harris has framed her candidacy
28:32
Speaker 1: as a fresh start for the nation, she very much
28:35
Speaker 1: is part of the administration still in charge. What do
28:38
Speaker 1: you think, Dan? Should Kamala Harris have prevented the hurricane,
28:41
Speaker 1: forced the shipping company to pay higher wages and brokered
28:44
Speaker 1: Middle East peace by now?
28:45
Speaker 2: I am confident that the reporters who wrote the story
28:48
Speaker 2: right now are writing a huge story about how Kamala
28:50
Speaker 2: Harris solved the strike.
28:51
Speaker 1: She solved the strike. Yeah, that's it. Fresh start right there.
28:55
Speaker 2: Just to their broader point here, I just got one
28:57
Speaker 2: thing I have to say. So bear with me for
28:58
Speaker 2: one second. Imagine that one of these two presidential candidates
29:04
Speaker 2: had been president during an unforeseen crisis and then shit
29:09
Speaker 2: the bed so badly that a million lives were lost,
29:14
Speaker 2: the economy crashed, and it took us years to dig
29:16
Speaker 2: out of it. Now, imagine that candidate was not named
29:18
Speaker 2: Kamala Harris.
29:20
Speaker 1: Yeah. In fairness, Donald Trump did get some bad press
29:23
Speaker 1: from that. He did, but the point is- And then
29:26
Speaker 1: he lost the election.
29:27
Speaker 2: That's my point, right? The underlying theory here is that
29:31
Speaker 2: a chaotic and dangerous world is better for Donald Trump
29:34
Speaker 2: than Kamala Harris. And I think we ought to at
29:38
Speaker 2: least test that proposition because Donald Trump has recently lost
29:42
Speaker 2: an election because the world became too chaotic for his
29:44
Speaker 2: erratic behavior.
29:46
Speaker 1: But there's also this silliness about how much control do
29:52
Speaker 1: the President of the United States and especially the Vice
29:55
Speaker 1: President of the United States have over all of these issues, right?
29:59
Speaker 1: So The hurricane is probably the craziest to me, right?
30:02
Speaker 1: Like the hurricane, they have no control over the hurricane.
30:06
Speaker 1: They do have control over the response to the hurricane,
30:08
Speaker 1: which so far has had there's been zero complaints from
30:12
Speaker 1: any of the officials on the ground, including the Republican officials.
30:15
Speaker 1: The only people that have complained are Donald Trump and J.D.
30:17
Speaker 1: Vance and, you know, their henchmen. And so the idea
30:22
Speaker 1: that the hurricane could politically damage Kamala Harris and Joe Biden,
30:27
Speaker 1: especially Kamala Harris, is insane to me. And I think
30:31
Speaker 1: that she has handled it very well. Now, Middle East,
30:35
Speaker 1: you can definitely talk about, you know, President Biden's influence
30:39
Speaker 1: over what has happened in the Middle East over the
30:40
Speaker 1: last year and whether he should, you know, condition aid
30:45
Speaker 1: to Israel. But even then, even if he did like
30:49
Speaker 1: this is not a war that U.S. troops are fighting. And,
30:53
Speaker 1: you know, Trump Trump always does this about Ukraine, too, right?
30:56
Speaker 1: Like U.S. troops aren't fighting in this war. You can
30:57
Speaker 1: definitely argue with the Biden administration's foreign policy. Right. And
31:01
Speaker 1: you can criticize it. We have before, too. But like
31:04
Speaker 1: just this this notion that anything bad that happens in
31:07
Speaker 1: the world or in the United States is now also
31:11
Speaker 1: bad for Kamala Harris, regardless of whether she and Joe
31:15
Speaker 1: Biden have caused it, have control over it, can fix it.
31:19
Speaker 1: It's just it just drives me nuts.
31:21
Speaker 2: I think it's fair to wonder. that as things happen
31:25
Speaker 2: in the world and they affect how voters see the world,
31:29
Speaker 2: which candidate that helps or hurts?
31:33
Speaker 1: Yeah.
31:34
Speaker 6: Yeah.
31:34
Speaker 2: The thing that worried me most about this from a
31:37
Speaker 2: political perspective is prices. Both the dock worker strike could
31:41
Speaker 2: have spiked prices for things, and what's happening in the
31:45
Speaker 2: Middle East certainly can spike prices, as we learned today
31:47
Speaker 2: when Joe Biden inarticulately answered a question about Israeli strikes
31:51
Speaker 2: on Iranian oil facilities, and the price of crude oil
31:54
Speaker 2: went up 5%. That could theoretically redound to Donald Trump's benefit,
31:58
Speaker 2: but we do not know. It's not the same thing
32:00
Speaker 2: as saying what is happening is somehow a statement on
32:06
Speaker 2: the failures of Kamala Harris. That's the problem with that
32:09
Speaker 2: Trump ad is I don't think it's believable by saying
32:11
Speaker 2: that they did these things because of Kamala Harris. I
32:13
Speaker 2: don't think voters are going to believe that. That's not
32:15
Speaker 2: what they think the vice president does. They could have
32:17
Speaker 2: said the Biden-Harris administration. They could have said Joe Biden
32:20
Speaker 2: and then said that Kamala Harris would continue those policies.
32:24
Speaker 2: But the way they did the ad was just, as
32:26
Speaker 2: with so many of Trump's ad, there's just a little
32:28
Speaker 2: too much spit on the ball.
32:31
Speaker 1: Yes. And I guess my complaint about the media coverage
32:33
Speaker 1: on this is like, absolutely talk about, it is fair game.
32:38
Speaker 1: We do it all the time to talk about the
32:40
Speaker 1: political impact of national and international events, right? And it
32:44
Speaker 1: is also fair to criticize the administration's policies. but at
32:50
Speaker 1: least educate readers, viewers on what is within their control
32:56
Speaker 1: and what is not within their control. Right, right. And
32:59
Speaker 1: like what is actually done. And then you can talk
33:01
Speaker 1: about sort of the political effects.
33:03
Speaker 2: This is one of my, the greatest, not that this
33:05
Speaker 2: is the point of this podcast, but one of the
33:08
Speaker 2: huge flaws in political journalism is it doesn't try to
33:11
Speaker 2: inform voters about things as so much as it tries
33:14
Speaker 2: to interpret their ignorance for in terms of politics. Instead
33:19
Speaker 2: of telling them what's actually going to happen, we're going
33:20
Speaker 2: to accept the premise that they don't understand, and then
33:23
Speaker 2: we're going to use that to sort of wildly prognosticate
33:26
Speaker 2: about what could possibly happen.
33:28
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, let's talk about what worries us the most here.
33:32
Speaker 1: I mean, for me, I am very concerned about what's
33:36
Speaker 1: happening in the Middle East, primarily because of the devastating
33:39
Speaker 1: loss of life that we have seen over the last
33:42
Speaker 1: year and the idea that there could be an even
33:45
Speaker 1: larger war. that we get drawn into, that other countries
33:49
Speaker 1: get drawn into, that more civilians die. I mean, it's just,
33:52
Speaker 1: we could talk about that forever. We'll leave that to
33:54
Speaker 1: Tommy and Ben on Pod Save the World. But the
33:57
Speaker 1: political impact, I think there are two. One is, like
34:00
Speaker 1: you said, voters go to the polls and they just
34:03
Speaker 1: see chaos all over the world and they want someone
34:07
Speaker 1: to control it and they don't think that anyone is
34:10
Speaker 1: controlling it. And they think that, you know, Donald Trump's
34:12
Speaker 1: tough and strong and maybe he'll take care of it.
34:16
Speaker 1: which I think is nonsense, but that can be a
34:19
Speaker 1: feeling that voters have. And then I think the economic impact, right? Now,
34:23
Speaker 1: I was reading today, I do think that we are,
34:26
Speaker 1: oil prices are less sensitive to disruptions in the Middle
34:31
Speaker 1: East than they used to be, partly because the United
34:35
Speaker 1: States is now producing record amounts of oil and natural gas,
34:39
Speaker 1: places like Brazil too, right? Like, so there's a whole
34:42
Speaker 1: bunch of other countries have stepped up production over the
34:44
Speaker 1: last decade. and diversified their energy sources. This is the
34:48
Speaker 1: ideal here, not just drilling more oil, but actually like, uh,
34:51
Speaker 1: producing more renewable energy that when, you know, if it
34:54
Speaker 1: is just a fight between Israel and Iran, it's going
34:58
Speaker 1: to have minimal impact on oil prices. Now, if Iran
35:01
Speaker 1: starts attacking Saudi Arabia, if, uh, they start, uh, you know,
35:06
Speaker 1: fucking with the shipping of oil, uh, in the Strait
35:09
Speaker 1: of Hormuz, like then, then now we're having, now we're
35:11
Speaker 1: having some, some problems, right? Oil prices, gas prices just
35:15
Speaker 1: rising a little bit, you know, right a couple weeks
35:17
Speaker 1: before an election. Not good. No. Not good.
35:19
Speaker 3: No.
35:20
Speaker 2: Not awesome.
35:21
Speaker 1: So what do you think that Kamala Harris can or
35:25
Speaker 1: should do differently than she's already doing about all of
35:27
Speaker 1: these things? I mean, like we said, I think she
35:30
Speaker 1: did everything right in response to the hurricane. What about
35:34
Speaker 1: anything else?
35:35
Speaker 2: Well, about an hour ago, my first thing I would
35:37
Speaker 2: say is she should solve the strike. And she did that. Check. Congratulations.
35:40
Speaker 1: Well done. She solved the strike, yeah. She should take
35:41
Speaker 1: a victory lap on that.
35:43
Speaker 2: If we are in a situation– it's so hard. Could
35:46
Speaker 2: these things change the election a lot? We've already had
35:49
Speaker 2: criminal convictions, assassination attempts, candidates switches, huge debate wins and losses.
35:54
Speaker 2: They all move the polls like 1.5% on average. And
35:57
Speaker 2: so it's– none of these things are game changers. I
36:02
Speaker 2: think that if people's anxiety about the world, their fear
36:06
Speaker 2: of chaos and insecurity go up because of what's happening–
36:11
Speaker 2: out there. War in the Middle East, hurricanes, I think
36:15
Speaker 2: this would have been massively magnified had the strike continued
36:17
Speaker 2: and people couldn't get some of the things they needed.
36:19
Speaker 2: But if those feelings go up, we do have to
36:23
Speaker 2: focus a little more energy on just how erratic and
36:29
Speaker 2: incompetent and frankly dumb Donald Trump is. He's not the
36:32
Speaker 2: person you want with steering the ship of state during
36:37
Speaker 2: a crisis. We've seen that before. And he has failed
36:40
Speaker 2: miserably at it. And just, and he's way worse than
36:45
Speaker 2: he was four years. He fucked up four years ago
36:46
Speaker 2: and he's declined significantly since then.
36:49
Speaker 1: I think that's an important part of the closing argument here,
36:51
Speaker 1: because I think one feeling that the Harris campaign is
36:57
Speaker 1: probably fighting against with some of these undecided voters or
36:59
Speaker 1: people who haven't decided, you know, whether they're voting at
37:02
Speaker 1: all is, you know what? We all survived four years
37:05
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump and he was an asshole. He was bad.
37:09
Speaker 1: don't think he's the greatest guy, but we all survived it.
37:11
Speaker 1: So is it really going to be that bad? And
37:13
Speaker 1: I think you do have to make the argument that
37:15
Speaker 1: not only has he deteriorated, but the people who will
37:18
Speaker 1: be around him in power are just infinitely worse than
37:22
Speaker 1: the people he had in power.
37:24
Speaker 2: And this is where all of the members of his
37:27
Speaker 2: cabinet and his staff who have abandoned him and are
37:30
Speaker 2: not voting for him this time, some of them are
37:31
Speaker 2: voting for Kamala Harris, some of them are writing in
37:34
Speaker 2: I don't know, the ghost of Spiro Agnew or some
37:36
Speaker 2: shit like that into the ballot. But they're not supporting him,
37:39
Speaker 2: not as vice president, not as chiefs of staff, not
37:42
Speaker 2: as defense secretaries, not as– you can go on down
37:46
Speaker 2: the list. And I think that is a helpful reminder
37:48
Speaker 2: to people in the very last weeks here about that
37:52
Speaker 2: this is not a normal election. Donald Trump is not
37:54
Speaker 2: a normal candidate. This isn't a battle over tax policy
37:56
Speaker 2: and size of government. It is about stopping a very dangerous, dumb,
38:00
Speaker 2: declining person from gaining power again.
38:04
Speaker 1: And also, like, crises are going to happen no matter what, right?
38:07
Speaker 1: There's going to be natural disasters. There's going to be
38:09
Speaker 1: international events. No matter what, the next president's going to
38:12
Speaker 1: deal with this. The question is, who do you want
38:16
Speaker 1: dealing with the crisis? And that's where, to your point,
38:20
Speaker 1: you make the case every time something happens about not
38:23
Speaker 1: only what you would do and what Kamala Harris is
38:25
Speaker 1: doing now, but like what Donald Trump would do and
38:27
Speaker 1: how he would handle crises like this. This is a
38:30
Speaker 1: story on Thursday. two former Trump White House officials told
38:35
Speaker 1: a Politico reporter that they had to show Trump voter
38:39
Speaker 1: data to get him to help California wildfire victims, which
38:44
Speaker 1: he ultimately only did because they showed him that in
38:47
Speaker 1: Orange County, there were actually a lot of Republicans, Republican voters.
38:52
Speaker 1: And when he found out that there's actually a lot
38:53
Speaker 1: of Republicans in Orange County, he said, okay, you can
38:55
Speaker 1: release the funds to help people who are victims of wildfires.
38:58
Speaker 1: And I think it is such a That is a
39:00
Speaker 1: perfect message for Kamala Harris and the Harris campaign, especially
39:03
Speaker 1: on a day where she appears with Liz Cheney and
39:06
Speaker 1: the message is country over party. Donald Trump is someone
39:10
Speaker 1: who is going to help the people who can help
39:14
Speaker 1: him and punish the people who do not support him.
39:17
Speaker 1: That is his view of power. That is his only ideology.
39:20
Speaker 1: It is not conservative. It is not populist. It is only,
39:24
Speaker 1: if you can help me, I'll help you. And if
39:27
Speaker 1: you don't support me, you're fucked. That's it. It's vexing.
39:30
Speaker 2: Narcissism.
39:31
Speaker 1: Yep, that's it. And I think that's how she handles
39:35
Speaker 1: the next couple weeks. So Kamala Harris will undoubtedly be
39:38
Speaker 1: asked about all these events during her big 60 Minutes
39:40
Speaker 1: interview on Monday night. Donald Trump will not be asked
39:43
Speaker 1: about anything because he pulled out of the interview after
39:46
Speaker 1: initially agreeing to it. Won't debate. won't do interviews with
39:49
Speaker 1: people who aren't Trump fans. You know, he's a guy
39:52
Speaker 1: who usually loves attention, even when it's negative. What do
39:55
Speaker 1: you think is going on?
39:56
Speaker 2: I don't know what's going on with Donald Trump. It's
39:58
Speaker 2: pretty clear that his campaign believes to their core that
40:02
Speaker 2: the more Donald Trump speaks, the worse it is for
40:04
Speaker 2: the campaign. They let him do these rallies, and it's
40:07
Speaker 2: really just two hours of insanity, which fortunately for them,
40:11
Speaker 2: the local news kind of translates into something resembling coherence.
40:17
Speaker 2: And they're organizing opportunities, not really message opportunities for the campaign.
40:20
Speaker 2: But being on national TV, and even if you watch
40:23
Speaker 2: these rallies, which we are forced by professional obligation to do,
40:27
Speaker 2: he's bad. I mean, he did this. I watched the
40:30
Speaker 2: whole thing live when he decided to do like a
40:34
Speaker 2: press conference after Iran launched the missiles at Israel. And
40:38
Speaker 2: he could not have been less coherent, like dangerously incoherent.
40:43
Speaker 1: And he was like tired and he seemed like he was.
40:45
Speaker 2: He made no sense. He was stumbling over his words.
40:50
Speaker 2: I mean if Biden had done that when he was
40:53
Speaker 2: in the race, there would have been a huge national story.
40:55
Speaker 2: But we've just– I hate that– you know what? Now
40:59
Speaker 2: we've turned into media critics that we once were and
41:01
Speaker 2: have tried to stop being. But it's just we have
41:04
Speaker 2: accepted a level of incoherence, stupidity, dishonesty, depravity from Trump
41:11
Speaker 2: that just goes unremarked upon now.
41:13
Speaker 1: I am very glad that Kamala Harris had the opportunity
41:16
Speaker 1: at the debate in front of 70 million people to
41:19
Speaker 1: invite everyone to go watch a Donald Trump rally. And
41:22
Speaker 1: I do think any undecided voter, if you have undecided
41:25
Speaker 1: voters in your life, please show them the rally. You
41:28
Speaker 1: can put it on 1.75 so they don't have to
41:30
Speaker 1: sit there for two hours. But if you want to
41:33
Speaker 1: vote for that after the two hours, by all means.
41:37
Speaker 2: If you do that, you will gain one vote for
41:39
Speaker 2: Kamala Harris and lose one friend for yourself. But that's
41:42
Speaker 2: a price for me. Given the stakes of this election,
41:44
Speaker 2: that's a price worth paying.
41:47
Speaker 1: All right. When we come back, my interview with Crooked's
41:50
Speaker 1: newest host, Stacey Abrams. Joining us now, New York Times
42:04
Speaker 1: bestselling author, voting rights activist, and the host of the
42:07
Speaker 1: brand new Crooked show, Assembly Required, Stacey Abrams.
42:11
Speaker 8: Hello. Thanks for having me.
42:13
Speaker 1: Welcome to L.A. Nice to have you here.
42:15
Speaker 9: Glad to be back.
42:17
Speaker 1: So I want to talk to you about voter suppression,
42:19
Speaker 1: but I'd love to start with your thoughts on the
42:21
Speaker 1: 2024 campaign, which is in its final weeks. Last time
42:25
Speaker 1: we chatted was right before the debate that changed everything,
42:29
Speaker 1: I think at a live show in Brooklyn. We now
42:31
Speaker 1: have a new nominee who, at least according to the polls,
42:34
Speaker 1: is more competitive in Georgia than Biden was. But Kamala
42:38
Speaker 1: Harris is still a few points behind Donald Trump, at
42:41
Speaker 1: least according to the polling. How do things feel on
42:43
Speaker 1: the ground in Georgia? And what are you hearing from voters?
42:47
Speaker 8: Georgia feels like a battleground because that's what it is.
42:49
Speaker 8: And I like to remind people that we are a
42:52
Speaker 8: purple state because you actually have to fight there, not
42:55
Speaker 8: because we know who's going to win. And in any fight,
42:57
Speaker 8: someone's going to be up, someone's going to be down.
42:59
Speaker 8: Right now, she's pulling within the margin of error. I
43:02
Speaker 8: will say the energy is really good. The one caveat
43:07
Speaker 8: is that, of course, we are now going to have
43:09
Speaker 8: to grapple with the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. But we
43:14
Speaker 8: have seen the Biden-Harris administration respond, trying to get resources
43:18
Speaker 8: to the communities. And that's important, first and foremost, because
43:22
Speaker 8: of humanitarian reasons, taking care of the people who need
43:25
Speaker 8: to be taken care of right now. This is not
43:27
Speaker 8: the first time that a hurricane has moved through Georgia
43:30
Speaker 8: this close to an election, but it's the first time
43:33
Speaker 8: it's been as widespread. And so what I think we
43:36
Speaker 8: are going to see is that people are going to
43:38
Speaker 8: have to grapple with who do you want to have
43:42
Speaker 8: serve you next? Because recovery from a hurricane, recovery from
43:46
Speaker 8: these kind of extreme events, it doesn't happen overnight and
43:50
Speaker 8: it doesn't happen in a few weeks. All of us
43:54
Speaker 8: are going to be focused on how do we make
43:55
Speaker 8: certain every person is taken care of first. But I
43:59
Speaker 8: do think that there will be a recognition of and
44:04
Speaker 8: certainly a sensitivity to How do we make certain that
44:07
Speaker 8: we're ready for the next storm, the next calamity?
44:11
Speaker 1: In these last few weeks, the vice president and her
44:14
Speaker 1: campaign can warn people about what Trump and Republicans plan
44:18
Speaker 1: to do in a second term on any number of issues.
44:21
Speaker 1: The Harris-Walls campaign can spend time talking about their own
44:23
Speaker 1: plans on any number of important issues. For voters in
44:27
Speaker 1: Georgia who are still on the fence, what do you
44:30
Speaker 1: think they most want to hear from Kamala Harris?
44:32
Speaker 8: I would say that Georgia voters who are on the
44:34
Speaker 8: fence are not deciding between Vice President Harris and former
44:38
Speaker 8: President Trump. They're deciding between voting and not voting. And
44:42
Speaker 8: so what is incumbent upon the candidates is to remind
44:46
Speaker 8: people of the consequence of not voting, that there are
44:50
Speaker 8: real decisions that are going to be made by this
44:53
Speaker 8: next president. We live in a state that until two
44:56
Speaker 8: days ago, was still under a six-week ban and will
44:59
Speaker 8: likely be back under that six-week ban once the state
45:01
Speaker 8: Supreme Court reinstates the abortion ban. That has killed people
45:05
Speaker 8: in Georgia. Two women have died. And so what I
45:08
Speaker 8: think is going to be the most telling part of
45:12
Speaker 8: this process is what do you want next and who
45:17
Speaker 8: do you believe will deliver that? And if you show up,
45:20
Speaker 8: do you want to be a part of making that happen?
45:23
Speaker 1: So on the latest episode of your excellent new podcast,
45:26
Speaker 1: Assembly Required, you talk about voting access with Ari Berman,
45:30
Speaker 1: the national voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones. Let's play
45:33
Speaker 1: a clip from your conversation.
45:35
Speaker 8: Can you talk about what's different about voting access in
45:38
Speaker 8: this upcoming election as compared to 2020? What tactics to
45:43
Speaker 8: restrict voting are new? And what do you recognize from
45:47
Speaker 8: years past?
45:48
Speaker 7: So there's really been a continuum since 2010. of restrictions
45:54
Speaker 7: on access to the ballot. But those got turbocharged by
45:58
Speaker 7: Donald Trump's effort to try to overturn the election. So
46:02
Speaker 7: since 2020, 28 states have passed new laws making it
46:06
Speaker 7: harder to vote in some form or another. And some
46:10
Speaker 7: of them, as you know very well, were direct response
46:13
Speaker 7: to the things Trump said in 2020. From my vantage point,
46:17
Speaker 7: and I think you would agree with this, is that
46:19
Speaker 7: the big thing since 2020 is that We have voter
46:22
Speaker 7: suppression on the front end, but now we also have
46:25
Speaker 7: voter suppression on the back end, meaning that they're not
46:28
Speaker 7: just trying to make it harder to register to vote
46:31
Speaker 7: or cast a ballot. They're making it harder for votes
46:33
Speaker 7: to be counted because that was Trump's ultimate goal in 2020.
46:37
Speaker 7: So that to me is the most alarming tactic we're
46:39
Speaker 7: seeing in places like Georgia. And I think it's the
46:42
Speaker 7: newest tool in their arsenal to try to undermine democracy.
46:47
Speaker 1: So Ari mentioned voter suppression on the back end. meaning
46:50
Speaker 1: you might vote, but your vote might not be counted.
46:52
Speaker 1: Can you talk about what some of those new restrictions
46:54
Speaker 1: look like?
46:56
Speaker 8: So Georgia's been hard at work, making it hard to vote.
47:00
Speaker 8: The two most concerning issues involve the state election board,
47:05
Speaker 8: which is the body that has been running amok with
47:09
Speaker 8: creating new rules that we believe are patently unconstitutional and
47:13
Speaker 8: certainly illegal. One is that it gives the individual member
47:17
Speaker 8: of the county election board, the ability to essentially decertify
47:21
Speaker 8: the election, not count the ballots. The second is that
47:26
Speaker 8: it requires a hand count of every ballot in every precinct.
47:31
Speaker 8: We're talking about a state of 11 million people, roughly
47:34
Speaker 8: 5 million possible voters. The sheer volume of hand counting
47:39
Speaker 8: could delay certification and therefore delay the allocation of electoral
47:44
Speaker 8: college votes. So what they are trying to do is
47:47
Speaker 8: sow chaos. to create these fail points in the system
47:51
Speaker 8: where either one person gets angry and says, or is
47:55
Speaker 8: not angry, is very cold and cool-headedly saying, we're not
47:59
Speaker 8: going to count this precinct. We're not going to count
48:02
Speaker 8: this county, meaning that the Electoral College process grinds to
48:06
Speaker 8: a halt in the state of Georgia. Or we're going
48:08
Speaker 8: to draw out this process and possibly stir up questions
48:14
Speaker 8: of controversy and mismanagement that are not provable, but are
48:19
Speaker 8: so hard to deal with. We missed the deadline. And so,
48:23
Speaker 8: in fact, today, the judge ruled that there are going
48:28
Speaker 8: to be some, basically, that you don't have the right
48:31
Speaker 8: to not certify. In fact, he said, you know, there's
48:35
Speaker 8: a deadline, you're going to get it done. Unfortunately, this
48:38
Speaker 8: case will continue to move through the state courts. We
48:40
Speaker 8: don't know what will happen at the end. But Either
48:43
Speaker 8: of those two things could mean that Georgia's 16 electoral
48:46
Speaker 8: college votes do not have the force and effect that
48:49
Speaker 8: they should have. But more than anything, they undermine confidence
48:53
Speaker 8: in the system and they create, again, chaos in how
48:56
Speaker 8: we understand how elections should run.
48:58
Speaker 1: And the reason that this could really hurt the outcome
49:02
Speaker 1: of the election is there's a deadline by which every
49:06
Speaker 1: state has to certify their election and send their slate
49:09
Speaker 1: of electors to D.C., And if Georgia misses that deadline
49:15
Speaker 1: because they are hand counting every vote or because someone
49:19
Speaker 1: on the count board decided to decertify and people are
49:23
Speaker 1: challenging that, then that means that Georgia's electoral votes will
49:28
Speaker 1: be decided by the House delegation?
49:32
Speaker 8: So there are a couple of scenarios. So one scenario
49:36
Speaker 8: is that they simply don't get counted. that if the
49:41
Speaker 8: certification isn't completed, then you reduce the number of necessary
49:45
Speaker 8: electoral college votes by the number that are not included.
49:48
Speaker 8: And so that shifts the number, the 270 to win
49:50
Speaker 8: no longer becomes the operative number. We don't know what
49:54
Speaker 8: happens because we haven't seen this happen. The last time
49:57
Speaker 8: the electoral college got sent to the House of Representatives
50:01
Speaker 8: was Andrew Jackson. And so, you know, we don't have
50:04
Speaker 8: a good accounting of what that looks like. And you haven't,
50:09
Speaker 8: until that point, you also didn't have the extreme gerrymanders,
50:12
Speaker 8: because the thing to remember, if it goes to the
50:14
Speaker 8: House of Representatives, it's not the number of members, it's
50:17
Speaker 8: the delegations. That means if you live in a state like, oh,
50:21
Speaker 8: I don't know, Wisconsin, where in terms of sheer number,
50:25
Speaker 8: you have more Democrats, but in terms of extreme gerrymander,
50:29
Speaker 8: you have more Republicans. The Republican delegation makes the decision,
50:34
Speaker 8: not the number of Democrats versus Republicans in the House.
50:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think people and a lot of people don't
50:39
Speaker 1: understand this because when we talk about the potential for
50:43
Speaker 1: a 269-269 tie going to the House, say, well, what
50:46
Speaker 1: if Democrats win the House? But it doesn't matter because
50:49
Speaker 1: Republicans control more state delegations in the House. So are
50:54
Speaker 1: the legal challenges to these two new rules aimed at
50:58
Speaker 1: just declaring the rules unconstitutional altogether? Yeah.
51:02
Speaker 8: So we've had the strange bedfellows moment where Democrats have
51:04
Speaker 8: sued and Republicans have sued both to mitigate. It will
51:09
Speaker 8: not be shocking to anyone that the Republicans are trying
51:11
Speaker 8: to mitigate in a different way. They're like, they should
51:14
Speaker 8: be able to do all of it, but let some
51:15
Speaker 8: of it go through. Democrats are saying it's patently and
51:18
Speaker 8: facially unlawful. So strike down what they've done, in part
51:21
Speaker 8: because the process they used was unlawful. The governor has
51:25
Speaker 8: the responsibility that he is refusing to meet. which is
51:29
Speaker 8: to investigate the failure to abide by Georgia's Open Meetings Act.
51:34
Speaker 8: The first set of rules, the ones that changed to concertify,
51:37
Speaker 8: happened with these called meetings that did not abide by
51:40
Speaker 8: any of the rules in the state of Georgia. The
51:43
Speaker 8: Republican attorney general said, yeah, it's bad and we don't
51:46
Speaker 8: like it, but the governor doesn't have to do anything
51:48
Speaker 8: about it. And the governor has hidden underneath that protective
51:52
Speaker 8: cover of cowardice. And so they haven't done anything. My
51:56
Speaker 8: issue is this. It does not matter who does it.
52:01
Speaker 8: When you undermine democracy, you undermine it for everyone. And
52:06
Speaker 8: these laws are giving a permission structure for the rules
52:10
Speaker 8: to change in the middle of the game, in the
52:13
Speaker 8: middle of the process. And no one knows what it means.
52:16
Speaker 8: There's a phrase that they're using in some of these
52:18
Speaker 8: rules called reasonable inquiry, but they don't describe what's reasonable
52:21
Speaker 8: or what the inquiry looks like. And it's that absence
52:24
Speaker 8: of certitude that then creates more concern and more worry
52:31
Speaker 8: and undermines the confidence in the system. And that's why
52:33
Speaker 8: I say it's designed to sow chaos.
52:35
Speaker 1: So that's Georgia.
52:37
Speaker 9: Yes.
52:39
Speaker 1: Where else have there been new voting restrictions that concern you?
52:45
Speaker 2: Arizona.
52:46
Speaker 8: I was actually recently there working with Native American voters.
52:50
Speaker 8: They are deeply concerned because One of the new rules
52:54
Speaker 8: in Arizona requires proof of citizenship, which seems innocuous, except
52:59
Speaker 8: that to prove citizenship does not simply mean that you
53:04
Speaker 8: have your social security card. Every state that is trying
53:07
Speaker 8: to make that a thing has a different set of rules.
53:09
Speaker 8: And that means you are sowing, again, lack of confidence,
53:13
Speaker 8: but also confusion in the system. In addition, in Arizona...
53:17
Speaker 8: It's the difference between whether you get a state ballot,
53:19
Speaker 8: meaning you can affect the state legislature, which actually changes
53:22
Speaker 8: a lot of your life, or you can only vote
53:24
Speaker 8: on the federal slate. That has been winding its way
53:29
Speaker 8: through the courts, and the issue becomes who can participate. Texas,
53:34
Speaker 8: as always, is a provocateur of stupid. And so they
53:39
Speaker 8: have decided to make, I mean, they've been doing massive purges.
53:43
Speaker 8: They require anyone registering someone to vote to register independently
53:47
Speaker 8: in each county. It's a lot of counties. And so
53:49
Speaker 8: if you are a voter registration effort, you don't simply
53:52
Speaker 8: get to register. You have to register each time in
53:54
Speaker 8: each county. And if you register someone without the appropriate
53:59
Speaker 8: permissions in that county, that registration can be thrown out
54:01
Speaker 8: and you can be fined. Florida has done something similar.
54:07
Speaker 8: North Carolina, they have a new voter ID law. And
54:10
Speaker 8: That should be of deep concern, especially given how hard
54:13
Speaker 8: hit North Carolina was by the hurricanes. And so across
54:18
Speaker 8: the country, once again, we have states where these will
54:21
Speaker 8: be the deciding votes. And the people who simply want
54:25
Speaker 8: to participate in our democracy are facing these hurdles not
54:30
Speaker 8: born of any real protective need. It's born entirely of
54:34
Speaker 8: an attempt to stop them from being hurt.
54:37
Speaker 1: Right. I think even on the citizenship thing, people don't
54:40
Speaker 1: understand that like a lot of people don't have their
54:42
Speaker 1: birth certificate or have their passport or like maybe they
54:47
Speaker 1: know their social security number, but they don't have their
54:49
Speaker 1: social security card and like just requiring all that documentation
54:52
Speaker 1: from a lot of people who aren't necessarily inclined to
54:56
Speaker 1: be like maybe they're voting for the first time, you know?
54:59
Speaker 8: Or they can't afford it. I mean, part of what
55:02
Speaker 8: we get used to, if you have all of these things,
55:05
Speaker 8: you forget how hard it is to get these things.
55:08
Speaker 8: if you are a homeless vet, you may not have
55:12
Speaker 8: all of your paperwork with you. Well, in Georgia, you
55:15
Speaker 8: have to go to the county where you want to
55:18
Speaker 8: register and have your registration authorized there, assuming that you
55:23
Speaker 8: live close enough to the county office to do so.
55:25
Speaker 8: But if you don't own a car, it may not
55:28
Speaker 8: be possible for you to make your way there. And
55:31
Speaker 8: that's presuming you live in a county with public transportation.
55:34
Speaker 8: Most Americans do not have passports. And Every time we
55:39
Speaker 8: see these laws, the logic of the law seems unassailable.
55:44
Speaker 8: Of course only citizenship vote. Of course you should have ID.
55:47
Speaker 8: It is never a question of the intent. It's a
55:49
Speaker 8: question of the process. And these rules are designed to
55:53
Speaker 8: make the process so complicated that to the untrained eye
55:58
Speaker 8: it seems impossible.
56:00
Speaker 2: Innocuous.
56:01
Speaker 8: But to the person trying to navigate it, it seems
56:04
Speaker 8: labyrinthine and impossible. And it is the sheer exhaustion that
56:08
Speaker 8: often convinces voters not to show up, not because they
56:11
Speaker 8: didn't want to, not because they don't believe in their citizenship,
56:14
Speaker 8: but because they don't have the time or the resources
56:17
Speaker 8: to navigate all of the hurdles that are being put
56:20
Speaker 8: in place for their citizenship to be made real.
56:23
Speaker 1: Yeah. And they're just struggling to put food on their
56:25
Speaker 1: family's table at the time. I know it hasn't been
56:27
Speaker 1: all bad news. It hasn't. On the voting rights front
56:30
Speaker 1: since 2020. What are some examples of places that have
56:33
Speaker 1: expanded access?
56:34
Speaker 8: Nevada's done a great job. They've done a fantastic job
56:37
Speaker 8: of starting to expand and give more people access. Pennsylvania
56:40
Speaker 8: is doing better. They're a state to watch. Oregon and
56:47
Speaker 8: Washington State are just show-offs.
56:49
Speaker 2: They do great.
56:51
Speaker 8: Washington, I think they send you an engraved invitation. They
56:55
Speaker 8: send you cutlery.
56:56
Speaker 1: They really want you to vote. Nice. I like that.
57:00
Speaker 8: New Jersey did some good expansion. So did New York.
57:03
Speaker 8: And the thing to remember is that sometimes voter suppression
57:06
Speaker 8: is benign. It is not that they are actively working
57:09
Speaker 8: against you. It's just they're not doing what they can
57:11
Speaker 8: to make it easier. We need more states that do
57:14
Speaker 8: automatic voter registration. We need more states that do same-day registration.
57:18
Speaker 8: People move. The rent is too high, and therefore you
57:22
Speaker 8: may cross a county line and not realize it until
57:25
Speaker 8: you show up to cast your new ballot, and they
57:28
Speaker 8: tell you you can't. So we need more states to
57:30
Speaker 8: follow the lead of making it easier for our citizens
57:33
Speaker 8: to actually participate in their elections.
57:36
Speaker 1: To your point that one of the more pernicious effects
57:39
Speaker 1: of voter suppression is people thinking, if I'm going to
57:42
Speaker 1: be turned away at the polls, or if I'm not
57:44
Speaker 1: sure my vote's going to count, maybe it's just not
57:47
Speaker 1: worth it. What are some steps people can take to
57:50
Speaker 1: make sure their voices are heard in this election?
57:53
Speaker 8: So start by going to vote.gov. Verify your vote. Verify
57:57
Speaker 8: that you were registered. Verify that you're not in one
58:00
Speaker 8: of the states that has indulged in massive purges. Georgia,
58:03
Speaker 8: of course, being a state that likes to purge. In fact,
58:06
Speaker 8: there was a really good story recently that when Kamala
58:09
Speaker 8: Harris showed up for her rally on July 30th, there
58:12
Speaker 8: are thousands who got re-registered who'd been purged from the
58:15
Speaker 8: rolls and said, no, I'm coming back. I want to
58:17
Speaker 8: make sure I get heard this time. So join them.
58:19
Speaker 8: Make sure that you verify that you are registered to vote.
58:23
Speaker 8: The second is then encourage someone you know to verify.
58:27
Speaker 8: This only works if we have the shared system of resistance.
58:31
Speaker 8: And we have to resist the attempt to diminish our votes.
58:35
Speaker 8: So the person you know who you know is going
58:37
Speaker 8: to stick with it, great. Call the person you don't know,
58:40
Speaker 8: the person who is always a little waffly when you
58:44
Speaker 8: ask how they're going to vote or if they're going
58:45
Speaker 8: to vote. And just remind them. The next thing is
58:48
Speaker 8: then make a plan to vote. It sounds, again, very basic.
58:53
Speaker 8: But when you plan to vote, you actually have to
58:54
Speaker 8: think through the steps, especially in the places that have
58:57
Speaker 8: been hit by the hurricane. Making a plan to vote
59:00
Speaker 8: means how do you navigate things that you just did
59:02
Speaker 8: not imagine would be an issue, like the polling place
59:05
Speaker 8: where you were used to casting your ballot no longer exists.
59:08
Speaker 8: Let's find out. So go to vote.gov and make sure
59:12
Speaker 8: you know what the rules are in your state. Places
59:15
Speaker 8: like North Carolina have rules for natural disasters. Other states
59:18
Speaker 8: may not know what the rules are. And then lastly, volunteer.
59:23
Speaker 8: If you've solved all the problems for yourself, help other people.
59:26
Speaker 8: So there is this wonderful organization called Fair Fight.
59:29
Speaker 1: Oh, I've heard of it. Thank you.
59:33
Speaker 8: That's doing amazing work on volunteering. So go to fairfight.com
59:37
Speaker 8: slash LFGV and let's freaking go volunteer. And it's a
59:43
Speaker 8: great place to sign up to help others who may
59:45
Speaker 8: not know what the rules are for them. They may
59:47
Speaker 8: not know how to navigate the difficulties. But we've got
59:51
Speaker 8: to remember that if we are willing to verify and
59:53
Speaker 8: then volunteer to then we will vote ourselves to victory.
59:56
Speaker 1: I like that. Any last parting advice for our anxious
1:00:01
Speaker 1: listeners who've been riding the polar coaster in these final weeks?
1:00:04
Speaker 8: You and I've had this conversation so many times. Look,
1:00:08
Speaker 8: polls are a snapshot of where we are. They are
1:00:10
Speaker 8: not a prediction of where we end up, but they
1:00:12
Speaker 8: tell us the work we have to do. So if
1:00:15
Speaker 8: you don't like the polls, what are you doing to
1:00:17
Speaker 8: change the outcome? What are you doing to touch more people,
1:00:20
Speaker 8: to call more people, to engage more people, And stop
1:00:24
Speaker 8: spreading your worry.
1:00:27
Speaker 9: Stop spreading your worry.
1:00:29
Speaker 1: Spread your ambition.
1:00:30
Speaker 8: Your ambition for women to have the right to control
1:00:33
Speaker 8: their bodies, for children to not have to go to
1:00:35
Speaker 8: school in fear, for us to have a democracy when
1:00:38
Speaker 8: this is all over. If we spread that ambition and
1:00:42
Speaker 8: we do the work of voting, then we get the
1:00:44
Speaker 8: country we need to have.
1:00:46
Speaker 1: Spread your ambition, not your worry. I love that. That's great.
1:00:49
Speaker 1: Stacey Abrams, thanks as always for joining Pod Save America. Everyone,
1:00:52
Speaker 1: check out Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams. Fantastic new episode
1:00:56
Speaker 1: just dropped with Ari Berman. And come back again soon. Absolutely.
1:01:01
Speaker 8: Thanks for having me.
1:01:07
Speaker 1: So to end the show today, we also have a
1:01:09
Speaker 1: preview from our latest episode of Inside 2024, one of
1:01:12
Speaker 1: our subscriber shows where us hacks talk about what it's
1:01:15
Speaker 1: like to work on a campaign. In this episode, Alyssa
1:01:18
Speaker 1: Mastromonaco and I talk about rallies, why campaigns do them,
1:01:22
Speaker 1: whether they still matter. And we talk about some of
1:01:24
Speaker 1: our favorite Obama rallies that still make Alyssa tear up.
1:01:28
Speaker 2: This was an awesome episode. This was a great episode.
1:01:30
Speaker 1: It was fun. It was so fun doing it with Alyssa.
1:01:32
Speaker 1: And Caroline Reston, our producer, joined as well. So check
1:01:35
Speaker 1: out the preview. And if you want to get access
1:01:37
Speaker 1: to Inside 2024, Polar Coaster, a lot of other great insider,
1:01:41
Speaker 1: behind-the-scenes Crooked content, subscribe to Friends of the Pod by
1:01:45
Speaker 1: going to crooked.com slash friends or signing up through Apple Podcasts.
1:01:48
Speaker 1: And now, here's Inside 2024. Everything right now in the campaign,
1:01:53
Speaker 1: at least especially for the Harris campaign, is about capturing
1:01:56
Speaker 1: people's attention and trying to capture people's attention, which is
1:01:59
Speaker 1: much harder now than it was when we did a
1:02:01
Speaker 1: 48-hour campaign stunt in 2012 that actually did get a
1:02:04
Speaker 1: lot of attention. Now it's almost impossible to get people's attention.
1:02:08
Speaker 1: The debate did that. She kicked ass at the debate.
1:02:12
Speaker 1: Her polls went up. We're already seeing some of the
1:02:15
Speaker 1: bounce she got from the debate fade a little bit
1:02:17
Speaker 1: in the polls, which is why I think the Harris
1:02:20
Speaker 1: campaign wants another debate. Trump is ducking the second debate.
1:02:25
Speaker 1: If they can't get him to do a second debate,
1:02:28
Speaker 1: I think that in those final weeks of the campaign
1:02:31
Speaker 1: in October, the Harris campaign is not just going to
1:02:35
Speaker 1: do rallies like they've been doing and just running television
1:02:38
Speaker 1: ads and that's that. They're going to want to come
1:02:41
Speaker 1: up with very creative ways to break through the noise
1:02:45
Speaker 1: and capture people's attention since they don't have another debate.
1:02:49
Speaker 1: I think it's really hard to figure out what an
1:02:52
Speaker 1: event would be like or interview or anything that would
1:02:55
Speaker 1: break through the noise, capture people's attention. There is no
1:02:58
Speaker 1: more monoculture anymore. Everyone's getting their news from different spots.
1:03:02
Speaker 1: So like people need to brainstorm on this. If you
1:03:04
Speaker 1: guys have any ideas.
1:03:06
Speaker 5: I just had an idea.
1:03:07
Speaker 1: Oh, Caroline's got one idea.
1:03:08
Speaker 2: What?
1:03:09
Speaker 5: Presidential speed dating.
1:03:14
Speaker 9: She's married.
1:03:15
Speaker 5: No, not for like actually like dating, but you get
1:03:18
Speaker 5: a bunch of like people. I don't know, people who
1:03:21
Speaker 5: go to a rally, people who are interested. You line
1:03:24
Speaker 5: them up with the candidate and like other staff members
1:03:27
Speaker 5: and they like round robin get to talk to them
1:03:29
Speaker 5: for two minutes each.
1:03:32
Speaker 9: Caroline, who did you learn round robin from? Miss Mastromonica. Misses,
1:03:37
Speaker 9: excuse me.
1:03:39
Speaker 1: Subscribers, friends of the pod, Discord users, send us ideas
1:03:42
Speaker 1: if you have them. That wasn't a good one? No, no,
1:03:44
Speaker 1: I'm just saying see if you can beat Caroline's idea.
1:03:49
Speaker 10: I also forgot that we took Barack Obama to like
1:03:52
Speaker 10: the Middle East and Europe at the end of July
1:03:55
Speaker 10: in 2008.
1:03:55
Speaker 9: We were all about trying to break through.
1:03:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that was when it was easier.
1:03:59
Speaker 5: Is that considered a creative move?
1:04:01
Speaker 1: What?
1:04:02
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
1:04:02
Speaker 5: To go to the Middle East in the middle, at
1:04:04
Speaker 5: the end of your campaign?
1:04:05
Speaker 1: He did a, yeah, we went to Brandenburg Gate in
1:04:08
Speaker 1: Germany and had a crowd of how many people?
1:04:12
Speaker 9: It's like 250,000.
1:04:13
Speaker 1: 250,000 people to show that like, this was the Bush years,
1:04:17
Speaker 1: the world hated us because of Iraq, right? And so
1:04:21
Speaker 1: this was to show that like, look, if we elect
1:04:24
Speaker 1: this new leader, the world will once again love America.
1:04:28
Speaker 1: But it was a high wire act because he was
1:04:30
Speaker 1: not the president.
1:04:31
Speaker 9: He wasn't the president, so we had no embassy support.
1:04:33
Speaker 1: We had no embassy support. A lot of the things
1:04:35
Speaker 1: you get when you're president, Alyssa just basically planned it herself.
1:04:39
Speaker 9: Did you both get to go?
1:04:40
Speaker 1: I did not.
1:04:41
Speaker 7: I did.
1:04:42
Speaker 1: I mean, Alyssa went.
1:04:43
Speaker 9: Rhodes went, right?
1:04:45
Speaker 1: Rhodes went.
1:04:46
Speaker 9: Rhodes went, yeah.
1:04:46
Speaker 1: I was back home.
1:04:49
Speaker 9: That was.
1:04:50
Speaker 10: That was, it was like five countries, seven countries, something
1:04:54
Speaker 10: like that in a couple days.
1:04:56
Speaker 9: It was, it was crazy.
1:04:58
Speaker 10: We had to prove, we had to prove to America
1:05:00
Speaker 10: that we could perform on a world stage. And then
1:05:02
Speaker 10: we came back and John McCain had those good superstar
1:05:06
Speaker 10: ads where he compared Barack Obama to Paris Hilton because
1:05:09
Speaker 10: we got so many people in Germany. But Fabs, do
1:05:12
Speaker 10: you also like, just to give people a sense of
1:05:15
Speaker 10: like the choices that you make, So it was not
1:05:18
Speaker 10: that far before the election. It was sometime in October
1:05:21
Speaker 10: that we heard– Barack Obama's sister called me to tell
1:05:25
Speaker 10: me that his grandmother did not have much time left.
1:05:31
Speaker 10: And Plouffe said to me, he's like, listen, if I
1:05:35
Speaker 10: talk to him, he's not.
1:05:36
Speaker 9: Going to want to go. Like, think about it. This
1:05:38
Speaker 9: is the woman the most important in his life.
1:05:40
Speaker 10: And he really struggled with, like, letting us down by
1:05:43
Speaker 10: saying– yes, I want to take, like, two days off
1:05:46
Speaker 10: the campaign trail and go to Hawaii.
1:05:49
Speaker 9: And I always think about what a hard.
1:05:51
Speaker 10: Decision that felt like for him at the time and, like,
1:05:54
Speaker 10: how as a real adult now that makes me sad
1:05:56
Speaker 10: because it was such the right thing to do because
1:05:58
Speaker 10: she passed away just a couple days before the election.
1:06:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, and also, I mean, first of all, yeah, she was, like,
1:06:05
Speaker 1: another mother to him, right? Yes. Because she raised him
1:06:09
Speaker 1: and his mother was working, too. Like, basically, she raised–
1:06:14
Speaker 1: His grandmother, his grandfather, and his mother raised him. So
1:06:18
Speaker 1: he was very, very close. But I was thinking about it. Like,
1:06:21
Speaker 1: if it was now... It'd be a no-brainer. It would
1:06:24
Speaker 1: be a no-brainer, partly because... You know, there's just so
1:06:28
Speaker 1: many other ways to get in people's faces. Right. If
1:06:30
Speaker 1: you're a candidate.
1:06:31
Speaker 9: Back then, it didn't feel that way.
1:06:32
Speaker 1: It didn't feel that way, especially towards the end. It
1:06:35
Speaker 1: felt like a big deal that he was going to
1:06:36
Speaker 1: leave the trail for a couple days. But now.
1:06:38
Speaker 5: I feel like now it'll help you. Like, look, what
1:06:40
Speaker 5: a sympathetic, normal person who cares about a parental figure.
1:06:43
Speaker 1: Donald Trump was sat in court for a month. Didn't
1:06:45
Speaker 1: do much.
1:06:47
Speaker 9: He's still not.
1:06:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, right. He's still not. He's still just hanging out
1:06:50
Speaker 1: in Mar-a-Lago half the day. So, yeah, I don't I
1:06:52
Speaker 1: think that was it's interesting that that changed.
1:06:55
Speaker 9: But Fav, so here's my question. So we've talked about
1:06:57
Speaker 9: the rallies.
1:06:59
Speaker 10: But part of what I loved about this episode that
1:07:01
Speaker 10: sometimes I think we forget because we were such a team.
1:07:05
Speaker 10: You know, it's like people didn't sit around taking credit
1:07:07
Speaker 10: for whatever their contribution was to whatever happened that day.
1:07:12
Speaker 10: And I was watching so many of Barack Obama's speeches.
1:07:15
Speaker 10: And Favs, all the ones I was watching, you fucking wrote.
1:07:19
Speaker 10: And I'm like crying and I'm tearing up. And I'm like,
1:07:22
Speaker 10: this is some like, these are like, So West Wing,
1:07:26
Speaker 10: they're like better than the Sorkin crescendos of speeches that
1:07:29
Speaker 10: he wrote. And I want to know, how do you,
1:07:33
Speaker 10: so at this point, how are you looking at speeches
1:07:37
Speaker 10: that you're giving Obama? Because also, unlike someone like Trump,
1:07:40
Speaker 10: he didn't just take one, you know, 12 minute speech
1:07:43
Speaker 10: and just give it over and over again.
1:07:45
Speaker 9: It was always different.
1:07:46
Speaker 10: So how did you, what makes a great, a rally
1:07:49
Speaker 10: speech great?
1:07:50
Speaker 9: And like, how did you do it?
1:07:53
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, thank you. You know, had Rhodes
1:07:57
Speaker 1: helped me and Frankel and Cody and Sarah, the whole crew,
1:08:02
Speaker 1: and Barack Obama, of course. But anyway, first of all,
1:08:06
Speaker 1: it took us a long time, as you know, to
1:08:09
Speaker 1: get a stump speech. Stump speech is like your rally
1:08:12
Speaker 1: speech that was good, meaning most of 2007 when we
1:08:17
Speaker 1: were campaigning, his stump speech or his rally speech was
1:08:20
Speaker 1: like 45 minutes and he would like talk about policy
1:08:24
Speaker 1: details and then like we'd all get in trouble because
1:08:26
Speaker 1: it was not great. And he knew it wasn't great
1:08:28
Speaker 1: and we knew it wasn't great. And we were just,
1:08:30
Speaker 1: it was really hard. So starting from like the fall
1:08:33
Speaker 1: of 2007, a couple months before the Iowa caucuses, he
1:08:36
Speaker 1: did the Iowa Jefferson Jackson dinner speech. That was the
1:08:38
Speaker 1: first time. And he had to memorize that speech because
1:08:40
Speaker 1: you couldn't read a prompter.
1:08:42
Speaker 9: That was such a good spot.
1:08:43
Speaker 1: We got like a good 10 to 12 minute speech
1:08:47
Speaker 1: that he had memorized. And that became like the basis
1:08:49
Speaker 1: for our stump speech. And then that of course evolved.
1:08:52
Speaker 1: I mean, that, that became the basis for like when
1:08:55
Speaker 1: he won Iowa, there was like the Iowa night victory speech.
1:08:59
Speaker 1: There was the, new hampshire speech where he actually lost
1:09:02
Speaker 1: but that was like the yes we can speech so
1:09:04
Speaker 1: we had this series of like primary night speeches and
1:09:08
Speaker 1: then we ended up into the and then of course
1:09:10
Speaker 1: it changed again by the general but basically we The
1:09:14
Speaker 1: key to a good rally speech is, obviously, you want
1:09:18
Speaker 1: applause lines, right? And you want, you know, applause lines like,
1:09:22
Speaker 1: that's why I'm running for president. Big applause. That's what
1:09:24
Speaker 1: we believe. Big applause, right? Like, that's why we're going
1:09:27
Speaker 1: to create good jobs here in the United States of America.
1:09:30
Speaker 5: Woo!
1:09:30
Speaker 1: Everyone cheers. But you do not just want a rally
1:09:34
Speaker 1: speech to be a collection of applause lines. You want
1:09:38
Speaker 1: it to tell a story. And good stories have a beginning,
1:09:42
Speaker 1: a middle, and an end. Um, you want it to
1:09:45
Speaker 1: be 10 to 15 minutes. That's it. You don't want
1:09:49
Speaker 1: it to be super long, or at least you want to,
1:09:51
Speaker 1: you want to have it written to be 10 to
1:09:53
Speaker 1: 15 minutes, knowing that the candidate's going to ad lib.
1:09:56
Speaker 1: So yeah. And you want to tell a story. You
1:09:58
Speaker 1: want to talk about who you are. Uh, you want
1:10:02
Speaker 1: to talk about the problems in the country, what you're
1:10:04
Speaker 1: going to do to solve them. And then also sort
1:10:06
Speaker 1: of like wrap it up in a, like, here's what
1:10:09
Speaker 1: works in a, in a rally speech. Um, uh, Unity, hope, patriotism, populism.
1:10:17
Speaker 1: Those are like the four ingredients to a really good
1:10:21
Speaker 1: Democratic rally speech. And then you've got to make it
1:10:24
Speaker 1: your own and then you've got to change it up
1:10:25
Speaker 1: depending on what's in the news. And so by the
1:10:29
Speaker 1: end of a campaign at this point, so John McCain
1:10:33
Speaker 1: would say something or Sarah Palin would say something and
1:10:35
Speaker 1: it would make news and then Obama would respond to
1:10:38
Speaker 1: it in his speech. And so you'd have your typical
1:10:40
Speaker 1: stump speech that you'd give in a rally. but we
1:10:44
Speaker 1: would call them either a topper. You'd top the speech
1:10:46
Speaker 1: with something new to respond to your opponent or an
1:10:50
Speaker 1: insert or something would happen in the news that you'd
1:10:53
Speaker 1: respond to and you'd try to have a funny line
1:10:56
Speaker 1: that was quotable that would get the crowd going, but
1:10:58
Speaker 1: that's sort of how you would change the rally speech
1:11:03
Speaker 1: or modify it with each new event and keep everything
1:11:06
Speaker 1: fresh because the news is going to cover your speeches
1:11:10
Speaker 1: and you want them to cover something somewhat new because
1:11:14
Speaker 1: if it's the same shit over and over and over again,
1:11:17
Speaker 1: like people are just going to get bored with it.
1:11:24
Speaker 1: That's our show for today. Thanks to Stacey Abrams for
1:11:26
Speaker 1: stopping by. Sign up for Friends of the Pod at crooked.com
1:11:29
Speaker 1: slash friends. And we'll hopefully see some of you in
1:11:33
Speaker 1: Ann Arbor. We're going to be there Saturday night. We're
1:11:35
Speaker 1: going to be in Philly Sunday night. Those pods will
1:11:37
Speaker 1: be in your feed afterwards. And I think we'll be
1:11:40
Speaker 1: back for another normal pod on Wednesday. Bye, everyone. If
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Speaker 1: is a Cricket Media production. Our producer is David Toledo.
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Speaker 1: Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farah Safari. Reid
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Speaker 1: executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
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