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Harris Denounces Trump's Pet-Eating Conspiracy · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: And I'm Adisu Demissi.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: We are here for a rare all Bay Area show.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: We are in person in Oakland.
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: And we are getting Bay Area weather today. I have
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: a sweatshirt on for the first time in months.
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  Speaker 2: It is 60 degrees and rainy for the first time.
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  Speaker 3: It is.
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  Speaker 2: Fall has come to the Bay Area. It is.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: It feels like election time, frankly.
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  Speaker 2: Hey, it's fall. Actually, today's what?
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  Speaker 1: I think it is.
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  Speaker 2: I guess one day left, technically, of summer. Last day
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: of summer with everybody here.
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  Speaker 4: Okay.
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  Speaker 1: Adiso, it's always great to have you on the show,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: but this is an especially good time to do so
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: because we are less than 50 days to go. And
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  Speaker 1: it seems like the right moment where we can get
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: together and talk about where the race stands, how things
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: are going, what the polls say, and what the electoral
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  Speaker 1: map looks like. But let's start with the news. Now
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: that the debate has come and gone, and it doesn't
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  Speaker 1: feel like there's going to be another one, the Harris
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: campaign is trying its next best option to catch voters'
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: attention and drive contrast. As the New York Times noted
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: on Tuesday, that doesn't necessarily mean a bunch of interviews
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  Speaker 1: with networks, or at least as many interviews as the
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  Speaker 1: news networks would like. The campaign's focus is going to
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  Speaker 1: be more on local media and other outlets that reach
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: key target demographics, like Harris' interview on Tuesday with reporters
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: from the National Association of Black Journalists in Philadelphia. Let's
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: take a listen to see.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: How it went.
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  Speaker 5: We had been a lot of work to do to
• 1:36
  Speaker 5: clean up a mess. As of today, we have created
• 1:39
  Speaker 5: over 16 million new jobs, over 800,000 new manufacturing jobs.
• 1:45
  Speaker 5: We have the lowest black unemployment rate in the generations.
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  Speaker 5: Is the price of groceries still too high?
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  Speaker 3: Yes.
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  Speaker 5: Do we have more work to do?
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  Speaker 4: Yes.
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  Speaker 5: I don't know if anyone here has heard most recently
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  Speaker 5: the stories out of Georgia. Tragic story about a young
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  Speaker 5: woman who died because it appears the people who should
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  Speaker 5: have given her health care were afraid they'd be criminalized
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  Speaker 5: after the Dobbs decision came down. I'm working to earn
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  Speaker 5: the vote. not assuming I'm going to have it because
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  Speaker 5: I am black, but because the policies and the perspectives
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  Speaker 5: I have.
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  Speaker 3: Why is joy important to you to insert into this election?
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  Speaker 3: And what do you make of Republicans using that as
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  Speaker 3: a way to suggest that you're not a serious candidate?
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  Speaker 5: Well, sometimes I think, and I'll say to whoever the
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  Speaker 5: young people are who are watching this, There are some
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  Speaker 5: times when your adversaries will try and turn your strength
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  Speaker 5: into a weakness. Don't you let them, don't you let them.
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  Speaker 1: How do you think she did?
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  Speaker 2: I think it was phenomenally good on both substance and,
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  Speaker 2: and politics. You know, the, the contrast with Trump from
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: two months ago was pretty, uh, clear to anybody who had, uh,
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  Speaker 2: has eyes and has ears, but she also answered, um,
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  Speaker 2: the questions I think directly. and even made a little news.
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  Speaker 2: I don't think we played the clip about the 7%
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  Speaker 2: childcare cap that she proposed, but that was news at
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  Speaker 2: least to me. But I think what's most important is
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  Speaker 2: what she said there at the end. She realizes she
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  Speaker 2: has to earn everybody's vote. Even though she's black, she
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  Speaker 2: has to earn black people's vote. Even though she's a woman,
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  Speaker 2: she has to earn women's votes. And kudos to her
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  Speaker 2: for saying it out loud, naming the issue directly and
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  Speaker 2: acknowledging that she's got work to do because, you know,
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  Speaker 2: The case that she made yesterday, economically, I think, was
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  Speaker 2: as forceful as I've seen her do it since that
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  Speaker 2: North Carolina speech right before the convention. And to the
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  Speaker 2: extent there's work to do with black voters, and I
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  Speaker 2: think all voters, it largely has to do with persuading
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  Speaker 2: people that she's going to fight for them and their pocketbook.
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  Speaker 2: And so I think it was pretty much a home run.
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  Speaker 2: And she continues to walk that tightrope and hit home
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  Speaker 2: runs every time she's out there 47 more days. Let's
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  Speaker 2: see if she can keep doing it.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought she did really well. It's a really
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  Speaker 1: hard format. These are three very good journalists. There's, you're
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  Speaker 1: just in a room. Like if you watch the video,
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  Speaker 1: not a lot of reaction, not a lot of reaction.
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  Speaker 1: There's not really, there's not an audience cheering. There's one
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  Speaker 1: on three is a tough dynamic. It, the room itself
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  Speaker 1: looked like a local cable access show from like the 1980s.
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  Speaker 1: And she, and they were all tough questions and they,
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  Speaker 1: and people had follow-ups. And so she handled that very well.
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  Speaker 1: I agree. The economic answer was very good. She was,
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  Speaker 1: I think, very important, as you pointed out, that she
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  Speaker 1: very directly talked about the need to win. And she's
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  Speaker 1: specifically talking about young black men's votes in there and
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  Speaker 1: talking about that and hit all the marks there. I
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  Speaker 1: think for the campaign, an important thing going forward, we're
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: going to talk a little bit more about their media strategy,
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  Speaker 1: is to view these interviews not just as something to endure,
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  Speaker 1: a test to pass, but as an opportunity to communicate
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  Speaker 1: with voters and deliver message. Because she's very good. She
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  Speaker 1: is very good when she is out there. All the
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  Speaker 1: research I've seen shows that the more people see her,
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  Speaker 1: the more they like her. And so she's got to
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  Speaker 1: be out there a lot. And she did an interview
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  Speaker 1: last week with the local Philly ABC affiliate, biggest TV
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  Speaker 1: station and probably the most important market in the entire election.
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  Speaker 1: And she did totally fine there too, did good. But
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  Speaker 1: there's going to be more and more of that going forward.
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  Speaker 1: And so I think that is good. And I think
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  Speaker 1: the reason why she wants a second debate is because
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  Speaker 1: she wants that split screen. And if you can't get
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: the second debate, the best split screen you can get
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  Speaker 1: is to go to the same place where Donald Trump
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  Speaker 1: melted down in the most embarrassing fashion a few weeks
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  Speaker 1: ago for people who don't remember. That's the event in Chicago,
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  Speaker 1: I believe it was, where Trump, his campaign had to
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  Speaker 1: end the interview early because he was doing so terrible.
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  Speaker 1: It's where he questioned Harris's racial identity. He acted like
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  Speaker 1: a complete lunatic. And so To the extent this is
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  Speaker 1: going to get coverage outside of that Philadelphia market and
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  Speaker 1: outside of Black Press, it's going to be.
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  Speaker 2: The showing side by side. It's going to be the contrast.
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  Speaker 1: And that's very much to her advantage.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And I think these interviews in general, I mean, I
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  Speaker 2: know we're going to talk a little bit more about this,
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  Speaker 2: but she now has some batting practice, you know, with
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  Speaker 2: the CNN Dana Bash interview, with the debate, obviously, and
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: the debate prep she went through. And so, and also
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: six weeks or whatever it's been now, eight weeks of
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: her being the nominee. It's a lot safer ground. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: it still has its pitfalls, don't get me wrong, but
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  Speaker 2: It made a lot of sense to let her get
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: her feet under her and get some practice at being
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  Speaker 2: the Democratic nominee, speaking as the Democratic nominee and not
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: as Joe Biden's number two for a few weeks before
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  Speaker 2: you start putting her in these kinds of situations.
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  Speaker 1: It's just also pure logistics. It's not that she was
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: running from the press. She was not doing that. It's
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: that she, we've said this several times, is she woke
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  Speaker 1: up on Sunday as the vice president. She had breakfast.
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  Speaker 1: And by the time breakfast was over, she was the
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  Speaker 1: Democratic nominee. And then she had to pick a vice
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  Speaker 1: president in, I think it was about 10 days to
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  Speaker 1: meet the virtual roll call.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: To avoid any ballot access issues. Then she had a
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  Speaker 1: convention two weeks after that, and then a debate 10
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  Speaker 1: days after that. And here we are.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
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  Speaker 1: And in the middle of that, she had to hire
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  Speaker 1: a staff, work on a policy platform, reorganize the campaign
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  Speaker 1: to fit her. I mean, just what.
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  Speaker 2: It's so much they've had to do in two months,
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  Speaker 2: and it feels like two years to a lot of us,
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  Speaker 2: but I couldn't agree more. It is logistically difficult. It
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  Speaker 2: is substantively difficult. It is probably psychologically difficult for the
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  Speaker 2: candidate and for everybody around her. So We're in a
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  Speaker 2: different phase now. We understand that. She understands that. She's
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  Speaker 2: doing things like this. And I think, like I said,
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  Speaker 2: she seems to be hitting every checkpoint on the way
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  Speaker 2: towards November 5th.
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  Speaker 1: One section that got a lot of attention was the
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  Speaker 1: question and answer about Vance and Trump and the entire racist,
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  Speaker 1: made-up lies about Haitian migrants eating pets in Ohio, a
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  Speaker 1: sentence that I can't believe I have to say, but
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  Speaker 1: maybe I should believe it because I've been doing podcasts
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  Speaker 1: about Donald Trump for a long time now. Let's take
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  Speaker 1: a listen to her answer.
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  Speaker 5: I know that regardless of someone's background, their race, their gender,
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  Speaker 5: their geographic location, I know that people are deeply troubled
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  Speaker 5: by what is happening to that community in Springfield. And
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  Speaker 5: we've got to say that you cannot be entrusted with
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  Speaker 5: standing behind the seal of the President of the United
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  Speaker 5: States of America, engaging in that hateful rhetoric that, as usual,
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  Speaker 5: is designed to divide us as a country. And I
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  Speaker 5: think most people in our country, regardless of their race,
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  Speaker 5: are starting to see through this nonsense and to say,
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  Speaker 5: you know what, let's turn the page on this. This
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  Speaker 5: is exhausting and it's harmful.
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  Speaker 1: What do you think of her answer?
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  Speaker 2: I mean.
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  Speaker 2: I think this was her letting her hair down a
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  Speaker 2: little bit. This felt like, of all the answers, and
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  Speaker 2: I only watched, I'm going to be honest, I watched
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  Speaker 2: clips and probably had three quarters of them.
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  Speaker 1: You never have to admit that.
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  Speaker 2: Just saying honestly, I didn't see every answer that she
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: gave to every question. But you could almost see when
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: she was answering this question, she was like, how am
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  Speaker 2: I going to do this? Am I going to try
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  Speaker 2: to do what I did in the CNN interview, which
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  Speaker 2: is bat it away and say nothing? Or am I
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: going to lean in and try to hit a homer?
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  Speaker 2: And this was as unscripted and sort of on talking
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  Speaker 2: point of O'Connell Harris as we saw. And it turns
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  Speaker 2: out she's really, really good at that. And I think
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  Speaker 2: she was really smart in leaning into the divisiveness of
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  Speaker 2: what he did and sort of the political strategy behind it,
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  Speaker 2: as opposed to making it simply about the racism and
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  Speaker 2: the disgustingness of it. We have learned, I think, over
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: the course of the last nine years that Trump throws
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: bait into the water, asking us to get into a
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  Speaker 2: fight about something that we feel passionately about and should
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: feel passionately about, but may not help us politically. And
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: she figured out a way to talk about this in
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  Speaker 2: a way that spoke not just to the black folks
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  Speaker 2: in the room or the black journalists she was talking to,
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  Speaker 2: but to all Americans. She even said it explicitly in
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  Speaker 2: the answer. So it was, I was truly impressed. And
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  Speaker 2: I think the more that she you know, this was
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  Speaker 2: also a safe space for her. I think in a
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  Speaker 2: way it was, it's easier for black folks to have,
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: to feel safe in this, in this place, but she didn't,
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  Speaker 2: she gave exactly the right answer that appealed to the
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: swing voter and the base voter alike.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I was fascinated by this because I could, having been
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: down this road with Brock, working for Barack Obama for
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  Speaker 1: all these years is I can imagine the prep meeting
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  Speaker 1: before this, where the a bunch of her advisors probably
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  Speaker 1: told her to do exactly what she did in the
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  Speaker 1: debate or what she did after former president Trump questioned
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  Speaker 1: her racial identity and just brush it off. Cause that's
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: been the thing.
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  Speaker 2: It could have been a, it could have been a
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  Speaker 2: five second answer.
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  Speaker 1: And I can imagine her looking at her, her advisors
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  Speaker 1: and say, I'm not doing that at the national association
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  Speaker 1: of black journalists when this is a vile racist lie
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: that has endangered lives in Ohio. And so we're going
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: to do it this way. What I thought, so that
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: was interesting that she took the best and it felt
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  Speaker 1: very authentic to me. And I think it's good to
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: have moments like that. But she also, I do think,
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  Speaker 1: walked the tightrope of answering it in a way that
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: felt authentic and real and measured up to the gravity
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: of what Trump and Vance are doing here and the
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: danger of it without putting too much spin on the
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: ball that it became a thing. This is the most
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: newsworthy thing, but it did not spark an outrage cycle.
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  Speaker 2: Yes.
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  Speaker 1: And that takes skill. And so I think that was impressive.
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  Speaker 1: And I'm sure her campaign was just kind.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: Of like holding their breath there.
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  Speaker 1: And I'm sure, and end up feeling very good about it.
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  Speaker 1: And just on top of that, being able to walk
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: that tightrope, I think is very important and be able
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: to give the answer that way says a lot about,
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  Speaker 1: I think how she's doing in this race.
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  Speaker 2: I'm not sure she could have done it two months ago.
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  Speaker 2: And I don't mean that as a, as a dig
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: on her. It's just, that's what the batting practice and
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: the feeling comfortable in your own skin as the principal,
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: as opposed to as the deputy does for you. And that, that,
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: you know, She could have given that answer eight years
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: ago or six years ago or two months ago, but
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: she was able to sort of in the moment, I think,
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: like I said, you could almost see the switch go
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: off in her head. She's like, I'm doing this, and
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: I know I can do this and land the plane,
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: and then she did it.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: I think running against Trump takes a little bit of
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: practice to figure out how to modulate your responses to
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: be able to get your message out. Yeah. really, I think,
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  Speaker 1: live up to what she said in the convention speech,
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  Speaker 1: which is he is an unserious person whose actions have
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: serious consequences. And this is one of those. And how
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: do you address the seriousness of his consequences without giving
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: him the attention he wants or elevating him to be
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: some sort of strongman figure, which he also wants?
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: Or elevating the issue to a point where you, outrage
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: cycle is a great way to put it. And she
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: managed to do all of those things. And I think
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: that is something learned by, not just by her, but
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: by us as Democrats over the course of the last
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: nine years. We did not do a good job of
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: this in 2016 with Hillary Clinton. I think partially because
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: Trump was so new, partially because we thought and believed
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: nobody could possibly be willing to vote for this kind
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: of vileness. But it turns out that is not the case.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Yes, there's 47% of the American people and more of
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: them in battleground states than the nation as a whole.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: And we need to take a different strategy.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: We talked about this a little bit on the Tuesday pod,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: but Republicans in the Trump campaign in particular keep telling
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: reporters that they're happy to keep this Springfield story alive.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: What's that about? Because it keeps the conversation focused on
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: immigration and they think that's a winner for them. Even
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: if people don't believe the specifics of the story, how
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: do you think Democrats should handle it? Do you have
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: any fears about this?
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  Speaker 2: I mean, I do. Okay. I don't want to give
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: Jason Miller any credit here. I do have fears about it.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: I do think that the more that we are talking
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: about the economy and abortion rights, the better. The more
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: we are talking about immigration, generally speaking, the worse. Not
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: because it's not an important issue for us to talk about,
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: but because it's safer ground, honestly, and more, I'm talking
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: purely politically here. Once we get to January 20th, it
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: might be a totally different story about what we need
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: to do as an administration or what you might need
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: to do as that. But this Pets and Springfield thing
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: has turned into more than immigration. It's about Donald Trump's lunacy.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: It's about divisiveness, as the vice president talked about at NABJ.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: And I think it is driving a– to the extent
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: it's driving any message at this point, it's driving a
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: message that Donald Trump has a screw loose and Kamala
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: Harris is a sane, competent– unifying leader. And so I
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: do still think we can't talk about this and only
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: this for 46, 47 more days, because ultimately we still
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: have to make a case on the economy. We still
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: have to make a case on abortion rights. We still
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: have to remind people that what a Donald Trump second
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: term would look like. But the only way this is
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: hurting us in any way is opportunity costs to not
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: be talking about something else. It's not, it certainly isn't
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: helping Donald Trump or his campaign in my opinion.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's exactly right. The It is true
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: that if we're talking about immigration.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: That is good for Trump.
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: It's in the Monmouth poll. Trump has a 12-point advantage
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: over Kamala Harris on immigration. It's larger in other polls
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: where the question is phrased more on border security. But
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: this is their issue. It's their chosen issue. It's why,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: in addition to being a man with a pickled brain,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump answered the first question in the debate that
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: was on the economy about immigration. It's like it is
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: what they want to talk about.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Talking about immigration and border security is not the same
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: thing about screaming at the moon like a nut about
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: mythical pet eating and abducted geese. That's not the same thing.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: And the polling actually shows the same thing, right? There's
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: a YouGov poll that shows that a majority of Trump
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: supporters believe these lies. It's not as many Trump supporters
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: as you would think, but it is a majority. A
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: majority of independents, which I think is the best proxy
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: for clinical persuadable voters that you can get from a
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: poll like this, do not believe the lies. Five times
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: as many of these independents believe the allegations are definitely
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: not true than believe they are definitely true. And so
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: I don't see how this is necessarily helping him in
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: any real way, except for the fact, we can't control
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: what he says. If he wants to rant and rave
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: about it, that is his business. We have proven over
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: the years that we're not going to stop him from
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: saying crazy things. I do believe that, as you said,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: there's an opportunity cost here. And this is not really,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: and the Harris campaign has really They've done a little
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: messaging on this. They circulated a very useful story this
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: morning from the Wall Street Journal, which showed that J.D.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Vance's office actually fact-checked the story before they went out.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: We're told it wasn't true and went out with it anyway,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: which should tell you something about J.D.
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: Vance.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: But this is not in ads. This has not been
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: a big part of the stump in any way, shape,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: or form in the post-debate world. But for everyone else
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: who's having conversations with voters or people who are posting
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: on TikTok or Instagram or Twitter about the election, there's
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: not a lot of evidence that The cat memes, the
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: cat eating memes are helping us.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're not going to persuade persuadable voters at this point,
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: but they're not going to help Donald Trump.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a situation where talking about it does
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: not seem, and the evidence that we've seen, have backlash,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: but it's not moving the ball forward. And still, and
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: this is the thing we always have to remind ourselves,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: because it is a complete change from our mentality in
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: 16 and 20, is that the path to victory is
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: in building Kamala Harris up more than it is tearing
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump down.
• 16:44
  Speaker 6: Amen.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Of course, this NABJ interview is the same event, as
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: we mentioned, that caused Donald Trump to melt down in Chicago.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Trump advisor Jason Miller apparently was watching because he tweeted,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: I can't quite put my finger on it, but the
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: tone of this NABJ interview with Kamala Harris seems to
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: be a little bit different than the tone of the
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: interview with President Trump.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: What changed?
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: What do you think Jason Miller is missing here?
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, he's missing that his candidate is a lunatic.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: But I think, I mean, my reporter friends are probably
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: going to hate this answer. But, you know, we're kind
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: of here we are. But I think it's wishful thinking
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: to think that interviews with political reporters are going to
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: be what win the election or lose the election for
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris. And I think maybe more importantly, what voters
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: actually want to see at this point, because, you know,
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: the debate, the CNN interview, this NABJ interview, I think,
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: are checking those boxes for people to the extent people care.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: But you know, they're risky. They are risky. And the
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: voters who are still undecided or at least waffling between
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Trump and Harris or Harris on the couch, I think
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: they want to see her in sort of unscripted situations,
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: but not necessarily get grilled by, you know, Tim Russert
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: right now. They want to see, can she handle herself
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: on her feet? And I think the debate kind of
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: started to prove that to folks, but it doesn't have
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: to be interviews with the New York Times or with
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: Politico or with Axios. It needs to be maybe NABJ-friendly
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: or places to be. I think that is a totally
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: fine thing to do. I think these adversarial interviews in
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: general are overrated. When she's president, it may be a
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: different story. But right now, as a pure point of
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: campaign strategy, that is not what we need to do
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: to win the election. We need to expose her to
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: more people in the ways that those people, the persuadable
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: voters— you know, want to hear from her.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: A couple of points here. First, Jason Miller is a
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: ridiculous buffoon.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Sorry, I should have started there.
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, right.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: Point number, I wasn't suggesting you did not agree with that.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: Point number two is, yes, the tone was different, but
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: the questions were very, these were hard questions. These were
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: not softball questions. There were follow-ups. She was pushed on
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: several things. The questions were different in Donald Trump's interview
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: because he was different. He was adversarial when he was
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: in the room, but let's not forget that for His
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: entire life and for all of this, much of this
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: campaign and for all of his presidency, he was constantly
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: saying and doing racist things. And to expect to not
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: be called on that when you go to the National
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: Association of Black Journalists is the epitome of naivete. It's
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: like they were shocked that got asked. Of course it
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: was going to get asked. You can't do those things
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: and not get asked. I mean, it just like. And
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: we know that this is the classic tactic of Trump rule,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: which is when an interview doesn't go well.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: Or a debate doesn't go well.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: It's never Trump's fault, right? It is obviously the fault
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: of the press.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think the three reporters who questioned her
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: for that 45 minutes or whatever it was deserve a
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: lot of credit. They did not take it easy on her.
• 19:47
  Speaker 5: No.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: Whatever Jason Miller says.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: No.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: They also- had less fodder to go after her because
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: she hasn't done things like- She answered the questions. call
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: white supremacists very fine people. Yeah. So it can't necessarily
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: be equal when the substance is a little different.
• 20:02
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: If you call several countries in Africa shithole countries- You
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: might get asked about it one day later in life
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: and this happened. So tough luck.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Tough luck, buddy.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: Two quick things before we go to break. You guys
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: all already know about John Levin and Tommy's great book,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Democracy or Else, How to Save America in 10 Easy Steps.
• 20:19
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• 20:21
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• 20:25
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• 20:27
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  Speaker 1: someone in your life. It'll give you the tools you
• 20:32
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  Speaker 1: that couch and vote in this election. Plus, every purchase
• 20:38
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• 20:44
  Speaker 1: or online at crooked.com slash books. Also on tomorrow's episode
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: of our subscriber-exclusive show, Polar Coaster, I do a deep
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: dive into the latest post-debate polls with fan favorite Elijah Cohn.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: I am 100% positive that Elijah Cohn wrote this copy.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: Either way, Elijah will be on that podcast, whether he's
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: your favorite or not. We're looking at Trump's loosening foothold
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: in red states, and we nerd out about the latest
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: numbers in key Senate races. Head to crooked.com slash friends
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: to get access to this exclusive subscription series and more.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Just in general, as you think about our communication strategy
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: going forward, you hit on this a little bit, but
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit more about it. You spend
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: a lot of time studying persuadable voters, the folks we
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: actually need to reach. What's the best way to reach them?
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe too much. If there's one thing that listeners
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: should just remember and internalize is that there are still
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: persuadable voters out there, people who in swing states and
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: significant numbers who are deciding how to vote still. It
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: is hard to believe every morning I wake up and
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: I'm like, really, people still are looking after the debate
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: after the last nine years and potentially considering Trump. But
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: the answer is they are. And I'll talk a little
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: bit more about why in a second, but ultimately I
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: think the, what people need to understand about those voters
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: in this cycle, at least is every piece of data
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: I've seen suggests these folks are the least interested in politics,
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: the least connected to politics, the least engaged in politics.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: And honestly, in many ways, rebel against the idea of
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: politics as important in their lives. And so they are
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: not consuming the New York Times or Politico. In fact,
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: it's not like a hating the media thing. It's just
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: a hating politics thing, or at least a feeling like
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: politics isn't important to their lives. And so to answer
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: your question, I think it's really, really important to engage
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: those people where they are and kind of force the issue.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: That's local press, like the campaign has been talking about doing.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: That's social media and influencers. That's paid media, It really
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: is important to just like force impressions on people. So
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: they see Kabla Harris at her best. It's field. It's
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: really important to go, you know, engage them in person
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: where you can't avoid it at some level, or at
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: least it's put right in front of you. But these
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: persuadable voters who are left, who are going to decide
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: the election in seven or eight states are not voluntarily
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: engaging in politics. Jim Messina used to say, I remember
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: in 2012, the normal person engages in politics for what,
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: four minutes a week. And so you got to get
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: them for those four minutes. where they are. That is
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: not in the places where people like me, people like you,
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: and probably a lot of people listening to this podcast
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: get their news.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: It, I mean, it is the hardest thing for people
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: who listen to this podcast to understand is how different
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: we are. That we're actually more like the people listening
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: to Ben Shapiro's podcast in some ways than everyone else.
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: Because there, it's a, the biggest divide in politics is
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: between people who engage in politics and people who don't.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: And we're the minority.
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: We're the weird ones. Somebody said to me recently, and
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: that's true. And I don't mean that ideologically or otherwise.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: It's the way we engage with politics is the minority.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: We are.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: The folks at Blueprint did polling where they looked at
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: swing state voters and their media consumption habits. And they
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: asked them how many people have heard or watched big events, right?
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: The debate. The debate.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: This was done pre-debate, but the convention speeches, et cetera.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: And so Kamala Harris's convention speech, let's just take that.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: 34% of swing state voters. had neither watched nor heard
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: of her convention speech. 34% said that for Donald Trump's
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: convention speech. We see this for every single thing that
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: dominates politics. A third of voters in swing states, right?
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: These are people who have indicated a chance they will
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: vote in this election, have heard nothing about it.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: I'll give you a story. When I was in Chicago
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: for the convention, the day that the vice president gave
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: her speech, a Thursday, took a Lyft or whatever to
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: the United Center. And our Lyft driver was like, where
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: are you going? A woman, I think, a woman of color,
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: she was very excited about Kamala, didn't even know that
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: the vice president was there, didn't know the speech was
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: that night, but was very engaged in politics once we
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: started having the conversation. But it just was a reminder
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: to me that this is somebody who is, obviously it's Illinois,
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: not Ohio or North Carolina or Georgia or whatever, but
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: just a reminder that like, People have lives and the
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: swingiest of voters out there are really, this is tangential
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: to their life. And honestly, even in mid-September are just
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: beginning to pay attention to what's going on in this race. And,
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: you know, we're going to have this thing probably decided
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: in these last, certainly in these last seven weeks and
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: probably in the last two.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, these voters are just not consuming news in
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: the way in which we think of political news. They're
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: not watching CNN. They're not watching the New York Times.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: They're not watching local TV. And one of the things
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: that's made life harder to reach these voters organically is
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: is that Facebook in particular was the delivery mechanism for
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: a lot of news to people organically. Like you would
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: just be scrolling through Facebook, looking at your friend's kids
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: or whatever weird memes your MAGA uncle posted. And you would,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: and Facebook algorithm would serve you some form of political news, right?
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: Something from a candidate, maybe something from a news outlet.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Facebook does not promote politics more. So you're never organically
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: bumping into the news anymore.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: And it just is become in, you know, this is,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: this is your life, but, Reaching these people, even in
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: a paid way, is incredibly challenging because if you don't
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: have linear TV, you're almost impossible to reach. Because a
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: lot of, you know, I always think about the person
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: who streams Netflix and TikTok as their social platform of choice.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: There is no way to spend money to reach those people, right?
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: It's just they live in a bubble. And that's why
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: when we get to her, you know, if she thinks
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: about this interview strategy going forward, a lot of it
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: is influencers.
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: That's the media for low information, low engaged people is,
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: you know, your cooking influencer on TikTok is actually, to
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: the extent they're getting information of any kind, that's their
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: primary source. And that's not a knock on the news
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: and it's not a knock on them. It's just the
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: way that people consume media nowadays. And particularly those low
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: engagement voters who happen to be in this election, the
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: most persuadable ones.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: And when the press screams and yells about Kamala Harris,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: not doing more, the traditional press screams and yells about
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris, not doing more interviews with them. They do
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: have to understand that. Like, yes, I think it is
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: good for democracy for candidates to take tough questions. I
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: think taking tough questions makes you a better candidate. So
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: when you're talking to voters on the stump or at
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: a town hall or whatever else, you are better. But
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: for a long time, there was huge benefit in doing
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: them because the media could get your message in front
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: of those you need. That relationship does not exist anymore.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Most like that CNN interview, which was, I think, very
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: well done by Dana Bash and the candidates. 6.6 million people.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: It's hard to imagine how many persuadable voters even knew
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: that ever happened or bumped into it.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: And it was checking a box for the influencer class,
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: which then has a second order effect on the voters,
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: but it's not a direct voter contact. You have to
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: do that through paid media, through field and through these
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: outlets that might be non-traditional, but that is where people
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: are living their media lives nowadays.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Switching gears to the Republicans now. Tonight, Donald Trump is
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: headed for a big rally in the key battleground area
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: of Long Island, New York. On Tuesday, he held a
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: town hall in Flint, Michigan, moderated by his former press
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: secretary and current governor of Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. This
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: was his first big event since his second assassination attempt.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Another sentence I can't believe I'm saying.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, seriously.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: Typically, when Trump does an event like this, our producers
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: get together and they cut a very funny, interesting, outrageous...
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: clip of all the crazy things Donald Trump said, but
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: last night's town hall, which I watched all of was
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: so boring and so repetitive that there was really nothing
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: worth cutting, which is, we don't say that often, but
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: not because he was more normal than usual. He just
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: sort of low. He was less interesting, low energy, and
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: just said the same things we've now heard from a
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: thousand times in a row. I bring all this up
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: because this is Trump's second town hall in recent weeks.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: He had one moderated by Tulsi Gabbard recently. Another sentence
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: I can't believe I'm saying. And it seems to be
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: the campaign has a new strategy of periodically doing these
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: town halls as opposed to the rallies that Trump has
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: sort of lived by. Is there anything to the strategy?
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Are they trying to sand down the edges of his lunacy?
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, good luck with that. I don't think that
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: is possible. I saw Governor Newsom talking about this at
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: the debate. He's just a little old, a little tired
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: and just not, he's like lost a step, I think.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: And so I think on any given day, he might
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: just be in a bad mood. I'm psychoanalyzing a lunatic now,
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: but he might just not be up to the challenge
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: as it were of being his normal. bombastic self. I
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: think it could be the next day and he could
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: be back on his bullshit, as it were. But if
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: they're trying to make him boring, I think that's a
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: strategic mistake because I think his appeal, to the extent
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: he still has it, is that he is interesting and entertaining.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: And he is, like, I don't know if we, if
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: the election were today, we would win or lose. But
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: he is losing in the sense of the trajectory of
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: the race. And so he needs to change something for
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: the trajectory to change. So if they're playing prevent defense,
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: it's a huge mistake in my mind. Problem is they
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: have a candidate who can't drive a message. So they're
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think these town hall formats are a little
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: bit more... They sort of hem him in some because
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: not that he necessarily answers the question, but at least
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: the campaign is dictating the topics he hits. I mean,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: he took some of these.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: On quite a journey. I'm guessing he did not get
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: somewhere linearly.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: We saw that this is sort of like all the
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: stories we saw before the debate where they were like,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: policy Trump, who's not going to take the bait. That
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: was their strategy. And in your head, you can kind
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: of see some Republican political consultants like Chris LaCivita or
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Susie Weil sitting around being like, you know what would
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: make sense and seem presidential? a town hall where he's
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: on stage interviewed by a woman in this election with
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: a historic gender gap. Well, the Long Island thing is
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: going to be a rally because I think there's, there's
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: a real like one for them, one for us thing
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: with Trump. Like I'll do this, but I'm going to
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: like threaten to arrest the entire country on truth social
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: later that day. Fair. So I think they were like, yes,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: if you do this in, they're going to let Trump
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: be a lunatic on Long Island and they're going to
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: do the town hall in Michigan, but it doesn't, it's,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: it's like, sometimes I feel like the campaign hasn't met
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: Trump before.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: And they just, it's a really good point. I mean,
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: he is a fun, you know, he is his own
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: worst enemy. Uh, this was true in 2020. This is true.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: It was true in 2016, even when we lost. And
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: I think it's true now is that he is incapable
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: of not being a narcissistic asshole. And if they were
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: driving a consistent message from the candidate's mouth, it would
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: have an effect, whether that's, you know, downwind second order,
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: like I was just talking about or directly with the voters,
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: it would have an effect. And there are things he
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: certainly could talk about. but he can't do it. And
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: maybe the town hall is an attempt to like, to
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: your point, put some guardrails around him, but doesn't matter.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: You could, you know, lipstick on a pig, like good luck.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: It's not going to work. They're going to do it
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: in paid media, I think a lot. And I think,
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: you know, this is where a second debate to me
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: is a risky proposition because the bar is pretty low from,
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: you know, high for Kamala and low for Trump in
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: terms of what people will expect out of a second debate.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: So if he were able to like, turn on a
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: switch for 90 minutes the next time that could have,
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: that could, that could be dangerous, but I don't know.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: I don't trust it to, you know, he can't even
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: do it for one answer, let alone 90 minute debate.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: This is not, this is not on our outline, but
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: so we're going to, we're going to live freely here.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: But if someone were to ask you, should Kamala Harris
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: do a second debate or not? Not on NBC, right?
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: It's not on Fox. What would you, would you say
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: yes or no?
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'd probably say no. I think, um, it's
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: just risk. I'm, I'm also just maybe risk averse. Uh,
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: I think, right. You won one. The trajectory is good.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: There are other ways like we've talked about before to
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: get your message out there. The contrast really helps, but
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: you are counting on a good performance by your candidate,
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: a bad performance by your opponent and moderators that don't
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: screw you. And like, we got that once, but do
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: you really want to go back to the well to
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: get that again? Or are you, can you be sure
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: you're going to get that again? I don't know. So
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: the odds are probably in our favor. If, if one happens,
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: don't get me wrong. Like there's an 80% chance. It's
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: the exact same thing as what happened a week ago.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: And we are, even happier that time in October than
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: we were in September. But like that 20% chance scares
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: the shit out of me.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: I am a strong advocate for doing a second debate.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: If I was on the campaign, I would encourage them
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: to seek it out. I certainly publicly advocate for it
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: and be the one who wants the debate. But even
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: if the opportunity came to do it, I would do it.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: I'd want to do it pretty late. Uh, because my
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: general take on the race is he has a lot
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: of advantages. He, we can talk about, we're going to
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: get us in a little bit about where the race is. Um,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: but he is a former president of the United States
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: who has run for president three times.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: It gives her the big stage.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: It gives her a big stage. People know everything they
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: know about him. He still shows up as the safer
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: choice in a lot of the polling. In that New
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: York Times-CNN polling, Kamala Harris is a riskier choice because
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: she is unknown to so many voters or not known
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: deeply to so many voters. And so if you have
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: a chance to be on that giant stage and do it,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: it is terribly risky.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's really more of a It really, I guess
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: it's your.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: Assessment of where you think the race is. If you
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: think I, I'm, I am a more glass half empty
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: person and feel like, like, I think she's doing very
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: well right now, but this thing always reverts back to
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: where it's been. It always reverts to the mean. And
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: the mean is that Trump is right there on the cusp.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: And so it's a fair point.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: Like just because we are on that trajectory on September 18th,
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: doesn't mean we're going to be on that trajectory on
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: October 18th. And we've seen, I mean, 2016, I just
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: have such flashbacks to Comey letters and debates and Essex Hollywood,
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: like seven weeks is still a long time. So we
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: could be in a very different place a month from
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: now where the trajectory changes and we actually need something
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: to shake up the race. But it is not an
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: easy call. No, no, no, no, no. It is not easy.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: It's very easy for me to say it as someone
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: who doesn't have to prep before it.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, me too. And that's the other thing, right? To
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: our earlier conversation about opportunity costs, like the opportunity cost
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: for prepping her for a late October debate or a
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: mid October debate, that's taking her off the trail for
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: a week. Cause that's like, you gotta, you gotta be
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: sure you are, you are nailing it. So there's, there's
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: the unseen downside cost of, of taking her away. But yeah, I,
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: I don't envy Jen and those folks trying to figure
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: this out because it is not Brian. It is not
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: an easy, uh, it's not an easy call and it's
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: a high risk situation if you do it. So if
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: we do get it, Good luck, guys. That's right.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's probably a theoretical question because Donald Trump
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: doesn't seem like someone who would risk getting his ass
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: kicked like that again.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: But somebody made the point to me, sorry to take
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: us too far down this, that there may be– the
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: outcome of the vice presidential debate might actually change his mind.
• 35:48
  Speaker 5: Oh, interesting.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: Which I think is– which is coming up on October 1st.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: Like there's a world in which Vance totally bombs or
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: Vance does really well, which I don't think is likely.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: And Trump can't allow either of those things to stand
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: is the last word.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we'll have a lot of conversation about
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: the VP debate going forward, but Vance has a real
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: expectations advantage here, which is if he, as Mike Pence
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: did against Kamala Harris, she obviously won that debate, but
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: people thought that he would be absolutely miserable. And he
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: was only kind of miserable, and that was seen as fine.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: Vance is a similar situation. The guy can't even order
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: fucking donuts on camera. And so if he stands up there,
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: and he's a smart guy, so you can see him
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: doing fine. Either way, we're down a rabbit hole here.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: On Wednesday, more than 100 GOP officials, former members of Congress,
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: and appointees for Republican presidents, including Trump, signed a letter
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: endorsing Kamala Harris. This comes on top of the recent
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: endorsements of resistance heroes, Dick and Liz Cheney. Do these
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: endorsements from Republicans matter, or are they just sort of
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: fodder for a press that yearns for a bygone era
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: of bipartisanship?
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: When my text chains blow up about Dick Cheney endorsements,
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: like 23-year-old me just absolutely loses my mind. But hey,
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: I think the answer is they don't really matter, honestly.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: I think they matter insofar as it continues to be
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: a signal to particularly donors and high information voters that
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: there's an anti-Trump wing of the Republican Party that is
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: not totally dead yet, and obviously voters that come from them.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: But Sarah Longwell and her work, I think, has made
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: pretty clear that it's not the politicians that matter, it's
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: the people. And I would rather have an endorsement from
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: Joe Schmo white guy from rural Michigan who's willing to
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: go direct to camera and say he voted for Trump
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: in 2016 and 2020 and is not doing it now
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: than I would any politician at this point. And that's
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: probably true on the Democratic side too. Going back to
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: who these voters are, these are people who don't trust politicians.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: They don't believe politics works for them, Democrat or Republican.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: It's not part of their identity. And so any politician,
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: whether they be Republican or Democrat, giving their imprimatur to
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: a candidate I don't think has the value that it
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: did once before. It certainly matters, but it's not going
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: to swing the swings.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it's greatly overstated. Dick Cheney is not
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: a popular person among Republicans or Democrats. I don't think
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: a lot of people were just waiting to see what
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: Dick Cheney was doing. Um, where I think it is
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: mildly helpful is there is a smaller subgroup. This is
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: like Sarah Longwell's group, right? They are, these are people
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: engaged in politics. They are not, they, they watch the news,
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: they pay attention. They are people who voted for Trump
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: in 2016. Biden in 2020 and soured on Biden and
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: have been Trump curious going forward. And so you do
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: want to create what, it's not the individual Republicans, but
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: just the general idea. There are a bunch of Republicans
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: who are going to vote for Kamala Harris and it
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: makes you feel a little bit safer in doing that.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: I guess I was talking specifically about Cheney or either
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: Cheney or- even Adam Kinzinger to some extent, but like
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: the idea that there are hundreds of Republicans out there
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: makes you, it's why Kinzinger spoke at the convention, right?
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: It's because it gives a permission structure to another specific,
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: I think, high information Republican to come. But that's, everything
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: matters when this thing's going to be, everything matters. I mean,
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: the weather.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: In Maricopa County is going to possibly decide who the
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: president of the United States is.
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: Over an eight hour period on one of 365 days
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: of the year, that weather could decide who the president of.
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: The United States is.
• 39:13
  Speaker 6: It's true.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: It's the most, it is both. I think I said
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: this last time I was on the pod too. It's
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: like after the election, win or lose, this thing is
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: going to be close. Everybody is going to be able
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: to say their thing was the thing that changed the
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: election because it's going to come down to a few
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: votes in a few states and they're going to be right.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: So anything that marginally helps us, helps us. Yeah, that's
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: exactly right.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: Tuesday was one of those days that it makes it
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: easy to get your fantasies for an easier election night
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: up because we had a bunch of post-debate polls that
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: came out, which were almost all good news for Kamala Harris.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: We are still waiting for the granddaddy of them all,
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: the New York Times Siena poll, which will– they have
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: a post-debate poll we assume coming any day now. It
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: may or may not be more accurate than the other ones,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: but it is the one that most affects the media narrative.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: But the New York Times average has Kamala Harris up
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: four points as of Tuesday. And then this morning, we
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: got Quinnipiac polls that showed Harris up with a decent
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: lead in Michigan and Pennsylvania and a narrow lead in Wisconsin.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: And frankly, I'll be honest, the vibes feel even better
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: than that right now. When you hear numbers like that,
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: do we have this thing in the bag?
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: Oh, the vibes. Don't I love the vibes. I joke
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: with my friends that I worked on the Clinton campaign
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: in 2016. And I am unable to feel political joy
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: until Donald Trump is gone, dead and gone. Not literally,
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: but politically, figuratively. We do not have this thing in
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: the bag. You know, even a four point lead nationally
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: does not translate to that. There's like a discount in
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: the battleground states.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: Well, that's what Biden won the popular vote by in 2020. Exactly.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: And he won by 40,000 votes across several states.
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: So we have to win by four points, three certainly,
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: probably four points nationally to even have a chance in
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: the electoral college. You know, I alluded to this before.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: The trajectory is good. We are improving. We started behind,
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: certainly when Biden was the nominee and even for the
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: first weeks of when Kamala was the nominee. But things
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: have basically been on a one-way ratchet since then, right?
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: And so if this keeps up for the next seven weeks,
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: we are going to win the election. But A, nobody
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: should assume that's going to happen. And B, I am
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: not sure. It's not that I don't trust public polling,
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: but I do think there is an effect. I forget
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: what it's called. but that I've talked to some pollsters
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: and researchers about of like Democrats being sort of more
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: willing right now to answer polls. And how can you
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: actually control for that in these surveys? I don't know
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: if these surveys are necessarily doing it, certainly not across
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: the board. I would guess that the better ones, the
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: more expensive ones, you're able to do that. But a
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: lot of these surveys are, you know, they're horse race
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: polls that are sort of inexpensively done to drive news
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: and to get a set, you know, put your toe
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: in the water. But if we're basing our our vibes
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: off the polar coaster, we are making a huge mistake
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: because A, they might not be accurate. Literally that happened
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: in 2016 and 2020. So why shouldn't that be different
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: in 2024? And B, the polar coaster can go up
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: and down. So like when it comes down in early October,
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: don't feel any better than how good you feel now
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: as they're going up.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: And if you want to hear more about all the
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: post-debate polling, check out the latest episode of Polar Coaster,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: my subscriber only show. Our new episode will be out
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: on Thursday. I don't want to make anyone feel not
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: good now. Like we, like Kamala Harris wants us to
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: feel joy. We should feel joy.
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah. Joy helps.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: And we're thinking that you're definitely going to lose is
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: not somehow more likely to lose is not like some
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: strategically smarter than thinking you're, you might win or probably
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: could win because you're going to do the same things anyway.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: I don't think we're in any danger of complacency in
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: the way these elections have gone, particularly the last couple.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: Like there was in 2016 where people were like, well,
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: my vote's not going to matter, so I can throw
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: it away.
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: Maybe that's where my fear comes from is we definitely
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: had it in 16, but not 20, and not 22,
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: and not 18, and certainly not yet.
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: John and I talked about this a couple weeks ago,
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: but I was doing a podcast with John Heilman from Puck,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: and he was like, what would the polls have to
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: say for you to be able to sleep the night
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: before an election? I was like, there is no number.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: I'll never sleep the night before an election again after 2016.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: That's not even a possibility.
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: Nope.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: Biden was up. I looked back at this sometime in August,
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: maybe July. I should have looked at this before this.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: There was Wisconsin polls that had him up 10 in
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: 2020 in like the summer. And we won by point
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: something percent in that state. So like it is 2020
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: isn't 2024, different candidate, et cetera. But like, you're right.
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: There's no number that's going to make me feel confident.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, he was up, Biden was up eight in
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: a high quality public Wisconsin poll in late October.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And, He won by less than 1%.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: And everyone's operating assumption should be that American politics is
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: such that the six battleground states are unlikely to be
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: decided by more than two points.
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: I think that is... I would put my house on it. And,
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: you know, something could change. It would require a campaign-changing
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: event at the scale of the Lehman Brothers crash of 2008.
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: That's what I think ultimately led Obama to win by...
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: What did he win? By seven points over McCain. It was...
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: It was something of a, of a catastrophic, large national
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: nature to actually move people in large, in large mass towards, uh,
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: towards us in 2008 and obviously a good campaign that
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: we all ran. But, um, without that, if things sort
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: of remained fundamentally as they are right now, it's, it's
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: five States within two points and we can win by two,
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: we can lose by two.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: More likely with a win or lose by 0.5.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 44:50
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, Trump got shot in the ear. And the
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: polls moved two points.
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: Kind of, yeah.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: That debate has moved the polls to two points. The
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: New York Times averaged the day before that poll was
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: two points.
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: It is four points a day.
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: That is, that can, you know, I was speaking to
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: somebody the other day about this. A one point move
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: in this race is massive. We spent, when Joe Biden
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: was the nominee, we spent a year and a half
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: with basically the same race. He was down two or
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: three points, maybe four. Obviously, July was its own animal. But, but,
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: It was very stable. And now we've kind of reached
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: a new stability, which feels like tide.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: It feels like what 2020 was. Not what the public
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: poll said, but what 2020 actually was. What 2016 actually was,
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: but we didn't know at the time, is that we
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: are in, it is coming down to these small groups
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: of us. I mean, this is not unusual in history.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, Al Gore did not become president because someone
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: printed the wrong ballot in Palm Beach County, Florida.
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: And Joe Biden became president because a few people in Wisconsin, Arizona,
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: and Georgia voted. you know, vote for him. Uh, and, uh,
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: we're headed towards something similar here, which states I'm sure. Well,
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm curious what you think. Like, um, do
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: you think the blue wall is still the path to
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: two 70? Do you think, you know, where, where do
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: you see this?
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was my next question for you is whether
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: the blue wall. So I think if you're just doing probabilities,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: the most likely path for Kamala Harris to become president
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: and frankly, Donald Trump to become president is winning the Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: And it all really comes down to Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: the keystone because of its 19 electoral votes. It's very
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: hard to replace. You need to win two of the
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: other states to replace it. And now, yes, Donald Trump
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: won those three states in 2016. Democrats have won them
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: almost every other time going back to the 80s. And
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: we did very well there in 2022. So that seems like,
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: if you were to say, what is more likely that
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris wins Pennsylvania or she wins Georgia and Arizona
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: or Georgia and Nevada or North Carolina and one of
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: those other three. Winning Pennsylvania seems like the more likely one.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: But it's– I mean it's hard.
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah. You're talking about these two-point states like I would
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: put everything on the idea that Pennsylvania is going to
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: be within two points and probably within one. But I
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: completely agree. I think the 19 electoral votes is the key.
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: I think the most likely outcome of the race, sorry listeners,
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: is 270 to 268 for Kamala Harris today. But that's
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: today and not seven weeks from now. And that means
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: winning Nebraska too and the blue wall. And, and, but
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: she has opened up other paths to victory, which is
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: really what the, I think the lasting effect of her
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: as the nominee instead of Joe Biden is it used
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: to be basically 270 or bust in the path I
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: just said. And now There is a world in which
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: we lose Pennsylvania and win Georgia and Nevada. It is
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: a plausible world that we live in, that we win
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: North Carolina and Georgia and lose Pennsylvania and Michigan. Unlikely,
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: I think very unlikely even, but with Biden at the
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: top of the ticket, it was zero, and now it
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: is not zero.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: What is interesting is it used to be this view
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: that demographically alike states were correlated, where if you were
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: winning Michigan, you were probably winning Pennsylvania. And if you
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: were winning North Carolina, you were probably winning Georgia too
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: because they're similar. But now the margins are so close that, yes,
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: they're correlated in the sense that they're all really close.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: But just because you win one doesn't win your meeting
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: the other because of one small blip here or there.
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: To your point, weather. Things that you have no control
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: over and some that you do.
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: Like delayed mail ballots in North Carolina or the number
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: of drop axes in Fulton County, Georgia. or how long
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: the lines are, whether people stay in line or not
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: is could literally be the difference. I mean, wasn't it 11,000
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: votes in both Arizona and Nevada?
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: And Georgia, Georgia was, yeah, both of them. And Wisconsin
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: was not much more. I think it was 40,000 across
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: those three states, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Georgia. And of all
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: three of those had flipped the other way, I believe
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: Trump would be present right now. So it is, we are,
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: I don't know what states it's going to be. It's
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: going to be one of those seven plus Nebraska too,
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: in my opinion, The good news is we have more
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: places to compete in. The bad news is that costs
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: more money, more time, more energy, more everything. And it
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: requires people listening to this podcast and others to open
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: up their wallets and give their time for the next
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: seven weeks. But, um, it's that, you know, we can
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: win all of them. That's the other thing.
• 49:25
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: And like finally drive a stake in, in, uh, in
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: this guy, I think, uh, going forward. And I hope
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: and pray that that's possible.
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: But we forget this, but Biden won all of them
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: last time.
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Well, not North Carolina, but all the other ones.
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: So, it, you know, that would be, I can do
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: the math, like 318 ish electoral votes. And that feels
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: like a landslide. Um, so we'll see. I mean, it's not,
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: it's none of that is to answer your original question.
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: None of it's at the bag. All seven of them
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: are not at the bag.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: What do you think is going on with North Carolina?
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: Cause that one is actually showing up in the public
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: point doing a little bit better in Georgia. And that
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: doesn't make a ton of sense given partisanship and the,
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: and the demographic makeup of the state. Like obviously there's
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: room for democratic victories there. Obama won there. Roy Cooper
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: has won there twice, but it, Georgia seems more friendly
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: on paper, but North Carolina seems to be punching above
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: its weight, if you will.
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: I think it has everything to do. It's two things.
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: One is, it's really one thing, black folks who have
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: come home to Kamala Harris more than other minority groups,
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: people of color groups, and are sort of more solidly
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: with her certainly than they were with Biden. The other
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: is that the white people in North Carolina are more
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: college educated and generally more friendly to colors, candidates of
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: color than Georgia white folks. I mean, we win, I
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: don't remember what Stacey Abrams got in 22, but we
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: win 25, 30% of the white vote in Georgia. It's
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: just like a, and they're obviously a majority of the electorate. So,
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: whereas it's more like 40 in North Carolina. And so
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: there's just like a fundamental difference amongst the white electorate
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: in North Carolina that's friendlier to Democrats, probably because a
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: lot of people from the North have moved to the
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: triangle and Charlotte and other places like that. that doesn't exist.
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: In Georgia, we have to hang on with white folks
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: basically in Atlanta and some other places, lower the margins
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: in the out places as much as you can, and
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: then max out black turnout. And that's really the only
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: path to victory there. Whereas in North Carolina, you can
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: kind of turn the dials differently.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: And it doesn't hurt Republicans are running a complete lunatic
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: like Mark Robertson at the top of the ticket.
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: It certainly does not.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: He is the embodiment of the dangers of the MAGA movement.
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: And I think that probably helps on the more, like
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: everything helps on the margins. And if you can squeeze
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: another 2% out of the white vote or 1% of
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: the white vote, that is the difference.
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, that is true. You, you truly have to
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: in those kinds of States because our ceiling in Pennsylvania,
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, we saw Josh Shapiro got 56, 57%. I
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: don't know what Roy Cooper got, but I'm guessing it was,
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: it was not 57%. Um, and even if it was,
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: he was a two term attorney general, one term, uh,
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: governor or something that had all these, uh, advantages that
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris doesn't have. So our ceiling in North Carolina
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: is probably 50.5, you know, or 51. And so we
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: got to have everything go right there in Georgia, both.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: Our friend Peter Hamby of Puck had a particularly smart
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: piece recently called the Swift Rogan election. It was largely
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: about Gen Z men moving to Trump as one of
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: the definitive trends in this election. There's been some online
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: quibbling about how much that's really happening. The New York
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: Times swing state polls recently, it actually had Trump winning
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: Gen Z men, including by double digits in some cases.
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: Other polls have shown a more narrow thing. What do
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: you see happening here? Is this a real problem?
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: I definitely think it's a real problem. I think Peter's
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: kind of nailing it as I go with his reporting.
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: He is a very smart observer of this, but I
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: do think that there's a particular, I don't want to
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: say radicalization because that's a little too far, but sort
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: of right movement of young men. I don't think it's
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: just Gen Z. I think it's millennial men too, mostly
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: based on cultural issues, but I actually think there's an
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: economic element to it too, which is if you are
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: or perceive yourself as the provider for a family, if
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: you're 35 years old and a person of color or
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: white person alike, and you have a young family and
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: you have childcare costs and prices have gone up and
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: things like that, you are more susceptible to both Trump's
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: negative arguments about the Biden-Harris administration and sort of this
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: anti-woke-ism that is permeating, I think, social media and other
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: places targeted at men. So I 100% think it's a
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: real thing. I think we're probably going to see a
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: gender gap in this election unlike we've ever seen before
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: because it's not just white folks, it's people of color
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: too who are starting to diverge, men and women. But
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: the flip side of this is that women, because of Dobbs,
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: because of other issues as well, I think are kind
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: of moving more our way as well. And you might
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: see 55% of women or something vote for Democrats and
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: 42% vote of men or something along those lines, which
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: is kind of crazy. But It's something we have to
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: deal with as a party, I think, in the long term.
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: In the short term, it's a bit of a triage
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: to win the election and make sure that men get
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: the message that they need to get in the places
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: that they need to get it to feel comfortable with
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris as the president. Yeah.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: There's one of the things that have come to really
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: sort of annoy me all election cycles. Whenever there's been
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: an identified challenge within the Democratic coalition, we quibble over–
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: the severity of the challenge. And that becomes a thing like,
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: are we losing Gen Z men or are we, as
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: the NBC survey monkey Gen Z poll shows, only winning
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: them by four?
• 54:33
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: The problem is our coalition depends on doing better with
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: young voters than we are. And if we need to
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: do that, we have to win some of these who
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: are back. We saw the same thing back when Biden
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: was nominated with black and Latino voters. And we're still
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: having some of that conversation around Latino voters is, are
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: we in the middle of a historic racial realignment? Who knows?
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: Probably not.
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: It doesn't seem that way, but Are we, is even
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris still a little bit behind where Joe Biden
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: was and certainly far behind where Barack Obama was.
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: Do we have to make up some of that ground?
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: And I think that's particularly true with Gen Z men.
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: And it is like, we can win this election because
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: of the gender gap this time in the future. If
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: the way this is going is that, you know, 46%
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: of men under the age of 30 are mega Republicans.
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: That's bad for the democratic party. And that's bad for democracy.
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: And it's in large part because we don't have a
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: very good way, and Peter points this out in his article,
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: very good messengers to reach them. Obama was very good
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: at talking to young people and talking to young men
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: in particular. He had ways to meet them where they were.
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: That's not something that we have done over the Trump years.
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: And the information space, Obama could reach these people by
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: going on ESPN. It doesn't work that way anymore. You
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: have to We talked about this recently, but you have
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: to go on some of these podcasts, right? And you
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: have to talk to them. And they are in this
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: algorithmically driven information bubble where there's no countervailing information about
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party. Someone has to be able to go
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: in there and make that case for why Democrats are
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: the ones who will fight for you. And people have
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: legitimate grievances about the economy, about politics not working for them.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: And we have to address them. And if we don't,
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: we're not going to get these voters.
• 56:21
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: I like the way you framed it too, is it's
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: not that we necessarily are losing. It's that we're not
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: winning by as many as we, as much as we
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: need to. And yeah, it's not a, it's not a
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: failure per se of messaging or strategy or policy or whatever.
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: I think at some level it's, we haven't focused on
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: it because we haven't sort of been able and been
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: willing to name the problem, but it is a problem
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: and it's going to be worse for us. I hope
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: we can solve it at least enough to win on
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: November 5th, but, I do think as a party, we
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: need to have a strategy around this very specifically. And
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: to your point, very important messengers, people like Tim Walls,
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: people like, I mean, there are others that are out
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: there that their job in some ways is to go
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: try to pierce these bubbles because culturally and otherwise they
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: can relate to those folks in ways that maybe other
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: people can't. That's not a knock on Kamala Harris or
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: anybody else. It's just like, that's how you do politics
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: is you put people who feel like they can talk
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: to a certain audience in front of that audience to
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: persuade them.
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: Peter used Joe Rogan as his example of the avatar
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: for these young men, where a lot of them get
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: information he is the biggest podcaster in the world. I
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: do think we need to share with our listeners that
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: Joe Rogan recently praised Kamala Harris for her debate performance
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: and made fun of Trump on a recent episode. Let's
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: take a listen.
• 57:36
  Speaker 6: Before I say anything, I just want to say, whoever's
• 57:39
  Speaker 6: helping her, whoever's coaching her, whoever's the puppet master running
• 57:43
  Speaker 6: the strings, you did a fucking amazing job.
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: She did a great job. They.
• 57:49
  Speaker 6: Did an amazing job from the moment Biden drops out,
• 57:52
  Speaker 6: forcing Biden to drop out. Whatever they're doing, whoever's writing
• 57:56
  Speaker 6: those speeches, getting her to deliver them, coaching her.
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: She's nailing it. She nailed that one speech. She's like,
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: say it to my face. She nailed it, dude. And
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: then last night.
• 58:09
  Speaker 6: To me, when I was like, oh my God, this
• 58:11
  Speaker 6: is jujitsu, where she's like, if you go to his rallies,
• 58:14
  Speaker 6: his crowds are boring.
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: They're tired. They're all leaving early. My crowds are the
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: best crowds. I have the number one crowd. He couldn't
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: help himself. And she got him.
• 58:23
  Speaker 6: She baited him on that.
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: She walked him right in.
• 58:27
  Speaker 4: 100%.
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: 100%. Really interesting. Two things. One is he didn't give
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: her credit. He was like the puppet master. Yes, of course.
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: Which is like, you know, okay, got to call that out.
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: But God bless. But the other thing is the stuff
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: that appealed to him was kind of traditionally masculine stuff, right?
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: The like baiting of him and the say it to
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: my face stuff, et cetera. And again, like whatever our
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: listeners or ourselves feel about that brand of masculinity and, and, um,
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: and politics, like clearly it has an effect on somebody
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: who is probably Peter is right. The most influential. podcaster
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: in America, no offense to present company or present company.
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: Not here, or the most influential podcaster right now.
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: Right now, yeah, exactly. You guys have time. But also
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: somebody who I think is a little bit of an
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: avatar for that contrarian way of thinking. I don't think
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: he is... Atlantic had a really good profile on him.
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: He's not a right winger per se. He's one of those,
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: I'm just asking questions guys. But those people might be
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: more attainable for us in the long run than the
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: true mega righties.
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, there are people who listen to Joe Rogan
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: whose votes we need.
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: Amen.
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: And so someone, you know, who can go, there's always
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: a debate about, should you go on Rogan?
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: Should you platform?
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: Point being is you got to reach some people listen
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: to him. You got to reach some people who listen
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: to Theo Vaughn and some of these other folks. And,
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: you know, we saw this during the convention, but Tim
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: Walls and Doug Emhoff in particular have a different, more progressive,
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: more compassionate version of masculinity. They could be very appealing if,
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: if offered to do that.
• 59:52
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: And so I, this is one of those, you know,
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: clips that I think will be, Yet she does not
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: give Kamala Harris, he does not give Kamala Harris the
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: credit she deserves by far. It's quite sexist and demeaning.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: But him making fun of Trump has value. And so
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: there are all those people out there who are sharing
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: your clips on TikTok. Like this is a good one
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: to share because the Rogan stuff goes viral. TikTok loves,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: for very good reason, to show people Joe Rogan clips.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: They are hammering me with Joe Rogan clips all the time.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: And so a Joe Rogan clip that is anti-Trump, that
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: makes fun of Trump, that is a useful thing. So
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: that's my final piece of advice I would give people.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: I think it is very good advice. You're good at this.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: You should do it for a living.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: Podcasting, unfortunately, I do. Okay. That's our show today. Thank
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: you so much, Adisa, for joining us. John and I
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: will be back in your feed with a new episode
• 1:00:36
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