Latest / Pod Save America / “Trump’s secret Chinese bank account.”

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“Trump’s secret Chinese bank account.” · Pod Save America

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: With COVID, is there anything that you think you could
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: have done differently?
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: If you had a mulligan or a do-over on one
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: aspect of the way you handle it, what would it be?
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Not much. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: On today's pod, Dan talks with disinformation expert Jory Craig
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: about how you can handle all the bullshit that Trump
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: and the Republicans will throw at us in the final
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: two weeks of the election. Before that, we'll talk about
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: the strategy heading into the final presidential debate, the fight
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: for the Senate, and what's keeping the two of us
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: up at night besides everything. It's all keeping us up
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: at night. Speaking of the debate, come watch with us
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: on our Crooked Media group thread at crooked.com slash debate.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: The fun starts at 9 p.m.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Eastern.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: 6 p.m. Pacific on Thursday night, October 22nd. Last group thread. Also,
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: check out the latest Pod Save the World where Tommy
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: and Ben break down what we know about the connection
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: between foreign disinformation and the New York Post reporting about
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Hunter Biden, Russia's proposal to extend the New START treaty,
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Sudan getting taken off the state-sponsored terrorism list, and their
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: conversation with a journalist who's been covering the political unrest
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: in Belarus. Finally, at Vote Save America, we've made it
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: super easy to find remote and in-person volunteer opportunities with
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: our new volunteer hub. You can find it at votesaveamerica.com
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: slash volunteer. You can find everything you need from your
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: usual phone and text banks to roles delivering yard signs
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: or staffing voter protection hotlines. We got it all. So
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: go to votesaveamerica.com slash volunteer to find all your options
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: to get involved between now and election day. Do not
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: wake up the day after Election Day and wish you
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: did more. Do it all in these last two weeks.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Less than two weeks now. All right, let's get to
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: the news. The second and final presidential debate, thank God,
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: will take place tomorrow night in Nashville. NBC's Kristen Welker,
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: the moderator, has chosen the following topics. Fighting COVID-19, American families,
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: race in America, climate change, national security, and leadership. After
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: President Trump spent the last debate yelling like a maniac
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: for 90 minutes, the debate commission has decided to mute
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: the microphone of the candidate who isn't speaking for the
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: first two minutes at the beginning of each new segment.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: The rest of the time, they can do whatever they want.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Both campaigns agreed to the new rules, though Donald Trump
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: and his campaign have spent the entire week whining about
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: the debate commission, the moderator, the rules, and the topics.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: They wanted this debate to be focused exclusively on foreign policy. So, Dan,
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: both campaigns agreed to long ago, that each moderator would
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: be free to pick the topics. What do you think
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: of the topics that Kristen Welker selected? And why did
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: the Trump campaign want a foreign policy debate so badly?
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, in fairness to Trump, he's a worldo.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of really- He's a worldo. There's a
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: lot of really detailed foreign policy issues from around the world.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Some of the things that like you and I are
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: talking about, but Tommy and Ben are constantly texting about
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: that Trump would like an opportunity to speak about. And
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: these topics focusing on the, I don't know, the pandemic,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: the racial reckoning, the melting of the planet, don't allow
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: him the opportunity to talk about, I don't know, the
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Abraham Accords or whatever they're called as much as he
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: would please.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Or whatever they're called. He knows all about the unrest
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: in Belarus.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: He keeps them up at night.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: These are the kind of topics that he wants to cover. No,
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: it's about fucking Ukraine and China and Hunter Biden. That's
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: why he wanted a foreign policy debate.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: And he does not want to talk about his failure
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: to control the pandemic. He doesn't want to talk about
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: the fact that he doesn't believe in climate change as
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: the planet is on fire. He doesn't want to talk
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: about race because the last time he did that, he
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: endorsed white supremacy and told the Proud Boys to stand
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: by or stand up or whatever. So these are not–
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: the problem for Trump is both in this conversation about
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: the debate and the entire election is that the issues
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: that are most relevant to voters right now are the
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: ones he feels least comfortable talking about. And that– he
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: could possibly could have hidden in a very like intricate–
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: in-depth esoteric foreign policy debate, but that's not what he's
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: going to get.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Well, he is a right-wing nationalist demagogue. And for right-wing
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: nationalist demagogues, foreign policy is a great subject area to
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: demagogue other countries, right? Like Donald Trump would love nothing
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: more than to get up there for 90 minutes and say,
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: The rest of the world hates me because I stood
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: up to all the countries that are taking advantage of us.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden is a globalist, right? He doesn't care about
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: the U.S. He cares about the rest of the world.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: Just look at his son and Ukraine and China. And oh,
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: by the way, he voted for the war in Iraq.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: And I've always been, I've been against everything in foreign
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: policy that the American people don't like and for everything
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: that you do like. I mean, it's like the perfect
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: opportunity for Trump to act like a demagogue on foreign policy.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: And clearly the campaign knows this. And so they complain
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: because they want to protect the president. from getting questions
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: about COVID-19, which is just so funny. He needs a
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: safe space. He's a snowflake who needs a safe space.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: It does sort of speak to how difficult a political
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: position he's in, which is Trump doesn't know shit about
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: foreign policy. He knows less about foreign policy than any
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: other topic, but he would rather talk about that because
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: it feels more disconnected from his bigger political problems. In
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: a normal world, Joe Biden.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Knows a ton about foreign policy. That was a huge
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: part of his job as vice president. He was chair
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: of the Foreign Affairs Committee. He knows a lot about it.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Trump knows almost nothing. And that would, in a normal world,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: feel very threatening to the yahoo who doesn't know very much.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: But because he's so vulnerable on the other stuff, that
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: is a safer place to be, right? It really is
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: a frying pan, fire sort of situation.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: Except, after all this, it may not be a safer
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: place for him. And one of the topics is national security.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: And so surely, you know, Trump's plan, the Trump campaign's plan,
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: they've telegraphed this, the MAGA media is all over this.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: They want to talk about China, right? And so they
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: want to, the story on China is that apparently Hunter
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: Biden had business dealings in China, right? They want to
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: somehow connect it to Joe Biden, even though we know
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: that Joe Biden has never made any money off China
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: or had any business dealings with China because Joe Biden
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: has released all of his tax returns, right? But anyway,
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: so they want to draw connections anyway, muddy up the waters.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: The problem is, New York Times last night comes out
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: with the story. Guess who has a secret bank account
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: in China? Donald Trump. The guy has made he is
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: president United States as president. He has maintained. A secret
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: Chinese bank account. And he has paid more in taxes
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: to China, to the Chinese communist government, than he has
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: to the United States government. That is where Donald Trump
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: is right now compared to Joe Biden's son who had
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: some business dealings in China. Oh, and by the way,
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: his daughter, his entire family are making money off China
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: and have continued to make money off China while they're
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: in the White House.
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, the Chinese bank account thing is a big deal, right?
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, obviously he is, it's a secret Chinese bank
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: account of which he withdrew an unusually large sum of
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: money in 2017 after becoming president.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: I was going to say, well, 2017, right? That's a
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: president of the United States, not a private citizen. He
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: was president of the United States, withdrawing huge sums of
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: money from his secret Chinese bank account. Just want to
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: make sure we're clear on that.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: But we don't even need the secret Chinese bank account
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: because the Chinese government has been handing out business favors
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: to Ivanka Trump like they are Oprah at the holidays
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: for four years now. Every time they want something, like
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: trademark to you, trademark to you. And so he's more
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: vulnerable on this because of this most recent story. We
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: obviously have recency bias and secrecy bias because it's a
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: secret bank account that we discovered is more politically impactful
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: in the media than the public information we've known for
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: many years about how China has gained favor with the
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Trump family in violation of a whole bunch of laws
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: and codes of ethics. But yeah, this is not a
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: super safe space. You are correct.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: So Trump has called Kristen Welker a terrible, unfair, radical
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: Democrat who's been, quote, screaming questions at me for a
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: long time. This is literally just a few weeks after
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: Trump advisor Jason Miller told Fox News that he has a, quote,
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: very high opinion of Welker and thought, quote, she's going
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: to do an excellent job as the moderator. What changed, Dan?
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Why is Trump attacking the moderator now after his campaign
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: thought that she would be a great moderator?
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Well, it is much of what Trump says and does,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: particularly in this election, is reverse engineering reasons for failure.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: Like he knows he's probably going to do poorly. And
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: so he's got to start out in the beginning by
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: saying it's everyone's against me, right? It's not my fault.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: I'm a fucking moron. It's everyone else's fault. And this
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: is about mail balloting. It's about problems with the pandemic.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: It is this, it's all part of the same strategy,
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: which is he just wants to explain why he's about
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: to do poorly so he can feel better about himself
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: and his supporters can feel better about supporting him.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: I also think it's about working the refs, right? Because
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: now like, He has spent, and the campaign has spent,
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: and the MAGA media has spent the last two weeks
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: saying Kristen Welker is going to be unfair. Those fucking
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: assholes at the New York Post who shouldn't even call
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: themselves journalists. One of them was tweeting a picture of
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: the fact that Kristen Welker... Got a picture with President
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: Obama at the White House holiday party, which like so
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: did Rupert Murdoch and so did a bunch of other
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: right wing journalists, which I can't believe, by the way,
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: Barack Obama took a picture with Rupert Murdoch. I saw that.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: I was like, what? Why did he even do that?
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: But anyway, that's what happens. But anyway, so the right
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: wing media is like pushing this storyline about her. And
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: I think their hope is that it gets in her head.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: So she feels like. You know, maybe she'll still be
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: tough on Trump, but she has to be tough on
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden, too. Now, I don't know if that will work.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: I think Kristen Welker is an outstanding journalist and she'll
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: be a great moderator. But that's they're trying to work
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: the refs and sometimes working the refs works with journalists
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: because it gets in their head. Yeah, I think.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: It like I said, I have no idea how Kristen
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: personally will respond to that. I'm skeptical. that they're going
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: to be able to convince other journalists and sort of
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: political commentators more broadly that somehow Kristen Welker is a
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: radical Democrat who's biased against Trump. Like he has played
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: that card one million times too many. You know, how
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: it affects her only sort of she knows the answer
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: to that. But in terms of framing the coverage, I
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: don't think he's successfully framing the coverage of a poor
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: performance this way. I don't think that is going to
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: work this time.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: What do you think about the new rules about muting
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: the mics? Will that change anything?
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: Like everything else the debate commission did, it's fucking stupid.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: It's just like.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: I appreciate your personal jihad against the... I don't want
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: you to know. I appreciate it.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: As you've known me for many years, I tend to
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: become obsessed, disproportionately angry at very strange things. And the
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: debate commission is one that just makes me so mad
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: because they could have killed Joe Biden for being so stupid, right?
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they were very stupid.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, you've never lied. Just put your hand up.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Scout's oath. Did you get a test? No need to
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: prove it. Don't prove it. Just say you did it, right?
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: What are you going to do in 2024 when Paul
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: Ryan is named to the debate commission?
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Probably fucking will be. So no, he'll be running for
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Senate against Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin. And I will be
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: in Wisconsin living on Ben Wickler's couch and everything, my
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: fucking power to defeat him. That's what I'll be doing.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: Sorry. Anyway, back to the rules.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: The rules are dumb, right? It's the worst of all worlds,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: which is, as you point out, there are six 15
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: minute sections in this debate that is most certainly 30
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: minutes too long. At the beginning of each 15-minute section,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: each candidate has two minutes to talk about. I guess
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: it's sort of an opening statement or a general framing
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: of the issue. The mute button only works in those
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: first two-minute segments. So for 11 of the 15 minutes,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: so for more than two-thirds of this 90-minute debate, You
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: can just do what you did before. So I don't
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: fully understand what the point of that was. Like, why
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: are they more likely to interrupt in the two minutes
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: than in the short person? It's either do it or
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: don't do it right now. You've given Trump a reason
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: to complain, but you haven't actually empowered the moderator to
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: have any real power to do anything to control him
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: for the vast majority of the debate.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: And also, we said this after the first debate. Trump
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: can still interrupt all he wants during that two minutes.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: His just, his mic will be off. So he can still,
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: he can still be yapping over there and getting Biden's head.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: Biden will hear him.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: The, the moderate Kristen Welker will hear him. We won't
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: hear the, you know, it will be muted because the
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: mic's off, but Trump could still interrupt a lot. You know,
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: the other thing it does is the Trump campaign has
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: been telling everyone who listened that they're advising the president
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: to interrupt Biden less and to quote, be more likable. Um,
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: And Trump himself has laid out this strategy Tuesday morning
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: on Fox & Friends. Here's a clip.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Ari Fleischer, last night on Handy said the president should
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: interrupt less. Will you change your strategy in this last
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: debate from your first debate?
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: Well, I may do that. Actually, the interesting thing, they
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: said if you let him talk, he'll lose his chain
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: of thought because he's gonzo. And I understand that. But
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: I also understand that as he's going down the line
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: and issuing lies, you.
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: Know, generally.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: it's okay to, you know, really attack that. But there
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: is a chain of thought that, you know, there are
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: a lot of people that say let him talk because
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: he loses his train. He loses his train. He loses
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: his mind, frankly.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I mean... That guy certainly sounds pretty sharp.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: Loses his chain of thought because he loses, there's a
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: chain of thought that says he loses his chain, his train.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: He's not all mentally there. Nailed it. Nailed it, Donald Trump.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: I laughed so hard when you sent that clip around
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: last night.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: I had to. There was no real reason for a
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: clip there, but I just saw it yesterday morning and
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: I was just like, what the fuck?
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, he calls it a chain of thought first,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: which is just so funny. But then he sort of
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: knows that's where he's trained. He loses his quote unquote
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: chain of thought three times in a clip about Biden
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: losing his train of thought in an answer. And that
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: clip is shorter than the answers in the debate. So
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: I think it's possible he might be vulnerable to exactly
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: what he thinks Biden is vulnerable to.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: Now, we're laughing, but this is sort of the source
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: of my fear heading into this debate that Somehow, if
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump can just just take it down a few notches, which,
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: you know, I mean, like if Donald Trump can give
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: two minute answers, allow Joe Biden to give two minute answers,
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: be somewhat more coherent. You know, he'll still, of course,
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: attack Joe Biden on, you know, he'll do the Hunter hit.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: He'll do everything else. He'll call him corrupt. But if
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: he can do it just just a touch less crazy
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: than he did in the first debate, that the media
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: has set such a low bar for Donald Trump to clear.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: that when he clears it, if he does that and
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: he even like, you know, draws blood on Biden by
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: like battling him to a draw, you know, if he
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: says you're corrupt on China and Biden says you're corrupt
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: on China, too, you know, you could see a debate
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: where people say, well, Trump was a little more likable.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: He was he was toned down a little bit more.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: Maybe maybe this is the night he became president. And then,
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: you know, they scored as a big win. That's that's
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: sort of my, you know, worry about everything fear. But
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: I don't know. What do you think?
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: I think it is easy to imagine a world in
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: which Trump is slightly less of an obvious asshole than
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: he was last time. And the press points that out.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: And maybe, and this is sort of what the Trump
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: campaign has said, is that they want a performance that
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: gives permission to some people who are on the fence
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: to come back to Trump. You know, people who supported
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: him previously, who maybe even were supporting him just a
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: few months ago, pre-pandemic, to come back. And maybe that
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: is possible. I am skeptical, and I have been wrong before.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: but I am skeptical that Trump's going to be able
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: to put together some sort of performance that would be
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: seen as a big win, right? It's just, he's never
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: put together a coherent, non-assholey seven minutes in his life,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: let alone 90 minutes. And so I just, I didn't like, yes,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: Biden could make a mistake and that mistake could become
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: the focus of attention that would drive coverage. And really
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: when you think of, and we can talk about this
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: in the context of what we're worried about, but the
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: last two weeks or so of a campaign is basically
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: like an incredibly high stakes advent calendar where you like
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: wake up every morning and you open it up and
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: it's like either going to be good for you or
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: bad for you. And you want as many of those
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: days to be good for you at the end. And so, yeah,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: if Biden makes a mistake or Trump gets slightly better coverage,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: that is to his advantage. I just don't know that
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: there's a game changer there. performance from like in the
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: cards for Trump.
• 16:40
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, Axios reported that the Trump campaign is looking
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: to the 2016 third debate for inspiration. Do you remember
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: anything that happened in the third debate in 2016? Oh,
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: I mean.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: This is how bad, uh, my, my recollection of 2016
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: debates is, is when, before the first debate, a reporter
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: called me and was like, You know, I'm doing a
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: preview piece for the first debate in 2020. Chris Wallace
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: was a moderator in 2016, and he received really high marks,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: except from you, who was really critical of him. And
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: I was like, no recollection of being critical of Chris Wallace. Also,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: no recollection that Chris Wallace moderated debate in 2016. And
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: I think the one he moderated was that third debate.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: I went back and looked at it this morning, and
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: it doesn't seem like Trump did any better than any
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: other debates. And Hillary Clinton won the post-debate polls by
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: double digits in all of them.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: And so- I think she won by a little less
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: than she did the first two. I remember being at
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: the ringer sitting next to Tim Miller did our debate
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: show with us. I remember thinking that like, oh, it's
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: the third debate. She like crushed it again. What a joke.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: And he's like, I think she didn't do quite as
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: well as the first two. And I think Trump did
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: a little bit better. He's like, but that's just my gut.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: And then, you know, then she lost. Yeah.
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: I don't think the reason she won that debate.
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: I don't think the reason she lost was because of
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: that debate.
• 17:59
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: It's everything that happened between that debate and Election Day.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: So basically, between tomorrow night and Election Day is when
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: the whole thing fell apart and changed. So just something
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: to think about.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The difference now is, of course, I think as
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: of this morning, 30% of people have voted at this point.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: So how should Biden respond to all this? Like, do
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: you think he's prepping for a Trump who interrupts less
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: and one who interrupts just as much? Like, what's Biden's
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: strategy here at this debate?
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: I imagine they are prepping primarily for the interrupt West
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: version because they've already done the prep for the first version.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: And I think he knows and they know the key
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: thing there is just don't lose your cool, right? That
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: was the goal. And I think he did it other
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: than calling the president a clown, which I think was
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: the understatement of the century in that first debate. He
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: held his cool under an incredible amount of fire from Trump.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: And if that's the Trump we see, he's got to
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: do the same thing. You know, this time he's going
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: to probably need if Trump is going to be better behaved,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: then he's going to need to have in his pocket
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: and then execute, well, a few more moments, right? Where
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: he has like a set piece to draw out the
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: contrast or hit Trump for COVID or something like that.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: If Trump's going to take less of the attention, Biden's
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: going to have to do more with the time he
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: has than I think he had to do in that
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: first debate.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I've always been a huge proponent of
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: Biden just spending the time telling people what he's for
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: and what he'll do and what he stands for. And
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: I still think that's incredibly important. But I do think
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: Biden needs the story coming out of the debate to
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: be about Trump again and not about Biden, what people
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: focus on. And so he needs to keep Trump off balance.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: He needs to sort of needle Trump so that he snaps,
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: but in a way that doesn't look like Biden is
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: hitting him too hard. I mean, I would take if
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: I was Joe Biden, I would just practice be practicing
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: three moments, right? Like his message about Trump is that
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: Trump is an asshole. Trump has fucked up COVID. And
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: Trump is for rich people and not the middle class, right?
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: I would practice three moments, drawing out those three contrasts,
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: something about him being an asshole, something about COVID, something
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: about the economic contrast, and just practice those and make
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: sure that I deliver those and then Beyond that, just
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: make sure that I'm talking to folks at home and
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: telling them what I'm going to do as president. That
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: would be what I... And then also, of course, be
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: prepared for all of Trump's crazy attacks, Hunter, China, Ukraine,
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: all that bullshit.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's so funny because this is such a
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: giant macro event that's going to be seen by 70
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: million people or something like that. But as you pointed out,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: 30% of people who are going to vote have already voted.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: The overwhelming people who have not voted have already decided
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: who they're going to vote for. And there's a small sliver...
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: It's a big enough sliver to alter the election in
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: these close battleground states. But if people who were deciding
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: between Biden and Trump, people were deciding between voting and
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: not voting. And so how you think about how you
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: reach those people sort of, I think, fits in three buckets.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: There are the people who are watching it in real time,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: which I think is a pretty small sliver of the
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: 70 million people watching, right? Because if you are undecided voters,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: you're probably like you are historically less engaged in politics
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: on a day-to-day basis and therefore probably not watching this
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: debate live. So that's part one is people watch it live.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: Part two is people who will read the coverage of it.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: And that's where you're exactly right. Biden definitely wants more
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: coverage that just talks about how bad Trump is. Like
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: that will help him as opposed to something, because there's
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: not going to be a bunch of stories. It's like
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: Biden gave a great answer on the economy. That's just
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: not how it's covered. It's winners, losers, gladiator, right? And
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: the third is what are the moments that happened in
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: that debate that then the Biden campaign and other Democrat,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Democratic actors will take out and then pay to put
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: in front of people through promotions on social media, digital advertising,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: et cetera. And that's where I do think that's where
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Biden has to find this balance of a couple of
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: moments where he outlines his climate plan. He outlines his
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: economic plan. He talks about his COVID plan and like
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: a one, two, three, four, five point plan, because we
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: know from all the research we've seen that the best
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: way to get the less enthusiastic Biden voters, the folks
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: who are still undecided, is going to be teaching them
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: more about Biden and less about Trump.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: And I think the mic muting thing is a gift
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: to Biden for those first two minutes in each of
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: the segments. And I would use not the full two
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: minutes if I was Biden, right? Because the Trump campaign
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: is hoping that, you know, Biden will lose his train
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: of thought or fumble or go on too long or
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: whatever else. Like I would practice one minute answers, one
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: minute and 20 second answers on each of those topics
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: and give my rest of my time back to the moderator, right? Like,
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: here's what I'm gonna do about COVID. Boom, boom, boom.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: Here's what I'm gonna do with the economy.
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: Boom, boom, boom.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: Like I would not do a lot of rhetoric on that.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: I would sort of like, now that you know, you
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: get two minutes to yourself and you know what the
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: six topics are, you just practice the answers.
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: You just say what you mean. That's that's what that's
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: what usually what happens in debate. That's usually what we
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: did with Obama.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: Speaking of things to worry about, let's take a ride
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: on the polar coaster. On Tuesday, Nate Cohn of The
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: New York Times wrote the President Trump, quote, had his
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: best day of polling since the first presidential debate in
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: late September. There were a few high quality polls. that
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: showed relatively better results for Trump. A Washington Post ABC
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: poll that showed Biden a point or two up in
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: North Carolina. A University of North Florida poll that showed
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: Biden up only a point in Florida. There's this Investors
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: Business Daily national tracking poll that has Biden with only
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: a three-point lead. I think today is a two-point lead.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: Of course, overall, 538 has the average right now still
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: around 10. Do you think the race has tightened? Why
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: or why not?
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: I don't know. And it's like, choose your own adventure, right? Like,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: you can look at some polls from Iowa that show
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Biden doing very well, which makes you think this thing
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: is really good. You can look at other polls.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: We don't know.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: And it probably doesn't really matter, right? And I mean
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: that just as like, what would you do with that information?
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: What can we do?
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Right? Like, we are going to encourage people to do
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: the same thing, whether Biden's lead is expanding or shrinking, right? Like,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: what can you do? can call voters, you can text voters,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: you can volunteer, you can go to the volunteer hub
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: you guys just put out today. Like that's what you're
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: going to do. And knowing like whether the poll, like
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: what the polling average is or whether it's up a
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: point or down a point, that's really about managing your
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: own anxiety. But like what I think we tell people
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: is the way you, the way you, the best way
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: to manage your anxiety is not to find a poll
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: that makes you feel better about yourself. It's to do
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: some things that give you agency over the outcome.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: That is true. I will say It is not unusual
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: in the final weeks of a race for some partisans
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: to come back home, as they call it, which is
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: so like some Republicans who were wavering on Trump, who
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: were undecided, who didn't like Trump, but maybe think he
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: did a good job in the economy. Maybe they're coming
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: home a little bit. So you might see some tightening,
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: like even in the 538 model and some of the
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: other models, like they expect, you know, their projection is
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: a Biden seven or eight point win. Um, and you know,
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: right now the polling average there is a 10, so
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: maybe it tightens a little bit, but like you said,
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: we don't know.
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're right. Like Trump is polling in the
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: national polling average in some of these battleground states at
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: a number that's at more than a few points below
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: his 2016 vote number. And you just have to assume
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: he's going to get back to that number. Now, the
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: problem for him is in a race with very, very
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: little third party vote share, that's not enough to win.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: Just in some cases, it's pretty clear that the bulk
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: of the undecided universe, as small as it is, are
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: people who are more likely to be Trump voters than
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Biden voters. And so some of those people will come
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: home to him before this is all over. That's not
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: really the concern. The question is, is there a broader
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: shift or something else that could change the outcome of
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: the race?
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: Now, a lot of people are talking about complacency and
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: avoiding complacency. I know you wrote a great message box
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: about this. I have not met any Democrats that are
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: complacent and no one should look at the polls and
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: feel like, oh, well, you still got a 10 point
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: national lead. Everything's fine. Like, I do think that when
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: Jen O'Malley Dillon, Biden's campaign manager, said the race is
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: much closer than the public poll suggests, I don't think
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: all of it was just trying to avoid complacency.
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: Like what I'll tell you what worries me is Florida
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: and Pennsylvania.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: Because florida is really really tight and it's been tight
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: for quite a while now and it's and like the
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: public polling in florida does not have a great history
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: right we've talked before about how in 2012 like i
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: think suffolk said they were going to stop polling florida
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: because romney had it in the bag and then we
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: won uh in 2018 gillum was up uh three and
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: a half points in the final averages and lost So
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: the public polling isn't great in Florida. It's always very tight.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: One point on either side for the last however many races.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: And then if Biden loses Florida, then he's really dependent
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: on making sure that he wins Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. And,
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: you know, he's doing fairly well in Wisconsin and Michigan. Pennsylvania,
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: it's getting a little closer. And the worst part about
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: Pennsylvania is you have to fucking wait a couple days
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: for all the mail-in ballots. And there's court cases and
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: there's kind of things. And so like you quickly get
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: into a scenario where If you could see an election
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: night where Trump narrowly wins Florida and then now we're
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: waiting a couple of days to see what happens in
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: Pennsylvania to see if Biden wins. And then, you know,
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: Trump's declaring victory and we're off to the races. So
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: that's what keeps me up at night. That's why you
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: should keep fucking making phone calls.
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: I mean, keep doing all that stuff because that is
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: it is real that it is, you know, that it
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: could get close.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, we're like this. This conversation makes me hate
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: myself because it's we. tell people all the time, ignore
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: the national polls. They do not matter. It's not a
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: national election. It even matters even less with every passing
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: year that the gap between the popular vote and the
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: electoral college grows or sustains, I guess. Yet then we always,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: what does 538 say it is? Is it 10 points
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: or it's seven? Who gives a fuck, right? What is
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: true is that the races in the battleground states are close.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: Biden has had a sustained, steady lead But it is close.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: And you were just a few point shift or a
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: polling error away from it being very, very close. And
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: it like you play around with the Electoral College calculator
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: for a little bit. You quickly see how it can
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: get scary. That doesn't mean I'm not saying that to
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: panic anyone to freak anyone. It's just like Jen is right.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Like this, like maybe it breaks our way at the end. And,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: you know, it looks more like 08 or 12. Maybe
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: it doesn't. We do not know what happens over the
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: next two weeks. Both what Biden does and what we
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: all do will help determine which outcome we get.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: So we can't do anything about what polls come out
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: when and what they say. But Trump is certainly trying
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: to do everything he can to tighten up the race,
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: including abusing his office. He's openly demanding that his attorney
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: general investigate his political opponent. after already being impeached once
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: for demanding that a foreign government investigate his political opponent.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: He's got House Republicans demanding a special counsel to investigate
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: the Bidens. He's got his intelligence director denying the existence
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: of a counterintelligence investigation into whether the Hunter Biden story
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: is part of a Russian operation, even though the FBI
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: publicly refused to agree with them. How much of this stuff,
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: the Trump investigate your opponent, Bill Barr, all that kind
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: of stuff, how much of that worries you in the
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: final homestretch?
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: You know, I think as we say, we worry about everything,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: but we don't worry about everything equally. And when I,
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: I am not, I'm not very worried about, for the
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: context of the election about, all of a sudden, Bill
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Barr announcing an investigation of Hunter Biden or Joe Biden.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Our natural instinct is based on Comey PTSD, to think
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: this is the thing that shifts the election. Because in
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: the world of absolutely devastating butterfly effects, the Comey letter
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: is probably why Trump is president. And everything that has
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: happened since is Jim Comey's fault, to be completely clear.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: But 2020 is not 2016. Joe Biden is not Hillary Clinton.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: And this seems like a crazy thing to say, but
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: Bill Barr is not Jim Comey. Now, Jim Comey has
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: generated some animosity for many people on both sides of
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: the aisle. But in the moment when he did that,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: Jim Comey was someone with a towering bipartisan reputation for
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: the absolute highest standards of integrity. He is the person
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: who famously, while working for a Republican president, stood up
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: against that Republican president at John Ashcroft's sickbed to prevent
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: that president from putting in place what he believed to
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: be an illegal wiretapping program, you know, pointed to the
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: FBI by President Obama. Like, Bill Barr is not that, right?
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Bill Barr is someone who has a completely damaged historical reputation.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: And it's just hard to imagine. I just do not
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: believe that if Donald Trump goes on Fox & Friends
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: and orders Bill Barr to investigate Hunter Biden for reasons
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: that Donald Trump cannot articulate. And then a few days later,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Bill Barr were to do that, that that would have
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: a lot of sway with either the press or voters.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: I think that actually that would be much more damaging
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: for Trump than would ever possibly be to Biden.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: There's a little bit of fool me once with all
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: of this too. Like it's clear that Trump is trying to,
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: you know, recycle the hits from 2016. And it's sort
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: of obvious, right? Like Oh, look, it's another email scandal
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: about my opponent. Oh, look, I want another investigation of
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: my opponent who did something corrupt. Like, what a coincidence, right?
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: In the final weeks of an election, Donald Trump wants
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: to investigate his opponent for corruption because he's losing. Like, oh, wow,
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: I haven't seen that one before. Like, it's a little
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: bit obvious what he's doing right now. And I do think, like, look,
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: what I worry about is sort of low information voters,
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: people who aren't engaged in the news, who don't like
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump, but aren't sure if they're going to vote yet.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: just starting to hear, you know, through their own social networks,
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: on Facebook, wherever else, like, is there something about Joe
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: Biden being corrupt too? Maybe both of them are bad.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: Maybe I won't vote at all. Maybe I'll vote for
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: Joe Jorgensen, right? Like, I do have a little concern
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: about that. And I do think, again, back to your
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: point of like, what can we do about it? And
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: I know that you talked about this with Jory in
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: the interview, but like, I do wonder, how volunteers on
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: the phones and the Biden campaign should sort of handle
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: these last minute tactics by Trump around the whole, you know,
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: my opponent is corrupt and should be investigated storyline.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: I think the biggest thing there is we have to
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: attribute motive to what Trump is doing.
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: You know, it explained why he's doing things right. He
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: is he is making these false attacks because he is losing.
• 33:02
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Like you, like that is a thing that we, you know,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: Jory talks about this in the interview that we previously recorded.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: You'll hear at the end of this podcast that that's
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: one of the most important things you can do with disinformation.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Explain why people are doing these bad actors have agendas.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: What is that agenda? And you tell that to voters.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: Voters are more likely to then believe it's disinformation if
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: they understand why the person is spreading disinformation. Right. I
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: share your concern that people will, there's just a lot
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: of noise. It's a really hard story to uncover. You
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: and I are professional newsreaders and it's hard to know
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: what part has been officially debunked, what part has been
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: denied by the Biden campaign. This is a very, very
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: challenging news environment. And as we know, just from getting
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: basic information about what the latest information on COVID is,
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: it's just very hard to do to get something straight
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: and it gets even harder when you get into a
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: highly polarized political situation like this story. Um, so yeah,
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: like that, that is definitely a concern. There are reasons
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: to be less concerned about it this time than in 2016,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: but yeah, like it's, it's on the worry list, like
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: everything else.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: Is there, um, is there anything else high on your
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: worry list that we can actually do something about versus
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: things that we just have to worry about quietly while
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: we're up in three o'clock in the morning, in the
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: middle of the night?
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I think we're doing, and we're continuing
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: to encourage people to do the things we need to
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: do to fight back. Like whatever the worry is, the
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: answer is volunteering, right? Well, it's voting first and volunteering.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: I always try to encourage people. It's not just the
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: volunteering you do when you sign up at the volunteer
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: hub and you're going to do an hour of calling
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: or all of that. It's like also organize your life, right?
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: Who are the people that you know, we all know them,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: who we love them, we're friends with them, went to
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: college with them, we worked with them, they're our cousin,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: who we think, you know, when push comes to shove,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: they just might forget to turn in their ballot or
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: not do it. Who are those people and what can
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: we do to make sure that they have a plan
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: to vote, right? You know, it's your friend who will
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: always show up late to everything or might forget to
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: you know, send in money for your March Madness pool
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: or whatever. It's like that person, go find those people
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: and go talk to them now. My worry is not,
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: I'm actually not highly worried about anything that Trump is
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: going to say or do in terms of the election.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: I'm worried about what Trump or say or could do
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: that could make the pandemic worse, could make the economy for,
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: you know, hopefully President Biden worse, just further damage the
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: moral fabric of this country. But my biggest concern about
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: the election is that We have a really shitty electoral
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: system in this country. It is underfunded. It is filled
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: with arcane rules. It has a presumption of making voting harder,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: not easier. Republicans have strained that system through malicious voter
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: suppression laws, sort of undermining the infrastructure for the purposes
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: of winning elections with a minority of voters. And that
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: system works poorly in the best of circumstances. I don't
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: know how closely you've been following the news, but these
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: are not the best of circumstances. This is an election
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: that's happening in a pandemic. It's going to happen largely
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: vote by mail. It's going to have what we think
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: to be massive turnout, and it's going to strain that system.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: That's what I worry about is something where some set
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: of votes aren't counted. Some people don't get a chance
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: to vote. These crazy things with signature matches in various
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: places or envelopes you have to include. You know, I
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: have a friend of mine who texted me after listening
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: to my interview with John Fetterman about, like I asked
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania, like, what are you telling people
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: about voting by mail or voting in person? And the
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: Lieutenant Governor said, trust the Postal Service. Send your ballot
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: in early. But because of Pennsylvania laws, if you requested
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: a mail ballot and you want to vote in person,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: you have to bring all of the mail ballot with
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: you to do it. If you don't, you're filling out
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: a provisional. And my friend was like, is that true everywhere?
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: Because I got a mail ballot like as a backup.
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: And I so I was going to vote it, but
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: I was going to go vote in person. And I
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: was like, go to vote Save America Yahoo.
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: That's what worries me, too. A huge percentage of Americans
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: are going to be voting for the first time using
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: a different method of voting and in an enormous percentage
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: of Democrats. specifically are going to do that so like
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: 70 plus percent of our vote the democratic vote could
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: come through the mail and that's a lot of people
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: are going to use it for the very first time
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: so that's what freaks me out and we can do
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: something about that like you said which is to encourage
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: everyone in our life to make sure they have a
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: plan to vote to know exactly what they need to
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: do to make sure their ballot counts wherever they live
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: and to fucking get those ballots in like everyone send
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: in your ballot take Fill out your ballot, send it
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: in today. And like, I know that most of the
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: people listening to this probably have already done that. Like
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: you said, pick five people in your life to go
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: say that to, to just send your mail ballot in today.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: Because like, I worry about people like waking up on
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: election day and some of these states don't count ballots
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: that are delivered after election day. Some of these swing
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: states and some do, right? Like these are what the
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: court battles are for. But like, forget about all that.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: Just send it in today. Send it in tomorrow, right?
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: Like do it now. Because I think the earlier you
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: send it in, the earlier everyone else sends their ballots in,
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: the lower the chances are that there's going to be
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: all kinds of shenanigans at the end.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: I think that is exactly right. And it is like,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: if and when we win this election, one of the
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: things that has to be an absolute priority is fixing
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: voting in America. And that is the John Lewis Voting
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: Rights Act, where we're going to do automatic voter registration,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: all these other things. But it's also funding our elections
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: and changing the presumption because Really, our brain is so
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: broken voting, and really broken by Republicans, that all these
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: signature match laws, these naked envelope thing, all of that
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: is based on this idea that we are so concerned
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: about a tiny fraction of possibly but unlikely fraudulent votes
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: that we're going to throw out a bunch of clearly
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: legitimate votes, right? And that is completely the opposite way
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: of thinking about it. And it's very problematic. And it's
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: the thing that worries me about this election.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: Let's start with the Senate map, where Democrats are currently
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: favored to win a majority. The party, which currently has
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: 47 seats, is trying to protect incumbent senators Gary Peters
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: in Michigan and Doug Jones in Alabama, and then flip
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: Republican seats in Colorado, Arizona, Maine, North Carolina, Iowa, Georgia, Montana, Texas, Kansas,
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: South Carolina, maybe even Alaska. We only need a net
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: gain of three seats if Biden wins the presidency, which
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: would mean that a Vice President Kamala Harris can break
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: any 50-50 tie. Currently, polls have Democratic candidates ahead by
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: pretty healthy margins in Arizona and Colorado, a decent margin
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: in Maine, smaller margins in North Carolina and Iowa, and
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: either tied or slightly behind everywhere else. Dan, which of
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: these races do you feel best about?
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: Colorado.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Colorado.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems like the Republicans sort of stopped spending
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: money in Colorado. They're leaving Cory Gardner hanging out to
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: dry there.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: It seems that way, yes, which is exactly what Cory
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: Gardner deserves and more. But it's the bluest of those states.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: It is also one where the concerns that I have
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: about how the election machinery are least relevant because they've
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: been a vote-by-mail state since 2014. So they're doing this.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: People in Colorado are voting exactly like they voted two
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: years ago and two years before.
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: That, etc.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: Um, but it seems like he's probably contacting lobbying firms
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: on LinkedIn right now, trying to figure out what his
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: next move is.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: Or the debate commission.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: Or the debate commission.
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: Actually, actually one of the rules of debate commission is
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: you have to have not worked in politics for at
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: least three decades. So he's, he has to wait 20,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: 20 some years.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: Um, what's, what's the latest with North Carolina? It, uh,
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: it appears that Cal Cunningham's very boring texts with a
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: woman that wasn't his wife haven't changed his small lead
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: over Tom Tellis, but still a tight race.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: I did a fundraiser for Cal earlier this week. North
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: Carolina is my state. I've adopted. I've done a bunch
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: of things for them. And they asked if I would
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: do it on the fundraiser. And it was right after
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: he had raised $ 38 million, whatever it was. And so
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: I was like, I'm happy to do something, but is
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: there something other than money? And they pointed out to
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: me that it's going to North Carolina is going to
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: be the most expensive Senate race in history. A quarter
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: of a billion dollars is going to be spent in
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: that race.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: Quarter of a billion dollars.
• 41:16
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: And so it seems like this is going to be,
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: I think it's going to be very close. Tillis has
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: mostly been underperforming Trump throughout this process. And I think-
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: That's a trend we've seen among some of the other
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: vulnerable Republican senators that we can talk about. But it's
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: going to be very close. Cal has been well positioned
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: since then. You know, the big issue is the pandemic
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: and health care. And Tillis is sort of the worst
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: of all worlds. Like, this is a story Cal tells
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: on the campaign trail that I think is fascinating, is
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: that remember when Trump did the emergency declaration and he
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: was going to take money to pay for the wall?
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: Tillis wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post saying, that
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: calling on Trump not to do it.
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: It was a big deal because it was a big deal.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: It was going to come from the military budget. North
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: Carolina has a bunch of military bases. They were going
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: to suffer mightily. Trump called Tillis and then Tillis voted
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: for it. That's a good hit. Tillis is on the
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: Judiciary Committee helping in North Carolina, a state that has
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: not approved Medicaid expansion. Healthcare is a huge issue that
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: has been hit pretty hard by the pandemic. And Tillis
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: is right now helping put someone on the Supreme Court
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: who will kick hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians off
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: their healthcare and deny millions of North Carolinians pre-existing conditions coverage.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: So that seems like there's a lot to talk about
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: to drive the conversation. You just got to finish it out.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess my question on that race is, If
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: Trump ekes it out in North Carolina, it will be
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: because he sort of juiced Republican turnout in a lot
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: of rural areas. And if he gets people out to
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: vote who wouldn't have otherwise come out for Tillis, do
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: they just check off the box for Tillis along with Trump,
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: even though they didn't really like Tillis that much just
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: because he's a Republican?
• 43:01
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that's the question. It's interesting because you
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: also have Rory Cooper running for reelection there and he
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: is polling well above 50 in a strong place. And
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: so it's going to be there's going to be some
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: ticket splitting happening there. So it'll be interesting. And, you know,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: as of this far, Cal has been doing better with
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: Republican voters than even Biden in cases. So, you know,
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: we'll have to see if that holds to the end.
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: And how about Iowa? It seems that in the last
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: few weeks, Teresa Greenfield has opened up a three to
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: five point lead over Joni Ernst. After a debate in
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: which the Republican didn't know the price of soybeans in Iowa,
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: even as Greenfield nailed the price of corn. What'd you
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: think about that?
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, it was an amazing debate moment. And I,
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: so I worked a number of campaigns in South Dakota
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: over the years. And it is the one thing you
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: do before you walk into the debate is you check
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: the price of corn and soybeans and hogs and cattle.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: And you make sure you're getting it. It's like the
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: most standard, basic blocking and tackling debate prep because it
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: is for the upper Midwest. It's the equivalent of what's
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: the price of a carton of milk. And people have
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: failed that before. So the fact that Joni Ernst did
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: not know that and seemed flummoxed to even get the
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: question is such a perfectly awesome failure on her part.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: Iowa is interesting because, you know, Donald Trump won Iowa
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: by nine points in 2016. And I don't think many
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: people thought about it as Sort of a competitive state
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: this time around. You know, there was a Monmouth poll
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: out this morning, which is a very high quality poll
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: that showed Biden with a lead in Iowa. It's a
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: very small lead. Greenfield with a lead. I think it's
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: interesting wondering why Iowa may be shifting. Like, this is
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: a state where COVID has hit really hard recently. And
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of older voters. And the Monmouth poll
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: shows Biden with a big lead among older voters in Iowa.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: And I do wonder if in states like Iowa and Wisconsin,
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: where the outbreak is really bad right now, if that
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: is sort of driving some of the shift towards Biden
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: among the electorate, specifically among seniors.
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's very, very possible. That is one
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: of the things that has tied some of these Midwestern
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: states together is older voters hit hard by the pandemic.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: And that is Trump's greatest weakness, right? That is And
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: you see that repeatedly that the greatest concern these older
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: voters have is his failure to handle the pandemic. And
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: so I think that is, you know, a problem for
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: maybe why these states that we thought would be more
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: firmly in his column or not. Questions.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: So we got a listener question about the Georgia Senate
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: special election. Autumn asks, can someone explain why there are
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: still two Republican candidates discussed in that race? Just so
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: you all know. There are two Senate races in Georgia.
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: The first is the regularly scheduled race in which Democrat
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: John Ossoff is running tied or slightly behind incumbent Republican
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: David Perdue. The second is a special to fill the
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: remainder of Johnny Isakson's term, who retired early and was
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: replaced by Republican Kelly Loeffler, who was appointed by the governor.
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: Loeffler is now facing two strong challenges, one from Reverend
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, and another from Republican Congressman Doug Collins.
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: If no candidate gets over 50% of the vote, The
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: top two go to a runoff that's held sometime this
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: fall or winter after the election. Currently, Warnock is leading
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: both Loeffler and Collins, who are splitting the Republican vote.
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: So what do you think about this race, Dan? Can
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: Warnock get over 50 on election day? And if he doesn't,
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: how are his chances in a runoff?
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: The answer is yes. I would have thought the answer
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: was very, very close to no a few weeks ago.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: We've had these conversations within Crooked Media as we've talked
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: about where to focus on Senate races. And there was
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: this sort of sense that maybe like, let's deal with
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: the Georgia runoff after election day. But Warnock has consolidated
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: the vote. He's proved to be stronger. And if there
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: is a very strong performance at the top of the
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: ticket in Georgia, he very well could eke it out.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: And if he does that, that would be great. I
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have thought that was possible a few weeks ago,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: but he has consolidated support from other candidates and he's
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: within striking distance.
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: And what's the difference between an electorate and a runoff
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: versus now? Do you think that would be harder?
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: Yes, I think it would be harder. It's not impossible.
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: Because you don't get the turnout that you get in
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: a presidential.
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, higher turnout in a state like Georgia is
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: better for Democrats. And you're not going to get anywhere
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: near as high a turnout, of course, in a runoff
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: that happens a few weeks after the most important election
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: in history. Now, you just don't know, like, what is
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: the mood of voters, right? Does Biden win and Republicans
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: are depressed and don't turn out, right? Like, that's also
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: a possibility. We don't really know what it is, but
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: I would say your best chance... Is to win it
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: right now. It's still, I think it's still a possibility
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: in Georgia is moving in the right direction, but it's, there's,
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of unknowns in what the political environment
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: looks like other than we know it'll be lower turnout.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: And that is generally less good for us statewide in Georgia.
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: Got a couple more listener questions. Uh, Jenna asks, hi guys.
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: The other day you were hyping up Doug Jones. What
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: does Jones's race mean for other races in Alabama? I
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: wouldn't think that Alabama would be in play for Biden
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: and it's never talked about as a swing state. So
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: for Jones to win, are you saying that people will
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: go into the voting booth and vote for Trump and Jones?
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: Are there example of similar situations in other states in
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: the past when this kind of thing has happened?
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: Yes. I'll give you an example would be Heidi Heitkamp
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: in North Dakota in 2012. Romney ran away with that
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: state and Heidi Heitkamp won a very close race is
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: an example. You know, it does happen. Doug Jones has
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: a very clear appeal to a broad ideological coalition of voters. Like, like,
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: as we said, when we talked about this, it is
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: not easy for a Democrat to win in Alabama at
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: any time, let alone in a presidential year. But if
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: someone can do it, I think Doug Jones has the
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: profile because he is someone who has appealed to independent, moderate,
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: and some Republican voters, but also really excites the black
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: community in.
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: Alabama, right?
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: That is a very unique, uh, political resume. Because a
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: lot of times you get one or the other, and
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: he has capacity to do both, which is how he
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: won in 2017 and why he could possibly pull this
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: off again.
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: My favorite example of this is in Wisconsin in 2018,
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: where Tony Evers, the governor there, sort of like eked
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: out a little over one point win against Scott Walker.
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: Tammy Baldwin, who is a very progressive Democrat, senator, beat
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: her opponent by double digits in the same year, which
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: means that there are a bunch of people, a bunch
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: of Wisconsinites who pulled the lever for Scott Walker and
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: Tammy Baldwin. Like it happens all the time. And I
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: think if you pay close attention to politics, sometimes you
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: think that voters are either like, Democratic partisans, Republican partisans
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: or like independents split right down the middle. And that's
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: just not the case. Like voters are complex. They have
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: different preferences. Sometimes they like a Democratic candidate and a
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: Republican candidate in the same year who are completely on
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: opposite sides of the spectrum. But maybe they like the
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, like you just voters are very complex. Their
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: motivations are complex. And it's it is bad for all
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: of us to just assume that people are going to
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: be split. evenly as partisans, right? Like if Joe Biden
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: wins this election, it will be because a bunch of
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: people who voted for Donald Trump decided to change their
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: mind and vote for Joe Biden. It happens, you know?
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: Last question, Amelia asks, I'm a voter in North Carolina
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: and I have a question about general election ads. Who
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: makes voting decisions based on ads? If you're not voting
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: on policy alone, i.e. if you do not strictly adhere
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: to a particular party platform, then how do these ads
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: change your mind? All ads are going to portray their
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: candidate in a positive biased way and voters in swing
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: states are going to see ads from both campaigns. So
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: how does one or the other convince an undecided voter?
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: I'm going to ask the star of campaign experts react
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: to answer this question.
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: It's so embarrassed by everything that just said.
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: And then I'm going to tell everyone to smash that
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: subscribe button.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: Yes, do smash that subscribe button. I don't think we
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: should think about, particularly in a presidential campaign, one individual ad.
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: winning or losing election or one individual ad persuading a voter.
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: Voters are often sort of surfing political news and conversation, right?
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: They're seeing their Facebook feed. They're hearing it from their friends.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: They are going, you know, they're flipping through the channels
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: of the news and they see them and they see
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: things on TV. And it is all a piece that
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: creates an impression of who the candidate is, what they
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: stand for, what they would do. Presidential elections, you know,
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: when we had Axelrod, David Axelrod, the hack on tap
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: on Campaign Experts React, He made the point that I
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: think is really important, which is in races, they get
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: very little political coverage and attention. Ads are incredibly consequential.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: The only thing you may ever know about your congressional
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: candidate is something you saw on a television ad, right?
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: You may not ever see a news story about them.
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: You've never met them. You don't see an interview with them.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: Presidential election is, it's sort of icing on the cake.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: And it The cake has to work for the IC network.
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: And so it matters. And the reason why you end
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: up in these ever ascending arms races of spending is
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: you don't ever want to see to your opponent the
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: ability to shape that conversation without some sort of response.
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: And so it keeps going and going. It's definitely on
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: the margins and it seems strange to spend several billion
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: dollars on something that's going to matter on the margins,
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: but the stakes are so high that You're not going
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: to cede that territory.
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: Also, the psychology of advertising can be really subtle, right?
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: There's a reason that companies all over the world have
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: spent billions and billions of dollars on advertising and marketing
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: since the dawn of time, right? You could be one
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: of these sort of less engaged voters, not sure if
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: you're going to vote, still undecided. And there's something in
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: the background where there's a Joe Biden ad with sort
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: of some nice music and makes you have a good feeling.
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: And you're like, yeah, I sort of do like that.
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: Like you don't even admit this to yourself, but like
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: subconsciously advertising can work on you. It has worked on
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: consumers for decades, for centuries. So like you do, you know,
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: and I do think like, as we close just to make,
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, the ads from the Biden campaign and democratic
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: groups or progressive groups in general, I think, you know,
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: win or lose this race have been some of the
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: best I've seen in years.
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's definitely right. There's been some really, really,
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: really good ads. The Biden campaign has done a really
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: great job with it. I think the way to think
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: about advertising, not to like sort of nerd out about it,
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: is some advertising is like what you would think of
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: as direct response, right? Like I'm going to tell you
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: about a product and I want you to go get
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: that product. And the next time you leave your home
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: or the next time you pick up your phone, right?
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: That's like often what fast food advertising is, right? Like, man,
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: I would love a pizza right now. Let me order it.
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: Here's the juicy burger. Go get it.
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 53:50
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: And then there's brand advertising, right? Which makes you try
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: to change how you feel about a company or a product.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: And it's a product that you may buy once every
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: three years, like a car or an iPhone. This is
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: really what Apple does, right? And political advertising, in particular,
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: is really sort of brand advertising, right? It's shaping your
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: impression along with all the other information you have. about
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: that candidate. And, you know, I think it, like I said,
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: I think it probably, it does not matter as much
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: as people who host YouTube shows probably say it does,
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: but it does matter. And, uh, if you don't execute
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: it well, uh, you could be in a really troubling situation.
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: And I do think to your point about the brand,
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: I think the brand that sort of all the Biden
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: ads and the other group ads are shaping is one
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: of calm competence, unity, Versus chaos with Donald Trump. That
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: seems to be what all the ads are sort of
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: pointing to what they're trying to make people feel this
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: sense of like, we can have a more unified, calmer
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: country than this shit. And usually the negative ads are
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: about Trump saying crazy stuff and, you know, mishandling the
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: pandemic and the economy and all this other stuff. So
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: it is you do get a theme from all of
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: the advertising we've seen so far.
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: It's a theme consistent with Biden, right? Like the like
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: a Biden interview, a Biden debate performance seems consistent to
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: the ads. This is one of been one of Trump's
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: problems is his ads about Biden don't seem at all
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: connected to the person who is Biden. And Trump's ads
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: about himself don't seem at all connected to the Trump
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: we see, right? You cannot, if you tell everyone that
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: you were selling a great phone and it is a
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: shitty phone, the ads aren't going to work. They're eventually
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: going to get the phone. And that's been the problem
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: for Trump. And the Biden campaign, like you said, win
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: or lose, these have been some very, very good ads.
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: Well, when we come back, we'll have Dan's interview with
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: disinformation expert, Jory Craig.
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: Jory Craig is the vice president of GQR, a political
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: research firm and an expert on voter disinformation, digital infrastructure,
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: and public opinion research. Thanks for coming on Pod Save America.
• 55:57
  Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: I want to start at the most basic level. We've
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: been talking about disinformation, misinformation, foreign interference, all of this
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: for the last four years here. What is disinformation and
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: how is it used in a campaign and who's using it? Sure.
• 56:12
  Speaker 5: So disinformation is information that's used to harm or confuse
• 56:16
  Speaker 5: or mislead. Usually it's false, made up information. Sometimes it
• 56:19
  Speaker 5: has a kernel of truth. But the point is the
• 56:22
  Speaker 5: intent behind it is to confuse, mislead, distract. It's different
• 56:27
  Speaker 5: from misinformation, which is just misinformation that's false, but you
• 56:30
  Speaker 5: didn't mean for it to be false. So right now,
• 56:32
  Speaker 5: some people might share information trying to help people vote.
• 56:35
  Speaker 5: It might be slightly off because their state's different than
• 56:37
  Speaker 5: someone else's state.
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: That's misinformation. That's a different ballgame. Thinking about disinformation, I
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: like to think of it as influence campaigns.
• 56:45
  Speaker 5: These are influence campaigns. Their disinformation is one tactic that
• 56:49
  Speaker 5: they use. In every case, they're trying to influence us
• 56:52
  Speaker 5: to do something offline, take some sort of offline action.
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: And so what are you seeing in this cycle right
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: here in 2020 that is concerning in the realm of disinformation?
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: And the answer may be everything, so.
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, there's a lot going on.
• 57:08
  Speaker 5: I mean, one of the things I specialize in is
• 57:11
  Speaker 5: because my background is in international work, I was sort
• 57:13
  Speaker 5: of brought in to talk about the threat of foreign
• 57:16
  Speaker 5: state actor disinformation. Upon looking around, the far bigger problem
• 57:21
  Speaker 5: is the domestic disinformation that we're seeing being pushed by
• 57:24
  Speaker 5: bad actors at home. And I think one of the
• 57:27
  Speaker 5: most concerning things I see and that I deal with
• 57:30
  Speaker 5: is that one of the goals bad actors have, no
• 57:31
  Speaker 5: matter what they're pushing— is to try to get us
• 57:34
  Speaker 5: to share their message, to try to bypass credible sourcing
• 57:38
  Speaker 5: so we are the ones moving their message around. And
• 57:40
  Speaker 5: so one thing that's concerning to me sometimes is that
• 57:43
  Speaker 5: our space sometimes in a reaction and trying to say, hey,
• 57:45
  Speaker 5: that's false, we're moving those.
• 57:47
  Speaker 4: Messages for them.
• 57:48
  Speaker 5: And so that's one thing that I think is really
• 57:50
  Speaker 5: important in these final days and weeks leading up to
• 57:53
  Speaker 5: the election that we're mindful of when we see something
• 57:56
  Speaker 5: that we think is not true or that we're concerned
• 57:58
  Speaker 5: about that we don't accidentally make it worse.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: How do we end up making it worse and what's
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: the right step to take that doesn't make it worse?
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: Like on an individual level, I'm a person who is
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: on Facebook or Twitter and I see something that appears
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: to be disinformation of some kind. What should I do
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: to handle that in a way that actually makes things better,
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: not worse?
• 58:17
  Speaker 5: Sure. So first things first, take a deep breath, slow down.
• 58:21
  Speaker 5: I think Twitter especially makes us want to act, retweet,
• 58:25
  Speaker 5: ask questions really quick. Slow down, make sure your reaction
• 58:28
  Speaker 5: isn't actually going to move that into more feeds before
• 58:30
  Speaker 5: you know.
• 58:30
  Speaker 4: Anything about it.
• 58:32
  Speaker 5: Next step, if you see something that you know is false,
• 58:34
  Speaker 5: that you know is problematic, it should trigger something in
• 58:37
  Speaker 5: your mind.
• 58:38
  Speaker 4: I've come up with the ratio five to one.
• 58:40
  Speaker 5: For every one time you see something that you think
• 58:42
  Speaker 5: is problematic, think, okay, that's five more times I need
• 58:44
  Speaker 5: to get what is true out there to the people
• 58:47
  Speaker 5: that matter. And to the people that matter is really important.
• 58:49
  Speaker 5: There's about 24% of Americans on Twitter. A lot of
• 58:53
  Speaker 5: us are more informed. We're paying attention. We're moving quickly.
• 58:55
  Speaker 5: A lot of the people who are susceptible to the
• 58:57
  Speaker 5: attacks are in different spaces online.
• 59:00
  Speaker 4: They're on Facebook. They're on Instagram. They're on WhatsApp threads.
• 59:03
  Speaker 5: And so for every one time you see something false,
• 59:05
  Speaker 5: think to yourself, that's five times I need to reach
• 59:07
  Speaker 5: out to those people who are actually susceptible to this
• 59:11
  Speaker 5: attack with what's true.
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: Consider what sources they would believe.
• 59:15
  Speaker 5: So not the sources I believe, but the sources that
• 59:17
  Speaker 5: I think would be attractive to them. So maybe a
• 59:19
  Speaker 5: local source, maybe AP. And instead of repeating the lie
• 59:23
  Speaker 5: when you're communicating to them, say, hey, did you hear
• 59:26
  Speaker 5: this lie?
• 59:26
  Speaker 4: Well, it's not true.
• 59:27
  Speaker 5: Instead, start with the truth. Start with the information you
• 59:31
  Speaker 5: want to get out there. Question the motive of the messenger,
• 59:34
  Speaker 5: because remember, this is all a con. The victim of
• 59:36
  Speaker 5: disinformation is the voter. And so all of these bad actors,
• 59:39
  Speaker 5: whoever they are, they're misleading the voter. And so talk
• 59:42
  Speaker 5: about the motives they have for distracting with whatever narrative
• 59:46
  Speaker 5: they're putting out there. And then reaffirm with empathy why
• 59:50
  Speaker 5: you think it's not true, how you check your sources,
• 59:53
  Speaker 5: and how you can help them together get through all
• 59:55
  Speaker 5: the noise that's going to be put out there on
• 59:57
  Speaker 5: election day.
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: What are you seeing from the social media platforms in
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: terms of the efforts that they are taking to deal
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: with disinformation?
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 4: So the social.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 5: Media companies have taken a lot of action recently, really
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 5: in the final hour. However, we've really spent the whole
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 5: year begging them, asking them to do more. They allowed
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 5: medical disinformation to flourish in the year we had a pandemic. They,
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 5: Facebook failed their civil rights audit in the year that
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 5: we had one of the biggest, you know, movements to
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 5: try to fight for criminal justice reform and justice. And
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 5: so it shouldn't be forgotten that even though they took
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 5: these dramatic actions really close to the election.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 4: They're not enough.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 5: They have a very long history of inconsistent policy enforcement.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 5: And so, you know, we have to work with them.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 5: They have a huge audience. There are a lot of
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 5: people on their platform. So we work closely with them
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 5: to try to do the best we can, but we
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 5: don't have a lot of faith that they will enact
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 5: their policies as quickly as they should and even as
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 5: they're outlined as written on their websites.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: Are some of the steps they're taking making things worse,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: not better?
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 4: Yes, in some cases. I mean, it's a double-edged sword.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 5: So in some, you know, a big one is they
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 5: said that they were going to no longer allow new
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 5: political ads to come from anyone in the final week
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 5: leading up to the election. That disproportionately hurts Democrats. That
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 5: disproportionately hurts groups with smaller budgets. We know that bad
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 5: actors on the right in particular have a huge ability
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 5: to get massive organic reach on Facebook, even though those
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 5: same publishers have been docked and broken Facebook rules and
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 5: they should be.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 4: Getting penalized for that. They're not.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 5: And so what actions we take in that final week,
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 5: it's more than just liking and sharing because that's a
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 5: good idea. It's really going to make up for that
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 5: deficit where we won't be spending money on paid ads.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 5: We won't be spending money on new GOTV ads. Of course,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 5: ads will still be running, but there won't be anything
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 5: new should something come up, should a narrative change. And
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 5: so our efforts, our organic efforts are really going to make.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 4: The difference there.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: One of the things the platforms have done is to
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: try to disable sharing of disinformation. And this sort of
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: came to the forefront last, I guess it's last week,
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: but time has no meaning anymore, when the New York
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: Post published this story that many people believe is part
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: of a disinformation plot about a laptop that may or
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: may not belong to Hunter Biden. And both Facebook and
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: Twitter disabled the sharing of that story. What was your
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: view of how they handled that? And was that productive, counterproductive?
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: What does it tell you about what's happening over the
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: next two weeks?
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 4: Well, we don't know what's going to happen over the
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 4: next two weeks.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 5: We know that the right is going to continue to
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 5: throw things out there, try to get mainstream sources, try
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 5: to get Twitter, try to get those folks to pick
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 5: up their story and move it for them. I think
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 5: that the platforms actioned things that were false.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 4: They're lies.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 5: They break the policies. They violate those things. That's things
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 5: we've been asking for, not from a partisan standpoint all year,
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 5: really from a This is affecting voters.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 4: This hurts voters' ability to make decisions.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 5: I think some people talk about, hey, well, was there
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 5: backlash because then people couldn't share? Really, the primary thing
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 5: that my work deals with is people spending too much
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 5: sharing the bad, too much sharing and trying to debunk
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 5: and actually moving that information around.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 4: Remember, a lot of the bad actors, including a.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 5: Lot of the conspiracy work that's already been done this year,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 5: is to create distrust in the messengers who are trying
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 5: to debunk And so in a way, even though efforts
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 5: are really well intentioned, a lot of times some of
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 5: those messengers who are debunking, that's.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 4: All part of their their hope.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 5: And so, you know, I think it's great that the
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 5: platforms enforced their rules and they should have been doing
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 5: this all along. It was very stark and for people
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 5: because they haven't been doing it all along. But I
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 5: wish this would have been happening all year.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: And, you know, this is a. becomes more challenging in
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: situations where, you know, it's not just a quasi major
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: media outlet in the New York Post, but also a
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: lot of disinformation comes directly from the mouth and the
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: Twitter feed of the president of the United States. And
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: I think we as Democrats have done exactly what you
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: were telling us not to do, which is, you know,
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: we spread it by yelling about it, right? And like,
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: are there specific different strategies that you think we should
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: use in dealing with misinformation coming directly from the president
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: of the United States or a major political figure like that?
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 4: So the president of the United States, we know he lies.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 4: He lies.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 5: And because he's the president of the United States, he's
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 5: going to cross that tipping point threshold. We know we
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 5: tell people, hey, look at reach and impact. Who has
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 5: it reached and what impact is it having before you
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 5: determine whether it's appropriate to respond? He's got a lot
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 5: of reach and he's got a lot of, I guess, impact.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 5: And so it is OK to acknowledge the fact that
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 5: he's lying all the time. But when you do so,
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 5: instead of leading with what he said, instead of sharing
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 5: what he said, share and lead with and have the
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 5: thing that you want people moving around the internet to
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 5: be the true information or the call out on his
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 5: motives for pushing the lie he's pushing at any given moment.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 5: You know, remembering they really do rely on our pickup.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 5: They think about what will get us riled up, what
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 5: will get us moving things around. And so when you
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 5: see something, repeat, double down for every one time Trump lies,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 5: you've got to get what's real out there five times
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 5: as much. You've got to go to the spaces where
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 5: the susceptible voters are.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 4: If that's Facebook, if that's.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 5: You know, DMing folks, whatever you have to do, it
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 5: really should trigger that kind of response instead of, hey,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 5: I'm going to retweet this to my Twitter followers and
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 5: we're all going to talk about how horrible it is.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 4: And then unfortunately, one thing that's problematic with the fact that.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 5: There are 24% of people on Twitter and those people
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 5: are disproportionately people who are politically engaged is that sometimes
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 5: the conversation moves on there and they forget to go
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 5: do the work with the people in the other platforms,
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 5: on the other spaces, because that's not their preferred area of,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 5: you know, prophesizing. But it's really important that we turn
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 5: our megaphones to the voters who need it most in
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 5: these final two weeks.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: You know, we, I think people probably who know a
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: lot less than you do about disinformation, we're very worried
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: just about how this election would play itself out Has
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: it gone better or worse than you expected in terms
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: of disinformation, both in the amount of it out there
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: and then how all the various players, social media platforms,
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: mainstream media outlets, other politicians have responded to that?
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 5: The volume is about what I would expect, the grotesque
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 5: content that's pushed by bad actors.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 4: Is as I'd expect it.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 5: They've not done anything that has surprised me. They've not
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 5: done anything that I'm saying, wow, they've really upped their game.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 5: This is pretty much playbook, looking at countries around the
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 5: world and how disinformation affects them.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 4: They certainly are.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 5: Sophisticated in cross-channel attempts to push their message across all
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 5: different channels where we're not paying attention.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 4: But that hasn't surprised me.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 5: I have been encouraged by the ecosystem's reaction to some
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 5: of this, no longer just amplifying it. You know, you're
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 5: seeing fewer bad headlines covering either character attacks on Senator
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 5: Harris or just false narratives in general.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 4: But we're still seeing mistakes, too.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 5: And I will say, you know, I think that people
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 5: cannot resist the urge to talk about the sexy story
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 5: and how bad it is and how wrong it is
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 5: and how false it is.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 4: And, you know, that's that's takes up the oxygen.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 5: And so then what you're not getting out there is
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 5: what's right, what's true, what information do voters need, what
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 5: information should they be considering.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 4: When they're in the ballot box.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 5: And our accidental attempt to debunk sometimes ends.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 4: Up making it worse.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 5: As you're noticing as a theme in what I say,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 5: it's sort of the whole deal because when we look
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 5: at what reactions people.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 4: Have and how they take their narratives and move them
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 4: into mainstream minds, it can't be done without our help.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 5: And so when it's moving in, it's always with our assistance.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: Like we think we're doing the right thing and we're
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: just making it worse, basically.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, sometimes.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 5: I mean, and another thing is like, remember, you know,
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 5: I think, for example, the space just started talking about
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 5: conspiracies over the past few months. So that maybe gives
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 5: the impression that those conspiracies have just arrived in the
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 5: past few months.
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: They haven't.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 5: And so a lot of the work we think we're like, OK, great,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 5: we're going to debunk out.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 4: We're going to get the word out. A lot of
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 4: the impact of the conspiracies.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 5: Was already done before we arrived to the final month out.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 4: And of course, you want to get information out there.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 5: You want to make sure people understand what's true and
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 5: that these conspiracies are just a distraction from both important
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 5: issues and the election. It also sort of the whole
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 5: conversation is out of sync with where a lot of
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 5: Americans are in terms of when they heard this information,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 5: what they've thought about it. And sometimes that can be
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 5: problematic when there's only so much oxygen to take up ahead.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 4: Of the election.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: You've done a lot of work. As you said, the
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: bulk of your work is overseas. Do we handle this worse,
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: as badly or better than other countries around the world?
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: And if it's worse, is there a reason why you
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: think that is?
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 4: Other countries handle this in a different way.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 5: And I would say that I think some of the
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 5: systems we have set up where we have a lot
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 5: of our campaign lanes really siloed from one another is know,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 5: we've got a lot of consultants doing fundraising, a lot
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 5: of consultants suing media. We have comms separate from finance,
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 5: separate from field. And on the campaigns abroad, everything is
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 5: a little bit more integrated. And so everybody's on board
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 5: with understanding, hey, when something appears, we're all going to
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 5: be measuring reach and impact in the same way. And therefore,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 5: things don't raise blood pressure as quickly. I think here
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 5: because of the disconnect, because different lanes aren't talking to
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 5: one another, it's easier for someone to say, hey, this
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 5: is going on, and other lanes not know how to
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 5: interpret it and overreact. So I think more integration between
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 5: departments would be really helpful. I think the amount of
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 5: money we have in our system does not help because
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 5: there's so much money for there to be so many
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 5: specific lanes. But if we can integrate that a little
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 5: bit better, I think it would be I think it
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 5: would be useful. The other thing that, you know, countries
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 5: abroad do differently is here. We're a really big country.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 4: We've got a lot of states.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 5: We have a lot of interested parties in the elections
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 5: and everybody kind of does their own thing.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 4: The Internet has no border. Social media has no border.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 5: And so if you're not looking at the narratives and
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 5: networks and how they interact with one another, you can
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 5: miss things. And so establishing what those baselines are up
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 5: front for the different categories of disinformation.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 4: Topics, the different bad actors is really helpful.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 5: So you can very quickly understand what you're up against.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: Thank you. That's fascinating. And how does our media handle
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: it better or the same?
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 4: So the media around the world is struggling with this.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 5: I think that I've thought more about media and journalism
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 5: than I thought I would in my career because of
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 5: the relationship it has with disinformation. I'd say that the
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 5: media is better in some ways because it's a little
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 5: bit less sensational. I think our media has become, you know,
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 5: everything's breaking news no matter what. I think there's a
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 5: little bit more discernment around the world. But they're having
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 5: the same problems. Bad actors everywhere are trying to break
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 5: down trust in media. And so that's a playbook that's
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 5: being run everywhere. You know, you're seeing in the Philippines
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 5: people are losing their media license because They're being destroyed
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 5: on social media.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 4: That's breaking down.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 5: And then the people, the bad actors, the dictators who
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 5: are doing that still have a really high approval rating.
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 5: So this is certainly a challenge media groups are facing
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 5: all over the world. I think that ours have more
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 5: money and more of a stage and more of a
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 5: willingness or pressure to have the breaking news. So we
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 5: might be a little bit worse on how bad we're
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 5: making the problem.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: Interesting. Well, Jory, thank you so much for taking the
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: time to talk to us about this. It's fascinating, equal
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: parts alarming and maybe hopeful because you offer us some
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: real strategies on what we can do about it, both
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: in these next couple of weeks, but this problem is
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: not going away even after this election. So thank you
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: so much and good luck with everything.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: Thanks to Jory for joining us today. We will see
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 2: you guys tomorrow night, Thursday night for the debate. We'll
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: be on GroupThread. go to cricket.com slash debate to hang
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 2: out with us. And then Friday morning, all four of
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: us will be doing our post debate pod. So check
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: it out.
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: Thanks everyone.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 2: Pod Save America is a Cricket Media production. The executive
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 2: our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 2: Quinn Lewis, Brian Semmel, Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 2: production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian,
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: episodes as videos every week.