Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.
We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio ad staff give you, guys, the best independent coverage.
That is possible.
If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support.
But enough with that, let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody, Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal, indeed we do.
How many days are we till day?
Fifteen days?
Oh my god, super close.
We've got new early voting data out of Nevada that is quite interesting to dig into with our friend Logan, so we will do that. We also have some new numbers about how both campaigns are making their closing pitch. They clearly both have very different analyzes of how to move voters here in the final days that we'll dig into that as well. We also have a lot of activity on the campaign trail, Donald Trump working at McDonald's.
We'll show you that.
He also was talking about Arnold Palmer Stick for some reason, we'll show you that as well, for whatever that's worth. Elon is out potentially breaking election law. Will break that down for you. Kamala was on a SEBC with Reverend Al Sharpton, clearly trying to make a pitch to black men in particular.
Some interesting moments there.
She continues to struggle with Arab American voters and gave a just in my opinion, horrendous answer about whether she could lose the election over October seventh and her signing with Joe Biden and not breaking with him whatsoever. We also have some updates for you out of the Middle East.
Israel Know assassinated successfully, Yeah yah Sinoir. They released the video of you know as a drone video of the moments leading up to his death and really in certain ways provided a propaganda final propaganda win for him, even outlets like Wall Street Journal writing it up as such. So we'll break those details down for you. And Ken Clippenstein is going to join us. He just posted some documents that were leaked to a telegram channel that was the you who us is assessment of how Israel may
retaliate against Iran. A lot that's interesting there. Both the substance of the documents, also details about, you know, our relationship with Israel and the media's relationship to reporting on these type of leak documents. So Ken will join us to break all of that down.
Yeah, it's going to be a great show today. Make sure you go ahead and subscribe Breakingpoints dot Com. You're going to get access to part of our conversation with Logan. That's what you guys get, as well as the show Early Ama, etc. I think we're going to be doing that tomorrow, So go ahead and subscribe Breakingpoints dot Com. Become a premiumbscriber. But let's get to Logan joining us now is Logan Phillips. Great to see you, sir, our
exclusive partner here at Breakingpoints. Always glad to have you.
He always great to be on.
Awesome.
All right, let's talk a little bit about the early vote. So some interesting analysis that we flagged on ABC News want to get your reaction to.
Let's go ahead and take a listen.
Based on the likely partisanship of the voters that we've seen so far, we're seeing more Republicans as a share of the electorate than Democrats. Take a look at that four years ago than the third, only thirty two percent of people that had voted so far were Republicans. That's up six points so far this cycle. Now that could be a sign of enthusiasm among Republicans. That could because Donald Trump is sometimes at least supporting early voting, and it may be that these are voters they're going to
vote anyway on election day. But the bottom line is that people are voting and they're enthusiastic about this race. In Pennsylvania, we've seen Republicans so far ahead of the twenty twenty pace. Again, Democrats are still a larger share of early voters, but there are more Republicans in just about all of the states.
We've seen significant votes so far.
So that is aggregated data. We also have this we can put up there on the screen. L two is doing a job. They're aggregating all of this early ballots that are actually been returned. So logan, what can we glean from this? I know it's a little bit like alchemy, you're not supposed to dig too much, but this is all we got. These are actual voters that we've got votes like the in the bank. So what do you see so far? That's different and perhaps interesting to you, I.
See, the biggest thing is that the American elector is engaged. Twenty twenty saw the biggest turnout in American history. In twenty twenty four, I don't think we're going to reach those levels. Is going to be a lot higher. It makes sense when someone votes once, they're a lot more likely to vote a second time.
Right, good point.
So you don't think it will reach twenty twenty four levels, but it will be I mean twenty twenty levels, but it will be higher than say, twenty sixteen in previous elections.
That's what I think. I can't say it should be number two, but I think it's going to be high up there.
So I heard someone making the case for actually digging into the early voting data, because I know traditionally averyone says, listen, you can't really read too much into this. On the other hand, post COVID, you do have such a large share of the electorate that are actually voting, and given the fact that you've had polling misses in a variety of different directions, isn't there actually a case for taking seriously you know who is actually turning out and trying
to glean from that. Okay, we know the Democratic strategies really to excite young women. We know the Republican strategies try to turn out some of these infrequent voters, especially among young men. Can't we glean from this whether they're being successful in some of those strategies or not.
Yeh, as long as you do fair amount of caution, because you know normally the stuff I use. For example, I can go back to the nineteen sixties and say, hey, this is how accurate it is. Right, you were kind of flying by the seat of our pants and everyone. If you come in with any sort of bias, you're going to be looking for the things that support your side, or if you're cynical, the things that go against your side, right,
and they're going to stand out to you. Yeah, So to find like a fair balanced account, like you have to have an absolute mastery level knowledge of a county by county, precinct by precinct what's going on, Like this guy John Ralston, reporter Nevada has right. Most people don't have that, and so you got to be really careful who you listen to here. Well, it's largely yeah, go ahead.
No, I was going to say, that's a good segue we actually have Ralston's piece about early voting. Let's go and put that up there please on the screen. So what really he flagged logan was just the major difference in turnout amongst Republicans. Some of the data is quite Striking't believe chrystals you have in front of that.
I have it.
So Dev's won the mail in ballot in Clark County as they're expected to buy two to one about thirty th eighteen thousand, but they only now have at an eighteen hundred vote lead over the Republicans. Last time they led at the same point we're talking about after one day. So keep in mind this is after one day. But last time after one day they had a forty.
Thousand vote lead, and this time they have an.
Eighteen hundred vote lead. So he's flagging that as potentially very significant and goes on to say, if, as expected, there's a five point or so Republican turnout edge after election day, that means Democrats will have to win Independence by somewhere around five points to win the state, which is roughly what Biden won independence by. He won Independence by six points in twenty twenty, but that was twenty twenty.
That was Joe Biden.
This is Kamala Harris, your response to mister Ralston, who everybody does feel like has earned his credibility in the early vote analysis arena.
He's like the only guy trusting this stuff. I would say it is a mildly good sign for Republicans. He's very hard for us to know what's going to happen
on election day. It's also expected, I don't mean specifically in the dividen numbers, but absolutely expected Republicans to vote a higher share because one Donald Trump was warning everyone out to do it, Democrats were encouraging everyone to do it, and Democrats disproportionately care were viewed COVID as a bigger threat, and therefore we're using vote by mail and voting at much higher rates than Republicans. So it was never going
to be repeated to the same degree. Twenty twenty is going to be the biggest key you will probably ever have.
Yeah, the biggest distance between the two parties in terms of the modes of voting exactly. So to go back to that first SoundBite that we played with what was at ABC talking about how there's maybe a ten point margin that Republicans have closed the gap between Democrats. That doesn't strike you as particularly significant given that twenty twenty was such an anomalous year with COVID.
Yeah, I would say it' slightly get used Republicans, but how much it's hard to say. I mean, if you think about it like this, right, if you're looking at the twenty twenty vote, we would think Democrats were heading towards a massive landside, which is what the poll suggested too, because they were had so many votes early. But then Trump arguably had to even better turnout on election day than Dems did. Democrats just won the swing voters and that's why they won the election.
Yeah, very narrowly.
Yeah, I mean, if we look a little bit at the highly engaged populace, can we put what is it a two please up on the screen? Because I was looking at that Crystal and I really struck out to us that if you look at that sixty five plus number of old people like to vote early, they certainly do. You got a lot of ballots that have been returned. It's also pretty white. You got sixty seven percent there people who are white. If you look at the gender gap though, and that was I was like, maybe it
could be a good sign for Democrats. You've got what is it, fifty four percent of early voters who are women, So that could certainly be good considering this is going to be one of the larger gender gap elections, or at least that's what it's currently projected. So can you give us the bull and the bar case for both parties within this at least?
Yeah?
I think both caase Republicans is they're turning us some of their votes early. That means they could focus on the other voters swing selection day, right. Bothcase for Dems is that they're doing a great job of turning out black voters in major cities. Atlanta Democrats have been very happy about what they've seen with really you know, I've heard good things from my friends. Yeah who the Democratic side of Milwaukee.
Yeah, similar in Michigan. I think Detroit has had one of the highest turnout rates, if not the highest turnout rate in the state of Michigan. So yeah, like you said, there's kind of something for everybody to take a look at and be like, Yay, we're doing our thing right exactly. All right, let's go and put a four up on the screen. You mentioned that the one thing we can clearly say is that voters are quite engaged and turnout
will be relatively high. In North Carolina, Day one early voting set another record, narrowly beating out I think the twenty twenty was the previous record.
They say there was no clear partisan edge.
This is also obviously really significant because North Carolina, Western North Carolina was just walloped by Hurricane Helene. People still digging out, still recovering. So it's good to see so many folks being able to turn out to the polls here. But one of the things I wanted to ask you about, Logan is one of the theories is that Republicans are relying on these less frequent voters to turn out, and so in prior election cycles you might have said, Okay, high
turnout probably means that's good for Democrats. We can't necessarily say that anymore. In fact, it could very well be the reverse.
It could very well be the reverse. I think that's the thing about these elections. We have this crystal clear image of what the election is supposed to be, and then the election actually happens and there's going to be some real differences. We have those narratives that go on for months and so it kind of makes us view it through a prism. In twenty sixteen, Boy, did people under count the voters who supported Trump, who were white and didn't have a college education, blue collar who turned
on in big numbers. And you know, for Democrats, President Obama was incredibly successful getting none why voters and young voters out who didn't historically vote before. So we didn't necessarily know what it's going to be right there. It really depends on who those people are right that end up turning out. And I haven't seen enough analysis on this, but I'm also curious with the early vote, how many of these are people that haven't voted before?
Yes, such a key point.
Well, this is part of the problem with early voter and even state by state is they don't necessarily break it down all the time. You know, we're lucky when we even get partisan identification. So some of them is just demographic or sometimes early ballots requested versus return. So in the swing states? Do we have early voting now in all of the swing states that is opened? So will we get more data in this week? How should we look for the week going forward?
I believe so ye, one hundred percent. Soon I know, we definitely haven't started in Georgia. Yeah, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan. So yeah, I guess they just don't know about Arizona, if.
The gos right. Pretty interesting, interesting.
Certainly absolutely all right, let's turn to how the parties are making their closing pitch. Premium subscribers. That's going to be posted for you guys exclusively now. Everybody else will get it for free later in the week, but definitely subscribe if you want to hear what Logan has to say about the closing pitch that both of the parties are making. So we found this really fascinating. Put this up on the screen.
Donald Trump took to the campaign trail yesterday. He started to work at McDonald's. Quite a few meme tastic moments that came out of it. Let's take a listen.
I'm going for a job right now at McDonald's.
I've had I really.
Wanted to do this all my Life's.
A wealthy guy. He owns a lot of McDonald's.
That's great, thank you. I like every ounce and everything.
But I do like the French rise.
Who I'll be working?
I listened to Kamale.
She said it was so hot.
It was so hot. It was such a tough job.
But till you have a man that's been doing it for many years of the French.
French by a human head, nice and clean.
My hands are nice and king.
This guy's a good instructor.
I appreciate it.
I'm going to give a really big one. So that was pouring out of the good looking family. How did you produce those good looking kids? Oh, they look like the they look like them. How are you nice to see you? That's way? Thank you, I mean appreciate, thank you, thank you. It's an amazing business, it's an amazing gun change, and it's gonna make American greater than ever.
I mean, you know, what do you even say about that? It's pretty extraordinary. Yeah.
So what I saw Crystal was that in the back of his head for years, he's wondered, do they get their grubby hands on my fries? And so he finally found it was like a moment of clarity for him to see that nobody touched him.
But I mean, look, meme wise, come on that it's everywhere.
It's it's one of the biggest campaign photos, I would say, outside of the assassination photo.
I've seen that one spread like wildfire. Yeah, you know, literally everywhere. Look there you go.
I might hate the man. This is a brilliant bit of political theater.
It is.
I mean, you know, we'll get to the substance the fact that I won't brace them, that I'm wage that during his administration he undercut the ability of workers like these ones to be able to organize. But just on the level of like pure political theater. Yeah, he positions himself as like the working class fans billionaire. There he is working at McDonald's. It's also like a nice stop to the base. He didn't talk too much about this,
but he got this in somewhat. He doesn't believe that Kamala ever actually worked at McDonald's, so it's like throwing some red meat to the base as well. I mean, what can you say? The man has an authentic love for McDonald's food. Do you definitely know that much?
It's true.
Let me allow me to read Andy Warhol quote apparently from the nineteen sixties, says, I always thought the president would do so much to help change images. If president would go to a public bathroom in the Capitol and have TV cameras film him cleaning the toilets and saying, why not, somebody's got to do it. It would do so much for the morale of the people who would do wonderful job of keeping the toilets clean.
It's a wonderful thing that they're doing.
So people were like, oh, this is the Trump's apotheosis of Andy Warhol political theory that was going around. I don't think it's that deep. It's like you said, I mean, really what it is? And I saw a friend of mine, Reuben on Twitter, made an interesting point, I'm curious what you think is that Trump's camp actively helps to dispense a lot of the negative imagery of him by Democrats, as in, it's very hard to imagine like a Trump dictator when he's also like McDonald's just serving fries.
And I thought that actually might be the most astute part of it.
We're about to show the whole Arnold Palmer thing, but like, there's something hilarious about a guy talking about Arnold Palmer's penis and working at McDonald's, you know, and obviously having the time of his life that dispels this, like, oh, Trump was going to do all these X, Y and Z bad things and I was like, you know, that might be probably the best like analytical framework for why this stuff matters at all.
I think that's true.
I think that's correct because not only the McDonald's thing, but I mean that's the part of the podcast strategy, like the bro strategy is aimed at a specific voting demographic group, but part.
Of it is also just to you.
Know, humanize, humanize him and make him seem like he's one of the guys that can just hang out.
And then it makes it.
Hard for you to take seriously, even though you should take seriously. Sagur and I had a whole debate about this, but you know, his enemy within I want to call out the military against them comments it makes it easier for people to just kind of handwave that away. And I think between those efforts and the multiple assassination attempts, I do think that's part of why his favorability rating is so much higher now than it's really ever been
before in politics. And you know, I think that's a very important part of why he has such a strong chance of ultimately winning the selection. You know, the other thing that I saw is, you know, it is worth pointing out if people didn't know that this obviously was like stage in the cars preselected and of course and
all of that. But it's like, of course, like you think they're just going to let random people go through the drive through with Donald Trump there, I mean, so the security could of course, it was a stage campaign of waiting.
People were like, wait, just so you know stage, Yes, the president can't go anywhere.
I know, I know, but I mean, I mean, I do think there were people who thought these were like authentic exchanges that the drive through as well, but just for anyone out there who needed to know, yes, it was a stage campaign event, because of course it was a stage campaign event, like very obviously, do you think you.
Can interact with the president or the forum president on the campaign trail after an assassination attempt and not be pre screened by secret service?
How could?
How?
When what scenario would some random be able to roll up to McDonald's and get their order.
From Donald Trump? What if they had a gun? That's nuts.
Yeah, So anyway, it was not just like random voters who were there being like maga, we love you. These were pre screen people by the campaign, et cetera, et cetera. Just so everyone understands that's the reality of how campaigns work.
There were a couple of questions that he was.
Asked that ended up being relevant, especially I thought the best question was about, you know, would you raise them in the wage and he won't say yes.
He also got asked a question.
About you know, will you will you accept the results of the election, and he won't really commit to that either. So let's take a listen to those exchanges on wag should be raised.
Well, I think this.
I think these people work hard, they're great.
And I just saw something you process. It's beautiful.
It's a beautiful thing to see. These are great franchises and produce a lot of jobs, and it's good and great people working here too.
Leading for you, Yes either way. Will you accept the results of the election?
Yeah, sure, if it's a fair election.
Always I would always accept.
Different ways to be a fair election. We're leading in all the balls, then we're leading in every swing state, doing well, and it's now and I.
Think so think so.
In fact, I just had an RCP.
I said, you're ninety three point percent chance of winning, and I think that's pretty good.
So if it's a fair election, Hill support it.
Also, you we're going to talk tomorrow about polymarket and the way that that the numbers there have been juiced by basically one or potentially for four.
Yeah, well, well there are.
Some intentions one, but yeah, that it.
May be one bord of it in any case.
And then you know, and you can see how this is useful to Trump in terms of and then he points to you know this, I don't know what he was pointing to, says we have a ninety three percent chance of winning. And this is what he did last time too. Is especially he used that red mirage effect where it looked like Republicans were winning early in the night to say like it must have been stolen, and he's already laying some of the groundwork for that.
Now.
Of course he has a very good chance of winning the election outright, but this is also laying the groundwork for if he doesn't get a result that he if he doesn't get the result that he wants, saying, look at polymarket, look at this analysis. This that I had a ninety three percent chance of winning wherever that comes from.
And of course, of course.
It had to have been stolen because I was I was a lock, I was ashoe in So you're that rhetoric and then of course you know can't even commit to raising the minimum wage.
This is the guy who made you.
Guys may remember Andy Puster, the former CEO of Hardy's, the labor secretary who was like horrible for workers' rights, both in his capacity as the CEO of Hardy's but also in his capacity of labor secretary. So on the substance, obviously I think he's a total fraud. But again on the political theater, I think it's a major win for as well.
Well.
Look, one of the lessons is that people don't care about that, right.
Unfortunately, we live in a world where people or like you've got more people who are voting Trump or at least seem to be voting Trump pro Trump who are low wage workers and or unions, mostly on the issue of immigration.
And look, I've said this before too.
For Republicans, all you have to do is look at the minimum wage numbers that passed. It was at twenty twenty. I think it was a super majority. I want to say, in the state of Florida that passed fifteen dollars minimum wage at the same time that Trump won the state by three So actually more people both voted for the minimum wage and voted for Donald Trump in the state of Florida. You can actually have a red state that did that. Arkansas, I believe, also raised I think twelve
dollars an hour. So anyway, if anybody wants to go out there and look at the data on all this for minimum wage and whether you can be like a real Republican, there's plenty of real Republicans out there who vote for it all the time.
So just put that.
Let me just preview a segment we're going to have in the show probably tomorrow with Matt carp from Jackman in the Center for Working Class Politics.
They did a big poll of voters.
In Pennsylvania, and you know, they have a class so they were looking very specifically at number one, what type of occupations are people in versus what candidate they're supporting, and also where do they fall in terms of income level. And what was interesting is actually the lowest wage individuals were more Democratics supporters. It was those you know, blue collar working class individuals who tended to be strongly in
the Donald Trump camp. And then if there's also a big divide between you know, the sort of like hard hat using your hands. Type of blue collar workers versus service sector workers tended to be more democratic. So there's
some some interesting fishers there. But just stay tuned for that, because I think looking at some of those numbers, someone confirms what you might have suspected, but showed a you know, an interesting breakdown between the different class statuses and occupational statuses amongst voters.
Well, that's important, and we talk here.
I just said low wage work, it doesn't really mean anything, you know, in terms of what type of wage what you do for a living. There's a big difference actually between like the bottom quinn and then the second lowest quintile. So that's like people were basically below the poverty line and then you've got people flirting with the poverty line slash lower to slash lower to middle class. Those are
very different economic realities. They're very different people buy and large for people who like actually work and what type of jobs they do, whether they have a permanent career or not. So anyway, stay tuned for that. As you said, let's get to the Arnold Palmer thing on this one took over the airwaves. Let's take a listen.
This guy, this is a guy that was old man. This man was strong and tough, and I refused to say it. But when he took showers with the other pros they came out of there, they said, oh my god, that's unbelievable.
I had to say it. It was actually longer than that. For anyone asking about strategy, there is no strategy. To the extent that there is a strategy.
It goes back to what we were talking about with the whole camp and making jokes about it. I mean, this thing was all over cable news of a Speaker of the House get asked about it.
I don't know. I don't have anything deeper to say.
That's the deepest I can go is that the camp e er he gets, the more funny or whatever he is, the harder it is to imagine him as like some dictator who's going to take over the country.
This is why the weird framing was good for Democrats.
You think so, yes, I don't even know that's weird. I think it's funny.
I mean, talking like objectively, he talked for like ten minutes about Arnold Palmer and then you know, got into the sidetrack about the size of a stick. By the way, there was a you know, very serious journalist who looked into the size of Arnold Palmer stick and says, the evidence suggests this is actually false misinformation. Don't they possibly get that apparently there was some sex, Yeah, but they got a lot.
Maybe he shorted them. You know, you never know.
You could do your own investigation if you'd like soccer and debunk the debunking.
I had a Palmer Dick's story.
As the guy.
I've been to the Arnold Palmer But can you shout out to a restaurant, the Arnold Palmer Restaurant in Palm Springs, California.
Absolutely fantastic, Highly recommend it.
But what did you have to say about his guys?
Well, I'll ask him. I'll next time I go, I'm going to ask him.
In any case, this is part of why I think the weird framing that Democrats have kind of abandoned was more effective in a sense. I mean, I think you have to also lay on that the legitimate dangerous, but also people already sort.
Of feel that.
But yeah, this is like, this is just kind of a weird thing to be talking about a campaign rally going on an extended die tribe about a guy that died how many years ago this golfer.
I guess he was from the area where he was speaking in or something like that. Is how this armor, I don't know. In any case, there you go.
If it's domind Trump talking about some dude stick for an extended period of time whatever, right, well, you.
Know it's not a first brand me off. Of course, Marco Rubio started it. I guess to be fair, that's what we have. If you remember from the twenty sixteen campaign. At the same time, there was something that the campaign, the Harris campaign, has been seizing on. Let's put this up there on the screen. This was a report from Politico and it said, quote an exhausted Trump said know to another interview. So they highlighted and we talked about
this as well. Trump had planned sit downs with NBC in Philadelphia, squakbox and sixty minutes.
Why does it keep happening?
The Trump campaign had backed out of a couple In response, a Trump advisor apparently told the Shade Room producers, that's one of those black audience. We showed a clip for everybody. Yeah, from that where they said he quote was exhausted and refused some interviews. But that could change at any time. So yeah, I mean you could take from that what it is. They don't name the person, but I do
certainly think it's a I don't know. I mean, there's been a lot of I've seen Democrats try to rehab the whole like Trump Age conversation, and this really shows me. I've been trying to do some retrospectives in my head. I'm like, well, what does it mean if Biden or sorry I Kamala loses, if Trump loses. And I've been really thinking about how much damage we almost have memory hold it that the Biden remaining in the race really
did to the Democratic ticket. And I think that that conversation age would be so dramatically different if there had been a real primary on the Democratic side and if Biden had dropped out earlier. And you know, so much of this We're going to talk a lot about Harris's failures, et cetera, if she does lose, but I mean, so much of this is on Biden man to wait until
the last minute to drop out. No real democratic process anointed Kamala ninety day sprint to the campaign trail, and the age, I mean, he nuked the vibe for the country for three and a half years, Like you can't really get over that. So I really think that a lot of this like retrospective Trump age conversation is just nuked. With so much of the populace, they have not forgotten what the Biden conversation looked like at that time, so
they don't want to hear it. You know, they were comparatively strong, right.
I think that it's that comparison that's important. And I do think this is important conversation because I mean, he is almost he's seventy eight. Yeah, he's going to be eighty years old in you know, less than two years. Like this is an old man. No one should fool themselves about that. He will be the oldest person to take the office in history. He's older than Joe Biden was when Biden, you know, was sworn in back in early twenty twenty one. So, you know, it is an
important substantive conversation. But I agree with you, Saga, I don't think it really moves the needle because you know, in contrast to Biden, he seems so much more vigorous,
et cetera. And even as he has legitimately bailed on a bunch of interviews, you know, obviously didn't do another debate, bailed on that sixty minutes interview, bailed on some kind of a town hall such a way like there have been a bunch of things, and you get his campaign even saying like the dude's exhausted, but he's still out there doing a bunch of stuff. So I don't think people have the sense of like, oh, he's exhausted and he you know, can barely function, et cetera, the way
that it was very manifestly clear with Joe Biden. So you know, if Trump wins, I think this will be an extremely important storyline because I do think there are some signs of decline and age fatigue in all of that. I mean, you know, time's a bit like he is getting older. He is an old man, that is reality, and not a particularly healthy one either. So I think if he wins, it will probably be an important next four year story. Do I think it's moving a lot of people in terms of the polls?
Doubt it, But you never know.
We may look back after election day and say, hey, people decided like, hey, maybe we shouldn't vote for another really super old guy and went with Kamlin part because she is she just turned sixty, you know, which is and she seemed vital and whatever for her age. So who the hell knows at this point, But I tend
to agree with you in that analysis. And also I do think we can't lose sight of the fact that because Democrats were so terrified of an actual democratic process, they really screwed themselves.
Now many of us, some of us were saying that.
Along, right and arguing that they would be better off if they had an actual democratic primary process from the beginnings, they took seriously the competitors who did come into that race to challenge Joe Biden if they had, you know, not just totally put the kebash on any of the we're leading democratic policies, to the Gretchen Whimer's, the Gavin Newsom's whatever, entering that process, and then even failing that, coming down to it, when they pushed Biden out doing
what Pelosi and Obama reportedly wanted them to do, but didn't expend any effort to force them in this direction, which was to at least have like a contested convention where you have people making speeches and making their cases.
Because Kamala Harris is not the strongest competitor. I think everyone knew that on the Democratic side going in, but they rather just sort of default to her to avoid I guess, ruffling various feathers because it was the path of least resistance at that point, and now they're in an extremely precarious position, really truly of their own makings.
Absolutely know.
I've been watching some swing state tape from the governors, because all the de governors have been going through. Gavin is so good on the stump it's unbelievable. As people know, I'm not a fan of Gavin Newsom. There's a lot I could say about the guy, but he's a talented politician man, and if he had fought for it, I think he would have won. I certainly do Shapiro, Obviously, I still think the whole Obama thing is really annoying.
But he's a swing state governor. He won by thirteen points. Okay, you can't look past that, even waltst Frankly, I think he's a better politician than Kamali Marris, definitely, no doubt about it. Gretchen Whitmer, she is so utterly cringeworthy to me. She's talented. Whenever she started doing an interview where she was going back and forth about why Democrats are bad in the swing states, and she's like, you're talking to somebody who won by almost twenty points in the last stay.
So she's like, don't tell me that people can't win big. And then I was like, hey, it's a good answer, and it's true, Midel.
I think mayor Pete hatred is you know, I have studied solid credibility in that department, way better than common. Absolutely, he's gotten better too over the years, like him mixing it up on Fox and whatever.
Yeah, he's very effectual.
Poli just saying five people were better than the current Democratic nominee, which is wild. Yeah, they never really state their case. Keeping in the Trump vane he had. Elon must have really gone all in on the state of Pennsylvania. Elon is basically like running the campaign outreach there. He's got a new scheme currently happening where he's handing out million dollar checks at town.
Halls that he's holding across the state. Let's take a listen, all.
Right, So, uh, tonight's person is shown prayer. So by the way, John had no idea. So uh, anyway, you're welcome, Uh and uh yeah.
So so so the only the only, the only thing we ask for the million dollars is that you'll be a spokesperson for for the petition.
And uh, that's it.
Really, that's the whole.
That's it.
So there we go at these events.
Elon is now handing out one million dollar checks from the Super pac America pack. This has caused quite a bit of consternation as to whether it is real election law or not. But do you want to do you want to talk about it before we play?
Shapiro?
Yeah, I mean, to me, this gives like hunger games. I mean that the spectacle of the richest man on the planet dangling million dollar checks to get people to vote for his preferred candidate. As he's also you know, I mean Elon Musk himself is the recipient of tens of billions of dollars annually in federal government contracts. He also is entangled in all sorts of legal messes viz. A VI the federal government. He has been promised a high level government job that would basically put him above
those regulators who are trying to regulate his companies. He runs one of the top social media platforms in the world for the service of this candidate. And I just would say, you know, if you like Elon, if you like Trump, that's fine.
Just imagine if the shoe.
Was on the other foot and it was George Soros on stage dangling million dollar checks to people to vote for Kamala Harris, or it was you know, Jeff Bezos.
Or it was Bill Gates, or it was whoever.
Right, I think this should not be a partisan point that having the wealthiest man on the planet this involved in shaping our national conversation, funding one of the two presidential candidates, and then being put in a position to effectively run significant parts of the government to his own benefit. Both from a business and an ideological perspective, I think everyone should be deeply, deeply disturbed by that. I'm very happy for these people who are getting this cash. I'm
sure they're very happy. But again, the idea of dangling million dollar checks to coerce you know, the masses into voting for as preferred candidate, yeah, I think it's it's quite dystopian, and it is also possibly illegal.
Right, So let's get to that. Well, let's say, Okay, so I don't disagree with the word you said.
I don't like dangling.
Money, especially you know, if people, if people are going to come out to this, it's like it's like this weird lottery mentality.
I just don't. I think it's gross to send it. It's like squid game vibe.
Yeah, it's just in general, like I don't like people like, you know, going just having that dynamic going on. I do, in some way almost just appreciate the nakedness of like, here's a million bucks if you go ahead and you sign this petition. We've seen some campaigns implement that previously, not near to the tune of million, but what was it Doug Burgham, He's like, I'll give you twenty seven dollars if you donate one dollar to my campaign.
Yeah, that's right, to get dollars to ge get on the debate stage.
That's right.
And so just to lay on the mechanics of this before we get and so the legal argument about whether or not this is legal. So the idea is, if you sign this petition that supports First Amendment and Second Amendment rights, then you're entered into this lottery to win a million dollars. But the reason why it is potentially election fraud is because you have to be registered to vote in order.
To sign the petition.
So it's effectively, you know, getting people to register to vote using, you know, the promise of this lottery, the promise of these funds, and that's what puts it on very shaky legal ground. The governor of the state of Pennsylvania, Joshapeia, of course, as a Democrat, is and this is all happening, by the way, in the state of Pennsylvania. He says that this needs to be investigated for potential election fraud. Let's take a listen to him making that case.
I think there are real questions with how he is spending money in this race, how the dark money is flowing not just into Pennsylvania, but apparently now into the pockets of Pennsylvanians. That is deeply concerning. Look, Musk obviously has a right to be able to express his views. He's made it very very clear that he supports Donald Trump. I don't obviously we have a difference of opinion. I
don't deny him that right. But when you start flowing this kind of money into politics, I think it raises serious questions that folks may want to take a look at.
So you think it might not be legal, yes or no.
I think it's something that law enforcement could take a look at. I'm not the attorney general anymore of Pennsylvania. I'm the governor. But it does raise some serious questions.
All right, So, Chris Lely, you flagged this it up there on the screen from the Election Law blog. This is Rick Hassen. He's got an analysis here. He says, there are some other some in terms of the actual legality. As you said, it's all a question about whether this is interpreted as forcing people to register to vote or not.
So Section fifty two USC to what is it.
One zero three zero seven c Whoever knowingly or wilfully gives false information as to his name blah blah blah, or pays or offers to pay, or accepts payments either for registration to vote or voting, shall be fined not more than ten thousand dollars or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
Emphasis added there.
I don't think the ten thousand dollars is going to be a big free.
I mean, in some ways, maybe that's the perfect thing.
Right.
You're like, well, it's a ten thousand dollars fine, you pay a million bucks. So these just have to pay like what is that like less than one percent interest or something on top of that to make sure that
you can pay the fine. They look at it this in terms of the DOJ says that any bribe can be anything having monetary value, including cash, liquor, lottery chances, welfare benefits, et cetera, and continues and says that it must have been intended to induce or reward the voter for engaging in one or more acts necessary to cast a ballot. However, such payments become actionable under that section I previously said if they are shared with the person
that are being registered. So it all comes down to whether this was an act of registration to vote or an act of signing a petition, which would appear legal. Probably has got the legal sign over from his campaign or from his people because it's an act of a petition, and I guess they could argue it in federal court. But it is an interesting electionized I mean, the other.
Thing you said maybe true too, which is maybe illegal and is a ten thousand all of fine. So who freaking cares?
Right, Yeah, I mean a lot of I mean that works out.
That's how CEOs think right, They think about these like, you know, SEC fines and whatever is just like a cost of doing business. And so it would not be crazy if he was like, yeah, it's probably illegal, but I'll just pay the fine and whatever.
Who cares.
Yeah, there was another story I just wanted to flag for you guys, because I do think this.
You know, I've come to see.
Obviously, billionaire influence in politics we cover extensively. We cover on both sides of the aisle. We've been talking about Mark Cuban and Reid Hoffman on the Kammala side. But I do think it's fair to say there is nothing equivalent to what Elon Musk is doing in this election, not only in this election, but potentially in American history, really is pushing the bounds of you know, billionaire influence
in American politics. He is a saber reference. He's effectively running the ground game for Trump in a lot of key states, Pennsylvania in particular.
We may cover tomorrow. That may not that that may not work out.
Because there are some indications that that ground game effort is not going all that well. We'll put that to the side for now. But in addition to this million dollar check effort. His super pac that he funded is also running this this so they put up a website that is meant to look like Kamala's answer to Project twenty twenty five. It's called Progress twenty twenty eight, and again if you look at it, it appears.
To be making the case for KAMMLA.
But then they use these like, you know, caricaturist versions of her least popular policies to try to like low key show people like, oh, she's going to do all this crazy stuff when she gets elected. And they're also funding a text message campaign that does the same where if you just look at the text message, it seems like it's coming from the Harris campaign, but it's actually coming from this Elon Musk funded super pack. So they can put this up on the screen. Open Secrets did
the reporting here. Their headline is pro Trump dark money network tied to Elon Musk behind fake pro Harris campaign scheme. Now this one because they disclose that you know, it's paid for by I think the thing is called building America's Future. So since they do the proper disclosures, it's probably not illegal, but it is, you know, it's pretty skeazy thing. To do to sort of posture like your your opponent's campaign and then put out this caricaturist view
that's meant to dissuade people. So this is one of the other efforts that he's involved in, and we'll talk later in the show in one of the latter segments about how he's also funding these ad campaigns where if you are a Jewish pro Israel voter, he's funding targeted ads that are like, Kama's not sufficiently pro Israel. And then if you're a pro Palestine voter, he's funding these ads that are like Kamala stands strongly with Israel and always will blah blah blah.
So these are some of the tactics that he is engaged.
Here you go. The latter one is smart, the former one.
What is it?
I remember this has always been this is part of the problem with the election. Low Why is any stuff even legal? What was I think that read Hoffman did and it was it was like some fake newspaper that read Hoffman funded Alabama. I'm thinking that was it was completely.
It was a bunch of them actually all over all over the place that were meant to look like they were legitimate news sources, but were just like you know.
Parts, yeah, like literal press releases.
So yeah, I mean, I I do think a lot of this stuff should be a lot more should be illegal than actually is. But the Elon Musk million dollar thing may actually.
And the loophole of it should.
Be right, and the loophole of it all so it's all coming through super PACs, and so then you're outsourcing stuff to these super PACs, so none of it makes any sense. It makes it a lot less regulated, and we don't even be really insight into even who's funding some of this.
So anyway, that's exactly right.
Yeah, a lot of these super pat they're called dark money super PACs because the election is such that if you're not actively making the case for a candidate, then you can avoid any sort of scrutiny. And also some of the disclosion disclosure laws are such that if you jump in a bunch of money in the waning days of a campaign, it's not even disclosed till after the campaign. So these are always that billionaires get around, you know,
the public really knowing how much they're in. But I mean, we don't know the exact dollar figures for Elon Musk, but we know it's a preposterously large amount, and obviously it's very visible. So to your Pointzager, it is quite naked, is quite brazen. There's really no how much he is trying personally to win this election for Donald Trump through whatever levers he possibly can.
All right, let's go to Kamala.
She appeared on MSNBC last night with Al Sharp and she was pressed on the blackmail agenda and whether they should vote for her.
Again, let's take a lesson.
Do you think some of the resistance of some men black and white is misogynists? And are you proud to see that most Americans, even being pold, have no problem supporting a woman at all. And I'm one that lived from Shirley to Kamala in terms of these campaigns, and.
I have an emotional reaction to raising the point of Shirley Chisholm because it is on her broad shoulders that I stand and so many of us stand. And we have come a long way to your point, and on your specific point about including the fact that I have the support of countless black men who are in elected positions, including I'm just this afternoon and two church visits today with the mayor of Atlanta.
That being said, I think that you.
Are absolutely right that there is this narrative about what kind of support we are receiving from black men that is just not panning out in reality in terms of when I go to last night Atlanta and had I think ten thousand people at a rally, I will also say this, Rev. I am very clear, I must earn earn the vote of everyone, regardless of their race or gender.
And what can be frustrating sometimes is to have journalists ask me this question as though one should assume that I would just be able to take for granted the vote of black men.
I think that's actually.
An uninformed perspective.
So yeah, she's doing a pretty good job on that answers.
She refuses to take the bait and have any of the Hillary stuff. So on the one hand, we have that from Kamala about I'm not going to take anybody for granted. That's obviously way better than Hillary. The deplorables, they made a couple of efforts. Look with that, we saw it with Charlemagne, was shot with here with al Sharpton. She refuses to break I think with President Obama or sorry, refuses to do what President Obama did very much. Lecturing
the brothers in his language still wild. I can't believe he gets her away with this and this, and the media is are just like, oh, yeah, it's totally fun.
It's actually quite normal to lecture people that way.
But look, clearly the black commentariat that I've seen from Al Sharpton, Obama and others, they are worried about this issue and all of them are like grappling with it with Kamala in general and how that shape could be one of the central stories of the election.
I do hate the way this is framed around like black men specifically having a problem with women. It is gross. I think she handles this question very well, and I think she is.
Better than the commentators, right, that's the interague.
Yeah, I mean better than most of the commentators. We have a wonderful Nina turner On who handles this better than anyone. But yeah, she has done well on these identity questions from the beginning. She really has. I think she learned from Hillary's mistakes. I think she learned from some of the overreaches of like peak wocism, et cetera.
I think she doesn't she even learned from her own missay, remember when she was introduced as Joe Biden's vice president, you know, at the DNC in twenty twenty, I hated her speech because it was.
All me, me, me. It was very narcissistic.
It was that very like, it's all about my personal path to glory and my trailblazing status.
And she's dropped all of that.
But you know, to me, the choice of the interview venues over the past couple of weeks do display a sense of nervousness around you know, this particular demographic group, so they feel like they're having a harder time. Some of the some of the like registration data, some of the early vote data, which of course we should take with a million grains of salt, shows that their black women are really turning out very strongly, and there is less of a sense of that momentum with black men,
so they're clearly trying to shore that up. How much choice reference Sharpton has at this point to help in that regard is a separate question, but you know, they're doing whatever they can figure out to do.
She also got asked about, you.
Know, an issue that may dog her in the black community, which is this idea that you know, she's calm of the cop, that she's too tough on crime, that she you know, there was a lot of discussion during the twenty twenty primary, in particular about her locking up parents whose kids were truant, throwing people in jail for marijuana youth. Let's take a listen to how Reverend Sharpton asked.
Her about this, and let's talk about blacks in general, because one of the things, you know, I've been on a non prodestan toured National Action Networking and Central Flog five Yes and others. And one of the things that reporters act said, we don't get it from the audiences, what about the Kamala the cop? And I said, well, I knew her as da you and I go with that. She was one that wanted people with marijuana arrest not to go to jails exactly. And the Attorney General wasn't
even under your purview. I mean, do you think that this is orchestrated, that they're trying to find some way to separate you from some elements because you used to be attack for being too progressive as a district attorney.
I know, you know. And here's the thing, Rev. We are, as of today's Sunday, sixteen days away from the election for President of the United States, and there are all sorts of people who are going to throw a bunch of things out that will include missing disinformation with the intention to dissuade certain people from voting. And that's not new.
Yesterday I was in Michigan.
Tomorrow be in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, and I'm leaving nothing on the field.
At the same time, with Kamala we see here going in on the character question against Donald Trump.
Let's take a listen.
I have to ask you about your opponent. He used a very ugly term about you last night, using the S word as vice president, and how do you react to this kind of street talk from someone who wants to be president? Again? That was president. I've known you a long time and I know you have thick skin. But I'm not asking you as a person because i
know you're used to that. But what does it do in your opinion to the standards we're setting for our young people all over the country when we're using this kind of locker room street talk about an opponent for president of the United States.
So the American people deserve so much better. That's how I come at it. And to your point, the President of the United States must set a standard not only for our nation, but understanding the standard that we as a nation must set for the world. You know, we we as representing the United States of America, walk into rooms around the world with the earned and self appointed authority to talk about the importance of democracy rule of law.
So that's what we've got right now, Crystal. That fits very much with the spending that we talked previously with Logan. That'll be for premusubscribers today, but for others tomorrow, specifically about that character question on Trump.
It just give me a little bit of Hillary vibes. I'm curious what you think.
I think the way she always makes this question is make it about you deserve better.
Is the best way to handle it.
Yeah, you know, versus she could take a lot of umbrage and I'm not even sure. I think he said she's like a shitty vice presidenter or something like that, but she.
Could take a lot of umbrage at it.
I think that was more the Hillary route and to say, you all deserve better than someone who talks this way and demeans all of us. That way, I think is probably the best way to go about it. That being said, again, you know, I think that the Harris campaign has been intuited that people basically feel the way they're going to
feel about Donald Trump. They're leaning most heavily into ads about taxation, which are less about his you know, like democracy and his character in that regard, his like dictatorial tendencies, and more about him being in the pocket a bunch of billionaires and looking out for their interests over yours. And you know, I think that's a pretty smart place for them to land and emphasize in these final weeks. How much any of it matters remains to be seen,
how much paid communication. They have a massive fundraising advantage, not just the presidential level, but at the Senate level and the House level. Republicans are getting massively outspent in almost every race, every swing race across the board. I think it probably matters the further down you go down the ballot, you know, when you get to those house races, I think it probably matters a lot more than at
the presidential race. So much it really is determined by just like that national meta narrative about how people feel about these candidates for whom they already have a lot of information and experience with.
Definitely totally agree