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Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday. Have an amazing show for everybody today.
What do we have, christ Pal, Indeed we do.
Dave Wagel is going to be here in studio. He is just back from Wisconsin. He was hitting some doors there talking to actual voters about how they're thinking about this election. We're going to talk to him about that, the gender gap, the new Trump Epstein groping allegations, and how much that plays or doesn't play into this election.
So that'll be interesting.
We're also taking a look at new comments from John Kelly, who was Trump's chief of staff, saying that Trump was a fascist, also saying that he thought.
That Hitler did some good things and wanted.
Hitler's generals to his generals be more like Hitler's generals. Kamala Harris really leaning into this as the campaign is in its wanning days, so a lot to get into there. Kamala also had a CNN town hall last night, so we pulled some of those sort of highlights and low lights and interesting moments from that to break down for
you as well. There's another thing we wanted to take a look at here, which is both the substantive issue of housing affordability and also how that may really be impacting the vote, especially in Sun belt states and perhaps in particular in the state of Nevada, something that we've been wanting to tackle for a while, and obviously we've been talking about housing here for quite a while on how this was a sleeper issue it seems to be
playing out in terms of the election right now. Also wanted to take a moment to focus on the former CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch who has now been charged with sex trafficking. The allegations are horrifying, They are quite stunning. I mean, obviously this was and is an iconic American brand, especially like when I was growing up, when soccer was growing up as well. So I'm going to dig in to that, we also have some updates for you. Out of the Middle East is really propaganda about a Lebanese
hospital debunked live by BBC. Quite interesting there, and Sager is taking a look at how we should think about our votes. I'm looking forward to that one.
How to vote, but not it's an instruction guide on how to vote.
You're not like telling people who to vote for.
That's exactly I would never pray tell people how to vote for to help people evaluate exactly right, which I think is helpful. As Crystal said, we're going to get to Dave Wygel before we get to that. Thank you so much for our premium subscribers, everybody who's been taking advantage. We will reveal our exclusive maps and predictions here for everybody. Just twelve days to go until that election. How many shows is that for shows until the presidential elections.
We'll think about it that way.
If you want to take advantage, you can go ahead Breakingpoints dot Com become a premium subscriber. Let's get to Dave Wygel. Joining us now is Dave Weigel. It's semaphorrescritch to see you, man.
It's good to see you. Thanks for having me.
Absolutely so let's break down a little bit of a media and a Trump accuser story kind of broke out yesterday started off with a lot of speculation from Mark Halprin over at Worldwide News his substack, and he said that there was a story floating out there that if it came out, it would end Trump's campaign. Let's take a listen.
These last two weeks are going to be filled with things like this. And I can tell you with that going into detail, that I've been pitched a story about Donald Trump now for about a week that if true, would end his campaign, and there's all sorts of things like that flying around.
I'm not the only one who's been pitched it if true.
Was going to end the campaign.
People said, wow, it must be really some of there's all these rumors flying around out there day. I'm sure he saw. And then finally it came out. And I'm not going to diminish per se, but like you know, it's certainly not campaign ending in.
Mind for Donald Trump.
Yeah, let's put this up there on the screen. This was a Stacy Williams.
She is a ex model and a former associate of Jeffrey Epstein. She says that Donald Trump quote Groape mean what felt like a twisted game with Epstein. This was back in nineteen ninety two at a Christmas party, she says, after being introduced to him by Epstein in a Trump tower or elevator. So, I guess there's a couple of things we wanted to talk to you about. First of all, both the details of the story this alleged like would it end his campaign? Just news wise? I checked of
the morning newsletters. I think it was only Politico Morning Playbook that even linked out to the story in the bottom. So it doesn't seem to be taking all that seriously. So what's your perspective here?
He didn't in the campaign yet.
Yeah, Yeah, still waiting.
Yeah, I don't think I've been pitched the thing that help he's talking about.
I saw Tom BEBVAM talked about it too.
Yes, all of us who've been out there talking to vout talking to voters. I was in Wisconsin this last week. It's hard for us to imagine a story that would qualify it like this because Trump, this is this is the oldest news in the campaign. Trump Trump can survive all sorts of things because there's a heuristic for his voters and the voters who moved to him in the last year or two years, that whatever he does wrong, whatever his personal failings, look at his record, it doesn't matter.
And and this is something that was true when Bill Clinton was running for reelection in different ways. I'm not trying to be too glib and compare them, but voters have set up in their mind things were good enough when he was president to spit all that scandal. I cannot pay attention to it. Would this work if he was if he was a random guy running for Senate,
probably not. Doesn't work if it's Donald Trump? Yes, So what you can name a few things in the last few weeks that someone running for a lower office might have been wrecked by and they don't wreck Trump because of that, because of that mindset voters have.
Yeah, yeah, are we convinced like this is the story.
He'll oh from what I asked around broadcast. Yeah, also all this.
Like Charlie Kirk and all these like you know, pro flitzers who said something about like an aide fake. So I don't anyway, I don't know, but yeah, I agree with the analysis.
You've both offered.
Let me play devil's advocate, which is.
The Harris campaign really seems to be banking on the sort of like moderate female character, Yeah, like Nicky Hayley type voter. And at the same time, Trump's approval ratings are a little bit higher than they were last time around,
and certainly they were in twenty sixteen. So I think part of that is people have kind of memory hold some of the most salacious allegations, some of his most silacious and horrifying acts, and so this again brings up like, this is a guy who's been seriously accused of this type of behavior, sexual assault, groping, et.
Cetera, et cetera.
You throw in there at Jeffrey Epstein connect this former model alleges that they were very close friends, Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, and it does sort of potentially exacerbate that gender divide, which is what the Harris campaign is really banking on, being able to get enough women on their side between Trump's behavior and the issue of abortion to be able to put them over the top.
Yeah, you can go too far and make some voters think that he's being put upon, that he's being falsely accused. The idea of the AI video that would be smart. I think to fight a video that's damaging and claimant say. I was at the Post when Amy Gardner, my colleague, got the audio of Trump pressuring Brad Raft, and immediately saw people try to spin.
That out of consistence.
You can have something rock solid and people will say it's not true. But that's what they're trying to do, right, freezing people's minds before they vote. Do you really want to go through all of this for four years? You're really going to go for all of it with a seventy or eight year old president with somebody in the wings. If he's damaged, would Jadvans take over? They do want to throw not in the way that a confident campaign that's going to win and it feels like it feels like it's locked up.
Not in that way.
They are trying to draw attention to think you saw this with the Vice President yesterday putting out a statement on this Jeffrey Goldberg Atlantic article that is not an article that forty eight percent of the country is going to take seriously. They have a mechanism by now which they don't take it seriously, But that is what they're trying to do. And I saw some of that Wisconsin.
They are getting some Republican endorsements, people who were even on the fence or voted for Trump in twenty twenty. They are getting that with the argument that, look, whatever her faults, do you really want to put up with this sky again? Is that compelling? It has papered over some of her issues and it's a lot. Maybe it's
allowed her. Maybe she she'd be doing better, she she had more of this to appeal to those Republicans without specifically saying yes, I'm going to give up on not restoring remain in Mexico or yes I'm going to I'm going to forever give up on a thing that me and Biden did. She's not going that far. The replacement is, look at this crazy stuff that you don't want with Trump.
You brought up Wisconsin trying to scribe our Yeah, yeah, you just spent a long time there. Yeah. So, and we were talking a little bit behind the scenes about all of the Trump ads against common Yeah, so what do the Kamma ads against Trump look like? Are they equally as inundating and argues it the character argument, because that's what they're.
Closing on, that's what they've decided.
So interestingly, they're not response ads, which is what you see in a lot of races. I'm being attacked with three different ads on something negative, in this case government funded sex surgeries for prisoners right not to really get the entire issue, but there are three ads on that, and the campaign's not putting out ads saying no, I
didn't or here's why I did that. It's putting out ads one about her economic agenda too, about kind of January sixth, Trump's character, and that is after twenty twenty two. You can't tell Democrats that people don't care about this told nobody cares and then it was decisive in a lot of suburbs. But they are They're letting a lot of attacks go by or to connect on her on that record. They really are not doing a lot, and
you've seen it. It's been the hardest question for her to answer interviews is where she would where Biden got something wrong, where she would change from Biden.
She's not doing that with the advertising.
She is just saying and I would actually say the future forward, pack especially the super Pac very economic focus message. So you do hear if you're watching TV, you're watching Packers game. I guess it's got lucky because very exciting one on Sunday, you do see, okay, she'd have this kind of tax cut for me. I don't know how sticky it was, because I went out with people canvassing too, and you were finding voters who's at this point still didn't know what her economic plan was, still didn't know
exactly how she'd restore row. But that's the strategy. It's not let's hit back at everything Trump says. Let's just come up with something that maybe the voter who's undecided say, well, I'm just talking about crazy, negative stuff and she has a plan. That's the impression they want people to leave, not that she's fighting back on everything.
I mean, I feel like, in a sense, the Liz Cheney tour is an effort to fight back against because what is that the you know, transgender surgery. At Yes, it's about the issue, but it's also about like, she is this liberal San Franciscan who doesn't connect with American values. And to me, the effort with the Liz Cheney tour, which I have a million issues with I've talked about before, but anyway, the effort with that is to be like, look at these modern Republicans who are super comfy with me.
So I can't be that.
Crazy if Liz Cheney is willing to, you know, hang out with me and endorse me and go and do those town halls, et cetera. So in a way, I feel like that's her effort to blunt the core of that attack, which is like, you're too liberal to represent all of America.
That's how it felt.
I went to one of those events in the in the Milwaukee suburbs, and you did meet I met there people who've been Republican up till twenty twenty and then and then bailed.
But that's what I mean.
She wasn't saying here's a promise you can take home. She was offered a couple of chances. She was better at a couple of the other Cheney events. Hey, my neighbors worried about something that you did in your past. She didn't say what she would do differently. She didn't even mention I'd put a Republican in the cabinet. I think maybe because the Trump campaign has fed this idea that she'd put chaining in a national security position, which Democrats say they would not do. But you got her
on stage. Yeah, not a good topic to bring up at that moment, but she's not. That is what's different. Whereas Trump, whether you think it's credible or not, Trump will just promise something. Trump will say, yes, I'm going to get this thing that the culinary union wanted, this tax cut.
I'm going to do it. Don't ask me how I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it.
And Democrats are so much more cautious just generally. There's the Trump campaign takes a lot of risks, puts out a lot of ideas that might be hard to implement. It knows that I think Republicans won't say how you pay for that, because that's.
Not how they run. They want him to win.
And her campaign is much more cautious in saying no, we will make some hard break, which is this lego less. Chaney tour was a little more confounding because they were getting a hit on one end for having Cheney campaign aid pack, this Arab American pro Trump pack was running ads in Michigan and I only saw photos I've been Michigan yet that are just pictures of Cheney and and
hers together in Arab American neighborhoods. What is the are they getting the gain on the other side by saying, and Liz Cheney will validate Harris, don't worry about X issue.
It's not the issue.
It's just it's just democracy. I'm not it sounds too plus eight, but it really is just the democracy issue as opposed to the Hey, she's learned her lesson on immigration.
Hey, she's learned her lesson on crime.
Some of the ads do say that, but they're really not delivering the stuff that somebody really on the fence might might say, Oh, I'm confident I'm not going to see ten million border crossers if she's president. That hasn't happened yet.
So I saw Nate Silver make a point which is contrary to this whole is change. He said, look, guys, at the end of the day, I think that these people are already called Harris voters when you don't need to go after them. And that's I mean, intuitively kind of accepts my bias towards the issue. But while you were there, were they already Harris voters? Like what are these people genuinely undecided? Like how do we square that question?
They were they felt odd about voting for a Democrat, but they just couldn't bring this sullt to vote for Trump. They probably were Harris voters because she's and you see this now that now that the polling, I think there are a couple of errors with the screens or a couple of pickups with the voter screens, registered versus likely. She is doing better in a lot of places with
the people more likely voters. And those are the guys who were Republican twenty years ago, the women who were the women who voted for Mitt Romney, who always vote, who vote in school board elections, They have been fishing in that pond while Trump goes for the less. I mean, this is what the Trump Rogan interviews is about. Absolutely, very obviously, there are people who hate politics, don't trust politicians. I'm going to introduce myself and hey, maybe the registered,
maybe they'll turn out. This campaign is no, there is an electorate. We've we know how to win this electorate in twenty twenty barely. If we get ninety five percent of that vote out, then we win. That is the theory. It's much it's much more rebuilding than addition.
I want to ask you a little bit more about that, But I'm also curious about your time going out with canvassers. What type of doors were you hitting? Were they like persuasion or were these you know, we got to get you to turn out. And was there any particular issue that was really being brought up again and again at the doors.
These were It was a mix of so.
With Democrats, I did with Republicans in Arizona, mostly people who were registered but hadn't turned their ballot in yet, and they had they were they just needed the kick,
but they were going to vote for Trump. With Democrats, I was with mostly Democratic household, some people who they think voted Democratic because there's no party registration in the state, and it was I need the people who were on the fence needed clarity about what she was going to do about the economy and prices, needed clarity.
About her abortions.
One stuck with me and in one part of kind of central Wisconsin, a woman who just she was pro choice, but she wasn't sure what Harris is actually going to do, which is amazing they didn't break through how much time they spent on it. I don't want to overestimate that one thing, but I did put it into my data base of voters are busy and not paying attention to every promise they make.
She's not repeated enough.
I was not seeing I was not seeing huge shifts from this. I remember going in twenty sixteen, and every Democrat had this experience, including the ones I was canvassing with, of going to what was a Obama neighborhood and finding Trump voters, and that wasn't happening. It was These are the voters who voted against Scott Walker in Wisconsin. These are the voters who were, you know, gett able for Ron Johnson but might have been voted for the governor Evers.
It's the margin of maybe five percent of the electorate they were going for as opposed to Big Surprise. If somebody wants to show me the big surprises, take me to it. But they were, in this context going to central Wisconsin white voters who were undecided. Democrats admit they're not going to get the twenty twenty margin with black
men in Milwaukee. That is baked into the assumption that these voters, who are pretty reliable and turn out but have a couple of questions about what her agenda is, they're easier to get than the black voters in Milwaukee who are just done with politics and here more hear nothing that they did that was that was good.
They haven't given up.
There are groups focused on that effort, but they're assuming they're going to underperform.
The interesting secondary things sometimes is a seneate conversation, what did you see there that was interesting?
Oh, it is a competitive race with Baldwin the advantage and she's she sanator Baldwin Tamy. Baldwyn going for a third term has been winning because she's getting five to seven percent of Trump voters and Harris is getting two percent That Delta Republicans are.
Trying to shrink.
So the ad part of it, what do you see a lot is a sort of anti corruption, clean hands, rich guy argument, which you see a lot in campaigns. Hubby is personally very wealthy CEO of a bank and is run he and Pacts have run several ads pointing out that Baldwin has a girlfriend in finance and is because they're not married, has not revealed her her girlfriend's finances.
Who knows what that means? Question?
And I asked, Hubby, are their votes she's taken? You think are connected to her girl and in finance and Democrats think that this is about reminding people that Baldwin is gay. She's been elected as an op gate for twenty some years, but they that has been the effort to say, this is a corrupt Democrat who you can't trust to deliver for you. If you're a Trump voter, she's that's the reason you should bail on her. Maybe vote on her twice, but bail now. But also very close.
I didn't see again in evidence of twenty sixteen style massive shift somewhere, and even in the third district where Republicans flipped it last less cycle and Trump won it, they're very competitive. I was at with a Democrat the Already we're seeing people who you'd think could be Republican, rural voters very far from a city like a high vs. Twenty minutes away, pretty happy with the Democrat because they think Trump and the Republican incumbent were too rude and
they were too anti immigrants. So there's still the Wisconsin mix. It just has really not their states were you know, one hundred thousand people moved in and changed the alchemy of the electorate. That's not happened to Wisconsin. It's very frozen for twice.
Question important blue Wall dynamic is that they have not had the same knit migration. They don't have a flute like as an economy, so it's actually a little bit more frozen in time, which is very much to Harris's benefit.
Yeah, last question for you, what do you make of the podcast strategy because I'm just a little skeptical because I've seen these candidates who have really leaned into like new meat. I mean, that's very self serving. I would love if we're very powerful, right, But you know, the
Vake Ramaswami was a podcast candidate. We saw how I worked for him, Ronda Santis was like a podcast candidate, Andrew Yang Toulci Gabbard and they generate a lot of online enthusiasm and then they get like one percent in the polls. So do you think that there's you know, a significant group that is persuadable that's going to turn out to vote, Like, do you think that this is a fruitful strategy really for either campaign in large numbers?
Yeah, I'm less confident about the second part that somebody is going to listen to this on their commute or their drive and say, well, I was totally unengaged before and now I'm going to vote for Donald Trump. Yeah, that unless as a strategy of getting of getting the campaign's daily message out and finding in the news cycle. I think it's it's this was the cycle where it
changed over just the the benefits. What are going to be the benefits of a Trump podcast appearance again Rogan coming up versus the benefits of the Harrison town hall. What is she trying to do in her media appearances. It's it's not not make mistakes and look confident.
Uh, the Rogan.
Appearances, podcast appearances, that's part of that's that's built in unless unless you're really tanking, you're in a in a setting where people see you as as more human, you deal with questions that are not got that are not gotcha's, or not trying to pin you down on something. And I think I think it's been if it's been effective. Her most effective interviews have usually been those the podcasts. Are they finding brand new people? No, But I think
they're trying to do different things. Trump is trying to reassure people, uh, and and look likable and again fit every problem you have with them in the in this in this box. That that that's that has a bumper stick here. Uh, I'll take more t more mean tweets and cheap gas right now, That is every Trump message with her. It is how do people look at her and say, yeah, she can go toe toe with Putin?
I really do think.
And even at the DNC, which some people didn't like the emphasis on defense and military, the reason they do that is because she one is a woman and two is not like a swaggering Hillary Clinton type does She's not somebody who has been in a decision decision room and may and people think, and you hear this anecdotally, you'll hear where cause voters who say I'm not sure how she'd handle a crisis, She's still tried to do that. So that's what her interviews are about, not bump mop up,
messing up a question do that. Podcasts probably less useful for that, And she does need to show that she can say I can and I think this is why Fox in the long run was good for her. And though people want to be a disaster, oh, she could handle that. She talked over him, she didn't let herself get interrupted. Really, that atmospheric I heard more about from voters than anything said.
In the interview.
That is such a good point.
Dave always read to talk to you man, and we'll see you soon and hopefully thank you.
So, as we just discussed.
With Dave Weigel, there's being a lot here made of Kamala and her attack on Donald Trump in the closing days is all about character. So that has really come into focus with some more recent allegations by General Kelly, former Trump chief of staff. Kamala Harris took advantage of that at a town hall yesterday. We're going to show you more of the town hall later in the show. What we wanted to start with this part. Specifically, she says Donald Trump is quote a fascist. Let's take a listen.
We know that is why Mike Pence is not running with him again, why the job was empty. And then today we learned that John Kelly, a four star Marine general who is his longest serving chief of staff, gave an interview recently in the last two weeks of this election, talking about how dangerous Donald Trump is. And I think one has to think about why would someone who served with him, who is not political, a four star Marine general,
why is he telling the American people now? And frankly, I think of it as he's just putting out a nine to one to one call to the American people. Understand what could happen if Donald Trump were back in the White House. And this time we must take very seriously. Those folks who knew him best and who were career people are not going to be there to hold him back.
You've quoted General Millie calling Donald Trump a fascist. You yourself have not used that word to describe him. Let me ask you tonight, do you think Donald Trump is a fascist?
Yes? I do, Yes, I do.
All right, So all of this comes back from to General Kelly, who was the chief of staff, longest serving chief of staff under Donald Trump. A lot of these comments came to light in an Atlantic article with Jeffrey Goldberg.
I will reserve some of the problems.
With that article for a little bit later, and at least just play the audio from General Kelly himself. This was audio that he is allowed to be released from the New York Times talking about this alleged incident.
Let's take a listen.
She would a world once that you know, the Hitler did some good things too, And of course, if you know history, again, I think he's lacking in that.
But if you know what his you know, Hitler was all about Uh, you'd be pretty hard to make an.
Argument that he did anything good.
So what would you What would you say when he said to you that Hitler did a lot of good things?
Well, I tell him that, I said, you know, if you first of all, you should never say that.
But if you knew what.
History Hitler was all about, from the beginning to the end, Uh, everything he did was in support of his racist fascist uh life, you know, you know philosophy, so that nothing he did you could argue was good. It was certainly not done for the right reason. And but he would occasionally say that.
What would he say when you would lay that out to him?
He just, you know, end of the conversation. Usually, certainly the farmer president is in the far right area. Certainly an authoritarian.
Admires people who are dictators. If he has said that, so he certainly falls into the into the general definition of fascists for sure.
If he was left to his own devices, would he be a dictator if he didn't have people around him.
Oh, I think I think you'd.
Love to be. Uh, I think he'd love to be just like he was in business. He could tell people to do things and they would do it, and not really bother too much about whether, uh what the legalities were.
And what all right? So there you go.
Would we want to react to this Crystal before we play this? She made a big moment about this is a press conference yesterday at the Vice Essential Residents. We were on pins. We're like, oh, what is it? It could be something big. She's she's going to come out, she's doing a press conference. She was never does a press conference. Didn't end up any taking any questions. It was only like, you know, maybe a few minutes recounting
these comments. But what we seem to take away is that because that article had come out from the Atlantic, there was not as much media coverage I think as the Democrats would have liked about it. So she was trying to force the conversation both with I think the fascist term and then also trying to get people, I guess successfully for us to talk about it, because that is her closing argument. Now with twelve days to go, it's full on character. January sixth Dictatorship. I mean, listen,
I think it's been tried before. I don't think it's going to work, but I'm curious what you think.
Well, it did work in twe twenty two.
I mean, yeah, but he wasn't on the ballot. So that's what I just keep going.
So let me just say that was on the bout.
My own political bias is that this is not a smart strategy. That is, my bias is to buy into the research that Matt Carr brought us on the show that shows that, you know, the most effect of messaging in wist swing voters in the state of Pennsylvania is about populist policies and progressive economics. I do have to say I think her closing ads that Wygel reference when we just talked to them, focused on taxes and Trump being for the billionaires.
I do think that that is an effective pitch.
And so my political bias is to look at this and go listen, people who think this through think Trump is a fascist in my opinion, Accurately, they are already in your camp. You're not really persuading anyone. But you know, I have to say, like I was wrong in twenty twenty two, so I do have some humility about my own assessments.
So let me talk about the political strategy a.
Little bit, and then you know, we can also talk a little bit about the substance. Here on the political strategy, Weigel mentioned something that hadn't really occurred to me, which is that it's her, you know, doing this big press conference yesterday at the vice presidential residence, her plan to do the you know, the big closing speech in the ellipse where January sixth occurred. This is, yes, it's about the message itself, but it's also about I look presidential.
You can imagine me.
In this role, and they feel like that is still a question that remains for some voters who don't like Trump but are not sure that they're ready to vote for Kamala Harris. And that kind of landed with me as like, oh, that's an important part of what they're doing here. Trump is trying to go hang out with the bros and say, look, I'm not this scary, dangerous character that they're painting me on as here I am
hanging out like how scary can I really be? And her focus in the waiting days is envision me as president and look, we haven't ever had a female president before, and she is has been knocked rightly at plenty of times as kind of a lightweight. So that kind of landed for me as part of the thinking going into this in terms of the messaging. Their theory, which again goes against my own views and instincts on these.
Things, but hey, you never know, maybe they're right. Their theory is.
That there exists a quote unquote shy Kamala voter who is a kind of like that the Nicki Haley voter right, who is a conservative woman who has voted Republican most of her life, whose husband is likely voting for Donald Trump, and who is in a lot of circles in her community where everybody is basically a Republican and supporting Trump, and she really can't come out publicly and say she's supporting Kamala Harris and maybe needs a little bit of
a reminder of this is who this guy is. Remember January sixth, look at the people who served with him, Madis Millie, now Kelly all coming out and saying, hey, I was in the room with this guy, like I actually saw how he operates, and yeah, your worst fears that he is actually a fascist are true.
And by the.
Way, yes, okay, plenty of bad things did happen last time around, but the republic did not end. But guess what this time we're not going to be there. It's going to be all the loyalists. They're going to use, you know, Schedule F to dismantle the administrative state. So whatever institutions and checks and bulwarks were inhibitors were there last time are gonna be gone and it's just going to be you know, there's a whole project, concerted project.
That's the real takeaway from Project twenty twenty five. There's a concerted project to make sure that none of those restraints from last time are in place. So that's their theory of why they're leaning into this messaging because they think number one, Kamalin needs to put herself in these sort of like presidential settings and prove herself there as
this like tough, credible leader. And number two, because Trump's approval rantings have ticked up a bit, you need to remind people of what it was that they found most disturbing about him last time that he held the office and make the case that next time around he would actually be worse.
Yeah, I think, you know, and I think that's the only interpretation we can come away from. I feel so distanced from this campaign. Usually I can fee and understand why people are doing what they're doing back in twenty twenty, the Biden Basement strategy. Criticized it a lot, obviously on empirical, but it was the correct strategy.
Right, it was obvious. This one. I just don't get it.
I mean, I understand the twenty twenty two thesis. I understand that that coalition they really believe they can bring it out. But in an era where Donald Trump increased the amount of votes that he got by almost ten million in twenty twenty, has always had a track record of driving out these lower propensity voters and shaking up the political establishment. Maybe there's not evidence for it, but there's been so many polling misses and there's still so
many things that could happen. I mean, nobody saw the Latino shift in Texas and elsewhere happening back in twenty twenty. Was a shock on election night. If it was one of the biggest shocks I experienced, I don't know. I mean, maybe you know it's one of those where is it really going to land? It just seems so played out, so driven home by the media to me, I mean I called it on Twitter the Jennifer Rubin campaign, Like, to me, it really is like the apotheosis of this.
Jennifer Ruben like media critique that the media actually doesn't talk enough about how Trump is a fascist. I saw yesterday it was like Van Jones was like, Kamala has to be flawless. Well, Donald Trump is lawless. And yet you know, yeah, I know. But went on his Instagram and he's like, it's feeling like twenty sixteen again. You got to get out there and vote, like we're looking
down fascism in the barrel. And I mean the whole country experienced two and seventeen to twenty and twenty one when Trump was actually a president, none of that stuff happened. Their argument as well, will be different this time around, but people look back on those years actually quite fondly.
And then even with Trump people himself, a big criticism, including mine, would be that he did have people like General Kelly Maddison others who didn't agree with him on anything, and who at many times actively thwarted a lot of his better orders, like to withdraw from Afghanistan or whatever. So I just look at it as very different from theirs. Of course, they're not trying to win me over that coalition. I just keep thinking, aren't these people, Harris voters already
aren't they already Democrats? Like who is being convinced by this? But look, if they win by one in all the blue Blueell states, I'll say it right here, they were right.
I mean the difference between twenty twenty and now is that in twenty twenty eight, January sixth hadn't happened. Yeah, true, so it was, you know, I mean, you could you could point to like Trump did weaponize the Department of Justice against you know, launching investigations against John Kerry and against Komy. And it's not like there was nothing you could point to, but there was nothing as shocking as
what happened on January sixth. And you know, and now we've learned more and more details about No, he really was serious about, for example, calling the militarian to shoot protesters in the legs during the Black Lives Matter protest. He really was serious about these plans to attempt to like use the National Guard to seize ballot boxes. He really did try to overturn the election using these fake electors slates.
We really did watch a crazed.
Mob run around the Capitol calling for his own vice president to be hang and him sit back and you know, allow it to happen, if not be actively like in support of that sentiment.
So you know, that is a significant.
Shift from where we were back in twenty twenty, which even in twenty twenty obviously he lost, so even before
people had that incredibly jarring experience. So again, my instinct is similar to your Sagert and it was in twenty twenty two to be like, I don't know why you're focused like I to me, I think this is important, right, I think actually the argument is correct that you know, all of any sort of institutional guardrail and check that was in place that checked his worst instincts last time around,
they have made a concerted effort to dismantle those. You also have a Supreme Court decision basically saying, hey, whatever you do in office, basically you're immune. Like you can do basically whatever you want. So it is a different landscape in that regard that resonates with me. My instinct is to say you should be. You were better off when you were framing him as like weird versus this,
you know, giant threat. You're even better off when you're leaning into bread and butter issues inflation, which we have to say too. I mean, she has closed the gap with him on economics, so some of what she's saying is landing. But I just I can't be so certain about it because their analysis was more right in twenty twenty two than mine was. And I think what Wygel points to is they've effectively already baked into the calculus, like we're losing Arab American voters, We're just gonna try
to make it up somewhere else. We're not going to hit our margins with black men in particular, We're also going to try to make that up somewhere else. And they're say, all right, well, where do we make that up. The largest group of voters in the country is white people, and white women in particular are the single largest demographic group. So if we can pull in another couple percentage points there, then it's enough to make it work, especially in the
blue wall states. And you know, I can't say definitively that they're wrong about.
That again extraordinarily possible.
It just seems like such a tremendous gamble, Like I would you know, if we're gambling and we're looking at margins and ways to win, it just seems totally different, both the way I would.
Do it and others.
I mean, I guess why I come back to it in terms of why it's all baked in is we have heard this all so many times, and by the way I would point out, this whole Atlantic article has some serious like issues. Let's put a six please on the screen. Nick Ayers, who I covered at the White House and was the deputy chief of staff while General Kelly was also the Chief of Staff, says quote, I've avoided commenting on interstaff leaks or rumors, but General Kelly's
comments regarding President Trump are two egregious to ignore. I was with each of them more than most, and his commentary is patently false. There is an anecdote in the Atlantic article which is alleged that Trump didn't want to pay for this soldier's funeral. The sister of that fallen soldier says that is absolutely not true.
I would The reporter who.
Was in the room during their meeting says absolutely not true. Now all these people have certainly an incentive, right, But Nick ayris it was like some never Trump Mike Pence type guy who I covered at the White House and eventually left. He has not in any way some sort of like Maga warriors. So when the guy says this, to lie like, I tend to believe it. At the end of the day, only General Kelly and Donald Trump actually know what was allegedly said in some private conversation.
You can make up your own mind. Can I ask you that?
Like we weren't there. I was like, it is just like he said he said. He said, does it strike you as now landish? Though that Trump could say like, it's to me, it's not that crazy or unimaginable given some of the things he said in public, that he could have said something like this, and so you know, it doesn't like blow my mind to imagine him being like, you know, I want some generals like the German generals. That sounds very much like something Trump'll say.
It doesn't that kind of lose when he's like what even listen to Kelly said, He's like, I want somebody who takes orders. It's like, well, I mean, for example, let's think about what maybe the context like maybe when Trump was like, hey, you need to withdraw from Syria and James Madison the Pentagon hide the number of troops in Syria and don't withdraw and execute a lawful order, Like, well, which side would you rather have the per person who actually obeys the commander in chief or not?
Like that? That's what I mean.
But why you got to go to Hitler's generals?
Okay, the point is about I mean, by the way, you.
Know, I've been trying to avoid the discussion. But you know, what's his name? Kelly brought up? He's like, oh, did you mean Bismarck's generals. Did you mean the Kaiser's generals or do you mean Hitler's generals. There is a discussion to be had about who the best generals were between Bismarck, Kaiser and Hitler or whatever. Don't forget Heinz Gudarien was never prosecuted by the Nuremberg trials. He was the chief
of staff of the Wehrmacht under Hitler. So all I'm saying is that if you actually look at so called like the context of I'm trying to issue orders or whatever, Yeah, don't you want a general officer who does obey like the whatever the order, a lawful order at least from the president.
Probably, so you also would like Hitler's generals.
No, I didn't say I would like Hitler's generals. But I'm saying it's a stupid What I'm saying, is this a stupid and contrite way of being like, oh, it's it is evidence so that he would like pursue a holocaust or some sort of like ridiculous and the most smearing way. We have to be adult in the way that we can talk about that conversation.
And so, like what I just pointed.
Out with the Seria thing is a perfect example of why I liked schedule AFT. I'm like, yeah, it's good, get them out of there. They're actively subvert the commander in chief. Bigger than Trump too. This is a Biden problem.
This isn't everybody problem.
The last time we discussed this, you know, you said you had some you thought Trump would be basically a dictator if he got I don't want to put work that's I said.
Trump would pursue many of the most outlandish things if he could. But I have enough faith in American institutions that that's not going to happen.
So to me, the issue with that analysis to me is that you can't, on the one hand, say like, oh, the institution's held last time, and he was held in check bye by the way some people like Kelly and Mattis, et cetera, and Millie, But also I want none of those people in this administration, and I want them to just destroy, actively destroy the institutions that did keep him
in check last time. And also it also leaves out the fact that the landscape is different since you have the Supreme Court decision that basically says you're immune for acts.
That you take in office.
So to me, that's kind of trying to have it both ways of saying, yeah, well, the institutions held last time, but also I don't want those institutions around this time to hold them in check.
Very easy to explain in terms of what is it, Like what did you reference, like shoot people in the lag or whatever. Yeah, that's not going to happen, even under so called Schedule F. But the example I gave of, hey, you need to withdraw from Syria and then they fake the numbers is specifically in the Pentagon and then give them false information to the Commander in chief and don't carry out that order.
I think that needs to go. That's what I'm talking about. Why I don't think that those are actually mutually exclusive.
Why are you so confident that if you so. Last time, when you know, when Trump was like, why can't the military just come in and shoot shoot protesters in the legs or something that was you know what he said, would I?
I believe that he.
Said that you had Milli in place to be like, you can't do that, right, And the whole goal of the you know Project twenty twenty five and many of the most organized conservative efforts in the meantime is to make sure that you don't have someone like Millie in place who can say like, no, we're not doing that, that you have quote unquote loyalists, like that's Trump's number one goal. You see it already, you know, in the
choice of like jd Vance as vice president. The number one goal is to make sure that the people who are in place this time will do whatever he says, whether it is appropriate, lawful, moral, or not. And so that's why I don't think you can have so much confidence that like, if he you know, wants to go in that direction next time, you're going to have someone in place who's going to be like, no, you can't
do that. And you know the context of John Kelly, the quotes that we played for you, the audio we played for you. That was in an interview with the New York Times. He apparently, you know, this reporter had been trying to get him on the record for a really long time, and he didn't want to do it, didn't want to do it, didn't want to do it.
And then what he says triggered him to come out now is Trump's repeated comments about using the military against the enemy within and for him, a bright red line, which it should be for all of us, in my opinion, in American public life, is turning the military against civilian populations.
So when you know what he tried to do last time, when you know what he's saying publicly, when people who know him way better than we do and have been around him and seeing him in action way more than we have, when all of them are saying this like it's, you know, whether you want to use the F word fascist or not, like this guy is want to be dictator and really could be very dangerous next time around. I just I can't hand wave that away given what we've seen him already do at this point.
Again, I understand, but it just substantively seems very different to me than I mean. Okay, let's say the theoretical chain of command. For you need to go shoot people on American streets, you would need the general to carry it out. You would need to pass it down to the National Guard, and the individual soldiers would actually carry carry that out. Call me crazy, too optimistic, don't think it's going to happen.
We did see protesters quite viciously attacked out front of the White House during the Black Lives Matter.
By the decent police, not on the order of the President or the National Guard.
It was.
It was the National Guard. There were federal law enforcement officers there. It was right outside.
Done by it. It was done.
You're forgetting it was done in the service of enabling that bizarre Trump photo off with the Bible. So that was done at Trump's behest, and that it was.
At a time. Yes, I know plenty of the protests were violent.
It was at a time they were completely peaceful, and you know they were viciously attacked. So I don't again, I just to say it's impossible, I can't imagine it happening, etcetera, etcetera. I given what we've already seen, I just I just don't have that book.
I mean, And that's fine. People can vote the way that they want.
There's a big difference to me between DC cops and local cops tear gassing some people to get them out of a square or whatever. So Trump can take a photo op and literally trying to shoot people and occupy the country. Like, if you believe that, then, frankly, I have my whole voting GUYE today, go vote for Kamala.
If you don't believe that, and you think it'll work its way out in the way that I laid out in terms of the President's going to issue an order and we're going to actually see the deep state or whatever maybe come to heal and execute these orders, and you should vote for Trump or vote you know, it's
up to you. But my point is that it seems very clear that there's obviously like an Overton window within what we're talking about here, and that this idea of literally shooting people or enemy from within camps of US citizens is not going to happen.
If you believe it's going to happen, then don't vote for him.
I really don't know what to tell you. Like, that's the argument that I think is very clear. I think that's how the government should work. Specifically, both within the bounds and then also you know, disobeying so called unlawful orders. What I saw when uncover the White House is the General McMaster, General Kelly, and General Madis willfully undercut the President of the United States and tried it every turn
not to execute his foreign policy. My criticism of Trump actually would be that you such a fool that you allowed them to do so for two years, and that you didn't use the full force of your office to say, who were you? Get out of here. The guy comes in, he says, I want to withdraw from Afghanistan. McMaster's like, no, you need to surge in Afghanistan. And Trump signs that off. So that's my criticism of Trump. But that's not the criticism that media and Kelly and all these other people were.
It's very much like, oh, you need to trust me, you know, because I was some four star general, and you know that's another thing, these four star generals like, well, you think they're the greatest people in the world.
I covered the Pentagon. There's some of the biggest liars out there.
Go look at the way that they all talked about Afghanistan, Like why will you trust exactly what everything these people say, this isn't even about General Kelly per Se, But it's like anytime some general on CNN or whatever is like talking about his past service and how we're supposed to revere them. I just can't help but think the Afghanistan papers and I read about him, every single commander of that are of the US forces in Afghanistan lied to
the American people. So what credibility do you have with me? So I guess it just comes down to like what you really think is going to have and within this specific situation, and also whether you find these people as eminently credible and you want them to run the country for me, absolutely not.
I don't want these people around.
What do you make though of the fact that so many of the people who you know, who supported, I mean voted for Trump last time, who were lifelong Republicans, who were you know, as comfortable enough with his leadership that they were willing to serve in his administration, that they all have very similar things to say.
I make of it exactly what I just said. I think that their neo institution or their deep institutionalists, that they have a committed internationalist worldview, having covered and even been in off the record conversations with General Kelly, with General Madison, all these other people. They they saw their role as very specific, we need to protect the republic
from Donald Trump. I don't think that these people should be quote unquote protecting a democratic elected leader from any or the republic quote unquote from a democratic elected representative they like. For example, Mattis saw his entire role as stopping Trump's blunt America first instincts and don't forget resigned over what over the ceial withdrawal order that eventually came to a head. General Kelly, same thing, General McMaster, same thing. They saw their.
Role as Mikes. So what's up.
How about Mike?
Well, Mike Pen's a different story. And actually, I think that criticism is pretty legitimate. I mean, I've never sat here made some stop.
That's the thing, is what they are saying is honestly very similar to what Mike Pence is saying. And you know, I would have put a lot more stock in the argument you're making prior to January sixth. And you know, we were very lucky that at that time there were still a few people to tell Donald Trump no that it wasn't even you know, worse than it ended up being, and it was.
It was a horrifying day.
It was it was bad, Like the attempt to steal an election was really bad. So I just can't be so blase at this point of like, oh, you know, I don't want anyone around who is an institutionalist. I want Donald Trump to be able to exercise his most unchecked impulses this time. I just can't, Like, I just can't at this point.
I get where coming from. I laid out in a January six position.
He didn't change her what the January analysis.
At all, of course, But what happened then was the result of the democratic process.
Right.
Well, well, let's look at the current landscape of January sixth and whether it can happen again.
The Electoral Count Act has passed.
The Vice President can no longer have any ambiguity on certifying the election. Five out of the seven swing states are ruled by Democrats, which would require certification under the Electoral Count Acts.
So that's not going to happen.
Number Three, Rudy Giuliani and all of the other legal associates who helped Trump do this are literally bankrupt. Rudy was ordered yesterday to turn his Mercedes over to the Department of Justice. Jenna Ellis had to plead guilty, Sidney Powell had to plead guilty. They're all completely bankrupts. What's his name, John Eastman has basically been run out of town. I believe he's either been disbarred or not. I forget
Rudy's been disbarred. Every person who's been connected to that has suffered massively at the hands of state, and Trump himself is under federal indictment and it's not like he didn't pay a price for So do I think it's going to happen again, No, I absolutely don't.
That was This is a case.
Of genuinely institutions coming together, I think in a totally legitimate way of trying to constrain the universe where anything like this could happen. So that's what I would say. I'm not that worried about that playing out like this again. If you want to say, an extraordinary circumstance of something different, okay, maybe you know Again, I think within the gut bounds of the system, people have really learned their lesson from January sixth, And if they haven't, then I think they're
going to pay a big price for it. So that would be my response on a lot of that, Like just mechanically, a lot of the things that happened last time cannot happen again. And if they want to see in state court and lose every single case like they did last time around, be my guest, I guess you know you want to waste some legal fees.
Fine, it just feels like you're talking about, you know, Okay, the exact set of circumstances that led to the exact situation of January sixth have you know, have been somewhat mitigated, so.
We don't have anything to worry about.
And when I think about that, about the events of January six and stop the steal in all of that, it's less about Okay, Can that exact sequence of events happen again?
I don't know.
Probably not because he's not president right now, so that makes things that, you know, makes things different right there. But can is that indicative of the type of thing that he can foment when he's at his worst?
Yes?
And is that indicative of you know, when you put that together with what the people many people who are in his administration, including his own vice president who stood by him through everything up into the very end, what they say about his worst impulses. You know, I think that that is I think that is very troubling and
should be taken seriously. And then, you know, the last thing I'll say that we can move on to to Cammalist town Hall and take a look at what she's saying in her closing closing pitch and also some of the latest polls. But the last thing I'll say is also, you do have a different landscape now with the Supreme Court really saying like you have carbe blanche and so even that theoretical institutional chet of you know, the highest
court in the land is now effectively gone. So if you're taking that away, you're taking away any of the people who were like, you know, institutionalists who were writing memos to him saying, you know, like Don McGahn writing memos to him saying was you cannot just turn the Department of Justice into your own like like toy to prosecute your political enemies. You just literally can't do that.
You take those people out of the picture. And you know, I think it is I think it is a dangerous situation and one that people should take into consideration.
Now, I'm not telling.
People how they have to vote, or that this has to be their number one issue, et cetera. But you know, a factor in the people who were in the room with him, who saw how he operates and how he thinks, and to take into consideration what we've seen happen and his own public comments. You know, I don't think it's like dranged, dur insane. Oh to take those things very seriously given what we've seen at the time.
I don't think is dranger insane. People can make up their minds themselves.
All right, let's go to the town hall, like you said, And before we get to that, we're going to start with a little bit of polling. There was a fun analysis here by Nate Silver. Let's put this up there on the screen. Silver writes in a new column, quote, here's what my gut says about the election. But don't
trust anyone's gut, even mine. And actually, if you read the column, Crystal, he basically says, if you asked me to trust my gut, I've been vacuuming so much media and looking at so much disparate data that I think that Donald Trump is going to win. But that's exactly why you shouldn't even trust my gut. I mean, I don't know, what do you think the fact that he says his gut thinks that Trump is going to win, it means something to me. I don't actually take seriously
his whole don't trust my gut. Sean Trendy over at RCP, somebody who was a real canary ahead of the twenty sixteen election.
So I've always trusted what he has to say. He actually said the same thing.
He's like, Yeah, if you asked me to put my chips on something, I would put it on Trump. And he's like, but the smarter move, if I was at the table, would be to get all my chips and walk away, and for what the outcome would be. So I can't totally handwave it away. And there are signs, you know, there are signs everywhere. Harry Enton, for example, over at CNN talking about independence and some of the movement away from Kamala Harris, Let's take.
A listen center of the electorate.
You go last time around, Joe Biden won these voters by eleven points. You look at September of twenty twenty four, a month ago, Kamala Harris was up five points among independents. You look now, though, look at this, she's only up by two points among a key block center of the electorate, down nine points where from Biden was at the end of the twenty twenty campaign. Of course, this is a
national picture. This is a national picture. What is going on in those key battleground states Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, the Great Lakes, that blue wall, right, Joe Biden last time around one and by five points over Donald Trump. Look at where we are today. This is the type of movement Donald Trump likes to see in the center of the electorate. Up by a point now, of course that's well with than any margin of arra right. But again,
it's the movement. It's the trends, mister Verman, that we're looking at.
And when you.
Flip a group from going plus five Biden to now plus one Trump, that's the type of movement Donald Trump loves to say. And it's a type of movement that I think gives democrats some ageitiz use. Usually the way independence go so goes the nation. So candidates who won independence and elections since nineteen hundred and fifty two, look at this one independence won the election fifteen lost the election despite winning independence just three so it is possible
to lose independence and win the election. But the bottom line is that's only happened three times. It was Nixon in sixty eight, it was four and seventy six, and it was carrying two thousand and four.
There you go, and if you take a lot of it, that data coming out, We're going to talk about it in our next block about Nevada. Things are looking very very good for Republicans, at the very least clearly the movement amongst Latinos and all there is very obvious, and for traditional blue demographics not coming out to vote or at the very least being outnumbered pretty dramatically. So I put all that together and I mean, it's relatively a good situation for Trump, but of course, you know, a
lot can happen. And what we talked about with Dave Wigel remains a key point. Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina can all go Trump and calmuck. It's still with in the election. As long as the Nebraska what is it Nebraska one?
Is that what it is? I've forgot whatever that Nebraska.
Whatever, the one that's the swing district question.
Swing district as long as it goes there to go two hundred and seventy electors, and.
The poll that one looks like pretty much it's in the bag for them based on what we've got, what I've seen right now. But yeah, so if you get that and you get the Blue Wall States, and I do feel like based on the polling we've seen and based on the tea leaves you can read from the early vote, the Blue Wall States are going in a different direction than the sun Belt state, which was hard.
To say in PA, but in the in the rest of them, in Michigan specifically, it does look good for them.
Yeah, and it would make some sense, right, I mean, just given the different demographic groups, how they're shifting and
realigning the campaign's different strategies, et cetera. But you know, if you want to understand the Kamala Harris strategy down the stretch of like the Liz Cheney tour and the you know, the going on Fox News and the fascism democracy pitch here at the end, I think it's all because they see those numbers with independence and they feel they need to shore them up, and they're concerned that
people's top two. You know, the things that are holding them back from Harris are number one, Trump's favorability creeping up a little bit, so he doesn't seem like as bad as he used to seem, so trying to you know,
remind people of like the worst parts of him. And number two that they can't quite envision Kamala Harris in the commander in chief role and so you know that she's too liberal and she's a lightweight if that's the core of the campaigns and analysis of why they think independence aren't quite as firmly in her camp as they were
with Joe Biden. Like that's what is leading them to the strategy, which again it's not a strategy I'm particularly in love with, but that's I think the way that they're thinking about these things.
And so we'll see the big question.
And you know, one of the big questions with independence is previously a lot of times there were significant numbers of independents who were just like basically Republicans who just didn't really want to call themselves Republicans but then always voted for the Republican. Now with you have a trend of a lot of young voters who are new into the system who don't want to identify call themselves Democrats and have all kinds of issues with the Democratic Party
or Democrats, but will vote Democrat. And who are you know, who are ultimately like you know, a lot of Bernie type young people who are like, no, I don't really associate with the Democratic Party. But there's no way in hell they're voting for Republicans, especially young women.
You know.
I think that's particularly like a significant trend there, And that was one thing we're going to talk some about the Nevada early vote numbers, which, by the way, I do think, look, you know, good for Republicans. I don't think there's any like spinning that away. But one of the things that was being pointed out is a lot of the independents who are voting in Nevada are pretty young, and there is this trend in American life now of
young people identify as independence but disproportionately voting Democrats. So anyway, we'll see how it all shakes out. We'll see if those people show up to vote on election day or before.
That is a good corollary, and that is one way where Nevada could still go blue is if the what is it called other? I think on the ballot it's not independent. It actually is like unidentified.
Yeah, I think that's what it is.
But anyway, other, let's go with that.
Okay, let's get to the town hall. This is really it was interesting stuff. So CNN last night was supposed to be a debate, and previously had been one that they had floated where Donald Trump would appear. They ended up turning it into a town hall and there were a couple of different areas which we thought were interesting. First and foremost is one that Kamala has really struggled on, this question of what would you do differently from Biden?
And then also have you ever made a mistake?
What I put in those two is the category of like political introspection and the opportunity to clean up something that you see with the American people. Frankly, I thought she had a terrible answer, but you'd make up your mind. Let's take a listen.
I don't think i've ever heard the former president had made a mistake. A lot of politicians don't. Is there something you can point to in your life, political life, or in your life in the last four years.
That you think is a mistake? That you have learned from.
I mean, I've made many mistakes and they range from you know, if you've ever parented a child, you know you make lots of mistakes too. In my role as vice president, I mean, I've probably worked very hard at making sure that I am well versed on issues, and I think that is very important. It's a mistake not to be well versed on an issue and feel compelled to answer a question.
You know, It's so funny because she struggles the most. I feel like almost in friendly settings.
I totally agree.
When you know, when she sat down with Brett Barry, you and I had a different analysis of that interview, but you could when we shared the assessment of was her debate performance right? She knew it was going to be adversary, though she prepared like crazy, and the questions none of them are like this sort of soft and squish. She like, tell me about you, And that's when she struggles.
Is when you get the softball, like tell me about a mistake you made, or tell me about you know, something personal that requires you to be like have say something that wasn't in the briefing book, that's when she really struggles. And also I think in these settings that are more friendly. I also don't think she prepares for the same degree and comes in with the She doesn't come in in the same mental space and with the same level preparation that she does for a breadbare or
a Trump interview. So yeah, when you ask her just to say something like normal and human, she hasn't studied the answer and she struggles.
The crazy part about preparation, she didn't do anything yesterday. If you look at her schedule, she had one thing, that three minute press conference on John Kelly.
She took no questions. That was it.
She was at there at her house preparing for the CNN town hall. So what were you doing when you were preparing? It's mystifying. Another area where Cooper really caught her was on em This was actually a fun short circuit moment because Democrats and Kamma clearly are used to four years of making fun of Trump on the border wall.
And of being totally opposed to his border policy.
Of course, ever since she became the candidate, she's like, no, I agree with the border bill, and that at the very least contains some of Trump's border policy. So she is short circuits halfway in between because she has the old routine and Cooper's like, hold on, wait a second, don't you also support a border wall? And you can watch like the gears turning in her head. Let's take a listen.
Is a border wall stupid?
Well, let's talk about Donald Trump and that border wall? So remember Donald Trump said Mexico would pay for it. Come on, they didn't. How much of that wall did he build?
I think the.
Last number I saw I was about two percent. And then when it came time for him to do a photo up, you know where he did it in the part of the wall that President Obama built.
But you're agreed to a bill that would ear mark six hundred and fifty million dollars to continue building that way.
I pledge that I am going to bring forward that bipartisan bill to further strengthen and secure our border. Yes i am, and I'm going to work across the aisle to pass a comprehensive bill that deals with a broken immigration system. I think Jackson's question part of it was to acknowledge that America has always had migration, but there
needs to be a legal process for it. People have to earn it, and that's the point that I think is the most important point that can be made, which is we need a president oh is grounded in common sense and practical outcomes, like let's just fix this thing, Let's just fix it. Why is there any ideological perspective on the let's just fix the problem.
To fix the problem, you're doing this compromise bill. It does call for six hundred and fifty million dollars that was ear marked under Trump to actually still go to build the world.
I'm not afraid of good ideas where they occurred.
You don't think it's stupid anymore. I think what he.
Did and how he did it was did not make much sense because he actually didn't do much of anything. I just talked about that wall, right, we just.
Talked about it.
He didn't actually do much of anything.
But you do want to build some wall.
I want to strengthen our border.
See this is brutal.
You know, I've been a critic of this major immigration imagine going back to twenty sixteen and telling us that a Democrat would flail around and stumble and not know what to say on.
What is the border wall? Good or back? Like smart?
And you know, I know what they're doing is their ideas like let's try to blunt this idea that she's too liberal and just going to open the borders and blah blah blah. But I just think this answer right here simplifies why. I mean, obviously I have issues with the morality of their new like we want to be more hawckey, We're going to try to get to Trump's right on immigration policy.
Like I have more going to fish at.
But on the this answer exemplifies why the politics of it are.
A mess too.
And you know, she goes back to this tick of when something's uncomfortable, she laughs.
So we saw this in both of the last two questions, and I do it too.
She's trying to make a joke about Trump and just try hope that Anderson is going to move away. And to his credit, he's like, but wait a second. You used to say the border wall is dumb. Now you're saying you need money just before the border wall. And she can't say anything other than like, well, the way he did it is bad because he didn't build enough border wall, but also not willing to go back on me saying that the border wall was dumb and bad.
So it's just it's just a mess, and it exacerbates the issues around She doesn't stay for anything, and she's a bit of a lightweight. That's what kind of comes
across in this question. So yeah, again, to me, this is example number one of why I think the way that they have approached immigration by just totally ceding to the Republican argument, has been a moral number one, but political mistake because it opens you up for moments like this which are really fundamentally unanswerable given the position they've stayed down.
I O, well, a twofold.
So you either own it and then you don't start out by reverting to your twenty sixteen talking points about the border wall and then get called out there almost immediately, or like you said, you don't change your position or whatever in the first place, but when you try and do both, you look like an idiot, and that that's.
Really yeah came.
I mean, if you're really going to do this pivot, probably the best thing to do would be like, look, you know.
What I was wrong?
Yeah, exactly what hers with Ben here.
We saw that and we adjusted, and that's what I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna I learn I'm not.
So ideological that I don't adjust for new facts and realities and the reality is blah blah blah blah.
Blah' where I was like, yeah, and that's a good answer.
That would be a lot better.
But you know, politicians, they never want to admit that they got anything wrong. They think it makes them look weak and bad, whereas stumbling around like this in a completely nonsensical way just makes it look like you don't stand for anything.
And there you go, you probably don't.
All right, she got a question two on high prices and inflation from these were all, by the way, actual unregistered voters, at least from what we can tell, they don't seem as planted as last time.
So let's take a listen.
Let me just ask you about price gouging. I looked at your plan.
You talk about going after price gougers, and I'm quoting from the plan on essential goods during emergencies or times of crisis.
I get that.
How does that help though, someone like Eric with prices that for years the grocery price has just been high.
Well, first of all, Anderson, as you know, and obviously Sann has been covering extensively what has been happening in the state of Georgia. North Carolina, Florida. It's a real issue. I was Attorney General of California. I was the top law enforcement officer of the biggest state in the country. I took this issue on because it affects a lot of people. And I'm not going to apologize for the fact that we need to actually deal with accountability when
these not all in fact most don't. But when companies are taking advantage of the desperation and the need of the American people. We saw it actually during the pandemic as well, where because of supply chain issues there was a reduction of supply and then they would inflate the price of everyday necessities. Not to mention, by the way, again, Donald Trump should be here tonight to talk with you
and answer your questions. Not he refused to come. But understand that part of his plan is to put in place a national sales tax of at least twenty percent on everyday goods and necessities, and that by economist estimates independent economists, would cost you, as the American consumer and taxpair and additional four thousand dollars a year.
So you know, that remains one of our better moments now in terms of what they're closing with you hear some of that. You're hearing a lot of the character stuff as well. Maybe that's a media thing. I'm not so sure, but you know, I wanted to do at least I guess a fair presentation.
Yeah.
First, well, I think it appears that they're spending a lot of money in swing states on ads that focus on that.
Message right there.
And it also appears from the polling on who do you trust on various economic issues that some of this messaging has broken through. There was a Bloomberg Swing state poll. Maybe we can add this in post guys so people can see, But on every economic issue that they surveyed, Kamala Harris had closed the trust gap or even surpassed Trump as the candidate that swing state voters trust. More so, on taxes, Kamala Harris had a little bit of an
advantage on interest rates, It was very close. On housing costs, she had an advantage on cost of everyday goods. They were basically tied on healthcare costs. Advantage gas prices was the one where he had the largest gap, but even there she had closed it significantly. So you know, I do think some of this is breaking through I think the relentless focus in terms of the ad dollars has worked, and it has become an area that is less of a vulnerability for her than it might otherwise have been.
And I think that the other question that people have is, like, you know, they may like her plans better, they may not have confidence that any of it is really going to have And I think that's a general statement about the sort of reasonable, like pragmatic nihilism that people have about anything getting done in Washington at this point, which is not you know, which is not illogical given the given how there's just nothing but good luck as far
as I can see in Washington, DC. So in any case, I do think that she deserves credit for the set of policies.
She's put together.
The ads that they're running on these issues are actually very effective, I think, and the way that she's messaged on it has clearly done her some favors.
With us, it's done a little bit favorite and she just closed that gap on the economy critical if she does end up squeezing it out, that's actually gonna be a key reason.
Yeah.
Why, So, final thing I just.
Wanted to show was David Axelrod just admitting some of the unmittable previously about quote word salad city from Kamala Harris and is after action on the town hall, Let's take a listen.
When she doesn't want to answer a question, her habit is to kind of go to world word salad city. And she did that on a couple of answers. One was on Israel. Anderson asked a direct question, would you be stronger on Israel than Trump? And there was a seven minute answer, but none of it related to the question he was asking.
True, I mean Salid City. It was clear too.
You know, other people there felt kind of uncomfortable, and I saw Van Jones say that as well.
That's where the whole like she has to be flawless.
He's like almost doing a media criticism element there, but actual Rod ran the Obama campaign and he gets it.
I do think that it is fair to say Trump is just how to He just is a unique polity.
He is held to a different standard. There's no doubt about it.
You know, if a story like the one we cover with Dave Weigel, the equivalent of that, I don't even know what it would be with Kamala Harris came out, it would be a big story like a close Jeffrey Epstein associate and some sort of you know, sexual scandal, like it would be a big media story, and because
of Trump, it's not. Trump is given all kinds of interviews where you read his words and you're like, I just literally don't even know what you are talking about right now, And again, it just doesn't get the same level of attention and scrutiny as when Kamala Harris goes to Ward salad ditty. But I mean that's kind of just the political reality and landscape that we live in.
He does have his own set of unique standards that he is held to that are just different than literally any other politician, Republican or Democratic, exist.
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