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Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday, have an amazing show for everybody today.
What do we have, prysonal indeed, we do, guess what, guys, one week, seven day to election day. We are taking a look this morning at the top ads for each campaign where they are spending the most dollars, making their closing cases very interesting. Contrast in terms of what their theory of how to move voters in these final days.
Are is whatever. I don't know. Well, thank flish. Language is really going well this morning, all right.
We also are going to take a look at the bull case for Kamala. We've been looking at some negative indicators for her, some positive indicators for Trump, so today we wanted to flip the script into there are a few pieces of news that fit nicely into.
That, So we're going to make that case.
We also are going to take a look at how Trump is prepping Stop the Steal two point zero and whether or not those efforts could be successful given that you have new legislation that's passed, given that he is no longer president of the United States. So we'll dig into the weeds with that, so everybody knows what to expect were he to lose the race next week. Both camps out there playing for the Muslim vote, especially in
the state of Michigan. Barack Obama making some interesting comments yesterday that comes on the heels of Trump securing some Muslim endorsements that he touted in that state, which of course is crucial. Elon is being sued over his big daily million dollar lottery by the Philly DA and he also his organizing efforts on the ground have come under scrutiny to see whether or not they have been successful.
On the Trump campaign's behalf. We're also doing a little follow up, just a quick follow up on this whole Washington Post story. We added this yesterday when we found out that after Bezos decided that they were not going to endure in this race. They have lost more than two hundred thousand subscribers.
Yesterday the number we were getting was two thousand.
Yeah, then NPR was able to report by yesterday midday, so it's undoubtedly more than this.
At this point, they had lost.
More than two hundred thousand subscribers. That is like ten percent of their subscriber base, so they are bleading subscribers at this point. Bezos himself felt the need to come out and publish it on BED. I don't think it helped matter, So we'll bring you all of that, and then I have a monolog today and taking a look at Trump's most important potentially moment on Joe Rogan, which went a little bit undernoticed given the Wale psychologists discussion
and then the whole Madison Square gardens situation. But something important that we should all take a look at. There we go, that's what's on TEP.
Before we get to that. Thank you to all of our premium subscribers. We're really excited one week to election day, Breakingpoints dot com.
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being spent and similarly, what most people are hearing. I know a lot of people will watch this show and who are online. You guys are consuming a lot of stuff. But if you're just you know, living your life in the Pennsylvania and Arizona, in Wisconsin or others, this is most likely what you are going to see on your airwave. So we're going to start with Kamala Harris and the two ads that have the most money behind them in the Swing States.
Let's take a listen a lot of money. I know, Richard Well, we're going to Twitter.
I am not rich as hell. I work hard. I scrape to get by. Donald Trump wants to give tax breaks to billionaires, but Kamala Harris has plans to help us. She's going to crack down on price gouging and cut taxes for working people like me. I voted for Donald Trump before, but this time I'm voting for Kamala.
I no, what are you doing.
You're rich as hell. I'm going to give you. I'm not rich as hell.
I'm the one that really needs to break not the people that are already rich and have the money. The one percent don't serve anybody but themselves, So for them to get a tax break, no, that's not cool. Kamala Harris is gonna make billionaires pay their fair share, and she's gonna cut taxes for working people like me. I'm buddy, and I'm not rich as hell, and I'm voting for Kamala Harris.
F F Pact is responsible for the content of this ad.
So those were the two ads. They've got what forty something million dollars behind them. Now you can clearly see that it's very focused on the richest. Hell comment, I wouldn't note that that second ad that resident is from Allentown, Pennsylvania. I've come to know the region well, it's for my wife's family is from. Ronald Trump will actually be there today because of a big swinging area. It also is the first test. It has one of the largest Puerto
Rican populations in the state. And having been there, I can tell you there's yard signs everywhere for both candidates. So in terms of the enthusiasm, they certainly take it seriously for who they're going to vote for. But it is certainly that last part is one that you're seeing quite a bit on the airwaves, specifically for Kamala Harris on that And frankly, I was a little bit surprised because if you also from my own experience having been there,
watch some Eagle game or Phillies game. Well there it was a lot more abortion ads that I saw. But it maybe things have changed in the last month or so on this tax and a billionaire one.
But look, it's not a bad strategy.
Obviously, It's one that anybody who watches this show would be able to connect to and could understand why that would move swing voters so very much, could be the thing that pushes over the edge.
Yeah, they're going for class war, and obviously I'm here for it. You know, I've been seeing one in Virginia that is similar that says, like, you know, Canada Day is for the billionaires and actually even has a picture of Trump with Jeffrey Epstein and a bunch of other Yeah, which is kind of noteworthy. And then Canada be is for you is basically the idea so very much in
line with this. The first one we showed you also hit the note of like, listen, I voted for Trump in the past, this time I'm going with Kamala Harris. So one thing that's noteworthy to me is while a lot of what is you know, what the speeches are about Kama's coming out and doing this speech on the ellipse, is that today that might be today actually, but she's giving that big, like closing speech on the Ellipse that's supposed to be about like democracy and those larger threats.
They're talking a lot about the comments from John Kelly saying, hey, I serve with this guy and he is a.
Fascist to the core.
While they're doing that in terms of the sort of national media messaging, what they're actually putting paid and like what they're running paid ads on is this much more class economic focus message. And you know, some of the polling indicates that this has helped to move voters so that she has at the very least narrowed the gap with Trump on the economy. Some polls show that she is actually exceeding him or has matched him with regard to who people feel will be better for the economy.
Every pole I've seen shows voters giving her an edge on who would be better for the middle class. That's obviously the message they're driving here. So you know, in general, I think it's pretty smart strategy.
Yeah.
And then for Trump, I mean clearly, and I've been talking about this, it's immigration all day long, and we're going to get to issues and what people say is their top I honestly kind of don't believe them anymore. I've gotten to that just because of where the way that the dollar figures are being spent on various different things, and also in terms of.
What's moving the needle.
Could be wrong, though Kamala certainly does win. So here are two of the biggest ads with money behind Donald Trump, Let's take a listen.
His San Francisco DA liberal Kamala Harris later killers go free, and as California Attorney Gender, Kamala continued to put criminals first. After a little girl was raped and buried alive, laws were passed to keep sex offenders away from children, Kamala ignored Jessica's law and allowed convicted sex offenders to live near schools and parks. Kamala Harris has always put criminals first.
Don't make America her next victim. Make America Great Again, Inc. Is responsible for the content of this advertising.
He murdered a father of three sentenced to life in prison. Kamala Harris pushed to use tax dollars to pay for his sex change.
I made sure that they changed the policy so that every transgender inmate would have access.
It sounds insane because it is insane. Kamala was the first to help pay for a prisoner's sex change.
The power that I had, I used it in a way that was about pushing for the movement. Frankly, and the agenda.
Kamala's agenda is they them, not you.
I'm Donald J. Trump, and I approved this message.
That last when I heard over and over again when I was there in Pennsylvania. But I mean, look, I think it's clearly that they have some different theories about what is going to move people, and actually, can we put a sticks up on the screen, because this is really what it all comes down to our people. What do people mean when they say certain things are their top issues? So here is from Pew researchers came out last month. The economy is the top issues for voters
in twenty twenty four. Number one is the economy amongst Harris and Trump supporters and all voters at eighty one percent. Number two is healthcare at sixty five. Three is Supreme Court, four,
foreign policy, five, violent crime six Immigration. But the thing is, how can you look at those ads where that are being run and say that this comports with that and specifically in terms of what switches it like If healthcare is truly number two, I don't see a single person talking about healthcare in terms of that concepts of a plan answer from Trump, which obviously was ridiculous, But then you would assume if that was so devastating that the
Harris campaign would be pumping it into every swing state living room.
They seem to believe that they can compete.
As you said on this better for the middle class question, a lot of people still do trust Trump on the economy. The spread is not the way that it used to be, but it's pretty clear that immigration is that number one now. The other theory is that if you do look at the spread between immigration and between immigration for Democrats and Republicans, immigration is a number two issue for Republicans, right, and then violent crime is what I think number three, just
eyeballing it there. So if that's true, then the other way we could read it is that Trump's ads are all about driving his base and making sure that turnout is as high as possible, whereas with Kamala, obviously they have abortion, which is one of their top issues. But for them it says, what, if I'm reading correctly, healthcare, Supreme Court are their top issues.
I don't hear a lot of that coming out of them.
So maybe theirs is more of a swing state strategy and they're just banking on these voters who are already committed Dems on abortion to come out and vote. But either way, none of this is one hundred percent like aligns with the app As we've seen Crystal.
Yeah.
I mean, it's it's culture war versus class war in terms of the closing messages that they are making on the airwaves. And I don't think that it's necessarily surprising given the way that Trump has run campaigns in the past, that his is a base turnout strategy. Yeah, you know, that's part of why you see the like Madison Square Garden rally and letting their freak flag fly, like very different from how you would normally position yourself for a
general election. And you know, we'll see I've seen some polling that suggested that the you know, the ad attack attacking Kamala Harris on transgender issues in particular, has been very ineffective in that many voters couldn't even recall that they'd seen it, in spite of the fact that it's blanketed the airwaves. And then you know, on the hair side, I think you're right that they're looking more at That's part of why having the Republican they're saying I used
to be with Trump, now I'm with Kamala. They're really trying to go at that sort of moderate swing voter they're still in.
They're in the mode of still trying.
To persuade some of those swing voters that they think are gettable for them, potentially in the suburbs. And so that's the direction that they're ultimately going in. You know, from based on the polling research that that we've seen what Matt KRP shared with us from the Center for Working Class Politics about the messages that work best, especially in the swing state of Pennsylvania. You know, they found that the uh, basically class war like the strong populist
message pulled best in terms of moving voters. The second was progressive economics that you know move voters, and then way down the list was the threat to democracy message. So you know, it seems like the Harris people are seeing that and at least in terms of their paid communications, are responding accordingly. And you know, I guess one of the big questions is how much paid community communications to
move anybody at this point, you know, is it? But even if it's marginal, the tens of millions of dollars that are blanketing the airwaves, you have to think that it accounts for something. The last thing I'll say about the Trump campaign strategy, which we mentioned before, is these ads are not just about those specific issues they're also about painting a portrait of Kamala Harris as having these like weird extreme ideas and it's not worthy to me too.
In terms of the different strategies, this was something we saw in the dollar figures previously. The Democratic campaign is doing some straight negative but most of their ad dollars and that's what we saw on the two ads that we ran for you are a contrast, right, They're about, here's a positive for Kamala Harris in contrast to a negative for Donald Trump. The Trump is campaign is leaning
heavily into just negatives, not building up Trump. Not a contrast, but like, let's try to dirty u Kamala Harris, Let's make you question whether she's really the person that you want there as commander in chief.
And probably that has to do, you know.
Partly with just like a different philosophy about what moves voters, and also the fact that she does have a higher approval rating than him, so they probably feel like they need to bring her back.
Down there as a bit. That's what I mean for Trump.
Everybody on Earth at this point knows how they feel about Donald Trump, positively or negatively. I don't think building him up is going to change all of that. But the last part I would really get to is this theory paid communications versus earned media, And I'm just a firm believer that earned media in the national media environment is just so much more important.
Even putting earned a side.
So, for example, Kamala may be done by how much is it forty million behind those two ads? I think we just said, But I mean the truth is is that the majority of her media coverage in the last two weeks has been almost all Liz Cheney democracy focused. That was what her event, and I think it was in Malvern, Pennsylvania, one of the wealthiest suburbs of the Philadelphia mainline with Liz Cheney was all about similar in Michigan. Her her event, I think today is about democracy the fascism.
I mean, this has become like basically mainstream if you look on CNN or any elsewhere in terms of what the majority discussion is is all about, like Trump is a fascist and all that. I mean, Frank, look again, I could be two twenty sixteen rose colored glasses, but it's all been tried before, and if any I mean, it's the least original argument in the book. Trump is going to be a fascist. Trump is going to be a dictator. The other side of it would be exactly
what I just said about Donald Trump. This is a base turnout strategy. Democrats hate Trump. You know, I'm walking around my neighborhood, which is ninety something percent for Biden dictatorship. Bad signs are everywhere. Stop Project twenty. I mean, this is the beating heart of true Blue. But I mean these people are fired up, They're ready to vote. And I saw somebody say that Democrats seem more enthusiastic than they have been since a campaign.
Of Barack Obama.
Obviously Barack Obama won twice, right, so that's not a bad thing, yeah, to be at, but some of the turnout data doesn't necessarily comport with that. We're going to do a segment soon about early vote. It actually is not looking terrible for a comma, but I have seen the warning signs. I think is in Milwaukee, for example, black turnout is like a forty year low. There's a little bit different signs in Georgia, but low blackturn it would not be what happened with Barack Obama.
So of course, you know, we can look in every different direction.
What we're all just trying to do here is just show people this is what swing voters are more likely to see. But they're also very likely to consume a lot of national media through the ether, not through watching CNN or elsewhere, through online, through clips, through this show, any other podcast that people listen to, and I'm just generally going.
To bet on the ladder for what people are really going to hear.
I think probably for Democrats, the messaging about fascism and the danger, the sort of existential danger that Donald Trump poses to the country, that's probably about bringing their.
Own voters home.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking, And.
There has been some signs of that, by the way. For example, there was a poll, an NDABLEACP poll of black men in particular, and they had pulled them before, and it showed black men shifting back towards Kamala Harris, her winning especially among young black men, her winning black men in this particular poll overall at the same rates
as Joe Biden. So I do think some of the messaging, the sort of earned media messaging from the Harris campaign and the speech she's giving, etc. Is about kind of bringing people who typically vote Democratic, who are maybe disgusted with the Biden policy potentially on the Warren Gaza trying to bring them back home. I think it's probably some
of the strategy there. And then you know, I mean, Trump doesn't do himself any favors with having this Madison Square Garden rally where he's calling where his warm up backs is calling Puerto Rico and island garbage and making all kinds of other offensive comments throughout the night, not just from the comedian, and that Nate Silver had a write up of whether or not he thought that would make a difference. Move the needle can put that up in the screen.
He thinks it could be. And the reason is he looks at in.
Particular the Google search traffic for Trump and it has spiked after the Madison Square Garden rally. Now maybe you think that's the positive because hey, Trump's you know, dominating the narrative, blah blah blah. But I think more this is feeding a democratic narrative about the reminding people of the negatives, the reasons they soured on Donald Trump before, and his approval rating had especially post assassination, had assassination
attempt had creeped up and kind of stayed there. So there is room for him for those negatives to creep back up.
So in that sense, I don't really agree with. I know it's a common analysis.
I understand where it comes from, that like none of these scandals really stick to him, but he does historically.
Have like a low approval rating.
He did lose in twenty twenty, his party did poorly in both twenty eighteen and surprisingly in twenty twenty two.
So and I don't know.
That it's totally accurate. He can, there is no doubt he can get away with things that would be total career enders for virtually any other politician. But the idea has no impact at all. I don't really buy that, because we have seen how his approval rating has been consistently negative in part because of these sorts of stuns as usual.
The state the case can be overstated in both directions. I would put it what you just said is that in general, these things don't tend to stick. In twenty twenty, lose by some forty thousand votes across three states. It's not exactly an overwhelming mandate by Joe Biden.
And if we consider I.
Mean, he won the popular vote by four and a half percentage, right, But that doesn't matter any won all the critical battleground states. So yeah, it's I mean, sometimes on how.
You look at Georgia ten thousand in Arizona. I forget what the other I think is Michigan.
Right, But I'm just saying, you know, when you lose the popular vote by almost five percentage points, like that is a significant vote against you. And given the fact that now the gap has likely closed between the electoral college and the popular vote, like you know, if you certainly, if you if he faced today a four and a half point loss, it would be a landslide in terms of the battleground states all going to Kamala Harrison definitely.
But that doesn't look like if that's going be the case. I mean, if anything, what I think with Trump is a lot of this stuff is baked in and ultimately what will swing the so called swing independent voters. And it's just difficult, I think for anybody who does this for a living or has long standing and well held political beliefs to understand it's just not how those people think maybe this will be enough to push them over
the edge. But something that has been consistent with these swinging independent voters, the things that piss them off or not the things that may piss you off, or any other like liberal commentator, same vice versa. By the way, for you know, anybody who's on the right, you know, somebody who's saying that is something verboten to us or ridiculous, doesn't sound all that ridiculous.
Whenever it goes to a swing voter.
What actually moves them is almost impossible to determine. It's like alchemy in terms of what the actual like spotlight on Trump is going to see. One of the reasons my bias, and again this is a bias tells me that it's probably good for him, is that the more reason control of the conversation, the better off that he is.
As it has been in the past for his approval ratings. Now, the question is about whether things have shifted enough from twenty twenty two onward for people to take this very very seriously in the way that they did then that they didn't, let's say, in twenty and sixteen, and same with Republican voters. Now, the Republican voter data would have to comport with the idea that there is some long
heald like revulsion with Trump, but there hasn't it hasn't happened. Like, if the Liz Cheney Democratic theory of like, oh, drump is so bad that he's turning people off were true, you would see higher percentage of Republicans not wanting to vote for him. But I mean, in the New York Times Santa Poal, Trump is actually doing better with Republicans and Kama is doing with Democrats. Now we're talking about two and four points. Okay, so let's not overstate the
case either direction. But my point is you would want that number to be like ten percent.
Now.
The other theory is anybody who's still pissed off by Trump, they're not Democrats or they're not Republicans anymore. They left the party a long time ago. And in fact, if you roll the tape, I kind of predicted that in twenty twenty.
Yeah, I was totally wrong.
I've thought that there actually would be, you know, some sort of pushback or whatever. But yeah, by and large, it hasn't been the case people reconcile themselves to Trump. I think the Biden presidency has not been good, and so based on that a lot of people are willing to just come home and have negative polarization and partisanship. I genuinely have no clue. We will obviously find out
on election day. But everybody who thinks that these are enders for Trump, I mean, how many times does an old Donnie need to wriggle his way out for us to learn a different lesson? In terms of what people actually see when they see this man, It's almost certainly not what most people will commentate on this for a living as I.
Just think that analysis is very twenty sixteen, Yeah, when he has been consistently losing since then, and so two things are different. I mean, the major thing that's different is that he himself is trying for a different coalition than he was in twenty sixteen. In twenty sixteen, it was all about let me just juice the numbers with the white working class, and obviously in key swing states that was enough. This time, they have seen erosion with
white voters, especially white college educated voters. So to try to make up for that, it's about going after you know, these less frequent black and brown younger men in particular, and so you know, it's not the same group that you're going after. And I think the campaign realizes that there may be more sensitivity around some of these comments with their aspired to voting coalition than there was in
the past. So, for example, the Trump campaign distanced themselves from the Tony Hinchcliff joke about Puerto Rico being an island of trash. Every single Republican I think in Florida immediately, Marco Rubio, Rick Scott, all these different Republican members of Congress in Florida came out and condemned the comments. The head of the Republican Party in Puerto Rico condemned the comments. So you know, it's not just like me, some lefty
liberal commentator saying it. The Trump campaign clearly sees it as an issue as well.
Yeah maybe, I mean, frankly, I think that's kind of a stupid strategy. First of all, because it was literally at your rally, so there's.
No disowning it. Number one.
But number two is again like, if we really believe this theory of black and Latino voters, it's just incorrect. If it's going to push you over the finish line, Like we're this tiny slice of the electorate. It's maybe eight percent in the swing states, especially in the wider states across the blue wall white voters is the whole ballgame. Ironically, there are a lot of like, very racist commentators who often throw this at Trump because they're like, hey, man,
why are you've chasing the black vote? Whites are the only ones who actually matter for you, and look, you know, weird horseshoe theory. I kind of agree with them, just on a statistical basis that their whole like you know, what was it First Step Act and all this, it hasn't really done anything in terms of pushing people to come out and vote for Trump predominantly.
I just read a study yesterday.
A big part of the reason that the Latino shift has happened amongst Latino men's specific is based on literally Latin x verbiage and on an aversion to cultural liberalism that has nothing to do with Trump or even like a Puerto Rico comment or whatever. It has to do much more with like cultural conservatism deep at heart. And also, frankly, a lot of these people are more working class and are not college educated and thus have a very different like cultural more that they swim in as opposed to
everybody else. So that seems to be, you know, the only reason it's happened, I guess is a long way of saying is I don't think the Puerto Rico joke is gonna matter that much.
I really don't.
I mean again, like if if somebody makes a joke about where you're from and that's literally enough for you to come out and vote for somebody.
Else, to me, that seems insane.
But I mean, maybe you know all the Puerto Ricans this country thing differently than me.
I don't know.
I'd like to think I'm more like everybody else. It just seems to me that the reason why they would come out to vote is number one of this long standing, like years long aversion to cultural liberalism.
As they said in.
That I think as an NBER study, we can maybe talk about it next week.
But that's that's.
What the driver just seems to be behind a lot of this black and Latino movement. But at the end of the day, you know, the ballgame is still white working class voters, because all he needs to do, with believe, is turn out at twenty sixteen levels or slightly above from twenty twenty, and he could still win with no more increase in the black or the Latino vote.
Yeah, I mean, and when a race is really really close, like If it's as close in the Swing States as it was last time, then you could look at any one community and say a little bit of a erosion year, a little bit of erosion there is what made the difference. I mean, PENNSYL Vnue what they're like half a million people who are of Puerto Rican descent, and I have no special insights into that community, but I do know that it's been reported.
Like you know, Spanish language talk radio is all over it.
Bad Bunny has apparently moved elections in the past, and he is all over like every basically Puerto Rican star is all over it. People are calling into radio stations locally in Philly and saying, I was thinking about Trump, but there's no way I'm going to vote for that man. So, you know, can it make some difference on the margins? I think it's possible. I think it's possible. I don't want to oversell it, right, I don't want to say, leoh, this is the ballgame.
It's over for him.
But when you tie that into not just the specific impact on like you know, Puerto Ricans, but how it feeds into the Harris messaging about how this person is, what does she say, she says like unhinged, unstable, and the messaging about you know, him being a danger and just someone you really don't want a position of power. He gave them ammunition in the final week, and I think it's pretty clear from his campaign's reaction that they
think it could be a problem for him. I just know if I was looking at, you know, how the Democrats were closing and there was some equivalent you know, scandal on the Democratic side, and all of their ad dollars were going to, like, let me push out these niche culture war issue ads that really only appealed to the Democratic base, I would be like, this is you, this is preposterous that you're closing this way. And so
now I don't think that the Trump campaign is closing. Well, that doesn't mean they're going to lose, but you know, I don't think that they're putting their best forward, in my foot forward, in my opinion, in this final week.
Let's go and.
Shift to the.
Bowl case for Kamala Harris, because we have talked about, you know, yesterday we talked about the polls shifting towards Trump. We showed you some of those indications that his campaign feels very confident about where they're standing at this point.
Kamala Harris will start with this.
She went on Club Shayshay, this is Shannon Sharp's program. This was released yesterday, and you know it was a very like friendly.
It was all.
It was as all these podcast interviews have been. It was again makes me deeply depressed about the media landscape in which we exist. But in any case, let's take a listen to a little bit of how that went.
Well.
So I'm really glad you brought that up, Shannon. So first of all, let's clear up certain myths. Okay, you know those checks that went out.
Yes, those Skimmy's right, stimulus check?
Yeah, I know, well, right, we gotta be stimulus. But they called him stimmy. It's okay.
The reason those came about is because there was a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives in Congress, people like Maxine Waters, people like Hakeem Jeffries right, yes, who did the work of pushing to say people need help right now and we need to send out checks. There was a whole lot of opposition to it, including from Donald Trump's White House.
Yes, even him, I think he was Yes.
That's why those checks.
Remember Congress holds the purse.
Yes, so really Congress wrote those checks. But then Donald Trump, unlike any president before after, decided he put his name on those checks.
So therefore people thought.
So people thought, Donald Trump, they gave me that check.
So similar messaging has been coming from Barack Obama when he's been on the trail about like, oh, Trump's taking credit for the economy being good. When he came in, that was me. I'm the one who built that economy. So her trying to you know, close the gap again with Trump on the economic issues, and obviously on this podcast, attempt to reach young men, young black men in particular, and sort of you know, humanize herself with that group.
I guess.
I mean, if you listen to it that by the way, that was like thirty minutes into the convent, maybe twenty five minutes. I believe the rest of the time was about music or whatever, and man, we need to fundraise. If you know, there was how many ad breaks were there? I counted nine. I could be wrong while I was listening to it. So Shannon, buy yourself a new sup bro. Contact me, let me know I can help you out in terms of in terms of the actual content.
I don't know. It seemed to deeply cringe worthy to me.
As you said, it's been fitting with this politic this U the podcast Election.
Podcast, Election sucks basically a lot of fans.
I mean, it's just bullshit, is the best way I could describe. He even opened the interview, He's like, and we hope that you win. I was like, come on, bro, Like, what are we doing here. It's not even a pretense of a challenge on anything. Now, let's shift to the billcase, because they obviously these you know, stimulus checks didn't matter
last time around. And let's think about where the signs could be for Kamala Harris that most people are not aware of right now, and in the early vote, there are some signs that show that there's actually quite a bit of strength. Let's put this up there on the screen. This was really interesting. This was what you go amongst forty eight, seven hundred and thirty two, like thos actually
a huge sample. And then if you actually dig into it, what you start to look at is the swing from fifty one percent for Kamala Harris and then forty seven percent for Donald Trump that would crystal would be the same four points that Biden effectively won the popular vote by last time around, Yeah, which could be enough to put him over the edge. And if you combine that with some of the other early vote numbers that were beginning to see it could be a sign of strength. Frame.
Yeah, if we leave this up on the screen, you know, this is a large enough stamp. This is the largest survey of voters that we will get. Forty eight thousand likely voters is a preposterously large number. The methodology here is a little bit different. They do a pre and post election interview. The data from that study they make available to scholars. This is something that's done every year, so this is a large scale survey of political attitudes.
They run it then through their own likely voter model in order to come up with these numbers. So they give a four point gap in favor of Kamala Harris. That's the same amount that ipso's ABC poll that we covered yesterday had in favor of Kamala Harris, and your right to point out that's roughly the margin of victory and the popular for Joe Biden as well.
Just keep this up for another second.
You know a couple things that jump out here, The gender gap, they have Kamala Harris actually winning men forty nine eight, very different than other surveys that we've seen. You know, that could indicate they're picking up something that other surveys aren't. They could indicate that their survey is wrong. They have Kamala Harris with a significant gap with women fifty three forty two, so that's noteworthy. They show her per performing basically the way Biden did among young voters
eighteen to thirty nine. She wins them fifty nine to thirty seven. If you look at the rural urban suburban split, they have her dominating the urban category, winning the suburban category, which I believe Trump has won in the past, and then obviously losing bad in the rurals to Donald Trump. So that's the data that they show here, and so we can ask the question, Okay, well, how has this survey done in the past, since this is something that
they do every time. Last time in twenty twenty, they actually precisely nailed Biden's nationwide percentage, so they got exactly right what percent of the popular vote he would get. However, they did underestimate Trump by four so you know, they they got Biden's number right, But they underestimated Trump, so that's you know, worth noting they found Trump losing to
Biden fifty one to forty three. The twenty sixteen survey apparently underestimated both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, with Clinton taking forty three percent Trump taking thirty nine percent in their pre election survey. They would go on to win
forty eight percent and forty six percent respectively. Of course, we remember Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by two percentage points but lost in the electoral college, so they had the the margin was pretty close, and they had Hillary Clinton getting more of the popular vote, but in the end, you know, they actually underestimated both of those candidates.
So take that for what it's worth.
But the fact that it's such a large sample makes people take this particular survey relatively seriously.
Yeah, absolutely, that's why it mattered. Let's go to the next one. This was one that we wanted to highlight, and actually we mentioned it a little bit with Logan, but it's still very important to dig into and look particularly at that Nebraska number. So what they have is that in Nebraska, Dan Osborne of course in a tight race there, but more important Dan, Yeah, I mean, I'm rooting for a shock. What they have most importantly within this is that they have Kamala up by what some
twelve points or so in that special district. Now, the reason why that matters is that that special district is Nebraska not only has its own electoral college vote, which is what would put her at two seventy two sixty eight if Trump does win Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia, but that Omaha suburb and white college educated vote was one that Biden only won by seven or eight last time around.
So it actually shows.
An overperformance amongst white college educated voters, which last time was a big precursor for what the twenty twenty vote ended up looking like in the suburban vote shift. So what would see is that not only would you have Kamala doing as well as Biden last time around with white college educated voters, but even better. Now can we
transpose that to the swing states? I mean, you know, not entirely, but it is an indicator of strength with that core demographic group and one that if it were to bear out on election day, would be enough to put her over the edge.
Yeah, I mean, if Kamala actually won this district that Biden won by six if she wins it by twelve, that is not consistent with her losing yea, you know, I mean because it would certainly extrapolate out to you know, Midwestern states or Midwestern college educative voters or whatever like. If she is winning these type of districts by a significant amount more than Biden was winning these districts, that would be very indicative. It's one survey. Take it with
grains of salt, blah blah blah. But one of the things that we've been noting is that there have been a few surveys like this, a few polls that have found that when you drill down to to the congressional district level, as this poll does, or to the county wide level, the more granular you go, the better. It seems like the numbers are for Kamala Harris. So we can put this one up on the screen. This is from USA today. So they found in Wisconsin a deadlocked race.
Trump actually with a one point lead forty eight to forty seven in the state overall. However, when you drill down into Door County, Wisconsin, which has been a bell weather for the state, meaning whichever way this county goes, the state tends to go.
Kamala Harris has an edge.
She leads Trump in that area fifty to forty seven, and that is larger than what Biden won that district by. He won that county by one and a half percentage points,
again margin of vera one survey. The overall top line result not great for her, since it shows it tied with Trump with a one point lead, But there have been a number of these that have consistently found when you look at the county level, when you look at the congressional district level, it seems like she's doing better than the statewide or the national polling would indicate.
There's another thing.
That is a positive sign for the Harris people, which is that we can put this up on the screen.
Some of the polls.
Now that you have people who have already voted, right, who have already cast their ballots, some of the pollsters have been breaking down, okay, among people who have already voted, who are they voting for?
Who is leading?
And these have consistently found an almost preposterously high level of support for Kamala Harris in the early vote, much higher than you would expect given the partisan breakdown of the data that we know from the early votes. So in Arizona they have Kamala leading. This is according to Marriswing state polls among early voters fifty six forty four. In Georgia they have her leading fifty five forty five. In North Carolina they have her leading fifty five forty three.
This person opines, Yes, these are essentially stabs, not waited to be representative of that population, but it is an unmistakable pattern. In addition, we can put the next one up on the screen. This is another USA Today poll. They also looked at voters who had already cast their ballots and asked, okay, well, who did you vote for you person that has already voted early by mail or early in person, and they found Kamala Harris leading by a two to one margin among those early voters.
Sixty three thirty four.
They say that preference turns around among those who plan to wait until election day to vote, with Trump ahead fifty two thirty five. And I've seen other instances that have also found very positive trends in favor of Kamala
Harris among early voters. Now, on the other hand, Sager, you would expect Democrats to have an advantage in the early vote because of habits that were established during COVID, because you still have Donald Trump even to this day running around and in Elon Munk too, by the way, casting doubt on mail in balloting. Republicans are buy and large trying to show up to vote early in person. That is their preferred method of early voting in the
state of Pennsylvania. That's actually an onerous process. I was reading yesterday. They don't have a normal like you just show up and it's like election day and you just go and cast your ballot and feed in the voting machin. You have to go request an absence, see ballot, go home, fill it out, come back. It's like very cumbersome and it's stupid, right, and people are getting very frustrated with
that process. But in any case, so especially given the way that things have trended historically recently, there have been the voting patterns early have been kind of all over the place. Makes it very difficult to read into what
these early numbers are indicative of. But like I said, what they seem to indicate in terms of the hopeful case is if you look at the partisan breakdown of who we know is voted early based on Target Smart and other data analysts, and then you look at this level of margin, it seems to indicate that some substantial proportion of independence are also coming into the Democratic camp, which is precisely what put them over the top in so many places in twenty twenty two.
Yeah, and so I was just looking this morning and I saw a very good concise summary from Mark Caputo, who's a reporter. He usually covers Florida, and he just says, look, number one, Trump is doing well in sun Belt. It's not enough. He needs one third of rust Belt states to swing. So Harris has a bigger Roust Belt voter pool to draw them, but they are not showing up early in the way that she needs so far. If
they do, she wins three seven days ago. I thought that was a very concise way of looking at it. In terms of the numbers. The big question mark is about those similar early vote domination that happened last time around.
People are trying.
To say, oh, well, it's possible that that shows depressed democratic turnout, but it just seems way more likely that everybody is fundamentally different from four years ago from the way that they vote part of why it is so difficult to look at any of the patterns the other in the independent category that you just flagged. Yeah, and that's really important too, where the non identified and what
they vote for is really matters a lot. Now, if that is true, that is an indicator of a twenty twenty two style dynamic where our voter is super high turnout, but the independence predominantly swing in one direction, which is just enough to put you over the edge. So, I mean, look, we wanted to make sure that you guys got a very clear picture that there's a very real path for Kamala Harris victory.
The other thing, that's the key.
The other thing I would say that is the point you've been making Soger, is that back in twenty sixteen, some of the warning signs for Hillary Clinton was that when you dug down into that district or county level data.
Oh yeah, she was host things didn't look good. They didn't look good.
And so you had these sort of canary and the coal mines of different congressional districts that were like, oh, I don't know, that doesn't that doesn't look great.
But there was so much, you know, there was so.
Much assumption, so many assumptions about the inevitability of Hillary Clinton that that was all sort of papered over until after the fact when people looked back and said, you know, there were some warnings here, people just totally ignored them this time. If anything, those warning signs are going in the other direction. The congressional district and county level data looks better for Kamala Harris, looks very poor for Donald Trump. Now,
these district level samples are can also be faulty. They can also have a significant margin of error. But I think after election day, if she overperforms, these are some of the things that we will look back to and say, ah, that was an indication of something that was going on
that pollsters were missing at the top line. The other thing that I'll mention is, I don't know if you saw this, but somebody wrote a post yesterday, like a polster wrote out a post about how important the assumptions that they make in waiting their likely voter models are in terms of determining the ultimate result of the poll. So, and this is something we talked to Logan about. It's going to post for everybody on Friday. It's available now
for premium subscribers. But this idea that polsters were so burned in twenty sixteen and twenty twenty that they're effectively hedging their bets and potentially even subconsciously kind of putting their finger, their you know, finger on the scales, I'm on the scale of these polls to try to engineer a result that's roughly fifty to fifty because that feels comfortable for them, because they don't want to be the outlier that becomes the you know, the what was a
Wisconsin by seventeen for Joe Biden pulled but got a business preposterous? This was a preposterous result, like how dare you? How can we ever trust anything? They don't want to be in that situation. So if you have a bunch of posters that all are all hurting around this like fifty to fifty race, then number one, you're not going to get single down, and number two, the race is likely to be within a few points of that, so you're not going to get burned as having been wildly wrong.
So it's possible there's some of that going on and that the electorate has changed postdobs in a way that pollsters haven't aren't really reflecting and haven't really accounted for the last thing I'll put up on the screen that people are sharing is, let's say we've thought about, Okay, if the polling miss is what it was in twenty sixteen, or if the polling miss is what it was in twenty twenty, Donald Trump is going to win, that's where we are.
But if the polling miss is.
What it was in twenty twenty two, that is a very different picture. I can put this up on the screen in that instance, so you can see in the first column that's where the polls.
Are right now.
I think this is according to the New York Times. So you've got Kamala plus one overall, plus one in Wisconsin, a whole bunch of states that are deadlocked, and then Georgia and Arizona plus two for Trump. If the polls missed like they did in twenty twenty two, Kamala wins every state except Georgia, where the polls actually in twenty twenty two were accurate, which was different from the norm.
So you know, it's possible that this is the world that we're living in post next week election, where even if they're off by just a couple points in these swing states. If you have a miss, if they you know, if they don't take account of the post roll electorate in a way that they did in twenty twenty two and they have a similar miss, that it's going to end up being a very clear cut result in favor of Kamala.
Harris, Yeah, that's right.
H can't help but look at that other category, right, Yeah, funny, no doubt about whins every single swing stage. Yeah, and that blowout victory.
Honestly, either one of those scenarios I think nobody should be surprised by.
Oh no, nobody should be surprised by.
It's a weird thing to go into an election and not be surprised by any result. I guess the only one that would truly shock me is a tie, like a sixty nine two sixty nine.
Yeah. The other one that.
Especially because that would require this Nebraska district that we just covered that seems to be going very clearly for Kamala, that would require that to flip the Trump.
The only other one that would surprise me is is not just a tie. Is Kamala wins the electoral college loses the popular vote.
That would be genuinely shocked.
That would be fun, but that fun.
I am low key cheering for that one because I do think that would be the end of the electoral college.
That I would I own cheering for the end of the elect.
Have some interesting results. Yeah, it would end the electoral college.
The Republicans would almost certainly have to ditch the pro life coalition if you ever want to win the popular vote.
So yea, it's certainly possible. Maybe I should cheer towards.
So.
As we have mentioned multiple times, at this point, we are one week out from election day and things are starting to get very edgy, I guess, very a little bit ominous.
We can put this up on the screen.
We had a number of ballot drop boxes three different places in the state of Washington and also in the state of Oregon that were set on fire, according to local authorities. In this particular video that you can see here where the ballots are on fire, this was in Clark County at the Fisher's Landing Transit Center. They say that hundreds of ballots were inside at the time. The
last pickup had been eleven am on Saturday. A Vancouver ballot box had also burned us in Washington in an arson Monday morning, authorities report with hundreds of ballots they're possibly damaged in a fire. They also think that that is connected to another arson incident in Portland, Oregon. You know, the police have put out an image of a car that they think, you know, that is a person of interest potentially in these arsons which they believe to be connected.
You know, you might think, like Oregon and Washington, these are not swing states, what is going on here? But one of these areas actually is a swing district in terms of a congressional race. Marie Lousen camp Perez won this district very narrowly last time around. And of course even if it's not a swing state, people are voting on a variety of things. To have their ballots in the mail burned up is you know, is very troubling and also of course causes people to be concerned, Hey
did my ballot make it in? Was it in that box? Is my vote going to actually count here? So this is this is troubling.
And say, well, well, in uh An, Oregon specifically, it's all mail in voting, so that that's what people need. Unders that's right, Yeah, about they don't even do in person voting. Everything is mailing kind of interesting. They have a very high voter participation, but that's a secondary conversation
for the people who are anti mail in voting. The key that you also mentioned is that this is the how do you say her name is a Gluesen comonlu Camp Gluesen Camp, Perez and Joe Kent, which was a complete nail bier last time.
What was a few thousand votes?
Maybe barely anything? Yeah, Ken, just a lot of people might know him. He's like a maga guy.
Oh that podcast. It was a former Green Beret. I forget. He's an interesting guy. I'll put it that way.
My point though, is that he would became a big celebrity online that in twenty twenty two swing vote against him, A lot of people watching that for potential signs of where things could go. Interestingly enough, it remains a toss up in the polls today. Last time around, Kent actually appeared to have a major advantage and it was a shock. So it's a big question mark two about the reliability
of polls. And obviously that would be one of those districts that could be precursor where if she does win reelection, that could be one that we could look to and be like, oh, that's you know, similar to the twenty twenty two D wave that ended up materializing or at least blunting the red wave. Whereas if he wins, and he wins handily, that would indicate like a Trump vote.
Yeah, yeah, potentially.
So in any case, it's something we have an eye on, and you know, obviously troubling series of events, we wanted to take some time and teasing this for a while to lay out what is likely to happen in the event which obviously far from certain, in the event that Donald Trump loses, what will stop the steal two point.
Zero look like?
And as Saga is rightly pointed out here, there are a few things that are positive that have happened since January sixth. You had in a legislation that was passed that was meant to prevent the sequence of events that occurred last time, where there were big question marks about what Mike Pence's role as the vice president is in certifying the results and whether or not the state legislators just have like cart blanche to pick whatever the hell's
later electors they want to pick. There was legislation that was passed that sought to provide clarity to avoid that same sequence of events. So that's positive. And then the other thing is just that Donald Trump is not in charge of the federal government right now.
So we has tools at his disposal.
But that doesn't mean that he's not going to try some stuff, and that doesn't mean that he isn't already laying the groundwork to contest the results in the event that he does actually lose.
We've heard this in a lot of his rhetoric.
We also hear it from Elon Musk, both at his town halls and also on his own platform of Twitter. You hear it from all sorts of Republicans. Republicans are starting to get asked. I saw Jim Jordan was just asked whether or not he would urge Donald Trump to accept the results of the election.
He refused to say so.
Just as a reminder of that, here is a little taste of how Donald Trump is talking about the election when he's asked whether or not he will accept the results either way?
Will you accept the results about the action?
Yeah, sure, if it's a fair election, always I would always accept it. I consays to be a fair election. We're leading in all the balls and then we're leading in every swing state. Real well, it's now I think so. In fact, they just had an RCP said you're a ninety three point three terms of winning. As that's pretty good.
So one of the key things he says there's soccer that we've talked about, is he says I have a ninety three point two percent chance of winning. And part of the MAGA approach right now led by the Trump campaign is to protect total and complete confidence that there is no way that they can lose this race. Now, on the one hand, that may just be like there, you know, that's a very Donald Trump kind of thing to do, like, of course I'm.
Going to win, I'm a winner, blah blah.
Blah, But it also helps to lay the groundwork for if he were to lose this say I had a ninety three percent chance of winning, like there's no way that I could have possibly lost, And then you pair that with I don't know if you just saw he just put out a true social in this, again consistent with other things that he's been doing where he's already claiming that there's fraud in Pennsylvania that could be determinative referring to a ballot registration issue in Lancaster County, which
is interesting in and of itself and could be actually from the Republican side of the aisle, but using that in incident to already call into question the legitimacy of the Pennsylvania elections, he's.
Going to declare that a one no matter what. So if the question is really like if he actually does win or not. The interesting part, too, is on the legal stuff. As you mentioned, can we please put C three up there on the screen. From all of my reading, a lot of it is going to focus here. This is a Wall Street Journal article which is actually very important.
It's called, quote the Secret of Billionaire network funding, Stop the Steal two point zero one hundred and forty million dollars, nearly fifty groups working on quote election integrity and another crusade of hours. And what it focuses on specifically are quote training an army of volunteers to monitor voting on election day two hundred thousand dollars, poll watchers, poll workers,
legal experts recruited by the RNC. One group is essentially Facebook for election fraud, allowing users to post, comment, and share anything that they deem to be quote election regularities, filing incident reports with US are then followed up by lawyers and the legal team they focus specifically on this is what is it the Center for Election Innovation and Research, and they talk about some of the quote unquote like different things that they are looking out for, but the
actual legal maneuverability inside of this. Specifically, because of the passage of the Electoral count Act, has significantly going to change the way that both certification works at the congressional
level and at the state level. I believe that what this will look like is it's going to push the certification fight down and that is based on this article and when we're about to talk to Because previously certification was both at the state legislature level without gubernatorial approval and then being sent to the so called slate to Congress, it was kind of elevated up Now certification fights are going to happen more at the county level and specifically
local officials, people who have been elected to whatever where you have seen the so called Election Integrity Network has a lot of people, specifically more redder areas that have put themselves on those and that is where you could see the alternate slate push come from. But yeah, there is a change fundamentally from the way that things worked back in twenty twenty, back in the twenty twenty election, and it's going to be a lot less I would
say institutional. The other thing is is that even with this army of lawyers and I can't keep getting away from this. Look at Rudy at Giuliani, he is literally bankrupt. And if you look at all of the who is it Jenna Ellis, if Sidney Powell was che cheeseborough, I forget how to put whatever his name is, all pled guilty and Georgia, all of them are out hundreds.
Of thousands of dollars in legal fees.
Trump's the only guy not out any money on legal fees because what is it Super America pack or whatever? Are the people who paid for it, so, you know, and that's your hard earned money. You can do what you want with it to donate. The point I think just comes back to what stopped. Still two point zero is going to look like is much more local this
time around. Lots of fight to the county level for certification, potentially fights around the Secretary of State for certification as well, although a lot of that has changed because the Electoral Count Act.
Yeah, so let me do a couple things and just bear with me for a moment. So, on the one side of the ledger, in terms of positive sort of bulwarks, you have number one, Trump isn't president and number two the Electoral Count Act, and those are significant. On the other side of the ledger, you have a more premeditated, more organized plan in advance than you did before, as evidenced by the secretive network of billionaires who have been
already they're already filing lawsuits. They were upset that Trump was not more effective in contesting the election results last time around, so they vowed that this time they would have a plan and they would be ready, and it's extremely well funded, and it is well organized, and they've
already filed a bunch of these lawsuits. In addition, I don't think you're going to see the same level of Republican elected Republican resistance to Trump fraudulently claiming that he won the election, because they've seen how this went before, and people who were you know, who really resisted. First
of all, they were ousted in Republican primaries. They see where the Republican bases at this point where they're overwhelmingly believe that Joe Biden lost, that Donald Trump won, They're overwhelmingly primed to believe once again that Donald Trump is inevitable and there is no way that he could possibly lose. And they see the way that that position has in most instances, not all, but in most instances been rewarded within the party.
So let's put this up on the screen.
From Politico, they chart kind of a worst case scenario for how this could all go down. They say, the very real scenario where Trump loses and takes power. Anyway, now, as you go through these steps, and I Am going to take the time to go through these steps just so you guys can see how.
This might all play out.
But it is very tenuous, like it would require a lot happen, and it's a very like narrow That's why.
They say out and I'm like, come on, but I mean, I think it's worth policy.
You have to, like, you know, plan for Okay, what's the worst case scenario. I think that would be a better case scenario.
It is probably a.
Better way to freda But in any case, I think it's good that they went through and lay this out. It was at least helpful for me to think about it. So they have bullet points here that I'll just go through so you could see the sequence of events that would have to happen. Number one is already happening. He will deepen distrust the election results, making unsupported or hyperbolic claims of widespread voter fraud, mounting long shot losses, challenging
enough ballots to flip the income in key states. That plan is already being executed on, even in advance of election day. Next, he will lean on friendly county and state officials to resist certifying election results, a futile errand they say that would nevertheless fuel a campaign to put pressure on elected Republican legislators in state houses and Congress.
So in a number of the battleground states, you have legislatures that are Republican controlled, even as in many of these same states you have governors who are either like Brian Kemp, a Republican but already has a pretty established track record of standing up to Trump on his bullshit.
Or they're Democrats.
So you could end up with a situation where the state legislatures send the fraudulent Trump slate of electors to Congress, and the governor sends the legitimate actual electors for Kamala Harris in that state. This is of course, in the event that Trump were to in reality lose.
That sends it to Congress.
Now this is where the Electoral Account Act comes into play, because it should. The language of the law makes it such that it should be an open and closed case that Kamala Harris actually as Vice President, presides over the certification at the Senate level. They say this is just a ceremonial position. They also say that the state legislators aren't the ones who get to determine who are the legitimate electors from the state. So you would think that
would be open and shut, and perhaps it is. However, John Eastman, who was key in crafting the previous you know, fake elector's legal strategy last time around, he contests that the Electoral Count Act is constitutional and that has not been determined yet. He believes that based on the language of the Constitution. I don't think that there are a lot of people that agree with him, but he thinks this is still the case that.
The state legislatures.
Still hold all the power and that even with this legislation because he sees it as unconstitutional. He doesn't think the legislation changes anything whatsoever. Mike Johnson, who is of course currently Speaker of the House and would you know, potentially continue to be Speaker of the House if Republicans are able to hold onto the House. He has not
said how he would handle such a scenario. So if you have, you know, either congressional foot dragging, or if it ends up going to the Supreme Court and they're able to keep Kama Harris from getting to two hundred and seventy Electoral College votes, then it's a contest contingent election. It goes to the House houses run by Republicans. Donald Trump elected president. So the most tenuous part of this. A lot of these pieces are like, yeah, I could
totally see that happening. The most tenuous part of it is the John Eastpi constitutional theory, which to my knowledge is not supported widely. And the Supreme Court obviously very conservative, many of the justices appointed by Donald Trump, but they have also ruled against Donald Trump, and the court's last time around did overwhelmingly rule against Donald Trump. Now, I would prefer not to have to bet on that kind of a like, you know, last ditch effort to prohibit
him from stealing the election. But I do feel like there is enough of a track record in place there that we can feel like they probably are not going to go along with this, relatively like Kakamami legal theory of John Baseman.
I will give you the case for that, which is that if let's say, in this scenario where that happened, then why would the Dems not nuke the court forever? Like if from that point forward, because also remember in this scenario, you would still have some sort of divided government.
You would probably have some insane situation where one chamber is democratic and they like refuse to I mean, we can go on this hypothetical forever in terms of refusing to swear people in and what that would all look like. But irl the reason why I doubt it the most is because all of it hinges on the Supreme Court.
The Roberts Court is extremely small sea conservative people misunderstand. Yes, that both means that the Dobbs thing and the presidential immunity stuff will go through, But fundamentally, what Roberts cares about more than anything else is preventing court packing and preserving the quote unquote like institutional respect of the court.
If they did this, it would be over.
Basically, I mean we would be in full on Banana Republic territory. And I mean, could you blame anybody, Like, what would you say if that happened, if you're on the left and that and this scenario played out.
Honestly, you would be an idiot not to say, all right, that's it, let's go. You know, the Supreme Court is yeah, exactly.
But if you know, if somebody did at the left of that, I'll be like, Okay, it's over, let's go. You know, it's like it's on in terms of like law fair and everything where things are right now this
that would make it look like child's play. So this is why, you know, I know, I know it's caused some heartburn over on certain YouTube channels, but I have a lot of faith in the Electoral count Act and specifically in the way that the reform has now happened, specifically because of what even the institutional question marks were last time around, on top of all of the punishment that you saw for all of those that participated last
time around. Like, if anything, if John Eastman and Sydney Powell were the best you could get last time around, and both of them are either under censure or have now been effectively bankrupt. Who do you think you're going to get this time to really co sign some of this stuff now? Lawsuits in Michigan court, Texas court and all that.
I mean, is it annoying? Yeah for sure?
But you know every was it sixty something suits, It all got struck down last time around, right December. I wanted twenty eighth. I could be wrong. We covered them all in and out last time. Yeah, I used to haven psyclopedic knowledge, but I think it was December twenty eighth.
Every single court case was lost, you know. I mean you'll know quite soon.
Well, here's a couple of things that I would say. First of all, you know, I think we already see who will support Trump in the new stop the Seal two point zero claims.
I mean, first of all, his vice president.
Second of all, he doesn't have this MS, he doesn't have the same impact. He doesn't even certification doesn't even matter. First of all, he's not even the vice president. So if you want to object to the electors, like, okay, go for it.
But what I'm saying is you're you're submitting that Trump is going to be on an island this time and he's not going to have the you know, lawyers and institutional backing. That's not true, because we already see.
There's I'm saying, it's going to be very different than last night.
But hold on, it's not going to hold on a second, because we cover that Wall Street. We just showed that Wall Street Journal article where you actually have a more stout network of donors and lawyers in advance who are prepped and ready to go.
So I don't think that that is true.
I do think that, you know, the part about like it is better that we have the Electoral Account Act, and that definitely, you know, provides another tool in the arsenal to try to prevent any sort of like effectively coup from occurring. Where I maybe differ with you, I don't know, maybe we don't differ on this is that even if it doesn't get to the place of like Trump is actually going to steal the election, there is so much damage that can be done between here and there.
So last time around, he didn't steal the election, but it still was really bad for the country and it was really ugly and has created deep fissures that to this day have not healed and are not going to
heal for a very long time. The possible, you know, the possibility of more political violence, I think, really, you know, looms quite large and significant, especially if you see you know, we're already seeing we don't know who did it, and I don't want to place blame on any particular partisan camp, but you know, we already see ballot box being blown
up in advance of election day using incendiary devices. So that's why I don't want to downplay even if I do think it's more difficult for him this time around to have a plausible path to actually steal the election. I don't want to downplay that, even just going through these steps of like we're gonna say it's rigged, we're going to claim it's fraudulent. Guess what, the Republicans, they're
gonna believe it, and many more. I believe Republican elected officials are going to go along with it and accept it this time than they did last time around, because that's where all of the incentives for like conservative maga world stardom lie. So I don't disagree with you that I think it's less likely this time that there's a plausible path where he, like you know, fraudulently in a coup,
takes power, which also didn't happen last time either. But I think that there's still a lot of damage that can be done that is short of you know, actual banana republic whop.
Yeah, I understand what you're saying. I guess you know what the response would be. The American people have spoken, who are Republicans, and this is what they like, they so they can rue you know, the consequences of it, and that's just the country we live in.
I don't know what.
I don't think that there is anything to be done about it outside of Donald Trump literally being a different human being and being rejected by the voters. And they have decided that not only do they like him, but they literally love him on the Republican side, and it's up to the primary and we're at a situation where probably forty something percent or more people are going to vote for him and see it as legitimate. I wouldn't
say it's the best thing I've said before. I don't know how you really look at a guy like JD next to Trump, and you're like, yeah, Trump is the person who he used to be president, but.
I'm not the electorate.
I don't really know what to say other than people seem to not care as much people seem to believe it. Does Trump have a responsibility certainly, you know, to try and tone down things, but he's not going to. So everything that you're worried about, I think is just simply, I guess, baken to the overall political consensus and direction of the country. I mean, one thing you should maybe hope for is that the more they go pack down that path, you'll have two successful elections where the American
people would have rejected it wholesale and outright. And if anything, it will lead to even more democratic control and institutional backstops through the Electoral count Act, maybe even more so whatever they try last time around, on top of criminal charges if it goes down that way. So, because we can't say sit here and say that Trump did not pay a price for January sixth, right, it's probably the biggest price that the Republicans have paid, maybe up next
to Roe versus weigh. We can't say that those who participated walked away Scott free. I mean, look, literally look at Rudy Giuliani. I mean, Steve Bannon just came out of prison today, served time in a federal penitentiary. So it's not like these things have been cost lists to Republicans or to Republican elites that they can just go along in a similar way as last time around. I mean,
there's I just think it's fundamentally different. Like if you're going to vote to not certify the election, yeah, I think it's dumb.
But you know, on the.
Other case of it would be David Perdue ran a whole campaign against what's his name, Brian camp.
Based on office feel and he lost. In the state of Georgia.
Tom Cotton voted emphatically for certification. He didn't pay any price. In twenty twenty, I believe Marco Rubio voted to certify. He didn't pay any price. Trump, you know, endorsed all kinds of people who voted to certify the election, of all the people who even voted for impeachment. Some of them lost, you know, on the Republican ground, but a lot of them remain, like remain in office quite quiet and still popular Republicans in their home state.
So you know, it's not necessarily like the total.
Dividing line that people thought going into twenty twenty three, I thought it would be, But these days there's a real electoral path for people who don't go along with this, and they don't pay any price for it at the ballot box.
I don't think that that's necessarily true. I mean, I agree with your cases, Like Brian Camp is the clearest case right where you know truth. They're the famous phone call. Trump's like, find me the votes I need. He's like, no, they go to war basically, and now because they need him, because they want to win the.
State of Georgia.
They've had to effectively kiss and make up. On the other hand, you know where the incentives are in like the mega influencer sphere which many of these but hold on, which many of these elected officials, you know, basically traffic in the like maga influencer sphere, is to indulge all
of the most deranged conspiracies about this. And you have Elon Musk, who was the richest and one of the most powerful people in the world, who was already indulging in advance in pre election conspiracies about fraud et cetera. So you know, I personally think this has been much more normalized within the Republican Party than it was last time around, and you're going to see less resistance this.
Time than you did.
You know, that's why even you know Mike Johnson, who is Speaker of the House right now, he won't say what he'll do. Jordan won't say what he'll do. So anyway, we're going to see how it's all going to play out. I just would say, like my whole goal in wanting to lay this all out is just so people know what to expect, right too, as much as best as we can lay out here's how things could unfold. Right
if Trump loses, Here's how things could unfold. Here's the playbook that they have ready to go, that they're already planning to run, So that you're not caught off guard, so you know what to expect, so that perhaps it's less,
you know, less unsettling. Perhaps it's just you know, by understanding what's going on, perhaps you are not yourself bamboozled by the inevitable conspiracy theories and inevitable claiming of victory no matter what happens on election day, so that you just are mentally prepared for like, Okay, here's the playbook they're going to run, and here's you know, here's how they're already laying out the groundwork for that, and here's what to expect so that you don't get, you know,
fooled by any of them.
I think that's fair.
That said, anybody who watched this segment and isn't immediately convinced and is willing to be like, well, what about you know, this one viral clip that I saw, Good luck to you.
It's probably not much that we can say to help you.
That's actually been my experience with most stop to steal people. There is basically nothing that you can tell these people that won't convince them. They are swimming in an island of bullshit. And you know, I mean that's what you were talking about with mag influencers. If you pay the political price and they continue to want to go down that rabbit hole, and they will just continue to sign their own death warrants of irrelevance. So that's the free
market at work. You know, that's democracy in action. I don't care, you know, if people want to Matt Gates and all these other folks want to just continue doing this and they just continue losing like popular vote and the electoral college. In this scenario, if something like that happened, one thing that we do know is that Trump does lose this election, then he likely well he said he won't run again.
Well, what does that show you?
Then we're going to try and get an entire generation of people without any of the charisma or the celebrity or the like, you know, plot armor of Donald Trump who are trying to recreate. Well, I think we all know how that works out, Madam Carey Lake. So I'm not worried about it in terms of the political fix outside of Yeah, do I think damage will be done institutionally and trustwise, yes, certainly.
But you know, at a certain point, that's what people want. I don't know what else to say.
Like, people like it, they believe it, they forgive it, they look past it, at least on the Republican side, and until they learn a different lesson, then that's just simply the direction that people want to go down. You know, what can you say to people at a certain point, they don't want to listen anymore. That's been my experience and why I don't even try to talk to these
folks anymore. Just because you know, if you see some of the stuff they go down, you know, in terms of what they put dominion aside and the way that they can explain about every judge is corrupt and why this happens, and.
Well really the Hunter Biden.
Laptop actually, and it's like it's just it never ends with them.
So you know, we'll see with the prices, I guess.
One, well note that, I'll, i'll, we can wrap this up and move to the next block. On is last election, Kyle was on Rogan's podcast that night and beforehand, before the results came in, he laid out, like, you know, there's probably going to be the red mirage effect, where you know, the first ballots that come in from rural areas or in day of voting are likely to be more Republican, and then as the night goes on, things
are likely to shift. And because he had laid that out in advance, when it all happened, then it didn't feel like fraud. It was like, oh, well, you know, this was predicted, like Kyle told me this was going to happen, and this is what happened. So I'm not going to like really buy into or indulge these election conspiracies. And so there are people, you know, like Joe and like others out there who are trying to figure out
what's going on who have some skepticism of institutions. But if you can tell them in advance, like no, here's and by the way, there is likely to be another red mirage effect at least in certain states this election.
But if you can anticipate like this is what it's going to look like, this is the arguments that they're going to make, this is how it's all going to go down, then it can help to inoculate some people out there from falling into you know, you know, like an understandable mistrust of institutions can keep from leading them down the path of believing things that ultimately are not true.
I hope you're right.
That's all I'm saying.
You have a lot more faith in people than I do.