Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.
We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio ad staff give you, guys, the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that, let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody to day.
What do we have krysal Indeed, we do a lot of interesting things to talk about today. So first of all, we have our own exclusive breaking news. We had the folks over at Jail Partners ask people how they would describe Kamala Harris and separately JD Vance in a word and we have those word clouds for you.
They're very interesting. Yes, they are some surprises there, so we'll go through it.
We've got broken down by age and partisan affiliation and gender, which was maybe the most interesting breakdown. Soccer are also going to be looking at the gender divide in America and his model wague. Today, of course, everyone is talking
about Trump's appearance at the Nationalisation of Black Journalists. We're going to show you all of the wildest moments and dig in also on what appears to be a new explicit strategy of the Trump campaign to talk about Kamala Harris's biracial identity and how she has talked about that over the years. So we'll get into all of that. I'm sure Saba and I may have different thoughts on that one, So I've got a.
Lot of thoughts. Trump is only saying what I've always said.
Anyway, Yes, you're not running for president of the United States, So anyway, we'll save that for that Black We're also taking a look at much more serious news about what appears to be an incredibly dangerous and fraught situation in the Middle East after multiple assassinations conducted by Israel, Aaran already protecting that they are going to retally the US already saying, hey, we're going to get involved too, We're going to have Israel's back.
So extremely dangerous.
Moment in the Middle East, and also appears to have completely derailed any possibility of continuancies fire talks, So we'll dig into that in all of what that means. We're also taking a look again at Kamala's VP choice, who it is likely.
To be and all.
So now we'll surprise now one those who are opposed to Joshapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania being smeared as anti semits by The Atlantic also no surprise, so we'll bring you all of that. We've got Matt Stoler joining us to talk about what indications Kamala is giving with regards to corporate power and also the extraordinary public billionaire campaign to pressure her to ditch Lena Kahan. So of course Matts Dollar the perfect person to dig into all of that.
And as I mentioned before, Saber with a fantastic monologue here at the end of the show.
Thank you very much.
Well, I haven't listened to you I have.
I really appreciate it. Thank you to everybody. We have been absolutely stunned by the number of people taking advantage of our free month trial. Let's go and put that up there on the screen. It will only be around for limited time only, so if you want to go ahead and take advantage thirty day free trial VP free one at Breakingpoints dot com, we really appreciate it. So not only are going to get all the advantages of being a premium member the local show you know, uncut
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In fact, you know, the flood of subscriptions and viewers that we got enabled us to have the content that we're about to show you right now, so thank you so much for making that possible.
All right, let's get to it. As I mentioned before.
We asked our friends over at Jail Partners to go out into the field and ask voters in a word what do they think about Kamala Harris and what do they think about Jade Vance? When Kamala picks her VP choice, we should do one for them, as of course, that is yet, so we can't do that as of yet. Let's go ahead and put for all voters the Kamala Harris word cloud up on the screen, and we do
have it broken down as well. But this is you know, if you take everybody that was captured in the sample, what are the biggest words and descriptors.
That jump out?
Number one not a good sign for her, incompetent. Close behind, however, is a positive word strong. And then you have probably in third place there it looks like you've got liberal, which is something certainly that you know they consider to be a vulnerability and the Trump campaign considers to be a vulnerability. Also, you have fairly high up there, which I think will be relevant when we talk about the
nab J block fake some other things. You've got terrible, you've got leader, you've got smart, you've got awesome, intelligent, unqualified, powerful, unfavorable. One of the things saga that jumped out at me as a positive for her is nowhere in this word cloud is the word Biden or Joe at least not that I saw looking at it. And you know, for her, that's probably her biggest liability is just being tied to what was a very unpopular administration.
She hasn't said Biden's name, so she began running. Yeah, I think maybe when she's at the White House, somebody took notes. She said Donald Trump's name I think fourteen times in one of her recent rallies, Joe Biden's name was not said. Once. We just got officially our DNC speaking schedule. Joe Biden is on day one, aka the day that nobody gives.
A shit the arms.
Yeah, yeah, it's like, that's Joe Biden day.
Let's give him his due, but I mean, really too much.
It's crazy Biden is for day one. You know, it's on day two. Bill Clinton, who was president in nineteen ninety two, the year that I was born, he will be speaking, so will Barack Obama, then the vice president, and then Kamala Harris. So if that doesn't tell you everything that you need to know about who's most popular, I think in order of that, but hey, let's give
him the credit. Word's due. Whenever the man is gone, you know, put him out to pasture, and let's not even say his name anymore, which is basically the strategy. I think it is smart. There's also a couple of other things, if we want to go to the next one where we can dig in a little bit. That incompetent word, if we see, is very prominent, the biggest
one amongst Republicans, but more critically here is independence. So we see a couple of things where last time around, when we had our word clouds with Biden, old was the number one across.
All everybody Democrats.
Right, But the advantage that you have here is that amongst Democrats you have strong, honest, you have smart, you have competent president leader, positive, freedom, determined, charismatic fresh. So what does that tell us high levels of democratic enthusiasm? Now, even amongst independence, you see some where if you look above the incompetent, you have incompetent fake, terrible, literal, horrible, unqualified,
all right, ridiculous. But beneath that, what do we see strong, nice, awesome, intelligent, smart, powerful leaders. So independence genuinely are I think relatively split fifty to fifty, although incompetent still remains I think the most potent attack I think incompetent and fake, as you said, which we'll get to with the NABJ attacks are the ones that are really going to be dialed in. And this,
you know, look free advice to the Trump campaign. They keep trying to say too liberal, too liberal, too liberal. You don't see that anywhere really near the top I think of independence. It is actually a Republican attack. If you see there amongst Republicans they say incompetent, liberal, stupid, fake, bad, terrible, unfavorable.
That is where you see that attack resonate. So one of the things, and what we haven't gotten to JD yet that I would kind of urge people to do is look at the language with resonates between both the base and with the independent voters to try and win
people over. Obviously, no Democrats going to come over and vote for Trump now at this point, especially what eight nine years into the Trump era, but you know, with a very tiny limited amount of independent voters, remember there's not very many these days who are up for grabs. Those are the people that you're playing with, and you want to find an attack that kind of skewers the two, and that triangulating on that is very difficult.
I actually think there are more swing voters than we really give people credit.
You might be right, only because my calculus is twenty two funny where Biden and Trump everybodys made up their mind. A lot of people don't know anything about Kamala Harris. You know a lot of people, Let's be honest. They most people in this country cannot even name the vice president's name. So then Democrats are like, oh, this is awesome, but a lot of independence and actually even jd Vance, I mean, you and I cover politics for a living. Everybody knows Jadi Vance is. But you know I won't
give it away just yet. Just wait and see what the number one word is for most people, like I don't know who this guy is, right period.
Yeah, I think there may be more swing voters than is typically given credit, just because for two reasons. Number one, you see the fact that in the Senate races you have Democrats outperforming, like you have more people who are saying I'm going to vote split ticket, and that's an indication that they are up for grabs. And also just by how much this race has moved since Biden dropped, and you know, I mean how much it moved after
his completely failed debate performance. People were like, oh, I can't do this, and then how much it has shifted again getting Kamala Harris into the race. It shows you people are not just like partisan automatons. They are evaluating the circumstances in front of them to some extent, and so you know, there is more wiggle room there than I think I have even commonly thought over the past number of years.
And I think you're right, Soger.
It was easy to have that perception when it was Joe Biden and Donald Trump because they were such known quantities that you know, people were locked into their views of these particular men, even as they may be a little less like partisan, like hard part I just vote for D or I'll just vote for R no matter what. There may be more people who are open to shifting back and forth. In any case, I think your comment with regard to the partisan breakdown with Kamala is the
most important one. She has consolidated the democratic base that is the source of.
A lot of her momentum in the polls.
Now she has improved among independence according to the polling crosstads, et cetera. So she is picking up ground there, But where her strength has really come in is reconsolidating that democratic base, reconstituting that sort of like Obama style coalition, getting young people to back you strongly, getting people color to back you strongly, etc.
It looks more like what you would.
Expect the traditional democratic coal to reflect. And the you know, uniformity of the like positive reviews for Kamala among Democrats is indicative of that. Now let's go ahead and put up the gender divide here, which is really interesting, really interesting. So when you ask women about Kamala, top two are smart and strong. Now incompetent also shows up there, but many more positives here. So you've got leader, strong, smart, intelligent, honest.
You also have in smaller print here incompetent. But still you know, one of the major charges unfavorable, unqualified. Those are some of the negatives that some women had about her. But you flip to the male. First of all, it's funny that woman is one of the words that pops up, but the number one is liberal and incompetent. Those are appear to be like roughly the same size there, so roughly coming in at the same level.
You do have some.
Positives here, you have strong, you have awesome, you have leader, and you also have terrible, you have idiot, you have bad. So you know, you can even just jumping off the page that you hear some of the gender divide, which I do think is going to be a central dynamic in this race.
Moving into the fall.
Yes, absolutely, I mean I'm doing my home monologue on this. My monogue is more about gen Z men and women. But this has long time been a major divide in US politics. I also think, but this is part of my thing is if we're in an election, and this is an election where I think that the female vote has probably never mattered more than ever before because of the high level of enthusiasm, I'll show people in my monologue the split between gen Z women and men on abortion.
It's almost like a forty point swing in terms of salience, just in terms of what people think is important or not. So you may be pro life or pro choice, but you're like whatever, you know, I mean, I count myself on that.
Yeah, I mean it's very logical. Yes, yes, one group, but much more directly.
In the past.
Yeah.
So this is not to put anybody down, just to say if I was a Democrat, I would want the female vote because there's a lot of women out there who are probably we're voting at higher levels than ever before. And in a game of margins where Trump won the twenty sixteen election, let's say, what was it sixty thousand votes across four states. Yeah, the margin of loss was roughly eighty thousand votes, again across four states. I mean,
every single vote matters. So if you have a highly dedicated coalition, people who are been proven records of coming out to vote, I mean in politics, that's as good as goals as you can ever get. So, like I said, I want if I'm a Democrat, you need a woman at the top of the ticket. Forget all this you know, sexism, nonsense. The question then is can you still win white men at that same category? As it comes back to our I believe our Tuesday panel. I pulled the numbers from
Pew Research. Trump won twenty sixteen the white male vote by thirty points, won it only by seventeen points. That thirteen point swing is exactly why Joe Biden is the president today. The only category of a demographic that actually switched in the direction of Joe Biden, and that Trump didn't win. But there's so many white people in the country. I think seventy percent of the electorate is white. And when we think about that, we know then the sheer
numbers here for both Kama and Trump. Triangulating and thinking about how to balance, you know, the women category and men together is going to be very difficult. So I could actually see it kind of going both ways. But that chart just shows to me how different messaging and how it's hitting. Just remember you know this a bit. Not only are we all divided by many other things, gender is another major one as well.
Yeah, I mean the incompetent thing is a problem for her. It's a big problem for her, and you know, they need to figure out how I knew she's She's always been very cautious politician. She doesn't like to go into unfriendly spaces. She is uncomfortable even in more friendly spaces. She has always her staff has always kept her very sort of coseted and been very careful about who they
put her ound to. And we know why because she's had multiple instances when she's been really caught off guard and very flat footed, and it has not gone well for her when she has been caught on the back foot. So they need to figure out a way to alleviate those concerns of incompetence, because what does that speak to, Like, we don't really think that you're ready to be president
of the United States. And there's a reason why people think that, you know her, her presidential campaign did not go well, and part of why it didn't go well was because of her incompetence in managing it.
So they need to that is a key vulnerability.
That they really need to deal with if they're going to persuade indepenant voters and the American people in general who have never seen you know, a we'll say biracial Now, given the conversation today woman president, that she's ready for the job.
I think the.
Part of how Obama was able to become, you know, this historic figure was because the perception was that his campaign was a freakin' well oiled machine, which it was and it was, and people thought, Okay, if you can do this, like, of course, it's not the same as running the country, but it is a very complex undertaking and you rose to the occasion. Now, Kamlin does have an advantage in that she did have to build this organization it's all there in a box for her. So
you know, perhaps that's an advantage for her. Perhaps she since Biden has basically like disappeared and is basically not really even president anymore, maybe you know, her stepping were fully into that role in terms of the public perception,
maybe that helps her beat the incompetent charge. But I do think that is a really key and core weakness for her, And I guess the other thing I would say is perhaps her VP pick can help give people some comfort, because that was the other key for Obama too, was he brought in Joe Biden, who's this you know, moderate white dude who people were like, all right, that guy can see in a position of power, and that also helped to give people comfort about the overall ticket.
Very smart I put out yesterday, I said there is no chance commic could survive a real eighteen month run for Potus. Her primary run fell apart through interviews, multip debates, et cetera. But now she's only got a duck and hide for ninety seven days. At tweeted this yesterday, So ninety six days today and friendly spaces commit to a single debate. That's a major structural problem. For ours. I still believe that it is such a massive advantage for her to basically just be annoyed to be given the
campaign in a box. You have a campaign manager, you've got unbelievable about some money, you got baked in coalition, who's ready, fired up, ready to go, as someone might say, against Donald Trump, and just don't really sit down for any crazy interviews.
Now.
I think that's an abhorrent and terrible thing. She should do at least two debates. I hope that she would do three, especially given you know how late she entered into the race. She hasn't yet done a critical interview. I believe Joe Biden only dropped out of the race eleven days ago. I mean, that's plenty of time. We need one of those one. I would even take, you
know what, take a friendly interviewer. I don't care, you know even that if this nab nabj event, you know, it's probably the friendliest media environment that she was gonna get. Just go, just take you have to answer questions, sit down with Stephanopoulos, Chuck Todd, whatever, any of these people. Are they going to challenge you a ton? No? Not really, But even Lester Holt, I mean, he asked her the most basic question of all the time. He's like, so,
have you been to the border? She said, we have been to the border. He's like, but you haven't been literally, She's like, but we have been to the border. And I'm still trying to decipher.
He and then what we haven't gone yet?
Well?
Yeah, it's like okay, yeah, right, yeah, I.
Mean, but that's the thing, is that that Kamala will emerge.
Yeah.
Right, So far it's been nothing but positive for her. Right, She's doing rally, She's doing a great job. She's not Joe Biden. Right, She's got this fresh appearance. She feels like the new kid on the block, even though that seems preposterous. She's you know, some what is she close to thirty years younger than Donald Trump?
I think she's fifty nine.
Yeah, she's fifty nine. She looks fantastic for age.
By the way, everybody's doing the comparison with her and Tim Wallace, the same age, and he looks like he's like forty years older than her. He blames it on
the high school kids anyway. Yeah, so she's gonna have to take some risks, and she's going to have to show that she has that she's improved, you know, she if she does appearances where those same vulnerabilities come up, those concerns about whether or not this is really a person you can see his commander in chief, whether this is a person who was really up to the job, those are going to become central. And I think in a sense they already are central. So that's to me
a real warning sign for her. Let's go and take it. This was amusing to me to take a look at the age group breakdown for Kamala Harris. Okay, so you know this also won't really surprise you, although it is kind of a reversal of where things were under Joe Biden, which is why I say, you know, I think I do think these things are more fluid than perhaps we've given credit for young people really like Kamala Harris. The number one thing is strong. Then you get awesome, optimistic, lucky,
that's a funny one, nice, brave, smart. Also, if you look on the left side of the graphic, there in relatively small print but still abusing, is brat charismatic, independent, leader, empowering, honest, cool, very few there are a few up here, but very few.
Negative descriptors.
Among the young demographic, you've got bad, dishonest, incompetent also shows up, but the overwhelming majority of the words are positive, and you know, certainly the largest descriptors for that group are pop. If you go to the other end of the spectrum sixty five plus, this was an area where Joe Biden had some strength. This was like the group that was holding up the best for him over everybody. And the two words here that jump out in very
large print are liberal and incompetent. Now, it's interesting to me and perhaps this is where the battleground really is. In those you know, thirty to forty nine and also the fifty to sixty four, there isn't one descriptor that really dominates. It's sort of like, you know, people are a little all over the place and the juries kind of still out. There wasn't just one thing that people
thought of when Kamala Harris was put to them. You see, under thirty to forty nine, you get awesome, powerful, you also get terrible, you get liberal, you get bad.
You get smart, you get strong.
Fifty to sixty four, you see incompetent is probably the largest one there, but it doesn't jump out nearly as much as in the sixty five plus fake, I think is another real vulnerability for her smart leader weak woman, horrible liberal strong. So again those age demographic it's a little less clear the verdict on Kamala Harris as among the youngest and the oldest demographics.
Yeah, I think the incompetent one is. Look considering if we know the voting rates, what is a fifty percent of Gen Z vote or eighteen year olds to twenty nine year olds vote, but it's like eighty percent. The higher up you go, especially about sixty five and eighty, incompetent just looks like the best bet, especially when we consider, yeah, across all the groups, so the age group, especially with old people. And then let's also think about the demographics
of the key swing states. There's a new battleground poll we were both looking at. What was it this morning that showed her actually up a little bit in Pennsylvania but tiede in Michigan and tiede in Wisconsin. And though that's really where I would be worried, that is a disproportionately white, older state population wise, the dynamic sun belt of Atlanta and all that might actually show you you know, Georgia could possibly be in play under Kama, which was
very unexpected. Arizona, though the polling did not look particularly good. Nevada as well, another very very dynast state where things are very fluid and up for grabs in a way that they weren't last time around.
Yeah.
Yeah.
If I think about the various demographics and who you really need to triangulate on, I'm going for the old white people in the Midwest.
It looks like the Harris campaign is trying to put North Carolina in play. Yes, that's right, And it looks like the Trump campaign is concerned that North Carolina could.
Be in North Carolina's a very dynamic state, is a massive in population. Raleigh and Charlotte are two of the biggest booming cities for young people, I believe under the age of thirty, highest job market for college graduates, low cost of living, decent weather. You know to what previous North Carolo Tier two city, not really a state that it wasn't like Austin. Let's say that four years ago. But right, all the data that I've seen that's come out in the last six months, I'm like, man, North
Carolina is booming. So you know when you have new people coming in. That's especially we're young. That makes it more of a backgrounds.
Liberal retirees love them some Asheville, North Carolina, okay and.
Not so great.
It's a lovely, lovely sort of like hippie crunchy town in the foothills of the mountains there. So in any case, you had the reason I say that it looks like Harris is trying to put it on the map, and it looks like the Trump campaign is a little.
Concerned about it is because both.
Of them are going up on the air with significant adviys in the state of North Carolina.
Now, sometimes campaigns do that.
As just like sort of a what is the word, like a fate, A headfake, I guess is the right term, because they want their opponent to think they got to spend money there and sort of draw them into a contest when they're not really trying to put it in play. That could be some of what's going on here. But I looked back Joe Biden only lost it, but I think like one point eight percentage points, so it's not like it was a blowout. And when you consider what
the different coalitions look like, Obama won North Carolina. And so if they're saying, hey, we're putting the Obama coalition back together, maybe this state is in play for us in a way that it wasn't for Joe Biden. It's not the craziest idea in the world. And I think the overall picture for Kamala, I mean, it's obvious at this point she's outperforming Joe Biden wildly, and not just
his post debate performance. She's also outperforming where he was at his back during this race, but not during twenty twenty. He was way up at this point in twenty twenty. So we also have to be clear about that she has way more pods to two seventy than he did.
He really was narrowed down to like, all right, you got to go all in on the like old white people in the rust Belt, and she because her coalition is different there's it really does expand the map and potentially put a state like North Carolina in player at least forced the Trump campaign to have to think about a stately looking at.
The lit dada. Obama won it in eight forty nine point seven to McCain's forty nine point three, lost it in two thousand and twelve, with Romney at fifty point six and forty eight. So actually it's been relatively in play and tight close, almost like Georgia esque numbers where yeah, it was a sleeper swing state, but Obama won in two thousand and eight, people thought it was kind of
a flash in the pan. But yeah, last time around, and like I just said, you got all these young people who are moving into the state, Charlotte economy and all that is boomy. You got the democratic governor. You know, these are all like signs of decent funda metals for if there were a flip, could it could be this time around?
So it's not crazy to think.
All right, let's go ahead and move on to the JD Vance word clouds. And these were also really interesting. All right, put the first one up on the screen. This is the overall When you ask voters in general, right, left, center, old, young, everything, the number one word that jumps out unknown, number two, unsure, number three, weird, You get conservative, bad, idiot. But you know, I think this shows some Uh it's a positive for the Trump campaign in that they still have a chance
to define him, like he hasn't been fully defined. But I also say it's the real best for them, because Democrats are aggressively working to define him right now, and Republicans will show you that. I mean, we'll show you this with the the Trump comments at the NABJ. They aren't really doing much to defend him at this point and to def find him in a different way than
what Democrats are trying to do. So it's both like, you know, it's an opportunity for the Republicans, but it's also a risk because you could get into a situation like Obama with Romney back in twenty twelve, where he came out so early and so aggressively defined Mitt Romney and that caricature was close enough to reality that it's stuck that there was nothing they could do to change the public perception of Mitt Romney.
Is this like, you know, plutocratic elite.
So Democrats very much want that word reared to be the number one thing you think of with JD.
Vance and they're not there yet.
And we'll show you this will be really clear when we get to like the partisan breakdown, et cetera. But there isn't an alternative Republican descriptor that is popping out here at all.
I agree, it's an issue for JD And the main problem is what do we all know about Donald Trump? If you ever upstage him, he will cut your legs out from underneath you. So yeah, Jadi is not really in a position to be defending himself.
It's not set up to.
He doesn't need like it would be the worst. The worst possible thing for him would not be to combat Kamala Harrison weird. It would be to become the main storyline and to upstage Donald Trump. And if he started, you know, giving high profile interviews and aggressively trying to go back against this, then Trump would be furious to him and be like, who does this guy think he is? I mean, he already saw underccurrence of that with the Nabj answer, which we will.
Get to agree, because I think most of the storylines about the Trump campaign over the past two weeks have been about Jah, which.
Drives Trump crazy because I actually saw somebody say this, somebody who was close to Trump. They're like, Trump would not pick a running mate at all if he was not legally required to, because the eightes having anybody else to share his spotlight, anybody else on his name. That's something that we know well about him. So let's put this up there on the A two B. Please the JD vans across the categories. So the Democrats have very clearly won the weird war, although you know, unknown is
still the number two word that Democrats associate. So it's one of those where clearly amongst Democrats has reached high staliens. When you look though at Independence, you see unknown, unsure, smart, idiot, bad, fake, IDK, I personally like IDK. And then amongst Republicans, unknown is the second largest word, and conservative, from.
Which conservative is just like, I mean, it's that's fine, but yeah, it's not like. That was my point about there's not an alternative competing vision of who JD Vance is that's really breaking through. I mean, when Trump has tried to defend him, he's talked about like, oh well, he loves the family, and he's talked about always really in touch with the working man. You don't see any of that in here, none of it.
Actually.
Instead, what you see is it's like smart, IDK, cool, uncertain, unpredictable. These are amongst Republicans unfamiliar. Clearly people don't know anything about him. That actually kind of explains to why Hillbilly elergy is skyrocketed to the top of the bestseller list, and He'llbilly Elogy in the movie. I think it's downloaded movie on Netflix, which people like who is who is this guy? Which again is a great reminder. I bet you ninety percent of the people who traditionally watched the
show know is but we're going to never forget. Most Americans do not pay attention at all to politics. I do think JD is in a very difficult position. The weird thing is one that Democrats and the media are repeating over and over again, and Republicans don't want to be in a position of defending their vice president because if they are, it would be seen as upstaging Donald Trump vance himself. I mean, look, when you're the vice president,
I've been reading his speeches. I'll just say this, I've known of his speeches and listened to them for a while. This is not how he would traditionally speak. I'll just put it that way. It is clear to me. What do you mean by it's just it's so cookie cutter, very very basic.
Yeah, it's like it feels very uncomfortable for me.
It just looks like first grade reading level. And look, probably the right strategy, right. I mean, if we think about that, even the New York Time is only written for a fifth grade reading level or whatever. But you know, it just does It doesn't come across what I think are the strengths and all that he has. But at the same time, like, that's what it means to be vice president. You're signing up as a number two man. You say whatever they tell you to say. Yeah, And
so you know, I don't know him. I do think they're in a tough position just because again, his team his team, and his job is to not make problems for Trump, right, And let's be honest, it was a problem for Trump. There's nothing Trump hates more than having somebody who he doesn't even like. For in Trump's mind, he can deal with anything as long as it's about him. But whenever it's about others, it's like, oh, he'll throw you under the bus instant, and he did yesterday. I mean,
it is certain. I mean the answer was weird because he both defended him and then he was like, look, this whole thing is moving because eat me.
But you know what was funny.
I did counterpoints with Emily yesterday and we did the Conservative League Candeline, I want to watch.
Some of it. And when I asked them about.
Dad, that's a very similar answer, especially from an as she was like, I don't really think vice president matters. And so it's felt to me like, I don't want to draw too much from that, but it felt to me that that was kind of like the cope that had gone out among Republicans of like, yeah, this is all this is all irrelevant. Vice presidents don't really matter,
and I don't think that's really true. I know that that's what a political scientist some will argue that when you think about the vice presidential picks over the past number of cycles, I think that they made a difference. I mean, I think Mike Pence made a difference for Donald Trump in twenty sixteen.
I think Sarah Palin was a problem.
Was initially very additive for John McCain when she first came out, and she had tons of charisma and people like, oh my god, this could be a problem for Democrats. And then she sort of crashed and burned and became a liability for him and showed a lack of seriousness and a willingness to kind of like take risks with the country future that was, you know, that doomed him ultimately. I think Biden was important for Obama as that kind of validator. Like we discussed, I think this vice presidential
pick for Kamala is going to be really important. And the thing with Jadie Vance, I do think you could argue for Trump because he's such a singular figure that it is less consequential than like Kamala's pick. I think that's completely fair to argue. But when Democrats want to put the whole ticket in the like fringe, extreme weird bucket, and you add a guy on the ticket who you know is being labeled as that, and the label's kind
of sticking. And on the two issues that Trumps knows himself that he has an issue on, which is abortion in Project twenty twenty five, and JD brings baggage the ticket on both it. You know, there were other choices. Glenn Youngkin was sitting out there ready for the taken to put Virginia in the in.
Play, you know.
And so it's not that I think JD. Vance is going to like sink the ticket, but I think he makes it easier for Democrats to make the case about the ticket they want to make and frame it through the prism that they want to frame it.
I don't necessarily disagree. I think a lot of it is marginal, and that's why it's like did it matter? Did not matter? I think Sarah Palin probably did matter. But it's like, what was more impactful to two thousand and financial crisis or Sarah Palin? It's like, Okay, well I think we know the answer, you know here with Donald.
I'm not saying it's the only no, And I agree, Yeah.
Look, these are all multifaceted, multifactorial. There's so many confounding variables, octobers to press. You know, you can never if anything, the narrative is probably more important here. Yeah, I really think I think if JD was running on his own, he'd be in a much better position because you can
actually fight back kind of on your own terms. But when you're hams strung as the number two man to one of the most sensitive like candidates in modern probably ever in modern history, who you know is sensitive to that? I O, all presidents are sensitive about their number two showing them. But but this is like dialed up to ten. I mean, you basically just have to do whatever his people tell you. To do. Yeah, I think that's a problem.
Can we put gender please up on the screen because that also, you know, kind of underscores to me the issue here too. If we're talking here about women candidates, I mean unknown. And this is also where I would say the weird thing belies it. I mean, look, he's a recent Catholic convert and he believes very strongly in being pro life. That's just all. Look, if you know, I use my personal level, I know him, but if I were running against him, that's all I would talk
about that period. I mean, he's said it literally on camera. That's kind of the things you have to do whenever you're running for a Republican race and you're going and I think he won the Susan band en List for example, endorsement in his race. Just play that on a loop. I mean, that's one where it's very very easy to drive that home. And to make it clear. Now, to be fair, every single person on Trump's list, save for
Glenn Youngkin, was actually adamantly pro life. This is also too where when we think about the context of the vice presidential pick. The vice presidential pick for JD was made in the context of Joe Biden's staying in this race, and this is one where he was relatively confident, not only about his victory, but he was concerned about a secondary on the ticket who was going to be loyal to him and loyal to his agenda at the very least. That was important to his advisors and the people who
are picking him. Where he didn't know he was going to be in a knife fight, you know, on abortion. Now, would he have picked JD. Still, it's certainly possible, I think, maybe even likely, considering what Trump you know, considers important. But yeah, I think we'd be lying to say his calculus would have been a little bit different if he didn't know that Kamala was going to be in the race.
Yeah, yeah, I mean if Trump could keep the number one descriptor of J. JD Vance at unknown, I think you'd be happy with.
Yeah, it's the worst. We've had worse things.
That's not realistic. Right, He's going to get defined and known to the American public between now and November, and so h Trump better defend him because the Democrats are certainly not going to lay off in how they're aggressively seeking to define him. And what was interesting to me actually about this gender divide is that there wasn't a big one.
Men are more likely.
To say conservative, but all like both genders say in here, unknown, unsure, unknown, unsure, and then weird.
So it was interesting to me. Actually, I was expecting more of.
A gender divide in terms of the descriptors among men and women and we that doesn't jump out at you right here. I guess perhaps a positive is you don't see like abortion on here anywhere or extreme. It may be in there, but not as like one of the main descriptors. But I think the weird thing is, I
think it's a problem. I think it's very trumpy and type of descriptor that you know, it's impossible to refute, right, And the more you refute it, you try to refute it directly, the more you kind of play into the the imprint of the word and you it's very hard to beat the charges.
I would That's what I would say if.
I were them, I would not even utter the word weird.
Yeah, because the more you say it, the more it just imprints the people's minds.
Like I read this weird you know speech Frunt that he gave last night in Arizona. I was long asleep by the time he delivered those remarks. But I read it this morning and it was Kamala's fake commos independent, Commo's liberal. I was like, okay, yeah, that's basically what I would say. But at the same time, like I said, when you run for number two, a lot of people don't really care you know, what you have to say
or who you are. I'm basically with you, I don't really I think unknown is probably the best you can really hope for, you know, at this time, especially because he cannot make an affirmative case for himself because that would upstage him to Donald Trump.
It's not an enviable it's the.
Worst position that you could possibly be in. All right, let's age.
Yeah, let's put age up on the screen. We can take a look at this one. The breakdown here, this was amusing to me. Eighteen to twenty nine. Instead of unknown, it's IDK. You've got weird, is the it jumps out the most. In the youngest demographic, In the oldest demographic, you've got conservative.
Bad idiot unknown. But really, the thing you know that is consistent across the board is unknown and unsure.
I don't know what he is.
Yeah, so I think that's like I said, I think it's a real risk for the Trump campaign because the longer it remains is unknown.
The war of an.
Opportunity you have for Democrats to define who he is for you. But it also means that the negative perceptions of him have not completely like taken hold in a you know, unmovable way amongst the public. There's still a possibility to define him in a way that would be positive for the ticket rather than negative.
Yes, absolutely, Former President Donald Trump made an appearance at the NABJ, the National Association of Black Journalist event, and let's just say, was fiery. It was astonishing. The circumstances itself were absolutely crazy. Trump was held off the stage waiting for some thirty four minutes to go on because there were microphone issues. The microphone issues then manifested themselves during the interview. During the interview, they were talking past
each other. Trump itself was facing a jeering crowd. Many people there were very upset that even appeared in the first place, and it went off the rails from the very very first answer. Let's take a listen.
I want to start by addressing the elephant in the room, sir. A lot of people did not think it.
Was appropriate for you to be here today.
You have pushed false claims about some of your rivals, from Nicki Haley to former President Barack Obama, saying that they were not born in the United States, which is not true. You have told four congressmen women of color who were American citizens to go back.
To where they came from.
You have used words like animal and.
Rabbit to describe black district attorneys. You've attacked black journalists, calling them a loser, saying the question that they ask are quote stupid and racist. You've had dinner with a white supremacist at.
Your marologue resort.
So my question, sir, now that you are asking black supporters to vote for you, why should black voters trust you after you have used language like that.
Well, first of all, I don't think I've ever been asked a question so in such a horrible manner.
A first question you don't.
Even say, hello, how are you?
Are you?
With ABC?
I was invited here, and I was told my opponent, whether it was Biden or Kamala, I was told my opponent was going to be here. It turned out my opponent isn't here. You invited me under false pretense. And then you said you can't do it with zoom. Well you know where's zoom. She's going to do it with zoom, and she's not coming. And then you are half an hour la. Just so we understand, I have too much respect.
For you to be late.
They couldn't get their equipment working or something.
I would like. I think it's a very super second.
I have answered the question.
I have been the best president for the black population since Abraham Lincoln, better.
Than President Johnson.
He's notign the building rights.
Ask you to start off a question and answer period, especially when you're thirty five minutes late because you couldn't get your equipment to work in such a hostile manner, I think it's a disgrace.
All right, Chrystal, that is a vintage twenty sixteen.
I was going to say, I'm checking the calendar because he's back twenty sixteen.
He is back, folks the ear. What was it like being nice and all that? It only lasted for a couple of days. This is as Trump as Trump has
been in quite a long time. On the campaign trail there, But I mean, I guess the only thing that we could say at here at least here with the question is about Kamala Harris, because she was originally said that she couldn't make it, and then apparently like he was talking there about zoom, so she It's weird been trying to figure out is this lady going to speak of this event or not?
Well, it's very it's.
Very confused what unfolded in the you know, lead up to this. Apparently the best I can figure out is she had said, Hey, I'm not going to come, but I can do this by via zoom, right, and they were like, no, zoom. And then once they announced that they were going to interview Trump, and there was this huge, in my opinion, stupid back journalist, your journalist. He's the former and potential future president, like, of course you should
interview him. And in my opinion, like what happened here is very revealing and it is something that the American public should see, however they feel about it, Okay. So, in any case, they got a massive backlash over quote unquote platforming Trump. They had board members who were resigning, et cetera. And so I think in an effort to try to clean things up, then it looks like they went back to and again this is this is the best I can figure out from the reporting that's out there.
Then I think they go back to comm and say, oh wait, actually we can do the zoom. And by that point like she's made other plans or whatever. And so anyway, that was all a mess. And then there were technical difficulties, which as someone listen, nothing is more frustrating. It's not there for like the journalists fault I had nothing to do with like setting up the mics and whatever. But you have to remember, this is he's not as old as Biden, but this is also a cranky old man.
So I think that he came in.
There already loaded for bear, already with an idea of I'm gonna drop a bomb on this place, and I'm gonna cause the whole country to talk about what it is that I have to say.
And by the way, the.
Major comments that everybody's sharing here about Comma's identity, we're gonna do a whole separate part on that, because it's quite clear now that was part of like an intentional campaign strategy.
So we're going to separate that out.
But I think you know, he already was like I'm going in there with this plan and then when he had to wait for thirty and so frustrated, then it's just off the rails from the beginning. I mean to her, listen, overall, I didn't think that these that this trio, they were kind of at odds with each other. The questions that I would want to ask, we're not asked. You know, about economics and you know, the things that really impact
people's lives. But let's be clear that first question, Like she had to ask that first question and for him maybe soy, so thin skinned about you know, this had been controversial for the group. She had to ask that first question, and he just you know, completely off the reat.
Just from the beginning.
It was very Megan Kelly asked, He's like, you've killed women, So what do you think he's going to say. Yeah, he's gonna be like, you know what, You're right, I'm a freaking racist. It's just like so dumb. But look, this is the other thing.
It's I think it's like, like I said, I think she has to ask that question, given like the concerns of the group that she's representing and the controversy going into it. You know, I don't it's unreasonable to expect that you're just going to get like a softball out the gate.
You have a limited amount of time with him.
He's the four he's a you know, very consequential figure, potential future president. You know, the notion that he should just be handed a softball as a first question.
Is for possible.
Oh I don't think it should be a softball. I mean the last part is you think you're the most consequential president since Abraham Lincoln for black people? How could you possibly say that in good faith? Maybe let's get into that. But again, and also on a professional level, you and I prepare very stringently for interviews. It's very clear these three ladies like didn't talk to each other about who is going to ask what because they're always
talking across. And so it's funny because afterwards all these journalists were like, oh my god, they did such a good job. I was like, I thought that was a freaking disaster, and whoever put that thing together, you should
be humiliated. We have higher standards here on a YouTube show. Now, there was a consequential and interesting answer here where Harris Faulkner over at Fox News pressed Trump on the JD Vance Childless cat Lady comments and you could see here in real time he both moves from defense to listen, vice president. It doesn't even matter at all. Let's take a listen.
And that's why this decision is important this time bad things happen. You've said it twice when you look at jd Vance. Is he ready on day one? Does ready on day one if he have to be.
I've always had great respect for him and for the other candidates too, But I will say this, and I think this is well documented. Historically, the vice president in terms of the election does not have any impact. I mean virtually no impact. You have two or three days where there's a lot of commotion as to who, like you're having it on the Democrat side, who it's going to be, and then that dies down and it's all
about the presidential pick. Virtually never has it mattered. Maybe lived in Johnson matter for different reasons of what we're talking about, not for vote reasons, but for political reasons, other political reasons. But historically the choice of a vice president makes no difference.
Is interesting. What's up the LBJ thing is interesting.
I didn't actually catch that the first time I listened, because he's what he's saying is that because JFK was assassinated, that's why he ends up being consequential.
Right, Well, so I was the because Trump has previously praised Roger Stone, you know, he's their friends, Roger whole book about how LBJ is actually the one who killed JFK. And so I was like, did he mean it in terms of LVJ was a party of the Association. That's kind of immediately where my man went to. I was like, is he implying that LBJ was part of a conspiracy to assassinate JFK. Look, I don't know. It was definitely.
You read a lot of things.
One of them. What's funny though, is that you know, if you actually know the history, he is right. One of the things that was very president of the nineteen sixty convention is that people were very upset, which the Democratic Party at that time was totally split between the Southern conservatives and like the Massachusetts Northeast liberals, Massachusetts and
Midwestern liberals all supported civil rights. Obviously the southern the States didn't, and they weren't going to back anybody who was a number two on the ticket unless it was
somebody who was anti civil rights in their head. They believed that Johnson, who had kind of bamboozled them his entire life was against civil rights and was a Southern ally, and so his adding to the ticket was actually very very consequential for at least bringing over some of the Democratic senators and then trying to push back against the George Wallace rising. Segregation is South sentiment in the South. So I think he unintentionally was correct about why LBJ.
I actually do think it's probably the most consequential vice president will pick, right.
I mean, that's doesn't fair.
Fair because of what Also, he basically stole the state of Texas for JFK whenever it came to the elections.
Facts true, But obviously the bigger takeaway here is he gets asked a very direct question, is JD Vance ready on day one? And he does not say yes, no, ye, Like that's such a gimme. That is such a gimmy, Like even if you don't believe it, of course you say yes, he picks this vice president.
Because you believe they're ready on day one.
And he dodges the question, and then he goes on to say he says something that all I have respect for, I respect for a lot of people, and then he goes on to say, Josh barretweeted like it's very clear, this is what his advisors are telling him when he's freaking out about the pick himself and vice president doesn't matter anyway, So whatever, who cares whether he's good or bad already on day one.
Trump is never going to know. I think in Trump's mind, he's like ready on day one. At me, I'm ready on day one. I'm here, I'm ready to go. Anything that could possibly, you know, upstage him cause problems for him. And you know, look at Project twenty twenty five, I mean, the most slavishly devoted people to Donald Trump, and the moment they caused an issue for him, He's like, I'm gonna cut you loose. I'm never going to talk to you or see you again, and declare war on you.
This is part of his mo.
This is as close as you will get to confirmation that Trump does regret his choice right here. Being unwilling to say, like, really a single positive thing about Jadie Vance. Being unwilling to say that your vice presidential pick is ready on day one is really something. And so yeah, for him to go on this tangent about like well, who cares about him and he.
Doesn't really matter.
See. I read it as that's what he would say about anybody who he had picked. I'm not sure he would have said that necessarily about Doug Burgham or any of these other folks, because if Bergham was the nominee. Yeah, I get it, he codes more.
He has actually said more positive things about Doug Burghram. I think at this point that he has about.
Jadvan straight out of Central Casting.
Yeah.
And he also he did a whole thing about Doug burg that was interesting where he's like, you know.
He's he's a little too nice.
He doesn't doesn't realize sometimes a little controversy is a good thing.
Something like that.
This is what I mean with this man, It's like you can never win, Okay. So I don't know if I was going to it that way, I would just say with Trump, anytime that you're causing even an inkling of an issue for him, he's going to immediately knuq you and throw you under the bus and remind you kind of of your place.
Yeah. Now, as Ady Van's you are on your own very clearly.
That's I think that's always been and I think anybody who's going into that job should have been very clear eyed that loyalty only goes one way in that relationship. Let's put this up here on the screen from April Ryan, So she reported kind of what you were saying, Crystal. Yeah, about the NABJ. They shut down a conversation for a virtual town hall because apparently Harris said that she needed to be in Chicago in or. They said that she needed to be in Chicago in person only. Then after
they began to ask her to consider it. Then yesterday afternoon they moved on after being told no about being in person. Then they came back and they asked for a VP surrogate like Megan the Stallion, Oprah or barackab Yeah, we're going to interview Trump and then after that we're going to ask Magan the Stallion's opinions. Okay, I mean Oprah maybe whatever Obama. Obama was the only one. Hey, mister president, did you did you ask Joe Biden to drop out of the race? Asked no question, yes or
no question? And he's going to try it. I mean that's actually newsworthy and interesting. Yeah, I would take that.
But oh, Megan even like endorsed in my race yet I don't know, Megan is Stallion's hilarious but anyway, yeah, so so basically, according to April Ryan, what happened is Kama said she could do virtual.
They were like, no, we.
Want you in person. She said no to in person, and you had this freak out about Trump and then they're like, oh, maybe we can't do you know, virtual whatever. Anyway, so that's that's the backstorre. It was definitely all went.
I think it was a mistake of Kamala and not to clear schedule and actually try and get it done, because the optics of it are ridiculous. It's like, why is Trump in the midst of obviously a very hostile environment where people were like weeping and jeering, you know, in the back and gasping, you know, all of these people, and why didn't she show up or at least, you know, try to make it work. I get the people are busy, but also, look, politicians are a lot less busy than
you would think. Sometimes they can.
Do and they want to make something happen to happen. I do think.
Listen, you have a private plane, it go takes off thirty minutes late.
Okay, you know it's consistent with she is.
She's afraid of these kind of settings because while it would be a friendlier audience for her, you know, you got Harris Faulkner up on the stage exactly, and she's not gonna They're gonna feel, especially after doing a tough interview with Trump, they're going to feel like they need to show balance with Kamala and not just do a
softball interview with Kamala. And you know, she she is nervous about those settings, and she has reason to be nervous about those hettings because in the past it hasn't gone that well for her. So I think you're right about if it went well for her, then it was a missed opportunity for her to get out there. And obviously this became like the big story of the day and she becomes a side show to it. But if it didn't go well for her, then it was the right call to skip it.
No, I mean, this is the issue. Strategically, I would do the exact same thing if I were her. I'm going to look at my record and say, I'm terrible at management and I'm bad at interviews. You know what, I'm not going to do interviews Apparently what she had pushed for was this was another report about some friendly fireside chat, and to their credit, they're like, no, you
have to do interview. And that's the thing about Rachel Scott. Look, I don't think she did a particularly good job here in this interview, but I have seen her get yelled at by Nancy Pelosi. And you know, look, any Democrat screaming at you in the hallway, that actually is important, you know, if you were willing to sit there and take it a little bit and actually ask a challenging question. So I don't have any doubt that both her and
Harris Faulkner would have pushed her at least a little bit. Yeah, you know, I mean there are serious questions to be asked here. Did you know that Joe Biden was old? At what point did Joe Biden tell you he was going to run for president? These are ones where if you don't ask that, you are a joke as a journalist.
Well and also really critically, and we're you know, we're going to talk to Matt Stole her about what we think she might do as president.
Believe I don't know, right, we don't know.
And she's already this week, she's changed her position on a number of issues.
Racking medicare for all, What am I missing the border? Yeah, there's one more. God, No, that's that's that's changed. That one's there's another one that's out there.
You know, she's in a tough spot to reconcile who she wants to be now in this context versus who she's been in the past or what she's run on. And there are difficult questions obviously out there for the taking that you would be irresponsible as a journalist not to ask. And I do think that these journalists would have asked her some of those questions. And so yes, it's not a surprised to me that she didn't want to be there in person, that she you know, after
the they were like okay, you can do zoom. It was like, I'm busy because these are the types of situations that she typically does want to avoid. That does That doesn't surprise me.
So, by the way, in terms of the verdict, we have still not yet come down on whether she's going to appear or not. A llegedly say there were seven month September she might do it, but that's a month from now. That's not fair, you know, it's it should be now like the immediate days. It's only been eleven days since Joe Biden dropped out of the race. Like you've not done a major interview. You have to how many rallies has she done. It's not fair to the
American public. But I could sit here and cry all day. It's not going to matter.
You know.
It's like, at the end of the day, she's actually making the right call. I wouldn't say a damn word. I would do these rallies with Megan the Stallion rile people up. She's raising two hundred million dollars one in two hundred something Americans donating to her campaign. Now you're going to get a VP pick again. Ocean of Wall Street money, you know, maybe flirt a little bit with this whole Lena Khan thing ae hundred something venture capitalists,
multi billionaires signed a letter backing her. This is the best position a Democratic candidate has been in basically since Obama. And I'm what early Hillary Clinton before some of the worst parts of her were coming out.
So and let's be honest, I mean, this is this is the this is the new reality. Mostly candidates don't feel the need to object themselves to anything that may even approach a hostel interview. Joe Biden certainly didn't, you know, he would go on some like wellness podcast or on you know, some totally not even a journalist like softball suit, a late night or whatever. And I do think it's I think it's wildly anti democratic. I think it's a
very negative trend. And you're absolutely right. She has been brought in here at the last minute. There was no democratic process whatsoever that led to this result, and so.
People deserve even more so.
To have access to her hear how she handles these questions here, how she views her role and her ascension and what she would do with an extraordinary amount of power. That you know, people do deserve to hear that. But that doesn't, you know, doesn't mean that I have any hopes because if you're just looking tactically, they're playing it exactly the.
Way that they should play it, and the polls reflect that.
At this point, Okay, let's move on the headline, the big ones. What actually came out of this? Donald Trump asked, actually I don't even know if he was asked about this, but he.
Was asked whether about the attacks on Kamala Harris as a DEI candidate, and then he gives.
And then he gave this answer about her heritage. Let's take a lesson.
It was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn't know she was black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn black. And now she wants to be known as black. So I don't know is she Indian or.
Is she black? She is always I know.
Black, college I respect either one, but she obviously doesn't because she was Indian all the way and then all of a sudden she made a turn and she went she became a black.
Just to be clear, sir, I think.
Somebody should look into that too.
When you ask a continue in a very hostile, nasty.
Tone, it's a direct question, sir.
Do you believe that Vice President Kamala Harris is a DEI higher.
As somebody really does out?
I mean, I really don't know, could be, could be?
All right. So that was the answer, and actually clearly was part of a concerted Stratt's put this up there on the screen, because immediately afterwards they put up on the big screen at a rally that Trump was incoming up. Yeah, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, California is Kamala Harris becomes first Indian American US senator. So, Christal, you may have heard rhetoric like this before, because I
think I was complaining about it. I think I was on our amah and all right, I'm going to do my best to try and thread the needle here because people are very upset about this, and I think, frankly a lot of it as crocodile tears. I think that Kamala Harris is somebody who was raised very much, almost identical to me. She was raised basically by an Indian professor, South Indian specifically, and for the vast majority of her early life identified as Indian. Her mother even said that
she culturally identifies as Hindu. It is clear, though, that after she attended Howard University that become being quote unquote black and black only became the identity that she began to ascribe except when politically conven So Lee Fong reported in his sub stack several days ago that she ran as quote Kamala Davy hair. Davy is her middle name. It's an Indian word as well as South Asian. In her first race in two thousand and three, but by twenty twenty was listing her in her bio only as
a black woman. And this is where if we connect our word clouds, the fake moniker, the being a chameleon, the code switching, which if we're all being honest and watching, is the way that she talks in front of various different audiences I think is unambiguously true. That is kind of where I think Trump is quo trying to quote unquote triangulate here and actually amongst Indians. This has been a long time beef with Kamala Harris. Is she forgot she was Indian a long time ago?
So, and just to be clear about her hair, and her dad is Jamaica.
Her dad is from Jamaica or was he from Jamaica? I think he is definitely Jamaica.
He is Jamaica.
And I think he's, you know, an immigrant from m I think both her parents were immigrants to the.
United States and they met.
Yeah.
Yes, so mom is Indian, dad is Jamaican. She is biracial.
At different in time, she has emphasized one part of her heritage versus another. Republicans are sharing this like clip of her with Mindy kayling like this is some big gotcha, which I actually think is sort of like counter to the narrative that like, oh now she only talks about being black?
Is here she is in this clip with Mindy Kaylee.
That's one time?
Was the time? Am I being adiant?
But in any case, I think you're one hundred percent correct. The goal here is to try to play, try to lay out a narrative of Kamala Harris as fake and as someone who in this part is very accurate, has been politically all over the place whatever has been convenient. I think that attack is pretty salient, although I have to tell you, after looking at our word clouds, I'm actually convinced that the incompetent attack is probably a more
effective attack on her. But I think that like fake and doesn't believe it, I think that's more effective than that she's a radical liberal blah blah blah, as they say that about literally everybody. However, as I said before when we had the DEI debate, I think when you are the part that is constantly talking about someone's race and their gender, it is very off putting and not actually I actually think the biggest problem with these comments
demographically isn't actually black people are women of color. I actually think it's white people because you know, if I go back to like Obama, white people in this country loved the idea that we were a country that would elect someone like Barack Obama, right, who had this complex biracial upbringing, who was you know, who would code switch, who was sort of like culturally ambiguous, could be different things to different groups, and you know, product of a one immigrant parent.
Like.
People liked that perception of the country and they liked what it said about themselves that they could vote for a Barack Obama with that background. So, you know, a lot of the stuff was tried with him. And I actually, I don't know if you remember this because you're much younger than me, but you probably do because you're a political nerd.
But there was an effort on the left to say, Barack Obama's not really black.
Oh yeah, this was a whole Jesse Paxson because he's.
Not the descendant of African slaves. And this was widely mocked and ridiculed in sort of laughed down in the room. And then on the right you had which Donald Trump was a part of the whole BIRTHERRIHSM thing also really didn't land and wasn't an effective attack on Barack Obama. So that's why to me, trying to make the fake phony case with Kamala but by going in on her how she's identified herself and how she has at various times talked about her identity, I think it is such
a political loser. And the last thing I'll say about this ogur is I think Trump misunderstands his own appeal because part of what has led Trump to be somewhat rehabbed in the public image is the fact that he was kicked off Twitter and people can't hear as crazy shit all day long anymore. And to me, what occurred here is, and I think some of this you agree with. He wasn't in the headlines. Kamlin was in the headlines, and Jade Vance and Cat Ladies was in the headlines.
He can see the numbers, he can see the race slipping away a little bit. You know, he's still probably you know, somewhat the favorite, but it's very different ballgame. And I think he got a little bit freaked down and felt like I need to pull the fire alarm and do something that is going to get the cameras on me, whether it's good, bad, or indifferent. He thinks all controversy is good controversy, and I just I don't think that that's actually correct.
This is where I'm just not sure. Look, I lived this is the thing. This was such a twenty sixteen moment and the media immediate reaction to it, and everyone's like, oh, he's finished, he's never gonna I'm like, guys, I lived through a cycle where what he questioned them, what was the Mexican judge. He's like, oh, he's not even a real American or something like. This was like day after day, who was the gold star father and the gold star
mother on the stage family? Yeah, he attacked the con family. Right, It's one of those where listen, guys, I've seen it. I've seen this whole movie. And he won that election. So I'm just not going to sit here and pretend that this is going to be some earth shattering thing. Well, on the question of a race, now, I am. Look, I agree there are liberal white people who love the idea of voting for a black person. Now, this is also where I need to separate the politics, because on
a personal level, this has always driven me nuts. And it's not just about Kama, it's people like Bobby Jindall and others who it's like, if you listened to him, Oh, he came out of nowhere and he just was born a Catholic. It's like, really, payush, is that what happened? Or maybe you know, you converted to Catholicism and now that's the only thing to even talk about with your identity.
In fact, amongst Republicans, the only authentically Indian candidate who has ever run is vive Roswami, who never changed his position, never lied about his religion or made up some story. I think he's even a vegetarian, so he's more religious than I am. But my point is just that most Indians in this country, especially Republicans and others, they run
away from it. Kama is also one of those people who was raised in the early times when there was only a couple hundred thousand Indians in America, and she ran away from her identity. And that drives me crazy because, like I said, she was raised like me. Her father wasn't even there around when she was being brought up in freaking Canada, like in like Winnipeg, Grant with her mother, she heavily identified, and then it's like politically, you know,
it's very convenient in San Francisco, heavily Asian city. There you can be Kamma Davy Harris. But now you're just only a black woman. And I think that's gross. And that's why, like anytime somebody's time, somebody says, oh, she's Indian too, I'm like, yeah, well, she hasn't wanted to be for a long time. I do think the phony
chameleon thing does hit a little bit. The reason it didn't work against Obama is Obama was authentic from the he wrote a whole book, Dreams of My Father, about his father who abandoned him, How he was half black and his father was from Kenya, How difficult and weird it was to be raised by his white grandparents in Kansas. How he came to black a culture also almost as
a stranger, moving to Chicago. What was it marrying Michelle Obama and really like being what it was, knowing what it was like to be in like a black family there, and eventually coming up in black politics. Every single one of that is not only true, it's authentic, and that's why people didn't smell it as gross. With Kamala, I think that is where what people can at least project on is that fake Moniker and see somebody who has shape shifted her entire career. So I'm not so sure
that it's a bad thing. And you know, look, whenever we think too about this white liberal vote and all that these people are voting for Kamala anyways, Like.
There's a lot of suburban ladies out there, yeah, and they're all voting.
Democratic as of abortion. I mean, it's just like, I don't think that this is really such a swing state killer. If it was, then it would have been bad in twenty sixteen.
Here's the thing to me is like, first of all, I do think with some swing voters who were very concerned about voting for Biden, like it is the party that obsesses over rac and gender war is a party that is going to be losing. And right now it is the Republicans who are freaking out about her race and her gender, and we actually have her reaction. This
is b seven. I actually thought she played this perfectly well because to me, what she and the Democrats should do is not to go into Hillary Clinton Pearl clutch, constant moral indignation mode. It should be to keep it moving, keep it moving. And I think she did actually a very effective job with that. Whether the media can do that or not is you know, kind of out of her control. But let's take a listen to what she had to say at the rally last night about these comments. This is B seven.
We all here remember what those four years were like, and today we were given yet another reminder this afternoon, Donald Trump's at the annual meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists, and it was the same old show, the divisiveness and the disrespect. And let me just say, the American people deserve better. The American people deserve better.
The American people deserve a leader who tells the truth, a leader who does not respond with hostility and anger when confronted with the facts.
We deserve a leader.
Who understands that our differences do not divide us. They are an essential source of our strengths. So I say to Sigma gammeuro Sorority Incorporated, is a fight for the future.
So let me tell you why I think she played this one. We were joking while she was dying.
It was Hillary. This is sexist and racist and how dare you? And it would have been about her.
The reason this is the way to approach this is, first of all, she doesn't even go into what he said. Everybody knows like they're laughing, and she's in on the joke. She's you know, she's not flustered by she's laughing at him. And then she makes it about She says, the American people deserve that. This is the same we'll same old rush it aside, lap at him. American people deserve betterr And that's the way she needs to play this, and I think it's the most effective way because again I
think the trap that Hillary felt. First of all, Hillary was already unlikable person. The crooked Hillary thing really stuck. I mean there was a lot going on there. Okay, Kamala hares right now, her favorability is actually coming up.
People are liking.
Her war and bort She's good in these settings and she has a natural ease to her that Hillary Clinton has literally never had. But the trap Hillary fell into was they would just go into constant pearl clutching, moral indignation, fretting about our children or watching whatever, and people people found it irritating. Was like, Okay, we get it. This guy's maniac. Move on, like, move on, move on, move on.
And so anyway, I think that the Hairs campaign seems to have internalized those lessons, and so if they're the ones out there talking about, you know, things that people actually care about, and the Trump campaign is obsessing over when she said she was Indian and when she said she was black, and that she's a woman and is she a dei hihed and whatever?
People are going to be like, who cares?
Who cares whether she's black or Indian or biracial?
And when she said what to whom, etc.
You kind of are actually distracting from the core message you want to have about this is someone who's phony, who you know on the issues, is changing her position, and you make it exclusively about her race and gender versus that broader conversation.
If they can connect the two, I still think it could be potent. I think the door's out. We need to see I want to wait a little bit longer and see how it goes. But I hate to say it, I agree because one of the things that you're hoping for when you're Trump is the freak out is been about. Dare you, mister Trump? You are a racist, and it's like, oh, never heard that one before. So with the media reaction, they responded very predictably, But I actually thought that was
a relatively measured response. That's basically how I would have played it the start play, you know, going forward, and if anything, maybe it shows Democrats have learned something which is constantly concerned. Trolling about our children watching just doesn't work. It's a completely failed strategy. So she had some confidence there. Again, though,
we need to see this woman in an interview. I desperately, desperately need to see her on I don't even care about this, I need to see you know, like, why did you reverse five of your seven positions that you ran on when you were a president in the span of the eleven days since you've been running for president? Yeah, because that would be ten times more powerful than any of the stuff that we're even talking about here. Yeah, So there you go.
Yep, I agree with all of that.
So, as Emily and I covered with doctor t to Parsi yesterday, there have been an extraordinary series of events in the Middle East over the course of a very short period of time. Israel first assassinated a top Hesbola commander in Beirut, in the capital of Lebanon, and then they it appears, assassinated Ismail Hania, who was in Tehran, so in the Iranian capital, and he was the political
head of Hamas Ron of course, threatening retaliation. You can only imagine what we would do if there was an assassination in Washington.
D C.
How we would respond.
And we are also dealing with the fallout of those ceasefire negotiations because Hania was one of the key figures in Hamas who was actually pushing for a deal against Yaya Sinoir and some of the other more hardline Hamas members. So Israel has effectively assassinated the top negotiator in those ceasfire negotiations. Secretary State Tony Blincoln was asked about exactly what this will mean going forward for the negotiations.
Let's take a listen, Henya was involved in ceasefire talks in Gaza.
What impact is his death going to have?
Well, of course I've seen the reports, and what I can tell you is this first, this is something we were not aware of or involved in. It's very hard to speculate, and I've learned over many years never to speculate on the impact one event may have on something else. So I can't tell you.
So Sagara interested for your reaction. I mean a couple things that are noteworthy there. Obviously he's claimed, Oh, I don't know what this will mean, Like, obviously this is going to be a problem, and it's entirely consistent with the track record of Bibi Netna, who doing everything he can to blow up these negotiations at literally every point. So let's put that aside. The other thing he claims
there is that the US had no idea. That may be true, I don't know, but it also may not be true because remember Bibi Netanya, who was in town last week, there were these were both very sophisticated, so raise a lot of questions, Hey, was the CIA involved in helping to plan this? I can tell you people in the region are very skeptical that the US had no idea, had nothing to do with this.
I well, I'm not sure which, you know, is more terrifying that we knew or that we didn't know. If we did know and then we were lying about it and then yet still bearing the costs, or if we didn't know and then that were somebody who's backing to the hilt. So in a certain sense, it doesn't really matter you know which one it was, because we're going to bear the brunt of that no matter what. That was very evident with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin being asked about this, Let's take a list.
If Israel is attacked, we certainly will help defend Israel. You see, you saw us do that in April. You can expect to see us do that again. But we we don't want to see any of that happen. We're going to work hard to make sure that that you know, we're doing things to help take the temperature down and address issues through diplomatic means.
You're in and out folks, whether you like it or not. Right, that's, you know, one of those things. People were like, what are you not saying these shouldn't have been killed? I'm like, well, let's just say this. It's kind of a statement. Right, he's been sitting in Katar, So if you want to kill him, why didn't you kill him in Kuitar? Why didn't If he's on a plane, why didn't you blow the planet?
This guy?
I mean, I think killing somebody in the what was it the presidential complex on the first day of the reign of the Iranian president. That was a very coordinated statement, you know by the Israelis just to the level of penetration they have, their technology, the lack of Iranian missile defense. There's a whole host of military things. But politically it's a you know, it's like a hey, we know, we're
not afraid of you. And in a certain sense, like shouldn't be right because America is the one that is now underwriting all of this. Now, if they had to stand on their own, it'd be a whole other story, wasn't it, Because what did didn't you and Ryan cover this? I mean, Hasbola missiles penetrated the Iron Dome? Are we all just going to ignore that that was like two weeks ago? And here this attack that just happened where
twelve people were killed. I don't know, it could be as well whatever regardless, something went wrong, I think, and that should kind of shake people in Israel to their core. But they don't seem to be afraid because they think America is going to bail them out, and increasingly that it just seems like the correct assumption and now ears who is running this country. Is it Blincoln? Is it you know, Lloyd Austin. Who's making the security guarantees? Is
Joe Biden? Even on the phone here? One of the things we've learned electorally is Joe Biden when called people back Sean Faine apparently requested a phone call with him, Biden didn't call him. Yeah, are you calling beebe Like, who's running this stuff? Next? It's terrian plastic question.
That is a fantastic and very legitimate question.
We haven't heard a peep anything Joe Biden about any of this, not that that would really allay the concerns. Let's be clear about who is really running things behind the scenes. I mean, unfortunately, I think Biden mostly has been running the Israel policy, which is part of why it has been so utterly dreadful and destructive both to the US, to Israel, and most first and foremost to Palestinians.
You know, this type.
Of potentially escalatory spiral and true chaos and true breakout of a massive regional war has been is so predictable and has been completely predictable from the beginning and was a key part of why we've been people like us have been pushing for a seaspire for so long, because the longer the conflict goes on, the more you have a risk of exactly this type of dangerous chaos unfolding. So it is unconscionable to me that our secretary of Defense comes right out and of course, of course we'll.
Join the hostilities.
Of course we'll have Israel's back, because make no mistake about it, Aron is already saying they're gonna retaliate Hezela. To your point, Sager, this is a formidable foe they have. Jeremy Scahill over at drop Site News we used this in the show yesterday. He interviewed a top scholar of Hesbela who has studied them and their methods and their tactics and who they are, and how many fighters they have. They have somewhere around one hundred thousand fighters, very different
from Hamas. They have very sophisticated weaponry, and he says if they entered a full scale war Israel versus Hesbla, it could be so devastating that it could lead to this is his words, the unraveling of the Israeli states.
Oh question, So I mean, I'm not saying that's what would happen.
I asked, I asked doctor Parci about this, and he said to say, is that I'm not saying that's what would happen, but many analysts and scholars believe that is the level of destruction that we're talking about that would be on the table. Let's put this next piece up on the screen. From the Financial Times headline here assassinated
the arch enemies of Israel killed in twin strikes. It also is not lost on me that these dual assassinations come as Israel was facing a massive domestic political crisis, which we covered here on the show earlier this week, members of the Kanesset joining up with right wing militia mob to storm two separate Israeli bases because they were upset about soldiers being prosecuted for the gang rape of Palestinians. Are literally rioting to protect soldier's right to gang rate
Palestinian detainees that were being held there. So this was a moment of massive political crisis for bb Net Yahoo. You can bet that all political factions in the country are united behind the efficacy and the execution of these two assassinations. And then the other way it serves boebe is it once again drags us in and expands and extends the conflict, kills the ceasefire negotiations, as I said, which he has never wanted to go forward with.
And just to back up what I was saying about.
That from the Financial Times, the piece we just had up on the screen, they write, honea is killing risks the failure of the already stalled indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas.
Quote.
He was one of the ones pushing for a deal and compromise, and because of his stature, he was able to speak to the guys in Gaza in a more convincing way than other guys. According to an Arab diplomat, while there were others from Hamas involved in the negotiations, you've lost a big voice who was influential and could have a strong say internally within Hama and was for
a deal. The Katari Prime minister also said that the killing would endanger the talks quote how can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side. So doctor Parcy's analysis saga was that part of the motivation here too, maybe to try to box in a Kamala Harris, where there's a question mark about how she would approach this conflict and whether it could be different
from Joe Biden. But if you drag us into some freaking regional war, then she is stuck, stuck pursuing the same failed strategy of a Joe Biden.
Well it would be smart, That's exactly what I would do. You know, he box them in, and then she's already uttered. The shibbolith of American politics Israel.
Right to defend itself.
Yes, something must something you must repeat over and over and over again. To become president. You have to say it three times and turn around. And that's what makes you American president. Let's put this up there on the screen. C six please. This is the terrifying stuff that's happening again with no president on the watch. The Department of State has now raised its Lebanon travel advice to quote do not travel, recommending that US citizens en roll to
receive alert. You also have multiple domestic airlines here in the United States canceling their flights to Israel, as evidenced by the fact that they are afraid of Hezbolah rockets. So all of the ingredients for a massive conflagration, Are there no. Basically, Biden is asleep at the wheel. This might be bee one of the most dangerous times in the international system because America is bogged down in Ukraine
just people. You know, it doesn't even make the news that we just shipped a bunch of F sixteens to Ukraine yesterday with advanced weaponry which takes forever to manufacture here in America. It's cool, you know, if we go to shortage, it'll be all right. We have thirty five hundred troops in Iraq and Syria, some who have already
been attacked as a result of this. Very recently. America actually had an air striking I Rock just two days ago, trying to take down somebody before they launched an attack on US soldiers. We got this Iran Israel situation. Secretary of Defense says we're ready to roll. So we got two front war basically on the brink right now. Who knows what the hell is going on in East Asia? Could be good, you.
Know, unbelievable.
And the last thing that I'll say, you can put C four up on the screen in terms of the likely Iranian response. This is from the uh This is from the political Sorry, this is from Supreme Leader company. Following this bitter tragic event which has taken place within the borders of the Islamic Republic, it is our duty to take revenge. And as we speak, I just saw a Reuter's report that Iran and their proxies are meeting
to discuss retaliation. Representatives of Iran's Palestinian allies Hamas and the Islamic Jitti had as well as Yemen's Tehran Bakhuthi movement, Lebano's Hedspula and Iraqi resistance groups are all attending this meeting in Tehran. So we're all watching and waiting to see what happens next. But make no mistake, this is a very dangerous situation.
Yeah, and that president it was his very first day on the job. So what do you What do all presidents do Whenever something happens in your hometown. You have to appear shows to strength. It doesn't take a genius like they have politics, just like we have politics. Yes, I understand it's a dictatorship, et cetera. Still a big ass country with a big population, and you still have to manage and think about you know what the populace is thinking and how to maintain your grip on power.
He's got internal you know, fights that he has to have with the IRGC who just had somebody blown up in their own headquarters. Like, it doesn't take a genius to figure out which way that the domestic politics of each country is going to push them towards. It's only ours apparently, where our domestic politics doesn't matter.
It's just governed by these other by Israel in particular. But no, to your point, he was elected the new Iranian president as a relative moderate, which on the one hand, you can say, okay, well maybe he'd be more interested in de escalation, and the Iranians have Actually, you know, the previous retaliation was closely calculated to show strength but hopefully not be escalatory, you know, in terms of making sure that there were no massive like civilian debts or
anything like that. So, however, you also have a dynamic where you can imagine here, if someone is elected as kind of like a dove, then you got to beat the rap that you're going to be too soft in a situation like this. So in any case, we'll see how this all unfolds. At the same time, we are watching closely the veepstakes for Kamala Harris, because I do think that who she picks will be quite consequential as a validator for her potentially to help shore up some
of those Midwestern former blue Wall states. And one of the top contenders who has emerged is Governor Josh Shapiro. He has come under a lot of scrutiny from people like me and others on the left because in particular of some very strident comments he made about student protesters, comparing them to the KKK.
I'm going to bring you those comments.
Shortly, but in addition, he also took actions to directly quash protests within the state. He also is bad on charter schools from our perspective, from a left perspective, and has earned the iyre of a lot of unions because of that. He just came out and did this whole thing, I want to slash corporate taxes, So that's also an issue, and you know, he's taken a number of positions that have caused some problems for him among the young progressive
base in the Democratic Party. So there's somewhat of an organized online movement for Kamala to back Tim Walls in particular, but the Iyer is trained towards Josh Shapiro. So of course, of course, because everything now has to be framed in this way, the real issue that is being alleged here is not about those policy positions or the comments he made comparing protesters the KKK No No, the Atlantic has decided the real issue is that we're all just anti
Semites because Josh Shapiro happens to be Jewish. Let's put this up on the screen. We have yeaher Rosenberg, who wrote a piece for The Atlantic. He tweeted it out by saying, Josh Shapiro called Netanyahu one of the worst leaders of all time, but anti Israel activists have mobilized against him, and him alone being on the Democratic ticket. I wrote about the campaign against Shapiro and the perverse politics of Jewish identity. Can put his piece up on
the screen from the Atlantic. He says, anti Israel partisans have every right to advocate against cannons to oppose their cause, and there's nothing inherently anti Semitic about doing so. But as its name implies, the Genocide Josh campaign is not about applying a single standard on Palestine to all VP contenders. It's about applying them to one person who just so happens to be the only Jew on the short list, and to make matters more absurd, to Bear's positions on
Israel don't come close to fitting the epithet. It's become hard to escape the conclusion that some of the activists imposing this inquisition have a problem not just with Israel or Zionism, but with Jews, who they assume are serving a foreign power, no matter what they've actually said or done. Okay, a few things. First of all, none of the other canons on the short list made such provocative like no one else compared us to the KKK.
Okay, so let's start there. Number two.
JB.
Pritzker was talked about for VP. The left likes JB. Pritzker.
Bernie Sanders is like still the reigning icon of the Left. Both of these gents happen to be Jewish. So you know, the total dismissal of either the Israel concerns or any of the other policy focused concerns that the Left have is just part and parcel where it is becoming increasingly the case that someone's Jewish identity can be weaponized to silence any sort of criticism or descent that you may have on what their actual positions and policy statements have been.
Yeah, exactly, especially when you compare the comments that he made and how fastiferous they are. I think we have those comments. Why don't we take a listen.
They have a responsibility to keep students safe. Students shouldn't be blocked from going to campus just because they're Jewish or learning in a classroom as supposed to being forced online because they're Jewish. It is simply unacceptable. And you know what, we have to query whether or not we would tolerate this if this were people dressed up in KKK outfits or KKK regalia making comments about people who
are African American in our communities. Certainly not condoning that Jake by any stretch, But I think we have to be careful about setting any kind of double standard here on our campuses. We got to call it out for what it is, and these university leaders have to make sure there is order on their campuses.
Yeah, it is just a classic misnomer to call everything anti Semitism and to not focus. He didn't even mention it, you know, in the story. It's just all about his identity. This is like as good as this is, as good as identity politics gets. You know, it's like you're the one using your Jewish identity to weaponize a legitimate criticism of you, but you know, apparently that's not anti Semitics. Whatever. This whole stuff, it always drives me crazy.
Last thing I'll say on this is that in that Atlantic article, he makes a point that I think is an interesting point where he says, basically, you know, he could serve as exactly the opposite of what you say by being Jewish, using how his identity as like a shield for the anti Semitism claims that are already coming
at Kamala Harris. You know, Kamala is married to a Jewish Man, but Trump says that he's a crappy Jew I think was the comment, and that you can't believe any Jewish person would vote for Kamala or the Democrats, etc.
Etc.
That he could help blunt some of that criticism and create some space for a different policy visa the Israel that wouldn't be immediately tanked as anti Semitic. I think that that is actually correct, that if he wanted to serve in that role and capacity, that is a possibility. The problem is that based on the positioning and the rhetoric so far, there's no indication that he would want
to serve that role. Kamala herself is very impressionable, Like, no one is under the impression that this person has
any sort of her own ideological core or principles. So that's why if you bring in a vice president who has strongly held views on this issue and is more ideologically committed in the way that Joe Biden was very ideologically committed, who isn't Jewish, by the way, then that can have have an outsize impact on the administration versus if she actually had her own independent views on the issue.
So I do think that that's a legitimate point to make, that his identity could end up being an asset, sort of like a Nixon goes to China kind of a deal that it creates, you know, space, or Bill flinn Nding welfare kind of deal where it creates the space to blunt those charges of anti Semitism. I just see no indication that he actually would want to serve in that role, which is why there's such a concern. And you know, as I mentioned before, the concerns with him
go beyond just Gaza. Also in terms of his policy orientation, promising corporate tax cuts, you know, being very like Obama esque, in terms of his commitment to charter schools and voucher programs and those sorts of things which have earned the ire of teachers unions in the state. And then the other potential issue for him is these allegations about a sexual harassment cover up among a close aid that were
a big deal within the state of Pennsylvania. But saga, I think, you know, it looks increasingly likely it's gonna be Josh Shapiro.
Yeah, I would, but pretty good money on it. At the same time, I think the confounding variable as the UAW did endorse Kamala Harris just two days ago, they said that their two candidates are what was it to and Andy was sheer unlikely? So could be Tim Walts, you know, certainly possible.
I mean, don't get my hopes. I don't think I just so prepared for for.
Defeats a genius. It's Philadelphia, it's a swing state, is a very popular gov. You know, he's more popular than Tim Waltz even in his own home states.
It's the most likely tipping state. Yeah, ticking point state. He is very popular, and her launch is her like launch with her VP pick is in Philadelpha.
It's literally in Philadelphia.
So I mean, either that's like a giant few to him, because can you imagine picking like clim walls and in Shapiro's state. But I mean, I guess crazier things have happened. Her aids are promised. I always had nothing to the schedule was already pre said. It had nothing to do with her pick. Maybe maybe not, we'll see. All right, let's go ahead and get to Matt's to talk about Kamala Harris and corporate power and the billionaire campaign to pressure out Lena Khan.
Let's get to it.
So joining us now is the aforementioned Matt Stoller, who of course works at the American Economic Liberties Project and authors the Big Substack newsletter.
Great to see Zar, good Sea, many, good to see you.
So there has been this ongoing situation of billionaires publicly pressuring Kamala Harris to oust Lena Khan. Of course, FDC commissioner, who has been instrumental in the anti trust direction of
the Biden administration, which is your bread and butter. The most recent part of this saga that I'll start off by getting you to react to was Jake Tapper actually had one of those primary billionaires on Reed Hoffman, and to everyone's surprise, he did a good job of holding Hoffman's feet to the fire over these demands being made. Let's take a listen to how that exchange went down.
You and other big money donors are giving money to Vice President Harris, suggesting also that she.
Replaced the head of the.
FDC, which impacts policy in the economy. What do you say to somebody who watches this and says this isn't how American politics should work. Rich people getting to buy levels of influence.
Well, I totally agree with not buying levels of influence. I separate my role as a donor and expert. So if you ask me as a donor, I say, I'm giving money to Kamala Harris because I think she's the best future president for the US, for business, for a
bunch of other things. If you ask me as an expert about what you know kind of Lena Kahan is doing and where I think she is helping or hurting America relative to your anti merger policies, which are you know, mostly to bring litigation versus you know, really solidly grounded and kind of what's going on, what helps American business thrive here and overseas. Then I give an expert opinion, but I think donor and expert should be kept secret separate.
And I've never tied the two ever in any conversation anywhere.
I've ever had, right, But I mean, that world doesn't really exist where people say, Okay, now I'm talking to Reid Hoffman, the donor, and read Hoffman, the guy with political ideas I'm going to put into the other room.
You know, when I speak to these things, I speak more as a venture capitalist. I never speak as a Microsoft board member.
But there aren't all these There aren't like one hundred Reid Hoffman's. It's not like one of you is a donor and one of you has opinions on Lena Khan, and one of you is on the board of Microsoft, and one of you is a venture capitalist.
You're you're all the same guy.
Of all of Biden's appointees, JD Vance is most enthusiastic about Lena Kahan, and maybe that has some you know, swing voter implications. And maybe also you know some I've also gotten a bunch of feedback from you know, a bunch of people I deeply respect within the democratic ecosystem saying well, you know, we're much more positive than you. And I'm like, look, I love what she's done on
anti competes with employees, with employees. I dislike what she's been doing on and I think it's it's it's bad for investment on on kind of anti trust and back.
So, Matt, before I get your reaction, if you could just specify which identity of Matt Stoler you're going to use in order to give this response, because appairly, what did you make of this exchange and give us a little bit of like the backstory of how we got to this place of Jake Tapper asking Reid Hoffman these questions.
Yeah, So the Biden administration has done, you know, is kind of mixed in a lot of ways. They've kind of continued the neoliberalism of the Democratic establishment accept in a couple of key areas industrial policy, trade and anti trust. So it's sort of taken on big corporations kind of and the main people in that there's been a couple of regulators who've been the leaders in that. Lenacon at the Federal Trade Commission is kind of the most famous one.
And so you have a lot of anger from Wall Street and from Silicon Valley oligarchs about this because they want to do their consolidation of corporate power. Reid Hoffman is a leader in this area. He was a founder of LinkedIn. He is actually part of a network called the PayPal Mafia. There's a bunch of billionaires in Silicon Valley that got their start at pay Palace includes Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, and then there are some liberal ones.
Reed Hoffman is the.
Democrat and he is a big donor to the Democrats' longtime donor. And so what they're saying they hated Biden because Biden was preventing them from consolidating power, which is what they really wanted. And so some of them moved to Trump, and some of them sort of participated in trying to push Biden out and now trying to kind of buy Kamala Harris. And that's what ried Hoffman is doing. He gave a lot of money to Kamala Harris's super pack and they're trying to say, look, we love you.
We think you're great. Push Lena Kann out, get rid of this new trade industrial policy tariff thing and anti trust thing, and we can go on and return.
To the great days of Obama and Bill Clinton. And that's what this is really about.
And so how successful do you think that that's be? How successful does that campaign look so far? She receptive to it. What are the leaks been, like, I know you've been highlighting some Wall Street quotes. What do they think?
Yeah, so the Wall Street murders guys and Silicon Valley oligarchs are super happy because they think that they.
Own Kamala Harris and they've been giving her orders.
Her advisors are people like Aaron Dunn, who's a Google lawyer at a Qualcom lawyer is actually leading the case against the government on Google's monopolization claims. And she's also helping to prep Vice President Harris for debates. And then Tony West is one of her close advisors, also her brother in law.
He's the general counsel of Uber.
Her niece Mina Harris worked I believe Uber and Slack and Facebook. There's, you know, this network of people that she knows and has are very close to big tech very close to Wall Street.
So I think it's a pretty good chance.
That she does get rid of the antitrust enforcers, that she does try to return us to a kind of neoliberal frame on trade.
I mean, they think they own her.
I don't think that's quite that start, but I think they have a pretty good She just kind of agrees with them, I think in a lot of ways. And so the only question is are the parts of the of the Democratic Coalition that are that want more populism? Are they going to stand up to her? They didn't stand up to Obama. Are they going to stand up to her? That's the only question.
Yeah, And let me let me diag into that, because it's not like Biden had some great reputation as some like opponent of Wall Street and corporate America. Right, he was famously known as the Senator from MBNA because of his coziness with the credit card company. It did all kinds of terrible things with bankruptcy law that Elizabeth Warren
was fighting him about, et cetera, CEA. So how does it end up that guy who has no track record of populism really to point to in terms of his lengthy tenure in the Senate and was part of the Obama Biden administration. How does that guy end up being the guy that brings in Jonathan Canter and Lena Khan and does industrial policy, etc.
Because I think part of that is the.
Behind the scenes pressures, if I'm not wrong, that have been brought to bear on the Democratic Party.
Yeah, I mean I think that there's that's part of it.
But I also think, you know, I did a bunch of interviews right before Biden took office, just talking to his old to his kind of his crowd. And Biden always saw himself as kind of a foreign policy guy, and he was the Senator from Delaware and he's like, look, I have to represent the credit card companies because those are my constituents. But that's the job. But he always had this kind of resentment towards elites in particularly like
Ivy League elites. He hated the Silicon Valley guys. He always thought the Wall Street guys looked down on him. His people were more like the cable guys, right, and the people in the industrial parts of the economy that like make things. And there was a resentment there. Now, you wouldn't necessarily have seen it a lot in his track record. Although Steven Bryer when he was overseeing him, he was the head of Judiciary and Stephen Bryer was coming up to the Supreme Court, Biden did call him
an elitist. So culturally Biden was kind of like set. He's also old and understood the world before neoliberalism, and so Biden was in some sense he had a mild streak of populism there. And then I think he saw what Trump had done and he said, look, the Democrats have to move in a different direction.
Kamala Harris is just not like that.
Her.
While Biden's cultural people were kind of like this resentful, they had a sort of chip on their shoulder types. I think Kamala Harris is much more comfortable with the whole Obama world. Very smooth, very tech friendly, very much like very corporate. That does not say she might look at the same situations say I agree with Biden, we need to move in a more populars direction.
She might say that. She's also just a lot less substantive than he is.
She does not have a particularly you know, unlike Obama, unlike Biden.
She just doesn't seem to care about policy for good or bad.
So it's just it's a different character, and maybe she just was like, you know whatever, I don't want to pick with those with the populists. I don't know exactly what she does, what she's going to do, but everybody's surrounding her and her whole kind of you know, cultural milia. Her friends are going to are pushing, are going to push her in a really bad direction. On the other hand, she's not on in idiologue like Obama was a very strong idiolost we have to help the banks, we have
the help Silicon Valley. That's how America great. And that's not what Kamala Harris thinks. So it's a little bit uncertain, but I'm not super optimistic about the direction that she's she's going.
Matt.
One thing that I've been thinking about, I saw someone
positing this on Twitter. I want to run this by you, is that, you know, the Riet Hoffmans and other billionaires who are pushing this like ouse Lena Kahan thing, they made kind of a tactical error by making this such a like clear public litmus test from the jump, because I've seen you know, groups and senators organizing online to push back and say, you know, in labor unions, Elizabeth Warren, those types saying no, no, no, Lena Khan needs to
say she's doing great work, et cetera. And and so having this done publicly, like in front of everybody's eyes, has been a bit of a mistake in terms of their actual goal, because this would be the type of thing that normally would be handled better in a back room at a donor meeting, etc. And she gets pulled before there's any attempt to marshal a defense of her.
I wonder what you make of that.
I think that's right.
I mean, a lot of unions have come out and said, look, we like what Lena Conna's doing, we want to maintain the tariffs and so on and so forth, and so that makes it a lot harder for Harris to do. If Harris did want to change direction, it would make it harder because a bunch of people have said no, we like this, and so she'd have to pick a fight to do it.
So that that is certainly true.
But I'd say there's another part of this, which is when a big donor comes out and says we want to get rid of tariffs, and we want to know, we want dominant corporations to do whatever we want and we own this candidate. It opens up a huge political and Kamala Harris didn't disavow it either, Like they've asked her campaign and her campaign is like, well, we have no plans to get rid of Lena Khan at this time.
Not right, good, But that's not a denial, right right.
And it's like that is a huge vulnerability if Trump picks up on it, because Trump, I mean, he's not running a populist campaign, right is de banning has gone and you know, talked about and talked about this a little bit, but like she's hugely vulnerable to being turned into Hillary if Trump does pick up on this stuff, because it's like crazy to be like, yeah, you know, Silicon Valley billionaires are demanding that you sell out the country and you won't take a position on that.
That looks really bad.
And she's really lucky that Trump is so off kilter and unable to pick up on it.
But isn't he also vulnerable to the same charge. I mean, Peter Thiel and Elon Musk are all in, the other members of the PayPal Maulvi are all in for him. Elon Musk very publicly, Like while he said he was going to give forty five million and then I was like, no, I'm not going to do that. But it's very clear Elon Musk is running Twitter for Donald Trump and the Republican Party sold benefit. So isn't he also open to those charges?
I mean, be sure, like Donald Trump is open to the charge of him.
That's great, but you know it's I just think it's opening up a vulnerability where she doesn't need to have one, and that is totally due to Read Hoffman. I mean, Reid Hoffman is is fostering us. You know, this is a real risk for the Democrats that Read Hoffman.
Has opened up.
Big donors are I don't think big donors. I mean that's what Jake Tapper said, is doesn't this look bad? Big donors are not. I don't think they should exist. But like it was a really huge I think you're right, it's a tactic Blair.
It's strategic error.
But it's also just really dangerous for him to do that to the Democratic Party and just make his advance.
Yeah, I think that's all very well said Matt. Is always great to have your insights into these things, because I mean, one of the difficulties with Kamala Harris is, like you said, she's not an ideologue.
She's been all over the place.
Her rhetoric now in certain things, you know, sounds good, but you have no idea what she actually means at any given time. So trying to read those tea leaves is really important. So thank you for helping us to do that.
Good to see you many, Good to see you guys.
All right, Zager, what are you looking at well?
The central idea of tried to hammer home here on the show over the last several years is what the media tells us divides us, which is race has never actually mattered less in modern American history. It's not class either, although I wish it was. It's almost all education, whether you have a four year college degree or not. I've done many monologues now on the subject about what that means, but since it's a political show, I'll focus on how
it manifests with parties. Basically, the best predictor today, especially if you're under fifty, of whether you're a Democrat or not, is whether you have a four year college degree. The higher up that you go on degrees like masters in PhD, the more you likely you are to be liberal and a Democrat. The same is true actually down the educational spectrum,
from PhD to GED to those who don't finish college. Now, what's been interesting in the last few years is not pointing out that trend, since it's very obvious now, but instead to see how it has put pressure on the other major divide in US politics. Gender. Gender has always divided Americans. It's mostly true over the years that if only women voted, than Democrats would win. If only men voted,
then Republicans would win. This slightly changes if you incorporate marital status and a few other factors, but something recently has changed a lot. It used to be that you could pretty reliably rely on least young men to espouse more liberal views than their older counterpoints and more aligned
with gender. Now, something basically true throughout modern history. The recent educational divide, though, and especially the population of media with college educated viewpoints, has now flipped that on a dime. Seemingly overnight. Young men, it seems, for the very first time ever in modern American history, are actually becoming increasingly
right wing. A New Wall Street Journal analysis of multiple different data sets finds that young men between the ages of eighteen to twenty nine are becoming astonishingly Republican, and perhaps even more importantly, are diverging significantly from young women and their peer group. For example, when Biden was still in the race, the Journal found of young men under thirty back Donald Trump by a majority, with a full fourteen point spread in the latest Wall Street r A poll.
That swing is especially astonishing because just four years ago, in twenty twenty, Biden won young men by some fifteen points, so it constitutes a net thirty percent swing. When you dig down into the issue sets, it actually starts to get very crazy. Take quote favoring or opposing major action on climate change. For women, it's a plus sixty seven percent issue. For men, it's just plus thirty two for legal abortion. With women, it is plus fifty three for men,
just plus sixteen. For student loans, it's plus forty five for women. For men plus two allowing kids to pick their gender identity women plus two. For men, it is a whopping minus thirty three for supporting task cuts. With men, it's a plus twenty three. With women. It's a minus twenty for building a border wall with Mexico, minus four
for men, minus forty seven for women. So, in other words, for some pretty major issues in US politics, the spread in importance and depth of feeling for young men and women is significant. That's spread itself, and what parties are running on, namely immigration and abortion, explains why both would then trend majorly in both directions. So what does this
relate to education? While I would point out to you that the student loan question, the reason there's a forty percent net difference between young men and women on student loans is it's mostly young women who are going to college. As I have covered here now for several years, many young men, at higher rates than ever before, are dropping out. Many elite colleges are now running a two to one ratio of women to men, with the trend only going
in an even further polarized direction. As I've covered here a lot, whether you go to college or not, really just colors basically everything about you, what music you like, if you like to travel, what TV shows, what movies. But really, what I think the difference is is that young people also get almost all of their news online and all their entertainment, namely through social media, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and the main force at play. There is also algorithmic amplification.
This explains why there has been a big surge in young female enthusiasm for Kamala Harris. You've got the so called coconut pill and the memes of Kamala as Bratt. They've been overwhelmingly politically inclined young women on TikTok and elsewhere. Simultaneously, if you're a young dude you watch fitness content or the UFC, what are you seeing pop up things like Jake Paul's Trump endorsement or Logan Paul's Trump interview. Trump literally walking out to a massive fanfare at the UFC
and fighters who are constantly talking him up. Both are cultural institutions of men and women who are very young and are polarizing significantly. They consume very different media, they care dramatically about different issues, and in the future it could set us up for some very interesting politics, one where men and women of the very same race and probably even the very same class, begin to diverge their votes.
I've spoken at length Heer about how I think the social consequences of this will likely be bad, But at this point all we can really say is that the ball is now clearly in motion and the future it will be, I guess interesting if this trend continues. So I was fascinated by this, Crystal. I actually thought that.
And if you want to hear my reaction to Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at break kingpoints dot com.
All Right, thank you everybody for watching. We really appreciate you, and we will see you all later