8/29/24: Kamala First Interview, American Dream Over, Trump Tariff Debate, Trump Facing Six Years In Prison, UN Aid Car Shot By IDF, Bernie To Trump Pipeline - podcast episode cover

8/29/24: Kamala First Interview, American Dream Over, Trump Tariff Debate, Trump Facing Six Years In Prison, UN Aid Car Shot By IDF, Bernie To Trump Pipeline

Aug 29, 20242 hr 4 min
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Episode description

Krystal and Saagar discuss Kamala first interview, voter registration spikes, Americans say dream is over, Trump tariff plan, Trump facing over six years in prison, UN aid worker vehicle shot by IDF, Bernie to Trump pipeline.  

 

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Transcript

Speaker 1

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.

Speaker 2

We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio ad staff give you, guys, the best independent.

Speaker 3

Coverage that is possible.

Speaker 2

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 today. What do we have, Crystal, indeed we do.

Speaker 1

We are awaiting tonight the long anticipated Kamala Harris interview. She amazingly hasn't given one since Biden dropped down, which now feels like eighty three years ago. So that's happening alongside her vice presidential picked Tim Walls, so we will preview that. We also have finally, actually a significant amount of polling coming out post DNC, especially some Fox News swing state poles that are very interesting, and also some voter registration data that is worth digging into, so we'll

get into that. We're also taking a look at a Wall Street Journal poll of how Americans are feeling about the American dream seems kind of important, so we're going to dig into that. We've got some Trump indictment news, a superseding indictment issued in the election interference case. We're also going to take a look at Trump's economic plan. Since we've been focused a little bit on what Kamala Harris is up to, we'll contrast what Trump's plans are.

Speaker 4

As best you can decipher.

Speaker 1

Not that you ever really know what that man is going to do, but we should take him at his word that these are the things that he plans to implement if he is once again elected at president of the United States. We also have some news coming out of Israel. There's kind of sort of maybe a temporary partial ceasefire in order to vaccinate some Palestinians for polio. There is now a polio outbreak in the Gaza Strip.

So we'll take a look at that. And I am doing a monologue today on whether or not the Bernie to Trump pipeline is real. This, of course Zaga being relevant in the wake of the RFK Junior and Tulsi Gabbard Trump endorsements.

Speaker 3

There's something going on there. We could talk about it.

Speaker 4

I apologize Evan.

Speaker 1

Yeah, the monologue is way too but not when I scratched the surface, there was too much.

Speaker 4

I want to well, there's.

Speaker 2

Been a fun split and you know, it's like it's almost like a it's one of the it's almost like a study of religion or something, and to see like the fractionalization of all of it. So anyway, I'm interested and I'm excited to talk about it. Thank you to all of our premusbscribers Breakingpoints dot com if you want to go ahead and sign up and help us out here. But why don't we begin with Kamala the Big Interview.

Speaker 4

Yes, today tonight at what nine pm?

Speaker 3

It's tonight. I unfortunate it would be on a plane, but Crystal will have a.

Speaker 1

Cover Bana Bash also known maybe as bb Bash because of her pro Israel commentary. Anyway, that'll be potentially relevant. Let's go and put the announcement up on the screen. So Kamala Harris and Tim Walls are in a sit with CNN's Dana Bash this evening nine pm Eastern. It says it occurs as the candidates embark on a bus tour through the battleground state of Georgia. Marks the first time Harris I sat with the journalist Born in depth

on the record conversation. Since President Joe Biden dropped his bid for second term and endorse her on July twenty one, a lot of pressure on her soccer obviously, to agree to do an interview, which seems like kind of the basics of what you would expect from a get it for president and a democracy so good that this is finally happening. A lot made of the fact that she's

going to have Tim Walls alongside of her. You know, one of the risks of waiting so long and doing so few at this point zero interviews is that it makes.

Speaker 4

Each one so much more sence.

Speaker 1

Yes, well, if you do a lot of interviews, also, it makes the media happier, so they're more likely to go a little bit easier on you. When you wait so long, you you know, on the one hand, it means you don't have an opportunity to make a mistake.

She's timed this very strategically to be before the Labor Day weekend holiday weekend, so if she does stumble, as is possible, and as we've seen in previous interviews, it's very likely, you know, after the long holiday weekend and we'll come back next week on Tuesday, that a lot of that will be forgotten. So it's strategically timed, et cetera. But there's no doubt that she has built a lot of anticipation around this interview simply because of the scarcity of Kamala Harris unscriptures.

Speaker 2

That's why risk is there, and so that's why there's a criticism that she's doing it with Tim Wallas. It's actually apparently I didn't know this. Apparently it is a tradition that you're supposed to do a sit down interview it's with your running mate. It's just that you usually do it like the day after you name your running mate. You don't usually wait for several weeks or any of that.

It's an extraordinary time. I think only sixty eight days as of today until the election, I know, which is nuts whenever you put it that way.

Speaker 4

Voting starts in some states in like ninety.

Speaker 2

Yeah, nine days, you have early voting reaches out completely crazy. But okay, let's come back and think about the interview. The real risk here is that one of the major benefits for Trump, I think we can always say, was the spray and prey strategy where he just does He's always in.

Speaker 3

The public eye at all times.

Speaker 2

So I remember when I covered him at the White House, he would say something crazy and then we would do an interview, get cleared up, or so we would do something else and everyone would move on within twenty four hours, sometimes even less than that. And that's the thing. The risk is if you do one bad one and then you are you know, entrenched. Where all the evidence we have so far from her campaign, it's very risk averse.

So they're looking back at all their past interviews. We're going to show everybody some highlights and some things that they want to do. But given her bad experience now so far, it may actually retrench her and then all we will have as media and others is this single

interview where it possibly it doesn't go that well. I also do think there's like a real softball element and you talk to her about Dana Bash, Jana Bash is an incredibly biased figure from her Israel commentary to her like masculinity commentary, which we were going to talk about last time in our show and eventually will at some point.

But like this is not you know, some so called straight up news anchor, fine if it's one of a lot, but it's a little different whenever it's somebody who is not on the record praising Tim Walls immediately and I'll gamaff immediately after the speech, and then you turn to the first interview.

Speaker 3

It's funny.

Speaker 2

Our friend Glenn Greenwald, before the interview was announced, he's like, I bet she goes to somebody like Dana Bash, you know, and he's as good as he's even more cynical than me, which takes a lot of work. But what he's accurately pointing out is that you go to the safe route, and I think that's one of the reasons that they are doing so.

Speaker 3

And I you know, I mean, I don't think that's a good thing. I really don't.

Speaker 1

I mean, I think Dana Bash will feel enough pressure just given the high profile nature of the event. She's going to ask some things that are meant to challenge, and you know, in terms of Kamala and how she will perform, I genuinely don't know what to expect because, frankly, after she did that Lesterhold interview that you know on the border that was crashed and burned, she basically didn't do any more interviews for like, you know a long.

Speaker 4

Time and I don't.

Speaker 1

So that's my last impression of how she performs in these settings, and obviously was very, very poor. But that was also probably her most catastrophic interview is incident. So I'm wondering if my expectations for her are too low because I'm actually biased in terms of thinking like that's how her standard performances and in general. Obviously, when she was running for president, she gave a lot of interviews and most of them were not all that noteworthy.

Speaker 4

She was able to get through it well.

Speaker 1

Enough, so so yeah, the expectations are high. Perhaps the Lester Holt interview being the last thing in people's minds have set the expectations very low for her, which means that she just kind of gets through it with no major major stumbles, then I will be relatively inconsequential. But obviously, because she's waited.

Speaker 4

So long, she's built up that risk. You know.

Speaker 1

The knock, the very legitimate I think knock on Kamal Harris that she and her team themselves obviously must agree with, given how cautious they've been about putting her into unscripted settings, is that she's not good in interviews and she's not good in debates. But again, you know, thinking back to how she did against Mike Pints, for example, she did fine, and she had some moments that you know, was perfectly serviceable performance, and she had some moments that they felt

good about. Now, those moments are are the sort of thing that the media celebrate, a very like girl Boss type of moments, and you know that she was proud of and sort of reminiscent of that little Girl was Me shot that she landed on Joe Biden, etcetera, et cetera. But CNN was recently reliving some of what they considered to be her strongest debate moments against Mike Pence.

Speaker 4

Let's go ahead and take a listen to a little bit of that.

Speaker 5

No, but this is important, and I want to add, mister Vice president, I'm speaking, I'm speaking.

Speaker 6

You can get fifty more seconds and then we'll give the vice president chance.

Speaker 5

Joe Biden has been very clear he will not raise taxes on anybody who makes less than four hundred thousand.

Speaker 3

The Trump tax cut.

Speaker 5

Mister Vice President, I'm speaking, well, i'm speaking. The important is you said the truth is he only going to repeal part of the Trump tax cuts. If you don't mind letting me finish, we can then have a conversation. Okay, please, okay, let's talk about Yeah, I'm about to.

Speaker 3

I mean it was like.

Speaker 7

Is that it was not just watching you right now?

Speaker 4

That is just what happened right there.

Speaker 8

So so women oftentimes in the workplace try to be able to get their voices heard and then men try to you.

Speaker 7

Never did you ever notice, Lauren, let me let you finish your point, attempted to be here, he has the floor.

Speaker 3

Is that right? I don't.

Speaker 4

That's lovely, thank you.

Speaker 9

No.

Speaker 6

Look, I mean they they are counting on the debates being a kind of catharsis for Democrats.

Speaker 4

Now, I remember when people watching, Yeah, just turn on cable news.

Speaker 3

You're right.

Speaker 2

I mean they erected a literal I'm speaking mural here in Washington, d C. I'm not sure if you remember that. But what CNN wants to do, what CNN was highlighting is that's what they want. That's part of the reason what they want out of the debate. It's part of the reason why Kamala wanted unmuted mics. By the way, we still have yet to get a actual answer on the unmuted microphone.

Speaker 4

I thought they decided they were going to stick with the original rule.

Speaker 2

That's what Trump said, But then the Kamala campaign came out and was like, no, we still haven't agreed on that. But he's like, I will be at the debate whatever. Okay, I don't even particularly care at this point.

Speaker 3

Someone let me know.

Speaker 2

Just let me know though, what the actual rules are. The point being that, yeah, look, she does fine. I mean personally, you know that doesn't do it for me. But I'm not the only person who votes in this country. There are a lot of people apparently who like it. What you want to see from a Kamala Harris is just a normal like you want a baseline. But the problem is, and this is where it gets to the risk, is that she has had many moments where she significantly

underperforms the politician baseline. And that is the interesting thing here where you have somebody who right now you know not only is running on vibes but purely on script and when you're so defensive. And what we also know about her is I think she's a deep, insecure individual from behind the scenes. We know this from her interviews from the high staff turnover, from all of the leaks about the people, about how she explodes behind the scenes

whenever she feels like she's not prepared. This is a very typical politician thing to blame your staff when an interview goes badly, even though it's like, hey, you're the one on the camera, lady, like you know, you're the one who allegedly is trying to get elected. So I could see it going both ways. I do think it's going to be better for her that Tim Wallace is there with her, because frankly is just a far more compelling figure. He can he's more affable, he can clean

some things up if he needs to. And in general, my general rule is like, if you really can't sit for thirty forty five minutes and not make an idiot of yourself, you don't belong in this business period, Like you should never have made it this far. So if she does fail, I mean that just is real evidence about her genuine weakness as a candidate off the cuff where look, you can try and hide as candidate, but as president it is actually quite literally impossible. The demands

of the job actually make it. Even Biden, we saw they tried their absolute best. We had plenty of evidence before we ever set foot on that debate stage.

Speaker 3

He was a long gone man, right.

Speaker 2

And so there is a proven aspect to this job where I think some Americans hopefully will be watching, and she has set the stakes now so high given that she's waited over a month to even have an interview. Also, I do think it's a little bs to time it right before Labor Day weekend, when people like me are getting on a plane and many others are probably jetting off or getting in the car and going somewhere on vacation. So that's you know, that's another sign of weakness that we see there.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I do think in terms of her public appearances, it seems to me Kamala Harris has never had more confidence.

Speaker 4

Than she does right now.

Speaker 3

That's absolutely she has.

Speaker 1

You know, she has a swagger and a command that she is kind of like, you know, undefinable X factor type characteristics that we didn't really see in twenty twenty. But just to take relive, you know, what was perhaps her worst interview moment and which is really perplexing on a variety of levels because the question was totally totally predictive. Well question that you received and is just completely flummox by.

This is the now infamous Lesterholt border interview with Vice presid Kama Harrison satalism.

Speaker 8

It's one of the topic I wanted to talk to you about it. Let me just quickly put a button. Do you have any plans to visit the border.

Speaker 5

I'm here in Guatemala today. At some point, you know we are going to the border. We've been to the border. So this whole, this whole, this whole thing about the border. We've been to the border. We've been to the border. You haven't been to the border, and I haven't been to Europe, and I don't I don't understand the point that you're making. I'm not discounting the importance of the border.

Speaker 8

Well I mentioned because I know Republicans have certainly come atch you on this, but Democratic Congressman quare As a border district has said to you and the President, come you can see this.

Speaker 5

And I care about what's happening at the border. I'm in Guatemala because my focus is dealing with the root causes of migration. There may be some who think that that is not important, but It is my firm belief that if we care about what's happening at the border, we better care about the root causes and address them. And so that's what I'm doing.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I mean that was a very infamous moment, right for a good reason. We inarticulate lack of command of the facts, a little bit of arrogant air too. I mean, these are these are like the absolute basics, and that's part of what why she was the most unpopular or vice president in modern history, you know, up until she

basically got anointed here. And there's no question in my mind, I don't think she would win an open primary if it were actually opened back in the day, but you know, in a real process, not necessarily being anointed.

Speaker 3

And that is why I think we are.

Speaker 2

I mean it's a risky proposition for her and for the Democrats. And you see it too, where all of the flip flopping on all of these issues, there's almost been so many that you'd have to do an interview solely focused on that, as opposed to you'd be like, okay, medicare for all, talk about medic aw, then let's do fracking. Then let's do what the border wall, which you're not you're a pro border. Now let's go about the what about crime?

Speaker 4

About criminals?

Speaker 3

Yeah, let's cry it's I.

Speaker 2

Mean I could probably spend two hours with that woman just being like this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this and so do I have confidence that Dana Bash is going to do all that? No, And that's part of the issue, you know, and part of the why she needs to do more interviews, because the other danger is that we see her recreate her infamous debate moment with Tulci Gabbard where she has no idea what

to do when called out on her hypocrisy. So with Dana Bash, I mean she'll probably hit her on probably I'm guessing fracking, just because that's one where we've seen them stumble in the past, and probably the border too.

Speaker 3

I mean, that's the most stark one.

Speaker 4

So we'll ask her some at least challenging questions.

Speaker 3

I think, I really hope.

Speaker 1

So now I would be surprised if she didn't, because it just as I said, they've kind of pissed off the press and so they've made it much more likely that the question will be a bit more hostile, even from someone like Dana bas But to your point, soager, and this is part of why I think there will be some at least somewhat challenging questions. You had John Berman speaking to a Kamala Harris spokesperson and on the

flip flopping question, was really pressing him on fracking. Let's take a listen to how that exchange went.

Speaker 10

The Vice President has changed her position on fracking in Pennsylvania.

Speaker 3

Do you know why she's changed her position? Listen.

Speaker 11

I mean, she's been very clear here. She's proud of the work that she's done as a part of this administration making sure that American energy production is at an all time high. We want to continue that progress into

her first term in office. Here and again, I think, whether it's energy policy, economic policy writ large, that you have a fighter in Kamala Harris who is actually keeping these interests of the American people front and center, coming together to bring people together in search of solutions that actually improve people's quality of life, improve our economy, improve energy FORDU.

Speaker 10

But but on frecking, was there something that changed her mind specifically during the four years of the Biden presidency.

Speaker 11

Now, listen again, the Vice President is very proud of the Biden Harris administration's record on energy production in the economy were at large, she wants to continue to build upon the progress that we've made here that goes for energy production and it goes for the economy across the board.

Speaker 1

Right, So you know he's pressed multiple times there and this one of the things that will be interesting is like usually when Kamala is prepared, she does well. Yeah, you know when she that first debate in twenty twenty in the Democratic primary, you know that little girl was me. Moment has kind of like curdled over time, but it hit in the moment and she was good. Not just then,

but she was on it in that debate. She was very good because a lot of the fire wasn't trained on her, so she could just insert herself when she felt comfortable, she could sort of occupy that role as the prosecutor. She had clearly like prepared herself very well for that and she wasn't caught on off guard for whatever reason the lesser whole interview, she was not prepared for that question. There's no one to blame but herself for that.

Speaker 4

And a lot of.

Speaker 1

The potentially difficult line in questioning here is also very anticipatable, like the you know, the flip flop questions are really obvious. So if you can't answer that, if you don't have a plan for answering that you can't execute in the moment, it really would be sort of pathetic. Strikely, it would be fairly pathetic. One last point I want to make about this, and then I get your final last time we can move on to the latest.

Speaker 4

With regard to the polls.

Speaker 1

But part of why, and I think this is unfortunate, but part of why I don't think that most voters really care that much about how many interviews she does, et cetera, et cetera, is because of the fact that media is so discredited, you know, like how much punch does it really pack when Republicans are on the one hand, like all of this is fake news media and you know, Dana Bash is terrible, et cetera, et cetera, but also we really wanted to sit down for an interview with

the fake news media. And for a long time, liberals have been the last bastion of like media trust, and that continues to be the case at certainly much higher levels than Republicans, but that has eroded. Also, there was a lot of I don't know if you guys followed this or were in these circles, but there was a lot of liberal criticism and continues to be a lot of liberal criticism of like the New York Times and the wash In Post first over what they saw as

unfair coverage of Joe Biden's age. They sort of dropped that one, but now and some of these are really legitimate, Like some of the fact checks that Washington Posts and New York Times have been doing have been relatively absurd. And so there's a media critique conversation that's happening in the liberal side of the equation too that I really

have never seen before. And of course independents are also really disaffected and distrustful Americans in general, just like across the board, our mistrusting of the media, and so you know, I think that's part of why she feels like she's going to check this box, because she's under some pressure to do it. But other than that, I don't think she feels particularly compelled or pressured to do these interviews.

And again, that's that's an unfortunate thing. That's a sign of the degradation both of our media and of like small de democracy in the country.

Speaker 4

But I saw one.

Speaker 1

Journalist describe her as like the first post media presidential candidate, and I think in a sense that that is correct. She just doesn't feel much pressure and isn't going to feel much pressure to have to subject herself to truly rigorous, difficult interviews.

Speaker 4

And that's just kind of the new reality.

Speaker 1

In American politics until we the people force a different reality from this, just like skating by and not really happy part questions.

Speaker 3

Exactly right.

Speaker 2

So I look at the data very recently, trust in the media amongst democrats partisan democrats is roughly seventy three percent, but it's much higher for institutions like MSNBC and others where they feel like some kinship. And in general, what you're seeing, especially with younger generations, is that you know.

Speaker 3

Cutting the cord.

Speaker 2

Obviously I support that, and people should and then should support the show, but you know, has really led to a stratification of news consumption. The only reason that Trump is not the first post media candidate is because he's so old. He still worships a lot of mainstream media brands like the New York Times and Time magazine. I mean, in his head, he still thinks Time magazine is relevant. I'm like, again, I was born in nineteen eighty two.

For me, Time is like time for kids. I'm like, it's like trash, like something you can throw in the trash. Do I know that it once upon a time was relevant? Yeah, that's like telling me about somebody being on the cover of Life magazine in World War Two. I collect them. Yeah, it doesn't mean I care about that. Does it even exist anymore? I literally couldn't tell you. Yeah, And that's a generational thing. So for Kamala and for a lot

of her advisors, they are in. The other thing is too, is that the Democrats, and Obama was the chief of this. Obama had a deep disdain for the media. People don't realize this because he privately both would talk with his advisors and he was like, why do I have to give these people anything. They're gonna basically support me no matter what. They hate the Republicans, and why should I subject myself to fake scrutinies. So he would do He

actually pioneered, you know, the modern influenced presidency. Remember his videos with BuzzFeed or he was the first person to do a Vox interview he actually made history in his first question as President of the United States was not to the New York Times or the Associated Press. It was to the Huffington Post. And that was a very clear signal. He was like, Hey, the rest of you, I got options now. Yeah, and that I mean that was two thousand and eight or two thousand and nine, Yeah,

the day that happened. To think about how long it's been since that. So, Pamla, look at the DNC, you had the Creator Lounge and all on that. That is a proto of what is to come. That's not necessarily a good thing, but you're right in terms of you know, partisan distrusted media is at a point right now where and the Quentin Tarantino was the perfect thing where he's like, why shouldn't you do an interview? He's like, I'm going

to vote for you no matter what you say. There's a lot of a lot of people who actually.

Speaker 3

Think that, and they think that about Trump as a wall. True.

Speaker 1

Yeah, Trump has some elements of this strategy too. He is really leaning into and you see this with the Tulsi and the RFK junior picks. He's really leaning into the sort of like you know, online anti establishment podcast Realm. He's doing an interview with Lex Friedman apparently coming up as an example of that and betting that that's like a significant enough force now in American politics to make a difference from him. So interesting experiment that he's running there.

But but yeah, I mean the previous norms of sitting for these interviews and feeling responsibility to do them, and like the main networks, you know, getting these interviews regular, it's basically over. And so this is this pressure resulting in her sitting down and doing this interview with Dana Bash is kind of a last gasp of the old way of doing things for better and mostly for worse. Let's go and move on to the polling here that

we have. It's been you know, a while now since the DNC wrapped, and we haven't had a lot of especially high quality polling. We finally got some Fox News polls and this is they are quality polster out of several battleground states.

Speaker 4

Let's go and put this up on the screen.

Speaker 1

These are really interesting and I'll tell you why in just a second. So we've got Arizona Harris fifty Trump forty nine, so one point difference there Georgia Harris fifty Trump forty eight, Nevada Harris fifty Trump forty eight, and North Carolina is the one where Trump has a one point lead.

Speaker 4

And part of what this really.

Speaker 1

Grabbed a lot of attention saga is that these numbers are almost exactly the twenty twenty Biden Trump actual election numbers, So a lot of twenty twenty vibes coming out of these polls. These were taken post DNC and also just after the RFK dropout.

Speaker 4

So they should in theory.

Speaker 1

Although sometimes it takes time for news to know leak out people to really get a sort of wrap their heads around changing dynamics, et cetera, but they should reflect both a potential post DNC bounce and a potential impact of RFK dropping out and endorsing Trump.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 2

I mean that is really interesting battleground polling. And you can take it two different ways. You can say, wow, that's accurate, it's just like twenty twenty, or you can point to the fact that it's so ambiguous and within the margin of error it effectively just says, well, we'll always stay on the show. It's like coin flip. If

I look at the Nate Silver projection. His last projection that came out after RFK dropped out of the race, is not in terms of the national polling, but he has in his forecast Harris at a fifty point four percent and Trump at forty eight point four And that's.

Speaker 3

As close as you could possibly get for the tie.

Speaker 2

I looked at Polymarket just this morning, the biggest betting market site right now, it's about Trump fifty percent t Kamala forty nine percent. Same thing, And so I think a lot of it will come down to both polling error, but a lot of it is also enthusiasm. And enthusiasm though is with the Democrats. So right now, the brand new gallop Gallop pulling out this morning, US respondents enthusiasm about voting compared to different presidential elections is at the

highest level since nineteen ninety six. Actually, Democratic excitement about voting is now surging to two thousand and eight levels. Now, that said, one of the reasons why this is very different from two thousand and eight is that Republicans were not enthusiastic to vote No. Eight while Democrats were, whereas this time around, Republicans are actually quite enthusiastic.

Speaker 3

So you actually have the battle of excitement.

Speaker 2

You could say previously it was trending in the direction of a lower turnout election of twenty twenty. I don't think that's going to be the case this time. It may even be higher or matching. And remember twenty twenty was the highest level a voter participation that we've had in decades.

Speaker 3

So actually, quite a lot of this is actually.

Speaker 2

Going to come down to turning out your own side and the traditional coalition. If you're Harris, that's a good thing. You're Trump, it's also a good thing. So it really puts you in a fighting chance on both sides of that.

Speaker 3

I mean, if I were Trump.

Speaker 2

This is why, you know, with the podcast thing, it's easy to cringe all that, but it's one of those where is it going to be the you know, is it going to be the main reason you win? Absolutely not.

But in a game of inches, basically everything matters. And that's why, you know, RFK is really what brought me back to totally Trump fifty to fifty, because yes, he's still going to be on the ballot, but you know, if he's going to be stumping out there on the campaign trail for Trump, and same with Tulsi like listen, one percent. That's the difference. That's literally the margin in half of these states.

Speaker 1

See, I just I give I actually don't think that it is a smart strategy leaning into the Tulsi Gabbard RFK junior strategy.

Speaker 3

Well about podcast more, Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 4

The podcasting is interesting. We'll see.

Speaker 1

Yeah, a lot of these a lot of the podcast is going on. The people that are listening to them, are are you supporting him? But let me go ahead and cueue up this this next sound by, because to be honest with you, this is more persuasive to me than frankly, any of the poles that I've seen because polls, we've seen them be all over the place, and I don't know what to make of them at this point. Are they understanding Trump or the over stating Trump? You

can look at twenty twenty and say they're understating. You can look at twenty twenty two and say they're oversaying. Hard to say, right, But there's this data analytics firm. Now it is a democratic firm, so keep that in mind. But they're just looking at the numbers and crunching the numbers around voter registration and who is registering to vote. So this is not like, oh, I've got to do a likely voter sample and can I get people on

the phone, et cetera. No, these are the hard, factual numbers based on what different states are reporting in terms of who is registering to vote now. The firm is called Target Smart. They are one of the only outlets that successfully predicted that twenty twenty two was not going to be a red wave, and the reason they saw it coming is because they were looking at this voter registration data and saying, listen, this just doesn't fit with

the metrics of a red wave type of election. So the Tom Bonier is the name of the guy you're about to listen to. He has new numbers reflecting since Biden dropped out and Kamala got in a massive surge in Democratic Party registration, but specifically among key demographic groups that you would expect to be enthusiastic about Kamala Harris and aligned with her and looking to vote for her in the fall. Let's take a listen to how he breaks down.

Speaker 12

We're tracking something really interesting going on right now. It's a surge in voter registration in key groups ahead of the November election among young Black women, registration is up more than one hundred seventy five percent. You heard that right, more than one hundred and seventy five percent in thirteen states.

That's compared to the same time in twenty twenty. This, according to the data firm Target Smart, registration has also increased among young Latinas and Black Americans one hundred and seventy five percent. Can that possibly be right? If you must have triple checked this or many more times than.

Speaker 13

That, You're right to repeat the number, because I have more than triple checked it. It's in incredibly unusual to see changes in voter registration that are anywhere close to this. I mean to remind people, one hundred and seventy five percent is almost tripling of registration rates among this specific group. You just don't see that sort of thing happen in elections normally.

Speaker 1

Let's go and put the charts back up on the screen. The next element that we have here, just so people can be taking a look at this. This is a tweet from the same individual, senior advisor to Target Smart, Tom Bonnier. He says the Harris effect in the thirteen states that have updated voter files since July twenty First,

that's when Biden dropped down. We are seeing incredible surges in voter registration relative the same time period in twenty twenty four, driven by women, voters of color, and young voters.

Speaker 4

So if you look across this.

Speaker 1

Graph all the way on the left, the smallest surge was among Republicans, the next smallest surge was among men. And the more you get to the right and the greater surge that you see, the more these groups typically.

Speaker 4

Vote for Democrats.

Speaker 1

And in fact they you know, they not only look at states where you have to register as a Democrat or Republican, but they also model whether a particular voter is likely to be a Democrat or Republican, which sadly

is actually quite easy to do. We're all very predictable, apparently, And fifty one percent surge an increase in registration for Democrats post July twenty one, when Biden dropped down, And like I said to me, this is perhaps the most persuasive data that I've seen that it is possible the polls are actually undercounting Kamala Harris support because they are very unlikely to pick up new voters. And another point he made which was interesting to me. New voters are

actually more likely to turn out and vote. So first time voters are more likely to turn out and vote than people who have been registered for a long time. So Saga, wondering what you made of this and how much significance The other side of the equation would be.

You know, these groups were so depressed under Biden that there's this like just pent up you know, they rather than kind of actually registering all the way along like you would have expected, there was this pent up demand and once Kama comes in and people they would have been the ones that registered before under Biden, but they were so depressed by him, and so this doesn't reflect anything majorly different.

Speaker 4

But to me, these numbers are pretty extraordinary.

Speaker 2

I know there are extraordinary and also because they're real, and I mean, the cope if you were a Trump person would be, hey, listen, the electric's actually changed.

Speaker 3

You can't necessarily bank.

Speaker 2

On the fact that all young voters are going to go for Pa Kamala or for black voters.

Speaker 4

I mean, I saw young black women seeming pretty safe that young.

Speaker 3

Black women aby, yeah, but young black men.

Speaker 2

I mean, listen, the last Fox News poll, that's one that we showed actually had Trump tripling his black support from seven to nineteen.

Speaker 3

I mean, that's pretty crisy.

Speaker 4

But that's not by I launched the group that's ludging here. Yeah.

Speaker 2

Now again, I'm just saying, like the cope would be that the shift in the electorate has dramatically changed. One case for why a lot of this you know, polling stuff is Ryan Grodski recently wrote a post about the liberal poll response bias. This is not an unskewed in terms. No, no, no, it's not about it's about everything. Yeah, I mean, and it was accurate in twenty twenty. Is that a bunch of older white Liberals were home and they were the only ones who were answering in the phone, and that

was part of the reason that they were off so much. So, I mean, I see compelling reason as to why that wouldn't replicate itself. I don't see how necessarily they might have been able to change it. I'm not saying that it isn't tight, or that Trump is winning or losing. It's that this voter registration data is very compelling.

Speaker 3

Yeah. I do know that the.

Speaker 2

Republicans have some of their own answer and I've been doing this now for two years. There's groups like Charlie Kirks and the Scott Presler who have been out there for almost two and a half years now just registering the shit out of a lot of Republican voters. So there was a basically there was a huge recognition post

twenty twenty. They're like, all right, we got met, we got destroyed on mail in voting, and then they were like, well we'll try and beat them and you know, win a midterm and then you get killed in the midterms, Like okay, well we're going to go to war with the army that we have under the current rules, and so they're trying to register as many seniors as possible, you know, have mail in voting, of target targeting with mail, etc. I think that the case would be that, you know,

the Republican turnout machine is not as ideologically against the current voting system, and so that's one of where the corrective could be as well. So anyway, I mean, look, in general, voting participation is good, so I'm haster I want people to be more registered to vote.

Speaker 1

So, to be honest with you, I was thinking about this if I put the polls aside, right, because it Like I said before, which direction are they off at this point? No one can sell right, No one knows. If I put the polls aside and I look at the fundamentals, the race actually looks pretty simple. Kamala Harris is more popular than Donald Trump. Tim Walls is more popular than jd Vance. The issue set she's running on. We're going to talk about more about this with the

Trump economic block. The issue set she's running on is more popular, including her economic plans and leaning into abortion. He's old, she's young. And the big advantage that he's always had on the economy, which he maintained against Joe Biden, and Joe Biden was able to overcome that advantage is basically gone. She's neutralized it. So the more I look at the fundamentals, the more I feel like the only reason that I'm you know.

Speaker 4

So reluctant to be like, it looks.

Speaker 1

Like she's in the lead and she's you know, has the edge in terms of winning, is just because it's Donald Trump and who the hell knows what's going to happen. But to be honest with you, we may be over complicating this because when you look at all those factors lined up she When you test, you know, all the different presidential characteristics that people want to see in a leader,

she wins on almost all of them. The one where he usually gets her as like strong leader, but on all of the other ones she outperforms him.

Speaker 4

So this is someone who people like more.

Speaker 1

They like her policies more, she's more useful.

Speaker 4

She's captured that.

Speaker 1

Like we want change spirit, even as she is in some ways an emblem of the status quo, She's captured that like change spirit. And so looking at those voter registration numbers, it gave me more of a sense that those fundamentals actually do reflect reality.

Speaker 2

You could be right, I mean, the counter would be, you know, the immigration situation is crazy. We're going to talk about the polling later with Trump, that has been a massive change. The other thing is we live in a way more divided country than it ever before, where a lot of those fundamentals don't actually matter all that much sometimes for partisan people whenever they go to vote. And you know, look at the way that people even perceive the economy depending on who the president is in power.

The economy situation over the last three years still was not good. So she may be running on something, but she's got the Biden baggage, and if Trump could successfully tie her, then you don't even need to win the popular vote. You only need to win by one vote in all these three states. So that's one where I still see, you know, a major electoral college advantage that

Donald Trump has Pennsylvania in particular. The Senate races are actually narrowing in some respects lately, depending on where you look at. And so I see three scenarios. I see dem out. I see like extremely tight and narrow where whoever wins only wins by you know, two to five

electoral votes. But I could also see a major Republican of victory as well, where there was a significant underestimating of a lot of this discontent a La twenty and sixteen, just because you know, polling as we know, doesn't necessarily capture a lot of stuff. And Trump is such a unique and dynamic figure that he is so able to always defy expectations at the ballot box. I mean again, though we don't have a lot of data. That's part

of the issue with elections. It only happens every four years, so you can you can conjure a narrative like I just did out of two freaking elections. It's just not a lot, you know, for us to make any sense of you know.

Speaker 1

The one thing though that the Trump people, and you always point this out in twenty twenty, would point to when we come on, when they come on rising, it was the economy. Yeah, they'd be like, he still vastly outperforms Joe Biden on the economy. And we were sort of like whatever, because the polls were so clear at that, I mean, Biden was winning by nine points, ten points whatever. COVID was a catastrophe. Were like, it's over for your cannon.

I'm sorry, But actually they were right. I mean they still lost, ye, but the economic numbers were one of the things that kept him in the game.

Speaker 4

So when I see and actually we can put yeah, it's.

Speaker 1

A nine the last element in this black eyes throw this up on the screen. When I see and this isn't the only poll that reflects this, When I see her pulling close or even or even or on that question of who would be better on getting prices down, she pulls a little bit ahead. When I see that, I feel like that is maybe as consequential a poll number as I have seen because that was the one thing that they were like, No, but people care about the economy. It's always the number one issue, and they

still like Trump on the economy. That she has managed to neutralize his advantage on what has always been his strongest issue, I think is quite remarkable. And you know, with regard to immigration, no doubt that's her weakest issue. They know that's her weakest issue. I think they're handling it very poorly. We'll talk more about that in a later block. However, I just don't see evidence that this

is a big issue for swing voters. I think abortion is a much larger, more consequential issue in terms of driving enthusiasm and in terms of swing voters, especially given the fact that the immigration you know, the border numbers are down at this point.

Speaker 4

You don't have you know, there was a peak.

Speaker 1

Of concern previously when there were all these buses go into blue cities and there was a real you know, there's a real concern and frenzy about that, and understandably so I think that has peaked. And again, the most hawkish immigration voters are already voting for Donald Trump. So, yes, it's her weakest issue. Yes, it's a problem for her. I just don't see it as being as consequential as Republicans hope it will be.

Speaker 2

It's like I said, if it's an abortion election, the Democrats are going to win. This's just no question in my mind, considering every state data that we know at this point, the super majority.

Speaker 3

If it's an immigration election, I think Trump is gonna win. If it's an economy election, it's very down the middle, and I could see it. Yeah. I mean, look, there's.

Speaker 2

No question that Kama is a way better Canada than Biden, and that's why the GOP should be more afraid. They shouldn't be doing. It's like vice versa. They should just not talk about abortion period as much as they possibly could, like what do you mean? Oh did you say immigration? Was that what you meant? And then vice versa. If I were the Democrats, I wouldn't even try to compete unless you're a Ruben Gego because that guy is what a unique race we should talk about it at some point,

the only candidate where what was it? The Arizona Police Association is endorsing Trump and Ruben Gyego Lake, and he put out an ad in Spanish talking about hiring more border agents I mean, I couldn't love that more from a realignment perspective, but it does show you why, to.

Speaker 4

Say, Arizona politics, that's.

Speaker 2

Why is up eleven points, up eleven points in the state of Arizona, while Trump is basically tied with Kamala Harris. I mean, that's shocking, you know, just to behold some of what that looks like. And there's a case that performance by Diego would actually help Kamala Harris by. So you know, this is where a strong or a week Senate candidate can really be. It could make the deciding factor just because split ticket voting in a presidential year. Not saying it can't happen, but you know it's it's

relatively rare. So listen, I wouldn't I wouldn't deny you know that there are some fundamentals on the Democratic side.

I just am always very very cautious. I mean, you know, we live through twenty sixteen, we live through twenty twenty, and you know, getting the pulse in the mood of the country, foreseeing those Latino shifts in South Texas and all of that, or foreseeing the white liberal wave in twenty twenty twenty two, we're so so unexpected with so tiny little bits of data to be able to point to it is. It's more about like, let's just see, I guess where the chips fall.

Speaker 3

That that's really all we can do.

Speaker 2

We can do Yeah, difficult, right, difficult for people like us especially all right, let's go to the next part on the economy. This was actually could be consequential as well. This is another reason actually to really to our previous discussion about while I'm always just a little bit skeptical about counting all these fundamentals for the Democrats, let's put

this up there please on the screen. There is an overwhelming amount of discontent within the American public right now about quote the American dream feels out of reach for most. And what is really interesting to me is both about how people define the American dream and I think.

Speaker 3

We're basically talking about the most basic things here.

Speaker 2

So, for example, when it comes to achieving your own vision of the American dream, how is important is each of the following? So nearly one hundred percent, say financial security is essential or important, but is essential and or important? Comfortable retirement almost one hundred percent, home ownership almost one

hundred percent, annual vacation something like eighty percent. Things go down a little bit more whenever it terms to talking kids and or having marriage, but financial security, retirement, home ownership, annual vacation. So basically like decent life, quality of life, those the things, and then the ability to support a family is somewhat less. So that's what people define as the American dream. Now, do you think the American dream that if you work hard you'll get ahead still holds true?

The precipitous drop in numbers really, I think feeds the anti establishment sentiment that I can't let go of. So, for example, in twenty and twelve, the first time that they asked this question, fifty three percent of Americans said that the American dream quote still holds true. About forty two percent said once held true, but not anymore, and

never held true was four percent. Well, now, if we look at twenty twenty four numbers, forty nine percent, so the majority actual or the plurality here say it once held true but not anymore. Only thirty four say that quote it is still holds true, and some seventeen percent say it never held true. So the nihilism is very high, but probably even worse than nihilism is once held true,

but not anymore. And that is where you know, I could just see that make Up America Great Again messaging as it did in twenty sixteen, resonating just enough with people who have been priced out of the American dream. Don't forget that the mortgage rate continues to remain high. Yes, an interest rate cut is coming, but that doesn't mean that the prices changes or anything or that will be in the foreseeable future. Home prices have either stabilized or

have gone up. Grocery prices and all the inflation whenever we peg two four years ago is not good. Up almost twenty five thirty percent. The fundamentals of a lot of where people see in life is still high, to the point where they feel discontent.

Speaker 3

Now.

Speaker 2

The problem for Trump is that Biden was so tied to the twenty twenty status quo, but he was such a winner on change, where Kamala has a chance to compete on change here and make it a little bit more of a contest. But in general, this is why I never count out Trump and the discontent feeling of actually building something new.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I mean this is like on a long term decline, right and I think it's obviously there's the reality of housing has never been more unaffordable. Right, All of the things that we think of as the bedrock of a stable middle class life have become more and more and more and more and more and more.

Speaker 4

Expensive over decades.

Speaker 3

Right.

Speaker 1

So, yes, we have this very important inflation conversation about what you're paying at the grocery store, what you're paying at the pump. These are things that are in your face every single day and impact your budget every single month.

But we've missed the inflation conversation that has led, I think to this chart, which is Number one, no retirement security, right the end of the guaranteed pension, you know, effective end of the guaranteed pension, where now it's like you got to be out there, save in on your own and hope for the market to work out for you. And there's just an amazing level of precarity that comes

with that. Number Two healthcare so expensive and not a prayer that either one of these candidates have any interest in really fixing it. Kamala Harris wants to extend the Obamacare subsidies that were part of the covid era package, and you know, Trump last time around, tried.

Speaker 4

To repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Speaker 1

They're trying to say this time maybe he won't do that. We don't really freakin now, but there's no plan to actually fix the situation. I think that's pretty clear on both regards. And as I said, over decades, healthcare has just gone wildly expensive. You think about a college education, you know, what could be more associated with the like neoliberal.

Speaker 4

Era of the achievement oriented good.

Speaker 1

Life is you work hard, you go to college, get that white collar job, you're able to, you know, achieve that middle class or upper middle class even prosperity. College education so unaffordable, so expensive, and then maybe the most egregious rub. At this point, it's obviously more than a rub. Housing costs, you know, rent is so expensive to try to become a homeowner, which is really.

Speaker 4

The bedrock of that.

Speaker 1

I've got my nest egg, I'm going to be able to hand something down to my kids. I'm going to be okay through good times in bad. You know, it's just become so impossible to be able to put your foot on that ladder of home ownership.

Speaker 4

So who can blame?

Speaker 1

I mean, they're right, right, they are correct that it is very possible now to work hard, play by the rules, go to college, and then what then You're saddled with a mountain of debt and your dreams of home ownership are only getting further and further and further away as the housing prices go up year after year after year.

So there is a you know, we're we're and then you couple on top of that reality just this, you know, the vibes that we're in a declining empire and our best days are behind us, yea, And that's where how you end up with a chart like this now to me, just to to touch on the political point that you were making, this is an undersold part everyone talks about. Obviously, Joe Biden is so old, and the debate and there's disaster and feeble all that is really the most important part.

But this is I think an undersold part of why it was so beneficial to ditch Joe Biden and pick Kamala Harris because she has not shouldered the blame of, you know, the of incumbency, so she has the benefits of people being able to see her in the role and the confidence she appears to have gained on the job without being saddled with the status quo, unhappy legacy of you know, Joe Biden or whoever the incombent president

would be at this point. And I think that is an undersold advantage for her because she does have the ability and I think has successfully claimed the mantle of the change candidate from Donald Trump. And part of her campaign theme is like, we're not going back to that, you know, the ugliness of the Trump era and all that crap that, you know, this era of politics that many of us want to be done with. We're not

going back to that. So, you know, in a certain sense, she's sort of ideally positioned by having been able to be in the role and people be able to see her in the role but not being saddled with the burden of actually inhabiting the presidential office.

Speaker 3

That's the only way she has a fighting chance, period.

Speaker 2

And if I Trump wins or if Kamalo wins, ironically, a lot of it will actually come down to this, because it will be whether people see Trump as a change candidate or if people see Trump as a status quo chaos candidate and one.

Speaker 4

Of his status quo and chaos.

Speaker 3

Yeah, I mean that is a choice.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I mean, part of the whole Trump case under the Biden era was what, oh mean, all you had to worry about was mean tweets. And there's something to that which is like all you had to worry about was some dumb ass media controversy or like the current parsing of like was he allowed a camera at the Arlington.

Speaker 3

Cemetery or not.

Speaker 2

I'm like, I don't know, maybe, but the whole point is like parsing all of those details as opposed to, hey, what was the housing price, what was the inflation, stock market, etc. Whereas nowadays the Kamala people, which is interesting. You know, under Biden, this the Arlington thing is a good example,

they would have been obsessed with this. You know, Biden himself was obsessed with that my opinion, bs Atlantic story about the whole suckers and losers or whatever you know, based on the word of John Kelly or somebody else like that, and they made it a cornerstone of a Hilary esque decency our children are watching now. Don't get me wrong, there is a flavor of that to Kamala Harris whenever she gives it. Whenever she gave her speech

for example, or sometimes in terms of democratic media. But the general vibe I have seen from her is to like roll your eyes at a lot of the Trump era controversies and other things like that of the past, and just say, Okay, we're not going to focus on that this whole quote, We're not going back. And you know, this is also where Biden being on vacation is so helpful. By the way, if anyone wants to check in on the president, he's actually on the beach right now in Rehoboth.

Speaker 3

Must be a nice job. It was on vacation in Santa Clara.

Speaker 2

There's a photo of him yesterday hanging out with Jill's friends on the beach. I'm like, yeah, if you weren't the president, that would be fine. That's probably what you should have been doing this entire time. But Biden's literally just sitting there doing nothing. He will apparently be on the campaign trail, I think with Kama in the state of Pennsylvania, I believe next week. But that's the only joint of campaign appearance that they have scheduled right now so far.

Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I listen, Like I said before, I'm beginning to become convinced that actually the election may be more straightforward then I've been portraying at this point, but there's a lot of twist and turns to come. And this data is certainly like, you know, this hangs over it in a very profound way that people are

just generally unhappy with the direction of the country. And the Trump campaign will be spending a lot of money to persuade voters that they should saddle Kamway Harris with the way they felt about the Joe Biden presidency.

Speaker 4

And you know, there's a chance that could work.

Speaker 2

I think so credit card debt all time high, household bendattes sheet is all time high. Costs are very very high. The home ownership piece is very very difficult.

Speaker 3

You know.

Speaker 2

The interesting thing that overlays all of this is kind of the social conversation because that's where we saw I mean, if anything, it was way worse than twenty twenty two, because that's where Biden was the president. There was not I mean, it was the inflation was so in your face and so skyrocketing. Immigration situation I was, you know, just as bad then, but even more like like.

Speaker 4

There were more numbers of the numbers.

Speaker 2

That were both more in real time, but Also, it was a very shocking difference compared to just the last year. And that was also the mid the whole like blue state freak out amongst migrants being flown in fust here.

Speaker 3

But anyway, I mean, what we.

Speaker 2

Saw is that social issues can trump these economic issues. And that's why I just come down to I'm like, I really wonder what people are going to prioritize at the ballot box, but I know when abortion is there, it's a problem. That's actually one thing that a lot of us are discounting is this Florida amendment which is on the books. So now, do I think Democrats are going to win Florida. No, But DeSantis wanted by twenty points or something like that. I mean, if Trump only wins by three or four.

Speaker 4

But I think this last time Trump did only win by three or.

Speaker 3

Fo you know he did, I'm saying this time right.

Speaker 2

Oh, So, amidst the major realignment that's happened, all the massive inflow, the fact that it's effectively became a red state, but I'm really curious to see what that Florida abortion amendment vote does to overall Democratic turnout in the state of Florida.

Speaker 1

There's a number of states that have abortion related ballid initiatives. I feel like the Arizona one might have gotten pulled.

Actually have to double check. There was some court case about whether or not it actually should be on the ballot, But there are a number of swing states that have abortion initiatives on the ballot, and so but you know, just to go back to the housing thing, I'm surprised how much Kamala Harris has leaned into housing in her messaging as well, because we've been talking about how that lean was wide open and it's such a pain point, and so the fact that she's leaning into that and

talking a lot about it in her ads, I think is you know, I think it's intelligent and potentially consequential, understated in terms of the level of pain and just

how central that is to people's lives. But as I was saying before, to me, maybe the most astonishing numbers we've seen in the polls are pulling even with Trump in terms of economic who do you trust on the economy, Because even outside of Donald Trump, the businessman, et cetera, et cetera, Republicans typically have an advantage on that number. And so that's, you know, to me, that's that's quite extraordinary that she's even in the ballpark with him, because

that's always been his biggest strength. I think that's been a bigger strength than anti immigrant backlash, even back in twenty sixteen when that was obviously a very hot issue as well. I think that you know, he's a businessman, and he's going to be able to deliver from me personally, has been the most compelling part of his pitch.

Speaker 2

Well, let's talk about that. Let's turn down to immigration. Let's turn out to some interesting analysis just about where Trump stands with some issues that may put him over the edge, or where he stands unpopular. This one in particular caught my eye. Let's put this up there on the screen. This was Vox analysis recent polling quote suggests that American public opinion on immigration has taken a quote quote sharp right word turn in the last four years.

So absolutely fascinating to consider this graph. And also I want to we should talk about this, what happened in nineteen nineties, what was going on?

Speaker 4

Rash Actually don't know.

Speaker 1

Oh, I think that's when the biggest surge of like Mexican border crossers in the nineteen nineties. I think in the early nineties. I have to look into it.

Speaker 3

That's my anyway.

Speaker 2

So for those who are watching, what we have in front of us is a graph that says the percentage of Americans wanting lower immigration rose from forty one percent last year to fifty five percent, which is now a majority. Where things go back is all the way from Gallup that has been pulling on the question from the nineteen

sixties onward. Basically nineteen sixty five, the nineteen sixty five Immigration Naturalization Act is what changed American immigration policy and basically set the norms as to where they are today. It was relatively stable throughout the nineteen seventies up until nineteen eighty, but that is when things began to change.

So the decreased number, currently standing at fifty five percent is now back two levels that we saw right after two thousand and one nine to eleven, and then actually near the top of where it actually peaked back in the early nineteen nineties. What's even more interesting is that the increase lest number has precipitously dropped since two thousand and twenty, roughly around the time that Trump was president.

And then the keep as is those people who were happy with the status quo policy has also dropped pretty significantly. But the main divergence that has happened is from the Biden presidency onward is the exponential dip and increase in the decrease and the increase number. So we have the decreased number there spiking from below thirty percent in back in twenty twenty all the way up to fifty five, and the increased number significantly dropping from above thirty.

Speaker 3

Percent down to just sixteen percent today.

Speaker 2

And so this does remain, i mean, probably the single most best issue for Donald Trump, and where the divergence kind of stands and is a reflection both of the Biden presidency of I think of the current I mean obviously different situation in terms of how things are at the border.

Speaker 3

And it just comes down to.

Speaker 2

A question of will this issue, you know, will will this issue be able to get Republicans to compete with frankly better numbers for Democrats on abortion? And that that is where I always caution my Republican friends. They're like, guys are winning on immigration by fifty or sixty percent. I go, yo, dude, the dams are winning on abortion by like seventy eight percent. You know, it's like it's like it's not just a majority, it's a super majority

where those people stand. But I mean, nonetheless, that's stunning data that's inarguable.

Speaker 4

We put a backup on the SPA are something kind of funny that I want to point out, which is that so if you look at twenty twenty, that's like the peak of you actually have a.

Speaker 1

Brief moment there where the line of the number of people who want immigration to increase is higher than the one for you know, people who want it to decrease. So very ironically, Donald Trump made immigrants way more popular and immigration way more popular.

Speaker 3

Were just in negative polarization.

Speaker 1

Well, I think that's exactly it actually is. To me, this chart and the dramatic shift reflects two things, one more than the other. One is the reality that there are more border crossers. And I think significantly the fact that you had these you know, the blue state bussing, so that it was in these cities and creating a genuine like you know, in terms of being able to have the services available on them, money that.

Speaker 4

Needed to be spent, etc.

Speaker 1

Like it was in people's faces in a way that was that you couldn't look away from right. But I actually think more important to that because a lot of people don't actually think for themselves, they just follow wherever their tribe is going. Is that Back in the Trump era, you had a Democratic Party that was staunchly oppositional to his immigration policy and his whole way of talking about and thinking about immigration as just being a net negative.

Speaker 4

And now you don't have that.

Speaker 1

So when you have both Democrats and Republicans agreeing on a hawkish immigration approach, then their partisans are going to agree with their party leaders that we should have a hawkish immigration approach. And so, like I said, I think

it's multifaceted. But to me this is very self serving, but it sort of validates the point I've been making of Yeah, when you have the Democratic Party or the center left party just agreeing with the right wing party on immigration, then you increase the power of that of that issue for your opponent, not for yourself, because no one is going no one who thinks, you know, we should be and this is their number one issue. More hawkish on immigration is going to vote for Kamala Harris.

So that's what I see going on that chart. They the negative polarization thing I think is a. Really it's not the only thing, but I think it's a very key part of the story of how you end up with those lines dramatically shifting. You have a lot of Democrats than in the Trump era, when the party was you know, doing their high school Spanish on stage and speaking about immigrants and how we needed more immigrants, and you know, and very oppositional to the cruel policies of

Trump on the border. They were opposed to that, and they thought more immigrants good for the country. And then when the Democratic Party under Joe Biden flips and now Kamala Harris is like, yes to the border wall, and I want to do you know, a border security package that doesn't include a pathway to citizenship, which is a break in the way that Democrats have always approached this issue.

You end up with Democratic partisans, you know, agreeing effectively with the case that Trump has been making for years.

Speaker 2

You could be right, I mean, I do think the reality is also pretty significant. I mean what's also changed is even on the policy merits. For example, you know, than the same article they have mass deportation is now supported by some sixty two percent of all registered voters. Fifty three percent actually amongst Hispanic registered or yeah, Hispanic registered voters. So and that's mass deportation. That is as

you know, hawkish as you could possibly get. The big difference is about the priority, and that is where people who care about immigration by and large, like they are really they are Republicans. So, for example, Republicans are more likely to prioritize immigration by a massive number compared to the rest of the electorate.

Speaker 3

Refer Republicans, it's a forty eight percent.

Speaker 2

It's the top issue for independence twenty five, for Democrats just eight. So you can see it's a huge difference in priority. And it's something that we've been talking a lot about throughout this whole show, which is what do like, what are voters, what's going to be at the top of mind. It used to be a genuine rule that economy is the top of the mind. We know that's not true from twenty twenty two, from recent evidence, and in fact, if we think back through history, there have

been social elections before. It's just been a very long time since any of us have seen them, just because the parties in general, especially post Row, were really locked into a consensus. Probably the best you know example is going all the way back to the eighteen nineties and to think about all of the massive divide that America had on Jim Crow and basically the treatment of black Americans and how it should look. That's where a lot

of Southern populism comes from. A lot of realignment politics happened back in that time and actually at very similar levels of a very high voter engagement, where when people care about social issue, they care a lot and they are willing to basically vote only on that. Not an accident that also coincided with the Gilded Age, when people were very distracted from economic issues. So I think there's a lot of rhyming that's happening there. The immigration issue.

It's really interesting just to think about how that will be at the forefront of people's minds on top of some of the economic stuff, because immigration inextricably is obviously is linked from economic policy, but is also divergent in terms of the way that Republicans and Democrats look at it. So, for example, if you ask a lot of Republican voters what the cure to many economic problems is, they actually point to immigration as a number one solution, whereas actually

very different when we look at democratic social policy. So actually some of the interesting stuff here doesn't just stay with immigration, also goes to tariff. So let's put this up there for example on the screen. This was an interesting New York Times kind of side by side piece about how Trump inherents have a quote stark parts and divide on fighting poverty. Immigration is obviously a key part

of that. But if we look at some of the other issues that we see here, there is a big change in terms of the child tax credit, which we've seen previously. I think we've talked about it a lot here on the show.

Speaker 3

What is It?

Speaker 2

Kamala supports a six thousand dollars child tax credit policy. We're not exactly sure where Trump stands.

Speaker 14

Jd.

Speaker 2

Vance has been on the record say he supports a five thousand dollars child tax credit policy. Where Republicans stand on this issue, I'll let you guess where that is. I think we can judge.

Speaker 4

By the record of how they have voted in the Senate, which is against yes.

Speaker 2

All right, So if we think about if we think about tariffs, that has actually been an interesting one.

Speaker 3

Do you weigh on any of this Before I get to the tariffstop.

Speaker 4

Go ahead and talk about tariffs, then I can talk about the whole thing.

Speaker 2

So, so tariff's actually has been I'm curious to what you think because under the Biden administration a huge portion of the tariffs were kept in place most of the time, which I support. By the way, I'm very supportive of tariffs, but I've seen a retrenchment since Kamala has become the candidate. Everyone's like Trump wants to increase prices because of tariffs. And there was a test exchange here actually between NBC Meet the Press and Jade Vance has been very supportive

of tariff's basically a supporter of the Trump policy. Here was the exchange they got into.

Speaker 14

Now, the estimates vary, But how do you respond to that charge that Trump's tariffs would hurt the middle class?

Speaker 15

Yeah, so if you step back a little bit Christian, there's this whole thing that Kamala Harris did at the convention where she made a bunch of claims about what would happen and not enough actually reflection on what already happened. Right, because Donald Trump was already president, he used tariffs to bring manufacturing jobs back to our country, and I think he'll do it again, and he did it while keeping

prices extremely low. Because if you go back to the Trump presidency, we had twelve thousand factories that were built during Donald Trump's presidency, Inflation never really ticked above two percent. His entire administration, in fact, was sort of around one and a half percent most of the time that he was president. So when Kamala Harris says, if we do the thing that Trump already did, it's going to be way worse than it was last time, I just don't think that makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 14

Well, let's talk about Trump's record during his first term. He didn't pose rounds of terror and it cost Americans nearly eighty billion dollars in new taxes. Do you acknowledge that imposing more tariffs will ultimately cost consumers?

Speaker 15

Well, what it really does is it penalizes importers from bringing goods outside the country into the country. And I think that's just a necessary thing. We know that China and a number of other countries are using effectively slave labor to undercut the wages of American workers.

Speaker 3

Donald Trump thinks that has to stop.

Speaker 15

And again, and what Kama here is saying, Kristin is that if you do this, you're somehow going to cause skyrocketing inflation.

Speaker 3

In reality, Donald Trump already did it.

Speaker 15

He brought a lot of jobs back and it didn't cause inflation.

Speaker 14

But it caused consumers to pay more. They paid more in taxes eighty billion dollars worth. Do you acknowledge that consumers ultimately will pay more if.

Speaker 4

There are more tariffs?

Speaker 14

So economists, you just acknowledge that.

Speaker 15

No, I don't, Christian, because I think economists really disagree about the effects of teriffs, because there can be a dynamic effect. Right, So what some economists will say is what you just said, that it will actually raise costs for cons But what other people say, and I think the record supports what this other view, is that it causes this dynamic effect where more jobs come into the country.

Anything that you lose on the tariff from the perspective of the consumer, you gain in higher wages, so you're ultimately much better off.

Speaker 2

I have been very interested to see there's been an interesting retrenchment, I guess, on the democratic side of being anti tariff, despite the fact that Biden actually was very supportive of tariffs while he was in office.

Speaker 4

So here's what I would say.

Speaker 1

So let me talk about the politics and then we talk about the reality of the policy. So I think tariffs are broadly pretty popular. I just saw some pulling, you know, in general, like having tariffs is associated with the idea of bringing back manufacturing jobs, especially popular in the old industrial Midwestern states. I think it's like a sixty forty issue basically. So the politics of it, I

think are fine. What I would say is I was supportive of the tariff trumpet put into place, and I was supportive of Biden keeping and even expanding those tariffs, and of the industrial policy in the Biden era in general. You know, really trying to aggressively bring chips manufacturing here in particular has been a real push. Trying to protect our burgeoning EV industry I also think has been very important.

But when you're talking about those policies, what you're talking about is identifying some key industries.

Speaker 4

Where it is critical that.

Speaker 1

We have domestic manufacturing capability, or a key industry like EV's where your sense is, Okay, this is where the world is going, and we want to have a piece of it applying and across the board. Ten or twenty percent tariff, I frankly think is insane. Now, it's not the case as the you know, some will argue that all of that cost is going to get pushed on to consumers, but it is the case that some of it definitely will. And when you think about like evs

are a good example. For example, a lot of the parts that go into those vehicles come from they come from Canada, they come from overseas, So now you're making inputs on these finished goods much more expensive. And there are also certain things that like, you know, where it's really important we have chips manufacturing here. It would have been really important for us to have you know, the

medical supplies during COVID manufactured here. There are other things like, for example, coffee we don't make here, and I don't see any reason for us to grow coffee beans.

Speaker 4

So we grew coffee and yet in Hawaii, and true that's.

Speaker 1

Going to be you know, there's going to be an added ten percent import tax on coffee too. So I don't think that it's you know, a disconnect or retrenchment or whatever to say it makes sense to have certain industries that you target. It is insane, especially at this point in time when inflation and cost increase is the number one concern, which is different, by the way, from where they were in twenty sixteen when they were initially pushing this policy. It is insane to just have an

across the board tariff policy. And the other thing that I would say is the evidence that JD. Van's is citing that that Trump brought a bunch of manufacturing it's not really true. In fact, Biden has brought more manufacturing

jobs back than Trump did. The increase in manufacturing jobs across the Trump era, and I'm just talking about up to COVID, because I don't think it's fair to judge him for like the you know, the loss during COVID, But if you just look up to COVID, it was the same rate of increase that you saw during the Obama administration, and you had eighteen hundred factories that disappeared

during the Trump administration. So, like I said, I'm not opposed to tariffs when they're smartly applied, but to do it across the board is going to raise prices at a time when that is the number one issue for potimers. And just one more thing on that. You know, with Trump, it's very hard to know if he means what he says, it's very hard.

Speaker 4

It's very hard.

Speaker 1

This is an area where he's most likely means what he says. But like on the mass deportation thing, are you really going to round up twelve fifteen million people and throw them in camps and all the expense and you know everything that.

Speaker 4

That would entail. Are you really going to do that?

Speaker 1

But that's what he claims he's going to do, and he claims he's going to reduce legal immigration. That policy is also insane, just in terms to put the morality.

Speaker 4

Of it aside. Okay, you have something.

Speaker 1

Like a quarter of the construction industry is undocumented immigrants, half more than half of the agriculture industry is immigrants, and a significant chunk of that I think around thirty percent is undocumented immigrants. So maybe in the fullness of time, Although keep in mind that labor force participation is very high and unemployment is very low, so you don't have a lot of native born workers just sitting around waiting for jobs right now. The impact of that policy also

is an insane spike in prices. So you know, again, on the politics of it, I think he's fine. I think he's on perfectly fine ground. With how the public will perceive these policies if you were to actually implement them, I think they would be an utter, incomplete catastrophe, and you would see very significant inflation that people in food prices and an even greater construction slow down and in housing prices. That would be very, very very unpopular.

Speaker 2

Right, So on the ten percent thing, first of all, it's not going to happen, so it doesn't even necessarily bear you know, like looking at me.

Speaker 4

So this was the thing that he actually, No, No, I think.

Speaker 3

He believes it.

Speaker 2

But yeah, you don't have the legal authority to put a ten percent tariff on everything, although I don't think it would be the worst idea in the world. Now, that's where I've just significantly disagree, because a ten percent tariff already we have a far too globalized economy. Even the vast majority of the imports exports that we have from Mexico and from Canada. Mexico is our largest trading partner, almost entirely because they have cheap labor and because people

like to use that as an arbitrage opportunity. Will it lead to higher prices in the short term, I won't deny it. It probably will Now will it lead to better and more manufacturing investment in the United States, Absolutely, and especially if you change things on the tax code with a lot of what Joe Biden did, where you had tariff put in place and then you use tax credits and other strategic investment to actually direct a lot of the revenue into building things here in the United States.

Speaker 3

So that's one number number one.

Speaker 2

Like in terms of the actual tariff policy, legally, the way that you're able to put it in place was something called three to ZHO one. That's the way that Donald Trump put it in place. That's what Joe Biden used as well. That's largely going to be national security strategic.

That's how they were able to apply it to steal Legally, that's the only way it's ever going to happen because Congress will never you know, apply a quote ten percent tariff, although again, you know, I don't think it would be the worst idea in the world, especially if we were to apply it to let's say, you know, all of the countries where we have a trade deficit. That's another where where look, I understand the economists are going to get upset about this stuff that factory and you know,

manufacturing stuff. I don't think it's necessarily fair just because this stuff takes over a decade to materialize. So for example, investment in others can be announced but not even implemented on a five to a ten year period. I mean, for you know, if you look at the Chips Act, if you were to judge the Chips Act on a short term basis, but a failure because there's a ton

of money out and there's no new job created. But you know, ten years from now, what are we going to say, probably was a good idea, was a good investment and even though it cost a lot of money in the short term. So that's another area where terriffs makes sense. You know, even on ev and all that, when do we think about Canada and Mexico and the

way that they have undermined our auto industry. There's great reason where even if we're not national strategy national security, what is it like we're allies and we're not adversaries, while we still don't necessarily have a strategic interest and having so much of a critical industry be outside of the country. So that's just on the tariff part specifically. Now on immigration. Now again though this just gets to the tariff question, where it's like that is frankly in

a very neoliberal argument. It's like, oh, well, prices are going to go up. I'm like, okay, yeah, you're right. I mean, that's true, they will probably go up in the short term. I think most people support that, or most people who support the policy are very understanding of that. Have they grappled with the total reality of what it would look like. No, but people want like an actual process through which people who don't just get to come

here and work illegally. I mean, when you tell me there's thirty percent of the agricultural industry is an illegal workforce, that's nuts. And that's obviously just means that illegal immigration is a massive corporate subsidy. And Okay, even on the labor force participation rate, yea, the labor force or petition rate participation rate is still somewhere in the sixties, which means that's a huge percentage of the workforce not working.

But then two, if you support a higher wage, this is the easiest way to force these companies like Tyson's, Purdue and all these others to actually have to pay workers a much higher wage. And if you combine it with an industrial policy, which again I support, many Republicans do not.

Speaker 3

There are a lot of different ways to come out of this.

Speaker 2

At the same time, on the mass deportation policy, even people like by the.

Speaker 3

Way, I heavily support mass deportation.

Speaker 2

But the issue, as I know is most people understand that emotionally and all that it's probably not going to happen in any way. Just for look, Trump buckled on child separation, They buckled on the vast majority of the policy that they put into place. It's more probably a bargaining chip as to trying to get something done in the first place. But philosophically, there is a philosophical understanding that I saw often during the tariff discussion in twenty sixteen seventeen.

Speaker 3

I remember watching MSNBC.

Speaker 2

People would go to a Walmart and they were interviewing people about dryers, and they're like, how do you feel about the fact that this dryer is more expensive because of a tariff that Donald Trump put on China?

Speaker 3

And they're like, that's fine with me. I don't mind at all.

Speaker 2

But that sentiment is important, like Americans understand what that means.

Speaker 1

Sure, And so there's a lot to dig into there. It's one thing when you're like, okay, the cost of dryers has gone up, and actually the cost only went up for a short period of time. Yes, okay, so I want to include the full picture. The cost of a dryer has gone up. It's another thing. And by the way, back in twenty sixteen or twenty seventeen, when inflation was low and that wasn't a major concern for Americans.

Now it is the number one concern of Americans. It is another thing to say, you're all of your groceries are going every good that you can buy in the store, the price is going up on what do you think about that? And then the other piece, just to reiterate here, is yes, the CHIPS tariffs and the ev tariffs like that makes sense. These are critical industries that are growth

industries for the future. If you put a tariff on everything, a lot of what the US does in terms of manufacturing isn't just creating the raw goods like the steel. And by the way, steel traffs also make sense because we should have a domestic steel industry and that is important to do right, But a lot of the manufacturing here is the higher end.

Speaker 4

We're creating the finished.

Speaker 1

Product, you put a tariff on everything across the board. That means all of those inputs, the cost of every single one is going up. Now, maybe theoretically in fifty years, maybe that means there's more domestic manufacturing here, or maybe it just means that those automakers or whoever are making those finished goods move to another country where they can get those inputs cheaper, and then you know where it makes sense for them to sell it back into our

market rather than making it here. So even if I, you know, I agree that I do think that the Chips Act and these terrors, I do think that over time they will increase manufacturing those sector.

Speaker 4

I think they're a good idea.

Speaker 1

I support that sort of targeted tariff, but when you do it across the board, it's not even clear that you end up with the manufacturing gain that you want. And in the meantime, consumers who are already so stretched on inflation, are being asked to pay dramatic, significantly higher

prices across the board. And so, like I said, listen, I think politically tariff's popular, but I think if it was actually implemented, which you know, we should take seriously, what even if you say, Okay, Congress can't do it or whatever, whatever, we should take seriously what he says and what his plans are, and you know, like take it to its life.

Speaker 2

You'll have more tariffs than we have today, most likely under a Trump presidency.

Speaker 4

I think if you.

Speaker 1

Did it across the word, I think people would hate it, and I think I think it would be catastrophe.

Speaker 4

And you know, also I'll just leave it there.

Speaker 2

Yeah, yeah, well, I would say it's not going to happen, first of all, just because I know how the process works.

Speaker 3

Quite literally, it's just going to be on steel, on.

Speaker 2

Food, the way that we have the retaliatory tariffs, all of which I'm totally fine with the Chinese.

Speaker 3

Can you know whatever, your.

Speaker 4

Best case for a candidate shouldn't be well, they're not actually going to do what they say.

Speaker 2

They're going to know if we were going to do that, I would defend it, but I'm saying it's not going to happen. So if we actually look at what the reality is with through the executive branch, you have the best legal authority under the Commerce Department or USTR section or the three to zero one of that, you can use like a national security study. You can designate a certain industry critical to US national security. That's why food and what is it?

Speaker 4

Food?

Speaker 3

Steel?

Speaker 2

Those are the two things that obviously make the most sense. The thing is too, though, is that? And in general why the ten percent figure is not as crazy as people think. Go look at the traft policy of the European Union, Go look at terraff policy of South Korea. Go look at the tariff policy of China. And then, by the way, even if they don't have teriffts, the amount of national support that those companies flagships in those

countries receive compared to US is crazy. Volkswagen might as well be a part of the government, like Samsung literally might as well be the South Korean state and in some cases Samsung executives they run the country, not actually the people who are in Korea in Japan, toyota what you think? That's not a literal like they're like ambassadors for the country. It's very different from the way things run here in America to.

Speaker 1

Be more like that in my opinion, But I don't know if I want corporate leaders run I mean, it's an extept today.

Speaker 4

Are don't at the moment.

Speaker 3

But it's a.

Speaker 2

Little bit different because in those countries the power dynamic is very one way, where the government's like, hey, Samsung, this is what you're gonna do, and they're gonna be like, well this isn't there's like yeah, that's cute, but just so you know, like this is what's happening.

Speaker 3

Same whenever it comes to China.

Speaker 2

Now we shouldn't have all of that, but there are aspects which are very important for strategic industry and chips and elsewhere where our lase fair attitude puts us out a major strategic disadvantage. I read a history of TSMC. It's incredible it all could have happened here. The guy Morris Chang, he was here, he left America to create TSMC in Taiwan, and it was just because Taiwan was

like here's every dollar that you could possibly want. Yeah, and you know, reading that history, it's it's sad because it's one of those where our lase fare system, our government policy and all that has a lot of advantages small businesses like us, you know, the tax code, but for major strategic industry, where are failures completely.

Speaker 1

I mean, there's nothing that I disagree with it's just what you're talking about are strategically intelligent, targeted applied tariffs in places that make sense. Just to give one more example of what i'm I use the coffee example. Another example potash, Right, potash is critical.

Speaker 4

Ingredient for fertilizer.

Speaker 1

We don't have much or any domestic potash production. So now maybe you say, like that's critical, we should we should focus on that over time, et cetera, et cetera. But if you if you put a tariff on the importation of potash, what that means is all of your.

Speaker 4

Agricultural prices go up.

Speaker 1

And then of course, you know, if you talk about immigration and deporting all of the undocumented workers and clamping down so you have even less legal migration than previously, then you're talking about an even greater price hike on all of your agricultural goods. So you know, agreed that there's personally in terms of immigration, obviously, I think there

should be a past of citizen. I think those under I think you're right about the way they're exploited, and that's outrageous and that can have a wage impact, certainly when people are being paid under the table because they're not earning the minimum wage. They're not, you know, protected by all the labor protections that add additional costs to labor. I do think that's outrageous. My solution is a pathway

to citizenship for those individuals. I think we should have more legal immigration, not less, but you know, putting those things aside. The big three planks of Trump's economic plan are number one across the board tariffs, Number two mass deportation, and number three the extension of the Tax Cut and Jobs Acts, which was the tax cuts that largely went to corporate America. And the two in particular, the immigration crackdown and the tariffs. Both of them in the short term,

I don't think you would deny this. Both of them in the short term will spike prices some amount. And it was one thing the economic and political climate at twenty sixteen very different than now when Americans say the number one thing they're concerned about are prices. So that's just my sort of summation of how I'm viewing.

Speaker 4

All of this.

Speaker 2

Producers are telling us we're talking too much about fine I'd rather talk about terriffs. Yeah, but that's part of what the beauty to do in the show is, isn't it. Let's get to the indictment counter points and cover this yesterday, but still some pretty big news can't take our eye off the legal drama involving Donald Trump. People will remember there was a Supreme Court ruling which effectively vacated some of the Jack Smith indictment against Donald Trump as related

to January sixth. So Jack Smith actually convened a new grand jury and has brought new charges against Trump, which he says are in line with that Supreme Court ruling. Let's put this up there on the screen. The new indictment was actually filed on Tuesday. It includes some of the same criminal charges, but actually narrows the allegations quote in an attempt to comply the Supreme Court ruling that former presidents have brought immunity from prosecution.

Speaker 3

So in the new indictment, one of.

Speaker 2

The reasons they had to set do it was because the Supreme Court rule that former presidents quote, are absolutely immune from prosecution for official acts that fall within the exclusive sphere of constitutional authority. So all of the charges have to come from a place where it is not

a quote, official act of the presidency. The new indictment does away quote with any reference to Donald Trump's interactions with the Justice Department, whom prosecutors alleged he that he was trying to enlist in his effort to under the election.

By doing that, they take it outside the realm of the so called official act and try to kick it into the realm of the political when they were talking both about language, about coercion and about some of the false elector's stuff that was happening under the purview of the campaign. So, for example, the first page of the old indictment refers to Trump as the forty fifth US president.

The new indictment only referred to Trump as quote, a candidate for president of the United States in twenty twenty. It also quote deletes all references to any Trump's statement made from the White House, so for example, that January sixth message that was made on Twitter and instead focuses in on the campaign speech at a privately funded, privately organized political rally that occurred on that day. What actually

stayed the same is four counts. It's substruction of official proceeding, conspiracy to obstruction official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and conspiracy against.

Speaker 3

The right to vote.

Speaker 2

So all of those charges they say are within the realm of the Supreme Court ruling. Obviously Trump is going to challenge them, and we're probably going to have to get a new ruling or scrutiny or whatever on this. But at the very least, here's what people can say. It's not none of this has happening before the election.

Speaker 3

One hundred.

Speaker 1

This is not going to be a short process. I'm sure it will go back up the chain in terms of appeals and challenges, likely end up back at the Supreme Court with them having to weigh in more specifically.

One thing that you might recall from the decision that they issued with regard to presidential immunity is that even the conservatives, some of them issued like dissenting concurrences where you know, they had a different opinion about how immunity would be defined, like which things are actually official responsibilities and which are in your personal capacity. So it's not at all clear exactly how they would create that dividing line,

And I mean it's a difficult line to draw. So I think it's entirely likely this ends up back at the Supreme Court. But it's the same for charges. You know that hasn't changed. Some of the details, underlying details have changed. Some of the phrasing emphasizing he's a candidate. You know, this was in his role as a candidate, has nothing to do with his official responsibilities. Some of that has changed as well. But you know, this was separate grand jury, a different grand jury than issue the

initial indictment that returned this now superseding indictment. And there was an interesting segment on CNN that we want to highlight for you all. So Ty Cobb, who's like a big shot Washington lawyer, US Trump's lawyer, very well known here and was for a time Trump's lawyer when he was in the White House, he was interviewed on CNN and he was like, these charges are very strong and he's likely to face six to nine years in prison

as a result just of this particular case. Let's take a listen to what he had to say.

Speaker 6

Does this indictment make a clean cut case that the acts were personal?

Speaker 8

I think it does.

Speaker 16

I think you know, some of the editing you highlighted in your intro is spot on, emphasizing the private nature of many of these acts, the private funding.

Speaker 17

Of the speech at the before the Capital intrusion, Prince's ceremonial role, the non government roles of the co conspirators, which they can now say categorically, And now that Jeffrey Clark is out because he was the only government official who was actually in the original indicty's no longer in this indictment.

Speaker 9

You know, whatever the indictment was going to look like after it went through whatever hearings the judge Chuck is going to have and she still will have a hearing on that it was. This indictment, you know, it does have you know, there is an interlocuatory appeal available at least as I read the Supreme Court decision, and that doesn't mean the Supreme Court has to take it if the DC Circuit acts before and they're content with whatever

they do. But this is definitely this has never this hasn't been on course to go before the election for months.

Speaker 16

This was never going to that was never going to happen.

Speaker 9

But as you point out, I mean, this is a very forceful document.

Speaker 3

It's pared down.

Speaker 16

Every sentence is you know, crisply worded.

Speaker 17

It's a tight narrative.

Speaker 9

You can't read this and not understand the crimes that Trump actually committed, and you say, as you pointed out, fifty five years is exposure.

Speaker 3

He's not going to get fifty five years.

Speaker 9

But he'll get six.

Speaker 4

To nine on this, I mean, and it's pretty confident there. I don't know, if you know, I don't know, but six to nine is a lie. Is like he's going to get six to nine.

Speaker 2

Years helped negotiate on the again. I mean, I just see that so massively unlikely. But listen, he's the.

Speaker 3

Former Trump attorney, so we should at least take it seriously.

Speaker 1

The other thing he said that was interesting to me is he was like, Trump's not going to take this seriously until it's like the sentencing happens and it's inescapable and he's headed to ber like, he is not going to take this seriously until it's undeniable, which I thought was just having, you know, the fact that he worked closely with Trump, I thought was an interesting like intellectual insight to the way that Trump approaches.

Speaker 4

All of this.

Speaker 3

Certainly true.

Speaker 1

Yeah, the last thing that I'll mention here, it's a little crazy. I mean, the way we thought this election would go and the way it is actually gone have been two very different things. We really thought, and for good reason, that these trials and his you know, indictments and potential convictions whatever, would be so central to the election season, and it really is such a side note.

Speaker 4

Now, the one.

Speaker 1

Thing I will say, you know, the discounter to that is he does have a sentencing date coming up in that Alvin Brade case on September eighteenth, which will reinsert this back into the political conversation. So we'll see what happens there and how significant. I think is very unlikely he ends up with this. It's a relatively minor charge that he was found guilty of. I think it's very unlikely that he would end up facing any prison time over it, but I guess you never know. It is

theoretically possible. So we'll see how all of that goes down. But that September eighteenth, that we'll have that sentencing date. There was some push to you know, extend that or push it off for a while, but they are going forward with it.

Speaker 4

So that's next. So significant Trump.

Speaker 2

Legal Georgia's past the election. Now this is past the election. I mean the main two ones where he was the most in legal jeopardy are now at the very least past. Also, if he does get elected president, there will be so much considering the Supreme Court ruling and that, you know, all of the circus around that being sitting president and facing some of this, it will be you know, so many novel legal constitutional theories will be tested.

Speaker 1

Well, this one, in particular is a federal case, so you know, he theoretically can just barn himself on that

one and not you know, not face. But and then you also have the question of like a sitting president and being prosecuted, and that's typically been seen as a no no. So yeah, I think him getting elected is probably a get out of jail free card for all of these things, which of course heightens the importance of the election, certainly to the person of Donald J. Trump, who I'm sure would prefer not to go to prison

big time. All Right, we have a few updates we wanted to bring in with regard to Israel that are consequential. Could put this up on the screen. Channel thirteen, which is a Hebrew language news outlet, reported this and it seems to be correct. Israel has agreed to a sort of kind of temporary humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza to allow

the administration a polio vaccines. The next tweet down from this, which we don't have but I'll just read you it says, first report, Israeli's agreed to Tony Blanken's request to implement a ceasefire and specific areas of Gaza so not the whole thing, not as part of negotiations, but for the purpose of vaccinating the population against polio. Decision was made by Nannial in the Security Establishment. Anya Who's office responded, this is not a truce, but a designation of specific

areas in the Gaza Strip for vaccination. The matter has been supported by the ministers and Sagar. This is obviously very significant because of the fact that you have already had polio is supposed to be basically eradicated, and you've already had a baby at ten month old, so has really has known no life outside of this war who was born and died because of polio, And they have been picking up polio in the sewage in the Gaza Strip. So you know, I don't think the Israelis are towing

the sound of the goodness of their heart. Their soldiers have to be operating in the Gaza Strip and are also probably concerned about the outbreak that is apparently ongoing a polio in Gaza. So that is what we know about this theoretical temporary partial ceasefire. It was not enough of a ceasefire, apparently, and put this up on the screen to keep them from continuing to target AID vehicles.

This is the World Food Program run by the UN temporarily suspended activities surround Gaza after one of its vehicles was hit by at least ten bullets. They went on to say, despite the World Food Program's coordination with Israel and Gaza deconfliction and that its vehicle was marked and cleared by Israeli authorities, it was directly hit by Israeli gunfire as it was moving towards an Israeli army checkpoint.

This of course recalls that multiple drone strike on the World Central Kitchen vehicles, and of course the fact saga that we've had hundreds, dozens and many more than one hundred AID workers who have been killed by Israel in this conflict. So you know, at a time when, of course the starvation and overall humanitarian conditions for Palestinians are horrific shape, now you have the World Food Program unable to operate because once again one of their vehicles was targeted.

Speaker 2

Yeah, it was really it was actually crazy to see Cindy McCain, who I always think it's ironic is the literal head of the World Food Program, especially because their daughter is probably one of the most pro Israel people that's out there. Anyway, she says, this quote is totally unacceptable, the latest in a series of unnecessary security incidents that endangered the lives of the World Food Program team in Gaza. So overall, the situation in Israel is still quite crazy.

I mean, Ryan and Emily covered this yesterday. There's this major west Bank operation which is happening there. The government is also, you know, saying all kinds of crazy stuff. We had this major Lebanon situation, the ceasefire talks.

Speaker 3

I don't even know where we can Where do we currently stand with that? I don't actually know where.

Speaker 2

As well, even though yeah, literally basically total limbo. Joe Biden and still at the beach though, so don't worry about that in terms of executing anything in American power, I don't know. It feels like there is a level of stasis that things have reached. It is August twenty ninth, and I was thinking about that. I mean, we're coming up on one year you know, since October seventh, which

is genuinely stunning and crazy to consider. But and you know, not only all that it's rot there, but in terms of our politics and foreign policy and the change and what all of that has looked like. But in a certain sense, it does feel like things are both calming down in Gaza but now expanding in terms of Lebanon and the West Bank.

Speaker 3

That's what it really looks like right now.

Speaker 1

Yeah, you know, just to go back to that World Central Kitchen things. I was thinking about this, you know, at the time, because this was the outfit associated with Jose Andres.

Speaker 4

There was a hole. This was a big deal here in d C.

Speaker 1

People know him personally. He was out giving interviews, speaking out. There was a big focus, you call the triple tapped that vehicle convoy and that was clearly marked. They'd gone through the deconfliction and they made sure that everyone was killed. The survivors would move from one vehicle to the next,

and then they would target that vehicle. And so there was massive outrage and yet you know, their calculation was we can let that die down, and it served their ultimate interests of and I mean this is very clear from the way that they've operated the entire time and the public pronouncements they've made about effectively starving Gosins. They succeeded in diminishing the number of aid workers who were able to do the job and the amount of aid that.

Speaker 4

Could be distributed.

Speaker 1

And so you know, this is just the latest incident and what has been a successful strategy of making it impossible and deadly to try to distribute and even the wildly inadequate amount of aid that gets into the Gaza stroup also just in a sign of again, I think any society can like I don't think that Israelis as human beings are any different than any other people around the world, but this society, in terms of what they have come to accept and embrace a majority of Jewish Israelis,

it is profoundly disturbing the dark things that they now accept an embrace, including We've discussed this incident on camera of gang rape of a Palestinian, documented that this has occurred multiple times, and there was a new poll can put this up on the screen asking how Jewish Israelis want to handle those soldiers who gang raped Palestinian detainees at that prison torture facility. Almost two thirds, sixty five percent of Jewish Israelis say there should be no criminal prosecution.

They prefer them to be handled in a disciplinary manner. Only only twenty one percent of Jewish Israelis thought that there should be a criminal trial for gang rape. I

don't even know what you say about that. You know, the extremes have clearly taken over, and you can see how, you know, in Bibe's actions and the way he's prosecuted the war, and the way he's really you know, leaned into the Bengevie and Smotrich like literal terrorists, their view of how to prosecute this assault on Palaestudians in the Gaza strip. These are the types of numbers he's responding to, and it has been Politically, it has worked out for him.

He had two goals. One was to just hold onto power as long as possible. Okay, well he's doing that well. And two, by satiating this desire for just horror and revenge, he was hoping that he could regain his political position.

Speaker 4

And guess what, it's kind of worked. His poll numbers have come up significantly.

Speaker 1

From where they were after October seventh, because recall, you know, he was mister Security and it was his entire philosophy that you know, obviously that Hamas is responsible for their actions. I'm not taking away from the horrors that they committed, but in terms of his theory of what would provide security for Israelis, it completely failed and there were massive

public recriminations. Plus there was, you know, already this massive backlash over the like judicial coup that he was trying to effectuate that was deeply unpopular as well.

Speaker 4

His position is recovered quite a bit.

Speaker 2

Yeah, no, his position is not only recovered, it's largely the strategy is working for him now currently, and there's been you know, we wanted to also put some other troubling precedents in here and to look into.

Speaker 3

Let's put this up there on the screen.

Speaker 2

There was a major report that Binance, the cryptocurrency exchange, was quote under scrutiny for seizing Palestinian crypto funds. Now Finance is disputing this, basically saying that they're in compliance with anti money laundering, anti monitoring lot for example, let's go to the next part. Please, They say the Binance CEO dismissed it, said that it was basically only in compliance with anti money laundering funds, saying, quote, only a

limited number of users were blocked from transacting. There have been some incorrect statements about this. As a global exchange, we have to comply with internationally accepted money laundering legislation just like any other financial institution.

Speaker 3

Will continue to educate users.

Speaker 2

What this is highlighting is just like the power of the Israeli government right now in trying to deny and use its sovereign status in the conflict, not only over Binance, but Elon Musk previously had this issue with Starlink as well, for example, because he was like, Hey, I want to give starlink to Gaza, and they were like, yeah, that's not going to happen unless we give permission basically, And it's one of those where it shows the power of

a nation state whenever they want to, you know, whenever they want to act. Yeah, they've done it with Facebook, They've done it with a couple of other places as well.

Speaker 1

I read the replies by the way to that tweet saying like this is fun and we only did for a few and the people were not buying it for whatever that's worth. The crypto world saw it as quite a betrayal, as they should, because one of the key selling points of crypto is that it would not be that outside of these various nation state pressures. And it's not very clearly way.

Speaker 3

Like it's just not that simple.

Speaker 4

Maybe it could be, but it's not.

Speaker 3

No, I'm saying it can be.

Speaker 2

Like you got to use it in a VPN like you gotta go to great length listen. In general, if you want to transact when the government doesn't want you to transact, good luck even with crypto.

Speaker 3

And I do.

Speaker 2

Look, but you can do it with crypto. I will just say that it's still very difficult. It's not the easiest thing in the world. I'm not going to give away any secrets here on the platform, so the FBI comes at me. But there are definitely ways to get around it if you want to. If you want it to be easy, like with a bank or something, then use the legitimate system. The problem with the legitimate system is, well, you know, the government at any time they want boom,

your entire account is completely shut down. And we saw that with Canada the whole freedom protest thing.

Speaker 3

But you're right.

Speaker 2

I mean in terms of finance and just the way that a lot of these international exchanges in particular portray themselves. They always say like, we're above government institutions, and they do need to be honest about Listen, if you're trying to evade like the long arm or the law.

Speaker 1

Process, sanctions or whatever targeting by the Israeli state, who you know, makes up whoever they want to deem as terrorist. Crypto is obviously not. And the other thing is, you know, on the one hand, they want to be like, oh, we're you know, we're outside of the system, et cetera, et cetera. On the other hand, I believe this is correct. No industry has spent more in this election than crypto.

Speaker 3

I'm not sure that.

Speaker 4

Look it up.

Speaker 3

I'd have to look back.

Speaker 4

Look it up.

Speaker 1

They've spent, I believe, more than any other industry. And you know they want to They're here with their own lobbyist outfits and play in the same Washington influence game to get their goodies and their perks and their loopholes and whatever is everybody else.

Speaker 4

So I don't see them as much different.

Speaker 2

Well the real okay, well, the reason on that is that there's a big divide in crypto also because what you're talking about is the reason that they're spending money is not to transact on crypto.

Speaker 3

It's specifically for sec.

Speaker 2

Rulings about how an asset is governed and the ability to tokenize. That is actually really what's more at stake. That's not really crypto per se. This is more like blockchain related tech. And then also the issuance of tokens, which has its history in crypto, but it has much more application to like web based transacting.

Speaker 3

This is part of the whole like Web three movement. Anyway.

Speaker 2

I know this is very confusing and in the weeds, but there is a significant difference between that. There's also a big divide in crypto itself between like institutional crypto people like the WINKLEBI and others. I mean, for example, being able to buy like a what is it an ETF that just tracks bitcoin a lot of og bitcoins, Like, hey, we didn't get into this to like have an et step of sec regulated stock market fund just to track bitcoin.

This also gets to the differences, and I mean, let's be honest, there's hundreds of billions of dollars now and yeah, so there's a very different stakeholders.

Speaker 1

It's used much more as just like a thing to bet on than it is as a currency that's just undeniable.

Speaker 12

No.

Speaker 1

I found the stat big Crypto now spending more on US elections than any other industry. They funneled some one hundred and nineteen million dollars into federal elections, cording a public citizen from four days ago. So they're big piet players here, and they're winning too. It looks I mean, this is one area Trump has already dropped his opposition to. He's you know, he went and spoke at their conference. He's basically like, whatever you want me to do or believe,

I'll you know, do and believe. And it looks like the Harris people are more Crypto favorable than the Biden people have been.

Speaker 4

So Lenz well spent. Looks like they're winning, all.

Speaker 3

Right, Chrystal, what are you taking a look at?

Speaker 1

In the past week, two significant formerly leftish figures decided to throw their lot in with the reigning global symbol of right populous authoritarians, Donald Trump. Now that would be former twenty twenty four presidential candidate RFK Junior and former twenty twenty presidential candidate Tulci Gabbard both appeared to travel a kind of similar journey from dissident left to right wing, and so they sparked a round of online discussion about

these supposed Bernie to Trump pipeline. There's a lot, of course, that this formulation leaves out. For one thing, Tulsi's most recent presidential endorsement in twenty twenty, while Bernie was still in the race, went to Joe Biden. Yet there are no thing pieces on the Biden to Trump pipeline, at least one that I've seen. I can actually find a

record of who RFK Junior supported in twenty twenty. Someone can message me and let me know, But I know his similarly read pilled vice presidential pick was a Mayor Pete backer, former and never Trump resistance figure. Jade Vance is now literally Trump's VP pick. In other words, there are many ideological and ambition driven paths between the two political.

Speaker 4

Parties back and forth.

Speaker 1

I could also point out that by the numbers, actually more Hillary voters, bitter over her loss to Obama defected to McCain in two thousand and eight than angry Bernie Brose defected to Trump in twenty sixteen. In fact, with the new coconut pilled inspired unity, if anything, the problems closer than the one Matt carp identifies, which is that too many online Bernie bros. Are demanding too little from

Kamala Harris for their support. All of this is true, and if I was writing this monologue a few years ago, I would have penned a blistering screed filaying these shit libs for their unending animus and bias towards the left.

Speaker 4

But the truth is, we got a.

Speaker 1

Few too many examples now, several of which I've been personally burned by, to totally dismiss the Bernie to Trump pipeline as a baseless mainstream media plot. To describe it the left, it pains me to admit it. But the libs are not entirely wrong. There is former Communists, no Trump supporter Russell Brand, There's former TYT progressive host Jimmy Durr's politics now just seem to be centered around hating

libs and being anti COVID vacs. There's, however, you want to describe Twitter ubiquitous, Jackson Hinkel, I'm sure you've got your own examples that come to mind. I think the online influencer horseshoe journey is likely more common than the regular person horseshoe journey is best I can tell by the polling data. But it'd be foolish to assume that none of these influencers flock followed them from dissonant left to trumpy and right. Probably some of you listening to

me right now. In terms of the horseshoe influencers, most of them would claim that their politics haven't budge ninch. It's that, in fact, the Democratic Party left them just zoming in on RFK and Tulci, these claims are pretty hard to take seriously, especially at this late date and trump Ism, when few if any, real populous elements remain I have instead been replaced by standard Boomer Cohn attacks

on imaginary communists. But a quick look at the statements of both RFK and Tulci will leave you pretty convinced that to back Trump, they changed or abandon their principles. I guess it's also possible that they've thoroughly confused themselves about who Donald Trump actually is and what the Republican Party actually stands for. Remember Tulci's most memorable moment of righteous indignation at Kama's expense during the twenty twenty primary. Let's just take a listen to that again.

Speaker 6

I want to bring the conversation back to the broken criminal justice system that is disproportionately negatively impacting black and brown people all across this country. Today, Senator Harris says she's proud of her record as a prosecutor and that she'll be a prosecutor present.

Speaker 3

But I'm deeply.

Speaker 6

Concerned about this record. There are too many examples to cite. But she put over fifteen hundred people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana.

Speaker 4

She blocked evidence.

Speaker 6

She blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the courts forced her to do so. She kept people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state of California. And she fought to keep cash fail system in place that impacts poor people in the worst kind of way.

Speaker 1

It's impossible to imagine Tulci Gabbert critiquing Kamala on criminal justice or much of anything from the left at this point and by endorsing Trump, Tulci signing up with a man who called for the now exonerated Central Park five to be executed and a man who has already threatened to use the Insurrection Act to launch a military crackdown in Chicago and other American cities in response to crime

as part of this current presidential bid. With regard to RFK Junior, just a few mon months ago, he was absolutely ripping Trump on a wide variety of fronts, including Trump's militarism and corporatism.

Speaker 4

Quote.

Speaker 1

If you think a second Trump term would be any different, you are engaging.

Speaker 4

In wishful thinking.

Speaker 1

Well now RFK Junior has flipped from blasting Trump for turning his foreign policy over to the worst warmongers and neocons to absurdly claiming that Trump is anti war. He also claimed that Trump would combat censorship and wild insanely dishonest claim that Kyle did a fantastic job of debunking in reality. Of course, Trump, among other things, wants to punish flag burning with a year in jail. Soon's CNN for four hundred and seventy five million dollars for calling

election denihalism the Big Lie soon. Bill Maher over a joke, supports opening up the libel laws, called for jailing journalists who reported on the Scotus abortion ruling once, to deport pro Palestine protesters, etc.

Speaker 4

Etc. You get the point.

Speaker 1

So, at least for these two, the claim they're just consistently following their long held principles, it's pretty preposterous. So it's really going on here. Everyone calls everyone a grifter of these days, how we would be naive to overlook the pull of commercial and career incentives since we're talking about a bunch of hyper online influencers. Algorithmic rewards and audience capture are pretty compelling, if not totally complete answers.

Speaker 4

Look, I'm in this game. I know what clicks.

Speaker 1

I can see it in our metrics every single day.

Speaker 4

If I was simply following the anti establishment money, my politics.

Speaker 1

Would look a lot like Tulsi or RFK Junior or the others. And there are few things more irresistible to the entire right wing universe than a why I left

the left narrative arc. That's why the Trump campaign has confused themselves into thinking that our pay Junior, who has a deeply negative approval rating, and a rash of perplexing and horrifying stories about his past, not to mention a set of deeply unpopular ideas and Tulci Gabbard, a former Democrat who garnered a whopping point seven percent of the primary vote, will be powerful campaign additions. Their brains have been cooked by the stew of right wing traditional and

social media. Naomi Klein digs a layer deeper into this reward system in her terrific book Doppelgang. In it, she details hey phenomenon in which she is constantly confused with Naomi Wolf led her to think more deeply about what she describes as the quote mirror world that some like Wolfs have tumbled into. Now Naomi Wolf followed that horseshoe arc from Al Gore advisor and leading feminist to Bannon War Room regular and right wing COVID era celebrity influencer.

In the book, Naomi Klin describes how during COVID she became somewhat obsessed with the confusion between herself and this doppelganger, and especially obsessed with the journey that that other Naomi had traveled.

Speaker 4

What happened? How did she justify it?

Speaker 1

One of the things that Naomi Kline found is that the mirror world or horseshoe or burn you to Trump phenomenon, it's actually not just a US dynamic. Similar movement in Germany labels itself querdenkin, taking a stab at the pronunciation there meaning outside the box or diagonal, and combines neo

fascists with hippie type health obsessives. Other similar movements have sprung up throughout Europe as well, As Klein writes in her book, despite claims of postpartisanship, it is right wing, often far right, political party around the world that have managed to absorb the unruly passions and energy of diagonalism, folding its COVID era grievances into pre existing projects, opposing wokeness, and drumming up fears of migrant invasions, alien abductions as

well as climate lockdowns. Still, it is important for these movements to present themselves as and to believe themselves to be ruptures with politics as usual, to claim to be something new beyond traditional left right polls, which is why having a few prominent self identified progressives and or liberals

involved is so critical. In other words, these movements need former Democrats so they'll scoop up a discredited Naomi Wolf or a failed and scored presidential candidate or two, and embrace them, download their podcasts.

Speaker 4

They'll push them to stardom.

Speaker 1

They'll replace the scorn and derision of liberals with the praise and adoration of the right. That's an intoxicating brew for anyone, but may prove completely irresistible depending on a

set of life experiences and personality traits. As Naomi Klein rights quote, I could offer a kind of equation for leftists and liberals crossing over to the neo fascism and authoritarian right that goes something like narcissism times grandiosity plus social media addiction plus midlife crisis divided by public shaming equals right wing meltdown. She was joking, but it does ring a little bit true. I want to dwell on that public shaming piece, though, because I think it's important.

Gives me an excuse to get back on the more comfortable ground of criticizing liberals. Since the Clinton era, the entire Democratic Party establishment has been dedicated to a project a punching left, deriding anyone who questions the narrow confines of their cramped worldview. As a villain, and this project of derision and excommunication got turned up to eleven. During the Bernie era, we weren't just people who wanted healthcare.

Speaker 4

We were toxic Bernie bros.

Speaker 1

Hell bent on electing Donald Trump or turning the country over to Vladimir Putin or whatever. At every opportunity, Democratic Party elites trashed us, personally mocked our priorities, undermined our

candidates to the point of outright rigging. It's not an excuse for people to abandon their principles to throw in with Trump, but it is highly predictable that this process of scorn and shaming will in fact lead to some folks embracing the side that is there waiting with open arms to praise and uplift them and their conversion story, not to mention to validate their online battle hardened worldview that liberals were always and forever the root of all evil.

On the contrary, in the new Kamala Harn's era, it has taken remarkably little extension of the tiniest bit of goodwill to get many disaffected Bernie type young people and not so young people back on board. I was personally shocked that Kamala picked Tim Walls for VP simply because he was the candidate the left wanted, and typically Democrats

make a show of humiliating the left for sport. In addition, after an initially ugly response to pro Palestinian protesters, Kama clearly heard the feedback and adjusted her tone to be more compassionate in future interactions. Now, doi' mistake what I'm saying here. These gestures are far from enough, but that's kind of my point. As the old saying goes, you catch a lot more flies with honey than with vinegar.

Kamala is trying the tiniest bit of honey, and judging by the polls and the Democrats that are coming back home, it's actually working like a charm. This monologue already too long. A lot more I could say about the peal of conspiracy and autopsy turvy world, about the particular characters who are involved here, about how Trump and then COVID just really broke a lot of people's brains, But I'm just going to end with this. The COVID era is over, the Bernie versus Hillary era.

Speaker 4

I think it's actually over.

Speaker 1

And so while there may still be various pipelines to the right wing TULSI and RFK. They're probably more emblematic of the last gasps of some phenomenon than a new wave of some phenomenon, as evidenced by the fact that anyone excited about their embrace of Trump was really already supporting Trump.

Speaker 4

We'll have to await what.

Speaker 1

Strange new political phenomenon our AI algorithmic overlords are going to cook up next. All right, Sager, there was a lot there. But anyway, Bernie to Trump pipeline.

Speaker 4

Is it real?

Speaker 2

Yes, to the extent that Bernie is like Trump in his twenty sixteen campaign was a catch all for a lot of different stuff. So some people were there for Medicare for all, some people were there because they hated Hillary Clinton, and some people were there because I hate the left right, the establishment left.

Speaker 3

And so today, if you hate.

Speaker 2

The establishment left because they hate liberals, because they hate liberals, you should support Trump, like if that's your number one thing you hate.

Speaker 1

If your whole politics is just I hate. I mean a lot of people think that a lot of people that is their polity.

Speaker 2

Yeah and yeah, especially online, like in particular, then that pipeline makes a lot of sense. Trump was a much more marginal figure in twenty sixteen. Bernie obviously was a catch all of the Democratic Party. These were traditionally people who came up hating the Bush Republican Party. It wasn't exactly clear yet that that was going to be demolished. It would make a lot of sense to back a Bernie Sanders. It also would make a lot of sense then to back a Donald Trump in twenty twenty four.

And that's the thing. Look, a lot of people don't vote on policy. A lot of people are oriented towards hating the left. So if you hate the left, yeah, you should vote for Trump, I mean honestly. And that's why I actually think the Tulsa and RFK phenomenon does entirely make sense to me, because I never thought any of it really was about criminal.

Speaker 3

Justice reform or any of that stuff.

Speaker 2

A lot of it really was just about the establishment being anti establishment.

Speaker 3

One is sticking it to the man.

Speaker 2

And like in a realm where we are where Bernie is now endorsed Trump, where like you know, AOC is on the d NC stage, a lot of it does make sense for the figures who were most attracted to them, again not for policy reasons, but for standing up to the establishment left to liberals. Then yeah, for vibes, then you entirely tracks that you should vote for Donald Trump and to support them. So yeah, I mean this is like former this is like former Trump supporters.

Speaker 3

I'm trying to think about this.

Speaker 2

It's you know, we make a lot of the phenomenon of like former McCain people who are now Democrats. Everyone's like, how is that possible? Like no, it's entirely like it totally makes sense.

Speaker 4

Maybe support like the McCain to Harris.

Speaker 2

There's so many of those people. Stephen's the Lincoln project. I think that is entirely tracks.

Speaker 1

But part of it is part of it is number one with a lot of those people. Part of what drives it is also an ambition rewards calculus because in the same way, you know, you're fetied if you do the why I left the Left thing and you're suddenly you're you know, you're popular, and you have a podcast that's in the top whatever, and you're getting your presidential endorsement matters Like if Tulci Gabbard and endorsed Kamala Harris, no one would give a shit.

Speaker 4

Yeah, you know, but that she endorsed Trump.

Speaker 1

He brings her up and stands a big she's on the transition team, she's a hero, et cetera, et cetera. There's a similar like, yeah, former Republican to resistance figure that's also very profitable and that you know, absolves you of all of your past sins of you know, supporting the Iraq war and justifying it and all of that

as well. And so that's certainly a part of it, which is I think part of why you know in the same way that it's not exactly the same because the never Trump phenomenon is we're talking about elite media predominantly, and here we're talking about like online media predominantly. But I do think it is more of a top level influencer phenomenon because of the specific rewards and incentives that are involved in those structures than it is a broader phenomenon.

I think it's if you just look at the numbers, far more former Bernie supporters have traveled the path to be like aoc Nancy Pelosi Coconut Hills far more than are like yes with RFK Junior joining Trump and Tulci Gabbert joining Trump. Now that's not to say those people don't exist.

Speaker 4

But you know, I do go.

Speaker 1

Back to like part of why I was reluctant to delve into this is because I do think the phenomena is vastly overstated by, you know, people who have an ideological act to grind against the left and have always hated Bernie and Bernie supporters whatever, and I think ignores other like ignores for example, that Tulsi endor Speiden time around, you know, and that many other figures have moved to the right who were not burning people.

Speaker 2

But there's a quote going around that Tulca actually said to us in twenty nineteen, Oh, really think about Donald Trump.

Speaker 3

Yeah, I see it all the time.

Speaker 4

Oh what was it?

Speaker 3

Let me find it?

Speaker 4

It takes well, well you're looking that up.

Speaker 1

I'll also tell people The New York Times actually quoted the last interview that you did because I was out, I don't know where. It was, on vacation or something with RK. Junior was apparently the last time he criticized Trump was on our show with you in that interview and he said he was a quote terrible president.

Speaker 4

Yeah, it wasn't very long ago.

Speaker 3

Guys, twenty nineteen.

Speaker 2

Look, there is no question in my mind, Donald Trump is unfit to service president commander of Chiefs. I've said this over and over again, Gabbart told host Crystal Ball at Soccer Jetty.

Speaker 3

So that was I mean, it was twenty nineteen. So a lot of things have changed.

Speaker 2

But again, if you look at the reward system and you the same thing that we think about of Nicole Wallace of the bill, Crystal pipeline completely applies the other way around for voting block, I mean, and the same way the voting blocks all so does not follow elite opinion or that type of opinion. Most people who supported McCain support Trump. Now, did he loose some people on the margins, Yeah, but vast majority of Republicans are still Republicans.

Vast majority of burning people are mostly still Democrats. So if you look at the voters, it's different. There's another thing too where look, you know, since we're being honest about the open online phenomenon, sometimes, you know, if you want to keep your channel growing, by definition, you have to bring the more people in. And so if you see a drop in left whatever, then what do you do. You kind of chase whatever continues and then you lean into a little bit of that anybody is guilty of it.

And you know, obviously, like you said, it'd be very easy, actually be to grow the channel even more to just post about certain subjects. It doesn't take a genius to figure all of that. We resist quite a bit of it here, and.

Speaker 4

We can because we have insights that you can see so clearly which channels are just yeah, just writing the algorithm right.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 2

Now, in general, though, the caution is you're probably going to get burned, you know, in the long run. The people who do that, you get burned, and you almost never make it in the.

Speaker 1

Long because it becomes clear to the audience as well, and you're just become predictable to you know. It's like if you're just always riding the wave of whatever is the popular online thing, then eventually, yeah, it's going to become unsustainable. People are going to get bored with it, they're going to move on whatever. So it is a short term strategy that can be very successful.

Speaker 4

Long term strategy not I.

Speaker 2

Don't think it works, but you know, there's been a decent amount of money to be made in the short term. That's usually the analysis that all those people have. We're already running late, so we can cut it here. Everybody have a good Labor Day weekend, Chrystally, you'll have analysis on the common.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I'm I'm going to react to the interview. Soccer's gonna be out, so it's not that I'm kicking out from responding to, you know, comrade.

Speaker 3

Harris flying to London.

Speaker 4

Everybody leave me, but yeah, so I'll react to that.

Speaker 1

We are going to be off on Mondnday, that's right, So we'll see you back here on Tuesday.

Speaker 3

See you Tuesday.

Speaker 11

Inst

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