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.
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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 Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal?
Indeed, we do. Many interesting things developing this morning. We've got new details in that second Trump assassination attempt, a new questions for the Secret Service.
Kamala Harris actually did.
Another solo sit down interview, so we want to dig into those less than satisfying answers that she gave. Joe Rogan with some interesting commentary on the debate. Bill Maher was some interesting commentary on the election. Dave Portnoy was some interesting commentary on weed. Of course, we couldn't miss that one given Soccer's interest in the subject. Some very serious things developing with regard to foreign policy, both in Ukraine, and Israel, both of which point in the direction of
further terrifying escalation. So we did not want to miss that. And we've got a new guest on the show today. He runs an election model, taking a look at all the polls and feeding them in and seeing what he thinks is going to happen this November.
So we're excited to talk to him as well.
Yes we are.
And before we get to any of that, thank you to all of our premium subscribers. We're going to be doing our Ask Me Anything later today. We do it live from our studio here and we broadcasted exclusively on locals, so if you want to go ahead and subscribe and be a part of that Breakingpoints dot com. Before we get to all the stories that Crystal just laid out, we actually had a major breaking story that just happened this morning.
Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen.
We wanted to make sure we gave people some of the details because this story know many are interested in.
Sean P.
Diddy Combs has been arrested in Manhattan after a grand jury indictment. So it was literally just happened late last night.
Sehn P. Didy Combs was taken into.
Custody by the US Southern District of New York and by the US Marshall Service at about eight thirty pm at the hotel where he was staying, the Park Hyatt on fifty seventh Street. The indictment and the charges against him remain sealed by the federal government, but we do know that this was an investigation that was led by the Homeland Security Department, specifically HSI, which often investigates sex trafficking cases.
Quote.
The March raids that we all brought everybody live coverage of at the time, demonstrated that they were converging on his mansion in Los Angeles. He was then later, you know, there's a lot of speculation as to exactly where he was and whether.
He was fleeing.
They could be seen carrying out electronics and all of this is in the context of a lot of the lawsuits and videos that have come out about Combs since I guess the last couple of years, past relationships, violence, and many of the other stories that have been alleged
against him. But obviously him as a titanic development, not only in the case against him, but kind of looking at the entire music industry, something that's been trailing in for almost thirty years, and very very interested to see what is in that unsealed or in that currently sealed indictment against him. Southern District of New York again a very i guess, probably one of the most important jurisdictions in all of law enforcement in the United.
States, no doubt. It's one of the most high profile federal courts. Probably excuse me. Between that and the Alexandria Federal District Court, which handles a lot of terrorism cases, those are probably the two most significant and powerful jurisdictions
in the country. Just to remind people of some of the horrifying details here, This whole saga and learning about some of the horrible things that have been alleged and in fact were caught and revealed on video started when R and B singer Cassie came forward with a series of horrifying allegations, including things that would be tantamount to sex trafficking. In addition, you know, are being drugged and
forced into horrible things. Her being beaten video was eventually revealed from a hotel security camera that fit perfectly to a t Some of the horrors that she described. Now he immediately settled, but that really opened the floodgates. And so this individual, who you know, as a millennial, he was sort of the pinnacle of pop and hip hop culture.
You know, what we have learned about him and the criminal behavior that is now alleged to have occurred across multiple women across multiple states over years and years and years has been shocking and horrifying. So, you know, everybody deserves their day and core, but what's already in the public sphere is pretty damning.
Yeah, the videos alone, not to mention the testimony and some of the things he's only already either not admitted to or settled in cases have been outrageous.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
And then these always raise the questions too of Okay, well, he had a lot of handlers around him, He had a lot of you know, other stars who were around him, and allegedly, you know, at some of these parties where these rapes and sexual assaults and druggings, et cetera occurred.
So who knew what when? How big was the circle?
You know?
Was this one of those apparently open secrets in Hollywood and pop culture that everyone just turned a blind eye to or perhaps participated in, or perhaps enabled, et cetera. Those are some of the questions that go beyond Sean Diddycombs. Not that this wouldn't be a gigantic and horrifying story just on its own with him being the only perpetrator involved.
Yeah, great point, And what it does mean is that it will face a lot of inquiries into his businesses in the past, going all the way back to the early nineteen nineties, including some of the allegations that are
against him. The HSI involvement is what really put you know, put a lot of flags on the case because it demonstrated this specifically a sex trafficking investigation, and of course you know, the charges and the years that those hold could be really stunning when we eventually see what the end result of this. Like we said, Crystal, you know, Sean Combs maintains his innocence. He say, quote, he's an imperfect man, but that does not mean that he is
a criminal. And they say that he remains innocent of the charges. We don't yet know what those charges are, and when we get full details, we'll bring it to Everybody wanted to make sure they got that arrest in the show. Let's go ahead and move on then to Donald Trump and to some of the new revelations that we have about this attempted assassination of Donald Trump at his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida. We now have body camera footage that has been released showing Ryan
Rout's arrest by the authorities. Remember, Ryan Routh was on the golf course, he was spotted by Secret Service agents. Secret agents actually took a shot at him. He was able to drop his rifle fleet get into his vehicle, which was parked nearby, drive away to a different county. It was only because a bystander nearby took a picture of his license plate and the make of the car that they were able to apprehend him so quickly. They eventually corner him on a road. And here's how that
all went down. Let's go ahead and take a listen. We're gonna play some of this. So what we can see here is Ryan Routh. He's here, He's got a shirt up over his head, likely so that they could make sure that he didn't have anything that was on his person, and then he's getting arrested. There he could see that they basically cornered him on a road and made sure that they were able to arrest him without incident.
So he did appear in court yesterday, and some of the details that are now alleged in the criminal complaint are absolutely crazy. This really does tell the story of
the secret Service failure. So in the criminal complaint that was filed by federal prosecutors, the affidavit says from T mobile phone records indicate that Ryan Round's mobile phone was quote located in the vicinity of the area along the tree line from one fifty nine am until approximately one thirty one pm, so he was in and around the
Trump golf course for a stunning twelve hours quote. The affidavit also says local law enforcement told them Ralph was driving a Nissan with the license plate belonging to a FOD truck that had been reported stolen. So there are so many sketchy things that are going on right now with respect to mister Ralph Christl because not only in the criminal complaint, I was just reading some more details
this morning. He was under investigation multiple times by the FBI as a convicted felon known in possession of a firearm. In fact, federal authorities were flagged to him about him multiple years ago, including from a nurse who was returning from Ukraine and she told customs officers returning to the United States, she said, you need to watch out for this guy. He is crazy, he's violent, he's a problem.
So this was not just on the radar, but now to federal authorities at multiple different levels, from his Ukraine work to his gun possession. We know a little bit from the gun charges. You know, the serial number on the rifle that was found that he allegedly was trying to use, that was filed off perhaps, you know, showing that it is an illegal weapon that was purchased. But there's a lot of sketchy questions that remain around Ralph. How was he funding his lifestyle? Was funding his multiple
trips back and forth from Ukraine? So lots of weird stuff that's currently happening.
Yeah, and that's so noteworthy that there were multiple people who interacted with this guy, and some of this was in the public domain. We were talking about it yesterday where they were warning they're saying, this guy does not represent Ukraine, he is not recruiting foreign fighters like he's basically a fraud and a con. Don't take him seriously. And then the new information that we learned is that going beyond that, it wasn't just hey, this guy is,
you know, a huckster. It was this man is dangerous. The things he's saying are crazy, and you need to be, like federal authorities, you need to be watching out for him. So the more we learn about that, uh, the more interesting that tale is going to be. You know, with regard to the Secret Service response here, I feel a little differently about the Secret Service response in this instance
versus Butler. It's very clear Secret Service just fell down on the job in Butler and came within an inch, you know, within half an inch of former President Trump being murdered in front of a giant rally crowd on national television. It was just by luck, fortune, fate, or whatever that he happened to turn his head at that moment.
In this instance, you had a you know, a very sharp eyed Secret Service agent who was scouting ahead and was able to spot him, and you know, they were able to fire off shots and then ultimately, you know, down the road they got kind of lucky with their ability to apprehend him before he could get any shots off.
Whatsoever.
I'm open to two explanations for how they came within, you know, another such a close call on the president's former president's life this time. One is that there was another Secret Service failure, you know, when he's in the woods for twelve hours, that there wasn't a sufficient job done scouting the golf course ahead of Trump going out and playing.
That's one possible explanation.
Another possible explanation kind of falls on Congress or perhaps on the agency heads, that there have been insufficient resources allocated to the Secret Service such that they're doing the best job they can and did the best job they could in the circumstances, but simply didn't have the tools and the resources to be able to avoid such a close call. But I'll tell you, you know, it's very noteworthy to me. I'm not an expert. I'd love to hear people who are an expert kind of way in
on this. But they really got lucky in that bystander taking a picture of his license plate and their ability to then you know, work with local law enforcement to apprehend this guy down the road, because imagine a situation where there's an ongoing man cunt for this individual or where you know, potentially theoretically he is never found. I think we were very close to that scenario unfolding if not for the quick thinking of a near dot nearby, you know, passerby.
You're right, I mean, look, would they have eventually found him, most likely fingerprints on the weapon, you know, some of the personal details and other things, maybe his phone rerecords they could have used, but it might have taken a long time.
And who knows. He's an unstable individual.
He literally wanted to kill the presidents and got close to him, so possibly had I mean, they didn't charge him with guns inside of the car, but again, you know, when you have an unstable person like that who is literally on the run, they could do anything. So we certainly did get lucky. I agree with you on the institutional level, you know, not faulting the individual agents who were there on the ground, but it is clear resources wise,
it's just different. So again I can give my own personal experience having had to cover some of these golf things when Trump was president. I know for a fact that the golf course was entirely shut down and patrolled when they were president. In fact, from what I understand, if he had had the same level of presidential detail that was normal. Then the golf course would have been secured in a different way and nobody would have been
allowed to camp out there for twelve hours. And the only reason again that they even were able to were able to see him was because they were scouting one hole ahead whenever he was there, as opposed to shutting the entire thing down. This gets to resources right now. The Secret Service is telling us Trump now has the highest level of possible protection. That includes he had a phone call, I believe with President Biden yesterday where Biden basically talked to him about.
The same thing.
But now a Secret Service, you know, seeing two attempted assassinations in the span of just sixty days is terrible look for them, and it is very scary too whenever we have an active candidate for president of the United States. Also, though, now we're getting back into the rhetoric wars, let's put this up there on the screen. Trump returning to Twitter
at least for this one. He says the rhetoric lies, as exemplified by the false statements made by Comrade Kamala during the rigged and highly parts and ABC debate and ridiculous lawsuits designed. I can't even read this, there's so many comments, but I'll just get to this. It is because because of the communist left rhetoric, the bullets are flying and it will only get worse, allowing millions of pieces from places unknown to invade and take over our countries.
And on part of wals stay blah blah blah, we must love our nation. Come in legally, he turns it into a migrant thing. But I have I said this after last time, and I continue to maintain it. I'm just going to stay in defense of we think reasonable position that just because people have quote unquote heated rhetoric does not mean that they are responsible. I think that
for what a deranged person like Ryan Routh does. I don't think that applies in the case of people being like we need to end and stop Donald Trump, or even calling him a dictator or fascist. It's a free country, we have free speech. I don't think that that's necessarily inciting violence, and I don't think it's the same whenever those same charges are leveled against you know, right wing politicians.
So this always annoys me, you know, this whole like we need to tone down the rhetoric while they're literally ramping up the rhetoric on their own side.
And I just think.
It's very foolish because guys like we like, we have a general social contract. Most normal people understand whenever you say, quote unquote we need to stop him, it doesn't entail a literal assassination that applies to quote unquote comrade Kamala, communist Kamala. The Democrats are having an invasion of our country.
That's the same thing.
So anyways, this has always annoyed me, I said after the last attempt assassination, and I will continue to say it here.
Yeah, and yeah, I don't think Republicans really want this election to be contested on who has the more heated or reasonable rhetoric, right, I mean, the last time around, there was at least like five minutes where Trump was like, oh, I'm going to be the unity candidate and we're it's going to be a totally different Trump. And maybe about twenty minutes into his RNC convention speech, that was out the window and it was back to the same old, same old. Like you know, Donald Trump did come up
with a fake electors scheme. He did give that speech and tell people to come to DC, and that it was going to be wild. He did watch as those rioters breached the capitol and you know, assaulted police officers and all of those things, and he just watched and
wouldn't say anything for hours and hours. So it's entirely reasonable, appropriate, et cetera, to say, based on his past behavior, he is a threat to democracy, and so to then you know, turn around, you can't say that about him because it's inciting. It's like, well, we're just you know, it's a very reasonable even if you disagree, it's a very reasonable conclusion
and charge to levy at Donald Trump. And of course, I mean his rhetoric, even within this one tweet where he's saying that it's, you know, the democratic rhetoric is too hot. He's then going on and painting an existential threat. So yeah, it's you know, it's it's sort of ridiculous, and especially when you dig into the specifics of these cases, the first assassination attempt in particular, which you know, we know more about at this point than we do the
second assassination attempt, and what the potential motivations are. Although you know, I think it's fairly reason to assume it had something to do with Ukraine, since this guy was like obsessively into Ukraine. But the first one, this guy didn't seem he was looking at, you know, where various
political figures of both parties were gonna be. He seemed like he just wanted his moment of notoriety, that it was all about just getting his name into the history books and really had nothing to do with political ideology
as best as we can tell. I mean, still, even after the reports that they've done and the information that they've learned, they still haven't really they haven't asserted any motive outside of what we could all glean from, you know, just the fact that he's searching all kinds of different high level political and cultural figures that he could go out and potentially take a shot at. So in any case, yeah, this discourse, obviously, I found it as ridiculous and sort of silly as you do.
Right because, like, look on the Thomas Crooks thing, we don't know a lot, but yeah, I mean, current evidence points in that direction. And there's an important point there. It's about the individual. It's not about quote unquote the rhetoric of Democrats or Republicans. You know, there is individual responsibility here. These people have agency, even if they may be drained. It doesn't necessarily fall on what you know somebody said earlier.
Now, should we have better rhetoric.
Maybe, although you know, I'm not really gonna I hate tone policing just in general, especially whenever we try and gate it around an election. No, elections are actually very high stakes. We should argue sometimes they are existential and the eye of the beholder. I think he's totally fine to say so, no matter where you fall. Let's go to the next part here, continuing with Ryan Routh. Ryan, interesting guy appearing here in court on these federal gun charges.
Let's put this up there on the screen. He claims he is indigent and he is now currently being represented by a public defender, meaning he has no funds. I again just find a lot of the funding behind him. Very just mystifying. Because he is a current resident of Hawaii. He clearly has enough money to like jet set across the ocean back and forth from Ukraine to come here to Washington. He was previously in North Carolina, allegedly was
running a business with his son. And you know, I don't have any experience buying illegal weapons, but from what I understand from reading, they generally cost like five times retail costs, So several thousand dollars invested in the rifle that he purchased. Where is all this stuff coming from? Like maybe it was a credit card. I don't know, but I'd be very interested to see that. Right now, those gun charges are the only ones that have been
filed against Ralph. From what I understand, it would be quite difficult to charge him with attempted murder or attempted assassination, but it is possible, though the federal prosecutors will move to do so. Staying with like who Ryan was, As you just said, he was a fanatic. He genuinely was a Ukraine like just a pro nuclear war in favor of Ukraine. Wanted to make sure that America did everything possible,
sending patriot missol defense systems. There's multiple photos of him at protests and others begging F sixteens, no fly zone, all of these things over the last couple of years.
In fact, somebody recently flagged this.
He appears to have been in an Azov battalion propaganda video from twenty twenty two. We can play some of this so that people can see, let's just roll a little bit. This Azov Battalion, of course, is the far right literal neo Nazis who are attached to the Ukrainian military.
But there he was.
That's a picture of him.
Yeah.
I mean, there's a you know, probably a lot to say there in terms of what it means for Ukraine. But like I said, and I'll cut the Ukrainian slack in this, Uh, the International Legion has completely denounced him. All these foreign fighters who were there, they're like, we have nothing connected to this guy. In fact, there are multiple instances of us calling him a grifter and a liar.
We saw this morning.
Like I said, there were people who were in Ukraine coming back to the United States telling federal authorities you got to watch out.
For this guy.
He is crazy and flagging and trying to get US authorities to do something about it. It does appear that while he was in Kiev, he did have some contacts and was able to funnel some foreign fighters into the Ukrainian military. At least one person has said that, so his ties, you know, to the Ukrainian state, to the International Legion, foreign fighters. It's not as cut and dry as some people may want to say, I think the obvious explanation is just crazy, but that doesn't mean that
he also didn't have some contact with them. But he certainly was not part and parcel a foreign fighter or something like that in Ukraine.
As best we can tell, and his social media posts before his Twitter account was taken down, there were a bunch of them that were like, I will fight and die for Ukraine. I want to go to Ukraine to fight and die. And the best syndications are that he tried to do that and they rejected him.
They were like, no, we don't want to.
And then you had a bunch of people who interacted with him throwing up these warning signals. So yeah, he was whatever vibes he was given off, whatever things he was saying. In the context of the Ukrainian conflict, there were plenty of people involved who are extraordinarily pro Ukraine who were like, absolutely not. And by the way, let me alert the federal authorities because this dude is an
absolute maniac. I'm not sure if you mentioned this or not, but I just wanted to make sure to get in the detail with regards to the gun charges and the legal angle of this is interesting because I was thinking about that. He didn't get any shots off. It was the Secret Service firing at him, So that's probably what makes it more difficult to charge him with attempted assassination.
Now we can all read the tea leaves of when you're hiding in the woods at the former president's golf course for twelve hours with a sniper rifle and scope and a O pro camera to record it all, we can probably all guess what intentions you ultimately had. But I would assume that that's the reason why it would be difficult to prove those more egregious charges versus the gun charges. And part of what we learned yesterday as well is that the serial number on his rifle was
at least partially scratched out. So that is why we don't have details. You know, usually we get pretty quickly the details of like, oh, this is where the gun came from. He bought it legally, he bought it illegally, It was somebody else's. It's still over stolen, as in the case of the Georgia school shooting. His dad bought
it for him for Christmas or whatever. We don't have those details yet because of the serial number being scratched out and making it much more difficult to track the origin of this particular weapon.
Yeah, that's right.
Like I said, though he was a convicted felon by many you know, reasonable standards, should not have had a fire arm. I'm talking about legally, and FBI literally investigated it. That's part of what I find missedifying. And it just always comes back. It's like known to FBI. It's almost a meme at this point, known to federal authorities. Twenty nineteen, Tipster calls the FBI says, hey, this guy's a convicted felon. Remember in his past two thousand and two, barricaded himself
inside of an office with a fully automatic weapon. So that's it, You're done. FBI is called by Tipster Honolulu. FBI office investigates and drops the case, closes it. I mean, that's pretty egregious in my opinion, on top of all of the investigations, that all of the flags done specifically by people returning from Ukraine begging the FBI and federal authorities are like, you need to keep an eye on this guy. There is something wrong with him. Let's go
ahead and put the last one up there. And that's just what we referenced earlier, Secret Service under scrutiny here after this potential a second attempt on Donald Trump's life, Congress and others are now calling for investigations. But Congress, by all accounts, is also getting very fed up. I just saw a statement from or a senator yesterday that said that I think it was Richard Blumenthal, so Democrat from Connecticut, saying that the Homeland Security Department has been
derelict in its duty in sharing information with Congress. And I mean all of the current indications, not only in terms of these attempted assassinations from resources, but also at the institutional level, point to an absolute cluster inside of this organization.
Right now.
We had those leaked you know, text messages and others that we had flagged earlier. But you know, there's clearly there is something deeply rotten inside of the Secret Service, and that's that is existentially dangerous to our country because it's not just Donald Trump. It could be Kamala Harris, could be Joe Biden, it could be any of these figs or the members of the family, people in the executive branch, people like Jake Sullivan or others. There are
all kinds of sketchy and weird people. As we learn from Ryan Ralph and mister Crooks who tried to assassinate Donald Trump earlier. These people are swarming Washington and just orbiting the political system, waiting for an opportunity. So they need to be vigilant at all times. And it genuinely is dangerous to see stuff like this.
I mean, it's a horrible landscape to acknowledge, But we've got a country that is kind of a tinder box where the politics, do you know, tend towards the sense of existential stakes, where there's just the numbers, a massive amount of guns. So you know, whatever they're doing in terms of Secret Service protection for all of their protectees,
they need to up the ante. And I said this yesterday, I fear that this is kind of a terrifying new normal because once one person demonstrates what's possible, then a lot of other lunatics start to get ideas in their head as well. And with regard to the specifics of this instance and the fact that you know, still even after the first assassination attempt, president, former President Trump was not getting the level of protection that the current president gets.
It almost seems.
To me like a bureaucratic box checking issue where it's like, well, here's our standard for you know, if you're this person, you get that level of protection.
If you're that person, you get this level.
Here's our protocols, here's what we do, rather than flexibly thinking about, wow, the risk landscape has just dramatically increased for this particular individual protect perhaps for all protectees overall. So we need to go beyond what would be what we've typically done in the past for a former president or for a you know, current candidate. We actually need to do as much as we possibly can now. Again,
Secret Service doesn't have unlimited funds. One of the issues that Ken Klippenstein, who has done fantastic reporting on this, talks about a lot, is that they've been stretched in so many different directions and pulled in so many different directions into areas that you would never think that the Secret Service was involved with whatsoever and so.
And that's not all their fault.
That also could be you know, the agency had certainly, but also could be things that Congress has mandated. There needs to be an executive branch and a legislative branch effort to refocus this agency on the most critical core part of their mission, and to acknowledge that the risk is dramatically elevated, certainly for former President Trump, but I would say probably for all of the protectees that you know are under their care. So we wanted to make
sure to get to this. Kamala Harrison did sit for another solo interview with results that I would say are indicative of perhaps why she doesn't say for that many of these interviews. So let me just give you a little bit of what went down here. So this video is going to start off with her response to an answer about how specifically she would go about lowering prices.
Let's take a lisson.
I grew up a middle class kid. My mother raised my sister and me. She worked very hard. She was able to finally save up enough money to buy our first house when I was a teenager.
I grew up in a.
Community of hardworking people, you know, construction workers and nurses and teachers. And I try to explain to some people who may not have had the same experience. You know, if a lot of people will relate to this, you know, I grew up in a neighborhood of folks who were very proud of their lawn, you know. And I was raised to believe and to know that all people deserve dignity and that we as Americans have a beautiful character to build in. My goal is three million new homes
by the end of my first term. In addition to help people who just want to get their foot in the door literally and so giving first time home buyers a twenty five thousand dollars down payment assistance. A new approach is to expand the child tax credit to six thousand dollars for young families for the first year of their child's life. And people want a leader who has
common sense and tries to find common ground. I'm supported by over two hundred Republicans who worked for both Presidents Bush, John McCain, met Romney.
So she gets around to talking about some of her policy plans, but sacer, I don't know why this is hard like, so she gets asked, Okay, what are you gonna do?
Right?
I come from a middle class background, and people loved their lawns, and don't we have great values. It's like you have good policy proposals that you put out that.
Are really really popular.
I don't know why there isn't in her playbook, in her list of talking points right out of the gate, I'm going to crack down on price gouging. I'm going to crack down on you know, the prescription drug prices. I'm going to bring them down. And then you know, the housing stuff is really good, the child tax credit, it's really good.
I don't know why there isn't. Just like a dut dout dut.
And then if you want to zoom out and do your let me tell you about my values and where I come from and why these are the things that I believe in and committed to. That's fine, But you know, I'm not trying to nitpick here. But I do think this is the one piece that is really missing for a lot of voters, even a lot of voters who watched the debate and were like, she did way better than Trump, and I cannot stand Trump, and she made him look like a fool, and he made himself look like a fool.
But I really still want to.
Get that core of like who are you and what specifically are you committed to doing on day one.
For some reason, this is the most difficult question for her.
Yeah, it is, well, I mean I think there's a when you say why, I think the answer is is that she doesn't believe it. These are things or she doesn't believe anything, And that's actually the number one knock against her. She's so used to having to lean into her identity and others that it appears to be the default answer. Keep in mind, this is only a ten minute interview and we gave you, literally, I guess, to
the highlights. But the point that you're making is that if you calibrate to what And this is where I always say with Americans, like, look, you could say a lot about our country, but people genuinely into it and cut to the truth very quickly in a way that a lot of pundits are not able to. They are like, listen, I think you are better than Trump character wise. I probably trust you a little bit more on a few different things. But what are you actually going to do?
That was the number one question amongst all of those swing voters. I do not know what she stands for? And this is a Hillary esque mistake. Hillary made her campaign all about her and also being about not Donald Trump. Where here with Kamala she's personalizing her story. Again, Fine, if you're maybe giving a campaign speech or something.
But this is a direct question about prices.
I do think again that the major problem is like she doesn't believe things, or she has a the copy and paste from her campaign website from the Joe Biden campaign promises it does tell you something. She's got the Biden people on her staff. Maybe she does believe it, if you were to say generally, but the deep specifics, the preparation, this is exactly why she doesn't do a lot of these So, I mean not I don't find it mystifying in that this is kind of how she's
always been. It also is concerning just from a general like candidate level, where we know that you can deliver a decent performance if you want, like at the debate. So do you just not think or prepare for these things? And if you do, is this really the best that you can come up with? This was very old school behavior from her. I thought for her it really is all about preparation. When she really takes something serious locks in, she can be fantastic. I mean, she was fantastic in
that debate. She I have watched it now two times and it is amazing. She does exactly what she wants to do in that debate, in every single answer, it was masterful in a way. But when she doesn't lock in and preparees much, then you get, you know, a very sort of middling and stumbling performance like this. And you know, to go back to this piece because I've been thinking about this, because you look at Trump, like his answer on healthcare in the debate was I have concepts of a plan.
His answer when he.
Got asked about childcare was utterly incomprehensible and somehow involved like Avantee and Marco Rubio and tariffs, and was like what are you talking about? But people have a sense of what makes Trump tick, like the things that he actually has a consistent passion for, like immigration is one
of them. Like you may not know the specifics of what he actually will do on immigration, you know, is he actually going to do the mass deportation He didn't last time around, but he did some other stuff that I found pretty terrible, But you know that is core to him, without even getting the white paper and really knowing all the details of how it's gonna work. And I think Tariff's yeah, you could also put into that
bucket as well. You know, you look at like a Bernie Sanders, like you know what that man is all about. You know what he's thinking about when he gets up, you know what he's thinking about when he goes to bed. So, even to go back to your Hillary Clinton comparison, like Hillary had all kinds of white papers, and she wouldn't have flubbed that answer like Okay, what are you going to do to bring down costs? She would have wrapped off or like here's my plan and here's my white paper,
blah blah blah. But again on that like you know, examination of the soul, people would be like, yeah, but I don't know what really drives her outside of her own ambition. And so Kamala Harris has a similar issue, not just because she's changed her position. Okay, Drums changed his positions a lot. You're allowed to change your position, by the way, if you've got new information, et cetera.
But when you could when you add that together with this sense of like I don't know what the thing is for you, like I don't know what is what is driving you in the political realm outside of your own desire to be in this office. I think that's where where it continues to be the biggest question mark for her honestly at this point, and you know, I
don't know that it's really fixable. The only advice I could give to them is just like pick something with childcare housing, Like just pick something and just relentlessly talk about it. Just fake it like that's your passion, you know, and no one's buying this. Small business is my passion.
By the way, it's not small business. It's clearly not your passion.
But yeah, pick something, lean into it, talk about it a lot, feign some passion. That's probably the best she
could do, because that's the piece that's really missing. And then it becomes blatantly obvious in a question like this or the ones she got from Dana Bash what's your day one agenda that she similarly kind of fumbled around with or eventually yes landing on her policy proposals, but didn't have that burning like this is the number one goal of the next administration, at least not that came across in that interview.
I think that's a very as dude answer. People in general are pretty good at intuiting what makes people tick. I guarantee people who watch the show knows what the two of us makes us tick. And what there's a lot of passion in But that's important. People can intuit something in the way that you can with anybody, your boss, or anybody who you're looking at or you're watching. So what we see here with Kamala is that tick answer.
When you're not immediately burning to do something, then it does tell us that it's almost kicks in, like oh, I should probably now mention my three million new homes. But she didn't actually answer that question about prices. She didn't really say the word inflation. She didn't acknowledge necessarily pain that people are in or try to paint a bigger picture.
It started with herself.
You got basically you're trying to dance around the issue, but you're not actually zeroing in.
And voters understand that.
So if she loses, a big part of this will be why because people felt, at the end of the day, I didn't truly understand what she was going to do for me. Trump also really does benefit from the fact that he was president and people have a lot of rose colored glasses about what those four years were, Like I mean rose colored. It almost implies that they're incorrect.
They remember fondly what prices, gas and all other stuff looked like under the Trump administration, and they feel there's been a lot of chaos and price inflation since then.
That is just empirical, it's reality.
Kamalin needs actually do a good job to try and actually diminish those colored glasses and say no, remember the chaos, and he's actually bringing that. He only cares about himself, often the best hit that she had on him during the debate. So in general, this is why she won't do the interviews. But I mean, well, actually, you know, I apologize. She will do one more interview. Whether it's an actual interview, we'll see.
Yeah. So this is and this is kind of funny.
So she's doing this live event with Oprah Winfrey. We can put this up on the screen. I mean, it's a campaign function, it's not it's not a real interview. But she's doing what's described as a live stream rally with Oprah Winfrey, who of course endorsed Kamala and spoke at the DNC.
She gets her speech.
In my opinion, it was like very cliched, but because she's Oprah, she like made it work. You know, she just has so much charisma that you're like, I want to hear what you are saying, even when it's just a bunch of problem political cliches.
But anyway, you know.
I think the strategy basically makes sense, and she's done enough now to lower the temperature on the like when are you going to sit for an interview? When are you going to sit for an interview when you know you need to sit for an interview. She's done a couple like local news, like the one we just showed you that was a Philadelphia local news journalist. I think
she did a radio interview like. She's done a few things enough for them to be able to point to to be like, see, she's accessible and it's not her wheelhouse. She does much better in a rally situation with the
prompt red to go. Trump is giving her a tremendous gift if he sticks by his I don't want a debate again, although you know, given how well she performed in the first one, I don't think she should necessarily be afraid of a second debate either, although I think it would be difficult for her to match her performance there and for Trump to match the low of his performance there as well.
But you know, I think.
They basically are correct that this is probably the right strategy given the candidate that they have.
Yeah, I mean, I think that's correct.
I think at the end of the day, we now know who she is and Americans at this point are they're going to have to make their peace with it or not.
And that's risky. That's really what it is.
Is.
Poll after Pole tells us that this is a risky strategy, that this is difficult. A lot of the ball is actually in Trump's court to see how he is going to do this. Is he going to seize the narrative and is he going going to try and put it in more advantageous directions for him? In that contrast and the way that he takes press questions or even in terms of the issues that are highlight here or not.
The less that it is about him personally, and the more that it's going to be about issues than that contrast on Kamala will be difficult because it will remind people that she doesn't necessarily stand for anything. But you know, it really comes back to how Kamala too, is going to is she just going to continue this Oprah Winfrey kind of vibes strategy. Look, some of the polls are
in her favor. There's been a lot of decent ones that have come out for her in the last couple of days, Pennsylvania actually showing her up by a couple of points. So it is highly possible that this is exactly what is that this is exactly the way that she does win the election, and that also demonstrates both her strengths and weaknesses as a candidate, and very very much so. What I think at previous more than anything,
is she is going to struggle in the presidency. You can not get away with this when you are president. Just at a baseline, even if you try to keep the press away, look at Biden, they did their best. You will be revealed. The job genuinely requires it. Even if you're trying not to do a press conference. One day, you're going to be sitting with five European leaders and you're going to have a dementia incident.
And wander off to go look at a parachute, and.
America is gonna be like, what the hell is going off over here? So buckle up because that is not going to be good for you if you win the job.
So Trump obviously did himself.
He meant the big opportunity in the debate to make this race a you know, a contract or even a referendum on Kamala Harris and Joe Biden versus a referendum on the most negative parts of himself. Kamala Harris wants to use the debate to shift the focus to him into the parts of his personality that people find to
be the most odious, and she succeeded overwhelmingly. You know, at this point, it's undeniable when you look at the polling ship post debate, when you look at the number of people who said they thought she won the debate, including a significant chunk of Republicans, when you look at her favorability ratings going up and Trump's going down post debate, when you look at, you know, how people felt they
answered questions on the very issues. So it's you know, the verdict is fairly clear in terms of how that debate went for Donald Trump. And one of the people who noted this was Joe Rogan who made some interesting comments about how he thought this debate went.
Let's take a listen.
Did you watch the debate?
Brod forgot?
Let me tell you before I say anything, I just want to say, whoever's helping her, whoever's coaching her, whoever's the puppet master run the strings. Yeah, you had a fucking amazing job. Say job, they did an amazing job. From the moment Biden drops out, forcing Biden to drop out right, whatever they're doing, whoever's writing those speeches, getting her deliverum, coaching her, she's nailing it. She nailed that one speech.
She's like, say it to my family, Yeah, she nailed it.
And then last night to me when I was like, oh my god, this is jiu jitsu, where she was like, if you go to his rallies, his crowds are boring, attired crowds are the best crowds. I have the number one crowd.
He couldn't help himself.
And she got him.
So, I mean, it's so obvious what happened.
And they really like even more than.
The content preparation, it was as somebody else said this that I'm borrowing from, but it was like a psychological preparation for exactly what was going to get him where he couldn't resist.
And it truly is an amazing moment.
When she gets asked this difficult question about immigration, she does a little you know, blah, blah blah. I prosecuted transnational gangs, et cetera, et cetera. But let's talk about his rallies. The moderator, David Muir comes back to him and actually asked him a follow up question on immigration, and he says.
I'll get to that, but I got to talk about the rallies.
And from there on out, she had him dancing to whatever beat she wanted him to dance to. And I've never seen anything like it, to be honest with you, where it was so clear what her strategy was and it was executed well, but where he just could not resist taking the bait and doing exactly what she wanted him to do. In every instance, it was unbelievable to watch it unfold.
The Rogan check in is an important one because you know, look, Joe is no lover of Kamala. He also is generally like more apolitical and is just an observer. Tom Segura as well, who these people are comedians. So you know, in a sense, I like to hear the same thing where you and I are political nerds.
Like you said you watched it twice.
I mean we're looking at every detail and trying to parse or trying to find something, but it is validating in the sense that the casual observer is like, man, she really got him on that. And the rally size, I mean, we shouldn't forget that became a meme in this country. If we remember the whole Sean Spicer thing, Melissa McCarthy, it was the first time SNL was relevant in like twenty years. People were actually sharing the skit, the podium stuff. I mean, it was a national story
and people were laughing. I remember too, traveling around in November twenty seventeen and everyone was joking about the rally stuff and with Sean Spice or who's a household name, And I started to think about that and I was like, wow, you know, you forget too that these memetic incidents become imprinted in a way that the normal person can laugh.
Because what does it illustrate.
It illustrates Trump's weakest link, which is his own narcissism in the center of self. And worse is it amplifies the consistent democratic message of he doesn't care about you, he only cares about himself. So he really is at his best when he's fired up about immigration or tariffs, because at least there it's about something that has to do with US policy, or about opposition to US elites with rally size.
There's no pretending it's literally just about you. I mean, that's the problem.
Well, he's both at his best and worse apparently when it comes to immigration because the pets thing.
We won't get back into the big debate we had yesterday, but I mean.
I think you more or less agree that it didn't work out. It's not going to work out for them politically. And I saw more polling yesterday that even a like overwhelming majority of Republican and said that the pets dogs cats saying comments were quote unquote weird, which again is what Democrats want the public to be thinking about Donald Trump and JD. Van So even when he was on his topic of choice, he didn't use the time to talk about it in a way that is appealing to
the people that might be won over. He used it, you know, in a way that fed into a democratic narrative about the ticket and sparked an entire you know, we won't go back over it, but I think I made my views on this pretty clear yesterday.
The debate has been there in terms of the polling My thing is, I think you're probably right.
I just have no idea.
I just because of Kasir Khan, because of access Hollywood, because of living through these moments where they're like this there, this is going to get him.
Charlottesville is never going to happen. All of this.
I'm just you know, Charlottesville was bad for him, though.
I mean, I think Charlottesville was a big part of why he ends up losing in twenty twenty. His approval rating took a giant hit, and I think Charlottesville January sixth,
like those moments where he was truly unhinged. I think it's pretty clear at this point are part of why not only he lost in twenty twenty as a sitting income at president, which yet he overperformed his polls but he still lost, and why they dramatically underperformed in twenty twenty two, the more that it was his candidates who embraced some of these more you know, fringe, extreme outrageous
moments the worst they performed. So, you know, I do think that some of the moments, it's not like nothing mattered, somethings didn't matter, because he did end up losing.
Absolutely things matter. He barely lost.
I just I've been burned too many times to take any of these conventional wisdom. And I genuinely A'm just a we'll see. Why don't we get to Bill Maher because.
Yeah, well this is yeah exactly though this segues well to Bill Maher, who made a pretty bold prediction in his show last week.
Let's take a listen.
I'm gonna make this a very momentous night with a prediction because.
And I think I have the credibility for this.
Prediction because I have been called a Trump alarmist for a very long time.
They were wrong.
I was right.
He wasn't going to leave power.
We okay, But ever since then, and since the Hollywood Access taper, he said I'm going to grab him by the pussy, and he survived that. Every time he's been done crazy shit and gotten his stelf in trouble. I said, no, no, it's not over. I've said that. I've argued with people. Brett Stevens, my good friend. He's on the show next week. He said at one point a few years ago, the Trump thing. I said no, no, no, tonight, I'm saying I think it's over.
I just want to bring up I mean, now, let's see that one person.
Even before we were around, there was a guy named Joe McCarthy in the early fifties and he had a hold on America and it blew out in about two years, right, two three years. He was the biggest thing, and then it was just and I feel like eating the dogs were at this point. I think, I feel like we're at the Captain Quig with the strawberries. We're at Denzel at the end of training day. I'm a king ring up last.
I just think he's gonna raise What do you think sagara about that?
I don't know.
I mean, listen, Bill's history is a little off in terms of McCarthy. McCarthy lasted a lot longer than I mean, it's not wrong. The peak was definitely there for two or three years. What Bill is alluding to is this idea of like a have you No decency Sir? Movement, which you know has been cast as the general end of McCarthyism. But the idea that he's trying to get at is that this is the official breaking point get it for the American electorate with Trump, and.
I just don't see evidence of that.
Also that coincide with a genuine like down spiral for McCarthy, not in the way that like, oh Trump is spiraling. He's still like, you know, it's with it. McCarthy was a literal alcoholic and came to death. Maybe I'm taking it a little bit too literally, but it is important to just think about, Like what he's trying to say is this, There was this phenomenon.
It took over the whole country.
It was massively popular, it had its hold on American politics, and then this was the breaking moment. People at the time intuited actually that that probably was the end. And I don't intuit that yet, just because I can't when the man still has a toss up fifty to fifty chance of being elected president of the United States again, and if we look and we at the polling and how much closer he is today, the possibility of his victory looms larger than it did in twenty twenty and in twenty sixteen.
So I just don't think it's really as accurate.
But look, maybe Bill is right. If Trump loses by five by five points like nationally, which I don't think will happen but as possible, then yeah, absolutely, But I'm not really sure we're there yet.
Here's what I find compelling. I don't you know, I don't look to Bill Maher to like have his finger on the pulse of the country at this point in his trajectory.
I don't think anyone should.
You know, what actually stuck with me from our debate night coverage Soccer was the point that you made about how now we know how he's going to spiral, right, He's gonna double down on the Laura Loomers and Corey Lewandowski, the people that the Chris Lasovita and the Susie Wilds are going to be on the ounce. Whether they, you know, get actually fired or he just doesn't listen to them anymore, doesn't really matter in terms of the outcome. And he's losing time to reset this race, and I think he
does need to reset this race. There's another pull out this morning Morning Consult that has Coma with a six point national lead. That's a that's a doubling in her national lead with that particular Polster post debate, and with the exception of one pole, that's been a pretty consistent post debate trend. Now you could say, okay, well, that you know, might be a temporary bump. Sure, but you have to see some sort of evidence that your opponent
is going to be able to adjust and shift. And all we've seen is the contrary is him, you know, going in on his worst instincts, surrounding himself with the worst possible people he could surround himself with. And again, like some people in some states are literally voting now, it is September seventeenth, you know, it is very short period of time before election day.
Trump himself has closed the door.
And again this shows the foolishness of his tactics to another debate. He's out, you know, tweeting how much he hates Taylor Swift, et cetera, et cetera. So it's more, I it's hard for me to see how he adjusts and is able to make a more compelling case. Then you know that this one moment or this one instant incident is going to be the thing. And then I also just look like, you know, he won in twenty sixteen and it was shocking, right, and the poles were
wrong and it was crazy, et cetera, et cetera. And ever since then, like you know, there's this sense that he's just got some sort of political magic that nobody else understands. But if you just look flat at the record, they did poorly in twenty eighteen, he lost in twenty twenty, they did poorly in twenty twenty two, and now here you are in twenty twenty four, and it's hard to see what's different. And it's easy to see that he is not the same candidate he was in twenty sixteen.
He's lost a step in terms of his co personal coherence, and he is aging, although not as like noticeably as Biden. And he's lost a step in terms of his sense of the electorate and having his finger on the pulse. So that's why you know, I don't think Bill Maher is entirely off face to sense this as a pivot point, because it was one of the best opportunities for Trump to really seize the narrative in this race in a way that benefits him, and he utterly failed to do it.
Very possible, Crystal, he also did that. To return to twenty sixteen, he surrounded himself with loyalists. All the Republicans denounced him. Everybody said he was going to lose what was Kelly Aott and others were like nope, I'm unindorsing him.
I'm gonna write in Mitt Romney and he won.
So the problem too that Trump learned actually from that time, and part of the reason I said that is he has learned to actually trust his instincts. He has learned that his base instincts, on top of surrounding himself by loyalists, can and often does pay off for him. Now, obviously that did not work in twenty twenty, and that's part of the reason the January sixth insanity was as bad as it was. And I'm not talking about the actual
riot at the Capitol. I'm talking about Mike Lindell and the Overstock CEO in the Oval office with Sidney Powell doing the whole fake elect or stuff.
That was.
Honestly, that's way worse in my opinion, just not only in terms of what the overall effect would have been. That's actually if you look, is what he's being charged with federally. And so this it's been a downside, it's been an upside, but it's one where how old is he seventy nine maybe seventy eight. He's not going to change. That's why I made that prediction. So you know, either
things will go like they did in twenty sixteen. But it is very possible that Bill is right, and right mostly in the sense of if he spirals that or if he continues to surround himself, if he continues to keep this strategy going in he reminds people that he reminds and shows people in the highest flagship moment of politics of his modern career, that he made it more about himself his rallies and was easily baited as opposed
to talking about issues that matter. Most Americans actually are voting on issues, or at least how they feel about issues, and that will be the biggest disconnect.
So both of these canons have big.
Problems, and he's losing ground to her right now on who would handle the economy better, and that should be you know, he should own that space every day, all day long. There is another difference that I mentioned yesterday but I think is very significant, which is with twenty sixteen, which is, however you feel about Kamala Harris, or however I feel about Kamala Harris, her favorability is pretty good.
It's basically even, which you know, doesn't sound amazing, but in modern politics actually is kind of amazing, and back in twenty sixteen, he was running against a deeply unpopular candidate in Hillary Clinton, who had negative favorability rating of like minus sixteen, certainly in the double digits. And you know, I think that that matters and is quite significant as well.
I also am starting to think, you know, in twenty twenty, and I mean we said this at the time, so it's not like this is really a change of tune for us, but there's this narrative that's taken hold that, like Joe Biden was such an amazing, perfect candidate in
twenty twenty, the guy barely campaigned like he was. You know, he had the excuse of COVID, but we talked all the time about the basement strategy was like invisible for obvious reasons because his decline, while he was in a much better condition than he is today, it was already market it was already noticeable. And he did not run on any affirmative economic agenda. The good stuff that they ended up doing, he did not talk about at all in the campaign. It was purely referendum on Trump paid
communications and I'm going to hide myself. And there was very little enthusiasm in favor of the Democratic ticket. All of the enthusiasm on the Democratic side was an anti Trump vote, so you know, and even that was enough to defeat Donald Trump at that point. So you know. I just I've been readjusting some of my priors about how extraordinary or powerful a political figure Donald Trump actually is, because outside of winning in twenty sixteen, the record has not been a winning one.
Certainly possible, Crystal. Let's move on to mari Wana. I had to put this one in the show. Dave Portnoy kicked the hornets nest I guess on Twitter. He recently put out video endorsing the Florida Amendment three, which would legalize marijuana in the state.
Let's take a listen.
Listen, It's Sunday afternoon, football on TV. Pizza on the way in Massachusetts, smoking a little weed, just enjoying my day. Florida. You can't do this in my Miami house. You can't do this. Why freedom? It's about freedom. Half the states allow this legal marijuana. Florida. I want to be able to watch football, eat pizza, and smoke. We're all adults here. Twenty one plus. Make your own decisions. It's on the ballot. Vote yes on three. Legalize recreational weed. Come on, where
are we Florida? Wake up? Wake up. Don't tell what other people want to do in their own house. We're grown adults. It's safe, it's legal. Over half the states in the country have it. Why don't we in Florida. I'm a Florida resident. I want to be able to smoke in my house, watching football, eating pizza like a human. I can do it in Massachusetts. Make it legal on ballot A vote yes on three in Florida.
Thank you?
All right?
Amen? Amen?
Brother, Okay, this is bullshit because nobody in the state of Florida is getting arrested for smoking weed in their house. In fact, weed addicts. By the way, I put this out yesterday. If you all just stay home and eat pizza, be my guest. Nobody cares about what you do at home. When you smoke outside, whenever you smoke behind the wheel of a car because it's chill. When you smoke around children in public pararks, yeah, I think that's a problem. And that's the issue is they think that it's fine
to pollute public spaces. Just light up outside. I just landed, by the way, recently, Denver airport. People next to me are smoking weed while waiting for a rental car. We need smoke weed while waiting for a rental car while we're about to break the law. Everybody just thinks it's
totally fine. We get behind the wheel and they're totally intoxid. So, frankly, this is a bullshite understanding of what legal weed would mean for the state of Florida, because it's really more about public consumption and being some of us.
Nobody's get at home, nobody zero.
Dave Portnoy happened to believe in a little concept called freedom.
There's no.
One's violating your freedom at home.
Zero that you don't believe in freedom, That's what's sad to me.
Yeah, this is what I'm talking about, Like it's it's just total propaganda by these weedheads and uh like, who is coming to Dave Portnoy's Miami house and arresting them for marijuana they will for blowing up cocaine. I mean, it's not ridiculous because that the point is that that's not actually what is happening. What's happening is it would legalize high potency THC, which would be violely a bit widely available commercially in the state.
It would be a boon for big banks.
It would be regulated.
It would be so regulated like it is in Colorado.
Teenagers regulated well more dangerous.
In the state of Colorado, high potency THC is poisoning children.
Er visits are up.
They have massive amounts of traffic debts, and the amount of tax revenue does not even compare to what they initially promised. It is almost certainly being overwhelmed in emergency services and higher police or public safety needs.
And the entire city smells like shit.
So if that's the trade that you would like in Miami, in Miami Beach, in Tampa, in Jacksonville.
Be by the way, I don't live in Florida. You people do whatever you want.
I visit probably once a year, and I'm like, why did I come to this place exactly, So let's put this up there on the screen. In terms of the polls, the polls currently disagree on the fate of Florida marijuana legalization initiative. Among those who have been surveyed, sixty six percent said that they would vote yes. Only thirty three percent say say no. I will just put it on
the table I don't generally make predictions. I think it is going to pass just because I think marijuana legalization is unfortunately incredibly popular, So it's.
Very popular people.
Most Americans agree with me and Dave Portnoy and believe in freedom.
Be my guest, you want to ruin public you.
Know, just a technical thing that it has to get sixty percent to pass. I believe it is the margin. And so there was one poll from Florida Atlantic University that had it at fifty six percent, but you still had some fifteen percent who said that they didn't know how they would vote on the measures.
I agree with you. I think it's pretty likely little past you had.
Trump come out and endorse it amount in fact it so the more interesting thing to me not that I don't always find your views on the topic.
Very interesting saga, but.
There is an interesting divide in the GOP coalition between the what something the phenomena you've talked about, the barstool conservatives of course being chief among them, and the JD. Vance style conservatives, who are you know, social conservatives who are deeply concerned about like degeneracy and the decline of the culture, et cetera.
Et cetera.
And there was a unifying and there's still to some extent is but part of what brought them together was this like backlash against democratic wokeness right and the like you know, the the PC police and the policing of word language and all that stuff, and it sort of united them because the portnoid types are like, leave me the fuck alone, like I'm gonna say what I want
to say, and the JD. Vans types are like, you know, they're I don't want to use him specifically, but that genre of conservative it's not that there's so much opposed to some censorship or restrictions in their direction, but they didn't like that particular like liberal institutional wokeness being codified in corporations and those sorts of things, because it's obviously on the other side of the culture war for them.
So there was like a unifying theme there. The salience of that issue, I think anyone would say, has declined. It's not a major battleground in terms of this presidential election. It's not something Trump really ever talked about. Ron Santis really leaned into it. We saw how well that worked out for him, et ceter uh. And so you're getting
more instances where this divide is on display. The other one that I can think of is the abortion argument, where Pornoy came out and you know, was relatively pro choice in his commentary, and there was again a backlash against him from more of the like you know, social
conservative Jandie Vance wing of the party. And so that's that's actually what's interesting to me here about some of the backlash of poor Noy's comments is exposive a fissure between the social conservatives and the barstool conservatives within the GOP coalition that hadn't been on huge display until you know, recently.
Let me take off my own hat and be descriptive. They're obviously more popular, like ten times more. And in fact, this is the issue is that by you mean the barcal people I said this, I look, I think barstool conservatism will be the future. I think that is exactly what the GOP will eventually look like. There will have to be some sis to Soljia moment on abortion or the abortion abortion question will be just resolved Democrats whenever they nationalize it, and the pro life people can shut
up forever after that period. It's very likely that this is the direction that things will trend just because it's way more popular.
People are a lot more secular. They don't like telling people what to do.
And if you notice, like, for example, let's put the other side of who these people might have in terms of their political talent, like Ron DeSantis. Yeah, Ron de Santas is popular in Florida, but he lost massively in the GOP primary. And listen to the way that he talks about the issue. Let's take a listen.
This is just yesterday.
And what I tell people is your default on amending the Constitution should be no right. They should have to prove to you a really high bar why you would put something in the constitution which effectively can't be changed. Same thing with this Amendment three. You know the Amendment three. The media will refer to it as marijuana recreational legalization. That's not entirely true. It's a partial legalization because this has been put in by basically one big weed company
that spents seventy five eighty million dollars. And yes, they write in there that you have a right to possess and use up to three ounces of marion, which the law enforcement tells me maybe fifty to one hundred joints, so that's more than any other state in the country. So they're putting that in the constitution. So yes, you do have that right, but only if you buy it from them. You can't grow it in your backyard. You got to buy it from them. So they're creating in
our constitution a big weed cartel. And not only that, they're giving themselves protection from any civil liability at all at any point in the distribution or cultivation process. That's not in the ballot summary.
I mean, look, empirically, he's right, but that's like the most boring way that you could possibly address this.
Well, It's also what I took note of is like when you just argued against it, you went at it directly basically like this is bad, and here's why you can fell. He knows he's on losing grounds because he makes all these like proced vidural arguments about like well maybe we should mess with the constitution, you know, which again isn't a weed specific argument. It's just like a you know, appeal to sort of tradition and sense of
people's fear of change. Then he does this kind of jiu jitsu and like, oh, well, this is really a giveaway to corporations. None of it is a direct argument against the thing that people are actually voting on. And so to me, it's very telling that he knows he's looking at these full numbers. He knows he's on not on you know, solid grounds here in terms of public opinion, which is why he has to do all of these sort of ancillary arguments rather than making a direct appeal as you did.
Yeah, I agree, I mean this is part of the problem. Let's continue in this vein. Let's put the next one up on the screen. Matt Walsh put out a tweet says, can you point to any state or city where life has been in anywhere measurably improved after legalizing marijuana? Where are the success st is? Just give me one please. But Jason Whitlock, you know, kind of also crystallizing what you're talking about here. This is why single people and
people with hout kids shouldn't vote. We to think selfishly, with no concern to what we're leaving the next generation. Married people with kids should be the only voters. We should prioritize families. We want to fix our broken culture. Maybe you can agree or you can disagree, but that's not popular. I'll just put it that way, and that's the issue. We have to live in the realm of representative democracy. So look, you're correct. I made a very
fourth right argument about it. But a lot of people don't even want to talk about the issue or get into this whole like, oh, people, kids shouldn't vote. The truth is that Portnoy is like a hedonist individualist. I would hope he does not take exception to that, because I would say, that's descriptive, that's not necessarily a bad thing, that's a very popular thing. It's a very American character.
Actually I don't necessarily agree with it whenever it comes to marijuana, but descriptively, it is so obvious to me that things are going in that direction. It also is why, for example, Portnoy you know, went after JD. Vance about this idea of like having higher taxes or whatever for people who are seeing goal why he also but also why it's very important remember that he was pro Trump in twenty and fifteen, not for policy positions, for quote
telling it like it is. And so I always pointed that I think is a very important precursor of where politics and all of that will trend how someone can be simultaneously pro choice and also like pro Trump.
Anti woke left and all that.
It seems incoherent if you think about politics in a nineteen ninety sense, but in a twenty twenty four cents, I actually think it's starting to make perfect sense.
Fortnite really is sort of the living embodiment of the antithesis of JD. Vance's politics.
Yes, that's right.
Putting aside, you know, whatever policy proposals he puts out there, which you know I am. For example, on child tax credit, right, they had a child tax credit vote in the Senate and he didn't bother his show up for it. He certainly didn't like lead the charge to reinstate the child tax credit after the after it expired, you know, from
the the COVID era provisions, et cetera. And I think, and you can tell me Zaga, because you know him and his ideology better than I do, that it's because he doesn't actually believe that policy is really central to the goals that he wants to accomplish.
It's more about.
Using culture to kind of enforce a certain cultural lifestyle that he thinks is the ideal based on his experience,
his childhood, his religion, et cetera. And so you know, when Jadie Vance is out there talking about like we need to punish the childless or we need to you know, or flirting with this idea that Woodlock puts down there that hey, you know, your vote should count more if you have kids than if you don't, it's exactly because he thinks very negatively about the lifestyle of that Dave Portnoy has chosen, and he thinks that that should be
effectively shamed. And I don't not try to use that like in an overly pejorative way, but effectively shamed out of existence or minimized. And yes, policy is one lever for that, but it's not just about rewarding people with families. It's about actively, like trying to disincentivize the lifestyle of Dave Portnoy.
And so that's, you know, part of what I was thinking about.
When you're hearing him talk about this and the way he's approaching to smoke of the blunt on the camera or whatever. It's like very weird that that person and Jade Vance exist in the same party, because they are diametrically opposed.
In their view of the world and their approach to politics.
I would the only thing I would really quibble is that it's not about culture to culture, it's actually about policy to culture. Like so for example, this whole like child tax credit debate, it's not about the child tax credit on its face, it's about increasing well First of all, it's actually about winning an intra party fight as opposed to working with the left, as in it needs to be a victory within the Republican Party to try and get them to vote for it, as opposed to working
with the left to get something done. Second, is really, I mean really is about It's it's difficult to call it social engineering because also like leftist policy is also a form of social engineering. Like if you have a child tax the major disagreement at least between ProChile tax credit people on the right and left, is whether you should have means tests or single mothers like that is, if you do, that's a form of social engineering. If
you don't, that's also a form of engineering. The point is is that it's about using tax policy to create a society that you have an objective view is the ideal way that you should live, and that if anything really describes like the major difference with Portnoyism or type of people who might be like him and JD is that like Portanoiism is really, like I said, it's about
individuality libertarian. It is deeply socially and economically libertarian. Right, So it's just it's about small business, it's about individuality, it's about maximizing the ability of this self to achieve whatever it desires, as opposed to more of like a Judeo Christian way that JD would look at it, or even there's non religious ways to look at it too, which is like, no, the family is the individual. Unit is the unit which should be maximized, not the individual.
That's a long time debate in America. Actually, it's a big divide not just between social libertarian and Republican or even conservatives, but Christians and non Christians or secular there's various secular debates like within this. So that's kind of the way that I've been looking at this. But I have no doubt that Portnoy and his vision or not even vision, his lifestyle like what he perpetuates and all
that that is more popular amongst men today. I don't think that's necessarily a good thing, but I'm not stupid. I know where things are trending.
Yeah, yeah, I just I guess with JD. And I am interested your thought if this is accurate. You know, he talks a lot about, you know, the goals of family creation and centering the family, and you know, making it more difficult to get out of marriages, and you know.
That that might be important bed rock.
And I don't know religion it I know people around him have said it.
He didn't, but anyway, yeah, I mean, he he has floated that it perhaps would be better if people had a more difficult time getting out of divorces. But in any case, but he doesn't talk a lot about He leans into the goals, but he doesn't talk a lot about the specific policies. And perhaps that's because, you know, it would be difficult to sign on to some of those policies in a Republican context, because some of them
just sound like, you know, lefty progressive policies. But I suspect it's more about he is not afraid of using government to push in the direction that he wants to see, in the anti Portnoy direction, we'll say, but he believe he's more in the power of culture to change the things that he wants to change. And by the way, he's not necessarily wrong about that we were talking before.
You know, if your goal is to increase the birth rate, which is one of his goals, if you have this like pro natalist approach and you look around the world, there's literally nowhere that any policy has actually worked to achieve that goal, and so then you have to look at Okay, well, then we need a more religious society where it's like, you know, a religious goal like part of your whole ethos, and culture is centered around kids
and family versus a government prescription. And so that's that's my sense, that's my evolving sense of why he actually isn't all that interested in policies because he thinks cultural impetus and you know, pushing in an anti portnite direction is probably a more.
Effective way to go. And why so interested in like the culture war over the sort of economic pieces that he sometimes talks about.
That's not my sense, just because a lot of his staff are look Matt Iglesias today said, my sense amongst Democrats is that he has the most serious policy staff amongst Republicans on the Hill.
So I don't think that's true. In fact, I think he's very well versed in policy.
I think part of the reason you don't necessarily want to take a policy position is because it can be unpopular within your own party, and maybe you learn a thing or two from Donald Trump and Kamala Is. Hey, you know, the more breathing space you give yourself, the better. I would also say this, he's not the principle you know what I mean, He's learned the hard way on abortionne Like if you were running his own campaign, I think it would actually be quite different, at least in
terms of what you're talking about. But with Trump, the vague being vague is probably a net benefit.
You don't necessarily want to talk specifics.
You don't want to give the opposition something they can hit you on in terms of a difference between him and Trump. So I don't think that that's correct on the policy front. I think it has much more to do with it a dynamics of being a vice president and also being within the Republican Party where there are huge civil wars like going on, like if they do win, there will be a assive fight on this come Tax Cuts and Jobs Act season on where and how to
pay for it. And actually that'll be a little bit more interesting, honestly, about how it will really manifest when the two sides of them actually have power Senate Republicans and somebody like Vance in the White House, and then which way Donald Trump is going to go?
Yeah for sure.
Well, anyway, that's my intrigue with regard to to Portnoy and Vance is how they are truly like antithesis of each other in terms of politics, and yet today somehow exist in the same coalition.
Well, Dick Cheney and AOC are in the same coalition too, which is part of the fun parts.
Of the strange bedfellows.
Yeah, let's go to the next one. Ukraine definitely wanted to make sure that we highlighted this. Let's go ahead and play some of Vladimir Putin's comments on the news that the US may allow NATO provided missiles to strike even deeper inside of Russia. So let's play the video and I'm going to read it. Putin says, this is their directive. Molment, of course, fundamentally changes the essence, the
very nature of the conflict. He continues, this will mean that NATO countries, the United States, and European countries are at war with Russia. If this is the case, considering the change in the very nature of this conflict, we will make corresponding decisions based on the threats that will be created for US. So that was direct quotes here from Vladimir Putin in reaction to some of the news and the debates that are coming out about US policy
versus Ukraine. Let's put the next one up there on the screen, because this is the most important decision probably that we'll be made in this war so far. Anthony blinkoln Our Secretary of State, hints that the United States will lift arms restrictions on Ukraine using long range arms inside of Russia.
Quote.
The decision is understood to have already been made in private, as the Secretary of State says in Kiev.
The US will continue to adapt its policy.
Allegedly they're keeping this on the back burner and there is no official decision, but right now there will be a change in restriction on Ukraine's use of missiles which have a range of approximate one hundred and ninety miles to quote avoid reckless or unnecessary attacks, which is kind of a ridiculous way of framing it. Considering that Ukraine literally invaded Russia and continues to actually hold some of the territory that has not been disputed prior.
To this war.
The point is just that the slow bubbling things that are happening inside of Ukraine continue to be massively unstable and detrimental to the overall international order and have the risk of spiraling totally out of control in a highly
predictable manner. And if you put it on the backdrop of everything that is happening, if you look at Kursk, for example, Russian advances putin and Russian resolve to continue the war, there has been basically zero change to the overall strategic status quo as a result of Ukraine being allowed to use these weapons. And yet the Ukraine lobby and Kamala and all of their the advisors in the White House, Biden and others, they just continue to direct
in this post. Three years ago, it was totally off the table, this idea of giving Ukraine long range missiles to strike inside of Russia. Now we're just keep on upping the ante from tanks to F sixteen's to now to these missiles. It's just totally ridiculous. You know, the way that we whitewashed past policy and concerns of the past, and arguably give it to them at a time where it's not going to make even that much of a difference. The overall end to the war will not change all
that much. So how many more square miles of territory is it worth it? Wall Street Journal has a story up this morning say that the unofficial death toll is somewhere in the nature of one million.
As a result of this war.
Yeah, and those are with the fake CIA numbers about Ukrainian dead.
So what's the real number? A million?
Five, you know, something like that. That's a disaster for them, for Russia, for the world.
Just absolutely horrible.
Yeah, I mean, listen, I guess what people say in response is, Okay, Putin's made a lot of threats before and hasn't necessarily followed through on them. So yeah, he's full of bluster about how this will be a declaration, NATO declaration of war against Russia, et cetera, et cetera.
But these probably just bluffing and it's like, okay, well, can we at least talk about it, like, can we at least really focus the American people's attention on what would be obviously an extraordinary escalation on you know, these threats from Putin and what we should make of them, and you know, at least have a fulsome debate about where this is going, because you know, we've used this term sleepwalking from the beginning of this war, and it just feels more and more accurate of now the initial
horror and attention is gone. There's very little coverage of what's going on and what each of these individual decisions mean, and yet they're so incredibly consequential. That's what's really disturbing.
And the other thing I'm thinking is, you know, we know how difficult it is for American presidents to bring conflicts to a close, because as long as it's ongoing, you can you live in the like, you know, perfect fantasy land whereas Lenski regains all control and Putin is vanquished, et cetera, et cetera, even though that's obviously not going
to be reality. The moment you have a conclusion, then there is a hard and fast outcome which we can then use to debate whether, I don't know, we should have spent years fighting this war rather than engaged in the peace negotiations, which were available to us at the beginning of this conflict before a million people were killed. So that's the logic of ongoing conflicts and endless wars.
And of course the other logic of it is that you have many people who profit directly off of it, and no one really profiting directly off of peace except for the people who benefit from not being having their home land destroyed and fighting and dying. So, you know, Biden right now, he's a lame duck president. His political standing outside of whatever blowback it has on Kamala, Harris, et cetera, et cetera, his political standing really doesn't matter anymore.
So like, take the hit, bring this thing to a.
Close, end it, because if it goes into the next administration, whether it's Kamala or Trump, they're both gonna look at the same calculus and say, listen, what behooves us is to just kind of keep this thing on a slow burn and maintain the status quote indefinitely and kick the can down the road.
Yes, and let's put this next one up there on the screen. It now appears that if you look at poll everyone says, oh, nothing without Ukraine or nothing for Ukraine without Ukraine. I mean, look at this, guys. Look more Ukrainians today want a negotiated peace to the end of the war than at any time before. It's actually the men who have been drafted and forced into the Ukrainian military who are the only ones who say that we should quote fight until it liberates all territory to
the nineteen ninety one borders. But the highest number than ever before say that they should negotiate with Russia to achieve peace to quote, seek a compromise to end the war through negotiations. Now it's only forty three percent. You still got fifty four percent, but that is much higher
than previous polls of the war have found. And what they say is that it's clear when you take into consideration the death and the population projections, this is if the longer it goes, the more in benefit of Russia. So for example, you know, population projections of Russia and Ukraine up until twenty one hundred are both dismal. But for Russia they'll still have well over one hundred million people.
For the Ukrainians, it starts trending down from a height of fifty million around the Soviet Union collapse to like five million. You were talking about a tenfold reduction of the overall population of the country, because not only if so many people have been killed, so many people have fled,
that's a disaster. No civilization can survive that, or at least in the way that they want to, because its entire war is supposedly all about protecting their identity and their sovereignty, etc. So it's clear, like if you want, if you want the outcome that you allegedly want, then it's pretty clear what you should do. Biden could easily help you get there. Biden will not do it because for Ukraine, or I mean for Biden, NATO and Ukraine is like a religion. It's like the only thing that
still fires his synapses. So we're locked in, locked that.
In Zionism, which we're about to get to.
Yeah right, yeah, good point, Yeah, good point. All right, let's get to it.
So a lot of very significant developments coming out of Israel. Let's go ahead and put this first image up on the screen. This is some video that was released by the Hoofis of a hypersonic missile that they are calling Palestine two. They are claiming that this is the missile that hit the outskirts of Tel Aviv on Saturday, so you can see it there and indication you know, they're trying to flex their muscle and proved to be a significant threat to the population of Israel's going and put
the next piece up on the screen. This is from the Washington Post talking about this attack. The headline here who They's fire missile from yam and into central Israel, warn of more strikes. In the report, they say they claimed responsibility for a surface to surface missile attacking central Israel on Sunday morning, marking a continued escalation between the
Iranian backed group and Israel. Caused no direct injuries, though they did respond with emergency services and treated nine people who were injured on their way to shelters after sirens sounded. The Houfi military spokesman described it as a hypersonic ballistic missile targeting military operations. The IDF said in a statement the missile was hit by an interceptor as a result
of which the target fragmented but was not destroyed. In that same article from the Washington Post, they also had another piece of significant news, which is that the IDF is now actually admitting that it was their ice airstrikes that killed three different Hostriges back in November. This is something that had been long suspected, but now long after the fact, they're finally acknowledging that this is actually the case.
But Soccer with regard to the you know, the Hoothi's really trying to up the ante here and demonstrating some more sophisticated weaponry. Obviously, this raises the stakes or for Israel in terms of their prosecution of this continued war.
Yeah, this is scary.
I mean, look, I don't know whether it was actually hypersonic or any of that. I don't know the actual technical details, but you should not dismiss this as deeply unstable in the system, because what it means is that they have a much more important capability that may not be as easily defeated by even the United States or all the other countries that intervened last time around, and that if they wanted, they could quite easily use it to inflict a lot more damage than we've seen previously.
I attracked a lot of this stuff during North Korea and the development of their own nuclear missiles and their ICBMs capable of hitting the United States and everyone. You know, there's constantly just a want to just be like, oh, it's not that big of a deal, and it's like, you don't understand how what this really means for the overall strategic picture. Part of why you know, accepting and trying to create a piece negotiation with them was so important.
And that's what I see as a vital here is that this really does actually change the game, not only in terms of US assets in the region and our own even ability to you know, fight something like this where we've bonded them several times, we've had spend billions of dollars trying to stop this.
It hasn't actually worked all that well.
And then for Israel itself, you know, look at a certain hopefully eventually they will become responsible entirely for their own security, and if they do, this is exactly what would pose like real existential threats to them.
Yeah, and the Houthis went on their way to say, hey, we have the technology to be able to evade your iron dome interceptors. So this, you know, sense that you're only able to inflict damage in one direction, we are going to put that at jeopardy and attempt to impose a greater cost on you and on your country. At the same time this has gone, you know, relatively unnoticed in the US press. But this is there are extraordinary developments in terms of the Israeli war cabinet and their
stated clear desire to escalate the war in Lebanon. We could put this up on the screen. So Netanna, who is apparently considering strongly and reports indicate very likely to fire his defense chief Yoav Galant now and replace him with a more far right figure who has been vehemently opposed to any sort of a hostage deal. So you know, Yoev Glant is also facing likely international criminal court indictments.
You know, he is also obviously a war criminal. He has said some absolutely heinous things about Palestinians, some criminal things about Palestinians, including you know, he's the one who announced we're gonna treat them like animals, We're going to cut off all the food, water, et cetera. But he has been a voice inside the cabinet that has been receptive to the idea of at least having a ceasefire
and a hostage deal. So you have Gallant, reportedly, according to Harats, is at least somewhat opposed to a massive widening of the war into Lebanon and a huge escalation there vis a vi Hezbola, and that appears to be the triggering descent that is leading net Yahoo to consider firing him and just wholly embracing and publicly embracing this further right figure who again called a hostage deal quote surrender.
There's a hostage pro hostage group that said that appointing this far right figure would represent a quote death sentence for the hostages and a complete abandonment of those in captivity. And let me put this one next piece up on the screen before I get your reaction, saga. This is from the New York Times. Well, sorry, this is harat, but the New York Times also had this reporting that, you know, the US is meeting with Gallant, meeting with net Yahoo, and they're saying, hey, we don't want this
wider war in Lebanon. Guys, don't do it, we don't want you to do it, et cetera, et cetera. And net Yahu was just like, no, we're going to do it. We're going to do whatever it takes. He wants to officially expand the war goals to include this, you know,
escalation viz a vi Lebanon. So once again, you know, similar to the Ukraine situation, we see a conflict we're directly engaged in that we're funding, that we're arming, et cetera, that is spiraling in escalatory directions that the US President is supposedly opposed to but utterly unwilling to do anything to forestall this very dangerous direction.
It is a problem, and it is exactly I mean, this is what we take our eye off the ball, and there's still crazy developments that are happening. You know, there were not that far away from the anniversary of October seventh, and everything that's happened there and the instability inside the Israeli cabinet have major effects for all of us. All so none of the political leaders that we have are really all of that like concerned about constraining any
of this. And so in both cases, you know, we either have one party or the other who is default allowing things like this that cannot go. You can't put it all back in the box. And we're seeing one of our producers just send us a story this morning. It appears there was some major Israeli operation against a bunch of Hezbola terrorists inside of Lesbanon or appears. I think it looks like they're pagers exploded. I mean it's literally like something out of science fiction. That's what I'm
just taking a look at. So don't have all of the details. The point though, is that stuff like this inside of Lebanon just continues the spiral and the only question is is like how much of the cost of this are we going to bear? And we generally know the answer to that almost one hundred percent, almost one hundred percent.
That we will pring for.
Yeah, I mean, we're coming up on almost a year here, and no one's even really talking about US fire deal anymore.
It's just collapses off the table. And there was maybe a week or so ago there were these reports about there was some debate within the Biden administration like should we still keep trying with the ceasefire deal or should we just basically like give up because bb very clearly does not want a ceasefire deal and the whole thing is so utterly absurd and pathetic, Like if you are the United States of America, you are the American president, if you want a ceasefire deal, like all you have
to do is stop shipping the bombs that enable this continued direction. So instead of that, they're just putting it again on autopilot, where we're just continue to ship bombs that are used to slaughter, annihilate, and destroy with ever broadening horizons. You know, there have been multiple threats that Bay Root's going to be turned into Gaza throughout the course of this war, and we're unwilling to change course
or do anything stop this slide in this direction. And you know, it is horrifying on a moral dimension, it's terrifying on a just national security dimension.
Yeah, very true. All right, we got a good guest standing by let's get to it.
We're excited to be joined this morning by Logan Phillips. He is the founder of Race to the White House, which is an electoral prediction model. Great to see you, Logan, Good to see you, man.
Hey, great to see you guys too. Thanks for having me on.
Yeah, of course, so first time on the show.
Just give people a little bit of a sense of who you are and how this model is designed and how it functions.
Yeah, So I forecast elections for Race to the White House and track pulling for every major federal race in the country, and the goal of my site in addition to ideally getting these predictions right, is to help make sense of the chaos and make it as easy for people to understand which races are the most competitive and in the presidential race, which states are most likely to
determine the outcome. And so my goal is to make it so anyone who comes to the site for the first time within thirty or seconds or so, have a much better sense of.
This central factors are going to determine the race.
So let's go ahead and put up on the screen the graphic of where things stand right now in terms of the electoral college. Your prediction is that there is a fifty six point nine percent chance the Kamala wins the forty two point eight percent chance that Trump wins. Those are still pretty good odds for Trump, even with Kamala somewhat favored there. And you've got projected electoral votes Kamala at two point eighty four point four and Trump
at two fifty three point six. How should we think about those odds and what are some of the factors that are leading your model to give Kamala a bit of an edge here?
Yeah, I would say that basically means it's a toss of the problem here is that we have two different factors.
Right.
We have the national polling, which is pretty competitive, and would say maybe up until about a few days ago when Kamala got a little bit of post debate bounced that Donald Trump would be favored if we look at what happened in the twenty twenty electoral map, which was heavily biased to Republicans in terms of the electoral college. But then the state poles for Kamala Harris have been
really really strong. You know, in some states like Michigan, Wisconsin, she's usually been doing better in the state poles than even the national polls.
And so the question here is which is real.
Has Kamala really is doing that much better than Joe Biden to the point that the electoral college disadvantage is significantly smaller, And if that's the case, then she is outright favorite to win.
And I think because you have.
That disparity, it's probably part of the reason why some models like Nate Silver's show Donald Trump favored, because they're probably assuming a lot more about the twenty twenty electoral map still being in place. But this is definitely a really close election. Now Harris will at least in my model, start to edge ahead if she has the same type of bounce in the state poles that we're seeing in
the national polls. There's just been a real dirf of pulling outside of some GOP aligned pollsters since the debate.
So logan, give us a sense of you were talking there about the difference between you and Nate Silver. A lot of people obviously wonder about the individual mechanics. As close as you can to relatable speak. Just give us a sense of what the differences and the factors that you look at that can help people assess whenever the looking let's say your model at a different model, what are the types of things that you wait, how much weight to give them?
And give us your overall thought process.
Yeah, so I think across the board from was all of our models, there's a few different things it does.
Right.
First, you try to assess what the national environment is, and for me, I use polling, I use the economy. Those are by far the two most important. I also look at how special elections have been going lately, on which party has been overperforming expectations, and a tiny like one percent of it is fundraising. And after we have a sense of what the national environment is. We try to turn that into state numbers, right, So we look at how states have voted in recent elections relative to
the popular vote. So if it's been a little bit to the left, a little bit to the right, you'd assume, like if it's a state that's two points to the left, Democrats are up by four Nationally they vote for Harris by six points. Bind that with the state poles to give an overall projection for each state. And then the final component, which I think is honestly one of the most important, is you try to figure out how likely
are you to be wrong in every state? Right, So that's based off of like the information we have and how far away we are from election day, how often average would the model be.
And to do that you got to look at electoral history.
For me, I look at like every election since the nineteen sixties, and that helps us get a sense of the chance of an upset. And then the final additional part after you project the lead for each state, is you then simulate all the states together to figure out
what the chance Kamala and Trump have nationwide. And so you have to see, like some you know, if you over perform in Michigan, You're probably going to overperform in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin too, So you try to calculate how correlated each state is as well.
How are you thinking about a potential polling miss so you know, twenty sixteen, Trump support is understated, support is understated. Twenty twenty two, Republican support is overstated. You have a special elections. It seemed like Democratic support was understated. So you know, just looking at the track record as a lay person, it seems like you got a lot of contradictory indications. How are you thinking about that in terms of your statistical modeling.
Yeah, it's such a great question.
It's very easy to fall into the trap after twenty twenty and twenty sixteen to just assume it's going to go against Donald Trump. I think that's what RCP did to a degree in twenty twenty two, and it really backfired for them because the reality is that past polling
misses aren't usually predictive directionally of future polling misses. But I do think it's fair to say after twenty twenty and twenty sixteen, which you know, we're both really bad misses for presidential polls, especially twenty twenty, that we can have a little more inserting than we would normally. Polling
is way harder than it used to be. The response rate for polls that are calling people is drastically lower, and it makes basic sense for all of us, right because if you're getting a phone call from and to number, more often than not it's going to be someone not even trying to sell you something, but trying to scam you into something. And so as a result, pollsters have to find new and creative ways to reach vhoters. Sometimes they're doing online polls, that's a huge part of how
polls work now. Sometimes they're text poles, but overall they're still kind of figuring out how to adjust to the new world. So for my models, I increase the uncertainty quite a bit. I think that the odds of a miss are higher right now, but I'm not going to say that it's necessarily going to go four against Trump. I mean there's also capitalist incentives here, right. Pollster's goal is to make money, is to get as accurate as
possible by make more money. If they do well on that front, the whole industry will be badly off and have a lot less trust in them if they underrate Trump specifically. So on one hand, they couldn't miss them because they've done it before. On the other hand, they could overcorrect too.
Right, So factoring in twenty twenty two, like you were just talking about, what were the what was the mistake that pollsters made because a lot of people forget you know, after twenty sixteen, there was a lot of discussion about not pulling up white collar workers, white working class workers specifically after twenty twenty. I believe the excuse was that there were too many older Democrats at home. They were responding. It was like a polling response bias. Twenty twenty two.
I haven't heard a particularly good actual analysis of what went wrong. So what in your opinion, what is what wrong with the polls for there?
Well, I would just say, you know, in fantis to polsters, twenty twenty two is a pretty good year for them. There's usually going to be a bias against one party or the other, and that year was against Democrats.
But overall they were pretty good.
They lightly underrated youth turnout, and honestly, my gut feeling is that overall they all had to make corrections. After the last two presidential cycles, and they may have overdone it a little bit just because it was in their incentives to not under great Republicans again, but it was still pretty good year for them.
Okay, what do you make of this is something I hear from like the resistance Libs, right, which you know, sometimes they have a point, so we like to take them seriously. They're making a good argument that there's been an influx of these Republicans aligned polsters who are more interested in their capitalist incentive. We may say is more about setting a pro Republican narrative than it is about
being wholly accurate. And you know, so for people who want to discount and eat Silver's model, looking at you know, which has Donald Trump still favors, kind of like the inverse of where your model sits. That's one of the things that they'll point to is that he takes those that flood of GOP aligned polls sort of too seriously in terms of his modeling.
Yeah, it's it's a huge concern.
In twenty twenty two, I had to call a bit of an audible and start increasing the penalty to partisan posters once they really started to flood the average. There's a lot more polls for the presidential SOULCI if it gets at that point. That's certainly been the case lately in the post debate state poles because they say be
the only ones releasing pols. I would say for all these polsters, as with anyone has power influence, right, you got to think about what their incentives are, and just like you said, right, their goal is to try to change the narrat If that's true for any internal poll. No campaign is going to release a poll just for
the heck of it. If they have a poll that it's a Democratic line polster that's showing them way worse than everyone else, maybe the race closer than everyone else, it might be using it for fundraising purposes, and then they just put it out there publicly so they can cite it in ads. Right, there's usually going to be some type of agenda.
Yeah, well, I really enjoy talking to you, Logan. Thanks for coming on man, and we'll continue to check out your website.
Yeah, great to meet you, Legan, our pleasure.
Thanks me.
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