(09/11) GAS Hour 1 - Debate Recap

This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI AM six forty, the Gary and Shannon Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app.

Welcome to you both. It's wonderful to have you.

It's an odder to have you both here tonight, good evening. We are looking forward to a spirited and thoughtful debate.

Well spirited and thoughtful. It was one sided pretty much. I mean, I think you nailed it. She nailed it. She had to, there was too much on the line.

But wow, she came right out, walked across the stage, shook, stuck out her hand, they shook. She introduced herself, pronouncing her name pointedly. He said, have fun, have fun, and then it was off to the races.

It was odd there being no audience. There wasn't it. I thought it was. I mean, I get why they did that, and it made sense, and nobody got distracted and he didn't get egg down. He didn't need to. But it was like a bring your own energy kind of game. And it reminded me though of COVID times. Not having an audience.

Yeah, would have been more energy in the room if there was a live audience. I felt, obviously they would have been well behaved, but it.

Was so detrimental for him because all three of the other people in the room, both moderators and Kamala Harris, had this calm veneer right, this calming we are the adults in the room, We're not going to get excited, and so when he started to lose it a little bit, he looked like a complete lunatic.

Well, here's the thing.

He started off fairly well with the discussion about the economy, although it was more generalities, and then once she kicked into gear, she just left him so far behind.

Let's go through some of the cuts here. She talks about his rallies when she really got under his skin.

And I'm going to actually do something really unusual, and I'm going to invite you to attend one of Donald Trump's rallies. We'll start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom. And i will tell you the one thing you will not hear him talk about is you. You will not hear him talk about your needs, your dreams, and your need and your desires. And I'll tell you, I believe you deserve a president who actually puts you first. And I pledge to you that I.

Will Vice President Harris, thank you, President Trump on that point, I want to get your response.

I'd like to respond.

Let me just ask them, why did you try to kill that bill and successfully so? That would have put thousands of additional agents and officers on the board.

Responders to the rallies, she said, people started leaving.

People don't go to her rallies. There's no reason to go.

And the people that do go, she's busting him in and paying them to be there and then showing them in a different light, so she can't talk about that.

People don't leave my rallies.

We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics. That's because people want to take their country back. Our country is being lost. We're a failing nation.

And that's really when she was able to successfully bait him into going off the rails.

Yeah, the banner headlight on CNN afterwards was that Trump takes the bait every time. I think what we're looking at today is looking back on it is that most people who are fair would say, if there was a winner or a loser, that Harris was the clear winner.

I heard it described as this way, it's a football analogy, shocker, but it's the Republicans are looking at it like this. Yes, my team showed up and got its ass handed to it, but the refs were also on the other team's side. It's like, yes, you have a beef with the with the NFL, right, you've got a beef with with the referees making all the calls for the chiefs, Okay, whatever, But my team, my team didn't didn't come to play,

With I like these two. And by the end it said, David Muir sucks.

Why.

I don't know.

You must have done something to bother me towards the end.

But well, they do have a tendency to fall in love with their own words. The questions are very long. They are more statements and questions. Yes, I'd like to hear more concise questions to get more time for the answers. But I think overall, you know, looking at the various headlines from this morning from the newspapers and the websites and so forth, the tone right and the attitude.

She was positive looking forward.

Turned the page and he was darkness, you're letting millions of people into the country illegally.

They're eating pets.

And it was like the whole concept that she has defied, I think successfully of moving forward versus going back, and that and that talking point that she has We're not going back.

He went to the fringes right when it was talking about rally sizes, and we're going to have to get to the eating of the pets because that's a legitimate issue what's.

Going on in that town in Ohio.

And he had a he had a moment to hit it out of the park with that, and he completely fell for the lowest hanging fruit. In the meantime, we are talking about, well what everyone's talking about the debate debacle. Really for Donald Trump last night couldn't have gone worse. I don't think for the Republicans. I can't think of one independent voter he wooed. I mean he it was. It was an easy thing for him to do, especially when you know, you talk about immigration, and we'll get

Please in Minnesota. She went out, I'm talking now, you know mind Please says south.

And so trying to like weaponize her whole I'm talking now. When the protesters interrupted her rally.

That was his big moment. That was it. That was it.

And you know what, I don't even think he picked the perfect moment to land that.

I don't think it landed.

But on the immigration thing, this was his chance to knock it out of the park and talk about the border and talk about all of the legitimate immigration border problems in this country, which happens to be a topic that independent voters are interested.

In absolutely, especially here in California.

Right.

So, if you just take the microcosm though of Springfield, Illinois and what's going on there with all of the immigrants through the Biden administration's program that have kind of saturated that small town, and it's kind of like they've soaked up all of the services for the people that lived there for decades.

Right, And this is a legitimate point that Trump could have taken advantage of to make his case about the border and out of contry role, even though these are people here with legal status exactly.

But instead, the Republicans, for lack of a better term, ate themselves ate themselves over this and started to peddle this weird narrative that the Haitian immigrants are stealing dogs and cats and ducks and eating.

Them from parks. And that's what resonates with people. It's so funny. Even just this morning, I'm in the elevator here in the building, coming up, and that's what one of the comments from a fellow passenger was, like, jokingly, I'm going to go, you know, have some ducks.

I'm going to go eat some ducks.

I texted a friend this morning. I said, I'm getting my puppy ready for breakfast. So, you know, I mean, but it's awful and it's ridiculous that people believe this. But last night Trump doubled down on it.

In Springfield.

They're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the cats, they're eating they're eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what's happening in our country, and it's a.

Game unhinged, right.

So then David Muir, the moderator from ABC, said, well, I checked with the city manager there and there are no credible reports of that happening. And then Trump said, well I saw it on TV and then, which is like typical, right, right, And then he said, well, I got it from the city manager. We're not talking about what was on TV, which is kind of an indictment of TV in a way. But it was sort of right wingers there that were complaining publicly and it went

Yeah, and we're making jokes in the elevator texting. The memes are great, the ai of Trump running away from Haitian immigrants with a cat under each arm. But let's just pump the brakes on the humor.

For a minute.

This is a person running for president that is legitimately trying to float the narrative that people are eating pets.

And that's the best he can do is does he believe that truly? Because that's a problem. But so then that's the question of this.

How is he's preaching to his base, people who have drunk the ko leade Yes, people who look at him as like a demigod. And he didn't need to do that last night, right, And so the challenge for him when we talked about this yesterday was to expand that base and convince people that he can be quote normal, which seems like a fairly low bar to set, and he didn't do that. And her challenge was to convince people that she can be the commander in chief and she's ready for the job.

And I think most analysts say that she did.

That well, and there is the whole narrative about him being now the old candidate.

He has fallen off.

If you watch his debate performances from four years well, eight years ago, the Hillary Clinton debates, you know that is a different person even from four years ago.

And the same thing happened with Biden, you.

Know, Europe.

But he's seventy to seventy eight.

But nobody's really giving him that kind of same kind of scrutiny about the age that they did with Biden right before I said goodbye.

He's not able to crystallize his points anymore.

They kind of ramble. Yeah.

Well, the best example was that one about childcare from New York from a week or so ago.

They didn't get into that. I mean, here's a thing.

ABC builled this as quote the most consequential moment of this campaign. So it was consequential. I'm not sure was the most consequential. There's still what fifty four fifty five days left, and a lot can happen. There's discussion. Now they're gonna have a second debate. Yes, no, she wants to, he wants to. She doesn't want to. He doesn't want to. It's interesting today. You know, in nine to eleven, they're all side by side in New York City, right first ceremonies.

It was Biden, it was Trump, and it was Kamala Harris. They're all in the same frame and a remembrance for victims of nine eleven, twenty third anniversary family members were gathering with local leaders there in Lower Manhattan for the annual reading of the victims' names. Six moments of silence, of course, to mark when both the World Trade Center towers struck and fell, Pentagon was attacked, and then Flight

Just kind of an odd place to be, all.

Right, when we come back, I do want to get into how Trump called her out on copying and pasting Biden's policy on the economy and his like decades old reference to a book. We are talking about the debate. Phil Schuman hanging out with me today and I wanted to get to Donald Trump saying that the Biden Harris administration has erecked the economy, and he threw in a reference to a nineteen forty eight book.

She doesn't have a plan beat Biden's plan, and it's like four sentences like run spot run, four sentences that are just, oh, we'll try at lower taxes.

She doesn't have a plan. Take a look at her plan. She doesn't have a plan. That was three words.

C Spot Run was a book from nineteen forty eight. I did the math. Donald Trump was two years old in nineteen forty eight, so chances are his parents or whoever took care of him read that book to him. Kind of a nostalgic moment from five hundred years ago.

The same parent that gave him four hundred million dollars on a silver platter, only to have him declared bankruptcy six times.

That sounds nice. Rich people always declare bankruptcy. Though there's something there. There's more of a business strategy, right. But here's the thing. He was critical, defensive, combative. She was trying to raise the level of discussion. I think, talking about the future, trying to be positive turning the page, and the divisiveness set a more upbeat tone.

And I think that's really one of the big takeaways. You know, it's always fun the day after all, the analysts look at four takeaways from the debate, five takeaways six. But I think the main thing was that she was positive talking about the future, and he was his usual defensive self with the insults.

She also was able to position herself as an ordinary person talking about being raised as a middle class kid. Hillary Clinton lacked that on the debate stage, where she appeared to be not somebody who actually keeps hot sauce in her purse, she appeared to be somebody who was talking over everybody. Kamala Harris and her elocution coach nailed it when it came to the tone of talking to people or talking to the screen or what have you, in a way that was I am just like you, I'm one of you.

I've lived in the real world.

Yeah.

She's made that one of her most important sort of points during any discussion about her background, her mom, her dad. She said at least three times, I was raised a middle class kid. I don't know why.

I don't know how you could fail at what Donald Trump failed at last night, and talking about the economy, talking about grocery prices, talking about the border, the porous border, highlighting the facts that Republicans often go to when they talk about Biden's failures as president, just repeat that stuff right.

Well, we talked about that, right, border crime, immigration, and instead he went right to they're letting millions of people into this country, criminals, the crime rates in Venezuela have plummeted. Went right to that, and again we talked about expanding his base.

It didn't happen. He's just throwing out red meat to his followers.

The other thing that I don't think helps him and going to the total fringe right of an argument, just like the Haitian immigrants eating.

The pets, is abortion.

He continually says that Democrats are having babies, set up them aside and then deciding to kill them, or that they're having abortions in the ninth month or what happened. That's just not happening, and you're not doing yourself any favor. If you want a debate abortion, have that debate. But when you go to the fringe of executing babies, yes, when you go to executing babies and.

Then lose it, Lindsay Davis correctly said there's not one state in the country where it's legal to execute a baby after birth. And this is why the Republicans were critical of the debate moderators for quote fact checking Trump.

You can't let that go. You can't let that go.

Yeah, we have a cut on that. About their back and forth on abortion, Will she.

Allow abortion in the eighth month, ninth month, seventh month?

Okay, would you do that? Why don't you ask that question? That's the question, the question.

You could do abortions in the seventh month, the eighth month, the ninth month, and probably after birth. Just look at the governor, former governor of Virginia. The governor of Virginia said, we put the baby aside and then we determine what we.

Want to do with a baby.

Yeah, that doesn't do you any any favors if you want to have a legitimate abortion debate or conversation.

I thought her plea for reproductive rights, her defensive reproductive rights, I think was probably one of the most powerful moments of the ninety plus minutes.

I thought it was interesting the way it started. She appeared to be a little nervous, Her voice was a little wavering. You think I also think, and I think this with every debate, or really it's obvious in debates is when you're watching it, you have one impression. When you're listening to the clips the next day, it's a different feeling. Her voice did not bother me at all last night. I mean, let's just be honest. They both looked great. The glam squads showed up. His hair was

It was toned down.

It was toned his hair was and she looked beautiful, I mean, just incredible. But she did come out of the gate a little bit. I thought a little nervous. You thought so, yeah, but she quickly stopped the quiver in her voice. It was only maybe thirty forty five seconds or something like that. But hearing back some of the clips this morning, and I have no I have no no ground to stand on here, because I know my voice can be very grating.

And annoying as well.

No, that's not true.

It did come across a little bit more whiny, I guess.

But I think that she's done very well.

We talked about this yesterday in improving her presentation, prediction, her style of speaking. Remember, she was criticized for that term word salad she would say kay a lot.

If you look at old clips, she doesn't do any of that. There were were no filler words. I noticed that as well. Excellent point. I kept waiting for an um or the saying something without saying anything.

And I was thinking, like, this is what she rehearsed. Yes, and it seemed like the preparation served her very well.

She reminded me of what I could have done if I studied for one test in school, Like if I just focused my nose to the grindstone is at the right, If I just did that once, I could have gotten a's.

But I didn't.

I was Donald Trump and I just winged my reeling school.

And it's just awful.

What did you spend your time doing?

Uh, well, that's another show, Phil.

It's just you know, it's just obvious that she studied and that she was holed up in that and it showed.

It showed.

And I don't think he came in totally unprepared, but he went right to his main talking points and exaggerations. And look, if you're listening to us right now, by the way, should we mention the talkback feature?

You know, we're giving our opinions. We've heard other people's opinions.

You can click the microphone on the iHeartRadio app and send us a message, and we'd love to play some of the good ones, so make them good. And it just it just seemed like he went right to the same old thing. And that's what she said. You know, we're not gonna I'm tired of We're tired of the same old playbook. Look, if you're listening to this, you're thinking me and you, Shannon and I are like rooting for Harris. That's not the case. I mean, I think

Why but it didn't happen.

Why didn't he talk about the things that terrify me, like the socialism and the redistribution of wealth's all of that and marked and well he did say that her father was a Marxist professor, but she didn't touch it.

Nobody touched it, which was smart.

But if you're a conservative voter, a true conservative Republican, you wanted him to be a conservative Republican last night and be conservative with his comments, and he just did not hit any balls even close to out.

Of the park. Yeah, a lot of singles.

Yeah, your might there.

S Yeah, a lot of singles.

And we talked about this yesterday, and looking ahead is that Harris had more to gain than he had to lose, and I think she succeeded in gaining that. There was that whole discussion about people want to know more about her, People want to learn more about what she's about and what she's like, and I think she gave them the opportunity to do that when she talked about abortion, she talked about herself and that whole middle class thing. We know it already because this is what we do twenty

Well, we were talking off the air about Taylor Swift and I said, yeah, I went to one of her concerts up at Levi's and it was bedlam, just complete mayhem.

It was insanity.

I've been there for NFC Championship games and it wasn't even close to as crazy as it was for the Taylor Swift concert I went to. I mean, the entire stadium was you would have thought it was a seven point six earthquake. The entire time, nobody sat down. It was just it was the Beatles, it was Elvis, it was crazy. It's a huge amount of people who consider themselves swifties. And last night Kamala Harris picked up Taylor Swift's endorsement.

Absolutely right afterwards too, and one of the interesting headlines was the debate was the earthquake and the Taylor Swift endorsement was the aftershock. Funny and so people say, so Taylor Swift endorsed her, not a surprise, big deal.

It is a big deal. She has we looked it up right.

She has more than two hundred million followers on social media, mainly track and Instagram, which is, you know, not near even in the top ten, believe it or not. But Georgia was decided by eleven thousand votes four years ago.

So the.

Point is if she can translate that endorsement into young people getting out and voting, that could change the election.

That endorsement meant more than the debate. Debates don't win elections. People have short memories. Yes, the news cycle has been won by Kamala Harris, but in this day and age of the news cycle lasting about oh i don't know, twelve to twenty four hours. We're going to be onto something next week. This glow up is not going to last very long. But the endorsement of Taylor Swift that is going to carry a lot of votes with it. I would assume.

Well, the age group eighteen to twenty four historically has been the lowest group in terms of voter turnout rates. Since I printed out a chart actually in anticipating this this morning, voter turnout rates among age groups in presidential elections going back to nineteen sixty four, and the age group eighteen to twenty four has the lowest voter turnout compared to twenty five to forty four, forty five to sixty four, and sixty five plus, which is the highest.

So there you go.

The endorsement translates into people registering, into people voting, into Harris winning, and a place in the cabinet for Taylor Swift.

This will be the secretary of music.

Okay, look at you research, good job, thank you.

I like it when people can.

Do that's what's interesting.

I mean, it's not okay, great, Taylor Swift endorsed Kamala Harris. Not a big shock, right, But what if Travis Kelcey endorses Trump.

Now we have a story.

Yeah, then you have the NFL against Taylor Swift and.

A romance gone wrong. But yeah, I mean, it'll be interesting.

That particular voting block was a struggle for Joe Biden. He was not pulling thirty four year olds at all at all, and she was able to make up headway. And now with this, I'm anxious to see what the polling says next week, if there is a dynamic change there, or even seeing the voter registration. Now, there's probably a lot of these kids. I mean, I don't know you have young kids, but a lot of the generation that's eighteen nineteen, they don't even want their driver's licenses. So

We live in this culture of celebrity, right, And there's obviously a long history of celebrities endorsing political candidates, but I think this one really might take it to another level. And it's not just I mean, we love Taylor Swift, right, who doesn't love Taylor Swift? And it's not that she is like a fan of Harris. I mean, you think she actually puts some thought into it, right, Like many

She said, we can accomplish more in this country if we're led by calm and not chaos. And I think that kind of encapsulated the debate last night. There was the calm and then there was the off the reservation. I'm not allowed to say that's racist now, right, there was a there was calm.

No, that's a great way to describe it, com versus chaos. And I'm like, I'm on team calm on politics. In life, we're of a lover, not a fighter.

That's beautiful.

Yeah, you've been listening to the Gary and Shannon Show. You can always hear us live on KFI AM six forty nine am to one pm every Monday through Friday, and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio lap