So much you're listening to I'm Ama Mia podcast. Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land. We have recorded this podcast on the Gattigul people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their elders past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and torres Rate islander cultures.
A man with multiple guns was arrested outside of former President Donald Trump's rally in California Saturday. The local sheriff says forty nine year old Van Miller illegally had a shotgun, loaded handgun, and a high capacity magazine. Would anybody else like defend?
Please raiser, Let's do it now, Please raise your head. You know what we could do though, if my guys could do it.
How about we'll do a little music.
Let's make this a musical.
First.
Oh, looky, looky, Hello out louders. Is that time of the week where we unpack all the things that are happening in the US election, which is now only a terrifying nineteen days away. I'm Holly Wainwright and I have literally been in an Internet free zone for a week and it's been glorious to not know what's been going on with Trump and Harris, but today I'm going to find out. We're joined by Jesse Stevens.
I'm here, and every time I say anything about the US election, I go no, I need to get across it because I have a built in Amelia Lester, who gives me all the context I need to know. She's my filter.
She absolutely is. And Amelia Lester is here. She is the deputy editor of Foreign Policy magazine. She is a journalist with lots of years of experience in the US. In fact, she lived there until very recently. Amelia, what the hell is going on in US politics this week?
Okay?
The first thing you need to know is that I got a text from a friend yesterday, and I'm going to read it in its entirety. This is a friend in the US. Imagine it's twenty twelve, Barack Obama was just reelected, and you receive this article from the future. This is an article from the Washington Post. There's nothing in this world that could convince you it's real. I still don't believe it's a reported story from a real event.
Would you like to know what I would? I should stop and say no, it's no an assassination attempt, though that did happen. That's we'll get to that. This is a surprising thing. This is the headline. Trump sways and bops to music for thirty nine minutes in bizarre episode.
So, all right, what happened here? Because I've seen tweets about it, and sometimes you just look at it and you go, oh, I'm sure everyone's exaggerating.
Yeah. No, I have never read an article in the New York Times where the reporter was so clearly confused and yet still had to write an article and describe what happened. So what happened was Trump was doing a rally in you guessed at Pennsylvania because basically that's the one state where everyone's going to decide for the next
couple of weeks. It's deciding the election. He was at a town hall in Pennsylvania and then two people needed medical attention, which is also not surprising because the median age at his rallies tends to be somewhere around seventy five. They needed the medical attention, and he was sort of waiting to see what happened there, and then he decided he wasn't going to talk about small business or the economy or inflation anymore. He just wanted to listen to some music.
So he was that that song that he does, where he Goes, where he does his little fist was.
Yes, that that extremely well known song. Yes, yes, y m c h.
Actually to dance to that on the stage and we are not dances and we did a better job than Donald Trump does.
Anyway, there was a lot of fist dancing. So for thirty nine minutes, Yeah, he played his greatest hits. He played Walliam Ca. He played Ave Maria twice. That's a down out which which I think is a diagram between Donald Trump and Muriel Hesslop is that they both loved the song, are they Maria? What's interesting is he come play a lot of the songs he wants to play these days because artists keep sending him seasoned desists. So he used to love the Rolling Stones song you Can't
Always Get what you Want. They sent him a season desist. James Brown, it's a man's man's man's well.
That would be a big time.
Saneade O'Connor performing. Nothing compares to you now, I know. If there's one politician shinetdo kinda loves. It's absolutely Donald.
Trump spinning in her grave speak.
Yes, sorry past tense.
Yes. So anyway, it was a really odd episode. No one really knows what to make of it. But he had another odd episode this week because he was at a rally in Arizona and he said that he wanted to thank We think he was saying Assyrians for Trump, but he said in such a way that it's sounded like Ascerasians, and no one really know what he meant, and.
So there were various theories.
People said, could he have meant Arizonans, could he have meant Azerbaijan's. But then eventually the case was cracked. There was a group of people in red T shirts that read us for Trump. Assyrians are of course an ancient people who trace their roots to Northern Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran. The Facebook group Assyrians for Trump only has one hundred and thirty six members, so it's not a hugely important swing group in this selection.
He's clashing it through us.
So I've seen a lot of people say that this is further evidence of his cognitive decline. Other people are saying he didn't like the questions that were being asked. Others are saying he's avoiding making gaffes like my numbers with the black and especially black men.
I love black men, I love them, I love them.
I have gone through the roof with black men. Yes, and Kamala Harris just I understand it, tweeted, I hope he's okay after the dancing and swaying, I think is understated. So what's the black men's speech?
What's happened there?
If the question hollywoods is Donald Trump? Okay, I wasn't going to be able to answer that one. So I'm glad Jesse to follow up hurry so on the black men's seech. So what happened here is that Obama spoke in Pittsburgh, which is a city in Pennsylvania, last week, and he aimed his speech very much at black men. And the reason he did that is because Kamala Harris's support is still very low among black voters in Pennsylvania.
It's lower than when Biden won the state in twenty twenty, according to polls, and Obama still has enormous appeal both in this community but also more generally amongst Democrats. Polls show ninety percent of Democrats still view him favorably and Harris. This is interesting, was an early supporter of Obama. Said, you know that she daw knocked for him in Iowa in two thousand and seven when he was running to be the Democratic nominee.
So they go way back.
But in this speech, people have said this was a risky move on Obama's part. He addressed his brothers. That's a quote. He said, you're coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses for not supporting Kamala Harris. Part of it makes me think that you're just not feeling
the idea of having a woman as president. And a number of commentators have described this as at the tone here a little bit off, a little sterldie Scoldie Wendell Pearce, who is an actor who was in Suits and the Wire, more to the point, the critically acclaimed Kenzie and Drama.
He was in Suits with Megan Markle.
He went on social media and he wrote, the party has to stop scapegoating black men. That was particularly notable for him because he's been a big supporter of Kamala Harris's run for president, and he asked why white men and women weren't getting the same treatment. And Obama has history on this because in two thousand and eight, when
he was the Democratic nominee, he scolded black fathers. He told a group of black people during a speech in Chicago, we need fathers to realize that responsibility does not end at conception, addressing this idea that in the black community sometimes black fathers aren't always around. So there was this history with Obama on this, and I think in that context, Trump sort of tried to seize on the moment and declare that he loves black men.
I feel like that was on his notepad, not but he has a notepad, but like black men potential. And then it sounds like he didn't really nut out what he wanted to say about that, so he just yelled black men.
Yeah.
I mean it's I hate Taylor Swift, I love black men.
It tends to be a pendulum for him.
None of this seems to be changing the poles so far. I know. I ask you this every week. Is anything we can hold on to? So much seems to happen, and yet nothing seems to change. Because last week I listened to you on Mama Mia out loud while I wasn't here, talking about Kamala's press blitz. Call her daddy. Did it do anything?
Yeah, the press plits is interesting. So the short answer is no, the poles haven't changed much. But it's worth talking about the press blitz because now there's a report that Kamala Harris is considering or in negotiations to go on Joe Rogan's podcast.
That listen to our debscriber episode last week, but we said you need to go on Joe Rogan and she brought that to her team.
Yeah, I think that they did listen to that. So the strategy at work here is that I think that they're trying to reach as many persuadable voters as possible through outlets that people feel genuinely connected to. And what's interesting is she was on the cover of Vogue. The cover came out this weekend. It was very subdued, a big contrast to the last time she was on the cover of Vogue when she became the vice president. You might remember that that cover came under some criticism for
the styling. She was wearing Converse. There was kind of some draped fabrics behind her. People thought that it looked disrespectful and not fully elegant enough for her office. This was a very classic, elegant, sort of politician y cover of Vogue, and it sank without a trace.
Did you even hear anything about it?
Nah, it was a pretty boring cover.
I looked at the cover and it was exactly what you It's like if an Ai put together a Yeah, it must be of what they do.
Yeah, it must be a tricky line to walk, because you could have made a cover that would have gone viral, but it probably would have had to be. She's been styled a different way, her hairs up, she's wearing a ball gown, and then that would have attracted. So it's kind of like a small target cover. But then it's anny point doing a small.
Target because I think that call her Daddy appearance was seen as so revolutionary and clever. Is because the biggest sense that undecided voters have about her is that they don't know her. That's what they keep telling polsters, and they're not going to get to know her more from a super stage any leave of its Vogue cover. They need to hear her in a kind of long form podcast setting and Joe Rogan. It's a smart choice for her.
Harris needs Rogan more than the other way around. Seems to be the general consent.
And I also hear she's got on Fox News.
Yes, which is also smart because Pete Boudajed, who's a surrogate for the campaign and also in Biden's cabinet, goes on Fox News all the time. And people say that's why he's been able to sort of hone his messaging. He's seen as sort of the greatest communicator in the Democratic Party right now, and it's probably because he's been consistently forced to talk to people who disagree with him.
It's a bit late, Kamala three weeks ago, baby.
Go back to what is if it's my correct count the third assassination attempt, which the reporting popped up for five minutes and then seem to disappear.
I just isn't this extraordinary? It sort of goes along with the theme of this episode, I think, which is if you'd told someone in twenty twelve that the presidential nominee had had three assassination attempts and we're not even talking about it, it kind of sums it all up. I think people are pretty skeptical about this assassination attempt. I've noticed that most news outlets are putting assassination attempt
in quote marks. The facts are that a man, a forty nine year old man Van Miller, was arrested outside a Trump rally in California's Coachella Valley.
Yes, that Coachella.
The sheriff said, I truly do believe we prevented another assassination attempt. The Secret Service disagrees with that. Miller himself said that the claim he was an assassin was complete bullshit. Now maybe that's what he would say, but it is just an interesting data point. Basically, what happened was he had a phony press passed in an unregistered car and he was stopped trying to enter the rally. When the police searched the vehicle, they found a shotgun, a loaded handgun,
all sorts of guns. My view on this, it's not surprising that a forty nine year old man going to a rally in the middle of the desert has a lot of guns in his car. I don't think that necessarily proves he wanted to use the guns on Donald Trump. Keep in mind, forty eight percent of Republicans report they own at least one gun, sixty six percent say they live in a household with a gun, and culturally that's sort of become a Republican badge of honor? Is this idea that I own a gun, I'm not afraid to
use a gun. I don't think you can make the leap there. No.
I have a question from an out louder named Georgie, who has asked, I want to know what actually will change for women in America if Trump or Harris gets in, because she says with all this fake news, she can't separate fact from fiction, will it tangibly impact the lives of women?
Georgie, that's a really good question. I think there's two buckets here. The first bucket is abortion, and then the second bucket is the economy. Generally first on abortion, we don't know what Trump's going to do. At various points, He's said he will sign a nationwide abortion van various points he said he won't. JD Vanns's vice presidential candidate, has said similar contradictory things about what he wants to do.
The fact is about half of American women right now can't really get an abortion if they want one, or at least not easily. If Harris got in. She has said that she'd like to expand that out to more people. Again, she legislatively would find that difficult.
Just going to say could she do that, she can't promise to re state she can't.
So I think with a Harris administration, you'll see the status quo on abortion. With a Trump administration, it is. I think it's reasonably likely that they will do what they can to further restrict abortion access. Whether that means nationwide abortion man, I don't know, because that is pretty extreme vement for them. But Republicans have talked about minimizing access to contraception and also making it.
Harder to receive the so called abortion.
Bill through the mail, which is what a lot of American women do as a work around now when they can't access abortion care in their state abortion. I do think that there's some real extremist measures that we could see under a Trump administration. Under a Harris administration, I don't think we could see much change in terms of getting more women access to abortion. On the economy, I think both candidates have talked about the need to make child came more affordable, things like this.
I doubt any of that will happen.
To be honest, the federal government in the US can only do so much on the economy. I do think Trump wants to implement some pretty sweeping reforms that are going to make consumer goods just hugely more expensive. So that's going to impact women and the economy as a whole. He wants to start more trade wars with China and others. It's going to be a volatile time economically, and that will have real implications for American women and also Australian women.
By the way, Beyond that, I think those are the two buckets.
Another out Louder has a question. Lenny writes, I would like to get under the backstory of Trump wants donating to come on.
Yeah, thanks for this, Lenny, because this actually caused me to look into Trump's political history.
Did you know that he.
Was going to run for president in nineteen ninety nine, two thousand as an independent party?
Yes, yes, I vaguely remember this.
Yeah, I completely forgot about that.
So he threatened to run for president quite a few times before he actually did it.
He did, but he got quite close in ninety nine, two thousand. As I say, he was an independent candidate there. It's very much a two party system in the US, so there's no way he would have won but it's interesting to note then he was a registered Democrat. So in the US, when you register to vote, you need to declare whether you're a Democrat or a Republican. You can declare as not affiliated, which is what journalists like myself tend to do, but the default is that you
declare for one party or the other. So with that in mind, from two thousand to twenty eleven he was a registered Democrat, which is not at all surprising. He lived in New York City, where the vast majority of people, particularly even the wealthiest people there, tend to be Democrats. He moved in social circles with the Clintons. Milania appeared on the cover of Vogue when they got married in
two thousand and six. That's notable because an a Winter editor is a huge Democratic sarrogate and would not have put Millennia on the cover if there was any hint of Republicanism there. In twenty eleven, he did re register as a Republican that same year, though he cut a five thousand dollars check for Kamala Harris's reelection campaign to
be California's Attorney General. The backstory on that is Fox News discovered that he wrote this check to attendee fundraising dinner for Harris, which Avanka Trump attended, and then Avanka actually donated again in twenty fourteen to Harris.
Why hasn't that been made a bigger deal of.
Because I think everyone knows that avunka politically had never really agreed with her father, but then when along in a naked power grab when he did get into office. Some people have joked that Harris should spend that money that he gave her there on her presidential campaign. Now
it's not possible. The Sacramento b which is a California newspaper, reported in twenty twenty that she'd actually given away the entire six thousand dollars he'd given her when she began her run for the US Senate because she knew already at that point this was toxic money, and she gave it to a civil rights nonprofit working in Central America, which.
Is a nice bowl. On top of this whole story.
That's really interesting, not because I'm surprised that Trump was a Democrat, because I don't believe he gives a shit about anything except for Trump so his swing with the breeze, but he loves to say what a mess she made of California and how California is as attorney general, and that how it's a cesspool, and it's like, well, you thought at one point she was a good thing.
Yeah, exactly.
And it also hits on something which Australian listeners may not be aware of, which is that in the US, because it's so much more polarized. If you are a rich person living in New York, you are a Democrat. It's not like here where the sort of like moneyed end of town won't really tell you who they're voting for. It's out in the open for him to live in New York as long as he did and to be moving in the vogue circles. By definition, he's a Democrat.
So that's what made his run for office all the more shocking and surprising.
And why he lives in Florida.
Why he lives in Florida.
Now, Charlotte asked this question, which I am wondering too, because we are two and a half weeks out from the people going and voting. She asks, how long until we will know before the final electoral college count?
Oh, Charlotte, Charlotte, I'm not that smart. I wish I knew.
I mean, one thing's for sure, you were not going to know on election night. We haven't known on election night the last few elections, So that's do you know.
The next stage?
And like, how does it normally go? Because I forget this every election.
But except remind me because you say we didn't know, and we didn't. But remember that horrible day in twenty sixteen with the New York Times needle, which was election Day where everybody thought. I remember even here, we were all obsessed with that needle on the front of the right and they were counting out and obviously it's not the final vote count, but obviously there was enough momentum in the Trump direction that it wasn't. Everybody started crying.
Obviously the next election was much tighter, took longer.
And then we've talked on this very podcast about the two thousand election which the Supreme Court had to settle, which came down to five hundred votes. Yes, so yeah, you're right, Holly, maybe we will know an election night, but given how close the polls are this time, they're even closer than they were in twenty twenty, so it seems pretty unlikely. And I'm not going to get into the details here because I've been told they're boring by me or and I think.
She's probably right.
But suffice to say, there's a lot of funny business that can happen after the votes are counted and before the Electoral College actually meets in Washington, DC in January, and some people say that the Republicans are laying the groundwork for some dodgy practices in terms of what the people have voted for, not necessarily translating into the Electoral College voters and what they vote for.
It drives me crazy that everybody keeps saying we don't.
Know enough about her.
I'm like, what do you want to know? Like you, I don't understand.
At the same time, I do think that people have said that she's giving kind of pat answers to things, and I have been a little frustrated about that.
Jesse, Yeah, I've felt the same that there are still questions that she hasn't answered.
What do you want to say?
I think that there are still questions even about immigration, about the economy where she doesn't get specific any.
And what drives her I think is this sort of growing consensus that we don't know what her fundamental drive.
Is about, which is why we need a press blitz, which is why we need to say we.
Were on a press blitz. I thought we'd been on a press blitz for the last ten days.
Let me give you one example before we end, which is that the Washington Post publisher piece this year this week it felt like this year about the six years Kamala Harris spent six years in Canada during high school, which she has literally never mentioned, never mentioned. And this story she tells, which is about how there was a girl at her high school who was being sexually abused and this is what got her story of becoming a district attorney that was in Canada.
That was not even an American story.
Wow, and it personally I think that matters, But go on, No, but the way that it's told makes it sound like she was her neighbor from her her neighborhood in San Francisco.
Yes, And I just think it says it all that this far into this election, I'm reading that she spent high school in another country.
It was surprising.
Yeah, No, I agree with that. What we need is four hours Joe Rogan to sit down.
That will horrible. You'll get the probably It's like this is the buy and she's in especially as a woman. The more you say, the more holes can be picked. Nobody is perfect. Look at Albanisi in his house, like nobody is perfect.
There will be holes perfect before.
This is so annoying, but it's such an own goal, like Welts and the China thing, like just tell people the things. If you haven't goneything to hide, just tell them the thing.
Then again, you said she's going to smoke weed with him? Do you know that her father and Kamala stopped speaking for years because when she was running for office a few years ago, she was asked to her you on legalizing marijuana, and she said something to the effect of,
my family's from Jamaica. You think I'm really going to against And her father, who's an economics professor, who do you grow up in Jamaica took offense at that sort of evocation of a stereotype, and that's what caused him to not speak for years.
So I don't think she's going to smoke, But.
How it drives me crazy think of all the things that Trump has done that we know, like we know him, we don't give.
A shit, Like when he dances for thirty seven in the street.
Someone argue we know too much. We're way too much.
The faces he pulled anyway, Thank you, Amelia. We will be back here next week.
Bye bye.
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