From The New York Times, I'm Michael Babardo. This is The Daily. Boating is officially underway in Minnesota for just four weeks left until Election Day. And polls show that the race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is the closest in a generation. It is so good to be back in Wisconsin! Miss you again, we're going to bring back your car industry.
So I gathered three of my colleagues who are covering the campaign, Shane Goldmacher, Maggie Haberman, and Nate Cone, to make sense of the major events of the past week that could change that math. Thousands of dock workers are on strike. Israeli missiles striking are the heart of Beirut.
Ever before seen evidence in special prosecutor Jack Smith's election case against former President Donald Trump, this is a one- and to explore the last minute strategies that both campaigns are hoping might tip the scales. It's Friday, October 4th. So welcome back to the three of you. The same cast as our last round table, which as you remember was... The first, historic round table inaugural. Yeah, so this is the second, historical unprecedented knockout.
Shane Goldmacher, Nate Cone, Maggie Haberman. Appreciate you guys being here. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us. So let's jump in. This has been a very eventful week. We have a widening war in the Middle East. We have a strike by Longshoreman, threatening the supply chain up and down the eastern seaborn. Finally, we have a court filing from the special counsel, Jack Smith, that might be our first true October surprise. So where do you want to start?
I think of the various things that you just described the Longshoreman strike. That's one that actually impacts people's lives, that impacts their daily existence, this involved supply chain, it involves working people. The fight over working class voters is key for this race right now. So if everything we've just said, I think that's eye up on the list. Well, just explain why this strike matters and how both campaigns are or aren't seizing an opportunity with it.
We saw what supply chain having trouble did for the economy before. And I think for Harris, it's actually just a reminder of a big vulnerability she has, which is she's tied to the current administration. You look at her candidacy and she is trying to ride above the phrase. She is hope, she is joy, she is the future, and this is very much the present. This is a problem. This is an issue that has not been solved by Joe Biden.
And so in that way, it just pulls her back into the fray and doesn't let her ride above the clouds. And it's worth remembering that the promise of the Biden administration was we were going to get a return to normalcy. That once the pandemic was over, we would all go back to our pre-pandemic, pre-Trump lives and forget about politics. And the Biden administration hasn't made good on that promise. All this adds up to a sense that America isn't necessarily under competent leadership.
Maybe we should be going in a different direction. And I think that the specifics of it are undoubtedly important, especially if they end up affecting the economy and people's lives. But more chaos in the news, I think, is just good news for Trump. So at a very basic level, this is a problem primarily for Vice President Harris because it kind of reattaches her to a not especially popular income and president.
When she very much wants to be liberated from transcending the very idea of Joe Biden and his presidency. Yeah, I would lump them all together as nature's did. It's not just the long-shoreman's records. All of these things adding up to the sense that things aren't palm and stable. And this is in fact something that Trump himself is saying on the campaign trail. And it's something we saw at the debate this week between the two Vice presidential candidates.
I want to know why neither campaign so far has used and used as a tricky word because it sounds so callous. But sees the opportunity to portray a strike by working class people and made this about what is wrong with America, what is perhaps wrong with income inequality and champion the workers on strike. And not necessarily just treat it like a nuisance, something that might increase prices, but as something that could reinforce the heart of what these campaigns are about.
You sound like an irritated Trump advisor trying to find him to focus on the economy. No, but in all seriousness, Trump, the Trump campaign has talked about it a bit. But it has not punched through all the other things he's talking about, which is namely defending himself against an indictment in the January 6th federal case.
And whatever else is on his mind at any given moment. And so getting Trump to stick to a purely economic focused message, economy is still the top issue for voters has been very, very challenging for the Trump team. You're right. This actually presents a real opportunity. It's just not one that he has delivered on effectively. Why hasn't Harris delivered on?
I think this is a risky proposition for both Ken and the Spanish. We just talked about how this strike could spiral to affect millions of Americans. And we don't want to get on the wrong side of it. It's a dangerous game to side with a group of strikers who might disrupt the economy. Certainly the like overall narrative is potentially convincing to a lot of voters. But if it ends up disrupting their lives and either candidate was on the picket line with them. A real risk and fall in that.
Okay, let's turn to the war. The growing conflict between Israel, Hezbollah, Iran, Yemen is now in the mix as well. And what kind of challenge that presents to both campaigns. You have already all suggested that in a pretty clear way it reminds people that Harris is vice president in an administration that hasn't ended this conflict. How does Donald Trump handle this? Does he talk about it? And does it matter neat to voters very much?
I think that it clearly matters to a specific group of voters, Muslim and Arab voters who are overrepresented in the state of Michigan. That's what I'm saying. And I think it also affects the overall national mood. The sense that the world is unsafe, that the current administration is ineffective and not up to the task of solving problems at home or abroad. And that back when Donald Trump was president, the world was more stable. It was at peace.
And I think it helps Donald Trump in that respect, even if it's not narrowly about whether anyone has any view of whether Israel should send tanks in the Lebanon or not. But is there a way in which the new developments in this conflict moves it away from that framework of simply Israel versus the Palestinians and towards a larger geopolitical set of issues that perhaps is of value to a vice president who's still very much searching for an identity on the world stage?
I don't see a world where this is helpful to the vice president. I just don't. I mean, number one, it's a conflict that is evolving out of an already existing conflict that's been going on for a year now. The current president has struggled to contain, has struggled to have the Israeli leader listen to him on various points that he's made. And to your point, she is establishing herself on the world stage.
This is a very risky area in which to suddenly reveal yourself as to where you are and who you are. It's also an issue that Trump has staked out real ground. And we have seen him do this since long before he was president, but certainly since he was president. He never really be critical of his well, he was very critical of Benjamin Netanyahu for congratulating president Biden for winning the election.
And then that caused this years long rift and Trump was initially somewhat callous in responding to the attack on Israel on October 7th of last year. And that was again a product of this personal animus that he had toward Netanyahu that has since been cleared up. Trump has a history of making anti-Semitic comments, but that has not cost him with Republican leaning Jews and a lot of single issue Israel Jews in the US.
So this is a much easier issue for him. It's much harder for Harris to find ground on. I mean, during the vice presidential debate, I take notes on computer and then I have like a side of paper where I circle something that feels particularly important. And one of the first things I circled was JD Vance saying Donald Trump is the candidate of stability. And this was I think a pretty audacious thing. Democrats Nikki Haley in the primary, they have called them the chaos candidates since Jeb Bush.
And here's his running mate say he is this stability candidate. And I think that it's worth thinking that this is an intentional frame that they're setting up. First story I worked on this week. I talked to Matt Gates, Congressman from Florida, really a close Trump ally. And he was very explicit about this.
They are trying to say it was peaceful when he was president. Yes, there was COVID. Maybe you don't remember all those specifics, but there was general economic prosperity in the first three years. And they're trying to tap back into that. And I think you take the totality of this and that line from JD Vance, the candidate of stability was really striking.
Okay, there was a development this week though that does not embody Trump's stability. And that was the special counsel, Jack Smith, drawing us back into what maybe one of the most unstable moments of the Trump presidency, which was the events before and on January 6. So I want to know why Jack Smith did what he did just now. We all understand that he was not able to bring his prosecution before the election.
Obviously he and his staff wish they could suddenly we get this big filing that contains a lot of new information. Is that strategic? And does it matter? So Jack Smith brought this filing because Jack Smith has had to file a new indictment. I shouldn't say he had to, but he did file a new indictment after the Supreme Court ruling on Trump and immunity that basically said.
Essentially everything Trump had done in the capacity as president in the context of this lead up to January 6 was in his capacity as president and official act. And so there's this whole issue of what constitutes an official act versus not official act. Jack Smith tailored this filing to explain essentially why the case should move forward. I'm condensing this, but it is.
I'm trying if you read it and I would encourage people to read it because it's a really important historical read. This does potentially remind voters of a very damning fact set for Donald Trump. There was one particularly striking new piece of information, which is that when Trump was told that this chaos happening at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Right. He's at the White House. He's getting these updates.
Mike Pence, the vice president is under threat as our others. Trump's response was allegedly so what now what's striking about this document is not that there are hugely surprising new damning details. We always understood his approach to all that violence that day was basically to shrug.
And so the compilation of a really, really disquieting and disturbing series of reactions that he allegedly had and that his aides allegedly took and that a lot of people around him took with his desired impact being to overturn the election. And it just it brings it all back with a month left until election day.
And so it came up as a key moment in the vice presidential debate when governor Waltz talked about it and pushed back on JD Vance. You have vice president Harris campaigning with Liz Cheney this week. So there is just sort of this cumulative effect of reminding voters of what took place at the end.
And of course being the leader of the congressional committee that investigates January 6 and and really makes America aware of the depth of the president's disregard for the rule of law that day, but also his embrace of some of the violence and a conservative Republican who it would not normally be ideologically lined with Kamala Harris.
And noting too that the Harris campaign is really struggle to make this election about January 6 and democracy the Biden campaign took for granted that in the end voters would cast their ballots based on what happened that day.
And that was in part because in the midterm election that seemed to have happened, but there is no January 6 commission this time driving the news down the stretch and there isn't a way of stop the steel candidates campaigning on overturning the election the key battleground states as there was in the midterms.
And the thing is a big deal that we have a series of news events this week that have put this issue back because it's a really good issue for Harris and one of the few issues that's really good for Harris. It's the kind of issue that if it's what voters are thinking about that her chances of winning the way up compared to a world where the swing voter looks at the news and sees chaos in the Middle East and strikes along the eastern seaboard.
And the central defining thing of the Biden campaign is they thought that this was going to be the background music of 2024 just as it was in 2022 and they were loud and it wasn't that loud and when Harris is taking over she's moved away from it right the Biden campaign began with the word freedom. And they were applying it to democracy and they're applying it to abortion.
And Harris has applied it heavily to abortion and has not focused on this issue as much as not a core part of her stump speech. And so for her it's good to have it's out there without her having to talk about it she's going to talk about the economy she's talking about the kitchen table issues that's what they think is going to win them this election. But they want this to be part of the factors that people are thinking about especially those undecided.
But we shouldn't expect vice president Harris to lean into this moment and try to reorient the race back around to the issue of democracy to January 6 to his efforts to overturn.
And they're going to motivate their base on that issue and they did it right after the debate moment the first thing they said they couldn't add the only ad they cut immediately after this debate was the collision between Tim walls and JD Vance where JD Vance would not say the Donald Trump lost the last selection that's the only ad the Harris campaign announced the next state that they had cut from the debate.
The abortion answer which was powerful it was this issue last question on this is there a world where January 6 to reemerging into the ecosystem of the campaign is perhaps to Trump's advantage maybe because he gets to re up the argument that a witch on is going on. An election was stolen from him. He's not a uniform. He's not a uniform.
And I think that's one of our colleagues and I worked on a story about where things stand with Trump health wise because after the assassination attempt against him in Butler Pennsylvania he told a CBS reporter that he had taken a cognitive test and had to check up and he would gladly release the records and we asked for the records and
he said yes, so he says and they won't release them they never did a medical briefing after the shooting in Butler he just went to the hospital left the hospital they issued a statement saying he was fine.
He took a cat scan but we don't know the results we know that he was sicker with COVID at the end of his presidency in 2020 than they ever said we know that his father had dementia we don't know much else about his family background we know that he was obese at clinically at points in the White House we know that he has high cholesterol.
Some history of cardiac disease and so all of these are risk factors especially when we are talking about someone who would be the oldest president of the end of his term if he wins and these are valid questions they were valid questions about president Biden as well they are valid questions about Donald Trump now we've also sought records for vice president Harris too it's important to understand the health of a sitting US president.
The former president is very secretive about a lot of personal matters but particularly his health and he was very key to have his personal doctor released an exuberant letter in 2016 saying you know he was the fittest person.
And ever in the universe to president credulous strength and stamina his the files in that doctor's office according to the doctor who's now passed away were later esconded with by people working for Trump so we don't really have a full picture of his health these are real questions why do we think that the kind of collective political camera has never really swiveled around in a focused way two questions around Donald Trump's health especially given his aid all the things you just said in the way that they did.
So forcefully around Joe Biden I mean I think for the most part because he was running against Joe Biden and the physical diminishment of Joe Biden was there for everyone to see in a way that it has not been. As a parent for Donald Trump you could just see that's right the aging of Joe Biden before your eyes but it is true that Donald Trump should he win would be older at every stage of his presidency because he's older when he would take the oath of office then Biden was.
And these are really legitimate questions you saw what aging happened at that age in a president you saw what an 80 year old president looks like and you would see that again if Donald Trump were to win in so I think these questions about his health and that secrecy is really a point of tension and something of interest to voters we saw how much voters cared about the mental state of the president and I think it's a really good question in a line of reporting for Trump.
Where is the line between whether someone is too old and not fit to be president versus just young enough and some point Joe Biden crossed that line and the electorate reacted decisively they went from saying he was fit to be president by a three one margin to saying he wasn't by a three one margin for whatever reason Donald Trump hasn't crossed that line he may be very close to it and we don't know we didn't know when Joe Biden took office how close he was and where that line would be.
But Donald Trump hasn't crossed this invisible threshold. So, you made a claim over the past week that I want you to explain and then I want to kind of fact check it based on everything that we just talked about you had said that we've entered a stretch of the race that is placid where there hasn't been too much going on and whereas a result there's a kind of clear than ever understanding of the race.
So, I want you to justify that and especially given how much news there was over the past few years. Yes, sure. I'm stepping back for a second. The last two months have been full of big political events. Joe Biden dropped out of the race. Kamala Harris introduced herself to the nation. She selected a vice president. There was a Democratic convention and there was a presidential debate in a six week period.
Each of those events. You even mentioned the two assassination attempt. I didn't even mention the assassination attempts or before that that Donald Trump was convicted of crimes. In any case, each of these events raised a big question about would there be a big effect on the race? Would voters react to Harris's debate victory?
Would the convention make a splash? Similarly, the polls taken after each of those events were clouded by these same questions. Is this just a reflection of a post-debate bounce or a post-convention bounce or a post-VP pick bounce? I don't think we have those same questions today. There is still plenty of news going on. We've talked about that news, but I don't think that there are any of the classic events that have the potential to distort public opinion.
It's also noteworthy that the polls have been relatively stable the last two weeks. We've seen almost no change in the polling averages that we publish here at the New York Times. They show a really close race. Between the relative stability of the news and the stability of the numbers, I think we can say this is the race we have right now with far fewer questions than with far fewer questions than we've had to this point.
Okay. And within that framework, briefly, what is this resting stable state stasis exactly? The resting stable stasis appears to be something like a more or less exact type with... I mean, it's a stunning statement. It is a stunning statement. And it's not something that we've seen the time, at least I've been covering polls. And I think if you look back historically, you'll find that it's very rare or maybe even unprecedented.
Over the longer term, but no discernible real favorite in the polls. If you had to squint, you would say, well, I guess the average of polls is hair is ahead by like seven tenths of a point in Pennsylvania. And therefore, if the polls were absolutely perfect, which they're not, she'd win by one state, but it can't be any closer. Do the campaigns embrace that understanding? Oh, yeah.
I think both campaigns embrace that understanding and they know that there are seven states that are being competed in and that speaking of those polling and polling averages and polling misses that if the polls are off by a little chunk that all seven states could still move, right? That these are these are states that are in play that places like Arizona, which appears like more of a reach state for Kamala Harris is not out of play.
And you look where they're spending their money and it's in all of these places. That's right. The place you see more money going lately that tell you that they're competitive like North Carolina, the Trump team has moved more money there. When he was running in Joe Biden, they thought this was a state they had more or less in the bag on those lists of seven. They no longer feel that way. And you see the Harris campaign putting money, putting time.
Time is the most valuable resource at this point. They have one month left, watch where the candidates go, watch where they spend their money. That's the answer to where they think this race is happening. And we'll tell us, don't make us watch. Tell us where the candidates are spending their time and money. How they're going to be making the most of these dwindling final days of the race, which constituencies they're going to be most focused on given just how startlingly close the races.
It's going to change a lot. They're both going to be ripping up their schedules. I think really Trump more than Harris. Yeah, Trump's been very reactive. Harris has tended to have a little bit more of a direct theory of the case of where she wants to campaign. But which is what just briefly, which is she is going to the three blue wall states, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan. If she loses those, her path is pretty difficult.
Trump, you are going to see try to shore up North Carolina, try to shore up Georgia. Two states that she could win the Trump campaign feels very good about Arizona and Nevada. Democrats feel a little better about Nevada. And then Republicans think they should. And we will find out who is right. Trump is hanging his hat on a turnout of low propensity voters, younger men all across the board, in particular Nate can speak to this more eloquently than I can. But they are. Thank you. Love that.
But they, but they're very eloquent, but they can't guarantee these folks are going to come out and vote in the court. Like, could they are low propensity vote? Correct. And so that's a big gamble. And so you were going to see Trump doing not just, you know, in person events. And he is constrained to shame and Jonathan Swan and I reported recently by these security threats against him. He is not a sitting president or vice president. He just simply has a different level of security.
And he's a little more vulnerable. But you are going to see him doing podcasts. You're going to see him continuing to sort of reach out to people in unique media ways. And we will see where it all falls in a couple of weeks. To win you need 270 electoral votes. And there was just a fight recently about one state that splits up its votes in Nebraska. And a single district that Democrats are favored to win. And Republicans were trying to flip this rules in Nebraska.
So all of the electoral votes would have gone to Trump. The effort failed, but this was about that blue wall. Because if you didn't flip that, inherits just one of those three states, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. She and he would end at a 269 tie against not even unlikely. They were talking about plans to get to a tie. That's how close this race is. That's why the Trump folks wanted to change the rules in Nebraska.
They wanted in the event of a tie for that final tie breaking vote to not go to common hairs. They wanted to win or take all model that would go to his. I don't know how replicable whatever Donald Trump ends up with in this coalition that he is building. We'll be for another Republican who comes after him. So what is that great question?
Well, I think it means that Donald Trump as problematic as he has been for down ballot in particular, is still their best hope at winning a national election for the foreseeable future. And maybe that won't be true, but we'll say. Or at the very least, a hypothetical Republican national victory would be really different than the one that Donald Trump might be about to pull off. What do you look like? I don't know that we'll find out what the final election result will be.
But if it turns out that Harris narrowly wins in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, other critical battlegrounds states will struggling nationwide. I think it will be hard to wonder whether Donald Trump's stock, the steel campaign, was a relevant factor in why he just couldn't quite do as well in the very states with the very voters whose votes he tried to throw out last round. So generally, that is what happened in 2022 in the midterm.
It's very hard for us in the polling world to find this. We're talking about just a small number of people, like maybe one in a hundred people or one in 50 of Trump's former supporters is being like, you know what? That was over the line. It was their votes. And maybe that's what it is. It's a good point. And again, to bring it back to Jackson Smith, here he is on his own terms, re-injecting that subject into the race.
And re-injecting that subject in its rawest form without anything that Trump can say. This was in my power as presidency. I mean, I'm sure he will still make that argument, but Jackson is trying to avoid it. And it's still a pretty bad fact set for Donald Trump. As you guys know, round tables exceptionally hard to add, because it's round. There's no place to get a handle on it. Can't just follow up. Time is a flat round table. But I want to try with just.
But in my effort to try to end this round table, there was a cork-upit of news that floated into the universe over the past few days. Melania Trump is pro-choice. Her husband, more than any single elected official in the history of the Republic, has restricted abortion. She said this in her book. She said it in her book, and the Trumps have a history of putting things in books that make a lot of news and sell those books.
And I think there is a world in which this is not a hidden attempt to try to soften him, although I imagine that he would welcome that and would make him happy. That was simply a way for. But attention, it is getting. It is not something that former White House advisors remember her talking about in either direction. Pro-orcon abortion rights was not exactly a small issue when he was in office.
He was in the middle of appointing this conservative supermajority of the Supreme Court, as you noted, that repealed the Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision from 1973. And she is apparently against it, and her husband is still struggling mightily with how to articulate what he actually thinks on abortion, while also saying that he terminated Roe v. Wade and he's very proud of it. So I don't know how these two things align or how voters will receive it.
It's just interesting that a first lady who has been a complete non-entity on the campaign trail kind of peaks up and says, I disagree with my husband. On the most volatile issue on which her husband is deeply aware of his vulnerability. I hear you guys saying that there might be more than meets the eye. It's hard not to see the timing in an October book as anything but strategic to release this. I don't find it that hard to see it as anything. No, I accept it. I'm accepting. I think.
It's hard to imagine he didn't know that she was going to do it. I don't think that the entire book was built around her saying this and having it come out in October. Have you read it? I've not. I don't have it yet. I have free ordered it though as I do all political books. Right. Right. No favor to some here. On that note, Maggie, Shane, name. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks for having us. We'll do it again soon.
Suresh. On Thursday night, after my conversation with Maggie, Nate and Shane, the union representing Longshoreman suspended their strike after receiving a higher offer on wages from their employers. But the union caution that no deal had been reached and that their strike could eventually resume. You can watch a video version of this episode at nytimes.com slash the daily or on the New York Times YouTube channel. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to another day.
On Thursday, the Israeli military issued evacuation warnings for more than 20 additional towns and cities in southern Lebanon, where Israeli troops are fighting Hezbollah militants, suggesting that the scope of Israel's invasion there may be expanding. The warnings came as Israel continues to bombard Lebanon with hundreds of airstrikes, and as it weighs a military response against Iran. Israel's in response to its airstrikes against Israel.
One scenario that Israel is now considering is an attack on Iran's lucrative oil industry, a possibility that President Biden briefly acknowledged on Wednesday as he boarded Marine 1 before trailing off. In response, oil prices surged over fears that an Israeli attack would soon disrupt the global oil supply. Remember, you can catch the latest episode of the interview right here tomorrow. My colleague, David Marquesi, talks with the one and only Al Pacino.
Some of the early stuff I did in school 14, 15 years old, was in those plays, that was still the most inspired work I had done. You know, I didn't know what I was doing. The most inspired to work you did was a 14 or 15 year old kid? I think so, I think so because I was so in it. Today's episode was produced by Olivia Nat and Mooged Sadie, with help from Michael Simon Johnson. It was edited by Brendan Klingenberg, with help from Page Coward.
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Special thanks to Lisa Tobin, Sam Dolnick, Paula Schumann, Larissa Anderson, Julia Simon, Sophia Malone, Mahima Chabloney, Elizabeth Davis Moore, Jeffrey Miranda, Maddie Masiello, Isabella Anderson, Nina Lassam, and Nick Pitman. That's it for the Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.