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I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald. The US election race is heating up. A month ago, after the Republican National Convention and a failed assassination attempt, it seems like Donald Trump would be unstoppable. Instead, US President Joe Biden pulled out of the race, anointing his Vice president Krmala Harris as his successor, and a triumphant Democratic National Convention showed a party prepared to hold onto the White House.
So what is the state of the race and their parties today? On the Front Page, We're joined from Detroit by CBS News campaign reporter Jake Rosen for the latest on the election.
To watch this.
When we last spoke with you, Jack, immediately after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, it seems like that would be the story of this election.
Hey, is that even still on people's minds now?
I think it certainly is. But I think the way that the race has changed since then has been even more unpredictable, maybe in ways than what happened that day in Butler and when Donald Trump, you know, was shot and they had the RNC, and there were chants of fight, fight, fight through the crowd, and there were people putting ear patches on their ears walking around their Republican National Convention, kind of parroting the person that they love and support.
You know, what they.
Didn't see coming was the complete shift in what Democrats were going to do. And I think that that's the most telling thing of Joe Biden just a week after that, stepping down off the ticket and putting in someone who was able to really mobilize part of the base of the Democratic Party but also really flip the script on enthusiasm, and it went from Democrats fighting with one arm behind their back to being able to fight with two and
Vice President Harris was able to name a running mate too. So, you know, a couple of things have happened in that time. But I will say among the Republicans who I talk to you, especially at some of these political events, that day certainly comes into focus. For Democrats, they kind of have to stay away from that because that's a very galvanizing image, right of what happened that day and who's to blame, And in an election cycle, it's very hard to kind of make that an a political moment.
Unfortunately, you've been to a few of Trump's campaign rallies and press events since that incident.
You're now in Detroit. Hey has much changed.
Certainly has in terms of security. I will say that the events have mostly been inside. They are mostly heavily policed, not that they weren't before, but it's a little bit. You know, you see extra cops walking through the hallways. If the events are outside or near kind of an out grassy area like you saw that day in Butler, they are just a little more vigil on, it looks like, and you see them use drones, and you see them use more just kind of mobile police working through the
crowd than you ever have before. But I'll also say the former president's energy has also changed that day. He went from very defiant to kind of having to stay a little bit more on script. As they've kind of face these changes in the campaign that we've talked about.
It's gone from you know, just being able to hold the big fifteen to twenty thousand person event to because he can't do everything he wants to do outside right now, to either have those indoor events or like we've seen them in the last two weeks, There's been a lot of smaller messaging events on things of the economy or military for manufacturing and things like that.
Tonight, former President Donald Trump holding his first outdoor event in a battleground state since the attempt on his life, speaking behind a large pain a bulletproof class is in position.
If Comrade Kamala wins this November, world War three is virtually guaranteed to happen. Every American was safe for under President Trump. In fact, the entire world was safer when I sat behind that beautiful, resolute desk in the Oval Office.
Kamala Harris has shot up in the polls since taking over the Democratic ticket from Joe Biden.
What would you put that success down to.
I think, like I said, it's a boost enthusiasm. She's a new face on a party that now has a younger candidate, even though it's only by fifteen years or so. The addition of Kamala Harris also is a boost for the base in terms of what the Democratic Party looks like.
You saw it at the DNC. It's people of color, it's people of different incomes, right, And I think that in this way it's kind of recapturing maybe some of that magic that has what kind of alluded to the Democratic natural convention, that reminds people a little bit of the running as an Obama versus I think really what we saw that Joe Biden was it was just the diehards who were motivated or going out to those who were enthusiastic vocally, especially because we have seen those ten
fits jump in some states, in some areas, and at least among people of color and people who the Trump campaign were targeting before all this point.
My mother never lost her call.
She was tough, courageous, and she taught mya me to never complain about injustice, but do something about it.
Do something about.
This is a manifestation of the frustration within the Democratic Party. We've got the signs calling for an immediate ceasepy off. You can see the ranks of riot police here at the ready.
Well, the DNC had a real celebratory nature to it. Hey, watching all those speeches and cheering crowds from afar, it seemed like a crowd really ready to go out and fight for this election. Is that the momentum you're saying with Harris and the Democrats at the moment, I.
Think so, and I think the difficult thing for the Trump campaign is how do you stop or try to
message against just raw enthusiasts. In a lot of ways, this feels like a biblial moment for just the Democratic Party going forward that they were able to even though it's very awkward circumstance wise of dumping Joe Biden, making him kind of become a one term president, but also focusing on the future at the same time, and trying to bring all these young surrogates that we saw from around the country and put them in vice presidential convention,
have them go around the country. I think the problem for Republicans that so many of those people, unless they've been Trump aligned, like you saw the primary, Aron DeSantis and Nikki Hailey, a lot of those people really while they did speak out their Republican National Convention, they are not consistently working with Trump or in his orbit.
Over the waykend the third candidate for presidents, I suppose Robert F. kN and the Junior dropped out of the Rice and endorse Trump. Does that change much for his campaign?
It certainly could. According to our CBS new pulling, RFKA probably had about two percent support nationwide, but in some of these swing states. If you look at the polls, it's effectively tied, and in an election that was just decided by a couple hundred thousand votes in twenty twenty
and same in twenty sixteen. You know, that kind of part of the political world where you don't trust with the political party, but maybe you trust on on Trump because of the things that RFK endorse him for the quote strength on international affairs and taking on parts of the government that you don't agree with. If that's kind of where you lean, maybe not towards the environmental part of it RFK and the fighting for the water and
fighting for green air and those things. It certainly could sway the election, especially because he's while he's trying to get off of the ballot to help Trump and some of these states, he's also going to be stuck on the ballot in some other states.
Looking to the months ahead, we still have a few more key campaign events before the November election, the first Harris Trump as well as Vance and Walls. The debates coming up. Do you expect those will change things?
Well, I think it'll certainly be a different environment than what we saw at the first debate between President Biden and Donald Trump. As we all know from that night, that contrasts couldn't have been clearer. And I think seeing a person of color across from Donald Trump as they kind of argue about the rules and how things really work over the course of that actual debate, I think the reality is that there's a former prosecutor standing across the stage from someone who is a felon in the
city of New York. Joe Biden did not and was not able to make that case against him in that debate, and I think it really would be incumbent on Kamala Harris to do the same thing and more effectively than really President Biden ever was able to. I think that's
just a start reality. And I think at the vice presidential ticket, you have a guy like Tim Wall's football coach, kind of a happy warrior right against j. D. Evans who's trying to be more of a messenger on things like the economy and immigration like Donald Trump really cannot do on times and staying on message unless he kind of had those two debates play up.
You know, you might not know it, but I haven't given a lot of big speeches like this, but I have given a lot of pep talks.
So let me finish with this team. It's the fourth quarter. We're down a field.
Goal, but we're on offense and we've got the ball.
Why isn't Governor Waltz talking about Kamala Harris's record and how she's made the lives of the American people better. The answer is because he can't say that. But I want Tim Waltz to articulate how his vice presidency is going to make the lives of the American people better.
In terms of policies, Harris's facing criticism that her policy platform remains pretty much undefined.
Is this an area of wakeness for her?
For sure? And the Trump campaign has been trying to call this out as much as they can, making a fake website even for what her campaign stands for and
how they want to frame it. But like we saw in twenty twenty and twenty nineteen, there are ways to beat on Trump by staying as vegue as possible on things like immigration, staying as vague as possible on things like stealing a couple of his economic ideas, and being very broad about things like this no taxes on tips, thing in which service workers do not have to pay taxes on money that they're tipped. She pretty blatantly took
that idea. But again, this is she can kind of choose and pick and choose what she wants to include from President Biden's economic messaging plus also her own and in him paign, where she only really has about seventy seventy five days now deploying herself. It might be better to stay broad so people can't specifically define it.
And as for Trump, he's still being further linked to the Project twenty twenty five thing with each passing day.
Part of twenty twenty five is a collection of conservative policies and a blueprint for the next conservative president, which includes policies like a crackdown on abortion pills, the reinstatement of the Trump era immigration bans, a ban on transgender people serving in the military, and eliminating the Department of Education.
The handbook outlines an expansion of presidential power and plans to fire as many as fifty thousand government workers to be placed with conservatives, including a top to bottom overhaul the Department of Justice and the FBI.
Is an overly conservative policy agenda going to be an issue for the Republicans and what have you been hearing on the ground there, especially in Detroit where you are now about Project twenty twenty five.
Is it still very much a talking point?
Well, it's certainly a Democratic talking point. And while the Trump campaign has told reporters and even Heritage Foundation has told me they have nothing to do with the Trump campaign, the Trump campaign wants nothing to do with them. Now that being said, there are some very clear links between the group and the people who work there at this think tank, Heritage Foundation, and who worked on this policy proposal.
But it's a very easy framework and it is a snappy branding, right and we hear make America great again, and that phrase will forever mean something in American history. When you think about Project twenty twenty five, it sounds ominous, It sounds you know, destructive in a lot of ways. And when you're able to frame that in you know, how it would impact women's bodies, how would impact illegal immigrants,
how would impact the economy. I think the Democrats really made a point of that at the DNC, and you know, whether people believe it or not, it's kind of become a catchphrase that people can just throw out there to label Donald Trump and this is a guy who's been very hard to label despite the things that we know that are true about him.
We're a little over two months away from election day at this stage, JAG, is it too soon to start making predictions?
I think so. If I could make predictions, you know, I would probably be working in a different field. But I think the reality is, according to our polling, the races tied. It went back to a tie after Kamala Harrison to the top of the ticket. And we haven't really seen the full effect of Tim Wallas being on the ticket and the DNC really being played in yet.
We also really haven't fully seen kind of just how this new race looks for people like Donald Trump and jd Vance going against a completely new set of faces than they were going against before. And I think, again, there's only so much time to capture exactly what this race is about. But we've seen people like the black woman community really start rowling around Kamala Harrison, pulling and while Joe Biden was struggling, Kamala Harris is doing well.
You know, We've seen this kind of among some other groups too, White women who are concerned about reproductive rights rallying around Kamala Harris in a way that they were not about Joe Biden. And so I think really, in a lot of ways, what the Trump campaign is banking on happening, which is Donald Trump being able to effectively put Joe Biden down at the debate, but he would stay on the top of the ticket. He would be a quote weak candidate like they continue to describe them as.
But staying on the top of the ticket, right, just hadn't happened and the whole race has kind of been blown up and redefined at this point.
Thanks for joining us, Jake. That's it for this episode of The Front Page.
You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzeed Herald dot co dot nz. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Siles with sound engineer Patty Fox.
I'm Chelsea Daniels.
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