Is this the most gendered election ever?

I know this is a news podcast, but I have to give this warning. There will be content of a sexual nature from the very start. This is a Global Player original podcast. How was sex and relationships? I didn't even know. to use a tampon. Like do I have to do? What are some red flags that you now know?

Never put up with that now. Someone that won't just help. It's like if I come downstairs and the kitchen is clean and you've done it all and you've done all the dishes and you've closed all the pantry doors. You better be ready to get your dick sucked. I mean, like literally. That was Casey Perry. On the podcast Call Her Daddy. It was an episode that she did, which was titled Narcissists, Blowjobs and Red Flags. And as you can hear, it is

Quite a zeitgeisty, quite a poppy sort of flavour. It is, I think, the most listened to podcast by young women. In the world. It's hosted a huge array of celebs from Miley Cyrus to Gwyneth Paltro to Priyanka Chopra. It's a magnet for the Gen Z woman. and its latest guest. Da da da Kamala Harris. Although I think fair to say that she doesn't discuss some of those topics about blowjobs and We well, we don't want to spoil it, do we? But this is a way of framing

What she is doing now. Twenty-seven days left. But is this really the best strategy she's got? Welcome to the NewsAgence USA. The News Agents USA with And John Sopor. It's John. It's Emily. And Kamala Harris has been busy. Of course she's been busy, as you say, twenty seven days. to the election. But for someone who has not made many media appearances, she's certainly changed that in the past few days with a whole number.

And I think the question you framed at the start is the key question. Like how do we know she's got Gen Z women? We know she's got college educated women. We know that young people, thanks to Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish, are rallying to her side. Is she doing enough to reach out to demographics? where she's not doing so well that formed part of the Biden coalition back in twenty twenty. It's a really different flavour, isn't it, to past elections because

We are so used to using those slightly cliched, you know, crisscrossing the countries, doing her rallies. And yes, she is doing rallies and she is doing in person appearances. But look Call her Daddy gets five million listeners a week. Oh my god. Right? I mean, it is I think the most listened to podcast amongst the sort of Gen Z women. So she knows exactly who she's going to and she's getting the people that as you say

are probably already on side. Unless they're on side but not registered, in which case she thinks, I've got to get you off your sofa. You might like me, but are you actually gonna get off your sofa? So she's trying to reach them and the kind of stuff she's talking about is You know, women's autonomy, men's bodily autonomy. Let's just play you a little clip of what happened when she sat down with the host.

I wanna pose this question more to you and the daddy gang, but one of the biggest conversations in this year's election revolves around a woman's body. Mm-hmm. Yep. I wanna take a moment and can we try To think of any law. That gives the government the power to make a decision. I know what you're gonna ask about a man's body. No. No. Is there any hardball, let's be honest. She's gone somewhere where she knows.

That all the questions will be aimed at helping her get these women to vote for her. It is I think left leaning, you know, young leaning, Democrat leaning, whatever you want to call it. So she's almost being prompted the lines that help her, you know, get off to the right start with this. And the question is, does she feel does she sound comfortable enough?

In that environment. To kind of say, yeah, this is you know, this will convince you to to get out. And this is the critique of what she's doing. Yeah, great that you're doing media appearances, but you're not putting your head into the mouth of the liar. And seeing how you fare. You are doing stuff that is maybe a touch more softball, a touch easier. I suppose the one where she has appeared is 60 minutes.

Which I think is interesting. And Donald Trump has refused to appear on Sixty Minutes, which has brought a giant harumph from Sixty Minutes, which is an incredibly self-important programme. It's a very good programme on CBS. Um but it is takes itself incredibly seriously. It does, but I think what Bill Whittaker, who's the host of Sixty Minutes, did was What we always talk about and which m you rarely see in American interviews, which is the follow up question.

So Camel Harris has had quite a few easy encounters, I think it's fair to say. And each time she sort of asked, you know, why did you change her mind? And I think she said in the in the CNN interview, Well my values haven't changed. There was no follow-up to that.

And what Bill Whitaker did, I think, on the sixty minutes one was, you're trying to take the conversation over here. Let's just bring it back to the question I've asked. Let's just bring you back. I think he was much better at it. But the line that everyone is talking about Is actually not her response to kind of ideological changes, but when he asks her flat out about her gun ownership. You recently surprised people.

When you said that you are a gun owner and then if someone came into your house. No, it's not the first time I've I've talked about it. That's not the first time I've talked about it. So what kind of gun do you own and when and why did you get it? I have a Glock. And um I've had it for quite some time. And um I mean, look Bill, my background is in law enforcement. And um so there you go. Have you uh ever fired it? Yes. Of course I have. At a shooting range? Yes, of course I have.

Uh what I like about that answer, funny enough, is that She doesn't over talk it. You know, if you were perfecting this idea of being a gun owner because you thought it was really helpful, then you would probably talk more about it. You go, Yes, well I bought my pistol and and I've done this and I b but actually when he says have you have you ever shot it?

She sort of laughs because it's it's the most obvious thing that you would have done if you owned a gun, if you, you know, wanted to make sure you could use it, right? But you look at previous attempts by candidates. To connect with middle America and, you know, that sense of gun ownership. I mean, just it's kind of worth underscoring, isn't it? That can you imagine? Any British politician say, Yeah, I've got a glove.

Yeah, I've sh yeah, of course I've shot it. You know. It just couldn't happen. I mean so well. Literally couldn't happen because of the law. But y it it shows just how different you know, you have to own a gun to be a proper American. You've actually raised a really interesting point, which is could a British Prime Minister admit to

Going on what we might call a straightforward shooting weekend. Right. You know, uh could could they admit to having a gun in the house? Probably not. I mean David Cameron, you know, almost certainly shoots and has a gun in m in a a house. I don't know about Boris Johnson. Um Rishi Sunak not? I don't think so. No. But I'm sure up until the sort of

nineteen seventies. Yes, it was normal. Yeah. It was normal to go out on a pheasant shoot. I think that what's interesting about it is if you look at John Kerry back in two thousand and four, he wanted to show that he was a hunter. And he turns out in this You know, camouflage suits. Which looks like it has just come out of the shop's wrapper.

And has never been worn before. You think, no, trying too hard, and immediately it looks phony. And Mitt Romney, again, in twelve started talking about how he loves hunting, and it just came over as slightly inauthentic. I thought what Harris did there just sounded yeah, it's no biggie. I've got a clock. Shot it, yeah, been down the range, yeah, of course. And and I thought she handled it pretty well. And I think that will win her some support with

the male brigade of people The people that aren't listening to call her daddy. Exactly. that might just think, you know what? Well maybe that's completely sexist. Maybe young women really are quite in favour of her earning a gun. God, I don't know. I went to a gun show just outside Washington and filmed there when I was out there.

And there was this woman who had a sort of twin set and pearls look. It looked like she would be more at home in the W I and I said, Oh, can I just ask what you come shopping for? She said, Yeah, I'm looking for a laser sight, uh, for for the gun, you know, so that I c if any gun kills near my children I can shoot them. But that's why when she says I'm in law enforcement, you're like, Oh, okay, you're serious about that gun? Yeah, yeah.

And you know, so it's it is very, very normal for women to own guns. But I think that you know, that Kamala Harris's play in talking up the fact that she's a regular gun owner and doesn't make you know, it's not a big deal. is to go for the male vote where there is much more suspicion of her, there is much more suspicion of women, and where we know that America is more prone to misogyny.

than other countries. So the point about the sixty minutes interview was not just that she did it. But that he would not, something that CBS made a lot of. And just to put this in the context of where we are, CNN has just issued an ultimatum to Donald Trump.

for a final debate, which they want to hold on October the twenty third, and they've said there's a cut off date and if you won't agree to it by I think it's, you know, the end of this week, then it's not going to happen. They believe that Trump will still come to the wicket. for one more debate because they think that he's not quite comfortable enough with the numbers. to just let it go. And it will have annoyed him that Vance actually did

as we discussed last week, pretty well in that debate. There's nothing worse than your surrogate your deputy outshining you. So I think that there is an open door for Trump still to say, yes, I will come back to the wicket, I will do this last debate with Camel Harris, which would be in a couple of weeks' time. But meanwhile, he's refused to do CBS, which is interesting because he never really ran away from the press.

in twenty sixteen and that was always his go to, was that he could he could out talk any interviewer actually. This time they had a very interesting It's been a tradition for more than half a century. That the major party candidates for president sit down with sixty minutes in October. This year, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump accepted our invitation.

But unfortunately, last week Trump cancelled. But of course, it then became the subject of parody where Kamala Harris was appearing on another thing, which was Stephen Colbert's late night show, and he ripped the piss out of 60 minutes. Good evening. It has been a tradition here at the Late Show since yesterday that the major party candidates sit down with me for an interview in October.

We invited Kamala Harris to be our guest this evening, and she accepted. In the interest of fairness, we also invited former President Donald Trump. To go f himself. So meanwhile, Camilla sat down with Steve Colbert, Late Night Show, Bill Whitaker to do CBS, Call Her Daddy the Podcast. So she's amassing these sort of massive studio audiences, clips that go viral.

But actually at the same time in Pennsylvania, Donald Trump has returned to the scene of the attempted assassination on July the thirteenth. I remember that'cause it's my son's birthday. And he's gone back to Butler. To stand now behind bulletproof glass and to take with him the man who is increasingly looking like his own deputy, actually, Elon Musk. This is Elon Musk.

First time on the campaign trail at Donald Trump's side. And he is like he's jumping about. You can see his tummy. He's like the most excitable kid that's finally got recognized by the guy. Who could be the most powerful man in the world? Just have a listen to Musk talking us through what they're doing there.

As you can see I'm I I'm not just MAGA, I'm dark MAGA. Um well first of all I wanna say what an honor it is to be here and uh You know, the the the true test of someone's character is how they behave under fire. And we we we had one president who couldn't climb a flight of stairs and another who was fist pumping after getting shot. Fight, fight, fight.

Blood coming down the face. So this is not for the girlies. This is for the blokes, right? This is the two of them just oozing testosterone, talking about fighting. Fist pumping and an attempted assassination. And also Dark MAGA. And it's the kind of reference to Batman and the reference that you're gonna come back. Stronger, tougher, darker, meaner than you were before. Nice. And so this is gonna be a second term dark magger in in those circles means.

Trump unleashed, Trump unchained, Trump doing what he wanted to do eight years ago but was prevented from doing.

And it's spawning conspiracy theories on the left. Which some people are calling blue anon. Like blue for Democrats and you know, like Q anon, but blue anon. And the argument is that what is Elon Musk up to here? He never really liked Donald Trump. Why is he suddenly getting behind? Donald Trump. And the theory goes like this, that Donald Trump gets elected president. The Vice President then is JD Vance. He invokes Article twenty-five of the Constitution that will declare Donald Trump unfit.

to hold office, he gets the cabinet to support it and Congress to back it. J. D. Vance becomes the president and suddenly the tech bro billionaires will be able to make even more money Because J.D. Vance is a fully signed up intelligent right wing libertarian and buys into all the theories that they do. Now there is no evidence of this at all. But it's getting a lot of purchase.

It's being talked about not quite to in the same extent as QAnon was getting conspiracy theories up and running. But don't think that conspiracy theories are solely the preserve of the right. They're taking hold on the left. an a Republican grouping that is anti-Trump, the Lincoln Project, had their own advert, which is a version of it where Trump is Caesar, JD Vance is Brutus. But there's one big problem you never saw coming. Turn around. He's right behind you. It's J D. His billionaire friends

Why do you think they forced JD Vance on you? You think he won't stab you in the back to see his ten years? Yeah. Donald. And the one who will betray your presidency is right. And I guess what is at the heart of this is It doesn't really matter if it's all conspiracy theory, it will fuel paranoia in Trump. And we know that there is one thing that Trump puts above everything else. It's actually been said quite often of Boris Johnson here in the UK and that's loyalty.

You know, a determination to only surround yourself with people who buy into your vision, buy into your way of doing things, and frankly, love you. And if I guess Either the blue and ones are Or, as you've said, the the Republicans against Trump. manage to sow seeds of doubt between Trump and his lieutenant, they've kind of done their job. Exactly. Because Trump will hate the idea that there's a story somehow going around.

That JD Vance is only there to pull him down and is not really a loyal deputy. And this is particularly poignant. In a week where newer messages have been revealed by we think an employee at Deloitte, an accountancy firm. That show what Vance was saying about Trump. Not back in the sort of, you know, 2015, 2016 days when we know he called. Trump, America's Hitler and and you know, all the toxic stuff he was writing then. Much, much more recently, ahead of the twenty twenty election,

Where he said, Trump has just so thoroughly failed to deliver on his economic populism, I think he'll probably lose. Now, all this stuff. is being vastly circulated and shared on social media. All it takes is for Trump to start thinking, Does this guy still hate me? Does he really think that? Have I got this wrong? For things to look very uncomfortable between the two of them now.

Well, joining us now is Sarah Churchwell, author of The Wrath to Come, Gone with the Wind and the Lies America Tells. Um and we should also say that you're professor actually of American Lit at the University of London here. But Sarah there's this wonderful line in your book which I'm gonna sort of give to our listeners because I think it places one of the conundrums that you discuss. Which is that you say the United States is especially prone to cognitive dissonance.

Because of the brutal realities of American life in conflict with what it promises. In other words, when it calls itself United States, it's like calling yourself a perfect couple. It can't possibly be true, right? Exactly, exactly. And it's actually like calling yourself a perfect couple, it's protesting too much.

It's actually gonna make everybody wonder what on earth is going on behind the scenes and are you about to get a divorce? You know. So, you know, we talk about the individual ways that people respond to cognitive di cognitive dissonance, but we don't often talk about it at the collective level.

But I think in America you can really see that that we have we so we've developed all of these kinds of collective fantasies that enable us To navigate the fact that the facts on the ground simply do not align with the things that we declare.

about ourselves, our country, what we're like, what our history has been, all of that stuff. And the gap is getting wider and wider. How do you unite that sense of what America thinks it should be with where the candidates are right now? Because I mean in a way You know, Trump is the more honest one at this point. He's the one going, Fuck that, right? You know, I want power. I want to do this my way. I didn't really like what they did.

You know, I know he compares himself to Abraham Lincoln, but you know deep breaths. Right. And I guess Camel Harris she is inheriting the sort of mantle of Be be the better America for the world, right? Well she is, but I'm not sure I don't think I would agree that Trump is the more honest one, not least because of the way the East Pew's lies every five seconds. But because th there are two competing visions.

In my view what the the fight is really about is about and I think this about the UK as well, and it's maybe worth saying that I'm a dual citizen, so I vote in both elections, is that it's a it's a battle between good faith politics and bad faith politics. It's a battle between it is between idealism and cynicism.

Trump embraces cynicism and and he keeps trying to say, Well, there are no higher ideals and there's no worth there's no you've there's no point in even fighting for it and let's just dismantle everything and sell it to the highest bidder and that will all be fine and we'll it's dog eat dog and let's just get on with that, right?

And whereas to say actually and you know, I would use Lincoln exactly there, right? That great um image the better better angels of our nature, right? So she is trying to uh to you know connect to that and

And that's not about Americans being better than other people. It's about humanity. It's about saying all people have better angels of their nature and lesser angels and saying are we going to be our better selves or are we going to be our worst selves? And that to me is what those two candidates symbol.

Yeah, but Sarah, isn't Donald doesn't Donald Trump have a point when he taps into the discontent that so many Americans felt, particularly after two thousand and eight, the financial crash. They felt that the politicians at Washington were kind of not representing them and it was a swamp and Donald Trump was the change maker, the disruptor, the person who was there To change it all around. And yeah.

To say we've got too many migrants, we've got to build a wall, we've got to keep Muslims out, we've got to do all these things if we wanna make America great again. So look, they ha they had real reasons for believing that their y they were right, that their standard of living was falling, um, that they were increasingly disconnected from the, you know, government policies.

But the idea the idea that Donald Trump is the guy who's gonna turn that around for the little man is just a delusion. I mean it absolutely is. And we saw that over when he gave tax cuts to the rich. We know what he does.

So the idea that people are telling themselves, well, you know, Trump is the guy who's gonna save me. I mean, I think Kamala has been very cogent about that stuff in her recent interviews, saying, you know, pointing out that he never talks about, you know, what he's gonna do for you. He only talks about what he's gonna do for himself. So sure their grievances are real, but he encourages them to scapegoat. He encourages them to blame immigrants, he encourages them to blame

To to blame women. He encourages them uh in in in slightly more subtle ways to blame black people and black women, right? To say that, you know, he just did it with. Kamala's recent. uh interview on the view saying, you know, that the she was surrounded by dumb women. So it's gonna be the most gendered election, isn't it, we've ever seen in terms of the percentage of w women voting for her.

percentage of men voting for him. Yeah, I think that well. We don't know for sure about the older women, but certainly among younger women I think th the the trends are unmistakable, right? There was a 150% surge in Latina young voters, 18 to 29, after she was nominated. 175%. uh increase in young black women of the same age. suddenly rush to register for the first time. Well, they are increasingly seem to be shifting. We're seeing, you know, some movement

back towards Trump there. But overwhelmingly the black demographic is still voting for Kamala. And and and you know, uh but I really think this is going to be a um this is going to be an election that is decided by young people. One of the things to if they turn I mean if they turn out or don't turn out, right, that's gonna be what I'm saying.

That's why she has to do call her daddy. Yeah. Because I mean five million listeners a week, we were saying why is she talking why is she preaching to the converted? Yeah. And you think it's'cause the converted might stay on their sofa. It yeah, it's because of turnout and because they aren't all co they aren't all converted, right? Alex Cooper, the host of c of Caller Daddy.

Is, you know, from uh an affluent small town in Pennsylvania. She has a small C conservative kind of background. And a lot of her listeners are like that. They may be broadly sympathetic toward Harris, but that doesn't mean they're gonna get off their couch and vote. So it's actually reaching those women and persuading them that Kamala speaks for them. I mean is she reaching as many Republican voters?

No, but I don't think she's necessarily trying to convert Republicans. I think that what she's trying to do is to convert undecided who were in the double negative. Who thought that both Biden and Trump were impossible and so were either not going to vote at all or might have tilted toward Trump. And to convince them by so then that is, I think, why she has been shifting moderate since the nomination. She's trying to find that central ground.

But for me, you know, one of the key statistics in this election that hasn't gotten enough attention is that Sa so people keep saying, you know, are we ready to vote for a woman? Right? It's as simple as that. Will America vote for a woman? But

In 2016, we did, right? The popular vote went to Hillary. So even then, it was the she didn't win in those 10,000 votes in those three states, though they didn't vote for Hillary. But America popularly was ready to vote for Hillary by an extra five million votes.

Since in those eight years, twenty million baby boomers have died and thirty five to forty million young voters have come of electoral age. So it ought to be an absolute shoe. I mean in terms of the popular vote. If they turn out well, if they turn out and in the right places, exactly Or are you kinda I mean w you know, we know how it's the bed wretchers, exactly. Um look I Everybody is uh

I don't think anybody has any confidence in an election that looks this close in the polls that we should be making predictions. And I anybody who does I think, you know, they're fooling themselves or they're trying to fool you. It does look very close. The polls are not giving us any clear we're t in the margin of error in too many.

But I personally think that sense of of a movement that that Harrison Waltz got going with uh you know, around their nomin you know, around the time of the nomination and with their rallies. That sense of energy, that rock star energy that's that's bringing people to stadiums and long queues. And we're not seeing that. We're seeing Trump and JD Vance, the air the energy around them deflates.

And and it's a it's a vibe, it's a feel. I can't make that I can't quanti quantify that. But I just find it very difficult to believe that that's not going to translate into votes at all. I mean we were talking to a poster uh last night who was saying that Yes, her likability ratings have gone up and that hasn't quite followed in the poll ratings but he was saying that there's the motivation to vote.

is now higher among Democrats than it is among Republicans. Whereas what we've seen in previous election cycles is Obviously Trump supporters massively motivated to vote. So you know that vibe thing. Exactly. People are talking a lot about individual policies, whether they're gonna move the needle and

I think it's about turnout. And she has a fourteen point enthusiasm gap among young voters. So it's about driving the young vote into the poll and getting them registered, which they've been very successfully doing. And these are people who were not engaged in either elect you know, any election before or the twenty twenty four election.

previously and they are now signing up to vote. And so then it's about you know obviously it's about translating that into them actually getting it. What about Musk on the other side? I mean isn't that bringing in lots of young men, lots of Certainly among young people I think it probably is. And we're seeing that in the two campaigns.

that Trump is very much focused on the manosphere, right? On the right wing, that the Andrew Tates and the Joe Rogans and getting those young men and certainly Elon Musk is a kind of poster child for that, right? So bring him along and hope that he will motivate young men to get out. Keep keep again scapegoating, telling them that women and immigrants are the reason that they feel disaffected and you know, pushing grievance politics.

And then you have Kamala saying, Okay, well if you're gonna talk to those young men, I'm gonna talk to the young women who listen to call her daddy. So just brilliant. Really interesting to have you in. Thank you so much. Thank you.

I'll tell you, Stephen, I mean there's so much devastation already from Hurricane Helene. I'm I met a woman in Georgia who just days before lost her husband. because a tree fell on their house and killed him. What just upsets me so is the idea that any politician would play political games with these folks, with people who are in the midst of such suffering, loss of life, loss of their homes, loss of normalcy, and then for the sake of political gain, tell these lies.

Mm. We know about Kumala's name on the ballot in November and we know about Donald's name on the ballot in November, but there are two others to consider. One is Helene and the other is Milton. There are two hurricanes, one which has descended and one which, as we record, is due about now to make landfall. which could have a devastating impact on people's lives. But they are deeply political in a way that maybe we haven't seen before.

where misinformation and lies are spreading like wildfire about what the government is doing and it looks as though the Trump campaign is trying to weaponise these as much as possible. In the hope that it will drive people away from Kamala Harris in November. Hurricanes have a way of hitting swing state. At this peculiarly sensitive time of year. And so Helene hit North Carolina, parts of Georgia, and Milton is now hitting Florida. I mean, virtually as we speak.

And twenty million people in around the Tampa area, the Bay area have been put on what they call Hurricane Watch. And five million have been told right now to evacuate, to get out of there. You know, m I think we heard from the city mayor saying And I can say without Any dramatization whatsoever. If you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you're gonna die. And so you've got this very strange Situation where Kamala Harris as the Vice President of the United States, of course.

should be going to visit all of these places where, you know, storms have either hit or might be hitting or, you know, talking to the people in residence. But as soon as she turns up there, you have got Republican governors, like Ron DeSantis in Florida saying Why are you politicizing this? Why are you here? Why is the contender for the Democratic nomination why is the contender for the for the presidency

here on my patch. Trump has been putting out all sorts of spurious rubbish about FEMA, you know, the the kind of environmental agency that that offers support.

not being able to be available to people on the ground and she said, Of course it is Biden said, Of course it is. Then she offers to go to Florida and Rhonda Sanders is saying, Why are you politicizing this by turning up here? You know, as if it's kind of It's a far cry from say if you think back to Hurricane Sandy, which is when it hit the eastern seaboard of the United States and sort of New Jersey, Massachusetts, and I think we were both

in the States at the sign. I I was there'cause of the we were both there for the presidential election in twenty twelve. And the governor of New Jersey at the time, Republican, was Chris Christie. He embraces the help that is being offered by the federal government in the shape of Barack Obama. It's worth kind of listening to just the difference in tone. Where you've got Ron DeSantis in Florida saying, Get lost, I don't want you anywhere near my state and Chris Christie then saying Thank you.

You had a president arriving in New Jersey and there's an infamous picture that you paid a political price for, some would argue, of you and Barack Obama. Tell us about Barack Obama arriving in New Jersey and dealing with the people of New Jersey.

Well let's remember the context too, which you which you implied in your question, which is that we were eight days away from a national election when Hurricane Sandy hit, and and I was, if not the top surrogate for Mitt Romney, at least one of the top surrogates. And so when the storm hit, the day after, um the president called me and he said, I want to come to New Jersey, but if that's gonna be awkward for you, we should talk about it. And I said, Mr. President.

You're the President of the United States. We want you to come to New Jersey. And he keeps it. did speak to each other. I wonder if it was like that at the time. I mean right now you have got Glenn Yunkin, who is saying thank you, Biden. Yeah, we do actually need this. I think you've also got the Georgia Governor, Brian Kemp.

who has said, actually they are there, you know, that that m stop spreading misinformation. He famously doesn't get on at all well with Trump. So I think the misinformation is not coming from Republicans and it's certainly not coming from the states themselves. The m the disinformation is coming s right from the top. From Trump and Vance. You know. And there is one clip where Trump actually calls her out.

for not being in the state that she is in. Have a listen. For immediate need. For the worst yeah. But for the worst hurricane that anybody's seen. Uh but she shouldn't be there anyway. She should be I would say n North Carolina is bad is so bad. She was there today for three hours, I believe, uh Kam Kamala Harris. Look, it's fair enough for things to get political. If the federal government makes a mess of the rescue effort as it did

after hurricane. This all goes back to Katrina in one shape or form. Not that it is like that, but that Donald Trump is trying to reenact that. Yes, and um and you know, George W. Bush took a hell of a lot of flack for his response.

And subtle but in even many ways more profoundly devastating is the lasting damage to the survivors' will to rebuild and remain in the area. The destruction of the spirit of the people of Southern Louisiana and Mississippi may end up being the most tragic loss of all. George Bush doesn't care about black people. The best cartoon that I saw over the government response was there was a guy in a boat. And there's another guy up to his chest in water.

And it's Roe versus Wade. R O W Roe versus Wade. As that was the only choice. that um the American people had. And it was unbelievable in New Orleans. I flew to Mobile, Alabama, where we were only allowed at the Carhare place to have half a tank of fuel'cause the whole of that Gulf Coast was out of petrol, to then drive to Biloxi, to Gulfport, to Baton Rouge, and then into New Orleans. And you thought, wow, they are so dependent.

As a first world country, on having fuel, it drove water, there was no water in the taps, we couldn't stay all the hotels had shut because they didn't have any running water. And you know, it's gonna be a bit like that in Tampa. So you can see why it has such a political effect. So quickly. And Donald Trump isn't waiting to see whether the government responds well or badly. He wants to get his revenge in first.

And Kamala Harris tearing her hair out and saying, You've got to be careful about what you believe when you hear the conspiracy theory. So she's literally going on these shows to actually remind people not to believe some of the stuff that they're hearing. One of the men who brought us Watergate, Bob Woodward, who obviously worked on that with Carl Bernstein, has just published a book. He is a prolific writer, and his latest book goes inside the Trump

Post-presidency. He's chronicled conversations with Trump right the way through his tenure. And his latest book, called War. is about to hit the stands and it has the revelation that Trump has had what he's calling up to seven calls with Vladimir Putin Since he stopped being president. In other words, as a normal citizen, an ex president, he has still been talking to Putin. But isn't there something else in this book as well, which again i again it relates to Putin?

is that he sent him covet tests. So Donald Trump, when he was president, is sending the Russian president COVID tests so that he can test Himself. Not for the Russian people, not for the Russian. Not for the good of the country, but for Putin himself. And Putin's had to say, Oh, I think you might want to keep that quiet because people won't really look very favourably on that if they know. I mean he's actually telling that to Trump. And you can just imagine.

Imagine your Volodymyr Zelensky in Ukraine and thinking, I wonder what the post-election settlement looks like if Donald Trump becomes the president. He is not even in his views on Ukraine and Russia. It is absolutely clear

He is with Vladimir Putin. Yeah, the interesting thing is and and Woodward's the the book will come out next week. Woodward is basically suggesting that this kind of conversation, this communication that Trump's had Um, with Putin who is let's not forget, you know, currently invading another country.

is a greater scandal than the Watergate affair. And the trouble is, of course, That even the Watergate affair would not really have touched the sides of Trump if Trump had been the Nixon in that case. And so you understand the timing of this, you know, Woodward's thinking, Oh, this'll this'll shift the dial, this'll make people sit up, nobody'll want to vote for Trump if they think he's been in bed with Putin. I think it's all counted in.

Oh yeah, it's baked into the share price. There is nothing you can hear about Trump now. I I'm trying to think if there is anything that we could be told about Trump now that would shift the dial. For his supporters. That he sent tests to Joe Biden and that had done something gracious across the aisle. That might just upset it. We'll see you next week. Bye bye.