Why has Trump just admitted he interfered with the last election?

Whoever heard you get indicted for interfering with a presidential election where you have have every right to do it? You get indicted and your poll numbers go up. When people get indicted your poll numbers go down. We shouldn't laugh, but we might a little bit. That was Donald Trump explaining that he did interfere with the election.

And he did get indicted for that, but that he thought he'd come out of it quite well. There's quite a lot to unpack in that one statement, which is the man who has solidly refused to admit ever that he lost the twenty twenty election is now suddenly admitting to election interference. What Donald Trump was entitled to do was make legal challenges to the results. He did that, the results were found to be fair, and the results were certified.

But what he then went on to do was to call for an insurrection where he asked people to come to Washington and said it was going to be wild. Donald Trump has said out loud the thing that he hadn't done until now. Welcome to the NewsAgency USA. USA with Emily Maitless. And John Sopor. It's Emily.

And it's John, and I am outside, um, in southern Italy. There is a rolling thunderstorm around where I'm standing. I am undercover, but if you hear odd rumbles, it's not me kind of um indigestion after a big lunch.

It is a thunderstorm. It is the pathetic fallacy. It's what happens when you start talking about the Donald Trump campaign and the rumblings have begun. And there is a kind of theme developing here because in the last few weeks, certainly since The DNC, the Democratic National Convention, perhaps since Biden stepped down completely, Donald Trump is starting to sound increasingly untethered. And as you said, Soaps, all these things that are meant to be Soto Voce or off my ear.

are suddenly coming up in major set piece interviews like the one he just did with Fox News. You have a plethora of moments now to choose from where Donald Trump is talking about losing the election by a whisker or election interference. or the stuff that he has been denying solidly for the past four years. I suppose the thing I'm wrestling with is is this Donald Trump clearing up

little messes that he hopes will go away before the election in two months time. And if you cast your mind back to twenty sixteen, Donald Trump called a news conference at the Trump Hotel in Washington DC where Suddenly he says, You know, all those times I've been saying Barack Obama is not a legitimate citizen of the United States of America, and that he was born outside and there was this whole

birtharism conspiracy. He suddenly announced weeks before the election, I I d I no longer believe that. No explanation, just I no longer believe that. Because it was so damaging to him, because he couldn't provide any evidence that Barack Obama was born outside the US and therefore not legitimate as the president. So he c tried to clear up that mess. Is he doing the same again now?

Or is he just, as you say, Emily, becoming untethered? Because for him to say, Well, I actually probably did lose in twenty twenty by a whisker Then what has the last three and a half years been about? What has the attempted insurrection been about? What has all the lies and the fueling of this conspiracy that somehow the election was stolen from him, if he is now admitting that he lost the election by a whisker.

You have come in with the principle of charity, which is kind of find the beneficial interpretation or the benevolent interpretation of of what's been going on and Donald Trump's trying to clean up, as you say, the little messes before the big one begins.

None of that though seems to tally with the other positions that he's taken on, for example, policy. And one of the areas where we know he is absolutely terrified right now is on the issue of abortion. American women are now, according to the latest polls, putting abortion above even the economy in terms of the salience of the issue going into the 2024 election. Donald Trump has spent the last six years.

talking up the changes to the Supreme Court that have allowed for the overturning of Roe v. Wade as the hero that he sees himself to the evangelical right, to all those Americans who feel deeply uncomfortable. with abortion, except now he's suddenly clutching at straws and saying, Oh, well actually I don't want a federal abortion ban at all. Actually

I do want each of the states to do it and actually I I've now decided that maybe the Florida one, you know the one in Florida that could cut abortions back to making them illegal after six weeks? I'm not sure I like that at all. Don't forget Donald Trump is a Florida resident. He actually gets to vote. on that issue. That he didn't think I mean he wasn't entirely clear, but he didn't think that he would be drawn towards voting in favour of a six week abortion ban in Florida. What's that about?

Florida, the state that you are a resident of, there's an abortion related amendment on the ballot to overturn the six week ban in Florida. How are you going to vote on that? Well, I think the six week is too short. Uh it has to be more time, and so that's and I've told them that. So you'll vote in favor of the amendment? I'm I'm voting that I am gonna be voting that we need more than six weeks. Look, just so you can't. Incredible, right? I mean incredible.

that here is the man who's put the three Supreme Court judges on the bench to overturn the sort of freedoms that American women had to seek abortions in every single state of the US.

And now Trump say, Hmm, yeah, I don't like that ban at all. He's got himself into a clash stick over this because on the one hand He is infuriating the evangelical right by saying stuff like this that people need more than six weeks because Donald Trump was gonna be seen as the pathway to a complete ban on abortion, which is what people in the US of that position have been wanting for sort of half a century.

And now Donald Trump seems to be going in the other direction because the polls are moving against him. And so you have Donald Trump in risk of alienating huge numbers of women voters, the group that go out in the highest numbers to vote. And therefore this is particularly hazardous. for Donald Trump to be doing this right now. He can't do it. And so I think that what you're seeing is Donald Trump, in a way, trying to square a circle that is unsquarable.

And I think that that is particularly hazardous for him. Donald Trump is going for the bro vote, i.e., kind of athletic young men who like to party and drink in huge numbers. Whereas Kamala Harris is going for the non bro vote, the people who are kind of a bit more sophisticated than that and, you know, understand that women's rights are important. And y you're never gonna have seen, I think

such a gendered election in the US because I think Donald Trump is now lining up to be the voice of male voters. And Kamala Harris is trying to get women, but also a certain section of men as well. I agree. I don't think it's that simple actually in terms of the men women breakdown because you've got men who care deeply about you know, their their families' rights and you

have men who are would be fathers like Tim Waltz. I think truly Trump has been triggered by Tim Waltz who has Told the American people about you know, his own attempts at IVF after Um, you know, hi his m and his wife's infertility. Thank God for m IVF, my wife and I have two beautiful children. He thinks he needs to dictate that and I've been saying this. The golden rule that makes small towns work.

So we're not at each other's throats all the time in a little town is mind your own damn business. I don't need him to tell me about my family. I don't need to tell him about my wife's health care and her reproductive rights. I don't need him telling my children what books they can read.

did not support the expansion of IVF for American families and voted against it, including J.D. Vance. And now Trump has come out with this like extraordinarily generous offer, which is that Insurance companies should pay all costs related to IVF to anyone who wants to try for children and can't. or your insurance company will be mandated to pay for all costs associated with IVF treatment, fertilization for women. IVF treatment.

in the hall because people are genuinely excited by this. There will be millions of childless American couples who are thinking, Oh, thank God that could be the answer to all our prayers. So on the one hand, it's a really clever electoral policy. On the other hand, it doesn't go with anything that we've heard from Trump Over the last four years.

Donald Trump, who has a long record of making misogynistic comments, you know, you go back to the first debate that Donald Trump appeared in and he kind of you know, Megan Kelly re reads out the list of ways. He's described women that he hasn't liked and, you know, he kind of makes a joke of it all. And on and on and on it goes. And you've got J D. Vance who talks about, you know, ch childless cat ladies. I I think it's going to be very difficult.

for the Republican ticket to win back the vote of women, given all the past statements That we've had. So Donald Trump risks alienating his evangelical base at the same time as not winning back the women. And the fact that there is that applause in the room when he talks about payment for treatment of IVF.

should be ringing alarm bells because it shows how much on the wrong side of the argument, in just in terms of numbers, in terms of voters, Donald Trump has got himself. Meanwhile, as he was working out whether he was kind of Pro or anti IVF. And we should say that JD Vance, his VP, was later asked about Donald Trump's comments on IVF. on a Sunday show and was completely thrown. He clearly Hadn't expected to be talking about this.

also voted against a measure in the Senate that would have guaranteed access to IVF around the country. So Well two no no no two things, John. First of all, yes a court made that decision in Alabama and like the next second the Alabama state legislature fixed that problem

and ensured women had access to these fertility treatments. And all that I voted on, John, is for religious liberty. I don't want Christian hospitals or Christian charities to be forced to do something that they don't want to do.

We have multiple Republican measures that support fertility treatment, support IVF, but don't require Christian hospitals or other religious organizations to violate their so you've got this very, very strange relationship now between Trump and Vance, where Trump is kind of going off cuff, you know, saying what he wants, saying what he thinks the crowd needs to hear.

And Vance is kind of running round afterwards, kind of shit shoveling, trying to explain how that becomes an economic policy for the next administration, which he can't do because they've never even discussed it. That is the complete rerun. of the Trump administration from twenty sixteen to twenty twenty, where he would say things off the cuff, and then behind the scenes in the west wing of the White House, they're going, He said what? He's done what?

Have you seen what he's tweeted? No, he hasn't. What are we going to do in terms of policy? And things that they thought had been agreed, hammered out. kind of gone up the system, up the chain of command, got the approval of the commander in chief, and then he goes out in front of a T V camera and says the complete opposite. And you know, look, we've seen JD Vance over the past few weeks in a way that maybe we haven't seen him before.

He's not that agile. I mean he's good in a confrontational interview where he can sort of hold his own. But as we've discussed, you know, when he's speaking human, it sounds like he's struggling with it. At the Republican convention we were featuring everyday American workers and of course we had Hall Cogan. And while it's Simpton, and I'm sure it would make some big headlines, don't worry any ev everybody, I'm not going to try to take off my shirt here.

Trump vance, which looked so clever when it was Joe Biden that they were up against. is now looking a lot less smart. There was a moment at Arlington Cemetery, and to put this in context, Arlington is it's got a kind of totemic significance for America, hasn't it? It is the place of the war dead. It's the cemetery in Virginia just outside D C. And this is the place that you go to pay respects to the fallen. And Donald Trump is having to explain right now to his critics, who believe he turned

a moment at Arlington Cemetery into a photo op and indeed why he sort of pushed one of the officials aside. Of course, let's not be too naive. You could say that anything the candidates do between now and November the fifth is going to be a photo op of sort. Donald Trump is not president, he doesn't have to actually be anywhere, so the fact that he's turned up at Arlington Cemetery suggests that it is part of his campaign, it is part of a photo op in a wider sense.

But he is now facing criticism from, for example, John McCain's son, Jimmy. John McCain was a war veteran, he was a captured soldier in Vietnam, and he was a senator, much respected senator of Arizona. And this was what his son said when he came out and endorsed the Kamala Harris. You make it political, you take away the respect of the people who are there. I think I feel that Kamala Harris and Tim Waltz embody

A group of people that will help make this country better. As you say, Arlington, which is just across the bridge from the Lincoln Memorial. Is sacred territory for Americans. And look, it's fine for Donald Trump to go and pay his respects there. It's fine for Donald Trump to be with gold star families, as he was. And a gold star family is someone whose son or daughter has been lost.

in service. The problem is that JD Vance went to a rally. Again, this goes back to the point we were just making a moment ago about IBS. JD Vance goes to a rally and goes There is verifiable evidence that the campaign was allowed to have a photographer there. On Monday, Trump's TikTok account posted video of him visiting the grave of a soldier killed during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Federal law prohibits political campaign or election related activities within Army National Military Cemetery. And then twenty minutes later, campaign video drops of Donald Trump at Arlington. It's exactly what he was doing. He was filming an advert. at Arlington Military Cemetery, the most sacred place probably in the United States of America, where America's war dead are buried. Again you just thought

How can you be so clumsy? How can you be so clunky? And yeah, the families might have approved that were with Donald Trump at the time. Of course, they're MAGA supporters. But for the rest, for the other people whose sons and daughters are buried at Arlington Cemetery? I mean it was shocking beyond belief that he would try to use that

to film a political ad, which is what he did, which is now available on Truth Social. Yeah. And M many of Trump's children, as you know, have been deeply devoted and worked alongside his father and even advised him, arguably quite badly in cases. But there is a nephew, Fred. Who came onto MSNBC?

to explain what he felt Trump's attitude to the military was. I know many people who were in the military and I had the the the pleasure of speaking uh on an interview with uh National Defense Radio, which goes out to the armed services. And I told the truth. I basically told this story and I said, uh he just doesn't give Uh it's it's the greatest. And look, there are reports of all sorts. From when Donald Trump was president.

and he didn't go to uh the marine cemetery in France from the First World War, where America's war dead were buried because it was raining heavily and he thought it would ruin his hair. There is the story of j uh that he that John Kelly General John Kelly, a far four star general who's lost his own son in combat, said that Donald Trump was disrespectful when he spoke about the military, that anyone who died was dumb and idiots and why would they do that sort of stuff?

So there is past form on this. Of course, Trump denies all of these things, but you know, when four star generals are giving their accounts. of what they have heard when they have been the chief of staff to Donald Trump and you've got Donald Trump who has a history, let us put it, at its most generous, of not being altogether familiar with the truth at times, you know,

You've got to think that there is something to this. But Donald Trump is trying everything. You know, the word of this podcast, I would say, is untethered. Because it just seems that he's doing stuff now. that is slightly off the script that he thought he would be, you know, reading out loud with Joe Biden as his opponent. And he has not adjusted yet. We spent a lot of this half talking about Donald Trump. We're gonna look at Camel Harris.

Where are things going well for her and where is she struggling? Coming up. So if you were with us last week, we were discussing when would Kamala Harris do her first sit-down interview. And sure enough, it has happened. She sat down with Dana Bash from CNN. And I think Mate, as you and I have discussed in the past the fact that American T V interviews are not quite the same

as a politician might expect if they were to come, say, on the news agents podcast, where I think maybe there was a bit more searching and a bit more rigour and a bit more kind of pushing back on things, statements that are made. Kamala Harris went on this CNN interview with Tim Walls, her running mate, and that's quite common for these interviews to be done jointly during the campaign.

And she was essentially trying to get rid of some of the negatives of her own side. We talked about that with Trump. She was saying, Well no, she wouldn't ban fracking now and she was very concerned about the border and she was trying to show herself much more a centrist politician than she had been painted hitherto. Let's hear a bit of that interview that she gave to CNN. When you were in Congress, you supported the Green New Deal.

And in twenty nineteen you said, quote, there is no question I'm in favor of banning fracking. Fracking, as you know, is a pretty big issue, particularly in your must win state of Pennsylvania. Do you still want to ban fracking? No, and I made that clear on the debate stage in twenty twenty. I have always believed and I've worked on it that the climate crisis is real. That it is an urgent matter to which we should apply metrics that include holding ourselves to deadlines around time.

We did that with the Inflation Reduction Act. We have set goals for the United States of America and by extension the globe. around when we should meet certain standards for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions as an example. That value has not changed. But did Dana Bash lay any gloves on her? Well, did Dana Bash try to, really, is the question. I tell you what I heard was somebody who had gone into that interview knowing that they had to touch each of the hard questions once.

but that ran away from any kind of follow up. And so There was a list of questions which was like, Oh, you must ask about fracking, you must ask about change of positions, you must ask about what you knew about Joe Biden. And yes, she sort of ticked off each of these questions once. But there was absolutely no pushback. And I think Kamala Harris chose brilliantly. She chose where to land this interview where she was not going to get a single scrape. And as a result

She looks as if she's got through, as it were, the first round of interview. She hasn't, really. All it takes is somebody who's a little bit more probing, a little bit more robust in terms of the answers that she gives. And says, Well, hang on a sec, where are you now? You know, you say you haven't changed your mind, where are you on this? What did you know? What did he say? As opposed to somebody who kind of

You know, goes towards the fire and then runs away from it. And so I think Camlis still actually has many of those questions to address. I'm not sure I agree with that. I think that Kamar Harris will just tell interviewers now I've answered that.

No, no, I've dealt with that question. I'm I've got nothing more to say on it. And how many more sit down interviews is she going to do? We're only two months away from the election. We've got the debate next week. Is Donald Trump going to prosecute a d i you know, a cross examination?

in a way that you would do in a courtroom. No, he's not. He's gonna kinda make ad hominem points and he's gonna go after her and he's gonna say you're the most left wing, you're the most liberal, you're the most whatever. That's the the tone of Donald Trump. He's gonna be he's gonna be trying to goad her. in the debate and Kamala Harris is not going to go there.

But she may not give that many more interviews. And so those questions will be left unanswered about why she's changed her position on fracking, why she's changed her position on immigration, you know, why we should believe that she's staying true to her values. even though she's changing her mind on all the policies. So I think that there are problems there for Harris, yes.

But you th but she'll say I've done that interview already and you know, it will be hard to get her back into a s studio to do many more sit downs would be my guess. Let's just have a listen to what she was asked by Danaba.

How should voters look at some of the changes that you've made, uh that you've explained some of here uh in your policy? Is it because you have more experience now and you've learned more about the information? Is it Because you were running for president in a democratic primary? And should they feel comfortable and confident that what you're saying now is gonna be your policy moving forward?

Dan, I think the the the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed. I thought there was one bit though that Harris dealt with very effectively. Donald Trump clearly wants to get into a scrap. He clearly wants culture wars to be fought. And you know, you remember that comment that he'd made when he said Oh I didn't really know she was black black. She's only recently become black.

Well, Danabash pressed her on that and it's worth listening to the exchange. I was a little bit surprised. People might be surprised to hear that you have never interacted with him, met him face to face. That's gonna change soon. But what I want to ask you about. Is what he said last month. He suggested that you happened to turn black recently for political purposes, questioning a core part of your identity.

Any same old tired playbook? Next question, please. That's it? That's it. Okay. Um Yeah, what you heard from Kamala Harris there was an absolute refusal, a resistance to being drawn into this identity war, culture war, defending herself, defending her race or her or her identity or her colour or any of that stuff. She just said next question. And I think that was probably the smartest thing to do because

We're all kind of in that space, I think, right now. In in sort of, you know, to greater or lesser extents obviously her greater than than most of us. But you have to decide Whether you're gonna pit your battles, you know, on social media, with critics, with the people sort of, you know, trying to goad you into saying something, and she's gone

Actually I just don't need to touch that. You know, I'm I might answer you a question on policy. I might try and answer a question on fracking. I might try and answer a question on whether my mind was changed. I might try and answer a question on whether I believed, you know, Joe Biden should have pulled out earlier.

But actually if somebody's asking me about my race, like that's their problem. You know. They they I c I can be in their head rent free. I do not And that's the thing. The Trump campaign had set so much store and hope

And nothing of the kind happened. She was perfectly articulate insofar as she was pressed, and with all the reservations you say, Mainness, that she really wasn't given that hard a time and there was no real pushback on the points that she was making. But she was articulate, she was smooth. And the Trump campaign was hoping that she would fail. And at the end of it, on Truth Social, Trump posted one word in block capitals with three exclamation marks, and the word was boring.

Well, if that's the best the Trump campaign have got, at the end of the first critical test, of Harris. And remember there are very few set pieces between now and November the fifth. Of course we've got the huge one uh next week with the debate taking place between Trump and Harris in Philadelphia.

But after that, it's campaigning. And so, you know, important momentum changing moments, just like in the UK general election when you have the budget or the kind of Queen's speech or whatever happens to be. You know, in the US elections it's the big sit down interviews. And it is the debate. And there is going to be one debate, I doubt there's going to be another one. And so far

Trump hasn't got what he wanted. I mean boring, let's not forget, was the entire election strategy for our own new Prime Minister. You know, he wore it well and And I don't think... Carmela will be that distressed.

That's about the best thing. I think it was Robin Cook, wasn't it, who who used to say, I know that an interview's been a success if I don't read about it anywhere the next day. And w I mean bluntly, that's the same thing. in July's general election, is on her way out to Washington to advise the Democrats as well on how they can, you know, play things between now and November. So I think that there is an element

in which although our election systems are so different and the way campaigns are run is so different, there are bits the Democrats want to learn from Labour. And it was there were a huge number of Labour people floating around you know, in their spare time, on annual leave at the Democratic convention a couple of weeks ago in Chicago. And, you know, they are talking to the Dems, you know, to say, look, can we be of help? We'll be back talking about the race in a second.

So look, there's a massive polling out there and I'm not sure what it adds up to apart from a blizzard that is hard to navigate your way through. That you know, some states showing Kamala narrow narrowly ahead. Seven states now in play, a lot of them very tight, all within the margin of error. You know, there's undoubtedly been a momentum shift. But there are areas where Kamala Harris is still lagging behind the coalition. that Joe Biden brought together

among black voters, it hasn't got back to where it was in twenty twenty. She's improved the position with Latino voters, and that hasn't got back to where it was in twenty twenty. And she's improved the position among young voters, but again, Still not where Joe Biden was when he fought Trump the last time. So I think those are the kind of

benchmarks by which we need to judge whether Kamala Harris is really making progress. So progress yes. Has she turned it around? Nowhere near. Yeah, I mean I think if you listen to us, you'd assume that Electorally, Trump is a basket case and Cameron's gonna swim to victory. I don't think there is anything clear-cut going on here. I think the Democrats are still rejoicing that they made the decision they did back in July. But it is fiendishly tight and

Obviously, we said this before, it's not about the national vote, it's not about you're jumping the polls nationally, it's about what happens in these tiny, tiny, tight margins, sometimes down to about 10,000 votes in the swing states. It looks as if Kamala Harris is gaining ground in Pennsylvania, in Michigan, Wisconsin. It looks as if Trump is similarly opening up the gap between him and her and gaining ground in the Sunbelt States.

North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona. So you could end up with this slightly odd geographical split where Kamala starts doing much better in the sort of the the northern states or the you know the the sort of the Great Lakes states, the Midwest, and Trump starts to do very much better in the Sunbelt states, and there is this one state, curious.

that is split into two. I know where you're going with this, mate. Let's go on. Come on. It is a bit of a It is a bit. Well, you know, everyone we've seen the VEEP play out. We've seen the absolute tie in you know on TV and sort of in the dramas. of two six nine. It needs two seventy to win. And there is one state, Nebraska, where the electoral

College is actually split in two. Most of Nebraska is deep, deep red, and there is one little bit around Omaha which often goes blue, Democrat, with just one electoral college vote. It is not impossible. That the two could be tied on two six nine with this division of sort of, you know, Sunbel States versus the the Midwest and Nebraska could end up being that deciding boat. Honestly, God help us if we get to that situation. I mean, can you imagine? I'm all in. Oh no, God. Look, you know

Biden won decisively in twenty twenty and look at the to do there was after that with Trump claiming victory. If it is two six nine versus two six nine, God help us. I mean really. It's absolute nightmare. A constitutional nightmare, quagmire, Supreme Court involved, everyone involved, and you know, probably disorder on the streets uh to boot.

Um before we go though, we ought to just consider My rival Yeah, your rival in a certain way. She is the chair of the RNC, so the Republican National Committee, the most important body that the Republicans have. And I'm sure she got the job purely, purely, purely on merit. Uh we're talking, of course, about Lara Trump, daughter in law of Donald Trump. And that would be the only reason she got the job.

And what was the message, Emily? Did you you have you been across it that she was giving out to the American people? She was telling them that I can do anything, anything goes. She took me on as the singer-in-chief, and this is what she sounded like with her message to the American people. I don't think she sounded that bad. I mean I say this. Come on. Really? I mean my past my pastor von Gole is kind of likely to Yeah.

Oh, so is it just me that you hate singing? Well, uh no, I I hate her singing more than you. Frankly I would listen to you all day, every day. Okay. You're allowed to come back now. Please come back. And next week we will be bringing you The debate. And everyone remembers what happened last time. Two presidential candidates sat down to debate. The world was let loose.

So we're going to be watching that for you at some ungodly hour of Wednesday morning, Thursday morning, and we'll bring that to you on the show next week. We'll see you then. Bye bye. Bye for now. Been a global player.