Will porn site posts cost Trump a state? - podcast episode cover

Will porn site posts cost Trump a state?

Sep 25, 202435 min
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Summary

This episode delves into the controversy surrounding North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson's past offensive comments and the challenging position it creates for Donald Trump, who previously endorsed him. The discussion expands to the broader US presidential race, analyzing how voter perception of the economy often clashes with macroeconomic data, the impact of differing economic policies from Trump and Harris, and the significant role of social issues like abortion in shaping voter turnout and election outcomes. The hosts explore the complexities of candidate messaging, particularly regarding wealth and economic struggles.

Episode description

We start with the very strangest of tales - the man standing to be North Carolina's governor was found to have called himself a "black nazi" on a porn website some years ago and called for a return to slavery. The reason it's making headlines is because he was endorsed by Trump six months ago, and was called 'Martin Luther king on steroids'.

Will that endorsement hurt Trump? The former president is tied in the polls with the vice president but out polls her by 11 points when voters are asked who they trust on the economy.

We ask Megan Gorman, author of 'All the Presidents' money whether the economy will ultimately decide who wins.

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Transcript

North Carolina Candidate's Controversial Past

I wanna start tonight with the dumpster fire, that's the only way to call it, that is still raging in North Carolina. Because it's actually about more than one crazy guy. And believe me, he's definitely crazy if you've read any of the things he said. Mark Robinson, the Republican nominee for governor in North Carolina, posted a whole lot of stuff on a porn site.

He called himself a black Nazi, expressed support for reinstating slavery, and called MLK an effing commie. His words, not mine. That was all according to a very thorough report from CNN that came out just last week. Now, in a land where weird shit happens the whole time. Things just got weirder. You've just heard from Mark Robinson. He is standing to be the governor of North Carolina, a critical state. and he has had to go out and deny calling himself both a black Nazi and a pervert.

After a story broke on CNN from a porn site traced back to him from many years ago. Yes, on the website Nude Africa, he talked about how he'd like to see a return to slavery and would buy a few slaves himself given the opportunity. The problem is that Mark Robinson is near the top of the ticket. He has been embraced by Donald Trump in what is now a key swing state in November. So is Donald Trump going to disown him? And is this going to cost Donald Trump dearly? Welcome to Newsagents USA.

The News Agents USA with Emily Maitless and John Sopol.

Trump's Endorsement and Political Fallout

It's Emily. And it's John in Dublin of all places. And I'm imagining that your head head I'm kind of reeling um with this introduction because if you're not familiar with the story already, it bears us just going through a couple of the details. He has been, as John said, endorsed by Donald Trump. Not just endorsed. But I likened to Martin Luther King. Just listen to Trump from a few months ago. Martin Luther King on steroids. I think you're better than Martin Luther King. I think you are

Martin Luther King times two. Mark Robinson, he's out there, he's fighting. He's fighting. He's a great one. I wanna thank a very good man and he's in there fighting, he's fighting, and we know he's a fighter. The next governor of North Carolina. Essentially, this report by CNN dug up comments that were posted on I think it was a transgender specific pornographic website.

in which he then goes into explanations about his love of slavery and his love of Hitler and his love of Nazism and He essentially hasn't really been able to shrug this off. He has come out fighting, and it's quite hard for him to come out fighting, because his entire team of staff have now abandoned him. They've literally all just left. But one of the most curious Curious moments of the last few days has been when J.D. Vance, the VP presidential pick of Trump.

was asked if he wanted to distance himself from Mark Robinson. And this is what fans said, which made Uh I I I don't not believe him. I don't believe him. I just think that you have to let these things sometimes play out in the court of public opinion. Uh he's gonna make whatever arguments he wants to make. I'm sure the news media and others are gonna investigate these comments further.

put distance as much as possible between himself and Mark Robinson without putting distance between himself and Mark Robinson. It was one of those kind of well, if the allegations turn out to be true, then Mark Robinson will have to make for his his own decisions. I think it was actually trying to say Mark Robinson, you are utterly batshit, and this is fruitcake stuff. And forget it being Martin Luther King on steroids. It's kind of someone on hallucinatory drugs, really.

Given what he said. Yeah, I think it tells us something um even more nuanced though actually, which is the relationship between Vance and Trump. And we've seen in the past how Vance keeps getting it wrong. He'll come out with a statement and then Trump will just flat deny it.

Or sort of contradict him. And so I think Vance is doing this shadow box behind Trump and going, Well, I'm basically waiting to see if Trump distances himself and if he does, then obviously I will. But if he if he doesn't and if he doubles down, then obviously I will. And so the Court of Public Opinion is not really what he's looking at right now. He's looking at the master himself, Trump. And I think Trump is

Trump is kind of in a really odd position at this point because, you know, as we've heard, Kamala Harris and the Democrats just keep playing that phrase on a loop about him being Martin Luther King on steroids. Yeah, look, this is damaging. Remember Before Kamala Harris entered the race, before Joe Biden had pulled out North Carolina was seen as an absolutely done deal for the Republicans. Donald Trump wasn't spending any money in North Carolina advertising. It was a safe Republican state.

Now Kamala Harris has entered the race. You've got Mark Robinson running for governor. So he's just below you you know Trump and Harris on the long ticket of people to vote for. He is going to cost the Republicans dearly. And I think the moment that Donald Trump senses that he could cost him the state is when Donald Trump says, I'm pulling the you know, I'm pulling the emergency release catch here.

Robinson, you've got to get out. But Robinson is showing absolutely no sign of doing this, as are so many fruitcakes in America. He starts his speeches by talking about our Savior Jesus Christ. wrapping himself up in religion and describing anyone who criticizes him as nuts and freaks and oddballs because that is the way he approaches his politics.

Robinson's Views and Tight Race

Yeah, I mean at the moment Robinson is running I think about eight points behind the Democrat there, Josh Stein, who is actually currently the Attorney General of North Carolina. Now I guess the question is the gubernatorial races aren't tied into any wider race as in f you know, for Congress or for the Presidency. So

Is it just, you know, if you're going to the polls in North Carolina, do you say, Okay, Mark Robinson probably is batshit, but I still like Trump more? You know, it doesn't actually affect the Senate race, it doesn't affect the House race, and it might not even affect the presidential race because people are learning to divide their ballots, I think, in a more sophisticated way now.

Yeah, I think that's a really good point. I think that, you know, we do see evidence of people splitting the ticket. And that is why in elections you see a senator getting elected where maybe from a different party than the person who wins.

The presidency or a governor you know is from a different party. The personalities do matter. The personalities do matter. But ideally you want the ticket to be solid. And when you're getting a high profile Republic Like Mark Robinson, getting so much attention, his top team quitting. And the and you y you know, listen to play that clip of J D Vance again where he just doesn't know what to say.

Uh you know, there are a lot of allegations in politics. There are a lot of things that get said and they may not be true and they may be true and where he's got to consider his position. It's not ideal. I tell you what we should play is a little bit more of Mark Robinson, just in case you thought the kind of Hitler slavery comments were a one off. These are his views on women and abortion from previous babies that are dying and mothers that are in trouble.

Everybody knows that abortion in this country is not about protecting the lives of mothers. It is about convenience. It is about abortion on demand. That is exactly what it's about. It's about killing a child because you aren't responsible enough to keep your skirt down or your pants up.

And not get pregnant by your own choice because you felt like getting your groove thing on. And if you haven't had enough, Mark Robinson, uh here's a bit more of him defending himself on Monday after these allegations surface. We're we have we're in talks right now, everything up to legal counsel to take CNN to task for what they have done to us. We are we are going after'em, okay? We are going to go after them for what they've done.

But we have five weeks left of this race, folks. Make no mistake about it. We are not gonna let CNN throw us off of our mission. Our mission is to win this race. And quite frankly, I am dismayed about the fact As I said before. Think about how many people out there right now, right in this place where we are right now, who are hooked on Fed.

Who are hooked by the biggest thing? So he could have at that point said, None of this is true and I would welcome an investigation, you know, by those who understand the technology better than me as to what went on or who posted those comments. He didn't. I mean he rejected

having professionals and experts and te and people who are versed in technology looking into that. So you can kind of make of that what you will, I guess. And I suppose when we're talking about North Carolina and why this story seems to have come at such a critical moment. I mean we should remember we are now 40 days out. We are we are six weeks away from the election. And in some states that early polling, early voting has already started.

US Election Dynamics and Polling

I think the point is that we come back to what we know and it's maybe the bigger story that we're telling you today, which is how tight the poles are, how deadlocked the race is between Harris and Trump right now. And that is partly because, as I think we said in the past, el elections presidential elections in America are fought in inches, not miles. There is basically a flaw.

on what either candidate for the Republican Party or the Democratic Party will get. And that is roughly forty seven, forty eight percent. So you're kind of talking about moving the dial two percent, and maybe one percent of that is undecided and isn't gonna vote at all, and maybe one percent of that

are the people that you're really, really talking to and targeting. And at the moment the edge that Trump has over Harris in North Carolina is point two percent. That's according to five three eight, the kind of polling gun. The only pattern that we can see is the pattern that emerged after Joe Biden pulled out of the red. Joe Biden pulls out, suddenly the Democrats are competitive again, not just in the three northern industrial states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

But they're competitive to in Georgia, North Carolina and out on the west coast in Nevada and Arizona. And that is the big change that has happened. But trying to pick them apart and say, Oh well, Harris has gone on and catapulted into the lead, or Trump has now reasserted himself and pushed himself into the lead decisively, that hasn't happened. And just underline again what happened in Georgia last time round. Five million people voted. The majority

That Biden won by was eleven thousand. I mean out of five million people voting. It is astonishing how tight that was, and that was the same in Arizona, and there's every possibility that it will be the same again. And so if you're talking about polling evidence where you've got a plus or minus 4% margin of error.

Everything is still within the margin of error. And and I think a lot of the polling is still not accurate. And I think part of it I mean I was talking To somebody about this over the weekend who said, You know, it's it's astonishing how many of the US pollsters still rely on landline calling, right? We have a very different system here now. We know exactly which polsters use online, we know exactly which polsters kind of target

uh younger demographic people who maybe don't have landlines who aren't sort of, you know, attached to their homes as much, which is gonna give you a different result. And I'm not sure it is that clear in the US at the moment. And the kind of numbers that are coming out, and I think one is particularly important and we're gonna talk about the economy in more detail a little later, but that is the lead that Trump has over Kamala Harris.

Around eleven points he leads her on the issue of the economy. And for most people, I guess the economy is still the thing. So you are back to this place. Where if you are just thinking about the economy, even if you don't particularly like Trump, then you will probably vote for Trump because the economy matters. But if you think That Kamala Harris is still neck and neck, even though she's 11 points behind in the economy. I guess the flip side of that is: well, she might just.

Economic Policies and Voter Segments

Close the gap because you know in a normal race if somebody was eleven points behind on the economy, they would be eleven points behind in the polls everywhere. There's an really interesting kind of truism about American politics that the electoral college, the way it stacks up. favours Republicans that they need to do less well And still win the presidential election. And if you cast your mind back to 2016, Hillary Clinton in the popular vote gets three million votes more.

Than Donald Trump, and Donald Trump comfortably wins the Electoral College because of the way the votes stack up in individual states. I was just reading a New York Times analysis. Saying actually that is shifting. And the Republican advantage is nothing like as uh significant as it was. And therefore Harris being competitive.

in these other states that are now in play does mean that potentially the Democrats could do very well, even with Trump enjoying that advantage uh over the economy and also over immigration as well, where, you know, Trump's policy saying I I will organise the mass deportation of illegal immigrants from wherever they are.

That's popular, popular with Republicans and popular among a certain section of Democrats too. Against that. Kamala Harris's approval ratings, likability ratings, you know, have gone soaring upwards.

Since the presidential debate and her makeover since she entered the race has been remarkable. I mean, it really is a turnaround operation. But but one of the numbers that I keep coming back to is that with black voters, Biden won't In twenty twenty, I think it was eighty seven percent to Trump's twelve percent.

And when you look at the polling, Kamla is on high seventies, but she's not on high eighties. And the question is, you know, reflexively you'd think that black voters would go for Kamala. Maybe that's naive. And the truth is that for many The same issue stands, which is the economy. And if she doesn't manage to get to the same place as Biden did Then that could be part of the cost. Also, I've got to say that Donald Trump has spoken in more detail about economic policy than she has.

And he's talking about this new American industrialism. He did a speech in Savannah, Georgia. He was talking about the establishment of special economic zones where they would pay a lower rate of corporation tax of fifteen percent as opposed to twenty one percent. that anyone who wants to carm and manufacture in America, there will be subsidies for them.

Which is not unlike actually the Inflation Reduction Act, which is about, you know, bringing companies inward inward investment into America to lead the way in kind of developing renewable energy. But you know, Trump has set out quite a lot of detail. Now there are a lot of economists who say, Oh come on, this whole idea of low tax, high tariffs, that is gonna hit Americans very hard in terms of inflation.

But and you know, and we saw from twenty sixteen to twenty twenty the very limited success he had in bringing back manufacturing jobs. But at least he is setting out a plan, and I think that that is something where he still has a march over Kamala Harris. Well, that takes us on brilliantly to where we will start after the break with Megan Gorman, who is the author of All the President's Money, who can actually talk us through the economics of the presidential race right now.

Economy: Public Perception vs Data

Well joining us now is Megan Gorman. She's the author of All the Presents Money, which takes us right into the question that we were asking just before the break, which is does it all come down to the economy? for voters and does that mean this is Trump's to lose? It's great to have you on the newsagents USA, Megan. Welcome.

Yeah, thank you for having me. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of it does come down to the economy. You know, I think one of the challenges that both Biden and Harris have had is The US economy has remained resilient through the past few years, but it depends on who you are in America if you feel the economy strong. Right. And that is part of the challenge that I think Kamala Harris faces out there.

You know, we've had a strong stock market, you know, we've had a really good run in this economy. We've had low unemployment and so on. The challenge is she's not as good as articulating. as Trump is. He is a great master salesman. And so one of the things you're seeing across the board as the two of them are sort of going into the final part of this race.

is Trump is able to articulate things about, you know, how he wants to run the economy, how he wants to stimulate it, even things like the uh salt tax, the state and local tax. uh which he actually took away from Americans in twenty seventeen. He's now talking about giving it back to Americans. So he's much better at sort of explaining what he thinks he will do to help the economy.

The challenge is when you actually start to carve into it, you have to really wonder, will it actually hurt Americans more? You know, when economists have looked at both of their policy plans. They're saying the Harris plan will increase the deficit here by$2 million. The Trump plan by$4 trillion.

And this is something that I think across the board we've started to see both sides move away from, which is really cutting in spending. And that's the thing that I think irks a lot of Americans, particularly Americans who are in the higher income bracket. Megan, the the interesting thing that strikes me is that if you read the Wall Street Journal or the Financial Times, as most Americans don't. then the US economy looks pretty good.

But the narrative of ordinary people on the high street who are going to the supermarket and filling their trolley The narrative is that things are still very expensive and they've got less to spend than they did. And there seems to be a mismatch between the broad macroeconomic pic picture as economists judge it. And what Americans feel in their hearts.

Correct. And that is the hard thing, right? The the you know, going to the grocery store has gotten incredibly expensive. And I think there's this misunderstanding about inflation here that at some point all of the prices will go back to where they were pre-pandemic. And you know, while some things like used cars, that could be true, it's not gonna be the case across the board. The other challenge Americans are facing is we are five million housing units short in this country.

Now, so what you see is people are struggling to achieve what is the quote unquote American dream, which is to have their own home. So to get into a house in this country today, you really need to have six figures save to meet that 20% requirement to buy in. And so if you look at both Trump and Harris's platforms, both platforms are talking about how do we get people to be building houses.

And the thing that most Americans miss on this is the reason we're in this situation today is all the way going back to the 2008 economic crisis. When we went into that economic crisis, we were overbuilt. You know, we all know that scene in the big short where they're driving around Florida with all those empty houses. Well, the thing is, home builders got burnt during that crisis, and they never started building at the same pace of play that they were building pre-2008.

Everything is caught up to us in twenty twenty. And the problem is today Most Americans are starting to give up on that dream of buying a home. For the average American, that doesn't work. And so You know, what really has to happen is American institutions really need to become more nimble, like they did in the past over the course of American history.

But what's gotten harder is the influx of so much money into politics that it's becoming impossible to change some of these sort of institutions that are making Americans feel squeezed. So when people say they feel the economy isn't doing well to them, you know, that is their truth.

Harris's Economic Messaging Challenge

And can I ask you in terms of I mean, Trump is working very hard to portray Kamala Harris. Not as the newbie, but as the incumbent. You know. Why is she talking about changing the economy? She's had three and a half, nearly four years to do it. It's a very powerful line that. And I'm not sure that Kamala Harris

Has worked out her response to that. It seems to be that she's quite awkward on questions about the economy, whether it's in the debate or in the Oprah interview she did last week. She doesn't she doesn't sound convincing on it. No, I I would completely agree. I think Trump is the master of the soundbite, right? And I think the thing is, Kamala sort of stumbles every time they put these questions to her. I if she wants to make a difference in her polling.

She really needs to be incredibly direct about where we stand in the economy. She should say, you're right, it's broken. I mean, we are you know, in here in this country we've got a brand new Labour Prime Minister who has carte blanche essentially to say the whole system is broken because he hasn't been in power for fifteen years. Does she get to say that? Should she say that?

I think she could say that, right? First of all, I think you're you're said doing a good job of being very direct with the British public. I think she could be a little more direct and say, look, The economy is doing well for some people and not doing well for other people. We need to pull everyone together.

And if you look at her tax plan, she's very, very focused on the middle class. Um in fact, you know, to some degree, I think she shoots herself in the foot with higher earners with how she's talking about taxation. But a lot of what she wants to do with the child tax credit, the ability to give a credit for people who want to buy a house, you know, for people starting a business, these are really key things that can help people really move forward.

But she's gotta admit to people that the economy is both good and bad and that we've gotta work through the parts that are challenging. And so that's where she's making sort of missteps with sort of feeling for the American public to feel that she's being direct with them.

That being said, where she's frustrating high earners in this country is that all of a sudden she wants to start raising taxes across the board, right? Raising taxes on the income tax side, on the gift tax side, and on the estate tax side. And at the end of the day, when you think about America, one of the biggest groups of people are the farmers, right? And people who've built small businesses that now have made businesses go from, you know, maybe being worth a million dollars to ten million.

Today, under the Donald Trump law, you can pass as a married couple twenty seven million dollars free of estate tax. That law will expire at the end of twenty five and we would have went back to the Obama rule of ten million for a married couple.

Kamala wants to bring that down to seven million for a married couple. And that's causing a lot of stress in air in the Midwest. It's causing a lot of stress with small businesses and with high earners who have, you know, worked really hard to achieve the American dream.

Wealth, Aspirations, and Voter Psychology

So I think she really has to think through her plans and how she's coming across to different Americans. That is so interesting. I I I suppose the thing that struck me when I lived in America was that the attention to what was happening on the Dow Jones, what was happening on Wall Street and the you know, S P five hundred

People pay much more attention in America to stock prices than we do in Britain. And I suspect that's because more Americans have got some money in the stock market than Britons typically do. We've had three days of record highs. following the cut in interest rates by the Fed last week. Doesn't that help Kamala Harris?

You would think, right? And again, again, it's all about the messaging. You know, for a lot of Americans where why they're so focused on the stock market is one, we're being told to focus on it, right? And in particular during the Trump era of the presidency, he talked about it constantly.

But more importantly, most Americans financial futures are tied to the stock market. You know, today I think it's 21% of Americans have pensions. Ever all the rest of us are forced to, you know, rely on our 401ks, our 403Bs. So being focused on the stock market is really important. In terms of rates coming down, you know, what's really complex is most people believe if rates come down, so do mortgage rates.

And they don't correlate exactly, right? The mortgage rates are much more tied to the the bond market. And so I think that you're hearing a little bit of frustration across the board because people thought that they were gonna be able to refinance immediately. And what they're finding is well rates have softened a bit from in the mortgage market. They're not coming down as quickly as most people thought they would.

So again, all of these different things are making people feel like they just can't get ahead. And that's one of the hard things. When Trump talks about economic policy, about tax policy, he's very good at selling it. But the actual issues that he talks about might be actually more detrimental for Americans. When Trump and Kamala talk about personal wealth. What happens to the voter's mind? Because here, you know, we're in the middle of a very sort of minor but slightly aggravating um sort of

Slea scandal about I mean it sounds so petty. It's about whether our politicians are allowed to borrow or be gifted clothes. You know, not borrow, but be gifted sort of clothes. And Over there, I'm trying to work out whether anyone cares if the people running those campaigns have too much money. And my guess is they don't.

Uh w no. Well so first of all you've got a couple of things going on here. Pew Research just did a study on this You know, sixty-three percent of all Americans are incredibly frustrated by the conflicts that politicians have and the fact that most people go into pol they believe most people go into politics to make money. What's fascinating about Trump and Kamala is you've got two different bookends in American life.

Kamala is coming from the middle class. She talks about it constantly. And when you carve into her portfolio, what we've seen since 2016 is an evolution to someone who's become incredibly conflict-free. Now, she obviously has pensions from her time in San Francisco and the state of California, but she today has an ETF portfolio.

that basically doesn't favor one stock over the other. Very diversified. The same time, her husband had a really big job at a big law firm in LA. He gave up all of his partnership interests. So what you see is this divestment of conflict from her portfolio. You go and look on the Trump side, very different way to look about money, right? He's generational wealth transfer. And he's generation two. He inherited four hundred million from generation one.

Trump's job is to pass his wealth, not to, you know, his children, but really his grandchildren and his his great-grandchildren. Very different mindset in how you approach things. And so being savvy on taxes, which is what he does, not saying he's always right on how he practices his taxes, but he's very good at understanding what irk you know, upper middle class Americans in terms of their money, he's good at hitting those buttons.

Because he understands most people want to build a legacy to pass to their kid. So what you're saying is nobody minds a rich presidential candidate. They don't mind that about Trump at all, right? No, because here's the thing and this might sound weird but Trump is what most people think rich people should be like. Now, when you actually look at really wealthy people, most of them are far more subdued and they're not as, you know, you know, in your face about the money.

But for people who don't have money, he embodies the American dream. He looks like success. People don't want to hear about low income. They don't want to hear about middle class. They want to hear about aspirational, even if they can't get there. So there's a lot of practicality on the on the Harris side that most Americans should aspire to be like her.

But they look at Trump and they think that's what they should go for. And the truth is most of them are are at the same pace that like Tim Walls, our vice presidential candidate in the Democratic side. Tim Walls doesn't have a really big net worth, has pensions, sold his house when he hate became governor of of Minnesota, borrowed against his four or three B to get his kids through college.

You know, he's where most Americans are. And it's a tragedy in that sense because m he represents that struggle that Americans have today that they didn't have 40, 50, 60 years ago. And that's the real rub, I think, in American life today. You seem to be saying that look, if it's gonna come down to the economy. The chips with Trump. If it comes down to the economy, I think that he sells the plan much more believably. Do I believe we will stop taxing social security benefits and tips?

I or or you know tips that like service workers make, I find that hard to believe that we'll be able to they'll be able to get that over the finish line, but I think he's promising a rosier situation. I think that she's promising a more practical solution.

And so when it comes down to this, you know, they keep saying it's a knife fight in a phone booth here. And I think that it's gonna be a real toss up. Megan Gorman, fantastic to have you on. Really, really interesting. Thanks so much. Thanks for having me. Thank you.

Trump's 'Protector' Image and Abortion

I always thought women liked me. I never thought I had a problem. You will be protected, and I will be your protector. Women will be happy, healthy, confident, and free. You will no longer be thinking about abortion? There is a very, very strong chance that. There has never been a presidential candidate who has ever hated women more in history than Donald Trump.

But yesterday on the campaign rally you heard him deciding to be the protector of women. Which not only obviously leaves a few jaws slack. found liable for sexual abuse, etcetera, several times. But also just the the pattern of that narrative, the pattern of how patronizing it sounds, that he thinks That he thinks of women in those terms, uh needing him as a a protector. It's it's like getting a Saudi Arabian man to drive your car, frankly.

Well, honestly, the to say that women are gonna be so happy With him as president, that they won't need to think about abortion. Abortion won't be the furthest thing from their mind because he's going to bring happiness to the United States of America. This i it just doesn't bear relation to reality. And given that th the the voting in this election, you know, we spoke earlier about the number of black people voting for Trump as opposed to Harris and how that might be a problem for Harris.

There is also a danger that it becomes a problem for Donald Trump that women are gonna think Is this guy really good? Talking to me, given what's happened with Roe versus Wade, given what's happened in all sorts of states. Where they've made abortion virtually impossible and you now have to travel across America to get this done. And just to say, Oh, people are gonna be so happy

Just doesn't seem to bear any relationship to reality. I think Trump lets slip sometimes in these sort of meandering moments of the campaign rally. what he wishes would happen as opposed to what is happening. So what he really means there is, I wish people wouldn't think about abortion. But the point is, no woman in America actually was thinking about abortion an until he came along. And the Dobbs ruling.

Facilitated the overturning of Roe v. Wade. That's the point. There was there was no conversation about abortion. really until that moment. And he's now essentially telling people at his rallies, I just wish it would go away. By talking about it, you draw attention to it and the clip gets played out as we're playing it out now and people think

I has he got any idea? You know, we talk about the sort of the things that are under the surface in American elections where the pollsters find it hard to find out what is happening. I mean my side bet is on

young people going out to vote in higher numbers and women going out to vote in higher numbers as a result of these issues. Yeah, and it this is not a projection by any means. But I think I'm right in saying that the Democrats haven't lost a substantial election since the overturning of of Roe v. Wade. They they keep winning on the issue of abortion. And that's why Trump wants to turn the subject off.

And while he keeps mentioning it by mistake. Well, I suppose they would say, Republicans would say, look, we retook the House in twenty twenty two. Uh But they didn't take the house with anything like the majority that had been anticipated, and part of that was down to Roe versus Wade. It's certainly true to say.

Where abortion has been on the ballot in Ohio, Kentucky and Kansas, people have voted, women have voted in these rock red Republican states for a woman's right to choose. We'll be back next week with happier news. We'll see you then. Bye bye. Mobile Player Original Podcast.

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