Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wok F Daily with me your Girl, Daniel Moody, recording from the home Bunker. Folks, the countdown clocks have hit zero, and today is the final day to vote. It is election Day. It is a day that we here at WOKA ASKS have been talking about for what feels like a millennia. I am filled, and I'm going to try and make it through this episode without bursting into tears. I, like many of you, are filled with a lot of anxiety and stress and
fear about what comes next. And I just want us to know that the work that people have put in the door knockers, the texters, the folks that have donated, the folks that have been on air, the folks that have been sharing on their pages trying to wake people up to the existential threat that is Donald Trump and Maga, your work has been seen, it has been felt. The energy that you all have been providing me over the course of this election cycle, I truly cannot thank you enough.
We've been living in extraordinary times and the last several years have been so much. You know, there's been like this joke going around that the human was not built to deal with and handle three Trump elections in nine years, and I can't agree with that statement enough. I don't know, friends,
It's been a lot. It's been a lot, and we have to hold on to the fact that regardless of the outcome, there is going to be so much work to do, because what I hope that people take away from the last several years is that democracy is not a passive sport. Democracy requires our vigilance, our consistency, our attention, our engagement on a regular basis, not just every four years and not just every two years, but every year,
every day. And I hope you know that America makes the right choice and chooses freedom chooses equity chooses, justice chooses bodily autonomy. I don't know when we will know, but I know that I will be here with all of you finding our way through the end of dismayze. I encourage all of you to subscribe over on YouTube to the Danielle Moody channel. I will be going live tonight for my normal five pm Eastern Danielle Moody Show. I will also be live on Mary Trump Media off
and on throughout the night. I will also be live with Mehdi Hassan at some point. So I encourage you go over to YouTube follow subscribe because that is where I'll be and if you want to be kept in the loop on up to time the minute news, please do find me there. Coming up next a conversation that I had with our friend, doctor Jonathan Metzel about the stakes of this election, about the importance of this moment and where we go next. That conversation is coming to
you next. Friends, you know that whenever we have the opportunity to sit down with our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel, we are always thrilled and honored. Jonathan, we are speaking to you with one week, one week until the last day to vote. I feel like you and I have been doing a countdown for a millennia at this point.
We've been doing this for a long time.
We've been doing this for a long time. So before we dive in to our topics today, how are you feeling with one week until the final day to vote?
I'm of three minds, I will put oh.
Three, you're not of two? Damn three? Okay?
I am try minded.
Okay.
You know. On one hand, I think Harris is running an excellent campaign. There are just so many divergent coalitions and interests under the framework of the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party, I think, in other hands, would feel almost unmanageable or ungovernable and like diametrically opposed agendas in some ways. And the fact that she, I think, has created a narrative that kind of lets everybody sit under that tent and remind everybody of the bigger stakes, I think has
been a pretty incredible achievement. And so in that regard, I feel guardedly optimistic. That's my number one And I'll say that I say that in part because of kind of the energy right now, but also because I'm seeing on the ground that that kind of frame is letting different conversations happen. I mean, I'm in on campus today. We're doing a big event on guns and politics, and it's myself, a Jewish American in conversation with two pastors of local churches and a journalist, and it's hosted by
the Divinity School here at Vanderbilt. So I feel like this big tent approach reminds us of why we're under the big tent, and so on one hand, I feel good like I'm actually you can see wearing a suit today because I'm doing this big event with divinity, and so I really appreciate that. That's part number one. Part number two is that my heart and soul have been broken numerous times living here in the South, where I thought the momentum was on our side, but it turned
out the system was fixed. So in every local Senate election we've been running great candidates. We're doing it again right now, Democrats here. But because the Germander system, it just the system is not allow for the kind of change that I think a lot of people here want. And that's because there's a structural frame around it that
makes it harder. So number two is I'm guardedly optimistic because I've seen here what it feels like to be voting in Ostensibly I don't want to just say rigged like some Banana Republic way, but jerrymandering here.
That's the original rigging. That's the original stealing of elections is gerrymandering.
Yeah, And so in that regard here there's so much democratic energy and I've also felt it after horrible mass shootings and so everybody's like, oh, change is coming, but it turned out that the outcome is just determined before the way that they've done. The jerymandering here is implicated in so many ways. So that's number two. And then number three is where are we going to go on vacation when this is all over?
Honestly, I keep thinking about belize I'm gonna I'm actually going to be I'm actually going to tell the truth. Like yeah, thinking about I'm like, where's it kind of tree I haven't gone to, but like I just want to lay in the sun, I know.
Man, Like, so I don't know you and need like you've been going NonStop. I've been doing at least three events in different cities every week.
Yeah, yeah, thank you the road Yeah showed up.
I was in Allentown, Pennsylvania last week. I was in I've been in Kansas, Missouri, Boston, you name it, doing just everything I possibly can to get out there. And so in that regard, you know, I just I love the energy that I felt out there, and I also just want to go to like a warm, sunny place with the Dave and Busters that I could just go lie in for a week or something like that. So
we'll see. So I feel like, you know, this is what happens in elections, Like we're headed toward the finish line. But even this past Saturday, we did the Southern Book Festival here and I'll send you the thing like Justin Jones came and other people came. It was, it was. There's a lot of a lot of collaborative energy out.
There that sounds amazing. And I think that what I always appreciate about you is that you are on the road. You are going out and speaking to Americans and seeing America. And I think that that's what I appreciate that you bring back to WOKF is that you know, I'm not out on the road. I talk to people all over the country, but I'm not seeing it unless i'm you know, in the moments that I am traveling to really connect
with other people in real life. And I think that that is something that's really important to do, to have conversation. And I want to segue, speaking of conversation into what has now gone viral, which was a segment on Abby
Phillips's show on CNN. She does these roundtable discussions with Trump's supporters with normal people and Mehdi Hassan and Trump supporter Ryan Gerdusky, I think is his name, Ryan Gridusky said, just I mean, I don't know why anybody is shocked that you bring a racist on and then they say racist things, and then everybody's like, I can't believe the racists opened up their mouth, Like it's like, what do you expect to happen when you engage people like these
rabbit Trump supporters. But essentially, in an exchange, he insinuated that Mehdi was a terrorist for having announced his support for Palestinian people. The comment was crass, it was disgusting, it was racist. He was then removed from the show. Abby Phillips issued a statement. CNN issued a statement he will not be back on their airwaves. I want to get your reaction to, because you're a person who also believes in engaging in difficult conversations and having hard conversations.
What did you make of what you saw in the clips that have now been seen by tens of millions of people.
Well, let me first say that I think it's goes without saying that what was said was beyond inappropriate. It was unaerrable in a way, and so I think the idea that it wasn't just calling somebody terrists, it was actually a threat. And so in that regard, it was inexcusable, and I think CNN did the right thing by addressing it. You know, I'm not surprised in this moment that people are saying horrible stuff that shouldn't be news to anybody, but I thought that there was you know, a lesson
in there, right. If you're posting a rally and somebody gets up and makes a joke about Puerto Rico, for example, that is horrifically offensive, you address it head on. You don't ignore it and go on with the rally. You say, hey, wait, I just want to say, this is not who we are. And so I thought, actually, CNN did a reasonably good job in a horrible situation of addressing it. And I
would never I would. I just think it's inexcusable, and I think it's amazing the condemnation that's happened across the political spectrum. I mean, the ADL came out right away and said this was inexcusable, you know, So I think in that regard, you know, highlighted the stakes. So that's
part of it. I mean, it's just there's no there's no excuse for it, except to say, think of all the racist crap that's on our airways right now, Like it's just how can you so I can say about that, because I mean we obviously were going to talk about the Trump rally also and things like that. And I think the bigger issue is, you know, this is kind of weird, right. I know a lot of Trump supporters, and in my life, I live in Tennessee. I know
plenty of Trump supporters. I'm from Missouri, plenty of people I know or I mean, there's a lot of people voting for Trump. And I wouldn't say that every single person who's voting for Trump is a Nazi or you know whatever, even a horrible person. I mean, I have plenty of people I engage with and we just disagree about politics. But I think that these things, when they happen, it kind of reinforces the worst stereotype. I mean, in a way, if I was running the Trump campaign, I
would be trying to run away from this thing. And so I think, in a way, the idea that this guy's going to come over and do fasht things and be a racist and then he gets up and says fascist things and is a racist and is supporter or saying things like this, So.
You don't run away from who you are. And I think like that to me is like people love to think like, oh, well, if I were Donald Trump or if I were them, like I would denounce X. Well, you don't run away from who you are. And I think that that is something that is like actually one hundred percent Donald Trump where he actually stands for the only time in his truth is when he was directed to denounce white supremacy, spoon fed it here, here's a way to do it. And he's like, nah, I'm good.
But let me just say that there's a conflation in that, which is I don't think every person who supports Donald Trump is a Nazi or a racist.
That's where you and I disagree. Please go ahead.
And you know, like I know plenty of people who they support Trump because of his views on the Second Amendment. And they're not convinced that Kamala Harris all of a sudden said I'm a gun under two weeks ago. They support Trump because of the role of government in their lives. That whatever. It's not like it's not like the odious stuff is invisible to them, But they have other they have other reasons. I just I don't find it personally helpful for my life or my work to cast ninety whatever.
How many million people support Trump, like hundreds of millions of people. I don't think every single one is a Nazi.
I think that there are different reasons and so, but the thing is, you're right, Trump can't help himself, and so in a way, if this election is something that's for you know, they're centrist voters, undecided voters, people in these purple states, and I think if the appeal is to reach those voters, going on and amplifying the worst parts of your campaign is probably the worst possible way to do it. It speaks to arrogance and hubris and just a lack of political strategy. And so just for me,
it's kind of like, why are they doing it? You know, it's the week before the election. Not many things are going to move the needle. Making a horrible joke about Puerto Ricans, or calling Muslim Americans who might be on the fence of Foo to vote for terrorists and saying you're going to explode them with a beeper is something that will move the needle at this last moment. And so for me it's just morally horrible, but also strategically indepensible.
I mean, here's the thing. I'm going to say a couple of things to the points that you made. There is no way, nine years later, that someone can express to me that I'm not a racist, but I support Donald Trump. That I'm not a misogynist, but I support Donald Trump. That I am not an islamophobe or a transphobe, or a homophobe or an able list, but I support
Donald Trump. There is no way that you can point to me after nine years of listening to this man, after nine years of rallies, of rhetoric, of conferences, of interviews where Donald Trump and all of his supporters have unabashedly said that they are racist, that they support racism, that they support white supremacists, that instead of playing our national anthem, that you play the anthem of insurrectionists, that you praise people like Robert E. Lee, that you talk
about the fact that Hitler has done some good things, and that people all of a sudden can say like, oh, you know, I'll put on my gas mask because I don't want the odor to get to me. But there are some good things in this steaming pile of hot shit that I can find, Like it just is not, and I think that for far too long we've done too much part in parceling to try and find what is left that is good inside of this party that has told us time and time again that there is
nothing left that is good here. When you can go and host a Nazi rally in the middle of New York City, to do so as a show of strength and force and terrorism, to show that you can be anywhere and do anything, because that's what that was. It goes back to when they would lynch black people and leave the bodies hanging from trees as a warning to other black people that were around not to cross a line. That is what they are doing. So this form of hubris and ego and intimidation is to say, we don't
give a fuck. There are no lines anymore, right, there are no lines that shoot or should not be crossed to me, CNN cross that line when you decided to open up your airwaves to people to lie to the American people, and you think that that was like offering both sides. So I feel like at this point it is disingenuous for us to even comment on and think that there are people that are left that are Trump's
supporters that do not harbor the same sentiments. They may not speak on them with the same vitriol that Donald Trump and his most advanced supporters do, but they are there holding the flags and standing at the rallies and going to punch a ballot that says I want more of this.
So that is not accept No, I'm not in any way saying that it's acceptable, and I'm also not saying that people are. I guess what I am saying is this, if I distill a doubt having done a lot of research and spent a lot of time in a lot of communities across America where racism and ableism and homophobia
are not the main registers. I mean, if you're in like an all white part of southern Missouri, or you're living in an all white part of Tessee or Kentucky, racism just isn't your framework, right, It's not your framework. And so the moral umbrage of somebody saying racist stuff, You're going to reach some people who say this is morally unacceptable. But for other people, their daily lives, the register of their daily lives is government interference in their lives.
And the plant closing and competition from China and all these kind of things, And so I just don't agree that every person who's drawn to Trump is drawn because
of the racism. I also think that there are plenty of people for whom racism just is not really a category, and so part of the story is And again I started by saying, I think that Harris and Wolves are doing a great job of reaching out to people about economics, even in a slight way, about guns, about other things that people vote for, because I think those are the
people who are potentially willing to listen. But I don't agree that every single person who supports the GOP does so because they resonate with the racism, and and I'm hoping there are plenty of people who are repulsed by all of this. But again, I also think at a strategy level, we're a week before the election, there are very few things that will move the needle, and that if Trump loses, that Madison Square Garden rally is going to go down in the annals of political history as
one of the biggest screw ups. Ever, I hope that's the case.
I hope that it is the case as well, because I think that the things that were said from that stage were not jokes. They were statements. They were feelings that were given an enormous platform, from Rudy Giuliani to the podcaster to the guy who said, oh, I never thought I'd be at a Nazi rally, but like here I am. You know, these people know what they're doing, they know what they're saying. Stephen Miller America. For Americans, the hoods are off, the nuances and the euphemisms are gone.
They're saying what they're saying because they believe that they have the power and that they will win. Right Like, you don't pull moves like what they've done over the last couple of days unless you think that you're going to win, Because normal people would be trying to grow the electorate and bring people in, and instead they've said fuck it. Our closing argument is racism, misogyny, and we're doubling and tripling down.
And as we said last week in either people were laughing about cognitive decline, which I don't buy for a second about Trump. I mean, it's irrelevant, but there was something terrifying for me.
Really, you don't think there's any deterioration that's there.
I mean, it doesn't matter. I think we denature the content when we call it some kind of a mental illness, you know, or something like that. So whether or not that's true, I really don't care, But I would say that for me, there was something terrifying about a guy who spent a whole press conference just rocking out to like Haul and Oates.
Or whatever for thirty nine minutes, yeah.
And all the other crazy stuff, and it made me feel like, there's something about this that is not there's something structurally amiss. I've seen that kind of behavior here in Tennessee when people don't. I mean, we've got a guy running for Congress here who just openly left his wife and ran off with somebody else, and he's like the morality candidate he's running against, like this really good
candidate here. But there was another candidate here who was a physician who got caught having relations with his patients. It didn't matter because the fix was already in in terms of jeremandering. And so when I see Trump acting like that, I'm just like, what what does he know? So partially it's maybe the fix is in, but the other part is, as we know from Trump, a loss
can also be incredibly generative. Also, and so maybe they're setting the stage for stuff that happens either So it's to me scary either way.
It's scary either way. And I think AOC Alexandrio Cassio Cortez said it really well yesterday where she said that the display at Madison Square Garden was really to prime his audience for violence. Yeah, to prime and pump them for violence in the way that his tweets and messages did in twenty twenty, and to do so in a bigger way.
And let's not also forget that he also tried to JFK Junior out there, RFK Junior out there. Sorry, who's going to destroy the public health system and medications, vaccines and public health? So every person was like a wrecking ball to something, you know.
All right, my friend, Well we will leave it there, and the next time help we speak, it will actually be election day.
Well let's invoke Casey casem one last time here, you know, tell everybody to keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars. You know, So that's this is our week to do it. I have to say I voted in Tennessee. There were all this social media stuff about how there were tar pits on fire and seventy five hour waits. I went there. It was the smoothest thing ever. It took five minutes, very well run. I was like, wait what and they're like, yeah, it's
actually it actually works pretty well here. So you know, don't believe the hype. Get out there, vote and you know, save America amazing.
Thank you, my friends, and we will talk again soon. Stay safe, and dear friends, remember that if you are voting today and it is nine PM, or it is when the polls close wherever you are, if you are standing in line, you are still able to cast your ballot.
Do not let anyone tell you otherwise. Spread that word that if you are in line and the voting has stopped or the polls have closed, if you are standing in line when the polls close, you can still cast your ballot, and do not let anyone tell you otherwise. Stay safe, stay vigilant, protect yourselves, protect each other, be in community with people. If you see something that is going awry, then say something. We need each other now more than ever. I will see you, dear friends on
the other side. That is it for me today on wokef as always Power to the people and to all the people power, get woke, and stay woke as fuck.