Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
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Coverage that is possible.
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Speaker 3 (00:20):
But enough with that, let's get to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday, have an amazing show for
everybody today.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
What do we have, prysonal indeed, we do, guess what, guys,
one week, seven day to election day. We are taking
a look this morning at the top ads for each
campaign where they are spending the most dollars, making their
closing cases very interesting. Contrast in terms of what their
theory of how to move voters in these final days.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
Are is whatever. I don't know. Well, thank flish. Language
is really going well this morning, all right.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
We also are going to take a look at the
bull case for Kamala. We've been looking at some negative
indicators for her, some positive indicators for Trump, so today
we wanted to flip the script into there are a
few pieces of news that fit nicely into.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
That, So we're going to make that case.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
We also are going to take a look at how
Trump is prepping Stop the Steal two point zero and
whether or not those efforts could be successful given that
you have new legislation that's passed, given that he is
no longer president of the United States. So we'll dig
into the weeds with that, so everybody knows what to
expect were he to lose the race next week. Both
camps out there playing for the Muslim vote, especially in
(01:28):
the state of Michigan. Barack Obama making some interesting comments
yesterday that comes on the heels of Trump securing some
Muslim endorsements that he touted in that state, which of
course is crucial. Elon is being sued over his big
daily million dollar lottery by the Philly DA and he
also his organizing efforts on the ground have come under
scrutiny to see whether or not they have been successful.
(01:49):
On the Trump campaign's behalf. We're also doing a little
follow up, just a quick follow up on this whole
Washington Post story. We added this yesterday when we found
out that after Bezos decided that they were not going
to endure in this race. They have lost more than
two hundred thousand subscribers.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Yesterday the number we were getting was two thousand.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, then NPR was able to report by yesterday midday,
so it's undoubtedly more than this.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
At this point, they had lost.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
More than two hundred thousand subscribers. That is like ten
percent of their subscriber base, so they are bleading subscribers
at this point. Bezos himself felt the need to come
out and publish it on BED. I don't think it
helped matter, So we'll bring you all of that, and
then I have a monolog today and taking a look
at Trump's most important potentially moment on Joe Rogan, which
went a little bit undernoticed given the Wale psychologists discussion
(02:41):
and then the whole Madison Square gardens situation. But something
important that we should all take a look at. There
we go, that's what's on TEP.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Before we get to that. Thank you to all of
our premium subscribers. We're really excited one week to election day,
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You can take advantage.
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We have a lot of fun stuff literally running a
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Speaker 3 (03:08):
A lot into it.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
So if you want to sign up support that, Breakingpoints
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So we're really excited. We've got a whole week of
coverage and all that planned. No matter what happens, we
will be there right there with you. So, as Chrystal said,
let's start with the ads, and the ads give us
a lot of insight into the dollar figures that are
being spent and similarly, what most people are hearing. I
(03:31):
know a lot of people will watch this show and
who are online. You guys are consuming a lot of stuff.
But if you're just you know, living your life in
the Pennsylvania and Arizona, in Wisconsin or others, this is
most likely what you are going to see on your airwave.
So we're going to start with Kamala Harris and the
two ads that have the most money behind them in
the Swing States.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Let's take a listen a lot of money. I know,
Richard Well, we're going to Twitter.
Speaker 5 (04:00):
I am not rich as hell. I work hard. I
scrape to get by. Donald Trump wants to give tax
breaks to billionaires, but Kamala Harris has plans to help us.
She's going to crack down on price gouging and cut
taxes for working people like me. I voted for Donald
Trump before, but this time I'm voting for Kamala.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
I no, what are you doing.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
You're rich as hell. I'm going to give you. I'm
not rich as hell.
Speaker 6 (04:29):
I'm the one that really needs to break not the
people that are already rich and have the money. The
one percent don't serve anybody but themselves, So for them
to get a tax break, no, that's not cool. Kamala
Harris is gonna make billionaires pay their fair share, and
she's gonna cut taxes for working people like me. I'm buddy,
and I'm not rich as hell, and I'm voting for
Kamala Harris.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
F F Pact is responsible for the content of this ad.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
So those were the two ads. They've got what forty
something million dollars behind them. Now you can clearly see
that it's very focused on the richest. Hell comment, I
wouldn't note that that second ad that resident is from Allentown, Pennsylvania.
I've come to know the region well, it's for my
wife's family is from. Ronald Trump will actually be there
today because of a big swinging area. It also is
(05:13):
the first test. It has one of the largest Puerto
Rican populations in the state. And having been there, I
can tell you there's yard signs everywhere for both candidates.
So in terms of the enthusiasm, they certainly take it
seriously for who they're going to vote for. But it
is certainly that last part is one that you're seeing
quite a bit on the airwaves, specifically for Kamala Harris
(05:35):
on that And frankly, I was a little bit surprised
because if you also from my own experience having been there,
watch some Eagle game or Phillies game. Well there it
was a lot more abortion ads that I saw. But
it maybe things have changed in the last month or
so on this tax and a billionaire one.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
But look, it's not a bad strategy.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Obviously, It's one that anybody who watches this show would
be able to connect to and could understand why that
would move swing voters so very much, could be the
thing that pushes over the edge.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah, they're going for class war, and obviously I'm here
for it. You know, I've been seeing one in Virginia
that is similar that says, like, you know, Canada Day
is for the billionaires and actually even has a picture
of Trump with Jeffrey Epstein and a bunch of other Yeah,
which is kind of noteworthy. And then Canada be is
for you is basically the idea so very much in
line with this. The first one we showed you also
hit the note of like, listen, I voted for Trump
(06:24):
in the past, this time I'm going with Kamala Harris.
So one thing that's noteworthy to me is while a
lot of what is you know, what the speeches are
about Kama's coming out and doing this speech on the ellipse,
is that today that might be today actually, but she's
giving that big, like closing speech on the Ellipse that's
supposed to be about like democracy and those larger threats.
They're talking a lot about the comments from John Kelly saying, hey,
(06:46):
I serve with this guy and he is a.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
Fascist to the core.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
While they're doing that in terms of the sort of
national media messaging, what they're actually putting paid and like
what they're running paid ads on is this much more
class economic focus message. And you know, some of the
polling indicates that this has helped to move voters so
that she has at the very least narrowed the gap
(07:10):
with Trump on the economy. Some polls show that she
is actually exceeding him or has matched him with regard
to who people feel will be better for the economy.
Every pole I've seen shows voters giving her an edge
on who would be better for the middle class. That's
obviously the message they're driving here. So you know, in general,
I think it's pretty smart strategy.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
And then for Trump, I mean clearly, and I've been
talking about this, it's immigration all day long, and we're
going to get to issues and what people say is
their top I honestly kind of don't believe them anymore.
I've gotten to that just because of where the way
that the dollar figures are being spent on various different things,
and also in terms of.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
What's moving the needle.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Could be wrong, though Kamala certainly does win. So here
are two of the biggest ads with money behind Donald Trump,
Let's take a listen.
Speaker 7 (07:54):
His San Francisco DA liberal Kamala Harris later killers go free,
and as California Attorney Gender, Kamala continued to put criminals first.
After a little girl was raped and buried alive, laws
were passed to keep sex offenders away from children, Kamala
ignored Jessica's law and allowed convicted sex offenders to live
near schools and parks. Kamala Harris has always put criminals first.
(08:18):
Don't make America her next victim. Make America Great Again, Inc.
Is responsible for the content of this advertising.
Speaker 8 (08:24):
He murdered a father of three sentenced to life in prison.
Kamala Harris pushed to use tax dollars to pay for
his sex change.
Speaker 9 (08:32):
I made sure that they changed the policy so that
every transgender inmate would have access.
Speaker 8 (08:38):
It sounds insane because it is insane. Kamala was the
first to help pay for a prisoner's sex change.
Speaker 9 (08:44):
The power that I had, I used it in a
way that was about pushing for the movement. Frankly, and
the agenda.
Speaker 8 (08:49):
Kamala's agenda is they them, not you.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
I'm Donald J. Trump, and I approved this message.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
That last when I heard over and over again when
I was there in Pennsylvania. But I mean, look, I
think it's clearly that they have some different theories about
what is going to move people, and actually, can we
put a sticks up on the screen, because this is
really what it all comes down to our people. What
do people mean when they say certain things are their
top issues? So here is from Pew researchers came out
(09:15):
last month. The economy is the top issues for voters
in twenty twenty four. Number one is the economy amongst
Harris and Trump supporters and all voters at eighty one percent.
Number two is healthcare at sixty five. Three is Supreme Court, four,
foreign policy, five, violent crime six Immigration. But the thing is,
how can you look at those ads where that are
(09:37):
being run and say that this comports with that and
specifically in terms of what switches it like If healthcare
is truly number two, I don't see a single person
talking about healthcare in terms of that concepts of a
plan answer from Trump, which obviously was ridiculous, But then
you would assume if that was so devastating that the
Harris campaign would be pumping it into every swing state
(09:57):
living room.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
They seem to believe that they can compete.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
As you said on this better for the middle class question,
a lot of people still do trust Trump on the economy.
The spread is not the way that it used to be,
but it's pretty clear that immigration is that number one now.
The other theory is that if you do look at
the spread between immigration and between immigration for Democrats and Republicans,
immigration is a number two issue for Republicans, right, and
(10:22):
then violent crime is what I think number three, just
eyeballing it there. So if that's true, then the other
way we could read it is that Trump's ads are
all about driving his base and making sure that turnout
is as high as possible, whereas with Kamala, obviously they
have abortion, which is one of their top issues. But
for them it says, what, if I'm reading correctly, healthcare,
(10:43):
Supreme Court are their top issues.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
I don't hear a lot of that coming out of them.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
So maybe theirs is more of a swing state strategy
and they're just banking on these voters who are already
committed Dems on abortion to come out and vote. But
either way, none of this is one hundred percent like
aligns with the app As we've seen Crystal.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
I mean, it's it's culture war versus class war in
terms of the closing messages that they are making on
the airwaves. And I don't think that it's necessarily surprising
given the way that Trump has run campaigns in the past,
that his is a base turnout strategy. Yeah, you know,
that's part of why you see the like Madison Square
Garden rally and letting their freak flag fly, like very
(11:23):
different from how you would normally position yourself for a
general election. And you know, we'll see I've seen some
polling that suggested that the you know, the ad attack
attacking Kamala Harris on transgender issues in particular, has been
very ineffective in that many voters couldn't even recall that
they'd seen it, in spite of the fact that it's
blanketed the airwaves. And then you know, on the hair side,
(11:45):
I think you're right that they're looking more at That's
part of why having the Republican they're saying I used
to be with Trump, now I'm with Kamala. They're really
trying to go at that sort of moderate swing voter
they're still in.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
They're in the mode of still trying.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
To persuade some of those swing voters that they think
are gettable for them, potentially in the suburbs. And so
that's the direction that they're ultimately going in. You know,
from based on the polling research that that we've seen
what Matt KRP shared with us from the Center for
Working Class Politics about the messages that work best, especially
in the swing state of Pennsylvania. You know, they found
(12:20):
that the uh, basically class war like the strong populist
message pulled best in terms of moving voters. The second
was progressive economics that you know move voters, and then
way down the list was the threat to democracy message.
So you know, it seems like the Harris people are
seeing that and at least in terms of their paid communications,
(12:43):
are responding accordingly. And you know, I guess one of
the big questions is how much paid community communications to
move anybody at this point, you know, is it? But
even if it's marginal, the tens of millions of dollars
that are blanketing the airwaves, you have to think that
it accounts for something. The last thing I'll say about
the Trump campaign strategy, which we mentioned before, is these
ads are not just about those specific issues they're also
(13:06):
about painting a portrait of Kamala Harris as having these
like weird extreme ideas and it's not worthy to me too.
In terms of the different strategies, this was something we
saw in the dollar figures previously. The Democratic campaign is
doing some straight negative but most of their ad dollars
and that's what we saw on the two ads that
we ran for you are a contrast, right, They're about,
(13:28):
here's a positive for Kamala Harris in contrast to a
negative for Donald Trump. The Trump is campaign is leaning
heavily into just negatives, not building up Trump. Not a contrast,
but like, let's try to dirty u Kamala Harris, Let's
make you question whether she's really the person that you
want there as commander in chief.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
And probably that has to do, you know.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Partly with just like a different philosophy about what moves voters,
and also the fact that she does have a higher
approval rating than him, so they probably feel like they
need to bring her back.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Down there as a bit. That's what I mean for Trump.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Everybody on Earth at this point knows how they feel
about Donald Trump, positively or negatively. I don't think building
him up is going to change all of that. But
the last part I would really get to is this
theory paid communications versus earned media, And I'm just a
firm believer that earned media in the national media environment
is just so much more important.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Even putting earned a side.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
So, for example, Kamala may be done by how much
is it forty million behind those two ads? I think
we just said, But I mean the truth is is
that the majority of her media coverage in the last
two weeks has been almost all Liz Cheney democracy focused.
That was what her event, and I think it was
in Malvern, Pennsylvania, one of the wealthiest suburbs of the
Philadelphia mainline with Liz Cheney was all about similar in Michigan.
(14:45):
Her her event, I think today is about democracy the fascism.
I mean, this has become like basically mainstream if you
look on CNN or any elsewhere in terms of what
the majority discussion is is all about, like Trump is
a fascist and all that. I mean, Frank, look again,
I could be two twenty sixteen rose colored glasses, but
(15:06):
it's all been tried before, and if any I mean,
it's the least original argument in the book. Trump is
going to be a fascist. Trump is going to be
a dictator. The other side of it would be exactly
what I just said about Donald Trump. This is a
base turnout strategy. Democrats hate Trump. You know, I'm walking
around my neighborhood, which is ninety something percent for Biden dictatorship.
(15:28):
Bad signs are everywhere. Stop Project twenty. I mean, this
is the beating heart of true Blue. But I mean
these people are fired up, They're ready to vote. And
I saw somebody say that Democrats seem more enthusiastic than
they have been since a campaign.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Of Barack Obama.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Obviously Barack Obama won twice, right, so that's not a
bad thing, yeah, to be at, but some of the
turnout data doesn't necessarily comport with that. We're going to
do a segment soon about early vote. It actually is
not looking terrible for a comma, but I have seen
the warning signs. I think is in Milwaukee, for example,
black turnout is like a forty year low. There's a
little bit different signs in Georgia, but low blackturn it
(16:06):
would not be what happened with Barack Obama.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
So of course, you know, we can look in every
different direction.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
What we're all just trying to do here is just
show people this is what swing voters are more likely
to see. But they're also very likely to consume a
lot of national media through the ether, not through watching
CNN or elsewhere, through online, through clips, through this show,
any other podcast that people listen to, and I'm just
generally going.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
To bet on the ladder for what people are really
going to hear.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
I think probably for Democrats, the messaging about fascism and
the danger, the sort of existential danger that Donald Trump
poses to the country, that's probably about bringing their.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
Own voters home.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
Yeah, that's what I was thinking, And.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
There has been some signs of that, by the way.
For example, there was a poll, an NDABLEACP poll of
black men in particular, and they had pulled them before,
and it showed black men shifting back towards Kamala Harris,
her winning especially among young black men, her winning black
men in this particular poll overall at the same rates
as Joe Biden. So I do think some of the messaging,
(17:11):
the sort of earned media messaging from the Harris campaign
and the speech she's giving, etc. Is about kind of
bringing people who typically vote Democratic, who are maybe disgusted
with the Biden policy potentially on the Warren Gaza trying
to bring them back home. I think it's probably some
of the strategy there. And then you know, I mean,
Trump doesn't do himself any favors with having this Madison
(17:32):
Square Garden rally where he's calling where his warm up
backs is calling Puerto Rico and island garbage and making
all kinds of other offensive comments throughout the night, not
just from the comedian, and that Nate Silver had a
write up of whether or not he thought that would
make a difference. Move the needle can put that up
in the screen.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
He thinks it could be. And the reason is he
looks at in.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Particular the Google search traffic for Trump and it has
spiked after the Madison Square Garden rally. Now maybe you
think that's the positive because hey, Trump's you know, dominating
the narrative, blah blah blah. But I think more this
is feeding a democratic narrative about the reminding people of
(18:13):
the negatives, the reasons they soured on Donald Trump before,
and his approval rating had especially post assassination, had assassination
attempt had creeped up and kind of stayed there. So
there is room for him for those negatives to creep
back up.
Speaker 4 (18:30):
So in that sense, I don't really agree with. I
know it's a common analysis.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
I understand where it comes from, that like none of
these scandals really stick to him, but he does historically.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
Have like a low approval rating.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
He did lose in twenty twenty, his party did poorly
in both twenty eighteen and surprisingly in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
So and I don't know.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
That it's totally accurate. He can, there is no doubt
he can get away with things that would be total
career enders for virtually any other politician. But the idea
has no impact at all. I don't really buy that,
because we have seen how his approval rating has been
consistently negative in part because of these sorts of stuns
as usual.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
The state the case can be overstated in both directions.
I would put it what you just said is that
in general, these things don't tend to stick. In twenty twenty,
lose by some forty thousand votes across three states. It's
not exactly an overwhelming mandate by Joe Biden.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
And if we consider I.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Mean, he won the popular vote by four and a
half percentage, right, But that doesn't matter any won all
the critical battleground states. So yeah, it's I mean, sometimes
on how.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
You look at Georgia ten thousand in Arizona. I forget
what the other I think is Michigan.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Right, But I'm just saying, you know, when you lose
the popular vote by almost five percentage points, like that
is a significant vote against you. And given the fact
that now the gap has likely closed between the electoral
college and the popular vote, like you know, if you certainly,
if you if he faced today a four and a
half point loss, it would be a landslide in terms
(19:55):
of the battleground states all going to Kamala Harrison definitely.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
But that doesn't look like if that's going be the case.
I mean, if anything, what I think with Trump is
a lot of this stuff is baked in and ultimately
what will swing the so called swing independent voters. And
it's just difficult, I think for anybody who does this
for a living or has long standing and well held
political beliefs to understand it's just not how those people
(20:18):
think maybe this will be enough to push them over
the edge. But something that has been consistent with these
swinging independent voters, the things that piss them off or
not the things that may piss you off, or any
other like liberal commentator, same vice versa. By the way,
for you know, anybody who's on the right, you know,
somebody who's saying that is something verboten to us or ridiculous,
doesn't sound all that ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Whenever it goes to a swing voter.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
What actually moves them is almost impossible to determine. It's
like alchemy in terms of what the actual like spotlight
on Trump is going to see. One of the reasons
my bias, and again this is a bias tells me
that it's probably good for him, is that the more
reason control of the conversation, the better off that he is.
As it has been in the past for his approval ratings. Now,
(21:01):
the question is about whether things have shifted enough from
twenty twenty two onward for people to take this very
very seriously in the way that they did then that
they didn't, let's say, in twenty and sixteen, and same
with Republican voters. Now, the Republican voter data would have
to comport with the idea that there is some long
heald like revulsion with Trump, but there hasn't it hasn't happened. Like,
(21:24):
if the Liz Cheney Democratic theory of like, oh, drump
is so bad that he's turning people off were true,
you would see higher percentage of Republicans not wanting to
vote for him. But I mean, in the New York
Times Santa Poal, Trump is actually doing better with Republicans
and Kama is doing with Democrats. Now we're talking about
two and four points. Okay, so let's not overstate the
case either direction. But my point is you would want
(21:45):
that number to be like ten percent.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
Now.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
The other theory is anybody who's still pissed off by Trump,
they're not Democrats or they're not Republicans anymore. They left
the party a long time ago. And in fact, if
you roll the tape, I kind of predicted that in
twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Yeah, I was totally wrong.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
I've thought that there actually would be, you know, some
sort of pushback or whatever. But yeah, by and large,
it hasn't been the case people reconcile themselves to Trump.
I think the Biden presidency has not been good, and
so based on that a lot of people are willing
to just come home and have negative polarization and partisanship.
I genuinely have no clue. We will obviously find out
on election day. But everybody who thinks that these are
(22:20):
enders for Trump, I mean, how many times does an
old Donnie need to wriggle his way out for us
to learn a different lesson? In terms of what people
actually see when they see this man, It's almost certainly
not what most people will commentate on this for a
living as I.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Just think that analysis is very twenty sixteen, Yeah, when
he has been consistently losing since then, and so two
things are different. I mean, the major thing that's different
is that he himself is trying for a different coalition
than he was in twenty sixteen. In twenty sixteen, it
was all about let me just juice the numbers with
the white working class, and obviously in key swing states
(22:56):
that was enough. This time, they have seen erosion with
white voters, especially white college educated voters. So to try
to make up for that, it's about going after you know,
these less frequent black and brown younger men in particular,
and so you know, it's not the same group that
you're going after. And I think the campaign realizes that
(23:19):
there may be more sensitivity around some of these comments
with their aspired to voting coalition than there was in
the past. So, for example, the Trump campaign distanced themselves
from the Tony Hinchcliff joke about Puerto Rico being an
island of trash. Every single Republican I think in Florida immediately,
Marco Rubio, Rick Scott, all these different Republican members of
(23:42):
Congress in Florida came out and condemned the comments. The
head of the Republican Party in Puerto Rico condemned the comments.
So you know, it's not just like me, some lefty
liberal commentator saying it. The Trump campaign clearly sees it
as an issue as well.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Yeah maybe, I mean, frankly, I think that's kind of
a stupid strategy. First of all, because it was literally
at your rally, so there's.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
No disowning it. Number one.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
But number two is again like, if we really believe
this theory of black and Latino voters, it's just incorrect.
If it's going to push you over the finish line,
Like we're this tiny slice of the electorate. It's maybe
eight percent in the swing states, especially in the wider
states across the blue wall white voters is the whole ballgame. Ironically,
(24:29):
there are a lot of like, very racist commentators who
often throw this at Trump because they're like, hey, man,
why are you've chasing the black vote? Whites are the
only ones who actually matter for you, and look, you know,
weird horseshoe theory. I kind of agree with them, just
on a statistical basis that their whole like you know,
what was it First Step Act and all this, it
hasn't really done anything in terms of pushing people to
(24:50):
come out and vote for Trump predominantly.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
I just read a study yesterday.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
A big part of the reason that the Latino shift
has happened amongst Latino men's specific is based on literally
Latin x verbiage and on an aversion to cultural liberalism
that has nothing to do with Trump or even like
a Puerto Rico comment or whatever. It has to do
(25:15):
much more with like cultural conservatism deep at heart. And also, frankly,
a lot of these people are more working class and
are not college educated and thus have a very different
like cultural more that they swim in as opposed to
everybody else. So that seems to be, you know, the
only reason it's happened, I guess is a long way
of saying is I don't think the Puerto Rico joke
is gonna matter that much.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
I really don't.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
I mean again, like if if somebody makes a joke
about where you're from and that's literally enough for you
to come out and vote for somebody.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
Else, to me, that seems insane.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
But I mean, maybe you know all the Puerto Ricans
this country thing differently than me.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
I'd like to think I'm more like everybody else. It
just seems to me that the reason why they would
come out to vote is number one of this long standing,
like years long aversion to cultural liberalism.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
As they said in.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
That I think as an NBER study, we can maybe
talk about it next week.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
But that's that's.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
What the driver just seems to be behind a lot
of this black and Latino movement. But at the end
of the day, you know, the ballgame is still white
working class voters, because all he needs to do, with believe,
is turn out at twenty sixteen levels or slightly above
from twenty twenty, and he could still win with no
more increase in the black or the Latino vote.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Yeah, I mean, and when a race is really really close,
like If it's as close in the Swing States as
it was last time, then you could look at any
one community and say a little bit of a erosion year,
a little bit of erosion there is what made the difference.
I mean, PENNSYL Vnue what they're like half a million
people who are of Puerto Rican descent, and I have
(26:43):
no special insights into that community, but I do know
that it's been reported.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
Like you know, Spanish language talk radio is all over it.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Bad Bunny has apparently moved elections in the past, and
he is all over like every basically Puerto Rican star
is all over it. People are calling into radio stations
locally in Philly and saying, I was thinking about Trump,
but there's no way I'm going to vote for that man. So,
you know, can it make some difference on the margins?
I think it's possible. I think it's possible. I don't
want to oversell it, right, I don't want to say, leoh,
(27:11):
this is the ballgame.
Speaker 4 (27:12):
It's over for him.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
But when you tie that into not just the specific
impact on like you know, Puerto Ricans, but how it
feeds into the Harris messaging about how this person is,
what does she say, she says like unhinged, unstable, and
the messaging about you know, him being a danger and
just someone you really don't want a position of power.
(27:35):
He gave them ammunition in the final week, and I
think it's pretty clear from his campaign's reaction that they
think it could be a problem for him. I just
know if I was looking at, you know, how the
Democrats were closing and there was some equivalent you know,
scandal on the Democratic side, and all of their ad
dollars were going to, like, let me push out these
(27:56):
niche culture war issue ads that really only appealed to
the Democratic base, I would be like, this is you,
this is preposterous that you're closing this way. And so
now I don't think that the Trump campaign is closing. Well,
that doesn't mean they're going to lose, but you know,
I don't think that they're putting their best forward, in
my foot forward, in my opinion, in this final week.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
Let's go and.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
Shift to the.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Bowl case for Kamala Harris, because we have talked about,
you know, yesterday we talked about the polls shifting towards Trump.
We showed you some of those indications that his campaign
feels very confident about where they're standing at this point.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
Kamala Harris will start with this.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
She went on Club Shayshay, this is Shannon Sharp's program.
This was released yesterday, and you know it was a
very like friendly.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
It was all.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
It was as all these podcast interviews have been. It
was again makes me deeply depressed about the media landscape
in which we exist. But in any case, let's take
a listen to a little bit of how that went.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Well.
Speaker 9 (28:56):
So I'm really glad you brought that up, Shannon. So
first of all, let's clear up certain myths. Okay, you
know those checks that went out.
Speaker 5 (29:02):
Yes, those Skimmy's right, stimulus check?
Speaker 3 (29:06):
Yeah, I know, well, right, we gotta be stimulus. But
they called him stimmy. It's okay.
Speaker 9 (29:14):
The reason those came about is because there was a
Democratic majority in the House of Representatives in Congress, people
like Maxine Waters, people like Hakeem Jeffries right, yes, who
did the work of pushing to say people need help
right now and we need to send out checks. There
was a whole lot of opposition to it, including from
(29:35):
Donald Trump's White House.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
Yes, even him, I think he was Yes.
Speaker 9 (29:41):
That's why those checks.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
Remember Congress holds the purse.
Speaker 9 (29:44):
Yes, so really Congress wrote those checks. But then Donald Trump,
unlike any president before after, decided he put his name
on those checks.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
So therefore people thought.
Speaker 9 (29:53):
So people thought, Donald Trump, they gave me that check.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
So similar messaging has been coming from Barack Obama when
he's been on the trail about like, oh, Trump's taking
credit for the economy being good. When he came in,
that was me. I'm the one who built that economy.
So her trying to you know, close the gap again
with Trump on the economic issues, and obviously on this podcast,
attempt to reach young men, young black men in particular,
(30:18):
and sort of you know, humanize herself with that group.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
I guess.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
I mean, if you listen to it that by the way,
that was like thirty minutes into the convent, maybe twenty
five minutes. I believe the rest of the time was
about music or whatever, and man, we need to fundraise.
If you know, there was how many ad breaks were there?
I counted nine. I could be wrong while I was
listening to it. So Shannon, buy yourself a new sup bro.
Contact me, let me know I can help you out
in terms of in terms of the actual content.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
I don't know. It seemed to deeply cringe worthy to me.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
As you said, it's been fitting with this politic this
U the podcast Election.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
Podcast, Election sucks basically a lot of fans.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
I mean, it's just bullshit, is the best way I
could describe. He even opened the interview, He's like, and
we hope that you win. I was like, come on, bro, Like,
what are we doing here. It's not even a pretense
of a challenge on anything. Now, let's shift to the billcase,
because they obviously these you know, stimulus checks didn't matter
last time around. And let's think about where the signs
(31:16):
could be for Kamala Harris that most people are not
aware of right now, and in the early vote, there
are some signs that show that there's actually quite a
bit of strength. Let's put this up there on the screen.
This was really interesting. This was what you go amongst
forty eight, seven hundred and thirty two, like thos actually
(31:39):
a huge sample. And then if you actually dig into it,
what you start to look at is the swing from
fifty one percent for Kamala Harris and then forty seven
percent for Donald Trump that would crystal would be the
same four points that Biden effectively won the popular vote
by last time around, Yeah, which could be enough to
put him over the edge. And if you combine that
with some of the other early vote numbers that were
(32:00):
beginning to see it could be a sign of strength. Frame.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Yeah, if we leave this up on the screen, you know,
this is a large enough stamp. This is the largest
survey of voters that we will get. Forty eight thousand
likely voters is a preposterously large number. The methodology here
is a little bit different. They do a pre and
post election interview. The data from that study they make
(32:26):
available to scholars. This is something that's done every year,
so this is a large scale survey of political attitudes.
They run it then through their own likely voter model
in order to come up with these numbers. So they
give a four point gap in favor of Kamala Harris.
That's the same amount that ipso's ABC poll that we
covered yesterday had in favor of Kamala Harris, and your
right to point out that's roughly the margin of victory
(32:48):
and the popular for Joe Biden as well.
Speaker 4 (32:50):
Just keep this up for another second.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
You know a couple things that jump out here, The
gender gap, they have Kamala Harris actually winning men forty
nine eight, very different than other surveys that we've seen.
You know, that could indicate they're picking up something that
other surveys aren't. They could indicate that their survey is wrong.
They have Kamala Harris with a significant gap with women
(33:13):
fifty three forty two, so that's noteworthy. They show her
per performing basically the way Biden did among young voters
eighteen to thirty nine. She wins them fifty nine to
thirty seven. If you look at the rural urban suburban split,
they have her dominating the urban category, winning the suburban category,
which I believe Trump has won in the past, and
(33:35):
then obviously losing bad in the rurals to Donald Trump.
So that's the data that they show here, and so
we can ask the question, Okay, well, how has this
survey done in the past, since this is something that
they do every time. Last time in twenty twenty, they
actually precisely nailed Biden's nationwide percentage, so they got exactly
(33:57):
right what percent of the popular vote he would get. However,
they did underestimate Trump by four so you know, they
they got Biden's number right, But they underestimated Trump, so
that's you know, worth noting they found Trump losing to
Biden fifty one to forty three. The twenty sixteen survey
apparently underestimated both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, with Clinton
(34:23):
taking forty three percent Trump taking thirty nine percent in
their pre election survey. They would go on to win
forty eight percent and forty six percent respectively. Of course,
we remember Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by two
percentage points but lost in the electoral college, so they
had the the margin was pretty close, and they had
Hillary Clinton getting more of the popular vote, but in
(34:44):
the end, you know, they actually underestimated both of those candidates.
Speaker 4 (34:47):
So take that for what it's worth.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
But the fact that it's such a large sample makes
people take this particular survey relatively seriously.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Yeah, absolutely, that's why it mattered. Let's go to the
next one. This was one that we wanted to highlight,
and actually we mentioned it a little bit with Logan,
but it's still very important to dig into and look
particularly at that Nebraska number. So what they have is
that in Nebraska, Dan Osborne of course in a tight
race there, but more important Dan, Yeah, I mean, I'm
(35:17):
rooting for a shock. What they have most importantly within
this is that they have Kamala up by what some
twelve points or so in that special district. Now, the
reason why that matters is that that special district is
Nebraska not only has its own electoral college vote, which
is what would put her at two seventy two sixty
eight if Trump does win Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia, but
(35:40):
that Omaha suburb and white college educated vote was one
that Biden only won by seven or eight last time around.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
So it actually shows.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
An overperformance amongst white college educated voters, which last time
was a big precursor for what the twenty twenty vote
ended up looking like in the suburban vote shift. So
what would see is that not only would you have
Kamala doing as well as Biden last time around with
white college educated voters, but even better. Now can we
transpose that to the swing states? I mean, you know,
(36:10):
not entirely, but it is an indicator of strength with
that core demographic group and one that if it were
to bear out on election day, would be enough to
put her over the edge.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Yeah, I mean, if Kamala actually won this district that
Biden won by six if she wins it by twelve,
that is not consistent with her losing yea, you know,
I mean because it would certainly extrapolate out to you know,
Midwestern states or Midwestern college educative voters or whatever like.
If she is winning these type of districts by a
(36:42):
significant amount more than Biden was winning these districts, that
would be very indicative. It's one survey. Take it with
grains of salt, blah blah blah. But one of the
things that we've been noting is that there have been
a few surveys like this, a few polls that have
found that when you drill down to to the congressional
district level, as this poll does, or to the county
(37:05):
wide level, the more granular you go, the better. It
seems like the numbers are for Kamala Harris. So we
can put this one up on the screen. This is
from USA today. So they found in Wisconsin a deadlocked race.
Trump actually with a one point lead forty eight to
forty seven in the state overall. However, when you drill
(37:28):
down into Door County, Wisconsin, which has been a bell
weather for the state, meaning whichever way this county goes,
the state tends to go.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
Kamala Harris has an edge.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
She leads Trump in that area fifty to forty seven,
and that is larger than what Biden won that district by.
He won that county by one and a half percentage points,
again margin of vera one survey. The overall top line
result not great for her, since it shows it tied
with Trump with a one point lead, But there have
been a number of these that have consistently found when
(38:00):
you look at the county level, when you look at
the congressional district level, it seems like she's doing better
than the statewide or the national polling would indicate.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
There's another thing.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
That is a positive sign for the Harris people, which
is that we can put this up on the screen.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
Some of the polls.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Now that you have people who have already voted, right,
who have already cast their ballots, some of the pollsters
have been breaking down, okay, among people who have already voted,
who are they voting for?
Speaker 4 (38:29):
Who is leading?
Speaker 1 (38:30):
And these have consistently found an almost preposterously high level
of support for Kamala Harris in the early vote, much
higher than you would expect given the partisan breakdown of
the data that we know from the early votes. So
in Arizona they have Kamala leading. This is according to
Marriswing state polls among early voters fifty six forty four.
(38:51):
In Georgia they have her leading fifty five forty five.
In North Carolina they have her leading fifty five forty three.
This person opines, Yes, these are essentially stabs, not waited
to be representative of that population, but it is an
unmistakable pattern. In addition, we can put the next one
up on the screen. This is another USA Today poll.
They also looked at voters who had already cast their
(39:14):
ballots and asked, okay, well, who did you vote for
you person that has already voted early by mail or
early in person, and they found Kamala Harris leading by
a two to one margin among those early voters.
Speaker 4 (39:28):
Sixty three thirty four.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
They say that preference turns around among those who plan
to wait until election day to vote, with Trump ahead
fifty two thirty five. And I've seen other instances that
have also found very positive trends in favor of Kamala
Harris among early voters. Now, on the other hand, Sager,
you would expect Democrats to have an advantage in the
early vote because of habits that were established during COVID,
(39:52):
because you still have Donald Trump even to this day
running around and in Elon Munk too, by the way,
casting doubt on mail in balloting. Republicans are buy and
large trying to show up to vote early in person.
That is their preferred method of early voting in the
state of Pennsylvania. That's actually an onerous process. I was
reading yesterday. They don't have a normal like you just
(40:12):
show up and it's like election day and you just
go and cast your ballot and feed in the voting machin.
You have to go request an absence, see ballot, go home,
fill it out, come back. It's like very cumbersome and
it's stupid, right, and people are getting very frustrated with
that process. But in any case, so especially given the
way that things have trended historically recently, there have been
the voting patterns early have been kind of all over
(40:34):
the place. Makes it very difficult to read into what
these early numbers are indicative of. But like I said,
what they seem to indicate in terms of the hopeful
case is if you look at the partisan breakdown of
who we know is voted early based on Target Smart
and other data analysts, and then you look at this
level of margin, it seems to indicate that some substantial
(40:55):
proportion of independence are also coming into the Democratic camp,
which is precisely what put them over the top in
so many places in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Yeah, and so I was just looking this morning and
I saw a very good concise summary from Mark Caputo,
who's a reporter. He usually covers Florida, and he just says, look,
number one, Trump is doing well in sun Belt. It's
not enough. He needs one third of rust Belt states
to swing. So Harris has a bigger Roust Belt voter
pool to draw them, but they are not showing up
early in the way that she needs so far. If
they do, she wins three seven days ago. I thought
(41:24):
that was a very concise way of looking at it.
In terms of the numbers. The big question mark is
about those similar early vote domination that happened last time around.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
People are trying.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
To say, oh, well, it's possible that that shows depressed
democratic turnout, but it just seems way more likely that
everybody is fundamentally different from four years ago from the
way that they vote part of why it is so
difficult to look at any of the patterns the other
in the independent category that you just flagged. Yeah, and
that's really important too, where the non identified and what
(41:57):
they vote for is really matters a lot. Now, if
that is true, that is an indicator of a twenty
twenty two style dynamic where our voter is super high turnout,
but the independence predominantly swing in one direction, which is
just enough to put you over the edge. So, I mean, look,
we wanted to make sure that you guys got a
very clear picture that there's a very real path for
(42:19):
Kamala Harris victory.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
The other thing, that's the key.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
The other thing I would say that is the point
you've been making Soger, is that back in twenty sixteen,
some of the warning signs for Hillary Clinton was that
when you dug down into that district or county level data.
Speaker 4 (42:36):
Oh yeah, she was host things didn't look good. They
didn't look good.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
And so you had these sort of canary and the
coal mines of different congressional districts that were like, oh,
I don't know, that doesn't that doesn't look great.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
But there was so much, you know, there was so.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
Much assumption, so many assumptions about the inevitability of Hillary
Clinton that that was all sort of papered over until
after the fact when people looked back and said, you know,
there were some warnings here, people just totally ignored them
this time. If anything, those warning signs are going in
the other direction. The congressional district and county level data
looks better for Kamala Harris, looks very poor for Donald Trump. Now,
(43:14):
these district level samples are can also be faulty. They
can also have a significant margin of error. But I
think after election day, if she overperforms, these are some
of the things that we will look back to and say, ah,
that was an indication of something that was going on
that pollsters were missing at the top line. The other
thing that I'll mention is, I don't know if you
(43:34):
saw this, but somebody wrote a post yesterday, like a
polster wrote out a post about how important the assumptions
that they make in waiting their likely voter models are
in terms of determining the ultimate result of the poll. So,
and this is something we talked to Logan about. It's
going to post for everybody on Friday. It's available now
for premium subscribers. But this idea that polsters were so
(43:55):
burned in twenty sixteen and twenty twenty that they're effectively
hedging their bets and potentially even subconsciously kind of putting
their finger, their you know, finger on the scales, I'm
on the scale of these polls to try to engineer
a result that's roughly fifty to fifty because that feels
comfortable for them, because they don't want to be the
outlier that becomes the you know, the what was a
(44:17):
Wisconsin by seventeen for Joe Biden pulled but got a
business preposterous? This was a preposterous result, like how dare you?
How can we ever trust anything? They don't want to
be in that situation. So if you have a bunch
of posters that all are all hurting around this like
fifty to fifty race, then number one, you're not going
to get single down, and number two, the race is
(44:38):
likely to be within a few points of that, so
you're not going to get burned as having been wildly wrong.
So it's possible there's some of that going on and
that the electorate has changed postdobs in a way that
pollsters haven't aren't really reflecting and haven't really accounted for
the last thing I'll put up on the screen that
people are sharing is, let's say we've thought about, Okay,
(45:00):
if the polling miss is what it was in twenty sixteen,
or if the polling miss is what it was in
twenty twenty, Donald Trump is going to win, that's where
we are.
Speaker 4 (45:07):
But if the polling miss is.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
What it was in twenty twenty two, that is a
very different picture. I can put this up on the
screen in that instance, so you can see in the
first column that's where the polls.
Speaker 4 (45:19):
Are right now.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
I think this is according to the New York Times.
So you've got Kamala plus one overall, plus one in Wisconsin,
a whole bunch of states that are deadlocked, and then
Georgia and Arizona plus two for Trump. If the polls
missed like they did in twenty twenty two, Kamala wins
every state except Georgia, where the polls actually in twenty
twenty two were accurate, which was different from the norm.
(45:43):
So you know, it's possible that this is the world
that we're living in post next week election, where even
if they're off by just a couple points in these
swing states. If you have a miss, if they you know,
if they don't take account of the post roll electorate
in a way that they did in twenty twenty two
and they have a similar miss, that it's going to
(46:04):
end up being a very clear cut result in favor
of Kamala.
Speaker 3 (46:06):
Harris, Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
H can't help but look at that other category, right, Yeah, funny,
no doubt about whins every single swing stage. Yeah, and
that blowout victory.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
Honestly, either one of those scenarios I think nobody should
be surprised by.
Speaker 4 (46:19):
Oh no, nobody should be surprised by.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
It's a weird thing to go into an election and
not be surprised by any result. I guess the only
one that would truly shock me is a tie, like
a sixty nine two sixty nine.
Speaker 3 (46:28):
Yeah. The other one that.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
Especially because that would require this Nebraska district that we
just covered that seems to be going very clearly for Kamala,
that would require that to flip the Trump.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
The only other one that would surprise me is is
not just a tie. Is Kamala wins the electoral college
loses the popular vote.
Speaker 3 (46:43):
That would be genuinely shocked.
Speaker 4 (46:44):
That would be fun, but that fun.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
I am low key cheering for that one because I
do think that would be the end of the electoral college.
Speaker 4 (46:53):
That I would I own cheering for the end of
the elect.
Speaker 3 (46:54):
Have some interesting results. Yeah, it would end the electoral college.
Speaker 2 (46:57):
The Republicans would almost certainly have to ditch the pro
life coalition if you ever want to win the popular vote.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
So yea, it's certainly possible. Maybe I should cheer towards.
Speaker 10 (47:07):
So.
Speaker 1 (47:07):
As we have mentioned multiple times, at this point, we
are one week out from election day and things are
starting to get very edgy, I guess, very a little
bit ominous.
Speaker 4 (47:16):
We can put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
We had a number of ballot drop boxes three different
places in the state of Washington and also in the
state of Oregon that were set on fire, according to
local authorities. In this particular video that you can see
here where the ballots are on fire, this was in
Clark County at the Fisher's Landing Transit Center. They say
(47:41):
that hundreds of ballots were inside at the time. The
last pickup had been eleven am on Saturday. A Vancouver
ballot box had also burned us in Washington in an
arson Monday morning, authorities report with hundreds of ballots they're
possibly damaged in a fire. They also think that that
is connected to another arson incident in Portland, Oregon. You know,
(48:01):
the police have put out an image of a car
that they think, you know, that is a person of
interest potentially in these arsons which they believe to be connected.
You know, you might think, like Oregon and Washington, these
are not swing states, what is going on here? But
one of these areas actually is a swing district in
terms of a congressional race. Marie Lousen camp Perez won
(48:22):
this district very narrowly last time around. And of course
even if it's not a swing state, people are voting
on a variety of things. To have their ballots in
the mail burned up is you know, is very troubling
and also of course causes people to be concerned, Hey
did my ballot make it in? Was it in that box?
Is my vote going to actually count here? So this
is this is troubling.
Speaker 2 (48:42):
And say, well, well, in uh An, Oregon specifically, it's
all mail in voting, so that that's what people need.
Unders that's right, Yeah, about they don't even do in
person voting. Everything is mailing kind of interesting. They have
a very high voter participation, but that's a secondary conversation
for the people who are anti mail in voting. The
key that you also mentioned is that this is the
(49:04):
how do you say her name is a Gluesen comonlu
Camp Gluesen Camp, Perez and Joe Kent, which was a
complete nail bier last time.
Speaker 4 (49:12):
What was a few thousand votes?
Speaker 2 (49:13):
Maybe barely anything? Yeah, Ken, just a lot of people
might know him. He's like a maga guy.
Speaker 3 (49:17):
Oh that podcast. It was a former Green Beret. I forget.
He's an interesting guy. I'll put it that way.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
My point though, is that he would became a big
celebrity online that in twenty twenty two swing vote against him,
A lot of people watching that for potential signs of
where things could go. Interestingly enough, it remains a toss
up in the polls today. Last time around, Kent actually
appeared to have a major advantage and it was a shock.
So it's a big question mark two about the reliability
of polls. And obviously that would be one of those
(49:44):
districts that could be precursor where if she does win reelection,
that could be one that we could look to and
be like, oh, that's you know, similar to the twenty
twenty two D wave that ended up materializing or at
least blunting the red wave. Whereas if he wins, and
he wins handily, that would indicate like a Trump vote.
Speaker 4 (50:00):
Yeah, yeah, potentially.
Speaker 1 (50:01):
So in any case, it's something we have an eye on,
and you know, obviously troubling series of events, we wanted
to take some time and teasing this for a while
to lay out what is likely to happen in the
event which obviously far from certain, in the event that
Donald Trump loses, what will stop the steal two point.
Speaker 4 (50:21):
Zero look like?
Speaker 1 (50:22):
And as Saga is rightly pointed out here, there are
a few things that are positive that have happened since
January sixth. You had in a legislation that was passed
that was meant to prevent the sequence of events that
occurred last time, where there were big question marks about
what Mike Pence's role as the vice president is in
certifying the results and whether or not the state legislators
(50:45):
just have like cart blanche to pick whatever the hell's
later electors they want to pick. There was legislation that
was passed that sought to provide clarity to avoid that
same sequence of events. So that's positive. And then the
other thing is just that Donald Trump is not in
charge of the federal government right now.
Speaker 4 (50:59):
So we has tools at his disposal.
Speaker 1 (51:02):
But that doesn't mean that he's not going to try
some stuff, and that doesn't mean that he isn't already
laying the groundwork to contest the results in the event
that he does actually lose.
Speaker 4 (51:13):
We've heard this in a lot of his rhetoric.
Speaker 1 (51:16):
We also hear it from Elon Musk, both at his
town halls and also on his own platform of Twitter.
You hear it from all sorts of Republicans. Republicans are
starting to get asked. I saw Jim Jordan was just
asked whether or not he would urge Donald Trump to
accept the results of the election.
Speaker 4 (51:30):
He refused to say so.
Speaker 1 (51:32):
Just as a reminder of that, here is a little
taste of how Donald Trump is talking about the election
when he's asked whether or not he will accept the
results either way?
Speaker 4 (51:41):
Will you accept the results about the action?
Speaker 10 (51:43):
Yeah, sure, if it's a fair election, always I would
always accept it. I consays to be a fair election.
We're leading in all the balls and then we're leading
in every swing state. Real well, it's now I think so.
In fact, they just had an RCP said you're a
ninety three point three terms of winning. As that's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (52:02):
So one of the key things he says there's soccer
that we've talked about, is he says I have a
ninety three point two percent chance of winning. And part
of the MAGA approach right now led by the Trump
campaign is to protect total and complete confidence that there
is no way that they can lose this race. Now,
on the one hand, that may just be like there,
you know, that's a very Donald Trump kind of thing
(52:23):
to do, like, of course I'm.
Speaker 4 (52:24):
Going to win, I'm a winner, blah blah.
Speaker 1 (52:26):
Blah, But it also helps to lay the groundwork for
if he were to lose this say I had a
ninety three percent chance of winning, like there's no way
that I could have possibly lost, And then you pair
that with I don't know if you just saw he
just put out a true social in this, again consistent
with other things that he's been doing where he's already
claiming that there's fraud in Pennsylvania that could be determinative
(52:50):
referring to a ballot registration issue in Lancaster County, which
is interesting in and of itself and could be actually
from the Republican side of the aisle, but using that
in incident to already call into question the legitimacy of
the Pennsylvania elections, he's.
Speaker 2 (53:04):
Going to declare that a one no matter what. So
if the question is really like if he actually does
win or not. The interesting part, too, is on the
legal stuff. As you mentioned, can we please put C
three up there on the screen. From all of my reading,
a lot of it is going to focus here. This
is a Wall Street Journal article which is actually very important.
It's called, quote the Secret of Billionaire network funding, Stop
(53:25):
the Steal two point zero one hundred and forty million dollars,
nearly fifty groups working on quote election integrity and another
crusade of hours. And what it focuses on specifically are
quote training an army of volunteers to monitor voting on
election day two hundred thousand dollars, poll watchers, poll workers,
legal experts recruited by the RNC. One group is essentially
(53:45):
Facebook for election fraud, allowing users to post, comment, and
share anything that they deem to be quote election regularities,
filing incident reports with US are then followed up by
lawyers and the legal team they focus specifically on this
is what is it the Center for Election Innovation and Research,
and they talk about some of the quote unquote like
different things that they are looking out for, but the
(54:08):
actual legal maneuverability inside of this. Specifically, because of the
passage of the Electoral count Act, has significantly going to
change the way that both certification works at the congressional
level and at the state level. I believe that what
this will look like is it's going to push the
certification fight down and that is based on this article
(54:30):
and when we're about to talk to Because previously certification
was both at the state legislature level without gubernatorial approval
and then being sent to the so called slate to Congress,
it was kind of elevated up Now certification fights are
going to happen more at the county level and specifically
local officials, people who have been elected to whatever where
(54:53):
you have seen the so called Election Integrity Network has
a lot of people, specifically more redder areas that have
put themselves on those and that is where you could
see the alternate slate push come from. But yeah, there
is a change fundamentally from the way that things worked
back in twenty twenty, back in the twenty twenty election,
(55:13):
and it's going to be a lot less I would
say institutional. The other thing is is that even with
this army of lawyers and I can't keep getting away
from this. Look at Rudy at Giuliani, he is literally bankrupt.
And if you look at all of the who is
it Jenna Ellis, if Sidney Powell was che cheeseborough, I
(55:34):
forget how to put whatever his name is, all pled
guilty and Georgia, all of them are out hundreds.
Speaker 3 (55:39):
Of thousands of dollars in legal fees.
Speaker 2 (55:41):
Trump's the only guy not out any money on legal
fees because what is it Super America pack or whatever?
Are the people who paid for it, so, you know,
and that's your hard earned money. You can do what
you want with it to donate. The point I think
just comes back to what stopped. Still two point zero
is going to look like is much more local this
time around. Lots of fight to the county level for certification,
(56:02):
potentially fights around the Secretary of State for certification as well,
although a lot of that has changed because the Electoral
Count Act.
Speaker 1 (56:07):
Yeah, so let me do a couple things and just
bear with me for a moment. So, on the one
side of the ledger, in terms of positive sort of bulwarks,
you have number one, Trump isn't president and number two
the Electoral Count Act, and those are significant. On the
other side of the ledger, you have a more premeditated,
more organized plan in advance than you did before, as
(56:31):
evidenced by the secretive network of billionaires who have been
already they're already filing lawsuits. They were upset that Trump
was not more effective in contesting the election results last
time around, so they vowed that this time they would
have a plan and they would be ready, and it's
extremely well funded, and it is well organized, and they've
already filed a bunch of these lawsuits. In addition, I
(56:55):
don't think you're going to see the same level of
Republican elected Republican resistance to Trump fraudulently claiming that he
won the election, because they've seen how this went before,
and people who were you know, who really resisted. First
(57:15):
of all, they were ousted in Republican primaries. They see
where the Republican bases at this point where they're overwhelmingly
believe that Joe Biden lost, that Donald Trump won, They're
overwhelmingly primed to believe once again that Donald Trump is
inevitable and there is no way that he could possibly lose.
And they see the way that that position has in
most instances, not all, but in most instances been rewarded
(57:36):
within the party.
Speaker 4 (57:37):
So let's put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1 (57:39):
From Politico, they chart kind of a worst case scenario
for how this could all go down. They say, the
very real scenario where Trump loses and takes power. Anyway, now,
as you go through these steps, and I Am going
to take the time to go through these steps just
so you guys can see how.
Speaker 4 (57:54):
This might all play out.
Speaker 1 (57:56):
But it is very tenuous, like it would require a
lot happen, and it's a very like narrow That's why.
Speaker 3 (58:03):
They say out and I'm like, come on, but I mean,
I think it's worth policy.
Speaker 1 (58:08):
You have to, like, you know, plan for Okay, what's
the worst case scenario. I think that would be a
better case scenario.
Speaker 4 (58:14):
It is probably a.
Speaker 1 (58:14):
Better way to freda But in any case, I think
it's good that they went through and lay this out.
It was at least helpful for me to think about it.
So they have bullet points here that I'll just go
through so you could see the sequence of events that
would have to happen. Number one is already happening. He
will deepen distrust the election results, making unsupported or hyperbolic
claims of widespread voter fraud, mounting long shot losses, challenging
enough ballots to flip the income in key states. That
(58:37):
plan is already being executed on, even in advance of
election day. Next, he will lean on friendly county and
state officials to resist certifying election results, a futile errand
they say that would nevertheless fuel a campaign to put
pressure on elected Republican legislators in state houses and Congress.
(58:57):
So in a number of the battleground states, you have
legislatures that are Republican controlled, even as in many of
these same states you have governors who are either like
Brian Kemp, a Republican but already has a pretty established
track record of standing up to Trump on his bullshit.
Speaker 4 (59:13):
Or they're Democrats.
Speaker 1 (59:14):
So you could end up with a situation where the
state legislatures send the fraudulent Trump slate of electors to Congress,
and the governor sends the legitimate actual electors for Kamala
Harris in that state. This is of course, in the
event that Trump were to in reality lose.
Speaker 4 (59:33):
That sends it to Congress.
Speaker 1 (59:35):
Now this is where the Electoral Account Act comes into play,
because it should. The language of the law makes it
such that it should be an open and closed case
that Kamala Harris actually as Vice President, presides over the
certification at the Senate level. They say this is just
a ceremonial position. They also say that the state legislators
(59:55):
aren't the ones who get to determine who are the
legitimate electors from the state. So you would think that
would be open and shut, and perhaps it is. However,
John Eastman, who was key in crafting the previous you know,
fake elector's legal strategy last time around, he contests that
the Electoral Count Act is constitutional and that has not
(01:00:18):
been determined yet. He believes that based on the language
of the Constitution. I don't think that there are a
lot of people that agree with him, but he thinks
this is still the case that.
Speaker 4 (01:00:26):
The state legislatures.
Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
Still hold all the power and that even with this
legislation because he sees it as unconstitutional. He doesn't think
the legislation changes anything whatsoever. Mike Johnson, who is of
course currently Speaker of the House and would you know,
potentially continue to be Speaker of the House if Republicans
are able to hold onto the House. He has not
said how he would handle such a scenario. So if
(01:00:52):
you have, you know, either congressional foot dragging, or if
it ends up going to the Supreme Court and they're
able to keep Kama Harris from getting to two hundred
and seventy Electoral College votes, then it's a contest contingent election.
It goes to the House houses run by Republicans. Donald
Trump elected president. So the most tenuous part of this.
(01:01:14):
A lot of these pieces are like, yeah, I could
totally see that happening. The most tenuous part of it
is the John Eastpi constitutional theory, which to my knowledge
is not supported widely. And the Supreme Court obviously very conservative,
many of the justices appointed by Donald Trump, but they
have also ruled against Donald Trump, and the court's last
time around did overwhelmingly rule against Donald Trump. Now, I
(01:01:36):
would prefer not to have to bet on that kind
of a like, you know, last ditch effort to prohibit
him from stealing the election. But I do feel like
there is enough of a track record in place there
that we can feel like they probably are not going
to go along with this, relatively like Kakamami legal theory
of John Baseman.
Speaker 2 (01:01:56):
I will give you the case for that, which is
that if let's say, in this scenario where that happened,
then why would the Dems not nuke the court forever?
Like if from that point forward, because also remember in
this scenario, you would still have some sort of divided government.
You would probably have some insane situation where one chamber
is democratic and they like refuse to I mean, we
(01:02:18):
can go on this hypothetical forever in terms of refusing
to swear people in and what that would all look like.
But irl the reason why I doubt it the most
is because all of it hinges on the Supreme Court.
The Roberts Court is extremely small sea conservative people misunderstand. Yes,
that both means that the Dobbs thing and the presidential
immunity stuff will go through, But fundamentally, what Roberts cares
(01:02:42):
about more than anything else is preventing court packing and
preserving the quote unquote like institutional respect of the court.
Speaker 3 (01:02:49):
If they did this, it would be over.
Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
Basically, I mean we would be in full on Banana
Republic territory. And I mean, could you blame anybody, Like,
what would you say if that happened, if you're on
the left and that and this scenario played out.
Speaker 3 (01:03:03):
Honestly, you would be an idiot not to say, all right,
that's it, let's go. You know, the Supreme Court is yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
But if you know, if somebody did at the left
of that, I'll be like, Okay, it's over, let's go.
You know, it's like it's on in terms of like
law fair and everything where things are right now this
that would make it look like child's play. So this
is why, you know, I know, I know it's caused
some heartburn over on certain YouTube channels, but I have
a lot of faith in the Electoral count Act and
(01:03:28):
specifically in the way that the reform has now happened,
specifically because of what even the institutional question marks were
last time around, on top of all of the punishment
that you saw for all of those that participated last
time around. Like, if anything, if John Eastman and Sydney
Powell were the best you could get last time around,
and both of them are either under censure or have
(01:03:50):
now been effectively bankrupt. Who do you think you're going
to get this time to really co sign some of
this stuff now? Lawsuits in Michigan court, Texas court and
all that.
Speaker 3 (01:03:59):
I mean, is it annoying? Yeah for sure?
Speaker 2 (01:04:01):
But you know every was it sixty something suits, It
all got struck down last time around, right December. I
wanted twenty eighth. I could be wrong. We covered them
all in and out last time. Yeah, I used to
haven psyclopedic knowledge, but I think it was December twenty eighth.
Speaker 3 (01:04:14):
Every single court case was lost, you know. I mean
you'll know quite soon.
Speaker 1 (01:04:18):
Well, here's a couple of things that I would say.
First of all, you know, I think we already see
who will support Trump in the new stop the Seal
two point zero claims.
Speaker 4 (01:04:27):
I mean, first of all, his vice president.
Speaker 2 (01:04:29):
Second of all, he doesn't have this MS, he doesn't
have the same impact. He doesn't even certification doesn't even matter.
First of all, he's not even the vice president. So
if you want to object to the electors, like, okay,
go for it.
Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
But what I'm saying is you're you're submitting that Trump
is going to be on an island this time and
he's not going to have the you know, lawyers and
institutional backing. That's not true, because we already see.
Speaker 3 (01:04:50):
There's I'm saying, it's going to be very different than
last night.
Speaker 1 (01:04:52):
But hold on, it's not going to hold on a second,
because we cover that Wall Street. We just showed that
Wall Street Journal article where you actually have a more
stout network of donors and lawyers in advance who are
prepped and ready to go.
Speaker 4 (01:05:06):
So I don't think that that is true.
Speaker 1 (01:05:08):
I do think that, you know, the part about like
it is better that we have the Electoral Account Act,
and that definitely, you know, provides another tool in the
arsenal to try to prevent any sort of like effectively
coup from occurring. Where I maybe differ with you, I
don't know, maybe we don't differ on this is that
even if it doesn't get to the place of like
Trump is actually going to steal the election, there is
(01:05:31):
so much damage that can be done between here and there.
So last time around, he didn't steal the election, but
it still was really bad for the country and it
was really ugly and has created deep fissures that to
this day have not healed and are not going to
heal for a very long time. The possible, you know,
the possibility of more political violence, I think, really, you know,
(01:05:54):
looms quite large and significant, especially if you see you know,
we're already seeing we don't know who did it, and
I don't want to place blame on any particular partisan camp,
but you know, we already see ballot box being blown
up in advance of election day using incendiary devices. So
that's why I don't want to downplay even if I
do think it's more difficult for him this time around
(01:06:16):
to have a plausible path to actually steal the election.
I don't want to downplay that, even just going through
these steps of like we're gonna say it's rigged, we're
going to claim it's fraudulent. Guess what, the Republicans, they're
gonna believe it, and many more. I believe Republican elected
officials are going to go along with it and accept
it this time than they did last time around, because
that's where all of the incentives for like conservative maga
(01:06:39):
world stardom lie. So I don't disagree with you that
I think it's less likely this time that there's a
plausible path where he, like you know, fraudulently in a coup,
takes power, which also didn't happen last time either. But
I think that there's still a lot of damage that
can be done that is short of you know, actual
(01:07:00):
banana republic whop.
Speaker 2 (01:07:01):
Yeah, I understand what you're saying. I guess you know
what the response would be. The American people have spoken,
who are Republicans, and this is what they like, they
so they can rue you know, the consequences of it,
and that's just the country we live in.
Speaker 3 (01:07:12):
I don't know what.
Speaker 2 (01:07:13):
I don't think that there is anything to be done
about it outside of Donald Trump literally being a different
human being and being rejected by the voters. And they
have decided that not only do they like him, but
they literally love him on the Republican side, and it's
up to the primary and we're at a situation where
probably forty something percent or more people are going to
vote for him and see it as legitimate. I wouldn't
(01:07:34):
say it's the best thing I've said before. I don't
know how you really look at a guy like JD
next to Trump, and you're like, yeah, Trump is the
person who he used to be president, but.
Speaker 3 (01:07:42):
I'm not the electorate.
Speaker 2 (01:07:43):
I don't really know what to say other than people
seem to not care as much people seem to believe it.
Does Trump have a responsibility certainly, you know, to try
and tone down things, but he's not going to. So
everything that you're worried about, I think is just simply,
I guess, baken to the overall political consensus and direction
of the country. I mean, one thing you should maybe
(01:08:05):
hope for is that the more they go pack down
that path, you'll have two successful elections where the American
people would have rejected it wholesale and outright. And if anything,
it will lead to even more democratic control and institutional
backstops through the Electoral count Act, maybe even more so
whatever they try last time around, on top of criminal
charges if it goes down that way. So, because we
(01:08:27):
can't say sit here and say that Trump did not
pay a price for January sixth, right, it's probably the
biggest price that the Republicans have paid, maybe up next
to Roe versus weigh. We can't say that those who
participated walked away Scott free. I mean, look, literally look
at Rudy Giuliani. I mean, Steve Bannon just came out
of prison today, served time in a federal penitentiary. So
(01:08:50):
it's not like these things have been cost lists to
Republicans or to Republican elites that they can just go
along in a similar way as last time around. I mean,
there's I just think it's fundamentally different. Like if you're
going to vote to not certify the election, yeah, I
think it's dumb.
Speaker 3 (01:09:04):
But you know, on the.
Speaker 2 (01:09:05):
Other case of it would be David Perdue ran a
whole campaign against what's his name, Brian camp.
Speaker 3 (01:09:11):
Based on office feel and he lost. In the state
of Georgia.
Speaker 2 (01:09:14):
Tom Cotton voted emphatically for certification. He didn't pay any price.
In twenty twenty, I believe Marco Rubio voted to certify.
He didn't pay any price. Trump, you know, endorsed all
kinds of people who voted to certify the election, of
all the people who even voted for impeachment. Some of
them lost, you know, on the Republican ground, but a
(01:09:34):
lot of them remain, like remain in office quite quiet
and still popular Republicans in their home state.
Speaker 3 (01:09:41):
So you know, it's not necessarily like the total.
Speaker 2 (01:09:43):
Dividing line that people thought going into twenty twenty three,
I thought it would be, But these days there's a
real electoral path for people who don't go along with this,
and they don't pay any price for it at the
ballot box.
Speaker 1 (01:09:53):
I don't think that that's necessarily true. I mean, I
agree with your cases, Like Brian Camp is the clearest
case right where you know truth. They're the famous phone call.
Trump's like, find me the votes I need. He's like, no,
they go to war basically, and now because they need him,
because they want to win the.
Speaker 4 (01:10:09):
State of Georgia.
Speaker 1 (01:10:10):
They've had to effectively kiss and make up. On the
other hand, you know where the incentives are in like
the mega influencer sphere which many of these but hold on,
which many of these elected officials, you know, basically traffic
in the like maga influencer sphere, is to indulge all
of the most deranged conspiracies about this. And you have
(01:10:31):
Elon Musk, who was the richest and one of the
most powerful people in the world, who was already indulging
in advance in pre election conspiracies about fraud et cetera.
So you know, I personally think this has been much
more normalized within the Republican Party than it was last
time around, and you're going to see less resistance this.
Speaker 4 (01:10:53):
Time than you did.
Speaker 1 (01:10:54):
You know, that's why even you know Mike Johnson, who
is Speaker of the House right now, he won't say
what he'll do. Jordan won't say what he'll do. So anyway,
we're going to see how it's all going to play out.
I just would say, like my whole goal in wanting
to lay this all out is just so people know
what to expect, right too, as much as best as
(01:11:14):
we can lay out here's how things could unfold. Right
if Trump loses, Here's how things could unfold. Here's the
playbook that they have ready to go, that they're already
planning to run, So that you're not caught off guard,
so you know what to expect, so that perhaps it's less,
you know, less unsettling. Perhaps it's just you know, by
(01:11:35):
understanding what's going on, perhaps you are not yourself bamboozled
by the inevitable conspiracy theories and inevitable claiming of victory
no matter what happens on election day, so that you
just are mentally prepared for like, Okay, here's the playbook
they're going to run, and here's you know, here's how
they're already laying out the groundwork for that, and here's
what to expect so that you don't get, you know,
(01:11:56):
fooled by any of them.
Speaker 3 (01:11:57):
I think that's fair.
Speaker 2 (01:11:58):
That said, anybody who watched this segment and isn't immediately
convinced and is willing to be like, well, what about
you know, this one viral clip that I saw, Good
luck to you.
Speaker 3 (01:12:07):
It's probably not much that we can say to help you.
Speaker 2 (01:12:10):
That's actually been my experience with most stop to steal people.
There is basically nothing that you can tell these people
that won't convince them. They are swimming in an island
of bullshit. And you know, I mean that's what you
were talking about with mag influencers. If you pay the
political price and they continue to want to go down
that rabbit hole, and they will just continue to sign
their own death warrants of irrelevance. So that's the free
(01:12:31):
market at work. You know, that's democracy in action. I
don't care, you know, if people want to Matt Gates
and all these other folks want to just continue doing
this and they just continue losing like popular vote and
the electoral college. In this scenario, if something like that happened,
one thing that we do know is that Trump does
lose this election, then he likely well he said he
won't run again.
Speaker 3 (01:12:50):
Well, what does that show you?
Speaker 2 (01:12:51):
Then we're going to try and get an entire generation
of people without any of the charisma or the celebrity
or the like, you know, plot armor of Donald Trump
who are trying to recreate. Well, I think we all
know how that works out, Madam Carey Lake. So I'm
not worried about it in terms of the political fix
outside of Yeah, do I think damage will be done
institutionally and trustwise, yes, certainly.
Speaker 3 (01:13:13):
But you know, at a certain point, that's what people want.
I don't know what else to say.
Speaker 2 (01:13:17):
Like, people like it, they believe it, they forgive it,
they look past it, at least on the Republican side,
and until they learn a different lesson, then that's just
simply the direction that people want to go down. You know,
what can you say to people at a certain point,
they don't want to listen anymore. That's been my experience
and why I don't even try to talk to these
folks anymore. Just because you know, if you see some
(01:13:38):
of the stuff they go down, you know, in terms
of what they put dominion aside and the way that
they can explain about every judge is corrupt and why
this happens, and.
Speaker 3 (01:13:49):
Well really the Hunter Biden.
Speaker 2 (01:13:51):
Laptop actually, and it's like it's just it never ends
with them.
Speaker 3 (01:13:56):
So you know, we'll see with the prices, I guess.
Speaker 1 (01:13:59):
One, well note that, I'll, i'll, we can wrap this
up and move to the next block. On is last election,
Kyle was on Rogan's podcast that night and beforehand, before
the results came in, he laid out, like, you know,
there's probably going to be the red mirage effect, where
you know, the first ballots that come in from rural
(01:14:19):
areas or in day of voting are likely to be
more Republican, and then as the night goes on, things
are likely to shift. And because he had laid that
out in advance, when it all happened, then it didn't
feel like fraud. It was like, oh, well, you know,
this was predicted, like Kyle told me this was going
to happen, and this is what happened. So I'm not
going to like really buy into or indulge these election conspiracies.
(01:14:43):
And so there are people, you know, like Joe and
like others out there who are trying to figure out
what's going on who have some skepticism of institutions. But
if you can tell them in advance, like no, here's
and by the way, there is likely to be another
red mirage effect at least in certain states this election.
But if you can anticipate like this is what it's
going to look like, this is the arguments that they're
going to make, this is how it's all going to
(01:15:04):
go down, then it can help to inoculate some people
out there from falling into you know, you know, like
an understandable mistrust of institutions can keep from leading them
down the path of believing things that ultimately are not true.
Speaker 3 (01:15:18):
I hope you're right.
Speaker 4 (01:15:19):
That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (01:15:19):
You have a lot more faith in people than I do.