Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
So please to welcome back to the show my friend
Leland Vinterd who hosts on Balance on News Nation weekdays
at five pm Colorado time, seven pm Eastern time, and
it is the cable news show that my wife and
I don't miss.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hi, Leland, good to see you. Welcome back.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
Ross always fun.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
So you just mentioned before we went on the air
that you were on the road for a week. Tell
us who you were talking to, what you were doing,
what you learned.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
We were down in Vegas for the News Nation Nevada
Senate debate Jackie Rose and Sam Brown and spent a
lot of time talking to Hispanic voters. The most interesting
interview I had was a young woman working behind the
bar at a Mexican restaurant.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
Who I asked you she was supporting, and she said
Donald Trump. It's interesting.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
She was twenty four years old and got her life story,
which involved coming across the border illegally at fourteen and
had gotten working papers.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
And I said, help me understand this.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
You're an illegal immigrant and you are supporting and if
you could vote, when vote for a man.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Who says he wants to deport you?
Speaker 3 (01:17):
And she goes absolutely, because I don't think He's going
to deport people who are good people and the economy
is going to be better.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Wow. Wow, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
She was twenty four, really smart, extraordinarily well spoken.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
This wasn't just you know, oh I think Donald Trump's cool.
I mean she really she had reasons this dot dot dot.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
I asked the Democratic congresswoman who represents that area, a
very nice woman represents Las Vegas, and I played her
the SoundBite as you do on your show.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
You played play elected official sound bite, and I said,
how do you fix this problem?
Speaker 3 (01:55):
She goes, She goes, that young woman is uninformed, as
though it is her fault, this, this young one.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
She is just too stupid to not understand how terrible
bald Trump is. That is not how you win elections.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
The Hispanic vote is probably more important in Nevada than
any other state that we currently think of as a
as a swing state.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
And lots of people.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Have been talking about, and you've been talking about on
your show, changes in the potential and the maybe expected
voting patterns of some groups that Democrats have typically taken
for granted. So you just elaborate on any of your
expectations and maybe you can branch out beyond Hispanic if
(02:41):
you if you want to.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Of course, I think what we're seeing on an almost
hourly basis is a realignment in the electric in that
it is no longer about race or ethnicity as much
as it is about class and credential. So white credential Americans, everybody,
(03:06):
from the teachers' unions to the young professionals who live
in Watshton Park to the yuppies and Boulder College professors,
on and on, they are now voting Democratic, and the
idea of sort of the country club suburban Republicans are
disappearing because it's no longer acceptable in a lot of
(03:27):
social circles to be a Trump supporter. And the flip
side is working class African Americans and Latinos who don't
have a college education who were the backbone of the
Democratic Party, and white working class meaning high school educated
in the trades are now moving to be Republicans. And
(03:52):
that is something that Democrats understand is happening. And they
may have don't if it's that they're in denial as
much as they haven't figured they have, they are not
willing to do to things necessary to win that group back.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
For those of you a little bit surprised by Leland's
references to wash Park and Boulder.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Don't forget that before he hit the big.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Time and went national, Leland was on kativ R Fox
thirty one right here in Denver, and I think you
still have your award from from Westward up on up
on your wall.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
So how is that it's up there? It's up there
in Denver? Best hair in Denver.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
I wasn't even gonna say what it was for best
hair in Denver.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
All Right, one more.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Thing on what we were just talking about, and then
I moved.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
To a couple other things.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Isn't isn't it remarkable that a seventy something year old
Manhattan billionaire has become the champion of the white working
class and maybe the black and Hispanic working class.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Yes, until you spend a lot of time in Pennsylvania, Michigan,
and Wisconsin with white working class voters.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
Donald Trump was the first person to really take.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
On Barack Obama, and last night Barack Obama, on the
Speech on the Stuff, gave this speech about how we
weren't always this divide. It's you know, we all used
to athletes. This is very sort of calm and happy
and nice politics in America forgetting that Barack Obama was
(05:29):
the person who drove America farther apart. That's not me
saying it, that's the polling, that's gallipoling showing that the
Obama presidency, which was built on the promise of not
a black America, not a white America, not an Asian America,
but the United States of America, is the beginning of
dividing Americans by race, by class, and on so many
(05:54):
issues that if you did not adhere to the liberal orthodoxy,
it was a on your character. And white working class
Americans didn't like to be called racists, bigots.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
In trans pobes.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
And Donald Trump said, you're right, we're gonna say Merry Christmas.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
And here's where we're at.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Wow, there's there's some polling out there that.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Suggests a book in there somewhere I written.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
There's some polling out there that suggests still reasonably significant
percentage of voters. And I guess an election this close,
even a small percentage can be a significant percentage that's undecided.
And in swing states in particular, and historically, I think
late deciders have gone for the challenger the way Americans
(06:45):
in their bones kind of like change almost no matter what.
But in this case, Trump and Harris are basically both incumbents.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
So what's your guess right now?
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Your your best guess as to whether you think the
very very very late deciders are going to break one
way or the other.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Which way you think they'll go and why?
Speaker 3 (07:11):
I don't know which way they're going to go. I
don't make predictions. I'm not that smart. I'm smart enough
to tell you what's going on and maybe why. But
I would ask this question looking forward, what bad things
between now an election day can happen for Donald Trump?
What bad things can happen for Kamala Harris? What good
(07:32):
things can happen for Donald Trump? What good things can
happen for Kamala Harris? And what I would tell you
is there is a lot more bad things that can
happen for Kamala Harris's campaign, then can happen to Donald
Trump's campaign.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
Not to say that the left is in trine.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
You saw today the John Kelly He's hitler, he's going
to be a fascist warnings. Okay, fine, we saw the
Atlantic piece yesterday. It's been widely debunked that he would
disrespectful to a gold Star Family. Turns out the gold
Star Family endorsed him and said he was incredibly respectful.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
So you're gonna see these moments.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
But the problem for Kamala Harris is that she got
all the attention she wanted.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
And the more attention Kamala Harris gets and the more
interviews she does, the worse she does. It's that simple.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
It's why you've got Barack Obama, Bruce Springsteen, Bill Clinton,
and Michelle Obama all out on the stuff for her,
They're all more popular than she is.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
With Trump, it's the opposite.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Yeah, I was thinking about that whole surrogate thing, and
you know, with Trump, the only thing that you've gotten
kind of close to that is Elon Musk. But Elon
Musk is actually putting tens or hundreds of millions of
dollars of his own money in this thing. And he's
not just sort of another surrogate. He's not like a singer.
(09:00):
And to me, the fact that Kamala has Springsteen again
and Eminem now right, it just to me is a
sign of weakness, not strength. I don't know any other
way to look at it. But how do you look
at that?
Speaker 3 (09:13):
I look at as in what I'm hearing privately from Democrats.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
Is real fear.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
That there is nothing they can do to reset the narrative,
and we're writing it war Notes today give your listeners
a sneak preview of it. More Notes is our newsletter
that comes out every day at four o'clock. You can
subscribe for free at warnoes dot com. Desperate times, We've
always told calls from desperate measures right, and Democrats are desperate.
(09:46):
Yet all the things they can do, all the break
glass things they could do. Kamala Harris could promise to
pardon Trump and in the investigations, Kamala Harris could promise
to deport all illegal immigrants who commit felonies. She could
say of boys are not going to play on girls
sports teams because I'm going to restind the executive orders
and change how titlemind is in force. There's a whole
(10:08):
list of things she could do that would totally change.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
The dynamic of the race.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
And we know that because last night NBC News went
through this whole list with her, trying to get her
to moderate in one way or another, and she refused
time and time and time and time again. So we
are to believe from Democrats that Donald Trump is an
existential threat to America.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
He's going to end democracy.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
But their orthodoxy on abortion or the Green New Deal
or whatever it is is more important than stopping Trump.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
We're talking with Leland Vinard. His great show is called
On Balance. It's weeknights at five pm Mountain Time, seven
pm Eastern. And as Leland just mentioned, war Notes, you
can go to Warnoes dot com and it's basically Leland's
preparation for his show and you can read how he's
thinking about the most important issues of the day. And
(11:04):
it's free and it's a great read, and it'll keep
you really well informed. I saw a piece over at
Axios Leyland entitled Endangered Democrats brag about Trump ties in
final stretch.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
This is kind of interesting.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Right, You've got an ad from Bob Casey running for
Senate in Pennsylvania, got an ad from Tammy Baldwin.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Right, and you've you've seen these things.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
And in the ads they mentioned I did such and
such a thing with Trump where I wrote a bill
that Trump signed. And like they're talking about Trump in
a positive way, or at least a neutral way, which
is remarkable.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
Well, it's either remarkable or telling, right, which is that
they're polling shows that attaching themselves to Kamala Harris and
Joe Biden is a loser, and they're hoping to peel
off the split ticket voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania and
Wisconsin that are going to vote for Trump as.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
The top of the ticket and a Democrat in the Senate.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Yeah, it's pretty telling whether or not there's enough of
those voters for an thing.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
I don't know. This is this is why we have elections.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
So I think the figure you can fairly say thirteen
days before the election, and God willing it will be
over in fourteen days, I think what you could fairly
say is Donald.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
Trump is in the lead and is pulling away, and
Democrats and Kamala Harris are quite worried about that. That's
probably about as far as you can go and reading
any of these sides.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Okay, I'm going to follow up on your God willing
thing there, And it was something I was going to
ask you anyway, but you led me into it. So
and you already said you don't make predictions, but I'm
going to ask you to make another one. What do
you think the odds are that on the Wednesday, the
day after the election, that we will know who the
next president is.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
My over under is somewhere between two and four am
that we're going to know Wednesday morning. We did a
long piece last night that in every measurable area of
the American economy, life, we have moved forward.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
Right.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
We went from the Pony Express to airmail, to Federal
Express to Amazon Pride. Right, we went from radio to
broadcast TV, to cable TV to Netflix.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
And yet in voting we've moved backwards somehow.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
In nineteen you know, through the fifties and sixties, the seventies,
the eighties and the nineties, we knew by Wednesday morning
who won and all the votes were counted. And now
you've got Arizona and Pennsylvania going we may not know
for ten days, and they view that as a success.
Speaker 4 (13:58):
Somehow.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
It's absolute lumisy. And the fact that we're being told
that you have to accept that and somehow that's okay
is just idiocy. I don't understand it. The most sacred
thing in America is elections, and the idea that there
is not more emphasis put on having a clear, transparent
(14:21):
and quick result is bizarre to me.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Can I infer from your combination of statements, your statements
being you think we will know by Wednesday morning, and
Arizona and Pennsylvania could take a long time to.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Finalize their results.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Can I infer from the combination of those that you
think there's a decent chance that this election will not
be so close that we will not know The answer
be based on the fact that these two key swing
states might not have their final count for a while.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
First of all, I think you're right to infer that
number one, I don't think this is going to be close.
Speaker 4 (15:05):
But part of my thought, I think is just a
hope because.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Whether Kamala Harris wins or Donald Trump wins, America needs
to be clear that someone won, and we.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
Need to then move move on and move forward. What
happened in twenty twenty, I covered it.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
I covered it starting from election night through January sixth.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
If you'd like to read about it, feel free to
google Google.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Me in the Washington Post about the effects of how
I covered it. But that's terrible for the country, and
to go through that again is awful, and it needs
to be clear to both sides that whoever went won one.
And now we move on and look, you know there's
we're going to see if if Donald Trump loses, whether
(15:59):
or not sort of the structures of belief in our
elections hold, which God willieve they do. And if Kamala
Harris loses and Donald Trump wins, I think you're gonna
see a lot of Democrats being forced and hopefully they
are forced to live by the rules they set, which
is you can't question elections. And if that's the rule
(16:20):
that was set, then let's have it apply equally and
move on.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
All right.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
My last question for you, and this is a question
I hesitate to ask because if the answer is no,
I'm going to sound like a complete moron for even
asking the question. Did you fly an airplane by yourself
from the US to France when you were a young kid?
Speaker 3 (16:46):
No?
Speaker 4 (16:46):
I did not, but you're not a more on for
asking the question.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
I flew with an instructor because I was too young
to have my solo license, so I flew the plane
almost all the time, and the instructor sat next to me,
and it was a It was something that when I
was very young, my father thought that having goals and
working hard toward them was really important. We're lucky enough
to have the resources for him to to help me
(17:13):
get flying lessons, and that that became a really integral
part of my life.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
And I would say that the most influential person in
my life other than my father is mister Mick.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Was my flight instructor, and you taught me so many
of the things that have that have ended up helping
me in life for years to come.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
So how old were you when you flew from the
US to France?
Speaker 4 (17:38):
I was eleven?
Speaker 1 (17:40):
And did you get your solo license at some point?
And are and do you still know?
Speaker 2 (17:45):
You didn't?
Speaker 4 (17:46):
I stopped lying.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
For for a variety of reasons, the most the number
one of which is I'm a firm believer that if
you want to be really great at something, you got
to do it all the time. And flying is something
you don't want to do if you're not really great
at it. So I'm now very happy to sit in
the back. It was a good memory. More importantly because
(18:11):
of the lessons learned. I still remember what mister mic
used to say, which is do it right the first
time every time, and that lesson in.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
Flying is a matter of life or death.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
And in television and in journalism, I think is one
that we really have to remember, so I think about
that often.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Leyland Vindert's show is called On Balance.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
It's on News Nation at five pm Mountain time weekdays.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Also go to war notes dot.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Com and sign up for free for Leland's great daily
note called war Notes. It's basically his show preparation, and
it'll really have you thinking more clearly about the major
events of the day. Leland, thanks as always for your time.
Always such a great conversation. I appreciate your friendship.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
Always fun.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Ross's good talking to you all right, you too,