Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 10/17/24: Krystal and Saagar DEBATE Kamala's Fox News Interview, Trump Flips On Immigration, White Women ALL IN For Kamala, Pelosi Reveals Biden Bitterness, Hamas Sinwar Dead?, CNN Panel Erupts Over Ferguson Effect

Episode Date: October 17, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss Kamala's Fox News interview, Trump's immigration flip flops at a Fox Town Hall, White Women going all in on Kamala, Pelosi reveals Biden's bitterness over being ousted, Florida Housing market in doom loop, Israel potentially killing Hamas leader Sinwar, and a CNN panel erupts over the 'Ferguson Effect'. To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. Enter Camp Shame, an eight-part series examining the rise and fall of Camp Shane and the culture that fueled its decades-long success. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator,

and seeker of male validation. I'm also the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. You might hear that term and think it's about celibacy, but to me, voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's flexible, it's customizable, and it's a personal process.

Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to voiceover on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The

murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there's a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, Ready or Not 2024 is here and we here at Breaking Points

are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. Have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do.

A lot of interesting things that are happening. So Kamala went on Fox News yesterday for a very contentious interview. We'll show you all the highlights of that. And Trump also was on Fox News for like a women's-focused town hall. Very different vibes, I would say, between the two of them. So we'll share some of that with you as well. Also have some new polling for you. And Harry Unten taking a close look at how well Kamala is doing with white women. Will they ultimately allow her to cruise into the White House?

We will see. Biden's still very mad at Nancy Pelosi. Apparently, they still have not spoken since he dropped out of the race. Interesting revelations there. And some reported tension between the Kamala Harris and Joe Biden camps as well. We are finally, I think, gonna take a look at the Florida real estate market today. We teased it the other day and then we talked too much in some other segments, so we just pushed it to today. So we wanted to make sure we had time to do that one justice

because it is a very interesting story. We also have our eyes, of course, on Israel and the Middle East. Former Israeli IDF, actually someone who was high up in the IDF, issued a dire warning about the future of the state of Israel. So we want to bring you that as well as some other developments and a couple of noteworthy CNN moments that we wanted to react to for you. So that one's always fun. Yes, exactly. Always fun to get that into the show. Before we get to that, just thank you to everybody who has been signing up, premium subscription. So we're getting down to the wire here. As a reminder, you will get our exclusive election map and prediction before Election Day if you are a premium subscriber.

All of our content with Logan, which is our election forecaster, as well as some stuff that we're going to tease on election night. So you're going to take advantage of that, breakingpoints.com, and you can become a premium sub. Now, as Crystal said, we had a very contentious, certainly, interview with Fox News. Brett Baier sat with Kamala Harris roughly 28 minutes. A couple of different sections we wanted to go through here for everybody that shows some of the highlights for what you think you could get out of it and, more importantly, what maybe some swing people could have gotten out of it. First was on the section of immigration. Let's take a listen. There's a lot of people that look back at what you said in 2019 when you first ran for president. And there have been changes, and you've talked about some of them. When it comes to immigration, you supported allowing immigrants in the country illegally to apply for driver's license, to qualify for free tuition at universities, to be enrolled in free health care. Do you still support those things? Listen, that was five years ago. And I'm very clear that I will follow the law.

I have made that statement over and over again. And as vice president of the United States, that's exactly what I've done, not to mention before. You, if that's the case, you chose a running mate, Tim Walz, governor of Minnesota, who signed those very things into state law. So do you support that? We are very clear, and I'm very clear, as is Tim Walz, that we must support and enforce federal law. And that is exactly what we will do. That capped about what, I would say, 10 minutes or so on immigration.

He started with immigration and stayed there for a long time. Yeah, I would say it was about half, maybe roughly, yeah, something like that worth of the interview. So anyway, I mean, it's one of those where it was obvious that they were going into that. That's about the best that she's going to get. This whole, what did she say? It was like, well, that was five years ago. So that was certainly something I picked up on. I don't know.

I mean, you and I have very, I usually, I think we come into this with the same frame, but this one I'm mystified. You think she did very well. So you should make your case. I do. So let me say, first of all, to set up like the totality of the interview, Brett Baier, I don't think you would disagree, very aggressive in a way that he would never be with Trump. Not that he wouldn't ask Trump tough questions. I think he would. Yeah. But from the very first question, he's cutting her off, doesn't even let her finish a sentence. They're really going back and forth. We'll show you a moment later on where he really

deceptively edited this Trump comments about enemy from within. So he clearly came in to this thinking like Trump had called out Fox News for even doing this interview and put pressure on obviously Brett Baier in advance of like, you better really hold her feet to the fire. He's feeling the pressure of the Fox News audience. And it was very clear that his goal was like, I'm going to be aggressive and I'm going to try to really get her off balance. So, you know, on like this question, there is no good answer here for her because she has changed her position so dramatically on any number of things. And this is always going to be, you know, the best she's come up with is like my values haven't changed here. I think she handles what

is again, effectively an impossible question for her to really be honest about, which the real answer is, you know, politically in 2020, I was trying to run to the left of Bernie Sanders. Now, politically, I'm trying to like pivot and appeal to a general election audience. So my pandering strategies have changed. Like that's the honest answer. She obviously can't give that answer. So to just be like, listen, have I done any of that as vice president of the United States? No, I've enforced the law. That's what I'll do going forward. I think that's about the best you could do. My assessment of the overall interview is not that I like love every answer because obviously I have many significant policy differences with Kamala Harris, in particular

on immigration. And also they touched on Israel and Iran later on, of course, the framing. Yeah, that was wild. The framing of that from Brett Baier is basically like, you know, why aren't you at war with Iran already? That's the framing of, you of, that's not unique to Fox News. That was also the framing of the debate. So it's not that I love the substance of her answers on a number of these. But she handled an adversarial interview that was very aggressive and at times actively dishonest better than she handled the view ladies, which is kind of interesting, right? With Kamala, it's all about, does she take it seriously and did she prepare? That's why she

did so well in the first debate against Joe Biden. That's why she did so well in the debate against Trump. She clearly took this interview very seriously and came prepared. And I don't think there was, I know this is a little bit of a Rorschach test that the Trump people think she did terrible or whatever, but she never got thrown off balance. She never sputtered. She never got angry. She did not take the bait when multiple times Bret Baier was trying to get her to like trash Trump supporters. And so, yeah, I think in what was a difficult adversarial situation, overall, she handled herself quite well.

Look, I'm trying hard to color my bias on this one, but I don't see that at all. I mean, on the immigration answer again, like, look, if you're, and again, I'm trying to put on the mind of a swing state voter of somebody who is genuinely independent. So I'll start with what I thought she did well. And actually the Fox people agreed. She got her licks in against Trump. Basically every pivot was, but Trump, but Trump, but Trump. And we're going to show people some of the clips in a bit about Biden and the inability to address the mental acuity. But that's where she did kind of sputter, right? On, well, when did you first notice that Joe Biden's mental faculties had declined? Zero answer. In terms of immigration, I mean, I thought what was so weak about it was actually just not only the flip-fl flop of the dishonesty around the position,

but in the beginning too, there was a lot of trying to basically turn it around as if her administration had no power in this situation. So Brett had asked her a question, something along the lines of like, why have there been X million people illegally let into the country while you were under the, while you were vice president? And she dishonestly is like, well, in the first week of Congress, we presented a bill and they didn't pass the bill. And that's why it's the Republicans fault. It's like, hold on a second. As Ryan laid out yesterday, that's an amnesty bill. But second, this is ignores like all the executive action over that three and a half years. So he kept trying to interrupt her to get at that. Now, I agree it was aggressive,

but I mean, I don't have an issue with people interrupting politicians. People should interrupt people more. But the point is that on that in particular, for those first 10 minutes, the command and the spin just leaped out at me dramatically. Again, if you don't have a deep familiarity with amnesty bills and all that, like maybe that came across differently. She certainly stood her ground, I think, for what liberals could take away as like, yeah, she stood up to Brett Baier and to Fox News. There's no question. It was aggressive as hell, right? It really was like the lion's den. You know, we should give politicians props. They should do more of that. So I don't want to totally discourage it. But I don't know how

we could classify that as a good performance. Here's what I would say. I mean, Trump is reportedly literally calling her retarded. So you can't look at this interview and be like, this person, she really held her own and was able to pivot. I thought Brett asked her a really challenging question, played the clip of her talking about transgender surgeries in prison. And she actually had a great response. She was like, number one, this happened under Trump. So why don't you ask him about that? And number two, he's spending $250 million on these ads. Do you really think this issue is like top of mind for Americans who are trying to pay their bills, et cetera? And again, that's a very, very challenging question

for her to have to deal with, given how she's trying to like buck the too liberal label, et cetera, et cetera, and her campaign strategy, which is to shift to the right. That's a very challenging question. And I thought that was about as good an answer as you could possibly give. Also, another highlight, in my opinion, from her was he was asking her like, okay, well, if Trump is so bad, why is half the country set to vote for him? She was like, it's a presidential election. It's not supposed to be easy. And I also thought that was a fantastic answer because, you know, he again, it's a challenging question.

He wanted her to give him some clippable moment, like basically calling the Trump base deplorable or whatever. He did say that. Yeah. He tried to get her. He tried to get her to say that. He tried to get her to go down that path, and she just wouldn't do it at all. As you said, she kept pivoting back to Trump and her position on that. So, no, overall, I thought in a very challenging circumstance, she handled herself quite well and certainly exceeded my expectations of what she was even really capable of in those

circumstances. And so that's kind of my point is like, you know, the caricature, which has been at times really justly deserved of Kamala Harris, is that she can't think on her feet. If she's off the teleprompter, it's just a hot mess, you know, that she's word salad and all over the place. And we didn't see that in this in this exchange. She was quite capable and competent and proved that she deserved to be in that slot.

And so when I think about swing voters and how they might process this, number one, I don't really think swing voters really are processing this, to be honest with you. Really? I'm not so sure about that. Not really. I mean, I don't know what's gonna move people at this point. I have no idea. But it's probably more likely to be the podcast appearance with, or the appearance with Charlemagne or some of the more cultural figures than it is a Fox News interview.

But some of this might break through. But if you're just looking at that in the vibe, you're like, oh, this is a capable person. Like this is a strong person. This is a tough person. She's able to hold her own and push back. And so that's why I think that she did herself some favors in this interview, not just with Democrats who were very happy with her performance, but with those potential swing voters as well. Yeah, see, I didn't get the competent part at all. Again, I'm trying hard to color my bias here, but I didn't see it.

Let's play a wrong track answer, for example. We need to play more of this for people. Madam Vice President, more than 70% of people- That is about turning the page on rhetoric that people are frankly exhausted of, Brett. More than 70 percent of people tell the country is on the wrong track. They say the country is on the wrong track. If it's on the wrong track, that track follows three and a half years of you being vice president and President Biden being president. That is what they're saying. Seventy nine percent of them.

Why are they saying that? If you're turning the page, you've been in office for three and a half years. And Donald Trump has been running for office. But you've been the person holding the office. Come on. You and I both know what I'm talking about. You and I both know what I'm talking about. I actually don't. What are you talking about? What I'm talking about is that over the last decade, people have become... But you're the lever of power. But listen, over the last decade, it is clear to me and certainly the Republicans who are on stage with me, the former chief of staff to the president, Donald Trump, former defense secretaries, national security adviser, and his vice president, one that he is unfit to serve,

that he is unstable, that he is dangerous, and that people are exhausted. People are tired of that. If that's the case, why is half the country supporting him? Why is he beating you in a lot of swing states? Why, if he's as bad as you say, that half of this country is now supporting this person who could be the 47th president of the United States. Why is that happening? This is an election for president of the United States. It's not supposed to be easy.

I know, but it's not supposed to be. It is not supposed to be a cakewalk for anyone. So are they misguided, the 50%? Are they stupid? Oh, God, I would never say that about the American people. And in fact, if you listen to Donald Trump, if you watch any of his rallies, he's the one who tends to demean and belittle and diminish the American people. He's the one who talks about an enemy within, an enemy within, talking about the American people, suggesting he would turn the American military on the American people. So I don't disagree with that last part, but on that wrong track question.

That was a skillful. Right, but on the wrong track, she was like, listen, you know, Trump has been around for 10 years. That's a terrible answer. Like when I watched that live, I actually cringed at the, she was like, well, Trump has been around, you know what I'm talking about? He's like, I don't know what you're talking about actually.'s like, I don't know what you're talking about, actually. And honestly, I don't know what she's talking about. Like the idea that because Trump has been in politics for a decade, that you're not responsible for the direction of the country. And look, if we're being honest, was she running the country? Like, obviously no. Right. She's the freaking vice president. But she's also the one who doesn't want to put any real distance between herself and Joe Biden, which we're about to get into

in a little bit. And so that answer, I thought it was her worst, because the 79% on wrong track, the perfect idea of like, well, don't you bear some responsibility for this? There's no answer but Trump. Now, I wanna be clear, you might win based on that. As we see, Trump is a very polarizing figure. And he's certainly, they are running the same case that Hillary and Biden did, Biden obviously a little bit more effectively, that Trump is a unique threat and all of that. And the Trump specter is bad. And she basically at every turn pivoted towards Donald Trump. But if you look at those swing state polls and you see the number one reasons that people are not supporting her, it's number one, I don't know what you're actually going to do. But two is I'm really unsatisfied with the direction of the

country right now. And so for me, but Trump, I mean, that's not a competent answer. Like that's not one that is well thought out. It is not one of a new vision. What is it? The closest that she got was just my presidency won't be a continuation of Joe Biden. That is not a strong declaration of change in what is empirically a change election. Now, change is interpreted very differently by very many people. So that's why I was like, if you're watching this, you're a swing state person. I don't know how you could feel satisfied with an answer like that. Put the policy aside. Just appear like, hey, I want something to change. Wrong track. And she's like, but Donald Trump, that doesn't seem to cut it. Yeah, I disagree. So here's what I would say.

First of all, on the latter part that we more or less agree on. Yeah, that's a good answer. You should never fall into the deplorable trap. Continually they're trying to bait her into trashing Trump support. Even, oh, would you call them a sky? And she's like, no. And then she skillfully pivots to, but the other guy, he's doing that all day long. And by the way, you don't have a whole lot to say about that. And we'll get to the very dishonest framing of the enemy within comments that he does in a moment. But what she's referring to, I think we all know, like this is the Trump era.

And the dissatisfaction with the state of the country certainly predates their time in office. In fact, I went back and looked it up. After January 6th, the right track number was at 11%. Yeah, I remember that. 11%. So listen, do Joe Biden and Kamala Harris bear plenty of responsibility for people being dissatisfied? Of course they do. And given the fact that she has decided she is not really going to break with Biden on anything, including a disastrous policy in the Middle East where she 100 percent should break with Joe Biden, given that that's the landscape that she's chosen, the political strategy that she's chosen. Yeah, I think this is about as good as you can give. And it's not without some merit, because, again, let's all be honest, this is not the Joe Biden era of politics that we're living in. It's the Donald Trump era of politics. He has defined all of the fault lines in American politics since he rode down that golden escalator. And that's how you end up with Liz Cheney on one side and RFK Jr. on the other.

It's all just about, it's not about issues. It's just all about how you feel about this particular person. Gets to like what Tim Walz talks about this just very normie like, wouldn't you like to go back to the Thanksgiving dinner table and not have it be ugly and vitriolic and just be able to have normal discussions again? It's really Donald Trump who has defined the contours of this era. And so, yeah, I mean, is it kind of like politician-y-weasley to get out of any responsibility for, of course it is. Of course, I would be dishonest if I didn't say that. But she's also not without a point that he really has been the central character

defining the tenor, tone, and direction of politics. And it's part of what, to me, is so frustrating about this era because it does make it impossible to really have policy discussions about the future of the country and really be able to vote based on those things. Because everything just becomes this dividing line about your personal opinion in the person of Donald Trump. And it kind of shuts down all other forms of politics. So is it 100% honest? No, of course not. But does she have a point that he is the defining character of this era and that there are millions upon millions of people, including plenty of swing voters, and we'll get to this in the poll section, especially suburban women are upset about abortion, all kinds of other

things. Are there millions of voters who have put aside all kinds of other concerns or policy priorities to just like vote against Donald Trump because they want this era to be over and they don't want to quote unquote go back as Kamala's been framing? Yeah, there are. And so I do think that that speaks to a central concern that a lot of people have in the sense that this era has been exhausting and they want to turn the page from it. Yeah, on a vibe level, I totally understand what you're saying. But I mean, and I think a lot of the people who agree with that frame are already voting for her. So all the people who are on the fence about where to go, a lot of them do remember the Trump era fondly and they don't remember the Biden years as good, in particular on inflation and elsewhere. Now, to your point about the whole

enemy within thing, this is, I agree, this was a pretty egregious mistake, or I don't know, but maybe possibly it was the way that they wanted to frame it. But she kept bringing up the enemy within comments. We covered them on our show on Tuesday previously. People can go back and watch it. But she brought that up repeatedly in the interview just at the end there, as you saw. They decided to play a clip of Trump responding on that topic at a Fox News town hall, but not actually the comments themselves. And that was, in my opinion, this is the one that's going the most viral from what I've seen amongst the left. Yeah, go ahead. And just a minor correction on that.

So it's not just that they played his response in a town hall. They edited out the first part of his response where he doubled down on these comments and also said what I mean by that is Pelosi, Schiff, etc. So they took the one portion of his comments that they could use to spin it as, see, he doesn't mean that. He's being totally reasonable and left out the part from their own event where he was like, no, I mean the left. I mean, in my opinion, that was stupid because you should just play the damn comment if you're gonna play anything. In my opinion, I wouldn't have played anything. I would just let the lady talk because I think that that's one of those. But if you're gonna play something, you shouldn't be editing this stuff down anyway. So let's take a listen to that. Question to the former president today. Harris Faulkner had a town hall,

and this is how he responded. I heard about that. They were saying I was, like, threatening. I'm not threatening anybody. They're the ones doing the threatening. They do phony investigations. I've been investigated more than Alphonse Capone. He was the greatest gangster. No, it's true.

Think of it. It's called weaponization of government. It's a terrible thing. So, Brett, I'm sorry, and with all due respect, that clip was not what he has been saying about the enemy within that he has repeated when he's speaking about the American people. That's not what you just showed. He was asked. No, no, no.

That's not what you just showed. In all fairness and respect to you. The question that we asked. You didn't show that. And here's the bottom line. He has repeated it many times. And you and I both know that. And you and I both know that he has talked about turning the American military on the American people. He has talked about going after people who are engaged in

peaceful protest. He has talked about locking people up because they disagree with him. This is a democracy and an inner democracy. the president of the United States in the United States of America should be willing to be able to handle criticism without saying he'd lock people up for doing it. And this is what is at stake, which is why you have someone like the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff saying what Mark Milley has said about Donald Trump being a threat to the United States of America. So yeah, there you go. Like, I agree it wasn't good. But you know, that's where you were saying

previously she didn't get angry. She actually did kind of get angry. I mean, maybe it's effective or not, but it was clear like she was really roaring to go at it. Now, from what Brett said, Brett was like, I think she came into this. She wanted to score some good hits against Trump on Fox News. And he's like, I think she accomplished that. He was like, I also think that she came into this one to score some good hits against us. And like that clearly was the moment that they were looking for. From what I've seen, like on the liberal side, that's the one that's probably gone the most viral. I agree. I mean, I don't think it's a good look for Fox. They should just play the damn comments. I don't know why they did that. Well, it also just makes it like it takes it out of the realm of debatable,

whether it was like a fair and just tough interview or whether it was dishonest and partisan, because we can show you what he actually said. So what they did is they took out, they clipped out the piece of his answer that they thought best served their ends to be like, hey, it doesn't mean that. Come on, you know Donald Trump. He's just joking around. When at literally their same event, when he was actually asked that question, his first response was to double down and say, no, I do mean my political opponents. So let's take a listen in contrast to what he actually said in response so you can see just how dishonest it was.

They're using your words to say that you are not for crime and keeping particularly women safe in ads. I want to take a look at what you said and just tell me. Let's watch it. If we have to. We have two enemies. We have the outside enemy, and then we have the enemy from within. And the enemy from within, in my opinion, is more dangerous than China, Russia, and all these countries. Because if you have a smart president, he can handle them pretty easily. But the thing that's tougher to handle are these lunatics that we have inside, like Adam Schiff. I call him the enemy from within.

Mr. President, Kamala Harris has said you sounded unhinged and unchecked power is in our future. What do you say about that? I thought it was a nice presentation. I wasn't unhinged. You know what they are? They're a party of soundbites. Somebody asked me, can they be brought together? You know, I never thought really I wasn't thinking like they could.

Because they are, they're very different. And it is the enemy from within. And they're very dangerous. So anyway, there you go. It's like, that's what he actually said. And so clearly they knew she was going to bring that up, right? Because this has been, you know, for good reason, a major point they've been bringing up on the trail in recent

days. And so in order to rebut it, they picked out this incredibly like just deceptive version of what he's been saying about this. So they can see, you know, he's fine. What are you talking about? There's nothing, no problem there. And you know, that's where, like I said, it gave her an opportunity. Now, the thing is that Kamala Harris doesn't always rise to those opportunities. Like this gave her a chance both to go up, go against Donald Trump to really articulate in a forceful way how disturbing and disgraceful she thinks those comments and others are, right? In a way that, look, we saw in 2022, these sorts of concerns about Donald Trump do animate a lot of voters and have been successful for Democrats in terms of electoral performance.

And she gets a chance to push back on Fox News and, you know, call out Brett for not showing the full context here and not actually showing the comments that Trump made. So it's a good moment for her with the base. I also think it's a good moment for her with any base. I also think it's a good moment for her with any potential swing voters. Again, as I said before, how much does any of this matter? I don't know really. But anyway, I thought that was,

like you said, Sagar, probably her strongest moment in this interview. Now to the weakest, I think, actually. Maybe, I don't know, most journalistically, the most consequential. Electorally, I'm not so sure. This was on Biden's mental acuity.

I thought this was absolutely her worst answer of the night. Let's take a listen. You call Donald Trump, he's misguided. You say now he is unstable. He is unstable, but- He's not well. You say he's mentally not stable. He's not stable. Let me ask you this.

You told many interviewers that Joe Biden was on his game, that ran around circles on his staff. When did you first notice that President Biden's mental faculties appeared diminished? Joe Biden, I have watched from the Oval Office to the Situation Room. And he has the judgment and the experience to do exactly what he has done in making very important decisions on behalf of the American people. There were no concerns raised? Joe Biden is not on the ballot. I understand. And Donald Trump, Donald Trump is.

But you talked about it. And Donald Trump is. After George Clooney said within a few minutes of talking to President Biden at a fundraiser that he thought this was not the same Joe Biden that we saw on the debate stage is on the ballot. I understand you met with him at least once a week for three and a half years. You didn't have any concerns. I think the American people have a concern about Donald Trump, which is why the people who know him best, including leaders of our national security community, have all spoken out, even people who worked for him.

All right, yeah. I mean, I thought that was wild. It was like, Joe Biden, what did he say? He has done what he has done for the American people. And then it was, Joe Biden is not on the ballot, which frankly, you should be saying that a lot more. But there's no real distance. The only other line, I guess we didn't have it in there. What do you think would be the best answer for her here? That's a little bit difficult considering the amount of gaslighting that these people did. It's like, I don't really know because he has her dead to rights. Yeah, that's the problem is like there is no good answer really to this question because if you admit like, yeah, I've been seeing this dude going downhill for a while, which is probably the honest answer, like you can't really say that, right? So I think it's

going to be a very important question for history who knew what, when, with regard to Joe Biden. Oh, I've been reading Bob Woodward's more recent book and there's some wild stuff in there. And I think, you know, this tape will be entered into the annals of history in terms of, you know, the level of spin and the level of gaslighting of the American people that occurred at the time. As a political matter, I don't know that there's really a better answer that she could give than, listen, it's not him on the ballot. He's fine and well and good, and I saw him make great decisions, and it was all fine. And, you know, I'm not admitting any wrongdoing here on my behalf that I was covering anything up. And Donald Trump is really where the focus is. And frankly, you know, I actually thought that these questions would be more of a sticking point for the American people after the,

you know, switch from Biden to Kamala. But I actually think most people do feel the way she articulated, like, all right, he's, that's the past. We're moving forward. It's me versus Donald Trump. So let's talk about that. So yeah. Is it like, is it dishonest? Yeah, it's dishonest. Is it a great look for her to a tough court? Of course not. But I'm not sure that there was really a better answer on the table for her to give. At least I'm not smart enough to really come up with one given like the position she's taken down. I was going to say, I just, you know, the answer is don't put yourself in that position. It's an insane one. I don't disagree. Actually, Americans have an amazing capacity for temporary amnesia, both from the assassination attempt. They were just so relieved he stepped aside. I think they were like, all right, he stepped aside. He did. At the end of

the day, he did the thing he was supposed to do. Now, I would say it's unconscionable. He's still even occupying the White House. Given the fact that, I mean, we really were on the brink of a massive war in the Middle East. We really have no sense of who's actually making these decisions. I'm not sure whether it's better or worse for him to be making the decisions or Brett McGurk or these other, you know, genocidal terrorists that apparently are cool with what we're doing in the Middle East. So, you know, I think it's unconscionable that we're in that place. But I also have to acknowledge the political reality that most people are like, oh, he stepped aside, so we're moving forward. Yeah, it's certainly possible. So there you go. That was the review of everything there.

Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer and heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left in a society obsessed with being thin. It seemed like a miracle solution, but behind Camp Shane's facade of happy transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits

as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and reexamining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today.

Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. Voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal, and at times, it's far from what I originally intended it to be. These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover, to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships. I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other. It's a very, very normal experience to

have times where a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together. How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States.

Recipients have done the improbable, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves. This medal is for the men who went down that day. It's for the families of those who didn't make it. I'm J.R. Martinez. I'm a U.S. Army veteran myself, and I'm honored to tell you the stories of these heroes on the new season of Medal of Honor Stories of Courage from Pushkin Industries and iHeart Podcast. From Robert Blake, the first Black sailor to be awarded the medal, to Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice. These are stories about people who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor, going above and beyond the call of duty. You'll hear about what they did, what it meant,

and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Trump, let's move to him. He participated in two town halls yesterday. One was with Fox News. It was a Fox News women town hall. It does appear, by the way, from Michael Tracy's reporting that a lot of these ladies were like pro-Trump already. They were like Republican activists. You know, this has been a real issue. I just want to say this at the top, because all of these town halls, so Univision did a town hall with Kamala a couple of days ago. There was actually not that much that came out of it. I listened to most of it. And I realized why, from what Tracy said, because he was in attendance, is that most of those people

were basically like organized by some Democratic cutout group. Same thing on this one. And then, by the way, there was another Univision town hall just last night with Donald Trump where apparently it was the same thing where a lot of these people were actually paid to attend. They did. They used a modeling. This is all Michael Tracy. The audience members were paid by a modeling agency that contracted with him. Yeah. So anyways, the point is like, you know, even these town halls are becoming a total farce. But regardless, we got some things that are out of it. Here is Donald Trump answering a question on immigration. But regardless, we got some things that are out of it. Here is Donald Trump answering a question on immigration. Let's take a listen. Dear President Trump, thank you so much for everything you have done for this country. Thank you. You fight for us in

the past. You are fighting for us right now. And I know you will fight for us in the future. Thank you. My name is Tram Minh Nguyen and my family escaped the communist Vietnam 30 years ago, and this is my question for you. America is a land of opportunity, and its policy welcomes immigrants legally. How different is your policy versus Harris when it comes to securing our borders and only accepting people to U.S. without causing any issue to our country? On the borders? Mm-hm, well, and people coming legally. Yeah, we wanna have as many people come in as possible, but they have to come in legally. We don't want murderers, we don't want drug dealers, we don't want human traffickers,

we don't want people from prison that are being let out after murdering somebody. All right, just took a lot of shots at Kamala, so now it's Trump's turn. This is basically in total violation of everything Trump has previously said ever on immigration, including all of the people who work for them. Why do I know this? Because I literally cover the White House, and I also know a lot of these people. So I know that if any Democrats said this, that they would freak out. But this is pure, if you want to really look at Elon Musk's major contribution to Donald Trump, I would put this all the way up at the top for the all-in and Elon Silicon Valley support, because this is a classic Silicon Valley talking point. We have to have as many people who

come in as possible. We just have to secure our border. I mean, that is like the previous, that's like a 2020 Democratic Party position on immigration. And part of the problem for a lot of Republicans is there are not people who have any credibility on the issue with the base, or frankly on anything, to be able to call Trump out. There's no internal policing on this, literally, that exists. The money is behind it. And a lot of the immigration people just, I mean, look, I get it to a certain extent because they're like, I think the Democrats would be worse, so they just don't say anything. But if you're gonna police, like, for example, I know J.D. Vance doesn't agree with this. I know for sure he's never said anything like this in

the past. But a lot of the people who are on the Republican side, they just let a lot of this stuff slide. I think it's nuts. Yeah, I mean, look, if his position is genuinely like, let as many people in as possible. That's an insane thing to say as a Republican who is an immigration restriction. That is literally an insane thing to say. And for everybody out there who's like, we support high skilled immigration and all that. Even people who support high-skilled immigration support caps and numbers of what that should look like. First of all, Trump has not even said anything about high-skilled immigration in the past, except what did he say? Staple a visa to every PhD in the country. Sounds like a real genius money laundering operation for every university. But okay. I support it. I support

that. I know you do. That's my point. I support the let as many people in as possible. That's my point. This is crazy. If you really believe in immigration restriction, this is a horrible thing for the country. Especially, this is the basic position of comprehensive immigration reform, which is legalize everybody here and then just throw it all wide open through some application process. Yeah, but he still wants to do the like, you know, mass deportation, you know, round everybody up in every town, including some of the people who are here legally, like the Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, etc. Expires in 2025, so let's see, are they going to go back? So in any case, it's not like he's gone soft on these things. It's just, you know, after his, what do you call it, like very bloody, very bloody immigration roundup.

Then I guess, at least in answer to this woman who is herself an immigrant, he says we should let his man in. Who the fuck knows what this man wants to do or what he really means. It's just, you know, it is, I think your point is the most important one, which is the people who claim their whole politics around immigration restriction. I am not one. The people who are on that side, they will hear this and they will say not. Yeah. And that's what bothers me is that Trump is a cult of personality. Ultimately, that's what it is. It has to be called out no matter, especially allegedly, you know, by the so-called like leader of the party, because these things do matter. Look, I get we're in a nothing matters era,

but that actually is the default position of the old school GOP, of which Trump has always claimed to move past. So which is it? And I do know that Trump in particular this time around is much more amenable to whatever the highest bidder wants him to do. And a huge amount of his new Silicon Valley money,

like this is the position that they have. So yeah, I think the main point is that on the act amongst like actual immigration people, I see very, very few who are actually attacking Donald Trump. I get it. Yeah. Maybe it'd be better or whatever, but that doesn't mean that you want the less standard bearer to have this position. Let's move on to IVF. Trump has told this story before. I've heard this, but it is one of the most wild twists and turns and actually great insight into how he makes decisions. So I just talked about how he's impressionable. It depends on who he's talking to, regardless of how he arrives. So here is the backstory on how Trump arrived at being pro-IVF.

Let's take a listen. I got a call from Katie Britt, a young, just a fantastically attractive person from Alabama. She's a senator. And she called me up like emergency, emergency, because an Alabama judge had ruled that the IVF clinics were illegal and they have to be closed down. A judge ruled. And she said, friends of mine came up to me and they were, oh, they were so angry. I didn't even know they were going, you know, they were, it's fertilization. I didn't know they were even involved in it. Nobody talks about it. They don't talk about it.

But now that they can't do it, she said, I was attacked. In a certain way, I was attacked. And I said, explain IVF very quickly. And within about two minutes, I understood it. I said, no, no, we're totally in favor of IVF. Right, so Katie Britt, the attractive senator, called him and talked about how women came up to her in church and told them about how they were using IVF. And based on that is the only reason they decided to change the subject. I mean, look, I'll take it, right?

I think it's a good thing. But it's one of those where the incoherence of a lot of the GOP's ability to handle this issue comes to light, where they get stumbled into things where you have this evangelical base part of the party who, look, I guess to their credit, they really do believe in banning IVF, at least some of them, in banning IVF or in making sure that abortion is completely illegal, like in all cases. And then they are stuck with the political consequences of what has been a disaster for the GOP electorally. I mean, you know, we're going to talk in a bit about what the new electorate may look

like based on some initial projections of early vote, et cetera. And it's like, I can't even begin to describe how much abortion dramatically changed the landscape. It's so remarkable. I would never, I mean, I knew it was going to be something, but to think it would realign almost everything and be the primary reason that a lot of women are going to vote, I would never have predicted that. And yet it has. So this is a good view into, they really don't know how to handle it. Like, it's like everybody wanted Roe versus Wade to be gone. It's like, not really. And then now it is gone. It's like, and actually it's a good thing, you know, for the state. It's just,

it's just all over the map. Like, it doesn't make a lot of sense is the main thing. Well, I was saying with Kamala Harris, like in certain questions, there just isn't really a good answer for her. And this is a question for Donald like yeah There is there is no good answer because also I mean he has the reality contend with that His justices that he hand-picked and put on the court with the you know Direct intention of overturning Roe versus Wade like this was the logical consequence consequence of the actions that he himself took number one and number two when Democrats have brought up, let's protect IVF bills at the federal level, you know, last time that this happened, all but two

Republicans voted against it and J.D. Vance just didn't come. So he didn't have to take a vote either way. So, you know, he wants to position Republicans as like the party of IVF and himself as what do you call himself, like the king of IVF or something like that. He is the father of fertilization. The father, right. Listen, he's got children with three different women. So in some ways he's not wrong. People are just not really gonna buy like he's the one to protect women's rights.

And as I said, I can't really give him a, I can't really coach him on a better answer because I don't really think there is one given the actions that he's already taken, given his coalition. And, you know, he's very fortunate I can't really coach him on a better answer because I don't really think there is one, given the actions that he's already taken, given his coalition. And he's very fortunate that there aren't more pro-life leaders and voters who are as critical of him as Lila Rose was when she talked to us on our show. They've largely given him a pass on this, too. So that gives him the freedom to go out there and be like, oh, IVF is wonderful.

And of course, I love IVF. And of course, it should all be left to the states and all of these things. But yeah, it's just it's just a losing issue for them, period. You know, bottom line, end of story, because it's not really a political framing issue at this point. It's a reality issue. And people are very set on how upset they are about the changed landscape of rights that they previously enjoyed. Absolutely. All right. Let's move on to the polls. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left.

In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and reexamining the culture of fatphobia

that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator,

and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. VoiceOver is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal, and at times, it's far from what I originally intended it to be. These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships. I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other.

It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together. How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now.

Let me hear it. Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves. This medal is for the men who went down that day. It's for the families of those who didn't make it. I'm J.R. Martinez. I'm a U.S. Army veteran myself, and I'm honored to tell you the stories of these heroes on the new season of Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage from Pushkin Industries and iHeart Podcast. From Robert Blake, the first Black

sailor to be awarded the medal, to Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice. These are stories about people who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor, going above and beyond the call of duty. You'll hear about what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So some interesting polling data to get to this morning, but also wanted to take a look at that analysis from Harry Enten. He did a great job breaking down some of Kamala Harris's issues with non-white voters, especially among men.

This segment, he looks at the flip side of that, which is her historically good performance with a key demographic group. That would be white women, my people, apparently. Let's take a listen. Let's take a look here. The GOP's margin among white women. Look, Romney won them by nine. All right. Trump in 2016 won them by six. You go back four years ago, Trump won him by seven. Look now. Look how much lower Trump's margin is among white women. Look, he still leads, but it's well within the margin of error. It's just a point. He's doing six points worse than he did four years ago. In fact, he's doing the worst if this holds for a GOP candidate this century among white women, John. Well, how much do white women matter in the electorate? So this is the whole thing, right?

How much do they matter? If you were to break it down, white women, white men, women of color, men of color, white women make up the plurality of the electorate, 36%. So, you know, yesterday we were talking about those massive gains that Donald Trump was making among black men, black women. But the bottom line is they actually make up

a considerably smaller portion of the electorate than white women do. So when we're talking about five, six-point shifts, seven-point shifts in Kamala Harris's direction, we're talking about that among a major part of the electorate, and that can actually move the overall electorate more than ginormous shifts among a considerably smaller part of the electorate.

If she wins, it could ultimately be because she did so well with white women, John. And what he was showing there at the end is the difference, the gender gap between who is prioritizing abortion and saying that's their top issue. For women, 27 percent of women are saying that is my number one issue. So this is effectively, I mean, if you want to understand, I don't agree with all of the Kamala Harris campaign strategy. I think they should be focusing a lot more and foregrounding a lot more economic plans, bread and butter plans. I think they should be hitting Trump on the economy. I think they would be doing much better in the polls right now than the absolute 50-50 toss up at best that it is at this point. But this is effectively their strategy, Saagars. They see those like Nikki Haley voters, and they're looking at these numbers and

say, hey, that's the largest demographic group that we could improve among. So if we up that by a few points, then hey, we're in good position. And that's what a lot of their campaign strategy has been geared towards. And of course, a lot of their ad dollars have been spent, a lot of their vocal energy and campaign rallies and debate stage time and all of that is also spent on the issue of abortion because it's the most uniting issue among this particular coalition. Absolutely. And this is a point often made by others about the GOP. You know, Trump is obsessed with the idea of winning more Latino and black men. And look, that's great. You know, I think it's objectively like a good thing for the country

and certainly should always be trying to win everybody. But, you know, 75 percent of the people in the country who vote are white, 75 percent. So when you have a 9 percent margin problem from Romney to today, or 8%, that's actually bad because even though it's a smaller margin than, let's say, other groups like Latino men, there's a ton more white women who are out there, a ton more white people who are out there who actually vote. So by the numbers, that actually matters a lot. It matters the most in the actual states that are the most critical in this election, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, which are way more white

than the Sun Belt. And in fact, if we consider a scenario where, what is Trump up by in the New York Times in Arizona? Like four, maybe six points? I think it was six in the last one. That's a ton, right? What does that explain? Hispanics, it's a very diverse state. There's way less white people who live in Arizona. Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, you ever been there? Like, they're pretty white places. And, you know, the minorities that they have, it's like usually black people who are in, like, urban areas. And especially in the rural counties, places that Trump used to dominate, if he is going to only win white women there by some 50-50 margin, massive problem for him, especially when you consider what all of those people proportionally

coming for the Democrats could mean, even with higher voter registration and even with higher turnout amongst men. It wouldn't even matter numbers wise. I've seen a number of Trump supporting Republicans who are like, he really needs to do some female focused podcast. Yes, I've seen like Riley Gaines say that. That's who I saw. That's right, that's who I saw. I mean, they're not wrong. I think they're right.

Yeah, and you see Tommy Lahren has also been critical at times of his strategy, or lack thereof, to outreach to women because this is such an important demographic group, like all the rest. And you do see on the Harris side, they realize, okay, we got a little bit of a problem in the manosphere. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna try to go on Joe Rogan.

I'm gonna go on with Charlamagne. Like I'm gonna go on these various places to try to shore up our support there. You can see they recognize that there's a bit of an issue and they're trying to shore things up. You know, Trump did do this like Fox News town hall with preselected audience members. But in terms of the similar podcast strategy that he's used to reach young men, they're do this like Fox News town hall with preselected audience members. But in terms of the similar podcast strategy that he's used to reach young men, there doesn't seem to be a similar level of effort to try to improve his margins with women, as you

see on the Harris side. And again, part of this cake is already baked. I think it is difficult at this point. There's probably only a few percentage points of undecided voters who could truly go either way. So, you know, your best bet probably is these non-traditional platforms, these more cultural figures, the call her daddies of the world, et cetera. And it's hard to imagine Trump in those spaces, but it would also be very interesting to see Trump in those spaces. Everyone keeps saying it would be cringe. I totally disagree. Trump is funny. He's a pop culture person. Howard Stern, you think he doesn't know how to handle like

somebody like call her daddy? Like, come on. The problem is he gets, especially I haven't seen him do, maybe you can remind me if I'm not remembering one. I've not seen him do a contentious interview this cycle where he hasn't just gotten angry. You know, I'm thinking the last contentious interview that comes to my mind is the National Association of Black Journalists, where he just completely lost it and started, you know, ranting about how Kamala Harris is not really black and attacking the moderators and whatever. And I don't think if you're trying to appeal to women voters, like if you go in a majority female space and that's the way you treat the host, I don't think that's going to go well.

So we'd have to bring more of the like, it's going to be a more adversarial questioning. And can he handle that without just like blowing his top as he has in previous outings this cycle? I don't know. I mean, I know he has it in him for sure. You know, I've seen him do it many times in the past. He's like a frequent Oprah guest, right? Like it's not somebody who doesn't have this in their repertoire. So I think it's been a minute.

I think he should do it. I think you're right. And there's no reason, especially not to do like, honestly, I think if I were him, I would do Oprah or I would do Oprah has actively divorced Kamala Harris and spoke of the DNC. So I mean, that'd be strong. Yeah. So his call her daddy. She's basically come out as like pro Kamala. Who else? I'm trying to think of like big women podcasts. Maybe there's like somebody big in the true crime space who's not all that political that he could vibe with. That's actually a good idea. I'm not really sure. I don't listen to a lot of these true crime things, but I mean, they're some of the top biggest female shows in the entire country. Yeah. So that wouldn't be, you know, that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Yeah. Anyway, so that's Trump with the ladies. Let's take a look at YouGov has just launched their MRP projections.

Let's put this up on the screen. So this is a little different than a poll. And Sagar, maybe you can explain this better than I can. But effectively, they're doing interviews with something like 100,000 voters across the country. And they are continually reaching out to these voters to see how they're shifting. And they're asking them a range of questions, not just about who they're supporting, but critically, because this is the hardest thing to determine, how likely they are to actually show up and vote. So this is the launch of this MRP model based on this

technique that they're using. You can see that Kamala Harris has a little bit of an edge, 50 to 47 in terms of the national popular vote. That would probably be enough, although it would be quite razor thin, for her to be able to secure a win using those industrial Midwestern, like the blue wall state path. You can see in this model, they have her winning Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania, basically a toss up. If you do click over Pennsylvania, they do have her with a slight edge there as well. But, you know, too close for them to actually put it in her column. Let's go ahead to the next piece. You can see three, the more details about the MRP projections. And what this person notes that's really fascinating is the fact that if they're right, then it looks a lot, it's very validating of the New York Times theory that 2024 looks more like 2022 than it does 2020. These results imply, this person writes, that on average, the swing states

will do almost a half a point better than the 2020 margin in those core seven battlegrounds, but they'll do worse basically everywhere else. And so the national popular vote, they'll do more poorly in even as they're holding up and even doing better than 2020 in those swing states. And like I said, that's somewhat consistent with how things turned out in the midterm elections and would again indicate that there's a shrinking of the gap between the electoral college advantage that Republicans have and the national popular vote. So who knows, right? It's just more pieces of data to throw into the mix. But I do sort of think there's a logic to that New York Times theory that based on the reshaping of the electorate post-COVID, post-Roe versus Wade, that it makes some sense that it would

look more like 2022 where you have some places that continue to move to the right. But in the key states, Kamala Harris is holding up pretty well here. So what did you make of this, Sagar? Same as you. I mean, it's a key piece of data. The YouGov model is not bad. Apparently, I checked some of his track record back in the day. It's pioneered actually in the UK. They call it the, what is it, the MRP model, the technique to project it. The point is, is that this, the heuristic that everybody needs is, are we in a 2020 scenario or are we in a 2022 scenario? So right now, a lot of polls are assuming a 2020 scenario, the exact same makeup of the electorate. Because consider what I said previously about abortion. Abortion fundamentally changed the way that Americans interact with their political system.

Millions and millions of people changing the way that they do, on top of major demographic and dynamic changes, which we actually can see. If we want to move into some of the polls, let's go to B4, please, and put that up on the screen. So if you look at these polls, and you look specifically at the Harris and YouGov and Economist, they have it 49-45 for Harris. That's within four points. For the TIP people, they have it 50-46 for Harris and Harris at 50-47. And the overall average, she's roughly around 3% in the national popular vote. But the thing is, is that the national popular vote, that's a little bit less than where things had looked previously for a lot of Democrats. So with the less popular vote,

you still have to then look at those micro demographics. And if you see where you had in 2022, you had an electorate, which was Republican plus two in its preference, but you had so many independents that came over and voted in the swing states in particular, that it still looked like a major blowout. And this is like with major areas of the country are changing very differently. New York and the outer boroughs are becoming a lot more red. Obviously, Florida has become a lot more red. That's kind of interesting. But you also have North Carolina, Georgia, and Arizona really fundamentally changing. I mean, North Carolina may be the one which has changed the most. You've got a way more wealthy and white affluent number of net migrants coming into the state from the last four years. You've got all this stuff right now with the hurricane damage,

and particularly Western North Carolina, where it's already a Republican stronghold. So I could see an upset there probably more than anywhere else. Yeah, I think that's very possible. It'd be really interesting if she won North Carolina, lost Georgia. I mean, it's just, you know, there's a lot of potential dynamics that could play out. To your point about like, you know, the polls and how we think about these things, you know, we covered that poll and that data that showed that Republican self-identification had edged out above Democratic self-identification. And then that same pollster released a poll like the next week that had it flipped back the other way.

So I was like, all right, well, who the hell knows? What do we know about any of this? But one thing I wanted to flag is in that last tweet, they had the TIPP. I don't know if people just say tip or they say TIPP, but whatever. Anyway, they had that now daily tracker. And that poll ended up last time around being the most accurate pollster. So people are paying a little bit special attention to this. But to break down why any of this matters, because it seems like we're really parsing here. When you're looking at

the national polls, if you see a lot of people are seeing Kamala Harris with like a two or three point lead and they're like, well, with the electoral college advantage that Republicans had in 2020 and 2016, that may not be enough. That's really the key question here, because if it's more of a 2022 electorate, then a three or even potentially a two point, maybe one point lead for her in the popular vote could be sufficient depending on what happens in these battlegrounds. So that's kind of the key point as you're trying to analyze all of these things. We wanted to update you on some good news with regard to election night. Let's go and put this up on the screen. So Georgia had issued their election board, which is very, you know, pro-Trump sort of mega election board, different than Brian Kemp, who obviously is

governor of the state. They had ruled that every ballot in the state was going to have to be hand counted. Now, you can understand how long that would take, especially given how close they are to election day, how little time they'd have to adjust to this new rule. And as of now, a county judge in Georgia blocked that new rule mandating a hand count of election ballots across the state. He said that enacting that sweeping change right now, so close to the November election would be, quote, too much, too late. He didn't knock it down outright, leaving the door open that potentially in the future they could implement this rule change. But just saying, listen, it's too close to election day and this would potentially create a lot of chaos.

And I'm relieved because number one, I want to be able to get the election results and actually know who wins at some point in time. And this was definitely going to delay that being able to occur. And it was going to create more of that red mirage effect where because the largest cities and largest suburban areas tend to be more Democratic, those are also the places with a lot of votes. And if you're trying to hand count, those will be the places that came in last. So it creates that opening that Trump used last time around to say, look, the results were all coming in Republican. Then all of a sudden in the middle of the night, you know, they get in these secret ballots and suddenly the Democrats take the lead. So this helps to mitigate some of that dynamic and leave less of an opening for his shenanigans in this particular state.

Well, also just take I mean, the main point is just takes freaking forever. And it's one of those where everyone always like, oh, we need better elections and all this is like, how is hand counting not way worse? It's one of those where, you know, you put your trust in. Look, no offense to the poll workers out there, but it's like, you know, have you ever met some of these folks about who they are? And then don't even forget about the whole hanging Chad nightmare from Florida in the year 2000, where you had those two individual people, they're examining the ballots as another person. People really, you know, I wasn't truly cognizant like at that time, but the more I read about it, I'm like,

what an insane situation. It was wild. It was really wild. And I was barely politically cognizant, to be honest with you, because I just wasn't that political at that age. But yeah, I remember being like, what the hell is going on? Listen, maybe it's controversial. I personally think, yes, it's fine for individual states to run their elections. I think that's good. And I think that prevents fraud and whatever, because you have all these different systems to penetrate. I think there should be federal standards for elections. I think that's good. And I think that prevents fraud and whatever, because you have all these different systems to penetrate. I think there should be federal standards for elections. I think everybody should have the same in terms of is voter ID required or not? What is the early voting process? Is there mail-in voting? What's the early voting period? Is it hand count? And felons vote? That's actually the craziest one if you think about it. Some states have

felon vote. Some states have felon vote. Yeah, that's right. So even like who's eligible to vote in different states is different. And it is outrageous. So I don't know. I think it should be one federal standard because I think it's crazy that voters in some states have way more access, way easier to vote than in other states. But that's neither here nor there. I'm glad that they struck down this hand-pounding nonsense. You know in Oregon, they only do vote by mail? It's crazy. Yeah, I know. They don't even do hand-tracking nonsense. You know in Oregon they only do vote-by-mail? It's crazy. Yeah, I know. They don't even do in-person voting.

You're like, wow. But actually they have pretty high voter participation. Kind of interesting. Yeah. But then, yeah, and then some places like we live in Virginia. In Virginia, what is it? Vote-by-mail is a lot harder. But we have a ton of early voting.

Early voting is actually very nice. I like to vote early in person. It's my personal preference. It's the easiest way to do it. So you can get it done quickly. But then there are like weird questions around the election and like voting all the way up until September. So I don't necessarily, I don't really disagree in terms of like what the standards and all of that should look like. There you go. That's the picture. That's all we know. And we don't know much. We have little things that could show us something and be indicators of what's coming in the future.

And after the outcome, we'll be able to look back and really see what was correct, what wasn't, and what we should have looked at. Yeah. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye.

Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and re-examining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. Have you ever thought about going voiceover?

I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind VoiceOver, the movement that exploded in 2024. VoiceOver is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal, and at times, it's far from what I originally intended it to be. These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships.

I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other. It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together. How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to Boy So Over on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves.

This medal is for the men who went down that day. It's for the families of those who didn't make it. I'm J.R. Martinez. I'm a U.S. Army veteran myself, and I'm honored to tell you the stories of these heroes on the new season of Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage from Pushkin Industries and iHeart Podcast. From Robert Blake, the first black

sailor to be awarded the medal, to Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice. These are stories about people who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor, going above and beyond the call of duty. You'll hear about what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of duty. You'll hear about what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, so let's go ahead and move on to the current president, Joe Biden. He still exists. That's still a person who exists,

who's supposedly running our country. He is hitting the campaign trail in some limited fashion on behalf of Kamala Harris. Let's take a listen to a little bit of how that went. Let me tell you something. You can't be pro-insurrection and pro-American. If you can't announce January 6th, you have no business being president.

Now look, Trump hasn't changed. I would argue he's gotten worse. Clearly, he lost the election in 2020. He snapped. No, I mean it. He'd become unhinged. Look at his rallies. Last night, last night, his rallies stopped taking questions because someone got hurt.

And guess what? He stood on the stage for 30 minutes and danced. I'm serious. What's wrong with this guy? So there you go. That's some of his messaging out on the trail, consistent with a lot of what you hear from Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. At the same time, he and Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were all actually

at the funeral of Ethel Kennedy. And interesting to see them all together. We can take a look at a little bit of this. You know, Sagar, what did you make of this moment? You can see them all three seated together. Frantically, they all look old. But this is the one where everyone was focusing. Obama aged so much in office.

Oh, my God. Obama gives a little bit of a side eye, looks a little frustrated. You know, they're not really, like, making eye contact. You can see the power dynamic in play here about who is really the one in charge. Although maybe I'm just reading way too much into it, which is most likely. I don't know. It's crazy that Bill Clinton is younger than Joe Biden. I know. It is crazy. Imagine him running for office

again. I mean, we've talked about this before, but if there was no amendment, 22nd Amendment, I think this would be Clinton's last term in office. He obviously would have run for like five straight terms. He would have stayed in office the entire time. He had a 60% approval rating on the

day that he left though. Wow. That's crazy. I was just looking at the 1996 electoral map. See, that's funny because I always think about- So wild. I always think about if there were no term limits, I think we'd still have Obama, but he wouldn't have even gotten there. He would never have gotten there. He'd still be a skinny kid with a funny name who was the elector. He probably would have left the Senate because he was bored. I mean, Clinton, I'm looking at the 96. He'd probably be working at Uber or something. Electoral map. Clinton won Louisiana, Arkansas, like Missouri.

It was a different world. Iowa. I mean, this is crazy stuff. He won 379 electoral votes, man. Bob Dole, he won 159. The guy was like a king. It's kind of crazy, you know, what happened to him in retrospect. And then just four years later, in 2000,

Gore only puts up 266 electoral votes. Even if you look at Discount Florida within that, I mean, gosh, consider just how much things had changed just in those last four years. So it's actually pretty interesting just to think about what it all looked like in retrospect. But with Biden, and what we definitely wanted to focus on here, was Nancy Pelosi and Biden apparently have not spoken since they dropped out. And there's still quite a lot of salt behind the scenes between the two. Let's take a listen. With Joe Biden since that had happened. that's a couple of months have passed since. Have you had a conversation since? Not since then, no. No. So, but I'm prayerful about it. I have the greatest respect for him. I think he's one of the great consequential presidents of our country. I think his legacy had to be protected. I didn't see that happening in the

course that it was on, the election was on. My call was just to, let's get on a better course. He will make the decision as to what that is, and he made that decision. But I think he has some unease with, because we've been friends for decades. Look, let me just say this. Elections are decisions. You decide to win. I decided a while ago that Donald Trump will never set foot in the White House again as president of the United States or in any other capacity, but I can't keep them there for going for tea, but as president of the United States. So when you make a decision, you have to make every decision in favor of winning. And you just felt he couldn't win?

No, I thought the campaign that they were on couldn't win. He might have won, but they had to change what was happening, and he decided that change would be his stepping aside. Because you said you had been close for so long on Capitol Hill, colleagues for decades. Decades. Before I was even in Congress, yeah. And now you've told us that you haven't spoken to him since then. Do you think he's not forgiven you for your role? There may be some people around him who haven't forgiven me for my role.

There may be some people around him who haven't forgiven him. So it's kind of spicy there. The way she talks is so funny to me because she really talks like I'm running the show. It's like a mafia. You know, she's like, she's like, winning is a decision.

And I decided that we were going to win and Donald Trump wasn't going to be in the White House. And she's very delicate, of course, about, oh, maybe Biden could have won, but that campaign was not going to win. And I think that's an effort. Like, she doesn't really care if the campaign staffers are mad or like whatever. She didn't give a shit. Right. But she's trying to preserve some sort of, you know, possibility of relationship with him and the public niceties, et cetera. But obviously the big reveal there that they have not spoken since he dropped out of the race.

And that's pretty wild. I mean, that definitely reveals that he is still salty about her role, probably Obama's role as well. And there's also a lot of reporting about, makes sense, some intra intrastaff conflict between the Biden camps and the Harris camps. We can put this up on the screen from Axios. Tensions rise between Harris and Biden teams as election nears.

And, you know, on the one hand, you've got the Biden people, close Harris allies, said they're too much in their feelings. They say he wants Harris to win, yes, but many senior Biden aides are still wounded by the president being pushed out of his reelection. Like, he was going to lose, and also you were doing him no favors in terms of, like, this man can't serve another four years. Anyway, they're too much in their feelings, according to one close Harris ally. But there's also some on the Harris team who are bitter over the fact that a bunch of Biden aides were out there suggesting that she was unelectable. So there continues to be some hurt feelings between the camp. We've also seen some, we'll say, disconnected messaging coming from the Biden side. He gave a press conference in

the White House briefing room just as Harris was about to do an event in Michigan. So kind of undercutting her TV coverage. Also, there was that whole flap between Kamala and Ron DeSantis were kind of engaged in this like back and forth where he wasn't taking her call or whatever. And Biden got asked about it and said that DeSantis had been, quote, gracious and cooperative. So again, kind of undercutting her there. But, you know, my guess, Sagar, is that if they lose, if Kamala loses, you're going to hear a lot more of this. And the Biden people will preposterously claim that he would have been a better candidate to win, which is absurd given what we saw in terms of the movement of the polls and how adult he was. Well, he apparently has been saying it behind the scenes. He's been like,

I actually, look at her, I could have won. It's obviously crazy. Preposterous. Yeah. There will be two like vibe checks afterwards if Kamala loses. One will be Biden saying he never should have dropped out. That will be the revisionist history. And two will be they should have picked Josh. If she loses Pennsylvania, oh my God. The Josh Shapiro propaganda that we're going to hear for the next four years is going to be wild. When the correct take is that they should have had an actual Democratic primary so that these candidates might have been stress tested and voters have an actual Democratic opportunity to choose the candidate they thought would be best to go up against Donald Trump. That would be the correct take if she loses.

But I have a feeling if she does pull off a win, all of this unhappiness will be swept under the rug. Joe Biden will go back. You know, he's a hero. They're going to crown him as a saint and ship him off to Wilmington, which they should do right now. Forget about the genocide. Don't worry about that. He is noble and great and wonderful and honorable and all of these things.

And he's noble and his brain is still perfectly fine, even though his brain was so not fine that we had to push him out of the race. Whatever. If they win, then that will be the—all of this will be smoothed over. If they lose, these are some of the contours of the knives that will come out post-loss. I think you are certainly correct. All right. Florida. We've been teasing it for long enough, right?

Yes, indeed. So, you know, this is significant just in terms of the broader sort of conversation about where we are in terms of our economy, in terms of home ownership, in terms of some of the political contours. Even Rhonda Sanderson, Republicans, have been really proud of how many people have moved to the state of Florida and how vibrant that economy has been. There are some signs that some of that could be reversing for a range of reasons. Number one, housing prices have just gone up in the state of Florida because a lot of people move there and housing prices are kind of going up everywhere. So that's number one. Obviously, the mortgage interest rate situation, again, that's a national issue.

You also have had this problem with home property owners insurance, which is a total disaster, which I'll get into the specifics of a little bit more in a moment. And then you have a situation after, remember that condo building that collapsed and killed a bunch of people and was horrifying? Well, in response to that, they're imposing these levies so that these older condo buildings can be brought up to the code so you don't see that again. But that's causing issues too with the prices and the level of those assessments, which sometimes can reach into like hundreds of thousands of dollars for individual condo owners. So that, and then most obviously, recently, you had these two back-to-back massive storms hit almost the entire state of Florida, which is making a lot of people go like, oh, why do I

want to move into a place that's just going to be routinely hit by massive storms and flooded, and I can't even get property owner's insurance? So it is really putting a chill on that whole market. We can put this up on the screen, this first element here from the Wall Street Journal. They say the Great Florida migration is coming undone. A surplus of housing inventory and dwindling buyer interest are slowing sales. Hurricanes and extreme weather are making it worse. They profiled at the beginning this man, Anthony Holmes, who was part of that Florida migration.

He moved from Virginia to a gated suburban community in Tampa. Now that he's had to leave, he's a victim of a glutted housing market where buyers are increasingly hard to find. He paid $550,000 for his five-bedroom home, spent another $50,000 on solar panels and interior improvements, but now he's having to move back to Virginia for work. He thought he'd be able to sell his house right away. He listed it in February. He has had no luck. He's dropped the price five different times. He's just trying to break even. And he says, quote, I can't unload the thing. In eight months, I've had zero offers. No one even showed up to the open houses. Nobody. So they said another sign that we should all pay attention

to here that the housing market is approaching a potential inflection point, is that institutional investors are starting to sell and pull back. Many are eager to cash in on the huge increase in prices that many of these homes have seen since 2010 and are now pruning their Florida housing exposure. Just to give you a few more numbers

and I'll get your reaction to all of this saga, they say, Tampa, Orlando, and much of the Space reaction to all of this saga. They say Tampa, Orlando, and much of the Space Coast are also experiencing this Florida housing reversal. Inventory for single family homes and condos in these areas was up more than 50% in August versus the last year. At the same time, demand has decreased 10% or more in these areas. About half of the homes listed for sale in Tampa, which is where the individual I was talking about was struggling to sell his home, about half of them have experienced price reductions as of September 9th. That's the third highest share of all U.S. major metro areas. So it does seem like something is going on here. Absolutely. Can we put the next one, please,

up on the screen? Because this is probably one of the most important parts is about all of these properties that are for sale have skyrocketed. The guy was speculating, what are the odds these are Airbnbs with owners who are about to declare bankruptcy? But what you actually see inside all the data is it's a flat housing market from March 2023 onward. Two huge hurricanes that have now come through in the last year, skyrocketing insurance of 400%. And then on top of that, you have a lot, there's not a lot of faith inside of the actual state that the current like kludge of insurance system that's been put together after a lot of the insurance companies pulled out will even hold up. And this was the most interesting part to me.

Let's put the next one, please, on the screen. What we saw is that the insurer of last resort is actually already in trouble, and that Milton may be a big part of it. It's called the Citizens Property Insurance Group. It's a state nonprofit home insurance that was set up as the last resort. 1.3 million policies are in force in the last month, three times as many compared to five years ago. It's the largest provider in the entire state. The problem is that the governor already warned that Citizens was not solvent and that, quote, it can't function with millions of people on that because if a storm hits, it's going to cause problems for the state. Quote, thankfully, they've avoided the worst case scenario for Milton.

But that doesn't change that citizens is one catastrophic storm away from complete and total insolvency. Which means what? That they're either going to get bailed out by the federal government or those insurance premiums are about to go from 400% five years ago to like 1,000% five years ago. So you can't even imagine what that would do, especially in a high interest rate environment. Think about what your mortgage payment is going to look like from interest and insurance. Honestly, it could go way over principal if you start to think about what the cost of living there would be. That's crazy. That's absolutely true. No, I mean, if you think about 400% increase in those costs over just a

few years, that's mind-blowing. And so what's happened is a bunch of the local private insurers just canceled policy. We're not doing this anymore. They're out. And so people were forced into this property owner's insurance of last resort, which is federal and state-backed, Citizens Property Insurance Corporation. And you have politicians here in D.C. raising alarms that they're on the brink of insolvency if they get hit with another catastrophic event. You know, they're already probably going to have to pay out billions of dollars in claims after these two storms. And so while this outfit has a mechanism in order to be able to make sure it remains solvent, that mechanism is basically

just jacking up the prices like crazy, not only on homes, but also on, you know, other forms of, like cars and boats and whatever. And how politically feasible is that really going to be for whoever is governor, whether it's Ron DeSantis or whoever's governor of the state at the time? And so Sheldon Whitehouse was saying, should claims exceed the insurer's ability to pay, citizens does have a mechanism to pass those losses on to Florida families who are already paying sky-high premiums. Recouping billions of dollars in losses from Floridians is unlikely to be feasible economically or politically, let alone in time to pay massive claims. Hence, the budget committee concern about possible requests for a federal bailout. So whether or not you live in Florida, very possible this could be a question that the whole country is faced with here shortly. But, you know, it's an irony that the very things that some of the things that make Florida so incredibly appealing, obviously, is the great weather. But all of this beachfront property

may be, you know, the thing that is also causing a lot of people to be reluctant to relocate there because you're facing these storms, you're facing this property insurance, you know, skyrocketing property insurance, impossibility in certain instances of even getting property insurance. And so you are already starting to see a reversal of some of those trends. Yeah, exactly. Look, there's a lot of stuff going on. The point is, is that if you really look at the demographics, like we're watching Florida now go red. I'm watching with great interest how North Carolina is going to go and what the margins of that will look like. Disproportionately a lot wider than the more economically dynamic swing the Sun Belt states. I really am also watching Nevada. Nevada's had a ton of economic development

in the last couple of years. They've also had big changes in terms of like their political outlook and who they may vote for. So America's changing a lot. America is changing a lot. I think it's part of the most exciting things about covering this stuff. And, you know, a lot of the bull case for Florida is now becoming a little bit of a bear case. So you should definitely think about that when you are making decisions. Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left.

In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment

and reexamining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. Voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's

political, it's societal, and at times, it's far from what I originally intended it to be. These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover, to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships. I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other. It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together. How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now.

Let me hear it. Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves. This medal is for the men who went down that day. It's for the families of those who didn't make it. I'm J.R. Martinez. I'm a U.S. Army veteran myself,

and I'm honored to tell you the stories of these heroes on the new season of Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage from Pushkin Industries and iHeart Podcast. From Robert Blake, the first black sailor to be awarded the medal, to Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice. These are stories about people who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor, going above and beyond the call of duty. You'll hear about what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage

and sacrifice. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So we have a stunning potential development out of Israel and Gaza Strip. We can go ahead and put this tear sheet up on the screen from Axios. Israel is apparently investigating the possible death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. Sinwar credited, of course, with some of the architecting of October 7th. He has been probably the primary target for assassination by Israel post-Oct October 7th. He has been probably the primary target for assassination by Israel post-October 7th. There are some gruesome images floating around social media of the individual was purported to be Yaya Sinwar after this strike that potentially killed him. That has not been

firmly confirmed at all yet. The IDF is still investigating it. So we wanted to bring you everything that we know. You know, just looking at him, Sagar, it does look like it could be him. Looking at the photo, we're not going to put the photos up there. They're pretty gruesome. And some of the details are a bit odd. So from what we know, what is it right now? It looks like it was as a result of a drone strike. and it was a drone strike on three individuals who were walking, I think. And it was after they discovered the remains that they were like, oh, man, this could be Senwar. So they're doing genetic testing, like they said, right now to confirm with 100% certainty. And apparently they still have to clear explosive devices from the scene.

But, I mean, just purely, like, looking at him, it definitely looks—it looks more like him than it did when they caught Saddam. I'll put it that way. Yeah, true. When they caught Saddam, I was like, I don't know if that really—I mean, cameras were different then, but— So they said Israeli officials claim the incident was coincidental, not based on intelligence. They say that during a routine patrol by the IDF, the soldiers encountered three armed men. They exchanged fire and killed them. And then it was after the fact that one of the soldiers saw the face of one of the bodies and thought that he resembled Sinwar, but his identity could not be immediately confirmed. Obviously, if this was indeed Sinwar and he is now dead, that is an extraordinarily significant development, as I mentioned before. It's probably the top target of Israel in terms of him being the architect of October 7th.

And, you know, if you had a different administration, they might look at this, both the U.S. and Israeli administration, they might look at this and say, hey, let's take the W here. We got our man. There's actually two ways that we could go. You know, and in some ways it's not a bad development because Sinwar is one of the, I mean, we were reading reporting, he wanted to renew suicide bombers. He was the guy who, what is it, who greenlit and planned a lot of the October 7th attacks. And cynically, you know, there'd been obviously an analysis that maybe Israel had put itself in a position to elevate Sinwar so he could be like that radical wing of the party. So like you just said, it's one of those where, look, imagine if a year into the war on terror, we got bin Laden. That would be a great argument for let's wrap this up.

We did it. Yeah. It's like, we're good. Yeah. Congratulations. Now let's go. One could go that way. The other unfortunate way that they're more likely to do it is just be like, yes, but now about what about his loot? This is what they did with Hezbollah. Immediately went from Nasrallah to the guy who replaced Nasrallah to the guy who replaced the replacement of Nasrallah. And it's not like anything has changed all that much. So that's the unfortunate reality. That's exactly correct. I mean, we already know the answer is going to be they're not going to take the W and say, okay, we did it. Let's move on. But this is something I'd love to talk to Jeremy Scahill

more about because he's interviewed some of, you know, Hamas members and members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad as well. But, you know, my general understanding is that Ismail Haniyeh, who was the head of the political wing of Hamas, who was previously assassinated by Israel in while he was in Tehran, actually in Iran, that he was more, you know, I know it seems preposterous to talk about a moderate wing of Hamas, but he was more interested in a diplomatic solution. He was less enamored with some of the more sort of like, you know, terrorist or violent activities that Hamas has in particular engaged in, not only on October 7th, these obvious civilians, but in the past with regard to suicide bombings. And so he was someone that you could more easily work with and imagine coming in a diplomatic solution. Sinwar, more of the hardliner. And there had been some reporting, I don't know whether it was true or not, but that he was thinking again of, hey, we need to get back into the suicide bombing business. And so if he is now taken out as head

of Hamas, who knows who fills that vacuum and what the ideology is coming next, you know, what version of their ideology it is. In any case, we'll keep an eye on it and, you know, see if this is ultimately confirmed. Right now continues to be a big question mark. What is not a big question mark is that Israel continues with their offensive both in Gaza, also in other parts of the region, but most specifically in Lebanon. We can put these images up on the screen. This is a video of just the detonation of an entire residential neighborhood in a southern Lebanon town. You know, hard to imagine this being really like a precision strike to get the baddies in Hezbollah when you just, you know,

wantonly destroy an entire village. So that's what you're looking at there. We also have some domestic news, some new revelations about, you guys recall there was that effectively pro-rape riot at a torture facility. They call it a detention center for Palestinian detainees, where soldiersikud party members and ministers. That's Benjamin Netanyahu's party. Ultimately, you know, after a huge backlash, they, you know, they had to take them to different facilities. It was a wild scene. And now we're learning new details. We can put this up on the screen. That those soldiers, not only did they protest, their fellow soldiers who were, again, accused of raping a Palestinian detainee. Not only did they protest, but they also attacked those military police investigators.

They also held them at gunpoint and barricaded themselves with the suspects to try to keep them from getting arrested. Military police has witnessed testimonies to the assault. It has not, though, been investigated on the grounds that the assaulted soldiers are afraid to officially complain, even though in its aftermath some of the investigators involved stopped fulfilling operational roles and one stopped showing up for reserve duty. So these are also, you know, people who are in the military, the military police, who came to arrest these individuals accused of grave crimes with quite a lot of evidence. And the fellow soldiers take out their weapons, barricade them in rooms, assault them directly. And there's been zero investigation into any of this because effectively, you know, the government, certainly a significant part of Israeli society, supported the side that was like, we don't think that, we think it should be fine

for soldiers to rape Palestinians and there should be no consequences. Just a wild sign of where the society is. The inside of it is totally crazy, especially with that riot that would happen. And then now the, what is it? The actual internal like efforts to police it is crazy. They literally attacked the military police for arresting. You can't even imagine what this would look like in the US military or for our discipline. I mean, it would be a total destruction

of like chain of command, of justice, of everything that they pride themselves on, the professionalization of the force from My Lai on. It's just absolute madness. And think even, look, Abu Ghraib was shameful, right? But there was a lot done to make sure that something like that never, ever happened again. This is the opposite reaction. This would be like if they got away with it. And worse, that when they were arrested, that the people there actually turned and sided with those who were at Abu Ghraib. That's exactly right. Yeah, it's wild to comprehend. And then the fact that they're, you know, basically the government's like, oh, we're on the side of the people who, you know, took out their weapons and assaulted the military police trying to do their job and investigate these people and bring them

into detention. Yeah, it tells you a lot. Let's go ahead and put this next piece up on the screen. This was quite an interesting opinion piece published in an Israeli newspaper, Haaretz. The author here, Yitzhak Brink, Major General Yitzhak Brink, served in the Army Corps as a brigade division and troop commander, was commander of the IDF military colleges for 10 years, he was the IDF ombudsman. So this is no, you know, anti-Zionist pink-haired lefty on a college campus. And the headline is, Israel will collapse within a year if the war of attrition against Hamas and Hezbollah continues. So, you know, this person is very invested in the future of the Israeli state who is sounding the warning. He says, I assume Defense Minister Golan already understands the war has lost its purpose. Israel is sinking deeper into the Gaza

mud, losing more and more soldiers as they get killed or wounded without any chance of achieving the war's main goal, bringing down Hamas. The country really is galloping towards the edge of an abyss. If the war of attrition continues, Israel will collapse within no more than a year. Terror attacks are intensifying the West Bank and inside the country. The Reservist Army is voting with its feet following recurring mobilizations of combat soldiers and the economy is crashing. Israel has also become a pariah state, prompting economic boycotts and an embargo on arms shipments. So, you know, we've seen some, is he right? I don't know. But we've seen some signs that, you know, they've got real problems. There are more and more countries who are saying, we're not going to ship you weapons anymore.

You have the U.S. doing, I don't have, I don't feel like it has much credibility. But this letter from the State Department saying basically, like, you've got to shape up with regard to aid. You know, there may be consequences. They're already sending signals that, like, no, actually, there won't be consequences. But the U.S. sending that letter, I mean, it is something. And certainly the Netanyahu's government is fearful that if Kamala Harris were elected or even post-election, that Biden might feel he has a freer hand to take some sort of actions against them. But more to the point, we've seen businesses pulling out. We've seen Intel was supposed to go forward with some significant investment in the state that they backed down of. You have an incredible burden on

society from these multiple wars that they're fighting and constantly trying to escalate. And you even had a letter from some 130 IDF members who said, no, if you don't go and get a hostage deal and bring home the hostages and have a ceasefire, we're not doing this anymore. We're going to refuse to serve. So the cracks are certainly showing. And so it's not preposterous, this assessment from this individual, especially when you consider the numbers of Israelis who have said, yeah, I've thought about leaving and I've taken some steps

to investigate what that could look like. Yeah. I mean, I just don't know what to make of all of these developments and what the Biden administration really will do after the election. They have multiple different opportunities about what to do and which policy. For example, the Obama administration allowed some critical resolutions against Israel to go through the UN Security Council after the election when Trump was coming into office during the transition. So they could take that. But I mean, all signs don't currently indicate that right now. I just, I really don't know which way it's going to go. As for Sinwar,

while you were talking, I was just making sure. Still don't see anything right now. Barack Ravid says three Israeli officials say one of the bodies is most likely Sinwar. They will have to wait for DNA and fingerprint analysis. They say that Israel has both his DNA and his fingerprints from the time that he is in prison, so they'll be able to know relatively short. It would be crazy for him to just be like out and about. I mean, yeah, it's kind of maddening to be not tracked, to be out and about with two bodyguards. I mean, it also, frankly, I mean, in terms of the Israeli intelligence machine,

what does it say about them? They've been telling us like he's underground. Oh, we know exactly where he is. We know exactly where he is. He's surrounded by hostages at all times. You know, this is like, so which one is it? I mean, frankly, what he was doing is probably the smart thing. You actually want to keep a low profile. You don't want a bunch of guys around you. They're probably looking for the hostages more, so you don't necessarily want to be around them. And the fact that he got caught on the ground, like walking out in the open is kind of insane for it to be the literal leader of Hamas. But maybe we'll learn a little bit more about it. They basically got him by accident, it looks like.

This was no bin Laden-style operation. Yeah. If it is 100% him. Got to catch that. That letter that I referenced before from the Biden administration to the Israelis was trying to put pressure on them with regard to the horrific lack of aid in Gaza in general, but northern Gaza in particular, where no aid had gone in in the month of October whatsoever. We could put this up on the screen. So the IDF and the State Department, this is per our own Ryan Grimm, are both claiming 50 aid trucks have entered north Gaza, but reporters on the ground say this is false. We have a Palestinian journalist who elaborated on this. We can put this up on the screen as well.

They say, the images and videos you're seeing that claim to show aid reaching northern Gaza are highly misleading, part of a larger narrative being pushed by the Israeli military. I can confidently assert no aid trucks have entered the besieged areas. The aid that has entered has only gone to the southern parts of Gaza, was intended primarily for media and propaganda purposes. Not a single truck has reached the northern areas since the start of the military operation there. And, you know, this is because the U.S. sent this letter. The very likely game that's going to be played here is they'll do this photo op with some more

aid trucks. The U.S. will use it to be able to say, here is they'll do this photo op with some war aid trucks. The U.S. will use it to be able to say, see, they're doing their job, and we put pressure on them, and look how great we are, and it's amazing. Problem solved. We're moving on. And not take any sort of, you know, not to change course whatsoever. That seems like the likely direction that we're ultimately going in here based on the evidence we have and the track record we have as of today. That's right. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids,

promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right.

It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and reexamining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. VoiceOver, the movement that exploded in 2024. VoiceOver is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal, and at times, it's far from what I originally intended it to be. These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover, to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need

to explore their relationship to relationships. I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other. It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together. How we love our family.

I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to Voice Over on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable,

showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves. This medal is for the men who went down that day. It's for the families of those who did make it. I'm J.R. Martinez. I'm a U.S. Army veteran myself. And I'm honored to tell you the stories of these heroes on the new season of Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage from Pushkin Industries and iHeart Podcast. From Robert Blake, the first black sailor to be awarded the medal,

to Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice. These are stories about people who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor going above and beyond the call of duty. You'll hear about what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's get to CNN.

Wanted to make sure we covered there were two wild things that happened on CNN. Both, it appears, on the topic of race. So let's start with the first. There was a segment in which you had a pro-Trump supporter who was

black against a Kamala supporter and a host, and some wild language was used. Let's take a listen. If you're an African-American man, look, let me boil this election down in the African-American community to a very simple reference to great Malcolm X. This race is between House African-Americans and field African-Americans. And the field African-Americans are going for Donald Trump. I'm talking about your men. I'm talking about your men who build your men, who put things together, your men who work with their hands, your men who do things, not the men who push paper on the men who are connected to power and want to continue to be connected to power. Are you denigrating African-American men who are professionals who work in white collar jobs? Is that what I'm hearing from you or? No.

I'm just trying to understand, is Shelly the house woman or the field woman? I'm just trying to understand that part. I'm just trying to understand. We have someone who's spitting. I'm just trying to understand the one that's spitting talking points right now. Are you are you the house Negro or the field Negro that you're referring to? So I don't want to make sure your question was about denigrating black people. That literally was your question. You have a Republican right. And I'm talking right now about you literally just said that black men, you just you actually just said this is an election about house or field. This is the nonsense that we are listening to right now by those that are supporting Donald Trump. All right. So that was a wild Shelley. Winter is his name. He's a pro Trump radio host.

I just I'm like, man, you know, why? Why would you ever want to use that terminology? There are probably 10 million better ways to make that point. I mean, in a certain sense, you're like, I get what you're trying to say. You're talking about highly educated, like elite black voters versus like people who are blue collar. But you're like, dude, this is, that is not the appropriate analogy. 80% roughly, perhaps more of black people in this country are going to vote for Kamala. Yes, that's right. So you are insulting 80% of black merits. Not to mention, there are plenty of professional black men and women who will also be pulling the lever for it. I mean, it's just, look, Barack Obama's lecturing a black man got nothing on this guy. And just absolute slander against a vast swath of the country.

The funny thing, too, is I remember because I was reading this about Malcolm X. The whole point of this, the whole, like, tirade that he gave was actually to speak against civil rights activists at the time, like Martin Luther King Jr., because he described them that way for trying to work within the political system and to, quote, please the white master. Whereas, I mean, he eventually completely changed his entire ideology. But in the 1960s, whenever, in 1963, when he gave this speech and he was still part of the Nation of Islam, it was about black nationalism and an ideology of actually there's nothing that the white man can do for this, which he then later denounced. So that's why it's part of the other reason why you really shouldn't be using that analogy and especially looking at, well, who was a little bit more successful in the long run

by working within that and who ended up actually denouncing his own framework that he puts forward. So there you go. That was wild. Second, and I guess on the other side of that, was another wild moment where our friend Ryan Gerduski, who's been on CNN a little bit more, had a moment where he revealed a lot, I think, about CNN. And he mentioned the Ferguson and the Floyd effect. Now, I guess I have to explain this. I thought any reasonable person who reads the news would know what it is. That is an idea which came about after Ferguson and specifically a lot of the BLM movement from 2015 where there was a rise in crime as a result of the BLM riots and or demonstrations. The idea being that police were more afraid to pull over people.

Police were kind of like quiet quitting, basically. Police were quiet quitting, which led to an increase in crime. It is not a difficult concept. If you are, I'm going to say, 10% familiar with debates about criminal justice and about crime, you're going to know what these two things are. Watch what happens when he uses this term on CNN, specifically with some people who are so-called black activists, and they've never even heard of it before. Let's take a listen. Just yesterday, Ryan, about how in the context of riots, he was saying,

let's just bring the military into it to deal with American citizens. I mean, that happened yesterday. Right. But there are the post-George Floyd riots resulted in excess of over 15,000 black male deaths in this country. How? How? Yeah. The surge of violent crime. It was like Ferguson, the Ferguson effect and the Floyd effect. You got to explain to me how George Floyd's death resulted in 15. Yes. Because you really are messing me up. Because what happens is after the Ferguson riot and after the Floyd riot, policemen, in fear of their jobs many times and political coverage, pulled back from their jobs, resulting in an increased level of homicide. Ryan, listen, I've got to stop you there.

Hold on. You can look at the Washington Post numbers on this. Ryan, we've got to stop you there because you're literally making a connection out of your own conjecture. You cannot just do that. It's a real thing. Look up the Ferguson effect. Look up the Floyd effect. It isure. You cannot just do that. It's a real thing. Look up the Ferguson effect. Look up the Floyd effect.

It is a real term. It's a real term. I didn't make this up. You cannot just invent a connection between two things just because you want that connection to be there. It's a little like a name. It's a real thing. You can look it up.

It doesn't mean it's right. It could be a real thing, but it doesn't mean it's accurate. Let people make their own phone because we use their points. I'll send you a't mean it's accurate. Let's move on. That's a good point. I'll send you a reading list after the show. Hold on. We are talking about things that happened when Donald Trump was president. He was the president. So how is he not responsible for it?

Well, the president doesn't control local police departments. Okay, but you're trying to blame crime on Joe Biden. No, I didn't blame. Okay, Republicans have blamed crime on Joe Biden. No, I didn't blame. I didn't blame crime on Joe Biden. Okay, Republicans have blamed crime on Joe Biden, but you're saying that people who died when Donald Trump was president, that's not his fault? I don't. I don't agree with either blame being assigned to either president. I think presidents don't have a magic wand.

Okay, I think that is so wild. You tell me what you think. I just can't get over it. It's like, do you not read the news? Bakari Sellers, you don't know what the freaking Floyd or Ferguson effect is? By the way, I looked it up, Abby Phillips, that host, you don't want to know who covered Ferguson for the Washington Post? Turns out it was Abby Phillips. You don't know what freaking Ferguson effect is? Her own paper, while she worked there, under that guy, was it Wesley Lowry? They did a million pieces trying to disprove the Ferguson effect. So, look, whether you agree or not, how can you possibly not know what it is?

I just don't get it. And then she kept cutting them off the whole time and saying it was totally invented. This is an FBI-addressed terminology. Just ludicrous. So, you give me a reaction. I can't get over it. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a very clear evidence of what bubbles these people live in, you know, because like as someone on the left, like I'm very familiar with this. I personally think it's sort of outrageous for cops to like quiet quit after because they face scrutiny for, you know,

killing unarmed black citizens. But I'm definitely familiar with the term to be able to argue about it and talk about it. And so the fact that, yeah, they all seemed like, what are you even talking about? It was kind of wild. That's what Bakari, and Bakari was like, you made that up. I looked at his reaction on Twitter too, because a lot of conservatives were looking at this. And I mean, the reason why I'm not sure it's a bubble thing, and I'm actually like, are you just stupid? Is for you to have a conviction, you should, I would hope, like do a little bit of reading about it. Like you just said, I have met ACAB BLM people. They'll tell you all about how, well, the Ferguson effect and how it's bullshit or about the Floyd effect and why that's the wrong way.

I don't think it's that they're— You don't read about it? You don't investigate? You don't read about it? You don't investigate? You don't even think? Listen, I'm not going to, like, opine on their IQ levels. But I can say I think it demonstrates a lack of seriousness about their concern for the problem. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. That, I think, is fair to say. And, yeah, and it is partly a bubble problem because they're never, in whatever their social media news consumption habits were, they were never confronted with this term and have to deal with it and think about what it means and whether, you know, whether the conservatives have a point about it or what

the pushback on the left is or any of that. So to me, it displays not so much lack of intelligence, but lack of seriousness about the issue and, you know, a sort of like surface level relationship to the, you know, the protests that they covered. Yeah. Ryan and I were talking about it yesterday and I'm like, you know, you know, we, how both of us combined, how many hours a day do we just spend reading the news? Like, and everything. I mean, every, you know, things, even I strongly believe I read so many counter cases either to be familiar or just try and change my own mind. I mean, who the hell knows? And I still obviously have bias problem. I know you do the same thing just to prepare for every single day of being here.

So to watch that, I was just like, oh, my God. Do you even prepare for when you go on your like to to talk with confidence on cable television? My rule was always I thought you need about 30 minutes of reading to for every like one minute of speaking. And like what I meant by that is to distill an idea into a concise thing to be able to address an argument. It takes time. You need to be familiar with the things that are going on, with the news, with all the facts. And then you can try and break down into a single thing. And even then, here on our show, we talk for almost two hours. They're talking for 45 minutes with each other. So maybe that's part of it. That's what I was going to, I think that is

part of it. Because anytime I've, you know, I don't often, I mean, they don't invite me on these shows anymore, number one, but even when I engage in anything that's like even remotely like this format, it's a reminder to me of, yeah, there, there's like six or eight minute segments. Yeah. You don't have to know a lot because if you just filibuster through one answer or, you know, stick your talking points, then that's it. So you can get away with having a pretty surface level understanding. And also because you aren't oftentimes faced with people who have a different perspective or have facts or, you know, statistics or whatever, that's like uncomfortable for you. You've never had to grapple with that really or don't have to grapple with it very often outside of the realm of just like, is Trump good or is Trump bad? Then, you know, it can lead to some major blind spots.

Yeah, definitely that. Okay, guys, thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate you. If there's any breaking news, obviously, we'll see you over the weekend. Otherwise, we're going to see you all on Monday. Thanks so much to our premium subscribers. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight lossloss camps for kids promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. Enter Camp Shame, an eight-part series examining the rise and fall of Camp Shane and the culture that fueled its decades-long success. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus.

So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. I'm also the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. You might hear that term and think it's about celibacy, but to me, voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's flexible, it's customizable, and it's a personal process. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it.

Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband.

The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.