Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 10/21/24: Early Voting Data, Trump Works At McDonald's, Elon Million Dollar Check Scheme, Kamala On Al Sharpton

Episode Date: October 21, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss early voting data, Trump Kamala ads, Trump works at McDonalds, Elon gives million dollar checks to register, Kamala with Al Sharpton.   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.

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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 Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do you have, Crystal? Indeed we do. How many days are we till the election?

Fifteen days. Oh, my God. Super close. We've got new early voting data out of Nevada. That is quite interesting to dig into with our friend Logan. So we will do that. We also have some new numbers about how both campaigns are making their closing pitch. They clearly both have very different analyses of how to move voters here in the final days. So we'll dig into that as well. We also have a lot of activity on the campaign trail, Donald Trump working at McDonald's, we'll show you that. He also was talking about Arnold Palmer's dick for some reason. Yeah, yeah. We'll show you that as well for whatever that's worth. Elon is out potentially breaking election law, we'll break that down for you. Kamala was on MSNBC with Reverend Al Sharpton, clearly trying to make a pitch to black men in particular. Some interesting moments there. She continues to struggle with Arab American voters

and gave a just, in my opinion, horrendous answer about whether she could lose the election over October 7th and her siding with Joe Biden and not breaking with him whatsoever. We also have some updates for you out of the Middle East. Israel assassinated successfully Yaya Sinwar. They released the video of, it's a drone video of the moments leading up to his death and really in certain ways provided a propaganda, final propaganda win for him, even outlets like Wall Street Journal writing it up as such. So we'll break those details down for you. And Ken Klippenstein is going to join us. He just posted some documents that were leaked to a Telegram channel that was the U.S.'s assessment of how Israel may retaliate against Iran. A lot that's interesting there, both the substance of the

documents, also details about our relationship with Israel and the media's relationship to reporting on these type of leaked documents. So Ken will join us to break all of that down. Yeah, it's gonna be a great show today. Make sure you go ahead and subscribe, breakingpoints.com. You're gonna get access to part of our conversation with Logan. That's what you guys get, as well as the show early, AMA, et cetera. I think we're going to be doing that tomorrow. So go ahead and subscribe, breakingpoints.com, become a premium subscriber, but let's get to Logan. Joining us now is Logan Phillips. Great to see you, sir, our exclusive partner here at Breaking Points. Always glad to have you.

Hey, always great to be on. Awesome. All right, let's talk a little bit about the early vote. So some interesting analysis that we flagged on ABC News. Want to get your reaction to? Let's go ahead and take a listen. Based on the likely partisanship of the voters that we've seen so far, we're seeing more Republicans as a share of the electorate than Democrats. Take a look at that. Four years ago, less than a third, only 32% of people that had voted so far were Republicans. That's up six points so far this cycle. Now, that could be a sign of enthusiasm among Republicans. It could because Donald Trump is sometimes at least supporting early voting. And it may be that these are voters that are gonna vote anyway on election day. But the bottom line

is that people are voting and they're enthusiastic about this race. In Pennsylvania, we've seen Republicans so far ahead of the 2020 pace. Again, Democrats are still a larger share of early voters, but there are more Republicans in just about all of the states we've seen significant votes so far. So that is aggregated data. We also have this. We can put up there on the screen. L2 is doing a job. They're aggregating all of this early ballots that are actually been returned.

So, Logan, what can we glean from this? I know it's a little bit like alchemy. You're not supposed to dig too much, but this is all we got. These are actual voters that we've got votes like in the bank. So what do you see so far that's different and perhaps interesting to you? I would say the biggest thing is that the American electorate is engaged. 2020 saw the biggest turnout in American history. In 2024, I don't think we're going to reach those levels. It's going to be a lot higher. It makes sense. When someone votes once, they're a lot more likely to vote a second time. Right. Good point.

So you don't think it will reach 2024 levels, but it will be, I mean, 2020 levels, but it will be higher than, say, 2016 and previous elections. That's what I think. I can't say it should be number two, but I think it's going to be high up there. I heard someone making the case for actually digging into the early voting data because I know traditionally everyone says, listen, you can't really read too much into this. On the other hand, post-COVID, you do have such a large share of the electorate that are actually voting. And given the fact that you've had polling misses in a variety of different directions,

isn't there actually a case for taking seriously who is actually turning out and trying to glean from that? Okay, we know the Democratic strategy is really to excite young women. We know the Republican strategy is trying to turn out some of these infrequent voters, especially among young men. Can't we glean from this whether they're being successful in some of those strategies or

not? Yeah, as long as you do it with a fair amount of caution. Because, you know, normally the stuff I use, for example, I can go back to the 1960s and say, hey, this is how accurate it is, right? Here we're kind of flying by the seat of our pants. And everyone, if you come in with any sort of bias, you're gonna be looking for the things that support your side, or if you're cynical,

the things that go against your side. Right. And they're gonna stand out to you. Yeah. So to find like a fair, balanced account, like you have to have an absolute mastery level knowledge of county by county, precinct by precinct, what's going on like this guy,

John Ralston, a reporter in Nevada has. Right. Most people don't have that. And so you got to be really careful who you listen to here. Well. There's large, yeah, go ahead. No, I was going to say, that's a good segue. We actually have Ralston's piece about early voting. Let's go and put that up there, please, on the screen. So what really he flagged, Logan, was just the major difference in turnout amongst Republicans. Some of the data is quite striking, I believe. Crystal, do you have it in front of you? Yeah, I have it. So Dems won the mail-in ballot in Clark County, as they're expected to, by two to one, about 30,000 to 18,000. But they only now have about an 1,800 vote lead over the Republicans. Last time they led at the same point, we're

talking about after one day, so keep in mind, this is after one day. But last time they led at the same point, we're talking about after one day, so keep in mind, this is after one day. But last time after one day, they had a 40,000 vote lead, and this time they have an 1,800 vote lead. So he's flagging that as potentially very significant. It goes on to say, as expected, there's a five point or so Republican turnout edge after election day. That means Democrats will have to

win independence by somewhere around five points to win the state, which is roughly what Biden won independence by. He won independence by six points in 2020, but that was 2020. That was Joe Biden. This is Kamala Harris. Your response to Mr. Ralston, who everybody does feel like has earned his credibility in the early vote analysis arena. He's like the only guy I trust in this stuff. I would say it is a mildly good sign for Republicans. It is very hard for us to know what's going to happen on election day. Right. It's also expected, I don't mean specifically in the Nevada numbers,

but absolutely we expected Republicans to vote a higher share because one, Donald Trump was warning everyone not to do it. Democrats were encouraging everyone to do it. And Democrats disproportionately were viewed COVID as a bigger threat. And therefore, we're using vote by mail and voting at much higher rates than Republicans. So it was never going to be repeated to the same degree. 2020 is going to be the biggest skew we'll probably ever have. Yeah. The biggest distance between the two parties in terms of the modes of voting. Exactly. So to go back to that first soundbite that we played with, what was it, ABC? Yeah. Talking about how there's maybe a 10-point margin that Republicans have closed the gap

between Democrats. That doesn't strike you as particularly significant given that 2020 was such an anomalous year with COVID. Yeah, I would say it's slightly good news for Republicans, but how much, it's hard to say. I mean, if you think about it like this, right? If we're looking at the 2020 vote, we would think Democrats were heading towards a massive landslide, which is what the polls suggested too, because they had so many votes early. But then Trump arguably had even better turnout on election day than Dems did. Democrats just won the swing voters, and that's why they won the election. And very narrowly. Yeah. I mean, if we look a little bit at the highly engaged populace, can we put, what is it, A2, please, up on the screen? Because I was looking at that. Crystal and I really struck out to us that if you look at that 65-plus number, old people like to vote early.

They certainly do. We've got a lot of ballots that have been returned. It's also pretty white. You've got 67% there, people who are white. If you look at the gender gap, though, and that was like maybe it could be a good sign for Democrats. You've got, what is it, 54% of early voters who are women. So that could certainly be good considering this is gonna be one of the larger gender gap elections, or at least that's what is currently projected.

So can you give us the bull on the bear case for both parties within this at least? Yeah, I think the bull case for Republicans is they're turning out some of their votes early. That means they could focus on the other voters on election day. Bold case for Dems is that they're doing a great job of turning out black voters in major cities. Atlanta Democrats have been very happy about what they've seen in Wisconsin. Really? You know, I've heard good things from my friends who are on the Democratic side in Milwaukee. Yeah.

Similar in Michigan. I think Detroit has had one of the highest turnout rates, if not the highest turnout rate in the state of Michigan. So, yeah, like you said, there's kind of something for everybody to take a look at and be like, yay, we're doing our thing. Oh, it's fun, right? It's fun to look at. Exactly. All right, let's go and put a four up on the screen. You mentioned that the one thing we can clearly say is that voters are quite engaged and turnout will be relatively high. In North Carolina, day one early voting set another record, narrowly beating out I think the 2020 was the previous record.

They say there was no clear partisan edge. This is also obviously really significant because North Carolina, Western North Carolina was just walloped by Hurricane Helene. People still digging out, still recovering. So it's good to see so many folks being able to turn out to the polls here. But one of the things I wanted to ask you about, Logan, is one of the theories is that Republicans are relying on these less frequent voters to turn out. And so in prior election cycles, you might have said, okay, high turnout probably means

that's good for Democrats. We can't necessarily say that anymore. In fact, it could very well be the reverse. It could very well be the reverse. I think that's the thing about these elections. We have this crystal clear image of what the election is supposed to be, and then the election actually happens, and there's going to be some real differences. And we have these narratives that go on for months, and so it kind of makes us view it through a prism. In 2016, boy, did people undercount the voters who supported Trump,

who were white and didn't have a college education, blue collar, who turned out in big numbers. And for Democrats, President Obama was incredibly successful getting non-white voters and young voters out who didn't historically vote before. So we don't necessarily know what it's going to be, right? It really depends on who those people are that end up turning out. And I haven't seen enough analysis on this, but I'm also curious with the early vote, how many of these are people that haven't voted before? Yes, such a key point. Well, this is part of the problem with early voting, even state by state, is they don't necessarily break it down all the time. We're

lucky when we even get partisan identification. So some of them is just demographic, or sometimes it's early ballots requested versus return. So in the swing states, do we have early voting now in all of the swing states that is open? So will we get more data in this week? How should we look for the week going forward? I believe so. I'm not 100% certain. I know we definitely have it started in Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan. So yeah, I guess they just don't know about Arizona off the cuff. Right. Pretty interesting. It's interesting, certainly. Absolutely. All right. Let's turn to how the parties are making their closing pitch.

Premium subscribers, this can be posted for you guys exclusively. Yes. Now, everybody else will get it for free later in the week, but definitely subscribe if you want to hear what Logan has to say about the closing pitch that both of the parties are making. So we found this really fascinating. Put this up on the screen. 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

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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 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 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. Donald Trump took to the campaign trail yesterday. He started to work at McDonald's. Quite a few memetastic moments that came out of it. Let's take a listen. I'm going for a job right now at McDonald's. I've had, I really wanted to do this all my life. He's a wealthy guy. He owns a lot of McDonald's. That's great, thank you. I like every ounce of it, everything. But I do like the franchise where I'll be working. I listened to Kamala, She said it was so hot.

It was so hot. It was such a tough job. I turned to have a man that's been doing it for many years at the French French, right? I want to learn everything. Touched by a human hand. Nice and clean.

My hands are nice and clean. This guy's a good instructor. I appreciate it. I'm going to give a really big one so that they're just pouring out of there. Good-looking family. How did you produce those good-looking kids? Oh, they look like the wife. They look like the wife.

How are you? Nice to see you. That's great. Thank you, man. Thank you very much. Thank you. It's an amazing business. It's an amazing country. It's an amazing country.

And we're going to make America greater than ever before. I mean, you know, what do you say about that? It was pretty extraordinary. Yeah. So what I saw, Crystal, was that in the back of his head for years, he's wondered, do they get their grubby hands on my fries? And so he finally found it was like a moment of clarity for him to see that nobody touched him. But I mean, look, meme-wise, come on, it's everywhere. It's one of the biggest campaign photos, I would say outside of the assassination photo.

I've seen that one spread like wildfire. Yeah. You know, literally everywhere. Look, I may hate the man. This is a brilliant bit of political theater. It is. I mean, you know, we'll get to the substance, the fact that he won't raise the minimum wage, that during his administration, he undercut the ability of

workers like these ones to be able to organize. But just on the level of like pure political theater, yeah, he positions himself as like the working class man's billionaire. There he is working at McDonald's. It's also like a nice stop to the base. He didn't talk too much about this, but he got this in somewhat. He doesn't believe that Kamala ever actually worked at McDonald's. It's also like a nice stop to the base. He didn't talk too much about this, but he got this in somewhat. He doesn't believe that Kamala ever actually worked at McDonald's. So it's like throwing some red meat to the base as well. I mean, what can you say? The man has an authentic love for McDonald's food. You definitely know that much. It's true. Let me, allow me to read Andy Warhol quote, apparently from the 1960s. It says, I always thought the president would do so much to help change images. If president would go to a public bathroom in the Capitol and have TV cameras

film him cleaning the toilets and saying, why not? Somebody's got to do it. It would do so much for the morale of the people who do wonderful job of keeping the toilets clean. It's a wonderful thing that they're doing. So people were like, oh, this is Trump's apotheosis of the Andy Warhol political theory that was going around. I don't think it's that deep. It's like you said. I mean, really what it is, and I saw a friend of mine, Ruben, on Twitter made an interesting point. I'm curious what you think, is that Trump's camp actively helps to dispel a lot of the negative imagery of him by Democrats, as in it's very hard to imagine like a Trump dictator when he's also like McDonald's just serving fries. And I thought that actually might be the most

astute part of it. We're about to show the whole Arnold Palmer thing. But like there's something hilarious about a guy talking about Arnold Palmer's penis and working at McDonald's, you know, and obviously having the time of his life that dispels this like, oh, Trump is going to do all these X, Y, and Z bad things. And I was like, you know, that might be probably the best like analytical framework for why this stuff matters at all. I think that's true. I think that's correct because not only the McDonald's thing, but I mean, that's part of the podcast strategy, like the bro strategy is aimed at a specific voting demographic group.

But part of it is also just to- Humanize. Humanize him and make him seem like he's one of the guys that can just hang out. And then it makes it hard for you to take seriously, even though you should take seriously. Zagre and I had a whole debate about this. But his enemy within, I want to call out the military against them, comments. It makes it easier for people to just kind of hand wave that away. And I think between those efforts and the multiple assassination attempts, I do think that's part of why his favorability rating is so much higher now than it's really ever been before in politics. And I think that's a very important part of why he has such a strong chance of ultimately winning this election.

The other thing that I saw is, it is worth pointing out if people didn't know that this obviously was staged and the cars preselected, and of course, and all of that. But it's like, of course, you think they're just gonna let random people go through the drive-through with Donald Trump there? I mean, it's a security, of course it was a staged campaign event. Wait, is that a thing? People were like, wait, just so you know, it was staged. Yes. The president can't go anywhere. I know, I know. But I mean, I do think there were people who thought these were like authentic

exchanges at the drive-thru as well. But just for anyone out there who needed to know, yes, it was a staged campaign event because of course it was a staged campaign event, like very obviously. You think you can interact with the president or the former president on the campaign trail after an assassination attempt and not be prescreened by Secret Service? In what scenario would some rando be able to roll up to McDonald's and get their order from Donald Trump? What if they had a gun? That's nuts. Yeah. So anyway, it was not just like random voters who were there being like, MAGA, we love you. These were pre-screened people by the campaign, et cetera, et cetera, just so everyone understands that's the reality of how campaigns work.

There were a couple of questions that he was asked that ended up being relevant, especially I thought the best question was about, would you raise the minimum wage? And he won't say yes. He also got asked a question about, you know, will you accept the results of the election? And he won't really commit to that either. So let's take a listen to those exchanges. Minimum wage should be raised. Well, I think this. I think these people work hard.

They're great. And I just saw something, a process that's beautiful. It's a beautiful thing to see. These are great franchises and produce a lot of jobs. And great people work in here, too. Minimum wage is $7.40. Recently increased. It's a beautiful thing to see. These are great franchises and produce a lot of jobs and it's good. And great people work in here too. Minimum wages have recently increased. So yes ma'am.

Either way will you accept the results of the election? Yeah sure, if it's a fair election, always. I would always accept the results. It's got to be a fair election. We're leading in all the polls now, we're leading in every swing stand, and we're doing well. No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think so.

In fact, they just had an RCP. They said you had a 93.2% chance of winning. I think that's pretty good. So if it's a fair election, he'll support it. Also, we're going to talk tomorrow about polymarket and the way that the numbers there have been juiced by basically one or potentially four. Well, four, yeah. Well, there are some indications. Potentially one, but yeah. That it may all be one person. Four at a maximum, yeah. In any case, and then,

you know, and you can see how this is useful to Trump in terms of, and then he points to, you know, this, I don't know what he was pointing to, says we have a 93% chance of winning. And this is what he did last time too, is especially he used that red mirage effect where it looked like Republicans were winning early in the night to say like it must have been stolen. And he's already laying some of the groundwork for that. Now, of course, he has a very good chance of winning the election outright. But this is also laying the groundwork for if he doesn't get a result that he, if he doesn't get the result that he wants, saying, look at polymarket, look at this analysis that said I had a 93% chance of winning wherever that comes from. And of course, of course, it had to have been stolen because I was a lock, I was a shoo-in. So you hear that

rhetoric and then, of course, can't even commit to raising the minimum wage. This is the guy who made, you guys may remember Andy Puzder, the former CEO of Hardee's, the labor secretary, who was horrible for workers' rights, both in his capacity as the CEO of Hardee's, but also in his capacity of labor secretary. So on the substance, obviously, I think he's a total fraud. But again, on the political theater, I think it's a major win for his campaign. Well, look, one of the lessons is that people don't care about that, right? Unfortunately, we live in a world where people are like, you've got more people who are voting Trump or at least seem to be voting Trump, pro-Trump, who are low-wage

workers and or unions, mostly on the issue of immigration. And look, I've said this before, too, for Republicans. All you have to do is look at the minimum wage numbers that passed. It was a 2020. I think it was a supermajority, I want to say, in the state of Florida that passed $15 minimum wage at the same time that Trump won the state by three. So actually more people both voted for the minimum wage than voted for Donald Trump in the state of Florida. You can actually have a red state that did that. Arkansas, I believe, also raised, I think, $12 an hour. So anyway, if anybody wants to go out there and look at the data on all this for minimum wage and whether you can be like a real Republican, there's plenty of

real Republicans out there who vote for it all the time. So I'll just put that out there. Let me just preview a segment we're gonna have in the show probably tomorrow with Matt Karp from Jackman and the Center for Working Class Politics. They did a big poll of voters in Pennsylvania. And they have a class lens, so they were looking very specifically at number one, what type of occupations are people in versus what candidate they're supporting and also where do they fall in terms of income level. And what was interesting is actually that the lowest wage individuals were more Democratic supporters. It was those blue collar working class individuals who tended to be strongly in the Donald Trump camp. And then if there's also a big divide between the sort of like hard hat, using your hands

type of blue collar workers versus service sector workers tended to be more Democratic. So there's some interesting fissures there, but just stay tuned for that because I think looking at some of those numbers somewhat confirms what you might have suspected. But showed an interesting breakdown between the different class statuses and occupational statuses amongst voters. Well, that's important. We talk here, I just said low wage worker. It doesn't really mean anything in terms of what type of wage, what you do for a living. There's a big difference actually between the bottom quintile and then the second lowest quintile.

That's right, yeah. So that's like people who are basically below the poverty line. And then you've got people flirting with the poverty line slash lower to middle class. Those are very different economic realities. They're very different people by and large for people who actually work and what type of jobs they do, whether they have a permanent career or not. So anyway, stay tuned for that. As you said, let's get to the Arnold Palmer thing. This one took over the airwaves. Let's take a listen. This guy, this is a guy that was all man. This man was strong and tough.

And I refuse to say it, but when he took showers with the other pros, they came out of there, they said, oh my God, that's unbelievable. I had to say it. It was actually longer than that. For anyone asking about strategy, there is no strategy. To the extent that there is a strategy, it goes back to what we were talking about with the whole camp and making jokes about it. I mean, this thing was all over cable news. I saw the Speaker of the House get asked about it. I don't know. I don't have anything deeper to say. The deepest I can go is

that the campier he gets, the more funny or whatever he is, the harder it is to imagine him as like some dictator who's going to take over the country. This is why the weird framing was good for Democrats. You think so? Yes. I don't even know if that's weird. I think it's just funny. I mean, talking- Like objectively it's weird. He talked for like 10 minutes about Arnold Palmer and then, you know, got into the sidetrack about the size of a stick. By the way, there was a very serious journalist who looked into the size of Arnold Palmer's stick and says the evidence suggests this is actually false misinformation. How would they possibly get that? Apparently there were some sex workers who had interactions with him. Yeah, but they got an incentive to lie. Maybe he shorted them. You never know. You can do your

own investigation if you'd like, Sagar, and debunk the debunking of the Arnold Palmer dick story. As the guy, I've been to the Arnold Palmer, by the way, can we just shout out to a restaurant, the Arnold Palmer restaurant in Palm Springs, California. Absolutely fantastic. Highly recommend it. But what do they have to say about his dick exercise? Well, I'll ask him. Next time I go, I'm going to ask him. In any case, this is part of why I think the weird framing that Democrats have kind of abandoned was more effective in a sense. I mean, I think you have to also lay out that the legitimate dangerous, but also people already sort of feel that. But yeah, this is like, this is just kind of a weird thing to be talking about at a campaign rally and going on an extended diatribe about a guy that died how many years ago, this golfer.

I guess he was from the area where he was speaking in or something like that. I don't know. In any case, there you go. Donald Trump talking about some dude's dick for an extended period of time for whatever reason. Well, you know, it's not a first for me off the court. Marco Rubio started it, I guess, to be fair. That's what we have. If you remember from the 2016 campaign. At the same time, there was something that the campaign, the Harris campaign has been seizing on. Let's put this up there on the screen.

This was a report from Politico and it said, quote, an exhausted Trump said no to another interview. So they highlighted, and we talked about this as well, Trump had planned sit-downs with NBC in Philadelphia, Squawk Box, and 60 Minutes. Why does it keep happening? The Trump campaign had backed out of a couple. In response, a Trump advisor apparently told the Shade Room producers, that's one of those black audience shows. That's the one Kamala went on with last week. We showed a clip for everybody from that, where they said he, quote, was exhausted and refused some interviews, but that could change at any time. So, yeah, I mean, you could take from that what it is. They don't name the person, but I do certainly think it's a – I don't know.

I mean, there's been a lot of – I've seen Democrats try to rehab the whole, like, Trump age conversation. And this really shows me – I've been trying to do some retrospectives in my head. I'm like, well, what does it mean if Biden, or sorry, if Kamala loses, if Trump loses? And I've been really thinking about how much damage, we almost have memory hold it, that the Biden remaining in the race really did to the Democratic ticket. And I think that that conversation about age would be so dramatically different if there had been a real primary on the Democratic side. I think that's a good point. And if Biden had dropped out earlier. And, you know, so much of this, we're going to talk a lot about Harris's failures, et cetera, if she does lose. But I mean, so much of this is on Biden, man,

to wait until the last minute to drop out. No real Democratic process, anointed Kamala, 90 day sprint to the campaign trail and the age. I mean, he nuked the vibe for the country for three and a half years. Like you can't really get over that. So I really think that a lot of this, like, retrospective Trump age conversation is just nuked with so much of the populace. They have not forgotten what the Biden conversation looked like at that time. So they don't want to hear it. You know, they were comparatively strong, right? I think that it's that comparison that's important.

And I do think that's an important conversation because, I mean, he is almost. He's 78. Yeah, he's going to be 80, I mean, he is almost. He's 78. Yeah, he's going to be 80 years old in, you know, less than two years. Like, this is an old man. No one should fool themselves about that. He will be the oldest person to take the office in history. He's older than Joe Biden was when Biden, you know, was sworn in back in early 2021. So, you know, it is an important substantive conversation,

but I agree with you, Sagar. I don't think it really moves the needle because, you know, in contrast to Biden, he seems so much more vigorous, etc. And even as he has legitimately bailed on a bunch of interviews, you know, obviously didn't do another debate, bailed on that 60 Minutes interview, bailed on some kind of a town hall situation. Like there have been a bunch of things and you get his campaign even saying like, oh, the dude's exhausted. But he's still out there doing a bunch of stuff. So I don't think people have the sense of, oh, he's exhausted and he can barely function, et cetera, the way that it was very manifestly clear with Joe Biden. So if Trump wins, I think this will be an extremely important storyline. Because I do think there are some signs of decline and age fatigue and all of

that. I mean, you know, time's a bitch. Like he is getting older. He is an old man. That is reality and not a particularly healthy one either. So I think if he wins, it will probably be an important next four year story. Do I think it's moving a lot of people in terms of the polls? I doubt it. But you never know. We may look back after election day and say, hey, people decided like, hey, maybe we shouldn't vote for another really super old guy. And it went with Kamala in part because she just turned 60, you know, and she seemed vital and whatever for her age. So who the hell knows at this point? But I tend to agree with you in that analysis. And also, I do think we can't lose sight of the fact that because Democrats were so terrified of an actual democratic process, they really screwed themselves.

Now, many of us, some of us were saying that all along, right? And arguing that they would be better off if they had an actual democratic primary process from the beginning. They took seriously the competitors who did come into that race to challenge Joe Biden. If they had not just totally put the kibosh on any of the, were leading Democratic politicians, the Gretchen Whitmers, the Gavin Newsoms, whatever, entering that process. And then even failing that, coming down to it when they pushed Biden out, doing what Pelosi and Obama reportedly wanted them to do, but didn't expend any effort to force them in this direction, which was to at least have like a contested convention where you have people making speeches and making their cases. Because Kamala Harris was not the strongest competitor. I think everyone knew that on the Democratic side going in, but they rather just sort of default to her

to avoid, I guess, ruffling various feathers because it was the path of least resistance at that point. And now they're in an extremely precarious position, really truly of their own making. Absolutely. You know, I've been watching some swing state tape from the governors because all the D governors have been going through. Gavin is so good on the stump. It's unbelievable. As people know, I'm not a fan of Gavin Newsom. There's a lot I could say about the guy, but he's a talented politician, man. And if he had fought for it, I think he would have won. I certainly do. Shapiro, obviously, I still think the whole Obama thing is really annoying, but he's a swing state governor. He won by 13 points, okay? You can't

look past that. Even Wallace, frankly, I think he's a better politician than Kamala Harris. Definitely, no doubt about it. Gretchen Whitmer, she is so utterly cringeworthy to me. She's talented. Whenever she started doing an interview where she was going back and forth about why Democrats are bad in the swing states. And she's like, you're talking to somebody who won by almost 20 points in the last state. So she's like, don't tell me that people can't win big. And then I was like, hey, it's a good answer. And it's true. I think Mayor Pete hatred is, you know, I have I have steady, solid credibility in that department. Way better than Kamala. Absolutely. And when he goes And he's gotten better,

too, over the years. Like him mixing it up on Fox and whatever. Yeah, he's very effective. So what, we just named five people who were better than the current Democratic nominee, which is wild. Yeah, absolutely. They never really got to state their case. 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 girlard, 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 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 man who went down that day. 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. Keeping in the Trump vein, he had, Elon Musk have really gone all in on the state of Pennsylvania. Elon is basically like running the campaign outreach there. He's got a new scheme currently happening where he's handing out million dollar checks at town halls that he's holding across the state. Let's take a listen.

All right. So. Tonight's person is John prayer so by the way John had no no idea so anyway you're welcome and Yeah. So the only thing we ask for the million dollars is that you be a spokesperson for the petition. And that's it, really. That's it. So there we go. At these events, Elon is now handing out $1 million checks from the Super PAC America PAC. This has caused quite a bit of consternation as to whether it is real election law or not. But do you want to talk about it before we play Shapiro? Yeah, I mean, to me, this gives like Hunger Games. I mean, the spectacle of the richest man on the planet dangling million dollar checks to get people to vote for his preferred candidate. As he's also, I mean, Elon Musk himself is the recipient of tens of billions of dollars annually

in federal government contracts. He also is entangled in all sorts of legal messes vis-a-vis the federal government. He's been promised a high-level government job that would basically put him above those regulators who are trying to regulate his companies. He runs one of the top social media platforms in the world for the service of this candidate. And I just would say, if you like Elon, if you like Trump, that's fine. Just imagine if the shoe was on the other foot and it was George Soros on stage dangling million dollar checks to people to vote for Kamala Harris, or it was, you know, Jeff Bezos, or it was Bill Gates, or it was whoever, right? I think this should not be a partisan point that having the wealthiest man on the planet, this involved in shaping our national conversation, funding one

of the two presidential candidates, and then being put in a position to effectively run significant parts of the government to his own benefit, both from a business and an ideological perspective. I think everyone should be deeply, deeply disturbed by that. I'm very happy for these people who are getting this cash. I'm sure they're very happy. But again, the idea of dangling million dollar checks to coerce, you know, the masses into voting for his preferred candidate. Yeah, I think it's quite dystopian and it is also possibly illegal. Right. So let's get to that. Well, let's say, okay, so I don't disagree with the word you said. I don't like dangling money, especially, you know, if people are going to come out to this, it's like this weird lottery mentality. I just don't, I think it's gross to see that. It's like squid

game vibe. Yeah. It's just in general, like I don't like people like, you know, going, just having that dynamic going on. I do in some ways, almost just appreciate the nakedness of like, here's a million bucks. If you go ahead and you sign this petition, we've seen some campaigns implement that previously, not new to the tune of a million. But what was it, Doug Burgum? He's like, I'll give you $27 if you donate $1 to my campaign. Yeah, that's right. And it was because he needed the dollars to get on the debate stage. That's right. And so just to lay on the mechanics of this before we get into the legal argument about whether or not this is legal. So the idea is if you sign this petition that supports First

Amendment and Second Amendment rights, then you're entered into this lottery to win a million dollars. But the reason why it is potentially election fraud is because you have to be registered to vote in order to sign the petition. So it's effectively getting people to register to vote using the promise of this lottery, the promise of these funds. And that's what puts it on very shaky legal ground. The governor in the state of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, of course, is a Democrat, and

this is all happening, by the way, in the state of Pennsylvania. He says that this needs to be investigated, you know, for potential election fraud. Let's take a listen to him making that case. I think there are real questions with how he is spending money in this race, how the dark money is flowing, not just into Pennsylvania, but apparently now into the pockets of Pennsylvanians. That is deeply concerning. Look, Musk obviously has a right to be able to express his views. He's made it very, very clear that he supports Donald Trump. I don't, obviously, we have a difference of opinion.

I don't deny him that right. But when you start flowing this kind of money into politics, I think it raises serious questions that folks may want to take a look at. So you think it might not be legal? Yes or no? I think it's something that law enforcement could take a look at. I'm not the attorney general anymore at Pennsylvania. I'm the governor. But it does raise some serious questions. All right. So Chris Lee, you flagged this. I'm going to put it up there on the screen. From the Election Law blog, this is Rick Hasson. He's got an analysis here. He says, there are some other, in terms of the actual legality, as you said, it's all a question about whether this is interpreted as forcing

people to register to vote or not. So section 52 USC to what is it? 10307C. Whoever knowingly or willfully gives false information as to his name, blah, blah, blah, or pays or offers to pay or accepts payments either for registration to vote or voting shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years or both. Emphasis added there. That sounds good. I don't think the $10,000 is going to be a big deterrent for Elon. I was going to say, don't think he had $10,000. I mean, in some ways, maybe that's the perfect thing, right? You're like, well, it's a $10,000 is going to be a big deterrent for Elon. I was going to say, don't think he had $10,000. I mean, in some ways, maybe that's the perfect thing, right? You're like, well, it's a $10,000 fine.

You pay a million bucks and you just have to pay like, what is that, like less than 1% interest or something on top of that to make sure that you can pay the fine. Very possible. They look at this in terms of the DOJ says that any bribe can be anything having monetary value, including cash, liquor, lottery chances, welfare benefits, et cetera, and continues and says that it must have been intended to induce or reward the voter for engaging in one or more acts necessary to cast a ballot. However, such payments become actionable under that section I previously said, if they are shared with the person that are being registered. So it all comes down to whether this was an act of registration to vote or an act of signing a petition, which would appear legal. Probably he's got the legal sign over from his

campaign or from his people because it's an act of a petition. And I guess they could argue it in federal court, but it is an interesting election law. It is one of those like- The other thing you said may be true too, which is is, like, yeah, it may be illegal, and it's a $10,000 fine, so who freaking cares? Right, yeah, I mean, you know, it's— A lot of—I mean, that's how CEOs— If the math works out. That's how CEOs think, right?

They think about these, like, you know, SEC fines and whatever as just, like, a cost of doing business, and so it would not be crazy if he was like, yeah, it's probably illegal, but I'll just pay the fine, whatever, who cares? Yeah, well, there you go. There was another story I'll just pay the fine, whatever, who cares? Yeah. There was another story I just wanted to flag for you guys because I do think this, you know, I've come to see, obviously, billionaire influence in politics. We cover it extensively. We cover on both sides of the aisle. We've been talking about Mark Cuban and Reid Hoffman on the Kamala side.

But I do think it's fair to say there is nothing equivalent to what Elon Musk is doing in this election. Not only in this election, but potentially in American history, really is pushing the bounds of billionaire influence in American politics. He is a saga reference. He's effectively running the ground game for Trump in a lot of key states, Pennsylvania in particular. We may cover tomorrow. That may not work out because there are some indications that that ground game effort is not going all that well. We'll put that to the side for now. But in addition to this million-dollar check effort, his super PAC that he funded is also running this. So they put up a website that is meant to look like Kamala's answer to Project 2025. It's called Progress 2028.

And again, if you look at it, it appears to be making the case for Kamala. But then they use these caricaturish versions of her least popular policies to try to low-key show people like, oh, she's going to do all this crazy stuff when she gets elected. And they're also funding a text message campaign that does the same, where if you just look at the text message, it seems like it's coming from the Harris campaign. But it's actually coming from this Elon Musk-funded super PAC. So you can put this up on the screen. Open Secrets did the reporting here. Their headline is Pro-Trump Dark Money Network Tied to Elon Musk behind fake pro-Harris campaign scheme. Now, this one, because they disclose that it's paid for by, I think the thing is called Building America's Future. So since they do the proper disclosures, it's probably not illegal. But it is, it's pretty skeezy thing to do to sort of posture like your opponent's campaign

and then put out this caricaturish view that's meant to dissuade people. So this is one of the other efforts that he's involved in. And we'll talk later in the show in one of the latter segments about how he's also funding these ad campaigns where if you are a Jewish pro-Israel voter, he's funding targeted ads that are like, Kamala's not sufficiently pro-Israel. And then if you're a pro-Palestine voter, he's funding these ads that are like Kamala's not sufficiently pro-Israel. And then if you're a pro-Palestine voter, he's funding these ads that are like Kamala stands strongly with Israel and always will, blah, blah, blah. So these are some of the tactics that he is engaged in.

There you go. The latter one is smart. The former one, what is it? I remember this has always been – this is part of the problem with election law. Why isn't any of this stuff even legal? What was that thing that Reid Hoffman did? And it was like some fake newspaper that Reid Hoffman funded in Alabama, I'm thinking. It was completely a farce. It was a bunch of them actually all over the place that were meant to look like

they were legitimate news sources, but were just like, you know, partisan. They're like partisan, you know, like literal press releases. Yeah. I mean, I do think a lot of this stuff should be, a lot more should be illegal than actually is. But the Elon Musk million dollar thing may actually be illegal and should be. Right. And the loophole of it all is it's all coming through super PACs. And so then you're outsourcing stuff to these super PACs. So none of it makes any sense. It makes it a lot less regulated. And we don't even have any really insight into even who's funding some of this. So anyway, it's crazy. That's exactly right. Yeah. A lot of these super PACs, they're called dark money super PACs because the election law is such that if you're not actively making the case for a candidate,

then you can avoid any sort of scrutiny. And also some of the disclosure laws are such that if you dump in a bunch of money in the waning days of a campaign, it's not even disclosed till after the campaign. So these are all ways that billionaires get around the public really knowing how much they're in. But, I mean, we don't know the exact dollar figures for Elon Musk, but we know it's a preposterously large amount. And obviously, it's very visible. So to your point, Sagar is quite naked, is quite brazen. There's really no hiding how much he is trying personally to win this election for Donald Trump through whatever levers he possibly can. 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 Sober 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. All right, let's go to Kamala. She appeared on MSNBC last night with Al Sharpton.

She was pressed on the black male agenda and whether they should vote for her again. Let's take a listen. Do you think some of the resistance of some men, black and white, is misogynist? And are you proud to see that most Americans, even being polled, have no problem supporting a woman at all?

And I'm one that lived from Shirley to Kamala in terms of these campaigns. And I have an emotional reaction to you raising the point of Shirley Chisholm because it is on her broad shoulders that I stand and so many of us stand and we have come a long way to your point

and on your specific point about including the fact that I have the support of countless black men who are in elected positions, including just this afternoon and two church visits today with the mayor of Atlanta. what kind of support we are receiving from black men that is just not panning out in reality in terms of when I go to last night Atlanta and had I think 10,000 people at a at a rally. I will also say this Rev, I am very clear I must earn earn the vote of everyone, regardless of their race or gender. And what can be frustrating sometimes is to have journalists ask me this question as though one should assume that I would

just be able to take for granted the vote of black men. I think that's actually an uninformed perspective. So yeah, she's doing a pretty good job on that answer. She refuses to take the bait and have any of the Hillary stuff. So on the one hand, we have that from Kamala about, I'm not going to take anybody for granted. That's obviously way better than Hillary, the deplorables. They made a couple of efforts with that. We saw it with Charlemagne. We saw it here with Al Sharpton. She refuses to break, I think, with President Obama, or sorry, refuses to do what President Obama did, very much lecturing the brothers in his language.

Still wild. I can't believe he gets away with this. And this and the media is just like, oh, yeah, it's totally fine. It's actually quite normal to lecture people that way. But look, clearly, the black commentariat that I've seen from Al Sharpton, Obama, and others, they are worried about this issue, and all of them are grappling with it with Kamala in general, and how that shapes could be one of the central stories of the election. I do hate the way this is framed around black men specifically having a problem with women. It is gross. I think she handles this question very well, and I think she is better than the commentators, right? That's the interesting part. Yeah. I mean, better than most of the commentators. We have a wonderful Nina Turner on who handles

this better than anyone. But yeah, she has done well on these identity questions from the beginning. She really has. I think she learned from Hillary's mistakes. I think she learned from some of the overreaches of like peak wokeism, et cetera. I think she doesn't, she even learned from her own mistake. Remember when she was introduced as Joe Biden's vice president, you know, at the DNC in 2020, I hated her speech because it was all me, me, me. It was very narcissistic. It was that very, like, it's all about my personal path to glory and my trailblazing status. And she's dropped all of that. But to me, the choice of the interview venues over the past couple of weeks do display a sense of nervousness around this particular demographic group. So they feel like they're having a harder

time. Some of the registration data, some of the early vote data, which of course we should take with a million grains of salt, shows that Black women are really turning out very strongly and there is less of a sense of that momentum with Black men. So they're clearly trying to shore that up. How much juice Reverend Sharpton has at this point to help in that regard is a separate question, but they're doing whatever they can figure out to do. She also got asked about an issue that may dog her in the black community, which is this idea that she's Kamala the cop, that she's too tough on crime, that there was a lot of discussion during the 2020 primary in particular about her locking up parents whose kids were truant, throwing people in jail for marijuana use.

Let's take a listen to how Reverend Sharpton asked her about this. And let's talk about blacks in general. Because one of the things, you know, I've been on a non-partisan tour at National Action Network and Central Park Fire and others. And one of the things that reporters ask, and we don't get it from the audience, is what about the Kamala the cop?

And I said, well, I knew her as DA. Right. She was one that wanted people with marijuana arrest not to go to jail. Exactly. And the attorney general wasn't even under your purview. I mean, do you think that this is orchestrated, that they're trying to find some way to separate you from some elements? Because you used to be attacked for being too progressive as a district attorney. I know. You know what? Here's the thing, Rev.

We are, as of today, Sunday, 16 days away from the election for president of the United States. all sorts of people who are going to throw a bunch of things out that will include mis- and disinformation with the intention to dissuade certain people from voting. And that's not new. Yesterday, I was in Michigan. Tomorrow, I'll be in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. And I'm leaving nothing on the field. At the same time with Kamala, we see her going in on the character question against Donald Trump. Let's take a listen. I have to ask you about your opponent. He used a very ugly term about you last night, using the S word as vice president.

And how do you react to this kind of street talk from someone who wants to be president again, that was president. I've known you a long time, and I know you have thick skin, but I'm not asking you as a person, because I know you're used to that. But what does it do, in your opinion, to the standards we're setting for our young people all over the country when we're using this kind of locker room street talk about an opponent for president of the United States. So the American people deserve so much better. That's how I come at it. And to your point, the president of the United States must set a standard, not only for our nation, but understanding the standard that we as a nation must set for the world. You know, we, representing the United States of America, walk into rooms around the world with the earned and self-appointed authority to talk about the importance of democracy, rule of

law. So that's what we've got right now, Crystal. That fits very much with the spending that we talked previously with Logan. That'll be for premium subscribers today, but for others tomorrow, specifically about that character question on Trump. Just give me a little bit of Hillary vibes. I'm curious what you think. I think the way she always makes this question is make it about you deserve better is the best way to handle it, you know, versus she could take a lot of umbrage. I'm not even sure. I think he said she's like a shitty vice president or something like that. But she could take a lot of umbrage at it. I think that was more the Hillary route. And to say you all deserve better than someone who talks this way and demeans all of us this way, I think is probably the best way

to go about it. That being said, again, you know, I think that the Harris campaign has even intuited that people basically feel the way they're going to feel about Donald Trump. They're leaning most heavily into ads about taxation, which are less about his, you know, like democracy and his character in that regard, his like dictatorial tendencies, and more about him being in the pocket of a bunch of billionaires and looking out for their interests over yours. And yeah, I think that's a pretty smart place for them to land and emphasize in these final weeks. How much any of it matters remains to be seen. How much paid communication, they have a massive fundraising advantage, not just the presidential level, but at the Senate level and the House level. Republicans are getting massively outspent in almost every race,

every swing race across the board. I think it probably matters the further down you go down the ballot, you know, when you get to those House races. I think it probably matters a lot more than at the presidential race so much. It really is determined by just like that national meta narrative about how people feel about these candidates for whom they already have a lot of information and experience with. Definitely. Totally agree. Camp Shane, one of America's longest runningrunning 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. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable, the unexpected, 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. On Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage, you'll hear about these heroes and what their stories tell us about the nature of bravery. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.