Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 10/24/24: Former Model Says Trump Groped Her With Epstein, John Kelly Says Trump Fascist, Nate Silver On Trump Win, Axelrod Calls Out Kamala Word Salad

Episode Date: October 24, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss former model accuses Trump of groping, John Kelly says Trump is fascist, Nate Silver says Trump will win, Axelrod calls out Kamala word salad.   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 Thursday. Have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do.

Dave Weigel is going to be here in studio. He is just back from Wisconsin. He was hitting some doors there talking to actual voters about how they're thinking about this election. We're going to talk to him about that, the gender gap, the new Trump-Epstein groping allegations and how much that plays or doesn't play into this election. So that'll be interesting. We're also taking a look at new comments from John Kelly, who was Trump's chief of staff, saying that Trump is a fascist,

also saying that he thought that Hitler did some good things and wanted Hitler's generals to, his generals be more like Hitler's generals. Kamala Harris really leaning into this as the campaign is in its waning days. So a lot to get into there. Kamala also had a CNN town hall last night. So we pulled some of those sort of highlights and lowlights and interesting moments from that to break down for you as well. There's another thing we wanted to take a look at here, which is both the substantive issue of housing affordability and also how that may

really be impacting the vote, especially in Sunbelt states and perhaps in particular in the state of Nevada, something that we've been wanting to tackle for a while. And obviously, we've been talking about housing here for quite a while and how this was a sleeper issue that seems to be playing out in terms of the election right now. Also wanted to take a moment to focus on the former CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, who has now been charged with sex trafficking. The allegations are horrifying. They are quite stunning. I mean, obviously, this was and is an iconic American brand, especially like when I was growing up, when Sagar was growing up as well. So I'm going to dig

into that. We also have some updates for you out of the Middle East. Israeli propaganda about a Lebanese hospital debunked live by BBC. Quite interesting there. And Sagar is taking a look at how we should think about our votes. I'm looking forward to that one. How to vote. But not, it's an instruction guide on how to vote. It's not, you're not like telling people who to vote for.

That's exactly. You're providing a framework. I would never presume to tell people how to vote for. To help people evaluate. Exactly right, which I think is helpful. As Crystal said, we're going to get to Dave Weigel. Before we get to that, thank you so much to our premium him. To help people evaluate. Exactly right, which I think is helpful. As Crystal said, we're gonna get to Dave Weigel. Before we get to that, thank you so much to our premium subscribers,

everybody who's been taking advantage. We will reveal our exclusive maps and predictions here for everybody just 12 days to go until that election. How many shows is that? Four shows until the presidential election, so think about it that way. If you wanna take advantage, you can go ahead, breakingpoints.com,

become a premium subscriber. Let's get to Dave Weigel. Joining us now is Dave Weigel at Semaphore. It's great to see you, man. It's good to see you. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. So let's break down a little bit of a media and a Trump accuser story kind of broke out yesterday. Started off with a lot of speculation from Mark Halperin over at Worldwide News, his sub stack. And he said that there was a story floating out there that if it came out, it would end Trump's campaign. Let's take a listen.

These last two weeks are going to be filled with things like this. And I can tell you without going into detail that I've been pitched a story about Donald Trump now for about a week that if true, would end his campaign. And there's all sorts of things like that flying around. I'm not the only one who's been pitched it. If True was going to end the campaign, people would say, wow, there must be really something. There's all these rumors flying around out there, Dave. I'm sure you saw them. And finally it came out,

and I'm not going to diminish per se, but it's certainly not a campaign ending in my eye. Not for Donald Trump, anyway. Yeah, let's put this up there on the screen. This was Stacey Williams. She is a ex-model and former associate of Jeffrey Epstein. She says that Donald Trump, quote, groped me in what felt like a twisted game with Epstein. This was back in 1992 at a Christmas party, she says, after being introduced to him by

Epstein in a Trump Tower elevator. So I guess there's a couple of things we wanted to talk to you about. First of all, both the details, the story, this alleged, like, would it end his campaign? Just news-wise, I checked of the morning newsletters, I think it was only Politico morning playbook that even linked out to the story in the bottom. So it doesn't seem to be taking all that seriously. So what's your perspective here? He didn't end the campaign yet. Yeah. I'm still waiting for that announcement. Yeah, I'm still waiting. Yeah, I don't think I've been pitched the thing that Halpern's talking about. I saw Tom Bevin talked about it, too.

Yes. All of us who've been out there talking to voters, and I was in Wisconsin this last week, it's hard for us to imagine a story that would qualify like this. Right. Because Trump, this is the oldest news in the campaign. Trump can survive all sorts of things because there's a heuristic for his voters and the voters who moved to him in the last year or two years that whatever he does wrong, whatever his personal failings, look at his record, it doesn't matter. And this is

something that was true when Bill Clinton was running for re-election in different ways. I'm not trying to be too glib and compare them. But voters have set up in their mind, things were good enough when he was president. Despite all that scandal, I cannot pay attention to it. Would this work if he was a random guy running for Senate? Probably not. Does it work if it's Donald Trump? Yes.

You can name a few things in the last few weeks that someone running for a lower office might have been wrecked by, and they don't wreck Trump because of that mindset voters have. Yeah. Are we convinced this is the story? Ask Dave.

From what I asked around. Could we go on to the two-way broadcast? Yeah. There was also all this, like, Charlie Kirk and all these, like, you know, pro-Trump influencers who said something about, like, an AI deepfake. So I don't—anyway, I don't know. But I agree with the analysis you've both offered. Let me play devil's advocate, which is the Harris campaign really seems to be banking on the sort of like moderate female character. Yeah, like Nikki Haley type voter. And at the same time, Trump's approval ratings are a little bit higher than they were last time around and certainly than they were in 2016. So I think part of that is people have kind of memory hold some of the most salacious

allegations, some of his most salacious and horrifying acts. And so this again brings up, this is a guy who's been serially accused of this type of behavior, sexual assault, groping, etc., etc. You throw in there a Jeffrey Epstein connect. This former model alleges that they were very close friends, Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. And it does sort of potentially exacerbate that gender divide, which is what the Harris campaign is really banking on, being able to get enough women on their side between Trump's behavior and the issue of abortion to be able to put them over the top. Yeah, you can go too far and make some voters think that he's being put upon, that he's being falsely accused. The idea of the AI video, that would be smart, I think,

to fight a video that's damaging and claimants AI. I was at the Post when Amy Gardner, my colleague, got the audio of Trump pressuring Brad Raffensperger, and I immediately saw people try to spin that out of existence. You can have something rock solid and people will say it's not true. But that's what they're trying to do, right? Freeze in people's minds before they vote. Do you really want to go through all of this for four years? Do you really want to go through all of it with a 70-year-old, 8-year-old president, with somebody in the wings?

If he's damaged, would J.D. Vance take over? They do want to throw, not in the way that a confident campaign that's going to win and feels like it's locked up. Not in that way. They are trying to draw attention. You saw this with the vice president yesterday, putting out a statement on this Jeffrey Goldberg Atlantic article. That is not an article that 48% of the country is going to take seriously. They have a

mechanism by now, which they don't take it seriously. But that is what they're trying to do. And I saw some of that in Wisconsin. They are getting some Republican endorsements, people who were even on the fence or voted for Trump in 2020. They are getting that with the argument that look, whatever her faults, uh, do you really want to put up with this, this guy again? Is that, is that compelling? It has papered over some of her issues and it's, it's allowed her, maybe it's allowed her, maybe she, she'd be doing better. She, she did more of this to appeal to those Republicans without specifically saying, yes, I'm going to give up on, on, uh, not restoring remain in Mexico, yes, I'm going to give up on not restoring Remain in Mexico.

Or yes, I'm going to forever give up on a thing that me and Biden did. She's not going that far. The replacement is, look at this crazy stuff that you don't want with Trump. You brought up Wisconsin. That's how she's trying to square the circle. Yeah, yeah. You just spent a long time there. And we were talking a little bit behind the scenes about all of the Trump ads against Kamala.

So what do the Kamala ads against Trump look like? Are they equally as inundating? And is it the character argument? Because that's what they're closing on. That's what they've decided. So interestingly, they're not response ads, which is what you see in a lot of races. I'm being attacked with three different ads on something negative in this case. Government-funded sex surgeries for prisoners.

Right. Not to really get the entire issue. But there are three ads on that. And the campaign is not putting out ads saying, no, I didn't, or here's why I did that. It's putting out ads, one, about her economic agenda, two, about kind of January 6th and Trump's character. And that is, after 2022, you can't tell Democrats that people don't care about this. They were told nobody cares, and then it was decisive in a lot of suburbs. But they are letting, they're letting a lot of attacks go, go by or to connect on her on that record. They're really not doing a lot. And you've seen, it's been the hardest question for her to answer in interviews is where she would, where Biden got something wrong, where she would change from Biden. She's not doing that with the

advertising. She is just saying the, and I would actually say the, the future forward pack, especially the, the super PAC, very economic-focused message. So you do hear, if you're watching TV or watching Packers game, I guess you got lucky because it's a very exciting one on Sunday. You do see, oh, okay, she had this kind of tax cut for me. I don't know how sticky it was because I went out with people canvassing too. And you were finding voters who at this point still didn't know what her economic plan was, still didn't know exactly how she'd restore Roe. But that's the strategy. It's not let's hit back at everything Trump says.

Let's just come up with something that maybe the voter who's undecided say, well, Trump is talking about crazy negative stuff and she has a plan. That's the impression they want people to leave. Not that she's fighting back on everything. I mean, I feel like in a sense, the Liz Cheney tour is an effort to fight back against, because what is that, the, you know, transgender surgery ad? Yes, it's about the issue, but it's also about like, she is this liberal San Franciscan who doesn't connect with American values. And to me, the effort with the Liz Cheney tour, which I have a million issues with, I've talked about before. But anyway, the effort with that is to be like, look at these moderate Republicans who are super comfy with me. So I can't be that crazy if Liz Cheney is willing to hang out with me and

endorse me and go and do those town halls, et cetera. So in a way, I feel like that's her effort to blunt the core of that attack, which is like, you're too liberal to represent all of America. That's how it felt. I went to one of those events in the, in the Milwaukee suburbs and, and, and you did meet, I met there people who've been Republican up till 2020 and then, and then bailed. Uh, but that's what I mean. She wasn't, she wasn't saying, here's a promise you can take home. She was offered a couple of chances. She was better at a couple of the other Cheney events. Uh, Hey, my neighbor is worried about something that you did in your past. She didn't say what, what she would do differently. She didn't even mention I'd put

a Republican in the cabinet. I think maybe because the Trump campaign has fed this idea that she'd put Cheney in a national security position, which Democrats say they would not do, but you got her on stage. Not a good topic to bring up at that moment. But she's not, that is what's different. Whereas Trump, whether you think it's credible or not, Trump will just promise something. Trump will say, yes, I'm going to get this thing that the culinary union wanted, this tax cut, I'm going to do it. Don't ask me how I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it. And Democrats are so much more cautious, just generally. The Trump campaign takes a lot of risks, puts out a lot of ideas that might be hard to implement. It knows that I think Republicans won't say, how will you pay for that? Because that's not how they run.

They want him to win. And her campaign is much more cautious in saying, no, we will make some hard break, which is, this Legit Liz Cheney tour was a little more confounding because they were getting hit on one end for having Cheney campaign. AidPAC, this Arab American pro-Trump PAC,

was running ads in Michigan. I only saw photos. I haven't been to Michigan yet. That are just pictures of Cheney and Harris together in Arab American neighborhoods. What is the, are they getting the gain on the other side by saying, and Liz Cheney will validate Harris. Don't worry about X issue. It's not the issue.

It's just, it's just democracy. I'm not, it sounds too blasé, but it really is just the democracy issue as opposed to the, hey, she's learned her lesson on immigration. Hey, she's learned her lesson on crime. Some of the ads do say that, but they're really not delivering the stuff that somebody really on the fence might say, oh, I'm confident I'm not going to see 10 million border crossers if she's president. That hasn't happened yet. So I saw Nate Silver make a point, which is contrary to this whole Liz Cheney thing. He said, look, guys, at the end of the day, I think that these people are already called Harris voters.

Like, you don't need to go after them. And that's, I mean, intuitively kind of accepts my bias towards the issue. But while you were there, were they already Harris voters? Like, are these people genuinely undecided? Like, how do we square that question? They were, they felt odd about voting for a Democrat, but they just couldn't bring themselves to vote for Trump. They probably were Harris voters. And you see this now that the polling, I think there are a couple errors with the screens

or a couple of pickups with the voter screens registered versus likely. She is doing better in a lot of places with the more likely voters. And those are the guys who were Republican 20 years ago, the women who voted for Mitt Romney, who always vote, who vote in school board elections. They have been fishing in that pond while Trump goes for the less, I mean, this is what the Trump-Rogan interview is about. Yes, absolutely. Very obviously, there are people who hate politics, don't trust politicians. I'm going to introduce myself, and hey, maybe they're registered, maybe they'll turn out. This campaign is, no, there is an electorate. We know how to win this electorate in 2020 barely. If we get 95% of that vote out, then we win. That is the theory. It's much more rebuilding

than addition. I want to ask you a little bit more about that, but I'm also curious about your time going out with canvassers. What type of doors were you hitting? Were they like persuasion or were these, we got to get you to turn out? And was there any particular issue that was really being brought up again and again at the doors? These were, it was a mix of, so with Democrat, I did with Republicans in Arizona mostly, people who registered but hadn't turned their ballot in yet. And they had, they were, they just needed the kick, but they were gonna vote for Trump.

With Democrats, I was with mostly Democratic households. Some people who they think voted Democratic because there's no party registration in the state. Uh, and it was, I need, the people who were on the fence needed clarity about what she was going to do about the economy and prices, needed clarity about, about her abortion. One stuck with me in, um, in one part of kind of central Wisconsin, a woman who just, she was pro-choice, but she wasn't sure what Harris was actually going to do, which is amazing they didn't break through how much time they spent on it. I don't want to overestimate that one thing. But I did put it into my database. Voters are busy and not paying attention to every promise they make.

She's not repeated enough. I was not seeing huge shifts from this. I remember going in 2016 and every Democrat had this experience, including the ones I was canvassing with, of going to what was a Obama neighborhood and finding Trump voters. And that wasn't happening. It was these are the voters who voted against Scott Walker in Wisconsin. These are the voters who were, you know, gettable for Ron Johnson, but but might've been voted for the Governor Evers. It's the margin of maybe 5% of the electorate they were going for, as opposed to big surprise. If somebody wants to show me the big surprises,

take me to it. But they were in this context, going to central Wisconsin, white voters who were undecided. Democrats admit they're not going to get the 2020 margin with black men in Milwaukee. That is baked into the assumption that these voters who are pretty reliable

and turn out, but have a couple of questions about what her agenda is, they're easier to get than the black voters in Milwaukee who are just done with politics and hear nothing that they did that was good. They haven't given up. There are groups focused on that effort, but they're assuming they're going to underperform

there. Interesting. Secondary to this sometimes is the Senate conversation. What did you see there that was interesting? Oh, it is a competitive race with Baldwin the advantage. And she, Senator Baldwin, Tammy Baldwin, going for a third term has been winning because she's getting 5% to 7% of Trump voters, and Harris is getting 2%.

That delta Republicans are trying to shrink. So the ad part of it, which you see a lot, is a sort of anti-corruption, clean hands, rich guy argument, which you see a lot in campaigns. Hubby is personally very wealthy, CEO of a bank. He and Pax have run several ads pointing out that Baldwin has a girlfriend in finance, and because they're not married, has not revealed her girlfriend's finances. Who knows what that means? And I asked, are there votes she's taken? Do you think you're connected to her girlfriend in finance? Democrats think that this is about reminding people that Baldwin is gay. She's been elected as an openly

gay for 20 some years. Right. But they, that has been the effort to say, this is, this is a, a corrupt Democrat who you can't trust to deliver for you. If you're a Trump voter, she's, that's the reason you should bail on her. Maybe you voted on her twice, but bail now. But also very close. I didn't see, again, an evidence of 2016 style massive shift somewhere. And even in the third district where Republicans flipped it last cycle and Trump won it, they're very competitive. I was out with a Democrat there and you were seeing people who you'd think could be Republican, rural voters, very far from a city, like a high V's 20 minutes away, pretty happy with the Democrat because they

think Trump and the Republican incumbent were too rude and they were too anti-immigrant. So there's still, the Wisconsin mix, it just is really not, there are states where, you know, hundreds of thousands of people moved in and changed the alchemy of the electorate. That's not happened in Wisconsin. It seemed very frozen for 2020. That's such an important blue wall dynamic is that they have not had the same net migration. They don't have as dynamic as an economy. So it's actually a little bit more frozen in time, which is very much Harris's benefit. Last question for you. What do you make of the podcast strategy? Because I'm just a little skeptical because I've seen these candidates who have really leaned into like new media. I mean, that's very self-serving. I would love if we were

very powerful, right? But you know, Vivek Ramaswamy was a podcast candidate. We saw how it worked for him. Rhonda Santos was like a podcast candidate. Andrew Yang, Tulsi Gabbard. And they generate a lot of online enthusiasm and then they get like 1% in the polls. So do you think that there's, you know,

a significant group that is persuadable that's gonna turn out to vote? Like, do you think that this is a fruitful strategy really for either campaign in large numbers? Yeah, I'm less confident about the second part, that somebody is going to listen to this on their commute or their drive and say, well, I was totally unengaged before and now I'm going to vote for Donald Trump. Yeah. That unless, as a strategy of getting the campaign's daily message out and fighting in the news cycle. I think this was the cycle where it changed over. Just the benefits, what are gonna be the benefits

of a Trump podcast appearance, again, Rogan coming up, versus the benefits of the Harris town hall? What is she trying to do in her media appearances? It's not make mistakes and look confident. The Rogan podcast appearances, that's built in. Uh, the Rogan appearances, podcast appearances, that's part of that's, that's built in unless, unless you're really tanking, you're in a, in a setting where people see you as, as more human. You deal with questions that are not got,

that are not gotchas or not trying to pin you down on something. And I think, I think it's been, it's been effective. It's their, her most effective interviews have usually been those, the podcast. Are they finding brand new people? No, but I think they're trying to do different things. Trump is trying to reassure people and look likable. And again, fit every problem you have with him in this box that has a bumper sticker, I'll take more Trump, more mean tweets and cheap gas right now. That is every Trump message. With her, it is, how do people look at her and say, yeah, she can go toe-to-toe with Putin? I really do think, and even at the DNC, which some people didn't like the emphasis on defense and military, the reason they do that is because she, one, is a woman, and two, is not like a swaggering Hillary Clinton type. She's not somebody who has been in a decision

room and people think, and you hear this anecdotally, you'll hear working class voters who say I'm not sure how she'd handle a crisis. She's still trying to do that, so that's what her interviews are about. Not messing up a question, do that. Podcast's probably less useful for that. I mean, she does need to show that she can say I can stay, and I think this is why

Fox in the long run was good for her even though people wanted to be a disaster. Oh, she could handle that. She talked over him. She didn't let herself get interrupted. Really, that atmospheric I heard more about from voters than anything said in the interview. Yeah, I agree with that. That is such a good point. All right, Dave, always great to talk to you, man.

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Let me hear it. Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin.

And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Business Week editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So as we just discussed with Dave

Weigel, there's been a lot here made of Kamala and her attack on Donald Trump in the closing days is all about character. So that has really come into focus with some more recent allegations by General Kelly, former Trump chief of staff. Kamala Harris took advantage of that at a town hall yesterday. We're going to show you more of the town hall later in the show, but we wanted to start with this part specifically. She says Donald Trump is, quote, a fascist. Let's take a listen. We know that is why Mike Pence is not running with him again, why the job was empty. And then today we learned that John Kelly, a four-star Marine general who was his longest serving chief of staff, gave an interview recently in the last two weeks of this election

talking about how dangerous Donald Trump is. And I think one has to think about why would someone who served with him, who is not political, a four-star Marine general, why is he telling the American people now? And frankly, I think of it as he's just putting out a 911 call to the American people. Understand what could happen if Donald Trump were back in the White House. And this time, we must take very seriously those folks who knew him best and who were career people are not going to be there to hold him back. You've quoted General Milley calling Donald Trump a fascist. You yourself have not used that word to describe him. Let me ask you tonight, do you think Donald Trump is a fascist? Yes, I do.

Yes, I do. All right, so all of this comes back to General Kelly, who's the chief of staff, longest serving chief of staff under Donald Trump. A lot of these comments came to light in an Atlantic article with Jeffrey Goldberg. I will reserve some of the problems of that article for a little bit later and at least just play the audio from General Kelly himself. This was audio that he is allowed to be released from The New York Times talking about this alleged incident. Let's take a listen. He would be commented more than once that, you know, that Hitler did some good things, too. And of course, if you know history, again, I think he's lacking in that. But if you know what his, you know, Hitler

was all about, it'd be pretty hard to make an argument that he did anything good. So what would you say when he said to you that Hitler did a lot of good things? Well, I tell him that I said, you know, if you first of all, you should never say that. But if you knew what Hitler was all about from the beginning to the end, everything he did was in support of his racist, fascist life, you know, philosophy, so that nothing he did you could argue was good. It was certainly not done for the right reason. And but he would occasionally say that. What would he say when you would lay that out to him?

You just, you know, that'd be the end of the conversation usually. Certainly the former president is in the far right area. He's certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators. He has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of a fascist, for sure. If he was left to his own devices, would he be a dictator if he didn't have people around him? Oh, I think he'd love to be. I think he'd love to be just like he was in business. He could tell people to do things and they would do it and not really bother too

much about whether what the legalities were and whatnot. All right, so there you go. Do we want to react to this, Crystal, before we play this? She made a big moment about this. It's a press conference yesterday at the vice presidential residence. We were on pins. We're like, oh, what is it? It could be something big. She's going to come out. She's doing a press conference. She almost never does a press conference. Didn't end up taking any questions. It was only like, you know, maybe a few minutes recounting these comments. But what we seem to take away is that because that article had come out from the Atlantic, there was not as much media coverage, I think, as the Democrats would have liked about it. So she was trying to force the conversation, both with, I think, the fascist term and then also trying to get people, I guess,

successfully for us to talk about it because that is her closing argument now with 12 Days to Go. It's full-on character, January 6th, dictatorship. I mean, listen, I think it's been tried before. I don't think it's going to work, but I'm curious what you think. Well, it did work in 2022. I mean, yeah, but he wasn't on the ballot. And that's what I just keep going back to. So let me just say, my own political bias is that this is not a smart strategy. That is my bias, is to buy into the research that Matt Carr brought us on the show that shows that, you know, the most effective messaging in with swing voters in the state of Pennsylvania is about populist policies and progressive economics. I do have to say, I think her closing ads that Weigel referenced when we just talked to him focused on taxes and Trump being for the billionaires. I do think that that

is an effective pitch. And so my political bias is to look at this and go, listen, people who think this, who think Trump is a fascist, in my opinion, accurately, they are already in your camp. You're not really persuading anyone. But I have know, I have to say, like, I was wrong in 2022. So I do have some humility about my own assessments. So let me talk about the political strategy a little bit. And then, you know, we can also talk a little bit about the substance here on the political strategy. Weigel mentioned something that hadn't really occurred to me, which is that it's her, you know, doing this big press conference yesterday at the vice presidential residence, her plan to do the, you know, the big closing speech

in the Ellipse where January 6th occurred. This is, yes, it's about the message itself, but it's also about, I look presidential. You can imagine me in this role. And they feel like that is still a question that remains for some voters who don't like Trump, but are not sure that they're ready to vote for Kamala Harris. And that kind of landed with me as like, oh, that's an important part of what they're doing here. Trump is trying to go hang out with the bros and say, look, I'm not this scary, dangerous character that they're painting me on as. Here I am hanging out. How scary can I really be? And her focus in the waning days is envision me as president. And look, we haven't ever had a female president before. And she has been knocked rightly at plenty of times as kind

of a lightweight. So that kind of landed for me as part of the thinking going into this. In terms of the messaging, their theory, which again goes against my own views and instincts on these things, but hey, you never know, maybe they're right. Their theory is that there exists a quote unquote shy Kamala voter, who is a kind of like the Nikki Haley voter, right? Who is a conservative woman who has voted Republican most of her life, whose husband is likely voting for Donald Trump, and who is in a lot of circles in her community where everybody is basically a Republican and supporting Trump. And she really can't come out publicly and say she's supporting Kamala Harris and maybe needs a little bit of a reminder of this is who this guy is. Remember January 6th?

Look at the people who served with him. Mattis, Milley, now Kelly, all coming out and saying, hey, I was in the room with this guy. Like, I actually saw how he operates. And yeah, your worst fears that he is actually a fascist are true. And by the way, yes, OK, plenty of bad things did happen last time around, but the republic did not end. But guess what? This time, we're not gonna be there. It's going to be all the loyalists. They're gonna use Schedule F to dismantle the administrative state. So whatever institutions and checks and bulwarks and inhibitors were there last time are gonna be gone. And it's just going to be,

you know, there's a whole project, concerted project. That's the real takeaway from Project 2025. There's a concerted project to make sure that none of those restraints from last time are in place. So that's their theory of why they're leaning into this messaging, because they think, number one, Kamala needs to put herself in these sort of like presidential settings and prove herself there as this like tough, credible leader. And number two, because Trump's approval ratings have ticked up a bit, you need to remind people of what it was that they found most disturbing about him last time that he held the office and make the case that next time around, he would actually be worse. Yeah, and I think that's the only

interpretation we can come away from. I feel so distanced from this campaign. Usually I can feel and understand why people are doing what they're doing. Back in 2020, the Biden basement strategy criticized it a lot, obviously, an empirical, but it was the correct strategy, right? It was obvious. This one, I just don't get it. I mean, I understand the 2022 thesis. I understand that that coalition, they really believe they can bring it out. But in an era where Donald Trump increased the amount of votes that he got by almost 10 million in 2020, has always had a track record of driving out these lower propensity voters and shaking up the political establishment. Maybe there's not evidence for it, but there's been so many polling misses and there's still so many things that could happen.

I mean, nobody saw the Latino shift in Texas and elsewhere happening back in 2020. It was a shock on election night. It was one of the biggest shocks I experienced. I don't know. I mean, maybe, you know, it's one of those where is it really going to land? It just seems so played out, so driven home by the media. To me, I mean, I called it on Twitter, the Jennifer Rubin campaign. To me, it really is the apotheosis of this Jennifer Rubin media critique that the media actually doesn't talk

enough about how Trump is a fascist. I saw yesterday, it was like Van Jones was like, Kamala has to be flawless while Donald Trump is lawless. And yet, yeah, I know. But went on his Instagram and he's like, it's feeling like 2016 again. You gotta get out there and vote. We're looking down fascism in the barrel. I mean, the whole country experienced 2017 to 2021 when Trump was actually president. None of that stuff happened. Their argument is, well, it'll be different this time around. But people look back on those years actually quite fondly. And then even with Trump people himself, a big criticism, including mine, would be that he did have people like General Kelly, Mattis, and others who didn't agree with him on anything and who at many times actively thwarted a lot of his better orders,

like to withdraw from Afghanistan or whatever. So I just look at it as very different from theirs. Of course, they're not trying to win me over. That coalition, I just keep thinking, aren't these people Harris voters already? Aren't they already Democrats? Who is being convinced by this? But look, if they win by one in all the blue-white states, I'll say it right here, they were right. I mean, the difference between 2020 and now is that in 2020, January 6th hadn't happened. Yeah, true. So it was, you know, I mean, you could you could point to like Trump did weaponize the Department of Justice against, you know, launching investigations against John Kerry and against Comey. And it's

not like there was nothing you could point to, but there was nothing as shocking as what happened on January 6th. And, you know, and now we've learned more and more details about, no, he really was serious about, for example, calling the military in to shoot protesters in the legs during the Black Lives Matter protest. He really was serious about these plans to attempt to use the National Guard to seize ballot boxes. He really did try to overturn the election using these fake electorates slates. We really did watch a crazed mob run around the Capitol calling for his own vice president to be hanged and him sit back and, you know, allow it to happen, if not be actively like in support of that sentiment. So, you know, that is a significant shift from where we were back in 2020, which even

in 2020, obviously he lost. So even before people had that incredibly jarring experience. So again, my instinct is similar to your soccer and it was in 2022 to be like, I don't know why you're focused. Like I, to me, I think this is important, right? I think actually the argument is correct that, you know, all of any sort of institutional guardrail and check that was in place that checked his worst instincts last time around, they have made a concerted effort to dismantle those. You also have a Supreme Court decision basically saying, hey, whatever you do in office, basically you're immune. You can do basically whatever you want. So it is a different landscape in that regard. That resonates with me. My instinct is to say you were better off when you

were framing him as weird versus this giant threat. You're even better off when you're leaning into bread and butter issues, inflation, which we have to say too. I mean, she has closed the gap with him on economics. So some of what she's saying is landing. But I just, I can't be so certain about it because their analysis was more right in 2022 than mine was. And I think what Weigel points to is they've effectively already baked into the calculus like we're losing Arab American voters. We're just going to try to make it up somewhere else. We're not going to hit our margins with black men in particular. We're also going to try to make that up somewhere else.

And they're saying, all right, well, where do we make that up? The largest group of voters in the country is white people. And white women in particular are the single largest demographic group. So if we can pull in another couple percentage points there, then it's enough to make it work, especially in the blue wall states. And you know, I can't say definitively that they're wrong about that. Again, extraordinarily possible. It just seems like such a tremendous gamble. Like I would, you know, if we're gambling and we're looking at margins and ways to win. It just seems totally different, both the way I would do it and others. I mean, I guess why I come back to it in terms of why it's all baked in is we have heard this all so many times. And by the way, I would point out

this whole Atlantic article has some serious like issues. Let's put A6 please on the screen. Nick Ayers, who I covered at the White House and was the deputy chief of staff, while General Kelly was also the chief of staff, says, quote, I've avoided commenting on interstaff leaks or rumors, but General Kelly's comments regarding President Trump are too egregious to ignore. I was with each of them more than most, and his commentary is patently false. There is an anecdote in the Atlantic article which alleges that Trump didn't want to pay for this soldier's funeral. The sister of that fallen soldier says that is absolutely not true. The reporter who was in the room during their meeting says absolutely not true. Now,

all these people have certainly an incentive, right? But Nick Harris, it was like some never Trump Mike Pence type guy who I covered at the White House and eventually left. He has not in any way some sort of like MAGA warrior. So when the guy says it's a lie, like I tend to believe it. At the end of the day, only General Kelly and Donald Trump actually know what was allegedly said in some private conversation. You can make up your own mind. Can I ask you though, like we weren't there.

I was like, it is just like he said, he said, he said. Does it strike you as outlandish though that Trump could say, like it's to me, it's not that crazy or unimaginable given some of the things he said in public, that he could have said something like this. And so, you know, it doesn't like blow my mind to imagine him being like, you know, I want some generals like the German generals. That sounds very much like something Trump would say. It doesn't have to kind of lose when he's like, even listen to what Kelly says. He's like, I want somebody who takes orders. It's like, well, I mean, for example, let's think about what may be the context. Like maybe when Trump was like, hey, you need to withdraw from Syria

and James Madison, the Pentagon hide the number of troops in Syria and don't withdraw them and execute a lawful order. Like, well, which side would you rather have? The person who actually obeys the commander in chief or not? Like, that's what I mean. But why you got to go to Hitler's generals? Okay, the point is about, I mean, by the way, you know, I've been trying to avoid this discussion, but, you know, what's his name? Kelly brought up, he's like, oh, did you mean Bismarck's generals? Did you mean the Kaiser's generals? Or did you mean Hitler's generals? There is a discussion to be had about who the best generals were between Bismarck, Kaiser, and Hitler or whatever. Don't forget, Heinz

Guderian was never prosecuted by the Nuremberg trials. He was the chief of staff of the Wehrmacht under Hitler. So all I'm saying is that if you actually look at so-called the context of I'm trying to issue orders or whatever, yeah, don't you want a general officer who does obey the whatever, the order, a lawful order at least from the president? Probably. So you also would like Hitler's generals? No, I didn't say I would like Hitler's generals, but I'm saying it's a stupid- You're backing him up. What I'm saying is it's a stupid and a contrite way of being like, oh, it is evidence that he would pursue a Holocaust or some sort of ridiculous and the most smearing way. We have to be adult in

the way that we can talk about that conversation. And so like what I just pointed out with the Syria thing is a perfect example of why I like schedule F. I'm like, yeah, it's good. Get them out of there. These people actively subvert the commander in chief, bigger than Trump too. This is a Biden problem. This is an everybody problem. The last time we discussed this, you know, you said you had some, you thought Trump would be basically a dictator if he got, I don't want to put words in your mouth. I said Trump would pursue many of the most outlandish things if he could. But I have enough faith in American institutions that that's not going to happen.

So to me, the issue with that analysis to me is that you can't on the one hand say like, oh, well, the institutions held last time and he was held in check by, by the way, some people like Kelly and Mattis, et cetera, and Milley. But also I want none of those people in this administration and I want them to destroy, actively destroy the institutions that did keep him in check last time. And also it also leaves out the fact that the landscape is different since you have the Supreme Court decision that basically says you're immune for acts that you take in office. So to me, that's kind of trying to have it both ways of saying, yeah, well, the institutions held last time, but also I don't want those institutions around this time to hold them in check. Very easy to explain. In terms of, what is it? What did you reference, like shoot people in the leg or whatever? Yeah, that's not going to happen even under so-called Schedule F. But the example

I gave of, hey, you need to withdraw from Syria, and then they fake the numbers, specifically in the Pentagon, and then give them false information to the commander in chief and don't carry out that order, I think that needs to go. That's what I'm talking about. I don't think that those are actually mutually exclusive at all. Are you so confident that if you, so last time when Trump was like, why can't the military just come in and shoot protesters in the legs or something? That was what he said, which I believe that he said that. You had Milley in place to be like that you don't have someone like Milley in place who can say, no, we're not doing that, that you have, quote unquote, loyalists.

That's Trump's number one goal. You see it already in the choice of J.D. Vance as vice president. The number one goal is to make sure that the people who are in place this time will do whatever he says, whether it is appropriate, lawful, moral or not. And so that's why I don't think you can have so much confidence that like if he, you know, wants to go in that direction next time, you're going to have someone in place who's going to be like, no, you can't do that. And, you know, the context of John Kelly, the quotes that we played for you, the audio we played for you, that was in an interview with The New York Times. He apparently, you know, this reporter had been trying to get him on the record for a really long

time. And he didn't want to do it, didn't want to do it, didn't want to do it. And then what he says triggered him to come out now is Trump's repeated comments about using the military against the enemy within. And for him, a bright red line, which it should be for all of us, in my opinion, in American public life, is turning the military against civilian populations. So when you know what he tried to do last time, when you know what he's saying publicly, when people who know him way better than we do and have been around him and seen him in action way more than we have, when all of them are saying this, like, it's, you know, whether you want to use the F word fascist or not, like, this guy is a wannabe dictator and really could be very dangerous next time around. I just, I can't hand wave that away given what we've seen him already do at this point. Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids,

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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.

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but the price has gone up. So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. With guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull, we'll take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain.

I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Again, I understand, but it just substantively seems very different to me than, I mean, okay, let's say with a theoretical chain of command for you need to go shoot people on American streets, you would need the general to carry it out. You would need to pass it down to the National Guard and the individual soldiers would actually carry that out. Call me crazy, too optimistic, don't think it's going to happen. But we did see protesters

quite viciously attacked out front of the White House during the Black Lives Matter. Those were by the DC police, not on the order of the president or the National Guard. It was, it was the National Guard. There were federal law enforcement.C. police, not on the order of the president or the National Guard. It was. It was the National Guard. There were federal law enforcement officers there. It was right outside the White House. Yes, but it was done by the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department. You're forgetting it was done in the service of enabling that bizarre Trump photo op with the Bible. So that was done at Trump's behest.

And it was at a time, yes, I know plenty of the protests were violent. It was at a time they were completely peaceful. plenty of the protests were violent. It was at a time, they were completely peaceful. And they were viciously attacked. So I don't, again, I just, to say it's impossible, I can't imagine it happening, et cetera, et cetera. Given what we've already seen, I just don't have that confidence. Look, I mean, and that's fine. People can vote the way that they want. There's a big difference to me between DC cops and local cops tear gassing some people to get them out of a square or whatever. So Trump can take a photo op and literally trying to shoot people and occupy the country. Like if you believe that, then frankly, I have my whole voting guide today. Go vote for Kamala.

If you don't believe that and you think it'll work its way out in the way that I laid out in terms of the president's gonna issue an order and we're gonna actually see the deep state or whatever, maybe come to heel and execute these orders and you should vote for Trump or don't, you know, it's up to you. But my point is that it seems very clear that there's obviously like an Overton window within what we're talking about here. And that this idea of literally shooting people or enemy from within camps of US citizens is not going to happen. If you believe it's gonna happen, then don't vote for him. I really don't know what to tell you. That's the argument that I think is very clear.

I think that's how the government should work, specifically both within the bounds and also disobeying so-called unlawful orders. What I saw when I cover the White House is General McMaster, General Kelly, and General Mattis willfully undercut the President of the United States and tried at every turn not to execute his foreign policy. My criticism of Trump actually would be that you're such a fool that you allowed them to do so for two years, and that you didn't use the full force of your office to say, who are you? Get out of here. The guy comes in, he says, I want to withdraw from Afghanistan. McMaster's like, no,

you need to surge in Afghanistan. And Trump signs that off. So that's my criticism of Trump. But that's not the criticism that media and Kelly and all these other people were. It's very much like, oh, you need to trust me, you know, because I was some four-star general. And that, you know, that's another thing. These four-star generals, like, what, you think they're the greatest people in the world? I covered the Pentagon. They're some of the biggest liars out there.

Go look at the way that they all talked about Afghanistan. Like, why would you trust exactly what everything these people say? This isn't even about General Kelly per se, but it's like anytime some general on CNN or whatever is like talking about his past service and how we're supposed to revere them. I just can't help but think the Afghanistan papers and I read about him. Every single commander of that are of the US forces in Afghanistan lied to the American people. So what credibility do you have with me? So I guess it just comes down to what you really think is gonna happen within this specific situation. And also, whether you find these

people as eminently credible and you want them to run the country. For me, absolutely not. I don't want these people to run the country. What do you make, though, of the fact that so many of the people who supported, I mean, voted for Trump last time, who were lifelong Republicans, who were, you know, as comfortable enough with his leadership that they were willing to serve in institutionalists, that they have a committed internationalist worldview. Having covered and even been in off-the-record conversations with General Kelly, with General Mattis, and all these other people, they saw their role as very specific. We need to protect the republic from Donald Trump. I don't think that these people should be, quote-unquote, protecting a Democratic elected leader from anything, or the republic, quote-unquote, from a Democratic elected representative. They, like, for example, Mattis saw his entire role as stopping Trump's blunt America first

instincts. And don't forget, resigned over what? Over the Syria withdrawal order that eventually came to a head. General Kelly, same thing. General McMaster, same thing. They saw their role as basically- How about Mike Pence? What's up? How about Mike Pence? Well, Mike Pence is a different story. And actually, I think that criticism is pretty legitimate. I mean, I've never sat here and been some stop the steal defender. That's the thing is what they're saying is honestly very similar to what Mike Pence is saying. And, you know, I would have put a lot more stock in the argument you're making prior to January 6th. And, you know, we were very lucky that at that time there were still a few

people to tell Donald Trump, no, that it wasn't even, you know, worse than it ended up being. And it was it was a horrifying day. It was it was bad. Like the attempt to steal an election was really bad. So I just can't be so blase at this point of like, oh, you know, I don't want anyone around who is an institutionalist. I want Donald Trump to be able to exercise his most unchecked impulses this time around. I just can't like I just can't at this point. I get where you're coming from. I laid out my January 6th position. But it didn't change your what the January 6th analysis at all. Of course. But what happened then was the result of the Democratic process.

Right. Well, let's look at the current landscape of January 6th and whether it can happen again. The Electoral Count Act is passed. The vice president can no longer have any ambiguity on certifying the election. Five out of the seven swing states are ruled by Democrats, which would require certification under the Electoral Count Act. So that's not going to happen. Number three, Rudy Giuliani and all of the other legal associates who helped Trump do this are literally bankrupt. Rudy was ordered yesterday to turn his Mercedes over to the Department of Justice. Jenna Ellis had to plead guilty. Sidney Powell had to plead guilty. They're all completely bankrupt. What's his name? John Eastman has basically been run out of town. I

believe he's either been disbarred or not. I forget. Rudy's been disbarred. Every person who's been connected to that has suffered massively at the hands of the state. And Trump himself is under federal indictment, and it's not like he didn't pay a price for it. So do I think it's gonna happen again? No, I absolutely don't. This is a case of genuinely institutions coming together, I think in a totally legitimate way, of trying to constrain the universe where anything like this could happen. So that's what I would say. I'm not that worried about that playing out like this again. If you want to say an extraordinary circumstance of something different, okay, maybe.

You know, again, I think within the bounds of the system, people have really learned their lesson from January 6th. And if they haven't, then I think they're going to pay a big price for it. So that would be my response on a lot of that. Like just mechanically, a lot of the things that happened last time cannot happen again. And if they want to sue in state court and lose every single case like they did last time around, be my guest, I guess. You know, you want to waste some legal fees? Fine. It just feels like you're talking about, you know, OK, the exact set of circumstances that led to the exact situation

of January 6th have, you know, have been somewhat mitigated. So we don't have anything to worry about. And when I think about that, about the events of January 6th and stop the steal and all of that, it's less about, okay, can that exact sequence of events happen again? I don't know. Probably not because he's not president right now. So that makes things, you know, makes things different right there. But can, is that indicative of the type of thing that he can foment when he's at his worst? Yes. And is that indicative of, you know, when you put that together with what the people, many people who are in his administration, including his own vice president, who stood by him through everything up until the very end, what they say about his worst impulses, you know, I think that that is, I think that is very troubling and should be taken seriously. And then, you know, the last thing I'll say, then we can move on to Kamala's town hall and take a look

at what she's saying in her closing pitch and also some of the latest polls. But the last thing I'll say is also, you do have a different landscape now with the Supreme Court really saying like you have carte blanche. And so even that theoretical institutional check of, you know, the highest court in the land is now effectively gone. So if you're taking that away, you're taking away any of the people who were like, you know, institutionalists who were writing memos to him saying, you know, like Don McGahn writing letter memos to him saying, listen, you cannot just turn the Department of Justice into your own like, like toy to prosecute your political enemies. You, you just literally can't do that. You take those people out of the picture. And, uh, you know, I, I think it is, I think it is a dangerous situation and one that people should take into consideration.

Now, I'm not telling people how they have to vote or that this has to be their number one issue, et cetera, but to factor in the people who were in the room with him, who saw how he operates and how he thinks, and to take into consideration what we've seen happen and his own public comments, I don't think it's deranged or insane to take those things very seriously, given what we've seen at this point.

I don't think it's deranged or insane. People can make up their minds for themselves. 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 VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways.

Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. With guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick.

Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's go to the town hall, like you said. And before we get to that, we're going to start with a little bit of polling. There was a fun analysis here by Nate Silver. Let's put this up there on the screen. Silver writes in a new column, quote, here's what my gut says about the election, but don't trust anyone's gut, even mine. And actually, if you read the column, Crystal, he basically says, if you ask me to trust my gut, I've been vacuuming so much media and looking at so much disparate

data that I think that Donald Trump is going to win. But that's exactly why you shouldn't even trust my gut. I mean, I don't know. What do you think? The fact that he says his gut thinks that Trump is going to win, it means something to me. I don't actually take seriously his whole don't trust my gut. Sean Trendy over at RCP, somebody who was a real canary ahead of the 2016 election, so I've always trusted what he has to say. He actually said the same thing. He's like, yeah, if you ask me to put my chips on something, I would put it on Trump. And he's like, but the smarter move if I was at the table would be to get all my chips on something, I would put it on Trump. And he's like, but the smarter move, if I was at the table, would be to get all my chips and walk away and wait for what the outcome would be. So I can't totally hand wave it away. And there are signs, you know, there are signs

everywhere. Harry Enten, for example, over at CNN talking about independence and some of the movement away from Kamala Harris. Let's take a listen. Senator of the electorate, you go last time around, Joe Biden won these voters by 11 points. You look at September of 2024, a month ago, Kamala Harris was up five points among independents. You look now, though, look at this. She's only up by two points among a key block senator of the electorate, down nine points from Biden was at the end of the 2020 campaign. Of course, this is a national picture. This is a national picture. What is going on in those key battleground states, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, the Great Lakes, that blue wall, right? Joe Biden last time around won him by five points over

Donald Trump. Look at where we are today. This is the type of movement Donald Trump likes to see in the center of the electorate, up by a point. Now, of course, that's well less than any margin of error, right? But again, it's the movement. It's the trends, Mr. Berman, that we're looking at. And when you flip a group from going plus five Biden to now plus one Trump, that's the type of movement Donald Trump loves to see. And it's the type of movement that I think gives Democrats some agitation. Usually the way independents go, so goes the nation. So candidates who won independents in elections since 1952, look at this. One independents won the election 15, lost the election despite winning independents just three. So it is possible to lose independents and win the election.

But the bottom line is that's only happened three times. It was Nixon in 68. It was Ford in 76. And it was Kerry in 2004. There you go. And if you take a lot of that data coming out, we're going to talk about it in our next block about Nevada. Things are looking very, very good for Republicans at the very least.

Clearly, the movement amongst Latinos and all there is very obvious. And for traditional blue demographics not coming out to vote or at the very least being outnumbered pretty dramatically. So I put all that together. And I mean, it's relatively a good situation for Trump, but of course, you know, a lot can happen. And what we talked about with Dave Weigel remains the key point. Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina can all go Trump and Kamala can still win the election. As long as the Nebraska, what is it? Nebraska one. Is that what it is? I forget. Whatever that Nebraska.

Yeah. The one that's a swing district by Omaha. The swing district, as long as it goes, there you go, 270 electoral votes. And the poll, that one looks like pretty much it's in the bag for them based on what we've seen. That's what I've seen right now. But, yeah, so if you get that and you get the blue wall states, and I do feel like based on the polling we've seen and based on the tea leaves you can read from the early vote, the blue wall states are going in a different direction than the Sunbelt state, which is hard to say in PA, but in the in in the rest of them in Michigan specifically,

it does look good for them. Yeah, and it would make some sense, right? I mean, just given the different demographic groups, how they're shifting and realigning the campaign's different strategies, etc. But, you know, if you want to understand the Kamala Harris strategy down the stretch of like the Liz Cheney tour and the, you know, the going on Fox News and the fascism democracy pitch here at the end. I think it's all because they see those numbers with independents and they feel they need to shore them up. And they're concerned that people's top two, you know, the things that are holding them back from Harris are, number one, Trump's favorability creeping up a little bit. So he doesn't seem like as bad as he used to seem. So trying to, you know, remind people of like the worst parts of him.

And number two, that they can't quite envision Kamala Harris in the commander in chief role. And so, you know, that she's too liberal and she's a lightweight, if that's the core of the campaign's analysis of why they think independents aren't quite as firmly in her camp as they were with Joe Biden, like that's what is leading them to the strategy, which again, it's not a strategy I'm particularly in love with, but that's, I think, the way that they're thinking about these things. And so we'll see. The big question, you know, one of the big questions with independents is previously, a lot of times there were significant numbers of independents who were just like basically Republicans who just didn't really

want to call themselves Republicans, but then always voted for the Republican. Now with you have a trend of a lot of young voters who are new into the system, who don't want to identify, call themselves Democrats and have all kinds of issues with the Democratic Party. But will vote Democrat. But will vote Democrat. And who are ultimately like, you know, a lot of Bernie type young people who are like, no, I don't really associate with the Democratic Party, but there's no way in hell they're voting for Republicans, especially young women. You know, I think that's particularly like a significant trend there. And that was one thing we're going to talk some about the Nevada early vote numbers, which, by the way, I do think look, you know, good for Republicans. I don't think

there's any like spinning that away. But one of the things that was being pointed out is a lot of the independents who are voting in Nevada are pretty young. And there is this trend in American life now of young people identified as independents, but disproportionately voting Democrats. So anyway, we'll see how it all shakes out. We'll see if those people show up to vote on election day or before. That is a good corollary. And that is one way where Nevada could still go blue. What is it called? Other, I think, on the ballot. It's not independent. It actually is like unidentified or something. AVR called? Other, I think on the ballot. It's not independent. It actually is like unidentified. AVR maybe?

Yeah, I think that's what it is. But anyway, other, we'll just go with that. Okay, let's get to the town hall. This is really, it was interesting stuff. So CNN last night was supposed to be a debate and previously had been one that they had floated where Donald Trump would appear. They ended up turning it into a town hall.

And there were a couple of different areas which we thought were interesting. First and foremost is one that Kamala has really struggled on, this question of what would you do differently from Biden? And then also, have you ever made a mistake? What I put in those two is the category of political introspection and the opportunity to clean up something that you see with the American people. Frankly, I thought she had a terrible answer, but you can make up your mind. Let's take a listen. I don't think I've ever heard the former president admit a mistake. A lot of politicians don't.

Is there something you can point to in your life, political life or in your life in the last four years that you think is a mistake that you have learned from? I mean, I've made many mistakes. And they range from, you know, if you've ever parented a child, you know, you make lots of mistakes too. In my role as vice president, I mean, I've probably worked very hard at making sure that I am well versed on issues. And I think that is very important. It's a mistake not to be well versed on an issue and feel compelled to answer a question. What? Got it.

You know, it's so funny because she struggles the most, I feel like, almost in friendly settings. I totally agree. When, you know, when she sat down with Brett Barron, you and I had a different analysis of that interview. But you could, one we shared the assessment of was her debate performance, right? She knew it was going to be adversarial. She prepared like crazy. And the questions, none of them were like, the sard is soft and squishy. Like, tell me about you.

And that's when she struggles is when you get the softball, like tell me about a mistake you made or tell me about, you know, something personal that requires you to be like, have to say something that wasn't in the briefing book. That's when she really struggles. And also I think in these settings that are more friendly, I also don't think she prepares to the same degree. I agree.

And comes in with the, she doesn't come in in the same mental space and with the same level of preparation that she does for a Brett Baier or a Trump interview. So yeah, when you ask her just to say something like normal and human, she hasn't studied the answer and she struggles. The crazy part about preparation, she didn't do anything yesterday. If you look at her schedule, she had one thing, that three-minute press conference on John Kelly, she took no questions. That was it. She was at her house preparing for this CNN town hall.

So what were you doing when you were preparing? It's mystifying. Another area where Cooper really caught her was on, this was actually a fun short-circuit moment because Democrats and Kamala clearly are used to four years of making fun of Trump on the border wall and of being totally opposed to his border policy. Of course, ever since she became the candidate, she's like, no, I agree with the border bill. And that at the very least contains some of Trump's border policy. So she is short circuit halfway in between because she has the old routine. And Cooper's like, hold on, wait a second. Don't you also support a border wall? And you can watch like the gears turning in her head.

Let's take a listen. Is a border wall stupid? Well, let's talk about Donald Trump and that border wall. So remember Donald Trump said Mexico would pay for it. Come on, they didn't. How much of that wall did he build? I think the last number I saw was about 2%. And then when it came time for him to do a photo op, you know where he did it? In the part of the wall that President Obama built. But you're agreeing to a bill that would earmark $650 million

to continue building that wall. I pledge that I am going to bring forward that bipartisan bill to further strengthen and secure our border. Yes, I am. And I'm going to bring forward that bipartisan bill to further strengthen and secure our border. Yes, I am. And I'm going to work across the aisle to pass a comprehensive bill that deals with a broken immigration system.

I think Jackson's question, part of it was to acknowledge that America has always had migration, but there needs to be a legal process for it. People have to earn it. And that's the point that I think is the most important point that can be made, which is we need a president who is grounded in common sense and practical outcomes. Like, let's just fix this thing. Let's just fix it. Why is there any ideological perspective on it? Let's just fix the problem. To fix the problem, you're doing this compromise bill. It does call for $650 million that was earmarked under Trump to actually still go to build the wall. I'm not afraid of good ideas where they occur. So you don't think

it's stupid anymore? I think what he did and how he did it did not make much sense because he actually didn't do much of anything. I just talked about that wall, right? We just talked about it. He didn't actually do much of anything. But you do want to build some wall. I want to strengthen our border. Brutal. You know, I've been a critic of this major immigration. Imagine going back to

2016 and telling us that a Democrat would flail around and stumble and not know what to say on what is the border wall good or bad point, like smart or not. And and, you know, I know what they're doing is their ideas like let's try to blunt this idea that she's too liberal and just going to open the borders and blah, blah, blah. But I just think this answer right here exemplifies why, I mean, obviously, I have issues with the morality of their new, like, we want to be more hawk and we're going to try to get to Trump's right on immigration policy. Like, I have more. They're going to finish the wall, Crystal. But on this answer exemplifies why the politics of it are a mess, too.

And, you know, she goes back to this tick of when something's uncomfortable, she laughs. We saw this in both of the last two questions. I do sympathize. I do it, too. She's trying to make a joke about Trump and just hope that Anderson is going to move away. And to his credit, he's like, but wait a second. You used to say the border wall is dumb. Now you're saying you need money for the border wall. And she can't say anything other than like, well, the way he did it is bad because he didn't build

enough border wall, but also not willing to go back on me saying that the border wall was dumb and bad. So it's just, it's just a mess. And it exacerbates the issues around she doesn't stand for anything and she's a bit of a lightweight. That's what kind of comes across in this question. So yeah, again, to me, this is example number one of why I think the way that they have approached immigration by just totally ceding to the Republican argument has been a moral number one but political mistake because it opens you up for moments like this, which are really your 2016 talking points about the border wall and then get called out there almost immediately. Or like you said, you don't change your position or whatever in the first place. But when you try and do both, you look like an idiot. And that's really what came through. Yeah. I mean, if you were really going to do this pivot, probably the best thing to do would be like, look, you know what? I was wrong. Yeah, exactly. That would link

with the mistake. And we saw that and we adjusted and that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to, I, I learn, I'm not so ideological that I don't adjust for new facts and realities. And the reality is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's what I would say. Like, yeah. And that's a good answer. That would be a lot better, but you know, politicians, they never want to admit that they got anything wrong. They think it makes them look weak and bad. Whereas stumbling around like this in a completely nonsensical way just makes it look like you don't stand for anything. And there you go. You probably don't. All right. She got a question, too, on high prices and inflation. These were all, by the way, actual unregistered voters, at least from what we can tell.

They don't seem as planted as last time. So let's take a listen. Let me just ask you about price gouging. I looked at your plan. You talk about going after price gougers, and I'm quoting from the plan, on essential goods during emergencies or times of crisis. I get that. How does that help, though, someone like Eric, with prices that for years, the grocery price has just been high? Well, first of all, Anderson, as you know, and obviously CNN has been covering extensively what has been happening in the state of Georgia, North Carolina, Florida. It's a real issue. I was attorney general of California. I was the top law enforcement officer of the biggest state in the country. I took this issue on because it affects a lot of people. And I'm not going to apologize for the fact that we need to actually deal with accountability when these not all.

In fact, most don't. But when companies are taking advantage of the desperation and the need of the American people, we saw it actually during the pandemic as well, where because of supply chain issues, there was a reduction of supply and then they would inflate the price of everyday necessities. Not to mention, by the way, again, Donald Trump should be here tonight to talk with you and answer your questions. He's not. He refused to come. But understand that part of his plan is to put in place a national sales tax of at least 20 percent on everyday goods and necessities. And that by economist estimates, independent economist, would cost you as the American consumer and taxpayer an additional $4,000 a year. So that remains one of our better moments. Now, in terms of what they're closing with, you hear some of that. You're hearing a lot of the character stuff as well. Maybe that's a media thing. I'm not so sure. But I wanted to do at least, I guess, a fair presentation about what went for her.

Well, I think it appears that they're spending a lot of money in swing states on ads that focus on that message right there. Yes, that's right. And it also appears from the polling on who do you trust on various economic issues that some of this messaging has broken through. There was a Bloomberg swing state poll, maybe we can add this in post guys so people can see. But on every economic issue that they surveyed, Kamala Harris had closed the trust gap or even surpassed Trump as the candidate that swing state voters trust more. So on taxes, Kamala Harris had a little bit of an advantage. On interest rates, it was very close. On housing costs, she had an advantage. On cost of everyday

goods, they were basically tied. On healthcare costs, advantage. Gas prices was the one where he had the largest gap. But even there, she had closed it significantly. So I do think some of this is breaking through. I think the relentless focus in terms of the ad dollars has worked, and it has become an area that is less of a vulnerability for her than it might otherwise have been. I think that the other question that people have is like, you know, they may like her plans better. They may not have confidence that any of it is really going to have. And I think that's a general statement about the sort of reasonable, like pragmatic nihilism that people have about anything getting done in Washington at this point, which is not illogical given how there's just nothing but gridlock as far as the eye can see in Washington, D.C.

So in any case, I do think that she deserves credit for the set of policies she's put together. The ads that they're running on these issues are actually very effective, I think. And the way that she's messaged on it has clearly done her some favors with voters. It's done a little bit of favor and she's closed that gap on the economy, which is critical. If she does end up squeezing it out, that's actually gonna be a key reason why.

So final thing we just wanted to show was David Axelrod just admitting some of the unmittable previously about quote, word salad city from Kamala Harris in his after action on the town hall. Let's take a listen. When she doesn't want to answer a question, her habit is to kind of go to word salad city. And she did that on a couple of answers. One was on Israel. Anderson asked a direct question,

would you be stronger on Israel than Trump? And there was a seven minute answer, but none of it related to the question he was asking. True. I mean, right? Word's out in the city. It was clear too, you know, other people there felt kind of uncomfortable. And I saw Van Jones say that as well. That's where the whole, like, she has to be flawless. He's like almost doing a media criticism element there. But Axelrod ran the Obama campaign and he gets it. I do think that it is fair to say Trump is just held to, he just is a unique politician. He is held to a different standard. There is no doubt about it. You know, if a story like the one we cover with Dave Weigel,

the equivalent of that, I don't even know what it would be with Kamala Harris came out. It would be a big story, like a close Jeffrey Epstein associate and some sort of, you know, sexual scandal. Like it would be a big media story. And because some sort of, you know, sexual scandal, like it would be a big media story. And because it's Trump, it's not. Trump is given all kinds of interviews where you read his words and you're like, I just literally don't even know what you were talking about right now. And again, it just doesn't get the same level of attention and scrutiny as when Kamala Harris goes to Word Salad City. But, I mean, that's just the – that's kind of just the political reality and landscape that we live in.

He does have his own set of unique standards that he is held to that are just different than literally any other politician, Republican, or Democrat that exists. Absolutely. Shall not see his like again, as Shakespeare once said. 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

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