Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 10/31/24: Mike Johnson Says Obamacare Dead Under Trump, Bill Clinton Scolds Arab Voters, Stop The Steal 2.0 Breakdown

Episode Date: October 31, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss Mike Johnson says Obamacare dead under Trump, Bill Clinton scolds Arab voters, stop the steal 2.0 breakdown.    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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We just got some footage of Mike Johnson talking about their plans to continue to undermine, go after, dismantle, repeal, etc. The Affordable Care Act. Let's take a listen to how that went. Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, was campaigning in Pennsylvania in a House district and was talking about Obamacare. I think we have this exchange. Let's play it. Healthcare reform is going to be a big part of the agenda. When I say we're going to have a very aggressive first hundred days agenda, we got a lot of things on the table. No Obamacare. No Obamacare. The ACA is so deeply ingrained. We need massive reform to make this work, and we've got a lot of ideas. So he says no Obamacare, says massive reform to the health care system. Obamacare is pretty popular.

You know, this is one of those things, Sagar. Obamacare is now at this point very popular. It's so popular they no longer call it Obamacare. They now call it the Affordable Care Act. And healthcare is one of those issues that has been, when you ask people what their top issues are, healthcare always ranks very high up there. And yet neither campaign has made it a focal point. The Harris campaign sometimes talks about reducing prescription drug costs, but the bigger ambitions around even a public option. Like that is completely invisible. But Trump also has not talked about healthcare. Last time around, he famously tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act and failed with the John McCain, you know, coming and deciding he wasn't

going to do it. And so, you know, you still have the true believers like Mike Johnson, who is the Speaker of the House, who is, you know, absolutely dedicated to repealing the Affordable Care Act. Yeah. I wouldn't say Obamacare is popular, who is absolutely dedicated to repealing the Affordable Care Act. Yeah. I wouldn't say Obamacare is popular. I would more say that repealing protections in Obamacare is unpopular. Because there is a difference. I mean, if you look at it, people hate the healthcare system, which is basically what it is right now. That's true. Yeah. But they- I hate the healthcare system.

But they don't want to go back either to what it was before because they want to maintain the coverage for preexisting conditions and some of those reforms that have been important. That is the key. I mean, but in general, if you ask people, you're like, do you like your health care system? No. Are health care prices too high? Yes. You know, like if you go down the litany of things, that's what Republicans always delude themselves into thinking that they'll be able to do. I mean, just recall 2018 blowout midterm election almost entirely because of the ACA vote. You can ask any of the Republican candidates, specifically in the swing states, every single one of them blamed the vote on repealing the Affordable Care Act as one of

the reasons they lost. Martha McSally down in Arizona. That's literally why Kyrsten Sinema is in the Senate, which is kind of wild to think about. This does get to a broader question, though, of what the hell is going to happen if Donald Trump does win. Let's put this up there on the screen. And you can basically find signs for whatever you want. So currently, this is in the New York Times called the Group at the Center of Trump's Planning for a Second Term. It's one you have not heard of. I have heard of this. I did a monologue about it years ago. It's called the America First Policy Institute. It is run by a woman whose name is Brooke Rollins. She ran the Domestic Policy Council under Trump while he was in the White

House. This is one of those institutions which has Larry Kudlow and others on the board. Huge amounts. She founded it with Larry Kudlow. That's right. So you got Larry Kudlow, Linda McMahon, who was an official part, former small business under Donald Trump, now part of the transition team under Donald Trump. Also very influential in that. You got a lot of billionaire donors. If things go in this direction, where Brooke Rollins, for example, becomes the chief of staff, which had been floated there in the past, we have a very clear sign of like what the so-called like corporate direction is going to look like for the Trump administration the second time around. Now, the other counter case, I guess, to all of this is that you do have factions like within the Trump campaign itself of people who are not happy with Brooke Rollins or do not agree with her direction. For example, Brooke Rollins and kind of her ilk were very hard in pushing against J.D. Vance as the vice presidential pick. Now, clearly, he will be there in the White House if they do win. So will he? I mean, why would you want somebody like that who literally

ran the chief of staff? It could set up a fight around that. You have Johnny McEntee as well previously, who worked in the Trump administration PPO, had been attached to Project 2025, but I think he's gotten more of a pass than everybody else attached to Project 2025. Is that the dude who just said that women shouldn't be able to vote? Well, he made a joke about that on his TikTok, Crystal. Hilarious joke. That is correct. Love that one. I laughed really hard. I forget exactly what his channel is called. It's like Date Riot or something like that. Anyway, he's got a lot of followers on TikTok, that's all I know. That guy, those people could very much not agree with Brooke Rollins, but I'm setting people up here for, if an eventual Trump wins, there are going to be some absolutely titanic fights kind of around who's going to

staff the White House, specifically like what the foreign policy vision will be on the economic. You could have Steve Bannon, who's very much like opposed to this type of wing of the party. Will he be allowed back in there? Will Rollins be the one that is there? It can really set us up for some 2017 era fights like there were between like Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon in the White House, or Gary Cohn and Steve Bannon, or Peter Nav know, Peter Navarro and Steve Mnuchin. I know this is probably ancient history to some people, but those were very, very consequential for the policy direction that the Trump White House eventually ended up going in. I mean, I think there are a few things we can already say for sure. I mean, they're going to extend the tax cuts and jobs. Oh, that's like not a question.

You know, and there was a significant tax break for billionaires, for corporations, the wealthiest among us. I think the choice, you know, the centering of Elon Musk is also incredibly significant. Elon is like this, you know, hardcore, like, let's cut $2 trillion from federal government spending, which, by the way, is more than all of the federal government's discretionary budget. He is a fan of Javier Millay, who positions himself as an anarcho-capitalist down in Argentina. And he's talking about how he wants to put the country through this sort of economic shock therapy that is going to be deeply painful in the short term.

I played some of this in my monologue the other day that you can listen to, but just to, for people who didn't catch it, um, he said in one of, I think this was in one of the like Twitter live things or whatever, he talked about how Trump's agenda needs is going to cause hardship, um, temporary hardship, but that is necessary. Let's take a listen to that. Have to reduce spending to live within our means. And that necessarily involves some temporary hardship, but it will ensure long-term prosperity. He sort of reemphasized this in another exchange on Twitter. I can put D5 guys up on the screen where you have this one Twitter user. He's laying out what he thinks is going to happen in a Trump term. He says, if Trump succeeds in forcing through mass deportations combined with Elon,

hacking away at the government, firing people and reducing the deficit, there will be an initial severe overreaction in the economy. This economy propped up with debt and artificially suppressed wages. Markets will tumble. But when the storm passes and everyone realizes we're on sounder footing, there will be a rapid recovery to a healthier, sustainable economy. History could be made in the coming two years. To which Elon Musk, who again, the plan is to put him in charge of this massive government oversight agency, says, sounds about right. So effectively like, yeah, we're going to cause a severe market crash and depression in the short term. No problem. Which, by the way, is what's happening in Argentina right

now. Well, I was going to say, like, that's honest. And I support that. I actually support honesty. I support just being real with people. I've said it here before. Do you support the program, though? Oh, mass austerity? Well, first of all, I don't support. Mass austerity. No, because first of all, it's also not going to happen. I tweeted this yesterday. We all need to stop pretending that Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski are going to vote for a $2 trillion budget cut. It's never going to happen. If anything, they're going to increase defense spending.

I will call it here right now. The deficit will go up under Donald Trump. They will extend the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. They will increase military spending. They will maybe cut discretionary spending by 1% or 2%, which is like 0.001% of the overall federal budget. They won't touch entitlements. Social Security and Medicare funding, etc., will continue. And he will end, if he does win, in office with a significantly bigger picture on the deficit

that looks exactly like it is today. I will call it here. There's no way any Republican or Donald Trump administration will go in a different direction. On mass deportation, Fisher King is correct. I mean, look, this gets to the heart of the entire debate. It is probably good for overall top-line GDP to have mass immigration and specifically illegal immigrants. That's true if you look at human beings as literally economic utils. And yes, there will obviously be a market correction. I've been honest about that before. I think people who support mass deportation should as well. The question is, is what type of society do you want to live in and what type of overall economy? It's definitely not good for overall GDP necessarily to have

higher wages for people who do construction. Like that's obviously going to increase quote unquote prices. Yes, it's true. We should all be honest if you support that policy. Now, do you think that's better in the long run? Yes, I absolutely do. I mean, I can't sit here and say that tariffs are going to lower prices for everybody, but I think it's good. I think it's important, you know, that washing machines or TVs that cost $400, if you buy it for $600, but it happens to be able to mate here, yeah, I think it's worth it. Is it easy for me to say? Absolutely. You can vote your conscience and do whatever you want. But that's kind of where I look at it. So first of all, the Elon 2 trillion thing, again, it will never happen. It's almost not even worth taking seriously, especially in a

divided government or even with Donald Trump. Look at the past record in terms of what the deficit happened in terms of spending. There is no indication that any of this happened. Even if Elon is in charge of, what is it called? The Department of Government Efficiency. Government of Doge in order to promote his like crypto, favorite cryptocurrency. I'm still pro-doge. I'm still holding my doge. I haven't sold it yet. I mean, I guess there's a couple things. So first of all, I think it's noteworthy that Trump himself has embraced this austerity politics, which is the, you know, old school Paul Ryan Republican position. Yeah, but it is kind of popular too. People hate the federal government.

They like, yeah, they like the idea of it. When it comes down to it and it's your social, when it's your social security, Medicare, whatever getting slashed, that's another matter entirely. So that's number one. And number two is,

I do think it's a strange argument to be like, you know, you should support this program because it's not, you're going to support this candidate who embraces this program because the program he's pushing for isn't actually going to happen. And, you know, so you don't get to pick and choose like the parts that you like and don't like. And this is what a lot of the business community, by the way, has done with Trump, where it's like, well, we don't really think he's going to do the tariffs that are going to affect us. We don't really think he's going to do the mass deportation. We don't really think he's going to do these other things. But maybe he is going to lower, you know, he probably is going to lower my taxes and the pieces that I like that are going to be

good for me and my business, he is going to do. I think we have to take them at their word. So in any case, it's significant that Trump, who previously sort of positioned himself against normal Republican austerity politics of the Paul Ryan Tea Party era, has now embraced Elon's idea of slashing $2 trillion from the federal government budget, which again, sounds all well and good until you realize that is more than all discretionary spending and would have a huge impact on basically every single federal government program, including ones that are very important to people. Let's take a listen to that. What will your role for Elon be, Elon Musk? So Elon has a lot of roles he could take because he's a very exceptional guy. But he has a thing. He feels there's such waste, fraud, and abuse in our budgets. And he's

right. So I'm curious, do you feel like there's been a shift in Trump's economic positioning? No. Because I mean, this is very different from the way he positioned himself in 2016. That message is actually quite popular. Now, when it comes down to it, people hate the government. People think it's inefficient. It is inefficient. The Pentagon literally can't pass an audit. In terms of cutting and all that, there are certainly places that we could cut, but it's not all that popular amongst Republicans. When it comes down to it, when appropriations happen and an actual federal budget, again, you have to answer this question. Do you think $2 trillion is going to get cut? Not in a million years. Is Donald Trump going to cut Social Security and Medicare? No, absolutely not. What is Donald

Trump and the Republicans Congress actually gonna pass? TCJA, and maybe if there's a Democratic House, they'll do some child tax credit bargain to get that through. Half CTC, half TCJA extension, some corporate tax cuts and others are gonna get left on the table, and the deficit's gonna go up. This is where we have to be real. Even if Yvonne was in charge of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, like, again, mechanically, people need to understand how the government works. What are you going to do? You're going to ask the GAO, the Government Accountability Office, to commission some blue ribbon report or whatever that's going to bring back to you and it's going to take

a year to give you a report about what can be cut and what's not. But again, the way that we know how government works is Congress has to sign off on every single appropriation and the executive has basically zero authority outside of some very narrow definitions about what they can and can't spend money on unless the Congress literally agrees to it. So like this is where you're saying like can't pick and choose. I'm not picking and choosing. I'm being like totally real about what this will look like. And frankly, this gets to a little bit of something that annoys me is Silicon Valley arrogance around the government where they just claim things like you can cut

$2 trillion. I'm like, you don't know anything about Washington. Like if you think that that's going to happen, the people who are correct are the wall street guys who are like, yeah, there's no way that an across the board tariff is going to happen, which is again, true because it would take an act of Congress at At best, you'll have soybeans, steel, and crops get hit with tariffs again, which is what happened last time, or critical metals or whatever, like they can in the Commerce Department. Our taxes are probably going to go down. And they're correct, because that's a fulsome picture of Donald Trump plus the Republican Congress if they have united government. And even if they

have divided government, some version of that is going to get through. So this is just like a very realistic view of what this looks like. And if you believe that Elon's going to cut $2 trillion, you're an idiot, honestly. How do you feel about the closing pitch of the campaign of we're going to repeal the Affordable Care Act and crash the economy? Well, yeah, that's stupid, okay? Well, in terms of the Affordable Care Act, that's actually the dumbest one. On mass immigration, people do support mass deportation, specifically Republicans. But on the issue of Affordable Care Act, wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole, and it certainly does get to the political genius of Mike Johnson. But look, people who are out there, you should also be honest. Yeah, that's what Republicans support.

You know, the mean, median Republican in Congress, they want to repeal the Affordable Care Act. So if you care about that, you should definitely consider that whenever you're voting. I'm not going to sit here and cover for them. They're idiots in terms of what they think. 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.

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Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series,

we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and reexamining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States.

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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 ahead and move on to the latest comments from Bill Clinton out on the campaign trail,

stumping for Kamala Harris and the state of Michigan, and talking about his view of Israel's war in Gaza. Let's go ahead and play that. I have to be careful what I say because there's only one president at a time, and none of us can get ahead of where we're going. But I think we're gonna have to essentially start again on the peace process. And I understand why young Palestinian and Arab Americans in Michigan are think too many people have died.

I get that. But if you lived in one of those kibbutzim, in Israel, right next to Gaza, where the people there were the most pro-friendship with Palestine, most pro two-state solution of any of the Israeli communities, were the ones right next to Gaza. And Hamas butchered them. And so then the people who criticize it are essentially saying, yeah, but look how many people you've killed in Ritalin,

so how many is enough for you to kill to punish them for the terrible things they did? That all sounds nice until you realize what would you do if it was your family and you hadn't done anything but support a homeland for the Palestinians and one day they come for you and slaughter the people in your village you would say well you'll have to forgive me I'm not keeping score that way. It isn't how many we've had to kill. Because Hamas makes sure that they're shielded by civilians. They'll force you to kill civilians if you want to defend yourself. And he went on from there.

So basically, nothing is Israel's fault. The unbelievable devastation that we've seen in Gaza, where it's just total annihilation, every building, school, mosque, hospital, et cetera, the kids buried under the rubble, the starvation, whatever. None of it is Israel's fault. It's just all the fault of Hamas who, you know, are the ones that use Palestinians as human shields. And so, therefore, it's all justified. It's all just self-defense, which at this point, if you are still arguing that this is just self-defense, like, I just, I don't know what to tell you. Because we're talking about not just Gaza.

We're talking about the West Bank. We're talking about Lebanon. We're talking about Syria. We're talking about Iran. Like, how many places do you have to attack? Actually, I just saw an analysis this morning, Sagar, that there's been over a thousand buildings in Lebanon destroyed, which, you know, Hezbollah didn't have anything to do. And the Lebanese people certainly didn't have anything to do

with the October 7th attacks. So from a political perspective, this was in Michigan. This is a place where the Harris campaign, you know, has been trying to improve their standing with groups of voters that have understandably fled them, Arab American and Muslim American voters in particular. But by the way, you know, I don't like when we keep it that narrow because there are vast swaths of the Democratic base, including young voters, including non-white voters who are deeply concerned on a moral basis about Kamala Harris's support for this genocidal policy vis-a-vis Gaza. And here you have Bill Clinton in this critical swing state, you know, definitely not the message that they want to be putting out there. Well, yeah, it's just very much like an old man moment takes to the campaign trail. Certainly, yeah, there's a lot to say, I think, about just in terms of like Biden and Clinton and a lot

of the flashbacks to these 90s politicians. I don't really know why they have Bill Clinton campaigning for them. I don't know. I mean, look, he was a good, he was a great, I mean, he was very popular. He was. He was one of the most effective politicians of all time. But he is old now. He is old.

I mean, I think it's. And he has lost many steps. It was McDonald's. When he stopped eating McDonald's and he went vegan, like whenever he gave that up after his fifth quintuple bypass or whatever, it was over for him. I mean, he was causing problems for Hillary back in 2008. Yeah, he said something about black voters. He said like Obama should be getting his coffee and stuff like that, remember? Yeah, I do.

Yeah. It was in South Carolina. It was 2008. It's been a minute since this man was effective out on the campaign trail, and you're still rolling his old ass out? Like, what are we really doing here just in terms of strategy? It is funny. He is younger than Joe Biden, though. Yeah.

Wild. True. Absolutely wild. Is he? I guess maybe he's like the same age as Trump. I think he's 78. Yeah, so he must be the same age. Right?

Yeah. Hold on. Let me look. Let me look. Yeah, 78. They're the same age. There you go. that right? Yeah. Hold on. Let me look. Let me look. Yeah, 78. They're the same age. There you go. All right.

Incredible. Trump kept eating the McDonald's and Bill Clinton went away and, you know, it was a big mistake apparently. McDonald's actually is a key part of the American presidency. Yeah, just don't get the quarter powder right now. The more unhealthy that you are, the better president that you are, in my opinion. All right, but let's continue with Israel stuff. There's actually an interesting story I wanted to highlight.

Let's put this up there on the screen. From the Times of Israel, where Trump apparently, according to them, Israeli sources, told Netany basically you need to wrap it up by the time that I take office because he doesn't want to deal with the political and the geopolitical fallout of that situation. Now, obviously kind of a difficult prospect because what it would mean would be ending the Lebanon incursion, ending, I mean, how do you, what does even the end of quote unquote war in Gaza

even look like? Because that would require a literal withdrawal. And that is the key piece right there. Ryan and Emily had a very interesting guest on yesterday. I encourage everybody to listen because what Bibi is hoping is, because I mean, I think it's pretty clear Bibi would like Trump to win. The overwhelming majority of Israelis would like Trump to win. Like it's the polling is not even really all that close. And the question isn't, okay, you know, at some point the, you know, the aggressive level of bombing that we've seen, at some point that ends and then what comes next.

And Bibi, in order to keep his coalition together, effectively needs to resettle Gaza. Like, that's what Ben-Gavir and Smotrich very affirmatively want. That's what other Likud party ministers have been going to these resettlement conferences. And the concern from Bibi is that Kamala may actually, you know, have they drawn any real hard headlines at this point? No. But may actually make some moves to keep them from resettling Gaza. And if he's not able to do that, then his coalition effectively falls apart. So we know Trump is, he's talked about, you know, waterfront, Kushner talked about Gaza's waterfront property

and potential development possibilities. We know that Mary Maddison, as part of condition for her overwhelming massive support in dollars for Donald Trump, wants to be able also to annex the West Bank. So, you know, I think part of the game here in terms of what Bibi wants out of this political context is, and out of this political contest, is what comes next. Am I allowed to just move forward with resettlement and ethnic cleansing, or is there going to be any sort of opposition whatsoever in the White House to that? Yeah, I think really what Trump is, is Trump doesn't care necessarily about that situation, but for him and his people, they just don't want to deal literally with the ongoing war. And so they're like, look, man, you need to speed it up. And by the way, it's beneficial to them

because it causes problems for the Democratic candidate. Kamala can't even do an event without getting interrupted by Gaza protesters at this point. Let's go next to J.D. Vance spoke, made some interesting crypto comments, where if you read between the lines, the pro-Israel lobby won't be too happy about this one. On the Tim Dillon Show, let's take a listen to that. E2, please. Obviously, you know, Israel has the right to defend itself, but America's interest is sometimes going to be distinct. Like, sometimes we're going to have overlapping interests, and sometimes we're going to have distinct interests. And our interest, I think, very much is in not going to war with Iran.

We recognize, okay, Israelis, Gulf Arab states don't like Iran. So let the Israelis and the Gulf Arab states provide the counterbalance to Iran. America doesn't have to constantly police every region of the world. We should empower people to police their own regions of the world, right? And one, we would save a lot of money. Two, we'd save a lot of focus. But unfortunately, I think Harris, she's got this weird thing where I actually think she kind of likes war. Maybe she feels like a tough guy about it. I don't know why it is. But they've actually pursued, even though they say they want to minimize Palestinian civilian casualties, they pursued the pathway that maximizes those casualties.

They say that they're pro-Israel. They've pursued the pathway that has prolonged the war as long as possible, which is bad for Israel. And they seem to be sort of sleepwalking us into a war with Iran. It's like the dumbest of all possible worlds. All right. What did you make of that? That's like a crypto. That, by the way, is about as close as you're ever going to get to some like quasi-Israel criticism or whatever in a world where Miriam Adelson's shelling out the big dollars. But I appreciated it.

True. I mean, I think it is clear that the Trump campaign has been much smarter in pursuing a strategy of trying to persuade key demographic groups that they're a place that they can go if they're disgusted. Now, I think if we look at Trump's comments, for one thing, they are not in line with- They're very different. Yeah, they're not in line with what JD's saying. Less cogent, shall we put it kindly? Trump uses Palestinian as a slur. Trump thinks that Israel should strike Iranian nuclear facilities, which, you know, would help

to escalate the war in the region. Trump was very hawkish, extremely hawkish vis-a-vis Iran when he was president. So the idea that he had any instinct towards withdrawing from the region is just, you know, I mean, especially in terms of conflict with Iran, it's just not really true. Actually, J.D. Vance, one of the things in the vetting document was that he was critical of Trump on his assassination of Qasem Soleimani. J.D. was right about that, by the way. And so, you know, when you look at the totality of the messaging coming out from the Trump campaign, most of it is very much in line with Mary Maddison, Rudy Giuliani, Trump himself. The problem is that Biden's holding them back. You don't hear too much of the perspective that's being offered here from J.D. Vance, where he correctly, by the way,

points out that even if you are just narrowly trying to pursue the interests of Israel, this has been damaging. Yeah, I mean, the country economically has suffered greatly. The governing coalition is constantly on the brink of collapse. You have massive foreign direct investment that is fleeing the country. You have people, human beings who have left the country. And, you know, contrary to the idea that all of this war making throughout the region is going to make Israelis any safer, it's only put them at more risk because now you still have people who are evacuated from northern Israel who are unable to return and no one in

sight with that either. So, I mean, he is correct in that point. I just don't think that that is the I don't think that that is the view of Trump. It's certainly not the view of Trump's donors. And, you know, Trump is happy to sort of let people go out and freelance whatever they think is going to be effective to appeal to that audience in the moment. Doesn't necessarily reflect any sort of a broader ship, but they've been much, much more intentional about trying to do the, you know, the Muslim outreach and the Arab American outreach, especially in the state of Michigan. And that shows in the polling numbers. Yeah, you're absolutely right. In fact, we have evidence of that strategy. Can we put E4, please, up on the screen? Here you had a letter from Trump. He said,

to the Lebanese American community, during my administration, we had peace in the Middle East. We will have peace again soon. I will fix the problems caused by Kamala and stop the suffering and destruction in Lebanon. I want to see the Middle East return to real peace, a lasting peace, and we will get it done properly so it doesn't repeat itself every five or ten years. So that obviously directed at the Michigan Arab American vote. And it's interesting, too, because the Trump campaign is basically like scrolling through ethnic minorities. Yeah, they are. And then releasing letters to it, which, look, maybe it's the correct way. Not the way I would like to see politics.

But he had another post where he's like, to all the Coptic Christians out there, I will stand up for you in the Middle East. I will make sure that we will not. What was it? The whole Azerbaijan thing. You know, Azerbaijan, Azeri, you know, aggression on, between Azerbaijan and Armenia. But my point is just that he seems to be just scrolling through these like subgroups and just putting out a letter where, you know, it could, it really could be impactful. I mean, I guess if he sees the election that way, then that explains why they don't like the

Puerto Rico comments. Yes, I agree with you. Again, this is not how I think politics should be like, dear Lebanese Americans or whatever, let me do policy based on your homeland. Okay, I think it's a little weird, but you know. I mean, it's frankly more something that you saw, like, it feels very Democrats in 2016. Yes, totally. Like, let me put out a letter and have on stage someone from your specific, like, demographic identity group. Feels like the direction that the Trump campaign is going in. But, you know, with regard to Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, less so young people who I think, you know, are either going to vote for Jill Stein, by and large, or they're just not going to vote. I think, obviously,

there's a huge opening here that is no one's fault but Kamala Harris and Joe Biden and the horrific policy that they have pursued, which has been deeply destructive and deeply immoral and which she has been unable to separate herself on. And then, you know, you have people like Bill Clinton who go out there and say the things that he says. And it's you know, you have people like Bill Clinton who go out there and say the things that he says. And it's not really, even though he said the quiet part out loud, but his comments are perfectly in line with the Biden administration strategy and the way that they've approached things.

Like, that is the position is Israel always, no matter what Israel does, will stand by them. It's always self-defense. It's never their fault. The civilian death is never their fault. They bear absolutely no culpability whatsoever. Even, and we bear no culpability, even though it's our bombs being sent, et cetera, et cetera. So, you know, Bill Clinton is out there

effectively articulating, just in a more clear-cut fashion, what the actual policy of Biden-Harris has been. Definitely. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. Voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal, and at times, it's far from what I originally intended it to be.

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

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

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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're

unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and reexamining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus.

So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. Let's move on to Stop the Steal. Wanted to do this segment. We'll round it out today. We think we'll try and make this a consistent part of the theme. If Trump does end up losing the election, I'm sure you're going to hear a lot more about this. But one of the things we did last time back in 2020 is we just went through every single major claim around Stop the Steal, every lawsuit, what the adjudication was, what the litigation looked like, what the judge ruling, what the claims. So we're going to start first with Donald Trump. He made some comments while he was doing the garbage thing around the election.

Let's take a listen. Circumstances under which you would be defeated but not say that the election was stolen? If it was a corrupt election, that could happen. But so far, we're doing pretty well. They found a lot of smaller things in Pennsylvania, as you know, and I think they've been corrupted and taken care of. They were corrupt. They were corrupted, but I think it's been taken care of.

You called for law enforcement to investigate. I was going to say, do you anticipate to declare a victory on election night? I hope that we're going to declare a victory. I mean, they spend all that money on machines. Paper ballots cost you 8% of what a machine costs, 8%. All right, so there you go. Maybe, you know, in terms of we'll look out for if it's a corrupt election, but I don't think it'll be a corrupt election. Nonetheless, there have been—

He also put out on Truth Social, Pennsylvania is cheating and getting caught at large-scale levels rarely seen before. Report cheating to authorities. Law enforcement must act now. So, I mean, you know, we laid out the, he is clearly, and Republicans in general, are trying to lay the groundwork of like this, if we don't win, it was stolen, right? It was rigged. And there's a lot more concerted effort in advance to lay that groundwork than there was last time around. You can go watch our segment about how this could all go down, the things that make it, you know, this sort of premeditated and very well-funded, by the way, effort in advance is something that is actually worse than last

time around. On the other hand, you now have the Electoral Count Act. Donald Trump is not the president of the United States, so that puts, you know, a lot on the other side of the scale. But it's very clear what he's trying to lay the groundwork to do, which, you know, also with regard to this Pennsylvania thing, and Pennsylvania has been a big focus on the right side, I'm sure you've seen as well. Like, you know, this kind of bit them in the ass previously in Georgia when they were running in these runoff elections, both of which they lost after Trump had just lost because there was so much conversation about how the vote had been rigged and the election was stolen, et cetera, et cetera, that they depressed their own turnout because people felt like, oh, well, if it's just going

to be stolen, like why bother vote whatsoever? So there is a risk in advance too of trying to, in advance, convince voters that like, oh, this thing is rigged and people are cheating at large scale levels rarely seen before, as Trump says in his true social post. Right. So let's go through. So we did a roundup on social media of all the big controversies. We're going to start with this one. Let's put this up there from Michigan. This is from the Michigan Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson. Now, according to the Secretary of State of Michigan, there are, quote, issues with Dominion voter access terminals and counties that use them in the voter access terminal. Specifically, it appears with the terminals that are handicap assisting.

Now voters using this on Election Day will either have to vote straight ticket or manual split their ballot, unlike how Michigan voters usually have the option to select straight party option and then override their party selection for certain races. Benson said that this was an issue that has frustrated officials in places where these machines are used. Quote, I think all of us who use Dominion machines were unhappy to learn about this during the testing period as early voting began. So we are working to seek accountability on that front and working with our clerks to ensure voters are aware of this

programming issue. Again, this appears to be, what is it, in the assisted ballot casting part of the area from early voting. So it's not all, but of course, wanted to go ahead and flag it here. And it is one that has already been acknowledged by the Secretary of State, of course, and then also has been a nationwide thing. That said, I don't know, you can look at it either way. People sent it and were like, well, this is evidence that there's problems. I'm like, yeah, but I mean, if you're evidence of a quote unquote problem or cheating, why would then the Secretary of State come out and acknowledge it and say that we are working on it? So look, no one's going to sit here and claim that there's no issues or whatever, but it almost seems like the opposite where they're coming out,

acknowledging in the future, talking about this quote unquote fix and exactly which type of ballots it can affect. So regardless, you can just say that's the explanation for what it is and if it comes in the future as subject to some loss or whatever, this is the origin. Yeah, that's a great point. It's also not clear which side this would theoretically benefit. The idea is just like it makes it those particular machines make it more difficult to vote. Split ticket. Split ticket instead of just straight D or straight R. So, again, it's not really even clear which side that would potentially benefit, but it just makes it more cumbersome for people who are voting at these disabled access terminals, which is unfortunate but not cheating.

It's just more cumbersome for them. And I think it's smart that she announced this in advance to sort of pre-butt any potential like allegations after the fact. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, by the way, election to election, lecture for election people, just say it all out in the future and avoid the mess of next time. Let's go to the next part. Let's put this up there on the screen. This was another big one. You probably saw it everywhere. ABC News, 16 WNEP, the affiliate, people were saying, look, they already called it for Kamala Harris. Well, the alleged response or the reason for why they had this, what was a reporting for Harris and Trump that showed up in the middle of a Formula One race on ESPN, ABC affiliate, was that there was some graphics testing package that they were doing that appeared

to have up on the screen. I also think we should just interrogate the thought process here. Is the thought process that the media is going to rig the election by pre-calling it for Harris and they're going to work then with the Secretary of State and Pennsylvania to just put up fake numbers? And why would you then do a dry run ahead of time? Like, what is the logical explanation? This is where the low IQ nature of this stuff honestly just drives me crazy. What is more likely, a graphics thing or a concerted effort by WNEP to pre-call the election? Like, what world do you think we're living in here? All right. And look, I already know there's going to be some butthurt Republicans in the comments

being like, ooh, fake, whatever. But it's like, look, be real with yourself. If you believe that, honestly, you're an idiot. Like, I don't know what else to tell you. If you really believe that that's a concerted effort to, like, steal the election by WNEP ABC affiliate who put up the wrong graphic, yeah, because local news graphics teams are, of course, the most crack in the business. I'm just like, come on. What are we doing here? Yeah, because local news graphics teams are, of course, the most crack in the business.

I'm just like, what are we doing here? Is this just me working here to know so obviously? How many times have you watched a show and the wrong graphic goes up on the screen? Right, right. Yeah, it's people who have put up the wrong graphics plenty of times. Sorry, yeah, they're in my ear complaining. In the control room. No offense. It's true.

It happens to the best of us. As someone who's been part of a network like MSNBC election coverage, all of the networks, you know, they preload fake election results in order to test out like how it looks state by state and make sure their stuff is running. In fact, we just did a test here. Mac and Griffin did a test of our election graphics literally yesterday, guys. And it could have been mistakenly put on YouTube. You know, it only took one clip. Yeah, they uploaded the clip. And it would have been uploaded.

They uploaded the clip, but for, you know, I guess private or whatever only. But, you know, very easy to accidentally click the wrong thing and it goes public. And then, oh, my God, we're part of the election conspiracy. So just ask yourself, Occam's razor, which is more likely? Yes, that's right. At the same time, we have had a few wild incidents occurring at polling stations during the early vote. We can put this up on the screen. A machete-wielding young Trump supporter was arrested on a variety of charges for menacing people who were going to vote. I believe this occurred in Florida.

So they held a, Neptune Beach Police Department held a media briefing following the arrest of a man in connection with an armed disturbance that occurred at the Beaches Branch Library, a polling location. You can see him there with the Trump signs and the machete, and I don't know what he thought he was doing, but it was pretty menacing, stupid, and illegal. And he was arrested. Good work with that.

And he was arrested. He was arrested. This one is really wild. Put this up on the screen. So this dude who ran for, I believe, Congress. Yes. This is Kansas City. So former GOP candidate.

He stole ballots in, they describe, a scheme to create controversy. So effectively, he got invited because he's sort of like a local, you know, guy who's well-known. He ran for Congress, et cetera, et cetera. So he got invited to this public test they were doing of their election system. Part of the test was to demonstrate to the public, like, this is all clean and free and fair, and we've got an organized system, et cetera. So he goes to this test, and it was live streamed, the whole thing, so people could see everything that was happening, which is how he got caught. And he stole two ballots, folded them up, and put them in his pocket, and then starts whispering to

someone like, oh, the count of the ballots is wrong. I think they're missing some ballots, blah, blah, blah. After he was the one who stole the ballots. And since it was on the live stream, he got caught. And before, but before he was caught and people went back to the live stream and saw this all happen, he went on a Facebook Live and was talking about how,

oh, there's election fraud and they're short multiple ballots, blah, blah, blah. Again, because he's the one that stole the ballots. So this was an effort to, you know, try to create a narrative about how the election's rigged and it's stolen and you can't trust the results, blah, blah, blah. And this guy got caught red-handed being the one doing the ballot manipulation and, you know, stealing these ballots during the test. So amazing stuff. Two more election updates. There was one that came out of Michigan. There was allegedly, there was some one voter ID where multiple voter IDs have been linked to duplicate ballots in

Michigan. The Michigan Secretary of State has confirmed to the RNC that those duplicates will not be counted. And it was a glitch in the system. that those duplicates will not be counted, and it was a glitch in the system. If anything, the infrastructure at this point for election integrity and all that is so gigantic on the Republican side. Hundreds of billions of dollars have now been spent on this with watchdogs, lawsuits, lawyers, and all these other people that they are watching and investigating almost every single thing. So we will continue to do so. And in almost every case, they've either been responsive or whatever, or it just turned out to be total bullshit. The other one that has come up now is the judge has extended mail balloting in Bucks County. There was a whole

lawsuit about this. I just thought I would mention it, where they were trying to close early voting at, I think it was a deadline of 5 p.m. on October 29th. The judge, their rule that violated Pennsylvania election code and that they will then extend normal early voting for normal business hours before the close of business on November 1. So I guess you still have a day and a half or so to go and to take advantage of that. In terms of the timeframe, I think they also limited it from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. But there you go. So look into that. If you live in Bucks County, PA, beautiful place, by the way, New Hope, Pennsylvania.

Yeah. I think overall one thing we noted last time is that the election apparatus really is a patchwork. You really are dependent on these individual local counties to run this election. And so, of course, there are going to be anomalies. There are going to be glitches. Every election, people are upset because they had to wait in line too long or they feel like, you know, there's always, there are every election,

there are going to be some issues that crop up because it's human beings trying to do a thing en masse in jurisdictions across the entire country at a time of a lot of heightened anxiety, tension, et cetera. So just take all of that in because there is something that goes awry or whatever, they don't have enough ballots, whatever happens. That is not evidence of a mass-coordinated scheme. It's evidence that human beings are fallible and there are there will be some technical issues and glitches on election day that is i can tell you with a hundred percent

certainty that would be the case right and yeah look if it if it does look connected if you can prove it oh send me the evidence i'd love to see it please i beg you to send it to me if we go it's the story of the century if you can prove it send it i'll take a look uh yeah and then just last thing on that because everyone's always like oh why can why can't we be like Brazil or France or India? Well, because we have this little thing called federalism. So you should ask yourself, do you really want the federal government to run all elections in this country? Absolutely not. No, we don't want that.

I don't want that at least. I kind of want uniform rules though. Well, that's a different story in terms of rule. But I'm saying in terms of the actual bureau running the overall election, that's a terrible idea and is the absolute antithesis of the electoral college and specifically of federalism itself. So that's how it's always been. I think it's probably better. If anything, the decentralized system certainly has its annoyances in terms of why it takes forever and all of that. But the alternative in a French or an Indian or whatever system is that the government itself is the one that runs it, which obviously is a massive conflict of interest there.

Yeah. Yes, indeed. But yeah, I would like – I personally would like to see federal set like consistent rules instituted across the jurisdiction so that everybody has the same rules when it comes to mail-in ballot, early vote, early in-person, voter ID. Like, let's just have, yeah, convicted, you know, felons, like, let's just have it be standard so that you don't have the right to vote in one state but not have the right to vote in another, which I

personally think is preposterous. But in any case, that's the system we have. All right. That was fun. Yeah. We'll see you guys tomorrow. Ryan and Emily, we're going to do a little remote election preview thing so we can break down whatever comes on today, latest polls, et cetera. So make sure to join us for that. That's right. We'll see you then. 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. A lot of times, big economic forces show up in our lives in small ways. Four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding.

But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. Small but important ways. From tech billionaires to the bond market to, yeah, banana pudding. If it's happening in business, our new podcast is on it. I'm Max Chastin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. So listen to Everybody's Business 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 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.