Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 8/19/24 LIVE AT DNC: Biden Humiliated By DNC Lineup, Kamala Reveals Econ Policy, Trump Attacks 'Communist' Dems

Episode Date: August 20, 2024

Saagar, Ryan and Emily discuss Biden humiliated by DNC lineup, Kamala opens up new paths to victory, Kamala unveils new economic agenda, Trump brands Kamala a communist, protests erupt at DNC on day o...ne.    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.com/   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. Enter Camp Shame, an eight-part series examining the rise and fall of Camp Shane and the culture that fueled its decades-long success. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. I'm Michael Kasson,
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Starting point is 00:01:45 If you like witty women, then this is your tribe. Listen to the Good Moms, Bad Choices podcast every Wednesday on the Black Effect podcast network, the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you go to find your podcast. 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. Hello, everybody. Live from Chicago, we are here. We've got Emily Jashinsky. We've got Ryan Grimm, producer Mac. Everybody, please bear with us. We've had several technical difficulties, missed flights, people are gone. It's beenstool Sports, specifically Eddie and the entire crew at The Dog Walk, which is presented by Barstool, allowing us to use their beautiful studio.
Starting point is 00:02:50 So thank you so much to them. If you like Chicago sports or any of that, go subscribe. I've got to give them a shout-out. They've been so, so kind to us. Funny thing about the Barstool studio, I went looking for water. I found high noons, energy drinks, vodka. I had to ask. You had to ask for water. Eventually they're like, I think we do for water. I found high noons, energy drinks, vodka. I had to ask. Yeah, to ask for water.
Starting point is 00:03:06 Eventually, they're like, I think we do have water. Ryan is hammered. You don't need any of that. Yeah, so we've got these, what are these, ghosts? These things are pretty good. By the way, we're not being paid for any of this. This stuff is delicious. It's really good.
Starting point is 00:03:18 Let's be honest. I'm concerned. We're hopped up. We're happy. We're also joined by Mike Ditka. Yeah, and Mike Ditka and the rest of it. There's also a live nude sign over there, which is very on brand for them, not for us.
Starting point is 00:03:30 Ryan made us take it down. That's right. All right. So before we get to any of that, we want to go ahead and again, as I said, thank you to them. And please forgive us on the timeline. We're doing our best to get the content out today and tomorrow.
Starting point is 00:03:41 So just everybody stay tuned. Tomorrow, we hope to be able to go live to everyone from here in the studio on Wednesday as well. And then we'll have clips and other things that will drop throughout. So premium subscribers, everybody, please again, bear with us, but we are doing our absolute best and we've been working for hours now just to make sure that we can even get something out for today. Before we get to that, thank you to all of our premium subscribers, as we said, and those who may consider wanting to be premium subscribers. So we have a promo code right now
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Starting point is 00:04:36 Obviously, things are very fast moving. But what we wanted to start with is what we're all here for, which is the DNC. So let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. The DNC lineup, who's speaking and what to expect. So the general view of where they want things, Ryan, is Monday today is, quote, for the people. So the people who are going to be up on the screen today, we've got Biden and Dr. Jill, Dr. Jill will be speaking, along with the former Secretary of State Hillary, and a welcome from Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson. I believe we have a couple of union folks.
Starting point is 00:05:12 AOC at nine also. AOC will be speaking tonight as well. My joke is that all the least popular people in the Democratic Party are speaking tonight. Your entire political career is aimed at speaking Thursday, not Monday. That's right, not Monday. So today- Monday's a place to start. Biden gets to speak.
Starting point is 00:05:29 Dr. Jill, a true villain, gets to speak as well. Our next Surgeon General. Yeah. Whoopi Goldberg said it. Those two will be speaking tonight. The key is that
Starting point is 00:05:39 they obviously just want everyone to have amnesia and forget about Monday by tomorrow. So as we can see in front of us, we've got Obama who will be speaking, or former President Obama tomorrow, then the second gentleman, Doug Emhoff,
Starting point is 00:05:53 J.B. Pritzker, then Wednesday, that's when you've got Tim Walz, then you've got Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Buttigieg. Thursday, that's when Harris will actually speak. So I believe it's literally an order of like ascending popularity, which is frankly kind of smart. You want people to be thankful for Biden. That's what they're going to try and do. But they are going to try and forget about him as soon as possible. He's literally going to Santa Barbara after this. Is that true? Yes. He's not even here
Starting point is 00:06:20 for the rest of the convention. He might be going to Montecito or whatever, but he's going to a vacation. Wow. Yeah, near Santa Barbara right after this. They're truly putting him out to pasture. So before we get to any of the polls or anything, just give us your reaction, the general setup of everything. Many union guys are going to be speaking tonight. Sean Fain will be speaking tonight, I believe, with a few others.
Starting point is 00:06:39 Interestingly enough, Sean O'Brien from the Teamsters, not invited to speak here at the DNC. I think they're a little bit of ruffled feathers after he spoke at the RNC. But Ryan, our resident Democratic expert, what do you think? If you're Biden, you can't stick around. Yeah. Like, you know, it's also he wasn't planning on sticking around to begin with because the president is in and out like they treat it like, you know, and this has been for centuries, that the nominees wouldn't, it was like gauche for them to actually come and be seen. Yeah, that was in the old days.
Starting point is 00:07:09 Sometimes they wouldn't even come. They'd be like, oh, I accept the nomination. They would say it from the White House or whatever. And so the thing that that evolved into is the nominee kind of showing up at the end or just peeking their head out and saying, all right, all of my people are doing the things that I want to, I'm going to go back behind the scenes.
Starting point is 00:07:24 But yeah, if you're Biden, the humiliation is so steep that you've just got to do your bit Monday and just roll on out. What is so clear about the response to Biden's departure is that he never had any base. And we kind of knew that about him. But Obama has people who follow him. AOC has people who like her. Bernie Sanders has people that like him. Elizabeth Warren has the Warrenites.
Starting point is 00:07:53 You know, she's got that. It's not, obviously it wasn't enough to get any of them the nomination. She's got Matt Stoller. She's got Matt Stoller. But she's got people. Yeah. Biden does not. And he never has.
Starting point is 00:08:04 He's just been the guy that, you know that put his finger in the wind and very successfully stuck himself dead center of the party, whether it was the 70s, 80s, 70s. Can you believe that? 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s or up until today. But what that also means is that when you no longer have any power, nobody cares. Yeah, that's true. You truly are put out. I mean, it's over. Yeah, I have. I have. You're exactly right. He's going straight to California and that's it. And
Starting point is 00:08:30 then they're going on vacation. It's kind of truly remarkable. Yep. Emily, we do, however, before we even get to our if you want to talk about some of the DNC, we've got some polling as well. Do you want to weigh in on the lineup first and then we'll talk about the polling? Well, it's similar to what the RNC did. You're just building excitement. And at the RNC, of course, Trump had just been shot literally in the head. And so there was all of this, there was this air of almost mystery about suspense, about what he would say. Here, there's less of that. It's more just, I think our suspense now is seeing the presentation of Kamala Harris, exactly how almost Obama-esque it is,
Starting point is 00:09:05 because the Washington Post ran a story this morning saying it's not 1968, it feels more like 2008. We're starting to see artists already paint portraits of Kamala Harris that make- Same guy. Same guy. Same guy, yeah. There have been other renditions of it as well, literally casting Kamala Harris in this Obama-esque role. And I think as we go throughout the week, it'll be,
Starting point is 00:09:27 that's one of the big things I'm looking for is how dramatically they're presenting her. Yeah, and the problem is that second time is farce problem. Like Obama had months and months, almost a year actually, to kind of, to organically build this like real energy behind his truly kind of historic campaign it was like a two-year slog that's what tommy vietor said today yeah and and now they're trying to like slap it together in a couple of weeks and they go out and get what's his name the guy that did the hope hope and change poster and he just kind of redoes it and it sort
Starting point is 00:10:04 of feels like top down kind of applied to people rather than people kind of pushing it up from the bottom. Maybe that's enough, though. A vote is a vote, whether it's for cringe or whether it's for genuine organic enthusiasm. Let's stick with that because that's the important thing. 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.
Starting point is 00:10:32 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 fat phobia 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. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone,
Starting point is 00:11:23 I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband. It's a cold case. I've never found her and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.
Starting point is 00:12:13 Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley
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Starting point is 00:13:13 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Because we've only got, what, 79 days now, I think, until the election, as of when we're recording, let's go ahead and put the New York Times Siena poll.
Starting point is 00:13:39 So this poll came out over the weekend, and it dramatically just shows you how Kamala Harris has a significant polling advantage to where Biden was. So here from the New York Times, Sienna, they polled battleground states as well as the Sun Belt. So what do we see? Arizona, Kamala Harris, 50%, Trump at 45. That's huge. I mean, Arizona with a five-point spread. North Carolina, they actually have Kamala leading Trump by two points. Now, Nevada is where things are interesting. Trump is there at 48, Harris at 47. Georgia, Trump is at 50,
Starting point is 00:14:12 Harris is at 46. What this tells us is that Kamala significantly changes the map for 270 that Biden ever had. I mean, I frankly think his map was dead the day of the debate. But let's say as dead possibly as him. But whenever he was, let's say previously, whenever he had not done the debate and we think about what his theoretical map was, he really was reliant on the so-called blue wall. And that was like Arizona was gone. North Carolina was gone. Nevada even very likely not there. Georgia. He needed to win Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, where these North Carolina numbers, the Arizona numbers, and others, they open up a different possibility for Kamala to get to 270. It also reflects, frankly,
Starting point is 00:14:54 the changing nature of the country. I don't think it's an accident. Arizona and North Carolina are two of the, I think they have the most dynamic economies in the United States just in the last two years. And both have had massive inflight of population from California, from other blue states. So they've got a bluer population this time around, people who are much more likely to vote on abortion and all of that. Yes. And I think we'll have Anderson Clayton, who's a North Carolina county chair. You guys might've followed that story. She's like 25. Yeah. She's very young. And won this grassroots campaign where she overthrew all these old dudes and is taking a completely different approach to trying to win North Carolina. Obama won it, if I'm
Starting point is 00:15:35 not mistaken, in 2008, right? And so because he did, Democrats have been just pining for it every time since then. Well, and they've had Democratic governors since then. Yeah. I mean, they have one right now. They have one right now. So it's not out of reach. Arizona seems to be going increasingly blue,
Starting point is 00:15:55 like in the same way that Iowa went from a swing state to like just deep red at this point. It feels like Arizona could potentially go that way for all the reasons you're talking about. A lot of Democrats coming from both the Northeast to retire in California, to retire and also to escape California. And they bring their voting patterns with them.
Starting point is 00:16:15 And so Biden was the only reason that it was even in play. They have two Democratic senators. And don't forget this, They have abortion on the ballot. And a Democratic governor, Democratic AG. They had that whole, what is it, 1860s law, and then they had to change it. But there's actually still going to be a ballot referendum in Arizona, which the abortion activists fought very hard to put on. I would not underestimate that, Emily, for turnout-wise.
Starting point is 00:16:41 So it's interesting because we're seeing that reflected at the DNC here. I have noticed that you're seeing party chairs obviously flying from Arizona and others, but they're getting not only key slots. And I was talking with some others when I was in the airport because many of the activists and other things were there. And they were like, oh yeah, there's a lot of energy around Arizona, around North Carolina. So it's clear that the Kamala campaign and the DNC is doing their best while we're here in Chicago to elevate the battleground states that are newly in play as a result of Kamala coming to the ticket. That's a really good point. And the other thing in North Carolina is obviously
Starting point is 00:17:14 Mark Robinson is considered to be a weak candidate. He's obviously a polarizing and controversial candidate. So what that can do for Democratic turnout in North Carolina, it's important to note. Now, in that New York Times-Siena poll, the margin is, in most states, it's between plus or minus four. Basically, it's roughly plus or minus four. So it's kind of a tie. So yeah, it's basically a dead heat, which is incredible, given where Biden was not that long ago. And to the point we started talking about this poll on, there is something that I think, and Ryan, I'm curious what you think, it's not just top down with Kamala Harris. It's also people projecting their, and I'm going to use a controversial word, the controversial word du jour, joy onto, and I really mean it, that people
Starting point is 00:17:58 are overjoyed that they do not have to vote for Joe Biden. And so you project onto Kamala Harris that relief. And so some of it, I do think, you know, there's a group of people in states like North Carolina or Arizona that are genuinely like excited to rediscover Kamala Harris because they're so desperate to have a good option instead of arguably one of the worst possible options. I don't know. Yeah. And what I've heard from Democrats is that what their internal polling is showing is that basically what you described has brought back the Democratic coalition into the fold. Like Biden's erosion was not because people were switching over to Trump necessarily. They were dropping into kind of undecided or over to RFK. Yeah. With Kamala back, they have
Starting point is 00:18:44 they've all come back. So she's brought back that coalition. But that's not enough on its own. What they're saying is that in general, the polls are still showing her up about a point or two. At this time, Biden and Hillary were both up by six to seven points. Yes, that's right. And Democrats need to be up substantially in the national vote
Starting point is 00:19:06 in order to win the electoral college, unless they figure out some new path, which Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina could actually present to them. I just wanted to add something on that. Harry Enten made a very good point on CNN last week, where he analyzed where the polls are versus where they were in 2016 and 2020, and said, actually, Trump, where the polls are now, if you account for the polling errors and say that they haven't been corrected significantly, which they weren't from 2016 to 2020, they were corrected a little bit, but not significantly, then this could still, the polling as it stands right now, could still be showing a Trump victory. Yeah, I want everyone to, that's my last corollary here, which is let's also just all remember having been burned multiple times, 2020 and also 2022,
Starting point is 00:19:47 where we can't put full stock in all of this. And I would also say I have Nate Silver's election forecast in front of me, Kamala 53.5% chance of winning the electoral college, Donald Trump at 45. If we look at polymarket and the betting markets, Kamala currently has 51% and Trump 47%. But I'm actually reading Nate's book right now, and I highly recommend it. Something he just tries to drum into people. 47 is very high. Imagine putting, if you had a 47% chance of losing everything, you should be pretty afraid. You should be afraid. He had Trump in 2016 at about 30, 35. And that was right. Which was like, that's a really big chance. Yeah, that's one in three.
Starting point is 00:20:27 One in three. One in three. Think about that. Exactly. What that means. You put a gun to your head. Yeah, you have a one in three chance of death. Think about that.
Starting point is 00:20:35 Two bullets in a six shooter. But that's part of what I want. Nobody asked for this. I want everyone to internalize how the things are still very, very much in a toss-up right now. The key that the Democrats are going to be going for is the traditional bump that you get after the convention. And that's, I mean, part of the reason we're all here is we expected some chaos. You know, we had planned this whole thing.
Starting point is 00:20:56 We're like, oh, there's going to be all this chaos for the DNC. But, I mean, to be honest, there has been protests, and we're going to cover that a little bit later in the show. And they're pretty unified right now. So what they're trying to do is present a full picture of we're in this. We're ready to beat Trump. I'm very I've been very interested in Kamala kind of rolling her eyes at Trump attacks. She's like, oh, the classic.
Starting point is 00:21:17 But we're going to beat him in November. I'm seeing, you know, in terms of the Democrats and there's been some policy stuff. We're about to talk about that as well. But the overall political picture is it's clear that Trump is a little bit flat-footed. Now, ever since the last time we all spoke, I know you guys have covered some of this, Trump is basically back on the campaign trail. He'll be having, I think, two, maybe three events that are just this week, trying to do some DNC counter-program. He's actually literally doing a rally as we speak right now. There was a press conference with
Starting point is 00:21:44 Rick Scott and Ron Johnson that I heard was quite boring earlier this morning. Two real genius politicians that we definitely want on our side. Oh, and they were going after walls for his China connections. Yeah. And they dipped into Chicago to have a little counter-programming. It doesn't seem to have worked well. Didn't work? All right. Well, I see. Yeah. So Trump is doing a press conference right now. It looks like he's at, I think he's in Milwaukee. Anyway, just trying to check in on what they're trying to do, because what they want is counter-programming. The DNC is happening. It's going to take over the media. Tonight, we've got the Biden speech. Obviously, there's so much at stake, honestly, even for Biden, because if he melts again on the
Starting point is 00:22:19 stage, that's just going to increase, not just questions about whether they should drop out. It's like, dude, can you even be president right now? Like, what are you doing? How are we not even talking about that? That should be the top line tonight. I mean, every single time I read the news about ceasefires or Ukraine or anything like that, I'm like, I can't believe this melted man is literally in charge of the country. Like, it's insane. It's an insane thing. Now, he will be on the stage tonight. I'm very curious to see how he does. I mean, can you imagine if he has a similar debate level meltdown? And one of the things we're about to get to with the policy is the tying of Kamala to Trump.
Starting point is 00:22:54 I mean, sorry, Kamala to Biden. If he does a bad job tonight, that will actually be a bit of a problem. Part of the reason, again, why I think they scheduled him today just to make sure that if he screws it up, they can deprogram their way out of it. But I do think he'll get through his speech.
Starting point is 00:23:09 I think he'll slur his words. I think he'll mess some stuff up. Yeah. But he can still read off a teleprompter to some degree. And as long as they don't put in things like pause for applause. Yeah, but he can do that. He might do that. But he's done that however many times already.
Starting point is 00:23:25 Really, I mean, he lost the ticket, but he can do that. He might do that. But he's done that however many times already. Really, I mean, he lost the ticket, but he's still the president. So there could not be a lower bar for him to have to clear. Good point. Well, yeah.
Starting point is 00:23:34 So on that point, Sagar, I think we can put this next element up on the screen. This is a three. This is the cringe celebrity lineup. So this is the weakness
Starting point is 00:23:43 to the extent there is one when Democrats have all of this momentum and they have momentum in polling. They have massive momentum with the press. Kamala Harris's favorability is going from the most unpopular vice president in modern history to somebody with pretty high favorability and great treatment in the press. They have all of this going for them. And then they put a cast of celebrities. They did something similar in 2020, but they put this cast of celebrities
Starting point is 00:24:09 in charge of like emceeing the nights. And one of them is Ana Navarro. I think probably your favorite. Of course, my favorite of the UCAS members. One of your, yeah, your favorites. Although there's stiff competition, but Ana Navarro, Kerry Washington, Tony Goldwyn, Mindy Kaling, we don't know how
Starting point is 00:24:26 front and center that they will be, but I expect this to become a pretty big part of the Republican counter-programming. And my expectation though, is that with Democrats having all this momentum, Kamala Harris is on her honeymoon. This extends that honeymoon just a little bit longer. I don't know that it sticks around until after Labor Day, but I also just think this is going to be Democrats week. There isn't going to be a lot Republicans can do as in the last month to draw attention away from it and to draw favorability away. It's just going to, it's going to be a love fest. Yeah. Last, that last thing on this, then as I kept hearing from the Republicans are like, no, we're going to unload on her after Labor Day. And I was like, you know, I'm, I just think we're wasting a lot of time here.
Starting point is 00:25:05 You know, there's a lot of time that was wasted in the last couple of weeks where Kamala is basically allowed to coast. I mean, how many interviews is this lady done? Zero. To reestablish herself. Zero interviews. And has totally reestablished her image with the American public. Reestablish her image with the American public.
Starting point is 00:25:21 The media is literally like coronating this woman like live on television. In terms of interviews, zero. Quote, hope to have one scheduled by Labor Day. Still nothing scheduled. I was literally out sick for an entire week, and she still has not scheduled an interview. That's crazy. It's August 19th, so she doesn't have to do an interview this entire week.
Starting point is 00:25:40 Right, Ryan? That gives us the Labor Day. She's been a candidate for almost a month. Nothing. I see that she answers for almost a month, nothing. I see that she answers question in a Sheetz gas station for less than two minutes, you know, gives one answer, cool. It's like, it's one of those- Fakes the Doritos thing, did you see that?
Starting point is 00:25:53 Yeah, doing a fake video about Doritos. I mean, this is all we're getting from this woman. Her one- It's astounding to me. It's crazy. Her one non-scripted moment, well, she said two non-scripted moments. The second one was scripted. Yeah. It was when she got protested at, well, she said two non-scripted moments. The second one
Starting point is 00:26:05 was scripted. It was when she got protested at the one rally. Oh, that's right. And she did the head turn, told to shut up. Well, no, she said that they're helping elect Trump. You're helping elect Trump. And then the second time she got protested, she was on script. She was like, I hear you. I feel you. We're going to sort this all out. Yes. But yes, like there's there's been there's been zero. I do think it's worth talking about this complete gap in understanding of the race between the right and the left right now. I tell me if I tell me how prevalent this view is on the right. But from my like kind of social media feed, it seems like there's a substantial portion of conservatives who think that Tim Walz has been a complete catastrophe for Democrats.
Starting point is 00:26:49 They might dump him. And that Kamala Harris might actually get dumped. And she's, that Democrats are not behind her. And it's a complete catastrophe. I think you might be too online, to be honest. That's the Laura Loomer world. Yeah, this is just some more like whatever, some bullshit. Well, I will just add, I do think there's some serious underestimating,
Starting point is 00:27:07 mis-underestimating going on to quote Ryan's favorite president, to going on on the right because, well, I know we're going to get into the attacks that Trump has developed on, that they have developed on Kamala Harris. And I know they're scrambling right now. Like Trump did that press conference with foodstuffs to try and talk about some of the same thing. I watched that whole thing. I did not think it went well for Trump. I really didn't.
Starting point is 00:27:28 Yeah. And so it just they don't have anything that's sticking right now but there is a subsection of the right that to your point there are people that are very online that have some influence in the campaign and I think they don't understand that there is some genuine organic support for Kamala Harris among the public in a way that when you're competing for fractions, which is what's happening in this election, it's what's happened in every last election since 2016. That is incredibly meaningful. And you have to deal with those voters. You have to persuade those voters. I think it's crazy that people flipped on Kamala Harris and went from being like, this woman seems a little weird to inspiration.
Starting point is 00:28:02 Actually, no, you're the weird one. Yeah, right. You're weird. Yeah. I, no, you're the weird one. Yeah, right. You're weird. Yeah. I'm like, oh, OK. But there is that happening with, you know, five to 10 percent of the voting base. That's significant. 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.
Starting point is 00:28:36 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
Starting point is 00:29:02 one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there.
Starting point is 00:29:35 Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions
Starting point is 00:29:54 that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes.
Starting point is 00:30:21 But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated.
Starting point is 00:30:53 I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Let's talk about policy now. This is important, and this is something I've been dying to get to on the show. Wish Crystal was here, but we should be able to. At the very least, she'll be on the show on Wednesday, 100%.
Starting point is 00:31:34 Tomorrow, we're still working that out. But let's go ahead and begin with the DNC policy platform and its great big rollout. It appears that in the total shit show that we've already experienced right now at the DNC, getting our damn press credentials, took several hours, much longer than it should have, consequently leading to a lot of the problems that we have right now. But what we could see in front of us
Starting point is 00:31:58 is that they forgot to actually release the term, take the term, quote, Biden's second term, five separate times, Ryan, out of the DNC platform. So, I mean, Greg Price has circled all of them here in front of us. During President Biden's second term, they even refer to, like, President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris
Starting point is 00:32:20 want to continue their legacy. I think this was actually, I know this is stupid, like, it was obviously, like, a mistake of an intern. I think this was actually, I know this is stupid. It was obviously like a mistake of an intern. I think it's a colossal mistake in that we should not be talking about Biden at all. Biden who? We need to get him on a jet and go to California. We're not talking about him right now.
Starting point is 00:32:35 What this shows you is the insanity of party functionality. Like in order to approve the platform, you have to get everybody together. You've got the sub platform, you have to get everybody together. You've got the sub-platform, the sub-committees, the committees. And because they were rushing this so that they could not get Biden off, they approved this long ago. Like this was approved a while ago. It was approved while Biden was still running for president.
Starting point is 00:33:01 And so in order to get his name out of there, you would have had to reconvene the entire platform committee and somebody would have to make a motion to strike his name from there. And I think basically nobody wanted to do that. Yeah. They're just like, do I want to be the guy that. So you think this was intentional? That's even worse. It's intentional. It's intentional in the sense that they knew that this was the document that they had. And they were like, we can either reconvene the entire platform committee, make that a news story, strike his name and replace, you know, control F, control R with
Starting point is 00:33:37 Harris, or we can just take our lumps on Monday when this rolls out. Because then you have to vote on it again. Yeah, they'd have to to vote on it again. That's the bureaucracy. And then as soon as you are voting on it again, then you've got uncommitted delegates who are like, wait a minute. We're still in here with this terrible Hamas
Starting point is 00:33:55 and Israel provision. Let's revisit this. And so I think they were just like, you know what, screw it. That is actually insane because that makes it not an oversight. That actually makes it not intentional per se, but a consequence of problems. Nobody's allowed to go in and change a comma in it. But again, I mean, this is reflective of a bigger problem that they have,
Starting point is 00:34:17 is that if all the polling that we look at, the more that Kamala is the change candidate and away from Biden, the better off she's doing. The more that she's tied to Joe candidate and away from Biden, the better off she's doing. The more that she's tied to Joe Biden and all of his policies, then the worse off that she's doing. And that actually gets us, Ryan, to these economic proposals. It's been causing quite a stir online. It'll be fun to talk about here. Kamala gave a economic speech, what was it, yesterday, on Thursday in North Carolina. Jeff Stein, friend of the show, has a few highlights here I'm going to read off of. Quote, $6,000 for a newborn tax credit.
Starting point is 00:34:49 That's $3,000 for most children. $6,000 fully available to the poorest families. $25,000 down payment subsidy for first-time homebuyers. A $2,000 annual cap on out-of-pocket prescription drug costs. Housing supply expansion credits, a ban on price gouging for food and groceries. That's probably the most controversial element we have. Eliminate medical debt and EITC expansion, as well as ACA subsidy extension. So go ahead, Ryan, give us the leftist take, and then Emily and I will give us the counter.
Starting point is 00:35:22 Yeah, this is incredible stuff. And the virtue of it is that it does separate from Biden in the sense that some of this is new, like the $25,000 down payment going after price gouging. Sure. It makes you talk about Kamala Harris distinct from Joe Biden. On a policy term, we can go through them like the $6 six thousand dollar newborn credit like that's new. That that I have not seen that from them. That's a new policy. It's a derivative. It's a derivative of the child tax credit that was extremely popular during the first year or so by administration, which cut child poverty in half. And then they just doubled child poverty by letting it letting
Starting point is 00:36:03 it lapse. People like that. I think what they learned from the 2020 Georgia Senate elections is that offering people money is a cool way to get them to vote for you. If you remember, they did that. Do you think that still works in inflation politics before we get to that? I think it does. See, that's where I think the counter might be. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:36:24 Is that given the inflation conversation. By the way, I'm not saying it costs inflation. I'm just saying, given that we have inflation. That's the downside, but we'll see. I think the price gouging one is a great terrain to be fighting on. Interesting. Because it puts the kind of right-wing national populism on the spot.
Starting point is 00:36:47 It's like- It forces. You support, it calls the question. You're okay with price gouging? Well, okay. So Emily, go ahead. Give us the counter. Because that's actually been,
Starting point is 00:36:55 that's the one that I've seen the most like argument online from, right? So obviously there's been, well, this is, okay. So let's talk about what actually price gouging, what that means. So I had to do a decent amount of reading here in the last couple of weeks matt stoller as always actually is a very good explainer on the difference between price controls what price gouging is and what separate
Starting point is 00:37:13 proposals are now kamala was not specific about what a ban on price gouging actually would be so people like the post read into it yeah i was gonna. Yeah, I was going to say, I actually think it was a, I honestly think it was a mistake for her because she allowed price gouging. And by the way, elements of some people in the GOP, like who's the senator from Iowa? He's super old. Chuck Grassley. People even like Grassley and others
Starting point is 00:37:38 are calling for breaking up meatpacking, right? I mean, technically that is going after price gouging in the industry because what you're trying to do is you're trying to break up the producer monopolies and supply monopolies, which are then sold to the grocery store. There's been a lot of confusion about that too because people are like, well, how could grocery stores be price gouging because they only have a 2% to 3% margin? What I believe that they're talking about are the actual suppliers to the grocery stores
Starting point is 00:38:02 themselves. It's not the grocery store. It's like the Kraft Foods, whatever, whatever that company is. I forget. Yeah. That owns it anyway. So Emily, give us what you have seen, because I have not seen the right, this animated about a counter policy issue in quite a long time. The price control thing really took off from what I could see. And it is, I think it actually is going to set up for, this will be a real debate on the stage now at this point, because we saw Trump talk about this at the press conference as well. Well, and that brings up Ryan's really important point,
Starting point is 00:38:34 which is that it actually forces the new right to confront this question of corporate power. And on the other hand, it's going to force the establishment left that is now helmed by Kamala Harris, who is suggesting anti-price gouging measures sort of vaguely. We don't know exactly what they would look like. The Washington Post jumped in with their editorial board and caught a lot of flack for going in hot. Not a lot of flack from everyone. There were some people who were really glad to see the Washington Post, some people in the tech community and the corporate community who celebrated the Washington Post editorial. So did the right. And this is where the politics and the ideology, if we separate them for a moment, the politics and the substance for a moment, politically, it was absolutely 100%
Starting point is 00:39:19 a gift to the right because they know, and Ryan, you know this too, you can really fear monger with socialism. You can do the same with capitalism too when you're polling. But the right feels like when they can tie socialism to Democrats in the suburbs, in places like Pennsylvania, in places like Michigan, that is a huge, huge help for them. That gets some of those skeptical Trump people back over on their side. They thought that in 2018, it was like their godsend. That's what they felt. Now you can, you know, make it, and in 2022, you can make a judgment on whether it works, but they love that.
Starting point is 00:39:58 They think it's a huge boost right into their veins when they can tie people to socialism. It can be really cringe when you're doing it. Like it can It can be really cringe when you're doing it. It can be really, really cringe when you're doing it. At the same time, it is something that voters can look at and say it sort of is easier to build a narrative about someone being far left when you can talk about that. So I have some polling in front of me that Matt Stoller had. So it says, using antitrust to enforce laws against price gouging and price fixing has a net 42% approval rating around decreasing inflation and others. I do wonder- But it depends on how you're talking about it.
Starting point is 00:40:31 I don't know. By the way, that's what I was about to say. That's why I do wonder whether it was a mistake. I'm actually curious, Ryan, what you think about this whole price control discourse. Because there is one way of talking about it, like breaking up meat pack. I mean, people in the Midwest support that, agriculturalists support that, rural people support that. Do you think that the Kamala people made a mistake by making it seem like they were gonna enforce
Starting point is 00:40:56 full-blown price control? Because she hasn't even disavowed that at this point. Politically, I'm actually honestly not quite sure. I'm pretty sure Crystal would support price control. I've been thinking about it. I just feel like it's such a drastic, well, okay, but that's what I was gonna say. To me, it's a very drastic measure.
Starting point is 00:41:14 I'm like, are we really at price control right now? You know what I mean? When we have the ability to, if we break up meat packing, if we look at some of the share buyback and other things that some of these companies have done. Yeah, I agree with you. So there are multiple states, including Arkansas, like red states,
Starting point is 00:41:30 that have price gouging legislation on the books, which basically after a 10% threshold of increase of price requires the company to like file a disclosure with the state as to why a price in a critical industry is going up. And then people, I think there's some input process around that. So, I mean, we do have red states that are on the books that have these measures in place. When you put it that way, I'm like, yeah, it seems kind of
Starting point is 00:41:53 reasonable. Like if you have a critical industry or like food, meat, or eggs, which we all had that big egg inflation recently, if the company has to do it, at least they don't have to do anything. They just have to justify like justify and explain here is why. I mean, the other thing is when you consider it, we give these companies and these food producers in particular, these people get a shitload of benefits from the U.S. government. The farm bill is packed full. By the way, eggs are not supposed to be the same price today
Starting point is 00:42:20 that they were in the 1970s. It's because they get all these subsidies. Yes, economy and scale, et cetera, but these are some of the most subsidized people on the planet. Also huge beneficiaries of government policy. So when people are like, oh, the government should get involved in prices,
Starting point is 00:42:33 I'm like, the only place- We already do. That's what I was gonna say. The problem to me is like, well, we already massively subsidized these companies. So it's almost like the airlines. Like, well, should we really allow them to gouge us when we bailed them out like 15 times since 9-11? I don't know. I mean,
Starting point is 00:42:47 at a certain point, we can either have a laissez-faire or not. And, you know, I'm not sure why some are allowed or not. In terms of the politics, I think Emily might be right. There could be a suburban backlash. This is also a decent test, though though of the does policy even matter theory like will this resonate right now it's elites the who are arguing about it online silicon valley venture capitalists price capital about price controls capitalism and all that does that penetrate like i honestly have no idea and i just i just want to say quickly i think it was a mistake to not be specific to release a really vague thing that allows the right to say, this is our new boogeyman of socialism. Right. But if she were specific, I think that would instigate a much more interesting, on the price gouging,
Starting point is 00:43:31 a more interesting policy conversation. I don't know. I think if you can bait the Republicans into defending corporate price gouging, then you're on good. No, which they are. Some people have. Some of them. You're right. Some people are like, no, we always have to let the market decide or whatever. Yeah, I think that they lose that argument because I think that people in general, when prices get too high, they want somebody to do something about it. And if somebody's saying, you know, it's because of concentrated corporate power and we're going to police them and that's going to drive down prices, you're like, good. I mean, again, if we're not talking about price controls, we're talking about just breaking up like food monopolies. Yeah, that should be happening. I
Starting point is 00:44:13 mean, there is a, I think, what is it? Cheez-Its and Eggos just got bought by, I forget, by like $33 billion by another major food conglomerate. And what does everybody bitch about? Shrinkflation, inflation. Oh, the price of my groceries is going up. I'm like, well, yeah, why do you think? Do you think they're spending $33 billion of the goodness of their heart? No, it's because they wanna roll it up into a larger company and then increase the price
Starting point is 00:44:36 and monopolize the profit and have economy of scale. The question is, as a country, considering again, how much subsidy that we give to all these food producers and others, especially whenever it comes to meat. I mean, these are some of the most paybead industries in the entire United States. They get so many carve-outs, cutouts, tax benefits, and other things from the government. Then why shouldn't we be able to say, no, you're not allowed to merge to each other and poke the consumer? That is different, though, from a price control, right? And I think that is where the conversation has to go. The overlap comes in when the companies start to understand, okay, my price is a signal now to Lena Kahn
Starting point is 00:45:13 that I'm a monopoly. Because there's a couple of different ways you can raise prices. And one of the ways is by being a monopoly, not having any outside competition to jack up prices. And if a company knows, okay, if I do that, I'm going to start getting some antitrust scrutiny, then that factors into their boardroom decisions
Starting point is 00:45:35 when they're like, what should the price of this be? And when they got one guy arguing, let's do a 12% bump. It's like, okay, what do the lawyers think? Like, can we actually get away with that? And like, probably not. Let's do 7%. Yeah. Any last thoughts on prices before we should talk about the CTC stuff? Yeah. Because that actually, that's probably the interesting, most interesting part where you had JD Vance propose a $5,000 child tax credit. He actually pissed some people on
Starting point is 00:45:59 the write-off with that. And Kamala was like, wait, why not $6,000? And I was like, whoa, that's kind of interesting. I mean, and then Kamala's copying the tax on tips thing. But I mean, we could view that at least as a net positive for some change between the two parties. Trump has not explicitly endorsed the $5,000 tax credit. I think he said he would consider it or whatever. But at the very least, the running mate has said it, endorsed a $5,000 tax credit. She has embraced the tax on tips thing. So has Trump. So there is now, I mean,
Starting point is 00:46:32 a pretty big change from, let's say 2012 politics, where both of these would not have been proposed by any major party, Emily. Yeah, I mean, I think you'd have to be a partisan hack to see this as anything but an improvement in the political discourse. And hopefully it translates into policy wins for people who have populist inclinations on these issues.
Starting point is 00:46:53 But to say that's not a good thing where they're trying to outdo each other on policies that are positive for working people. Like, that's great. What do you think of that, Ryan? Yeah. Agree. Like, love that it's coming back. It got, it got cut out of the IRA at the end when Joe Manchin was like, I'm not doing 3.5, I'll do 1.7, figure out what you're going to cut housing and the, and basically the care economy stuff are, are what got cut. And it plunged millions of people
Starting point is 00:47:23 back into poverty, which is insane. On the housing front, by the way, I think the housing part is very smart from the Kamala people is the first major proposal. But if we zoom out a little bit here, isn't the best attack from the GOP? Hey, why didn't you do any of this? Like while you were the president or while you were in the administration? I feel like they don't even have to respond necessarily. They can just say you have been the vice president. You have not proposed any of this. If you wanted some of this, did you push for it? And what is it? They had hundreds of billions of dollars in the IRA and zero Republicans voted for it. That's fair. Fair point. And Joe Manchin stripped it out.
Starting point is 00:48:01 CARES Act? Which one was the first Biden? No, the American Rescue Plan. American Rescue Plan. That was like a $2 trillion. There was some in there, but it was the IRA that had the comprehensive affordable care, affordable housing legislation. I think, by the way, that's a fair and accurate attack and retort. Go ahead. Well, the Republicans
Starting point is 00:48:20 would say it was loaded up with all kinds of green energy. They would say economy killing green energy, blah, blah, blah. Inflationary policies is what they would say, just on a political level. But this is pretty, I don't know. I think this is like the central attack that Republicans have on Kamala Harris is, you know, not just chameleon Kamala. It's really like you were the vice president. You're telling people you're going to do X, Y and Z. And I don't know how powerful of an attack that is when
Starting point is 00:48:48 Democrats are doing everything in their power, except for on the platform, as we just discussed, to distance themselves from Joe Biden to the point where he's not even presiding over the DNC after the first night. I mean, it's not really that powerful when she's saying, I'm going to step in and be my own person. Yeah. I think on the – well, actually, what's interesting, too, on the housing front, the attack I saw, which I thought was interesting from JD. I want to get your response to this. He was like – so what did he say? He went, Kamala – she said $25,000 down payment for first-time homebuyers. And the question that he immediately threw out is he's like, oh, Kamala wants to build more houses for illegal immigrants. Now you can say whether that's good or bad.
Starting point is 00:49:27 If you want, they'll be doing the building. Okay. Well, but what I thought was smart is I was like, wait a second, doesn't that just then force the question? Cause she never said this is going to go to people on citizenship or not. Right. But it would at least force the question of like, Hey, wait, does your plan apply to people who are illegal immigrants? And then you put her in a position where, I mean, if she says yes, you know, that would be bad. And if she said no, then that would also perhaps spark a backlash on the left. So I immediately was like, that's kind of a genius attack because she didn't specify. So now you actually have to ask the question around that and pivot to the immigration line, which is, of course, the best issue right now for the GOP. Genius in that sense, sure. But I'm also
Starting point is 00:50:09 like the GOP is going to want to have a response to that because that goes beyond immigration on the substance of how to get more people in the first time. I completely agree with you. And that is an issue that literally all of our viewers care about. I mean, housing is the number one issue, I think, for our viewers. But not just rental I mean, housing is the number one issue for I think for our viewers. So, but not rent, not just rental, like this question of being able to access the American dream by owning property and land and a home. And then being able to,
Starting point is 00:50:33 you see this show up in polling of young people all the time is like being able to get married and start a family. So many people see that contingent on owning a home. And that's like, there's so many different things downstream of the
Starting point is 00:50:46 housing question that people on the right, our friends, have been talking about for a really long time. How do we get more people to own homes? A lot of people say you just got to build, build, build. So the answer has to, there has to be a substantive answer as opposed to a rebuttal. The rebuttal, I think you're right. There's a really smart way to go about it, but you can't just distract. You have to also offer a solution. Right now, the only retort I've had is, well, if you deport all the illegals,
Starting point is 00:51:12 then the amount of housing supply will go up. And I was like, well, you know, maybe they're right. But then who's going to build it, though? What? American can build it. What? Really? They don't take any money?
Starting point is 00:51:22 They don't like money? I mean. You're proposing a housing subsidy. Why can't it go to them? They don't like money? Huh? I mean. Oh, you're proposing a housing subsidy. Why? Why can't it go to them? I don't see the issue. Well, first of all, Democrats have sold out on this issue. There's no chance that they're giving this subsidy to undocumented immigrants.
Starting point is 00:51:36 That's just not happening. You can rep the undocumented freezing here on the show. Absolutely not. Absolutely not happening because you need the documents to file your taxes to get the subsidies. So it's not happening. But also, yes, like more housing is good. No, I agree.
Starting point is 00:51:53 I actually thought it was the, everyone was focusing on the pricing thing. Everyone was also focusing on the CTC. The housing one is the one that popped me
Starting point is 00:52:01 just because I know from when we do segments here on the show, it's the number one issue that we cover, which is totally uncovered by mainstream me. Just because I know from when we do segments here on the show, it's the number one issue that we cover, which is totally uncovered by mainstream media. And it always does
Starting point is 00:52:09 incredibly well. Because people are like, yeah, you know what? It's bullshit. Me and my husband, we just got married. We had enough for a down payment. Now the interest rates are up
Starting point is 00:52:17 and the prices are still high. We can't afford it. And the mortgage payment is like triple or whatever what we had budgeted in our take home pay. It's impossible. The more you start to look at that, I'm like, that to me, if they could get some money behind
Starting point is 00:52:31 an ad campaign or anything like that, even just talking about the issue, very, very intelligent. And to me, I think it was actually, it might be one of the more popular elements of what she proposed. And I had not, the only GOP response I'd seen was on immigration. And we're going to talk about the protests in just a bit, but when you're struggling, potentially you have this potential challenge in front of you with young voters. These are the people that are our age, right? Squarely in our demographic, this is their number one issue, basically. It's student loan debt and it's housing. And when you can come with a $25,000
Starting point is 00:53:01 credit for first-time homebuyers. I think it's really brilliant. And it's forcing Republicans to explain what they're going to do, which is likely, I mean, it's like healthcare, right? It's like saying I'm for Medicare for all. And then having Republicans be like, well, I'm for this patchwork of deregulation. You can't explain it in a way that is politically viable or politically superior to the average voter because it's a pretty big solution for a lot of people's problems. And what you hear as a counter is that, oh, well, this is useless because it will just raise the price of housing by $25,000. But you have to remember that not every buyer is a first-time home buyer. So economically speaking,
Starting point is 00:53:44 the math should work out that it actually does for houses that are in the first-time home buyer. Economically speaking, the math should work out that it actually does for houses that are in the first-time home buyer range. It should increase the price by something, but not 25. So some of the subsidy
Starting point is 00:53:56 will be eaten up by price increase. Well, subsidies also work in different ways. If it's on a tax, they could apply it to mortgage interest or whatever. There's a lot of different ways
Starting point is 00:54:04 you can implement this. And what does that do to supply? And it's just hard to know. Didn't they increase his supply? They had a home builder credit that was in there as well. That's what they're saying. Look, I mean, we'll see. Again, do I think any of this stuff will actually happen?
Starting point is 00:54:17 Probably not, given the way that- Quickly on Obamacare, they're talking about, so during the beginning of the pandemic, you had that, basically the ACA was completely subsidized. It took what was a really crappy insurance program to a really great insurance program that also expired when they didn't include it in the IRA. And now she's talking about bringing that subsidy back. And it's happening the same time that Trump has been saying on his stump speech that he's not going to repeal the ACA. You've seen the line. He says, unless we come up with
Starting point is 00:54:52 something better, and by better, I mean better for you, not for the government, so cheaper and better insurance, by which he means we're not coming up with anything better. So at minimum, you're going to get the ACA staying in place and you may even get subsidies. 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
Starting point is 00:55:37 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. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder.
Starting point is 00:56:17 I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there.
Starting point is 00:56:32 Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter.
Starting point is 00:56:47 She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Starting point is 00:57:06 or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution.
Starting point is 00:57:28 But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app,
Starting point is 00:58:02 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th. Ad free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Let's go ahead and put this one up on the screen. This is from Trump's Twitter account himself. It features a photo. He's back. Yeah, he's truly back.
Starting point is 00:58:30 Don't threaten me with a good time. Yeah, I was gonna say. The red, what is it, the sickle and the hammer of communism, it says Chicago. Basically, this aligns very much, Emily, with the socialist and the communist attack that we've seen increasingly come from the GOP. So I'm curious what you think of their – what do you think of the decision to go all in with this? Because this actually came before price control debate.
Starting point is 00:58:59 That's before that – that tweet actually went up before that. It was then followed up with in some of these press conferences and elsewhere. So I'm of two minds about this because on the one hand, obviously, it depends on how you talk. Like you can do a lot of polling on things like Medicare for all and you can find massive public support for it. You phrase it a little differently. You can find massive, massive public support against it. So this socialism as a political football or communism as a political football, it always depends on the framing because it's not just cut and dry. You know, you call someone a socialist
Starting point is 00:59:30 and it's all over. But Republicans do feel like with suburban women in particular in past elections, recent election cycles, they've felt that it is really powerful to be able to tie Democrats to socialism. And Trump is going full communism, threatening Ryan with a good time over here. But seriously, I think there is as cringe and boomery as that looked. I actually do think that if they frame it better throughout the next several months and they're running those ads tying Kamala Harris to communism, socialism in suburban Philadelphia or suburban Detroit, whatever, they're competing over fractions here. This is an election of fractions, just like 16 and 20. And it's an
Starting point is 01:00:12 electoral college election. And so if you're playing tug of war over socialism and Republicans are doing a job that frames it, again, we're just talking about politics. We're not talking about the substance. But if you're framing it in a way that successfully fear mongers, it can really work. I think those attacks work. I don't know. I'm curious what Ryan thinks about that, because you get people on the left to say, you know, we pull Medicare for all. It's super popular. We pull forgiving college debt, super popular. And then sometimes when those policies trickle into the real world, Republicans make successful attacks. And student loan debt is a really good, all that. To the extent that it can hurt them, it's only because it makes people think, oh, wait, somebody's going to have to get taxed to pay for that.
Starting point is 01:01:10 And Trump, he cut my taxes. Democrats, I think they like to raise taxes. But overall, I don't think the communism thing is going to land at all. I mean, we also, like we mentioned Roe v. Wade earlier, that's still an overriding issue. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's be clear. We're debating things on the merits, like where they stand. Like immigration and abortion are the two most important issues of where we're actually very divided. Economy is like number three. That's within that framework is kind of where I'm thinking. Now, I'm not saying it's number three for voter priorities. It's just that it's more of a mixed bag. So I was explaining this today, actually here, the dog walk podcast presented by Barstool Sports, where people should go subscribe to. And they're like, well, what do you think about this election? They're like,
Starting point is 01:01:56 do you think this could become a class-based election? And I was like, no. And I was like, and I wish it weren't that way. but where are we the absolute most divided? Immigration and abortion. Those are genuinely, in my opinion, like irreconcilable questions. Like somebody has to win. We're either gonna have a ton of illegal immigrants who continue to come in every year or we're not.
Starting point is 01:02:16 We're either gonna kick them out or we're not. That is an irreconcilable question of which we have to decide. Are we gonna have a border wall or not? Abortion, are we gonna be pro-choice or are we going to be pro-choice? Like, are we going to allow Alabama and all these other states to have this? Or are we going to allow Trump to come in and what is it? RU486, whatever that, the myth of Prestone. Is that legal or is it not legal? That is an irreconcilable political question. On the economic ones, it's a little bit less, right?
Starting point is 01:02:46 So now we have candidates talking about both kind of endorse the CTC. Yes, the tax rate and all that. But a lesson I really internalized, Ryan, from 2022 is that, you know, the economy can be bad. And look, it was way worse then than it is now. And people will still just be like, I don't care. I care way more about abortion. And whether the tail end of that can continue through today, I actually have no idea what that is. But I still think that those two cultural issues, the reason that they'll be more determinative is they're just so much more likely to get somebody to come out to vote.
Starting point is 01:03:16 Like if you're a Republican, you hate the immigrate, the border situation, you got to crawl over broken glass. If you're a Democrat and you are just pissed off, or especially if you're in Arizona or Texas, somewhere like that, you better come out to vote. You'd be an idiot, frankly, not to go out to vote. Because if that's your number one issue, like, yeah, there's a one party. That's actually the one thing that they actually kind of want to do and could do if they got into power. So it just seems so determinative of getting people out to vote.
Starting point is 01:03:41 And I think that's because people have lost faith, for the most part, in our political system to solve economic problems. Yes, that's right. That's very determinative of getting people out to vote. And I think that's because people have lost faith for the most part in our political system to solve economic problems. Yes, that's right. That's very true. People on the margins believe it. But in general, the typical voter is like, eh. So therefore, what can a politician do? And a politician can, as they've shown, can ban abortion or they can legalize abortion.
Starting point is 01:04:04 They can build a wall. They can not build a wall. Democrats are trying to completely capitulate on immigration to take that away from Republicans as much as they can. The only thing they can do is they can mess with taxes. And so if you're super rich or pretty rich and you don't care about or are against abortion rights, then the Republican Party is still your party.
Starting point is 01:04:26 That's still your party. But for the kind of upper middle class and middle class Democrats who are like, I don't like paying a whole lot of taxes, but I don't like to admit that among my liberal friends, and I support abortion rights, so I'm voting for the Democrats. Yeah, but the Dems also bottom off. One of the things they did is they're like, well, it used to be 250.
Starting point is 01:04:49 Now it's 400. Now it's 400. That's a lot of money, okay? $400,000? I mean, what is that? That means all but the top 2%. You're losing like 5% or 2% or something. Yeah, I mean, that's crazy.
Starting point is 01:04:59 Like 98% of the country doesn't make $400,000. The question is, has that trickled down culturally to people who are like, okay, Democrats actually aren't going to raise taxes on me. And it may have trickled down by now. Well, I'm not sure. I mean, yeah, it's been years now of the $400,000 number. Go ahead. That Trump post looks like a boomer email, obviously. That's basically what it looks like. But I don't know, Producer Mac, if it's possible to get A1 back up on the screen. The Democrats, Republicans did this as well. It's like a typical convention thing, but they put, um, one of their nights is listed for fighting for our freedoms. That's the theme. Yeah. Wednesday, a fight for our freedom. So you
Starting point is 01:05:32 have Tim Waltz speaking, uh, Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Pete Buttigieg. So that is certainly going to be, uh, a night where there's a lot of conversation about abortion. And that's clearly, I think it's very clearly a winning issue for Democrats in places like Michigan, where you're fighting for especially suburban women. But that's also the same demographic that Republicans think they can win over with this tug of war over socialism. And so communism might not even be as potent as socialism because it feels less believable with Kamala Harris for a lot of people because Kamala Harris has come out now and capitulated on immigration. She has come out and said, you know, she's going to do, what's another good example? There's
Starting point is 01:06:16 immigration. Fracking. Fracking. Yeah, that's a great example. Another fantastic example. The thing is with those two is, again, is that if you look at the word clouds that we commissioned at Breaking Point, incompetent is number one. I don't think that the socialism, communism stuff, I don't think it hits. They call everybody a socialist. They call everybody a communist. Just like liberals always call Republicans fascists. It's like, why should I believe you? If Mitt Romney is just as much of a fascist as Trump, you're an idiot. What are we talking about? And skepticism in government plays into that too because they might think, well, you know what? Maybe she is actually personally a socialist.
Starting point is 01:06:49 Her dad was, dad's a Marxist. They're not going to do anything. But they can't actually do it. They're a bunch of liars. Well, remember, and that didn't work. And it didn't work on Obama at all. It did not work on Obama. And so I think if someone is an outspoken
Starting point is 01:06:58 democratic socialist and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or an Ilhan Omar, then Republicans will try to tie Democrats to this person who is openly says that they espouse democratic socialism. And that I do think works. Kamala Harris. But even Bernie was like neck and neck and head to heads with Trump, calling himself a socialist. Right, but it's still fractional, right? You can still get those votes to turn the election just a tiny little bit in the electoral college. But part of my frustration here is incompetence is sitting there waiting. I agree. Like the flip-flop. That is all I'm talking about. I agree.
Starting point is 01:07:28 You, like the lady who, you know, how many clips did we play on our, what was it, our Monday show, Mac, where we talked about immigration, right? And we had clips that juxtaposed her new border ad as opposed to how she used to talk. I'm like, get out of here, lady. I don't believe a single word that you say here on the border. And actually, if we look and we think about some of those attacks that score the highest against Kamala, the border czar attack is number one.
Starting point is 01:07:53 And I think it should be, because I'm like, lady, you were called the border czar. Under your administration, there were eight to 10 million illegal immigrants who entered this country. Do you stand by that or not? Is that something that you would change? Yes or no? Now she says yes. Now when she's the presidential candidate, I'm like, okay, I don't think that makes a lot of sense here. So the incompetent and the flip-flop line just seems so much more potent to me because that is something that both leftists and people on the
Starting point is 01:08:21 right and even like independents, they can all agree with. That was incompetent was a big one, even amongst Democrats. I think it's a more powerful line. Yeah. It is powerful, but her opponent is Donald Trump. Yeah, but nobody cares. He has been, he has been, he has been president and competence would not be
Starting point is 01:08:41 the big buzzword that you associate with that four years. But the Trump, the Trump sort of nostalgia, what are Democrats referring it to? Trump nostalgia. Actually, a lot of people would probably read into him, foreign policy-wise and economic-wise, more competence because whether it's rose-colored lenses or what, there are a lot of voters who felt like they were better off economically and in terms of national security under Donald Trump.
Starting point is 01:09:03 I don't know how popular or how powerful that is anymore either. Well, I did see that too. I saw, I think it was a Fox News interview. I was just looking for it now where they asked JD about the plan to whatever, get prices in control. And he's like, President Trump was already president. He's like, he's already, you know, he got prices under control then. He'll return everything back to that. And I was like, well, you know, even if it's not true or not, that's actually quite smart. It's a real thing Democrats have to deal with. Yeah, it's a real thing that people feel. They're like, when Trump was president, gas was X, groceries were Y. Now Biden is president and it's not.
Starting point is 01:09:32 I feel like he didn't do anything about that. Now Kamala, who is literally his vice president, says she wants to do something four years later. Like, do I really credibly think that? I'm not so sure. I mean, at the same time, this is where the Trump nostalgia on foreign policy, on an economic policy, that's probably where he's the biggest beneficiary of. And I mean, if I'm thinking to the Trump attacks, like the attacks that Kamala and them have used on Trump more recently, it is very much like a roll your eyes and avoid the chaos. And I think that again, to give them credit, I think that's smart. Instead of buying into the concern
Starting point is 01:10:08 trolling of like, our children are watching and can you believe what he said this time? It's very much like, okay, whatever, we've seen this movie before, let's beat him at the ballot box in November. And to make it like a bigger thing. Again, I think that is smart coming from the Democrats right now. Yeah, I think
Starting point is 01:10:23 that's right. And the weird kind of counter fits into that in that because when you're calling somebody weird, you're not condemning them. You're not even you're not passing kind of moral judgment necessarily. You're just saying kind of weird, like not just not my that's that's not how I would do it. You know, you Trump, you do you, JD Vance,
Starting point is 01:10:47 you do you, but strikes me as a bit weird. And it doesn't come off as preachy in the way that set the, such a terrible tone for the Hillary campaign. Yeah, that's true. The preachiness from the Hillary people was, I think the single biggest,
Starting point is 01:11:01 but. I do think Democrats though, are feeling so confident with Kamala Harris that they have slipped into that a couple of times and it's too early to say whether it becomes a dominant tone of the campaign. But Ryan has an example right here, Ryan's new hat. Rocking my new hat from Emily's List. Oh, I thought you embroidered that. I did not.
Starting point is 01:11:20 He hand embroidered himself. If you can't read it, it says unburdened. Right, yes. And he's got it on now. There are times where I do think because of that level of confidence in the honeymoon, which I also think this will extend it. I think you'll see cracks in the honeymoon start to show up after Labor Day because the sugar high can only last so long when Kamala Harris is the nominee. It's not to say she's not still a much, much, much better candidate than Joe Biden and the media is still going to bat for her hard, but it's just natural. It's the up and down of politics. And so when that happens,
Starting point is 01:11:55 we will see how Democrats react. Do they react by doubling down in a 2016-esque way that goes into those commercials with the children watching Donald Trump swear. Who knows? Which is just not effective. Well, don't forget about this. The next presidential debate, the first debate is actually going to take place on September 10th. So that's only 20 days or so away. So we're going to go through this week of the DNC. You get the sugar high. Then you get about a week where they're both going to define each other. And then they're both on a stage. And, you know, we're now actually that's real game on like that's game time. And the real question is, can she withstand the Trump performance? Like, what does it look like with Donald Trump on the stage with Kamala? Genuinely, nobody knows because this Kamala, who are you? Like, what do you believe? Are you more confident?
Starting point is 01:12:40 I think she has been actually. She's a lot more confident because she didn't actually have to win the nomination. I mean, I think honestly, if I were her, a lot more confident because she didn't actually have to win the nomination. I think honestly, if I were her, I'd be pretty confident too, right? If somebody was like, hey, you went from, like you were number two, you were loyal, now you're number one, you don't even have to fight for it. We got you, here's your campaign manager,
Starting point is 01:12:57 here's a couple hundred million. I'd be like, I only have to do this for a hundred days, I don't have to leave my house for two years and all this, I could be president, I mean, that sounds pretty cool, right? I would be flying high. And there's the Sarah Palin playbook of debate performance was, you know, they said, okay, they did the math. They were like, we need 22 minutes. Yes, that's right. Of soundbites that are going to get clipped because it turns out that people don't actually like an incredible rejoinder. You know, you've got your viral moment right there, but it doesn't need to be that.
Starting point is 01:13:29 It can just be saying something mean about the other person in a clever way, completely unprompted and not even answering the question. Right. So all she has to do is have like, let's say, 45 minutes, if it's a long debate of of canned prosecutorial arguments that she's going to dish at trump and then she has to deliver them and we know that she can do that in short form she did that little bus thing to to joe biden remember that one i was that i was that little girl yep yeah didn't actually hold make a whole lot of sense um because wasn't, it didn't fit the busting policy, whatever.
Starting point is 01:14:06 It doesn't matter. It sounded like a good quip and it landed and it worked for her in that moment. I've said this too, and this is the biggest problem, is that Biden gave a once in a century performance where he actually just melted down, like immediately in the first 10 minutes. But most people, the reason that debates
Starting point is 01:14:21 traditionally don't matter is if you are a politician of any reasonable talent, surviving for 45 minutes, actually less with commercial breaks, it's not that far. You can do it. You can do it. Just platitude your way through, whatever. And then let the K-Hive. He did it in 2020. Are they gone? Trump did that in 2020. It was fine. Biden did that in 2020. He was fine. I mean, Hillary, like she gave, what is it? The pundits all said Hillary won all three. Guess what? Trump still won the election, okay? Because it's not that hard.
Starting point is 01:14:46 It's not that difficult, actually, to get through a lot of these debates. I mean, he won all three, to be clear. Wrong, wrong. Yeah, my favorite Trump moment is, yeah, you'd be in jail. That's all time, top tier, you would be in jail. That's as good as it gets.
Starting point is 01:15:00 But yeah, in general, I think what we can just say is the Trump campaign's having difficulty defining Kamala Harris Harris going into this. They are trying to do counterprogramming. It's not really working. They're going to be all over, you know, press. But everybody's here. You know, people are rightfully, I think, covering Biden, covering the DNC, what's going to happen.
Starting point is 01:15:18 And then how they define her in that one to two week period afterwards and then leading into the debate, that's the key stretch. So I really think, guys, that the election begins after this week. That's like the real general election. Let's see where the, like she's gonna get her sugar high. They've got two weeks there right before that debate. And then the debate is like fully,
Starting point is 01:15:39 that's the sprint all the way till election day. Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, and starting basically head to head or maybe with Harris behind where she needs to be. Like if she, cause she needs to be- Yeah, that's right. Comfortable. Further up on Trump.
Starting point is 01:15:51 I mean, yeah, like we said, 47% chance. I mean, that's high. Honestly, I would take that bet for Trump. Like I think that's underestimating Trump and I still think he's got 51%. Like 50, it's coin toss, but if you put a gun to my head, I still think he would win.
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Starting point is 01:19:16 We have some video from Chicago. This actually happened last night as all of us were getting in. So our producer, Mac, is going to go ahead and cue that up. But there was an event. I think it was at Grant Park. Is that right? Anyway, there was an event here in Chicago. And the event was like a DNC type thing. And there was a stage where protesters actually were able to get up on the stage and actually grab the microphone and began shouting to the crowd. So, Mac, can we cue see they're taking the stage there.
Starting point is 01:20:15 And then our very own Emily, actually here on the ground, had an interview with a protester. Matt, can we go ahead and cue that up? And I will toss to it. But Emily, before we get to that, just tell us about what it was like to walk with some of those protesters. Things are kicking off a little bit right now, too. What did you see when you were there? Well, obviously, we're at the DNC.
Starting point is 01:20:35 So you guys made me go talk to the protesters. That's why you're dressed up like a lefty. Right? I was dressed like a leftist. And I was like, this is how I always dress. Just get beaten down. No, no, they would love us. There were people.
Starting point is 01:20:49 Yeah, I met a couple breakers in the wild, which was always fun. But, you know, I talked to a handful of people who were there at the protest. It was big but scattered. So on a couple baseball fields in Union Park here in Chicago. And one of the questions that I wanted to put to protesters is, are you with Kamala Harris or are you uncommitted? And talked to one woman who said she was voting for Kamala, but she was kind of nervous to say that, to be honest, and was like intentionally on the outskirts of the protest. Yeah, right. And I did, though, this was a big takeaway for me. I talked to a few people who said they would genuinely support voting for Kamala Harris if a ceasefire negotiation is reached, if there's a ceasefire agreement that is reached by the Biden-Harris administration, that that would legitimately perhaps send them out to vote for Kamala Harris. Now, to be fair, this is a crowd of people who are pretty hard left. You know, there's some Antifa type elements in the crowd, mixing in with the crowd.
Starting point is 01:21:50 There's people from the usual Democratic protest groups that go to all of these types of events. But even so, when a potential ceasefire is what brings in this fractional election, where there's tug of war over all of these different fractional groups of voters in states like Michigan. There are people from outside of Chicago here, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania. When that's what you're doing in this tug of war, young voters in particular, it's possible that- Could be a vote, yeah. And we were just about to talk about that, the ceasefire negotiations.
Starting point is 01:22:23 Let's take a listen then to this video that Emily shot with a protester. Are you going to support Kamala Harris? Are you uncommitted? She's not getting my vote unless she can permanently cease fire in Gaza and stop sending weapons to kill innocent children and babies. So and I talked to a few people who had the exact same perspective, said, you know, I will legitimately consider voting for the Biden-Harris ticket, or I sound like the Dem platform, which also we should note began with a land acknowledgement. Oh, did it really? Importantly. Wow, I didn't know that. Yes. So, but there were a handful of people who said, you know, even in this hard, this crowd of like genuine leftists who said they would vote for
Starting point is 01:23:04 the Harris ticket if there's a ceasefire agreement. Interesting. Ryan, what do you think? Right. So the question then becomes, and also, but think, yeah, to your point, this is, these are the committed folks who, there'll be a bigger rally tomorrow, but 1,000, 2,000 people out there today, you think? I'd say, yeah. And it's building to Thursday, right? I heard some organizers trying to say 15,000. I didn't see that. There definitely was not 15,000. But these are the hardcore folks. So if even those folks are like,
Starting point is 01:23:33 you know, I'm open to voting for Harris, that suggests that there's a real opening there. And the news out of Doha in these negotiations is that Netanyahu had been demanding two key things, IDF control of the Philadelphia corridor, which is the area in Rafah, the border between Egypt and Gaza. And then another checkpoint, IDF control of Netzarim corridor, which would divide North Gaza from South Gaza, which is just utterly insane. They're not agreeing to like turning it into another, into that.
Starting point is 01:24:05 And so he has since, Netanyahu has backed away from the Netsarim corridor in exchange for a small but somewhat regulated IDF presence in the Philadelphia corridor, in that border. So it's possible that Hamas could agree to that. And since Netanyahu's already presented it, it's difficult for him to then back out if they say, you know what, we'll take that. We'll see. Like, optimism towards a ceasefire is for suckers. Like, it's been a fool's game the entire time. But it does seem like everyone has an incentive
Starting point is 01:24:43 to reach a deal at this point, especially with Iran saying, we won't retaliate. Can you just expand a bit, though, on a tweet that you put out today? You said the whole Israel portion is a huge slap in the face to uncommitted. Talk to us about that. By the way, we should have a section in every show dedicated to making Ryan, holding him accountable for his own tweets. As long as you don't hold me accountable for my tweets. So
Starting point is 01:25:07 the platform was released today. You can find it on my Twitter feed. I have a link to it there. The Israel-Palestine part starts on page 83 and it reads as if APAC wrote it. Really? Yeah. Interesting.
Starting point is 01:25:26 This part that jumped out at me here, basically they have a one-sided condemnation of conflict-related sexual violence aimed only at Hamas, which is taking, now this, like, it was done a couple weeks ago, but still, it's now being published in the context of the Knesset having an open debate about whether the acknowledged rape of Palestinian detainees is legally okay or not. Not a question whether it happened but whether it actually is okay and good that it was done. In that context, to only call out Hamas is a huge slap in the face.
Starting point is 01:26:07 But separate from that, it just goes on and says that the Palestinians are the ones who don't care about a two-state solution. In the context of the Israeli government explicitly, legally, officially, repeatedly saying they do not support a two-state solution. The DNC platform says it's the Palestinians that are the obstacle to a two-state solution. So then why is the protest? And it just bashes Iran for like two pages. Right. But then what's up with the protesters, right? Because like you just said, Dave Weigel, who we may be able to get on the show at some point this week, said that the protest organizers were like, oh, we're going to have 30,000, 40 people. There's nothing close. I've seen it close to 100 reports saying
Starting point is 01:26:48 they're expecting close to 100,000 people. We're all here in Chicago. None of us have seen any of that. We'll see what we'll see what they do tomorrow. Yeah. Let's see what happens tomorrow. Cops everywhere. There are cops literally everywhere. This is actually one of the things I want to bring up. I think, you know, when you go to these types of events, as we all have in the past and you cover them, you can feel if there's an air of tension. And that's definitely not what I felt today. The kids in strollers, t-shirts being sold, all of that. I will say though, to the point Ryan's making about the platform, this is going to be something that speakers have to confront in one way or the other. It's going to be a question that they're confronted with by delegates in the
Starting point is 01:27:23 hallways, and those videos are going to go viral. It's going to be happening all week. And I do wonder if building up to Kamala Harris's speech, the tension starts to build as well, as more and more people are coming for different days of protests. And maybe, Ryan, you even have some knowledge of what these organizers are doing and planning for. But I get the sense it's possible that right now there's not a lot of tension. Tension could build as people interact with cops throughout the week. This city is blanketed with law enforcement. You guys have all probably noticed that blanketed with law enforcement. Every street corner, it's like New York in the old days, like it's literally like five cops.
Starting point is 01:28:01 If frustration builds, tension can build. And everyone knows the main address this week is happening on Thursday. So it's possible to me that some of this accumulates throughout the week. What do you think, Ryan? Yeah. And the handful of people I know are trying to organize a floor protest. That will be interesting. We'll be down on the floor for that. So everyone stay.
Starting point is 01:28:21 One thing just for programming wise, we're doing these before the main events. And then every day after, we will summarize previous, give our reaction, and also preview a little bit of what's coming. The reason we're doing it that way is so that we can actually – we have our passes to be on the floor so that we can be there when stuff is going down. That's when stuff happens. That's when stuff is happening. Like not only the speeches, but like what you just said. I mean, if we see some floor protests, uncommitted protests and all that, we'll be able to report what that was like, you know, to be there. And that'll be really interesting, actually. But we'll see. I think if they pull it off, I think it'd be really small. And, you know, the uncommitted leadership has, you know, a lot of operatives who are also
Starting point is 01:29:02 Democrats. Like they are. I'm not saying they're not deeply committed to the cause, but they're also Democrats and they don't want to see Trump elected. So they're caught between their own personal politics and also, you know, the demands of a lot of them to say, don't support the Democrats at all. Is it possible we think that, I mean, this is appropriately cynical that the Biden administration is leaking reports of proximity to a ceasefire this week that are way more favorable than reality in order to sort of stanch some of this? But they couldn't get Netanyahu to say. Well, actually, they can. I don't know. I kind of think they could.
Starting point is 01:29:41 They can absolutely get Netanyahu to do anything they want. They just have refused up until this point. So it is also possible that the uncommitted pressure is driving the Biden-Harris administration to pressure Netanyahu in a way that they've completely refused to. But what about even in the battle of public relations where we saw that Barack Ravid scoop last week? You know, are they trying to frame this as being way closer? Because when I'm out there talking to these protesters, that's really on their mind. If there's a ceasefire, that changes their mind about the ticket itself. That is really interesting.
Starting point is 01:30:14 That's like some LBJ Vietnam stuff. Yeah, if Humphrey would have gotten done, he almost certainly would have won. If Nixon and Kisdrejn treasonously gone to the Viet Cong. He's so mad. It's true. Fake news. There's no actual evidence. We're going to have to do 1980 now too.
Starting point is 01:30:30 People looked into it. I'm just saying. Okay, guys, I think, Mac, do we have anything else we're supposed to talk about? Oh, Cornel West showed up, you know, by the way. Oh, Cornel West, that's right. We were supposed to put that up there. He made it.
Starting point is 01:30:40 Which, you know what, can I just say, yeah, so this is the picture. Yeah, Abandon Harris. Wow, I like it. So this is really interesting to me because we could have had a be having a very know, above 10% support, which what we're looking at now with RFK Jr. post Biden dropping from the ticket, it's going down, I think in 538, he's around like 5.5, 5%. So it just, this could have been a dramatically different convention along the sort of 1968 lines had someone like Cornell West really,
Starting point is 01:31:22 really got a campaign off the ground. This is barely on ballots. I'm disappointed for us because the whole reason that we decided, you know, budget wise, we're like, well, we can only pick one. Which one do we go to? We go to the DNC because Biden is old. He's fading. You know, we're going to have crazy protests. Forcing me to go to both.
Starting point is 01:31:36 Yeah. Well, you get, yeah, you decided on your own. My marriage also got in the way because of, I was literally getting married the week of the RNC. So it made it a little bit easier. But I mean, a lot of the chaos, it hasn't materialized yet. Now I could be totally wrong, like you said. Things could build, things could happen,
Starting point is 01:31:51 but the stage is not currently set, at least I think, for 1968. Now watch, tomorrow will be the craziest day ever. After I say it. We're like Trump, we want a refund. Yeah, I want a refund. I wanna talk to the manager. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 01:32:03 I was promised complete insanity, and I have not run into it yet, even though we've had the worst logistics of all time. We deserve a refund. I'm going to keep calling them out for that because I'm still pissed. Where's my refund? But, you know, the RNC, remember,
Starting point is 01:32:16 they close the credentials at like 6.30 p.m. Anyway, it's always something like that. I guess it's always just baked in. Okay, everybody, thank you so much for bearing with us. Reminder, we've got that premium subscriber promo right now. One month free trial. What is it? DNCfree, all caps, breakingpoints.com.
Starting point is 01:32:34 You get a one month free trial. Support our work and you will also be able to participate. Tomorrow during our live stream, you'll be able to ask us questions and all that. Crystal will be here in Chicago on Wednesday. We're gonna give some exclusive benefits, being able to ask questions, getting all that. Crystal will be here in Chicago on Wednesday. We're going to give some exclusive benefits, being able to ask questions, getting the stuff early as well.
Starting point is 01:32:49 So don't worry about that. Otherwise, we've got to head over to the United Center to go to the actual convention floor. So we'll see you all tomorrow. We'll recap President Biden's speech and give you all of our reaction, as well as preview what Obama, Clinton,
Starting point is 01:33:03 and Kama all have to say. We'll see you later. We will be unburdened by what has been. You look like Taibbi in the hat. I can't tell. You do look a little bit Taibbi, yes. That's true. Okay.
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