Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 9/12/24: Trump Meltdown On Fox, Abortion Tops Search Term, RFK Says Kamala Won Debate, Taylor Swift Voter Surge, GenZ Men Pro-Trump, Kamala Google Collusion

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss Trump meltdown on Fox News, abortion top search term post debate, RFK Jr says Trump lost debate, Taylor Swift massive voter surge, why GenZ men are pro-Trump debate, Kamala caught in Google collusion.    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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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, And we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. We had a lot of post-debate reaction to bring you, including from former President Trump,

kind of having a bit of a meltdown on Fox & Friends and also indicating he may not be interested in another debate, even one hosted by Fox News hosts. So we'll bring you all of that. We also have some voter reaction after the debate, the post-debate polls, and RFK Jr. being a little surprisingly honest about some of Trump's shortcomings during the debate. So we've got all of that for you. We've also got a panel we're excited to talk to you about the Taylor Swift endorsement, whether or not it will matter. And also a conversation we have been wanting to have for a while about the massive Gen Z gender gap. So we got two young folks to come on. Two Gen Zs. That's right, a Democrat and Republican to talk about what they think is going on there. So that should

be an interesting conversation. We also wanted to take a look at this massive case against Google, another antitrust case against Google, what it could mean for the tech giant, and also a really disturbing conflict of interest between the lead lawyer for Google is actually a top advisor. So a lawyer for Google against the government, the DOJ, the federal government, is also a top advisor to Kamala Harris. So some deep concerns there about, you know, just that reality and what it might mean for her and her approach to antitrust cases were she to win the presidency. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how that comes out. Now, before we get to that, thank you to all of our premium subscribers and those who signed up during

the debate stream to ask some questions. That was a lot of fun. So if you want to participate in future AMAs, which are weekly and they drop exclusively for premiums on locals, you can go ahead and sign up at BreakingPoints.com to get access to those exclusive AMAs. But as Crystal said, let's go ahead and start with Donald Trump and his post debate reaction. Kind of been all over the place in what he's acquiescing to or not. Will he do another debate? He's trying to tease it. He went to familiar territory on Fox and Friends. And Fox and Friends, of course, was trying to massage his ego a little bit around the debate. But he kind of even shocked them when they were like, well, oh, it's okay. You could do a debate here on Fox, right, Mr. President? And he's like, well, maybe. I actually don't like some of the moderators

that you guys would have. Let's take a listen to what Trump had to say. And I know that last night, Fox News offered, sent letters to your campaign and her campaign offering three dates of debates moderated by Martha and Brett. One is October 9th in Arizona. Well, I wouldn't want to have Martha and Brett. I'd love to have somebody else other than Martha and Brett. I'd love to have, frankly, Sean or Jesse or Laura, you know, somebody else. Let's give let's give other people a shot. But I didn't think Martha and Brett were good last night. I thought Jesse was, Jesse was fantastic last night. What he said, Jesse really got it. Jesse

said Trump won that debate. That was, we won that debate by a lot. Now I wouldn't want Martha involved. Okay. I would, Mr. President, I would take some others. So these are the dates that Fox offered your campaign and Harris's campaign, October 9th in Arizona, October 15th in Georgia, October 16th in North Carolina. Of course, the big question is, would you want the microphones on when when you're not, you know, when the other person is talking, you want both microphones on at all times? Well, she wanted a moment like she did with Mike Pence. But I actually got that moment, too. I won that, too, because she was talking while I was speaking quite a bit. Actually, she didn't know that people weren't listening too much here. But I was hearing her and I had a little fun with that. But look, here's a story. When two fighters fight and one

loses, the first thing they do is ask for a debate or they ask for a fight. So in this case, a debate. So we had two people. They lost very badly. The first thing they did is ask for a debate because that's what I want. A fighter loses. He says, I want a rematch. I want a rematch.

They always the losing person, the fighter, the debater. They always ask for a rematch. I won the debate, according to C-SPAN by a lot. According to every single, I think we had 14 polls that we said to you, everyone had been winning the debate. So Mr. President, I don't know that I want to do another debate. Right. So you do right at the end as I was interrupting. So you you don't know if you want to do another debate. It sounds like you're a no. Well, I'd be less inclined to because we had a great night. We won the debate. We had a terrible, terrible network. I think they were terrible. They should

be embarrassed. I mean, they kept correcting me. And I said what I said was largely right, or I hope it was right. But what they said was absolutely wrong, the other, you know, what she said, and they refused to correct. I even complained a couple of times, why aren't you correcting them? Look, they should have corrected six or seven times, she told it outright. Another one is Project 2025. They know it has nothing to do with me. She mentioned it all night long, and they refused to correct it. And everybody, I have nothing to do with Project 2025. Okay, I will, just one thing. But I am not inclined to do it because I won the debate by a lot,

but I think we let it settle in and let's see what happens. All right, so that was completely unedited, just so you guys all get the entire context of that. Trump is, look, I mean, he's flailing a little bit here. He's like he doesn't know if he wants to do the Fox debate. He's asking for these moderators who he doesn't even like, the Brett Baier and Martha McCallum. By the way, Brett and Martha were on the post-election analysis. That's what he's upset about. Yes.

And they were like, hey, I don't think that Trump did all that well. Or I don't even know if they gave opinion analysis. From what I saw, they were accurately pointing out that he was taking the bait or they were covering snap polling that showed that people who watched the debate generally did not think he did all that well. Including Fox News' undecided voter panel, which overwhelmingly said Kamala Harris won. Fox News' undecided voter panel and Brit Hume. I mean, these people are not like, you know, they're not like liberals, right? So anyway, he was reacting to that. I also, just a small point. Like how humiliating and embarrassing for you not to stand up for your colleagues in that moment?

I was thinking about that too. Like I just, I mean, that's kind of outrageous. Like there he is smearing Martha McCallum and Bret Baier, which whatever you think about them, like these are your colleagues that you work with and you're just like sit there and take, I don't know. It's just, it's kind of low. And then it's so pathetic.

He wants the debate to be hosted by Sean Hannity or Jesse Waters. Are you kidding me? Like, that is an absolute absurdity. So you honestly called it right after the debate. You're like, I don't know if he'll do another one. And, you know, he certainly, he doesn't know if he's going to do another one either,

which I think is foolish on his part. I think he should, because I think it's unlikely that you would have another outcome that was so lopsided as this one was. I think if you did it again, you would likely have, he probably would prepare better. You know, this time he clearly didn't take her seriously, fell into every single trap, you know, completely forgot about what message he was supposed to be delivering until the last five minutes of the debate, that's unlikely to repeat itself. But I think he just can't handle the risk of being humiliated again. I would flip it on to Kamala too.

I mean, what is the likelihood that she were to rise to the occasion again? It's not actually that high. We've seen her do multiple repeat performances. It usually doesn't go all that well. So if you— This was her best. This was the best moment. And you're likely to have a reversion to the mean for her and a reversion

to the mean for him, which would be an improved performance. That's what I would demand a couple of more debates just to keep her off of her toes. Maybe the moderators won't be so favorable this time. Who knows? You can try any. You can inject all kinds of chaos into it. You want to increase that likelihood. But clearly he's feeling on the ropes. He continues to tease whether he's going to do it or not. Here he was yesterday answering a question about the debate. Let's take a listen. And, you know, we're looking at it, but, you know, when you win, you don't really necessarily have to do it a second time. So we'll see. But we had a, I thought we had a great debate last night. Thank you very much. What would need to change for you to agree to a second debate? Would you want different rules? Would you want a different format? Well, you know, when you don't

win, it's like a fighter. When a fighter has a bad fight, gets knocked out or loses the fight, the first thing he says is, we want a rematch. So we won the debate according to every poll, every single poll. I think that, are we going to do a rematch? I just don't know. We'll think about it. Would you still do the one on NBC on September 25th? You proposed that. Are you still going to do that? I would do NBC.

I'd do Fox, too. I'd do Fox, too. But right now, we have to determine whether or not we even want to do it. We had a great night last night. And you see by the poll numbers, it was really fantastic. Thank you very much, everybody. All right, so there you go. We're sticking with the fighter analogy.

Let's put this up there on the screen. I love how he's like, yeah, I do NBC, but I don't know if I want to do NBC. But I'm undecided. That might be one of the most classic Trumpisms of all time. Let's put this up there just so everybody understands. The first numbers for the debate are absolutely massive. Revised now currently up to some 57.75 million viewers. As of this morning,

it's actually passed 60 million, according to Nielsen. And that is just the people who watch it on terrestrial television. So if you add in the, what, tens, maybe, you know, yeah, tens of millions who watch it on YouTube, Twitter, or anywhere else, then we're talking, you know, somewhere almost half of the entire voting age public watched the debate, which happened on Tuesday night. That's actually a problem for Trump because more people watch the debate with Kamala and Trump than watch the debate of Trump versus Biden. Now, I think there's a lot to be said about that. It's not just enthusiasm. It was the level of interest. People were bored and mostly fed up with the election ahead of that debate. That debate, Biden's dropout really invigorated not only a lot of Democrats, but it

made the race more interesting, which is why a lot of people came to this. But that's part of why Trump does need to do more debates. You can't let that be the only lasting impression in voters' minds going into the election. The obvious though for him, you know, there's downside risk if he were to have a similar performance and he's doing well enough in the polls. He probably thinks he could just stick to his current strategy. On Kamala's side, clearly she has the incentive. She's already asked for another debate, perhaps the NBC News debate, but at the very least thinks the risk would be worth it of where she is currently. I mean, I don't think the race has fundamentally changed yet. We haven't seen any polling or any of that to indicate it, but anytime some 70 million people out of 150

million people who can vote are watching something, it's going to have some impact. I don't really know exactly what it is. That said, I mean, I'll give the bear and the bull case. The bull case would be Trump allegedly lost all debates, according to opinion polls, against Hillary Clinton, obviously won that election. Biden, according to the polls that came out at the time, won the debate against Donald Trump, and he barely won that election. So, you know, it's not like this is make or break, but I wouldn't let it be the very last impression, is the only thing I would say. Especially when things are so tight. Yeah, that's the thing. You don't want to let every, you don't want to let even a marginal risk like that come to affect your overall performance, because what if that is the last impression that people have? And Kamala and her campaign can just

run ads showing that all for the next couple of, what, 50-something days until the election. There's too much risk out there, I think, for him to not do another one. Yeah, and it could actually be make or break. Because if you think about the margin in 2016 and you think about the margin in 2020 in terms of the, if you look at the electoral college numbers, it looks like a landslide kind of in both times. But we know if you look at the number of votes that separated Hillary Clinton from Donald Trump, it was very narrowly that she lost in these key battlegrounds. She obviously won the popular vote.

And then in 2020, again, you know, very narrow victory for Joe Biden. That's just the reality of the country. It's very likely to be just as close, if not even somehow a little bit closer this time around. So, yeah, does it like, you know, shift the polls by 10 points? No. But we're talking about a race where if you move the polls permanently by half a point, that could be theusional about what the polls showed and his advisors were shielding him from any negative data. And so he was really convinced that whatever polls had him down, which was like all of them, that they were not real. And in reality, if you look at these like few cherry picked national polls that ignored the

battleground states, he was still within the margin of error or whatever. So he was delusional about his standing and he was surrounded with a bunch of yes men who did not want to upset him. And so cherry picked the data that would keep him happy. I wonder if Trump has a similar level of delusion where he may not really understand the reality of where the race is, or he may, you know, based on his track record in 2016 and 2020 of outperforming the polls, just assume that that's going to happen again. And maybe it does, but that is not a safe assumption whatsoever, especially given that in the midterms, they undercounted the Democratic Party support. So, you know, he may be making strategic miscalculations based on a flawed

understanding of where his position is in this race at this point. With regard to Kamala Harris, yeah, they came out right away and were like, hey, let's do it again. But, you know, you could see them putting forward some debate criteria that they kind of know is like a poison pill for Trump, like that maybe he should accept, like, you know, an NBC News debate with whoever, whatever moderators are picked for that network to perform, but that they feel pretty confident he's not going to pick so that they can have the illusion of strength of like, look, we wanted to do it and he's the one that backed out, but without really having a full intention to do it again. Because listen, from her perspective, frankly, I think the strategic calculus is it's probably better just to let this one ride and not take the risk of a bad

debate moment closer to election day. So, you know, I think there's a lot of, there's a lot of gameplay playing going on here. Of course, I could see it both ways. I will say in fairness, Trump has always been surrounded by sycophants who tell him whatever he wants to hear. Correct. It's not like it's actually all that different than how things usually go. You mean Laura Loomer is not telling him the straight truth, Sagar? I mean, that's shocking. Maybe she is, yeah. Certainly something to see her on that campaign plane.

Unbelievable. Well, CNN's Harry Anton usually does a pretty good job. We've relied on him in the past for some good analysis. He generally will tell it straight, I think, in terms of how tied things are, Trump's favorability and more. So he had an interesting analysis here in terms of who allegedly won past debates and the margins. Let's take a listen. First debate winner margins. Look at that. She won by a 26 point margin, nearly matching Trump's margin over Biden back in June when he won by 34 points,

very similar to Joe Biden's margin over Donald Trump back in 2020 of 32 points and significantly higher than the 2016 margin that Hillary Clinton had over Donald Trump in their first debate, just 13 points. But the bottom line here is debate watchers, and they actually leaned a little bit more Republican than the nation as a whole,

believe that Kamala Harris easily, easily won this debate. Again, the scientific term is she crushed former President Donald Trump. Take a look at the last four times we had a first debate and look at those winners. Did they see a rise in the polls? Yes. Mitt Romney in 2012, Hillary Clinton in 2016, Joe Biden in 2020, and Donald Trump earlier this year, they all saw rises in the polls of two points or more. And given how close this race is nationally, given how close it is in the swing states, do not be surprised if Kamala Harris jumps out to a lead nationally. And don't be surprised if she jumps out to a slight small lead in those key battleground

states. It should still probably be a close race based upon history. So he's predicting a bump there. Nate Silver was a little bit more equivocal in the analysis that I read. He was like, look, she did everything she needed to do, but we didn't see necessarily a bump come out for her from the convention. True. You know, the convention is going to be a little bit noisy just because that was at the very same time that RFK Jr. also dropped out of the race, which was going to have an impact, especially on the margins. There's no way to know really what happened. Obviously, this time around, you can't expect literally something as much of a gift like that. So,

we just don't know where things will stand here. I just think generally, when I look at the number and I see that level, I mean, I actually think this is not necessarily a decent thing for Trump. High level of civic engagement in this does not, it's not necessarily good. It was good whenever it was against Biden because against Biden, low information, low engagement voters were much more pro-Trump. But this time around, I mean, Democratic watch parties, this is purely anecdotal, but there were no Biden signs where I live, even though all those people were going to go vote for Biden. But the, it's quote, about madam time or dictatorship bad 2024 signs, the libs are our full force. They've got banners,

their windows are dressed, they are ready to roll. The fundraising numbers haven't come out yet from Kamala. I'm willing to bet it's an absolute monster. I'm not going to say Trump isn't going to raise money as well, but just the disparity of the engagement right now, betting on high turnout is not necessarily one that I would say would have been good for Trump, even though I would say that two months ago. This time around, we do know those liberal voters, specifically people who were very activated by Roe versus Wade, that high-level engagement, they beat the hell out of Republicans back in 2022, and they were a huge reason why they overperformed expectations. So those high numbers and that high level of civic engagement this time around, I think it might actually be a bad sign for Trump right now. Yeah, I think that's a good

point. We showed before the voter registration data, which is just like among typically Democratic leaning groups, has shot through the roof since Kamala Harris was, you know, since Biden was replaced with Kamala Harris. We're going to talk in the Taylor Swift blog about how she appears to have driven some voter registration as well. So I'm sure Democrats are very excited about that too. And I would just say, you know, this debate definitely permeated the popular consciousness. Like, there's no doubt about it. That, you know, judging by the conversations that were happening at my kids' soccer practices among people who are not particularly political, who have never, who I've never actually said any, heard anything political come out of

them before. And they're wanting to talk about like, what about that dogs and cats situation? So, and that was definitely, that was probably the moment that stuck the most in people's minds just because it was so absurd and outlandish and really captured, you know, the way that Trump was totally off the rails. And also the way that Kamala was able to throw him so severely off his game for, you know, after the first maybe 15, 20 minutes of the debate where she just really took control. So, you know, between the massively high ratings and the fact that in the, you know, the aftermath, all these clips are circulating, they're on TikTok, they're on Twitter, they're everywhere, people are chattering about it. I think it was a significant event. And I think it could have a significant and lasting impact. And when I say significant, I mean like one point, you know, I think she'll probably get a couple points. Like I said before, I think she'll probably return to, you know, where she was, where she was up nationally pretty clearly by a few points,

where she had a little bit more of a lead in the battleground states. I think we'll probably return to that, which is still basically a coin flip election. But, you know, again, just those little bit of shifts, if she's able to maintain, really matter. Now, the one word of caution that I'll sound for Kamala Harris is she really, we talked about this, her strategy was very much let me get under his skin. Let me remind people of who Donald Trump is and some of his worst qualities that people were sick and tired of. And that's why they tossed him out in 2020. She had another job that the voters wanted to see her do, which was to really fill in the blanks about who she is, how she would govern, what her priorities are, you know, what is the day one agenda. That part she really still left very

empty. You know, it was not a major focus of, you know, she talked some about policies, but the major focus was more about let me get under Trump's skin. And so that New York Times Sienna poll that showed, you know, a lot of voters want to know more about her, I don't know that she fully answered those questions. And so while she certainly burnished her credibility in terms of being presidential, being able to go toe toto-toe with him, sort of like filling the shoes and people being able to envision her in the role, I don't think she still has answered those questions about, well. That means that there's still an opening for Trump to be able to define her in the way that he wants to but completely failed to do at this debate. And obviously time is relatively short at this point. That's a very important point. There was a New York Times story where they were like some undecided voters weren't necessarily sure.

And they picked up exactly on what you said. They were like, hey, look, yeah, you definitely did better against Trump, but what are you actually going to do? I still don't know that much about you. She's got a pretty major campaign schedule going into the weekend. Apparently, now that we have after 9-11, Trump is also hitting it. He's going to be in Tucson. Harris will hold a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina. I think we're learning a lot about that. Hours later, she'll fly to Greensboro, a second rally in the state. So two rallies in the state of North Carolina. It is fascinating just to see that. I would never would have thought that North Carolina could be a tipping point, but you know, not would have necessarily thought that

Arizona would be a democratic state that could go blue in 2020. Like I've said, the migration data makes a very good case for North Carolina and for the exact type of residents that Kamala could activate that have all moved more than 100,000 people or so. On top of you got unfavorable dynamics at the state level, you got a democratic governor. So I could see that being the case. And clearly, what they think is their path to 270 is very different than Biden. But the risk is still exactly what you said, especially too in the state of Pennsylvania. I mean, the fact is that things are just so tight and so locked there for 50-50 that I'm very

curious where that undecided voter profile of who wants to learn more, whether that was enough for them to eventually come out. Because as long as they still see her tied to Biden, that's the biggest problem that she's going to have. Biggest problem. It's perplexing to me because the policies she initially laid out in particular are really popular and they're kind of a no-brainer. You know, the price gouging stuff, super popular. It obviously gets at this question of prices that people are continuing to be very concerned about. The housing assistance, really popular. Getting prescription drug prices down, really popular. Child tax credit, paid family leave. Like there's a very popular agenda there that she rolled out with some fanfare and seems to have been kind of scared off of. I mean, they really have retreated into this much more like Biden feeling,

let me cater to the center and not really say anything, not really promise anything direction, which is, you know, classic Democrat and is part of why, you know, they come so close to losing elections or do lose elections. So I don't know why she has gotten, I don't know why she's gotten shy about talking about that and making it really like, here's my top three priorities, dot, dot, dot. It wouldn't be a hard thing to do. It wouldn't have been a hard thing to put that into the debate in the mix with her baiting of Donald Trump. But again, it feels like they've just fallen back into this sort of like very Biden-esque rut. And look, it might be enough. Biden won. Democrats did well running that way in

the midterms. And so maybe they're looking at that and they're like, look, this was a winning strategy two times in a row. Why would we screw with it? And I guess there's something to that. But, you know, they certainly seem to be going more after the like Nikki Haley voter, certainly, than trying to further energize and further turn out young, more progressive voters and especially voters who are, you know, also disgusted with the war on the people of Gaza. So in any case, just some risks there going forward. And we can go ahead and take a look at the polling data and where things stand. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind voiceover,

the movement that exploded in 2024. Voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal, and at times it's far from what I originally intended it to be. These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover, to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships. I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other. It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together. How we love our family.

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

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

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

and reexamining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. So some of the networks did some little snap polling after the debate. Some of them did some focus groups of undecided voters to see what they thought instantly after the debate. Let's take a listen to a little bit of what CNN's undecided voter panel had to say. Who do you think won by a show of hands? Former President Trump. Two, I'll give it four, but tentative. Two over there.

What about Vice President Harris? More hands. For those of you who thought this debate could be determinative, how many of you have made up your minds based on what you saw tonight on stage in Philadelphia? Raise your hands. All right. I want to ask you why. I think it's important to remember that we are voting for the leader of our country and not who we like the most or who we want in our wedding party, but who is actually going to make our country better. And we're in an incredibly unique situation where we've had both of the candidates in office before, and we've gotten to see what they do. And when facts come to facts, my life was better when Trump was in office. The economy was higher, inflation was lower,

things were better overall. And now with Kamala's administration, things haven't been so fantastic. And she's saying she can fix the problems that her administration has caused, but I just don't know if I can afford to take that risk. Were you leaning towards the former president coming in tonight? Probably. And did you have a forum in 2016 or 2020? I did. So she had been a previous Trump voter. She was leaning towards him, but undecided on this CNN

voter panel. So you have on the one hand, overwhelmingly people like Kamala one, but at least one voter raising some concerns about the question Trump should have made at the core of his debate performance, which is, are you better off now than you were four years ago? This is a debate I have with Trump people all the time. It's always like, let Trump be Trump and all of that. And I go, well, look, Trump has been Trump and sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. Overwhelmingly, I mean, this is part of the issue is you do hear from a lot of people like that woman who are like, I like the policies, but it pisses me off. Someone described him to me as an ugly plumber with a massive ass crack, but a guy who does a really good job. And so you just have to look away. You got to look away from the crack and you just let the man fix the pipes. And I was like, you know, that is a very apt way that a lot of people think about Donald Trump.

That one stuck with me for a long time. I understand why. Yeah. And I think that what Trump can do sometimes is like I remember his very first State of the Union. He was acting presidential. Every once in a while he'll do, I think it was when George H.W. Bush died. You know, he was like shockingly silent for like two weeks and everyone was, everyone couldn't believe it. Every once in a while when he does that, his approval rating actually does take up quite a bit. People have a lot of fondness for the Trump era, at least in terms of their personal finances.

And the more that he could remind them of that and not of chaos, he'd be better. One piece of analysis I saw, which was really spot on, is, and I'm wondering if you agree, did it not seem like Trump was the incumbent in that debate? Everything was about him or things that were controversies around him. It's like, he's been out of office for four years. The best he could have done was to be like,

no, no, no, no, I'm not in office. I'm running to get back into office to run against the chaos of the Kamala Biden administration. And so that's another thing where I think he really screwed up and missed the opportunity to win over people like her. Because there's a lot more others like her who probably went the other way. I rewatched some of the debate and the first 15 minutes or so before she really gets under his skin, he's pretty on message. Yeah, he was good. He's getting the better of the exchanges.

She's a little nervous, clearly, at the very beginning. And then once she said that thing about his rallies, it was over. Like the mind was like wiped clean. And everything that he had practiced and planned to do and the talk, it was gone. And then she was calling every single shot. So, yeah, I mean, he utterly failed to try to land the points that he wanted to land. That doesn't change some of the underlying dynamics of the race ultimately. But, you know, if we can put up on the screen the CNN flash poll, which is pretty consistent.

I mean, it was pretty overwhelming that Harris outperformed Trump in this debate. Pre-debate, you had this same group of watchers split down the middle as to who they expected to do better. So it shows you it was like pretty evenly divided going in. You had half saying they think Kamala would win, half saying they thought Trump would win. Post-debate, 63% said that Kamala Harris won and 37% say that Trump won. And maybe most notable to me was the fact that some 30% even of Republicans were like, yeah, she got him. She got him on this one. So there was a, you know, it was very clear consensus that she got the better of him that night.

So, you know, is it ultimately going to matter? I think the thing for part of why I think this will be consequential is that Trump has such a mystique around him. As this showman, as Teflon Don, someone who just can, you know, charge his way through anything and, you know, gets the better of anyone who he goes toe-to-toe with. And here you have this woman who has been, you know, very caricatured and at times rightfully so for being kind of incompetent and verbally incontinent and all over the place, et cetera, et cetera. And the fact that she was able to make him look small and to really dominate him in the sense of causing him to have to react to what she wanted to talk about, you know, it really does puncture some of

the aura and some of the mystique around Donald Trump. And that's part, you know, her whole strategy has been different than the Hillary strategy, different than the Biden strategy of trying to make him look small. So while he is up there glowering and furious and seeing red over, you know, the rallies or whatever else she was goading him on, she is laughing. She's above the fray. She's enjoying it. She's having a good time. And so that's part of why I do think that this debate will end up being pretty consequential is because it really damaged a core part of why I do think that this debate will end up being pretty consequential is because it really damaged a core part of his appeal and his mystique and his aura that had made him so powerful in American politics. And it's also part of why I think the strategy that they have landed on of the, you know,

sort of dismissive, like, roll your eyes, not taking his bait has been so much more effective than when previously, you know, whatever he threw out there, they were just sort of dismissive, like roll your eyes, not taking his bait has been so much more effective than when previously, you know, whatever he threw out there, they were just chasing after the ball, endlessly moralizing about it, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. And look, there's a lot of evidence to say that this could be. Let's put the next one, please, up on the screen. What we see in terms of the snap polling from YouGov, who won the debate, Harris 43, Trump 28, Unsure 30. I mean, the Unsure number is still relatively high, so it's not like it was overwhelming, but it's still not good.

That's pretty overwhelming. It's not good, all right? And then actually the next one, this convinced me more than anything, and it's always funny because I have to remind myself, what I always sometimes think is the most impactful part of the debate, That's not what most people are. The number one search topic during the debate by state was abortion. The only state where it was different was Ohio, and that was immigration. Maybe because they were searching things about Haitian migrants, if I had to guess. But my point is just that if you look at all 50 states in the country, 49 out of 50, abortion is the number one search topic during that debate, possibly even

looking at the various positions on abortion. And that's a massive win for the Democrats in my book. That's right. Almost doesn't matter what they're searching about abortion. I didn't get to challenge Evita on this. We have a segment coming up with her, but I guess I'll preview it. We filmed this out of order. So anyway, just for scheduling purposes, she was bringing up late-term abortion and all of that. And I'm like, listen, whether you morally object to late-term abortion or not, on a polling level, people don't care about it. At least they don't care enough when presented with the converse of a six-week ban. Republicans tried all throughout 2022.

Democrats are the real radicals on abortion. Democrats are the real radicals on abortion. People don't care. They care a lot more about the six to 12 weeks of the Roe consensus than they do about edge cases of abortion that are after, what, between the sixth and the ninth month of pregnancy. And I'm not even saying that I'm cool with that. I'm, like, empirically. It's not about what I think.

It's about how people have responded to voting patterns. And Trump trotted out all the 2022 classics. Yeah. They're the real radicals. It's about late what I think. It's about how people have responded to voting patterns. And Trump trotted out all the 2022 classics. They're the real radicals. It's about late-term abortion. That's why I'm not going to vote for Amendment 4. Look at the polling on Amendment 4. It's overwhelmingly. Amendment 4 being the Florida amendment that he first seemed to indicate he was going to side with the pro-choice side.

Then there was a huge freakout among the pro-life community. Flip-flops within like 24 hours and says, no, I am going to vote against it. Exactly. And actually, if you look at the polling, people have become even more permissive in America of abortion restrictions past the Roe versus Wade consensus. So if anything, it's actually backfired against the Republicans. So in general, that talking point, again, you may be a conservative Christian and God bless you, but most Americans don't agree with you, period. Especially whenever it comes to the ballot box. So in terms of his answer, where he landed, it doesn't work.

There's zero evidence. But also, where did he even land? Because that's the other piece is, you know, as much as Kamala rightfully gets pegged as a flip-flopper, and that is true, and, you know, that's another area where he just failed. She baited him on something about his dad's net worth, and again, he just chased that down the rabbit hole and let her, you know, skate in terms of some of the different positions she's taken. But, you know, moving back to abortion, he gets asked this question. Okay, your running mate says you would veto a national abortion ban. Would you? And he's like, oh, I don't really talk to that guy, so I don't know what he's talking. He won't commit. And clearly, he, Sagar, really felt the heat from pro-lifers when he tried to actually, on a policy level, moderate on abortion. You heard that from Evita. That was the one thing that she was, well, you're going to hear from Evita. You will hear from Evita, our young

Republican woman who we had on to talk about some of these issues. And she criticizes him about how he, you know, moved to the pro-choice side. So even though, you know, he didn't really have to run in a primary, you know, he was sort of just stayed out of it and participate in the debates or whatever, even though he has really tried to lean into this rhetoric about just leave it up to the states, et cetera, et cetera. This is still a powerful coalition that really has a hold on him so much so that even though he recognizes this issue is a major problem from him, he cannot bring himself to break in a hard way from them. And I don't know that it would really benefit him even if he did. Because the bottom line is Kamala Harris can always say, as she did in the debate,

you handpicked these three Supreme Court justices to put on the bench and overturn Roe. And then when she framed it as, because he tries to say, oh, well, this is what people wanted. And she flips it back and says, no, the women who are bleeding out in a parking lot, the 12-year-old girls who were raped by their stepdads, no, they did not want this. And it continues to be, you know, as evidenced by that search data, it continues to be very powerful. When we picked our top moments from the debate, there were a lot of candidates. The pets thing, I mean, that's just like the iconic, you know, memorable, ridiculous, absurd, like revealing moment from the debate. But I actually picked the abortion one because it was such a, because it's such an important issue and because he still is so bad on it and still has no idea what to say. And I continue to think like there isn't really an answer here that can work for him regardless of where he tries to land

or what talking points he tries to ultimately use. I mean, do you know how insane this is? Congratulations, by the way, pro-lifers. You got Trump to disavow a position that 80% of the American people are against. 80%! Even people who are pro-life, who are, like, in terms of the Roe versus Wade, they don't even support a national ban on abortion.

If you look at it, three-quarters, even three-quarters of Americans, people who are pro-life, say that there should not be a federal law banning abortion at six weeks, some 60% at 15 weeks. So the Roe consensus has literally never been more popular than ever. And JD, who is a practicing pro-life Catholic, gave you the political layup of, yeah,

he would ban an abortion. He would not sign a national abortion ban. He would veto it. And he still decided to go along. What is he doing? I mean, this is where I look at Trump's calculus sometimes, and I just have to remind him, like, honestly, sometimes he is just an idiot, or he's somebody who his political, like, dialed-in nature is not there. Where previously, I really believe that 2016 Trump, if he were presented with that same landscape, absolutely would not have done this. This is actually him, a case, being too immersed in the traditional GOP, where there are a lot of people who probably support something like that, and who are in his ear, convincing him that this is a bigger constituency. If he was truly dialed in the way that he has been in the past, there's no way that you're going to come out on a 20%

issue. Impossible. So I have been, I've been sort of like workshopping a monologue in my head that I may do for next week about Trump's political evolution and how he, what current bubble he is in. So in 2016, he really comes out of the like New York tabloid scene. Yeah, yeah. Right? He's like New York Post. Yes. That's kind of his, that's his thing, right? So it's sensationalist.

It's crass. But there is some, like, connection to the reality of, like, how people view issues and what normal people think about various things that are happening in the country. And, you know, it's sort of like where Piers Morgan is, right? It's tabloid. Then he's really swimming in the Fox News world, right? And Kyle calls him Fox News Grandpa in 2020. And I think that's right. You know, he's just totally immersed in this like conservative, but mainstream conservative echo chamber. So already a lot of the populist elements from 2016 are stripped down in 2020.

And he's this like Fox News Grandpa. Now it's like truth social person, psycho, whatever. And that's where you get the pets, right? He's hanging out with Laura Loomer. I mean, it's just, I think after Fox News calls the election for Biden, and is actually the first to call Arizona for Biden, there's a rupture with Fox News. At the same time, he's, you know, he gets kicked off of Twitter. So now he's on Truth Social, which is truly this very niche, fringe ecosystem. And those are the waters he's swimming in. And that really comes out in his politics and in how he's talking about issues and how he is such a media creature that that's an important way to understand who he is at that present moment. And I think that accounts for a lot of the differences between the 2016 Trump who has his finger on the pulse of something and the 2024 Trump where you're like, what the hell are you even thinking right now?

What world do you live in where you thought that this would be a good idea? So, you know, I think that changed media diet has really done a number on him, not to mention just being in the bubble of being a president and post-president, surrounding yourself constantly with sycophants, et cetera, et cetera. To get back to some of the—we have one more. Washington Post did an undecided voter panel as well. This is pretty overwhelming. We'll put this up on the screen.

So out of 25 people, 23 said they thought that Harris won. Two said that they thought Trump performed better. You know, they also interviewed these individuals throughout the debate. And even the ones who said Harris performed better, there was some movement towards her also in terms of which way people were planning on voting, which is obviously really significant. There were still some questions raised about like, hey, I need to know more about her. But probably the thing that I took most note of, which we commented on on debate night as well, is with regard to this like pets, Haitian migrants situation,

there was just deep confusion about what the hell he was even talking about, which again gets to the like truth social bubble that he's existing in, where his conspiracies are so outlandish and so fringe people, like normal people just don't even comprehend what point you're even trying to get across.

So I thought that was interesting as well. Yeah, that happened a lot in 2020, actually. It did, yeah. There were some- Trump would be saying something where I'm like, dude, I only know what you're talking about because I do this for a living. I know way too many people who are like, what? What is he saying? And that simplicity, look, this is what made him actually a strong candidate in 2016. It wasn't about being online. He intuited a basic fact about America. He said Americans don't like the way that things are going.

That was actually very counterintuitive in politics at that time. American carnage, still one of the most important speeches in modern American history because it was counter to the way that most people in the elite circles thought about the direction of the country. And it was simple. It was about immigration, and it was simply really about rolling back the direction of the country. And it was simple. It was about immigration, and it was simply really about rolling back the Obama era consensus. This time around, it's a mishmash. It's an amalgam. Now, that doesn't mean he still can't win because a lot of Biden is very unpopular and economic trends, et cetera. But he's not doing his best, I think, to convince people to vote for him. And actually, you know, you do see a lot of that. Like, for example, can we put B5 on the screen? A lot of these swing state voters who were asked about,

from the Washington Post specifically, about how they thought Trump and Harris performed. 23 out of 25 said Kamala Harris did. And this is not, you know, it's not just a bunch of liberals who are in this group. You even look at a lot of the people who were saying that Harris performed better, and they're like, look, I'm frustrated with the status quo. We deserve better. I appreciate Trump. I'm reading from one. I appreciate Trump has strong views and trusts his ability to make strong decisions. I worry that Harris may lack clear convictions or follow through.

Still thinks that Kamala had done better and has a preference now for Harris. So these are not people who are brainwashed or any are deeply partisan in any way. And I think that, you know, thinking about trying to intuit that part of the country right there where the overall trend is in general, he's not as dialed in as he was back in 2016. Yeah. That's generally a mistake. Yeah. And they asked those same individuals before the debate, okay, who are you leaning towards, right? If you have a lean.

And before the debate, 12 said Harris and 10 said Trump. Three were, others were undecided, like totally unsure. Or they said neither, actually, is what they said. Afterwards, there were still three that said neither. But the Harris number moved from 12 to 15. And she now had five people that said they were definitely voting for her, whereas before they were on the fence. Trump's number went down from 10 to 6. So he lost four voters, and no one moved from the probably Trump to the definitely Trump column. So at least, listen, it's a small sample, obviously not statistically significant, et cetera, et cetera. But still, if you're just looking at how ordinary people process this debate in real time, it shows you something happened here for Trump. way that her top advisors could never have possibly dreamed in their wildest dreams how

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Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Donald Trump's performance was his new endorser and transition team member, RFK Jr., who was fairly honest about how he thought this performance went for Donald Trump. Let's take a listen. Vice President Harris clearly won the debate in terms of her delivery, her polish, her organization, and her preparation. I think on substance, President Trump wins in terms of his governance. But he didn't tell that story. In fact, the first question was an extraordinary lost opportunity because there's a question, and I think Doris pointed out that she never answered, which is, are Americans better four years later? And there's really no argument for saying that they are. By all the indicia by which you measure

social deterioration, we have doubled the inflation rate. The housing rates have doubled in the last four years. There's 15 million more people, Americans living in poverty. We have these enormous suicide rates, enormous overdose rates. And we're in two wars. And all of these things can be attributed to the poor leadership from the Biden-Harris team. And that's the argument that he should have been making. But he got distracted. And I think it's unfortunate because he, you know, I think he really had an airtight argument for his presidency. But he was not able to make that case to the American public.

He says, and he's commented a couple of times today that he won the debate and all the polls show that he won the debate. I haven't seen a single one to show that. What did you think of that reaction? Well, I have seen those polls. They're not, they're polls that you see on, you know, on the internet. And a lot of them probably have statistical problems. He's sort of laughing and says that, like,

yeah, it's probably like a cat turd poll that I don't know that I'm going to take too seriously. What'd you make of those comments? I was kind of surprised. I think he said, I mean, look, at the very least, RFK, every once in a while, he'll surprise you. And he'll say, you know, what he thinks. I think that's what a lot of people appreciated about him whenever he was running for president.

And look, at least give him credit. He's like, yeah, I don't think he did well at all. And he honestly has the most at stake here right now because not only did he stake his entire reputation and his whole coalition on a Trump victory, he's claiming that Trump is going to appoint either him or people who are aligned with him to office whenever he is elected. So at the very least, like if you were to expect anybody to spin, it really would be him. I honestly think he has the most on the line out of anybody in the coalition. That's kind of true.

Think about it. His whole social circle and everything. His whole social circle. Nicole Shanahan, I'm like, good luck. If Trump doesn't win, you people are screwed. Just think about it in terms of coalitional support, in terms of overall impact of your campaign, which you're hoping to leverage into power. No Democrat will ever speak to you like ever again after you've gone this hard. They bet the farm, really, on the Trump campaign. So for their sake, they better hope he wins. His whole family came out against him. His whole family came out against him, which I guess isn't all that new. But, you know,

when he, the family name is now more in the discourse than ever before. Shanahan, like I said, I mean, you shouldn't underestimate, like, the social circles and all these things that those people run in. If she doesn't have any power, like, good luck to you. Knives are going to come out from all her, like, billionaire neighbors and oligarchs. My only point being that they probably have more incentive to spin than anybody else. And so whenever they have to tell the truth about what's going on here,

that just tells you that things didn't go that well. And that's the problem that I find is that there's a deep amount of hackery and a lot of commentary. By the way, I did call it on our show afterwards. I was like, can't wait to see Jesse Waters bitch about the moderators. And that's immediately what happened when it was on the show.

Because that's why, if you noticed the beginning of our show, what was Trump saying? He's like, Jesse, he really got it. He really understood what was going on. You know, at a certain point, too, for those people, they're not being honest enough with their audience or preparing them. Which will probably just prime Stop the Steal 2.0. Absolutely. Whereas with RFK, at the very least, he's like, yeah, it didn't do well. He's like, that's what being honest with people actually looks like.

But you know what? Trump is not going to like that answer. And he watches. And I think he was not truthing about Neil Cavuto. So he watches this coverage on cable news religiously. And if you are anything but Jesse Waters level sycophantic ass kissing, like it is not enough. Cause Jesse not only was bitching about the moderators, which was kind of like the total go-to play, but he also was like, Trump had all the most

memorable lines. Like when he said run, spa, run, or when he said that he had like four things that he rattled off and tried to not just say, oh, well, the moderators are the reason he lost, but also tried to say actively, actually, I thought Trump was way better than Kamala Harris. Which, again, you don't believe that. You don't. Like, you're just lying to your audience. You're saying the thing that you know is going to make Trump happy. And this is why. Because I'm sure, like, whatever slot RFK was promised on the transition team, you know, you can still technically get that slot.

But that doesn't mean that you're going to have any influence whatsoever going forward in a Trump administration. It doesn't mean he's ever going to call you again or you're going to be on Air Force One or have a meeting with him or whatever, because you made such an important point on debate night. After something like this, Trump is going to go and search out his most sycophantic aides, advisors, supporters, etc. That's why he's hanging out with Laura Loomer. Yes. She's safe for him because she'll tell him whatever he wants to hear and have zero qualms about it. So if you are even willing to be honest enough, and you know, there was obviously spin there in what RFK Jr. said too, of being like, well, I think he had an airtight case and here's why he's so much better and he just failed to make it. And that's unfortunate. But the fact he let any truth

in there at all means he is going to be persona non grata with Donald Trump. And, you know, it was that was quick. I also wonder how Tulsi Gabbard is going to standing is going to fare within the Trump world, because he's certainly not going to blame himself, Trump, for his complete failure, even though there is no one to blame but himself. You know, whatever you think about the moderators. I was thinking about, remember when Megyn Kelly asked him that question

about like Rosie O'Donnell or whatever, which he also thought was very unfair. He turned that into a great moment for himself. So if you are on top of your game, even if a moderator is like, you know, unfair in your view towards you, he used to have the capability to do that. So anyway, there is no one to blame but himself, but we know he will not blame himself. So who was prominently advising him and advertised as advising him going up to this debate, Tulsi Gabbard. So I wonder if she also is going to be on the ounce if he's going to blame her

for his inability to rise to the occasion and make some basic-ass political points against Kamala Harris. Look, that's what he does. He always lashes out at the advisors. It's always the people who are around him. I guarantee you there are going to be a lot of snakes in his ear. Oh, yeah. Right now, polymarket odds on whether Trump will fire his campaign manager before the election, let's see, is 30% spiked since the debate.

So, anyway, let's put that out there. Interesting. And let's see. And is it La Cevita who's technically the— Chris La Cevita is technically— Not Susie Wiles? She's sort of like number two? She's number two.

Also, Kamala actually is now leading Trump in the betting market. It says presidential election winner is 2024, 50% Kamala, 49% Trump. First time that she's led him in quite a long time. And before going into the debate, it was like 54 Trump, 46 Harris or something like that. There was a six-point spread that was to Donald Trump tied after the debate and now actually is Kamala in the lead. I mean, look, it's 50-49, so it's not like overwhelming. It's also just, you know, random people betting online. Okay, but it's a billion-dollar market.

There's $900 million in this market, so you shouldn't discount it. No, no, it's still indicative of at least the analysis of the general consensus about what happened in this debate and how it's likely to move things. I don't think betting markets, by the way, are perfect, but likely to move things. You know, people can be wrong. I don't think betting markets, by the way, are perfect, but there's a good, you know, I read Nate Silver's book and he does make a good point that there's just a lot more that does go into it when you genuinely have money and large sums of money on the line that sometimes can call things out in a better direction than pundits and or any other so-called conventional

wisdom. Because you have to factor in downside risk and upside and everything. And because they were so wrong last time around, people are always looking for opportunities this time to make it. And that's why Kamala being tied, pretty significant, I think, with the overall polling average. Yeah. It's going to be really interesting to see the next few rounds of post-debate polls that come out to see, you know. We should probably guess something by Monday, actually. I would think so. Yeah, I would definitely think by Monday we'll have something to chew on there. So something to look forward to.

All right. All right, we got a great panel lined up that we have now promoted several times because we so enjoyed the conversation that we recorded with these two individuals talking about the Taylor Swift endorsement and also talking about these emerging gender dynamics among Gen Z, which are really fascinating. Largest gender divide, political gender divide of any generation is Gen Z. So let's go ahead and get to that. Have you ever thought about going voiceover?

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

relationship to relationships. I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other. It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together. How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids,

promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye.

Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment

and reexamining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today.

The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves. This medal is for the men who went down that day. It's for the families of those who didn't make it. I'm J.R. Martinez. I'm a U.S. Army veteran myself, and I'm honored to tell you the stories of these heroes on the new season of Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage from Pushkin Industries and iHeart Podcast. From Robert Blake, the first black sailor to be awarded the medal, to Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice. These

are stories about people who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor, going above and beyond the call of duty. You'll hear about what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Very excited to be joined this morning by our two panelists on the left and the right. We've got Parker Short, who is the president of the Georgia Young Dems. And we also have Avita Duffy, who is the host of the Bongino Report. Got a couple topics we wanted to dive into with you

guys. Welcome. Glad to have you this morning. Good to see you guys. Thanks for having us. Yeah, of course. So we got big news the night after the debate, like that night during the post-aftermath of the debate, that Taylor Swift had come out and endorsed Kamala Harris, saying that, describing herself as a childless cat lady. Parker, let me start with you. I'm sure you're happy about this news. How significant do you think that this will be for the Kamala Harris campaign? I'm not particularly a Taylor Swift fan, but I do appreciate somebody who uses their platform for a good purpose. You know, I kind of did expect this because she has

been very outspoken before. If you will go out there and endorse Phil Bredesen in Tennessee in 2018, then you will go out there and get behind Kamala Harris, who's one of the most exciting nominees that the party has seen in a while. I will say, I think the most impactful part of this is not Taylor Swift convincing voters that wouldn't vote or that we're going to vote for Trump. It is instead reaching out to new folks. Last year, when she promoted the voter registration link on National Voter Registration Day, it was a 40,000 people increase. It was much more than last year. That was the last highest voter registration bump before Kamala got in the race.

And then last night, we saw more than 300,000 people click on her link. I think the thing that's going to make the difference this election in states like North Carolina and Georgia, where I have both lived, is new voters coming in, people on college campuses, people getting engaged that are being touched by people like Taylor Swift that are using their platform for what I think is a good reason. Avita, to bolster Parker's point here, let's go ahead and put the third element up on the screen. He mentioned the number of visitors that her voter registration link received in the hours after she endorsed. So her link to register to vote brought in 306,000 visitors to vote.gov. So, you know, obviously it did something in terms of people being interested in registering to vote.

And presumably since she endorsed Kamala Harris, many of those people will plan to vote for Kamala Harris. What do you think of the significance of this? Or do you think that it's very significant? You know, I tend to actually agree with Parker that I'm not, I'm not sure it's going to be wildly, wildly, uh, you know, significant to this election. I think what was interesting is I didn't feel like her heart was really in it. I mean, there hasn't been

a rally with Kamala and Taylor. She hasn't put on a concert for her. It was just an Instagram post. And the Instagram post was also kind of flirting with both sides-ism at the beginning. In the end, she sort of said, vote for who you think would make the best president. And so it was not as strong as I think people are making it out to be. And you have that on top of the fact that she said her reason for endorsing Kamala is because she wants to combat misinformation. And a lot of people know that during a NATO meeting four years ago, the Pentagon's Psychological Operations Unit floated this idea of turning Taylor Swift into an asset for combating so-called misinformation. So I think there's something really interesting going on there. So you think Taylor's a deep state plant?

Is that what you're suggesting? I like it. Well, the Pentagon has floated the idea. So, I mean, it's possible. And she cited misinformation in her statement, which I think is really interesting. But the other thing I want to say is that I think that young people are a lot more animated with the real issues than just a celebrity endorsement. Trump forced Kamala last night to say that she loves Israel. She supports Israel. She stands with Israel after he accused

her of saying she hates Israel. So that to young people is going to be really significant as we look at what's happening in Gaza. And a lot of especially socially conscious left-wing people who I think Kamala would consider her base are really going to be alienated by that kind of rhetoric. I think that's more important to young people than a Taylor Swift endorsement. Well, Parker, what do you make of that? Because Evita is just, I'm assuming, giving like a political analysis. I believe we'd spoken previously last time we saw you in Chicago, and that's something Chris and Ryan have been talking a lot about as well. You know, if anything, she's probably as forceful on the issue, at least on the substance, that Joe Biden is. Do you think

that's going to be a problem for her? Like, what do you see with younger voters? Well, younger voters care a lot about different issues. And again, I don't speak for all younger voters, but I will agree with your other guys. She started off by agreeing with me, and I do think she has a point. It's more about the policy. I watched that debate last night, and I saw Kamala Harris finally talk about a lot of policy issues that matter to me. I like the opportunity economy stuff. And I was frustrated by her pandering to parts of the American electorate through the way that she talks about the genocide that is occurring in Gaza. And I think she has shown me some hope at points on that issue by meeting with the uncommitted

movement, by trying to reach out to young voters. It is clear to me there is one candidate on the ballot that cares about human rights and does have at least some care for the human lives that are being lost in Gaza. Donald Trump does not care. And yes, he did force her and push her to that position. But I think that kind of shows the difficult position that our American politics is in, where it is. So Israel has such power to the point where you can't really go out there in mainstream politics and be on a presidential debate stage because AIPAC really is scary. Ask Andy Levin, who is, you know, I went to University of Michigan. He's Jewish. He stood up for what was right. And they elected somebody far more pro-war to his seat.

I think that she is trying her best on the issue, but her best is definitely not enough. There's a lot that I would like to see. And I think that debate was her attempt to kind of, yes, find that middle ground and debate with Trump. But I really I didn't appreciate it. But I will say, as I said, there is one candidate that cares about human rights in the Middle East. And I'm very close with Rua Roman. And I think she would love to come on y'all's show. She is a state representative from Georgia. She's the only Palestinian elected official in the state of Georgia. And we talk about this issue a lot. And for her, a Trump presidency looks like more of

her family dying overseas. And it really is terrible. And Kamala needs to step up. And Ruha should have been a speaker at the DNC. That was a missed opportunity for the DNC to say, hey, let's hear Palestinian voices. I appreciate that Kamala could sit down with the uncommitted movement and hear their voices. But there is a lot more that needs to be done. However, in Georgia, our rights are under attack every single day. People are dying in Georgia hospitals because they don't have access to reproductive rights. And that is front mine for a lot of voters. And I know Rua and I are both dedicated to electing Kamala as frustrating as her position on the issue can be. That is a key point that Parker raises, is that the issue of abortion, you know,

I would say equally animating probably to younger voters. What do you think then about Trump's answers on the issue of abortion during that debate, which arguably could be just as consequential on swinging voters as well? Well, you know, it's an interesting question because I've really been disillusioned with the way that Trump has handled the abortion question over the last month or two. He's really turned the GOP much more to the pro-choice side than I would like as a pro-life person. Parker said that Kamala is somebody who cares about human rights. And in my opinion, killing unborn children in the womb is the epitome of spitting on human rights. I think that is something that is egregious. And I liked that Trump during the debate for the first time really started to put

some pressure on Kamala and how radical the Democrats are with their pro-abortion stance. I think a lot of Americans think abortion is safe, legal, rare. It's done in the early stages. And the reality is that Democrats have, in Democrat controlled states, permitted abortion at all stages. That's just a fact. You had the fact checkers come in and say, oh, this isn't true. There's no abortions after a baby is born. That actually has happened. There are five instances of this happening on the record. You can go to the Daily Signal. They've reported it out. But the truth is that Democrat states, when they have that option, will allow abortion at all stages. And this is a

radical stance that I think most Americans don't agree with. And the other thing that I'll mention about human rights is I'm not really sure, and I don't really think a lot of young people are sure that Kamala is going to bring peace to the world if she's in office. Because we have right now the carnage that Trump also mentioned during the debate in Ukraine. And Kamala is not committed to ending this war. She's not committed to a peace deal. There is suffering. I mean, hundreds of thousands of people are dying because America keeps us in this funding, this battle.

That even Zelensky has now recently come out and said, we need to take a step back. We need to start negotiating a peace deal of some kind. I think that's really short-sighted. I think it shows a real disrespect for human life and perhaps a symbol that Kamala is in bed with the military industrial complex, which makes money off of human lives being lost. Parker, your response there? Well, I really would like to talk about Ukraine because I do think it is interesting. But first, I'm going to talk about abortion because this is not something that we should beat around the bush on.

We talk about human rights, and I hear where your panelist is coming from. This is personal for a lot of people. But again, it is a personal choice. And in Georgia, abortion is banned at six weeks, as it is in South Carolina, as it is in many places all over the country. And every single day, women are dying in Georgia because they don't have access to proper reproductive care. And reproductive care and women's rights are human's rights. And I have a girlfriend, we're very serious. We talk about having a kid and she's scared to be pregnant in Georgia because you can't get proper medical care. I think human rights is people being

able to have self-determination and the choice about their own bodies. And while I respect you and your opinions, you can make that decision about your body. We are at a point in our lives and in our country where Donald Trump and the Republican majority, Republican appointed majority on the Supreme Court has taken away rights from people all across the country. And the truth is that a majority of Americans actually want to restore those rights. I know you said that a majority don't feel that way. It's not true. Because you look at Kansas, they voted to protect abortion rights. You look at Michigan, they voted to protect abortion rights. On November 5th in Florida,

they have the opportunity to protect abortion rights because they're trying to do, they have a six-week ban, which most women don't know they're pregnant, ends up preventing people from getting reproductive care, criminalizes health care. Doctors are unable to provide the care that women need, and they often put the health of the mother at risk. That's going to be on the ballot. Donald Trump's not going to vote for it. Yeah. This is actually probably... That is as clear as it can be. Also, marijuana is on the ballot in Florida. That's right. Statewide. And I was very impressed that Kamala Harris came out in favor of marijuana legalization recently.

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

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

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

And I'm honored to tell you the stories of these heroes on the new season of Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage from Pushkin Industries and iHeart Podcast. From Robert Blake, the first black sailor to be awarded the medal, to Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice. These are stories about people who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor, going above and beyond the call of duty. You'll hear about what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results.

Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and re-examining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus.

So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. The other piece we wanted to get from you guys, which is this really massive emerging gender gap among Gen Z. David Hogg actually tweeted something about this that we found interesting we can put up on the screen about how Democrats are struggling with young men. Go ahead and put D1 up, guys, on the screen so we can read from this. There it is. I hope I'm wrong, but if we lose in November, I think the main reason why will be the number of young men of all races that are no longer Democrats. There's been a taboo about talking about this because we understandably are hesitant to make men a main point of

conversation given we have been for thousands of years, but we have a real problem to deal with. At this point with 60 days to go, there isn't much we can do to recover it other than turning out more young women and trying to slow the departure of young men. I think a lot of this caused by COVID, the epidemic of male loneliness in this country means suing commodification through social media of misogyny. Long-term, we've got a lot of work to do to provide positive examples of what actual masculinity looks like that is not defined by putting down women or other people, but by lifting others up and being a true leader. Parker, what's your reaction? Is that your experience among the young gentlemen that you know? I've met David.

He's an interesting guy. And I will say I appreciate him coming out and speaking out. And I think more young men and young women should speak out. I know a lot of young men that are Democrats that are very much involved for different reasons. I got involved because I lost my dad at a young age and I understood the impact of good governance. I have a public policy degree because I knew I wanted to make a difference. But I have friends that are involved for all different reasons. And I know so many young men that have stood up, stepped up, and really tried to make a difference in their communities, whether that's on the city council or the county commission. I've got a best friend who's a teacher named

Bryce Berry. He's 23 years old. He's running for state house in Georgia, and he's going to win. There's no way he doesn't win. And I really think that young men can set an example. And I'm from Atlanta. I know so many amazing men that show me what good masculinity looks like, that show me what giving back to your community looks like. And I'll end on the point that I think a good man looks like Tim Waltz, somebody who cares, somebody who you can trust, somebody if you had a flat tire, they'd pull over to the side of the road and help you change it. And I think that's more of what our party should be elevating.

And I think the choice of Tim Walsh demonstrates that. And I do think young men are going to surprise a lot of people and may hopefully surprise David in November, because I think we're going to turn out and show out. And at least in Georgia, I know young men are very much aware of what is at stake and how women's rights have been taken away. I think that's possible, but there's a lot of data that shows otherwise. Let's put this D2, please, up been taken away. I think that's possible, but there's a lot of data that shows otherwise. Let's put this D2, please, up on the screen. This is originally, guys, what we were all going to talk about the last time that we wanted to see you. If you look at the Gen Z gender gap here for younger men, specifically 18 to 29,

you have men both overall but also between 18 to 29 who are supporting Trump and almost over a plus 10 margin. While you have women, younger women specifically, almost at a plus 18 margin there for Democrats, specifically for Kamala Harris. The gender gap actually gets even bigger whenever you look at 30 to 44, so my fellow millennials. But Evita, why do you think then it is that Democrats are winning so much with younger women? You know, the Taylor Swift demographic, I guess, but that Donald Trump is doing so well with younger men. Well, let me just start by saying that I don't think Tim Walz is a masculine man.

I don't think any young men are looking to him as a role model. This is the guy that put tampons in the boys' bathroom. And he was also charged with making a city safe, the state of Minnesota, and he let it burn to the ground during BLM rioting. So that's something to take note of. But I want to get to the real heart of this. I think that third wave feminism has really disrupted the natural order between men and women. And I think men feel really lost in modern society. This idea that the future is female, it's turned out to be female domination over the masculine. And we're experiencing this mass feminization of society, encouraging men to be more effeminate, telling them to cry more, don't be too masculine, don't be too assertive, Don't sit a certain way. Don't have male-only spaces.

And they're even being told that their very nature, right, masculinity is toxic. And you have the system itself set up against them with scholarships and college admissions being rigged against men, particularly white men. And you're seeing men just give up. You have male suicide, depression, anxiety. It's through the roof. Men make up 80% of suicides in America. And a lot of guys are just saying, you know, we need to return to normalcy. We need to return to order. And that's why I think the phrase make America great again,

whether you think it's dumb or not, it has a real effect with men who feel like the culture does not respect them and that their unique contributions to society as men are not respected either. We need to return to the past and the normalcy of times before. Go ahead, Parker. What do you think? I don't think Make America Great Again is dumb. I think it's dangerous. I think a lot of this idea of what Trump is pushing as masculinity is actually toxic. I've never had somebody tell me that, you know, me playing basketball or hanging out with my friends at a bar is too masculine. But, you know, I truly think the ideals that Trump is pushing for what masculinity is, is more about hating women. You look at him on all these right-wing podcasts, they are misogynist. They're divisive. And honestly,

I do think Tim Walz is a masculine man. He's a state championship winning football coach. And, you know, I look up to him and I see a lot of other good men in my life where, you know what, it's not bad to be loving and caring and joyful. And I think to be masculine is, yeah, to be strong and tough, but to also be a person. And the ideal of what Trump and the right and people like Aiden Ross are pushing for men to be is in fact toxic. And yes, our politics is so divided and it's really frustrating. And there is an epidemic among young men. I see it. I see it. We all see it. I'm not going to pretend that the gender divide does not exist in politics. It is stronger, just about the strongest divide we have

in American politics. And it is more stark among young men because of COVID, because people are disconnected. And young men are going to college at way lesser rates. Anyone that watches this show knows that there is a crisis among young men. But I think them watching these far-right podcasts only isolates them more. I was watching the PBS NewsHour last night, and they had a former longtime Breitbart contributor on there. And she was talking about how much she regretted being a part of the far-right ecosystem and how it just encouraged people to get more and more far to the right, to push more and more dangerous rhetoric to get more attention, to boost each other's networks. And I think what Trump is doing is appealing to this problem among young men, this insecurity. He is using it and

taking advantage of young men and trying to lean on their fears and their insecurities to say, hey, we aren't heard. So we have to go back and make America great again. You know, some men see things as they are and ask why I want to go back. I want to dream of things as they could be. And I don't know how you can look at Tim Walton and think that's not what a good man looks like. I mean, you don't have to be, you know, the strongest guy in the world, the meanest, toughest guy. I think masculinity is being a good dad, a good neighbor, a good man looks like. I mean, you don't have to be, you know, the strongest guy in the world, the meanest, toughest guy. I think masculinity is being a good dad, a good neighbor, a good coach. I mean, I wouldn't trust Donald Trump or J.D. Pants.

Put yourself out of the Tim Walz discussion, though. And, you know, you even have liberals who are talking about this. Let's put D3, please, up on the screen. Hassan actually put this out. I think he's absolutely correct. Every young male interest online from gaming, fitness to culture and self-help is dominated by right-wing red-pilled manosphere commentary. He says they prey on the anxieties and insecurities of vulnerable young men. Take his last sentence out of there. And I think empirically he is correct. And I could say that from firsthand experience. So Evita, I mean, do you think that that is a positive development?

We've previously had people like Ali Beth Stuckey here on the show to kind of speak out against Andrew Tate's, you know, kind of influence amongst younger red-pilled, I guess, men. So how do you I mean, I think as a conservative, as a Christian, the best role models for young men are their fathers and I think also their father in heaven. I think you should, I don't they're imperfect. Right. They can never be perfect. And I but I also think that it's a net positive on society to have men start to take back some agency instead of just playing video games and watching porn and becoming incels. Like, I think that there is a real spiritual and emotional epidemic happening among young men and to have them be assertive, embrace their masculinity, even if it's through an imperfect avenue like Andrew Tate is a net positive on society. And I'll also say, you know, the figures that the left is elevating to young men are just objectively not positive. I mean, we talked about Tim Walz. Also, I mentioned Doug Emhoff, right? They want him to be some sort of masculine figure in this election cycle. And this guy impregnated his kid's nanny, right? And he can't control his sexual appetites. That's not masculine. That's not a winning message.

I have to cut you off there because it's not like Donald Trump has had the most, you know, by the book, Christian family life. No, no, no, no. Is he a good positive role model for young men? No, I agree with that. I mean, that's why I said this. These are these are imperfect avenues. But there was there's specifically been a push to have Doug Emhoff and Tim Walsh be the new new masculine figures on the left. And that's what I'm speaking to. Obviously, a big push to make Donald Trump the sort of epitome of the masculine ideal. But I also want to flip the script with you, Evita, because if we can put the numbers back on the screen, D2, you know, it's the gender gap goes both ways, right? So you have young men who favor

Trump by, you know, in this polling, somewhere around plus 10. young women favoring Kamala Harris by almost 40 points. So what is your analysis as a Republican woman of why so many young women are so turned off from the Republican Party and some of the rhetoric and ideology and positioning coming from there? Well, I can tell you why I think that they're attracted to the Democratic Party. I mean, I think that the abortion issue is and this abortion being the women's issue of our time has been really animating for a lot of young women. I personally don't agree with it, but I think the left has done a really effective job of making women feel like this is a right of theirs and that it is being taken away by

Republicans. I think they've done a really effective job messaging that way. But what I will also say is that I know a lot. I mean, I went to college. I graduated not that long ago. And the left-wing lifestyle has been really damaging on young women. I think a lot of women think that they want a Doug Emhoff to marry or be with. And the reality is that they don't. I think young women actually are attracted to masculine men. I think that this idea that they're going to be a boss babe and, you know, fill in this, this corp, climb the corporate ladder. I think a lot of these things actually have left women deeply unhappy. The most unhappy demographic in America is single women. The most mentally ill demographic in

America is liberal women. That means something. And so I think focusing on your love life, I think embracing tradition is the answer for a lot of young women who are also feeling disillusioned with life. It's not just young men. But unfortunately, they continue to vote for people who are promoting an ideology that is making people deeply unhappy. Parker, last thoughts to you. Well, I will say they are not perfect figures. These false dads that you, as the way you described it, that the right has, people like Andrew Tate and Donald Trump being a model for masculinity. I think, again, the gender divide in politics is a lot because the right is exploiting

young men. And I think young women are scared of people like Andrew Tate because he's a sexual predator. And when we are elevating people like that, people like Aiden Ross, who say racist and misogynist things on stream, when Donald Trump is giving them a platform appealing to them, pandering to those voters, it's disgusting. And he's taking advantage of the insecurities of young men. He's telling them that they aren't masculine enough. these bloggers, they're manipulating people to, you know, say that there is this crazy, you know, masculinity issue. And when the truth is, y'all are obsessed with Doug Emhoff and Tim Walsh being the ideal man. They're not who I look to for masculinity in my life. I'm not spending all day thinking about masculinity. I think I'm more thinking about how to do a good job

and how to get things done. I just be a man. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, there we go. You cut off for a second. You cut off for a brief moment. But hey, both of you guys, I really appreciate.

Yeah, I really appreciate having both of you today and enjoyed the conversation a lot. So I hope we can do it again. Thank you so much for your time this morning. Thanks, guys. We'll have links to Evita's show in the bio and to Parker's. Parker, what do you prefer? Instagram?

Should we put that in there? Instagram. All right, let's do that. TikTok, yeah. Hey, sorry, y'all. I really appreciate you having me. And Evita, thank you. It was really nice to talk to you.

I thought this was a good conversation. I enjoyed it. We enjoyed it. It was nice to talk to you too, Parker. Thanks, guys. Always a pleasure. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind voiceover,

the movement that exploded in 2024. VoiceOver is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal, and at times, it's far from what I originally intended it to be. These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover, to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships. I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other. It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together. How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me,

but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids,

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

of mistreatment and re-examining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves.

This medal is for the men who went down that day. It's for the families of those who did make it. I'm J.R. Martinez. I'm a U.S. Army veteran myself, and I'm honored to tell you the stories of these heroes on the new season of Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage from Pushkin Industries and iHeart Podcast. From Robert Blake, the first black sailor to be awarded the medal, to Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice.

These are stories about people who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor, going above and beyond the call of duty. You'll hear about what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. At the same time, I want to turn now to a major antitrust case against Google, of which the details are super interesting. Let's put this up there on the screen. Major blockbuster antitrust case again after a judge has ruled that the company stifled competition in search and

another trial opens on ad tech practices. So it's actually here in Northern Virginia. The company is facing a federal lawsuit alleging it illegally monopolizes the ad tech workplace. Second such case in less than a year. Opening arguments were made in the case on Monday saying Google has quote unlawful grip on the market for software used to buy and sell digital ads. The trial is going to last approximately a month in Northern Virginia, and it could face major implications for Google in terms of how it will get broken up and what the overall marketplace would look like, in addition to its even inability to buy bigger companies in the future. The search case must now, quote,

decide how to remedy Google's antitrust violations, which could mean limiting its ability to pay web browsers and phone manufacturers to be their default search engine. This includes a multi-billion dollar deal with Apple for the iPhone, with Samsung, of course, which runs the Android ecosystem. And it says, if the company loses in Virginia, back-to-back blows would crimp company revenue at a time when it is pouring money into artificial intelligence to compete with Microsoft. So that actually might be possibly the most

significant thing. Something that's happening right now with a lot of these big tech companies is that they're using ad monopoly or ad search dollars to fund what has now been a crapshoot so far in AI. It sounds stupid, but the theory for all of them is if you dump billions into this, whoever wins is going to roll up all the potential gains of AI. So the upside of the bet is so asymmetric that it's worth burning as much capital as you can right now. And it's not like they're more profitable than God. So it almost doesn't really matter. They're still posting record returns and doing share buybacks. But the problem is that if you turn off the spigot for Google, it would essentially wipe them out of the AI race. I actually support that because one of the things

I've been really concerned about is that the sheer cost of AI and of data centers just means that the big actors are the ones who are most likely to win. You have to spend tens of billions crunching all of this data on energy costs, all of the chips, NVIDIA, obviously that's why its profits are up so much. But that just means that the barrier to entry is so high that big tech almost certainly is going to win. Or what's happened with open AI is you just sign a major multi-billion dollar deal with Microsoft and you let them, you know, subsize all this stuff and you fuse the two companies together. Yeah. It's really concerning. No, that's absolutely the case. And I mean, it looks like it's sort of, it's already happening. You know, it is almost already

done that it's going to be, you know, the big players already are the ones that are spending the money, already are the ones that are pushing the tech forward. Just to go back to some of the details here, because this is something, of course, Matt Stoller of his big sub stack has been covering, and it is extremely consequential. And it's important to understand, Google is facing antitrust issues on multiple fronts. So there was a civil case against them that had to do with their control of the Android app store. It was a fight with Epic Games. Then the second suit, the second case against them from the DOJ that Sagar referenced was over its search monopoly. This is a third issue for Google regarding their ad sales. And so effectively, and I'll just read a little bit of how Stoller describes what they did and why there's a

legitimate case against them. He says, they locked in both sides of a network, engaged in surveillance, thwarted rivals through coercive practices and unlawful acquisitions, and then manipulated pricing across a host of markets. And that's the essence of the case. You know, they got into this ad space early. The original Google founders were actually very leery of pairing advertising with search because of the way that obviously is going to impact your results, right? If you've got companies that are buying ads, you're going to be incentivized to put results for those companies at the top of the page. Then the next layer is, okay, now we're going to place these ads actually on your website, which makes it even more of a conflict of interest. Then the next phase is, oh, we're

going to use all this data we're able to collect from those companies' websites and around the web to make it so it's basically impossible to compete with our ad product because we have so much data on these consumers and what it is that they want. Now, the counter case is the Google lawyers will argue, okay, yeah, we sell a lot of ads. Sure. But there are other places you can buy ads. It is a competitive market. You can buy ads on Instagram. You can buy ads on TikTok. There are any number of other alternative avenues you have to place and secure ad space. So that's going to be the argument Stoller, and I just, you know, I defer to him because he looks at these issues so much more closely. He seems to think that the government does have a pretty strong case against them,

even though Google does have some reasonable counterarguments. And what makes this so consequential is, okay, Google is already lost in the search case. Now if they lose in the ad case, what is the remedy going to be? What does that look like? Are we actually talking about breaking Google up into constituent parts? And that is at this point very plausible. Very plausible that that could be the end point here where Google will still be fine whatever core parts of the business they retain.

The different pieces of the business are profitable on their own. But it does really put a crimp in their style, as you're pointing out, Sagar, in terms of having the mass amount of cash available to them in order to continue investing in AI in the massive quantities that they have there. There's also a Kamala angle. Let's put this up there on the screen. Oh, this is very interesting. This is important and potentially very consequential is that Karen Dunn, who is one of the people who was preparing Kamala Harris for her debate, is also defending Google from a lawsuit being brought by the Biden-Harris administration. This is from the American Prospect, but multiple other outlets have also picked it up. She literally was prepping legal defense strategy

in Alexandria, Virginia courtroom for Google while also working at a law firm and being in the room for Kamala Harris debate preparation. There's probably no better visual into Washington politics than this. This is a busy lady right here. If that seems to you like a blatant conflict of interest, the Harris team would like to recommend you focus your attention elsewhere. Nothing to see. Because even the Trump campaign has now picked up on it and criticizing her for coziness with the big tech top lawyers. It especially is noteworthy to me because not only is this lawyer very close with institutional democratic circles. Yeah.

Kamala already has the problem of Tony West, who is her brother-in-law. She can't control who her family is, but I don't know if this is common. Do you always have your brother-in-law as a very close political advisor to you? Especially when he's a top lawyer for Uber and is a longtime connect to Silicon Valley and you were the Senator from California

and you have all these connections. So I do think that there is a very legitimate concern from Matt Stoll from the American Prospect and others that a lot of action on antitrust from the Biden administration could be ditched by Kamala just given who her circles are and who she's currently brought in around her for her closest, closest advisors. If we had a better politics, these are the sort of questions that obviously should be asked. And I mean, yeah, this is such a key question about, that I have, and that people who care about, you know, corporate power should have, about what a Kamala Harris administration would look like and what a Trump administration would look like. But, you know, they're, listen, on the one hand, I'm sympathetic to the moderates because you only get 90 minutes and there are these big, you know, you're going to ask about abortion, you're going to ask about the economy, you're going to ask

about immigration. But this is, you know, part of why we need more from these candidates. We need more time from these candidates so we can really understand what their plans are. Kamala Harris is kind of an empty vessel, right? So it makes all these people she surrounds herself with more consequential. That's why I was, you know, really excited about the pick of Tim Walz because of what that indicated with regards to his agenda in the state of Minnesota. That's why I was very pleased to see Brian Deese, who's been one of the better economic advisors to Biden and has been, you know, really crucial pushing forward some of the best parts of his agenda and I think was probably involved in some of the better parts of Kamala's announced agenda, the price gouging, the housing piece, all of the child, $6,000 child tax credit,

all of those pieces. And why, on the other hand, it's troubling to see the closeness of someone like Karen Dunn, who is a longtime Democratic Party. She helped, I think, Hillary prepare for her debates, which I don't know why, but whatever. It worked out in this case. Kamala obviously came in and did a good job. She helped prepare Merrick Garland for his confirmation hearings. She is this longtime Democratic Party associated operative. And, you know, the closeness with Kamala, not just in terms of the debate prep, but as a larger advisor, yeah, that's troubling. And there's been this billionaire-led push to get rid of Lena Kahn and undercut the fantastic trust-busting work that the Biden administration has been doing. And it still is a question mark what the direction is. So that's why this may seem like inside baseball.

It is inside baseball. It is inside baseball. But that's why we have to pay attention to these things, because we aren't getting direct answers about what Kamala's priorities would be specifically with regard to corporate power. And so this is one of those things that has to be seen as troubling. There's also a wild, like, just inside D.C. story here, if you read this whole American Prospect story, because this particular law firm is where Jonathan Cantor, who now heads the DOJ antitrust division and is leading these cases against Google and other giants in various sectors, he used to work there. And Karen Dunn comes in, and she's going to represent Google. And he actually was representing some of the people who were opposing Google in this suit. And so they were going to make him give up his clients, and then he ends up going to the DOJ.

So now this law firm is... So there's like a law firm conflict of interest there too, because if you can imagine, they're handling the other side of this case. So they're privy to all of the strategy and the research and all of the planning that's going on on the other side of the case. And then now they're representing Google. So the government was arguing like,

this is really, they have this massive conflict of interest. It's a really, it's really a huge problem. The judge took those arguments pretty seriously as well. So anyway, a little, little insight into the swamp here and how all of this works. That's right. All right. Thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate you. We will have any breaking news. We'll cover it. Otherwise, we'll see you all on Monday. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. I'm also the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. You might hear that term and think it's about celibacy, but to me, voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and

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