It Could Happen Here - Harris V. Trump: The Thriller in Wherever They Filmed This Debate

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

Robert, Garrison, and Sophie react to the first debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Sources: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/goldman-sachs-sees-biggest-boost-us-economy-harris-win-2024-09-04/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-684oJSbus&t=399s https://www.journal-news.com/news/police-say-no-reports-of-pets-stolen-eaten-in-ohio-city-after-viral-social-media-post/CYH474B3HZBBNLSX2CQMA37EVE/ https://archive.org/details/factcheck-usa-haitian-eating_202409 https://www.instagram.com/taylorswift/p/C_wtAOKOW1z/?hl=en https://slate.com/life/2024/09/taylor-swift-travis-kelce-game-chiefs-2024-brittany-mahomes.html https://substack.com/@ettingermentumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. CoolZone Media. thursday cool zone media uh what's not doing great my democracy although better than a couple of months ago maybe if we're comparing this debate to the last debate i think the uh the short answer everyone will agree with is better debate my god i'm robert evans with me tonight for you know a quick reaction to everything that went on uh in case you don't want to sit through it yourself is garrison davis and sophie lichterman yeah this was like a real debate we haven't had one of these in a long time

no no maybe never i can't actually think of a time in in my life it's certainly not in my adult life where we have had one, I don't know, you know what, maybe I'm not remembering the Romney one well enough, but certainly it's been a long time since we've got, this was really was about the issues to a significant extent. Not all of the issues I would have picked to talk about,

but there was a lot of discussion of issues and policy. And like actual moderating. And actual moderating, yes. Live fact checks, which I've never seen to this extent at any presidential debate ever. It was almost shocking to see the moderators actually do their job. That was the highlight of the night for me. Yeah, and if you didn't catch the debate, it was hosted by Disney's ABC. And the moderators were Lindsay Davis and David Muir.

And both of them each did a very decent job, I believe, with live fact checking when Trump said some very out of pocket, unhinged comments. They deferred to him a couple of times when he would demand to be allowed to speak that I wasn't thrilled with. But yeah, it was it was made up for, you know, one of the the things going on in right wing media the last couple of days has been this claim that Haitian immigrants to the United States are eating people's pets. We'll probably do an episode on this. It's worth covering. Like it's all it's all lies. It's like evil racist lies. But Trump brought it up in detail during the debate and got pressed pretty effectively by David, who essentially what I'm saying, like, well, that's just not true.

Like we've talked to the city manager. There's no reports of anyone's pets. Yeah, you I just want to, for a Reuters fact check, this started from a Facebook post and then determined that there was no evidence to this claim. And that didn't stop the likes of J.D. Vance and other horrible individuals spreading it on the internet and Donald Trump announcing it to be true multiple times during the biggest presidential debate of our lifetime. As they kept saying, it seems every debate is the most historic debate that's ever happened. Yeah. I'm going to say this one wasn't. Sorry. The last one definitely was because one of the guys who was in it is no longer running for president. That's fair. that one was a little historic yeah do we want to get into a little bit of the pre-show at all or sure we can talk about the pre-show first yeah why not why don't you start there sophie during the pre-show fox news was

talking about how the trump campaign says that he will only go low on the issues and he did not they also had guy who is on tv way too much byron donalds where he said that kamala we know biden is not running the country your vp now basically what they they kind of just did the same sad talking points and then cnn did i mean this is not that interesting to be honest like cnn talked about how important this was and chris wallace specifically said that trump's biggest strength is he doesn't talk like a politician i don't think that helped him tonight to be honest not tonight well you know to be honest here's what i would say that was true of why he won that played a major role in winning but he talks like a politician now because politics has reordered itself around trumpism particularly on the right but even harris and walls are a little trumpier than certainly any

democratic politician was before this election right and the most interesting thing that was said in in both of these things to me, which will bring us to the start of the debate, CNN was heavily focused on the fact that President Trump is almost a foot taller than Vice President Harris and asking if he will take advantage of that. He wouldn't even meet her across the stage to shake her hand. She walked all the way over to him. I genuinely think he did not want to shake her hand. No, he didn't. And I thought that was, again, this all seems like very petty stuff to talk about.

But this is the pettiest man alive. And yeah, like this stuff actually does matter. And I think it was a pretty intelligent strategic move. I think it started off the night with him off balance. She immediately put him off balance and pissed him off. And he didn't really recover. He had some moments. He certainly was not weak everywhere. I think he was he was like his economy. Everything he says about like tariffs is like it's a nonsense policy that would devastate like large chunks of this country. But I think his messaging was pretty effective there.

It probably is going to work for a lot of moderates. I thought his messaging on Afghanistan was really effective. I think he probably won that segment of the debate just in terms of what's going to play better. Those were the two, definitely. Right. But he didn't lose every clash they had. He never got momentum, and he was never able to build momentum. Even when he had a win, he was never able to tie that into a greater pattern like he was with Biden. He was never able to get any kind of weight behind him. He just kind of was wobbling the whole night. Which I think at this scale is the first we've seen from him.

No, it was definitely Kamala going in hard for the handshake at the very, like very start of the debate was her equivalent of Trump following around Hillary Clinton on that debate stage. Yup. It threw him off balance. He wasn't expecting it. It immediately kind of gave her the upper hand, literally. Wow. And controlling where the conversation was going to go. Like Trump refused to look at Kamala throughout the entire debate. He only looked straight ahead. Kamala was often addressing Trump directly, looking at him,

and then also turning towards the cameras. Trump was just straight-faced the entire time. He never looked at her or acknowledged her visually. It was kind of odd to see. And throughout the debate, he just kept getting really angry and almost like childish. Harris maintained her ability to present herself as the more hopeful candidate and by and large, like led the debate. Yeah. Yeah. He kept having to like follow her. He just came off as like an angry child.

Now, she did not answer some of the questions about like her policy shifts, but she was able to deflect those questions and yeah trump to go off topic to talking about like crowd sizes and rumors about eating dogs trump wasn't able to actually talk about what his plans for the country were and harris just kept him like complaining about weird nonsense going off on tagents and always going back to talking about immigrants he just he just couldn't control the conversation at all. No. And the crowd size stuff, he was very clearly on the verge of losing it there, which was interesting to see. CNN claimed during their post show that that moment was when he never recovered after the crowd size stuff.

Yeah, I think that's probably accurate. It's fair, yeah. That's a fair analysis from CNN. I would say that he never recovered from the opening handshake. But that's when it was kind of undeniable, the crowd size thing. Because he kept trying to get back on the rails

and I think he gave up. And the clearest example of that was his closing statements, which I know we're kind of jumping around here, but Kamala's closing statements were the kind of closing statements you give if you are trying to become the president and trump's you can contrast it to the way he was talking during

his big rnc speech which was certainly much too long but was clearly intentional for the most part was a better speech yeah it's like there was some ad-libbing there he did some but this was clearly not written down ahead of time it did not sound like that it made no sense because yeah it was nonsense kamala's ending statement was talking about how this is a fight for two different versions of what this country will look like you know a very like politician-y speech trump didn't talk about himself at all he just was complaining that that if Kamala Harris has so many great ideas for the country, why hasn't she enacted them? And the answer is because she's not the president.

Yes. But he did not talk about his own version of the country. He was just complaining about how much he didn't like Kamala Harris and that Kamala Harris is promising to do great things, even though that she's not like doing them right now as vice president. And that was his messaging. At least in the pre-show that I watched and in a lot of like the punditry I read before this, the thing that kept getting reinforced was that this has to be a debate about the

issues. The Americans that are still undecided want to hear what people's plans are for the country. Now, do I believe that's the case? I'm not necessarily the most optimistic about how seriously Americans take political policy. But if that is the case, Trump blew his chance to talk about what he wants to do as president because he, number one, was extremely defensive. He spent more time denying things that he didn't wasn't going to do like it. She got him very good on 2025 that has proven to

be an extremely effective line of attack and he was really he had to he had to not just deny that he planned to in like in state project 2025 as president but like he had to repeatedly claim i've never read it like i don't know what's in it i don't want to read it i have nothing to do with project 2025 yeah and quote you know in a way that sounded almost panicked yeah right like where he he really i'm kind of surprised they didn't give him a better response on that that they didn't really drill that down and i wonder if they did and he just was so flustered and pissed that he didn't do it but he certainly did not have an effective response to that one. And when he kept repeatedly being asked to give his policy on how he would like fix

the Affordable Care Act or replace it, he just punted. He just kept saying it's terrible. It's like, okay. Yeah, it's terrible, but I can't do anything about it. So I'm not going to repeal it. But like, we've got to do better. It was a really weak answer.

One thing I found interesting is that the last debate was full of so many ad breaks and we went full like... A full hour before ads. And speaking of ads, we have gone a full 13 minutes and that means it's time for us to take an ad break.

gone a full 13 minutes. And that means it's time for us to take an ad break. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives.

I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents.

Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit,

the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me in a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom,

and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Black Lit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Black Lit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hola mi gente, it's Honey German and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators, sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper

topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we are back. Yeah. Can I get to one thing first? Yeah.

Because I just came across this. It's about the Haitian immigrants. PBS put up a documentary literally a day or two ago. Yeah, one day ago talking about this and they interview a a factory owner in springfield ohio about what he thinks of haitian migration he's like i wish a lot more of them would come they're the only people in town who don't do drugs and come to work on time i just thought that was a great great springfield ohio representation i hope that guy's having a good night. Great quote there, Robert.

Yeah. Gary, what do you want to talk about next? I now in this middle section just kind of want to go over some of what they actually talked about during the debate. A few of kind of the main topics. They started with the economy.

Kamala was talking about how there's a shortage of homes. The cost of housing is just too high. And she's going to have tax cuts for families and warned about Trump's quote-unquote sales tax that would rise costs for households by nearly $4,000 a year. Now, this is in reference to Trump's tariffs, which he then talked about next, saying, no, they're not sales tax, they're tariffs, and that countries will pay us back for all that we've done in the world. It's insane.

Which will mainly mean that our economy will do worse and things will be more expensive for us. I thought Kamala was pretty strong during that section in terms of her response. She directly mentioned Goldman Sachs, which is something that's come out in the last couple days from Reuters.'s that the Goldman Sachs biggest boost to U.S. economy from a Harris win talking about U.S. economic growth would likely get the biggest boost in the coming two years from Democrats headed by Kamala Harris winning the White House and Congress in November's election and she specifically like called out to that and be her being actually able to call out to something like that in a debate

was something we i haven't seen in a while in a debate and so that was something that i particularly took note of yeah actually slight relevant authorities on economic issues yeah yeah she did a lot of that she definitely had her moments where she would avoid responses i noted she she consistently refused to answer are there limitations you think should be in place on when people can get abortions right yeah she just kind of did not answer that one now to be frank i think that's a bullshit question and i think her redirection was pretty effective yeah but as a general rule when she answered questions she cited statistics and like studies and did a pretty good job. Now, again,

how well is that going to matter? We're still very early in the kind of pundit cycle here. It seems pretty clear that most of the mainstream media, including Fox, agrees Harris won the night. Polymarket predicts a 97% chance that Harris is judged the winner in the debate snap polls, which I found out from Nate Silver's quick reaction, where he also notes, quote, Bitcoin prices are down, which also implies a loss for Trump. That's very funny. I love that Bitcoin's a good political needle to see where the country's going. I'll tell you, the happiest, assuming that we don't usher in a new fascist or, you know,

a significantly worse state in November, the best thing about it is going to be not needing to pay attention to Nate Silver for another four years. Yeah. But yeah, you know, he did make one other point that I found kind of funny, which was his argument that like, well well trump is a lot taller the stature gap in terms of physical size was also notable especially with harris having a shorter podium oh my god sometimes you'll hear people say that you should watch the debate with the sound off and by that measure it was much closer than with the sound on who says that name

who has ever said that who who's gonna watch the debate with the sound off? Stick to polls, man. What the fuck is wrong with you? These debates used to be audio only. They were radio broadcasts. That's how this tradition started. That is so unwell of him to say. What are you doing? Think that in your head and don't put that on the internet.

He is a degenerate gambler. Yes. Every second Nate Silver isn't writing a blog post or looking at polls. head and don't put that on the internet he is a good life advice yes every second nate silver isn't writing a blog post or looking at polls he is he is sitting in a a shitty bar in like fremont street vegas yeah playing like mid stakes poker so he probably does consume a lot of television with the sound off but to go back to economy, so as Kamala was talking about her plans for like tax credits and tax cuts,

helping people buy homes, Trump was just talking about tariffs and immediately brought up that one of the things that's affecting the economy is that there's millions of people pouring in from prisons

and insane asylums, taking jobs from Black and Hispanic and union workers. Now these immigrants are taking over towns and buildings violently and it's just immediately that's that that that's what that's what he goes to because he has really just nothing else he also said people can't buy bacon cereal and eggs cereal cereal of all the foods to choose cereal oh so yeah tried to talk about like

inflation and stuff. It just didn't go very well, especially because inflation has rose so much during the pandemic when he was president. It just didn't play very well at all. Immediately, it was clear that Kamala was kind of the front runner. The next topic was abortion,

which Kamala also did very well in. And Trump just really lost it because he couldn't stop talking about how Tim Walz wants to execute babies after birth. And this was the main thing he talked about. He was very defensive about his stance on a national abortion ban. Moderators asked him about his contradictory abortion statements, about how he's voting for an abortion ban in Florida, but is claiming to not want one nationally. And Trump just didn't know how to talk about this topic very well and just kept saying that Democrats are evil because they want

to do nine-month abortions, seven-month, eight-month abortions, post-birth executions. They will execute the baby. Which was, I believe this was like the first fact check of the night. And this is what kind of really scared Trump is he was like, oh, they're actually going to call me on this stuff moderator said that there's there's no states where you can kill babies after birth and trump just didn't know what to do kamala brought up project 2025 and their plans for a national abortion ban trump made a little funny comment kind of throwing uh jd vance under the bus oh my god statements about trump vetoing a national abortion ban if it was passed by congress trump said that he actually hadn't talked to vance about that

i didn't discuss it with jd by the way i've been taking a break from twitter but i did catch a good post recently jd vance before the debate made a claim that a bunch of people from springfield who he won't name have reached out to him him talking about Haitians eating their pets. And then ended it by saying, like, it's possible this will prove to be untrue. And someone just, quote, tweeted that and said, every day I see something that makes me understand why Vance's mom traded him for a couple of Perk 30s.

Incredible. Kamala basically said most of her regular talking points on abortion she you know would like for the house and the senate to put abortion protections into law and she would sign that bill and wants to restore the protections of roe v wade and also talked about how it's absurd to be talking about post-birth executions and how this is like insulting. Yep. She's correct. Thank you so much. Yeah. Next thing was the border. Very similar to both their RNC and their DNC speeches. Kamala talking about this kind of very conservative border bill that Trump shot down for political gain and then invited us to attend a Trump rally where he talks about fictional characters like

Hannibal Lecter and how windmills cause cancer and that people leave early and he never talks about you, the American people. So this was obviously a giant bait for Trump, which he took immediately. He just couldn't stop talking about people actually come to my rallies way more than they go to your rallies. They don't leave early. You have to bus in people to your rallies. And he claims she pays people to attend her rallies as well. He got so flustered is that this is what he started talking about the eating dogs thing. It's because he got so flustered on this line of argument about his crowd size that he just had to immediately talk about how there's immigrants eating dogs. Yeah.

Because he just didn't know what to do. eating dogs yeah because he has he just didn't know what to do i mean it's actually kind of just a a very like on the nose but perfect representation of how racism works culturally a lot of the time which is like white man feels aggrieved and threatened and immediately turns to attacking an entire group of people based on their race like like It really was the most direct example of that that you could possibly get. He felt vulnerable and so he attacked a group of people for eating cats. He did a blood libel. I think a big part of

Kamala's strategy here was to paint Trump as an illegitimate figure in politics, like someone who's not responsible to lead the military. And who's dangerous, yeah. She bragged about the endorsement of 200 republicans including dick cheney hated that moment like no but you know is is not great but we'll see if it plays politically well it might work yeah it doesn't

play well for us but yes that doesn't mean it doesn't overall play well unfortunately a lot of her statements seemed like she was trying to court both the NatSec people and the courts. If there's ever a contested election, she wants those people to be on her side. And there was a lot of comments throughout the debate that was kind of pointing to that and showing how Trump's just an unreliable and dangerous figure to be in control of national security. and dangerous figure to be in control of national security. Trump went on this interesting tangent about how he was actually good because he fired a whole bunch of those Republicans because they were bad at their jobs. I thought it was one of his more effective moments. That was something we've never really seen done before, openly attacking military leaders in that fashion.

Yeah. I didn't read it as attacking military leaders. I read it as him specifically stating because Harris had been talking about the Republicans from the Bush White House who had endorsed her. And I read it as Trump saying I brought in a lot of like rhinos, what he would call rhinos. But I brought in a lot of like old Republican veterans and fired them because they were bad at their job. And I thought that was one where I was like, well, yeah, they were, you know, like you're not wrong. You didn't replace them with anyone better, but like they, they were, in fact, you, you did hire a bunch of Republican like officials who had a long history working in other administrations who sucked at what they did, you know, like not

wrong. Now it's interesting to have him say, I brought in a lot of people. Some of them were good and some of them were bad. Yes. I don't think I've ever heard a former president admit that during a debate. He was like, we don't talk about the good people. And it's like, well, why don't you do that now during your debate? Yeah. Here's your chance. J.D. Vance. Great guy. Great guy. Great guy.

So J.D. Vance, great guy. Never met him. Don't know who he is. Who are you talking about? Never talked to him. One of the more interesting questions the moderator asked was just directly asking Trump, how would you go about your massive deportation program? How would you actually go about deporting 11 million or more undocumented immigrants? And Trump did not have a real answer answer to this question trump said that you know there's actually way more of them here than what you would think south america is sending all their criminals here it was really interesting because he he said they say 15 million it's really 21 million and then he said and it's a lot more than 21 million it's okay how many is it donald

um the moderators challenged him on like rising crime rates uh saying that the fbi is actually you know showing that crime is going down and trump then claimed that the fbi crime rates are fraudulent fraudulent which is the first time that you've seen at least that i've seen him talk about it that way like usually on fox news they will like mention that but they'll be like but people feel crime is going up so that's what really matters even if even if the fbi claims it's going down people people still feel less safe and but he just openly said that those numbers are just like fake like the fbi is just like lying saying that they aren't counting crimes in like the biggest major

cities the conla's response to this was saying that that's rich coming from a convicted criminal so we got that first like prosecutor girl boss moment k-hive rise up trump complained about all of like the legal witch hunts he's been facing and said that quote i probably took a bullet to the head because of the things they say about me unquote which is just a fascinating way to frame that unhinged thing to say it is especially given how many americans don't think he was shot in the head you just know his advisors were like what the fuck like what are you saying right now oh fuck oh they are drinking tonight oh they they are drinking tonight yeah yeah and that's not even like the most unhinged thing he said because the most unhinged thing he said the

entire night came shortly after that which was she wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens in prison based she wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens in prison she wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens in prison and the leader says she's a radical liberal i believe that a president can perform surgery if that president wants to sophie uh and i support kamala harris's policy you should have voted for ben carson then i did i write him in every year okay jesus christ no you don't there was a good uh tweet that remarked that it just sounds like he's talking like he's playing cards against humanity he's just like change he's talking like he's playing Cards Against Humanity. It does! He's just changing out different words

like transgender, aliens, prison, surgery. I believe what he's referencing here is that both Fox News and Trump's campaign team the past few days have been talking about how in 2020 Kamala made a statement basically saying that, yeah, we should offer gender-affirming healthcare to people

in prison. If you're in yeah, we should offer gender-affirming healthcare to people in prison. If you're in prison, we should not deny healthcare to you just because you're locked up. That's what he's talking about. That is specifically what he's referring to. But it just sounds just absolutely batshit. Let's have another quick ad

break. We will come back. I want to talk a little bit about January 6th, foreign policy, Israel-Palestine, and then some of Trump's and Kamala's post-debate statements made to the press. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their

brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me in a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves audiobooks while commuting or running errands,

for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hola mi gente, it's Honey German and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities,

artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators, sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love. Each week we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking

down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun El Te Caliente and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again a podcast by Honey German where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. We are so back. So back. It's so back. Just like the Harris campaign. Kind of.

Kind of. Kind of. She's been slowly kind of like flatlining in some of these polls i do want to talk about that a little before we get into this because i it has been interesting she's been losing kind of national like popular vote momentum and that has been narrowing the swing states have not really narrowed in the same way. Yeah. Which is not to say that she is a clear favorite. Everything basically is within the margin of error. She's barely ahead, but she's still ahead. It has been a really interesting change.

It has not been the same. There's a newsletter I check on occasionally for stuff like this, Ettinger-Mentum, that made what I thought was an interesting point, which was that it's possible that a lot of that has to do with the fact that the national popular vote has been narrowing as a result of the ads the Republicans have been pumping out, because there wasn't a real strong consensus about who Harris was, and now that's growing. But in a lot of these swing

states, which are red states, people have been living under Republicans and are just a lot less kind of vulnerable to being drawn away by that kind of propaganda because they know what it's like. No, I mean, especially if you're looking at North Carolina, you're looking at Georgia. Those are two battlegrounds that the Harris campaign is targeting. I can definitely see that being an aspect. So the mods turned the questions towards january 6th trump immediately claimed that nobody on the other side was killed only ashley babbitt was killed by a bad police officer very ironic but easily the only cop i'll go to bat for the best shoot in 2021 by a lot by a mile um and he then complained that like why haven't blm rioters been prosecuted in seattle and minneapolis which of course they have they are still they're still

arresting people man i've spent time in courtrooms with people like yes i was shocked he did not call out portland it is interesting that he went for seattle not Portland. I guess it maybe just says a lot about his media diet, that he just maybe got a lot more Chaz stuff than he did Portland stuff. I don't know. He certainly did go after Kamala a few times for being pro-defend the police back in 2020. He really tried. He tried several times. He clearly...

She never took the bait. No. Yeah, she never took the bait. And that must have been one that his advisors really pushed him on. Yeah. Like, they must have said, you'll get her on this. It was both that and her previous, like, fracking policies, which she has, like, backtracked on.

And you have to if you want to win Pennsylvania. So, like, I understand why they're doing it. It sucks because the planet's burning, but right now they're trying to win Pennsylvania. The debate was in Pennsylvania. That's why she has backtracked on those policies. I think it's smart to deflect from that, at least right now. But yeah, that's not surprising to me. Now, I think Kamala did a pretty good statement about January 6th. She said, I was at the Capitol on J6. He incited a violent mob. And now she got kind of emotional. I was at the Capitol on J6.

He incited a violent mob, and now she got kind of emotional. She said that 140 officers were injured and some died. Trump was impeached, which is something that just hasn't been talked about very much. It's like, yeah, Trump has been impeached. Why isn't that talked about very much? Because so many other things have happened that everyone has forgotten that he was literally impeached. Yeah. Multiple times. And then she pointed to January 6th as like not the only incident.

No. She pointed back to Charlottesville, talked about Trump's statements about Proud Boys and how the Proud Boy militia was told to stand back and stand by. And she kind of closed this little January 6th monologue by saying like, we don't have to go back to this. He says that if the election doesn't go to his liking, there will be a bloodbath. We don't have to go back. And she is positioning herself as like as an alternative towards like that type of chaos.

Trump got very mad at this. Very mad. I'm talking about how Fox News debunked the Charlottesville quote. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure. Yeah, I'm sure. I know one other like fact checker. I think it's Snopes is like, oh, actually, the Charlottesville quote is different in context. And at least a whole bunch of fact checkers that like I know one other like fact checker, I think it's Snopes, is like, actually the Charlottesville quote is different

in context and at least a whole bunch of fact checkers that like I know and extremism reporters have kind of gotten on Snopes ass for this because it's very clear. It's a very like disingenuous way of framing what he was trying to say. We all know what happened on Charlottesville. We all know what he was talking about. Yeah,

Cataboo is a really good video on it if you want to watch more. Yes, she does. And then the moderators talked about how Trump has been falsely claiming for three and a half years that he won the 2020 election, but now says that he lost by a whisker. And Trump was startled by this. He's like, did I actually say

that? I said that. I said that. No, no, no, no, no. That was sarcastic. And it was like the only time I've ever heard him he sounded genuinely like confused like maybe there was a little old man but we were like oh shit what have i been saying he's like no no no that was a sarcastic statement i i still think i won the 2020 election yeah and he really and i that was one of the more effective moderator moments because you could see the moderator was like oh what, what a gift I've been given.

I just want to make very clear. Let's let's have him say let's have him confirm what he means like three times and then we could move on. Kabla had a good reply talking about how like we can't have a candidate who's confused about how the elections work and being like, like, like she is correct. Yes. Come on. Great response um and then trump immediately went on to defend victor orban yes the president of hungary saying some people call him a strong man because he's a really tough guy he loves the strong man thing that was my favorite part because he clearly misunderstood no strong man is a term for dictator yes yeah he he just that was quite a moment for this country it was just the fumbling and bumbling i love it you know what overall good time except for one thing that really sucked which is several things that really sucked which is whenever it came to something

where a huge number of human lives were involved, almost always it got kind of brushed over. Ukraine, I will say, I don't think it got a very good set of questions. It was the same shit that they've been asking both sides, right? The Dems get asked, how are you going to actually conclude this conflict in a favorable way? And the Republicans get asked, are you just going to abandon ukraine right like that's the gist of what both candidates are are being pushed on and the gist of their responses is unchanged from everything we've heard earlier this year right and despite being asked multiple times trump refused to answer if it was in the world's best

interest if ukraine wins the war he was asked that several times and he he just he just said i want the war to end not an answer and there wouldn't have been a war if i'd been president he said enough this wouldn't have happened yeah this wouldn't have happened that's his claim but you know harris did not have an answer because there isn't one no no this is an incredibly difficult war right now i say, I think like the actual thing she should have done and the thing that Biden should have done is say, like, we are removing all extant limitations on the weapons that we ship Ukraine and how they can use them. You know, at this point, they have now invaded Russian territory and occupied hundreds of miles of it. Like, you know, that was something I was interested in that she should have hit on and did not, which Trump brought up the fact that Russia has nuclear weapons and a matter of like, we can't push him too much. Who knows what they'll do? Right. That was clearly what he wanted people to take from him bringing up the fact that Russia has a nuclear arsenal. And Harris didn't bring up like, yeah, you know, they invaded Russia a couple of weeks back. No nukes like this kind of threat is clearly something that the Putin regime wants the international

community to have. But when push comes to shove, he's not suicidal. And the idea that like Putin is going to start nuking people if Ukraine is able to fire missiles at Russian fuel depots or whatever, I just don't think is supported by how he's actually performed so far but at any rate at least ukraine got a decent amount of time it was one of the things that they talked about more in this debate gaza got one very quick question you could tell the moderators wanted to move the fuck past it as fast as possible and both trump and harris wanted to get past yeah harris more so than trump harris stayed with about the same statement she made at the DNC. Yep.

She first mentioned October 7th, talking about how far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. The war must end. We need a ceasefire deal. The hostage is out. We need to chart a course for a two-state solution and rebuild Gaza. We will always give Israel the ability to defend itself, especially in relation to Iran.

That was most of her statement. Which is nothing new from her. No. trump first tried to skip the question and just immediately talk about russia uh he then said that kamala hates israel and she also hates the arab people the whole area will will be bombed under her presidency saying that if he gets elected as president-elect he will he will solve the war and then he just talked about like how oil pipelines are important it was so weird interesting to me that he tried to skip this when this is one of the things she's weakest on and one of the things but i think it may just be that like americans overwhelmingly at this point do not think israel is categorically in the wrong they think that israel is often in the wrong in this war

and has been killing a lot of innocent people. And so it may just be that he knows that like, this isn't really a great issue for me either. Let's move back to something. But it was interesting to me that he didn't have any kind of concerted attack. Like saying she hates israel and arabs is such a strange tactic to take here and i don't see how he thought it could help him who are you trying to appeal to

right how is this supposed to get you a vote what vote does this get you that you don't have there's just no way that was like what was in his campaign prep no that yeah that was not advised there's no way yeah kamala did have a good line here to think points towards her like courting uh that sec people she said it's well known that trump is weak on foreign policy and national security he's pro dictator yeah yeah trump just doesn't have any way to answer that because yeah he does want to be a dictator he just yeah he just defended the president of hungary like like a few minutes ago yeah like called him a strong man and said that that means he's tough well he also she had a good line about how like he's not going to be tough with these people they're just going to like say something nice to him and then he'll immediately want to be their friends like yeah there was a that was a decent little jab she got a few of those in more

than a few i want to talk about since few of those in, more than a few. I want to talk about, since we're kind of running long, just a little bit at the end here. After the debate ended, I caught this. I don't think you guys did. But Trump went down to what's called the no-spin zone, which is just a thing Fox did. I think it started in the Hannity show.

I caught the Fox immediate after the debate response. Do you want me to get into that? It's just one quick thing. Sure. Yeah, so immediate response from Fox was, Vice President Harris was clearly well-prepared, but she was never held to the fire. It felt like ABC was helping her out.

He went down a few cat and dog holes instead of rabbit holes. and not rabbit holes. That was a direct thing to the eating pets thing. Make no mistake about it. Trump had a bad night. Yeah, that's interesting. Then just talked about how she was calm and prepared and whatnot. But then, you know, Hannity came on and did his Hannity thing.

And then I'm no spin zone. That must haveannity thing and then i i'm no spin zone that that must have been why trump was heading down to the no spin zone so what happened you've got this it's the floor of where they did the debate so everyone is everywhere tons of media and trump there's like this huge scrum around him and i'm watching on abc and the abc anchors just start screaming at him from like donald don mr, trying to get him to answer their questions. And like everyone is doing this. And he eventually like gives a statement where he says, well, this was my favorite debate. This was like the best debate I've ever had.

I clearly won. Someone was like, so are you going to do a second debate? Harris says she wants another debate. And he's like, well, she just wants another debate because she lost. So I don't know if I'm going to do another debate and he's like well she just wants another debate because she lost so i don't know if i'm gonna do another debate i found that very funny i found it kind of shameful how the abc guys just kept howling at him to to give them some attention in the middle of this very crowded room there was no way he could hear you he's an old man guys have some self-fucking respect you're supposed to be journalists and you had a colleague down there

who was actually asking him questions. But anyway. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, there wasn't a ton there other than him kind of desperately trying. And one of them did make the good point that, like, he is claiming I obviously won the debate as he heads down to the spin zone to spin his loss, which is like, yeah, that's not not a position of strength. No, I don't know that you would have been doing this if this had been a clean win but it certainly wasn't and yeah like i i think tonight went pretty badly for him yeah yeah cnn was like foaming at the mouth happy or sad cnn was thrilled they're foaming at the mouth for kamala harris that nobody else has done what she's been able to

do and then and then something else happened that uh made cnn and msnbc thrilled and ruined one trump advisor's day i i'm sure taylor swift endorsed kamala harris for president right after the debate and if only we could have seen that trump advisor whispered in his ear that he did not, in fact, despite that AI fake endorsement, get endorsed by childless cat lady Taylor Swift. That's so interesting to me that she couched her endorsement in. I am doing this because of the AI. That Trump kept retweeting. Yeah. Retruthing. Sorry. Retruthing. Retruthing. Yes, you're right. I apologize. I didn't mean to. I'm not going to make that joke. Anyway, Garrison, what were you going to say?

No, just that. That's all. Just retruthing. It's interesting to me that she did specifically couch it. It's because of what he did with this AI video that I felt like I had a need to come out and say who I'm voting for. Yeah. Also, she has a cute cat. I hadn't seen her cat before. It's also that. But because I pay attention to Taylor Swift news, she was getting hammered a little bit in the last week because one of her good friends, Brittany Mahomes, who's the wife of Patrick Mahomes, who is Taylor Swift's boyfriend, Travis Kelsey's teammate.

Jesus Christ. You're welcome. Has liked several of Trump's posts and- Truth, truths. No, I don't know where it was to be honest. I actually don't think it was his posts. I think it was posts about him. Pro-Trump posts.

On Instagram. Very important to this election, yes. And then they were seen together at the US Open, and the girl bosses were very unhappy with Taylor about this. So I think that also played into the timing. Robert, just so you know,

Know Your Taylor Swift Facts by Sophie Lichterman. Sorry, Sophie. Well, you were talking about washed-up musician Taylor Swift. Oh my god! No! don't ruin our lives. They're going to get on our ass. They will get our show canceled. Robert Evans, we are not in that era. I was getting crucial debate take from America's most influential celebrity, Dilbert artist Scott Adams. What did he think?

Oh, no. The debate is a tie so far, with lots of votes flying. A tie is a win for Harris. Oh, well, that's true. I think that is true. There you go, Scott. Good work.

Scott comes out saying that Harris won the debate. There you go. That's great. Finally, I do think it's funny that trump claimed that he didn't know about his previous comments questioning if kamala harris was black that was a very bizarre little section talk about that moment oh were you accused her of putting out too what was that talk he was also like saying uh well the central park five pled guilty so actually i think it was okay i wanted them executed just a a wild a wild unforced error there man that whole little racism

section was just just crazy look i will take one quick victory lap because i said after the last debate which it was a disaster in every possible way for biden trump's not himself either he is definitely an older man yeah he was in 2016 and even 2020 and like yeah this this was that well hopefully this was the only presidential debate that we'll have to talk about with kamala v trump what an exciting time i i'm excited for that for that vance wall's debate uh if that ever happens so am i oh interesting that like our reaction after this debate was like okay she shouldn't do any other debates and he's gonna want to do more debates yeah and it was the exact opposite in their in their reactions yeah i i was interested by that which like like on on MSNBC, Tim Walls was like, she should do one every day.

I mean, she did good. She did well. But like my reaction was like, OK, you did the job. You did the job. I do think like I have like, oh, boy, I think this might be hubris coming in here and a bad idea. But she could be right. I don't know. Yeah.

Yeah. right i i don't know yeah yeah like one of the problems is that if the election doesn't turn around as much or if something else happens that pushes momentum back towards trump she might need a third debate and you kind of have to you kind of can't know like you're you are rolling the dice on this one way or the other yeah well that was that was the best debate i've ever i've ever watched um yeah just in terms of it actually being a debate yeah there was not a half dead man on screen or yeah maybe there was there just wasn't two half dead men on screen so you just get a good look at like okay yeah these are these are pretty decent pictures of the kinds of president that these people want to be and like it literally comes down to, he was not willing

to shake her hand, and she walked across the stage to shake his hand. And that's basically what the debate was. Yeah. Anyway. Anyways, this has been It Could Happen Here. We're gonna post our source links from this episode in the episode description, so

look out for that. Yeah, that's right. And, you know, until next time, I don't really have any advice. Bye. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

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