It Could Happen Here - Presidential Debate Recap: Senility Edition

Episode Date: July 1, 2024

Robert, James, and Gare discuss the first presidential debate of 2024, Biden’s poor performance, Trump's lies and what this means for the upcoming election.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was,

should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jacqueline 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. Black Lit is for the page turners,

for those who listen to audiobooks while running errands or at the end of a busy day. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Listen to Black Lit on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T, connecting changes everything.

Hey, I'm Gianna Pertenti. And I'm Jamee Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. If you're early in your career, you probably have a lot of money questions. So we're talking to finance expert Vivian Tu, aka Your Rich BFF, to break it down. Looking at the numbers is one of the most honest reflections of what your financial picture actually is. The numbers won't lie to you. Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons?

Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Calls on media. This is It Could Happen Here. We're talking about the June presidential debate starring Donald Trump and Joe Biden,

which was by far the worst presidential debate I've ever seen in my entire life. There's no competition. There's no competition. Like, I remember the days when we laughed at George W. Bush fucking up at an debate. He would clean up

with either of these guys. He would be sashaying across the floor. You could drop Sarah Palin in here. And she would fucking own them. Sarah Palin comes out of this looking like Bob fucking Hope. So, I'm Garrison Davis. I'm joined by Robert Evans and James Stout.

Let's get into it. I guess, who do you think, quote unquote, won the debate? I can tell you who fucking lost, Garrison. It's fucking all of us. I mean, I'll go into this later. I'm not sure it matters. But if the debate matters, Trump won it matters but if the debate matters trump won totally if the debate matters trump won yeah that was my same thought as well he definitely

was a much better uh debater and uh had much better like political rhetoric uh he he could form complete sentences which is something you could not say of Joe Biden. And that's not, that's not hyperbole. I actually argue with the first two thirds of your analysis there, because I don't think in argument terms, if we're looking at this as a debate, Trump repeat, like if I were scoring this the way you would a competition, Trump repeatedly followed Biden on these, like Biden would goad him with shit, like what he said, what Trump said after Charlottesville, like Trump's height and him lying about it, fucking golf scores. And Trump always took the bait. Why I think Trump won is that this is not going to get consumed as a debate.

People aren't going to look at this and like look at the whole sweep of how they both did sure which biden would still very likely lose but it's less clear this is going to get cut up a million ways on tiktok and it trump's just got a lot more ammo out of this fucker yeah the very first thing i noticed is that both of them looked barely awake uh yeah as soon as he went on screen and so i did get a debate bingo i almost got two i almost got three. I was very proud of that. I guess, I don't know. We can go over some of what they talked about because, yeah, why not?

Do you want to hear Jill Biden's review? Just get that out of the way real quick. Oh, did Jill give it? Jill's or Joe's? Jill, okay, sure. Jill, Dr. Jill Biden. Such a great job. You answered every question, sure. Jill. Dr. Jill Biden. Such a great job. You answered every question.

Fantastic. That's great. Amazing stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He did answer them. Coherently, not so much. We had an inject bleach reference from Biden very early on. And that was one of his better ploys.

Unfortunately, he followed it up by mumbling incoherently for like 40 seconds yeah yes but i was glad to hear it dropped yeah he was well he just did not he executed poorly look yeah here's what i'll say i've said this about joe for a while if you were looking at this man not as the president but as like a relative you would say well he's doing you know uncle joe is doing okay for 82 you know like he's still most he's 86 he'll be 86 if he does a second term at the end of it but like if he were a regular person you would say uncle joe's doing okay for 82 maybe we should take the keys you know maybe he doesn't need he doesn't need to be in a home you know that would not be the right call at this moment but maybe he shouldn't have he shouldn't be driving

you know yeah so one of the smart things i think trump did very early on is that he attacked the vaccine mandate but not the vaccine yeah that was that was one of the more subtle moves that he did that i think he pulled off very well yeah joe just gave gave it up. Yeah. One of the one of the recurring trends with Trump is that he really loved to call the United States a third world nation and say, we are now an uncivilized nation. That was that was like one of the many things Trump kept going back to because Trump really did just have like five things he just kept talking about over and over and over again. He mostly ignored the actual questions from moderators the moderators themselves did a really bad job both with the questions they had and also like actually controlling controlling the candidates and keep and keeping them on topic

but in general i think the questions they did were just kind of bizarre third nation was a very common refrain from trump i think one thing that like Trump, Trump did badly more than Biden. Or like, you can see how Biden's team prepped him on it. And then he screwed the pooch on it. But like Biden would say these things that he knew would trigger Trump, like his weight and his height. Right.

Or they're very good people on both sides. And Trump completely fell for that hook, line and thinker. You can tell Trump has been obsessing over the little things that people say about like how he, he treated, handled stuff like the alt-right and whatnot. He's very angry about some of that, which is interesting to me because it wasn't the smart move. The smart move was like, as Gara noted, Trump very, I think, intelligently pivoted on the vaccine issue to still being able to take credit for it with some audiences while also making it clear that his issue was the mandates whenever trump was on the economy i think even

though i i don't agree that he was the better president for the economy i think that he performed strongly on stage he spent a lot of time in the weeds if we're going to use golf metaphors he kept like knocking shit into the sand dunes and having to like thank you for raising golf from it it's a very important national you're welcome because this had the longest golf digression of any presidential event i've ever seen had like a two minute argument over whether they would could play golf against each other and who would win and whose handicap was what in the 80s what i saw in this is you've got two men who are not at are past their prime and the thing the reason why this in large part went trump's way

is that biden has never been a good public speaker that has never been his strength he has a speech impediment right that he he worked and got over much of his career but when you are older you have less control over everything and we can see it coming back right there's no there ought, there ought not be any shame in that, but also it does affect the way people think. This is a horrible country full of terrible people. People do not forgive a speech impediment, right? But more to the point, the thing that Biden is showing his age in most all, as we all do, it's the shit that we're bad at, we get a lot worse at, right?

And you can kind of hide how much you've aged when you're doing something that is clearly your talent. My grandpa, fairly late in his Parkinson's journey, could still gut and clean and catch a fish really well. It wasn't until pretty advanced that he lost that ability. And it was almost like you could see some of that skill return to him. And Trump is a talker. Trump is a charismatic guy. He is good at working a crowd. You can tell he is falling off in his inability to,

the fact that he keeps falling for all of these very obvious traps, Joe. And he spent a lot of time in the weeds, but he still sounds a lot stronger. And this is entirely a contest of who can look best on camera, right? And yeah, it's, of course, Trump's going to win. I think the first really big topic that they started to argue back and forth on was abortion. It started by Trump saying that he is pro the abortion pill, and he's pro the Supreme Court's recent ruling, which he kind of mischaracterized, but that's still an interesting thing, coming from Trump saying that he's pro the supreme court's recent ruling which he kind of mischaracterized but that's still an interesting thing coming from trump saying that he's he's okay with the with

the abortion pill he even brought up being okay with a a nine month abortion if it's for the life of the mother which was uh interesting to me but then they spent a long time arguing over whether roe v wade means that you can kill babies after exactly yes right birth and that was that was a that was an interesting i don't think that that interaction i don't know how much it's going to matter but it didn't come off well for trump because he no it didn't come off well for trump that was i think this is one of the few things he did not do well in um of course you know biden has done very little to secure reproductive rights as the current president. We all know this.

But this did not come off well for Trump. They were basically just arguing back and forth over whether Biden wants to kill babies post-birth, which is just a ridiculous thing to argue about. It was a shameful chain of arguments, right? George Bush would have insinuated the same thing, but done it in a way that left everyone feeling less gross. And that's why he did so many terrible things. It's just interesting that we've stripped so much of the shellac off of it.

And now they are just, because in George W. Bush's day, we were still, the Republicans were still calling Democrats baby killers. There was just, it's interesting how much of the sheen is gone. There's a little more class. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe it's not all bad that we're not pretending anymore, right? Like, there's no pretending on this stage.

Both men are clearly not doing well. Yeah. The system itself is not pretending, right? Like, we just got a couple of fucking idiots, and why don't we install one of them? Something I will never pretend to do is dislike our products and services that support this podcast. I love them Something I will never pretend to do is dislike our products and services that support this podcast.

I love them. I would never pretend otherwise. So go listen to these ads. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how Tex Elite has turned Silicon Valley

into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology.

I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough, so join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez.

Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. González wanted to go home

and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well.

Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian González story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Parente. And I'm Jimei Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, the early career podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. One of the most exciting things about having your first real job is that first real paycheck. You're probably thinking, yay, I can finally buy a new phone. But you also have a lot of questions like, how should I be investing this money? I mean, how much do I save? And what about my 401k? Well, we're talking with finance expert Vivian Tu, aka Your Rich BFF, to break it all down. I always get roasted on the internet

when I say this out loud, but I'm like, every single year you need to be asking for a raise of somewhere between 10 to 15%. I'm not saying you're going to get 15% every single year, but if you ask for 10 to 15 and you end up getting eight, that is actually a true raise. Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 and 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. 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. Okay, we are back. Yeah. Yeah, still here. We are. I don i feel good i feel good about america today you think so you think we're heading in the right direction i you know it's not that we're heading in the right direction we've never been heading in a very good direction the driver has always been drunk right and finally 45 minutes into the drive, he just was like, look, man, I'm not doing great right now. And I'm not going to get this car back home unless you bust open the center console where I keep a handle of bourbon.

And you're scared of the driver because he has a gun and you don't know what he'll do with it. You're not even sure if he can really see you. And anyway, that's how it feels to watch this election. even sure if he can really see you and anyway that's how it feels to watch this election let's talk about uh immigration one of the other main main topics in this debate and that went bad for biden trump had a fantastic line saying border patrol endorsed me for president but i won't say that which is amazing stuff yeah they both claimed Border Patrol endorsed them too? Yeah. The Border Patrol itself

doesn't make endorsements, right? But the Border Patrol Union, which is one of the worst accounts on Twitter, did clarify that they endorsed Trump. So,

there was a lot of bad stuff with abortion. I mean, James, do you have any thoughts overall in the abortion discourse? The immigration discourse? Yes.

Wow. That was a real Bideniden moment for you uh gare garrison yeah garrison davis elderly member of the podcast team somebody get garrison his pet pills oh god i wish yeah they're uh they're fogging the air in atlanta tonight all right um the discourse over abort uh oh jesus christ how really well they're bringing abortions with him garrison don't worry there's okay there's a pretty All right. The discourse over abortion. Jesus Christ, how really am I supposed to get this? They're bringing abortions with them, Garrison. Don't worry. There's a pretty great Onion headline.

Report, uh-oh, they're about to talk about black people. Oh, God. Yeah. Another fine moment of this debate. The fucking black jobs thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's talk immigration. Let's talk immigration. Just's talk immigration, right?

Just real quick. Donald Trump kept throwing out this 18 million number. Fuck knows where that comes from. Yeah, that was just all the numbers. Like fully from the rectum to the debate stage. But look, Border Patrol have reported 9.6 encounters. I've beaten this horse to death. But encounter does not

represent a unique individual right people go and come back when they when they get deported back very common both of them like like the what i actually want to focus on is the way that jake tapper framed that question because it was fucking atrocious right like it he didn't frame it in a way in which either of them if they had wanted to could offer a reasonable compassionate stance on immigration right it was posited as a terrible thing and uh yeah the fuck cnn i know next time you come dming me asking me oh scummy scummy shit yeah it was for the for the record jake tapper should be hit in the head with a with a i don't know truck or something but podcaster robert evans threatens violence against cnn anchor jake but. Podcaster Robert Evans threatens violence against CNN anchor Jake Tacker.

In a way, he supported violence against me. So I think I have that right with Jake. That is true. He's a dog shit journalist. And this was the worst moderated debate because Trump is just lying. Everything he says is absolutely full of shit. And half of the shit that Biden says,

it's hard to tell what he was even trying to say. And there was no attempt to make it they they treated this like verner herzog would have filmed it right but they're too herzog would have done this way because like my job is not to interfere here my job is to let this unfold right i don't need now herzog would interfere if that would have made it a better story, but he loves collapse. See, but Herzog's an artist. These people are journalists. Yeah, these people are journalists. And your job was to attempt to both hold them accountable to some standard of reality,

and also to attempt to present this in a way that's intelligible, right? And you failed on both accounts. You did bad jobs as journalists. right and you failed on both accounts you did bad jobs as journalists no i i think for me the the best and worst line of the debate in terms of like oh wow we're we're really in it is is is is trump saying that migrants are taking black jobs yeah which is the one of the most loaded statements i've ever heard because for one you know it's weird on like the migrant thing be like that yeah that's really your main concern black jobs yeah what is a black job he's a black job yeah what what do you think he's implying there well i think we all know what he's implying there no he's talking about like farm work he's talking about like working in the fields low skill

jobs is what he is talking about yes Yes, that's how he sees this. But where I think that came from, my suspicion is that because the Trump campaign is still consistently extremely weak with black voters, right? They've actually made a lot of inroads with Hispanic voters. Not according to Trump in this debate. Yeah, they are still, based on all the polling I've seen, they are about as bad with black voters as they were in 2020. That really has not moved. What you have seen on that is not really based in much of the way of evidence, at least in terms of what polling can show us. They know this is a weakness, and one of the things they wrote on a billboard as they were spitballing ideas to get black voters was migrants taking black jobs, question mark. And that stayed in Trump's head. Totally. They had a million better ways to phrase it, but when the moment came up, that's how he fucking ran.

That is exactly what happened. It just, yes, totally. happened it just yes totally it also displays uh somehow extremely anti-immigrant and extremely racist at all at the same time coming from like opposite directions it's quite something uh one of another another great line was human trafficking in women and just another another wonderful human trafficking in women i'm glad i'm glad that women do make the human list though like that feels like progress garrison we we did it joe anything else on the uh immigration front i mean it was as bad as we would expect honestly i i thought that it was really bad would try to go further on the right on on immigration than than what he ended up doing not not saying he did well

on immigration but i i expected i could combine to kind of to kind of push a little a little bit more he's not comfortable with it clearly because he made he got so much of his win on highlighting the obvious inhumanity of trump's border policy and he obviously has adopted a policy that's very similar yeah i mean he tried to hit him on the separation of families families are still fucking separated like i've literally seen that this week well i just don't think he's i don't think he's comfortable fighting trump on this because i don't really think he has a great feeling about their their where they're separate on the matter right so he's not comfortable with that line of argument the The way he is, like Biden's best moment was attacking him for like being shitty to dead soldiers.

And I was shocked that Trump followed him on that fucking rabbit hole. They talked about that for so long. It was a huge, it was as big as the economy. They talked about like veterans for so long and just like weird circles. That was an interesting one. A few other just fun lines that were thrown in Biden calling them the Paris Peace Accords. Very cool. Funny stuff.

Biden saying that Trump has the the mortals of an alley cat. That's a great line. That was a good line. That's a great line. That was again, he this was number one. He didn't slur any of us where I'm not saying that to be shitty, but it affects his performance. He was very clear in the cleanup of, like, he's a bad person, which he is. That's a strong thing to hit him on.

And I hope, again, we'll talk is that like that is a thing to keep hitting him on because it actually matters in terms of like how voters think of the guys. It's a way to actually hurt Trump because he is a really obviously shitty person. One other thing Trump did in terms of, you know, this whole black jobs thing is Trump did hammer Biden on super predators. Yeah, that was interesting to see. I feel like Trump actually did a, did an okay job there. Not, it's not me endorsing Trump's behavior,

but this is, this is like, that was, that was a good move for him. No, an interesting one too. I was kind of surprised that he, he went for it.

Cause that's like, yeah, that was surprising. Do you know what isn't surprising, Robert? Uh, how much we love the sponsors of this podcast who are, you know, I often think of the president as like a father, you know, or like my father during different times. Right. Trump is like my father that time he brought home the movie Event Horizon, thinking it would be like a fun little science fiction romp. And Biden is like my dad when he snuck in the South Park movie,

but he had not gotten the right language version, so we couldn't actually watch it, right? They're different eras of everyone's dad. I don't know. These sponsors are our father. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires.

From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field. And I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse

and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God, things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian.

Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom.

At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Parenti. And I'm Jimei Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, the early career podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts.

One of the most exciting things about having your first real job is that first real paycheck. You're probably thinking, yay, I can finally buy a new phone. But you also have a lot of questions like, how should I be investing this money? I mean, how much do I save? And what about my 401k? Well, we're talking with finance expert Vivian Toot, aka Your Rich BFF, to break it all down. I always get roasted on the internet when I say this out loud, but I'm like, every single year you need to be asking for a raise of somewhere between 10 to 15 percent. I'm not saying you're going I'm like, every single year, you need to be asking for a raise of somewhere between 10 to 15%.

I'm not saying you're going to get 15% every single year. But if you ask for 10 to 15 and you end up getting eight, that is actually a true raise. Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 and 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. 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. Anyway, we're back. So one thing that I'm looking forward to is that if Trump does get elected, he will settle the Ukraine war as president-elect.

So that's great news for all of us. I'm excited. Before he's even inaugurated ukraine stuff was he's gonna crack that down that was really the the yeah it's interesting to see him kind of adopt the whole ukraine is cooked they've lost all of their young men line that's not a a great thing to hear in terms of like it's exactly what putin wants it's exactly what russia wants it's um not accurate to like what we've actually seen on the ground which is another russian offensive completely stall out because despite what was supposed to be like an overwhelming

advantage in theater and artillery but i don't think matters. I don't think that shit's going to move the election. At the end of the day, I can bitch about like US policy in Eastern Europe, but nobody votes based on that. I do, but nobody else does, right? Like, and I barely do. Like, it's just not, it's not a needle mover in the same way that fucking inflation or the economy or crime or the border is. Trump was harping on it because he's just trying to blame all of these new conflicts on Biden, being like, all these things happened since Biden was president. If I was president, this wouldn't have happened, you know, magically, right? And that's a very easy move for Trump, is to bring up all of the bad things that have happened since Biden took office and say, this is Biden's fault. We have that with Ukraine. They talked about Ukraine for like,

office and say, this is Biden's fault. We have that with Ukraine. They talked about Ukraine for like a really, a really, a decent- It was a shocking amount of the debate. A decent amount of the time, like way, way longer than they talked about Israel and Palestine, which is kind of surprising to me. Now I can understand how both of them would want to just avoid talking about that, but I'm surprised like the moderators like let that happen, I guess. I don't think, I mean, the moderators let everything happen, I guess. I don't think, I mean, the moderators let everything happen. I think who I put, who I am surprised about was Trump because he kept going back to Ukraine, which is not a strong issue for him.

Now, Israel-Palestine really isn't either. Most Americans don't like what Israel is doing. There's even a lot of question about that on the Republican side. So his choices are either be all fucking genocide about it and alienate a lot of moderates or kind of hedge it and just try to attack Biden for his performance, which is what he did. Which is what he did. Yeah. He didn't do much of it compared to getting drawn again and again into arguments over NATO. I was really

surprised that he kept following joe back to fucking nato it was really weird yeah that was a bizarre choice for him like when he had a million other places his trump's response on palestine i want to talk about oh that was bleak absolutely that was one of the worst moments in this country's entire history yeah that really set a new low for me and we've got like what eight seven to eight genocides so you know pretty bad moment yeah yeah yeah it's a country built on genocide but that that one that one was pretty pretty bad yeah so basically trump was harping on biden for not being pro-genocide enough and said something that I really never, I did not see coming.

He said that Biden has become like a Palestinian, a bad Palestinian. Yeah, a bad Palestinian because he doesn't do bad enough things. What was the exact line that followed that? So Trump says, quote, he's become like a Palestinian, but a bad Palestinian, because they don't like him very much. There you go. Thank you. We needed the whole thought. He's a weak one. Yeah, the Palestinians don't like him, and I hate the Palestinians, but you should be liked by your own people. I'm trying to put together the logic here. palestinians but you should be liked by your own p i'm trying to put together the logic here it was it was really bad but like basically using palestinian as an insult to biden you know that's

not great trump also had a lie how quote the palestinians and everyone are rioting right now yeah i assume who was he because the country's pretty chill actually i think he's referring to the campus protests just calling everyone at those protests palestinians which is a really interesting like political move actually yeah and a dangerous one potentially absolutely yeah we knock on wood whenever we may have wood that's a good trump line that's a good trump line yeah yeah yeah and james james was giving him shit for that earlier but this is this is your you and your ivory tower a lot of people don't have wood you know ben shapiro could only afford one board that's true yeah ben sure and he got wood once yeah that's

exactly right you know small amount of wood at that he was lucky enough to find it we can't all and he put his wood in a little bag and so this was a this was a bit on health care right or is this talking about health care straight over garrison it did well he was yeah he was talking about being healthy and he was like yeah i'm still healthy you know knock on wood we all knock on wood where we find wood or something like that but he was being like we have wood he was kind of trying to win actually this may be a little bit of like a fuck up by him. Cause he was hitting Biden pretty successfully in Biden's age, but then he dropped a line so baffling that it was like, it focused attention where I was like,

what do you mean by this? They were talking about, um, yeah, they're, they're, they're talking about being in good health and that's, and that's where they got into the little golf argument.

And then Trump's weight. Who would, who would, who would play golf better? And yeah, if Trump could carry his own golf clubs. A really good line was, we bought a certain dog. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a borderline. We bought a certain dog.

You wouldn't believe it. We bought a certain dog that can sniff fentanyl. And then he just kept talking about machines that can sniff fentanyl and then he just kept talking about machines that can sniff fentanyl talking about these these machines that they have to supposedly detect fentanyl at the border which they've spent millions of dollars on but they've been doing this since the trump administration like this is not a new thing it was in his border bill but it's nothing compared to we have we bought a certain dog oh god have you guys seen the dark brandon's secret sauce no robert share this immediately yeah yeah i've just shared it apparently he's lost jeff teedridge which is

there's a there's a post that joe made right before the debate would have started that i'm just gonna send to the chat while i describe it to the listener it's joe with like a can in his hand and it's a can you sent a link to x.com slash home god damn it one sec i'm on the joe biden water no so he's got he's got a can of this it's like a water in a beer can and it's called zero malarkey biden and it's got a dark branded image with a laser eyes get real Jack. It's just water. And then Biden's actual tweet says, I don't know what they've got these performance enhancers,

but I'm feeling pretty jacked up for yourself folks. And for $4 and 60 cents, you can get a, what looks like one can of Biden water I'm on the website now the secret to a good debate performance staying hydrated get yourself the same performance enhancers Joe Biden

took before going on stage we need to get the company card out guys I'm gonna get wrecked cause he looked fucked up I have some experience with performance enhancing device drug users in my in my career i i can this is if i i miss having a good ghb hookup you know this would go that i i feel like that would get me on joe's level right i think only a brain injury could get you on joe's level right now that's why i brought up ghb

the last topic i want to discuss in terms of what was talked about at the debate only a brain injury could get you on Joe's level right now, Rob. That's why I brought up GHB. The last topic I want to discuss in terms of what was talked about at the debate is January 6th. And, and Trump kind of tried to avoid the question over whether he would concede the election saying that he would only if it was a fair election, only if it was a fair election, but Trump's line on January 6th. Let me,

let me tell you about Januaryuary 6th we had great borders on january 6th oh that that that whole spiel we had a great economy on january 6th it is very funny i should post some pictures i took i took them just after january 6th i took them the week of biden's election of the border wall just stopping in random places like where they got to a certain level of construction and just stopped. Like we, I, I found Trump's direction here kind of interesting. He tried to kind of really avoid talking about his own opinions on the actual Capitol insurrection. His very first reaction was to say, no, well, the rest of the country was doing so much better because I was the president. The moderators kind of forced him to talk a little bit about it, but he really avoided it as much as

he could, which is, you know, he doesn't want to alienate his base. He also doesn't want to, like, you know, be too pro-J6 and scare away, like, independents. So he was really skirting that line. It's just weird because moderators were so much stronger on this question during the debate primaries

for the GOP, which Trump wasn't even present for. They really harped on this here, and on this they did not even present for. They really harped on this here. And on this, they did not care at all. They really did not push Trump on J6 whatsoever. And it was kind of pathetic. Yep. Yeah, no, it was.

It was terrible. The moderators, they didn't moderate at all. They just asked some questions and then let it fucking rip. I think let's just move on to finally talking about like the debate in general i think the gop will probably be pretty happy with trump's performance here yeah he did what he needed to they're gonna call us a dub i think the democrats are probably uh kind of scrambling right now trying to figure out what the next move is i hope it's possible for someone to be like, we got time. Throw Pritzker in. Throw fucking Whitmer in.

You know, either of them, right? Honestly. You know, Robert, this is how Bernie can still win. He's too fucking old. Bring it back. Why the fuck not? I will say, I think he probably, based on the last time i saw him speak i think he probably would have done better than joe did in this but not if he had a cold right like that's the thing i believe joe has a cold and that that's why he sounded like shit but you know what a strong

young person with a cold could pull it together for an hour he could lock down that's he could lock down he could this is we shouldn't have to explain like it's not i don't give a shit old people shouldn't be the fucking president they shouldn't old people should not be the fucking president it passed us past the point at which i feel like if somebody like if i was if we were helping you move and i was like carrying something heavy i turned around i slapped you in the face with like a board or something or a piece of furniture if I have to be worried that your skull is going to crack you shouldn't be the fucking president

you should be able to like I should feel confident that you can jump start a car without blowing up my battery you know like I don't feel that for either of these men they both look unwell yeah if you let these people go into a supermarket they would be lost.

Yeah, it's not good. It's so... I know a lot of people make jokes about this, right? People love joking about how old they are, how incoherent they are. No, it's not funny. I was shocked. I was bleak.

I was shocked at how bad Biden did this debate. He looked so bad. He looked so bad. It was one of his worst public speaking outings. Horrible. Like in a long time. Look, I, yeah, I am not competent to diagnose shit, but I lived with my grandfather for the last 10 years as he died of Parkinson's and it's, there's a shuffle you get to recognize,

right? Like, I don't know if it's Parkinson's, but he's not a well old man. He's a sick old man and he shouldn't be president. There is there is a reason I put candidate collapses on stage on my bingo card, which we did not get. But we sure got close. We should be close. Very close.

I filled out almost all my bingo card. It was and I did not pick easy ones too. You can check me on this. You can check the card on Twitter. And yeah, I was, I just felt really bad. I feel terrible. I wanted to ask half that debate, Gare. How do you feel about getting your citizenship?

You jazzed? Well. This is a great, this is a great proud time. Proud time to become an american it is better than uh it's it's better than it's better than only having a green card yeah it's true yeah let me tell you as someone who recently upgraded to american status it is uh at least it's a little bit less concerning with the shit that trump is saying yeah and oh biden well any any final thoughts i hope gavin newsom doesn't pull out

a way to become the president because i don't want him to be the president he is going to be the my prediction is he will be the 2028 nominee he's a very good chance really hard it's between the smart option based on where we stand now for now war for 2028 is Pritzker. I think Whitmer would also be a great pick. Pritzker is really good with conservatives and he's really good with conservatives without like folding completely on shit. Whereas Whitmer has some weakness just because of how much time has been directed in attacking her over like the, um,

the COVID 2020 shit. Um, but either of them I I think, are strong candidates who are a lot better than Gavin Newsom. But you are right. He's going to be a strong candidate in 2028. Well, I think that does it for me, at least, here on It Could Happen Here.

Let's talk real briefly. Do we think the debate matters? Do we think that this is a thing that is going to turn an election? I think it can yes i think it actually does i think i think this could actually hurt some voter enthusiasm um i think people who are maybe looking at biden to be like yeah probably if he keeps performing like this people might just not vote for him i'm not they probably maybe some of them might move over to

trump if they're like weird like independents Many of them just might not vote at all. Like I think if Biden shows that he is just kind of a bumbling, like incompetent old man, that's not going to help an already kind of dire situation in terms of voter enthusiasm and possible voter turnout. So yeah, I think this actually does have a decent chance to hurt Biden. I don't think the debates will necessarily hurt Trump. I don't think they'll necessarily help Trump majorly, but I think they can subtract support away from Biden. See, that's where, and I don't have a strong feeling on which way this is going to land in either case, but some of the data we're seeing particularly how well trump performs relative to biden on voters

who are like not sure they're going to vote right i think this might be the first election where higher turnout would be bad for biden but i also don't know i think if any if this depresses i think you are right that if this depresses turnout it it's going to be worse. It's going to be Biden turnout, right? Although, I mean, yeah, I just don't know. It's hard to say. It feels like, I don't want to do, the easy thing would be to just like pick a lane and stay in it.

And, but if it comes to my honest opinion, I still have no fucking clue how this is going to go because at no point has this election been about, do you think Joe Biden will be a good president? It's been about, are you scared of Donald Trump? I don't know that you're less scared. I think the worry for Biden is that people are now more scared that he is going to sleepwalk his way through a nuclear war as opposed to Trump at least being lucid for it. But I just don't know how that's going to actually shake out in the long run.

God bless the USA. We're doing great. Good conventions are going to be great. Yeah. Stay tuned. He could be dead in a week. That really is like the wild card. He could be dead tonight.

I wouldn't be surprised at all. It kind of exists in the back of my brain all the time. It's like either one of these guys, especially biden could just like not exist tomorrow like he could he could just he could he could get a little too stressed out and just kind of fall over i mean they could meaningfully make the argument tomorrow that like there's been a significant decline in his health and he is not physically capable of being president because that's what we saw. Yeah, he doesn't, he looks bad. Like, if he was not involved. I don't think they will.

If the things, whatever things you consider worst, and for me with Biden, it's the border in Palestine, but if whatever things you consider worst about Biden weren't a thing, I would purely be like, for this man's health and safety, get him out of this job. Get him somewhere comfortable. Let him enjoy his final years.

Don't make him do this. Yeah. Anyway. It's not right. I don't know. Fuck. Part of me wants to read this Jeff T. Rich tweet to finish. At a certain point, we're all complicit in elder abuse but i guess they but we are for both

of them yeah like in some ways in some ways the american system is pushing these two sick old men towards a disastrous that's also why i can't trust anything they say on social security because they clearly have a vested interest uh yeah i can't see i will say i we saw the president of bolivia face down a coup yesterday I think that that would not be possible

for either of these men in 2025 no god alright I want to go cry and go to sleep oh yeah

it's bad that's good have a good cry make some friends guys I'm going to keep drinking yeah do a little mutual aid yeah yeah I'm going to keep drinking. Yeah. Do a little mutual aid. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm going to buy some of the Biden water with company money. 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, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba?

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