Letters from an American - October 31, 2024

Episode Date: November 1, 2024

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October 31st, 2024. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican of Louisiana, has responded to news stories about his plan to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, by claiming his comments at the closed-door campaign event on Monday were taken out of context. But they weren't. The tape is clear. Johnson said that Republicans want massive reform to the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. When an attendee asked, no Obamacare, Johnson laughed and agreed, no Obamacare. The ACA is so deeply ingrained, we need massive reform to make this work, and we got a lot of ideas on how to do that. MAGA Utah Senator Mike Lee reposted the video of Johnson and commented, kill Obamacare now. Trump today posted on social media that he

never mentioned repealing the Affordable Care Act, never even thought of such a thing. But this was either a memory lapse or a lie, because in 2016, he ran on repealing the ACA, and his 2016 platform called for a full repeal of Obamacare. Within hours of taking office in 2017, Trump issued an executive order weakening the law, and when the Republican dominated House voted to repeal the law, Trump held a celebration in the Rose Garden and declared the ACA essentially dead. Senator John McCain, a Republican of Arizona, bucked Trump to protect the ACA then, and Trump began this year's campaign with a promise to get rid of it before backing off. Even still, the vague promise in the 2024 platform to increase transparency, promote choice and competition, and expand access to new affordable health care

sounds a lot like Johnson's promise to restore the free market to health care. a lot like Johnson's promise to restore the free market to health care. While Democratic nominee Vice Presidential Kamala Harris has been campaigning in the swing states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, Trump today held a rally in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a state President Joe Biden won by almost 11 points in 2020, and the Democrats are likely to win in 2024. Trump had to hold the rally at a private airplane hangar after city officials refused to rent the Albuquerque Convention Center to the campaign because it still owes Albuquerque almost $445,000 from a similar rally in 2019. Once there, he made it clear he was trying to repair some of the damage caused by the

extraordinary racism and sexism on display at his Sunday rally at New York City's Madison Square Garden, where a comedian called Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage. Courting offended voters, he said, don't make me waste a whole damn half a day here, okay? Look, I came here. We can be nice to each other or we can talk turkey. I'm here for one simple reason. I like you very much and it's good for my credentials with the Hispanic or Latino community. That outreach might not be enough to bring back the voters lost after the Madison Square Garden event. The campaign is seeing other weaknesses as well. Meredith McGraw and Jessica Piper of Politico reported today that nearly half

of the ballots already cast in Pennsylvania have come from voters over the age of 65. And although the numbers of registered older voters are divided evenly between the parties, registered Democrats have made up about 58% of Pennsylvania's early votes, compared to 35% for Republicans. Those numbers might well simply reflect different approaches to mail-in ballots, but they also might explain why Trump is already claiming fraud in Pennsylvania. He is also seemingly nervous about Pennsylvania because women are voting there at a much higher rate than men in the early vote, 56% to 43%. And Democratic women are the biggest group of new voters in the state. New voters who were too young eight years ago to hear the

Access Hollywood tape in which Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women, have been hearing it on TikTok lately as younger users record their reactions to it and call out their older male relatives for voting for anyone who would talk as Trump did. I moved on her and I failed, Trump says in the tape. I'll admit it. I did try and f*** her. I moved on her like a b****, but I couldn't get there and she was married, Trump said. You know, I'm automatically attracted to beautiful, I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the b****. You can do anything, he said.

The Harris campaign and pro-Harris organizations leaned into the history of women's suffrage today, with videos highlighting those who fought so that women could vote, and reiterating, we are not going back. To assist those women who might not feel safe letting their husbands know how they voted, women have been posting notes in women's public bathrooms assuring other women that their vote is secret. A Democratic advertisement voiced by actress Julia Roberts powerfully makes the point that women do not have to tell their husbands how they vote. Right-wing figures like Charlie Kirk have expressed alarm at the gender gap in voting. As well, there has been a right-wing backlash to the idea that women will vote for Harris while letting their husbands assume they're voting for Trump. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican of Georgia, who famously cheated on both of

his first two wives, expressed dismay at the idea that a woman might need to keep her vote secret from her husband. For them to tell people to lie is just one further example of the depth of their corruption, he said. How do you run a country saying wives should lie to their husbands, husbands should lie to their wives? I mean, what kind of a totally amoral, corrupt, sick system have the Democrats developed. On the Fox News channel's The Five this morning, host Jesse Waters said that if he found out his wife was going into the voting booth and pulling the lever for Harris, that's the same thing as having an affair. That violates the sanctity of our marriage. Christian pastor Dale Partridge posted,

in a Christian marriage, a wife should vote according to her husband's direction. He is the head and they are one. Unity extends to politics. This is not controversial. But, he added, submission does have limits. A wife doesn't need to submit to her husband in sin, in this case, voting Democrat. Tonight, at an event with right-wing host Tucker Carlson in Glendale, Arizona, Trump seemed to move beyond misogyny to murderous intent. He turned his increasingly violent rhetoric against former Representative Liz Cheney, a Republican of Wyoming, who has urged Republican women to vote against Trump. She's a radical war hawk, he said. Let's put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, okay? Let's see how she feels about it. Let's see how she feels about it,

you know, when the guns are trained on her face. Carlson is friendly with authoritarian Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has undermined democracy in his own country and is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Today, Orban posted that he had just got off the phone with President Trump. I wish him the best of luck for next Tuesday. Only five days to go. Fingers crossed. Meanwhile, a lot more major endorsements for Harris have been coming in. Today, basketball legend LeBron James released a powerful one-minute ad with clips of Trump's many racist statements and drawing a straight line from him back to the most violent

days of the civil rights movement. Hate takes us back, it says. In a post sharing the video, James wrote, when I think about my kids and my family and how they will grow up, the choice is clear to me. Vote Kamala Harris. James has 53 million followers on X. The Economist today endorsed Harris, warning that a second Trump term comes with unacceptable risks. Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg also posted on social media that he had voted for Harris without hesitation and added that he hoped undecided voters would join him. Trump is not fit for high office, he wrote in a Bloomberg op-ed. He praised Harris's positive vision and bipartisan outreach.

Conservative Judge J. Michael Ludig published an op-ed in the New York Times on Tuesday titled, My Fellow Republicans, It's Time to Say Enough with Trump. The former president is unfit for office, Lutig wrote. When we entrusted our constitution and our democracy to him before, he betrayed us. Lutig assured readers that there could be no higher duty of American citizenship than to decisively repudiate Trump. He reminded his fellow Republicans that they had always proudly claimed they would be the first to put country above all else when the time came. That time has come. All Americans, but especially Republicans, will live with their decision the rest of their lives.

The choice for America next Tuesday, Lutig wrote, could not be clearer. Ever since Vice President Harris tapped Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate, Democratic governors have been demonstrating their support for one of their own. Today, for Halloween, Democratic Governors Wes Moore of Maryland, Janet Mills of Maine, Maura Healey of Massachusetts, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, and Phil Murphy of New Jersey, each dressed to match a photograph of Tim Walls. No tricks this Halloween, Whitmer posted, just dressing up as our friend Tim Walls, excited to elect him and Kamala Harris. If you haven't yet, make a plan to vote at IWillVote.com. Letters from an American was produced at Soundscape Productions,

Dedham, Massachusetts. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.