Morning Wire - Courting Battleground Voters & Russian Disinformation Crackdown | 9.5.24

Episode Date: September 5, 2024

Trump and Harris seek different voter blocks, the DOJ targets Russian election disinformation, and a look at all of Harris’ economic policy positions. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. Ramp: Now get $250 off when you join Ramp. Go to http://www.ramp.com/WIRE Shopify: Get a $1 per month trial at https://www.shopify.com/morningwire Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As both Trump and Harris campaign across several of the same battleground states, the voter demographics they seek are quite different. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire, editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Thursday, September 5th, and this is Morning Wire. The Justice Department is cracking down on what it calls election interference and sets its sights on Russian disinformation as part of that effort. The Justice Department's message is clear. We have no tolerance for attempts by authoritarian.

regimes to exploit our democratic system of government. And voters say they trust Trump on the economy more than Harris. What economic policies is the VP proposing, and how will they affect your bottom line? I didn't expect to see bad reboots of the policies that led up to the Great Recession so soon after it happened. But that's what we're going to see. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. Are you looking for a better way to simplify finance operations for your business. Ramp could be the game changer you're looking for. Ram is the corporate card and spend

management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. With ramp, your finance team receives unparalleled control in the company spending, closing your books eight times faster and saving an average of 5% in your first year. And now get $250 when you join RAMP. Just go to ramp.com slash wire. That's rAMP.com slash wire. Cards issued by Sutton Bank and Celtic Bank, member FDIC, terms and conditions may apply. As election day fast, approaches Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are campaigning in the same states, but looking to win over very different portions of the electorate. Here with the latest on the turnout strategies for each candidate is Daily Wire Senior

Editor Cabot Phillips. So Cabot, let's start with Harris. Who is she courting? Well, the most obvious answer is women. Since 2012, Democrats have won female voters by at least 10% each election, and they are confident Harris will exceed that margin this year. As part of that effort, Harris is leaning heavily on the message that Vance and Trump are anti-woman, while pushing to make abortion one of the key issues of the race.

Democrats feel that topic was a key factor in their success during the 22 midterms, and polling shows it is the top issue for women under 45 in battleground states. Ten states now, including Arizona, Nevada, and Florida, will have some form of abortion measure on the ballot. The Harris camp is hoping that will drive turnout among women. Now, it is worth noting, while Democrats do perform better with women, they don't do better with all women. So if you look at the 2022 exit polls, Republicans won with married men by 20 points and unmarried men by seven points.

Republicans also won among married women by a seven point margin. But Democrats led unmarried women by a staggering 37%. So the Democrat advantage with women appears to be completely isolated to unmarried women. That's fascinating. Yeah. Now, the Harris camp is also targeting young people, black voters, and interestingly, college-educated men, a group that historically, historically, has gone Republican, but has shown signs of leftward migration in the Trump era. Now, let's talk about Trump. Where is he looking for votes?

So it's no secret by now. Trump performs better than any Republican in modern history with working class voters, which is crucial in states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, the latter of which will play the biggest role in deciding this race. Trump is also making a fairly overt pitch to young voters. It's interesting, particularly young men. Right. So let's drill into that a little bit. What do we know about young men specifically? Well, Republicans have not won among men under 30 since Ronald Reagan was in office. As recently as 2008, Barack Obama carried the group by a two to one margin. But Trump has been cutting into that lead.

In 2020, he lost men under 30 by just seven points. And now he thinks he can win them outright. According to the latest New York Times polling, while Harris leads with young women by 38 points, Trump is actually ahead with young men by 11 points. And that poll is not an outlier. We've seen similar results throughout the last few months. And now Trump is looking to capitalize on that apparent momentum, sitting down for a number of interviews with podcasters and streamers popular with those young men. This week, he sat for an hour-long interview with Lex Friedman.

In the weeks before, it was long sit-downs with comedian Theo Vaughan, influencer Logan Paul, pranksters, the Nalk Boys, and even streamer Aidan Ross. Now, a lot of people might not be familiar with those names, but they each have just massive followings among young men in particular. Right. Well, that's actually not the only group where Trump is gaining. Tell us about some of the others. Right. So two more demographics to really keep an eye on, black and Latino voters. Trump carried just nine and 39 percent of those groups respectively in 2020. But again, poll after poll shows him making significant inroads. Among black voters, he's now averaging around 15 to 20 percent, which doesn't sound like much. But again, that is a historic increase from where Republicans have been in the past. and it would be hugely important in North Carolina and Georgia

where about three and ten voters are black. He's also now within roughly 10 points among Latino voters. Polling shows they overwhelmingly side with Trump over Harris on immigration. So again, both candidates focused on the same states, but very different voters within those states. Right. Well, the striking disparity between young men and young women is just a huge trend to watch. Cabot, thanks for reporting.

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Shopify is the flexible, dynamic commerce solution that growth-minded businesses need in today's market. Get a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash morningwire. That's Shopify.com slash morningwire. The Biden administration is accusing Russia of trying to manipulate public opinion in the run-up to the U.S. presidential election. But some conservatives are skeptical about the timing and purpose of this announcement. Daily Wire reporter Megan Basham is here now with more. Hey, Megan.

So what exactly is the Biden administration accusing Russia of here? Well, they're saying that Russia, primarily its state media apparatus, RT, has been planting disinformation about the U.S. election through American social media influencers who weren't necessarily aware that they were being paid by RT. So the Justice, State, and Treasury departments held a joint press conference Wednesday afternoon, and they did this on behalf of the Election Threats Task Force. Now, during that conference, Merrick Garland announced a number of sanctions against Russia. As RT itself has boasted, the government of Russia continued to use RT to direct disinformation and propaganda. In the wake of Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine,

RTE's editor-in chief said the company had built, quote, an entire empire of covert projects designed to shape public opinion in Western audiences. Garland then went on to say that Vladimir Putin's inner circle directed Russian PR firms to circulate disinformation as part of a program to influence the 2024 presidential election. He then announced that he's indicting two senior editors at R.T. for alleged money laundering. Specifically, he said they paid a Tennessee firm $10 million to publish and promote pro-Russian content. And he said that firm, in turn, paid American social media influencers to share this content to their popular accounts. Now, as part of the crackdown, the DOJ has also seized 32 internet domain names that they say were used to, quote,

covertly promote AI-generated false narratives targeting specific U.S. demographics and regions. And during that same press conference, White House National Security spokesman John Kirby said that Russia hopes to reduce international support for Ukraine, bolstering pro-Russian policies and interests and influencing voters here in the U.S. And that was a quote. And how are Republicans responding to that? Well, you are already seeing some skepticism, as you might expect, at least about the timing and emphasis of the claims. So a number of conservative commentators like Fox News, Steve Hilton, said that they're concerned that this is the same narrative that Democrats pushed in 2016 and 2020, much of which did turn out to be false. And Hilton said that other countries like Iran and China commonly try to pump out information on American elections and that this isn't unusual and this conference seems more like Democrats playing to their base. Now, as far as elected officials, Jim Jordan, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, gave Morning Wire this statement.

He said, we've seen this before. In 2016, the same people pushed the Russia hoax, and we now know it was totally bogus. Now, it may be true this time, but I am extremely skeptical. All right, so some doubt, at least about the motive of how this was presented. What about Russia? How have they responded? Well, RT, which, again, is the Russian state media outlet, gave a statement to the BBC essentially mocking Garland and the election task force.

They said three things are certain in life, death, taxes, and RT's interference in the U.S. elections. And then to kind of underline that mockery, they said, 2016 called and it wants its cliches back. Well, we'll be tracking those sanctions. And meanwhile, it'll be interesting to see if the American public has tuned out Russian election interference stories altogether. Megan, thanks for reporting.

Anytime. time. Kamala Harris has made several economic promises on the campaign trail, including instituting price controls, offering homebuyers $25,000, taxing unrealized capital gains, and now promising big tax deductions to small businesses. But she's also come out in support of roughly $5 trillion in tax increases. Joining us to discuss is Thomas Savage, economist at the American Institute for Economic Research. Thomas, thanks for coming on. Let's start big picture on Harris's proposals. The Penn Wharton budget model analyzed them and said they will lead to lower GDP, less economic activity, and wage reductions. First, is that a correct assessment in your view? Yeah, you know, while having not

looked at the specific numbers, that general trends are right on the money, a lot of what we could expect is what was going on in the current administration, which is record-breaking regulations, higher taxes, you know, all things that kill employment, that kill wage growth, and more of what's making the average American family really feel the pinch right now. Now, to get more specific on some of her policies, Harris is proposing tax deductions of up to $50,000 in startup costs for small businesses. Right now, that deduction is set at $5,000. How would that proposal work?

So that proposal, like most tax credits, is that people, will pay money to the government and they have to jump through hurdles either to apply for a lower tax bill or get a little bit of that money back. So it's more of a gimmick than it is actually savings. I was reading some early estimates right out of the gate saying that it could cost up to $230 million. And it's a gimmick to try to get small businesses excited, whereas she's talking about raising corporate income taxes, although now it seems to be that they don't want to raise it as high as President Biden had previously proposed, but it's still a raise. And really, the elephant in the room is the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act set to expire next year. Vice President

Harris and President Biden have never made any sort of commitment to extending those tax cuts, which those sound tax reforms really helped Americans keep more of what they earn. And that's really what America needs is sound tax reforms, not gimmicks. More on the Trump tax cuts, what are some of the components of those tax reductions that have been effective? So some of the most effective ones have really been the personal income taxes and the business income taxes, as well as exemptions for research and development. That's really what's going to help businesses grow. But again, really, you know, for the average American, it's really the changing in the personal income tax rates, both for single filers and for families.

Once those expire, you're going to see your tax bill go up. And I doubt most Americans are going to see more bang for their buck in terms of tax dollars. Harris has also proposed a $25,000 down payment credit on home purchases. That may sound good to first-time buyers. How will that work in reality? So in reality, you know, if you really want to make housing more affordable, you need to look at things like zoning reform. You need to look at property tax reforms. And those are things that need to happen, you know, of course, at the federal, the state, and the local level. And it gets back to, again, how much the government is taking away an income, you think about your tax bill, think about the money that's going to the government, that could go towards the down payment of a house, it could

go towards a number of things, but instead your tax dollars are being thrown away into the behemoth in Washington. And so what we're likely to see is that while people will rush to try and get housing, it's going to increase, say, the demand for housing, but it's not really going to do much to increase the supply of housing. So unless the supply of housing is allowed to increase in tandem, and normally that happens when you have regulatory reforms, you roll government back and allow people to build, when you're having that home building constrained by regulations, it's just going to drive up the price of homes. Sellers might say, oh, a first time buyer wants to buy this house, let me jack up the price about $25,000 because I know they're getting that money from the

government. Thomas, thanks so much for coming on. That was Thomas Savage, economist at the American Institute for Economic Research. Look for our full interview with him to drop this weekend. Another story we're tracking. More details have emerged about the shooting at a high school in Winder, Georgia. Four people were killed, including two students and two adults, while nine others were injured. The suspect has been identified as a 14-year-old male student who gave himself up after resource officers confronted them. Officials say they received a threatening phone call before the shooting yesterday morning. The FBI also revealed last night that they had received tips about the suspect carrying out a school shooting the year before. They interviewed him and his father at the time,

but did not have probable cause to arrest the suspect. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back this afternoon with more news you need to know.