Pod Save America - “America’s Crazy Uncle.” (Town hall recap)

Episode Date: October 16, 2020

Donald Trump and Joe Biden participate in dueling town halls on ABC and NBC, Covid hits the Biden-Harris campaign, and Jon and Dan answer some listener questions. Then Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman talks to Dan about the final weeks of the race in what may be the tipping point state.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's pod, Dan talks to Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman about the race in what could be the tipping point battleground state. Before that, we'll talk about the dueling Trump-Biden town halls, how the pandemic continues to affect the campaigns, and we'll answer a few of your questions. A few quick housekeeping notes before we start.

Check out this week's episode of Pod Save the World, where Tommy and Ben talk about the Trump administration's troop withdrawal timelines in Afghanistan, why K-pop stars BTS are taking criticism from China, and North Korea's gigantic new missile. Great combo of topics there. Happy 150th episode to our friends at Keep It. Ira, thank you for finally inviting me on the 300th episode.

I look forward to that. I'm glad that we're not fighting anymore. I love you all, and I look forward to coming on Keep It in another 150 episodes, so thank you. Our Fuck Gerrymandering Fund has been so successful

that we've added some new states, so please donate to help flip state legislatures across the country. Go to votesaveamerica.com slash fuck Gerry. Super important. And before we get to the news, we have just for you an exclusive new internal poll from the Doug Jones for Senate campaign that has Jones with a one point lead over Republican Tommy Tuberville, 48 to 47. The October 11th through 14th poll of 801 Alabama voters has Jones up 16 points with independence and 65 to 23 among voters who've already cast their ballot. Dan, can Doug Jones pull off another miracle in Alabama? Well, he certainly can, according to this poll. I mean, look, Doug Jones is exactly the right

person we want in the United States Senate. He is in politics for all the right reasons. Fairbank, Maslin, the pollsters that did this poll are very legitimate. I've worked with them in the past. Joe Trippi, who's a senior advisor to Doug Jones, who you may recall from a recent episode of Campaign Experts React, is a longtime and legendary Democratic consultant. I mean, if they say he has a shot, it seems like he has a shot, but he's only going to be able to take advantage of the opportunity he has if he has enough money to do it, which is why we encourage everyone who is looking to help Senator Jones to contribute to his campaign. A final push here, and I think Doug Jones could actually pull off what would be the upset of the entire cycle if he can do this.

Look, polls obviously can be wrong. They can be off. But for those of you who are thinking, oh, it's an internal poll, so maybe it's not right. At least on the Democratic side, you and I have worked on a lot of campaigns. It does not behoove Democratic candidates to come up with fake internal polls because they are making decisions based on those polls. They're trying to figure out where the electorate is. So, you know, if that's where they think the race is, that's where they think the race is. It may be wrong, but that is, you know, it's it could be a race. And Doug Jones needs our help. Doug Jones dot com to donate.

needs our help, DougJones.com to donate. Again, we want as many paths to 51 Senate seats as possible. We have not locked up the Senate yet by any means. So anywhere in the country where there's a Senate race that a few dollars might help a Democrat, I would encourage everyone to donate. Yeah, I think that's right. I think I've saved one more thing about this is Doug Jones's political profile is consistent with being a Democrat who can win Alabama in the right year. 2017 was right here. This might be the right year again. He is running against Tommy Tuberville, who is a former football coach who has literally no idea what he's talking about. Healthcare in this race, like in every race around the country, is an absolute top issue. Doug Jones has a huge advantage on that. And so like Tommy Tumor is basically a less talented Trump. And so there is an opportunity here. And if Doug Jones has the resources, he might be able to pull it off.

And if we win this race, it makes the path to taking control of the Senate so much easier. Yeah, for sure. It's yeah. OK, let's get to the news. Thursday was supposed to be the night of the second presidential debate until Donald Trump declined to participate after the commission made it virtual because he contracted covid. Instead, both candidates held separate town halls. Biden's was moderated by ABC's George Stephanopoulos and Trump's was moderated by NBC's Savannah Guthrie. First, I want to talk about the controversy over Trump's town hall. A lot of liberals and journalists, including quite a few journalists and staffers at NBC, were upset with

the network for rewarding our super spreader president with an event that aired at the same time as Biden's town hall, especially since Trump was the one who pulled out of the second debate and hasn't exactly been forthcoming about his health. Dan, what did you make of that controversy? Do you know how sometimes in the course of a day spent mostly on Twitter, you just decide there are certain things you don't have the energy to understand? This is one of them. Can you help me understand? What's the argument against it? I'm not saying it's wrong. I just fully. This is gonna be hard for me because I, I was, I didn't understand it at all either, but I will give it a whirl. Okay. So like, you know, Trump throws a temper tantrum. He pulls out of a debate. He hasn't been forthcoming about his health. So you don't know if he's infectious.

And so NBC decides to step in and say, okay, well, we'll give you a forum anyway to talk to people and we'll do it opposite Joe Biden. I still I'm telling you, I mean, I just want to look at things at this point with, you know, just over two weeks left until the election from a purely political standpoint. What is going to help Joe Biden win? That's literally all I fucking care about right now. OK. And having Trump speak to voters on national television for 60 minutes is probably going to help Joe Biden win. That was all that was going through my mind. Like I don't like more Trump, as we have been saying for years now is never like a good thing when it comes to undecided voters, swing voters, voters on the margins.

I'm not talking about his base. Like if Trump wins this election, it's because his base was fired up and he got even more Trump voters out there registered. And that's how it happened. It's not because he convinced them during this fucking town hall. Well, I think that there is probably a lesson in this and it's a reminder, which is how do you feel about your cable company? Well, I've cut the cord. Now we just have- Right. Well, everyone hates their cable company. A cable company owns NBC, right? Ultimately, and this is not about the journalists at NBC. This is about how business decisions are made.

We constantly want large media companies owned by even larger for-profit corporations to do the quote-unquote right thing. They are businesses. They-profit corporations to do the quote-unquote right thing. They are businesses. They are always going to do what is best for business. And that is what happened here. Yes, it is unfair to reward. I've now figured out why people are mad about this. It is unfair to reward Trump for basically lying to the debate commission, getting COVID, spreading it to everyone, backing out of the debate, and then rewarding him for that ridiculous behavior with this town hall. But NBC is a business.

And they are in it to make money. And they want ratings. And they want to sell ads. And that is what they are doing here. Right or wrong, this is always going to happen. And I will say this. I get it. We have a couple weeks to go.

Everyone is very anxious. Everyone is very worried. Everyone is nerves are frayed. Everyone is very anxious. Everyone is very worried. Everyone is nerves are frayed. I am there, too. And people just anything that seems like it could shake up the race worries people. People want to do something. I would just say to everyone, you've got to focus on what's going to get Joe Biden to 270. Right. And I know I know what that is now. It's not. It is not boycotting an NBC town hall, folks. It's just not. No, you know what it is? It's not that. I think after last night, what it is is we should take all the energy that went into boycotting the NBC town hall and

use it to pressure CBS to give Trump a two-hour town hall right after a football game. See, that's something that could get joe biden closer to 270 that's my point what i'm saying if this stuff like this is going to happen in the next two weeks like when it happens go to the phone bank go to the tax bank talk to people you know about joe biden what he stands for like that is the most productive use of our time at this point make sure that people in your life who might not vote, go vote. How do you think Savannah did as a moderator? Fabulous. She was great. I think it was one of the best Trump interviews that I have ever seen. And I say interview because she did have to make room at some point for voters to ask questions, but she decided in

that town hall early on that she was going to treat at least the beginning like a straight interview. Because it's been a number of years now, Savannah is often thought of, she's the host of the Today Show. It's a morning show. She's often interviewing movie stars and celebrities in addition to politicians. But before that, she was a White House correspondent. Every single morning for the years that Savannah was the White House correspondent, she would call me at like 6.30 in the morning because she would have to do a morning Joe hit as part of her job. Sorry, Savannah. I'm glad you graduated from that.

And would kick my ass every morning. Right? Like she is smart as can be. She is a lawyer by training. Incredibly talented. And she approached this like every interview with Trump should be approached. And she knew her facts. She did not back down. And she knew her facts. She did not

back down. She held them to account. She did not let him just vomit verbal applesauce onto the stage and move on to the next thing. She did a phenomenal job. We were biased. We were friends of hers. She's, I think, was the second ever guest on a podcast that we've done together. But she was a superstar last night, and it was awesome to see. Well, and like you said, yeah, we've known Savannah a long time. I've always been a big fan. She's a friend. But I will say the other thing that made it so good and what makes Savannah such a good journalist and why the Today Show host role is such a good fit for her is she's just very normal and down to earth. And she approached the interview like a human being at home who's skeptical of this lunatic president asking him questions.

Right. She was she was nice. She asked very piercing questions in a very congenial tone. And she followed up very sharply, still maintaining that very congenial tone and smiling the whole time. Right. Like she was not, she did not go super hard at him. She was not playing for the cameras. She was not, you know, like some of the people who interviewed Trump do. She just was like, she stuck on one question, followed up when he lied. She stayed there. She didn't leave. And she kept following up, following up, following up until he finally answered the question, which a lot of times he didn't. And he just dissembled because as every every interview with Trump that has gone really

poorly for Trump, it's because the interviewer in question does not let him move on to the next topic and they don't move on to the next topic. They just keep following up on his lies and on him just babbling until he, you know, until he finally says something. I mean, that is an interesting thing, which is reporters go, we've seen this in interviews with more normal presidents, like the one we work for, reporters go into it and there's like, I know I have 20 minutes or 30 minutes and I have to get to these seven things. And so when the president doesn't answer the question on the first or even the second try,

you move on. And what I thought was really good about Savannah, and I think Jonathan Swan did this and Chris Wallace and the other sort of good performances by interviewers with Trump, is they've been willing to cover less topics to try to get answers on some of them. And I thought that's the right way to do it. Because I watched the Biden interview in real time and the Trump interview afterwards. And I was shocked by how short the Trump one felt and how few topics they actually got to. But by that approach, you actually got hit, forced his hand to try to answer some of them. And I thought it was it was very it was very fruitful for viewers trying to understand more about who this lunatic is.

Now, the early ratings out say that Biden's town hall was narrowly more popular than Trump's, although we should note that there's a few cable networks that NBC owns, like MSNBC, Telemundo, that are still out there. So as the ratings come in today, you know, Trump could pull ahead. But at the very least, it seems like they're roughly similar. And one of the fears about this town hall was that Trump would swamp Biden in the ratings, which, you know, I have to say again, I kind of wish more people watched Trump's town hall. Super Bowl ratings for trump is what we want uh you know beam it into the cortex of the american people like yeah i'm hoping i'm hoping as the ratings come in it's more ratings for trump that's what i'm hoping that's right like i mean i think it is like ratings are like a pretty

imperfect um metric of enthusiasm. It is exciting that this many people chose Biden over Trump. I think that is a good sign. I think it speaks to enthusiasm among our supporters. It probably even speaks to some swing voters who probably think they know all they need to know about Trump but want to check out the other guy. And so I think that's all positive. But in general, we want the American people seeing Trump speak because that is bad for him. All right. Let's talk about some of the notable moments.

Savannah kicked off the night by trying to pin down Trump on the timeline of his covid infection. A little bit later, she and one of the voters pressed Trump on whether he's now changed his mind on the importance of masks. Let's take a listen to both of those interactions. When was your last negative test? When did you last remember having a negative test? Well, I test quite a bit. And I can tell you that before the debate, which I thought it was a very good debate, and I felt fantastically, I had no problem before. Did you test the day of the debate? I don't know. I don't even remember. I test all the time. But I can tell you this.

After the debate, like I guess a day or so, I think it was Thursday evening, maybe even late Thursday evening, I tested positive. That's when I first found out about it. Well, back to the debate, because the debate commission's rules, it was the honor system, would be that you would come with a negative test. Do you say you don't know if you got a test on the day of the debate? I had no problem. Again, the doctors do it. I don't ask them. I test all the time.

Did you take a test, though, on the day of the debate? If you ask the doctor, they'll give you a perfect answer. But they take a test, and I leave, and I go about my business. So did you take a test on the day of the debate, I guess, is the bottom line. I probably did, and I took a test the day before and the day before, and I was always in great shape, and I was in great shape for the debate. And it was only after the debate, like a period of time after the debate, that I said, that's interesting.

And they took a test and a test at Plover. So just to button it up, do you take a test every single day? No, no, but I take a lot of tests. Okay, and you don't know if you took a test the day of the debate? Possibly I did, possibly I didn't. Here's the mask one. As far as the day of the debate? Possibly I did. Possibly I didn't. Here's the mask one. As far as the mask is concerned, I'm good with masks. I'm OK with masks. I tell people wear masks. But just the other day, they came out with a statement that 85 percent of the people that wear masks catch it.

So, you know, this is a very tricky. That's what I heard and that's what I saw. And regardless, but everybody's tested and they're tested often. And I also knew that, hey, I'm president. I have to see people. I can't be in a basement. I can't be in a room. I can't be.

I have to be out. You can see people with a mask though, right? I can, but people with masks are catching it all the time. Has your opinion changed on the importance of mask wearing? No, because I was okay with the masks. I was good with it, but I've heard many different stories on masks. I mean, I had, you know, being president, you have people, they bring meals, they bring this, and I had an instance recently where a very wonderful person is bringing me a meal and he's playing with his mask and he's touching his mask all over the place. And then he's bringing a plate in and I'm saying, well, I don't know if that's so

good. I mean, the good news, I didn't eat it. Okay. I decided not to eat it. This was a month ago. But I look, look, you have on the masks, you know, you have two stories. You have a story where they want, a story where they don't want. I am all for it. I don't get that because it's just all of your public health officials, your administration, they're in unison about this. So it seems to me from these answers that the president didn't get tested right before the debate, was probably infectious at the debate, does have some kind of lung damage. He said later they said the lungs are a little bit different, a little bit perhaps infected when Savannah was asking him about that. And he clearly hasn't learned a thing from his illness. What about you?

What was your takeaway there? I mean, the testing thing is a gigantic issue with this debate coming up next week. How is the debate commission going to change its honor system for ensuring that the next president of the United States may not catch COVID, right? Like, how are they going to change that? I don't know if you have gotten a COVID test, you know anyone who has, but they stick a Q-tip very far up your

nose. You would remember when it happened, right? The debate's a memorable day in a seven day week. I mean, you know, I've gotten a COVID test up the nose. I've gotten one of the finger prick ones, which I know is what they have at the white house. Some of the rapid ones, no matter what it is, you remember getting a fucking COVID test. Of course he knows the COVID test. It's obvious. It is obvious what happened. But the last time he probably got a COVID test was Saturday, the day of the Amy Coney Barrett super spreader event. And then the White House just told the debate commission that that COVID test was still valid, even though clearly he caught COVID in between that event or at that event and the debate.

Or he had it before because the pre, the White House rapid tests are the same rapid tests you see the NFL using. And if you track the NFL very closely, it is constant. Like, you know, this team has four positive tests and then the next day they do the PCR test and they don't have them or vice versa. That is not a reliable enough measure. And I am convinced based on nothing. So file this in a conspiracy theory if you want. But I have my personal conspiracy theory is that Trump, remember when the first time he ever got the test and he complained for like 30 minutes about the pain in his nose and how far up there. I am convinced that he refuses to take the PCR test. Oh, yeah, because he doesn't want it up there.

But I think you can take the PCR test not up the nose, too. I think they can do it other ways. If that is the case, then my conspiracy theory has collapsed faster than it's going on. I was going to say, I will say the first time I got a COVID test was the PCR test up the nose. And I was like, oh, God, this is going to be awful. I don't love medical things. And then it happened. And I was like, that is like minorly uncomfortable it wasn't bad at all and the nurse who gave it to me she was

like yeah you know the president went on tv and said that it was a horrible test and now people are worried about it he's never helpful on anything but he does nothing he ever does is helpful get her and get that lady in a town hall yeah this random nurse just complaining about the president unprompted i also think on the mask issue, like this is. It's insane. This young woman, the young woman who asked the question is a frontline health care worker. She was undecided. I think maybe leaning Biden.

I think her mom was leaning Trump. They both asked questions together. But like, have you changed your mind on masks? Here's what Chris Christie, who spent four days in the ICU, said yesterday. He's been saying it again today, he said, I was wrong. People should wear masks. And then he talked about Trump's answer last night

and said he should not have just said it's okay to wear masks. He should have encouraged people to wear masks and he should have encouraged people to social distance because I didn't do either of those things and I ended up in the ICU for four days. Chris Christie,'s is someone who like faced death because of covid and said you know what i was a fucking idiot i learned a lesson

people should wear masks like if trump had just said that even on that one issue like it would have made me nervous because i actually think it would have helped him politically a little bit i mean the whole thing was a layup that he threw over the backboard. A layup. But like here is an 80% issue with no political downside at all. Mr. President, would you like to support it here with no pushback? Absolutely not. More than half of his base, more than half, not his base, more than half of the Republican Party is in favor of everyone wearing masks.

I mean, and he even like, he clearly was instructed by his now COVID immune staff to endorse masks because he kind of half did it several times. He said, Savannah, you and I are on the same side of masks. I'm fine with masks,

but he could never, he can't actually get himself in that position because then he would say he's for them. And then he would spend the next five minutes undermining that point by talking about this fake study of 85% and telling that very weird story about the person fingering their mask. He cannot bring himself to do the most obvious thing he could do to help himself because anything that suggests that COVID is serious reminds him of his absolute historic, pathetic failure to protect the American people. COVID is this interesting mirror that it forces Trump to look at himself and see himself as the absolute failure that he has always, I think, probably known down deep that he really was. Not to psychoanalyze him,

that's why he can't bring himself to just admit he was wrong on one thing or adopt the most obvious safe things. He can't do that because it reminds him that he's screwed up and he is not who he likes people to think he is. I mean, it's not just COVID, though. He's literally never been able to say he was wrong on anything his entire life. Yes, this is true. I mean, it is his one consistent theory of politics. Never admit you're wrong. Never admit a mistake. Never say you're sorry ever, no matter what. And by the way, saying like it's OK if you wear a mask, that's not the fucking point of masks. Like masks don't work if it's just a choice and you can wear

one if you want and you don't have, you know, like that. That's not how masks work. The masks are effective if everyone wears a fucking mask. Unbelievable that we're still saying that now. Anyway, because Trump is the nation's most famous conspiracy theorist, Savannah had to spend some time on a few of the nuttier things he's tweeted recently. She asked if he would disavow QAnon, which the FBI, Trump's FBI, has called a domestic terror threat. Trump declined. She then asked why he tweeted a ludicrous conspiracy that Barack Obama and Joe Biden had SEAL Team Six killed, the members of which are very much alive. He didn't have a great answer for that either. Let's listen to both clips.

Outwards announcing, let me ask you about QAnon. It is this theory that Democrats are a satanic pedophile ring and that you are the savior of that. Now, can you just once and for all state that that is completely not true and disavow QAnon in its entirety? I know nothing about QAnon. I just told you. I know very little. You told me, but what you tell me doesn't necessarily make it fact. I hate to say that. I know nothing about it. I do know they are very much against pedophilia. They fight it very hard. But I know nothing about it. They believe it is a satanic cult run by the deep state. If you'd like me to study the subject, I'll tell you what I do know about. I know about

Antifa and I know about the radical left and I know how violent they are and how vicious they are. And I know how they're burning down cities run by Democrats, not run by Republicans. Republican Senator Ben Sasse said, quote, QAnon is nuts and real leaders call conspiracy theories conspiracy theories. Why not just say it's crazy and not true? He may be right. I just don't know about QAnon. You do know. Just this week, you retweeted to your 87 million followers a conspiracy theory that Joe Biden orchestrated to have SEAL Team 6, the Navy SEAL Team 6, killed to cover up the fake death of bin Laden. Now, why would you send a lie like that to your followers?

You retweeted it. That was a retweet. That was an opinion of somebody. And that was a retweet. I'll put it out there. People can decide for themselves. I don't get that. You're the president. You're not like someone's crazy uncle who can just retweet whatever. No, no, no. That was a retweet. And I do a lot of retweets. And frankly, because the media is so fake and so corrupt, if I didn't have social media, I don't call it Twitter,

I call it social media, I wouldn't be able to get the word out. Retweets are not endorsements that's true it's true i mean that is that is true that is that is true i mean savannah saying that you're not somebody's crazy uncle was to me basically sums up trump and the whole entire race right like that yes no he actually a lot of voters right now hopefully a majority of voters in states that add up to 270, see him as America's crazy fucking uncle retweeting crazy shit like this. Like that is I'm so glad she brought that up. on Twitter that I didn't even realize until a day later when someone pointed it out on Twitter that he had retweeted this conspiracy about Obama and Bin Laden and SEAL Team 6 and all this bullshit. And a whole bunch of reporters didn't even write about it until a day later. And

suddenly everyone realized, remembered that he had done that because he tweeted so many crazy things in a row. But like the idea that you're the president of the United States and you would just promote, promote a conspiracy theory that your predecessor and your political opponent had the people who killed bin Laden killed and that bin Laden, I mean, what the fuck is he doing? I mean, it, the crazy uncle was the exact right way to describe Trump because we talk about this a lot, but if anyone in your family, it would most likely be your uncle said the things Trump said, posted the things Trump's posted on social media, there would be a family meeting about it, right? And hopefully

that's what this election is, is like the America's family meeting about the crazy uncle that we have to do something about. I mean, the conspiracy theory in this case is insane. Like it is, as I understand it, the Bush and Obama administrations colluded together to keep bin laden alive in iran and to then bring him it's not it's not even worth it but i mean it's so crazy i mean it is why ultimately having trump have to face the public and speak in public is politically good for democrats because it prevents people from tuning it out it prevents the media from sort of sanitizing and trying to take the crazy things he says and fit it into a traditional framework of how a president acts. And it is just all of the craziness, all the stupidity, all of the narcissism, all of the meanness on display for the whole country to watch. And that and that is what happened in this answer as well.

Which it normally isn't unless you are paying attention to his Twitter feed all the time. And most of the country is not on Twitter. But like, you know, Brian Stelter pointed this out at CNN, like, you know, Trump usually does interviews and speaks in public in safe spaces, right? He talks to Sean Hannity. He talks to Laura Ingraham, right? He talks to all his friends on Fox. And they will never ask him about these crazy conspiracies and crazy tweets because most of the time they're promoting it on their network as well. And so the rare moments when Donald Trump steps outside of his right wing MAGA media safe space and actually sits for a real interview and a reporter calls him on one of the many crazy

things he says or tweets on a daily basis, he falls apart. He falls apart. And the whole country gets to see that. I mean, like, how do you think it how do you think both those things play with people who are just hearing about these conspiracies for the first time? I would imagine that a lot of voters, a lot of people who are just tuning into town halls who aren't sort of political junkies might not have never heard about QAnon themselves. They probably certainly haven't heard about that crazy conspiracy about SEAL Team 6. Like, what does that seem like to people? Do they just see it? Do you think they see it as noise? Do you think they see it as, yeah, something's a little wrong with this guy?

I think to the extent that people, if people dig into any of it, to what QAnon is or what clip of that on social media or heard about it from someone, it is a reminder to these voters that Trump is focused on everything but the most important issue facing the country. 216,000 people have died in the last few months. 8 million people, we learned the other day, have slid into poverty in the last few months. And Donald Trump is retweeting conspiracy theories, defending QAnon. He's not focused on the thing that matters. And that is, I think, ultimately been Trump's undoing this whole campaign is his inability to understand the moment we are living in and offer a message and agenda that deals with that. And so he is off just dealing with the craziest things in the darkest corners of the Fox News expanded universe. And that is a place where the overwhelming majority of voters do not live and do not understand. And so it creates a disconnect. And that is very, very dangerous for a politician

facing re-election. And we should say before we move on, he didn't just refuse to disavow QAnon there. He basically praised them. He said, well, I know that they're fighting against pedophilia very, very hard, which Ben Collins at NBC, who's done a lot of reporting on QAnon, very deep reporting, said that's basically as close to an endorsement as QAnon could hope for and that they are probably rejoicing right now because it was not just, oh, the FBI, Trump's FBI director that he appointed, have called a domestic terror threat. These are not just like loony conspiracists. They are dangerous. They're dangerous people. So I do think Trump was a little bit less of an angry asshole during some of the voter questions in the second half of the town hall. But I think then he had a different problem. Like every time he was asked what he'll do about a certain issue in his second term he either didn't answer talked about his first term and his record or he just made shit up like how much do you think that

matters because i do think like as i was watching he sort of calmed down and he was because he wasn't screaming at savannah he was interacting with voters. And so if you sort of watched it, sort of like squinted, you're like, maybe he sounds a little more normal in the second half. But I don't think he was offering any real answers to folks. I think he sounded more normal than Trump did in the first half. But I think that is a grand perversion of the word normal. The words he said did not make sense. Like if you were to read a transcript of that, you would think there was some sort of massive transcription error because it meant nothing, right? The words meant nothing. He had no idea. The healthcare question was just

insanely absurd. The best thing that happened on the healthcare question, and again, this was, you know, a credit to Savannah's moderating, is she, you know, someone asked about his healthcare plan. He does the whole thing about how Obamacare is awful. The question was like, what are you going to do about health care? He had nothing to say about it. Yelled about Obamacare for a while. Talked about protecting pre-existing conditions, which is a lie. And then Savannah's like, here's the thing. You've been president for four years. You controlled, Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and you never replaced Obamacare. What happened? And he was like, uh, well, we did replace the individual mandate. She's like, yeah, well, what about the rest of the bill? I thought you were going to give us better health care. He doesn't have a fucking answer on what he's going to do about literally any issue in the second term if he's reelected. Nick, he is no, he only wants to win reelection to own the libs. Yeah. Oh, I get own the libs and, uh, slow down, uh, his criminal prosecution at the state level. Um, I mean, deadly, I'm, I'm like not kidding about that.

Um, and, but he has no idea what he's doing and the healthcare answer, it was just a reminder that Trump is a tremendously incoherent liar. Like some of the politicians who were able to survive in 2018 by telling big, huge, massive lies about their super pre-existing conditions, they were deeply dishonest, but they could fool people. Trump's lies make no sense. They're conflicting. The words don't make sense. And I can't imagine any reasonable, truly persuadable voter listened to that or watched that and thought, this is something, this man has any idea what he's talking about into someone who will stand up for men in health care. Yeah. I mean, Frank Luntz did a focus group of undecided voters. And by the way, we should say undecided voters, focus groups of undecided voters at this

point are probably going to lean a little more Republican the closer we get because Biden's lead is large enough in the polls and a lot of people have made up their minds. The remaining people, you know, could be a little more. Yeah, it's probably 730 or 8020 Republican at this point. Right. And they're still undecided. So it tells you something. But he once said that undecided swing state voters said that the more the president spoke last night, the worse he looked. So I don't even there was this there was a lot of commentary on Twitter about this 45 year old white woman who asked Trump about DACA. And she started the question by saying, you have a really nice smile to the president. And everyone was like, oh, God, she's like a MAGA person. She's a really nice smile to the president. And everyone was like,

oh, God, she's like a MAGA person. She's a Trump person. This is awful. Afterwards, a reporter caught up with her and asked her if she was voting for her. And she said Biden, even though she even though she told Trump he had a nice smile. She's she's voting for Biden. I mean, I don't do you think he did himself any good at that at all? No, anything. I keep trying to say all this stuff? Is there anything we're missing? Anything we're missing on this? No, you said it right that Trump could still win for a whole host of things, reasons that have to do with voter suppression. But if he were to win, it is not because of what he said last night that we have spent so much time over

the last four years talking about how Trump's biggest political problem is his tweeting. Yeah, I actually don't think that's true. His biggest political problem is his tweeting. I actually don't think that's true. His biggest political problem is speaking. When people see him speak, he reminds them of everything they hate about him and hate about politics. He is stupid. He is angry. He is pathetic. And he is mean. And none of those are appealing qualities. and they are particularly unappealing in a time of absolute national crisis. He, every time he speaks, he looks way too small for the moment we are living in. And so like, that's why we said earlier, CBS host a town hall, ESPN host a town hall, HBO town hall, right? Like give that man as much airtime as he wants. And the other thing that, you know, we've always said is that he's focused on himself and not focused on everyone else, right? Like he is, everything is about him.

Everything goes back to him. He is so self-obsessed. Like every question goes back to him. Me, me, me, me, me. I did this. I did this. He feels wounded. He feels upset. It's always about him. It's just exhausting. It's fucking exhausting. He embodies the contrast message against him, which is why it's a good message. You know, sometimes you have a message and it came in and you say, this person has gone Washington or they're a creature of special interest, but then they'll be out there when they campaign. They don't seem like that. When you say that Trump is not up to this moment, that he is someone who has not grown

in office, he is someone who puts himself first, every time he walks out of the White House, every time he speaks, everything he does reinforces that message, he is someone who puts himself first. Every time he walks out of the White House, every time he speaks, everything he does reinforces that message. He is incapable of not reinforcing it. Last question before we move on to Biden's town hall. If you were watching last night's town hall as the Biden debate prep team, was there anything that would help you prepare

for the final debate next week? Biden's just got, we got to get through one more debate here. One more chance for Trump to really shake things up. final debate next week. Biden's just got, we got to get through one more debate here. One more chance for Trump to really shake things up. Is there, was there anything you noticed about Trump's performance that you would? I think if you can, this is, this is a foreign policy debate, which I think we should note. So that it's, that makes it a little more challenging. Any conversation you can have with Trump on healthcare is a giant winner for Biden. Any conversation, if you can bring it back to masks in any way, like anything in the

world of coronavirus where Trump has to talk about it is bad for him because he cannot say the things that people want him to say. He will not let bring himself to do it. But I think the biggest thing, which I think was also the takeaway from the debate, is Biden's just got to kind of ignore Trump on that stage. Correct misstatements about his record. Defend himself without being defensive, as I think he did well last time. Don't let him rattle you and just use the national audience to tell people about your plans and don't worry about it. Trump is going to disqualify himself

by his mere presence on that stage. And you just go out there and talk to people because you have a captive audience about what you would do as president. Because the contrast of the two men, and we'll talk about this in the context of the town halls, embodies what this race is all about. So just Joe Biden being Joe Biden and letting Trump be Trump is exactly what Joe Biden needs to become president. I mostly agree with that. I would say I think that Joe Biden needs to continue to keep Trump off balance. I think if you watch that town hall last night, like when Savannah kept pressing him on what his plans were or what he was going to do or voters did, he gets angry and he dissembles and he looks worse. Like, I am sure Trump advisers are telling him, tune it down, take it down a couple notches on this last debate. Right. And I know that is it is probably impossible for Trump to do.

debate. Right. And I know that is it is probably impossible for Trump to do. But even if he takes it down a few notches, you could imagine the press grading it as a big win for him. Right. And I think that like I think what Biden needs to accomplish is the most important thing. Tell people about your plans. People are wondering what Biden stands for. What's he going to do? Like that's number one. Get out of there with that. But I think Biden needs to continue to press him on what would you do? Why don't you tell people what you would do on health care in a second term? Why don't you tell people what you would do to stop covid right now? Not what you've done. Not not excuses about the past. Talk about the future.

This is a race about the future. What are you going to do? I think he should keep pressing him because, like, I think the danger is if Biden completely ignores him and Trump sort of takes it down a notch and then spends all of his time either attacking Biden or just like dissembling, then Biden could just, you know, it could look like a slightly better performance than the first debate. Yeah, I think that's right. I think you may have said this in what I remember, although I don't know if details, it's hard to be very good advice for Biden before the first debate. I was doing some research for some debate stuff, and I went back and I watched the moment where Candy Crowley fact-checked Mitt Romney on Benghazi. And there was this moment where Romney is stomping around the stage, and he's sure he has nailed Obama on whether Obama called Benghazi an act of terror. And Obama, it's Obama's

time to talk. And Obama goes, no, governor, go ahead and just lets him walk right into the trap. And there is an opportunity, I think, for Biden to like give his time back when Trump can't answer a question about some policy issue or something else. Be like, no, no, no, Mr. President, please explain your health care plan. Go ahead. Take my time. Right. And that's important because the Trump campaign has essentially telegraphed in a whole bunch of stories over the last couple of weeks that they are going to tell Trump to let Biden talk more, believing that if Biden talks more, he will just give long winded answers and he'll commit a gaffe and that Trump should just hold back and not interrupt him so much. So I do think for that

reason that it's important for Biden, Biden to let Trump talk a lot and specifically about about second term plans, because we know it's most important to people watching from home to find out what these two candidates are going to do to improve their lives. That's what people are looking for. And Trump doesn't have a good answer on that. He just didn't come up with a second term agenda. And you should expose that. All right, let's talk about Joe Biden's town hall,

which was quite a different affair in just about every way. I thought CNN captured it best with their story about the two events. Quote, on ABC, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden was explaining his plan to raise taxes on people making more than $400,000 per year. On NBC, President Donald Trump was equivocating about the existence of a satanic cult of pedophiles. Here's a clip of Joe Biden answering that question on taxes. So you can raise a lot of money to be able to invest in things that can make your life easier, make you change your standard of living by making sure you have affordable healthcare, by making sure you're in a situation where you're able to send your kid to school

and if you have a student debt, you can deal with it. Making sure that your home, you can pay your mortgage. Made in America, if you actually insist that, whatever that product is, made in America, including the material that goes into the product, it's estimated we're going to create somewhere between another four and six million jobs just by doing that. But what's happening now under his trade policy, a lot of this is going overseas. You get a benefit from going overseas if you have much of it being made overseas. So if you send it overseas, you get a

10% tax increase on the product. If you make it in America and you bring it back, you get a 10 percent tax increase on your on the product. If you make it in America and you bring it back, you get a 10 percent growth. If you bring back a company and you're going to open up an old an old facility, you get a 10 percent tax credit for all you invested. That actually works, George. So you watch the Biden town hall before the Trump town hall. I did the reverse. What was your overall take on how Biden did? They did very well. It was just comfortingly normal, right? Biden had tried to answer questions. There were details in those questions. I thought he did a very good job.

Some of the answers were better than others, but on the whole, I think it was a very, very good performance. And I find it impossible to imagine that a reasonable, truly persuadable voter could watch both town halls and not feel dramatically more comfortable with Joe Biden in the White House than Donald Trump. Yeah. I think Biden's answer on masks was also a pretty telling contrast to Trump's answer. Here's the clip on that. The words of a president matter. Absolutely. No matter whether they're good, bad or indifferent, they matter. And when a president doesn't wear a mask or makes fun of folks like me when I was wearing a mask for a long time, then, you know, people

say, well, it mustn't be that important. But when a president says, I think this is very important. For example, I walked in here with this mask, but I have one of the M95 masks underneath it. I left it in my dressing room, the room I was in before I got here. And so I think it matters what we say. And we're now learning that children are getting the virus, not with as serious consequences, but we haven't, there's been no studies done yet on vaccines for children. So there's a long way to go, but we can make progress in the meantime and save lives. So I thought that was a really great answer and quite a contrast from Donald Trump's answers to Savannah. Ezra Klein had a really great take on the night and

the whole race that you and I were talking about last night. Specifically on that answer, he wrote, this was again and again Biden's point. The words of the president matter. The behavior of the president matters. The comportment of the president matters. The example of the president matters. Biden talks policy often and reasonably well, but he hasn't been putting on a clinic in wonkery. He's been putting on a clinic in decency and it matters. It shouldn't. Decency should be table stakes, too unremarkable to mention,

but right now it does. What did you think of that? I thought it was a great piece and I am often jealous of the way Ezra makes arguments and his use of the hierarchy of needs as a way to explain this campaign was very, very smart. Yeah. And I think it is completely true. And this is a point

Ezra has made throughout the primary as well, is there are certain things that political obsessives and political professionals like us really value, right? Eloquent rhetoric, policy wonkery, grand theories of political change. Those are the things that drew us to Barack Obama. But it's not really what voters always want, particularly in a time of crisis. And I thought it was a very strong, it was a good argument. I do think it undersells how good a candidate Biden has been in this race. He has been phenomenally disciplined. Everything he does, and I think some of it comes very naturally to him, but everything he does, everything he says, undergirds the argument for why him and why not Trump.

That entire NBC town hall was all about Trump. His retweets, what it meant for him, his grievances with the questions from Savannah, his being incredibly excited because some voter said something nice about his smile. And the Biden event was nothing about Biden. He told stories about his life and his father, which he often does, but it was always grounded in a way of talking about how to help other people. Notably, he stayed afterwards for well over an hour talking to all the voters. It like it, you know, I just, I was just very, very, very struck in that town hall by, and maybe this is all of our expectations lowered by living in the Trump era, but just what a tremendous breath of fresh air having just a good, normal,

decent person who wants to do the right thing in office would be for this country, right? Like it should be table stakes. Ezra is right, but it is not. And I think Biden can do a lot more than that for sure. But at the bare minimum, he understands that in this campaign better than anyone else, including us has.

The bar is low, but Trump hasn't crossed it. Yeah. Right? And Biden has. I mean, David Axelrod always says that, you know, when an incumbent's up for re-election, the race is about finding out who's going to be the remedy to that incumbent and not the replica. Right.

People want to look for what they most dislike about the incumbent and who's going to be the who's going to be the remedy for that. And I think when you ask what's wrong with Trump, the largest majority of voters in this country, if you ask them what most people agree is wrong with Trump, they would probably say he's a fucking asshole, right? Like we have, you know, as liberals, we have a million things that we'd say is wrong with Trump, right? He's an extremist. He's a racist. He's a xenophobe. He's a sexist.

But the most people in this country, when asked, even some Republicans, even non-voters, even people who don't pay attention to politics would say, that guy is an asshole and he is cruel and his cruelty and his self-absorption has created this level of chaos around him that has hurt all of us in the midst of a once-in-a-generation crisis. Right? That is the problem. And Joe Biden's, like, the genius of his campaign in the general election was to understand that what people want is decency again. They want a lot more than that. I want a lot more than that.

I want like a whole bunch of great progressive policies to pass. I do. But right now, the more immediate emergency in this country is that we have a man in office who is cruel and nasty and self-absorbed while we are all going through a recession and a pandemic. And he is not fit to do that job. And he has made politics miserable. He has made the country miserable.

He's made us feel bad all the time. He's made us feel exhausted. And what Joe Biden did during that town hall, a lot of his answers were too long. He was, he rambled through some of them, right? He got way into the weeds on some policies. But again and again, every single moment of that town hall, he tried. He tried. He

tried to show that he was a decent person. He tried to show that he would listen when there was a young black man who said, you know, why should I? You know, I don't maybe he doesn't like Trump, but why should I vote for you? I was thinking of not voting at all. And a lot of young black men are wondering whether they should vote at all. And Biden gives this very, very long answer about education and criminal justice and stuff like that. And at the end, he's like, was that good? Was that OK? And the voter was like, yeah, I think so. And Biden sensing that maybe it wasn't enough for him was like, come find me afterwards. Come find me afterwards and I'll keep talking to you. And that is who Joe Biden is. He is not the perfect candidate. He's not going to be the

perfect president. But the guy is fundamentally decent and he is going to fight like hell and really try to be a president for the whole country and really try to work his ass off to make people's lives better. And that came across in that town hall more than anything else. And it is the antithesis of the person that we have in office right now. Yeah, your view, you know, your sort of point about people agreeing Trump is an asshole is, I think, 100% right. I think that that is unanimous agreement. And the disagreement is not whether Trump's an asshole. It's whether he's an asshole for me, whether he's an asshole for himself.

And that's the difference between Trump 2016 and Trump 2020. In Trump 2016, his argument was, yeah, I'm an asshole, but I'm going to fight for you. I'm going to use my assholery to benefit you to stand up against the deep state and the swamp and all of that. And now let's just, I'm an asshole who only cares about myself. And you're sick. You've lost relatives. You've lost your job. And I don't care about any of that because I'm more worried about myself. And that is the difference. And campaigns are ultimately the meeting of the person in the moment, right? And the best campaigns are when the true essence of the candidate is what the

electorate is thirsting for. Obama in 2008 was exactly what they wanted. People wanted hope. They want someone who stood up against the Iraq war. They want the opposite of George W. Bush. And Joe Biden is, even though he is also a white man in his 70s, is the opposite of Donald Trump. Right. That is like that the Joe Biden who talked to that person, talked to people for hours after that, who genuinely cared whether he answered the question these people had the courage to ask, is the Joe Biden that we have known for many, many years. And the fact that he gets to be him at his absolute true essence of himself also happens to be the best possible political argument he can make for his election. And that is where exactly where you want to find yourself in a campaign. Yeah, he's not a savior. He's not a fire breathing populist. He's maybe not,

you know, he hasn't been the most progressive person his whole life, but he is a decent public servant who is trying his best. And that is not what we have in the White House right now. And look, it's like you said, 40-something percent of the country is still going to say, you know, over the next couple of weeks, Donald Trump is an asshole for me. It's just going to happen. But the question is, have enough of them said, you know what, I thought he was an asshole for me. But after four years, yeah, it doesn't seem like he's done too much for me. Doesn't seem like he's done too much for me. And if enough people say that, that's it. Then that's the election right there. One more development we should talk about before

answering a few questions. The Biden campaign announced on Wednesday that Kamala Harris's communications director, a flight attendant on her campaign plane and a flight attendant on Joe Biden's campaign plane all tested positive for covid. Harris and Biden have both tested negative and said that they weren't close to the people who are infected and said that they were wearing N95 masks. Meanwhile, Trump continues his super spreader tour of big rallies in the battleground states. Dan, how do you think the Biden-Harris campaign handled announcing this news? Well, first, I just want to send our best wishes out to Liz Allen, who is Commercially Communications Director. She's our former coworker from the White House.

She is one of the best people you will ever meet in politics. And so, you know, well wishes to her, for sure. And I hope everyone listening should offer the same. They handled it exactly the way they've handled everything else. And I wrote about this this morning in my newsletter, that it embodies their strategy, which is they compare the statement they released, which laid out the timeline, the testing protocols, the precautions the campaign takes on a daily basis to keep Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, their staffs, the reporters covering them, and everyone they come in contact with

safe with how Trump has handled it. It exuded responsibility. And that is actually, I think, excellent politics. That is the right thing to do politically in this environment because it's a perfect contrast with our deeply irresponsibly dangerous president. But I think it is the advantage. dangerous president. But I think it is the advantage. They handle it this way because they take this very seriously. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are leaders who understand that modeling good behavior is what leaders do, and good behavior saves lives in a pandemic. And also, it is helpful that Biden has as his advisors a bunch of people who have worked on these issues in real life, in real time, outside the context of campaign in government,

right? Whether it's Ron Klain or Tony Blinken and Tom Donilon and Anita Dunn, who was there in the White House during H1N1, who understand how serious leaders treat serious issues like this. And that statement would have come from a very highly functioning, transparent White House, not a presidential campaign. It is to their substantive and political credit, in my view. Yeah, I'm sure that they were all very worried and scared and worried for Liz, as they all should have been. I think that they also thought to themselves, as we announce this news, this is an opportunity for us to show how different we are and how different

we're going to react from this White House and how this White House handled that. And they did that very well. I also thought my next thought was stay home, everyone. Go back to the basement. Like, I don't I have I mean, that is, you know, it's still the nightmare, right, that over the next two weeks that with all the precautions that all of them are taking, you know, someone could still catch it, including Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, which would be fucking awful. Yeah, I mean, 100 percent. I think, you know, I was incredibly comforted by reading about all of the steps that they take. Joe Biden telling George Stephanopoulos now he's wearing two masks. Trump's like Trump's on zero masks. Biden's up to two masks. He's got an N95 and then another one on top. That was great. Do you think if Trump puts on one mask,

Biden's going to add two more masks? I would. Yeah, I would. I would start wearing them all over my face, head. I would be Joe Biden should wear a fucking hazmat suit for the last two weeks. I mean, the last thing any campaign wants to do is take one of their two principles off the campaign trail with less than three weeks to go, right? I mean, that is a big deal for that campaign. Probably the voters of the Biden campaign is most concerned about turning out are the ones who are most likely to be excited by hearing from and seeing Kamala Harris. And so, but they, and

they could have made an argument to themselves that because of the precautions that we take, we do not have to take Kamala Harris off the trail. We can put in some other mitigating steps, but they erred on the side of caution because that is the right thing to do. And it is also the core message of their campaign, that they are going to do things the right and responsible way, And it is also the core message of their campaign, that they are going to do things the right and responsible way because that's how you save lives. OK, let's take a few questions before we get to your interview with Lieutenant Governor Fetterman. Questions. Paul Miller asks, several months ago, it seemed the overall sentiment shared on Pod Save America was that Mayor Pete's appearances on Fox News were on balance doing more disservice by giving legitimacy to Fox News than being of benefit by reaching Republican swing voters. Pete's had a few recent, in the last couple weeks,

solid appearances on Fox, which have garnered more eyeballs on Twitter. Do you all still feel as if you'd suggest he not make such appearances? Well, this is primarily my pet issue, of which I have argued with many people about. And I will just clarify my position. I am wholly agnostic on whether Democrats want to appear for interviews on Fox News, right? Whether you want to do an interview with Brett Baier or Chris Wallace. If I was advising a candidate, I would probably say not worth the time and energy. But I think that is a debate of good faith.

My biggest complaint in the thing that I think is and was and is a mistake are doing these town halls with Fox that offer them legitimacy as a news organization. And my concern was undermine the efforts done by media matters and sleeping giants and others to persuade advertisers to walk away from the dangerous white supremacy and climate denialism that pervades Fox. Um, I, so like, I think Pete did a great job in these interviews. I very much enjoyed watching them. Um, so if he wants to keep doing them for now in election or forevermore, uh, I am totally fine with it. I thought he, you know, he is probably the one, like if you had to pick one Democrat to go on Fox, Pete has proven himself to perhaps be that Democrat. I think he has done a fantastic job over the last couple of weeks. I've always been

more conflicted about this question. And look, I fucking hate Fox News. It is my forever wish that a liberal billionaire will buy the network and shut it down. I hope to wipe Fox News off the face of the earth at some point. I helped start a media company. Peacefully. Peacefully, of course, obviously. I helped start a media company to hopefully someday compete with Fox News

and the right-wing media ecosystem. I think it's one of the most destructive forces in the country. But while it exists, I do think that going on that network as a Democrat and a Democrat like Pete or other Democrats who can argue really well and piercing the information bubble of some of the people who watch Fox News is important. And I think, look, the poll, you know, Nate Cohen in The New York Times has done all these polls of the race so far. And, you know, Nate pointed out

the other day, half of Joe Biden's margin right now, especially in some of these northern battleground states, is due to people who voted for Donald Trump switching and saying now they're going to vote for Joe Biden or people who voted third party and saying they're going to vote for Joe Biden. There are plenty of people who watch Fox News

who have decided that even though they voted for Donald Trump, they're going to now cast a ballot for Joe Biden, which means that persuasion is still possible. And if people's information ecosystem is only Fox News and Ben Shapiro and all this stuff, and every once in a while you can pierce that information bubble and make a case and maybe reach some of them, it's probably worth it. You know, it's not worth spending all your time there. It's not worth like sitting there with Sean Hannity and having him like scream at you the whole time and not let you talk. Right. Like pick your battles on Fox. And I totally get your point on the town halls. But I do think it is on

balance helpful just because as we have learned from this election, at least so far in the polls, persuasion is still possible. It's not just about turning out more of our people than their people. No, I think it is important to talk about the scale of these things before people get too excited about them, which is Brett Baer gets, I don't know, 800,000 viewers. Very true. Right. So the Venn diagram of persuadable voters who are watching Brett Barrett, the moment in which Pete is on, is pretty small. So I think you were exactly right. Persuasion is very important. Piercing the ecosystem is important. Creating viral moments that get shared on social, like Pete has done, is a good way of doing that. You're not going to solve, you are spitting in the ocean of white supremacist propaganda

if one of the main strategies for combating it is Democratic politicians doing Fox News interviews, right? There are strategic opportunities for it, but there are limits as well. I'm never going to let go of this issue. It is a huge problem.

I know. No, look, the main strategy for combating it is this, crooked media. That is our answer to that. Okay. Raina Thompson from Facebook asks, why do polls vary so much? Because it's a cruel world.

Well, polling is one part art, one part science, right? And the art part is figuring out what the electorate is going to look like, right? So you poll 500 people and the 500 people that you randomly poll all happen to be college-educated white voters who live in a city. That's not what the electorate is going to look like. So in each sample, the pollster has to figure out, OK, how the sample of people that I talk to, is that reflective of who's going to end up voting on Election Day? And so some pollsters think, maybe I'll get more Democrats than Republicans on Election Day. Other pollsters think, maybe I'll get more Republicans than Democrats. Others like, maybe the white vote will be this. The other one might say,

the white vote will be lower than this and there'll be more black voters. And the way they make all these judgments, look, they're not just picking numbers out of the air. They're looking at party registration. They're looking at party ID. They're looking at how you voted in the past. They're looking at where you live.

They're looking at your education level. So there's a number of decisions that each pollster makes about what the electorate's going to look like, what proportion of which demographic is going to be in the final set of people who vote on election day that differs from pollster to pollster. And that's why they all look different. Did I get it? Do you think that's right? I did.

I guess what the very tiresome and ridiculous metaphor I use is, why doesn't all pizza taste the same? Sometimes it's made by good people. Sometimes it's made by bad people. Sometimes it's got different ingredients. It is an inexact art and science, which is why, as all of the people named Nate and others say, look at the average of the polls. That will hopefully take out some of those fluctuations in methodology and accuracy and competency between the people doing the polls. Yeah. And look, and of course, the thing that is keeping us up at night, keeping everyone up at night is, you know, in 2016, the state polls in the northern battleground states were wrong because they largely underestimated the number

of non-college educated white voters who were going to show up on election day who happened to be very favorable to Donald Trump. And that is because they didn't reach a lot of those people by phone. And so the question is, are the polls again underestimating the number of non-college whites that are going to show up at the polls? Have pollsters found a way to reach more of those voters this time so that the sample is more reflective of what the electorate is going to be? And we don't know. Well, we don't know that. We do know that this time around, there's just a lot more state-level polling done by traditionally well-qualified pollsters, right? So there

was just very few state polls in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, because people at all levels of politics thought those states were not super competitive. And so when you only have six polls, it's more likely for it to be off than if you have 36. And so this time around, I don't know whether they're right or wrong, but I do know that we know more than we did last time. And the more polls you have, the more it flattens out the error rate.

And so we have more information, whether that information will be right or wrong. We'll find out in two and a half weeks, John. We'll see. Last question, David Cummings asks, what does Biden's huge fundraising in September and August mean for his campaign? What can you do with 400 plus million dollars

in cash on hand? Run lots of ads. Well, look, ultimately what it does is it gives Biden the capacity to have several well-funded, well-organized paths to 270. Trump is making decisions right now about states he's throwing overboard that he can't win, states that he just has to bet he's going to win based on demographics like Ohio and Iowa. And Biden is able to press his case in Georgia. He's forcing Trump to spend money in Georgia, right? Right as of last week, based on the data from advertising analytics I looked at, the only state that Trump is outspending Biden in that Hillary Clinton won in 2016 was New Hampshire, right? Biden is outspending Trump in the vast

majority of states. Trump is outspending Biden in Georgia, Ohio, Iowa, and maybe Texas. I think that's it. And Biden is pushing everywhere else. So Biden is putting himself in a place where he is able to press his case, put Trump on the defensive. And that is important in any presidential election, but particularly in what happened in a pandemic where you just do not know what the conditions on the ground are going to be in terms of how mail ballots are counted, whether there are errors in which ballots are sent out, whether the coronavirus cases are going to spike in the lead up to election day that could impact the ability of people to vote in person.

And so the more states that you're able to be competitive in, the better chance you have. And that's ultimately what this gives Biden. It gives him flexibility. It gives his campaign flexibility to pursue as many passes as possible. And Trump is once again trying to draw an inside straight. Now, before we get cocky, he drew one last time. He drew last time. But, you know, Axios has this story this morning about how, you know, Trump officials and senior campaign officials in the Trump campaign are bracing for a loss, you know. But when you really dig into the piece, Bill Stepien, the campaign manager, basically, they're basically giving up on Wisconsin and Michigan. It looks like they don't think that they can win wisconsin and michigan right now which but the path to victory if they lose wisconsin and michigan is still they win pennsylvania they win florida they win arizona they win north carolina and then of course the ones like you know the outside shots ohio iowa

georgia they they win those two but that would be now it would be if they won if they win pennsylvania florida and arizona and the second congressional district in Maine, and then we don't win the second congressional district in Nebraska, then it would be 269, 269, which is fucking nightmare. But if we if if we did win the second congressional district, then we would then Joe Biden would hit 270 and it would it would be by one. But so that's how just to say that's how narrow the path is, but still a possible path. Right. Like we have not put Pennsylvania away. Joe Biden has not put Pennsylvania away. He has not put Florida away. He has not put Arizona away.

And the Trump campaign knows that. And so they are that's that's their inside straight. And like we said, he did it last time. But we'll see. We'll see. And I would say just- $400 million, so. But, you know, it's like Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and they're coming to work their ass off to raise all that money.

Grassroots donors, a gazillion events, everything, you know, just tremendous enthusiasm support. And then Sheldon Adelson and his wife wrote an $85 million check to preserve American Republican super PAC that is going back up on air in the exact state you mentioned right now as we speak, which is a testament to why we have to absolutely fix our campaign finance system. But it just shows the challenges that Democrats are up against. That's right. All right. So keep working hard.

All right. When we come back, we'll have Dan's interview with Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman. He's Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania, John Fetterman. Welcome to Pod Save America. Thank you for having me. There is probably no state in the country that Democrats are more worried about than Pennsylvania. What's happening on the ground there right now with less than three weeks to go before the election? Well, I think the vice president is a particularly strong candidate for Pennsylvania for any number of reasons. I've always maintained that the secret to winning Pennsylvania, electorally speaking, lay in the margins of the red rural counties. There's typically around 55 or so red counties in any given election cycle.

And each individual county doesn't have a lot of votes that would necessarily swing the election. But as one would go, they stack one on top of each other, and it adds up pretty quickly. And that's how Donald Trump won in 2016. The vice president is more popular across the board than Secretary Clinton was in 2016. So that dynamic, I think, is working. That being said, the president remains very popular and has a very distinct and loyal following here in Pennsylvania. And I think Pennsylvania should be treated as a margin play, even though the dynamic is different in my estimation than it was in 2016. What do you think has changed since 2016 within the Pennsylvania electorate? I think one of the key things that's changed that is absent in my experience that was very

prevalent in 2016 was convincing the left flank of our party to engage. During the 16th, I was a surrogate for Secretary Clinton, and I was often kind of labeled a sellout or like, you know, what are you doing, you know, shillery and that kind of thing. What's the difference? And now you don't hear anybody, you know, leading that charge because now after four years they realize that, hey, there really was a difference. So there isn't, there's much more unity on the ground across the various factions of our party, without a doubt. And also, I'm also,

my first statewide race manager is now in charge of Pennsylvania. He manages Pennsylvania for the Biden campaign. And I really emphasize to Brendan when he took the job, you got to get the vice president to small county Pennsylvania. And they've gone to Cambria. They've gone to Erie just a couple of days ago. And they've really flipped the dynamic of the Clinton campaign on. And I think overall, other factors make it much more favorable than it otherwise would have been in 2016.

They're not making that same catastrophic mistake. Is there a county or something you're going to be looking for on election night to sort of give you a sense of how to feel? Is there a canary in the coal mine or a sign of hope that you're going to be looking for on election night to sort of give you a sense of how to feel like what is there a canary in the coal mine or a sign of hope that you're looking for and that all of our listeners should look for? Yes. I've always said, tell me who wins Erie County. They win Pennsylvania. And in this particular election, that will pick the president. I believe Erie is Pennsylvania's premier, Bellwether County, and it was just ranked on a recent New York Times article confirming as such. And also another key one is Luzerne County as well, has gotten some more write-up recently. Luzerne went strong for

Barack Obama in 2008. He continued to carry it in 2012 to Mitt Romney, although by a smaller margin. And Donald Trump won it by 2016 by 20 points. one on top of the other with these other 50 plus counties was the decisive margin of 45,000 rough votes between him and Secretary Clinton in 2016. And what do you think, looking back at 16, accounted for that swing? Was it, you know, sort of diminished turnout on our side, you know, sort of the, a lot of vote switching combination to what, you know, what sort of drove that? Because, I mean, you obviously know this stuff a lot more deeply than I do, but as someone who worked on both Obama campaigns, Pennsylvania was a state that we considered very, although it would be close, very securely in our column. Obama did not run ads and did not campaign in Pennsylvania 2012. And it obviously shifted very dramatically. And so what sort of accounted for that shift?

Is it, was it unique to 2016 or is it part of a longer term trend we should be watching? Well, I think it's a little of each. And to your point, yeah, Barack Obama did fabulously well. And when you look at some of the counties he won in 08 and 012, it's remarkable. And then when you consider the way the map looks today, it looked in 2016 and is looking in 2020. What's changed also is that Pennsylvania is switching too. The southeast is becoming more blue, but the southwest is becoming more red. So it's like for every county we pick up in SEPA, we lose one in southwestern Pennsylvania.

Another key dynamic. No one thought Donald, the Clinton campaign never thought Donald Trump could win Pennsylvania, to your point, after the Obama performance. And they created this illusion that if you just went to Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and had big rallies and drew out the margin in Allegheny County in Philadelphia, that would be sufficient, and the collar counties. And they realized that after it was over, that Trump synthesized margins that were unprecedented in counties, picking up 75, even 80% of the vote. And again, stacked on 55 counties. Actually, I think it's more than that. Secretary Clinton, I think, won seven counties in Pennsylvania in 2016.

So you're talking 60 counties that Trump won by the margins that they've never seen before. And that was the deciding factor. And Joe Biden has eaten into that. One, I think his biographical roots in Pennsylvania is very helpful. into that. One, I think his biographical roots in Pennsylvania is very helpful. The fact that he is perceived as a more core Democrat in the Obama kind of mold, as well as the fact that he won the primary and his opponents painted him as just that, an old school Democrat, somebody that's no longer in touch with the party. And I think now the vice president is uniquely situated to win Pennsylvania. And the Trump campaign is trying to use fracking as a wedge issue or things. And that just simply is unsophisticated

and naive at this point, in my opinion, because given the pandemic, given the George Floyd uprising, given 2020 in the Supreme Court, fracking has receded into the background. It is not on the minds of any voter at this point in any meaningful way that's going to move the poll numbers, nor can the Trump campaign redefine or define the vice president in Pennsylvania, in my opinion. Yeah, you brought up the Supreme Court, which I found interesting. How much of a conversation is that among voters there? Is that an issue that has risen more to the forefront since the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg? Yeah, absolutely. That certainly has become an issue. But there's also a resignation among Democrats that it's a foregone conclusion. And I think that's why these hearings aren't getting the kind of sensational coverage that other ones have gotten in the past,

because it's a foregone conclusion that this is going to be like the last thing that they can do, the last victory lap before the election. And then I think if Joe Biden wins, I think the real problems are going to emerge not with trying to bring the right more unified. It's going to be among the Democratic Party, because I think you're going to see a lot of factions of our party that are now very united in defeating Donald Trump right now. if Joe Biden does win, particularly if we take the Senate, would immediately become much more like, hey, this is a priority. We've got to make this happen. It's going to be, I think, difficult to kind of keep a direction. You know, when you talked about Biden's strength in Pennsylvania vis-a-vis Hillary Clinton in 16, a lot of the words you use are unique to Biden. He obviously has Pennsylvania roots. That is not something that is necessarily replicable.

He won the primary in part either because of or despite being closer to the center than probably the median primary voting Democrat. If Biden is able to hold on and win Pennsylvania, he does it in part because of these sort of the anomalous characteristics of his candidacy. It sort of portends that Pennsylvania could continue to slide in the red direction in future elections. And that's 20 electoral votes. What do you think the party needs to do to stop that from happening over the long term in Pennsylvania? Can we keep it a bluish purple state? No, I believe we are going to keep it a blue state. I really do. The suburbs in SIPA continue to expand and swell with support. Again, I return to that. If you are able to cut off the Trump margin, and that's a specific term, then that sucks all the oxygen out of the room for Trump or any statewide Republican

candidate. And that means investing, whether it's in broadband or in infrastructure or in health care across these counties that have been utterly left behind in many parts of Pennsylvania in these regions. And that's one of my pet issues is legalizing marijuana because I think it would benefit red county farmers across Pennsylvania. Not allowing or ignoring 50 plus counties across Pennsylvania simply because they don't have the huge population centers is critical to Pennsylvania's fortune. In 2019, we had a superior court race, and there were four candidates for two slots. And there were two Republicans, two Democrats, and they split the vote right down the middle. And then among those four candidates, there was one half of 1% separated all of them. So Pennsylvania is very solidly a blue

state. When we are able to redistrict our state legislature after the 2020 census, and that I think we'll have a legislator much more in line with the democratic will of Pennsylvania, we got new congressional districts. And I think you'll see and we also are in a position to potentially take back the state house as well, too. So I think we are trending bluer, but we need to make sure we are making strategic investments, both from a moral perspective, as far as I'm concerned, but a strategic one in smaller red county, rural Pennsylvania. And so that, so the sort of the key to holding on to Pennsylvania, in addition to your position on marijuana, which I very much agree with, is having sort of a rural economic agenda that we actually deliver on is a huge recruit more voters. And that's great. And at the expense of these more rural, older, you know,

working class voters, what have you. And I'm like, why would you ignore one or the other? It's like, yes, both. You don't have to choose one or the other. I would not get overly invested in that there's one true narrative. But what is undeniable is that Trump threaded the needle in 2016 by formulating margins that were unprecedented and unanticipated by the Clinton campaign. And that's why and that's how he won. 2018, less than two years after Trump did, and we had a swing of over 900,000 votes. So, you know, we carried our state by 850,000 votes. So this idea that there are, you know, just irredeemably racist or red parts of Pennsylvania that won't move, that's just not true. I wouldn't be sitting

here as your Lieutenant Governor if that was the case. You know, Pennsylvania responds to agenda, Lieutenant Governor, if that was the case. You know, Pennsylvania responds to agenda, and our agenda needs to be firmly centered in making sure that no region of Pennsylvania gets left behind the way some of these parts objectively have. So last question for you. What advice are you giving people in Pennsylvania about how to vote, given some of the concerns about mail balloting and the Supreme Court decision that makes it hard to, that makes it, I think, impossible to fix a rejected ballot? Sure. Well, as of the last count, we have over 2.6 million ballots for mail requested,

and more than 97% of them have gone out. And what I'm telling people is trust the United States Postal Service. I think some people forget when you mail your ballot and Pennsylvania has already paid the postage, so it doesn't, you don't have to provide a stamp, is that it's a local delivery. It's not like they're not all sent to Anchorage, Alaska, and then sent back and through some, you know, it's like, it's, it can go as little as five blocks if you're in Philadelphia. I mean, this is not a complex logistical issue. Now, and vote by mail in Pennsylvania works. We didn't have one single instance of fraud detected in our June primary. And I'm telling folks, trust the United States Postal Service.

And if you insist, go ahead and drop it off at a drop box. What I am concerned about and what I have sounded the alarm, in my opinion, is these folks that say, I've been spooked by the chaos that the other side's trying to foment about vote by mail. I'm going to vote in person. But the problem is, is that you must bring your ballot and your envelope and everything into entirety, or you can't vote on election day, unless you cast a provisional ballot. And that's an entirely longer, in-depth process that the system was not designed to accommodate. And that would blow up the lines and create mass scale chaos. And I think that with 2.6 million ballots, if that affects just 10% of voters, you're talking a significant number of votes that could be thrown into play given that idea that you can't just show up and say, well, I threw it out or I lost it or I didn't

bring all of it. And that's why I'm telling people, look, don't let the misinformation and the lies spook you from voting for a male. That is a solid, secure and true way to vote in Pennsylvania. Well, thank you so much. This was fascinating. We are going to be watching Erie and Luzerne County now very closely because of this interview. And thanks for everything you're doing and good luck down the stretch here. Thanks again for having me on. Thanks to Lieutenant Governor Fetterman for joining us today. Everyone have a great weekend and we will see you next week.

I think next week we're going to do Monday, Wednesday, Friday again, because we have the, I think, last scheduled debate next Thursday night. Look, I think we're going Monday, Wednesday, Friday, no matter what. So if Trump cancels that debate, we'll still be here. We'll pass our test and we'll be here. Have a good weekend. Go make some phone calls. Bye. Pod Save America is a Cricket Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our associate producer is Jordan Waller.

It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Thank you.