Pod Save America - Let the Bedwetting Begin

Episode Date: October 11, 2024

With 25 days left until Election Day, the quadrennial October Freakout is upon us! Jon and Dan break down the tightening polls, the rival campaigns' strategies for the final push, and the reasons why it's okay to worry—but not to panic. Then, Nevada Senator Jacky Rosen joins Lovett to talk about her tight race for reelection and how she plans to pull off a win. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favre. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, with just 25 days until election day, the Trump campaign slams the door on a final debate and instead plans big rallies in blue states. We'll talk about why, if there is a why. The Harris campaign is looking to keep up the momentum with a town hall in Vegas, a rally in Phoenix,

and by unleashing Barack Obama and Bill Clinton on the campaign trail. Plus, Nevada Senator Jackie Rosen stops by to talk with Lovett about her critical re-election race and how she plans to win. But first, Dan. John. The October freakout has begun, and this round of Democratic panic has everything. Queasy stomachs, tightening polls, doomer clickbait, and countless quotes from anonymous sources, second-guessing strategy, and offering all kinds of free advice. Welcome to the final month of the 2024 campaign. Just to level set, even though the polling gods have punished us with a few solid results

for Trump this week, the averages remain mostly unchanged. Kamala Harris is up three nationally and by a single point in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nevada, she's down a point in North Carolina and Georgia and down to an Arizona. I think the polls over the last week have changed by an average of 0.3, 0.4, depending on what average you're looking at. And yet worries abound with reporting that Democrats are concerned about how Harris is doing

with everyone from black men in Detroit to Latinos in Nevada, to young voters everywhere. The race for control of the House has gone from a slight Democratic advantage to pure toss-up. The Senate appears to be slipping away from Democrats with new time sienna polls confirming what other polls have found. John Tester is down considerably in Montana while Colin Allred and Debbie Mucraselle-Powell are trailing in Texas and Florida. This podcast, we're adopting your

motto Dan. Worry about everything, panic about nothing. I know you've got a big polar coaster episode that's going to be on this feed on the PSA feed this Sunday, conversations with David Plouffe and Carlos Odio to the smartest strategist in the democratic party. I don't want to steal from those conversations, but maybe you could tell us how we should think about the race right now and what if anything is worrying you about the numbers? Well, I would encourage everyone to tune in on Sunday.

David Plouffe, who people probably know was our boss in the Obama campaign and he's a senior advisor on the Harris campaign and he lays out where the race stands right now and their plan for winning over the next three weeks here. So it's a great conversation. Encourage you to listen, it'll be out. As you said on the PSA feed on Sunday,

here's where we are, John. This race could not be closer. Every single battleground state is within the margin of error, is essentially a tie. A normal polling error in either direction, just because polls are imprecise, could mean Trump wins, could mean Harris wins. It is very possible, this is not us telling you

or not me telling you, not to wet the bed or not to worry or anything like that. Donald Trump could win this race. He has a lot going for him. The political environment favors him in some ways. It did not in previous elections. He won in 16, he almost won in 20. But when you look at everything, you look at the map,

the polls, the campaigns, who has more money, how they're spending their money, how they're organized. As I sit here today, and I wrote this in message box last weekend, I think that this is a toss up race, but if I had to pick which side I would rather be, I would rather be Kamala Harris because I think she has the better campaign,

her campaign is better resourced, she's the better candidate, she has a slightly higher ceiling than Trump does, and a clear path to a victory number to get her in enough battlegrounds to get our 270. But this could not be closer, right? It's going to be incredibly close.

It's, I find it, I would be shocked if there was something that moved the polls in any significant way over that, over this next period of time here. Yeah. A polling error could mean a Trump wins or Kamala wins or another kind of error, which is not getting friends out to vote

or not working hard enough to get people out to the polls. Because in a race that's this close, I mean, you're talking literally a couple of votes per precinct in a given swing state that could, uh, if, you know, if a couple of votes per precinct went the other way, uh, it would have changed, it could have changed the race in 2016. It could have changed the race in 2020. And this is on track to be as close as those races, if not closer than 2020, which was pretty damn close. One thing that stuck out at me, I think you read this too, because we both read

all the same shit all the time, Dave Wasserman, redistrict at the Cook political report, uh, they have been doing battleground state polls. The most recent set they did was a couple of weeks ago. He actually broke them down in a really helpful way to think about which voters Kamala Harris needs to close the deal with. So he broke these voters into three categories, right? One is high engagement voters, which they defined

as people who have voted in 2016, 2020, 2022, 2024, right? So the presidential and the midterms over the last decade. And this in their polls, which was a big sample, like 3,500 voters in the swing states, though not national, that's about 60% of the electorate. It's a big chunk of the electorate. They favored Biden and now Kamala by four points over Trump. They happen to be whiter, older, 93% say they are absolutely voting. Their views of inflation and the economy are improving, have improved over the last year. And so she's doing great with those voters, but so is Joe Biden.

And they make up a big chunk of the electorate, right? These are probably all the people who are listening to this podcast. Then there are the low and mid engagement voters, right? These voters make up 33% of the electorate. These are folks who skipped one out of the last four elections. Biden was losing these voters by 10 points. Harris has made up some ground. She's losing them by seven, but Trump is still doing well with these voters.

They are less white, younger, slightly more female, slightly more likely to identify as independents, and much more likely to not have a college degree. They do not think the economy has improved at all. They think Trump is much better than Harris on change from the status quo and dealing with foreign policy crises and wars. Those are the big issues for them. And then there are the new voters. These are people who have registered to vote since the 2022 midterms. This is interesting. They're only 7% of the

electorate, but Biden was losing these voters by 10 points. Kamala is winning them by 13 points. So smaller segment of the electorate, but she's doing much better. I think that's a lot of the ground she's made up is both sort of consolidating the Democratic base, but also new voters, which Trump is doing well with. Now she's doing better. But it's these low engagement voters.

We've talked about this before. We talked about it when Biden was in the race that are the real challenge. What do you think about that analysis? I think that that analysis is exactly right. It's why when everyone was running around here using, when Biden was still in the race using the 2022 midterms as an example that Biden would ultimately prevail.

It's why that was kind of sell and snake a lot of people because yes, if the electorate looked exactly like it did in 2022, then a Democrat would certainly win this election and win it relatively easily. But that's not what the electorate looked exactly like it did in 2022, then a Democrat would certainly win this election and win it relatively easily. But that's not what the electorate's gonna look like. It is going to be in some states, 40% larger than it was in 2022.

And those voters are less friendly to us. And this is a reversal from how it used to be. In the Obama era, those voters, the less engaged voters were more friendly to Democrats. And Trump has made gains there. And so this, in some ways you can look at that and say, well, Trump's lead is built on a, on pretty fragile ground because in order to get there, he needs these people who don't have a great history of voting to

turn out. And he has also not built a campaign to turn those voters out. And Plough and I actually have a pretty long discussion about this, which I encourage people to listen to on Sunday about why he has challenges, why Trump, this is a challenge for Trump.

But yeah, it is, this is the whole race is can you get to the people? Trump's campaign is very focused on reaching those people where they are. It's his media strategy, it's his sort of pop culture brand is getting to those people. And you don't get to those people through CNN town halls and New York Times interviews and all that you get to him through And we'll talk about this with Kamala Harris's media strategy a lot of sort of pop culture online stuff

yeah, they are the challenges they are less reliable, but there are more of them and You know again, there's they're probably gonna's gonna be, I think they estimate 43% of the voters in this election will have college degrees, which is a record high, but that still means 57% of voters are non-college and Trump's base is non-college white voters. And if he starts eating into non-college Latinos and black voters as well, particularly black men,

you know, that's where it could, if those people actually turn out, that's how he wins. Just as in terms of how I'm feeling, like it's interesting in 2016, super confident, a little nervous, but super confident we were gonna win, polls are wrong, didn't win. 2020, the polls were just, it's funny looking back at like how big a lead Biden had in a lot of these polls.

He was up eight points in the national polling average. I mean, insane. There was a poll that came out of about 17 in Wisconsin towards the end. And look, were we all, I think we spent most of the end of that race being nervous that there would be a polling error like there was in 2016.

Turns out the error was bigger. Much bigger, yes, twice as big. Than 2016, but we don't think about it as much because Biden still won, because he was ahead by the polls and so much, but it was a bigger error than it was in 16. This time around, I'm actually less, I don't know how you feel about this,

I am less worried that there's going to be a big polling error because I think just based on the way the electorate has been and how people have voted since 2016, that the actual electorate is split pretty evenly and divided pretty evenly. So I actually believe that it is probably a tie race, that what the polls are saying right now is that it's tied.

I have gone through a similar sort of emotional rollercoaster here, which was cocky in 16, cautiously optimistic in 20, and now incredibly nervous. Like you should be nervous. Kaki in 16, cautiously optimistic in 20. And now incredibly nervous. You should be nervous. Anyone who's not nervous is not paying close attention to what is actually happening in this race. But I think the conversation around a quote unquote

polling error is a little dumb at this point. It is totally possible that we are still undercounting Trump voters. That is very possible. Pollsters have tried a lot of things, particularly campaign pollsters. Put aside the media pollsters, the campaign pollsters have done a lot of things to try to correct for that and they're being very conservative in their estimates and their polling looks a lot like the public polling.

So it is possible. But if the polls come out and they say that Kamala, if the last poll average on election day has Kamala Harris up by two points in Arizona and Trump wins it by one point, that's not a polling error. No. That is just, that is the margin of error. Nothing, the poll cannot tell you who is, in a race this close, a poll cannot tell you

who is gonna win. All it can tell you is the race is this close. Yeah, a polling error would be like Kamala Harris is a down one in Arizona and she loses by eight. Yeah, right. That's exactly right. Or wins by seven, just if you wanted a little class half full. Right, right, right.

Just to try to add some positivity to this. The other thing is, and this is probably a longer conversation, maybe it's a Polar Coaster episode, you could join me for it, but is about whether 2020 is the right, is the exact right model for this election. Like we are jamming everything

and there's an entire debate about whether you should wait the polls so that the margins and the polls of people who voted in 2020 look like the 2020 margins. We don't have to get into that nerdy stuff right now. But a lot has happened since 2020. That means that politics could have changed, right?

And we saw that in the Times Florida poll, which has Trump winning Florida by 13. Do I think that's correct? No, but is it possible Florida has moved somewhat significantly to the right since 2020 because of, and you look at what happened in 2022, very possibly. But on the other hand, if you look at Pennsylvania

and Michigan in particular, and you look at what happened in 2022 in those states, it's also possible that those states have moved a little bit to the left since 2020. So when you jam everything through the 2020 filter, we may not be giving ourselves the exact right picture of what's gonna happen because we are not allowing, in an effort to try to ensure

that we are counting enough Trump voters in our polls, we're not allowing for shifts one way or the other in some of these states. All right, enough poll analysis and hand wringing from us. Let's pivot to our other strong suit, unsolicited advice. The Harris Wells campaign certainly doesn't seem complacent or panicked. Uh, just very busy. The vice president just taped a Univision town hall in Vegas

that will air after we record this. Uh, she's now heading to Phoenix for a rally. And then also just on Thursday accepted an invitation from CNN to participate in a town hall on October 23rd that will take the place of the debate Trump was too scared to do. He was invited as well by CNN to do a town hall. Unclear if he's gonna hide from that, just like the debate.

And also the Democrats heavy hitter surrogates are hitting the trail for the first time. Bill Clinton will campaign in rural Georgia and North Carolina this week. And Barack Obama is about to hold a rally in Pittsburgh right after we record this, of course. Let's start with the debate news. Trump said, quote, he, in addition to, you know, his campaign denying this, he finally really just put a stake in the ground with the truth yesterday that said, there will be no rematch. Thank you for your attention to this matter. So CNN canceled it and asked both candidates

to do the town halls. So it seems like that's it for debates, huh? Yeah, no debate, no debate. Everyone thought that Trump last minute would maybe come back and just no, nothing. We're not gonna have another debate. I mean, it is notable that Trump has, as of the courting of this,

skipped out a 60 minutes interview, avoided a debate, has yet to agree to a town hall, is doing some campaigning in battleground states, but not tons. And I do believe that, I don't know what Trump thinks or care what Trump thinks, but I do think his campaign believes that his presence in front of swing voters is not necessarily a net positive.

I mean, how long have we been saying the more Trump the better? So it would make sense that they think the less Trump, the better from the Trump campaign, if they wanna win, right? Which they clearly do. It seems like they think that in this final month, that the more voters hear from Kamala Harris, especially if she's doing interviews,

especially if she's challenged in interviews, that they can use that as fodder to attack her while Trump just does his crazy fucking rallies that no one pays attention to, except for the people who are already voting for him. Yeah. But there is, the press does not, and the Harris campaign does not have to take that as,

accept that reality. Right. I would just note that around the, so Kamala Harris went on the Call Her Daddy podcast. We've talked about it, we'll talk about it again. It was a huge deal. It got a ton of coverage, which is good. It should get a ton of coverage.

Donald Trump went on the Flagrant podcast hosted by comedian Andrew Schultz yesterday, which was a very embarrassing performance for him. They kind of made fun of him the whole time. And we played the clip yesterday. They laughed multiple times at him. And almost no one covered it. It's not part of the discussion.

Yeah. It is, the press does not, like I get it. Kamala Harris had done a lot of interviews. She does Call Her Daddy, it's huge. Call Her Daddy is a podcast also that probably a lot of the press are probably familiar with. The Flager podcast is a huge podcast. They have millions of TikTok followers.

That stuff is all over social media. I didn't know about it until I looked it up yesterday when I saw that Trump was on it. And then I only knew of Andrew Schultz because I had gone to the roast of Tom Brady. And he was one of the people who roasted him. I'm like, who's this comedian? I know all these people because the Chinese government believes that I am a likely Republican and they jam this shit into my TikTok algorithm

all the time. I get so much Andrew Schultz, so much Burt Kreischer, so much Theo Vonn. I'm starting to get, I'm on TikTok a little more just for job purposes. Research services, host of Offline, yes. And I'm getting like, I get crooked content, I get MAGA content, and then I get like Chapel Roan content.

It's really, it's some like weird, weird like cross cutting stuff that I'm getting on my- You're an over 40 year old white male. You are a target audience for Barstool, MAGA, MAGA, Jason comedians, that kind of stuff. Then I get some, then I get some like Taylor Swift stuff. It's a real, it's a real, uh, potpourri on my, uh, my tick tock algorithm. So ask Jen this on yesterday's show, but I wanted to hear your thoughts.

The week of the Kamala media blitz is almost over. Just like too many interviews to even break down one by one, aside from Call Her Daddy, she did everything. Do you think it was successful? And was the exposure and the number of voters that she probably reached, which is likely in the tens of millions, was that worth the, you know, minor slip ups, controversies, whatever you want to call them that she generated fairly or unfairly,

thinking about the comment on The View, where she said, you know, I can't think of anything that I would have done differently than Biden. I can't really think of anything else that seems like a gaffe though. Republicans just keep sending around clips of her and all of these interviews and are like basically saying that they were disasters, which is sort of their thing, but I don't know. What did you think?

I thought it was great. I hope it's not over. Keep doing it. This is what we have. You don't have to necessarily do the view Colbert and Howard Stern in one day every day for the next three weeks. So you don't have to do that. Like that's extreme, but just flood the zone going forward. You have to be, do everything, right? And I would do more local TV, right?

Jen said this in your conversation with her, do more local TV. Do the thing where you, I mean, I feel sorry for the staffers who have to do this, but when she sits there and does an hour straight, five minute satellite television interviews and hit every month. Do all the podcasts, do our podcast, do other podcasts,

do a Q&A for MessageBox, do it all, right? And- Wow, Q&A for MessageBox. It would be awkward if she picks it over a Pod Save America, but we'll let her get down the back end. But, and that you can't worry about the controversies and that they were minor. These are in what is a pretty gross metaphor

that our friend David Axelrod used to say, pimples on the ass of progress. Like you just got it. Oh my God, he always says that. And you just have to keep doing it because the voters that she is trying to reach here are almost impossible to reach. That you just have to catch that they're not tuning in to find you. They are not

Googling your policy positions. They're not looking up these when the CNN town hall is, the admission town hall is. They are scrolling through their phone and or they're watching something on television and you just have to hope that for 30 to 90 seconds, you can grab their attention and make them want to ask more questions or to 90 seconds, you can grab their attention and make them wanna ask more questions or be more curious about you. And I mean, it's an insane way to live because I tried to do the math on this. So there are 47 million voting age adults

in the seven battleground states. Let's assume that 6% of them are undecided persuadable. Right? Yeah. Maybe it's eight, maybe it's 10, but let's say six. That gets you to 2.35 million voters total that we're targeting. Now let's say that those people turn out at the same rate they did in 2020, which is 66%.

Now we're doing all of this for 1.5 million voters. And you're hoping to just get 52% of those. And these are, and these are, and those voters, they just, like I said, they happen to be, they happen to be younger. They are not consuming as much, forget about political news, just news in general and the information they are getting.

If it's from somewhere like Tik TOK or Facebook or wherever, pick your poison, not necessarily going to be reliable. Um, which is where the like, you know, which is why I'm sure Trump campaign and right-wing media ecosystem is just like picking out whatever clips they can from all of her appearances and sending them around and acting like they're a big fucking disaster.

Trump's, you know, harping on the 60 minutes thing, which we will get to in a second. But I do think the answer is to just keep doing it because one advantage of doing so many interviews and doing them so frequently is if there is a gaffe or a slip up or something that they take out of context, it's just, it doesn't last that long because you give them more content the next day

to pick over and it just gets old, right? And so like nothing really sticks for a long time. So you might as well just keep doing it and keep taking the rest. You have to all, in this media environment, you have to always be on offense, right? And so like nothing really sticks for a long time. So you might as well just keep doing it and keep taking the rest. You have to all, in this media environment, you have to always be on offense. Right? Yeah. If you're not on offense, you're on defense. Well, on that note, like how would you be thinking about opportunities to

break through and win new cycles in these last few debate free weeks? Because it's almost like there's two campaigns. There's the campaign going on for those 1.5 million voters in the swing states that you're talking about, which is going to be all this kind of targeted media opportunities and most voters aren't going to see them and it's going to try to go to one demographic group or the other. But then there's just like sort of the national news, the political news, how the campaign's going and like how do you think the Harris campaign is thinking about

like winning every news cycle every day from now until election day or are they, or do they have to be even? I don't know that you think about it in terms of news cycles or days anymore. Like in my, in the old days of the early days of my political campaign experience, we used to gather around and watch the evening news

at the end of every day to see if we won the day. Like, did you win the day? And that's not the right way to think about it anymore, especially in a world where content, particularly on TikTok, but also on Instagram and YouTube is delivered to people without specific ties to the calendar. Like you can see a clip from a day ago,

three days ago, three years ago, right? It has a longer tail. And so it's not ultimately that you're trying to win each individual day because something you did today may show up in someone's feed four days from now. Like there are people still getting Caller Daddy content. And so I think you have to change your mentality because all of us have the old

politico win the day, win the morning, win the cycle, spin room, bullshit stuff. That's just not how the world works anymore. So it's about two things. It is about how you shape the overall conversation. Because what you want, like, you want the vibes to be good around your candidacy. And that is-

Right, I think that's more what I'm getting at. Yeah, right. And so, and I just wanted to get to the new cycle thing because I think that's how the press is covering this and that's not the right way to do it. Is how do you seem like you're, have momentum towards the end, right? That you want to build a sense of momentum

and excitement for your movements, people want to join it. And another thing is. And the answer is to have a lot of stories about Democrats panicking. Yes, and the way that we, every one of us can help that is, you take your anxieties and then you find the nearest reporter from Politico or Axios and you call them.

And when they say, well, how can I identify you? You say, just say that I'm a source close to the Harris campaign. Yeah, I'm a Democratic strategist in a battleground state, which is a new classic one people have out there. Just unburden, the way to help Kamala Harris is to unburden yourself to the people who write playbook

in some way, that's the way to do it. That's it. So I think the way to think about this is, so you wanna show momentum and you show momentum by being on offense and doing things that get attention. And so doing this little media blitz is one way in which we did that. Everyone was talking about her and the things she were doing,

Call her daddy, Howard Stern, drinking a beer on Stephen Colbert, that's all great. My belief is they have some more of those things like that in the can coming. And you have to just keep picking some high profile things. Like the Cheney event she did that we talked last podcast, you and I did together, it was a perfect example. That is not just your typical rally,

it is something different and unique. You can't, when she went to the border, that is something different. You need just more of those all the time. If you can do some, like she's not just your typical rally. It is something different and unique. You can't go when she went to the border. That is something different. You need just more of those all the time. If you can do some, like she's going to do an event, I assume with Obama at some point, that will be a high profile moment. Do an event with some of these Republicans who

are supporting her, who are in some of her ads right now, if you could roll out some endorsements from some of these, uh, former Trump cabinet officials who have said they're not going to vote for him. Like that's just continue to build momentum. Every time you're out there, you just have something new that's like more grist for the mill

that and some of those things will go nowhere. And I don't think it's necessarily policy stuff. Like I thought the sandwich generation stuff that she announced on the view, that was great for that audience. But a lot of the stuff is gonna be more sort of edgy, cultural contrast with Trump sort of stuff that I think will drive the conversation. Yeah, I do think leaning into the contrasts in the final month is going to be most important.

And to the extent that the contrast can be, can at least sound new and different, because, you know, we've all said everything there is to say about Trump. But I think for her, like sort of driving those new contrasts based on what pops up in the news every day about Trump is probably going to be a way to keep things fresh. Speaking of Trump, let's talk about him. He did a few rallies Wednesday where he honed his closing message by spreading conspiracies about hurricanes and calling one of the hosts of The View stupid. That's what you do.

Trump will also be holding a rally in the critical battleground of Coachella right here in California. He's also planning a big rally at Madison Square Garden in New York. And he was in Michigan on Thursday, ostensibly to deliver an economic speech at the Detroit Economic Club.

But of course there were a few tangents. Let's listen. I'm here today to talk about a subject that has always been very dear to my heart, saving the US auto industry, the fraud committed by 60 Minutes and CBS together with the Democrat Party working together with them, which will go down as the single biggest scandal in broadcast history. An Obama

disciple named Peter Baker, he writes for the failing New York Times, he wrote a piece about me. He said that I would go around saying that I was honored here years ago as the man of the year or whatever. President Xi was and I would say is a very good friend. We broke up a little bit. You know the way friendships break up, a thing called the China virus broke us up the word grocery You know it's sort of simple word, but so it means like everything you eat The stomach is speaking you want to know the truth It'll be like Detroit our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she's your president. I'm telling you I just I

Want that supercut to get in front of some of those 1.5 million photos? This is what this is why they don't want him out there, uh, in front of these audiences. Like they just don't, they're too afraid he's going to do this. I'm going to be very curious to look at the local Michigan coverage tomorrow, tonight and tomorrow to see what it says. So far it's a lot of, Oh, Trump came to Detroit to give a speech and attack Detroit. Well, that part, yes, that's fair.

So there's some of that. There's the policy he rolled out was talking to him. There was an auto policy. He talked about bringing jobs back to America. I think he wants to make auto loans deductible. That's the policy nugget that was in there somewhere. I, I watched the speech while I was also trying to prep for the pod. So I was listening to the speech too.

It was like so boring. It was, and it's also like, even at the rally, the Trump rallies, like we've all heard the rallies by now, right? But like every once in a while it's like kind of funny and he says something crazy and the crowd does what the crowd is just, it's like a serious policy speech. He's so low energy. He sounds like so tired and he's just rambling and going on and on.

It was like hard to even find the policy in the speech or anything about the economy at all. I mean, he just wanna like that thing about the 60 minutes CBS, the greatest scandal, that was in, that was on the economy at all. I mean, he just want to like that thing about the 60 minutes CBS, the greatest scandal that was in, that was on the prompter. That was in the speech. That wasn't just like an ad lib.

He decided they were going to put that in the speech for people who don't know on that, by the way, the 60 minutes of Kamala Harris. And if you don't know, congratulations. Congratulations. Have yourself on the back, yes. The 60 minutes interview with Kamala Harris, they asked her about Gaza, the question

about Israel, about Bibi Netanyahu. She gave this answer and the Trump campaign is saying that even though she gave that answer, there's part of the answer that wasn't aired on 60 minutes where it was a little bit more of a word salad. The reason that the Trump campaign knows this is because it was in the very first

fucking clip that 60 Minutes released from the interview. And they're like, Trump literally said that CBS should have their license revoked. They're the ones who put out the clip, which is why the Trump campaign knows about it. It just didn't make it into the final interview in 60 minutes because every single interview that 60 minutes does is edited for time. I mean, it's just also wild that Donald Trump, a person who could be president of the United States and therefore in charge of the FCC is threatening a broadcast network with losing their license for doing something that no one can explain because it's so fucking crazy.

I mean, you did an admirable job, but does it make sense? It doesn't make sense. Also, it doesn't make sense. Rallies at Coachella and Madison square garden. What, what do you, what's that all about? What do you think? That makes it, that makes sense.

Okay. We're talking about it. And I do think in an era where politics are national and local media essentially doesn't exist anymore. Like the walls around a state where everyone in the state consumed Michigan TV and Michigan papers and Pennsylvania, whatever, that doesn't exist anymore. And so what he's doing is he's doing big things for attention. And there was a very clear parallel to a Madison Square Garden rally that is being raised by a lot of people online,

which is the 1939 Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden. Oh, come on. People are already doing that. You've seen it already today, right? I know. I sent you the thing. And so, like, it is a, this is going to be, people are going to be triggered by it. It's going to be a thing. He's going to fuel that outrage. That Madison Square Garden speech is going to get a shitload of coverage. Now he will probably step on a fucking rake when he does it,

but it will get attention. Coachella similar. What about Trump-chella? Is that gonna be a big? Trump-chella, that is part, like there's a lot of these Trump young voter, Manosphere, Gen Z things that are kind of fake and maybe that's kind of fake too, but you know,

like it's all- Should we go to Trumchella? We should send a correspondent. Okay, that's good. His name is John Lovett. I think Madison Square Garden is just like, he's from New York and he wants to be able to say that he filled Madison Square Garden.

He's all, this is his dream, right? And this is maybe his last chance to do it. And I think his campaign, right? And this is maybe his last chance to do it. And I think his campaign, there's value. I think there is, there's always this like, going into enemy territory to do something, Obama going to a mega church in 2008 was an example of this. Kamala Harris going to the border,

a sort of example of it, it will get attention. Now, is that more valuable than a day spent campaigning in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, et cetera? I think that's a fair debate to have. It does seem like their strategy in the Trump campaign for this final month is just like the communications messaging strategy is that there is no national strategy really, at least outside of the bubble of people who

are already Trump fans, with the exception of some of these podcasts in the Manosphere. One more Trump story, wanted to get your thoughts on before we go to break. Politico has some new reporting on Trump's push to win over the bro vote. Their words, not mine. Apparently the. Thank you for stipulating that. Well, you know, we get called pod bros enough. I know it isn't bro vote.

Apparently the Nelk Boys, hosts of the Full Send Podcast, are putting serious money behind a young male focused voter registration drive called Send the Vote. They're going to be advertising on these Manosphere podcasts, the Hawk to a Girl podcast. I mean, if you don't know what that is, you gotta listen offline. Do you have a whole Hawk To A episode? Not a whole episode, but Max and I talked about the Hawk To A podcast. You mean, when you say the Hawk, you mean,

Hawk To A. Cause that's the name. I know, I know that's the name. I mean, look, you say what you want to that. That is a great name. I know it's a great name. I think we played the trailer actually on offline. Anyway, they're also going on dating apps.

They're going to be hosting a music festival, signing people up at tailgates, at college football games. That said, the director of Send the Vote muses openly in the piece about whether these young guys are actually going to vote. What did you make of the story and how much does the strategy worry you that it may be successful? The Donald Trump strategy of targeting Gen Z men worries me a ton.

We've talked about this podcast a lot. The idea that two people identified as online pranksters are going to spin up a super pack on October 10th to raise a bunch of money to register voters where the registration deadline in some of these states is two and a half weeks away, that I'm less worried about. That seems like a bunch of bullshit spun to a reporter in an attempt to separate rich people from their money.

I just can't tell, I mean, having listened to a bunch of these, unfortunately, these podcasts that Trump has gone on, like, I don't know how much good it's doing him because he's like, as you mentioned, uh, on the flagrant podcast, like some of that is maybe people listen to that and think that like Trump's a good sport for going on the podcast, but a lot of that episode was them laughing at him. Um, like, you know, Lex Friedman on his podcast seemed a little confused

at times about Donald Trump. Like, I don't, I think once you get away from people who were definitely Trump fans and supporting him, um, which are some of these podcasts and you get to podcasts where people aren't definitely Trump supporters. I don't, I don't know that he does as well, but who knows? I think you only need to peel off probably a small percentage of young men in these battleground states that if it's, if it's tied, it could make all the difference. I think the playground podcast was bad for him.

I think he looked weak and embarrassing on that. The other ones, and I have unfortunately watched all of them, and he, it's just, yeah, if you consume a whole bunch of Trump content and a whole bunch of political content, where you have Kamala Harris, you have Trump, you're reading stories about it, that doesn't look great. If you have no political content at all, and then all of a sudden Donald Trump shows up on your feed

and he's giving you a bunch of bullshit, which you may likely believe because you have no countervailing information. No one has given you the other side of the case. That could be impactful. Doesn't have to persuade everyone, as you pointed out, just has as persuade a few people who would not otherwise vote, do vote for him. And so yeah, it is, look, this is something to worry about. The Harris campaign is pushing back on it. It's why she went on the, all the smoke podcasts. I think there's gonna be more things targeted at that group. I think Stern was a little bit about that.

Stern was a little bit about that as well. And her- Tim Walz's rally in Arizona was on Twitch stream with the popular streamer. Yeah, like all that. Did you see that? Yes, yes, like all keep doing all that stuff. So pushing back on that, like over the long-term

beyond this election, as we, I think we said before, Kamala Harris can certainly win, even if Trump makes some gains with this voter group. There's real consequences for democracy if we allow half of our youngest, fastest growing generation to become MAGA. And so we're gonna have to figure out how to communicate with these voters.

Yeah, I agree. Okay, when we get back from break, you're gonna hear Lovett's conversation with Senator Jackie Rosen, who absolutely needs to win her race in Nevada, if we have any hope of keeping the Senate. A few quick things before we do that. Dan, I'm gonna throw it to you for the first one.

As we mentioned at the top, on Sunday, in your Pod Save America feed, you're going to be getting the first of four special episodes of Polar Coaster. It's counting down to the election. The first episode is Harris campaign senior advisor David Plouffe and pollster Carlos Odio, who's an expert in the Latino vote, talking

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This ad has not been authorized by any candidate or candidates committee. Of course, lastly, we are all following the news about what's happening with Hurricane Milton and still the recovery efforts for Hurricane Helene. If you're able, please consider helping out. You can do that in just a couple of clicks at votesaveamerica.com slash relief. When we come back, US Senator Jackie Rosen. Joining us today is the Democratic Senator from the Silver State who's in a fight against

a Trump-backed Republican, Sam Brown. If we don't hold this seat, there is no path to keeping the Senate. The stakes couldn't be higher, so no pressure, Senator Rosen. Welcome to the pod. Thank you for having me. We're just 20-some days out, and we have to bring it home and deliver Nevada to the United States Senate.

So Nevada has a ballot measure to enshrine abortion access. Your opponent has been refusing to say where he stood on the ballot measure until someone caught him on tape saying that he opposes it. Poor guy seems like he's in a tough political spot. Any sympathy there? Well, you know what? He's put himself in this tough political spot.

And I want to remind everybody who's listening that this is Sam Brown's third attempt to run for federal office. He ran for office in Texas, supported extreme restrictions on abortion, no abortion even in the cases of rape or incest. He says himself, we have his own words, these positions not negotiable for him, not negotiable. He ran an anti-choice organization and he's only softened and covered up his position in order to win. Like I said, this is his third try at federal office. Nevada is an overwhelmingly pro-choice state

This is fundamentally about freedom and a doctor's office or a hospital room Emergency room is too small to have a woman her doctor and some politician sitting in there And so Sam Brown he says he will not vote to enshrine women's rights, Roe V Wade into the Nevada constitution. And if you don't believe that he will support a nationwide abortion ban, and I can tell you, anybody who's listening, I've got some great ocean front property right here on the Las Vegas strip to sell you, because that is who he has been for decades on

the record. So, so let's talk about that because Nevada is not the only state where we have a make or break Senate race. We have a basic tie in the polls in the presidential level and there is an abortion ballot measure. The ballot measure is protecting abortion, tend to pull ahead of the human beings who will protect abortion. On the one end, these measures bring out voters who care about protecting reproductive freedom. But on the other hand, how do you make sure that Nevadans understand that even if they are voting to enshrine abortion access for Nevada, that the stakes for abortion access still matter a great deal in the Senate race and in the presidential race?

Well, I'm really glad you asked that because honestly, this is why we're trying to get the word out that women, if we pass a nationwide abortion ban, women won't be safe. Right now, a third of American women don't have access to reproductive care. And you see in the news reports, it is tragic and unnecessary that women are dying not getting routine procedures when they show up in emergency room. They're sent

home or the doctors who take an oath to save lives. They can't even do their job because they're afraid they're going to go to jail and they watch a woman die. And so we need to let everybody know this. If anyone wants to know more they can go to Rosen for Nevada dot com to find out what's going on here, support our campaign to join the effort. But in Nevada, we are a state that appreciates our freedom. And if they go after a woman's freedom, then what's next? What's next? What else will they restrict? So it's our job to be sure we get the word out. Anybody that wants to join us, like I said, can go to Rosenfernevada.com. It matters. If you love, I'm just going to say this last thing, you may not be a woman, but you have women in your lives.

If you love the women in your lives, your mothers, your sisters, your friends, your aunts, whomever they are, their lives could be on the line because of these restrictions. And so do it for the women that you love. Protect their lives. So Donald Trump made a big show of coming out in favor of not taxing tips very clearly, just sort of an effort to win over people that live on tips, the policy that he put forward not fully fleshed out. There was a Republican version that actually seemed

more geared towards helping the ultra wealthy. Kamala Harris came out in favor of not taxing tips with a policy that was I think much more well drawn. It wasn't just a political play, an actual proposal. Has that, are you hearing about that policy? It's very, a big part of it, it seems to be about reaching the many people that live off of tips in Nevada.

Well, I can tell you, you know, I put myself through college as a waitress, and so I've saved those tips in envelopes, and I know how important it is to make those tips. And I'm also chair of the Subcommittee for Tourism, and 25% of Nevada's workforce is in hospitality. It's a heavily tipped industry. So being sure that we make sure that people can declare their tips and maybe not get taxes on them, it brings more money home in their pocket. What we have to do though is put the guardrail so that those big CEOs don't decide that their entire salary or bonus is a tip and then they don't pay

taxes. So you have to be sure you don't have loopholes. So the people who are your bartender or waitress, the people who actually get tips can get the benefit here. But there's even a bigger issue, which is about subminimum wage. Now in Nevada, we're really lucky. We have a super strong culinary union, Culinary 226. I was a member of that when it helped put me through college. And so every property on the Las Vegas strip, I think they're proud to say now, is union. And so they fight for those benefits of pension, healthcare, safe workplace. But a lot of people don't make a good enough minimum wage.

And for, I think for servers, there's some cases where they say the average is three or $4 an hour. And so tips are variable. You don't know what you're going to make. And so the issue is we have to raise up that minimum wage for everyone. We have to put guardrails on so people will actually do get the tips, see the benefit. Like I said, not some corporate CEO who says, oh, my billion dollar bonus is that's just

a tip from my company. We do not want that happening. And so we have to close any loopholes. So that's what we're trying to work on. Yeah, I mean, it seems like one of the reasons I think this at least made some economists uncomfortable is it's more progressive taxation. Tax people who are working really hard and not making that much, of course, tax them less.

But if more of somebody's income is coming from tips, then they're gonna be taxed less than somebody who's also working really hard and has a salary job and doesn't get the same benefit. Do you worry about that? Well, I think that we have to consider how we write the legislation and what we do, because tips, again, are a variable for us in Nevada,

especially not everybody, and not every tip worker is making hundreds of dollars a shift. And so you have to be sure that you're protecting people maybe within a certain income level. People have to declare their tips why. So let's say that you work in a state where you're getting subminimum wage. Let's say you're getting, let's even say $5 an hour on the average. Well, you want to buy a house or a car, you have to declare your tips in order to show that you have income.

Now, most places aren't like the fabulous restaurants here in Las Vegas. You go to average your coffee shop or your diner, wherever that is. People are just getting by. So we have to be sure, like I said, that we have the right guardrails in because tips can be variable. They're optional. If you make a regular wage, that's what you get paid. It's not optional. And so we have to find those ways, set those guardrails so it can't be abused by corporate CEOs who we know love to take advantage of that.

Everyone should be paying their fair share and we have to find a way to make it work for everyone. Expand the middle class tax cuts. That's another thing that we can do. So corporations, the Trump's billionaire friends, they need to pay their fair share. And the waitress at your favorite breakfast place, wherever that is, or waiter, let's not balance the budget on the backs of them. So speaking of tips, as you mentioned,

you were a cocktail waitress at Caesars when you were a student. What lessons did you learn from serving drunk, sweaty dudes that have prepared you for this campaign? I will just tell you. So it was when I turned 21 and it wasn't yet people say how did you go from here to there there was kind of a little bit in between but I will tell you a funny story and then a serious story one thing I learned for sure first

of all it's a really hard job you're never allowed at Caesar's Palace you are never allowed to set down your tray if you're working never allowed for the eight hours you're there never allowed to bend over you always have to bend up and down when you serve the drinks. And the other thing I learned being a waitress is never make a trip with empty hands, which still serves me today because every time I go up and down the stairs in my house, I have a pile. Always make sure that every trip counts because you're trying to serve people as quickly as you can. Of course, like I said, I was a young 21, 22 year old, a young girl who couldn't imagine where her life would lead. And I was wearing my mother's gold

lame shoes and they put you in this crazy wig. And there were no pictures in casinos at the time. But I did get a lot of comments. I think I did look a little bit like a fish out of water there, but people were generally nice. You tried to avoid the really drunk ones the best you could and just continue to do your jobs. If they get out of hand, the casino security helped them. But I wish I still had my mother's gold LeMais shoes as she's no longer with us,

but I do wish I still had those. I mean, look, not to put too fine a point on it, but I got to imagine there are lessons you learned about the importance of bodily autonomy when you're walking around Seizures Palace. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. You know, I'll tell you that, especially when you're young, they at that time and still now, I will say some of those outfits were a fairly skimpy. They were very tight, meant to accentuate certain parts of your body. And a lot of comments, a lot of comments made on that. I think that the security there at Caesars

was very strict about being sure that people weren't touched really so much, but a lot of comments on, you know, everything was, they were pretty skimpy. Like I said, I was very young, so. Do you think that there's another person in America that has gone on from being a casino cocktail waitress to synagogue president? Oh gosh, you know what, you know, that's a good question.

But what I can tell you, there's a lot of people who here, who worked in the hospitality industry To put themselves for school to when they first were young they worked as bus boys You'll hear people Catherine Cortez Mastro's dad was a bellman at the Dunes Hotel I believe and then you know, and then he rose up and did a lot of things I think he was head of our tourism board County Commissioner and that for a while I mean he's no longer with us.

And so this is kind of the story of Las Vegas because that opportunity to make that money and then be able to build yourself up. And I will tell you this, and sadly women still don't get equal pay for equal work. I started my career as a computer programmer. I wrote computer software. And when I got my first job, I still didn't make enough money to pay my bills. And I worked as banquet waitress on the weekends. Let me tell you, those trays,

and they're piled up with all those, you know, the silver tops, and you're like this, and you better not spill those things. You go up and down a particular way. I spent a year working banquets till I finally got my first raise. Women still don't make equal pay for equal work. Only 25% of women are in tech.

It's for another conversation, but I work a lot on that too. I went from doctor, waitress to tech, to the synagogue president and Senate. So how does it all match? Artificial intelligence, working hard, taxes, the tips. We bring our whole story to the United States Senate, to our jobs, right?

Yeah, well, maybe that's part of why you are, you know, look, right now you're polling ahead of Vice President Harris in Nevada. It's very tight. Your race is tight, the presidential is tight, but still, you know, you're pulling a little bit ahead. Are you seeing Rosen Trump voters or how do you explain the gap

and how does the Harris Walls campaign close it? Well, I can tell you that my race, it's about me versus Sam Brown. And since I came to politics, I got elected in 2016. I lived in Nevada, my family nearly 50 years. I worked as a waitress here, I started my career here, got married, raised my family.

My parents are buried in the Boulder City Cemetery. And so I'm a regular person who led a full life here in Nevada. So I understand sometimes the challenges, opportunities, and how important our communities are. And I feel that I'm very accessible. And because I wrote software, we listen, we try to give people what they actually need, not what we think they need. So we've been able to bring millions of dollars in resources, like for boots on the ground, whether it's education, law enforcement, firefighters. And so for me, it's really a choice. Do they people want to buy part of one of the most bipartisan effective independent

senators or do they want a MAGA extremist who's running? We're going to remind everyone because of Trump, for Trump, will carry Trump's torch and doesn't care he's had 34 felony convictions and this he's running in his own ad say to make Trump's tax cuts 100% permanent. That's not gonna help and Nevada had, I might be pulling ahead now, but we delivered the Senate majority by the slimmest of margins, 1%, 7,928 votes. We expected to tighten up. Vice President Harris is here again. This week, talking to Latino voters, about 30% of our electorate, we have to be sure that we turn out the vote for pragmatic

problem-solving for our futures and to invest in America and expand opportunities. And that's what I'm going to continue to work on. Like I said, people can go to Rosen for Nevada. You can knock on doors. You can make a text. You can make a phone call. You can do whatever.

Get involved. Look, if that's why you're here, people need to get involved. It'll help you feel good that you have impact on what happens. I don't wanna get, John, Tommy and Dan and I are gonna come to Nevada. Yeah, why didn't you were there before? We were there before we'll be back.

We're gonna come knock on doors. And get to your restaurant on your way to the airport. Yes, that's right. We saw you at the, we saw you at a, oh, we picked a good place. If the Senator's here, it's must be a good option. We won't plug the name because I don't wanna get in trouble there. But we saw you good place. If the senator's here, it's a good option. We won't plug the name because I don't get in trouble there,

but we saw you on the way to the airport after that. So when Kamala Harris was on Howard Stern this week, they talked about seeing the U2 concert at the Sphere in Vegas. Her advice was everyone should go with a clear head. I have to tell you, I don't know that I could enter that sphere with a clear head. I think I need to be altered in some way

Any any comment here is mind-blowing and the at the outside I asked tell people follow this fear It's got a personality of its own what they project on the outside It's just amazing and when you go inside the YouTube concert I sadly was not there because we were busy trying to keep the federal government open. They opened on September 29th. And we remember we had those tiered shutdowns. Republicans thought it was a really good idea to, you know, wonder if our government is going to stay afloat. So I wasn't able to go to that, but I've been there since, and I've been there on tours before it opened. The technology, the sound, the imagery, it is like nothing you have ever seen.

And I will just tell you, come here, see it. Your mind will be blown. Absolutely. Unbelievable. I simply won't do it sober. Before we go. And that's a choice. And that's a choice, sir.

We all make our choices. Everyone should make their own choices. We believe in freedom. And that's a choice, sir. We all make our choices. Everyone should make their own choices. Everybody makes their own choices. We believe in freedom. You should be to vote for me if you're a Nevada citizen. So before we let you go,

you're a musical theater fan. I wanted to do a lightning round, whether you love it, you hate it, or you've never seen it, okay? Dear Evan Hansen. Oh my God, love it. Love all the songs. Absolutely, I'm a huge fan of Ben Platt

and the folks, Pasek and Paul who wrote it. And I will tell you that Alex Lockmore, the musical director who also was a musical director for Hamilton, knocked it out of the park. Merrily we roll along. You know what, I wanted to see it, but it's been only the last few years. I've been very busy, but I have not been able to, but it's on my list after the election.

Here's my controversial take. It shouldn't go backwards. It should go forward. I don't want to see the end first. Now I know what's going to happen. Well, yeah, that's true. That's true. Guys and Dolls. Oh my God, I'm so happy you asked this because the reason I love musicals, my parents love musicals. Guys and Dolls is my father's favorite musical. A person could develop a cold. I'm not going to sing, that's it. But you know, don't rock the, sit down, you're rocking the, I can sing every song.

My parents, this was my dad's favorite musical. Camelot, Guys and Dolls, all of those things in the 1960s. They played on the record player. We had one of those big hi-fives. They had the TV and the record player. They had those big units back then. And that one I love because of my dad. Have you ever seen Wicked?

Have I ever seen Wicked? Oh, this is a great story. I'm glad you asked. So I was in New York around Thanksgiving when Wicked had just been open a few weeks. My husband was there to take some medical education. He's a radiologist. And so I asked the concierge at our hotel, what should we go see? And I ended up seeing Gypsy with Bernadette Peters, which was fantastic. And they said, there's this new musical, Wicked. It's only been open a couple weeks. He said, you've got to

go see it. It's going to play forever. It's about Wizard of Oz. I'm like, well, okay, but they're raving, raving, raving. We went to see it, blew your socks off. No cast recording, no nothing. Idina Menzel, oh my gosh, now I'm- Kristin Chenoweth. Kristin Chenoweth, Joel Grey, the original cast,

three weeks in, it was amazing. And I think the movie's coming out too, so we're gonna get to see that. I have a funny story. So when I first saw Wicked, I saw I was working in the White House and the president has a box at the Kennedy Center and you can request seats that are not being used. And there was two tickets available for Wicked.

So I invited my mother, my mother came, and she and I went and she- Good choice, another good choice. Talk about choices, perfect choice. Perfect choice. So she and I, I don't know anything about Wicked. I actually, I didn't know, I just, I was like, I knew a little, but I didn't know really.

I sit down with my mother, the, I don't know about Defying Gravity. Defying Gravity comes out, I'm obviously gay. I'm like on my feet, basically crying, applauding, having the best time. I look to my right, Harry Reid's asleep. Oh, Harry Reid. I'm not sure the theater was, you know, we love Harry.

He was very quiet. He'd usually go out much, so that's a pretty good one. But what I wanna say is this is a great place to say, I'm glad you brought up defying gravity because this is what we're going to do this election. We're going to defy gravity. We're going to choose a positive future. Kamala is going to win with Tim Walz. We're going to deliver the Senate.

We're going to deliver the House. And we're going to defy gravity of those who want to tear this country down. And so when you were up there cheering for defying gravity, I hope that's how we're going to feel on the night of this November 5th of the election and beyond, because that's what we need to do. It's a perfect, um, that, that song is really a perfect way for us to be inspired, I think. And that's a great place to leave it.

Senator Jackie Rosen, thank you so much. Everybody. If you're, if you're far from Nevada, make calls, donate, text. If you can get to Nevada, if you're in California, if you're in Nevada, if you can get there and do some knocking on doors, please do. We gotta win the seat.

What is this for at night? What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Except for the Senator, we wanna return to Washington to do good work. I love the theater stuff. I'll come out and do, I will never sing or act, do do any of that but I will have a lot of fun with you on that one. Fantastic. Senator Jackie Rose at Shana Tova. Shana Tova, thank you. Happy New Year to every everybody out there. Jewish New Year.

That's our show for today. Dan will be back on your feet on Sunday morning. Till then everyone stay calm, stay focused, and for our friends in the southeast, please stay safe. Bye, everyone. Bye. If you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and more, consider joining our Friends of the Pod subscription community at Cricut.com slash friends. And if you're already doom-scrolling, don't forget to follow us at Pod Save America on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content, and more. Plus, if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review to help boost this episode, or spice up the group chat by sharing it with friends, family, or randos you want in on this conversation. Podsave America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Reid Cherlin is our executive editor,

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