Pod Save America - Trump's Halloween Costume

Episode Date: November 1, 2024

Donald Trump dresses up like a sanitation worker as a message stunt and says he'll "protect" women "whether the women like it or not." Kamala Harris seizes on those remarks in events in the swing states, sharpening her argument against Trump on abortion and health care. In the final Friday episode before Election Day, Jon and Dan discuss all the latest and what they're watching for in each of the battleground states on Tuesday. Then, Nebraska's independent Senate candidate, Dan Osborn, talks with Dan about how he's pulled even with the Republican incumbent in one of the reddest states in the country, and how he plans to win.

Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, with the election just days away. Woo! Days away, Dan. With the election just days away, the Trump campaign closes with sanitation worker cosplay and a full embrace of anti-vax conspiracy theories. Kamala Harris prepares to rally with Cardi B and continues to hit Trump on abortion and healthcare. And because it's our final Friday show before election day, you and I are gonna take a look at the battleground map, Dan,

and talk about what we're watching for on Tuesday. You know what I'm watching for? More votes from Kamala Harris. Done, we've done the segment. Let's wrap this up with the outro and be done. And then after that, Nebraska Independent Senate candidate, Dan Osborne stops by to talk about how he's fought

to a tie in one of the reddest states in America and what you can do to help. But first, Donald Trump showed up at one of his final rallies dressed as a garbage truck driver and delivered a compelling argument to undecided women. My people told me about four weeks ago, I was saying, no, I want to protect the people. I want to protect the women of our country.

They said, sir, I just think it's inappropriate for you to say, pay these guys a lot of money. Can you believe it? I said, well, I'm going to do it whether the women like it or not. I'm going to protect them. Is there any woman in this stadium that wants to be protected by the president?

No, thank you Of course Kamala Harris jumped all over this first at a press conference and then during her rally in Phoenix on Thursday Let's listen and Donald Trump's not done. Did everyone hear what he just said yesterday That he will do What he wants quote and here's where I'm going to quote Whether the women like it or not He does not believe women should have the agency and authority to make decisions about their own bodies This is the same man who said women should be punished for their choices. He simply does not respect the freedom of women

or the intelligence of women to know what's in their own best interests and make decisions accordingly. But we trust women. So obviously in the closing days, there's a whole bunch of things you can choose to make news on if you're the Harris campaign, especially with Trump. He and his goons have given plenty of material

to the Harris campaign over the last week, but they chose this comment about women protecting them, whether they like it or not. What does it tell you that the campaign saw an opportunity there? I think it's three things. One, just tactically you want to be on offense for every minute of this campaign

because of the Madison Square Garden rally, some other things Trump has said and done recently. There is this sort of emerging narrative of, I don't know why it's emerging narrative, but it is in the press coverage of this cycle of Trump saying outlandish things that are politically damaging to him. That makes it, and then when you write,

and the conversation is, looks like Kamala Harris is ascendant and Trump is crap in the bed. And so that's one. Two is, obviously this has tremendous echoes of Dobbs and everything that's in project 2025 about abortion and women's reproductive freedom and women's healthcare.

This is a chance to go with that. And the third thing is, and it dovetails with some polling that I've seen that clearly the Harris campaign has seen as well because it shows up in some of their more recent ads, is this idea of extremists like Donald Trump with total control, unchecked power, controlling your lives really resonates with a real segment of voters.

And one of the groups, the Harris campaign, is courting at the end here. We talk a lot about these Haley Republicans, bulwark Republicans, as I think Tim Miller called them on the Wednesday pod. But there's also a subset of that group, which are working class white women who disagree, who may have had some disagreements with Kamala Harris on some issues, particularly some cultural issues, but firmly disagree with the Dobbs decision and these Republican abortion bans. And that is a target audience here in the final days.

And it's pretty clear by now that it's not just Trump who's stepping in it with women and his comments about abortion and his record on abortion. It's a lot of his bros too. So we have a super cut of JD Vance, who sat down with Joe Rogan today, I guess, for four hours. And then you're gonna hear Charlie Kirk, who's basically running Trump's ground operation

or helping Elon run Trump's ground operation, their forces combined. And then you're gonna hear my pal Jesse Waters let's listen at the very best if you grant I think every argument of the pro-choice side it is a neutral thing not something to be celebrated I think there's very few people that are celebrating I think it's so just nauseating where this wife is wearing the you'll show it they're wearing the American hat she's coming in with her sweet husband who probably works his tail off to make sure that she can go, you know,

and have a nice life and provide to the family. And then she lies to him saying, oh yeah, I'm going to vote for Trump. And then she votes for Kamala Harris as her little secret in the voting booth. Kamala Harris and her team believe that there will be millions of women that undermine their husbands and do so in a way that it's not detectable in the polling. And if I found out Emma was going into the voting booth and pulling the lever for Harris That's the same thing as having an affair That's me

Let him finish your bit The sanctity of our marriage, I don't know why you're not why are you friends with that Emma? sanctity of our marriage. I don't know why you're friends with that guy. Emma, Emma, vote Harris, whoever you are. In the middle there, Charlie Kirk was referencing this Harris campaign ad that Julia Roberts does the voiceover. And it's these women are walking to the voting booth

and there's a husband there too. And he's obviously like a Trumper. She goes into the booth and she looks at another woman and she sort of just, she votes for Harris and the other one votes for Harris and they exchange a knowing look and conservatives are outraged about this ad. And then of course there's JD Vann saying that it's too much that women are celebrating the Dobbs decision because they think it's politically advantageous to them. And then Joe Rogan's like,

I don't think people are celebrating. I don't know if any of that's gonna help with women. I don't know, what do you think? Yeah, doesn't seem that way. And it's, or with men, frankly, that was really interesting part. I only saw the clips I did not, I've not buckled up for the four hour

Joe Rogan JD Vance podcast yet. Do not intend to. But the way that Rogan, in the clips that I saw, went after JD Vance on Dobbs, and particularly the idea that some of these states would prosecute women for traveling to states where abortion is legal to have abortions, does speak to that we think of Dobbs entirely or too often, I guess, primarily in the context of how it is

motivating women to vote for Kamala Harris. I just mentioned these working class white women, but young men too, right? And there've been some ads that address some of them. That's a pretty bad, but there are ads. And if you remember when Dobbs happened, one of the people who came out and spoke, uh, most aggressively about it was Dave Portnoy, the founder of Barstool Sports and sort of the people who came out and spoke most aggressively about it was Dave Portnoy, the founder of Barstool Sports.

And sort of the, he is the leader of the manosphere in a lot of ways along with Joe Rogan. And so, yeah, I don't think this is helping with women. And I don't think actually a focus on dives helps them with anyone at the end. I think that is purely bad for the Republicans. Yeah, and JD Vance saying that, oh, I haven't heard of any of this.

Like there's states all over the place now, red states, that are considering passing legislation so that women can't even go over state lines to get abortion. Ken Paxton, the attorney general of Texas, currently has a lawsuit to try to get private medical information from women to see if they've gone over state lines to get abortion, which Liz Cheney brought up

in one of her events with Kamala Harris,, which Liz Cheney brought up in one of her events with Kamala Harris, even though Liz Cheney has said that she's been pro-life for most of her career. So I do think that the extreme consequences of daubs and sort of the level of control that the government now has over women, women's lives, people trying to plan families, medical care that women desperately need if they're miscarrying or it's just, I think it's resonating.

It has resonated with a lot of people, it has since 2022. And I don't think closing on that is what the Trump campaign wants necessarily. We talked a lot about earlier in this campaign about issue salience and what issues are in voters' minds when they make the decision. The economy is in most people's minds, but there have been there has been this battle and for the number two slot between immigration and abortion and during the peak of the surge of the border and the migrants showing up being bused to towns, immigration became the strong, the number two issue by far. It's been about tide recently and

if you have a law, a protracted conversation about Dobs over the last few days, inches up a point or two here in some of these states, that could be the difference. There's been a lot of focus on Trump's apparent polling gains with younger men, but much less on Harris's and Democrats' advantage with women, which we've seen show up in polls and election results, more importantly, since Dobbs. Do you buy that we may be headed for the biggest gender gap

ever, as you see in some analyses? It seems very possible that we're gonna, if not the largest, we will have a historic gender gap. Yeah. That's happening in part because it's two ways, right? Gender gap happens because you have movement in both directions. We are, if the polls are correct, right? Which is the question looms over everything we say and think, you

are seeing a huge surge of young women, millennial and Gen Z women to Kamal Harris, but you are seeing Trump make gains with Gen Z men over what Biden and previous Democrats had gotten. So if you have those two things, you're gonna end up with the largest gender gap. It's always hard to tell in the polling, and there's been some good large sample youth polls, like the Harvard poll, for instance, and NBC did one as well. But in a lot of these polls,

if you take the under 29 group, and then you slice it in half, you're looking at a margin of error of like nine, sometimes more. And so it's sometimes hard to get into. If you don't break it down by age and you just do what is the gender gap between women and men. So 2020 women went for Biden by about 12 points, 56, 43.

That's like, you know, catalyst pew. Those are sort of months after the election, they get the best read on what happened. So that was 12 points. And then men went for Trump by 5246. That's about four points, right? So far the polls right now, because I was looking at the average of all the cross tabs

for all the gender splits. Women, Harris is winning by about 10 points, 5343. So still smaller than the Biden margin with women. And then men, so far Trump is 52, 44, around eight points. So it is, it's actually not bigger right now, at least according to the polls, but these are the polls, these are not the sort of final results. So I do wonder that if like, you know, all of the, what we're hearing on the ground, everything we've seen in 20 elections in 22 and 23, uh, if that bears out will,

especially among women, will that gap, will that margin get bigger for Harris? And then that might help push her over the edge. That's what we got to see on Tuesday. But there's been a lot of tea leaf reading of the early vote data in terms of gender breakdown. Should we just continue to ignore that early vote? Early early vote anecdotes.

People are writing stories about it in Politico and Dempsey signs of optimism. Should we just continue to ignore that early vote, early early vote anecdotes? People are writing stories about it in Politico and Dempsey signs of optimism with gender and early vote. I don't know, I don't want to indulge. Yeah, it's. I think the one person who I think is worth listening to on the early vote is John Ralston from Nevada. I say that even though his reports for Democrats

are not good, but there's a lot going on here that makes the early vote confusing. And you only know party breakdown, and that's not even in every state of how many Democrats, how many Republicans voted. Another thing that is, there is no benchmark to compare things to because 2020 was incredibly unique. And since 2020, Republicans have started voting earlier. And you've seen a lot of tried and true stalwart Republican Election Day voters just vote early. And so for people like you and I and reporters covering it,

we don't know a ton of information. The campaigns, however, and I think it's worth explaining, after you vote, your name is now public as having voted. Doesn't say who you voted for or for whom you voted, but it is public. The campaign takes all the information. The campaign has a model. For everyone listening to this who lives in the United States,

the campaign has a model for you. They have two models. They have a support score and a turnout score, and that's based on your vote history. It's both based on your partisan registration. It's both on what any demographic and geographic information they have. And if you live in a battleground state, it's probably based on some consumer data

they have purchased to understand. In the old days, it would be the magazines you subscribe to would be the information you use. In this day, it might be the websites or the things you buy and stuff like TV shows you watch, stuff like that. And then so they rate you on how likely you are to vote for Kamala Harris from a campus score of one to 10 and how likely are you to vote from a score of one to 10.

And so the campaigns know in the States, if as pluff, the very evocative phrase pluff use of an army of incels are turning out for Trump, they know if we are getting our lower propensity voters turning out and the big mystery is the campaign has a support score for the independent or nonpartisan voters, but they don't know for sure who they're actually for.

Sometimes that support score is six, right? So you don't really know for sure what they're going to do. And so even the campaigns don't have a ton of information. And they won't know whether their model is right until the polls close. And in states like Florida, where they dump in all the early vote data and the vote by mail results right away, and they see those numbers,

and they'll know whether they correctly calculated support scores and turnout composition. So for people like us, I think if you want to read it to look for something positive, go for it. If you want to read it and look for doom, that's your choice. But it's really sort of a black box. Or if you want to just reach out to everyone you know, and everywhere you can post about why Trump and JD Vance

would be horrible for women and issues that women care about, you can do that too. I mean, that's, that is another option other than pouring through the early vote data. I'm just going to say that for all the things we talk about today, you know, we're so close. All right, as I mentioned, Trump did talk about protecting women against their will

while wearing an orange vest. Why was he wearing an orange vest, Dan? Because he had just climbed out of a garbage truck, obviously. Why was he in a garbage truck? Because a comedian at his Madison Square Garden rally called Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage, which led to days of bad headlines, which led to Joe Biden saying something unintelligible on zoom

that sounded like he might be calling Trump supporters garbage, which has led the Trump campaign to engage in two of their favorite pastimes, playing victim and running against Joe Biden. It was a theme Trump hit again on Thursday and an event in of all places, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Here he is driving that message and talking about why he made a stop in Albuquerque. New Mexico, look, don't make me waste a whole damn half a day here, okay? Look, I came here, you know, we can be nice to each other or we can talk turkey.

Let's talk turkey, okay? First of all, Hispanics love Trump. So I'm here for one simple reason. I like you very much, and it's good for my credentials with the Hispanic or Latino community. Two days ago, Joe Biden called our supporters garbage. You're garbage. She called all of us garbage. We're garbage.

I remember the word deplorable. Do you remember the word deplorable? How did that work out, Hillary? Not too good. But they mean it, even though without question, my supporters are of far higher quality, and I think much smarter than Crooked Joe or Lion Kamala. I mean, what'd you think of his Halloween costume?

I'm glad my son didn't see it. I know, I purposely didn't show Charlie the pictures of Trump in the garbage truck because I thought that it might make him like Trump more. I mean, Halle and I were looking at it. I was showing it to her on my phone while we were sitting on the couch and Jack ran over to see like, what are you guys looking at?

I was like, nothing, nothing. Because if he sees anyone driving a garbage truck is automatically his hero. And so I, we were like, you cannot see that. So if three or three and four year olds could vote, this would be a master stroke, but alas they cannot. I am confused as to why they want to continue to keep the Puerto Rico garbage story in the headlines now for the fifth day. Yeah, I mean.

I know they think that they've got their deplorable moment, even though it's Joe Biden sort of stumbling over his words on a Zoom and he's not the fucking candidate. Like, I'm sure, like, and I get it, right-wing media is just running wild with this part of the reason I think they're running wild with it is because they all know how bad and damaging the Madison Square Garden rally was even like Megyn Kelly was complaining about it on her show saying that the Trump

campaign was stupid for you know it was like too brod up to have all this comedians there and making terrible jokes. And so I think they finally see this as an opportunity to turn the page to borrow a phrase on all that. But I don't know if it really does that. I think I'm sure that there's like Trump supporters who are like, oh, don't call us garbage. But I don't think anyone's like, oh, Jill Biden mumbled on a Zoom.

And so meanwhile, that must mean that Kamala Harris thinks that too. It's fucking stupid. Okay, all right, a couple of things here. First, there is no evidence whatsoever that Hillary Clinton's deplorables comment mattered at all. Right, well that's a good place to start.

Yes, because that is the, it has become a fact in the minds of Republicans and the media that that was the moment when the election fell apart for, not, I don't know, Jim Comey's ill-timed letter to Congress that led the press to lose their fucking mind 13 days before the election. Maybe that was a thing.

But the DePauw's comment, not a real thing. They are obviously trying, you're looking, when you're in a bad news cycle, you're always looking for something to turn the page, be a circuit breaker on what's happening. Generally, you wanna look for something that does not include the word that is most associated with the scandal you're trying to avoid.

Right, so like this is suboptimal choice here. And not literally wear that word. Yes, yes. Just drape yourself in it. The place, and right wing media went nuts for it because for all the reasons you said, I would say traditional media the political media Did exactly color itself in glory made playbook on the morning after Kamala Harris's closing argument speech had like

17 paragraphs of insanity of we don't know what he meant, but it could matter and here's how it could matter Here's the spectacle. There's a New York Times story that was so infuriating. I know I know I know all of were like, they were reaching to, you can say whatever you want about Biden and analyze him in the pieces, right? But it was such a reach to tie it to Kamala Harris, who gives a speech at the same time that Joe Biden is saying this,

where over and over in the speech, she talks about reaching out to the other side and stuff like that, and then is asked about Biden, but like, well, he clarified, but let me just tell you, I think it's some, you know, like totally did the right thing here. And they're like, yeah, but Biden's gaffes are trailing Harris.

Like they're like personifying Biden's gaffes. They're just, the gaffes are just walking around behind her. What the fuck are you talking about? But also any story that says something like, it could spark a backlash or could. Well, no, that's not your job to predict what voters may do. Your job is to wait until they do it and then cover that. And maybe if it's on a fake bullshit issue,

they won't do it because you did your actual fucking job and you explained what really happened as opposed to just doing preemptive political prognostication. Okay, rant over. I know. And I also, when it happened, I actually, when the Biden thing happened, I was like, I rolled my eyes, but I actually wasn't worried for Kamala Harris because I was like, this is, if anything, an opportunity for her. She just gave a speech where she was like, I want to reach out to the other side.

I want them to have a seat at the table. Donald Trump wants to put them in jail. His political opponents and blah, blah, blah. And so she can now say, you know what? If you don't like what Joe Biden said, I'm the person that you get to vote for. And as I've said in this campaign, I am not Joe Biden. And you've all wanted me to separate myself from Joe Biden.

Well, here I am. I gave this speech and that's a different message than what some people heard from Joe Biden. Again, we don't even know what Joe Biden really meant. I would not imagine Joe Biden would call Donald Trump's voters and supporters garbage because that's not who Joe Biden is. Right, it's antithetical to everything he ever says. Right, but clearly he was just, you know,

doing the Biden thing on Zoom, so there you go. The guy put a MAGA hat on. He put a Trump campaign hat on at a firehouse like a month ago. I know it's just come on it's stupid. Let's back up for a second and talk about Donald Trump in New Mexico. You know you heard in that clip he as usual reads the stage directions. I'm here to get some to to to boost my credentials with Latinos but what what, the New Mexico thing, he's not winning New Mexico. There's my prediction, he's not winning New Mexico.

Oh, now we make predictions on this podcast? Just as you know what, he's not winning Massachusetts. I guess what, if he wins New Mexico, you saying he was gonna win New Mexico is really low in the list of problems we have. That's what I was gonna say. No one's gonna remember that. No one's gonna remember that. Oh, well, I just clip again right now, but yes. It's good for in the list of problems we have. That's what I was going to say. No one's going to remember that. No one's going to remember that.

Well, I just clip again right now. But yes. It's good for the punties. Yes. Yeah, so he's just head fakes, show of confidence. What do you think? I think, I mean, he told us why he's doing it. It is to build credibility with the Latino community.

Because I'm sure that morning he woke up, he's like, where are we going, guys? And they're like, New Mexico. He's like, why the fuck are we going to New Mexico? And they're like, to build credibility with the Latino community. And so he just said those words. It's weird.

It doesn't make a ton of sense. I don't know how much credibility you're building with Latino community. The Trump campaign clearly has a thesis that's somewhat to a certain extent shared by the Harris community that I think is correct, which is all politics is kind of national now. The value of these local stops has gone down

for a couple of reasons. It's gone down because local media just matters less than it did before, there's less of it. And when you've been to Green Bay, Wisconsin for the ninth time in the last four months, like how much coverage are you getting, right? Is it not the same, does it have the same sort of impact you did before?

So he goes there and more people pay attention to it and he's trying to craft a narrative that his campaign's ascendant and they're competing in these blue states that were, that traditional Republicans can't compete in but he can because he's whatever. I don't think it's a great use of time. And I saw someone say that if he,

oh, this was a former agent Marco Rubio said, if he loses Pennsylvania by a thousand votes, he's really gonna regret not going to Pennsylvania the final weekend, so. Yeah, Mark Caputo just had a story about this in the bulwark and he sort of asked around the Trump campaign and someone said to him, we're the Trump campaign,

we're gonna go where the fuck we wanna go and too bad if you don't get it. Okay, that's cool. And then I guess a couple other sources said to him, just like, this is Trump. He wants to project confidence. He thinks that he can win some of these states. It's just in his head, in his gut.

He thinks he can. And I think this is also like a, they're trying to show confidence so that if he loses, he can say, well, I couldn't, I was in New Mexico and Virginia. I thought I could win those. Like this is, it's impossible. They cheated.

That's the only way they can win is if they cheated. It's just, it's helping his stop the steal narrative if he ends up losing. So, all right, speaking of the Trump campaign, Supreme confidence, Trump transition co-chair, Howard Lutnick, the billionaire CEO of an investment bank, is he's suddenly, he's out and about previewing Trump's policy agenda for the second term,

feeling confident. You guys all heard tape of him on the Wednesday pod, scream asking Elon Musk at the Madison Square Garden rally, how much funding they could cut from federal agencies. The answer was apparently $2 trillion, a sum that would almost certainly decimate people's health and retirement benefits in this country.

On Wednesday night, Lutnick did a CNN sit-down with Caitlin Collins. She asked him several direct questions about Trump and RFK Jr.'s claim that RFK will be basically in charge of public health in some capacity in a Trump administration. And here's how it went. So I spent two and a half hours this week

with Bobby Kennedy Jr. And what he explained was when he was born, we had three vaccines, and autism was one in 10,000. Now a baby's born with 76 vaccines. The RFK Jr. is a vaccine skeptic. He pushes lies about vaccines. And I don't even think if Republicans... Why doic. He pushes lies about vaccines.

And I don't even think if Republicans- Why do you think he pushes lies? I don't know why he pushes them. You said, I'm not a scientist and you aren't. So he just wants data. But scientists say he pushes lies. He says, if you give me the data, all I want is the data and I'll take on the data and show that it's not safe.

And then if you pull the product liability, the companies will yank these vaccines right off of the market. All right, so there you go. Vote Donald Trump if you want your kids not to be vaccinated anymore. Because if he wins, RFK Jr. is gonna get to be in charge of public health. And Howard Lutnick says that RFK Jr.

wants to get the vaccines yanked from the market. Smallpox in every pot. I mean, first of all, why should people care what this guy Lutnick thinks? He's the chair of Trump's transition. And so for weeks now, if not months, there's been a group of people in an office somewhere in New York, I think is where Trump says that is plotting Trump's administration. Now, primarily they're taking project 2025 and just sort of scratching the there's doing

a rewriting Trump over it. But what they're really doing is they're putting together lists of people who are going to staff the Trump government. And this is not just the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, the cabinet members we know, it's the undersecretaries, the administrators, the people that we pay no attention to, but have tremendous power over things like vaccine policy, prescription drug approvals, all of these things. And so if the person who is in charge of putting this whole operation together, who is signing off on these lists of possible names that'll go to Trump, is someone with the not very

well informed views of Howard Lutnick, that speaks to the kind of administration Trump will have. This is a person with real power to shape government policy through personnel. And so Caitlin also asked him, is he going to be the Health and Human Services Secretary? And Lutnick basically said, no, the backstory there is the Trump campaign isn't sure that RFK junior could actually get confirmed by the Senate to be the health and human services secretary, because even if it's a Republican Senate, you got your, maybe your Susan Collins is and

your Lisa Murkowski is, and even some conservative senators who are probably like, this guy's fucking crazy. He, uh, he's an anti-vax loon. some Murkowski's and even some conservative senators who are probably like, this guy's fucking crazy. He's an anti-vax loon. So they're not sure they could get him confirmed, but Donald Trump could make him like a czar in the White House that oversees the public health agencies. And he could still have a lot of power to, again, take vaccines off the fucking market. Like, do you know what our kids get vaccinated for?

Hepatitis, measles, mumps, polio, tetanus, chickenpox, whooping cough. And Robert R. Kennedy Jr. doesn't fucking like these. He's just, he doesn't believe in science. He lies about them all the time. He felt he was, he was connected to a measles outbreak in Samoa that killed 83 people, most of them children, because he went down there and talked to a bunch of anti-vax crazies and promoted them, called them heroes. And then now he's like, oh no, I had nothing to do with it. Even though at the time he was like, yeah, it's probably the vaccines that are problematic. And then, you know, vaccination rates fell dramatically

in Samoa after he went. And then there was a measles outbreak and a bunch of people died. Like this is, I know there's just a lot of shit flying around right now, because it's the end of the campaign, but if for no other reason, vote because RFK Jr. could be in charge of vaccines and public health

and could take vaccines off the market that you need to survive. I just, it's wild. Yeah, it's not great. It's completely wild. Also, I don't, it's wild. Yeah, it's not great. It's completely wild. I, also, I don't think it's very, it's not a politically wise move. No, it doesn't seem that way.

Just looked up, you know, 69% of all adults say that it's very slash extremely important to get kids vaccinated. Now, unfortunately, that number has fallen since the pandemic, but only among Republican voters because we all saw what happened there. But around 70% still saying it's pretty important to get your kids vaccinated.

It's a big number, it's a big number. Just the theme here of the Madison Square Garden rally, the crazy things Elon Musk has said, Mike Johnson saying affordable care should be repealed, Howard Lotdick deciding to do a CNN interview for reasons that are beyond. Is the Trump campaign really is acting like they have this thing in the bag?

Yeah. And they're all that Chicago Bears quarterback who was taunting the crowd when the helm area was being thrown, sort of like what they're doing right now. I know, I know. It's wild. Like Elon Musk out there talking about

cutting $2 trillion and saying that, yeah, Trump's agenda would cause a temporary hardship on people, but you know what? Because the economy would crash. We'd crash the economy. Elect us to crash the economy, repeal the Affordable Care Act, take vaccines off the shelf, just.

You know, Donald Trump and Elon Musk and RFK Judy, they'll all be fine, they'll all be fine. They'll all be fine, but everyone else is just gonna have to go through some temporary hardship. ["Skyfall 3D World"] Our final Friday pod before the election. Uh, I thought it was a good time to take one last, almost last, whip around to the battleground states,

do some final thoughts on what we're seeing, what we're looking for. I'm ordering these in terms of what I think is easiest for Harris to hardest. Okay. But you can tell me if you disagree. Okay. I'm going to start with Michigan. Yep.

I think Michigan is the easiest of the battlegrounds for her going out there. It's her best state in the polls, first of all. Right now, she's probably got the largest lead there of any battleground state. Of course, that lead is a- One, is less than one than your time's average, yes. Right, right.

But also Biden won Michigan by the biggest margin of any of the swing states, around three points, 150,000 votes. Of course, the concerns there, things we'll be looking for, Arab American and Muslim voters upset with the war in Gaza. Of course, there's probably about 400,000 Arab American and Muslim voters in Michigan, 100,000 people voted uncommitted in the primary. So that is something to watch.

I'm also going to be watching union members and just workers in general because they have been running a Trump campaign, Republicans and super PACs have been running a ton of ads about electric vehicles and telling people that Kamala Harris and Alyssa Slotkin are going to make you, you know, like give up your gas powered car and you're gonna be forced to buy an electric vehicle and China is gonna make the electric vehicles and it's gonna put auto workers out of business.

And so I'm, you know, looking at that. And then I'm looking at, you know, black turnout, black voter turnout. You know, my gut is that her margins among black voters are the same, around the same as Biden, but turnout is the one that I wonder about, you know, whether black turnout will be the same. Now, there was a report from Detroit today that they are on pace in that city to already break turnout records from 2020, which would be great, a great sign. Obviously, a lot of black voters in Detroit.

So anyway, those are my thoughts on Michigan. What do you think? Yeah, it's sort of a lot of the same things. You know, how does Kamala Harris do in those parts in and around Dearborn, right? Where there's a large Arab American population. Does she dramatically underperform Biden's numbers there? Does overall turnout go down because people don't vote?

Do we end up with people who leave the top of the ticket blank? So I'm very curious about that. And I'm really, because of that, I'm looking at third party vote in Michigan more than anywhere else. RFK Jr. still on the ballot in Michigan. And Jill Stein, yeah.

And Jill Stein, RFK Jr. was getting 3.5% in a poll I saw the other day in Michigan. Where is that vote coming from? The way the poll was written, it seemed it was possible that that was helping Kamala Harris a little bit. So that is the place where you have perhaps the largest group of people who voted for Biden, who may be looking for somewhere else to go, that is not Trump.

And so that's a net loss of one for Harris. And can she make up for that? Because for people who listen to the Sunday pod, I talked to Ron Brownstein about demographic changes. And the place where there's been the most demographic change, where the share of the electorate that is white, non-college educated has gone down the most is in Michigan.

And so can she replace that with new suburban voters and higher turnout in Detroit? Yeah, and then the counties around Detroit for those suburban voters like Oakland County. Kent County, yeah. Yeah, those are the counties where she really needs to run up the score and could possibly do better than Biden. All right, what do you think about Pennsylvania?

That's my next one, is that your next one? I- Or would you go Wisconsin over for Pennsylvania? I would probably just go, for most of this election, I felt better about Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. And actually, that's how most of the campaigns felt. I think that shifted in recent days here. And it's really basically just come down to the fact

that Pennsylvania is just more suburban and more diverse. Even though that math is not the same for us, potentially, as it was in previous elections, it's Wisconsin just an incredibly white state and it's a very rare rule. So that, as I would probably, they're close, but I'd probably say Pennsylvania is her next best. It's the one Biden won by about a point and a half,

about 80,000 votes, I believe. Here it's once again, turnout in the Collier counties around Philly and then the suburbs of Allegheny County. And then can she do well in some of, you know, in across Pennsylvania, there are lots of midsize cities, cities like Lancaster and Scranton. Can she do well in those cities and actually outperform Biden in those cities, which could make up for some bleed she might have either with black voters, if you are not correct about that, and I hope you are correct, or if she's underperforms Biden with rural white voters.

So sort of suburban, the suburban areas around the big cities and then the small mid-size cities have become places where Democrats have gotten a lot of vote from recently. And you got a bunch of those in Pennsylvania. I think the bull case for some of these, a lot of these blue wall states is in these rural counties

and small towns and small cities where Trump tends to do well, especially in the rural, he wins with like crushing margins, but he doesn't have a lot more vote to squeeze out from the rural areas, from some of the exurban areas he does, the places outside the suburbs that are growing, right? So like, you could see if ex-urbs shifted to the right and Trump got more vote out of there,

could start canceling out some of her gains in the suburbs. But I think population wise, the Southeastern part of Pennsylvania, those suburbs South of Philly, like that has grown a bunch. So there's like an opportunity for her to, to have bigger margins than Biden and just get more vote out of there. And that, and same thing with Allegheny County

around Pittsburgh. So that, like you said, that cancels out, hopefully, either his strength in the ex-herbs or some combo of that, plus, you know, black and Latino voters inching towards Trump. And then obviously, the Puerto Rican voters in Philly and Allentown, obviously something we'll be very interested in.

Wisconsin. Can Ben Wickler save America again? No pressure, Ben. Yeah, I think- I know it's like what you just said, which is like demographic wise of the Blue Wall States, I'm most nervous about Wisconsin, but organization wise and turnout wise,

I feel best about Wisconsin because of organization wise and turnout wise, I feel best about Wisconsin because of the organization that Ben and the entire Wisconsin Democratic Party and all the organizers and volunteers who have worked tirelessly in Wisconsin since 2016 have put together. So obviously you will want to know what happened, what goes on in Milwaukee in terms of turnout and support levels for Harris. The other thing is Dane County, where Madison is, has grown a ton in the last four years. Some of that is people moving from other parts of the state in today, but it's also

a lot of people who post-pandemic moved to other parts of the country. And so you have some in-migration of more college-educated suburban voters in Dane County. And can that population growth offset further losses in rural areas? Because, you know, Biden and Democrats, they get, it's getting to be like Assad margins

in Dane County now. It's just like, like, and the turnout in Dane County is off the charts. I mean, there's like a few counties in swing states that have as high turnout with as good margins for Democrats than Dane County. So- I mean, we went canvassing in Dane County

and that was, I would say, not exactly hard work. It was like, we've already voted. We know when we're gonna vote. We have 17, we have signs for Kamala Harris, Tammy Baldwin and like nine ballot initiatives in our front yard. Yeah, it's political utopia. But again, Biden went up by 20,000 votes. And so the margin in Wisconsin, just for, you know,

voters who, if Trump gets more votes or if Trump, you know, if Biden voters go back to Trump or whatever, it's just a smaller margin than it is in Michigan and Pennsylvania. 21,000 votes. Yeah, that is why it's, you know, it's worrisome. The suburbs in Wisconsin, the suburbs outside of Milwaukee, have not moved as aggressively democratic

as they have in Pennsylvania and Michigan and other battleground states. I'm going to be curious to see if you see growth there. There were 76,000 Haley voters in the Republican primary in Wisconsin. Can she get 10, 15, 20,000 of those votes? That could really help. Yeah, for sure.

Nevada, you mentioned earlier that John Ralston's, his blog about that he updates with the numbers from Nevada every night. It's not exactly been great, but one thing we've talked about is that voting behavior has just changed. And so Republicans are voting earlier now and it's sort of hard to tell what's happening there.

But I don't know, what do you wanna say about Nevada? I think Nevada is the test case about whether Trump is making real gains with working class Latino voters. They are, compared to all the other states we're talking about, disproportionately located in Nevada. And if he is, we will see that there. It's interesting, I assume you have Nevada in this place

in the order because it was the largest margin of the remaining states. And in fact, the second largest margin in 2020. Is that why? Yes. But demographically the hardest, I think. I think it's demographically one of the hardest. I do think the turnout,

the organization the Democrats have there, the turnout machine there is still pretty strong. You know, it's built by Harry Reid when he was alive and he was Democratic leader and it's quite effective. And I just noticed, I just looked at it before we started recording, looked at Ralston's blog. The margin is starting to come down.

Right now the Republic, if you just, so the reason that Ralston and Nevada are like the exception to reading the tea leaves on the early vote is that now everyone in Nevada gets mailed a ballot and a lot of people in Nevada, most people vote before election day. So if you have an early vote, that's like, you know, 65, 70% of registered voters or 65, 70% of the final vote, you can make some assumptions on that, right? You can't predict who's gonna win, but you can make some assumptions.

The challenge is as they have, they have automatic voter registration in Nevada as well. And when they automatically register you, if you don't pick a party, you're automatically registered just as a, with no party. And so you're seeing the share of no party voters, like much higher than it's been in the past. And we don't know if those votes, from the early vote,

we don't know if those votes are for Kamala Harris or for Donald Trump. And so Republicans have quite a lead in ballots right now over Democrats in Nevada, thanks largely to the rural counties in Nevada and Clark County, which is where Vegas is, is sort of underperforming its registration. So the percentage of the vote from Clark

is just lower than it has been in the past. And the rural's are like just blowing the doors off the place. And so if it stays that way, then it's gonna be really hard for her to win. But the idea is that maybe all of these voters in Clark County who voted last time, who just haven't voted yet,

are gonna either show up in the next couple of days or show up on election day. And if they still live there, right? That's one of the hardest parts about Clark County in particular is there's just, it's very transient. You have people who move in every cycle, people who ever, as I have done a couple of times, canvassed in Las Vegas.

The addresses are different. It's like canvassing in college town. We're about to find out. Yes, we're about to do it again. I would say it was a real warning sign in my 2016 life if I had paid more attention to the door knocks when I was in Vegas. So it is all hard to tell.

Normally, Democrats go in with a big advantage, and then Republicans have to win a shockingly high percentage of the election day vote. And they have failed to do that in most elections of consequence over the last decade or so. Now, that firewall will not exist of any consequence. It's the opposite. It's a Republican firewall now.

That may even out by the time this is all done, but we would bank all these votes. And we're not banking, we're not banking a lead here. But so everyone knows, Nevada plays a role in very few paths to 270 for Kamala Harris, just because it only has six electoral votes. There are some, if you, I forget which blue wall state, if you lose and then you lose Pennsylvania,

you can replace it with Arizona. North Carolina or Arizona, Nevada. Well, if you lose Pennsylvania, you can win North Carolina or Georgia and Nevada and get to over 270. Right, okay. So there's a couple paths it shows up in. I have Georgia next.

Would you have Arizona or North Carolina before it? No, I would probably, I think you could flip a coin for Arizona, Georgia here. It really depends on- I kinda do too. It kinda depends on what narrative you wanna buy, right? If you're correct that Kamala Harris is going to get to basically Biden level margins with black voters,

then Georgia should be next in line. Because it is a huge black voting population has obviously turned out in 2020 and 2022 to elect Joe Biden, Raphael Warnock twice, John Ossoff, almost elect Stacey Abrams twice, then Georgia would be the one. Also, very large suburbs, lots of college educated voters. That is a formula for democratic success.

The reason Harris is not polling as well there is because in the polling she is not doing as well with black voters. If that were to level set, it's back to where it was, then it's a true toss up state with maybe a Harris advantage. Well, and the concern I have there is the concern with black vote everywhere,

which is just if she keeps the margins, but one of the reasons she's not doing well in the polls is that some black voters are just end up deciding not to vote and turnout goes down. Then that, that is, could be a reason that she loses it as well. Yeah. I also think that Georgia is a state is like we've, you know, in the Trump era, a lot of the polls we get to election day and it's like, oh, they've understated Trump support. Georgia is not that case. In fact, sometimes, I think a couple times in Georgia, the polls

in Georgia have underestimated Democratic support and Biden support, at least in 2020. So it's sort of a state I watch and don't take the polling too seriously as I do some other places, or at least I'm not as worried about it as in other places, but maybe I should be. But I do think there it's all about blowing it out in Atlanta and the suburbs, and in some rural places in Georgia where there are a lot of black voters to see if she can run up the margins there as well.

And then the college towns like Athens, and then other places there are small to mid-sized cities with large democratic populations like Savannah. What's going on with Arizona? What do you think? Because I was bullish on Arizona in 2020. We won, it was very close, but the polls have been brutal this time around.

Well, I don't think they've been brutal. I mean, it is- They've just been so different than they were in 2020. Yeah, but they mean in the New York Times average, Trump has a two point lead, right? Which is well within the margin of error. It is in the polling averages, Kamala Harris' worst state. Now the fact that her worst state is at

right around two points is pretty good, frankly. This is another thing, right? Are the polls overstating Trump's Latino support or understating Kamala Harris's, right? Because a lot of times you're getting Kamala Harris at near the Biden number, but Trump is not yet at his 2020 number. He's just, it's just the, they're both under, right?

And what's going to happen with that undecided vote? Are people going to vote or are they not going to vote, right? Is Trump going to get over 40 or is he going to be stuck around 38 where he was before? And it's just, you know, just when we talk all the time about the hardest to reach voters, we're always talking about Trump voters, but that other very hard to reach voters,

black and Latino voters, right? When we talk about the least politically engaged and like, are we actually capturing who that electorate is? And if the, and if her numbers are like Biden's in 2020, she's got a very real shot to it. Now it's a state that Biden won by 11,000 votes, so there's not a lot of marching for error there, but it's just, this is a, like,

there's something the polling is going to get wrong. It happens every cycle, even in a good polling year, where, you know, even in 2020, there are a lot of things wrong, but remember one of the narratives leading into the election was Joe Biden is crushing it with seniors. Seniors are gonna save America, and it's because everyone's like, well seniors are very COVID conscious because of the concerns of our health. We have the whole election, turns out seniors voted at the exact same level they have in previous elections. It was just a fuck up in

the polling, right? And what it missed, Trump's gains with Latinos, totally missed them. There are going to be some things like that this time where Trump's either going to do better or worse with some of these groups we think he is doing well with. And there's going to be another group, totally missed them. There are gonna be some things like that this time where Trump's either gonna do better or worse with some of these groups we think he is doing well with. And there's gonna be another group, Plouffe speculated when he was on our podcast that it would be Republicans or Republican leading independents,

but something's gonna be missed. And Arizona will maybe the state where that is, if it's a Latino vote, where that will be most impactful. What's odd is that in the time sienna polls of Arizona, which have maybe been the worst high quality polls for her in Arizona, I think that's what I was getting at with the, it's been rough for her just cause they're good polls.

And she's like down five in those. Her Latino number in those polls was like 60%. It was, she was having a problem there with like independence, she was like losing more Biden voters from Biden 2020 voters than in some other states. So I don't know something, I don't know what's going on there.

I mean, there is a lot, there is a strain of McCain Republicans or there is a lot, this is a state that moved, you know, Georgian and Arizona are the states with the most Trump Biden voters. So the states that move the furthest over the course of four years. And so we obviously, we know from focus groups, we hear from Sarah Long, one of others

that we bleed some of those voters. And so that could be the challenge there. Finally, North Carolina, the white whale. We're always so close to North Carolina. Yeah, I mean, this one's really hard, particularly because of the hurricane and it's really disrupted people's lives there in a way in which it's hard to focus on politics and elections, particularly if you're in the Asheville area where people are still trying to get their lives back together.

Schools open, businesses open, water, gas, all of those things. North Carolina is the hardest state in this group, not just because it's the one that Biden lost, but in all the demographic changes I was talking about, about how the share of the electorate represented by white working class voters has gone down everywhere else. It hasn't gone down in North Carolina. North Carolina it is. And this is one of the things that I will never forget, Steve Kornacki writing this in a piece that was about why Kamala Harris was doing better in North Carolina than Georgia, which didn't make it down to San City. one reason he postulated was there are more of the voters who were under counted

in the polls in North Carolina than Georgia. So it's possible it's just a polling problem, but we'll have to see. It was a 70,000 vote margin. You're gonna need a, if the polls are right about the governance race, you're gonna need an unprecedented shitload of split ticket voters for Donald Trump to win the state.

Like just- Yeah, that is true. Now, that did happen once in 2020 in Maine by almost a similar degree, but that's a hard thing. That, you know, the math is hard there. Yeah. So overall you see like why the whole thing is close because if you don't get all three blue wall states,

you need one of Arizona, North Carolina or Georgia. And- Two of. Oh, I said, if you get, if you know, if you lose one of the blue wall states. Unless that blue wall state is Pennsylvania, then you need two. Oh yeah, you need, or one in Nevada. Yeah, one in Nevada.

Yeah, you need two other states. One of those two states has to be Arizona or Georgia. Yes, right. And we just, you need two other states. One of those two states has to be Arizona or Georgia. Yes, right. And we just laid out why those are tricky. So that's why everyone's, that's why it's a toss up right now. The one last thing I'll say about this is if we had an actual accurate perception of how close the race was in 2020, we were looking at the whole thing

through a fun house mirror. But if we actually had known how close it really was, and we were doing this exact same exercise in 2020. Right, we were looking at the whole thing through a fun house mirror. But if we actually had known how close it really was, and we were doing this exact same exercise in 2020, we would have said the same things about Arizona and Georgia and Joe Biden won them. Right, that's true. Yeah. And we all would have been feeling just like we are now.

This is actually a gift from the polling industry that we slept better, we felt better, our stomachs hurt less in 2020. I don't remember that by the way. I was still nervous. You were. Was I fine? I wasn't nervous.

You were totally fine. I was? Yeah, we talked about this all the time. I have conversations with you where like, even if we had the largest polling error in history, he still wins, which was true, but. I feel less nervous now, even though I feel like it's very possible that he wins.

I feel like it's a greater chance that he wins than I did in 2020. The polling gods understood in 2020 that with the pandemic happening, we couldn't take it. Yeah. And so they gave us a gift. All those libs just stayed home and answered the pollsters call.

Thank you, Libs. While the Republicans went out and just had a good time. Okay, when we come back, we're gonna hear your interview with Dan Osborne. But before we do that, this is again the last weekend. We get to do everything we can to get persuadable voters to head to the polls for Kamala Harris. And so we are asking you to reach out to everyone you know,

particularly in the swing states, make sure they are voting for Kamala Harris, voting for Democrats up and down the ballot and get them to spread the word. Every call, every conversation matters at this point. And if you doubt that, if you think everyone out there has already made up their mind, heard all the arguments, take a listen to this clip from one of our listeners, her name is Erin from Massachusetts, great state, who just used VoteSave America's Last Call tool.

I used the Last Call tool to reach out to my sister-in-law in Pennsylvania about voting for Kamala, and we touched on women's health rights and the unrest that a Trump presidency would cause. I used her script to let her know that I was here for any questions she might have. After our chat, she said that although she had been undecided, she would be casting a vote for Kamala and even thought she could get her mom, who's also in Pennsylvania, on board too.

Thanks for the push, guys, and for all you do. Love that. Nice job, Erin. So good. Great, Erin. Great job doing it. Great presentation, too. You really explained that story succinctly and wonderfully. You should possibly be a podcaster. Great one.

More succinct than us. Just loveyating on for an hour. I know, it's like I'm already late to trick or treating. All right, so if Aaron can do it, you can do it equally important as reaching out to friends and family is volunteering in the battleground states, either physically there or you can phone bank, text bank, whatever.

This weekend, basically everyone at this company is canvassing, including me, Dan, Lovett, Tommy. We're going to Arizona on Saturday. We're going to Nevada on Sunday. And we're gonna knock on some doors, rally some volunteers. And you can join us for those events or sign up to knock doors in the swing state near us.

Or you can phone bank. It's all critical. the final days. Go to vote save America.com slash 2024 to volunteer now when we come back. Dan Osborne. Joining me today is an independent Senate candidate running a surprisingly tight race to unseat Republican Deb Fischer Nebraska. Please welcome to Positive America, Dan Osborne. Thanks for being here. Thanks guys. Thanks for having me.

Absolutely. Your biography is a centerpiece of your campaign with very good reason. Could you just start by telling our listeners who may not have been following the Nebraska Senate race super closely, who you are and why you're running? Yeah, I suppose it would all start, I joined the Navy right out of high school. I come from a long line of Navy people. My grandfather retired from the Navy.

My parents, they both met while they were in the Navy. My uncles were all in the Navy. And then my older brother, he joined the Marine Corps. So we don't talk to him much anymore. But I did two Western Pacific cruises aboard the USS Constellation, so I got to travel the world twice over in two Westpacks. And I think that was a good education

for a young man coming into the world. But I got out, I came back to Omaha, where I'm from. I started attending the University of Nebraska in Omaha. I then joined the Nebraska Army National Guard to continue my service. I was a 19 kilo on an M1A1 Abrams tank crew during that time. I've always felt compelled to service. But my life changed when my wife Megan had our first daughter, Georgia. So I stopped going to school. I got another honorable discharge and I started

working at Kellogg's as an industrial mechanic because I needed a job. So I'm with some good benefits to help pay for this new family I've started. One of the first days on the job, an old Polish guy by the name of Ron Jabowski came up to me. He looked just like Tom Selleck from Magnum PI. He said, hey kid, have you joined the union yet? I said, no sir, I have not. He goes, well, you might want to think about doing that. I'm like, well shoot, Tom Selleck's telling me to join the union. I better go do that. So I signed up. I paid my dues. I worked hard for a lot of years, just provided for my family. But over the years, old guys like Ron, NKA, Tom Selleck started to retire and Kellogg's became more

beholden to their stockholders and we started to lose on contracts. So I ran for executive board in my local. I got elected as vice president. And about three months later, the president stepped down because you get yelled at a lot in that role by both your members and management alike. But I knew the role was important, so I assumed it.

I did that for about a year and then COVID hit. And COVID has changed a lot of lives and it certainly has changed mine. You know, we were working, there's four plants under the master agreement, under the umbrella of the master. And as essential workers, we were all working seven days a week, 12 hours a day during that year. At one point in time, 50% of our workforce was forced quarantine and or sick. But we kept As essential workers, we were all working seven days a week, 12 hours a day during that year. At one point in time, 50% of our workforce was forced quarantine and or sick. But we kept all four of those plants running at 100% capacity and they made record profits. They went from 19 billion to 21 billion dollars.

The CEO gave himself a two million dollar raise. The board enriched themselves, the stockholders enriched themselves, and then our contract expired. I figured it'd be a no-brainer. We'd get a little sliver of the pie. But instead, they sat across a negotiating table from us, and they said, we're going after your health insurance. We're going after your cost of living wage adjustment.

So for me as president, that was my old crap moment. There hadn't been a strike in Nebraska since 1972. So I had to figure out what that all meant and trying to drum up all the support and learn as much as I could. So when October 5th, midnight rolled around, we couldn't come to an agreement. Still my belief today, Kellogg's had no intention on coming to an agreement. So we shut down four plants and we walked off the job to preserve our wages and benefits. Certainly one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.

Take 500 of my friends and their family out into the great unknown, not knowing if we're going to have a job at the end of it. But we all felt we were on the right side of history. And I knew out on the picket line, Democrats are going to come out and support. That's traditionally what they do. But I didn't really see my world that way. I didn't see black, white, or women, or men, or Republican, or Democrat. I just saw people that wanted to go to work for a fair wage and some decent

benefits in the time that they trade in service to the company. So I set out to make it a nonpartisan issue. I was able to get Republican Congressman Don Bacon out to the picket line and shake hands with the members in favor of what we were trying to do. I was then able to get Republican Governor, now US Senator from Nebraska, Pete Ricketts, to draft a letter to the CEO, Steve KLA, and imploring him to get our people back to work. But we settled on a strike just before Christmas after 77 days. I remember walking in, my plant just feeling a huge sense of pride.

We salvaged 1,500 good paying jobs around the country. And that's why I'm doing this today. I haven't always been a political person, but you know, I see the corporate agenda that our elected officials have. My opponent's certainly no different. It was Robin Williams, the late comedian, said it best, that he said, politicians should be wearing NASCAR jackets with patches of their sponsors so we know how they're gonna vote. That is so true and my

opponent certainly has a lot of patches on her jacket. Talk to me a little bit about the decision to run as an independent as opposed to a Democrat or Republicans. Obviously easier, maybe not easier to be a Democrat in Nebraska, but just to have access to the party machinery and all of that but you may, you picked a hard path here. Tell me, tell me about why. Yeah. Well, I've been a registered independent from the time I could vote, uh, simply

because I've never, I've never really been behind the whole two party system. Uh, I've never understood why I have to have a hard set of beliefs on either that side or that side. Uh, I've always find myself more of a moderate doubt, doubt working I have to have a hard set of beliefs on either that side or that side. I've always find myself more of a moderate, working down the middle when it comes to issues and ideas and things like that. But we certainly see this 118th Congress is arguably one of the most inefficient on working together and getting stuff done.

The farm bill is very important here in Nebraska, and we've seen that come and gone. We're working on an extension from 2018, so our farmers and ranchers are falling behind inflation right now because of that. There's certainly a lot of things we need to be doing better for our people, but that's the way I think, you know, the framers of the Constitution intended this to be right.

Uh, government by and for the people right now, I feel like it's just a government for the Uber wealthy and corporations. Think how let's, let's say you win. How does that work when you get there? Are you going to just simply caucus with neither party? Are you going to make decisions based on issues? Have you thought, have you thought that far ahead? Yeah, of course.

Uh, because I I'm gonna win. That's good. That's the attitude we like. I don't know if I like winning better or if I hate losing worse. So either way, either way. But you know, it's a I think the system needs to be challenged. Because I don't feel like it works for me and me and my family. George Norris was the last independent senator from Nebraska. He helped create the nonpartisan unicameral that we enjoy today. He didn't caucus with anybody his last term so there is some precedence there. Yeah, I think I

think it's gonna be issue-based and that there's you know people, people will say, Oh, well, you won't get committee assignments. Senate rules say you have to be on at least two committees. Uh, I'm pretty good at forming alliances and making friends, but, uh, you know, there's a chance, there's a real chance I could be the 51st swing vote in the U S Senate. So people are going to be knocking on my door. And you use that for Nebraska, I assume. So that's some, a little bit of leverage there, I guess. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's how I can deliver for Nebraska if that scenario occurs.

What would some of your top priorities be when you, I won't say if you win, when you win? You know, I'll just start with what's important. Yeah, let's do that. The 180 town halls that I hear from Nebraskans. It's the economy and inflation. Trying to get a hold of that and just making it so people's paychecks goes further. I hear things like and I read things like my daughter's generation is going to be one of the first generations of kids collectively that don't do better than their parents. That should scare people. It definitely, certainly does me. So we got to do better than their parents. That should scare people. It definitely certainly does me. So we got to do better to turn that around and flip that script. We all want our kids

to do better and we all want to protect the environment so they have a planet to work and planet to live on, right? So extremely important issues. But the economy inflation, number two is border security and slash immigration. You might be wondering why a landlocked state in the middle of the country like Nebraska, it would be important to people. You know, this is a huge beef state, the industry and farming and ranching certainly and you know, meat packers employ a lot of people so they're concerned about it and but I don't think Senator Fisher she's had 12 years to do something on the border and I do believe if we you know if we don't have a border we don't have a country we have to secure our ports of entries not just our southern border but everywhere. And we need more people to do that.

And you know, because it's human trafficking, it's sex trafficking, it's drugs, it's everything that we need to do better at lessening the flow of all that. So we need a comprehensive border package that includes drones and then, but on the flip side of that, you know, there's a 10-year backlog of people waiting to get in front of a judge for asylum

seekers. Well, there's a problem right there. We need to address that. But I was watching a debate between Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush that came over my feet the other day randomly. And I gotta stop and watch this they were talking about the border and they were talking about immigration the exact same way we were talking about it today and that was in 1980 so I asked myself why you know why isn't anybody doing well the meatpackers the people who benefit from?

Exploiting labor paying them next to nothing and they can continue to enrich themselves And those are the folks that are can afford to buy Patches on a senator's NASCAR jacket, so it comes full circle people are seeing I mean, this is a very close race That's caught a lot of people by surprise We spent much of this cycle talking about the competitive center races being in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada, et cetera, all the ones that people are on. And then all of a sudden out of nowhere comes Dan Osborne

in Nebraska. New York Times poll has this race incredibly close. What is going on in the ground there? What are you hearing from voters that helps explain why this very Republican state is open to replacing their Republican center who was just elected not so long ago. Yeah, I think it's because they're starting to see, you know, when people hurt, they pay a little bit more attention. You know, I like the phrase, it doesn't matter if you care

about politics, politics are going to care about you. And I think people are starting to understand that fact a little bit more. Like I said, when your dollar doesn't go as near as far. It wasn't that long ago, $250 filled up my grocery cart for a family of five. Now it barely skims the bottom. That certainly is problematic. But it's our message that resonates with people that if you work hard in this country, your paychecks should matter, plain and simple. And I'm going to fight to do that.

Senator Fischer is just going to be a rubber stamp for whoever her party leader is. That's what she's shown. But she's also shown she votes against, she wants to raise the retirement age to 70 years old. And for me as a steam fitter, that's a slap in the face. I can't imagine 69 years old turning pipe wrenches on a man lift. That's crazy talk. So we need to protect our social security benefits. That's the winning message.

People, we've got to take care of our retirees and and then she votes against veterans extending extending health care for veterans that are victims of burn pit toxic burn pits and then dating all the way back to Agent Orange victims in Vietnam like who is this person like this is this is crazy you know and veterans are less than six percent of our population and then the burn burn pick victims gotta be even smaller. So I don't understand how she votes the way she votes. In Senate race after Senate race all across this country and in the presidential race, abortion is a driving issue. What role is it playing in your race in Nebraska

and where are you on the issue? Well, there's ballot initiatives. So it's gonna play a very important role. There's three ballot initiatives. Well, four, I suppose. Two, abortion. One would basically codify row standards the way we've done it for the last 50 years. The second is more of a pro-life initiative. And then there's legalizing medical cannabis, which I am for. Fisher is against, and I don't even know what that pulls out, but I'm pretty sure that's going to...

If that's your issue, they're definitely going to vote for me. And then there's family paid sick leave. And she's against that. She voted against the railroaders to have seven days of PTO when that's all they were holding out for. And as somebody who's worked over 3,000 hours a year my whole life, I get the need for a work-life balance. So going back to abortion, she is for a complete abortion ban.

She's said it multiple times, even not having any exceptions of assault and incest on there as well. So that's who she is, but I'm the opposite of that. I certainly believe that the federal government should stay out of our doctors offices and our bedrooms. But I've been on record many times

saying at the federal level, I would go back to the way we've done it for the last 50 years. Excellent. I have a very, very important question for you. I have been to Omaha many times. I've listened to Tim Walls talk about this. You gotta help me in all this stuff. What the hell is a runza?

It is, it's amazing. This is what it is. It's basically a square, I don't even know, like a pie almost, but it's got ground beef and cabbage. And then there's Italian runs. So it's this nice, tidy little sandwich that they bake. And it's amazing. It really is.

Yeah. You ever come to Nebraska, you got to try it. OK, all right. It's on my list. OK. I know you're a very busy man, Dan Aspon. You got over a week before the election. Tell our listeners who may have become interested in your campaign by filming this interview, how they can help you.

Yeah. Well, you know, I haven't always been a political person and being engrossed in this process is fascinating and disgusting all at the same time to see how much money flows into this. I can imagine. And independent expenditures and Citizens United and all this, it's crazy. But Mitch McConnell just threw Deb Fischer $3 million and money on her side is flowing in to spread lies about me. And so I got to defend myself.

So we have to continue to fundraise. We've raised over 10 million, which is insane to say. My average donation still remains $40. So I do believe this campaign is powered by the people the way the framers intended it to be. But you could go to Osborne for Senate. That's Osborne with no E. Sorry, not related to the famous football coach. But Osborneforsenate.com. And you can help me with five, 10, 15, or help me reach the average of $40. Awesome.

Dan Osborne, thank you so much for joining us and good luck in the final stretch here. Thank you. Appreciate you having me on. That's our show for today. Thank you. Appreciate you having me on. That's our show for today. Dan will be back on Sunday with our final bonus episode featuring Steve Kornacki. Everyone, please call your friends in the battlegrounds. Get out there and get involved this weekend. We'll talk to you soon. Bye everyone. If you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and more, consider joining our Friends

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