The Chaser Report - An Extremely Authoritative Election Day Special

Episode Date: November 5, 2024

It's finally US election day, and Charles is feeling a little less confident in his call on the results. Meanwhile Dom tries to help make sense of who Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are in Australian terms. Plus, Charles' prediction has been surprisingly influenced by the vox pops on SBS. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. First to call the 2024 US presidential election for Kamala Harris. Yeah, about that. In yesterday's episode. Yeah, yeah. Definitive.

Yeah. Authoritative. You argued very well, Charles. Yes. I've been thinking a lot about just how certain you were drawing a line in sand before any other podcaster or broadcaster or analyst in Australia and probably all of them in America as well. Except for James Carvel, the Rajan Cajun, who also calls called it for Kamala Harris.

Right. Well, I mean, that's good. The thing is, though, Dom, I was just thinking about it overnight and I was thinking, you know, maybe we need to revisit that call just a little bit. There's a few extra details that have come in. And I'm just thinking maybe, well, maybe we should just crack it open, have another look at it. Are you doing a Dewey defeats Truman? Are you, are you, I'm sincere on the post-it note you had yesterday.

You've crossed out D, Charles. Yeah, look, well, spoiler alert. Are you going to call it for, well, no, just listen to my thinking. All right, let's hear a man backpedaling for about 20 minutes after these ads. So it's election day. By the time people are hearing this in the US, it's mere hours, Charles, before the results are known in the election. And certainly, you're pretty confident yesterday, as were many people, really, that

Harris was going to squeak in there, driven on a wave of female voters. Let's be clear. Like, I thought it was going to be a camel of a slide. Like, this was, you know, redefining, you know, because my theory was, it would all just break one way. Yes. And essentially she'd just clean up. She'd clean up because women bothered a vote, is the theory.

A Harris, a Harris, Ado. Harris Nado. Yeah. Kamala Nami? What other... Kamala Nami. What other disaster? Kamala quake?

I don't know. But then, you know, you've got to account for the fact that Americans are fuckwits. Right? And I was thinking, you know, like, yes, in a sort of just world, Carmela Harris would win. But, you know, all the sort of voxpops that you're doing that you hear, they had this whole sequence on SBS news last night of just people being vox-pobbed.

Are you really changing your mind because of SBS news? Mark this in your calendars for SBS news having done something consequential. But it was just a reminder that... For Charles. That people are fuckwits. Like, Americans in particular are fuckwits. Now, I have to refer to you. You've lived among them, Charles.

They are the Queenslanders of Australia. And you lived in Williamsburg. And what happened in the last Queensland election? Amongst the insufferable New York, the hipsters. So you know. So we're not talking about rednecks. I mean, you were living amongst people with neckbeards and... I've been embedded podcasts.

Yeah. And I think that that's why I have such a rich view of life, really, because, you know, when you live in a war zone or hipster zone... Yeah, well, it would have been a war over who got the last cup of kombut. I wouldn't it? You know that I was in Williamsburg shortly before it became trendy. Do you claim that as well?

I think a large part of the reason why it became trendy was because I left. But that actually is possible. It is actually true. It can finally make this place fashionable. He's going back to Australia. You would occasionally see Natalie Portman

just wandering around. Sure. Especially there used to be this shop called the Bedford cheese shop. I'm sure it's still there. That people would go to. And you do like your cheese. Yes, exactly.

And Scarlett-Jansson, just wandering around. Really? Yeah. Did they hear you were at the Bedford cheese shopping where they came to just come and hang? I think it's one of those things where, you know, I have such Riz. Riz. That it's sort of, it's like, you don't even have to know that I'm there to know that it's the place to go. You know, Charles, I think inadvertently you are making a brilliant argument for Trump because

deluded male vanity is probably one of the main things. things driving. Look, the bro culture. There's a Trump bro culture that he's been stoking through his. And this is the strategy by going on Joe Rogan, by doing all these crypto events, by doing all these podcasts. He's getting unpleasant men like you who like talking about themselves to the polls. And the thing is, this is, this has been widely quoted as being the podcast election. The podcast election. Yeah, everyone's going on podcast. That's how he's going direct to his audience. Yeah, Trump's done many of them.

And Tim Walz has done quite a few as well. He was even on smart list, Tim Walz was. And then earlier yesterday, Joe Rogan came out and endorsed Donald Trump. I mean, that's not a massive shock. And so you've got 150, no, but Joe Rogan is like 150 million listeners, right? He is a huge voice. And they're all sheeple, you know, like, they're all just people who follow Joe Rogan blindly, right? If that were true, wouldn't there be 150 million fit, musly people in America?

So, well, yes, but the thing is that that means that all the polls, right, haven't been calculating 150 million Do Rogan followers. So you, and you think, because they would tell pulses to fuck off, wouldn't they? But if they got, if a pollster, like, wanted to talk to a Joe Rogan fan, wouldn't they say, piss off, grandpa, I'm not going to do your poll? Yeah, it's a conspiracy theory. Also, yes, you're also trying to, you're trying to destroy Donald Trump. You're trying to do mind control tricks on me. And, and we know. Asking me questions.

Did you hear Donald Trump the other day saying that the only way anyone could assassinate him at that event that was by going through the media, basically, he said. The only sight line to me is through the fake news, he said, and he wouldn't be too bothered if that happened, which the Trump campaign rather hilariously said, and they used the word brilliantly, Trump was brilliantly expressing his concern for their safety for press at his event. That was Stephen Shung, who we've got to talk about sometime, because he's really the chemical Al-Lee of U.S. politics. Anyway, so, right, so these young men are not showing up in the polls, but are they going

to show up for Donnie on the day? Are they going to queue in the cold when they could be playing Fortnite or listening to Joe Rogan? Well, this is where I go, when we started this episode, I had great enthusiasm for essentially doing the trick of endorsing Harris on one day, endorsing Trump today. On election day, yes. And then, not endorsing, like, just, like, just predicting. Yeah, and then, and then claiming either way.

And then claiming that I was right. First to call. But as I'm doing it, I'm just getting really depressed. Like, I'm trying to sort of prosecute that argument. But my heart's not in it. I mean, Charles. And I think that that's a bit like a Trump voter, right, which is you go, yeah, yeah, I'm for Trump. I'm from the absolute fucking moron.

Yeah, I'm going to, I want four more years of him just trolling everyone and. Just doing random shit. The thing about the Trump presidency was... But it's so boring. It's so fucking boring. This is the thing Kamilaris has been trying to argue. Yes. Like, we know, okay, the permutations of a Trump second term might be more extreme in terms

of what he tries to do. They'll certainly be more strategic, you'd think. But it will just be him getting up every day and free associating and pissing off some random people and saying some hurtful thing, which, you know... We know what will happen for the next four years if he wins. Yes. We don't know how far will it... Will he dismantle various bits of policy?

Will he pull the US out of NATO? All that sort of fine detail. Who knows? It's a complete crapshoot. But we do know if Donald Trump wins. The four years will be very similar to the four years we've seen before. Only Ivanka Trump will be nowhere near it. But also, it'll be worse because he's got lots of loyalists now.

Yes. And he knows how to get his way. And Charles, what worries me most in terms of the argument you've just made is that it does take a long time to vote in the polls. You're asking people to go and line up for a long time and in order to vote. vote. Who are the most likely? Everyone has said, and this is a bit of new insight right here. I don't think anyone said this before. People have said that women are the ones who will do that. Women have the civic duty and men don't. They don't care. But Charles, Joe Rogan fans have a

three-hour daily podcast to get through. They're going to be standing. Every Joe Rogan fan will be standing listening to Joe Rogan in the queue. And being instructed to vote for Trump. I mean, it's on the front page of the New York Times as we say. It's a laydown. I mean, I'm surprised. Kamala Harris hasn't already conceded, frankly. She probably should probably record it already. Having heard the endorsement of Joe Rogan, she should have just gone, okay, it's over. And it's not just Joe Rogan endorsing Trump because he spent three hours

interviewing Donald Trump and likes him. He was convinced by Elon Musk's arguments for Donald Trump. So that's a whole other level of endorsement. I mean, I do think it, because you know that Elon Musk is going to take a role in government if Trump was elected. Eliminating waste. He's going to be the chief doge. Yeah, Department of Government Efficiency.

Yeah, DOGE. A meme rendered into policy. Yeah. Not to be alarmist or anything like that, but that is literally a sort of fascistic way of administrator. You get the billionaires to actually take role in your government. There's emerging between, instead of church and state, it's sort of like rich, palletful industrialists and state.

Well, fortunately, Elon Musk will have a lot of time to serve in the cabinet. because he's only also running Tesla, Twitter, SpaceX, the boring company, Neurrelink and several other major companies. So, definitely have time. Mind you, I presume the employees of those companies are going, oh yeah, Elon. Go and look at that thing. Yeah. Better buy a house there. Yeah.

All right, let's take a quick break and make our final case to the nation, Charles, for what's going to happen. In just a few hours' time as we record this on Tuesday afternoon. The Chaser Report, news you know. You can't trust. All right, so you've vacillated backwards and forwards. You've exposed, you've shown everyone your own working, Charles, your attempt to come up with a comic ploy that you're saying Trump would win would cover your options. It seems, yeah, like, it's like a magician, isn't it? Yeah, it's showing the work.

Pen and teller showing everyone the trick, and then it makes it all the more impressive. They couldn't, no one could tell. You know what you try to do? What? The weave. Like Donald Trump. With his rhetorical style. Yeah, yeah.

Back and forth. And it all comes together in the final act, except that it doesn't. Yeah. Okay, so look, we've spent countless hours. I've been very unequivocal in my equivocation. You've been very equivocal in both directions. But I've been, no, I've been deeply unequivocal in both directions. You know, like I have vacillated with great conviction and solidity.

Yeah. The thing you said yesterday that I hadn't realized that I thought was a very, very good point that no one had managed to actually put as succinctly as you. And I hadn't read the latest Nate Silver. The point that you made was that the polls have been so uniform. And I've been looking at this and going how is this possible that for months, all these swing state polls, like seven of them can be absolutely pretty much dead heat, one or two percent point in either way. And Nate Silver, who is the guru of all things polling in the US, came out and said, Yeah, it's actually statistically almost impossible that that could happen. One in nine trillion chance.

So he's saying the amount of juicing going on to the polls is so extensive that you can't believe them. So that means even more. It may not even be close today. And so the prediction I'm going to make just out of sheer, you know, audacity is that it won't be close. I don't know who's going to win because we're getting no information that's meaningful from any pollsters.

If you forget everything you know about pollsters. That's just because you listen to this podcast. Oh, that's true. If you listen to a proper podcast, you'd probably get very important information. But you feel like it's going to be whoever best matches the mood of the nation. And who the hell knows what that is? And it will be, are they sick of Donald Trump or do they want to return to that period? I mean, that's going to be, it's basically a referendum on Donald Trump, isn't it?

I think the thing that we should do is we should translate it into Australian terms. Oh, that's a good idea. And that will help us work out what is going to happen. I think, so who is Trump? Trump is, he's the Kyle Sandlin. He's a sort of, he's sort of Kyle Sandlin's with a bit of Mark Boris, would you say? Yeah, maybe a little bit of that. But also, maybe even Clive Palmer.

Jodie Rich, like a bit of failed billionaires. Oh, yeah, there's some James Packer in the mix there too, yeah. A bit of Jamie Packer, a bit of Clive Palmer like. Some Gina. A bit of Gina. In terms of just having this sort of really, like, Gina Reinhardt's the most engaged in politics of any Australian billionaire. But also DemTel guy. Totally Demtel guy.

Totally Demtel guy. I mean, as you know, I spent about a year researching his old businesses and no one ever talks about them. There are so many hilariously failed businesses that are basically, literally, not just steak knives, but actual steaks. 21200. That's 212.0200. Buy a Trump steak now.

You know, it's quite extraordinary. Trump water? All that stuff. So, he's very much Mr. Demtel in Australian terms. Tim Shaw. Yeah. Well, but even before Tim Shaw, you know, the original dim tail.

But yes, and Tim Shaw. Ring now. Maybe a little bit of, I want to say, Patricia Carvelis. Really? No, no. I was just trying to. That's a bit of a catapoint. Well, who is sort of got the...

Pauline Hanson, mate. The morally suspect. Because of all the convictions and all the stuff and all the stuff with to do with women. Like, who's the creepy? You know, a little bit of creepy. A bit of Ben Robert Smith. No, a bit of Bruce Lehman. Oh, yes.

both found to be sexual predators, but not to a criminal standard. But also, he's a sort of billionaire version of that. If Bruce Lamon were a billionaire, maybe he would be Donald Trump. It's more like Trump is the enabler of those sorts of people. It's more of a sort of Kerry Stokes vows. So that's who Donald Trump is. Kamala Harris is harder to find analogies for, simply because Australian public life isn't that diverse. I mean, to our great failure.

There's perhaps a little bit of the Penny Wong in terms of having been a real pioneer and rising ceaselessly upwards just on the basis of her own abilities, which I think it's fair to say she has. Yep. Maybe a little bit of Penny Wong. You think there's a Petty Wong comparison?

Oh, maybe some Julia Gillard in the mix there. Tenia? Having been thrust into the mix. I think tenure, Plybosix, a sort of good thing, which is someone. who has risen through the ranks, but hasn't necessarily, you know, cut through. Yeah, got all the way to the top.

Yeah. I guess the difference between Julia Gillard and Kamala Harris is that Julia Gillard engineered Kevin Rudd's demise fairly ruthlessly, whereas I gather Kamala Harris while probably not sitting there going, oh no, gosh, it would be terrible if Joe Biden quit after that debate. She was presumably more, you know, on the team. Yeah, yeah. But still, both of them thrust pretty rapidly into having to run. an election campaign and finding it pretty tough.

And Julia Gillard had that very knife-edged election result, of course, in 2010. Do you think maybe there's a little bit of Malcolm Turnbull in Kamala Harris? In terms of being a bit of a technocrat? Could be. Yeah. Could be. A little bit sort of flim-framing. She's much warmer than, I mean, sorry, Kamala Harris is much warmer than Malcolm Turnbull,

but they're both, yeah, both, you know, lawyers who have a kind of prosecutorial style. I think that's probably an analogy you could make. Yeah, I think so. I don't know who the elbow is in the race. I think the elbow in the race is probably Joe Biden. Except Joe Biden can string a sentence together. So what does that tell us about who's going to win? I don't know.

I think Carmel Harris, the closest analogy is Carmel Harris is Albo. So likely to get a bit of a you'll do, do you think? Yeah, yeah. It's the same vibe as we don't really know you, but you're better than the alternative. You'll do. Whereas, whereas Trump is Kyle Sandlin's meets DemTale guy. Who? It is hard to imagine all this swing state voters going, yes, we really want more of that,

rather than the dedicated Trump base who still think it's, you never lost an election. I think anyone who, anyone rational enough to think that he actually did lose the 2020 election and is at least guilty of some of the crime he's been accused of and convicted of, he's probably going to go, look, it's just too much fuss. Let's do something different. However, it's America. Yeah, and also, actually, part of the SPS Foxpops was a whole lot of people going, yeah, I know he's a convicted felon. But he's our convicted felon.

Yeah, and we need to break this system. Lawfare, and the lawfare. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and also, look, when given a choice, Charles, between making the sort of muesley or broccoli, you know it's the right thing to do choice. If you think of it, put it in terms of diet. Yeah. Americans will always choose the high fat very bad for you. Yes.

No, it's the terrible idea, but you have it anyway because of the sugar hit. And maybe that means they go Donald Trump. That's better. That's a better analogy. He's the fries in this election. He's the cocoa pops. Yep. Or the fries.

And cheese the, um... She's the musli. Yeah. So Donald Trump's going to win. With natural yogurt. We've concluded, yeah. Unsweetened yogurt. Or the, pokey bowl, or the healthy salad.

Donald Trump is the cheeseburger. Donald Trump is mostly cheeseburgers. Would you like fries with that? actually been in the McDonald's. This is the perfect analogy. Kamala Harris is a normal American who had to work at McDonald's during her college years. Donald Trump faked a visit to McDonald's, and thereby is the more American of the two options. Donald Trump is the grimace shake.

Donald Trump will be, by this analysis, Mare McCheese because of the odd taste because of the odd tastes of Americans. There you go. Is that our close? Are we leaving it with that? I think we should be definite. I think we should actually say the exact number. that we think each side is going to get. I'm saying Carmelah Harris wins the election in essentially a landslide.

We're talking 300 plus electrocology. Oh, I think she'll get between 270 and 280. I think it's going to be very close. But we're both going for Harris? Well, it's just the vibe that I get. But then again, you know... Which totally contradicts the entire... No, maybe we should be a bit more controversial.

Okay. I reckon Trump will get every... At this point, why is... Still listening to this podcast. Go listen to people who know what they're talking about. Chaz did a four and a half hour version of PEP last week. Listen to Joe Rogan. Oh, piss off.

We are part of the Iconiclass Network. Catch you tomorrow.