The Headlines - What the Final Polls Tell Us, and the Music Great Quincy Jones Dies

Episode Date: November 4, 2024

Plus, right-wing groups prepare to dispute the election.   Tune in every weekday morning. To get our full audio journalism and storytelling experience, download the New York Times Audio app — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.Tell us what you think at: [e-mail]. On Today’s Episode:Harris and Trump Battle to the Wire in Swing States, Times/Siena Polls Find, by Lisa Lerer and Ruth IgielnikA Vivid Trump-Harris Contrast in the Campaign’s Grueling Final Days, by Adam Nagourney, Katie Glueck and Michael GoldOn Telegram, a Violent Preview of What May Unfold on Election Day and After, by Paul Mozur, Adam Satariano, Aaron Krolik and Steven Lee MyersFleeing Northern Gaza Risked His Life. Staying Destroyed His Family, by Nader Ibrahim, Erika Solomon and Riley MellenIran’s Supreme Leader Threatens Israel With ‘Crushing Response’ to Strikes, by Liam StackQuincy Jones, Giant of American Music, Dies at 91, by Ben Ratliff

From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today is Monday, November 4th. Here's what we're covering. It's been decades since an election has been this close and we've seen polls this close in the key swing states that will decide the election. So it really is sort of a jump ball or a coin toss. Who's going to win? Because the polls are so incredibly tight.

My colleague, Ruth Agelnick, analyzes polling data. She says the presidential race seems to be hurtling toward a photo finish. The latest polls from the Times and Siena College show neither Donald Trump nor Kamala Harris has a definitive lead in any of the swing states. Looking at each candidate's advantages, Ruth says Trump is ahead among people who haven't voted yet but are likely to, while Harris has a lead among voters who've already cast their ballot. And then the other place where Harris is doing well across the seven states is that these

late deciders, people who have made up their minds in the last few weeks or the last few days, are leaning towards Harris. — While more than 70 million Americans have already voted, the candidates are still scrambling to keep up the momentum. — Now, Kamala, take my Pamela. — Harris made a surprise cameo on Saturday Night Live. — Because what do we always say? Keep Kamala and carry on-a-la.

Then she spent Sunday in Michigan, holding a rally at Michigan State and speaking at a black church in Detroit. I see faith in action in remarkable ways. I see a nation determined to turn the page on hatred and division and chart a new way forward. Trump, meanwhile, held a rally in Pennsylvania, where he threw out his prepared remarks. And I tell you what, I love being off these stupid

teleprompters because the truth comes out. Instead, he riffed about the 2020 election. I shouldn't have left. I mean, honestly, because we did so well. We had such a great... Trump said he should not have left the White House after losing to President Biden. And he devoted a chunk of his speech to unsupported claims of voter fraud, which has been a dominant theme of his rallies in recent weeks. And then they accuse you of being a conspiracy theorist.

These are conspiracies. And they want to lock you up. They want to put you in jail. The ones that should be locked up are the ones that cheat on these horrible elections that we go through in our country. Today, for the final day of campaigning, both Trump and Harris will be in Pennsylvania, the state that their campaigns view as the make or break battleground of the 2024 race. On the eve of Election Day, the Times has been looking at how posts on one social media platform, Telegram, could offer a preview of potential chaos. Telegram has nearly a billion users and very little moderation, which has made it a favorite of far right groups

who've been kicked off other platforms. Telegram was used in a small but significant way as a tool to organize on January 6th, and its influence and reach have only grown since then. So to try to understand what was happening there, we looked at more than a million messages across more than 50 channels with about 500,000 members. And what we found is this sort of sprawling network

of groups that are sort of set up to monitor and potentially interfere with the voting process, other extremist groups who are ready to lash out in the event there are perceived problems, and then just a huge group of different right-wing media accounts harvesting every problem that could potentially appear with the voting and turning it into kind of disinformation memes.

Paul Moser is a technology correspondent for the Times. He's been reviewing recent messages on Telegram, including those urging people to go in-person and question officials about absentee ballots. Some of these really went even a bit further. In one chapter of the Proud Boys posted a recruitment poster that read, the day is fast approaching when fence-sitting will no longer be possible. You will either stand with the resistance or take a knee and willingly accept the yoke of tyranny and oppression. So we brought all of this to security experts and asked them,

you know, how seriously should we take this? And what they said is even though Telegram has a bit of a niche role, it is a place where the most extreme groups congregate. And it is also an important platform for these groups to organize. And so in some ways, what you see on Telegram is far more likely to be something that you see enter into the real world. If you see a meme or or people talking on Telegram about pressuring voting officials, you're more likely to see them actually do it.

And so Telegram in some ways, in this rhetoric that we're seeing, debating, you know, taking action, sometimes violence against people, really indicates a potential possibility for what we could see in the coming days. Over the weekend, the Israeli military pressed on with its intense renewed offensive in northern Gaza. Since it ramped up operations there last month, Israel has been issuing a flood of evacuation orders, and the Times has found that the escalating violence has left many civilians facing a brutal reality. Both staying and leaving can be fatal.

The Times spoke with one Gazan, Rami Nasser, who got an automated voice message a few weeks ago from the Israeli military telling him to leave the area. He'd already seen strikes up close. His 17-year-old daughter was severely injured earlier in the war, so he packed up his family to leave. Nasser told the Times it seemed too risky to use the official evacuation route, which crossed active combat zones and had Israeli troops and tanks positioned along it. Instead, he and his kids took a shortcut. But as they crossed an intersection, shots rang out. Both Nasser and his youngest daughter were injured.

It's not clear who fired on them. When Nasser told his extended family what happened, they decided it was too dangerous to try and get out, and they chose to stay, despite ongoing evacuation orders. A few days later, six members of his family, including his three siblings, were killed when a blast destroyed the building they were sheltering in. The Israeli military did not respond to specific questions about the Nasser family. It said it's been targeting Hamas militants who operate in heavily populated areas. The United Nations' human rights chief has condemned Israel's offensive in northern Gaza, saying, quote, we are facing what could amount to atrocity crimes, including potentially

extending to crimes against humanity. In Iran over the weekend, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei threatened to deliver a crushing response to Israel for recent missile strikes on his country. Tehran had initially played down the damage caused by the Israeli strikes last month, raising hopes that it might de-escalate the situation rather than kick off another cycle of retaliation. But Iranian officials have now changed their tone. The Supreme Leader threatened both Israel and the U.S. The Pentagon announced late Friday that it's sending more ships and warplanes to the region. And finally.

Quincy Jones, one of the most influential forces in American music for over half a century, died Sunday at 91. Jones began his prolific career as a jazz trumpeter. He arranged music for a who's who list, including for the color purple and more. And he produced what still holds the record for best-selling album of all time. Michael Jackson's Thriller. Over his career, Jones was nominated for 80 Grammys and he won 28 of them. His influence also expanded beyond music. His company produced the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

TV show and he helped start the hip hop magazine Vibe. His reach even extended into space. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin came up to him at a party once to say that just before he stepped off the spacecraft, he played the cassette of Fly Me to the Moon that Jones had arranged and conducted. Jones said, quote, The first music played on the moon. I freaked. Those are the headlines. Today on The Daily, what Trump and Harris's TV ads tell us about how they think they can win the election. That's next in the New York Times audio app, or you can listen wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.