The Munk Debates Podcast - James Carville on the likely outcomes of the U.S. Election

Episode Date: November 2, 2020

On this episode of the Munk Debates Podcast, James Carville, U.S. Democratic Party political strategist and bestselling author, on the likely outcomes of the November 3rd U.S. Presidential election.Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I think it's time for this toxic binary zero-sum madness to stop. We're not an imperial power. We're a revolutionary power. We are no longer in a world where you can plot out moves statesmen to statesmen like a chessboard. You don't know anything about my background to where I came from. It doesn't matter to you because fundamentally I'm a mean white man. We can't do this to the next generation because America will cease to exist. Thanks for listening to The Monk debate. During the month of October, leading up to the U.S. election, we have changed the format for this podcast. Instead of a debate, we are doing in-depth interviews with some of the world's smartest thinkers on the big issues driving the U.S. election.

From the pandemic to the economy to the polarization of U.S. politics and society. This miniseries is called The Monk Dialogs. On this installment of the Monk Dialogues, we feature James Carville, U.S. Democratic Party political strategist and bestselling author, on the likely outcomes of the November 3rd U.S. presidential election. Here is his dialogue with Monk Debates Chair Rudyard Griffiths. Good evening. I'm Rudyard Griffiths, the moderator of the Monk Dialogues. For the last number of Wednesdays, we have been focusing on the U.S. election,

and we do that again tonight with the person that I, I consider, as many do, one of America's smartest and most experienced political strategists. His name is James Carville. He, as I mentioned, is storied in his experience, both in the United States and around the world, as a campaign advisor. He played a key role in the election of President Bill Clinton. He's the author of a dozen or more best-selling books. Many of them are on our bookshelves.

He's a prolific writer. James Carville joins us now from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. James, great to have you on the program. God, I just regret. I wish I was in Toronto. I love that place. Well, James, let's dive in here. We are less than a week out from this historic once-in-a-generation election.

So much at stake, so many dynamics at play. I've got to ask you off the top just to give us your read, your sense of how things are going to turn out on November 3rd. Biden's going to win, all right? But the question is how much? And the question is what happens to the United States Senate. The polling averages now at 538, it's about nine points. Well, I mean, what's happened so far in this race is not very much.

If you look at the trend lines, they were steady before COVID. I mean, one of the things that Trump puts out of people kind of have a tendency to believe that Trump was cruising to re-election and then COVID came and derailed him and now he's in trouble. There's just everything to support that but facts. actually some of the Senate races that people call me all day I'll probably see more polls than all but five people in the United States and I think I'm hopeful that things are breaking the Democrats way and we can eradicate this just awful God awful in just humiliating and embarrassing moment that the United States is going through I'm just really torn up about it

I've worked and as you point out I've worked in 22 different countries and literally every place that I've gone, people like the United States. I mean, I think we are kind of big and sometimes, you know, clumsy and, you know, can be full of ourselves, but basically like what our country is and what it stands for. And then we had this. I'm not very shy about my opinions of what's happening to my country, but I think that we're on the verge of a real breakthrough here. I think I would dark as hour is going to turn into our finest hour. I really do.

James, what about what could come after the election? in the days and weeks following. There's been obviously a lot of discussions and real concern about two things. One, the risk of a contested election, one of the parties, probably the party of President Trump fighting this election in the courts in state legislatures. And also, what do you see is the risk of violence, of political violence, spilling over into the streets when it seems that I, their side is just convinced.

Maybe they're not convinced that they can win, but they're convinced that they should win. Well, I have an expression in the testament to by hometown of New Orleans. We have to win by more than five, and that's no jive. If this thing is close, we've got to admit that that's possible, they would steal it from us. Anything within spitting range, we're done. I hate to say that because, you know, we're supposedly a national laws of, you know, constitutional democracy and all that, well, that's under strain.

I think we'll win by more than five. There's a point beyond which they can't steal it. In terms of the violence, it depends on the aftermath of the election. It depends on how much we win by. But this ethno nationalism is really a serious thing. And Trump has just exacerbated it and made it much more serious as a result of him being president.

And it's a concern that I I have. I think a lot of people do. And I think the first step in dealing with this is to win this election decisively. I watch these. I like to watch these documentaries, no, World War II. And when you look at a beaten army, you know, you look at these Nazis in Stalingrad. And they have that vacant, starving, hopeless look on that face. I mean, that's what we got to see here. We have to beat this thing and beat it decisively and tell people this is not who we are. I hope we do. What do you think about, just to give you some of the counter arguments as to why maybe we shouldn't necessarily be as optimistic as you are right now in terms of a Democratic win? People are citing the large voter registration drives that the Republican Party has been seemingly very successful at implementing in states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and elsewhere. And that, you know, obviously you're no fan of this president, but he, as a politician, you might. must respect or you must have some admiration for his ability to fire up his core supporters, that this is a guy that campaigns with a lot of energy, a lot of passion, and it gets people riled up, you know, heading to the polls.

All right. Let's just take it antiseptically. You say he's a great politician. He can rile people a lot. I'll concede that. He won the presidency with 46.1 percent of people behind it. He had a freakish distribution. He had Comey.

He had the Russians. He had God knows what else behind him. So he won. Then we had off-year elections in 2018. The single highest turnout in an off-year election in the United States since women were grand the right to vote. The single largest margin of an off-year election, 8.6 percent, breathtaking victory. He couldn't elect a governor of Kentucky or a governor. governor of Louisiana. He is barely ever polled above 45. He's lost 80% of the off-year elections.

He's now on polling average nine points down. Republicans are running away from him like the devil runs away from holy water. I am totally, and I'm being just coldly honest here, I am totally unimpressed with his political powers. You're right. He does have a real connection with 35% center of the country. And the people that he connects with tend to be the most declining demographic in the United States. There are older, non-college white people. And he's also activated in a way that I couldn't imagine an entire class of people, namely female college educated whites. Next to African Americans, the largest Democratic voting block in the United States. And you find me one Republican that really thinks that Trump is doing their party any good

that wants to run with him, and other than somebody in Alabama, I'll fall out of his chair. I'm just being honest. James, we're going to go to those questions momentarily, but just a few other big boxes to tick with you here. Blue wave.

So there's some hypotheses here that Biden's lead here could be so significant that the down-ballot effects really start to gather momentum going into next week's vote on Tuesday, and the Senate could flip along with the House along with the presidency. What kind of odds do you give that right now?

I know you're very confident that Biden's going to win, but how confident are you in a blue wave scenario? I think it's a real possibility. I think we're going to pick up house seats. That I'm almost certain. And we already have the house. That I'm more confident than anything. I think the chances are better than not

that we pick up the Senate. The margin is going to be really important. You go in there with 51 senators and you want to do big things. you're really constrained. The other thing that really matters in the United States is control of the state legislative chambers. Because remember, we have redistrictinging

coming up after this election cycle. And there's state legislative chambers that we could take it in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Texas, Michigan, and I'm probably missing a couple. So there's a lot at stake in this election and all the way from, you know, the White House to the State House,

probably the courthouse, too, for all I know. So I feel like it's a real possibility, but I can't sit here and say that I'm as confident I am at Biden is going to win the president. This is going to happen. James, finally, before we get to questions, you know, you throughout the race for the Democratic nomination for president were critical of what you saw as the lurch to the left on the part of the party embodied in the candidacy of Bernie Sanders. what is your feeling about that faction in the party?

It's a party you know well post this vote. And to what extent is the Biden presidency going to similarly have to lurch left to reflect the reality of the Democratic Party today and where the energy is in that party at this moment? Well, first of all, Biden raised $450 million. So there's energy all around the country, a Democratic Party. The second thing is let's assume that our hopes are fulfilled and we do very well in the Senate. The incoming Senate Democratic Caucus is going to be much more moderate and pragmatic than the current one. Because who would be coming to town? Cal Cunningham from North Carolina, John Oswald from Georgia, maybe India Hager from Texas, for sure.

Mark Kelly, an astronaut from Arizona, John Hickenloop, the famously moderate governor of Colorado, Steve Bullock, the governor of Montana, Al Gross, not even a Democrat, or independent from Alaska, maybe Jamie Harrison from South Carolina. And the Democratic Party made a gigantic statement of primaries. I mean, Bernie Sanders was the best funded, the most energetic. He was in every debate. He competed everywhere. And frankly, he lost.

Now, you're right, the left of the party, the number one, an election that had a Democratic performance of under plus 20. And I know these people. I talk to them. And I said, look, when you win an election in Kentucky, come see me. All right. Or even you won an election in Georgia. And I mean, the press loves this story.

They just love this story. They're energetic. They raise money. They organize. But the voters voted. And they voted overwhelmingly in a Democratic Party. And it wasn't close. You can go go look at, you know, literally across the border.

every election. But by the way, the African Americans are the key part this party, and we're going to hear from them and all of the, you know, other people that contributed in deadness. And look, I'm a liberal. I don't mince it at all. I believe that government has a

significant role to play in people's lives. I'm not a leftist. I don't want to shut people up. I don't believe in all of that. I'm kind of an old line liberal. If somebody's got something to say, say it. But I'm very, you know, believe that there's a real role for the government to play in health care.

I can't talk enough about climate. I just live it every day. I teach it everything else. But we also got to understand. We've got to respect the wishes of Democrats across this country. And they express themselves very decisively and very authoritatively. You've just done that for us, James, and I thank you. Okay, James, let's go to the first emailed question.

It's from somebody called James. The best explanation for Trump's 2016 election is that blue states and the media took Trump literally but not seriously, while red states took him seriously but not literally. Can you help explain to the majority of Canadians who are anxious, how did the United States get itself to this point? So maybe, James, just to boil that down to something succinct, what created Trump? Did Trump create Trump? Did American culture and politics create Trump? You know, who's the carts and who's the horse? Well, Trump came along.

Purpo, he had a message. All right. And it's a message that had a certain resonance with people. And I can't emphasize this enough. He got 46.1. And he had a distributional draw that is unique to American democracy. So I'm not denying that. But he came along and people.

thought it was, they felt some angst and they thought it was a way that they could be heard. And unfortunately they went a little bit too far with it. And I think that without Comey, he would have never won. Political scientists have really studied that.

And you can look at Kathleen Hall, Jameson, you can look at any number of papers in political science. Also, the Russians were very involved and were very helpful. And you know, they had been this kind of, in the Democratic Party, this is a problem of urban parties, and I'm sure it's somewhat of a problem in Canada, is we give off odors that we're better than other people, that we're

educated, we're the diverse, we're the tolerant, we're the hip, and we kind of dominate the coach. You know, and we really had, gave people, you know, rural white. Look, I'm a rural white guy. I grew up 25 miles south of the LSU campus. We also far on the sticks where the pipe sunshine in. And I think Biden has done a good job of not giving off these noxious notions of cultural superiority. And I think

that's going to help with some, and I hope the party never returns to that. And I think it's very much of an attitude, you know, sometimes of urban left, you know, dominated left-leaning parties. And we got taught a lesson, unfortunately, it was a lesson

that the pain was not worthy of a mistake we made. But I hope we learned a lesson. Okay, here comes a question from Sean Moore, who's watching live right now. Sean asks, quote, it was the economy stupid in 1992. James, that was your famous kind of encapsulation of that election.

Sean asks you, what is it in 2020? How would you characterize the central issue in this presidential race? Well, I think the central issues, people just want to change. They just don't want to live like this anymore. And let's go back and talk about the economy stupid in healthcare. Because in Canada, it's a little bit different. When you go and you get a EKG, PSA tests, breast cancer screening, that is one event in your life. Your bank account is an other event in your life.

Of Florida Americans, we have been charged. So 80% of people in the country are undershared or no insurance. Healthcare is the economy to them. And that's become increasingly the case because healthcare costs have exceeded inflation rates over the years by a lot. And don't even get me started on the way that people view prescription drug costs. So it's a little bit hard for a Canadian, given your system, to understand in our system, how the economy and health care and health care costs have merged and become related phenomena. But the other thing is that happened before Trump was present, to be fair, the inequality

in this country is really bad. But two-thirds of the growth, during even when Trump was president, took care of in counties that he'll re-carried. I mean, think about it. Where's all the growth? And so everybody saw this. very justifiably, and it wasn't just, you know, people in the whites and industrial Midwest. Everybody saw that the country was growing and they weren't participating in it.

And we have to figure away. And it's a very difficult problem to when the next spur of growth comes, how can we have more equitable and more broad-based growth? Because it's not doing this any good in the country when 6% of the people have the benefits of 75% of the growth in the country. pulling those numbers out of my ass, but it's close. I can get a good estimate, I promise you. Okay, let's go to the next email question.

We appreciate your candor, James. This is from Bill. Could I please have your opinion on the Twitter, Facebook censorship of the New York Post and the White House on the Hunter Biden-Biden family corruption allegations? So, James, just to encapsulate this, for those of us in our Canadian audience, who might not be familiar with the latest,

developments around Hunter Biden. A laptop was found at a repair shop. It was given to Rudy Giuliani, who is the president's lawyer, who in turn has given it to the FBI, the Delaware Police, Fox News, the New York Post, and others. And a lot of media is refusing to cover the findings of the material on that laptop, which seemed to have been now verified by friends of Hunter Biden and friends of the Biden family. Do you, what's your thought on that? And I mean, you're in favor of free speech. You classify yourself as a, you know, a small L. liberal.

What do you think about this? Okay, I'll tell exactly what I think. First of all, Hunter Biden lives in Los Angeles. So the theory is, is that he flew to Philadelphia, got on a train and went to Wilmington, Delaware to a strip of a computer repair shop operated by a guy who's legally blind and had a computer full of incriminating information. and forgot to pick the computer up, and it stayed there for 90 days,

and so the guy opens the computer, sees this incriminating information, and somehow another figures out how to get in touch with Rudy Giuliani. Okay, at that point, if you believe that, then, man, I don't know what to tell you, but we're not on the same planet. So they take the story,

and they try to take it to the Wall Street Journal, and you can read Ben Smith's piece in the New York Times. The Wall Street Journal, which is, editorially, is very, extremely conservative, but journalistically, it has high standards. So then they take it to the New York Post. They can't find

anybody to put a byline on the story, so to find some employee that had to be a producer for Sean Hannity, so to put a byline on the story. Then you say this is censorship. Facebook is not the government. Twitter is not the government. If the government would

say you can't do that, that's the First Amendment says Congress shall pass no line. If anybody works at a company, if you work at a law firm and you post something online and you use a racist or sexist term, you get fired. It's just that simple. Now, they're welcome to, I'm not that big, I think that big tech. I think they're monopolies. I think that we could look at ways to do that. I'm not an antitrust expert at all. But, you know, conservatives used to be, you know, let the free enterprise system flourish. Well, if you don't like Facebook or you don't like Google, then go get a bunch of get to Coke brothers or Robert Mercer or anybody you want,

go start to build your better mousetrap. But the idea that somehow another, this is the heavy hand of government censorship, it's not true. And the story is preposterous. It really is. The computer repair shop at the strip mall in Wilmington. Okay, come on. Yeah.

Let's go to a question here from an audience member watching right now. Harry Van Mulligan, he's asking, do you agree that if Trump had followed the science and had communicated as per CDC guidance like some other world leaders, he would be cruising now for a massive re-election? And in short, to what extent, James, is COVID this president's Achilles heel?

I mean, would Joe Biden really have a chance if there wasn't 200,000-plus Americans dead tragically because of this virus? If you go look at the NBC Wall Street Journal poll, or you look at the 538 polling averages, he was profoundly underwater in January of 2020. And once that the Democratic Party decided that it was not going to commit suicide, he was done. That was his only hope. Then you have this national crisis that comes.

Now, any politician that says, look, I'm not doing that great, and I have a chance to exhibit real leadership. And so all of these governors around the country, that exhibit real leadership, what did they do? They saw their numbers go up. They're going to get reelected. If I was a raw, pure political animal and I was in the Trump White House, I would literally go in and say, God damn, this is an opportunity. You know, we're losing these women. We're losing these educated people. This is a chance for you to step in the breach, to do this, to show that you've grown in the office and everything.

You know what? He might have been able to make it. and now you got Jared talking about bragging if you, to Bob Woodward, they just released the tape by how they beat the doctors back and how they did that. And then he came, you know, talking about chlorox and bleach and it was going to go away. People just saw that and just repost. And he attacks Dr. Fauci. He's got like a 70% approval rating.

I mean, if you got a 43% approval rating and you have a person in your government that has a I would attach to that person like a barnacle on the bottom of a boat on Lake Ontario. The whole thing politically makes utterly no sense at all. And then we're supposed to think that Jared Kushner is some kind of a political genius. I mean, give me a break. It saved any number of politicians who were doing mediocre who like stepped up and look like they were leaders and they look, look where you are right now and look what's going to happen next year. I mean, it was a real, forget the tragedy of this.

It was a huge. It's the biggest swing and miss of a political opportunity maybe in my lifetime. A lot of people, James, a whole bunch of different questions coming in here from people asking, in effect, what happens if Trump simply refuses to concede the election? This guy has, you know, operated outside of the norms of your politics now for four years. what's stopping him post-election from simply saying, you know, I don't accept the result. This is a rigged outcome. And, you know, my lawyers are going to fight this to the end. And I'm not going anywhere.

What would happen is on January to 20th, there would be so many four-star generals volunteering to execute an extraction procedure at the White House. They would go in and get him and throw his fat ass out on Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania Avenue. And his supporters, James? Well, I don't know. His supporters, look, we live in a democracy. You know, we had a profoundly disappointing night in November of 2016. You know, when you enter an election and you live in a country that is a democracy, when you lose, you lose. That's just the nature of the way it goes. That's what happens. And I think if he loses the way that I think he will, the way that I hope he will, people are not going to stand for that.

I mean, you're just not going to stand for that. If he loses this election, you know, and again, I have to be careful here because if he loses it by a little bit, they'll fix this thing. I don't have any confidence in the system, but if he loses it by as much as I think he will, he won't have any other choice. He won't have any other choice. And by way, they have any number of vulnerable Republican senators coming up in 2022. And who, what person that wants to face re-election wants to, like, deny the will of

of people. I want to now kind of call on you as kind of lecture in chief to help us with a bit of a civics lesson here, a bunch of questions asking basically can the Biden government do anything between the election and inauguration when it comes to, especially to the pandemic, you know, what happens in your system for that critical period here of almost three months, James? I mean, is this just like a deep freeze where everybody puts their tools down and no substantial decisions are made? Well, you know, in a parliamentary system, and I think it's true in Canada. I know it's true in Britain in most places. Election night, when you move in to 10 Downing Street? No such thing is a transition. One day you're not prime minister. The next day you're prime minister. It is a unique thing that is built into our system.

I think it's very proper to worry about it in that period of time. It used to be even, but before it was in March, before you had a change of power. It took much more time than this. A lot depends on the margin. If he wins a popular vote by four and gets 325 electoral votes, he'll be president. But it's going to be different. If he went to decisively, I think you're going to see a lot of pressure on, you know, and if he tries to put out some crazy orders or something, I think there's going to be people

that are going to refuse to follow it. Now, I hate to say that, but I think it's a real possibility. But I don't know. I'm not a government expert. I mean, my life starts when the campaign starts and kind of ends when the campaign is over. And I walk out and move on to my next mission. I, as a citizen, I worry about it. And again, I come back to it. The margin is everything here.

Hi, Monk Debate podcast listeners. This is Rudyard Griffith, your host and moderator. Just want to thank you for making this podcast such a success. Today is our 50th consecutive weekly episode. Over the last year, since we started this podcast, we've had over half a million people download this program. That's some 33,000 hours of listening. This has been a huge success for us, and we owe it to you, the loyalty. and interest of our subscribers and listeners. If you enjoy this podcast and you enjoy what the Monk Debates is all about, which is convening civil and substantive dialogue and debate,

consider becoming a Monk Debates member. As a podcast listener, we're offering you 30% off on our regular memberships. You get a whole bunch of great benefits, including a free book, access to our 10-year-plus library of digital video debates, and that warm feeling inside that in this polarized, divided time, you're encouraging people, encouraging your fellow citizens to look across the proverbial aisle to try to understand different views and perspectives, because that's what the Monk Debates is all about.

So to access your membership and your 30% discount, use our Monk Podcast promo code on our website. www.wmunkdebates.com. The promo code is MonkPod 2020. You can find out all about our membership programs and get your 30% discount by going to the member section on our website, www.w monkdebates.com. Thanks again for making this first year of the Monk Debates podcast such a success. We look forward to many great episodes and debates to come. Again, really appreciate your support for this program.

I'm Rudyard Griffiths, the moderator of the Monk Debates podcast. Gail Taylor and a number of other people are emailing in, James, asking about your thoughts on the future of the Republican Party after this. In particular here, we've got people, Wayne Leach asking, you know, you had predicted that in the past, that Republican senators would finally break with Trump. They don't, at least at this point, there's one or two maybe that have made some musings here in the final weeks of the campaign.

But what is the future of this report? Republican Party, and are you concerned? I mean, you have a two-party system there. You need two functioning parties to come together to present the policy options and ideas for America. Where does the Republican Party go? I've become quite friendly with these never Trump Republicans, and they will say, and I've heard any number of other Republicans, said the only way the Republican party can have a future is it has to be destroyed as it is. That is a very commonly held view among a lot of very prominent former Republicans. Now that we give it, you know, this ethno-nationalism has been exposed,

will they do as Democrats did where in 2000 during this primaries, all the Democrats cared about can you win? And when Bernie had his single-payer and Senator Warren was going along and she came out for single-payer, that was the end of a campaign. I don't think Democrats had much of a problem with a single-payer system. They just thought it was electorally toxic. in U.S. politics in a two-party system, when a political party stops being a coalition and it becomes a cult, then it destroys itself. And when you have multi-party systems, you can have differences within the government.

But in a two-party system, the differences that the coalitions are built within the parties. I don't know. I would certainly argue that I have nothing against a slightly nationalistic, you know, government skeptic, low-tax kind of. traditionalist party. There's appeal to that around America, but that party no longer exists. I mean, actually, it's more than not, there's more like the Democrats now or most. The trade, I mean, we've never had, this is the first anti-free trade president we've ever had, Republican or Democrat. Do you think the Trump kids have a future in politics? You know, we've seen dynastic, you know, politics in the United States. I mean,

the Clintons in some ways were part of that, a husband to wife. what happens to Trump and the Trump family after this, if you're right, and there is a definitive loss next week? Well, what I really think, and this is not hyperbole, all right? I want to be very careful. I think that after this is over, the malfeasance, the racism, the incompetence and everything will be dwarfed by one thing. And that is the massive, staggering corruption from all across, from Trump. the family, to everything. And I think the real problem

that the United States is going to have is this. The Manhattan DA, the New York Attorney General, and by the way, the new Attorney General. And suppose it says, look, Trump says, if you leave me and my family alone, I will go tomorrow or Lago. All right, I'll do Trump TV, but that's it. If you continue this,

I'm going to travel around the country and you know what I can do and you know how difficult I can make life for you. So you're sitting there, you're saying, look, I just want this guy to go away. If we go through this and trust me, the Mueller report, what people understand is Mueller saved all the evidence of the structure of justice.

There is no reason that the next Attorney General couldn't indict him. Now, he could resign and Pence could pardon him or he could take a gamble and pardon himself and hope that's legal. He can't pardon himself in New York State. and now you got Bannon's indicted. They're going to probably indict Pursal,

and they're just going to squeeze them to no end. So he's got massive, massive criminal exposure, and I'm sure the family does too. I don't know that, but I wouldn't be surprised they do. So that's something that people has not been fully appreciated, is that they started the campaign, a billion dollars, they've fitted it away. And they went through the records,

and they've got 300-something million have gone to like a dummy corporation that nobody can find. They were billing the taxpayers $3 for a glass of water that he drank at Marlago. I mean, come on. This is a grift on a level and as history starts to unfold. And every day you see in these stories are coming even late in the campaign. I don't know how much of effect they're going to have in the campaign, but that guy is going to have to negotiate his way out of trouble because he's in a lot of trouble. A question here from Keith in British Columbia and a bunch of other people, basically asking, you know, you've witnessed now this seemingly relentless polarization of American society.

Where does this go, James? What's your sense of where America's headed in the decades to come? And does this political polarization ever resolve itself? The question is very good and very frightening. I'll give you a statistic. And I want you to think about this. The amount of geographical polarization we've had in this country is really staggering. Let's call a supermajority county. That is a county that one party carries by 50 points. So you have to win it by 75, 25 to qualify. There are slightly more than 3,100 county equivalents in the United States. In 1992, when Bill Clinton won, there were 96 supermajority counties.

in 2016, out of 3,100, slightly more than 3,100, there were more than 1,300 supermajority counties. And so what's going to happen on election night, there are people that are going to vote for Trump that don't know anybody that's not for him. How could he lose? And this toxicity is built up over a period of time in American politics. And I come back to something I've said often tonight, but I say it often because I think it's that important. Biden's win has to be decisive. And the American needs an intervention, and intervention has got to come from American voters.

And it's got to tell politicians that this is not the way to win elections. And I would say I would give Biden very high marks on, you know, making an attempt to be a unifier, kind of respecting people. And if he has a big win, hopefully he can deal with this. but this is a significant problem. It is not at all being neurotic to worry about it. And I think it all starts. Everything starts hopefully next Tuesday night.

Okay. This is from Adelaide. She's asking, on the assumption that votes will be counted for a few days and possibly weeks following the election. So here maybe she's seeing less than a completely decisive win, James. How can we be sure that Trump will be removed from the White House? how is the post-election period likely to play out? So you've answered part of that in the sense you say when it comes around to the inauguration,

he's going to be out of there regardless. But tell us, give us a little bit more, paint us a little bit more of a detailed picture of what happens between the election and inauguration based on two scenarios. One, your scenario of a definitive Biden win. And second, you know, play out the scenario for us maybe where the election has been closer than you might have liked.

Well, again, it's not my kind of area of, you know, I'm so focused on the election. I think it's going to matter. You know, if it's closer, but we'll have lawsuits everywhere. We're going to have state legislatures trying to direct electors to vote. We're going to have a, whatever mess we're in now, it'll be compounded. It would be a nightmare. And the courts would be full. The streets would be full.

The virus is not going anywhere. Has anybody taken a look at the American stock market over the last two days? Can you imagine what will happen to world financial markets if we have paralysis in the United States after the election? And I'm talking about less than a week from now. I can tell you with certainty that this virus is not going to be gone. I can tell you for a certainty that the polarization in the United States is not going to be gone. The only thing that can save us is our people. I hear that for me, James.

You've got some optimism here. Jay asking, what do you think Trump's legacy is going to be as a president? He, Jay's pointing out decisively tilting the U.S. Supreme Court and let's face it, much of the U.S. federal judicial system to the conservative right or the mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic. I mean, James, you disagree with his president fundamentally in his policies, but, you know, he will have a legacy, won't he? the legacy will be the staggering, unbelievable corruption. It'll be written in history books 200 years from now. Just the incompetence. I mean, you know, Mitch McConnell, okay, so the Federal Society says appoint this guy

judge, okay, you do that, they ram it through. Few of people have confidence in Supreme Court in the United States right now, probably any time in modern history. And you call out an accomplishment? I wouldn't call it an accomplishment, but it is a fact. Does anybody think that his handling of this virus is anything other than catastrophic? I mean, really, that's an accomplishment? Again, I come back to the thing that will be, and this I'm very confident of.

Many years from now, the amount of corruption that we're going to unearth is just going to be breathtaking. It's already breathtaking. We hadn't even gotten started yet. Well, let's see. That shoe may and well surely drop. James, I just want to end by, you know, saying that often people in their minds see you as, you know, one of the tough kind of scrappers and fighters of U.S. politics. And I'm sure that's true. You've led some storied campaigns in the U.S. and around the world. But tonight, I think you've shown that other side, the side that I've gotten to know over the years, James, having you up here to Canada to speak, which is, your thoughtfulness, the reasoned approach that you take, the history, the knowledge that you bring to your arguments, the civility and substance that you've entered into this dialogue with us. So on behalf of our audience tonight, thank you for coming on the Monk Dialogues.

Thank you so much. It was a wonderful conversation. Thank you. Thanks for listening to The Monk Dialogues with James Carville. We hope you enjoyed the opportunity to listen to smart, civil conversation on the likely outcomes of the November 3rd U.S. presidential election. For more information on the Monk Dialogues, visit our website at monkdebates.com slash dialogues.

We appreciate your feedback on this podcast. Please give us a rating and write a review on the Apple Podcast or wherever you download your audio. Thank you for helping us bring back the art of public dialogue, one conversation at a time.