The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - The VP Debate: Unpacked

Episode Date: October 2, 2024

Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov discuss their takeaways from the vice president debate between Senator JD Vance and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Follow Jessica Tarlov, @JessicaTarlov.  Follow Prof G, @profgalloway. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Innovation Fund's prospectus at fundrise.com slash innovation. This is a paid advertisement. Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Scott Galloway. And I'm Jessica Tarloff. Jess, I'm trying to think. Something happened. What's happened recently? What's gone on here? Can't put my finger on it. Can't put your finger on it? Let's remind everybody. Let's play our greatest hits. Roll tape. Governor, just to follow up on that, the question was, can you explain the discrepancy? All I said on this was, is I got there that summer and misspoke on this.

So I will just, that's what I've said. So I was in Hong Kong and China during the democracy protests went in. And from that, I learned a lot of what needed to be in governance. He is still saying he didn't lose the election. I would just say that. Did he lose the 2020 election? Tim, I'm focused on the future. Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 COVID situation?

That is a damning non-answer. It's a damning non-answer for you to not talk about censorship. Obviously, Donald Trump and I think that there were problems in 2020. We've talked about it. I'm happy to talk about it further. But you guys attack us for not believing in democracy. The most sacred right under the United States democracy is the First Amendment. Thank you, Governor.

And just to clarify for our viewers, Springfield, Ohio, does have a large number of Haitian migrants who have legal status, temporary protected. Well, thank you, Senator. We have so much to get to. I think it's important because the economy, Margaret, the rules were that you guys were going to fact check. And since you're fact checking me, I think it's important to say what's actually going on. Those laws have been on the books since 1990. Thank you, gentlemen. The CBP1 app has not been on the books. Gentlemen, the audience can't hear you because your mics are cut. We have so much we want to get to. Thank you for explaining the legal process.

Wow. Jess, your thoughts? at a level far beyond me. She's obviously very close to the Trump side of things, but also can be very objective about things. So I always kind of love to be able to bounce things off of her. But for the first few minutes when it seemed like Tim Walz was going to lose his cookies live on stage, I thought it was going to be catastrophic. I just switched to praying like, these things don't matter, right? We're going to be fine. This is about Trump and this is about Kamala. And I was that way for about 10 minutes or so and was getting text messages from people who even work on the campaign, very, very, very concerned. And then I kind of leveled out to this was fine and that's where I ended and it's where most people seem to end and we can go into the snap holes of it but the roller coaster of emotions

the feeling that JD Vance was everything that we thought he would be that he would present really well that there wouldn't be a misused word. There was a lot of lying, but it all sounded excellent, which was the expectation. And one thing, and other people have commented on this, and huge majorities of people who watched the debate did as well. It was so nice to have a substantive exchange of ideas that wasn't petty. There wasn't name-calling to it. They were pretty polite, civil to each other. When they agreed, they said, I'm in agreement this way. I guess it's the epitome of Minnesota nice, since we know what Walls thinks of Vance and we know what Vance thinks of Walls. But I think that that elevated this debate. And there were a lot of people saying

online, like, this is how the presidential debate should have been. It would have been, we would have been much better just a weirdness there to the guy. And the media has run with that and positioned him as weird. He is very intelligent. He went to Yale Law School, which is three years in debate training, basically. And I think on a balanced scorecard, you'd have to give the debate to him. I don't think, I mean, his ability to sort of bob and weave, you know, did Donald Trump win the election or did Joe Biden win the election? That's a straight up question. He managed to go to, well, Hillary refused to acknowledge the election, at least initially. And even worse, you guys are engaging in censorship. Now, that's all bullshit. Hillary did show up to the inauguration. She did say she did concede. The notion that conservatives are somehow being censored is just so ridiculous. It's like, a decent tell is if someone screams censorship, it means they will not shut the fuck up and that they're everywhere, everywhere. If you look at the people who are the biggest promoters of this myth around censorship in America, they generally have one of the 10 most downloaded podcasts in the world. So I kind of had a gag reflex around the lies,

but he told them well. He was very agile. When I'm on boards, one of the first things I recognize, the key attributes of a successful CEO of a big company is that they have to be a bit sociopathic. And that is, I've been in all hands or I've gone to an all hands as a director where the CEO stands up and talks about the great future of the company, knowing that at 6 a.m. the next morning, 15% of the staff of the workforce or 3,000 people are going to have their email shut off, their phones turned off, and they're gone. They'll get an email from HR saying, please call us. You are no longer working in this firm. And you'd think the guy was addressing his family at Thanksgiving dinner. There's just a sociopathy there. with so much pressure, you're plucked out of Minnesota governorship. So much is riding on this. I think that any human is going to have the same reaction, at least initially, that Governor Walz had, and that is he was a little bit nervous. I thought he was better as

the night went on, but Vance looked calm, cool, collected. He was able to do all sorts of, he was very agile, on his feet, came across as incredibly bright. The big winner, in my view, is America, because this is how our elected representatives are supposed to acquit themselves. They're supposed to occasionally find common ground. They interrupted each other, but only occasionally. They were polite. They acted like men. I mean, they acted like grown fucking men. And I thought, well, hopefully, what this does is it shows that when you put Donald Trump on stage or in any environment, it's just chaos and bullshit. But I'm not sure people will do that second-order thinking. So in sum, I think America was the winner. I think in terms of the race itself, I think it was probably a nothing burger. VP debates have rarely been more than just

sort of media fodder. On a balanced, honest scorecard, I'd probably give the win to Vance. Okay. So a couple things from that, and we're largely in agreement but on the the win for vance because that was my feeling too and it was kind of like the elites vibe you know those of us who are now sitting with podcasting equipment the day after this but when they were talking to undecided voters in these focus groups or doing these snap polls that wasn't people's overwhelming view of it. So in general, it was a bit of a wash. Vance and a couple had like a two-point advantage. Walls did in a couple of them. Most of it, it was like this was a tie and it did not feel like a tie to me. Even Walls is, going back and listening to the clips of where Walls really succeeded didn't even hit me that

well when it was happening. And I don't know if that was my protective crouch that I was in through the entire thing, but there was more to the story. So putting aside like who won or who lost, you know, it wasn't like Kamala versus Trump in that sense, but the favorability numbers are staggering. From the CNN snap poll, Walls was plus 14, went up to plus 37. And Vance improved as well, but negative 22 to negative 3. So it's like we really hated you, and now we just kind of dislike you. That makes a difference. Walls did better on who came across as reasonable versus extreme. I'm sure we're going to talk about the abortion issue, but that was one where J.D. Vance, even though he said a lot of things that I think helped the Republican cause, like actually talking about supporting women and being pro-family and acknowledging that

Republicans have been terrible on this issue, but people heard him loud and clear, which is if you live in a state that essentially has an abortion ban, you live in a state that has an abortion ban, and that really teed up walls. One of my favorite lines was that the right to control your own body shouldn't depend on geography. That really stuck with me. So reasonable versus extreme, prepared to be president. He had an edge on, obviously, the favorability in an abortion and healthcare. And Vance's lead on the economy and immigration was like a couple points and those need to be blowout issues for trump to win now again vance is not top of the ticket and that was very clear from all of this but taken together you obviously want to succeed in every opportunity that you have and it does feel like walls was able

to accomplish even becoming or being part of the benign side of this so if trump is viewed as a cancer by a lot of people vance did not make it easier for people to go to the Trump side of things. Walls increasing his favorability, coming off as moderate and also so experienced. I wanted to talk to you about this. I was blown away by how much he relied on his background experience. I mean, he talked about what he did as a congressman. He talked about what they're doing in Minnesota as governor, all the affordable housing units he built, why they are the medical corridor, I think is what it's called, like why 3M is there,

why all the health insurance companies are there, why it's good to be a Minnesotan, and what he's done to do that. And if you were watching the debate and you didn't know that J.D. Vance was the senator from Ohio and I told you he was the senator of Alaska, you could believe it. If I said, oh, that guy, he's from Tennessee. He just doesn't have the accent. You could believe it. If I said he's from California, I mean, he's wearing a pink tie, which I thought was so lame. Like, you want women to like you, so you're wearing a pink tie. But he had no identity. I have no idea who J.D. Vance is from that. And like it or not, I know exactly who Tim Walz is. We'll be right back.

So everything you're saying, I find myself agreeing with, but I do think there's a little bit of bias there. Call me out. I think Walz's best line was, and the reason Minnesota has the best healthcare rating or whatever it is in the United States is simple. We trust women and we trust doctors. I thought that was very powerful. But Vance was able to, I mean, here's the bottom line. Vance did more while having less to work with. I mean, he's literally at this point, the circus clown behind the elephant scooping up Trump's shit. He's the one that has to take the weirdness and somehow starch it, manicure it, shapeshift it into something sort of reasonable on bodily autonomy. We've pushed it back to the state. They position it as freedom somehow. And that is, it's freedom in the sense that states should be able to decide that, you know, the federal government should get out of, he almost positions it as we're the one that cares about bodily autonomy because we're giving the states the autonomy to make their own decision. He framed things that I find vile as almost kind of acceptable or understandable. That was not easy.

I think Walls has a lot to work with. I mean, the bottom line is he's facing, they're not really debating each other. They're debating the top of the ticket. And Walls has on the other side, a guy who's an insurrectionist and has been found liable of sexual abuse, which in any other language is rape. Walls had more to work with. Vance, given what he has, the hand he's been dealt came out, I thought, pretty good. The bottom line, though, is I think this is a split decision and a nothing burger as it relates to the race. They both, I would say, they both cemented their brand. I think Walls is likable and Vance is intelligent. And that's what I kind of came away that that is their core brand.

But as it relates to the race, I don't see this having any impact. What are your thoughts? In a tied race, which is where we are, there were new polls out this morning from the Cook Political Report. You know, we're in a margin of error race, and I doubt that that is going to change. Like, maybe a couple states might move in X direction, or we know that Dems would be favored in the blue wall states versus the Sun Belt for Trump. And maybe I'm being liberal optimistic, liberal in my political sense, not liberal in how I'm viewing this. But I think every moment counts. There's 34 days to go.

There's already an add up about the January 6th answer and, you know, not being able to say that Trump lost in 2020. Harris camp already has it going where it says the past will be the future. And for the Republicans that are considering voting for Harris, people who came over in 2020 or maybe didn't, maybe then saw January 6th and were like, oh, my God, we got to get out of here. This is like a burning building when it comes to preserving democracy. Those kinds of things hit. So even if this is just something that adds fodder to campaigns or the campaigning, I think it does matter. And Walls is now, it seems like from his schedule, going to be freed a bit more. We were talking about it yesterday on the first podcast of the week that Walls was so

good at doing media and then was kind of hidden away. And you could see from last night that he really would have benefited from doing a few Sunday shows. Like, J.D. Vance is out there, and he will say anything to anybody. You know, that interview with Dana Bash was completely humiliating. Good on him that he's going to go and do it. And I think that Walls coming out of the gate suffered for not having those kinds of reps. And I hope that it is just, you know, what is it? Balls to the Walls, spelled like his last name, that he's just everywhere now because he does have that charm, even for something that is egregious and damaging. You can't think the guy is rotten to his core. And J.D. Vance, you can think, is slick and intelligent and all these things. But a lot of people clearly are deeply suspicious of the character of the man.

And that was not abated by what happened last night. We played in the montage the question, the response about Tiananmen Square and like where he was. And those little embellishments, they obviously haven't hurt him in dramatic fashion, like in his favorability. But I was very disappointed that there wasn't a clear good answer because the answer is what he got to eventually. I misspoke. I was still there during the democracy protest. You're talking about an eight-week differential decades ago. It doesn't define who I am. What defines who I am is that I celebrate democracy and I created this humanitarian exchange with China, et cetera. I mean,

do you think that stuff matters or it's just I'm being irritated as someone too deep in politics? The low point of the debate for either of them was that moment for Walls, because he just sort of said, I got carried away, I misspoke, I screwed up. I've been to China and I misspoke and I apologize, I was wrong. I just think it could have ended it there. Instead, it was sort of like asking your eight-year-old

if they spilled their Coke and it was a little bit of like awkwardness and feels like he's not being totally forth. It was just the awkward moment of the debate, and it didn't need to be awkward. I agree with you that every moment counts. The question is, was this moment consequential? And I don't think it is. I would argue that over the next 48 hours, how either campaign responds and or leverages and seizes the moment around Helene and Israel is going to be much more

consequential. I think if either camp is seen as much more powerful, strong, deft at handling, either exploiting Helene and showing up in a jacket that says FEMA and being attentive to people's needs or being seen as strong on what's happening in the Middle East. There's always an unintended foul ball out of nowhere that might change the game or whatever the term is. I don't think this was that. I think at 48 hours, if not 24 hours, I don't even think we're going to be talking about this, Jess. I just don't. It was a split decision. Some people would go for walls. I like what Jim Barksdale did, this former CEO of Netscape and AT&T said, and that is if we're going with opinions let's go with mine otherwise let's look at the data you brought some data and it does look as if walls did better than i thought having said

that i just don't i think we're going to be talking about i think this is going to shit through a goose in the media cycle i think we're going to be talking about some pretty consequential things that happened here. I think either Israel or Helene are going to have much more impact on this race than what happened last night. I was disappointed, actually, in the conversation around those two central issues. You know, the first question out of the gate. And Ukraine never came up. Ukraine never came up. And even as an adjacent point, going in Vance for his isolationist stance, you know, Vance voted against Israel aid and Ukraine aid. Like that's a layup for people. People support helping our democratic partners and allies, especially when. And, you know, J.D. DeVance, I think, has a very bad view on this and didn't get held to account on it.

Ed Walls, you know, went a little meandering about it. He got out the right words about standing with Israel, but I thought he could have done much better on that as well because it has turned out to be more of a strong suit for Kamalaris than people expected um kind of starting with the dnc speech and then moving on to now um jd vance in his plus column uh and this might be why you felt like that he had the edge and that i was sweating so bad about this but he nailed all the lines trump was supposed to nail. Like, you've had three and a half years to be

able to fix this. Like, don't tell me what you're going to do when you are essentially the incumbent. And we know vice president doesn't have much power, but that is something that resonates with people. And I thought that he nailed that. Yeah. Also, just a quick shout out to the raging moderators, Margaret Brennan and Nora O'Donnell. I thought they did a great job. I get the sense the two of us should have brunch with them. I think they'd love to have brunch with one of us. And it's not the tall bald guy in the UK right now.

But I know Margaret a little bit because I've been on Face the Nation a few times. I don't know if you heard that. No, I haven't. Yeah, I know. I mean, I haven't heard of it. A girl can dream one day. Long-winded way of saying. I thought the debate, I thought the moderators were great. I thought the whole thing was well done. It made me feel good. I really hope that

all people up and down the ballot take a note from, you know, a patroness playbook on this is how debates and candidates are supposed to handle themselves. And I really do think that Margaret Brennan and Nora O'Donnell were the clear winners. Something, I mean, this also might just be a lady thing that I was feeling it at this level, but I loved seeing like two badass women doing it. They looked perfect. They were unflappable.

They were ready for everything. I did not find the fact-checking to actually be fact-checking. It was just like, and a note to our audience, these people are here illegally, or a note to our audience, climate change is real. That is fact-checking. It's not like interrupting someone and saying, like, don't you tell that lie. What are they supposed to do? Are you supposed to leave it? No, I think they're supposed to fact-check. I thought it was ridiculous for them to even say

that we're not going to fact check. Then why not just have a computer read the questions and shut off their mics after 90 seconds? The whole point of a moderator is you're supposed to moderate. And I think that when someone says something outrageous and blatantly false, you should weigh in and say, yeah, there's no evidence that there's aliens. I mean, I don't think they should have ever. I think it was a mistake out of the gates to say that we're not going to fact check because Vance, one of Vance's strongest moments was he just got back in their face and said, the rules were you weren't going to fact check. So if we're going to, let me fact check him. That was a powerful moment. He wasn't taking it. He wasn't taking it. Anyways, what's the next big thing here? What do you think is the next? Do we have anything else on the calendar he tweeted or truth socialed in the middle of the debate, Pete Rose just died, which wasn't true. Pete Rose died the day before. But why you're doing that, why your VP is standing on stage is beyond me, though it's not beyond me.

I thought it was a parody account. No, it's just dumb. I mean, it's like the guy just can't control himself. He literally can't control himself. Right. So I would like another debate, but you saw Trump pulled out of the CBS 60 Minutes interview. Not going to happen. Kamala's doing it. He thinks he's going to win. He thinks he's going to win. And anyone with an IQ above 90 is saying to him, no, don't. Do whatever you can.

Try and put the phone down. Try and put your thumbs down and do not speak to the public as much as you can. Any other observations, Jess? A couple of things that I think were important. The number one search political term across the entire country was abortion. And you know what side that benefits. J.D. Vance did his best attempt to sugarcoat a lot of this, talked about how sad it was that Amber Thurman, the young mother in Georgia who passed away from sepsis, leaving a six-year-old son behind because she couldn't get medical care was. And then Amber Thurman's family released a

statement thanking Governor Walz for his support and bringing those issues to light. And then what was the other thing that I said? Well, we had said that the future of the Republican Party is less opaque because it looks, Vance did look somewhat presidential given his age. In 2028, I would think as of last night, he's probably in Vegas, one of the top one or two contenders for 2028 for the GOP nomination. I think that that's right. I think that his ability to cut through, like you said, to polish up the turd or whatever that Donald Trump is, is something that will resonate with people. And if you didn't watch him intently the last few months, you'd almost kind of like the guy and think that he had, that his heart was in the right place and something, we're not going to launch into it, but that I did think he did well as to on immigration. He said, I'm thinking about Americans. And that matters a lot to people who feel like they're kind of being left behind by the way the country is moving.

So, yeah, I think that the Republican future is a lot clearer than it was before the debate, which is a big forward-looking takeaway. Well, it sounds like the police are coming for you. So that's a signal we should wrap it up here. I gotta go. Okay, enough polishing of this tour. That's all for this episode. Thank you for listening to Raging Moderates.

Our producers are Caroline Shagrin and David Toledo. Our technical director is Drew Burrows. You can find Raging Moderates on the PropGee pod every Tuesday.

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