The Young Turks - Path To Victory

Episode Date: October 24, 2024

Harris needs to focus more on working-class issues and less on Trump to secure a win. A Detroit Muslim leader was ejected from a Kamala Harris rally, further deepening the rift between Democrats and Arab Americans. Biden was brutally roasted by his own officials after a recent gaffe, with some saying, ""No one is listening to him anymore."" " HOST: Ana Kasparian (@anakasparian) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK TWITTER INSTAGRAM TIKTOK 👕 Merch Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Live from the Polly Market Studio in L.A. It's the Young Turks. Welcome to TYT. I'm your host, Anna Kasparian, and we have a lot to get to today. Some updates on the election, of course, some foibles by both Harris and also Donald Trump. So we're going to get to some of that in the first hour.

in the second hour, John Ida Rola will be joining me to talk about a whole host of other stories, including a campaign event involving a congressional race in which a reporter accidentally gets shot. I'm not kidding. This actually happened. And the end result was the opposing candidate making fun of it on social media, because that's where we are as a country. So that'll be in the second hour. You'll learn all the details and more. John will join us. But as always, just want to encourage you all to like and share the stream. If you're watching us live, you can also support the show by hitting that join button or becoming a member by going to t-y-t.com slash join.

All right. Let's get to some of the latest election-related news. What do you think about where we are right now? I can't call it. I'm not asking you to call it. I'm just asking you to help us understand. Like, where is that momentum going? It is heading towards Trump.

But what's interesting is that with Harris focused on why she should be elected president, that's when her numbers grew. She's had the best 60 days of any presidential candidate in modern history. And then the moment that she turned anti-Trump and focused on him and said, don't vote for me, vote against him, that's when everything froze. And if she continues just to define this race as vote against Trump, she's going to stay where she is now and she may lose. Sound advice from pollster Frank Luntz, who has noticed, like pretty much everyone else,

that the Harris campaign has in fact made a pivot in the type of messaging that they've engaged in during this presidential campaign. And since that pivot was made, she has kind of been paralyzed in the polling. And Donald Trump has been able to close his lead, or close her lead, I should say, on him nationally and in some of these swing states. So it's certainly concerning. We have less than two weeks to go in this presidential election. And early voting has already taken place. And in In fact, there's a record number of early votes in states like Georgia. And so it might be too late in some instances for Kamala Harris to change course, but I think it would be better for her to change course now rather than continue on.

But there is some good news on that end. So please stick around for the examples that I'm going to show you. Now, look, her campaign lately has consisted of, yes, campaigning with neocons like Liz Cheney. You guys all know how I feel about that. I think that that's a mistake. But there's also a lot of negative campaigning, very similar to what we saw from Joe Biden, in regard to Donald Trump. So, for instance, there's a new Harris campaign ad where you have like this ominous, you know, disembodied voice that warns about what will happen in a second Trump term, that it'll be worse than his first. He's going to be surrounded by loyalists who will only enable him.

Then you have certain rally events, like the one that recently happened in Erie, Pennsylvania, where she warned about Project 2025. So you get the point, you know, it's more negative messaging, which is pretty different from the joyous, positive, optimistic messaging we saw from Harris once she was named as Joe Biden's replacement. She also has called Trump increasingly unhinged, and she says that Trump poses a threat to our fundamental freedoms. Now, look, whether you agree with that message or not, put that aside, right?

This is about what is working in terms of persuading the electorate to support her over Donald Trump or over the decision to just stay home or write in a candidate. And so today she actually held a press conference where she repeated former Trump chief of staff John Kelly's claims that Trump is a fascist. Take a look. He said he wanted generals like Adolf Hitler had. Donald Trump said that because he does not want a military that is loyal to the United States Constitution. He wants a military that is loyal to him. He wants a military who will be loyal to him personally, one that will obey his orders, even when he tells them to break the law or abandon their oath to the Constitution.

of the United States. So again, you know, these types of stories, these types of statements about Donald Trump coming from the Harris campaign are obviously the types of statements that would concern Democratic voters. But Democratic voters are already on Kamala Harris' side. They're already planning to vote for her. So it's really about the undecided voters. And that's what the pollsters have been focusing on. And they've realized that there are pretty much no gain. for the Kamala Harris campaign as she engages in the negative campaigning. Again, you can agree with what she is saying.

You can agree that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. That is different from whether or not that messaging is persuasive to the undecided voters. Now, clearly, resorting to shaming, by the way, voters has been counterproductive to some extent. I'll give you the example of Obama telling black male voters that, you know, if they're hesitant or don't want to vote for Kamala Harris, well, it must be because they have an issue with sexism or misogyny. I'm paraphrasing clearly. And look, I'm going to be honest. I'm actually kind of shocked at how angry people got after that statement. I know I personally would be annoyed if, you know, I came out and said, oh, I'm iffy about Kamala Harris and someone accused me of being sexist or racist. or something like that. I'd be annoyed by that for sure. But in previous presidential campaigns, there has been a lot of shaming from the Democratic Party, from the Democratic campaign. And I tend to feel like to some extent it works, but it didn't work when it came to Obama's statements about, you know, young black male voters. And so there was an interesting segment

done by MSNBC. Alex Wagner talked to some voters at a barbership. Obviously, this is anecdotal evidence. It's not indicative of how all black males in the country are feeling. But I think what they had to say was worth listening to. So let's take a look. Obama made remarks on the campaign trail. He was at a stop. It's Berg.

It's Berg, right. And he said, I think there's some brothers out there who are on the fence. And they're saying it's because of this or that. But I think I'm paraphrasing here. But it's because they have a problem electing a woman as president. I was deeply offended, and it felt like a moment where it's like, you inwards better get in line and do what we say. And it felt like him as the czar of the Democratic Party coming down to say, go get these inwards in line. And the general tone of it was disgusting.

It was abhorrent. I don't respect it. I didn't like nothing about it. And Kamala, two days after that, is like, we love our black men. We have programs and things that we're rolling out for them, and she rolled out policy. You know, because I'm tired of the good cop day and come. I'm tired of. I thought that point about the good cop bad cop was just so observant because it's so true.

And, you know, not only in this specific case, but you see that play out in congressional issues all the time. You know, when you have various factions within the Democratic Party debating the passage of legislation, you see the good bad cop nonsense all the time. In fact, when Biden's agenda was being debated among Democrats in the Senate, remember, the bad cops were the Kirsten Cinemas and the Joe Mansions, but there was a whole host of other Democratic corporate Democrats in the Senate who certainly were not on board with some of the social safety net programs that Biden purported to be in favor of. So I totally hear that when they talk about good cop, bad cop. But anyway, I also want to note that in that conversation. There were individuals, young males, who said, yeah, there is to some extent an

issue of sexism in the country. So they made general comments about that. But overall, all of the feedback that I have seen since Obama, you know, kind of tried to shame black voters into supporting Kamala. It's been negative. And so I think that there is limited utility to that type of negative campaigning as well. So what are people looking for? I don't think that it's really that difficult to figure it out. People are looking for a message that gives them hope, something to look forward to, a reason, a policy, something to latch onto that voters can, you know, cite as their reason for why the candidate that they're voting for, they believe will make their lives better. And I do think that Kamala Harris started out that way. I don't know why she made

the pivot, but the pivot has not worked out well for her. It is reflected in the polling. And I want to give you even more information about this because, as you guys all know, when you look at the polling in regard to what the priorities are for the voters, what's at the top of that list every single time? The economy. It's the economy, stupid. It's not rocket science. And so there was an interesting poll done. This was a data that was compiled by the Center for Working Class politics in partnership with you gov. And they recently tested various political messages on workers of every kind, blue collar workers, voters in battleground state, in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. They also polled, you know, professionals, white collar workers. You guys get the

point. And they wanted to see, okay, what kind of messaging from Kamala Harris would actually appeal to these American workers. And it is pretty incredible to see it because it seems pretty intuitive. But I hope that Harris's campaign is getting this message. So here's what they found. Economically focused messages and messages that employed a populist narrative, fared best relative to Trump-style messages about Biden's competence, immigration, corporate elites, critical race.

theory, inflation, election integrity, and tariffs. Meanwhile, Harris's messages on abortion and immigration fared worse than any of the economic or populist messages we tested, which is an interesting finding because obviously the rollback of reproductive rights has been a massive political liability for the Republican Party. That was certainly the case in the midterm elections. And I think Democrats were kind of banking on that still being the case for the president. election. I still think that it's a powerful message and I have no problem with Kamala Harris talking about reproductive rights and what the rollback of those rights has done to women in many red states across the country. So I'm not telling her to drop that. But the point is the economic

messaging really did reign supreme according to what the participants of this poll were saying. Let's get to some more of it. So yet no message was as unpopular as the one we call the Democratic threat message. It was the least popular message among the working class constituencies, Harris, and the Democrats need most. Among blue-collar workers, a group that leans Republican, the Democratic threat message was a whopping 14.4.4. points underwater relative to the average support for Trump's messages, that's a big deal. That is a very big deal. Now, the study didn't really go into why that is.

Like, why is it that the threat to democracy messaging isn't really working out well for the voters? It could be, you know, an element of fatigue, right? hearing the same message and the same, you know, scare tactics starts to lose its effectiveness. The more and more you hear it, that's a possibility. It could be that some voters just don't believe it for whatever reason. And look, we're talking about blue collar workers who tend to lean Republican. So maybe they're more primed to not believe a message like that.

So why don't we take a look at left-leaning voters that participated in this polling? Among more liberal, leaning, service, and clerical workers, it was also the least popular message, finishing only 1.6 percentage points ahead of the Trump average, even among professionals, the most liberal of the bunch and the group that liked the message the best, the message barely outperformed Trump's messages. That is insane. I would not have predicted that. That is incredibly surprising. But the opposite is true when it comes to, economic populist messaging because people are going to worry about what's happening in their personal lives and they're going to worry about their personal finances and whether or not

they are thriving before anything else. And remember, guys, I think this is just my speculation, so this was not included in this polling. But my concern is that as our political system becomes more and more corrupt as a result of campaign finance laws and how unlimited you know, corporate money and billionaire money can flow into these super PACs as a result of members of Congress trading individual stocks and essentially being able to make decisions that in the end really do enrich them personally. I think Americans just don't have warm, fuzzy feelings about how this democracy is working out for them. And so when you constantly talk about like, oh, this is a threat to democracy, I think there's some portion of the electorate that looks

at our political system and thinks, this hasn't really worked out so well for me. I'm worried about what's happening in my bank account. I'm worried about being able to fund my children's education. You know, these are bread and butter issues that obviously tend to concern American voters more than anything else. So let's get to some more information here. So, you know, the opposite is true when it comes to the economic populist messaging, as I mentioned. So strong populist messaging that combined progressive economic policies with strong

condemnation of billionaires, big corporations, and the politicians who serve them, actually performed the best with all workers, all workers. That includes blue collar workers, service workers, clerical workers, and even professionals, because guess what? Work is work. Work is work, people. All right, doesn't matter what your job is. People are going to want to know that if they're putting in the 40 hours a week, if they're busting their butts, if they're doing overtime, they want to make sure that they're going to be able to afford a decent life, a good life. And, you know, inflation is something that is being held against the Democratic Party because inflation became a problem under Biden. I think that it's unfair to blame Biden to some extent. I wish he had done something about the price gouging as the price gouging was happening. So I do think that he deserves some of the blame. But what I believe Kamala Harris needs to do to kind of overpower the negativity that comes along with the inflation is to be specific and clear about what she intends to do to improve the economic conditions for Americans. Among independents, the strong populist message

was best received. And this is what matters the most, guys. The independent voters, the swing voters, the undecided voters, they're the ones that both campaigns are trying to appeal to right now. So let me give you the rest of that. So while the Democratic threat message was least favored, only Democrats strongly preferred the Democratic threat message. And even then, it was among their least favorite. So Kamala Harris isn't trying to appeal to Democratic voters. They're going to show up. They're going to vote for her. She needs to appeal to the swing voters and undecided. Now, let's get to some more where, you know, the writer of this piece, Dustin Guastella, I think concisely summed up what the issue is here. He writes that if Harris

loses, it'll be because the campaign and the candidate represent a party that is now fundamentally alien to many working people, a party so beholden to the contradictory mix of interest that in the effort to appease everyone and offend no one, top strategists have rolled out a vague, unpopular, and uninspiring pitch seemingly designed to help them replay the results of the 2016 election. That very last line I don't agree with entirely. I think Hillary Clinton and the way that she campaigned in 2016 was actually far worse. But I do think that Kamala Harris has the ability to pivot back to something more inspiring. And I hope that she can get a little more specific about how she plans to basically improve the economic conditions for all American

workers. Now, here's the good news. In an NBC news interview, Harris clearly seems to be getting the message about, hey, your pivot wasn't so great. You need to pivot back. Take a look. A new NBC News poll shows that more voters think that the Biden administration policies have hurt them rather than help them. And I wonder, are the last four years an obstacle to you in race? Here's how I look at it. First of all, let me be very clear. Mine will not be a continuation of the Biden administration. I bring my own experiences, my own ideas to it. And it has informed a number of my areas of focus, most of which are, on to your point, lowering costs. So part of my plan includes what we need to do to bring down the price of groceries, including the work I

will do dealing with price gouging, something I dealt with when I was attorney general, something I will deal with going forward. All right, there you go. She's obviously trying to differentiate herself from Joe Biden. She understands that, you know, saying things like, oh, I wouldn't do anything different, isn't going to work to her advantage considering how unpopular his presidency has been. So I like that she opened with making that distinction. And then she immediately talked about economic policies. Now, I mean, grocery store inflation, like when you go to the grocery store,

yes, groceries are more expensive than they were in 2020 for sure. Sure. But inflation has slowed down. And I don't know if she's actually going to do something about it when she gets elected. But that's beside the point, right? Policy is different from the politics. She's trying to win. And so focusing on an economic message, I think, is far better than talking about how much you love Liz Cheney. And she was also asked about whether she thinks sexism is a problem. And honestly, I like this answer the most. Take a look. You've been reluctant to lean into it, to talk about the historic nature of your candidacy on the campaign trail. Why is that? Well, I'm clearly a woman. I don't need to point that out to anyone. The point that most people really care about is, can you do the job? And do you have a plan to actually focus on them? There is a big gender gap in this race. Fewer men support you right now than they did President Biden. Some of your allies have suggested there's sexism at play.

I wonder, do you think there is sexism at play here? Let me just tell you something. You've come to my events, and you will see there are men and women at those events. So the experience that I am having is one in which it is clear that regardless of someone's gender, they want to know that their president has a plan at lower cost, that their president has a plan to secure America in the context of our position around the world. Do you not see sexism as a factor in this race at all? I don't think of it that way.

My challenge is the challenge of making sure I can talk with and listen to as many voters as possible and earn their vote. I thought that was great. I thought that was perfect. She didn't take the bait. She didn't do what Hillary Clinton love to do, which is constantly whine, woe is me. I'm running a perfect campaign and it's because of the sexism or it's because of Russia and it's because of the others and it's because of the electorate. I don't think that's a winning message. I love that Kamala Harris didn't take that bait.

I think that that was perfect. So stay away from shaming people. Give them an optimistic future to look forward to and talk about how you're going to make their lives better. Okay? We've heard the negative stuff about Trump. We all know. Everyone knows.

It's just it's not working because I think it's so repetitive. And people are looking for something positive to look forward. to. They want a reason to vote for Kamala Harris as opposed to voting for Harris because they have a reason to vote against Donald Trump. I think people are fatigued from that as well. So I thought she handled that NBC News interview really well. You should check the whole thing out. And let me know what you think in the comment section. We got to take a quick break. And when we come back, we've got more, including what I think is a losing strategy. and it has to do with someone who has recently kicked out of a Harris campaign event.

I don't know why they did this. It was a bad move, and I'll give you the details when we come back. There's insanity in the control room tonight. Welcome back to the show, everyone. I just wanted to read some comments in regard to the last segment I just did. Creflow Half Dollar writes in and says, the bigger problem I have with Harris and Democrats is not campaigning with war criminals, but rather shifting their message and policy to the right, i.e. immigration, the economy,

and home ownership while neglecting renters. That's a really good point. And look, to be fair to Harris, you know, when she talks about increasing the inventory of housing, that actually does help renters. Okay, because more inventory means those who are currently renting but are interested in buying a home, who have saved up to buy a home, but the prices are just out of touch, they'd be able to do it because more housing means prices come down. That'll open up more rental units. Prices will come down in that regard as well. But look, if Kamala Harris focused on the housing message and was detailed about how she's going to get it done, how she's going to get 3 million homes built, I think that that would be an incredibly powerful message coupled with

regulations that prevent corporations and private equity firms from snatching up single family homes. Because if you're building a bunch of new homes and the private equity firms with all the capital come in and they buy it all up, we still have a housing crisis because they just become the slum lords who essentially turn those housing units that new families can buy to live in. into rentals. And remember, one of the only ways at this point that, you know, working class Americans can build any wealth is through buying a home. And that has now become totally out of touch for the vast majority of average Americans. So I totally hear you on that. Stinky, the stinky stalking full of lies says, Anna, I think you made a statement that no candidate is

owed a vote. The candidate has to earn it. It doesn't mean they will vote for Trump, but it could mean the couch, apathy, will earn their vote. That's exactly right. And look, Kamala Harris keeps saying that she intends to earn people's votes. And I like that she messages that, but her campaigning has to show that she actually means it. All right, let's get to something that was an awful decision by the Harris campaign. Luckily, there was an apology about it after the fact, but nonetheless, let's give you the details. Hello, everyone. My name is Ahmed A. G. Ganim, and I am former congressional candidate here in Oakland County. This is Royal Oak, Michigan. I live five minutes away from here. I came here to attend the rally for Vice President Harris. I went through

security. They got my name. They got me my seat. Then after 10 minutes, the staffers for Harris came and kicked me out of the venue. Kamala Harris' campaign has made the bold decision to kick Muslim leaders out of their campaign events, even as they are literally trying to persuade Muslim and Arab voters in the critical swing state of Michigan to cast their ballots for Harris in the race. Now, as we know, there's an uncommitted campaign that seeks to get Kamala Harris to agree to an arms embargo toward Israel, considering, you know, the atrocities that have been committed in the Gaza Strip. Now there's a war raging in Lebanon. There is a very possible war with Iran

coming up soon. And so I certainly sympathize with the uncommitted, you know, Arab and Muslim community who is not happy with Harris at the moment. And they have been, in some cases, you know, protesting some of her events. So I think, that that set the tone or inform their decision to preemptively toss someone out of a campaign event when they really should not have done that. So the gentleman that you just heard from is Ahmed Ghanim. He is a former Democratic congressional candidate in the Detroit area. And so he ended up losing the election to Representative Haley Stevens. Haley Stevens is a third term Democrat who has received significant backing from the pro-Israel lobby.

He immigrated to the United States from Egypt back in 2001. I'm talking about Ahmed Ghanim now and has been an outspoken critic of Israel's actions in Gaza as we have. It's one thing to allegedly want to go after Hamas, but clearly Israel has gone above and beyond and has committed all sorts of atrocities, killing journalists, targeting. you know, humanitarian aid workers. You have children with gunshot wounds to the head showing up at hospitals. They're not allowing any humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. And so he's been critical of the Democratic Party and their willingness to engage and enable the kind of bloodshed that's been going on. Now, he declined to attend

Kamala Harris's moderated discussion. I'm sorry, not declined. He decided to attend Kamala Harris's moderated discussion in Royal Oak, Michigan to listen to what she has to say, as anyone interested in engaging in the democratic process would. And he says that he, you know, went through the proper channels. Like he RSVPed for the event, he cleared security, and then he sat down in the auditorium. But according to him, Harris campaign staffers quickly booted him out. I asked, why are you picking me out? I didn't do anything. They didn't want to provide any reason and they just train me, they train me to arrest me and bring the police if I don't move. As you see me, I'm not dressed in a kofia. I don't have any logos or signs or anything

on me. I'm just dressed normally. I was just, you know, sitting like anyone sitting there. And out of the people sitting there, out of the, I think around 200 people sitting there, they picked me up and told me, come with us and they kicked me out. I guess, and I was not protesting. I didn't have any signs on me. This is really surprising to me, except for, because it's racial profiling, because you are a Muslim and Muslims are not allowed in her rally, I guess. What are we doing here?

Honestly, what are we doing here? Now, I mean, it sounds outlandish, right? Because the Democratic Party is supposed to be the tolerant party. Democratic Party is not supposed to discriminate. They're not supposed to racially profile, except when it happens. And in this case, it happened. In fact, he actually got part of the moment on security, the moment where security kicked him out on video. So let's take a look at that.

I want to know why you're kicking you out. I'm not kicking you out. The venue is good yell. Who's the venue? The venue. How would the video are you about me? I have no idea. They've asked you to leave. So I was going to do the option to go.

And unfortunately, this is no longer a conversation. So can we please escort the building, please? Thank you. Okay. I'm glad. I'm glad the Muslims like that. That's amazing. Yeah, that really is amazing.

Oh, my God. No, but it gets worse because he goes outside and guess what was waiting for him? Police. So there were two police officers waiting for him. the police officer said, you either leave now or I'll put you in the back of my car. He hasn't done anything. Okay, he went through the proper channels. He RSVPed for the event.

He cleared security. He has like, there's no indication that he's planning to protest the event. They just preemptively kicked him out. That's insane. That is insane. And wait until you find out what Trump was up to as this was happening. Not a good look, I'll put it that way. So Ghanim says that he and many other Muslims already felt pretty alienated by the Democratic Party, I think for obvious reasons.

But this is the latest incident that really doesn't help the image that the Arab American and Muslim American community in America has toward the Democratic Party and Kamala Harris's campaign. They keep saying they want the Muslim and the Arabs. But we aren't even welcome at an event. They know me. I ran there. Remember, he ran for public office. It's my district. I canvassed all over Royal Oak.

I guess that's how the Democratic Party deals with Muslims. They're not important to them. Maybe the Democratic Party doesn't want people like me and my kind in the party. This is like really gross and heartbreaking stuff. It really is. But one more comment. He says that there are hundreds of Muslims who saw that, and they feel like they are unwelcome in this party, so why bother?

It's a good point. Now, while Kamala Harris was kicking Ahmed, or her campaign was kicking Ahmed out of her event, Trump was actually hosting an event of his own. He was actually visiting Muslim leaders in Hamtrimic, Michigan, in an effort to basically win over Arab American voters. So that juxtaposition is really important for everyone to absorb now. Okay, regardless of what you think about Donald Trump, think about the optics of this whole situation. This is not a good look for Democrats.

They have lost the plot, totally lost the plot. So the city's mayor, Amir, Ghalib, is a Muslim immigrant from Yemen who campaigned on banning pride flags from city property. He endorsed Trump in September. So the Michigan chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations Care Michigan spoke out about Ghanem's treatment at the event. They say that as Donald Trump ramps up his outreach to the Muslim and Arab communities, the Harris campaign removes under threat of arrest a Muslim community leader who merely responded to an invitation. This disturbing action on the part of the Harris campaign sends a dangerous message of exclusion to the Muslim. community. Now Ghanim himself isn't even sure if he's going to vote for Kamala Harris. So great

job, Democrats, mission accomplished. When asked, he responded by saying, I don't know if you were kicked out of her campaign, would you vote for her? And in a statement on Monday, and this is an admission of guilt. So I'm glad that this is an apology, but it is also an admission that his, you know, description of events was true. The campaign was swiftly informed of yesterday's incident and looked into it. Our campaign regrets this action and its impact on Dr. Ghanim and the community. And he is welcome at future events. Wow, thank you.

We value our relationship with the Muslim American community and are committed to ensuring all community and political spaces are welcoming and respectful to every American. So this was a pretty terrible foible. Look, I've been critical of Harris on this issue, on the issue of Gaza, on the issue of Israel. You guys know that. But it's just been really. frustrating to see Harris on multiple occasions make the wrong choice when she's given an opportunity to really reach out to this, you know, this portion of the electorate that she

desperately needs. And rather than consider the fact that, hey, working with them, talking to them, appealing to them, it's going to be a far easier path for me to win the election, she has instead decided to campaign with Liz Cheney, okay, and try to skim off the Republican vote, disillusioned Republicans. It's going to be far harder to persuade Republicans to vote for her, as opposed to the Arab American or Muslim American vote, which historically did support her or support the Democratic Party. But because of this ongoing war in the Middle East, Obviously, Democrats have fallen out of favor. So even if Ahmed's ejection was a terrible misunderstanding, it's not like her campaign has been, you know, really making any gains with this community.

They've made a lot of other missteps. Leaders from the uncommitted movement have said that Harris repeatedly declined to meet with them. And at the Democratic National Convention in August, as some of you might already know, the party refused to even let Georgia State Representative. Democratic surrogates, they prevented her from being able to deliver a pre-approved speech. I mean, by the way, in the middle of the day. So it wasn't going to be like some headliner on one of the nights of the Democratic National Convention. She just wanted an opportunity to speak for five minutes. And it was a speech that she was willing to provide to the campaign so they can pre-approve it and be okay with it before she did.

speak. And that Georgia state representative was Rua Roman, and she was rejected by the Democratic Party. Now, if Kamala Harris fails to make change and basically distance herself from Biden's policies, there is a real chance that she will lose Michigan. So in February, 101,623 Michigan voters, 13.2% of the electorate cast ballots for uncommitted in the state's Democratic presidential primary, a coalition of leftists, Arab Americans, Muslims, and young voters propelled by opposition to the Biden administration's support for Israel amid its ongoing bombardment of Gaza, which has killed more than 41,000 people. Political scientist Yosef Shahood projects that if 40% of Arab and Muslim voters abstain or vote third party, the net loss for Harris

could be 44,000 votes in Michigan. And that would be absolutely devastating. Now, keep in mind that Trump won Michigan before. He won Michigan in 2016 by a measly 10,704 votes. So right now, he is slightly ahead according to an average of polls. Take a quick look at this. So again, this is Michigan. This is based on the real clear politics average.

of polls and it shows Donald Trump at 48.4%. Harris at 47.2%. What are you guys doing, man? Harris has issues with Arab American voters and it goes beyond Michigan. It's not just about Michigan. So Harris and Trump are in a virtual tie among Arab American voters nationally, according to a poll that was released earlier this month by the Arab American Institute, leaving the vice president, I'm sorry, yeah, leaving the vice president 18 points behind Biden's level of support back in 2020. And a newer Yucuff poll actually showed Trump pulling ahead of Kamala Harris among Arab Americans, though it's still in the margin of error.

So why the massive shift? Well, they see how the Democratic Party has ignored their preferences or the preferences of its own members, 77% of whom believe the United States should not send weapons to Israel. So you guys get the point. I think that this is one of the biggest foibles of the Democratic Party of the Harris campaign. And I think that this is a prime example of a growing issue for the Democrats overall. Because as political corruption becomes more and more extreme in every election cycle, you know, Kamala Harris has raised a billion dollars. You have to keep in mind, the desires of the donors, the big money donors and the bundlers differ from the desires of the electorate. And eventually that tension is something that the Democratic Party is not going to be able to solve because, yeah, you could raise the money, which sure you need for the political campaigning, for the ads and all of that. But if that money comes with strings attached, and those are strings that your voters don't like, well, all that political campaigning ain't going to mean much. And I really think that

is the main reason why Democrats tend to lean into the negative anti-Trump campaigning, as opposed to giving Democratic voters and swing voters, independent voters, an optimistic vision for the future of the country, because that optimistic vision would require, you know, detailed economic policy plans. People like Mark Cuban don't like that. The voters don't like that. And so eventually the Democrats are going to have to make a decision. You're going to have to reject some of that money. And you're going to have to actually listen to the voters if you want to get elected.

Otherwise, what good is your fundraising? All right. We've got to take a break. We'll be right back. All right. We've got a lot more news to get to, including an interesting moment featuring Joe Biden, who is out there campaigning on behalf of Kamala Harris. It's a guy who also wants to replace every civil servant, every single one, thinks he has a right of the Supreme Court ruling on immunity to be able, if need be, if it was the case, to actually eliminate, physically eliminate, shoot, kill someone who,

who is a, he believes to be the threat to him. I mean, so I know this sounds bizarre. It sounds like I said this five years ago, you'd lock me up. We got to lock him up. Uh-oh. Biden just accidentally suggested that Trump should be locked up, but he does, to his credit, try to clarify, let's see if he does a good job.

Take a look. Political document. Lock him out. That's what you'd have to do. Okay, so he clarifies. It's clear. He says politically lock him up. Look, I don't think that what happened there was a sign of his mental decline.

I mean, when you're speaking off the cuff, sometimes you misspeak. And then he immediately clarified. So I don't want to be too hard on him for that moment. But it didn't work out in Kamala Harris's favor because, of course, the Trump campaign capitalized on it. they used it to their advantage. And I want to show you what I mean. So the Trump war room on Twitter posted, Joe Biden just said the quiet part out loud. We got to lock President Trump up. And, you know, if you've paid any attention to Trump's campaigning, what he's been doing is, of course, making him out to be himself out to be a victim of lawfare, someone that the Democratic

Party wants to throw in prison. And to be fair to Trump, there have been prominent Democrats who have talked about wanting to throw him in prison. It's just that this particular campaign event was not an example of it. Now, Biden's fumble came as he was speaking in New Hampshire this week on Tuesday, and now current and former administration officials are basically trashing him. Okay, so just pause and absorb what I just said. Current and former Biden administration officials are now trashing him. Like, okay. So Alex Thompson, who's a report, over at Axios mentioned that a former Biden official texted him and said some pretty damn harsh stuff. Okay, so noting this could be politically unhelpful to Harris, a former Biden

administration official texts me, quote, we got to lock Joe up. And then he followed that up with someone who's currently in the Biden administration. A counterpoint from a current Biden administration official. For better or worse, no one is listening to him anymore and his words have little power and less reach. It's a blip, gone in any meaningful way by midday tomorrow if it makes it that long. Um, okay, okay, that's also not a good thing to say. Because remember, Joe Biden is currently the president of the United States. And when you put out a statement about how no one listens to him, like no one takes this guy seriously anyway, yeah, that doesn't really inspire a lot of faith in Americans, that the country

is being led by the person who got elected in 2020. So that was a stupid statement to put out, but they did it. And it's a current Biden administration official. Now, to her credit, Harris isn't playing into the lock him up chance. Apparently, there was a recent campaign stop where some of the rally goers started chanting lock him up, meaning lock Trump up. And here's what Kamala Harris said. She stopped it. And she says, hold on, the courts are going to handle that part of it. What we're going to do is beat him in November. And then the crowd went wild and cheered. Now, I want to talk a little bit about something that's come out as a result of Bob Woodward's late.

book war where he basically details how Biden's behavior at donor events all the way back to last summer, the summer of 2023, were concerning to the donors. They were worried about his mental fitness. So a full year before the American people were aware of just how bad Biden's mental decline was as a result of that horrible debate performance, you have the richest people in this country, Democratic donors, fully aware of how concerning his condition was. How is that right? I mean, think about that. It would have been far better for everyone to know the truth earlier.

It would have been far better for Biden to not run for a second term and to allow for a robust primary process. So the best possible candidate would be the Democratic nominee running against Donald Trump. But we didn't get that opportunity. And we didn't get that opportunity because a lot of people provided cover for Biden and lied on his behalf. So let's go to some excerpts from his book. The first fundraiser hosted by Kevin Scott, the chief technology officer of Microsoft at his home in Los Gatos in June or on June 19th was attended by 38 guests, including some of the most serious slash wealthy Democratic donors.

the Valley. The event raised $2.7 million for Biden's re-election fund. Guess, however, said that Biden was frighteningly awful. It was like your 87-year-old senile grandfather wandering around the room, saying to women, guess, your eyes are so beautiful. A donor acknowledged he had probably woken up very early, but appeared tired. He could not wait to sit down and only took two prearranged questions. He carried a handful of note cards with the answers printed out, but even then seemed to wander off point. But Biden was allegedly very energetic at another event later that day. I don't know what happened, but the people who were at that event claimed that he seemed perfectly fine. But then there were other troubling signs about a week later,

according to Bob Woodward's book, War. So there was another fundraiser that took place on June 27, 2023. Guests described their interactions with Biden as painful. Great. So Bill Reich Blum, who's a co-founder and president of Liberty's Journal Foundation, who attended the event, said that he never completed a sentence. He would start to talk about something, jump somewhere else. He told the same story three times in exactly the same way, and it meandered so much.

Frankly, my impression was there were times it was as though he, that we didn't exist. Jesus is so bad. He was just rambling and talking as to what came into his head. Biden seemed to him like an elderly grandparent or a parent who talks and talks, but makes no sense. And so I want to know why all the people who lie to us in the press, haven't been fired. I'm being serious. I'm not kidding.

And I usually don't call for people to be fired because I don't want people's livelihoods to be in jeopardy. But usually I'm talking about normal people, not incredibly wealthy individuals like the hosts of Morning Joe, who lied to us, who in fact continue to lie to us

even after that horrible debate performance. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, why don't we take a look at Mika Brzezinski from Morning Joe? Joe, who immediately downplayed Joe Biden's horrific campaign performance, debate performance. Let's take a look. President Biden let every fastball hanging out over the plate go right by for a strike for Donald Trump. That was an indication that he was just not up to it last night.

Okay, okay, okay, hold on a second. I agree with everything you said, except for the last part of it. Everybody calmed down, and I'll tell you why. I mean, it's fine to not spin what happened last night. And we're not going to. But by the way, Mika, everybody's calm here. No, you're the only one raising your voice. Everybody is calm here.

But again, it's the, let's just immediately pull this. Let's end this. Let's find someone else. Yeah, yeah, they should have. They should have immediately found someone else. And by found someone else, Biden should have immediately stepped down. Look, I get it was his decision to make, and there had to be a tremendous amount of pressure for him to do that. But it would take him a month to finally make the correct decision.

And what he basically did is kneecap his replacement candidate, because that was another month of campaigning. That was another month that maybe there could have actually been, you know, some sort of primary process where voters would get to decide. But here we are. I mean, it's just so frustrating that people still watch that show and take. these people seriously. Now Mika and Joe tried to provide cover for Biden repeatedly. That wasn't the only example. Take another look. By the way, it's very funny. David Axelrod a couple nights ago was going through what, when Joe Biden spoke on Sunday night, he cut a word off. And David Axelrod, of course, had to bring that up. And then got someone's name wrong. And then got somebody's name

wrong. So does David Axelrod need to get off of, I mean, this happens. Media people keep going, oh, Joe Biden confused names. Then they throw to somebody and they confuse the name. We know we do that. But then he also in that news conference talked about his. How do people take them seriously at all? But it's not just Mika and Joe. I mean, Mika's got a personal relationship with Joe Biden

and she allowed that personal relationship to get in the way of being honest and truthful with her audience. You know, it's interesting because I know of an actual journalist who recently was let go from a big publication, New York Magazine, for having a personal relationship that she didn't disclose. And that personal relationship upon review of her work had no impact on her reporting. Everything she reported was accurate and truthful. She got fired anyway. Yes, I'm talking about Olivia Nuzzi. She gets fired. Mika Brzezinski lied on behalf of her friend. She's still employed. People trust her. And if you trust,

Trust her, man, I've got a bridge to sell you. Amazing. But they're not the only ones. Here's Lawrence O'Donnell, weighing in on Biden's mental health after he gave a speech at a NATO conference. Take a look. What followed was nothing less than the most masterful, televised presidential press conference about foreign policy. There have been other presidential press conferences that have exhibited mastery at different points by some presidents. But on foreign policy, complex foreign policy, involving the Middle East and the situation in Ukraine, this is as good as it gets. I just, I can't. I really can't. How do people watch this garbage? Total slop. I mean, they live. lied to you. They lied to all of us. I mean, I knew they were lying as they were doing it. We covered these videos and we were outraged by it. But did they think they were helping the Democrats?

They weren't helping the Democrats. Just so utterly pathetic. Anyway, all right, we're out of time. I guess I won't go over, Kate. I guess we'll bring John in, even though I want to do one more story. So we're going to take a break. And when John comes back, we've got a lot more news to get to, including that story that I was referencing earlier about a campaign stop where a reporter got shot. Kind of. We'll be right back. You have insanity in my earpiece.