What A Day - Harris' A-List Surrogates Take Center Stage

Episode Date: October 28, 2024

Former President Donald Trump made his closing pitch to voters Sunday at a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City. His speech leaned heavily on the dehumanizing anti-immigrant rhetoric that��s defined his third run for the presidency. Even his warm-up speakers sank to new xenophobic lows, with one calling Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage.” Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris spent her Sunday campaigning in Philadelphia after blockbuster rallies with Michelle Obama and Beyoncé. Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore stops by to talk about the role of campaign surrogates in the final stretch to Election Day.And in headlines: Trump sat for a three-hour interview with podcast host Joe Rogan, The Washington Post is the latest major newspaper to have its Harris endorsement blocked by its billionaire owner, and Israel launched a retaliatory strike against Iran. Show Notes:Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/3kk4nyz8What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcastFollow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

It's Monday, October 28th. I'm Jane Koston, and this is What A Day, the show that is standing up for people who do not like horror movies. Look, I'm aware, it's spooky season, but I don't want to be spooked, nor do I want to be scared, and I do not want to be horrified. I would like to be gently amused. Can we do gentle amusement? On today's show, even Joe Rogan thinks Donald Trump's election denialism is excessive. And what did the Fifth Circuit Court do now? But first, former President Donald Trump

made his closing pitch to voters Sunday in New York City at Madison Square Garden. Speaking to a packed arena, Trump, as he always does, focused a lot on immigration in gross and dehumanizing ways. Kamala has imported criminal migrants from prisons and jails, insane asylums and mental institutions from all around the world, from Venezuela to the Congo. A lot of people are coming from the Congo prisons. They're coming from all over the world, from Venezuela to the Congo. A lot of people are coming from the Congo prisons.

They're coming from all over the world. Over the last month, 181 countries violated our laws. Trump's warm-up speakers included his running mate, J.D. Vance, disgraced former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former senior advisor Stephen Miller, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and billionaire Elon Musk, and they kept things pretty chill. No, no, actually, they absolutely did not keep it chill. In fact, they sank to really abhorrent and terrifying new lows. Speakers called Vice President Kamala Harris the Antichrist and the Devil. One called former Democratic

presidential nominee Hillary Clinton a sick son of a... I'll let you finish that sentence. Another speaker made a really vile comment about Latinos and the number of children that they have and called Puerto Rico a floating island of trash. So yeah, in sum, the whole thing was absolutely bonkers and did absolutely nothing to draw new voters to Trump and absolutely everything to make me think once again, no thank you. I mean, when Hulk Hogan is saying stuff like this. You know something, Trump maniacs? I don't see no stinking Nazis in here. I don't see no stinking domestic terrorists in here. My basic position has been, if you need to say something like that,

perhaps that is indicative of something. Anyway, while all that was going on, Vice President Kamala Harris started her Sunday at some smaller events. She visited a predominantly black church in West Philadelphia, followed by visits to some local businesses in the area. She ended the day with a rally in the city,

where she did keep things chill while still imploring people to vote. And let's knock on doors. Let's text and call potential voters. Let's reach out to our family and our friends and our classmates and our neighbors. Tell them about the stakes in this election and tell them about their power. Her comparatively quieter Sunday came after two days of rallies that drew huge crowds, in part because of who Harris was campaigning with. On Saturday, she was in Kalamazoo, Michigan, with former First Lady Michelle Obama. Speaking to roughly 7,000 people, Obama delivered a searing speech,

largely centered on reproductive rights, and the gender divide in the election that shows more men supporting Trump. So I am asking y'all from the core of my being to take our lives seriously. Please. Do not put our lives in the hands of politicians, mostly men, who have no clue or do not care about what we as women are going through. And on Friday, Harris rallied with the Queen Bee herself, Beyonce, in Houston, Texas, a state that's not thought to be in play for Democrats this election cycle. Still, an estimated 30,000 people showed up to hear the superstar speak on behalf of the

vice president in a speech that also focused on reproductive rights. I'm not here as a celebrity. I'm not here as a politician. I'm here as a mother. A mother who cares deeply about the world, children and all of our children live in, a world where we have the freedom to control our bodies, a world where we're not divided. The role of the campaign surrogate is front and center for both Trump and Harris as we head into the last full week of stumping ahead of Election Day. So I spoke with one of the most prominent politicians out there making the case for Harris right now, Maryland Democratic Governor Wes Moore. He stopped by the show to talk about

what he's hearing on the campaign trail and what he thinks Harris's closing message should be. Governor Moore, welcome to What Today. It's good to be with you. This is great. So you've been a surrogate on behalf of the Harris campaign throughout this cycle. What does that role mean to you? And what's been the most effective message you've shared in your view? It means a lot because it really is going to show to people that this election matters to us. And listen, you know, I got breaking news for you. Maryland's going to vote for Kamala Harris. You know what I mean? Like that's not information to anybody.

But the reason that we're going out there and particularly places like Michigan and Wisconsin and Georgia and North Carolina, and have literally been spending day after day after day on this, is that we're saying this election matters to all of us. And I'm leaning for all the people in these swing states to basically be our proxy, that we have so much on the line here. And it's not just about the fear of an alternative, because I can spend all day talking about the fear of the alternative. The reason that I'm all in is because I believe in Kamala Harris and her vision. I believe in what she is offering. I believe in the type of future that she will forge for all of us.

And I've had a chance to see firsthand as one of our nation's governors that she takes the word partnership seriously. And I know that's going to matter when she elevates to the Oval Office. What does a surrogate add to the campaign? We've seen lots of enthusiasm for you, for Michelle Obama, for Beyonce joining Harris on the campaign trail. But does that translate to actual votes? I think it does. You know, one of the things I know is whether we're talking to young voters or whether we're talking to the military community or whether we're talking to African American voters or people of color, et cetera. I mean, these are all constituencies that we know that we have built in our time and there is support and there's

trust and really what we're able to do is we know that the vice president as amazing and as energetic as she is, she's one person and so people will look to the surrogates and they'll look to others who they trust and say, tell us your pitch, tell us your argument, tell us why you're supporting her. And we know that especially in this condensed time period, we all have been standing in unison and really locking arms and saying, we are going to make sure that in all of our groups, in all of our constituencies, in all the places who we speak to, letting them know not just that we're supporting the vice president, but why. Now, Governor, you and I both know Democrats are very anxious people. And there's been a lot of internal questioning about how the

Harris campaign's closing argument, should it focus more on Trump? Should it focus less on Trump? I know if you watch football this weekend, you saw a bunch of swing state ads that were focused heavily on the economy. But also, Vice President Harris has been talking a lot about Trump and fascism. What's your take on that? Should Harris focus her message more on Trump, less on Trump? What do you think? I think that she is doing a good job of being able to balance an argument because you have to understand that Donald Trump, what he stands for, the policies

he's pushing for, it does matter. Because in an election like this, it is a binary choice. One or two people is going to be the next president of the United States. And so it's important that people can hold two things in their minds and in their hearts when they're going in to vote. One is understanding that what Donald Trump stands for, for the values that he brings, it's not consistent with American values. However, you're not going to win an election on that alone. And then people are still saying, we're not going to turn out to vote in droves because we're voting against something. We're going to turn out in droves because we're voting for something. And so I think she is also centering

her message on how do we focus on affordability and economic growth? How are we making sure we're focusing on things like making life just a little bit easier for working class families? And frankly, I mean, I'm with you where I hear a lot of the hand-wringing and a lot of the, well, she should be doing this and she should be doing that. But the thing I would just say to people, particularly people who believe like I do, that she needs to be the next president of the United States is, let's focus on what we should be doing. Because we now have less than 10 days. That's it. And so I just do not want anybody to wake up on November 6th and say, I should have done more. Or I spent the last final days

questioning a policy instead of saying, what exactly did you do to make sure that we got the numbers and got the votes needed in order for her to be successful? Let's talk about the great state of Maryland. As a former resident of the DMV, I'm a little surprised by how poorly former Republican Governor Larry Hogan is doing in the Senate race against Democratic nominee Angela Also Brooks. Do you think the behavior of the national GOP is impacting how Hogan is viewed in this race? What else do you think is going on? I think there's a few things going on. For the old governor, I mean, yes, he came in as the favorite because he had 100% name recognition. He was a governor for eight years, and he left with good popularity numbers. But I think there's a few miscalculations that were made.

One is when he got in, he did not have Vice President Harris at the top of the ticket, and I think that's infused extra energy into the race. I think he also got in assuming that Angela Altsabrooks, the person who I endorsed over a year ago, he assumed she wasn't going to win the primary. And she is a very good candidate and she'll be a very good senator for our state. I also do think that there are certain issues that he has a very complicated history with that are top of mind for Maryland voters right now. Maryland voters care that we are going to have Maryland as a safe haven for abortion rights. In fact, reproductive health is on the ballot right now in the state of Maryland. And while he was the governor, he vetoed legislation

to enhance privacy. He vetoed legislation to enhance protections. He would not release, and by my first day of office, I released three and a half million dollars of previously unreleased funds because he would not release them for political reasons. And so he can run around and say he's pro-choice all he wants right now. But the truth is, as James Baldwin said, you know, I cannot believe what you say because I see what you do. And he now has to be held to account for his actions. Governor, there's been a lot, a lot of talk about Black men and how they're voting in this election.

In your conversations about the election with other Black men, what are they saying? Well, I think that a lot of what they're saying and just a feeling of skepticism about the race is not about Kamala Harris. And it's not about the Democratic Party. Frankly, I think it's more about the pace of progress in the United States. And I think that's fair. And I think that's justified because progress has been remarkably uneven, especially when you're talking about its impact on Black men, where oftentimes policy has been used as a cudgel to halt advancement and not something that's been used to increase advancement. And I say this from a personal testimony. One of the earliest memories I have

of my life was watching my father die in front of me because he didn't get the healthcare that he needed. There was policies that impacted why my mother, who was then an immigrant single mom, who raised three kids on her own unexpectedly, didn't get her first job that gave her benefits until I was 14 years old. These are policies that left us in place. So a lot of there is this there is a skepticism. The thing that I think that people are missing is when you look at what's happening right now, as we've been on the ground for months, as people continue to hear more about not just the background of the vice president, but her policies, the fact that she's the only major candidate in the history of presidential politics to actually put together an opportunity agenda for Black men and what that's going to mean for

Black male economic advancement, that she's talking about things like being able to add $25,000 down payments for first-time homebuyers, something that could have a significant impact, not just on home ownership, but on the racial wealth gap. Like these are powerful ideas that have a real chance of being policy. This matters to black men. And frankly, she's the only one of the two candidates that's giving tangible ideas and solutions about ways to be able to create measurements of work, wages, and wealth. And so I think that one thing we are going to see come election day is a lot of the concern that people have about Black men turning out is Black men, we're going to turn out and we're going to turn out for Kamala Harris. But that's because she's done the work to earn it. As you mentioned, we're just about a week out

from election day. What's your elevator pitch? What are you telling people? What are you saying your pitch for Vice President Kamala Harris? My pitch is at the end of the day, who sits in that seat as the president of the United States, it matters. Because they are gonna make decisions every single day that will not just have impact on our lives now, they will have impact on the lives of generations to come. And I want someone who sees us. I want someone who knows us. I want someone who believes in us. And I want someone who has a history of fighting for us. That person is Kamala Harris because I've seen her when it was hard. I've seen her when it was tough and there has never been a

question about who she stands for and who she fights for. She fights for the American people, she fights for us and she doesn't fight for herself. And so my pitch to the people is when you want to know somebody has to sit in that seat, find someone who sees you. And that person, regardless of where you are in this country, regardless of what your interests are, that person is Kamala Harris. Governor Moore, thank you so much for taking the time to join us. I appreciate you so much. Thank you.

That was my conversation with Maryland Democratic Governor Wes Moore, who's also a surrogate for the Harris campaign. We'll get to the news in a moment. But if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. And now, the news. Headlines. They say that made, I don't believe it's this much, but it doesn't have to.

I won by like, I lost by like, I didn't lose, but they say I lost Joe. That is funny, Joe. Donald Trump appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience on Friday to appeal to young male voters. The two talked for three hours in Austin, Texas, while Trump left rally attendees in Michigan waiting in the cold. Imagine pissing off that many Michiganders on purpose. Couldn't be me. Trump spent the podcast doing more of his normal thing, praising dictators, disparaging migrants, anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, the 2020 election, and lies about crowd size, among other things. I want to talk about 2020 because you said over and over again that you were robbed in 2020.

Yeah, totally. How do you think you were robbed? Everybody always cuts you off. Well, they not only cut you off. What I'd rather do is we'll do it another time, and I would bring in papers that you would not believe. So many different papers. So many different papers.

But Joe Rogan sounded skeptical. Because the ballots weren't signed. They weren't originals. We could go into this stuff. We could go into the ballots or we could go into the overall. I'll give you another one. Are you going to present this ever? No.

He will never present this, Joe, because it doesn't exist. At least 29 million people have now watched the episode on YouTube, which is full of rambling moments like this one. Fighting was like almost just an average fight. I lost numerous times, but he beat this one guy. So I said, OK, I really don't know who you're talking about. Me neither, Joe Rogan. Me neither.

The Washington Post announced Friday that it will not endorse Harris or Trump. The Post is now one of two major newspapers that have broken their longstanding traditions of backing a presidential candidate. The other was the LA Times earlier this month. The decisions at both papers were ultimately made by their billionaire owners who stand to lose business in a Trump presidency. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who owns the Post, and L.A. Times owner Patrick Soon-Cheong. Both The Post and The Times have historically endorsed Democrats. Writers from both The Post and The Times have publicly called out their employers for the refusal to endorse, accusing them of caving to their owners' interests.

There's not going to be some mass deportation of 10 million people. There will not be. U.S. Republican Senator Ron Johnson made headlines this weekend when he seemingly distanced himself from everything Donald Trump has ever said about his immigration policy. Last week, Trump promised to deport 10 million migrants if he's elected to a second term in the White House, a policy that many experts have said would be near impossible to carry out. But Johnson said that mass deportations will not happen under Trump during a visit to the

GOP's Hispanic Community Center in his home state of Wisconsin. Might be a little bit different than what occurred from some Republicans in the past, okay? But we have to be realistic. Though polling by the New York Times shows that the vast majority of respondents do believe Trump will keep his promise to deport millions of people. Because, as you might know, he keeps saying he wants to deport millions of people. On Saturday, Israel says it attacked 20 military targets in Iran

in retaliation for Iranian missile attacks earlier this month. Here's President Joe Biden speaking with reporters in Pennsylvania on Saturday. It looks like they didn't hit anything other than military targets. My hope is this is the end. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attack achieved, quote, all its objectives. Iranian officials have not returned any fire. They said they would respond appropriately and clarified that they don't want a war. U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has encouraged Israel and Iran to stop exchanging fire and use diplomacy.

Both countries have described their attacks as precise and limited. And that's the news. One more thing. On Friday, a federal appeals court ruled against a really important Mississippi voting law. The court said mail-in ballots that arrive after election day shouldn't be counted, even if they were postmarked by Election Day. So rather than panic, I thought, hey, let's hear from someone smart about what this actually means. So I asked Leah Littman, co-host of Crooked's Strict Scrutiny podcast, to cut through the legalese and get to the heart of what this actually means for you. Leah Littman, welcome to What Today. Thanks for having me. So what exactly happened here? What was the initial law and why did the Fifth Circuit rule

it invalid? So the law at issue is Mississippi's and it's like a law that exists in many different states. It allows election officials to count ballots that are received after election day, so long as the ballots are postmarked by election day. And 18 states as well as the District of Columbia have those laws, many of them propped up during the pandemic because election officials were struggling to process the volume of absentee ballots by election day. And the Fifth Circuit thought, you know what, that sounds illegal to me. And so they decided that it is in fact illegal on the basis of a 100-year-old law that no one had ever thought before made it illegal to count ballots that were received after election day. What does this mean for the election? Is it just a Mississippi thing? Also,

why is it always the Fifth Circuit? Why? It is always the Fifth Circuit because Republicans have basically stacked that court with the most extreme ideologues. My co-host Melissa calls the Fifth Circuit the meth lab of conservative grievance, and I think she's onto something. But this decision is likely not going to affect the 2024 presidential election, either in Mississippi or elsewhere in the Fifth Circuit. And that's because the Court of Appeals actually sent the case back down to the trial court to determine what the remedy is. And it's likely that the court will say, we courts can't actually modify the election rules while an election is already underway.

There's a doctrine called Purcell that directs courts not to change election rules too close to an election lest it be confusing. And I think it's extremely likely that the district court will invoke that doctrine and say this injunction will basically apply in future elections, but not the one that is underway. But it's not guaranteed that it won't affect the upcoming election. It's not guaranteed. That is just a prediction. But I do think it's likely, you know, the trial court in this case, respected precedent and common sense by upholding the Mississippi law. So I think

they are likely to apply a common sense understanding of the law and say this wild ruling can't go into effect just yet. Fool me once, fool me twice, maybe this is naive, but I'm not super concerned that this is necessarily going to go into effect for this election. So you and I both know, Democratic voters, we're an anxious group. It's okay. Is there anything that we can do or should be thinking about in the wake of this ruling? I mean, one thing to think about is just about this election, and then there is something to be said about future ones. In this election, obviously, we are going to the ballot box to decide in part who will be president and

who will be appointing judges. The three judges on the Fifth Circuit that invalidated this Mississippi law were all appointed by Donald Trump. Two of them are frequently listed as possible nominees to the Supreme Court. And so I think we should be thinking about, well, no candidate is perfect, right? Obviously, there are downsides to any candidate. But do you want a president to be appointing judges who are going to be invalidating the rules of elections as we know them and making it more difficult to count ballots? Or do you want someone who is going to appoint judges who are going to follow the law and actually allow election officials to count ballots? Or do you want someone who is going to appoint judges who are going to follow the law and actually allow election officials to count ballots? That's one thing. And then second is going forward, it is possible that in the event this case makes its way up to the Supreme Court,

and the Supreme Court agrees with this outlandish Fifth Circuit ruling, always a possibility. It is technically a ruling based on a federal statute. And so Congress could amend that statute in the event the Supreme Court says that federal law makes it illegal to count ballots after Election Day. Leah Lippman, thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for having me. That was my conversation with Leah Lippman, co-host of Strict Scrutiny. Before we go, staying informed about the issues that matter is crucial, and you're already making a smart move by listening to our What Today podcast. But for all the need-to-know updates sent straight to your inbox, sign up for the What Today newsletter. In one recent issue, the newsletter revealed top House Democrat Representative Jamie Raskin's new plan

to chip away at the Supreme Court's controversial decision to put presidents largely above criminal law. The newsletter also featured exclusive comments from Democratic Senate candidate for Texas, Representative Colin Allred, on the possibility that Texas may finally turn blue this year, and the impact of conservative Republican Liz Cheney's endorsement for both Harris and Allred. To get more inside scoops and timely news breaks, sign up for the What A Day newsletter at crooked.com slash daily. That's all for today. If you liked the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, make sure your friends and family have a plan to vote if they haven't voted already, and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just about how

Donald Trump and his acolytes could be operating in an informational silo the likes of which left leaning college professors could never even imagine creating, like me. What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Jane Koston, and join a phone bank! What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producer is Raven Yamamoto. Our producer is Michelle Eloy.

We had production help today from Tyler Hill, Johanna Case, Joseph Dutra, Greg Walters, and Julia Clare. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our executive producer is Adrienne Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. Thank you.