Kamala Up, Lovett Down

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Assembly Required every Thursday on Amazon Music. Welcome to Pod Save America.
I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
On today's show, Kamala Harris' campaign drives a message on reproductive freedom with a searing new ad and a live-streamed event with Oprah Winfrey. Donald Trump tries to win over swing voters in New York, D.C., and the Fox News audience.
And speaking of former reality TV stars, Dan, Tommy, and I hold our own tribal council with a survivor contestant who was voted off early, but can still win. If Jeff Probst has the courage, our very own John Lovett.
Cannot wait. I can't wait for this.
Get through this politics and let's get to survivor fast. Oh yeah.
We're also going to talk about the, uh, the Republican nominee for governor and, uh, North Carolina in North Carolina has called himself a black Nazi and posted on porn message boards. So we're going to get to that too.
It's quite a day here. All right, but first, we have had a polling tsunami in the 24 hours since, Dan, you recorded Wednesday's pod with the DSU, including the post-debate New York Times Siena poll that us sickos have been checking our phones for at 4 a.m.
every morning. I won't bore all you non-sickos with every top line and cross tab, but when you take all the high-quality polling and averages together, here's what you get.
Kamala Harris has about a three point lead nationally, a one point lead in Pennsylvania, a two point lead in Wisconsin and Michigan, and every other swing state basically tied under a point, either under a point with a Harris lead or a Trump lead. The times had an especially interesting sort of head scratching result.
Uh, they have Trump and Harris tied at 47 nationally, which is a statistically meaningless one point improvement from their pre-debate poll. But they also did a separate Pennsylvania poll that has Harris up 50 to 46, which is the exact same result as their last Pennsylvania poll a couple months ago.

Altogether. poll that has Harris up 50 to 46, which is the exact same result as their last Pennsylvania

poll a couple months ago.

Altogether, there were eight Pennsylvania polls that dropped this week, most of them

in the last 24 hours, many from high quality pollsters.

And they did, most of them did show movement to Harris from their previous polls, but still

one point race in the most important swing state in the country.

So I know you and Adisu talked about the state of the race on Wednesday, but because I am a sicko, I had to talk to you about the poll apocalypse, polling tsunami.

I'm trying out different.

It's not even a poll apocalypse because the polls are actually kind of good.

Yeah, I know.

It's kind of like snowpocalypse. Remember that in DC? When there's just lots of snow.
I do remember snowpocalypse, yes. Anyway, what's your take from Time Sienna? And how can they have the race tied nationally, but Harris ahead in Pennsylvania? Shouldn't it be the other way around? It doesn't make a ton of sense, right? Biden won the popular vote in 2020 by four and a half points.
He won Pennsylvania by 1.2 points. So if these two times polls are correct, and Kamala Harris is tied nationally with Trump, but up by four in Pennsylvania, that's a seven-point swing over the course of four years, which seems just impossible to imagine.
And it is different than the polling averages, right, which have Harris, as you mentioned, up three, up one in Pennsylvania. That makes a little more sense.
That's sort of consistent with 2020. Now, I will say, and Nate Cohn, to his credit, Nate Cohn, the person in charge of the New York Times-Cena polling, wrote a column where he wrestled with this conflicting result.
And I think, to his credit, is more willing to address the possible fallibility of the polls they do than any other media pollster. So he's willing to say, like, maybe it's not right.
Here are some reasons it might be right. And one of the things within the poll that I think is interesting, which could suggest that maybe the electoral college Republican bias may be shrinking, is in the Pennsylvania poll, Trump has a four-point lead on the economy.
Nationally, it's a 13-point lead. And the reason why I think that's interesting is maybe it is noise, maybe it's just an overly friendly Pennsylvania sample, but it's also true that Pennsylvania has seen more messaging than any state.
It's where Kamala Harris campaigns the most. It's where the most money is spent on ads.
And so it would make sense that if she is making progress in defining herself, particularly on the economy where they're spending the most money, that you would see those results in Pennsylvania first, because in the vast majority of the country, people are seeing no Kamala Harris communications at all, no Trump communications. They are bystanders to the race.
And then the one other point here, and just like I said, it could all be noise, it could be wrong. But Jacob Rubashkin of Inside Elections pointed out that just a decent sized drop in the Democratic margin in big states like New York and California would shrink the national popular vote margin by at least a point.
And there is a separate Siena College poll which shows Harris underperforming Biden's 2020 numbers in New York, although still winning by a lot. So a lot to unpack here, but it seems unlikely, but it is possible.
There's a where on which it is true that you could be essentially tied nationally or up a point or down a point, because it's all in the margin of error, and have a little lead in Pennsylvania. The scenario where Democrats are doing slightly worse in non-swing states, and that's what shrinks the electoral college advantage for Republicans, is similar to what happened in 2022 in the midterms, where all these national polls showed it closer.
People still thought maybe a red wave was coming. Some of that was just Republican pollsters putting out garbage polls.
But in these swing states where Democrats were running races and pouring all money and time and energy and resources and volunteers into those Democrats just tended to do better than just Democrats in states where we weren't as focused because they weren't as competitive. And so, you know, we did see that in the midterm.

So it is possible.

I also think, I mean, you said it initially,

like if the national average is three,

if she's up by three,

then a poll that comes out with her tide

fits with a national average of her being ahead by three

because these are all, it's still margin of error.

Even when you do polling averages,

it's still margin of error

because it's just a larger sample of voters and so that's not too crazy and then you know a poll that shows her up being four in pennsylvania when the averages show up one same thing it's like it's it's not crazy right like you just get polls that are going to be you know if the average is one you're going to get some polls that are up four up up five, some polls where she's down three or four, like that's just the way polling works. So we've now had enough polling though, that I think we can assess the impact of the debate, right? We're more than a week out from the debate.
We've now had just more polls than we've had in one given period, maybe in the whole race. What would you say is the impact of the debate? The impact of the debate is similar to the impact of Donald Trump being convicted of a felony and Donald Trump being shot in the ear, which is about a point.
And it's just the other matter that this is a game of inches. And you're just not seeing gigantic movement.
And even within the national, if you look at the Times pre-debate poll and the Times post-debate poll, the two numbers that stick out are the number of people who feel like they need to know more about Kamala Harris is virtually unchanged from the previous poll. And the number of people who think that she is a risky choice or represents more of the same, another number worth noting, is basically unchanged.
And so for, I think she did herself good. She's, you know, a lot of the polling says she's improved her favorability rating and other polling, but it has not been enough to as of yet move people who were in the undecided category into her category.
And that's, I don't think hugely shocking, but it's just a reminder of like what slow grinding work this election is. Maybe this is a rosier take, but I think if you squint at the polling since the debate, it shows slight movement toward her, right? And even digging into that Times poll, it's true that the percentage of people who said they need to know more about her hasn't really changed.
Down two points. Yeah, and when they asked a question, did you learn a lot, a little, nothing at all about Kamala Harris and Donald Trump because of the debate? Like the percentage of people who said they learned a lot or some about her that was new was much higher than Donald Trump, which is not surprising.
And it it was also like it was like in the 30s, 40s. And that's a pretty, especially for some subgroups.
Right. And that's a pretty good number, I think.
And the fact that she has rising favor. Remember, she has a different trajectory here, different task ahead of her than Donald Trump does.
Everyone knows who Donald Trump is. Andald trump's trying to disqualify kamala harris um everyone knew who joe biden was too with kamala harris there's just we've said she has so much more room to grow and as you see her favorability creeping up even as all this money is being spent against her by donald trump uh on ads especially in a state like pennsylvania and her favorability is going up anyway and i think the, for the people who watch the debate, and again, the poll shows this too, the Times poll, if you watch the debate, you are much more likely to support Kamala Harris than if you didn't watch the debate or if you had just heard about the debate.
And so I think for people who watch that debate, they tended to come away with a more favorable impression of her. They got to know more about what she stands for.
For a lot of people, for a lot of undecided voters, not enough still, but they learned some and they were reminded what a jackass Donald Trump is. And so I think that like she did some, she did some good work.
Oh, for sure. You know, what would you say she has left to do? Like, what are her big, what's her to-do list for the next six weeks? It's to fill in the rest of the picture on everything, and particularly the economy.
That is the one thing that stands out. Even though there were, I think, those very good numbers in Pennsylvania, when you go back and you watch that debate, the economy is an afterthought.
It was the first couple of questions. Her answers were good in that question.
The message has been seen afterwards showing that those were some of her best, most popular answers with swing voters. But they're not the things that are being sent around on TikTok and Instagram and getting covered in the media.
And so, you know, her biggest task was to educate people about her approach to the economy. And she didn't get as much of an opportunity to do that as I think she would like.
So that stands out as a huge task for her. And it's just I think you have it exactly right.
People learned a lot about her, but they still want to know more. So she made progress, but she hasn't closed the sale.
And so it's to spend the next seven weeks continuing to fill in that picture for this very critical, very small slice of voters that she needs to put her over the top. I think she could use an answer on the economy for whatever interviews she does, that is little tighter a little more focused and a little broader in who her plans will help um i think that and i think this was the right thing to do but during the debate and maybe in the couple interviews she's done since then there's a lot of talk about her values she's a middle class kid she cares about the middle class.
And that's great. That's probably what every consultant told her to do as they should.
And especially with someone who's not as defined as her, you want to ground your plans in your values. So I totally, that's right.
But then she sort of, it's like a lot of words to get to. She gets to the housing stuff at some point.
She then gets to the child care tax credit. But listening to focus groups since the debate, Sarah Longwell's focus groups, reading some of the New York Times focus groups of undecided voters, what you get from some people is it was nice to hear that stuff.
I don't necessarily know that it was going to apply to me. Like, how am I going to be helped under a Harris presidency?

What's she going to do for me?

And also, you know, she didn't give a straight answer on the economy and it took her too long.

And I couldn't quite get what she was saying.

So I think like, I mean, she's got a tax cut, a middle class tax cut that's going to go to 100 million Americans, right?

Like I would go right to that.

And then with every policy that she has proposal, I would have a contrast with Donald Trump, right? So like, what do you want to do in the economy? Well, you know, Donald Trump wants to give a tax cut to billionaires. I want to give a tax cut to a hundred million middle-class Americans, right? I want to make sure I want to lower the cost of healthcare even more.
I want to lower the cost of drugs even more. Here's how I do that, right? Like, I think whatever the list is, just pick like five things and have that be your thing that you say everywhere and all your surrogates say, and it's in ads and everything else.
Yeah, I think that she needs a five. I don't wanna say a five point plan, like you don't have to put it on a card or anything, but it is, I'm gonna lower prices for you by stopping price gouging.
I'm gonna lower housing causes by capping rent costs and making sure we build more homes. I'm gonna lower the cost of healthcare while Donald Trump's while donald trump's going to repeal the affordable care act and i'm going to give the largest middle class tax cut in history or whatever the right way to say the fact the fact check appropriate way of saying that is uh paid for by asking the wealthy and corporations to pay a little bit more boom done i'm glad you mentioned the price gouging because i know the uh all the fucking nerds out there the policy nerds are a little so-so on the price gouging proposals it's like you know what kamala harris she has a record on this when she was attorney general went after the big banks on behalf of homeowners succeeded went after for-profit colleges screwing over students succeeded she can go after she can talk about her record and then talk about how she's going to go after companies that are just gouging consumers and jacking up prices for no good reason.
And I think it's an extremely popular proposal. It's just something that she's going to feel comfortable saying because she has a record on it.
And it suddenly just sort of fell out of her answers after the convention. And I'm not sure why.
I'm glad you have reignited one of the great rivalries in American life, policy nerds versus polling nerds. Or, you know, people who want to win elections.
I don't know. People who are pissed about rising prices and would like someone to go after corporations and hold them accountable.
I don't know. Anyway, all right, let's talk about what the two campaigns are doing to win over the potential swing state voters who are still undecided with six weeks to go.
Donald Trump is busy storming the battlegrounds of New York and D.C. On Wednesday night, Trump held a rally at the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island before heading to Manhattan to appear on Greg Gutfeld's primetime show.
A real surgical targeted approach to campaigning with a message to match. Here's some of what he said.
Patriotic New Yorkers must get your asses out to vote. Gotta get up.
Gotta get up. Harry, get up, Harry.
Harry, get your fat ass out of the couch. You're gonna vote for Trump today, Harry.
But I'd say, baby, who could do it like me? Nobody could do it like me. How great am I? In the next two weeks, I'm going to Springfield and I'm going to Aurora.
You may never see me again, but that's okay. Got to do what I got to do.
Whatever happened to Trump? Well, he never got out of Springfield. Americans deserve a campaign based on the issues.
We try and keep it on the issues. You know, they said I'm the goat in debates because I had a lot of debates and I became president.
And the goat means greatest of all time. And they didn't correct her once.
And they corrected me everything I said practically. I think nine times or 11 times.
And the audience was absolutely, they went crazy.

They said, Joe, it's over.

You're getting out.

And he said, I'm not getting out.

You're getting out.

And they put her in.

And she's somehow a woman.

Somehow she's doing better than he did.

Yeah.

But I can't imagine it can last.

What the fuck? Look, he's just trying to have a campaign on the issues. We should note that, of course, there was no audience at the debate.
Can you imagine? I hate. I don't love this one about this.
But can you just imagine if Joe Biden? There would be 700 news cycles about it. He imagined a debate audience.
He imagined debate audience. We're like, that's fine.
He's just what wacky Trump. He's not, his fucking brain is melting before our eyes.
I think it's more like he lies so easily, right? And like all, the only thing that's going on in his brain is like, how can I talk about how wonderful I am? How great I am? How many people love me, right? People love me everywhere. There's audiences everywhere I go.
There's crowds. They're screaming.
People are coming up to me, grown men. They're crying.
Mr. Trump, you're wonderful.
It's sort of that part of his brain that's just like, no matter what he's talking about, doesn't matter what actually happened, he just needs to talk about how the crowds loved him. Whatever he did, the crowds loved him.
And then other people who are running against him and don't like him are treating him unfairly. That's it.
When you have that in your mind, everything else is pretty easy to talk about. Well, I would just say that 70-year-old Trump could keep all the shameless lies together a little bit better.
And at this age, it's just like he can't even figure it out. Also, what was he doing there with the Kamala Harris? A woman.
Well, he's legitimately shocked shocked he got his ass kicked in a debate by a woman like he's never gonna get over that it's just I kept listening to that clip because I'm like is this one of those where liberals are like oh look how sexist he was just blatantly and openly and misogynist but like no that I don't know what else he was trying to do there but just say a woman I don't know how long that can last. What is he doing in New York? I've tried to think about this and figure this out.
Like, what was he doing on Long Island? I think he needed, after several tough weeks in the most boring town hall that Trump could ever do with Sarah Huckabee Sanders in Michigan on Tuesday, he needed his people. He needed a,

just a confidence boost

from a bunch of Long Islanders

screaming his name in cheer.

I really think that's what it was.

He's in a funk.

I think he's in a funk

and they're trying,

and the campaign's trying to pick him up.

I do not believe he's there to win the House.

I do not think Donald Trump

is spending his time

trying to help other people.

I know, I saw that somewhere.

I'm like,

I don't think that makes a lot of sense.

I know that he's, part of it is like his message, you know, like liberal blue America is a hell hole and it's crime ridden and immigrant invasion and all that kind of stuff. But like, I don't know, you could do that in a swing state.
Yeah. Maybe you could, I don't know.
It's very weird. You and I have talked before about how Trump's strategy is about disqualifying harris in the eyes of undecided voters than trying to win over new trump voters do you think he's even making progress on that on tearing down harris because this poll in pennsylvania her favorability keeps going up even where they're running all millions of dollars of ads super pack ads all these ads are out he says crazy shit all the time he's taking up news cycles he's talking about eating the pets in springfield he's doing all this shit but um it doesn't seem to be making a dent in her favorability or her poll numbers i guess it is depriving her of breaking through with her message but i don't know what do you think it seems to be an abject failure on all fronts.
We've talked from the moment Kamala Harris got in this race, there was now a race to define her. Who was going to win, Kamala Harris or Trump? Her favorability rating is up a net 15 points since she got in the race.
That's an astonishing increase over a short period of time for someone who was not unknown. She was the vice president of the United States at the time.
And so it is failing. Now, there's still another segment of voters, like a slice of persuadable voters that they're both fighting over.
There's no evidence that he has damaged her with them yet, but there's not evidence that she has fully won them over yet. So in terms of defining her, he has lost that battle, but now we are down to the last group of voters in a small handful of states.
Most of those people have honestly not really checked into this election yet. So we haven't even really contested them.
So that's what we'll sort of see. That's who these ads that are running, like, for instance, the Kamala Harris abortion ad, which ran during Survivor, for instance, which we watched last night, obviously.
Or the Trump folks have a new ad about, with Kamala Harris talking about Bidenomics that is running all over the swing states like that. They're trying to get to those voters by osmosis.
But as a campaign strategy, he has failed to put a debt in her numbers. Yeah.
One strategy Trump seems to be flirting with is an old favorite of his trying to shut down the federal government. Mike Johnson's once again having trouble getting all his goofballs in line before the looming deadline of October 1st.
And even though Mitch McConnell just said, quote, it would be politically beyond stupid for us to do that right before the election because certainly we'd get the blame. Donald Trump begs to differ.
He wrote on Truth Social that Republicans should only vote for a spending package that includes the SAVE Act, which imposes more requirements on states to make sure that non-citizens aren't registering to vote, which of course doesn't really ever happen and is already illegal. It also, by the way, doesn't have the votes to pass Congress.
Clearly, Trump and Vance want to be able to say that the government shut down because Democrats refuse to require proof of citizenship to vote. What do you think of that strategy? That is a stupid person's idea of a smart plan.
Like it seems good on paper, but it would definitely not play out that way. It's an absurd provision that is unnecessary, makes no sense.
They'd be left out of town. And we just know from history that the side that initiates the shutdown gets the blame for the shutdown.
And that would be the House Republicans who just happen to have 13 seats they are trying to defend. They're either toss-up or lean Republican.
And so it seems like a terrible idea across the board and would obviously hurt people because when the government shuts down, people are denied service, needed services and money, et cetera, but pure idiocy from them. Also, you heard Mitch McConnell, and there's a bunch of Senate Republicans that don't.
And every House Republican is up, has a campaign. And everyone that's in a competitive race, every House Republican, every Senate Republican, they're not going to be too happy with a government shutdown just like five weeks before the election that they're held responsible for because they wanted to pass something that no one really is clamoring for.
Something that no one wants or needs? Yeah. Yeah, right, right.
So I don't know. I would guess that when push comes to shove, Mike Johnson does what he always does and has to end up passing something with with the help of Democrats and drops the SAVE Act.
And that's that. Yeah.
They just kick the can down the road after the election. That's what happens.
That's what it feels like. But nice to see Trump getting involved there.
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Escalate IQ, Optic, and Lyric. We got some absolutely bonkers news in North Carolina to talk about.
Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, currently the Republican nominee for governor, is a well-known whack job who's flirted with Holocaust denial, called LGBTQ people filth and maggots, called Beyonce satanic, and called Michelle Obama a man. He also frequented the video booths of a porn shop five nights a week back in the early 2000s.
And yet somehow, Andrew Kaczynski at CNN broke a story about him today that was so bad that it led North Carolina Republicans to try to get him off the ballot, to get him to drop out last minute. The deadline is Thursday midnight.
We're recording this before. You'll listen to this after.
So we'll see what happens. So what's the story? Apparently, someone using an online alias that Robinson often used himself with his same birthday and email address was a frequent poster on the message board of a porn site called Nude Africa from 2008 to 2012.
Among the highlights. He told the message board that he loves porn featuring trans people.

I'm quoting him here.

Quote, I like watching tranny on girl porn.

That's fucking hot.

It takes the man out while leaving the man in.

And yeah, I'm a perv too.

It got more graphic and CNN actually declined to print all of the details because they were too graphic.

So what I just said was not the too graphic part.

Robinson also talked about being a kid and stumbling into a spot at a local university

where he could spy on women showering through a grate in the wall.

Robinson proudly referred to himself as a, quote, black Nazi in another post and, quote, said,

Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves.
I wish they would bring it back. I would certainly buy a few.
And he called Martin Luther King Jr., quote, worse than a maggot and, quote, a ho-fucking-phony. So this is as good a place as any to remind you all that Donald Trump has endorsed Robinson and often praises him.
Here's a helpful highlight reel that the Harris campaign put together. Mark Robinson, he's out there.
He's fighting. A very good man.
This is Martin Luther King on steroids. I think you're better than Martin Luther King.
I think you are Martin Luther King times two. I think he's going to go down as one of the great leaders in our country.

I've been with him a lot.

I've gotten to know him and he's outstanding.

He's outstanding in presentation, but he's probably even more outstanding in heart.

Somebody that we have to be very, very careful.

We have to cherish.

We have to cherish Mark.

He's a star.

You have to cherish him.

It's like a fine wine because that's what you have.

You have a fine wine. He's an outstanding person.
I've gotten to know him so well and fairly quickly. He's a fine wine.
Martin Luther King times two, fine wine. Got to know him really well.
Before we get to Trump, I want to put you on the record here. Do you regret your posts on New Delaware? Do not besmirch state of delaware like that okay we've done enough to tell her yeah back off my home state place i'd love to return to one day robinson was already down in the polls to josh stein democrat running for governor i'd imagine he'll fall even further behind now unless he because he called himself himself a Nazi on a porn site? Black Nazi?

Because he said he wants to bring back slavery

and he'd buy a porn site?

That's the thing.

These aren't things he posted on Facebook.

These are things he posted on a porn site message book.

So first of all, I guess by the time, again,

by the time you all listen to this,

we'll know what happened.

It doesn't seem like the Republicans

who want him out of the race are going to succeed

at pushing him out of the race.

He and his campaign have said they're not going anywhere. He said, you know, you can do strange things with the Internet now.
He just thinks they're just denying it. They're saying that it was made up.
Donald Trump's campaign apparently told NBC News, well, we're not trying to push him out, which is amazing to say. So it seems like he's staying in unless something dramatically changes in the next, I don't know, couple hours.
I mean, you can't force him out. He has to decide to stay in the race.
I am not fully convinced that at least some people around Trump are not trying to get him out because North Carolina is polling better than Georgia, which doesn't make a ton of sense demographically. One of the main reasons that's the case is Mark Robinson's on the ballot.
So if you get Mark Robinson off the ballot, theoretically, North Carolina becomes a little bit easier for Trump. And so I don't know.
It'll be interesting to see what happens here. And if he stays in the race, he is a zombie candidate, right? All the money dries up.
People stop campaigning for him. He won't be seen with people.
It'll be very interesting to see what happens when Trump comes to the state. Will he be with Mark Robinson or not? Also, Mark Robinson at the Republican convention was the one in the North Carolina delegation that announced the delegates for Trump.
He's just... Here's what I'm trying to figure out.
You could imagine a bunch of Trump-Stein voters, right? They vote for the Democrat for governor because for these Republicans, Mark Robinson's a bridge too far. And then they vote for Donald Trump.
But, like, if Robinson stays in the race and you're the Harris campaign, like, do you run some ads like the one we just heard? Or just the video we just heard or put some ads together with Donald Trump and Mark Robinson together and try to try to make this hurt Trump a little bit in the state? Yeah, I think you do. I think you tie Trump to Mark Robinson's extremism and make them all extreme.
There's a, we just did this in a forthcoming episode of Political Experts React that I did with Chris Hayes, where he looked at Josh Stein's first ad about Mark Robinson, just using Mark Robinson's words. So you can put the two of them together and you make it really about MAGA extremism.
It's not that he called him one of the King Times 2 or all of that. It's that they are birds of a feather in terms of the extremism.
It's less the porn site and the porn booths and all the other porn. It's more the things he said about threatening death to people and shooting people and all of the political violence.
Black Nazi slavery. Yeah.
Go on whatever porn site you want to go on, Mark Robinson. But that's the bridge too far for us.
Yes. Yeah, right.
Okay. Well, we're going from North Carolina, one swing state, to the other swing state of Nebraska, actually just the second congressional district.
If you're looking for reasons to worry about the race, here's one. You may know that Harris's most likely path to 270 runs through the second district of Nebraska.
it's one of only two states that splits its electoral votes if Harris wins Pennsylvania, Michigan

Wisconsin loses all the other battlegrounds

but wins the Nebraska 2nd District, she gets exactly 270. But Nebraska Republicans appear to be reviving their efforts to change the state law and make Nebraska winner-take-all, which would deprive Kamala Harris of that electoral vote.
And then if she wins the blue wall, it would be 269-269. And Trump wins an electoral college tie because Republicans have more state delegations in the House.
So Lindsey Graham, of all people, is helping to whip the votes there to make the change. Unclear whether it's going to happen.
Also unclear whether Maine, the other state that splits its votes, could respond to deny Trump the one electoral vote he's likely to get in the Maine second congressional district.

Though it does seem like they will not have time to do that in Maine.

Because apparently when you pass a law in Maine, it takes 90 days to take effect.

90 days from now, whoop, pass the election.

so trouble in Maine

and it makes you wonder

if the Nebraska

Republicans

are going to

do it

I don't know

if the Nebraska

Republicans

are going to

do it

I don't know

if the Nebraska

Republicans

are going to

do it

I don't know

if the Nebraska

Republicans

are going to

do it

I don't know

if the Nebraska

Republicans

are going to

do it

I don't know

if the Nebraska

Republicans

are going to

do it

I don't know

if the Nebraska

Republicans

are going to

do it

I don't know

if the Nebraska

Republicans

are going to

do it

I don't know if the Nebraska Republicans are going Maine, and it makes you wonder if the Nebraska Republicans waited this long just to sort of jam Maine and make sure that didn't happen. But what do you think? What's the latest on all this? And how worried are you about this? I'm quite worried about this.
As you know, I've been worried about this for a long time. I've just been under the, my view has just been, this was particularly when it was Biden-Trump, that this was potentially a game set match for Trump if they were able to make this change.
What the governor has said is he's willing to call a special session, but he needs the 33 Republican senators necessary to pass it to be publicly in support of doing it. They do not have the votes yet, as far as we can tell.
Some of the people who are in the meeting with Graham and the governor say that there was some progress in the meeting. So we will see.
They have to do this quickly too, because they still have to print ballots, et cetera, in Nebraska. But this is one thing that will keep me up at night until it is fully resolved in a good way.
Yeah. So Dave Weigel had reported this at Semaphore that one of the Republicans that they would need is a former Democrat, left the party because he's anti-choice, but wants to run to be mayor of Omaha, which would be pretty hard to do if you piss off everyone who's ever been a Democrat by deciding to do this.
So again, they still don't have the votes yet. But yeah, when it comes down to everything, depending on pressuring a few Republicans in Nebraska, it doesn't feel great.
So Trump and Harris were both hoping this week for an endorsement from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The union's president, Sean O'Brien, had appeared at the Republican National Convention, and his meeting with Kamala on Monday was described as tense at times.
But on Wednesday, the union announced it wouldn't be endorsing either candidate. As part of the announcement, the Teamsters released the results of internal straw polls, showing that members favored Trump by more than 20 points.
After the announcement, a handful of local Teamsters chapters endorsed Harris, representing a million members altogether, including in some of the key swing states. How big of a deal do you think this is? What do you make of that internal straw poll showing that more Teamsters favored Trump than Harris? Is it a big deal? What do you think? I don't think it's as big a deal as people think.
Back in the day, when you would get a labor union endorsement, it would open up a spigot of money and organizing muscle that was truly mattered a lot in the battleground states. That's not really the case anymore.
The Harris campaign has all the money they need. They have a ton of organizing muscle.
The unions are not as powerful and flush with money as they used to be. And having the endorsement of the Michigan and the Western Pennsylvania and these local team-based unions mattered more.
It is a little bit of a win for Trump because he can continue to sort of live by this false bullshit story that he is a, you know, the working class populace that he can win over these working class voters in ways that Democrats can't. But I think it's probably, there's probably a little more is being made of it necessarily needs to be.
Yeah. I don't think we'll hear about this story ever again.
And to our point earlier about like the voters who haven't decided yet, they barely pay attention to politics. Like, I just don't know that this is going to matter that much either way to them.
It's going to matter on the ground for like resources and people. But like if she has some of these teamsters in these key sewing states, that's very helpful in terms of organization and volunteers on the ground.

Speaking of labor strongholds, Kamala is in Michigan where she's about to do a live streamed event with Oprah Winfrey.

That's unfortunately happening a few hours after we record this. The two are set to appear with a small live audience somewhere outside Detroit that the campaign isn't saying where, and it's being hosted in conjunction with a bunch of those affinity groups that have held massive Zoom calls for Harris already.
Win with Black Women, White Dudes for Harris,, cat ladies for Kamala and others. The New York Times says Governor Gretchen Whitmer will also be there.
What's the upside of an event like this? What does it tell us about how the campaign is thinking about using this Oprah endorsement, which we first saw at the convention? I think what's interesting is it says the value that the Harris campaign puts on organizing and person-to-person contact. And so there's a way once you do this where it's like a big rally in Detroit or Atlanta or something like that.
And then there's this version, which is it's a smaller event, it's live, but you're finding a way to reach out to people who you know will be talking to their friends and family about this election. You've already given money, signed up to volunteer, and you're energizing those people.

And General Malley Dillon, who's the campaign chair, our friend David Plouffe,

these are organizers at heart. And this is a campaign that's thinking organizer first,

field first. And using Oprah for that is pretty smart.

Yeah. And getting people all excited and giving them sort of marching orders

who are going to go like knock on the doors and stuff, I think is very useful. One of the guests slated to be at the Michigan event is Hadley Duvall, the incredibly brave Kentucky woman who's currently in a powerful Harris campaign ad telling her story about being raped and impregnated by her stepfather.
In the ad, which is set to music by Billie Eilish, Duvall says she was able to have an abortion, but quote, because Donald Trump overturned Roe v. Wade, girls and women all over the country have lost the right to choose even for rape or incest.
Donald Trump did this. He took away our freedom.
Harris is also heading to Atlanta on Friday to give a speech about two mothers in Georgia, Amber Thurman and Candy Miller, who died after being denied abortion care after the state passed its six-week ban. Tommy was talking about this on Tuesday's pod.
It's this ProPublica story you should read. It's just awful, heartbreaking.
Amber Thurman leaves behind a six-year-old boy. It's just really, really sad.
Thoughts on this very powerful messaging push around reproductive freedom? It was one of the most powerful and frankly, best testing messages from the debate was when she took Trump on on abortion and went through his record and what he would do. And the target here is very clear.
It's women, particularly working class women. The folks at Blueprint, the center left research organization, have a poll poll out of swing state, non-college educated women today, which shows that this is a group that is favorable to Kamala Harris.
And one of the ways in which you can persuade these voters is on abortion. They oppose Dobbs.
They oppose these abortion bans. They trust her on abortion by seven points.
And more than 40% of them actually believe that if elected, she would not just try, but pass a law restoring row. And so this is really what you're trying to find.
In a close election, there are all these groups you have to get. But one targeted group where she can actually do better than Biden is working class white women.
And that's exactly who this is targeted to. I don't know if you saw this in the Times poll too, but there's now a plurality of voters who believe that Donald Trump will pass a national abortion ban.
So we had talked before about all the work the Harris campaign, first the Biden campaign, then the Harris campaign needed to do in making voters understand that Donald Trump would actually go forward with this because they didn't necessarily believe that or didn't necessarily hold him responsible for Dobbs. And that has started to change, I think, over the last couple of months.
And now the question is, if you're undecided, if you think Trump's better on the economy, but you see ads like this, you hear testimonials like that, you read stories about those mothers in Georgia. If you see, if you, if you see all that,

do you think, okay, well,

maybe Trump's a little better in the economy

or I think he's better in the economy,

but this just seems so extreme, so scary.

I don't want to live in this country.

I don't want my kids to live in this country.

I'll vote for Kamala Harris,

even though I'm not sure.

That seems to be the bet.

And you could, you could see that moving voters.

Absolutely.

Okay.

When we come back from the break,

Tommy and Dan and I are going to talk to Lovett about his short but absolutely perfect run on Survivor. I'm so excited.
Before we do that, though, a reminder that Pod Save America is back on tour in October with stops in Ann Arbor and Philly. We'll be at Ann Arbor's Michigan Theater on October 5th with Strict Scrutinies' Leah Littman as our co-host, and our guest is going to be the Senate candidate, Alyssa Slotkin on October 6th.
We'll be at the Met Philadelphia with co-host Simone Sanders Townsend. And we will have Bob Casey, Senator Bob Casey is our guest.
Get your tickets at crooked.com slash events now. And dear God, Pennsylvanians and Michiganders talk to your undecided relatives.
Also, if you are following the insane story of the exploding pagers

and walkie-talkies that Israel allegedly sent to Lebanon

and what it means for the prospect of a wider conflict

between Israel and Hezbollah,

you've got to check out this week's Pod Save the World, Dan.

I've listened to it.

What are you talking about?

I'm just bringing back this.

Have you listened to it?

I have listened to it, yeah.

I did listen to it immediately.

As soon as I heard about the story, I was like...

We'll grill Lovett on the pager story when he gets here.

Yeah, I'm sure he was listening to it his fucking hotel in fiji when he was on vacation anyway anyway uh tommy and ben talk about what happens what it means and what we know about kamala harris's leadership style on national security and foreign policy listen to the latest episode of pod save the world available now on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back, love it.
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Look, we know things don't feel great right now, but we can equip ourselves for the unprecedented months ahead without letting the news overwhelm us. Join us each week at Strict Scrutiny as we break down the cases that will decide the rules we all have to live by.
We'll supplement your daily news diet with a dose of necessary legal analysis and healthy serving of our Real Housewives takes, some pop music, and 90s throwbacks because we believe there's no better way to unwind after an oral argument than by watching a stupid reality TV argument. Subscribe to Strict Scrutiny wherever you get your podcasts and don't forget to check out full sell on Shopify.
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All right, we're back. And we're doing a segment here.
This is going to be our first and last survivor recap we got john lovett here former contestant also just so people know uh who haven't weren't paying attention spoiler there's a huge survivor spoiler john lovett contestant on survivor season 47 that's right last night was the premiere that's right two hour premiere first person voted off the island that's me that's John Lovett we should have brought in a vote of Candle and extinguished it here's the thing if first of all this wouldn't have happened if Jeff Probst had just shown a little bit of courage that's my that was my joke at the beginning of the episode yeah Well, fuck. Not the most embarrassing thing to happen to me in the media this week.
You want just reactions? I'm going to start with a compliment because there's going to be a lot of jokes. You did such a good job not revealing at all.
You have a great poker face. Because everyone's like, you guys.
Genuinely shocking. People were like, you must have known.
I thought you won because you were so cocky about it. Me too.
I thought the same thing. Yes, I thought you were.
My guess was that not that you won because then I think you would have been intolerable. Right.
Not that you won but also like you seemed so happy that I'm like, I bet he just did. He feels so good about how he did which now makes sense because you did great.
Sure. I think You were not embarrassed.
I was not. So that was the thing that was hard.
If I had come back and I had felt like what had happened was I blew my chance at Survivor, that I was there and I was in it and I screwed it up, I think I would have been a little bit more reserved about the whole experience. I mean, your taste in friends wasn't great.
Sure. but all that like i'm got some questions about that yeah no and we should we can get into it but like it's also like this is a this is a two-hour representation of 72 hours of of what happens and so like there's a lot that that like of other a lot we didn't see right there is a lot you didn't see you don't even know the real story yeah but no no it's a fair a fair edit.
It's a fair edit. I feel very comfortable with the edit.
But I don't feel like I, like, having now had the experience of watching an episode of reality TV in which you are on having no idea how they edit you. Holy shit, that's nerve wracking.
I'm a little bit relieved. I don't have to.
I wish I had gone further. But I feel like if you're going to go out first out first this is a pretty reasonable way to do it I just have two more things to say and then we I want to play a clip here uh number one uh Emily and I watched this last night live and I just want to say it was like an out-of-body experience watching it and then by the end because the edible I was in because of the edible which I was for me, at least.
And I was in tears, laughing so hard that I feel like I missed so many good parts. I'm going to go, tonight, I'm going to go home tonight and I'm going to re-watch, especially like the end, because two hours is first of all a lot.
The funny part was watching you interact with a bunch of Gen Z bozos was my absolute favorite part. At what point did the Gen Zers frighten you yeah yeah no it was um there it's also like every it's such a uh yeah like the the realization that like oh i'm the oldest person in this group of people like which you discussed on the show yeah no that was a clip of that okay yeah let's let's play let's play a before we go any further let's play a super cut of Love It's Best Moments.
Okay. I'm not that old.
Oh, my God. I just was wondering.
No, I love Vine. I remember Vine was awesome.
I was like 30 when Vine was popping. That's right.
I was still a young person. Looking at my tribe, I'm realizing I'm not getting to know a group of people.
I'm getting to know a group of young people. I am 41 years old.
I'm like, okay, so I'm old now. No, I really like that.
There's so much back in my day stuff coming out of my mouth. I'm in Los Angeles.
The WeHo? No, I started in WeHo, where all the gays go. I was a speechwriter for a while.
Okay. Whoa! And then I started a podcast called Pod Save America.
I heard you heard the name. Well, how many of you listen to it? I haven't.
I haven't heard it. How many of you? How many of you? How many of you? I feel like your podcast is huge, right? You do all right.
What are you supposed to say? Do you not feel like your podcast is huge? We do all right. I fucking lost it.
Podcast is a grower, not a show. We were like, Pod Save America.
Has anyone listened? And everyone's like, no, no. Then one person said, maybe, maybe.
The kid's like, I love TikTok though, dude. I think they did listen to it.
I think they did. I think they did.
Keep in mind, there was another podcast host. This is the best part.
Who had a podcast that was about Survivor. But there's a scene in the, after Love It Gets, I don't't know maybe maybe there's someone goes up to the this podcast and is like i'm a huge fan she's a celebrity she's a celebrity she was a great love it not the most famous good for asia good for asia i'm glad i'm glad i'm glad asia got her flowers um just a basic question why do you think you lost to the guy who had a physical uh an emotional meltdown that's such an important question, Tommy.
Thank you. This guy's name is Andy.
Andy. Also described Lovett as his best friend.
Out Magazine called your bond with him sweet and chaotic. That's a real thing.
That's a real thing I saw on the internet today. You know, with friends like these.
So once Andy had his breakdown, I think basically like it wasn't really about like who was friends or who wasn't friends. Like Andy had basically kind of imploded in front of 18 people, all of whom now didn't need to worry about him as a threat.
And I had been kind of funny and charming in front of everybody. And so I was- Those were in the other scenes? Yeah, the other scenes.
You got a lot of laughs. You got a lot of laughs out of them.
Wow. And so...
It was famously Andy bitching about how everyone clapped at you opening a coconut. I opened a coconut.
And so, open one fucking coconut. Hey, I missed...
That's two coconuts you opened this year. Hey, hey, listen.
You go to Fiji and miss three dinners. And then, but I do think that basically Andy was no longer seen as a threat.
I was still seen as a threat. And basically like because of the natural way it just broke down.
Like there were no real alliances that early, kind of very like kind of softly there were. But like Andy and I had walked off one time.
So suddenly we're together. Sam and Sierra had walked off.
Now they're together. Rachel and Anika were in the middle.
And so once Andy breaks down, it just like put me in a really difficult position. If that hadn't happened, there was a bunch of different ways it could go.
One thing you don't see in the episode because it just has to be condensed is I also had talked a lot with Anika, like she and I really did want to work together. And then that was sort of why Andy pitched to me that we turned the vote onto her.
It was complicated, but like there were a lot of different conversations. There's like a swirl, like there's hours of swirling conversation that happens before you go to the vote that they condense into one storyline.
I don't think it's an unfaithful storyline that they showed, but it is like more complicated than that.

Dane, you're a reality TV savant.

What was your reaction watching?

I would say this is the first two hours of survival I've ever watched in my life.

Same.

It's really an hour and 45 minutes

because I started 15 minutes late.

I turned my TV onto a mud covered,

love it, trying to do a puzzle.

Which is when I started laughing, I didn't stop. I would say a couple things.
One, this is something you care about. You obviously care about Survivor a lot, and you did put yourself out there.
So I think you get credit for that. That's good.
I think it's impressive. This is how you talk about Joe Biden's speeches.
He lasted longer than you did, for the record. That's right.
no one's talking about the secret service guys commander didn't bite you know two uh you definitely got fucked by andy like right you would have not been you would have made it past first episode and i saw someone say in the discord which was a amusing conversation to follow along that you were either gonna win or go on the first episode. I think that is the perfect summary of how this was probably going to go.
Yeah. And by the way, that is what I told Jeff when I talked to him for the first time about coming on the show.
I said, I will either go to the end of this game or I will go home first. So hoisted my own petard there.
Here's my question for you. And I don't know anything about Survivor.
you not on the puzzle team what yeah what the hell yeah so there is a you're just breast stroking out to the yeah i want to ask why you were doing the breaststroke in the swimming challenge i should have practiced famously i should have i should have practiced swimming more but um everybody caught me doing the breaststroke i didn't even realize i was doing the breaststroke emily noticed it immediately she's that was her first question i should have maybe jumped in on the second puzzle but basically uh the they didn't they didn't show it but like in the first puzzle i like was called i was helping from the side and we had talked about it because you have a moment to strategize before and we had talked about it and was like oh the puzzle pieces are big sam is stronger sam should can lift the pieces love it well john you'll help call from the side and they just don't include everything that happens the older more mature brain behind the operation yeah yeah which is i'm a delegator that looks like as a math major you would have helped them do the puzzle much better because they tried to the puzzle terribly and therefore you, you would have shown value to your tribe. No, for sure.
In addition to the coconut, of course. The meathead sports reporter guy.
And the charm. Don't forget the charm.
But no, I think the actual fuck up on the puzzle, it wasn't actually our family to do the puzzle. The completed puzzle was sitting next to us because the red tribe had completed their puzzle why are we why are we not used we didn't we were so focused on what was happening in front of us we didn't stop we were so it's the first challenge everybody is super amped that's why the boat's all turned over you're just not fully thinking you're nervous you're already tired it's hot you've never been in this sort of environment before and i think if we'd beat, we would have looked over and been like, wait a second, why are we not using this fully completed puzzle to figure out this puzzle? I was amazed at how physically taxing this looked.
Like picking up those giant boxes, swimming to a dock, the brushstroke, and then loading those heavy boxes onto a boat that kept capsizing. Meanwhile, you got like a coked up Barry's instructor, Jeff Prost, barking orders you, screaming like, this is Survivor! It's like, does this always happen? This is the worst start we've ever had.
By the way, what you saw, we were in the water for so long. Lavo, the red tribe, had completed their puzzle for so long before we had even gotten up there.
There was a moment where there were two tribes, all of our boxes floating, all of our boats upside down. And I really was like, what happens? Like we made nothing, nothing, nothing has happened.
No one could figure out what to do. And then because everything is all waterlogged, we get the boat up onto the beach.
We get the boat up into the tracks. We get the, the, the chest back into the boat.
We all go to heave the boat down this path. And it barely even showed.
And it just doesn't move. Like we all push as hard as we can and it doesn't move like a foot or an inch.
It just doesn't move at all. And there was this moment like, we're just not gonna be able to complete this thing.
And then eventually we fight and we fight and we get it to the end. God, it looks hard.
It was hard. It was hard.
It was cool. Are you at all annoyed at CBS that they put you in all the early promo materials and jeff probes called you quote one of the greatest storytellers that we will ever have uh knowing full well the outcome uh no i enjoy being part of a bait and switch but also like i like i think that they were pretty disappointed that i went home this or like i think he really he liked you he liked me bummed.
That's a social connection you made for sure. Yeah.
There's one. The one guy without a vote.
Powerful. Yeah.
One guy without a vote because he doesn't step in there and get a slate of delegates, get a fucking better slate. I don't trust these people.
Did you see the counting of the ballots? Something happened. There was a duffel under the table.
But I do think they were genuinely disappointed that I didn't't go further and i do take that as a compliment speaking of the counting the ballots did it upset you that everyone spelled your name wrong or the tribal council not even one look it upset me as a joa here's the thing one of the frowny face it's not exactly a sign of confidence if you go around to people and explain how to spell your name before tribal council and by the way if you're gonna write don't write my fucking name down. You don't go around saying there's no H and John.
What kind of signal does that send? What can you tell us about where you went after the vote? So you go to Ponderosa. This is publicly known.
It's basically like they take over a hotel and you stay there. There is the pre-jury time and there's the jury we was obviously not pre not jury and you basically are isolated you don't have your phone you don't have anything and uh you just sort of basically like kind of have be on vacation be on vacation while you guys are making the pods day in and day out working to the the bone.
Content minds. You're in the minds.
So you have like three production days for six weeks of work? Check out. Just wanted to make that.
That was one thing that crossed my mind. Well, no, and I understand why you might be cross about it.
And obviously, no one was more disappointed than me, but it's not like I could come back and do the podcast because then everyone would find out that I got out. So there was nothing to be done.
No, there wasn't a ton going on here though. Okay, wait.
Can I offer you some spin? Sure. That would be helpful.
I've just completed a day of press about it, but yeah, no, what do you got? You go on a show like Survivor because it's a great story, and getting booted out first is a much better story than getting booted out second or third to last totally agree okay third to last is pretty cool then you have a lot of stories i would actually second is the worst because you don't have the you're not the first boot person and you're the like yes i would say i am glad i well now here's the thing that's interesting is that like so you go toonderosa and then every day or two, a person comes and joins you. Oh, that's cool.
And it's, it's, it's really interesting, right? So the first day you're kind of, you're a little bit shocked. You're there by yourself.
And then, Hey Andy, then you will see you. Then you will.
Well, I'm not going to say who comes. And then, then you're sitting there and then you're now kind of gotten over it based not over it, but you're like kind of like past the first bit of like, oh, I'm not going to say who comes down.
I know, I know, I know. And then you're sitting there, and then you're now kind of gotten over it,

not over it, but you're kind of past the first bit of,

oh, I just got voted out.

And then this shell-shocked person comes down the stairs.

You don't know who it is until they arrive.

And you're like, this is not my job

to expend emotional labor helping you.

No, but what's interesting about it is,

everybody who gets voted out as Survivor, myself included,

you start telling a story that is the best version

Thank you. No, but what's interesting about it is like, you know, everybody who gets voted out of Survivor, myself included, like you start telling a story that like is the best version that you can tell that's believable, that makes you feel better about what happened.

You're a part of that right now.

But but but in those first few moments, when somebody comes off, they're like raw and they just start talking about what they did wrong, what other people done, what they feel bad about, what what they regret And so you get like you're like one more poopoo platter, please Yeah, listen Jeff poopoo platter I The other the the funny thing too is with each passing day with each passing day the people that come are skinnier and skinnier Yeah, and hungrier and hungrier But you can't really you can't really eat that much because you haven't eaten in days and so basically you watch somebody just sit in front of a full cheese pizza and just sort of take a bite of it uh you're gonna eat that as you're crying yeah yeah no no no yeah they really fucked you i've been here i've been here a week now just what did what did you do all day when you were there you had no internet. Did you read books? I read books.
Was it being in prison? I read a bunch of books. Basically, I would, yes, I would work out.
There was a PlayStation 5, and even though they wouldn't let me log into my PlayStation 5 account because it would connect me to a messaging app, I was able to use, yes, I was able to, they had a couple of games. And so I played video games for part of the day.

I read by the pool for part of the day,

ate, just like ate all the time.

It's like being on a cruise.

You're just like, there's just a constant supply of food.

Haven't had a vacation day in a year.

And then, okay.

All right.

You just used it to tweet about Joe Biden.

Can we get, can we get, can we get,

That was your choice, John. I had some, I had some coconut stove in there too.
This guy over here. But so, yeah, so you're just kind of hanging out all day.
And then as people come, people just really want to talk about what happened. And then...
So it gets more fun. But anyway, you like really get a perspective on the game that you don't normally get from people, how they talk about it once they're in interviews.
They're really kind of honest about what went wrong for them.

And that was a really cool,

it made me want to point me out.

Well, I was going to ask,

so you said in the exclusive teaser we listened to on Monday for Tuesday's show

that Survivor is an election,

an experiment in democracy.

Is your experiment in democracy over?

Listen.

Nice job, Oprah. Yeah.
listen nice job Oprah yeah I'm going to recap pod I am not I'm not ready to give up on democracy just yet alright you know you win some you lose some you don't walk away from democracy Tommy just because you lost an election storm that you. Yeah.
You go, you grab a torch, you grab a torch and you start threatening. Meet me at the Ponderosa.
We'll be wild. Is that all we got? In what way was this not worth it? This was awesome.

This was so fun.

My text to love it last night was that was an incredibly enjoyable experience that I shall never forget.

And I am so grateful to you for giving it to us. And I genuinely mean every word of that.

And I really wish I had gone further.

But the fact that I now, like the nervousness before seeing what they decided to use or not use.

I am so relieved.

If I wasn't going to go far, I'm glad I'm home now.

Also, if you did go far, there's so much more footage and so many more things to worry about saying. I fell out of a boat.
That could have been in there. You gave us all the gifts.
Everyone fell out of the boat. You gave us the gift.
It was very enjoyable and it was fun. I'm going to watch it just to root against Andy for the rest of time.
Yeah, that guy sucks. A critique of the show itself.
I will say I've only watched the first season, so I've missed out on Survivor. You can't just jump into a season because there's a lot of rules and things that are happening.
People are running through the war advantage. You have no idea.
Fucking digging up boxes with locks. By the way, that was another thing.
By the way, by the way, that's where, so that was another thing.

Like when I got back after the immunity challenge, I really did think like,

well, my options now are to hustle

and try to get the votes off of me

and onto somebody else.

The challenge there though is,

there's something called shots in the dark.

Do you guys know what shots in the dark are?

I Googled it today.

So a shot in the dark,

basically everybody starts out

with basically a one in six,

you have, it's like a die.

It's like a, and you put it into a box

I don't know. today.
So a shot in the dark, basically everybody starts out with basically a one in six. You have it's like a die.
It's like a and you put it into a box and you basically have a one in six chance. It's a dice.
It's a it's a it's a roll of the dice. And you have a one in six chance of getting to stay if you play your shot in the dark, but you lose your vote.
The reason it exists is basically so that if you're sure you're going home, you can play it. But that means people have to persuade you that they're not voting for you, even if they are.
It's a way to get out of situations that would happen in the past where everybody knew it was Rick and Rick knew it was Rick and there was nothing anybody could do. It sort of made it boring.
So to make it more interesting that everyone's kind of has to lie. But what that means is everyone's telling me it's Andy.
I can tell that they're not telling me the truth. But how do you persuade somebody to vote for someone they're already telling you they're voting for? Like, it's one thing if somebody comes up to you and says they're voting for Trump, but it's another for them to lie to you and say they're voting for Kamala.
You can't persuade them because they're telling you, I already agree with you. So there was, so it just made it really hard.
And so I thought about like, should I go chase down a beware advantage? But as you all saw, it's so many steps. And I didn't know if I'd be able to complete the steps in time yeah that one guy was running all over the place he's climbing up a tree dropping boxes down a cliff what the fuck was going on he was not subtle so lost i was in my phone when you were not on the tv i was just like i cannot follow this right now you've been texting with every person you know about every every group chat i've ever started was exploding good good and also the And also, the East Coast people fucking sort of ruined it.
Spoiler for me. Oh, you did? Yeah.
Tim Miller texted us all exclamation points, and I'm like, oh, no. And then my high school friends on their text, Jane, I was like, oh, shit.
I watched the East Coast feed so that I could at least know what I was in for amazing well congrats yeah sure here's a this is this is content for years and i you know uh mostly i've been actually i've been i've appreciated the rate ratio of people angry on my behalf and mocking me i think it's a good ratio with a very small subset of people trying to find a way in which I played poorly, but you guys can eat dicks. I, uh, uh, but, uh, I appreciate the jokes and I appreciate, uh, um, everybody that was nice.
Want to see a really nice tweet about you? Yeah. I still can't believe Survivor has almost exclusively been using John Levitt clips for one season only for him to get Drew Barrymore'd.
Hey. You were compared to a A-list actor.
That's cool. And that was a bait and switch to that movie.
That's right. Well, that's our show for today and we will be back in your feeds on Tuesday with a new episode and a new co-host, Andy.
He and John had his joke face for that whole outro. I was like, what's the joke going to be? Bye, everyone.
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