Trump Rages, Harris Rises
Press play and read along
Transcript
Speaker 1 Were you or a loved one diagnosed with lung cancer or mesothelioma due to exposure to asbestos?
Speaker 3 For over 20 years, Vogelzang Law has helped families across the country fight for justice after asbestos exposure.
Speaker 7 Call or visit our website and begin your free case review today.
Speaker 9 Call 888-680-2259.
Speaker 11 That's 888-680-2259 or visit vogelzanglaw.com/slash connect.
Speaker 13 This episode is brought to you by Progressive Commercial Insurance. Business owners meet Progressive Insurance.
Speaker 13 They make it easy to get discounts on commercial auto insurance and find coverages to grow with your business. Quote in as little as eight minutes at progressivecommercial.com.
Speaker 13 Progressive Casualty Insurance Company, coverage provided and serviced by affiliated and third-party insurers. Discounts and coverage selections not available in all states or situations.
Speaker 15 Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Favreau.
Speaker 14 I'm John Lovitt. I'm Tommy Vitor.
Speaker 15 Welcome back, Tommy.
Speaker 14 Thank you guys.
Speaker 15 Slow week last week? Mm-hmm.
Speaker 14 Who's this Walls guy?
Speaker 15 You know,
Speaker 15 I like
Speaker 14 him.
Speaker 15 Again, I think to myself, imagine if today was the day that Lovett came back from Survivor.
Speaker 14 It would have been so funny. There were so many months.
Speaker 15 How long was that? How long was that gone? Is that guy Joe Biden? Like the end of it. Does it look like Joe Biden? Like the end of
Speaker 14 the end of Planet of the Apes. Yeah.
Speaker 14 It was Earth all along. And the funniest thing we could have done is be like, what are you talking about, man? It was always Harris.
Speaker 15 She's always been leading, no?
Speaker 15 On today's show, Donald Trump's meltdown continues as his campaign scrambles to blunt Kamala Harris's rise in the polls.
Speaker 15 The vice president starts to lay out her own policy agenda, and a trove of leaked Project 2025 training videos paint an even scarier and yes, weirder picture than you might imagine.
Speaker 14 No safe word in those videos.
Speaker 15
No safe word. But first, the Trump train is off the tracks, guys.
It is off the tracks. Last week, we had a Washington Post story about how Trump's been upset and complaining about his campaign.
Speaker 15 Now, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan have kicked things up a notch with an absolutely delightful piece in the New York Times headlined, inside the worst three weeks of Donald Trump's 2024 campaign, people close to Trump say that he's in a terrible mood and has taken to calling Harris a bitch and telling donors that Democrats aren't calling him weird, only J.D.
Speaker 15 Vance.
Speaker 15
He's not right. I'm not weird.
He's the one who's weird. Per usual, Trump's latest breakdown has also been quite public.
Speaker 15 He spent the week calling the polls fake and accusing the Harris campaign of using AI to generate photos of their massive crowds.
Speaker 15 And then he really unburdened himself during his only campaign event of the week in Montana. Let's listen.
Speaker 16 You know,
Speaker 16
he wanted to debate. If we didn't have a debate, he'd still be there.
Can you imagine? If we didn't have a debate, why the hell did I debate him?
Speaker 16
Kamala is grossly incompetent and, in my opinion, has a very low IQ. But we'll find out about her IQ during the debate.
Okay, let's find out about her IQ. I think suburban women like me a a lot.
Speaker 16 You know, it's fake stuff.
Speaker 17 Why wouldn't they?
Speaker 17 Why wouldn't they?
Speaker 16 Yet they got this woman, Maggot Hagerman. Did you ever hear of it? Maggot Hagerman.
Speaker 16 She's a reporter.
Speaker 16 If Comrade Waltz and Comrade Harris win this November, the people cheering will be the pink-haired Marxists, the looters, the perverts, the flag burners, Hamas supporters, drug dealers, gun grabbers, and human traffickers.
Speaker 16 No, we're not. We're very solid people.
Speaker 15 We're not weird. We're very solid.
Speaker 15 I wanted to cut it that way, too, because I like that in between calling Kamala Harris low IQ and referring to Maggie Haberman as Maggot Hagerman, he said, I don't know why suburban women don't like me and they love me.
Speaker 14 That was an hour and 40 minute speech, I believe, in Montana. Hour 40, yeah.
Speaker 15 What do you guys think? Same Trump as ever, or does he seem a little more off his game than usual? Well,
Speaker 14 this is, you know,
Speaker 14 it's sort of, yes, you know, this is Trump. This is Trump when things aren't going well.
Speaker 14
He is angry. He is frustrated.
He obviously has no one to blame.
Speaker 15 Undisciplined all over the place.
Speaker 14
But himself. So it is just...
I mean, well, you guys have never gone through a bad breakup? You know what I mean? He didn't want it to go this way.
Speaker 14 He wanted to stick it out, get some couples therapy, but Joe had, you know, he had other plans.
Speaker 15 It is very funny that he just keeps talking about Joe Biden. He's not going to be able to do that.
Speaker 15 Not even to attack Joe Biden, but to be so sad that Joe Biden has left the race.
Speaker 15
And he just truthed, I think before we came in here, he's like, Joe Biden admitted that it was the pressure campaign from the Democrats that forced him out of the race. It's like, well, yeah.
Yeah.
Speaker 15
Right. That was the whole paper.
What are you talking about? Yeah. He goes, and it all, he admitted it all started with the debate.
Well, yeah, obviously. Did you watch the debate? Because we did.
Speaker 15 Were you there? It's like
Speaker 14
he fell down pole vaulting and he's like, oh, it was the wind. It was this.
Oh, I caught his dick on the.
Speaker 15 We're talking about that?
Speaker 14 Yeah, we can talk about that if you want to.
Speaker 15 Sure.
Speaker 14 But it is like also like...
Speaker 15 Does everyone?
Speaker 14 No context needed.
Speaker 15 I was going to say it barrels. Let's just keep going.
Speaker 14 But like, oh, this is, of course, what Trump would say in his hour and 40-minute speech in Montana, which is not a state in which he has any threat.
Speaker 15 Clearly, an event they planned weeks ago when he was beating Joe Biden and thought to themselves, like, we'll help the Senate candidate there beat Tester because
Speaker 15 he wanted to make sure he had a Republican Senate.
Speaker 14 Lovely, you made this point before I went on Tim Sheen.
Speaker 14
When he was in Minnesota doing an event, I was like, well, clearly this was like pre-shake-up scheduling. Obviously, they're going to adjust and start going to smarter places.
Like, no.
Speaker 14 You have to fly over virtually every swing state that he has to win to get to Montana
Speaker 15
to New York or Florida. It's not like he's still in the White House where it actually is tricky to reschedule stuff because you have all the...
Yeah, it's just
Speaker 15
a private citizen with a. He's not campaigning.
He's not campaigning.
Speaker 14 Well, not his plane.
Speaker 15
Not his plan. That's right.
Now, apparently, it's Jeffrey Epstein's plane.
Speaker 14
Which is, I mean, if we were Republicans, this is all we would talk about from now until election day. He's on Jeff Epstein's plane.
Come on.
Speaker 15 Not the first time, right? Huh? That's true. Yeah, he's like, oh,
Speaker 14 no, you got to jiggle the handle when you flush.
Speaker 15 Okay.
Speaker 15
Because he's been on it. Right.
Right. Because he knows the plane.
He knows. Right.
But he's also, he's out there. He's talking about Joe Biden.
Speaker 15
He was like attacking Joe Rogan last week because he thought Joe Rogan endorsed RFK Jr. And then Joe Rogan's like, I just said I liked RFK Jr.
He did this whole thing.
Speaker 15 He's just going every different direction at this point.
Speaker 14 Maggot Hagerman? Maggot, yeah, what? So, by the way, a story that only exists probably because he called her.
Speaker 15 He called her. 100%.
Speaker 14
Yeah, he called her for this. I texted Maggie to say, is Maggot Haberman new? And she said, no, unless you think February of 2022 is new.
So I guess we'd miss this.
Speaker 15 Well, Maggot would know. She would know.
Speaker 14 She's the best source on this subject.
Speaker 15 She would know that. No, I guess he called her very angry and Jonathan Swan because he's been telling the story about how he was in a helicopter crash with Willie Brown.
Speaker 14 No, you know, it was just another black elected official from California, not even San Francisco.
Speaker 15
Yep, that's right. That's right.
Just fully.
Speaker 15 And very mad at them for correcting that.
Speaker 15 And he's doing great.
Speaker 14 The other part of the story was he claimed that Willie Brown was saying bad things on this helicopter while it almost crashed about Kamala Harris.
Speaker 15 What are the odds?
Speaker 15 Turned out zero. Do I have a story for you that I haven't been telling? What did you guys make of the time story for Maggie and Jonathan? Any other nuggets in there you want to talk about?
Speaker 14 I do appreciate just he is so angry and so
Speaker 14 self-destructive that he had an aide send angry text to Miriam Adelson criticizing what that super PAC is doing on his behalf.
Speaker 15 Saying it's run by rhinos.
Speaker 14 Saying it's run by rhinos. And it's like, you know, it's like...
Speaker 15 Look a gift horse in the mire.
Speaker 14 That's just somebody doing that for you as a favor, my friend.
Speaker 15 Right.
Speaker 14 Sheldon Adelson's widow, who I think the story said, the PAC was spending $18 million that week on ads in support of Donald Trump.
Speaker 15
And he sent an angry text. Also, the whole story is basically this dinner with donors.
Yes. And so it's clearly a source.
Bill Ackman was there, or Pal Bill Ackman.
Speaker 14 For those who don't know Bill Ackman, he's an insufferable, arrogant, hedge fund prick who decided to endorse Donald Trump the day of the assassination attempt.
Speaker 14 Because what people needed to hear that day was whether Bill Ackman endorsed. Because he's that self-important.
Speaker 14 And this guy, he's one of these rich guys who's like, just wants a tax cut, just wants deregulation, has convinced himself that Donald Trump has changed and he can make this about policy.
Speaker 14 And they sit down at this asshole rich guy table and Trump just starts ranting about stop the steal.
Speaker 15 Yeah. And he also, and someone was like, what are you going to do to turn the narrative around and like lay out your positive vision?
Speaker 15 And I guess then he just like attacked Kamala Harris for a couple of minutes and at the end said, I am who I am.
Speaker 15 He also told the donors that the Democrats have tried to kill him. So he's doing the whole the J.D.
Speaker 15
Vance line that the assassination attempt was somehow related to Democrats, even though there's been no evidence. I don't even remember.
Was that an assassination attempt?
Speaker 15 There was an assassination attempt, yeah.
Speaker 15
And he wants everyone to be clear that it has not made him nicer. Yeah, he keeps saying that.
It has not made him nicer. He wants people to understand that.
Speaker 15
Also, private poll in Ohio that has him under 50% in Ohio, that's real, by the way. I've heard.
It was Bernie Moreno's campaign. Oh, interesting.
It was against Jared Brown. Yeah.
Speaker 15
Oh, I like that a lot. I know.
Okay. I mean, who knows?
Speaker 15 No one. This is getting too good.
Speaker 14 It's getting
Speaker 14
a lot of fun. By the way, it doesn't also just like he's under 50.
It doesn't say Kamal Harris is winning in Ohio. It's just that he's not over 50.
Speaker 15
Yeah. No, if anything, it just feels good for Sherrod.
It's pretty obvious that Trump hasn't settled on a message about Harris.
Speaker 15 The campaign seems to be lurching between three different and potentially contradictory attacks. Radical San Francisco liberal,
Speaker 15 four more years of Biden's failed policy,
Speaker 15 and a flip-flopping fake who can't be trusted.
Speaker 15 Time Story made it sound like they're going with flip-flopper, and Trump accused Harris of that in a Truth Social post this morning, where he promised that with him, there will be, quote, no flipping,
Speaker 15 no flipping with me.
Speaker 15 But then hours later, he made his triumphant return to Twitter to post a video titled, Meet San Francisco Radical Kamala Harris. Why do you guys think they can't seem to land on a message here?
Speaker 15 And which one worries you the most?
Speaker 14 I do think, like, two of the three just don't land that hard with Kamala Harris.
Speaker 14 That like it's it's just I get wanting to like trying to paint her as a radical when she's out there calling herself a prosecute every day and standing next to Tim Waltz, which is just like normal personified, I think doesn't land as well.
Speaker 14 Also like this idea of painting her as like a candidate of like the administration and the past, I think is just not landing as well because she feels so exciting and new in part because her campaign is only three weeks old.
Speaker 14 So I think that's why you kind of end up landing almost by process of elimination on fake flip-flopper.
Speaker 14 You know, do you guys think the radical liberal and flip-flopper chameleon are mutually exclusive in this context?
Speaker 15 I think I'll combine them. I think you can combine them because I think what they're trying to say is she's fake and phony in trying to present herself now as more moderate and mainstream.
Speaker 15 And the truth about her is that she's a crazy liberal lunatic.
Speaker 15 So apparently one of the super PACs just announced they're going to spend $100 million in the swing states, $100 million ad buy, based on the theme, people will elect a liberal but not a lunatic.
Speaker 15 Now, again, this gets back to your point, which is like painting her as a lunatic when everyone is seeing her every day now on the campaign trail and she's just sounding like joyful and reasonable and moderate, sounding like a mainstream.
Speaker 15 It's not
Speaker 15 just like a mainstream Democrat. Like it's just, it's a hard one to do, but I understand it is, it is a process of elimination.
Speaker 14 I'm just going to try to say, look at all the lefty stuff she did in California, look at these 2020 primary positions. Now she's trying to walk away from them.
Speaker 14 And then you make it a character and a policy attack, which I actually think like the best attacks are a combination like that.
Speaker 14 I think most voters actually don't really care if you flip-flop on positions. If you end up in the right place, you're better off.
Speaker 15
I was just about to say that. Because the challenge for John Kerry in 2004 was he was...
flipping, flopping, and then flipping back
Speaker 15 to the old positions like within the same campaign, right?
Speaker 14 On the Iraq War, which was the most salient issue of the entire election.
Speaker 15 Exactly. If all she has done is said, like, yeah, there were some positions I took in the 2019, 2020 primaries.
Speaker 15 And then, by the way, I just had four years of working with Joe Biden closely in the White House where we got a lot of bipartisan accomplishments done.
Speaker 15
We got a lot of sort of mainstream accomplishments done. Here's what we did.
I think that's her best defense on that.
Speaker 15 And her tenure as vice president makes it difficult to paint her as this radical liberal.
Speaker 14 I just think back to the 2020 primary and why we're seeing such a better version of Kamala harris now and it and like you look at those moments that the republicans are elevating and yes she's taking left positions that she's now disavowed but you can also see that she's uncomfortable doing it and doesn't seem like many of them were many of them were but so like you know looking around before they raise their hand yeah looking around for the raise their hand or like should should people be able to vote while they're in prison while that's a conversational
Speaker 15 crossing the border traffic ticket yes good
Speaker 14 but the yeah the the should the should the boston marathon bombers be able to vote in prison one was a moment you could see it was just like, I've never been asked this. I don't know.
Speaker 14 And not thinking, what do I think, but more like,
Speaker 14 where am I trying to situate myself right now? And so I do think like she just seems more comfortable being this version of herself, which is why I just don't think these attacks land.
Speaker 15 The other challenge with doing the, oh, she's just a continuation of Biden's failed policies on, and I think they will zero in on immigration and inflation, is.
Speaker 15
Their criticism of Biden and his policies wasn't never based in ideology. It wasn't like Biden's a crazy liberal and that's why inflation's bad or the border's a mess.
It's that Biden's weak and old.
Speaker 15
Yes. So because that was their criticism, it's hard now to say, well, we have immigration issues and cost of living issues because they were too liberal.
Like it's just a hard thing to do.
Speaker 15 They actually did plan their whole campaign around Biden being old and thus weak.
Speaker 14 There was a subtext though that was like, Biden is so old and out of it that actually Kamala is in charge and the the radical left green new deal ghost of whatever like aoc is running the show that but that was a bit of a subtext thing that they never really pushed hard yeah it's funny that like even john kerry right that like that there was that you know he had this moment where he said i actually voted for the 87 billion dollars before i voted against it and like tough line tough line but the attack on him as a flip-flopper really did work with the kind of senatorial version of him that we got.
Speaker 14 And it kind of fit with like a, an impression of him that he had created and that Republicans were spending a lot of money to create over a long period of time.
Speaker 14 Like they just don't have time right now to like create the framework to define Camille Harris as fake or phony so that future moments can be fit into that frame.
Speaker 15 The other senatorial thing about it was John Kerry spent most of that campaign trying to say, no, no, I've been consistent. which is what happens when you're a senator with a long record.
Speaker 15
I've seen Biden do this. I've seen other people who've been in the Senate a long time.
Instead of what you should say when it happens at the debate or an interview is just like, ah, changed my mind.
Speaker 15 You know, I've had, or I've had experience over the last four years uh, about governing the entire country and not just California, but, you know, like because it got to him.
Speaker 14 And, and I just, this version, I like, there's a kind of toughness to the way Kamal has been campaigning that I just, she's not going to let them get to her.
Speaker 15 Yeah. What do you guys make of Trump's return to Twitter?
Speaker 14 I mean, it's got to be some sort of quid pro quo with the Elon Musk interview, right?
Speaker 14 Obviously, I think, you know, I'm sure there are some Trump aides who have been very glad over the last couple of years that Trump isn't tweeting out to 88 million people his every thought.
Speaker 14 That said, there's others who are probably thinking, we got 88 million people following this guy and we're not using this tool in the middle of a campaign, right?
Speaker 14 I mean, to me, the most interesting part of this is what it means for Truth Social and the Trump media and technology group, because that is trading on the NASDAQ. It's a publicly traded stock.
Speaker 14 Last May, they announced a quarterly revenue of $770,000 and losses of $328 million.
Speaker 14
So this is a company that has no actual value. It's not trading on fundamentals.
It's a way to bribe him. He owns 60% of the company.
Speaker 14 And I assume that he was staying on Truth Social as a fig leaf to pretend that there was some sort of veneer of value to the DJT stock.
Speaker 14 But I guess it sounds like the report, the Trump campaign is telling reporters that he's on Twitter for good now.
Speaker 15 Well, here's my right right now, Trump is not on Twitter.
Speaker 14 The Trump campaign is on Twitter.
Speaker 15 Truth Social is still getting the good stuff.
Speaker 15 It's getting the pure, uncut Trump crazy. You're La Savita or these people.
Speaker 14 Twitter stepped on.
Speaker 14 You want, you, you want, the ideal version of this is you keep Trump and his little sandbox ranting and raving on Truth Social, and that they can use the Trump account on Twitter to post on-message stuff.
Speaker 14 I don't know how to send one. He's going to send it to you.
Speaker 15 That's the question.
Speaker 14 It's literally just like, how do they, how does he get access to Twitter? Because he can't post. He writes them down or dictates them to
Speaker 14 whoever's in earshot.
Speaker 15 To whoever, whoever's been texting Miriam Maidelson. Yeah.
Speaker 15 Right. Right.
Speaker 15
Now, send this one. Oh, no, no, no.
I meant that as a post.
Speaker 18
October brings it all. Halloween parties, tailgates, crisp fall nights.
At Total Wine and Moore, you'll find just what you need for them all. Mixing up something spooky?
Speaker 18 Total Wine and More is your cocktail central for all your Halloween concoctions.
Speaker 18 With the lowest prices for over 30 years, you'll always find what you love and love what you find only at Total Wine and More. Curbside pickup and delivery available in most areas.
Speaker 18
See TotalWine.com for details. Spirits not sold in Virginia and North Carolina.
Drink responsibly. Be 21.
Speaker 1 Were you or a loved one diagnosed with lung cancer or mesothelioma due to exposure to asbestos?
Speaker 3 For over 20 years, Vogel Sang Law has helped families across the country fight for justice after asbestos exposure.
Speaker 7 Call or visit our website and begin your free case review today.
Speaker 9 Call 888-680-2259.
Speaker 10 That's 888-680-2259.
Speaker 11 Or visit volcalzanglaw.com slash connect.
Speaker 17 Outdated systems and inefficient communications are bad news for your supply chain.
Speaker 17 But with Verizon Business, everything just clicks.
Speaker 17 With our advanced connectivity solutions, you can automate your operations. Plus, you can keep your teams connected and on top of the job, helping you stay ahead of demand and the competition.
Speaker 17 It's the chain reaction your distribution needs. Learn more at Verizon.com/slash distribution.
Speaker 15 So, the Trump campaign has assigned furniture enthusiast JD Vance to play the role of attack dog, which is often the case with a running mate.
Speaker 15 The only issue here is that Vance has arguably generated the worst headlines of either candidate on both tickets over the last several weeks, which might be why he tried for a reset this last weekend by appearing on all the Sunday shows.
Speaker 15 Let's hear how he did.
Speaker 19 Nick Fuentes, of course, he's an avowed white supremacist. He said, What kind of a man marries somebody named Usha? Clearly, he doesn't value his racial identity, his heritage.
Speaker 19
I mean, this is racist garbage. Yes, it is.
But this is also a guy that dined with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago during this campaign.
Speaker 19 Well, Donald Trump doesn't know anything about and frankly doesn't care for. Trump still hasn't given a full-throated denouncement of this guy
Speaker 19
who is, said that terrible stuff, but he said, I mean, he's a white supremacist. Look, I think President Trump has issued plenty of condemnations on this.
The one thing that I like,
Speaker 19 the one thing I like about Donald Trump, John, is that he actually will talk to anybody, but just because you talk to somebody doesn't mean you endorse their views.
Speaker 19 And look, I mean, Donald Trump spent a lot of quality time with my wife. Every time he sees her, he gives her a hug, tells her she's beautiful, and jokes around with her a little bit.
Speaker 19 I'm not at all worried about Donald Trump.
Speaker 14 Yeah, you should be, pal. That's weird.
Speaker 15 Like,
Speaker 15 quality time.
Speaker 15 I guess what he was trying to say there is, I don't think Donald Trump endorses Nick Fuentes' horribly racist, disgusting views of my wife because Donald Trump is nice to my wife.
Speaker 15
And he only had dinner with Nick Fuentes because he didn't know who he was or he did know who he was, but doesn't agree with. He still talks to people he doesn't agree with.
Great stuff.
Speaker 15
Great explanations. Really nailed it.
I saw some people say that they thought that Vance did
Speaker 15 better in these interviews than recent.
Speaker 14 Better than a bunch of couch sex memes.
Speaker 15
Right, I mean, yeah, I mean, better than the worst rollout of a VP candidate in our lifetimes. Sarah Palin.
Oh, no, that was a good rollout. Sarah Palin was crushing it.
Speaker 15
That was actually a great rollout. It got worse than that.
And Katie Curric got worse. Yeah, Katie Curriculum got hurt.
Speaker 14 The gotcha question of Read Neither Lightly.
Speaker 15
I was on the whole Very Read, yeah. Save the country.
Save the country. Read Neither Lately? Fucking changed the trajectory of history.
Speaker 14 But I watched the whole
Speaker 14 Margaret Brennan Face the Nation one, and I actually thought it was like a good interview. And it was a good interview for Vance,
Speaker 14
given how bad he's been. I was trying to watch it.
Like, what if I hadn't been seeing three to four weeks of just Godforsaken coverage that made this guy seem terrible?
Speaker 14 And you see some of the strengths he would have brought to the ticket.
Speaker 15 He would have. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 14 But like, he talks about like sort of populous economic issues on child tax credit, on antitrust, on a few other policy things.
Speaker 14 You also see why he is the sort of intellectual kind of defender of MAGA and how that might have been something that could have been useful to them or that they thought was an advantage.
Speaker 14
But then you just, he's so off-putting even when he's at his best. And you think, what were the strengths that J.D.
Vance brought to this ticket?
Speaker 14 And if would they have, and you just don't think they would have chosen him if they thought they had to play it safe because he doesn't balance Trump out in terms of his personality. J.D.
Speaker 14 Vance is just as much of an asshole, but less charisma. And he doesn't balance him out on policy.
Speaker 14 At least Mike Pence had like kind of like this staid, reserved, institutional vibe, and he sort of complimented him by being a Christian right person, you know, a family values type conservative.
Speaker 14 There's nothing like that with Vance. You don't need an attack dog when Donald Trump is at the top of the ticket.
Speaker 14 You need someone that makes him seem safe, makes him seem normal, makes him seem someone you can vote for while sleeping at night. And Vance doesn't do that, even when he's at his best.
Speaker 14 Yeah, he had some, in that CBS interview, he had some good moments. Like their
Speaker 14 union messaging is that Harris is pro-trade and pro-green energy policies that will hurt auto workers, for example.
Speaker 14 And like that kind of approach to, you know, try to peel off union voters, I think, can be effective in some contexts. He also got pressed on why he wants to end mail order sales of Mifipristone.
Speaker 14 because of the Comstock Act.
Speaker 15 Like really radical stuff.
Speaker 14 So like he's a mixed bag because he's got some extreme policies that smart reporters will push him on. And then they'll also ask him about Donald Trump dining with Nazis and also,
Speaker 14
you know, hedging on whether members of the military in Afghanistan who helped U.S. troops should be allowed into the country because Trump wants to end all asylum.
Right.
Speaker 14 So like he's got a tough situation because he has to defend Trump's terrible policies. He said a bunch of weird shit, and then he's just not very charismatic.
Speaker 15
Every time Trump is asked. about picking him, Trump says, oh, he's good for the working man.
He's good for the working man and women, right? The workers like him.
Speaker 15 You could make an argument, I'm sure that some of Trump's advisors did who wanted him to be selected, that he has more of the intellectual heft than Donald Trump to sort of dress up the bullshit economic populism that they're peddling.
Speaker 15 The challenge is, even on that child tax credit answer, it's like, yeah, would it be effective if there was a Republican nominee who was saying, you know what?
Speaker 15 Like, I do think that we should help people with children, and I think that we shouldn't have children in poverty, and we should use our tax system to do it.
Speaker 15 Like, yeah, that would be effective, right? But J.D. Vance and Republicans have been the ones blocking the extension of the child tax credit for the last several years now.
Speaker 14 Trevor Burrus, you see this on abortion rights, too, right? For the longest time, the right was, oh, we're going to, you know, if we are going to do all this to overturn Ruby v.
Speaker 14 Wade, we have to make life easier and better for new moms and families. And of course, that part of the agenda never came.
Speaker 14 He says, oh, I'm against universal child care because that only benefits a certain kind of family, but I'm for rewarding all parents. But then the push comes to shove.
Speaker 14 They don't ever actually get it through.
Speaker 15 Trevor Burrus, Jr.: They're still part of a party that just doesn't do any of the things that they're pretending they care about on their new economic populism agenda.
Speaker 14 I want to hear a little fun breaking news that just came through our Slack.
Speaker 14 Apparently, you know, we've all been reading about how the Iranian hackers might have infiltrated the Trump campaign, gotten into somebody's email, et cetera.
Speaker 14
It turns out it was Roger Stone's email account. No, there's going to be, according to the Washington Post.
So there could be some interesting stuff in that.
Speaker 15 So they blamed the Iranians, but now they think that maybe it was just Roger Stone.
Speaker 14 No, no, no, sorry. Roger Stone's email account was the one compromised by the Iranian phishing attack.
Speaker 14 So you think there's probably going to be some interesting stuff in there.
Speaker 15 Oh, that's fun.
Speaker 14 Starting with some abs, the phishing attack that, hey, we saw you across the room and we really liked your vibe.
Speaker 15
Developing, developing stories. Developing, Kobe.
So other Republicans are also getting in on the fun of attacking the new nominee.
Speaker 15 James Comer, head of the Oversight Committee, House Oversight Committee, who's spent the last two years trying to investigate and impeach Joe Biden over nothing, told Fox News News that his committee will now turn their attention to Kamala Harris and investigate how much money the migrant crisis has cost the government.
Speaker 15 Think he'll be able to make that a thing?
Speaker 14 First of all, I just, there have been so many wonderful aspects of how the dynamic has changed over the last three weeks.
Speaker 14 But one I just hadn't really thought that much about is the fact that House Republicans have spent the last two years trying to drum up controversies and scandals and impeachment inquiries in order to tar and tarnish Joe Biden.
Speaker 14
And it was a waste of their fucking time. They did it for nothing.
They got to nothing.
Speaker 15 Biden crime family.
Speaker 14 The Biden crime family, they're going to sail from the sunset, hopefully with a couple pardons, which I support.
Speaker 15 I do. Pretty good.
Speaker 14
Throw some on there. You guys have been through enough.
Take one for the team. Joe, 50 Biden, 50 years of service.
Speaker 15
Take them for yourself. Yeah.
Throw a couple of parts.
Speaker 14
By the way, put us on the list. You're probably mad at us.
Bad time for that. We'll ask about the pardon later.
Speaker 15 Yeah, he's not going to play. He's going to fucking arrest us.
Speaker 15 Lose, lose for us no matter who wins. Yeah.
Speaker 15
Oh, boy. I just think it's, it's also, we've all skipped over just the head-spinning aspect of like, we're a congressional oversight committee.
And
Speaker 15 by the way, what we were doing with President Biden was just to take him down politically. Now we must take down the new nominee politically.
Speaker 15
So we're going to drop up a fake investigation or just like announcing it. Yes.
Announcing it.
Speaker 14 I think the
Speaker 14 truth was revealed to me about this committee during the 5,000 Benghazi investigations.
Speaker 14 Well, didn't like Kevin McCarthy just basically say it to a reporter, like, we're going to use this to take down the president.
Speaker 15 I don't think they're, look, it's
Speaker 15
August. I don't think they're going to have much time to do that.
People know time to do it. They're holding hearings.
Speaker 14
They're subpoenaing documents and going to court to try to get them. Also, it's like, look, it's not a corruption scandal involving a Ukrainian energy company.
It's the border. It's on television.
Speaker 15 Right.
Speaker 14 What do you, yeah, yeah. No, people know it's a problem because they're aware.
Speaker 15 Let's talk about Kamal Harris and Tim Walls, who are getting such good crowds, polls, fundraising, and media coverage. It's making me nervous.
Speaker 15
Make you nervous. I know.
I know.
Speaker 15 Our crosstab king, Nate Cohn, came down from the mountain this weekend to bless us with a new round of New York Times Sienna polls that show Harris up 50-46 in each of the three blue wall states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
Speaker 15 I'll believe it for a second. Where Biden had been tied before the debate and very behind afterwards.
Speaker 15 A new poll from North Carolina shows the race there may be tied, and the average is closing at the very least.
Speaker 15 And a huge week of swing state events wrapped up with a rally in Vegas in front of more than 12,000 people.
Speaker 15 The vice president announced at the event that she would stop taxing income from tips, which is also a relatively new Trump proposal.
Speaker 15 She'll also reportedly unveil a slew of economic proposals this week. before the convention.
Speaker 15 And Harris has been staking out a position on immigration that's focused on securing the border and offering undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship.
Speaker 15 She's been saying she'll sign the bipartisan border control bill that Trump had killed.
Speaker 15 There has been an increasing amount of hand-wringing in the press and from Republicans about Harris not having talked enough about policy yet.
Speaker 15 Where do you guys come down on that?
Speaker 14 I mean, like, I was talking to someone today who said in every focus group he's done, you hear people saying, like, I don't know if she understands people like me.
Speaker 14 I don't know what she's going to do for people like me.
Speaker 14 So whether or not the press is saying, you know, she needs to roll out a bunch of policy, I do think voters want to hear it because there's this like large information gap.
Speaker 14 Normally you'd fill that with endless boring speeches that no one ever listens to.
Speaker 14 They have this nice opportunity to kind of fill the space in, what, 100 days with shorter, pithier plans and policies. So make it a topper.
Speaker 15 Yeah. Make it a topper.
Speaker 14 Keep it tight. Yeah, keep it tight.
Speaker 14 Keep it tight.
Speaker 15
Just for people who don't know, you get your stem speech. You give the same stem speech at every single event.
And all you need to do. do is insert a couple of paragraphs in the speech
Speaker 15
at the top in the beginning. We're not going back.
And in one way we're not back.
Speaker 14 We're not going back when it comes to healthcare.
Speaker 15 Bullet, bullet, bullet. And then
Speaker 15
you have the policy geeks write up a white paper, and then they put it in a press release. You do a conference call in the campaign.
You're done. You're done.
You're done. You're done.
You're done.
Speaker 15 You're not writing a 4,000-word speech that no one's going to fucking care about. No, please don't.
Speaker 14
If you're listening, please don't. But Blueprint, this polling firm, they did some testing.
They found 71% of voters said their minds are made up about Trump and nothing could change them.
Speaker 14 57% said that about Harris, but 20% said their minds could be changed or that they need more information. So I think she's got an opportunity here.
Speaker 14
But like the least effective criticism is that she needs to do more interviews. Trump's pushing this really hard.
Oh, she hasn't talked to a single reporter. Blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 14 The press score is getting whipped up. And like on some level, yeah, of course she should do interviews, but not a single voter gives a shit.
Speaker 15 It's pushing on an open door because the reporters are going to get, they know they'll have the media on their side.
Speaker 14 I just think it's like, it's also going to keep building.
Speaker 14 And what you don't want to do is actually, you know, you end up having so much pressure on those first interviews because they draw unnecessary attention.
Speaker 14 And then the questions also have to become more ferocious because it's like a big, it's a big moment.
Speaker 15 Well, which is why she's been walking up to the press pool after events when she gets off the plane to like take a few questions.
Speaker 15
And then on last week, late last week, we were talking about this on last episode. She said she would have her team schedule a sit-down by the end of the month.
She's got the convention coming up.
Speaker 15 You know, you got it, you focus on walls, baby. Right.
Speaker 14 Can we just go back, though, to this idea that like, oh, she's, you know, she hasn't been talking about policy. The campaign is three weeks old.
Speaker 15 That's what I was going to say.
Speaker 14
So there's two parts of this. First of all, the campaign is three weeks old.
I do agree there's a lot of people, like undecided voters who be like, I need to hear more. I need to hear more.
Speaker 14
There's people that always say they need to hear more and they don't go looking, but fine. They're out there.
They're Americans and we love every one of them.
Speaker 15 But what those people really want is like fucking Santa Claus to come to their door with a big bag of presents. For sure.
Speaker 15 But like...
Speaker 14 The idea that there's like people that aren't undecided voters who feel like they're not aware of the kind of administration Kamala Harris would run as if, A, there wasn't a second-term Biden agenda already being laid out and B, a Democratic platform that hasn't already been announced.
Speaker 15 Like, there's a whole bunch of policies. And she was part of that campaign.
Speaker 15 I mean, of course, that's the benefit, one of the many benefits of having like Kamala Harris and not just a random Democratic nominee who's a governor of a state, who really would, even though it was just three weeks, people would be like, well, what do you stand for?
Speaker 15 What do you do? We know what your record was as governor, but like, what are you going to do as president? She signed on to all the Biden policy plans.
Speaker 15
Like, she can separate herself from some of them if she doesn't like them. Hopefully, several of them.
I'd love to see some separation.
Speaker 14 But I do think it's like, that's why it's like, this idea that there's some liability because she hasn't been talking about policy, policy, I think, is ridiculous. It's actually all opportunity.
Speaker 15 We, yes, like,
Speaker 14 it's all upside to find places of difference, to go further where she wants to go further, make news on something, where she wants to talk about economic populist policies.
Speaker 14 And on a lot of policies, abortion, democracy, climate, like there's just, we know, like, she's out there on that.
Speaker 15 She's out there. Yeah.
Speaker 14 Yeah. And Venn diagrams.
Speaker 15 She can make Venn diagni. Venn diagrams.
Speaker 15 In those New York Times polls, the reason that she's leading Trump, the reason is her favorability rating is like much higher than Biden's was, now higher than Trump's.
Speaker 15 And Trump's in those polls, still at that 46%
Speaker 15
favorable, which is very high for Trump, but she's even higher. A majority say that she's honest and intelligent.
More than say that about Donald Trump on both those.
Speaker 15 That she brings the right kind of change, which is huge. It's close around that, 15 and 47.
Speaker 15 Has the temperament to be president, and that she has a clear vision for the country.
Speaker 15 Again, that one's sort of lower than the others, which is why I think the policy thing, you know, they'll be focusing on that in the coming weeks.
Speaker 15 And a majority doesn't think she's too far to the left either so far.
Speaker 15 Only 44% of likely voters say she's too liberal or progressive, compared with 44% who say she's not too far either way, and only 6% who say she isn't progressive enough. You don't want to,
Speaker 15 some Democrat said this to Playbook today.
Speaker 15 I don't know if it was a Harris advisor or some Democrat advisor said like, we certainly don't need to be having a fight about details on Medicare for all for the next 100 days.
Speaker 14
I saw it. I clocked it.
And I believe it was a senior congressional aide. And the reason I looked, I was like, hey, stop.
Speaker 15
Stop. Don't put that up.
Yeah, shut the fuck up. Throw some salt over your shoulder.
Speaker 15 Spin around three times and go for it.
Speaker 14 Get out of here.
Speaker 14 She'll also do better on the economy than Biden was, too.
Speaker 15 Yeah.
Speaker 14 And she's winning on existing in the context of all in which he lives.
Speaker 15 Yeah, huge advantage there. No, the economy thing is interesting because people still, people have the same views about the economy.
Speaker 15 They just trust her more than they did Biden because they don't hold her responsible for the bullshit they held Biden responsible for the last four years, which wasn't really Biden's fault.
Speaker 15 And the bullshit might have been his age.
Speaker 15 That's where it all comes back to. But it's not that people aren't still upset about affordability and the cost of living.
Speaker 15 It's just that they are giving her a right that I don't feel a doubt that they did not give him. What do you guys make of her copying Trump's no tax on tips proposal?
Speaker 14
My feeling on it is like, great, do that. Take that off the table.
Like, is it campaign to win?
Speaker 15 In it to win it.
Speaker 14 Fucking win it.
Speaker 15 Great. In it.
Speaker 14
You do not like that. Like, absolutely absolutely embrace it.
Like, there was a lot of, I think, like, very.
Speaker 15
And let's be clear. Not a great, we didn't, we, we didn't think it was a great policy when Trump did it.
No, it's still not a great policy. Yeah.
Not a bad policy, just not a.
Speaker 14 Like, I think that it is, like, it is a way to get more money into the hands of people that could use more money.
Speaker 14 It has a lot of like unintended side effects. And it's not the, it's not a, it's not a great way to help people that need help.
Speaker 14 There's other things you could do and other policies you could put in place, higher minimum wage and so forth that would like do more for more in a more fair way.
Speaker 15 And the reason that I think when we talked about this, when Trump proposed it, that we criticized Trump is because when you propose something like this and then you're against the minimum wage, a minimum wage increase, and you're proposing a gigantic tax cut for the rich and no tax cut or like a very small tax cut for most other people, yeah, then in totality, your economic proposals are a fucking problem.
Speaker 14 Well, one thing it does, right, is that like, so you have, if you have a state like California that has a higher minimum wage and a state like South Carolina with a lower minimum wage,
Speaker 14 and more of the income than comes from tips in those places, you're basically rewarding states and rewarding employers that pay less.
Speaker 14 Yeah, I mean, I want to just be clear that I come down on doing whatever gives her the maximum political advantage in this moment, and I don't care about anything else. Yep, agree.
Speaker 14 But on the substance, I do think it comes down to how you implement the idea. Like the concern is that employers could push labor costs onto consumers by reducing wages and then encouraging tipping.
Speaker 14 Ted Cruz,
Speaker 14 policy mind of a generation, introduced a bill called the No Tax on Tips Act that did almost nothing for low-income workers, but created a massive loophole that could have allowed or that could allow hedge fund managers to shift their compensation to a tipping model and thus avoid paying any taxes on it.
Speaker 14 So, like, that is the worst case. But obviously, Harris wouldn't do that.
Speaker 15 I mean, no, in fact,
Speaker 15 one of her campaign officials told NPR as president she'd work with Congress to craft a proposal that comes with an income limit and with strict requirements to prevent hedge fund managers and lawyers from structuring their compensation in that way.
Speaker 15 So they're already saying that her proposal is different than Trump's. Yeah.
Speaker 14 And also, like, at the end of the day, like, I imagine she tried to couple it with bringing back the child tax credit or expanding the EITC, like a lot of other more targeted policies.
Speaker 14 I just, like, just win Arizona.
Speaker 14
Again, I'm for it completely. Do whatever you want.
I know it's like a fine policy.
Speaker 15 Like, I don't care. Do whatever you want.
Speaker 14 It's fine policy.
Speaker 14 I just think that, like, as a society.
Speaker 14 No, but a society that like shifts more and more income into tips is one in which like it puts the cost onto customers over employers and it shifts the burden from the ungenerous to the generous because over the course of a day what's going to determine the size of your tips is how generous the people who walked in the door are someone's pissed about that iPad spinning around when he's buying a Diet Coke
Speaker 15 and it's like all right you didn't bring anything to my table I'm standing here
Speaker 14 no I always I always press the fucking button I know
Speaker 15 that it's on everything now see you hovering over that 18
Speaker 15 what are you guys hoping to see from her in terms of other economic proposals this week?
Speaker 14 I'd like to ban some of that iPad flipping around.
Speaker 15
The most politically advantageous things possible. Tax cuts for working families.
Affordability. Affordability.
I think it's just affordability. Affordability.
Speaker 15 Anything that's going to reduce costs for people, that's going to help people.
Speaker 15 And I think she's going to do that. She's already signaling that.
Speaker 15 Affordability, middle-class economics, and just like a couple specific policies, either that Biden has already endorsed and people don't, you know, really know of, or maybe a few new things just to make news.
Speaker 15 But that's she has she has two policy issues that she needs to care about, immigration, which we're about to talk about, and affordability.
Speaker 15 Like, and with this much time left, I wouldn't think about anything else.
Speaker 15 She'll talk about abortion, right? But most of that's out there, right? That's something that you talk about.
Speaker 15 It's not like there's going to be a lot of new policy there because everyone knows what the solution is. But beyond that, it's affordability and immigration.
Speaker 15 That's what voters consistently say that they care about more than anything else.
Speaker 14 The White House announced that they're putting out a bunch of kind of consumer protections. And I really like that.
Speaker 14 There's a bunch of like air travel consumer protections, customer service consumer protections, not helping cancel unwanted subscriptions. Yeah, which, you know, coming onto our territory.
Speaker 14 But also, like, let the private sector do its thing. But the
Speaker 15 rocket money, the code is. Yeah, but yeah.
Speaker 14 But stay in the Discord.
Speaker 14 But also, there was one about the doom loop of customer service and being unable to get a real person. I just think those are like
Speaker 14 quietly just things that make people seethe.
Speaker 15 And I like when Biden folks have done an amazing job on junk fees and like not enough people know about it.
Speaker 14
That's one reason. People getting refunds automatically as opposed to getting airline credits or some convoluted other thing.
Like that's a Biden policy that people should know that Biden did.
Speaker 14 If I see an advisory for a major foreign policy speech,
Speaker 14 I'm going to shut down the Council on Foreign Relations.
Speaker 15 Will you? You can do that?
Speaker 14 We're going to take away Ben Rhodes's.
Speaker 15 I was going to say, you better talk to your co-host.
Speaker 14 Is he a member of the council?
Speaker 15 No. I assume.
Speaker 14 i was a term member for like six minutes
Speaker 15 i know all it meant was like i paid
Speaker 14 all it meant was i paid fees and i didn't go to anything richard host over here look at this fucking guy look at this fucking guy couldn't think of a second foreign policy guy
Speaker 15 there's a big new arrest
Speaker 14 i don't know uh sorry how do you guys feel about her sounding pretty tough on border security oh my gosh we talked about the i i think that's what she should do i think like going out there and saying, I was a border state prosecutor.
Speaker 14 I'm for the executive order to strengthen border security. I am for the bipartisan border bill.
Speaker 15 That is how we build a secure border on our way to a more generous immigration system.
Speaker 14
I'm all for it. That's what she should be saying.
Yeah, Blueprint did some testing on this, too. And also talking about how, you know, I'm the daughter of immigrants.
Speaker 14
I think immigration is important, but I think people should be rewarded who try to do it the right way, like my parents did. And we need a system that rewards that.
Also, I went after these gangs.
Speaker 14 I'll go after smugglers. I'll go after human traffickers, you know, that kind of message.
Speaker 15
Here's one of of her first ads, focused on border security. And this is how it ends.
As president, she will hire thousands more border agents and crack down on fentanyl and human trafficking.
Speaker 15
Fixing the border is tough. So is Kamala Harris.
Great. Love it.
Speaker 15
I've seen some commentators be like, wow, she's combining now being tough on border security with providing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Like, what a revelation.
I'm like,
Speaker 15 does no one remember the Obama era?
Speaker 15 This is what we owe out. How many speeches do we write?
Speaker 14 I just like, like, we, like, Democrats paid politically, and I think the policy paid for believing that the way you demonstrate that you are
Speaker 14 pro-immigration is by not, is by taking a less strong stand on border security. And actually, it had the exact opposite effect you would want.
Speaker 14 You need to do these things to demonstrate that you're serious about the border so that you have the credibility and space to do the most generous immigration reform that you could possibly do, which is what I think our collective goal should be.
Speaker 14 Like, the goal is not to
Speaker 14 use the border as a gauge for how generous our country is. Our goal should be to do what we can to secure the border so we have the space to have an actual policy that makes sense.
Speaker 18
October brings it all. Halloween parties, tailgates, crisp fall nights.
At Total Wine and Moore, you'll find just what you need for them all. Mixing up something spooky?
Speaker 18 Total Wine and Moore is your cocktail central for all your Halloween concoctions.
Speaker 18 With the lowest prices for over 30 years, you'll always find find what you love and love what you find only at Total Wine and more. Curbside pickup and delivery available in most areas.
Speaker 18
See TotalWine.com for details. Spirits not sold in Virginia and North Carolina.
Drink responsibly. B21.
Speaker 2 Were you or a loved one diagnosed with lung cancer or mesothelioma due to exposure to asbestos?
Speaker 3 For over 20 years, Vogel Sang Law has helped families across the country fight for justice after asbestos exposure.
Speaker 7 Call or visit our website and begin your free case review today.
Speaker 9 Call 888-680-2259. That's 888-680-2259.
Speaker 11 Or visit volgolzanglaw.com/slash connect.
Speaker 17
Factories have their own rhythm. Machines hum, data flows.
But if your systems aren't fully integrated, everything slows down.
Speaker 17 That's where Verizon Business steps in to help.
Speaker 17 Our agile connectivity solutions enable seamless interoperability, giving you real-time visibility of your systems and data, so you can make better decisions faster.
Speaker 17 That's the rhythm your facility needs to move your business forward. Learn more at Verizon.com/slash manufacturing.
Speaker 15 Okay,
Speaker 15 before we leave you, the Magasphere wants all of us to believe that Project 2025 isn't a thing anymore. The top guys stepped down, which the Trump campaign welcomed mockingly.
Speaker 15 Trump himself has been trying to disavow the whole project, which hasn't gone that well since there's pictures of him on a private plane that the Washington Post dug up with the top guy.
Speaker 14 The Heritage Foundation's founder, I believe. Yep.
Speaker 15 And they were on their way to a Heritage Foundation conference where Trump talked about how great what they're doing is and said that they're, quote, laying the groundwork and detailed plans for exactly what our movement will do.
Speaker 14 Kevin Roberts is.
Speaker 15 Kevin Roberts is
Speaker 15
Project 2025 is also the gift that keeps on giving for reporters. The latest is a series of training videos obtained by ProPublica and documented.
We have two clips.
Speaker 15 Let's listen to the first.
Speaker 20 Now, when I think of climate change, I immediately think of population control, don't you? I think you can expect that equity and all of the equity executive orders under Biden will be repealed.
Speaker 20 That's what gender-affirming care is.
Speaker 15 Not care at all.
Speaker 20 The noxious tenets of critical race theory and gender ideology should be excised from curriculum in every single public school in this country.
Speaker 15 I always think of population control and I think of climate change. My God.
Speaker 14 It's
Speaker 14
baddie stuff. It's baddie stuff.
And it is just sort of interesting just to see, like,
Speaker 15 these are training videos.
Speaker 14
There's, I believe, 14 hours of them that ProPublica has also put up. And I was like, I want to kind of get into it.
I was like, not that much into it.
Speaker 14
But these are just sort of, it is ideologue to to ideologue. It's videos that were made as if nobody was watching.
It's just for them.
Speaker 14 And like they're unrestrained, kind of practical, pragmatic steps that they will take to undo every executive order on diversity, equity, inclusion, to issue rules to restrict what schools can teach or what happens when a child comes forward and says, hey,
Speaker 14 I don't feel like a boy or whatever they come and tell a teacher and what horrors await if the Trump administration is in power.
Speaker 14 And then just their kind of genuine belief that that climate change is a hoax to control the population perpetrated by liberals, by the childless cat ladies. And it links to the J.D.
Speaker 14 Manz thing, right? J.D. Manz is the public face of this kind of ideology.
Speaker 15 I hadn't heard that one before.
Speaker 15 This conspiracy that liberals say that if you have kids, kids is bad for having kids is bad for the climate. Like having having kids makes the,
Speaker 15 makes like
Speaker 14
that. There is definitely, there are, like, I mean, it's a, you know, it's a rando.
Yes, it is true. Randos on the internet have said, I'm not having kids because of climate change.
Speaker 15
There's that. I've heard that before.
But this was basically saying that, like, kids contribute to climate change, to pollution.
Speaker 14 Well, I think there are, right, that it's unethical to have kids because your kids will contribute to climate change. Do I think that this is a real thing that's like upheld by like the libs?
Speaker 15 No, of course. No, I'm just saying I hadn't heard that one before.
Speaker 14 There are very dumb people on the extremes of both sides, I think, of this issue.
Speaker 14 It's worth saying, like, the,
Speaker 14
I mean, this is a 900-page plan. It's got a $22 million budget.
So it's a very real thing, even if they're trying to walk away from it. It's policy.
It's a 180-day playbook. It's personnel.
Speaker 14 And I guess the training component was these creepy videos.
Speaker 14 It's very radical stuff, you know, taking control, Trump taking control of all federal agencies and putting in MAGA loyalists, mass deportations, banning Medicaid abortion, 800 pages more of stuff.
Speaker 14 That said, so very well-funded, very serious, very threatening set of ideas in this whole package.
Speaker 14 These videos are some of the most unappealing and underwhelming people I've ever had the misfortune of watching.
Speaker 14 It's the deputy chief of staff at USAID talking to the deputy press secretary at DASA about how to avoid the mainstream media.
Speaker 15 I don't know.
Speaker 14 It was pretty bad.
Speaker 15
Not helping them beat the weird allegations. That's true.
No. We have another clip where they talk more about implementation.
Let's listen.
Speaker 21 If the next Republican president does not execute a dramatic course correction, there may never be another chance.
Speaker 21 So if you're not on board with helping implement a dramatic course correction because you're afraid it'll damage your future employment prospects, it'll harm you socially, look, I get it.
Speaker 21
That's a real danger. It's a real thing.
But please do us all a favor and sit this one out.
Speaker 14 Do not let career bureaucrats hinder you from advancing the president's agenda.
Speaker 15 Probably better off going down to the canteen, getting a cup of coffee, talking it through, and making the decision, as opposed to sending him an email and creating a thread that accountable.us or one of those other groups is going to come back and seek.
Speaker 15 I'm sorry, did he say the canteens?
Speaker 14 Yeah, the canteen, down to the canteen.
Speaker 14 Like, I found this to be like some of the most chilling stuff because it is,
Speaker 14 they're not going to be able to, you know, if they win and they are going to be rapidly staffing.
Speaker 14 you know, hundreds of agencies with tens of thousands of people. This is basically trying to weed out the
Speaker 14 simps, get the real diehards in there, and to kind of reassure them that when they get into this bureaucracy and they make a bunch of trouble, that the Trump administration will have their back, including telling them, hey, if you want to do something that some government weasel is telling you is illegal, don't write back that they should do it anyway.
Speaker 15 Walk down the hall.
Speaker 14 Just do it. And, you know, put your finger in their chest down at the canteen
Speaker 14 to get that done. And like even the opening,
Speaker 14 that first moment of someone saying, if you're not in favor, like he kind of uses a kind of euphemism for the amount of chaos they want to unleash.
Speaker 14 If you're going to, if you're afraid this is going to affect your social standing and your built, your gut, your job prospects, that's a reasonable fear. Maybe this job isn't for you.
Speaker 14 Like that, this is like fascistic stuff, basically saying, like, you got to be part of the vanguard to get in there and fuck with the government.
Speaker 14
And it may cost you dearly, but it's the right thing to do. And if you're not in, we don't want you on the team.
Like, that's scary stuff.
Speaker 15 The biggest challenge for Democrats with Project 2025 is voters in a lot of these focus groups, like, don't necessarily, it's so, it sounds so crazy, they don't necessarily believe it.
Speaker 15 And then they don't necessarily believe that it will actually happen, right?
Speaker 15 Because they see Trump as like, you know, Trump's crazy in a lot of ways, but they don't think this, a lot of this vibes with him, a lot of these ideas.
Speaker 15 And so the real challenge, I think, over the next however many, and I think this is a challenge for the Harris Walls campaign as well, is to make it clear that if Trump wins and J.D.
Speaker 15 Vance is in the White House too, too, like this shit will happen.
Speaker 14 Yeah, I mean, this is a plug-and-play
Speaker 14 plan for the administration for the first 180 days. If Trump wins, there's no other thing that can happen.
Speaker 14
There's no great transition plan. There's no policies to pulling off the shelves.
They don't have a platform. This is it.
Speaker 15 And they don't. This is the Republican plan.
Speaker 15 Apparently, 29 of the 36 speakers in those videos have worked for Trump in some capacity, either on his transition team in the first term in the administration or now on his re-election campaign.
Speaker 14
These are his staffers, his donors. These organizations are...
Heritage has been important in Washington since the Reagan administration.
Speaker 15 Yeah, but it took a very Trumpy turn over. Very scary turn over the last year.
Speaker 14 It's also like
Speaker 14 they're going to staff the administration with thousands of people, and then those people will run amok, and they will go to the, and some of them will pull this off the shelves.
Speaker 15
You know, Donald Trump, famous micromanager. Yeah.
Yeah. He's good.
He doesn't care. He's going to care.
Speaker 14 And these people are, and the worst ones will get in there and do the most damage they possibly can.
Speaker 15 One bit of housekeeping before we go. Dan is out with a new episode of Polar Coaster, taking a look at Tim Walls' impact on the race.
Speaker 15 He's joined by Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, who's one of the best in the business, to look at the VP pick and how the Democratic ticket is doing in the key states.
Speaker 15 Polar Coaster is a subscriber exclusive show, so head on over to cricket.com slash friends to get access if you haven't already. Also, you should be following Strict Scrutiny if you're not already.
Speaker 15 It's fantastic. It's been two years since the Dobbs decision overturning Row.
Speaker 15 And in their latest episode, Melissa Kate and Leah take a look back at everything that's happened since then and what comes next.
Speaker 15
Look for the episode titled State of the Uterus on the Strict Scrutiny feed. And while you're there, make sure you're subscribed.
That is our show for today.
Speaker 15
I'll be back with a new show for you on Wednesday. And my guest host will be our old pal, David Axerod.
Yeah.
Speaker 15 We'll talk to you then.
Speaker 15 If you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and more, consider joining our friends of the pod subscription community at cricket.com slash friends.
Speaker 15 And if you're already doom-scrolling, don't forget to follow us at Pod Save America on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content, and more.
Speaker 15 Plus, if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review to help boost this episode or spice up the group chat by sharing it with friends, family, or randos you want in on this conversation.
Speaker 15
Pod Save America is a crooked media production. Our producer is David Toledo.
Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farah Safari.
Speaker 15 Reed Cherlin is our executive editor, and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
Speaker 15
Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer, with audio support from Kyle Seglund and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by Hallie Kiefer.
Madeleine Herringer is our head of news and programming.
Speaker 15 Matt DeGroote is our head of production. Andy Taft is our executive assistant.
Speaker 15 Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Phoebe Bradford, Joseph Dutra, Ben Hefcote, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kirill Pelavieve, and David Toles.
Speaker 18
October brings it all. Halloween parties, tailgates, crisp fall nights.
At Total Wine and Moore, you'll find just what you need for them all. Mixing up something spooky?
Speaker 18 Total Wine and More is your cocktail central for all your Halloween concoctions.
Speaker 18 With the lowest prices for over 30 years, you'll always find what you love and love what you find only at Total Wine and Moore. Curbside pickup and delivery available in most areas.
Speaker 18
See TotalWine.com for details. Spirits not sold in Virginia and North Carolina.
Drink responsibly. B21.
Speaker 1 Were you or a loved one diagnosed with lung cancer or mesothelioma due to exposure to asbestos?
Speaker 3 For over 20 years, Vogelzang Law has helped families across the country fight for justice after asbestos exposure.
Speaker 7 Call or visit our website and begin your free case review today.
Speaker 9 Call 888-680-2259.
Speaker 11 That's 888-680-2259 or visit vogelzanglaw.com/slash connect.