Kamala Dominates Trump at the Debate
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Book your trip at ococean.com. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. She has to drop out. What's Tim Walls doing? I'm Jon Lovett. Kidding! I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. I'm Tommy Vitor. On tonight's show... In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating...

They're eating the pets of the people that live there. So that was 30 minutes in to a debate that I think by all accounts, including people on Fox News, Brit Hume, Brit Graham, Kamala Harris won. It was, I think, the

The best debate performance against Donald Trump I have ever seen of any of the primary debates, any of the seven presidential debates he's participated in. I think she she crushed him. This was the moment that people have been waiting for for nine years. Yeah.

Right. He got, he got, someone got on stage with him and took him down and he had no response. He got angry towards the end. He got kind of sad and it was exactly, it's what people, it's what everyone's been wanting, waiting for. And Kamala Harris delivered tonight. Dan, do you think it was a mistake to rather than do actual debate prep for Donald Trump to do what he called policy sessions with Matt Gates and Tulsi Gabbard? Maybe he didn't do enough policy sessions with Matt Gates and Tulsi Gabbard. Fatal mistake. I love it. What'd you think?

There's a moment that we'll get to where basically Kamala Harris says, I'm not Donald Trump. I'm not Joe Biden. I'm a new generation of leadership. And the closest experience I've had, I remember when I had to go to the hospital after that show in Austin and I was in a lot of pain. Oh, yeah. And I was in a lot of and they didn't know what was wrong, but they decided to give me morphine anyway. And there's this morphine. There's this moment where the morphine kind of hits your bloodstream. Jesus Christ. And I just think she did great tonight.

Just took the Chris Matthews thrill up his leg thing. Just fucking took it to another level. It was relief. It was relief. Sweet relief. They walked out on stage at the beginning and she went to shake his hand. She had to go all the way over to his podium because he did not want to shake her hand. He looked scared. She looked in command. And that was basically just...

symbolic of the entire debate because she was in control the entire time. I think what is most impressive about the performance, and we'll get into all of it, is she went into this debate. She is the vice president of an incumbent administration where the president of that administration is quite unpopular and has been for some time.

So there was plenty of fodder for Donald Trump and the moderators of the debate to put her on the defense. And it very easily could have been a debate where we came out of it and it was talking all about a lot of Kamala Harris's positions that she's changed over the years, this, that, the other thing. And she just wasn't on the defense in all.

90 minutes of the debate. Yeah. A very small percentage of the time when she was defending her positions. And what she did is she walked in there and realized that she had a playbook. She had the points she wanted to make.

She had the attack she wanted to level against Donald Trump. She had the what she wanted to say about her own plans and her own policies and her own positions and her own values. And she did that. And every time Donald Trump spoke and rambled and we'll get to that, like she didn't she didn't respond to different things that he said and she didn't chase him down the rabbit holes. She just sort of responded by doing what she had prepared to do. She had a plan.

For every single question, she went in there and she baited the hook and she dipped it into the water and he took it every time. She baited him into talking about his crowd size. She baited him into unloading about his court cases and felonies. She even baited him into ranting about COVID and ventilator production, like things that in no world should he be talking about. And yeah, he looked like a maniac.

So to keep things simple here, we're just going to go more or less chronologically through the debate, pick out what we thought were the most important moments. Let's start with abortion. First big moment of the debate was an exchange about abortion where Harris jumped all over Trump because he was saying everyone wanted him to overturn Roe. And then the discussion shifted to talk about a national abortion ban. Here's how it went. One does not have to abandon their faith.

or deeply held beliefs to agree. The government and Donald Trump certainly should not be telling a woman what to do with her body. You want to talk about this is what people wanted?

Pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term, suffering from a miscarriage, being denied care in an emergency room because the health care providers are afraid they might go to jail and she's bleeding out in a car in the parking lot. A 12 or 13 year old survivor of incest being forced to carry a pregnancy to term.

They don't want that. Understand, if Donald Trump were to be reelected, he will sign a national abortion ban. Understand, in his project 2025, there would be a national abortion monitor that would be monitoring your pregnancies, your miscarriages. I'm not in favor of abortion bans, but

But it doesn't matter because this issue has now been taken over by the state. But if I could just get a yes or no, because you're running me, J.D. Vance has said that you would veto if you did come to your desk. Well, I didn't discuss it with J.D. In all fairness, J.D. And I don't mind if he has a certain view, but I think he was speaking for me, but I really didn't. Here's what I can't understand there. The Trump campaign.

And Donald Trump went through great lengths to say that at one point he would veto a national abortion ban. And he basically, in a national debate, just decided to walk that back,

make news on his abortion stance, which is something that they have been trying to avoid for some time now. What was going on there? I don't think he's on camera saying I would veto a national abortion ban. I don't think he's ever said that. I think that the campaign has come up behind and cleaned up after something he said in the past. But he has studiously avoided being on camera saying that. He has said he would not sign one. Yeah, he is. Because there's been this iteration of this where it was for the first answer was it will never come to my desk.

And then that was seen as insufficient. And then it was, I won't sign it. Right. He said, I won't sign it. Right. And then the campaign has said, I didn't realize it was J.D. Vance, but the campaign has said, and I thought Trump had said it, but the campaign has answered questions to say that they would veto it. Because when J.D. Vance said it on a Sunday show, they said J.D. Vance reiterated the Trump campaign's position. His...

Right, but he may not know that, but that's the point here. I think that when he has said in the past some version of I won't sign it, he's saying it's not going to happen. It's not coming to my desk. I'm not going to sign it. That's not going to happen. He's never explicitly said if it's passed, I will veto it. There's two reasons this happened. The first one is

He went out last week and said he would vote for the abortion amendment in Florida. And he got smacked on the nose by the far right abortion extremists who run the Republican Party. And so I think he is now hesitant about that because he would, I think they were pretty, the phone lines blew up. People made, you know, essentially threats about evangelical turnout in the battleground states. I think he's scared there. The other reason is he's a 78 year old, pretty dim declining man.

And he doesn't really know what he's doing. And he was knocked off his game pretty early there. This is a theme of the entire debate is like there were a couple of debates with Hillary Clinton in 2016. Trump was ranting and raving in those debates. He would lie a lot in those debates. But.

He made a little bit more sense back in 2016 than he did tonight. He made more sense in 2020. The first debate with the COVID was when he had COVID, it was a little brain fog. Yeah, a little brain fog there. But he really just sort of lost the plot on a lot of these answers.

I mean, I think that's the theme of this whole thing. I was kind of kidding about prepping with Matt Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard and doing policy sessions. But like Kamala Harris was prepared for every single answer. She had practiced. She knew how to look in the cut shot, right? She knew how to call him a liar with her eyes, her face, her smile. And Donald Trump did not seem prepared. And just to sort of like big picture this abortion answer, David Plouffe tweeted this.

40 point difference with undecided voters on their abortion answers. Widest gap I've ever seen in debate dials. What debate dials are is campaigns do what are called dial tests. Basically, you can figure out in real time if undecided voters or whoever's behind the dials like or dislike an answer. He's saying that the voters, the distance between the voters on the Trump answer and Kamala Harris's answer was the widest he's ever seen. This is a very experienced campaign operative. So that was a masterful answer from Kamala Harris.

And, you know, we've been talking about how one challenge the Harris campaign and Democrats have had is convincing voters that not only is Donald Trump responsible for the Supreme Court majority that overturned Roe v. Wade, but that he would actually pass an abortion ban.

That's what they've been trying to say. And Donald Trump's been trying to run away from that. And now at a national TV audience of I don't know how many tens of millions of people, he basically left open the idea that he would sign a national abortion ban. And six of the seven battleground states have either abortion amendments already in the Constitution or democratic control of the governorship and or the legislature to protect abortion rights in those states. And so...

If you want people to care about, they got to understand that we need, we have to defeat Donald Trump. Otherwise it doesn't matter who your governor is. It doesn't matter what your state law says. You can, you can still lose your reproductive freedom in your state under Donald Trump.

So the other thing that Harris did in this debate is she went in with, you know, mostly a plan to talk about her plans and to contrast with Donald Trump's policies. But she also had a strategy to get under his skin a few times in a sort of subtle way that didn't look like it was too, too planned or too artificial, I guess. It definitely looked planned, but it wasn't artificial. And this was one of the first moments. Let's listen. And I'm going to invite you.

to attend one of Donald Trump's rallies, because it's a really interesting thing to watch. You will see during the course of his rallies he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. He will talk about windmills cause cancer. And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.

And I will tell you, the one thing you will not hear him talk about is you. And I'll tell you, I believe you deserve a president who actually puts you first. And I pledge to you that I will. She said people start leaving. People don't go to her rallies. There's no reason to go. So she can't talk about that. People don't leave my rallies. We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics. So.

What was the original question about? We didn't know. We were going through the clips. We're like, what was that in response to? Immigration. Obviously. Obviously. Donald Trump, because we're going to talk about the Republicans all complaining about the moderators. Donald Trump had an opportunity to talk about Kamala Harris and Joe Biden's record on immigration, which polls show is Trump's best issue. And

She wisely pivoted right to this rally line, and he just took the fucking bait. Just didn't even talk about immigration off the top, went right to the rally stuff immediately. She was like, when Bugs Bunny draws a fucking tunnel...

on the side of a brick wall and then moves the road over and he's like, gotta follow the road. It's unbelievable. It also makes you wonder, I mean, like sometimes you see, you know, ads that are created for Twitter and a Twitter conversation, like Obama doing the kind of hand gesture that looks like he's talking about dick size, but he says crowd size. And then you have to wonder, did that get in his head? Because he sure seems mad about it these days.

He was. Well, the funny one of the many fun things about this debate was watching Donald Trump get progressively angrier with each passing minute. He didn't start that way. And then he just got angrier and angrier and angrier. They're all at a dog and he was hungry. I also thought it was just great in that that, you know, in her rally bit, when she looked at the camera and she did this a few times in the debate and said, like, he has no plan for you. Right. Because that is it's fun.

The big challenge for her in this debate was it's fun to get under Donald Trump's skin, right? It makes us excited. It makes it throws Donald Trump off his game, all that kind of stuff. But you also want to deliver your message that's going to actually move undecided voters. And the part that's going to move voters is he has no plan for you and I do. And here's how I'm going to improve your life. And she she wove that in really well in a lot of these like rehearsed bits. So it wasn't just to like get under his skin. And that was it.

There's a way to just club Donald Trump over the head that is cathartic. Right. But she did it in a way that's constructive to her campaign, which is, I think, the most impressive part about this debate performance.

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So we know from the polling that the big lie is one of the most unpopular parts of Trump's shtick. But you know what? He stuck with it tonight. David Muir tried to get Trump to admit that he actually lost the 2020 election based on some recent statements where he sort of appeared to concede that maybe he lost, would not do it. And then Kamala Harris jumped in with this. Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people.

So let's be clear about that. And clearly he is having a very difficult time processing that. But we cannot afford to have a president of the United States who attempts, as he did in the past, to upend the will of the voters in a free and fair election. And I'm going to tell you that I have traveled the world as vice president of the United States. And world leaders are laughing at Donald Trump.

I have talked with military leaders, some of whom worked with you, and they say you're a disgrace. And when you then talk in this way in a presidential debate and deny what over and over again are court cases you have lost because you did in fact lose that election, it leads one to believe that perhaps we do not have in the candidate to my right the temperament

or the ability to not be confused about fact. That's deeply troubling, and the American people deserve better. What do we think about that, guys? Tommy?

It's pretty good. That was pretty good. I mean, also, he then gives this long defensive response. And I saw someone tweet this and I can't remember who it was. And I'm sorry for stealing your joke. But it's very funny and weird that Trump refers to them just as J6, like they're a K-pop band. You know? And as Tim Miller pointed out at one point when he was talking about them storming the Capitol, he said, we. We? Yeah. He said, we. There's, you know, when do you want to talk about the moderators? Oh.

Go for it. So, look, I think it's a great sign that Democrats feel like they want a cigarette and Republicans are like, the moderators fucked us. I think that's like a great sign.

Which is, it's their only response. It's their only response right now. You look on Laura Ingraham, all the rest of them, they're all saying, oh, the moderators, it's the moderators. It's the moderators, it's the moderators. Josh Holmes, the whole, all of them. If you went through and look at the questions that the moderators asked Kamala Harris, they were, where do you differ with Joe Biden on immigration? Why did you not focus on this problem since the last six months? How have your, why have your positions changed so dramatically since you ran for president in 2020? She got a bunch of hard questions, but she had a plan for each of those questions because they thought about what would happen if she would ask them and how to turn them to her advantage and turn them to Donald Trump.

Trump. She made hard questions look easy. Donald Trump made hard questions look impossible.

And like over and over again, like that is what happened over the course of this debate. David Muir, basically, it is, I guess, for Trump, a hard question. You've now admitted you lost the election. A rational actor would take that and say, well, because we shouldn't be talking about that, David. We got to talk about what we're going to do for the country. There's a hundred things a rational actor in the position of Donald Trump would do with a question like that. But he turned it into actually there's an incredible choir of people and we have to

We got to pardon a bunch of these people. And kind of goes on a rambling tirade that she had a fully prepped answer for. But you can see that there were seeds of debate prep that must have happened because he did that whole rambling response. At the end, he goes, but none of that matters anymore. We got to look forward. Right, right. He did. Start with that, bud. It was in there. It was in there for sure. Also, there will be complaining about the moderators and the fact-checking. But to the extent there was fact-checking, it was things like, actually, sir, it's

nowhere in this country can you murder babies. Right. Actually, sir, there is no evidence that they're eating dogs. This is what made me so, this makes me so annoyed. Like Donald Trump and Kamala Harris went back and forth on tariff policy and, and taxes and immigration, all this kind of stuff. They didn't fact check any of that, even though Donald Trump lied a whole bunch of times during that policy section. Right. But,

But yeah, when you talk about people, Haitian immigrants eating dogs, which is just wrong. Or the fact that the election was stolen, which is wrong. Like, yeah, you know what? They have to fact check Donald Trump because he's telling really, really big lies that are obvious. It would be embarrassing for them as journalists to sit there and to say, well, you know what, to teach the controversy on whether Haitian immigrants are stealing fucking dogs and eating them. And why is it like incite people?

You know what I mean? When you tell people that Democrats are murdering babies after they're born, that leads to people doing crazy things. Yeah. Violent things. Right. Right. And also there's the complaints about the moderators. It reminds me of like some people after the Biden Trump debate was like, oh, it was the moderators. They didn't call out Trump's lies. And at the time it's like, no, it wasn't about them not calling out Trump's lies. Joe Biden had an opportunity to go after Trump and didn't take that opportunity. And tonight the same thing happened. Donald Trump spoke publicly.

I think the final tally was more than Kamala Harris. He had plenty of time to go after Kamala Harris to prosecute the case. He didn't prosecute the case because he couldn't. And by the way, every time Donald Trump said, I need to respond, I need to respond. He did. There were times where Kamala Harris wasn't given that chance. I actually don't think that's a fault. Like, that's how it goes in a debate. You're making decisions on the fly.

Like I think in both in the Biden Trump debate and in the Kamala Harris Trump debate, these are moderators that ask pretty tough questions, fact checked where necessary here and there and mostly got out of the way. And in both debates, it was the candidates that were responsible for what happened in that debate. Again, on that immigration question that he turned into a response to her on his rallies. The initial question was, President Biden, you signed this executive order to close the border. Like, why did you wait three and a half years?

Donald Trump could have gone back to that. It was the debate equivalent of Sir, this is a Wendy's. It really was. There was a foreign policy question. They talked about the war in Ukraine. They talked about Afghanistan. And the moderators also brought up Gaza. It was interesting to hear what Donald Trump had to say about it. Here it was. She hates Israel at the same time in her own way. She hates the Arab population.

I mean, if that's true, that's that's a problem. I just like that because it's such a perfect encapsulation of who Donald Trump is and like what his politics are. It's like it's a divisive issue. Some you know, there are some there's some Arab Americans and Palestinian Americans matter. There is also but there's also a potential to get some Jewish Americans matter. I'm going to say that. Yeah, I want to suppress the vote in Michigan, but I want the Jews in Florida. I got to say she hates them all. Right.

Yeah, he yeah, it was a pandering to everybody and making sense to no one. He also like his key kind of national security validator that he kept mentioning is Viktor Orban, who's quasi dictator in Hungary, who is very famous and kind of like right wing CPAC Republican circles, but unknown to everybody else. And that was another theme throughout the night that we actually talked about on the Monday Tuesday pod, which is Jake Tapper came on CNN and said that many of Trump's answers were 4chan posts come to life.

And that is exactly right. Like Donald Trump, he lives in true social. He speaks this right wing language. And that if you are not fluent in it, you do not know what he's talking about half the time. I mean, we watch his rallies and this is what they are. This is how he talks all the time. There is no in, you know, we I think we all probably went back and watched at least portions of the 2016 and 2020 debates. What is different now is his brain is fully pickled.

He does not have a Fox speed in an everyone else speed. He only has Fox speed. And it's even like, it's even actually, it's more like Newsmax these days than Fox. And it's just, you can't, no persuadable voter who watched this would understand 90% of what he was talking about.

Yeah. No, the Washington Post convened 24 undecided voters and they were asking them, did you understand what the answer Trump just gave? I forget what the question was. And one of them said, I couldn't follow anything that he was saying right there. Wouldn't it be nice to kind of understand or maybe live for one day as the two people that thought Trump won the debate out of that group of undecided? Like, what's it like to walk in your shoes? We got the CNN post-debate poll, by the way, on who won.

63% Harris, 37% Trump. Sounds about right. That sounds fine. That sounds about right. Remember when those advisors told the New York Times that their goal is to get a happy Trump? Policy Trump? How'd it go? What happened to happy Trump?

Was this happy Trump? Did they win? Did they get happy Trump? And John, to your point on speaking time, Stephanie Ruhle at MSNBC tweeted that Kamala Harris spoke 23 times for 37 minutes. Trump spoke 39 times for 41 minutes. Moderators were unfair. Yeah, unfair moderators. Couldn't didn't have time to prosecute his case. I would say the the ugly head of misogyny rears its head again.

So Lovett mentioned this earlier, but at one point Trump was trying to give an answer on inflation and he walked into a trap, a line that I think it's fair to say Kamala went into the night planning to use. Let's listen. She is Biden. The worst inflation we've ever had. A horrible economy because inflation has made it so bad that you can't get away with that. Thank you. Your time is up. I want to respond to that, though. I want to just respond briefly. Clearly, I am not Joe Biden.

and I am certainly not Donald Trump.

And what I do offer is a new generation of leadership for our country. Now, the morphine was just hitting 11, but the rest of the office was all cheering and screaming at that because that is the message. That's it. I do think like, so that was, Donald Trump was ricocheting all over the place. So that is where he kind of came back to inflation. There had been an economic section at the very top of the debate. And it was like the first 10 to 10 or 15 minutes of the debate, I thought was like, okay,

almost like i thought she was doing fine but it was kind of a wash it was just sort of like people argue i didn't like think it was going that well until the abortion section and then on like she was crushing and and he was on the ropes um but it's interesting because it's like then they come back to inflation here and she is so on top of her game by the time you get to this part of the debate that she's just as sort of like ready with this line and it was it's a little

So it was nice. Whenever she's about to deliver a line that she knows is going to take Trump down, we saw this after he questioned her racial identity, she kind of laughs to herself because it's just, it is the joyous warrior thing that Doug Emhoff was in here talking about the other day. It's great. It's the joy of somebody who had a binder and knows what page they're on. It's the joyous warrior thing, but it's also like...

Kamala Harris and we and Doug Emhoff was here in the studio and we talked to him. They are still normal people. They have not been in Washington that long that they have, you know, like and so a normal person standing on stage next to Donald Trump when Donald Trump says shit like that, when he talks about eating dogs and cats is going to laugh, right?

Because it's a crazy thing to say. And like, we don't have to pretend that you have to compose yourself for when he says something like that. Of course, you're going to laugh. Of course, you're going to laugh when you say, I am not Joe Biden and I am not Donald Trump. And it's a and it's a new generation and we're going to move forward like that just makes sense.

And as she laughed, I mean, you could watch his face go from very, very orange and made up, like extremely caked on to redder and redder. And by the end of the debate, he was screaming almost all of his answers. Yeah, he was shouting into the microphone. He was furious. Yeah, I would say that it's like the little chuckle of someone who realizes that they can do a double jump and get kingdom checkers. You know, like that sort of like a few moments throughout the debate where it was just like, oh my God, look where he went. He doesn't see it. Bop, bop, king me. Sorry.

Yes, I like that. So much of the punditry leading up to the debate was about like how she might separate herself from Joe Biden. Like are there policy? We talked about this on Tuesday's pod. Are there policy differences? Are there decisions that she's going to point to? But really, all she had to do was in that line. Like, I'm not Joe Biden.

It was what we talked about. Right. And like, I'm not Donald Trump. I'm something new. I'm a younger generation of leadership. And like, you don't need to get into the specific policy differences and this and that, and whether you support Biden on this or that. She just, that's all you need. That's,

That's like I think that turned out to be more true than we have any right to expect it to be because Donald Trump was so bad at tying her to Joe Biden in this debate. Right. Like he missed so many opportunities to make this a referendum on the Biden administration, which is what he was supposed to do, but didn't have the aptitude to do. So she had even more space to basically just sort of separate herself just by being someone new and talking about the future.

I mean, that's the argument, right? That she's going to turn the page in New General Relationship. She's going to have to, over the course of the next 50-some days here, make that argument over and over again to offer the proof points to that. In a debate, it's one line. It's a great line. There are very similar lines in her convention speech. But now the test will be, it opens the door for these voters. Now you've got to meet the threshold of change. Well, and there's

Basically, you can tell that there's two moments that Donald Trump had, I think, that seemed like they were prepared moments or prepared lines. At one point, she talks about all the people who worked for him that no longer support him, that call him dangerous, out of touch, whatever, you know, Mike Pence, all the rest of them. The ad. All the people. All part of the ad. All part of the ad, right. And that they released the week of the debate with Pence and everyone else. Yeah.

And then he said to her, well, you know what? You didn't. Why didn't your administration fire anyone because of the border, because of inflation? And you could tell it was this prepared line that I'm like, oh, that's so far. That's the only good response Donald Trump has given the entire debate. And then at the very end.

when he gives his closing argument, he starts the closing argument by saying like, she had three and a half years. Why didn't she change any of this? Which is what the campaign had telegraphed they wanted their message to be. It was so strange. And then of course, then he went on and just rambled and didn't really close. He didn't land the plane on that closing argument. But those are basically like two messages that you can tell they might have practiced, but he didn't practice anything else. And it showed. And it's really like... Or he did practice, but he couldn't execute because like Dan said, his brain is pickled.

He got angry and then he had to, you know, he just followed her wherever she went. But like the fact that he didn't get to a sentence like that until the closing of the debate, that should have been in his first answer. Right. She started with a tough question. Like, are you better off than you were four years ago? A question that like Trump would love to be able to dig in on. And she went right to her message. She went to her plans, her policies, her vision. That was an opportunity that Trump couldn't take advantage of. Right. Like that happened throughout the debate.

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So towards the end of the debate, the moderators asked Trump about his plans for Obamacare. And again, did not seem to be prepared on that one. Let's listen. If we can come up with a plan that's going to cost our people, our population less money and be better health care than Obamacare, then I would absolutely do it. But until then, I'd run it as good as it can be run. So just a yes or no, you still do not have a plan. I have concepts of a plan.

You'll be seeing that in an ad. That is so embarrassing. And the question critics Lindsay Davis, because she was like, so it's been nine years. Have you come up with a plan yet? You've been talking about repealing Obamacare. You've tried 60 some odd times. Do you have a plan yet? And that's the best yet concept of a plan. It was interesting because he, this was another moment where he, they had practiced this in some way, shape or form, at least the idea that

They were going to keep Obamacare and just try to run it better. But he just he needs to be the center of it too much. He has to have his own possible plan to replace it. He just can't take the obvious answer on the table. And he walks right into a trap once again. Well, also, the trap is set by the fact that he knows nothing about health care. And so he's never he has never come up with a plan. He doesn't know what to talk about. He like he just doesn't know. But but.

he's never had a plan to replace Obamacare. He has said for years that he had a plan. Like this is, I think gets to the kind of like, he's the out of practice, didn't prep, hasn't thought about this in a long time and is older than he used to be.

Like, there are a few moments in this debate where he just sounded like a politician. One of them was around abortion. Another one was this moment. Do you have a plan? I have the concept of a plan. Like, you're a fucking world-class liar. Just say you have a plan. It's strange. You'll be hearing it soon. After that, he said, you'll be hearing it soon. But also, a freshman member of Congress could talk about healthcare for 60 seconds. Right. About what possible ideas would be in the plan, but he cannot for five seconds talk about healthcare policy. So there's nothing he could say there other than concepts of a plan. But I think this is where...

in the coming weeks, if I was her, like would expose him, right? Because what you could see after this debate, if you were an undecided voter and I haven't listened to the focus groups yet or all that, but what they might say is, okay, yeah, like she seemed commanding. She was a little bit like, I still don't know enough about what she's going to do versus what he's going to do, right? Like that's what it's going to come down to for people. And I think the

the case that she can prosecute even more than all the fun traps she laid for him is like, this guy is full of shit. He has no plan. He has no plan for you. She said it a couple times tonight. And here's what I'm going to do. Here's what I'm going to do to bring costs down. Here's what I'm going to do on healthcare. Here's what I'm going to do on reproductive rights.

And this guy, he has no idea what he's going to do. He's going to be led around by the people that he hires who are all extreme crazy people. He only cares about himself. He doesn't care about you. And he can't even talk about health care. Yeah, I feel like there was the next step that I felt like I didn't hear in the debate. At the beginning, we talked about the

the child tax credit and a few other things. Like she was, I think hitting the message, but not getting into a lot of the details about like what exactly her plan is versus what his plan is. And, you know, she says project 2025, he says, it's not my plan. Like hitting, like, these are his advisors. These are his plans is exactly what he's going to do here. The details of what, because she said that at one point saying he doesn't have a plan, but there's probably 2025 and it's very detailed. And it's like, there's a little bit of a dissonance there. And I just think like,

Being specific about making him own the plan, that it's his advisors, it's his people, and then more specifics about her stuff. So, yeah, so that leads us to, like, what happens next and also what this debate does. Do we think it's – we're all very excited. We're exuberant right now. Do we think it could move the race here or what?

On average, the first debate in the last several elections has moved the polls about 1.7%. And that includes the Biden-Trump debate of earlier this year. Do we consider this the second debate or the first debate? I'm counting this as a second first debate in the same campaign for that reason. Okay.

But 1.7% would be a big shift in this race. This is the, right now the closest race in recent memory and maybe history. And so if it were to move something like that, it would do it. The last big poll movement, just, I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade here was after the, uh, first Romney Obama debate, the polls moved 4% in one week. And then by the, by basically the third week, they'd moved basically back to where they were before.

And so this is, I think we should think about this as the beginning, not the end of her final push here, right? This has opened the door to new voters. It's given her momentum. I can't believe we've gone this far into the debate without mentioning that she got Taylor Swift's endorsement. That was next. We're talking about the debate, Dan. We're substance people. Also, after-

After the debate, Taylor Swift posted on Instagram that she's voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, signed the post, childless cat lady. It's a big win. It was fantastic. The campaign said they didn't know she was going to do that, which I assumed was true. But some people were like thinking about the timing. There was no timing. Taylor Swift just

Watched the debate and was like, yeah, I'm going to vote for Kamala Harris. Well, she also said in the post that there was some like AI generated fake endorsements of her and Donald Trump. I think she wanted to get ahead of that. Yeah. I mean, the question of I think we probably shouldn't be looking for some sort of definitive polling bounce. I think things to look for are.

Do we start to see fewer voters say, I don't know enough about her. I don't know what she would do for me on the economy. You know, I don't know enough about her plans. We learned a lot of interesting things tonight. I don't think that I knew that Kamala Harris was a gun owner. Yeah, that was news. I'm also a cop and a gun owner.

I was very happy. A cop, a gun-owning cop endorsed by Dick Cheney. Let's get to the fucking doors, people. And John McCain's ghost. I was very happy that Kamala Harris informed tens of millions of people that Donald Trump invited the Taliban to come hang out at Camp David. I bet that was new information. That's for you. That's a little treat for you. Yeah, in the world of space. I bet her Ukraine answer was one of the least popular things she said tonight just because people don't love Ukraine.

of sending money to foreign places for wars, but she was smart enough to say that Putin will go into Poland next because she knows a lot of Polish Americans live in swing states. - She knows exactly how many. - That was great. - That is a prepared candidate. - Yeah, like if you look at like the CBS poll of Pennsylvania that they like, you know, it was, it was like whatever, 48, 49, 48 is really close. And basically of all the people, like 5% of Trump voters

said they were open to voting for Kamala Harris. And then there was like two or three percent undecided. If you got half of the undecided voters and 20 percent of the people that were leaning towards Trump that were open to it, you would see what? Like a point or two change in the vote in Pennsylvania, which means it's like a huge shift in the people that are still deciding would barely register in the polls at this point.

Yeah. And look, there's voters who are going to say, I wanted to know what she's going to do versus what he's going to do. There's also voters who are just going to like make their decision based on impressions of the two candidates. And she seemed like I would look at the strong leader numbers. I would look at the like who's going to bring change numbers in some of these polls. You know, we'll see what they bring. Who knows? Maybe everyone watched and just the race is still polarized and tight. And that's probably the most likely outcome. But it also could have gone badly. Yeah.

It did not. It actually could not have gone better for her, I don't think. And you know that Trump thinks that too, because his top surrogates, like Lindsey Graham, told Tim Miller that the debate team should be fired and Trump was unprepared and he called it a disaster. And Trump made an unscheduled visit to the spin room, which you don't ever do. And then he went on Sean Hannity, right? They were running scared. They will look weak. J.D. Vance was talking to Caitlin Collins, trying to defend the dogs and eating the dogs and cats. I'm here for...

Like, actually, some city geese have gone missing. And I would just say that if at the end of a presidential debate about who's going to be in charge of the nukes and Medicare and health care and foreign policy, if you're telling CNN that some city geese in Springfield, Ohio, may have gone missing, I don't know that you're where you want to be message wise. He was literally defending his posts. He used to turn abducted.

He was, and he was like, and here's the thing. It may not have been true, but you know what? We wouldn't have had this conversation about immigration if not for our memes. The memes were important. He literally defended the memes. Do you think that somewhere right now, like, I don't know who it is. The all in guys are having a drunken podcast without calling on Trump to be replaced.

They want him to be replaced with his running mate if he could go back in time and choose his running mate as not JD. You don't think they like JD? Those guys probably like JD. Are city geese like the king's deer? I don't think pets should be kidnapped, but I don't know if we're going to cry over a city goose. Eat a city goose. I don't care.

One last thing. One last thing we have to cover here. After the debate, the Harris campaign said, we'll see you again for the second debate. Hell yeah. We challenged Trump to a second debate in October. Meet me in Ohio. What do we think is going to happen there? Do we think like he on Fox? They're saying, oh, they want a second debate because she lost. It just doesn't really pass the smell test. But does he does he? It sounds like he agrees to the second debate. I think you guys were in the bathroom. He wouldn't commit on Hannity. He wouldn't commit. Yeah.

It's going to depend on the polls, right? This is just how it was. Well, what do you think? You think if he's losing, he gets the debate? And if it doesn't move the polls much, he just says no? He says no debate? I hate to predict what this addled man would do, but if you were in his campaign, it's hard to see how another debate would help you. It's not going to be better. Well, so the other question is, where would that debate be? Because we're running out of networks. It's Fox or NBC. It's Fox or NBC. Or right here. CBS? It's a network?

Yes, no, CBS definitely is going to work. Yeah, here. But I do think he will push for a Fox debate. I could see him saying Fox or bust is what I would say. Max? Right, you could do, sure. It could be Pluto TV, whatever that is, Poopy. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, your options are debate or have J.D. Vance over on MSNBC talking about how they're eating hamsters and guinea pigs in Pittsburgh. J.D. Vance is sitting there desperately like, don't ask her about her cycle. Don't ask her what you want to ask. You freak. Absolute freak. Do we think there's some people in the Harris campaign that are like, maybe we don't need another debate. We should just go out on top here. I don't know.

I think it's great to challenge into a debate, then get mired in the technicalities of whether there will be a debate, and then see what happens with the polls. I think she should... I think she wants another debate. She should have another debate. She's good at it. She is the... Even after this debate, she is the underdog. And as the underdog, you have to just put your...

Pedal to the metal the whole time. Do not take it off. Keep going. Be the aggressor. Have the most momentum. Be everywhere. She is so much better than him. She benefits so much from the split screen. So push for it at every moment. Yeah, I agree with that. If there's any bit of sort of caution and risk aversion in her strategy, I think she would lose this race. If she stays the aggressor, as she has for much of these first eight weeks here, then she absolutely can win. I also think that's why they challenged Donald Trump to a debate five seconds after this debate was over. Yeah. Yeah.

OK, a couple of quick things before we go. There are just 55 days until Election Day and we need everyone to step up and help because it is going to be a close race. The polls don't move that much, which we don't expect them to. We're going to need every single person out there in the last six days before National Voter Registration Day on September 17th. You can help Vote Save America reach their goal of 75,000 volunteer signups.

to their Organize or Else program. The race depends on voters turning out in key precincts, which is why Vote Save America curates high-impact volunteer opportunities and must-win districts where every vote matters. Do not wake up on November 6th regretting not doing more. Thinking to yourself, oh, the debate was fun, and it sounds like she won the debate. Why didn't she win the election? Well, because you didn't fucking sign up for Vote Save America. That's why. Just because Trump took debate

Sign up in less than five minutes at votesaveamerica.com slash 2024. It'll be so quick you won't even remember Lovett's pun. Just right there. This message has been paid for by Votesave America. You can learn more at votesaveamerica.com and this ad has not been authorized by any candidate or candidates committee. Also...

Check out What A Day with our brand new host, Jane Koston. Damn right. She's joined Crooked Media and she's now the host of our daily news pod, What A Day. Check out the latest episode of What A Day with Jane and the podcast industry's next big star, Tommy Vitor. Oh yeah, I'm about to do that. As they make sense of this debate and what's next in the race to November 5th.

Tommy was talking about this debate for an hour. Not enough for you. Yeah. Delete this shit. The good stuff's on what a day. So check that out. That's noted. Noted. Sorry. All right. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. YouTube, Apple podcasts, wherever. All right, everyone. That's it. We made it through a second debate. Much different than our last debate. I would say we sound a lot different. Joe would have won this one too. Trafalgar says Harris won. Trafalgar.

man that's a deep cut for the fans is that real they actually did say that 55-43 oh who is that 43% well it's Trafalgar that mustache guy alright everyone we'll let you go we'll talk to you Thursday bye everyone talk to you Friday whatever

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MSNBC presents The Threat of Project 2025, a four-part series from the How to Win 2024 podcast. It's an in-depth look at what could be the draconian blueprint for a second Donald Trump term while examining the biggest issues at stake. With Ali Velshi to discuss reproductive rights, Joy Reid to talk about education, Jen Psaki to break down LGBTQ rights, and Chris Hayes to look at climate change policy. Search for How to Win 2024 wherever you're listening and follow.

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