Kamala Pitches Populism, Trump Hawks Watches
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Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, Kamala Harris does a big sit-down interview about her economic plan and heads to the border as she tries to neutralize Donald Trump's advantage on two big issues. Meanwhile, Trump wants you to know that he thinks Iran is trying to kill him and that you can buy a new Trump watch for the low, low price of $100,000.

And strict scrutinies Melissa Murray stops by to talk with us about what she heard from some undecided black women voters in her new MSNBC special. But first, Kamala Harris has had another busy week with less than 40 days left in a campaign that could not be closer.

She's headed to Arizona to visit the southern border. On Thursday, she spent the day in D.C. being vice president, first at an event with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, then at an event with President Biden to announce some new steps on gun safety. On Wednesday night, she sat down for an interview with MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle to talk about the economic plan she laid out during a big speech in Pittsburgh. Here she is talking about price gouging and responding to Trump's claim

that she didn't really work at McDonald's. How do you go after price gouging without implementing price controls? Just to be very frank, I am never going to apologize for going after companies and corporations that take advantage of the desperation of the American people. And as Attorney General, I saw this happen in the midst of an emergency, whether it be an extreme weather event or even the pandemic, we saw it.

Where those few companies, not the majority, not most, but those few companies that would take advantage of the desperation of people and jack up prices. Yeah, I'm going to go after them. Yes, I'm going to go after them. I just want to ask you yes or no. At any point in your life,

Have you served two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun working at a McDonald's? Yes or no? That's it. I have. Okay. Now the other job. But it was not a small job. Like, I did the fries. I mean, I, you know. Yes, but I did. But then let me ask about a big job. But to your point, if you don't mind, before you get to the big job. It's a, there's a, part of the reason I even talk about having worked at McDonald's is because I,

There are people who work at McDonald's in our country who are trying to raise a fam- I worked there as a student, I was a kid, who worked there trying to raise families and pay rent on that. And I think part of the difference between me and my opponent includes our perspective on the needs of the American people and what our responsibility then is to meet those needs. She did fries.

Do you know, not to derail this thing, but do you know the origin of the conspiracy theory that she didn't work at McDonald's? Because Trump says it all the time. Yes. There was one of those dumb, blue-checked, right-wing accounts that pretends to be news said that McDonald's stepped forward and said that they have no record of Kamala Harris ever working there. And that's just not true. It was just completely made up. So he took the fake news.

rumor or the fake news that McDonald's said that she never worked there to mean that she was lying, but that just never happened. Okay. Also, what sort of records do we think McDonald's keeps about an Oakland franchise from 40 years ago? That's the best part. And then they, like long ago, they accused her when she first said it, they accused her of like not having it on her resume. And she like sent her resume out after law school. Cause like,

Yeah, it's like, you know what? I don't put fucking CVS on my resume, although I don't send a resume around in quite some time. Anyway, how do you think she did in the interview? Great. That was great. I saw many thoughts on this interview. One, not an easy interview like this. I thought it was MSNBC. It's Stephanie Rule that at least be a friendly interview. And it wasn't unfriendly, but those were she asked tough questions.

And it was all about the economy. It wasn't, I mean, she asked one question on reproductive rights at the very end, but most of the interview was all economy and economic policy and details and all that. And it's like, it took her like one question to warm up. And then she was just throwing fastballs the whole time. It's just when she asked the question about why people trust Donald Trump more, she got, you could see like a little fire in her eyes and she went like right hard at the contrast and it was really good. And I have two takeaways from this. One is more interviews.

Like she's, she's really good at it when, especially if it's an issue that she, when it's about something real, right? A bunch of like the marginalia, stupid bullshit that comes up in a lot of like horse race stuff in interviews. That's hard for any politician when they ask you to be pundit. But when she's talking about something she cares about, she's excellent. Second, I kind of think that if Trump is unwilling to agree to this CNN debate, they should challenge him to an economic debate. Could be on CNN, could be another network, but like think about, she just has this,

He has the advantage in perception, but it's like a mile wide, an inch deep. And she has the better message, the better policies. She's the better messenger. The contrast is it moves vote share. We've seen that in message testing and polling. And so finding opportunity to go back and forth with Trump only on the like, he'll obviously do insane stuff, but primarily on the economy for 90 minutes, I think could be a huge advantage.

I was watching this interview. I agree. I thought it was excellent. I thought it was her best sit-down interview yet since becoming the nominee. I realize she hasn't done it in time. I was going to say, best of four, right? Yeah, but I think it was the best one. And you're right that she always takes the first question to warm up, and she always answers the first question by thinking, and you can tell that she's trying to figure out

what value statement to start with. It's very clear that she has been through debate prep. And we know this because we've done this with Obama and he hated this. But they tell you in debate prep, no matter what the question is, your answer should start with a topic sentence that just...

communicates your values about the issue. Doesn't matter what the actual question was, right? And she did that very well during the debate. And I think that for questions that you don't really want to answer or the answer would be too politically tricky or whatever, it's a good thing to do.

I noticed that as we got into the meat of the interview, like she just sounded wonkier and more detailed, but I liked it. It sounded less like a politician talking in cliches and more like someone who just really knows the policy and knows the issue. And I think it just came across, oddly, since it was wonkier, but it came across more...

informal and colloquial and just real, you know, than some of the like I'm it's very good that she's talking about her middle class upbringing. Very good that she's talking about how she sees the economy. But I would just like dial it a little. I dial it down just a little bit, which she did in this interview and just answer the questions and start talking about the policy. Yeah, you almost have to deprogram candidates after debate because what is good for debate is generally terrible for an interview.

Because you're told to not answer the debate question or you're supposed to answer it with the answer you want. Not the question was asked that can work in a press conference. It can't really work in a one-on-one sit down interview. And so that first question was, let me go big picture and do all of this. And then everything else is just like, I'm just gonna answer the question. And it just comes off more authentic and real. And it was very, very good. And the further she's gotten away from the debate, I realized I just proposed another debate, so I could be screwing us here. But, um,

In each subsequent interview, her questions, her answers have been more on point to the question, which I think is to her benefit. Yeah, I think it's always the questions that she typically gets tripped up on are questions about like they're hypotheticals, which are always annoying ones to answer. But like Stephanie Ruhl asked her, like, what's going to happen if you can't get Republican votes for your tax plan?

You know, and then she didn't want to answer that question. But I do think even even on something like that, it's like, well, what I'm going to do is I'm going to propose a tax plan and I'm going to negotiate. And what I hope is also that I have members of Congress who are going to work with me to lower taxes for middle class Americans and raise them on the rich. That's what I'm going to try to do. You know, like it's pretty. Or we're just going to we're going to win the Senate.

Right. Or we're going to win. Yeah. That's why we're going to win the Senate. Like I just some of the I think some of these answers are easier than she's making them out to be. Or maybe she thinks that like she's not supposed to say it anyway. I thought she was great through like 95 percent of the interview and like the best she's been on this and she should do more. What do you think of the big Pittsburgh speech?

My take away from watching the speech was good speech, poll tested through the roof. The policy proposals are popular. It wasn't just a litany of a bunch of economic white paper vomit on stage. It was thematic. It spoke to the broader theme of her as someone with a middle-class background who's going to fight for middle working class people while Donald Trump's going to fight for the wealthy. So that was very good. I do watch these speeches now and still sort of wonder –

What the impact of these big set speeches are in this day and age. Obviously, it's in Pittsburgh. If you're going to do it, do it someplace where you're going to get lots of local coverage. I'm sure we're going to see ads that take parts of that speech and put it together for an economic message. There will be some social media stuff.

But how many outside of the ads are going to run for it later, or maybe the people watching Pittsburgh TV, how many people who don't know about her economic plans or want to know more about economic plans will actually consume that speech? I think that's sort of a fair question in this day and age.

Yeah, I think it's, you know, she hasn't given because she hasn't had the time to give a lot of like major policy addresses. So you want to give your big economic major policy address. So that totally made sense for that. It was a good speech. I would love to see her do a version of that speech, basically cut it down so that it's a punchy statement.

stump speech on the economy and have a few more contrasts with Donald Trump. Or basically, she had a lot of contrasts with Donald Trump, but just kind of whittle the speech down to just her plan, contrast with Donald Trump, her plan, contrast with Donald Trump, and make it punchy for rally events. Because I agree, like, I don't know

exactly who's going to consume all of that other than the fact that you're right, it could end up in some 30 and 60 second ads. But it was a good speech, you know? And like you said, it wasn't wonky. Again, there was a few times in that speech where she would

She seemed like she was ad-libbing. She was joking a little. And I really liked those parts because it seemed she was more authentic. She seemed like her. She seemed like she was having a good time. She seemed like she was connected with the material, with the audience, with what she was talking about. Like, I think she just needs a little more of that on the trail and interviews because it's there. And, you know, I've seen her do it. But I think that's going to help with that.

connecting with voters who are still undecided. There's obviously a lot to say about her economic plan. Campaign also released an 82-page booklet titled A New Way Forward for the Middle Class. But for the people who may not have had the chance to skim through that book, what do you think the campaign wants to convey about her economic agenda? What are the big things they want voters to remember? I think they want people to know that she has a plan.

This is a classic tactic for a candidate who's new on the scene. Obama also released a plan. We had a book, in fact, an actual published book. I remember editing the book. I remember you enjoying that process thoroughly and thinking what a great use of your time while either writing or editing three rally speeches a day. I know so many people read it. I think it was a bestseller, John.

Yeah. Honestly, anyone can do that these days, as we know. So it's just like having a plan, right? She has a plan. That's one. It is just notable in that speech that she announced she's a capitalist, which- Which she said during the convention speech. Yes, she did. And I think there is a argument here is that she is a mainstream middle-class Democrat who's going to fight for middle-class people. All the policy undergirds that. That's

That's what it's all about. They really want the footage of her standing up there saying she's going to fight for middle class people and that she's a capitalist. And it's to push back against the caricature of her that is showing up in all these ads. The Trump and the Trump super PACs have a bunch of ads up. They're pretty tough on the economy. They blame her for what people are unhappy about the economy. Unfairly blame her, obviously. And they –

They have this video footage of her saying that Bidenomics is working. So they're trying to make her the candidate of the status quo, which you don't like. And they're trying to sort of push back against that in a pretty aggressive way. And that's ultimately the political purpose of the speech. There's a headline in the New York Times that the Harris campaign was understandably and excitedly sending around, which was...

Harris makes a new, tries a new pitch, capitalism for the middle class. I was like, that's it right there. Capitalism for the middle class. Where are we these days? I know. But I do, I mean, like, first of all, it gets them away from Bidenomics, which was clearly not the best branding.

But yeah, capitalism for the middle class. She both gets the like, I'm mainstream and not the comrade Kamala. And also like, I care about the middle class. And what I really liked both in the speech and in the MSNBC interview is that like when Stephanie Rule asked her about price gouging, she was like, I'm going to make and she's like, well, how, you know.

there's price gouging, but also how do you convince people that it's not price controls because they get nervous. And she's like, I'm not going to make any apologies whatsoever about going after big companies who take advantage of the American people. And I didn't look at my record when I was AG. I did the same thing. I went on after big banks. So it was great. So it's like, it wasn't, she's not like,

shying away and trying to be like a mushy centrist on the economy. But she's basically saying she's a capitalist and capitalism can work, but it has to work for everyone in this country because that's how the economy is strong and big corporations shouldn't be taken advantage and they should pay their fair share. I'm sort of curious about the polling that led them to

have that line within the convention. And here, it's not something I've seen show up in any polling that this is a real issue for her. She obviously has an economic deficit. We can talk about how she has significantly narrowed it over where Biden was, but even over the course of the campaign in the Echelon Insights poll, she's actually up one on the economy. And she's only down four on the economy in the Pennsylvania poll that the Times put out last week. So she has made gains there. And

And I think that's one important thing. Like when you sit up and say, I'm a capitalist, that sounds like you're doing from a defensive crouch. And I don't think that's what the speech was not a defensive speech. It was an offensive speech. It was an economic. I don't know. I don't know how much the campaign cares whether they actually win on the economy, but that they can make gains with the voters they need to make gains with on the economy of being aggressive. And they sort of showed that in the tone and tenor of this speech and the interview. Yeah.

I think there's like two different groups of voters here. There's the sort of center right Indies, maybe Nikki Haley voters that they're trying to go after. Also some young men, too, who I think her saying that she's a capitalist and she's no CEOs and has worked with them and all that kind of stuff, that's going to reassure those voters.

And then there's the sort of low propensity, don't always vote, younger voters tend to be disproportionately black and brown women to non-college women that they're going after, who I think that the more populist middle class people

Here's what I'm going to do for you, middle class tax cut, child tax credit, and some of the homeowner stuff like that. That's who they're targeting with that message. So I think it's probably both those groups. With all due respect to our green eye shade wearing economic policy nerd friends, I'm

It's all about advocacy. Everything else. It's who are you going to fight for? That's the whole thing. It's all these policies, these tax credits, all these things that you talk about in the campaign are just a way to answer the question, will this politician fight for people like me or they fight for corporations or whoever else? And that's the thrust. And that works. And what is so appealing about that and so important is it works with everyone. It works for those people.

Right. Nikki Haley was talking about it and it works for younger voters, more progressive voters, everyone else and everyone in the middle. Yeah, I agree. So this week she gave a serious policy address, stood next to a foreign leader who's at war, Zelensky in Washington. She announced a policy with the president at the White House. She's going to the border.

I don't know if all this was intentional or just how the schedule turned out, but do you think they're trying to sort of burnish her strong leader, commander-in-chief credentials with voters with some of these events? I imagine just by having been involved in the challenges of scheduling presidential candidates who are also in office at the same time, that this was more a...

Quirk and scheduling that just happened to be, this was the best time to give this economic speech and Zelensky was going to be in town and he wanted to meet with her. Trump announced this just now that he is meeting with Zelensky tomorrow or today, if you're listening to this on Friday, um,

And so I think it's something you did. I think broadly speaking, they want to do two things. They want to show her that she's a strong presidential leader. Whenever you're trying to elect someone who looks unlike all the other presidents who came before them, it's important to put them in situations that seem familiar. It's why Obama went on that foreign trip in 2008 and met with world leaders so that people could imagine him doing the things that presidents have done. So I think that's part of the Zelensky meeting.

And going to the border is – and we can talk a little bit about the politics of that, but it's also just – she is trying to show that she is a mainstream Democrat with policies and values that are well within –

the center. And I don't mean center like centrists, just that are not, they're not radical, I guess I would say, because she's being portrayed as this San Francisco radical. She's a black woman, open borders, letting people in. She has the burden of being part of the Biden administration, which has been present, which has been in office through these border surges. And this is a way, an opportunity to go to the border and speak about her actual policies and push back against the characters. So it's all of a piece, but I don't think this was a, I don't think there was a

There weren't a bunch of post-it notes on the message calendar with this like three weeks ago. They kind of came together. Yeah. I do think that – and we've seen this in some of the ads too because they have images of her –

on foreign trips with foreign leaders, you know, walking by all kinds of world flags. Like, I think they are trying to, what you said, like show her doing what presidents do. And, you know, she's been vice president for the last three and a half years. So that's a helpful job. It should be sufficient, shouldn't it? It should be sufficient, right? Yeah. All right. So she's going to the border.

She's reportedly going to give a speech about border security and her record prosecuting cartels and human traffickers as a border state attorney general. So obviously an issue where Trump has a big advantage and he tried to pre-butt the visit.

with a long and rambling press conference we're going to talk about in a little bit today. But basically, the line he's been using for the last week is, you know, when she tells you about the border, ask her just one simple question. Why didn't you do it four years ago? And he says that's true about every issue. So Harris' campaign clearly believes it's important for the VP to take on this issue directly and go right at one of Trump's apparent strengths. There's also an argument to be made that

Whenever the campaign is about the border and that's where the media focus is, it's better for Trump. What do you think?

I think this is the right thing to do. She's being aggressive. She's willing to take on risk. She understands that for some segment of voters, this is a real question. It's not just far-right Fox News watching MAGA voters who care about immigration. It's a huge issue in Arizona and Nevada, two states that are absolutely critical to one of her paths to 270 electoral votes. And so going there

is important because she actually has a good message. Now, I hope when she goes there, she mixes it with a message about a broader comprehensive solution to all of our immigration problems. So it's not just border security. It's also dealing with finding a pathway to citizenship and dealing with people who have been in this country for a long time, dealing with the dreamers.

And pushing back also on Trump's proposals, his mass deportation proposal and all of that. So it should be of a piece. If it's just border security, then I think you are playing on Trump's territory. If it is going to the border to talk about border security, what you would do to secure the border and the broader proposals about comprehensive immigration reform, I think that is a very good thing to do.

Yeah, I'm a big believer in, you know, when a voter has a concern instead of saying, well, I know you might have that concern, but let's talk about this issue instead where you agree with me. It's like not a good strategy. I did Alex Wagner show this week. She was in Michigan and she talked to a bunch of union workers. It was interesting. Some of the older union workers were very pro Harris.

And the younger ones, especially the younger men, were a little more pro-Trump. And a lot of them were talking about immigration as the reason why.

And, you know, they were saying some of the things you hear directly from Donald Trump and a lot of the right wing media that there's all these illegal immigrants coming in and it's an invasion and they're taking it was much more. They're taking our jobs than anything else and or driving down wages or making housing more expensive and all that. And, you know, I was watching that thinking like.

I'm sure, you know, the campaign knows they need to be doing better with men and young men and in the Midwest and like you said, in the border states as well. And I

I kind of think that you've got to be able to answer the mail on that. And there's a lot of people who haven't even heard Kamala Harris's position on the border, even though she talked about it at the debate, talked about it in convention speech, talks about it all the time. And, you know, if you can have some

an image of you at the border and delivering a few solid lines and then that ends up in an ad, then I think it's probably useful. I think you're exactly right about that. And it is just interesting going back to the question about these speeches is back in the day, the speech used to be the ending of itself. You'd give the speech, it would get the coverage, it would drive the political conversation. And now...

It's the initial piece of content that maybe people see, but they probably don't, that you then use throughout the rest of the campaign. She's going to do this at the border. So I assume there are going to be images you can use that will be in these ads because she's getting hammered with immigration ads. And her at the border with the image of the border talking about her policy is a much better response ad than your sort of typical voiceover response ads that no one really believes.

And I'm sure she's going to kick the shit out of Trump there, too. Right. And talk about how he killed the border deal, which also gets it more attention because then they can get in the back and forth. Conclave is a gripping thriller from Academy Award winning director Edward Berger starring Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow and Isabella Rossellini. Only in theaters October 25th. The pope is dead. The throne is vacant.

Conclave is an unprecedented and illuminating glimpse into the inner workings of the Catholic Church as it follows one of the world's most secretive and ancient events, selecting the new Pope. Conclave is only in theaters October 25th. Visit conclavethefilm.com to get tickets now.

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Trump did his own economic event on Wednesday in North Carolina where standing in front of a giant banner that read jobs, jobs, jobs. He went on a long rant about how he thinks the Iranians are trying to kill him and he's mad that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris aren't doing enough to stop them. Here's how it sounded. As you know, there have been two assassination attempts on my life that we know of and they may or may not involve

but possibly do Iran. But if I were the president, I would inform the threatening country, in this case, Iran, that if you do anything to harm this person, we are going to blow your largest cities and the country itself to smithereens. We're going to blow it to smithereens. You can't do that.

It may or may not have to do with, but possibly yes. Yes. It may or may not have to do with literally anything. I am floating a completely unverified rumor that may or may not be true, but you should believe it's true. Yeah.

So the backdrop here is that there's some actual intelligence about Iran fucking with Trump's campaign. I believe right before we started recording, the Department of Justice indicted several Iranians in trying to hack the Trump campaign, successfully hacking the Trump campaign. The Trump campaign also asked for an intel briefing that they then read out to the press as containing, quote, real and specific threats against Trump's life.

There is, of course, no evidence that no one's seen any evidence. No one's put forward any evidence that either of Trump's would be assassins has any link to Iran. We have known for some time that Iran has been interested in assassinating former President Trump.

as well as various Trump administration officials in retaliation for the Trump administration killing Soleimani. So that's true. They also, I think intelligence also says that they were, they've been trying to assassinate current members of the Biden administration. So that's all out there. Why is Trump

doing this at a rally? This wasn't even like an ad lib kind of thing where he just went off. It was in the prepared remarks. His team previewed it to the press. What is he doing?

There is a part of his remarks that was not in that clip where he talks in some probably not totally accurate detail about the FBI's inability to access the phones and the foreign messaging apps used by the individual who – in Butler and then in Florida –

It's the kind of stuff that is very good at making people buy into conspiracy theories. Like, hmm, that's weird. Why can't they own it? Oh, it's a far-known one? Hmm, maybe there's a lot more questions to answer here. It's like QAnon, anti-vaxxer. It's like textbook conspiracy theory spreading. And they want to spread this conspiracy theory. And I know it is crazy, and it's weird to do it at an economic speech, but –

This is straight out of the playbook of tin pot dictators all over the world, is to make themselves a victim that's powerful forces somewhere are trying to take them out because they're such a threat to the system. Foreign sources. Foreign sources. Whips up some nationalism. They're trying to get the USA and I am the USA, right? I mean, this is why so many...

people on like online liberals spouted very irresponsibly that this was a false flag. This is why you would have a false flag as for this purpose. There was no evidence there was a false flag, but he's basically like six weeks late into running the second half of the play here after this. And so it's crazy. It's poorly delivered. It seems bizarre, but it fits with how Trump has and people like Trump have sought power in the past. Like this is the way I'd say it.

I think that they're also just trying to squeeze all the political advantage they can out of the two assassination attempts, just to be perfectly honest. Like they they know we know that the campaign and the Trump believed that like after the first assassination attempt,

They thought they had basically put Joe Biden away, that they saw Trump's approval ratings increase. I think they're mad that that didn't last, right? Because then there was the switch and Kamala Harris was the nominee. And so everyone sort of the coverage of the first assassination attempt faded away. And then the second one happened. And so...

They believe there's sort of a rally around Trump effect and that he was getting some goodwill, not just from his base voters, but from other voters. And they want to keep that in people's minds. They're going back to Butler, Pennsylvania, where there was the first attempted assassination on October 5th for a rally. He keeps saying he's going to go finish his speech. I'm sure they're going to make a big deal out of that. I just don't know. I don't know how much that gets you. I think it's a little weird, honestly.

to keep talking about the assassination attempt, especially after the convention speech, the RNC convention speech, his acceptance speech where he said, I'm only going to tell this story once because it's too painful to ever talk about again. I'm not sure. We can stipulate that Donald Trump's campaign is better in 2024 than it was the other two times, but I don't think it's that good.

Yeah. Just think about just this is the smallest point on this, but this is the kind of stuff that I obsess over. Why is he speaking in front of a banner that says jobs, jobs, jobs? Someone in the campaign knows that that's the better message. Well, yes. But even if let's say you're just an economic event, the unemployment rate is at historic low.

The, when you look at all the, the, the pulling on that, you can say like prices, prices, prices. Yeah, exactly. It's just concerns about jobs are way down because the unemployment rates at historic low. So prices, wages, there are all these other things, lower taxes, all those things. And so you pick jobs, jobs, jobs. It's just very amateur. That's what I'd say. Well, let me tell you, if you thought that that event was weird. See, this is my segue. Yeah.

The press conference at Trump Tower on Thursday. Woo! We tried to grab some clips from it. We were going to do like a super cut.

Honestly, though, most of it was too hard to follow. We couldn't even figure out clips. He spent over an hour rambling and lying about Kamala Harris's trip to Arizona and her record on the border. One point he accused her of losing 325,000 children to sex trafficking. I couldn't even follow how or why. He promised to liberate the city of Aurora. Yeah.

Okay. He also demanded an apology from ABC News for the debate. He attacked moderators David Muir and Lindsay Davis. He came back around to David Muir after the first time, like 30 minutes later, came back around to attack him again. He called on Nancy Pelosi to be prosecuted for insider trading and for January 6th.

And he talked about Nancy Pelosi because he talked about her trying to push out Biden. And he said that they that Biden only stepped down because they were threatening him with the 25th Amendment. It was this long tangent. He started talking about how he owned property in San Francisco. He said that Caracas, Venezuela, had become a safe and wonderful city.

Then he took a few questions. This was all before he took the questions. And then we took a few questions. He took one about the news that New York City Mayor Eric Adams was indicted Thursday on five federal charges of bribery, fraud and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations. And here's what he said. I will say this. I watched about a year ago.

when he talked about how the illegal migrants are hurting our city and the federal government should pay us and we shouldn't have to take them. And I said, "You know what? He'll be indicted within a year." And I was exactly right, because that's what we have. We have people that use the Justice Department

So there it is. There it is. Donald Trump defending Eric Adams, Democratic mayor of New York, because, hey, if you've been indicted, then you're on Donald Trump's side. Doesn't matter. Party doesn't matter at that point.

And it was because of, and he defended him because he said he was indicted because he was tough on immigration. And I just want the listeners to know that this morning, we had our morning call to talk about the podcast. And we said that Donald Trump had a press conference scheduled for the day. And we said, I wonder if it's about Eric Adams. And Jon Favreau predicted almost to the word that,

What Donald Trump would say here about Eric. I knew it. I knew that's where he would do. I think it's time. You reevaluate some life choices here. I've really, I've spent too long with this man, but it was like,

It would. It's just it was so obvious. Well, you could sort of see it online, too, because all of the like right wing accounts and the blue check marks and the idiots that follow Elon Musk and Silicon Valley, all those dumbasses, they were all starting with the like, oh, the Democrats did this. They had their conspiracies. Right. Because.

What they don't want to admit is that the Biden Justice Department, which they have accused of, you know, weaponization and going after his political opponents, has indicted the president's son, Hunter Biden, Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, Democratic House member Henry Cuellar, and now the Democratic mayor of New York, Eric Adams, so

So not doing a great job of going after Joe Biden's political opponents. No, it does not seem that way at all. Quite an odd conspiracy that they're like, well, we got to if we're going to go after Trump, we got to pick five or six Democrats at random, including the president's own son, to also go after. It seems like a real complicated plot.

But their answer is basically anyone that they've indicted, it's because they haven't done what the Biden administration wanted. So Eric Adams was too tough on immigration. I knew Trump would go there. Plus, he just gave a press conference about immigration. And I figured, oh, it's a perfect confluence of events, Dan. I think the listeners can decide whether this is a positive thing or a negative thing for you, but you absolutely nailed it.

What was that press conference, by the way? You and I were both texting while we were listening to it. That was fucking nuts. I know we say that about every single press conference, but it... In the history of time, I'm not sure any man has been that crazy and that boring at the same time.

Yeah, it is. It's like it was hard to follow. It got really boring and no energy, no energy. And the fact that it was so boring sort of dulled like the extreme shit he was saying about migrants like he was doing a lot of the like.

The migrant, like the gory stories about like rape and murder and it was just, it was both disgusting and boring. If that can be the case. Yeah, it's just terrible. Just absolutely terrible to listen to. Not interesting.

alarming that this man is a pointer to away from me president of the United States. It's just truly terrible. And it was, I don't, he was looking at notes the whole time. So did someone write 55 minutes of remarks? Like,

I think he would like read a line and then sort of go off on a tangent. I have like a smaller strategic question, which is like, why did he do a press conference at Trump Tower the day before she goes to the border? Why didn't, why not like do something quick after she goes and like get in the news that it was just very weird. It's just, he,

He's not doing very much. He's not even leaving his home. So why is he in Trump Tower to begin with? So he just walks downstairs and does this as opposed to why does he go to the border today and preempt her there? He's old and lazy and his brain is melting before our eyes.

It was also amazing to me that he goes on a long defense of Eric Adams, even though he doesn't know much about the case or doesn't know Eric Adams well, because in this long thing, the last shouted question he gets is about Mark Robinson, lieutenant governor of North Carolina, nude Africa poster. Yeah.

Self-proclaimed black Nazi says he wants to bring slavery back. You remember that guy? Oh, you mean Martin Luther King Jr. on steroids? That one? Martin Luther King Jr. on steroids, which is what Donald Trump calls him. Interested in his wife, sister, according to Nude Africa. Anyway, asked him, like, have you are you reconsidering your endorsement of Mark Robinson?

Donald Trump's response. Donald Trump, who just had time to talk for 55 minutes and give a long and rambling answer where he's defending Eric Adams. This is what he said about Mark Robinson. I don't know the situation. And then walked away. I couldn't believe. How can he not just throw Mark Robinson to the wolves at this point? It's not like Donald Trump has any kind of loyalty. He never throws people like that to the wolves, though.

Yeah. I guess he doesn't want to lose the Mark Robinson voters. Are there Mark Robinson voters? I think he'll get 40%. But are they Mark Robinson voters or are they just people who would vote for any Republican? That's true. Yeah. Yeah. So then why not? I don't understand it. I don't understand it. Yeah. I mean, it's hard. We're going to lose a lot of sleep trying to understand this man. Yeah.

All right. Before we go, a note to all the collectors out there. So you've got your Trump trading card NFTs. You've bought Trump's coffee table book. You got Melania's memoir that she's out there hawking right now. You've stocked up on Trump and son's private crypto currency, World Liberty Financial, their crypto platform. And yet you still want more. Well, today is your lucky day. Take a listen.

It's your favorite president, Donald J. Trump, here to introduce something really special. I think you're gonna love it. My new Trump watches. This isn't just any watch, it's one of the best watches made with almost 200 grams of gold and more than 100 real diamonds. That's a lot of diamonds. I love gold, I love diamonds. We all do. Owning one puts you in a very exclusive club.

I have watch number one, and I'm going to keep it. It's mine, and that's the way I want to have it. Each watch is numbered and extremely rare, a true collector's item, and it includes a personal letter signed by me. Get your Trump watch right now. Go to GetTrumpWatches.com. It's Trump time. The Trump watches are $100,000.

$100,000. He's out there talking about Kamala Harris and Joe Biden and inflation and people getting killed with the cost. And he's a populist, the Republican Party under Trump. There's a workers' people's party. He's fucking selling $100,000 watches 40 days before an election. What is happening?

What are we doing? I think that Kamala Harris should speak about this. I think she should, like, next time she's in an interview, she's at a rally, I would do an insert in the rally speech, in the stump speech. She should mock the $100,000 thing. She should paint him as this rich guy who doesn't give a shit about people. She's already doing that now. Now she's got something that's going to make news. I would put it in an ad that he's doing this. Like, this is insane. Insane. I agree with all that. She should hammer it. That...

The crypto thing is weird and kind of hard to explain to people. Right. It's hard to make fun of someone for selling Bibles. That's a little tricky. The trading cards thing is weird and hard to understand. NFTs. You left out the sneakers.

Sneakers you could do. The gold sneakers. But the $100,000 watch. Obama wanted to do the sneakers in his convention speech. It fell out of his mouth. Did you take it out? I don't know where it went. He had to make room for that. Yes, I think that's what happened. I think that's what happened. So the sneakers you could do. But the $100,000 watches, I would be doing this

I imagine our friend David Plouffe is salivating over this. This is not the biggest point here, but I think my takeaway from this is that Donald Trump has fully become Fox News. Like his speeches are- He's going to be selling Trump catheters. Are Hannity and everything else is just one long Fox commercial. It's the story where he's selling gold sneakers. Don't say, that's going to happen. I know. Somewhere, Dodd Jr. is working on that. He and Mark Robinson are going to be up there together. Yeah.

I don't know, man. I don't know. If you can't like if we're if we elect this, I mean, who knows where it's a tie race. It's a tie race. And he's got an advantage on the economy is he's out there selling $100,000 watches. People are most upset that costs are too high. They can't afford a home, can't afford groceries, $100,000 watches. Who's buying that?

I want to listen to the people who do. Reid, who produces this show and writes this show, wants us to know that the Fighter Watch can be yours for as little as $500. There is a low price point for folks who can't afford the $100,000. So I guess just to be fair. Did Reid just Daniel Dale us? He did.

He was very concerned that, you know, we just want to make sure that the $100,000, that's the top echelon. That's the high price point. Reid is remote, but I'm going to take a close look in the next couple of weeks to see if he's got a fighter watch on his wrist. Look, it does come with a handwritten letter from Trump. So I do think that that's cool. I'm sure he personally signed all of those. All right. We have some pitching of our own to do before we get to Melissa Murray. On the latest episode of Inside 2024...

Alyssa Mastromonaco joins me and we talk about political rallies since Alyssa has put together quite a few political rallies in her time. We're going to talk about how effective they are in 2024 and talk about some of the best ones that she put together back in the day. To get access to exclusive subscriber series like Inside 2024 and more, head to crooked.com slash friends now. It won't cost you $100,000.

And you won't be making Donald Trump richer. You'll be supporting independent progressive media. How's that? When we come back, Melissa Murray.

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Hi, we're All Modern. We believe designing your space should be easy and simple. At All Modern, we have the best of modern furniture and decor all in one place. With styles from Scandi and mid-century to minimalist and maximalist, every design is hand-vetted for quality by our team of experts. And did we mention fast plus free shipping? That means you can upgrade your space in days, not weeks.

That's modern made simple. Shop now at allmodern.com. Joining us today is our pal, Melissa Murray. She's the co-host of Crooked's Strict Scrutiny podcast, a professor at NYU Law, and has a new MSNBC special airing this Sunday at 9 p.m. with our friend Simone Sanders Townsend. It's called Black Women in America Road to 2024. Welcome back, Melissa. Thanks for having me. Great to be back.

So I want to start with a clip from the special where you and Simone are sitting down with some young black women at a nail salon who have contemplated sitting out this election. Let's listen. How are folks feeling about this election season? It's crazy, to say the least. Yeah, I'm feeling a little iffy. The first time that I was able to vote was for Hillary Clinton. That was my first and last time because I felt like, OK, I felt hope that Hillary would win.

I felt excitement from the community around me. I just had so much hope. And then look what happened. And so now I'm like, did my vote really matter?

I don't know. Were you excited to vote before the switch or were you just going to sit it out? I was probably going to sit it out as well. Oh, wow. I agree. I was definitely sitting it out. I was not voting at all before the switch. I'm still up in the air. Obviously, I'm a Muslim woman, so it's very nerve wracking and very scary for me. It's already hard wearing hijab in public.

So when you talk about things like Project 25, it's kind of it's kind of scary. So I love hearing from undecided or persuadable voters, even if what they say is frustrating or frightening, which it often is. How many did you guys talk to where and what else did you hear? Was that typical of what you heard?

So we talked to a lot of women. I mean, these weren't focus groups in the way that, you know, you and Sarah Longwell have done on other shows. But we did talk to a pretty broad cross-section of women. So there are women who were older, like in their 40s and 50s. And, you know, they had very distinct views. This group of women were true millennials, like 28 years old to 32 years old. And, you know, we met at this nail salon, the Cosmo Beauty Bar in Washington, D.C. And I have to say...

I've never felt so old. Like when they asked me, what would you like to do with your nails? It's like, I would like them short and finger colored. And they're like, we haven't done anything like that since 1994. So I got a true education in all of the new nail techniques that are available. But I also got a real education about what younger women are thinking. And, you know, one of the things that struck me is that we are hearing constantly in the media that

Black women are just ride or die for the Democratic Party. And I just don't think that's true. It's not true for these women. They feel overlooked. I think all of the black women that we talked to felt overlooked by the traditional political parties that their votes were either taken for granted or were overlooked entirely. But for these younger women, they really felt that no one was sort of speaking to them and

To be really clear, some of their complaints didn't strike me as being entirely plausible. And that's not because they're wrong. I think it is a failure of messaging. So, you know, there was this one really interesting discussion about how much they were invested in student loan relief. And student loan relief actually did happen. And then it was sort of withdrawn by the United States Supreme Court and passed.

You know, they hadn't really heard about it. No one that they knew had gotten student loan relief. And in their view, the administration was not talking about their successes in having student loan relief go forward and then the failure of having that eradicated by the Supreme Court in one fell swoop. So there are a lot of really interesting questions here, some of it about messaging, but also some of it about really appealing to these voters where they are.

What were some of the issues that they spoke most about and some concerns they had with the administration?

So one issue that was of particular concern, they lived in Washington, D.C. Most of them did. Some were from other states like North Carolina. But police violence was a big issue. And again, it was hard to sort of, you know, understand where they were coming from on this. Like, you know, they wanted the administration to do more and be more proactive about addressing police violence. But again,

You know, I think there was a misunderstanding about what any presidential administration can do about the 18,000 police departments that are actually under local and municipal control. And in fact, the Biden administration did a really big effort with an executive order that provided lots of funding to local and state offices to track police violence, to do better training, things of that nature.

They weren't really clear on that piece of it. And I think that is actually a failure of messaging from the administration, maybe also a failure on the part of those of us in the media, because, you know, for the last year and a half, we all we've talked about is Donald Trump and his criminality. We haven't talked about some of the other things that the administration has done to address really pertinent and entrenched issues.

problems like police violence. So that was one thing they talked a lot about. Student loan relief, reproductive rights was a big issue, and they all recognized that it was salient, but it still wasn't enough to ensure that they were going to the polls. You talked about messaging. What do you think Kamala Harris

to do to sort of close the sale with some of these voters. So we spoke with these young women after the switch had happened. We spoke with another group of older voters right after the debate. And, you know, that was actually a very interesting conversation. But even after the switch had happened and Harris was the nominee going forward for the Democratic Party, they wanted real specifics from her. What are you going to do? So I think this was a little bit before she started articulating some of the particulars of her plan, certainly on the home ownership piece.

But they wanted to know what she was going to do specifically about reproductive rights. And again, not a ton that a presidential administration can do without having a Congress and work being done in other branches of government. But they wanted more particulars. How are you going to shore up Roe versus Wade? What is that going to look like? Can I get behind this? And so that was really important. I think very important.

very particular to her. They just felt she was a bit of a cipher at that point, and they wanted someone to fill it in. I mean, Democrats' struggles with young Black men have been a major topic of conversation in the cycle. So I'm very excited to have something entirely new to worry about. So thank you for that. But do you have a sense of whether it's similar dynamics going on with young Black women? Is there something different going on? Is there something specific Democrats should be doing to address these concerns? Yeah.

Sure. I actually do think there is a difference here. And, you know, I, too, have heard all of the discussion about how Trump-curious young Black men are. I did not get the sense that these women were Trump-curious at all. You know, the woman who previously spoke, who was in the hijab, she was just very clear, like, I am not voting for Donald Trump. Like, I don't like him. I think he's a criminal. I mean, they were very clear. This was really more a question of, am I even going to get out of the House on Tuesday, November 5th, to vote at all?

all. And so this was really more, is there anything that's going to animate me to get on board with Kamala Harris and the Democrats, not what is pushing me towards Trump. So I think it's a different kind of conversation. I think one of the things the Democrats really need to think about is, um,

How they message what they've done and also how what they've done is being received. And, you know, we talk a lot about low information voters. I think it's unfair to talk about them in that way because it sounds as though they are purposefully disengaged. And that's that's not true. But it did occur to me when I was talking to them that these are young women who came of age after.

9-11, after No Child Left Behind, when we as a country systematically stripped public education of superfluous things like P.E. and music and art and civics education. So it's not surprising, perhaps, that they don't understand that the police departments don't

don't get dictated to by a presidential administration. It's not surprising that they may not understand precisely that the president has to work with Congress to pass a domestic agenda. So we have really made them ill-equipped to understand how government works in a very particular way. And that's a real problem. I mean, an electorate that doesn't understand how government work is an electorate that can be preyed upon with misinformation. And that's exactly what we're seeing.

Yeah, there is a conversation we had about how Democrats talk about their accomplishments, what we say, how we make a matter of people. There's also the broader question of how do we reach these people? Because I agree with you, low information voters, it's a pejorative way of discussing it. But most voters, most people in this country do not engage with news in a real way. The sort of the distribution mechanisms of news are sort of broken. Did you get any sense of where these people are getting their political information, platforms or media outlets that maybe the Harris campaign or other Democrats should go on to actually inject themselves in front of these voters? Yeah.

So they talked about getting a lot of their information from social media and podcasts and sort of YouTube shows. So Hot Ones was mentioned. And I think those are really important platforms. It's not...

traditional news media. It's not even cable news, which I think for a lot of them, that seemed like my parents' media. They're getting it from a bunch of different sources. And I think it's important for her to sort of meet them where they are. And it's non-traditional media. But I also think, again, it's worth thinking about this.

Is it the case that we can only understand what the government does and how they do it if we go to law school, if we took constitutional law? Like, there's a real gap here, and we are going to have to address that going forward. I mean, it's all of a piece with these book bans and preventing people from having certain kinds of curricula and

It's all of a piece. Like you make it harder for people to understand what's happening. You don't give them the tools to be able to critically assess it. And I think it's a lot easier to sort of put one over on them. I know you guys talk to voters and other black women in politics and leadership roles. What was your main takeaway from the entire special? Like what did you walk away with?

So black women are deeply engaged with the issues. They understand that this election is probably unlike other elections. All of them seem to understand the kind of existential crisis that undergirds this election. I think some of the older women were just much more explicit about it. But even the younger women were like, this is the election that I'm voting on because if I'm voting, I'm voting for my kids.

That was very palpable and very clear. They are engaged. Their levels of engagement are different. But to a person, they all feel a little misunderstood by those who are in power. The women we talk to in the suburbs say that when they talk about suburban women, they're not talking about me. And the younger women feel like they've been completely

Yeah.

Well, I'm really glad you guys did the special. Everyone should tune in. It is Sunday night, September 29th, 9 p.m. on MSNBC. And you can catch Melissa on Strict Scrutiny. And Simone is going to be our guest host at our Philly show. We're going to do a live show in Philly next Sunday night. So check that out, too. Come visit us in Philly. Melissa Murray, thank you so much for joining us, as always. And thanks for doing this special. Thanks so much for having me.

That's it for today's show, but Dan and I are going to stick around to answer some audience questions from our Friends of the Pod subscribers and play some rounds of Take Appreciator. No, we're playing one round of Take Appreciator, Elijah. If you're signed up for Friends of the Pod, this is already in your feed. If you're not signed up, you can join at cricket.com slash friends or through your Apple podcast feed to get this and much, much more.

That's our show for today. Thanks to Melissa Murray for joining. Everyone check out Black Women in America, The Road to 2024 on MSNBC, Sunday at 9 p.m. Eastern. And we'll be back with a new show on Tuesday. Bye, everyone.

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. 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. 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.

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Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Phoebe Bradford, Joseph Dutra, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kiril Pellaviv, and David Toles.

Every weekday, NPR's best political reporters come to you on the NPR Politics Podcast to explain the big news coming out of Washington, the campaign trail, and beyond. They don't just tell you what happened, they tell you why it matters, how it might impact you. Join the NPR Politics Podcast every single afternoon to understand the world through political eyes, wherever you listen to podcasts.

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