Trump's Bizarre Town Hall DJ Set
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At a time when we're debating where policing is going, we're going to tell you where the police came from. The first person to use the term organized crime didn't mean it in the sense of Don Corleone and the mafia. He meant it in terms of what he saw as this deep, deep symbiotic relationship between the people running the city government and the police department. From Wondery and Crooked Media, I'm Chinjarai Kumaneka, and this is Empire City, the untold origin story of the NYPD.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Tommy Vitor. And I'm Rebecca Katz. Rebecca, it's great to see you. My old friend and the brilliant Democratic strategist behind many huge Democratic wins over the last few years. It's great to see you. Great to be here.

So for the listeners, Rebecca and I go way back. We worked together on John Edwards for President 2004. The good campaign, right? That's how I got it. It was a good campaign. It was a fun time.

It was a very fun time. It was a great team. We were like the little engine that could campaign that took this totally unknown and arguably unqualified senator from, you know, senator to the VP nominee. And I don't know the two Americas message from that campaign. People are studying and stealing that because it was it was very good.

You even saw John Edwards at the DNC, right? Yes. John Edwards was at the DNC. They invite all the former nominees, and he had been a VP nominee in 2004. So he came back as a guest, and he just had a happy hour for former staffers just to say hi. That's very nice. Yeah. I like that. Look, obviously, the history is complicated, and we don't need to relitigate it here. It is just interesting that

In like political life, who is given sort of absolution for mistakes and failings and who isn't? And I'm surprised he's sort of still on the isn't list. Yeah, I think he's due for a rehabilitation tour. I mean, he did. He's a flawed man, but I think he was vilified and kind of served his time in public opinion there. Yeah, he definitely is.

was widely criticized. But thank you for doing the show, Rebecca. We have a lot to talk about today. I just want to do like, let's do a little vibe check. How are you feeling? It's a couple weeks out. I'm getting a million texts from people telling me how nervous they are. How are you?

I am cautiously optimistic. I will say October always feels terrible for Democrats. And we just have to remember that, right? August, we feel great. We feel like we're going to win everything. It's going to be amazing. And then October hits and like, we all just kind of feel nauseous and this like heavy weight we're carrying the whole month of just this dread. And I will say just like, you know, obviously we have every reason to be worried, but we shouldn't let it be paralyzing fear.

That's right. Yeah. It's the stakes couldn't be higher. Let's just be honest about that. Uh, it's super close. I know some people kind of in the political world that are looking at polling that are increasingly nervous. You're hearing people talk about concern that Trump is outspending Kamala Harris in some, uh, TV markets. She was slightly out of the news, I think for a couple of weeks because of the hurricanes and obviously like the messaging and response about FEMA, uh,

um, is going to come from the white house. But I think like since then she's been hitting the gas, she's doing all these interviews and town halls and events that we'll talk about, but it's tied and it will be tied until election day. And I just think for all the nervous texters, just remember you have agency, you know, it's October 16th. If you want to donate, if you want to knock doors, if you want to go to vote, save america.com to find opportunities, you have time, but like

Do not refresh the 538 polling average every day from now until Election Day. That's no good for any of it. And there's a burden here. For the third time in the last eight years, this is the most important election of our lifetime, right? That is exhausting. Like we have real fatigue. It's tiring, but there's still a lot we can do. And we shouldn't feel like we're just sitting there just biting our fingernails, like go do something. Yeah.

go do something. Do not tweet that you think she's going to lose. You can quote tweet yourself in November, because if you do that, I will hate you forever. Um, okay. On today's show, we have, what do we got? Kamala Harris trying to reach black voters in a tough town hall style interview with Charlamagne, the God in Detroit. Uh, Donald Trump goes after, uh,

women voters in a Fox News town hall with this all-female audience. This was not a tough interview. This was a bunch of softballs. I suspect he'd get harder questions from his family and own staff. We'll also talk about the state of the race in key states like Pennsylvania and Arizona. We'll talk about how some things are going in these red and

purple house races and why they are defying the trend lines that we're seeing nationally. But first, and Rebecca, this is not breaking news, but we on the show have not yet had the chance to talk about Trump's bizarre Monday night event in Oaks, Pennsylvania, this Philly suburb where we were treated to, I don't know, maybe the most bizarre Trump event of an already weird cycle. It was intended to be- And think about that bar for a second. Yeah, that bar is here.

How do we get here? The bar's over our head. Yeah. It's like, so I think it was supposed to just be a town hall, Q&A format, taking questions to the audience. But then someone in the crowd needed medical attention. The crowd starts chanting or singing God Bless America. And Trump basically called in his DJ to play Ave Maria. Then someone else needed medical attention. Things took a turn. Here's a clip. Let's not do any more questions. Let's just listen to music. Let's make it into a music.

Who the hell wants to hear questions? I want this to be a really important evening and those two people that went down are patriots and we love them. And because of them we ended up with some good music, right? Right? So play YMCA. Go ahead. Let's go. Nice and loud. Nobody's leaving. What's going on? There's nobody leaving. Keep going. Keep going. Should we keep going?

All right, turn that music up. Turn it up. So this goes on for like 40 minutes, literally. 40 minutes is a long time. It's a very long time to be standing. It's so long.

Standing there, doing nothing, swaying on the stage awkwardly. Let me read you the set list real quick. Ave Maria, Time to Say Goodbye, It's a Man's Man's Man's World, YMCA, Hallelujah, Nothing Compares to You, An American Trilogy, Richmond, North of Richmond, November Rain, and Memory from Cats. People started walking out. South Dakota governor and puppy killer, Kristi Noem, kind of didn't seem to know what to do. I don't know, Rebecca, what track got you going? What got you amped?

What I will just say is like Ava Maria to YMCA, like that's kind of the wild swings that are going on in his brain right now. Like what kind of psychopath has this set list? Like it doesn't even make sense. And I just, I don't know. I felt like it was...

For for reporters to comment that a Trump rally is strange You have to take it so far right and for him to you know a town hall when you do a town hall event You want to take questions like what are people thinking? You know here? He is in suburban Philadelphia the most probably the most important media market he can be in in all of the swing states and he is losing his mind a little bit right and he is

smiling and he doesn't usually smile so like that that caused me some like is what what is his new like regimen like i'll have what he's having you know what i mean because he was just like happy and then he was doing his like little dance and there's christy gnome just kind of standing there not really knowing what to do and she has to be the sane person right it was kind of wild

Yeah.

- I love that they were like trying to tell him on the teleprompter, like you can now answer questions. And he just wasn't taking those cues. He was just like wanting to dance and there's nobody who can save him when he's going out that far. And we say a lot that Trump doesn't get real scrutiny. Like he says crazy stuff and he doesn't do it. This was the first time that I think reporters really took the beat to say like something seems wrong. And I'm just gonna say it.

You know, when you get old, you get old fast. And I do think he is much worse in this month of October than he was even a few months ago. And we've seen this, you know, like I remember we all saw the State of the Union with Biden in January. We're like, we're going to be great. And then the debate happened. We're like, OK, maybe we're not so great. Like there is something that is going on with Trump that seems bad.

Pretty bad. Yeah. Let's let's dig in on this a bit, because even before the musical interlude, Trump did some Q&A and even those were weird. So Philip Bump at The Washington Post printed in full one of Trump's answers to a very straightforward audience question about bringing down grocery prices. I'm going to read the beginning of it.

So, you know, it's such a great question in the sense that people don't think of grocery. You know, it sounds like not much an important word when you talk about homes and everything else, right? But more people tell me about grocery bills where the price of bacon, the price of lettuce, the price of tomatoes, they tell me. And we're going to do with a lot of things. You know, our farmers aren't being treated properly. And we had a deal with China and it was a great deal. I never mentioned it because once COVID came, I said that was a bridge too far because I had a great relationship with China.

President Xi. And here's a fierce man, and he's a man that likes China, and I understand that. But we had a deal, and he was perfect on that deal. $50 billion he was going to buy. We were doing numbers like you wouldn't believe for the farmer. That goes on for another 800 words, Rebecca. They mentioned the border control. Okay, Grandpa. It's like the meme.

This reminds me of when I was a kid when one of my grandparents would tell me to go to the bar to get him another drink and my dad would intercept me on the way back and fill it up with water. That's what that reminds me of. Something is very wrong there. There's not one like fully cognizant answer. Like, you know, like he doesn't.

he is not speaking in regular English anymore. It is just like, it is a whirlwind of like what's going on in his head. This man should not be in charge of anything. - Yeah, and clearly this is why Kamala Harris is telling voters to watch Trump's rallies. I think she sincerely means it. It's not just a line. It's also why Kamala Harris is playing videos

of Trump at her rallies. Now, I think they played a clip of some of his recent answers to Maria Bartiromo. - In Erie, yeah. - Yeah, I think like the challenge is, you know, Democrats will watch this and be like, "This guy's losing his mind." Republicans will just see it through a partisan lens and decide that, you know, it's funny or charming. I guess the question is whether undecideds will ever see this. It's hard to sum it up in like a concise way. Like how do you make a super, we struggled to make a super cut of a 38 minute event. But I mean, Rebecca,

Do you think this is a message that the Harris folks can or should try to introduce kind of in these closing weeks? Is this part of a closing argument? I mean, I do. Like at the end of the day, people need to know that the person in charge of this country is like fighting for them and has their best interests and like at the very least, like understands what is going on in the world. And he seems very far away from reality at the moment. And I think it's important for them to remind people that,

She has a plan. She can articulate the plan. She understands the plan. She's knowledgeable. Like he can't articulate everything.

an answer to anything. When's the last time he just had like a regular answer to a question? Yeah, and he's actually branded his incoherence the weave and he thinks it's an asset. He's like, oh, I say all this random shit and I string it together at the end. It's like, no, you don't, pal. You just, it's called rambling. He also did a Q&A on Tuesday, though, at the Economic Club of Chicago where he got, you know, an hour's worth of economic questions. Here was one about Google and antitrust. Here's the answer. Should Google be breaking up? I just haven't gotten over

something the Justice Department did yesterday, where Virginia cleaned up its voter rolls and got rid of thousands and thousands of bad votes, and the Justice Department sued them that they should be allowed to put those bad votes and illegal votes back in.

and let the people vote. So I haven't gotten over that. A lot of people have seen that. They can't even believe it. The question is about Google, President Trump. Yeah. I love that. The question was about Google. I mean, he can't answer a question to the extent that you're wondering, like, is he processing what is being asked of him? Like, is his brain processing it? Or, like, does he not know what Google is? Like, which one is it?

You know, I don't I have no idea. He knows what Twitter is, you know. Yeah, he loves Twitter. He loves Elon. The other the other sort of piece of evidence here, Rebecca, is like Trump had an interview scheduled, I guess, on CNBC with this guy, Joe Kernan, who might as well be a Trump surrogate or family member. He's like that kind of in the tank and insufferable. And that was a weird flag. But then I watched this whole event and it was with this guy, John McElthwaite, the editor in chief of Bloomberg, who was formerly the editor of The Economist. And it was a tough interview.

contentious interview. And I actually thought that format kind of served Trump well, because that answer we just heard was incoherent, but they had stacked the audience with supporters and Micklethwaite kind of interrupted enough to prevent the weave from happening and preventing him from getting too incoherent. And also, look, if we're being honest, John Micklethwaite was kind of the perfect foil for Trump because I bet a lot of the clips that Trump people will put out are of him being

berating this kind of pompous seeming British guy about why he was wrong about tariffs. And boy, you know, I bet that plays well in like Pittsburgh. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I just think he's he's he's picking a lot of fights. His his reliance on the word tariffs in that interview was seemed a little bit troubling as well. Like he just didn't

It's like he just learned the word or something. Like it was just a weird way that he he was talking. I think he likes to fight with everyone who's interviewing him now. And I think he likes to have the crowd cheering him on. It's like wherever he goes, he just has a crowd that is cheering for him because that is what he likes. Yeah, he loves it. I don't know. I mean, I think it's interesting that he's not doing more interviews like he he doesn't seem to be talking beyond just a very specific base.

Yeah, it's a Fox News safe space. That said, I do think the headline that came out of the Economic Club interview was him once again ducking questions about the peaceful transition of power, which ain't good. And he refused to comment on whether he talked to Putin since he left office. So I don't think that's helpful either.

That said, you know, this morning, Trump just taped a Fox Newstown Hall. I think they taped it yesterday, but it aired this morning on women's issues moderated by Harris Faulkner, a Fox anchor. Let's play a couple of clips. The first is Trump and Harris Faulkner talking about a Georgia woman named Amber Thurman. Amber Thurman's family have come out on a press call.

and they're doing what's called a pre-buttle to our town hall right now. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. And I want to get better ratings, I promise.

So just some context for the listeners here. Amber Thurman is a Georgia woman who died after being denied an emergency abortion for 20 hours. Some members of her family did a call with the Harris campaign to talk about her story and the stakes for women in terms of abortion access in this election. Rebecca, that answer we heard, is them laughing? I mean, it's so...

I mean, this is a woman who died. It's who, who literally like bled out and they're laughing about it and talking about ratings. Like he, he,

First of all, let me just take a step back. He said he's had this women's forum, right? He spent, how long was it? 50 minutes of the 60 to get to the question of abortion, right? Like that is not a woman's forum. This is, he had women in the audience and he was talking to the same people he always talks to on Fox News. Let's just get that out of the way. But the way that he sees everything is about ratings and laughing about women dying. Like this is why he's losing women voters at such record numbers.

And like another thing, like he's, for him to say he's gonna do this women's forum, it's like he would do anything rather than debate Kamala Harris, right? Like he is so afraid of her about the way that she like destroyed him at the last debate, that he is avoiding that. He's trying to show that he's talking to all these people, but he's talking to the same people. You go to Trump rallies, they look very similar from state to state. You go to a Harris rally, like whether she's in,

Bucks County, Pennsylvania or Erie, Pennsylvania, very different audiences. She's in Georgia. Everywhere she goes, her audience is different. Trump is speaking to a lot of the same people and he has not expanded his base.

Yeah, this was just kind of like branding that it was a women's rally. It didn't seem like it actually focused on the issues, as you noted. They just had women there. Yeah, just the sort of who that asked very friendly questions. One of the more bizarre claims of this event was about IVF. Let's listen to that. Let's get this question because I believe that's what this is about. Oh, I want to talk about IVF. You don't hear that every day. I'm the father of IVF, so I want to hear this question.

Again, for context, IVF became available in 1978. It's been widely available for decades. The biggest impediment to getting IVF has been the cost of IVF. It's very expensive. But the next biggest threat to IVF has been the overturning of Roe versus Wade by Trump judges.

It was highlighted when Alabama moved to ban IVF. Republicans freaked out in that moment. They've tried to cover their political flank on this issue. Trump has proposed giving out free IVF treatments to everybody in America. But when Democrats try to pass bills guaranteeing access to IVF nationwide, Republicans block it over and over and over again in Congress. Rebecca, the Democrats were very focused on IVF for a while. That focus seems to have faded a bit.

How much do you think that should be a part of the abortion messaging in this closing stretch? OK, let me just take a step back. I am not convinced that Trump knows what IVF is. I just want to be really clear. Like you listen to him talk about IVF and I do not think he knows what it is. OK, so there's that. And, you know, in Arizona, we had Kerry Lake, who spent a good part of the debate talking about UVF.

So it's very hard to say what Republicans are understanding with Republican political leaders and IVF. I will say that Democrats, they have talked about it and they will fight for it and they will protect women's ability to have families or anybody to have families. You know what I mean? It's just – it is –

It is so strange to me that the Trump Supreme Court, where he, one third of that court, those are his judges, that they are going farther and farther. And he's trying to distance himself from the same judges he put on there. Whether it's talking about abortion, going to the states. We don't want abortion to go to the states. We wanted Roe. His judges overturned it. And that's something like the intensity of women voters right now, I think it's because they understand

What's at stake? Yeah. And to your point, I think in that interview, he says he basically learned about IVF or the crisis in IVF because he got a call from Katie Britt, Senator in Alabama, who gave that bizarre State of the Union response that we all remember in his comments about Katie Britt. I think he called her attractive. It was like very the whole thing was just very weird and gross and very Trump. It's like he knew the initials, but he didn't actually know what happened. Right. Right.

Right. He knows he's mad about it. And he knows he's losing voters on that issue. Yeah. So like, oh, it's free for everybody now. Okay. Of course, though, you know, no- You get IVF and you get IVF. Yeah, it's like Oprah in the car. All right, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we are going to talk about how things are shaping up in some of the key states that Rebecca knows incredibly well. But a couple of things before we do that. First-

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No women's town hall will be complete without a little light fascism. Here is Trump once again talking about his enemies. President, Kamala Harris has said you sounded unhinged and unchecked power is in our future. What do you say about that? I thought it was a nice presentation. I wasn't unhinged. You know what they are? They're a party of soundbites. They're...

Somebody asked me, can they be brought together? You know, it was very I never thought really I wasn't thinking like they could because they are they're very different and it is the enemy from within. And they're very dangerous. They're Marxists and communists and fascists. And they say, I use a guy like Adam Schiff because they made up the Russia, Russia, Russia hooks. It took two years to solve the problem. Absolutely nothing was done wrong, et cetera, et cetera. They're dangerous for our country.

So, Rebecca, we talked about Trump's kind of heightened accelerationist rhetoric on the show on Tuesday. I do think it's worth being even more clear today that

Talking about the enemy within is textbook fascist rhetoric. This is stuff you heard from Hitler talking about Jews and communists, etc. Heard it from Mussolini, heard it from Franco. But the question I always have is when you make that point or tell that to people, does it sound so extreme that people think you're hyperbolic and tune you out? What do you think you do with a clip like that?

I mean, obviously it's chilling to hear him talk like that. But I do think that the messaging argument against him on this has been challenging, right? People think he's a clown. They think he's funny. They don't see how scary he is. And the more that other people start saying, know your history, like learn these dog whistles, it's...

It's not resonating. It's like we're all talking to ourselves and a whole other segment of the population just does not believe it, even if it's right there and true. And it's sad, but I don't...

I don't think it's registering with a lot of folks. Yeah, I really... I don't either. And it's not just this clip. It's not just this commentary about the enemy within. It's not just the obvious rage at the various court cases against him or his suggestions that Democrats were behind the assassination attempts.

Like if you watch his Truth Social feed, I mean, the other day he posted something in the middle of the night where he said that Kamala Harris's medical report about seasonal allergies were a dangerous situation. You know, he's talking about revoking CBS's broadcast rights because he's mad at 60 Minutes for editing a clip. And his supporters are now like this. This is the other thing that happens in October is.

It's the nastiest part of every campaign. I mean, there's a nonprofit now called Building America's Future, funded in part by Elon Musk, that is funding a bunch of super PACs doing dirty shit. One of them is sending mailers highlighting Kamala Harris's marriage to Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish, his work combating anti-Semitism, his support for Israel. And they're sending that to Muslim and Arab American voters, trying to drive them away from her. The same super PAC, I believe, is sending pro-Israel and Jewish voters mailers saying she's

true pro-Palestinian. So this is just like the most cynical, dishonest, and nasty part of the whole thing. They're trying to win by making everyone hate each other. That is their recipe, right? Like, Harris is out there talking about what brings us together and, you know, bringing back hope and joy. And, um...

There is no hope and joy on the Trump campaign. Like they want you to hate everyone. They want you to be so pissed off at the whole world. And they want you to hate everyone who doesn't look like you. Yeah. And it's all being funded by some of the richest people in the world. I think Politico had some data from the most recent FEC filing. So I just thought it was worth noting in terms of like the biggest donors out there. So you got Elon Musk giving $75 million to a pro-Trump super PAC campaign.

Miriam Adelson, Sheldon Adelson's widow, gave $95 million to another super PAC.

Dick Uline, another billionaire you've probably never heard of, gave $49 million. Ken Griffin, Paul Singer doing eight figures. Timothy Mellon gave $165 million to various GOP-aligned groups earlier in the cycle. And so what you're seeing now is the fruits of this billionaire courtship, them dumping money into super PACs and doing Trump's dirty work for him across the country.

And trying to tell regular people that they get their problems. Right. Like that, you know, like we understand you. Like, I mean, it's it's really it's a really messed up system. Like post Citizens United. All of this is a disaster. Yes. This should never this should not be allowed to be happening. No. Thank you, Supreme Court. Finally, on this Trump rally. I mean, there was a lot of talk about immigration. I would say it was the primary thing discussed. Here's one example.

We are going to end all sanctuary cities immediately. We're going to end them. Because they're really... Is that an executive order you do that with? They're really... I can do it with an executive order. I have to do it with an executive order. You can do it with the Aliens Act of 1798. We can do things in terms of moving people out. We can move them out of the sanctuary cities.

So I got to explain what he's talking about there because it's never clear. Trump is saying he can use a law passed in the 1700s when John Adams was president, a law that was later used to authorize Japanese internment, to authorize sending U.S. troops into cities that he doesn't think are sufficiently cooperating with ICE or other federal immigration authorities. So I guess like to paint a picture of what that looks like, I guess we're sending troops into San Francisco or New York or

in Chicago to like ferret out people he thinks are undocumented? I mean, like, again, this is like crazy fascist behavior, but helping people understand what that really looks like in practice seems very difficult. Yeah. I mean, it's like when they tell you who they are, believe them. And he's been he's been telling voters who he is for a very long time. And it's pretty it's pretty fucking scary. Yeah.

So, Rebecca, you're a political professional. You're always trying to figure out how we reach these voters. How do you think like this Fox event compares to the Call Her Daddy interview or other, you know, kind of more niche opportunities we've seen the Harris campaign take? So I think that Harris campaign has done a lot of like, I would say, high risk interviews. And I think for the most part, they've gone extremely well. And they've they've

Right now, the election is so tight, you have to go find more voters, right? Like, where can we reach more voters? So they're going out to all these different outlets and they're, you know, trying to figure out, like, find voters where they are.

I found the Call Her Daddy interview to be one of the better conversations I've ever heard from any public official, especially the part where they are talking about what it means when you say life of the mother. And Harris going into detail about like, you have to bleed out this much and be near dead for anyone to help you. That is called life of the mother.

And I just found that so different from any other, like the way you hear politicians speak. And I think to the young women who are listening, I think it resonated. I think, and then she goes on Howard Stern and she talks about, you know, Formula One race. Like she's,

Let her do these longer form interviews where she's letting her personality come out. She's authentic. She's smart. She can like tell you a little bit about herself. I think that's important. It still goes down to like who would you rather have a beer with, right? And she seems like she'd be really fun.

Just putting that out there. Yeah, I like that. I have a drink with her. I bet she's more of a wine cocktail person. A little glass of wine? I don't know. We'll find out. We'll find out. So, yeah, let's talk about the Kamala Harris media tour. She's in these swing states. Apparently, she's going to do a Fox News interview with Bret Baier that's going to air after this pod comes out. On Tuesday, she sat for an audio town hall meeting moderated by Charlamagne Tha God. It was anything but a softball interview. Let's listen.

Doesn't the Biden administration have to take some blame for the border, though? A lot of the blame? Because, I mean, the first three years, y'all did get a lot of things wrong with the border. Charlemagne, within hours of being inaugurated, first thing we dropped was a bill to fix the broken immigration system.

which, by the way, Trump did not fix when he was president. Why are we sending money to other countries when we desperately need it in our own country for homeless, housing, resources, for whatever? That is my determining factor if I vote for Kamala or not. We can do it all and we do. Black Americans are heavily asked to vote Democrat in every election for over half a century with very little in return.

What are your plans to address these very important issues and change that narrative? Thank you, Zeke. I appreciate that. Thank you. And thank you for your work. So, Rebecca, I know you listened. I mean, what did you how do you think she did?

I thought she did really well. I thought there were some hard questions, like this was not a softball interview. And she answered each question with thoughtful answers. Sometimes it helps actually to get tough questions sometimes because I think it kind of jolts politicians out of complacency. Like the first question is, why are you always on your talking points?

And her response was kind of like, I'm disciplined. I just kind of like thought it was disarmingly honest and effective. And it's true. I mean, she said you have to say a message at least three times for people to like for it to resonate. Like that is true. Being on message is a good thing. Trump is like all over the place. You know, Harris like goes to every audience and she tells them what she wants to do as president. That's what you're supposed to do when you're running for office.

Do you think she's getting better at these or are we just hearing more of them and making less of kind of like individual slip ups in one or the other?

I mean, I think a lot of these interviews are hard. I feel like I feel for the staffers, you know, in prep, like trying to figure out any possible question that could get asked and talking about it. It's a lot. I do think she's like, I found her to be generally pretty warm in a lot of these interviews. And I think that resonates with people. She sounded...

She was talking about stories of her life. She was giving examples. She was talking about her career. I think it's good to do that. I wouldn't mind her separating herself a little bit more from Joe Biden. But other than that, I think she's been handling herself pretty well. Yeah, I think that was the one kind of

I mean, if I got the question, I would I think I would say something like, obviously, you know, I'm not going to say anything about Joe Biden. I'm not going to say anything about Joe Biden.

Me and Joe, there are things we would do different with the benefit of hindsight, but you don't have that as president. I'm not going to Monday morning quarterback my running mate, but here are the things I believe, blah, blah, blah. Make a perspective going forward. I would say some of us would like her to separate even more, but she's also – she is –

trying to be respectful too of him. And, you know, he appointed her vice president. I don't, it's like, you don't talk out loud about your friends. Like, I think she probably knows a lot of things that he could have done better. And she just, you know,

did not go into that too much. Yeah, it's a complicated dance, that's for sure. Yes, exactly. But, you know, the other thing about the Charlemagne interview, they did it in Detroit, which led them to get a bunch of additional local pickup, which was smart. The Detroit Free Press headline was Harris, a kindred spirit with Detroit, she says, after interview with Charlemagne the God. I think she did, like, another event with...

Frame that. Beautiful. Yeah, I know. Seriously, like that's gold, right, in politics? Like who cares what the New York Times says? You want the Detroit Free Press. I think she did some more local stops afterwards. She met with black entrepreneurs. So it was just smart. It was all around smart. It was smart to do Charlemagne. It was smart to do it in a swing state. It was smart to bring in a bunch of questioners who asked Michigan-specific questions that sort of made it feel even more authentic to the state. Yeah.

What do you think, though, about Fox News? I have to say, like when I heard that she was doing Bret Baier, I guess I get the meta messaging, which is Trump's in a safe space. I'll go anywhere, talk to anyone. I'm like fearless. But I also think when you you might as well do an interview with Jason Miller or someone from the RNC. Right. Like when the chips are down, Fox News, we can all pretend Bret Baier is like the reasonable one. He takes orders. Right. And Fox News wants Trump to win.

I would say it's high risk, high reward, right? Like, I don't know if I would have picked that one, but she's, I'm sure that she will be working for that, like thinking about it. And she's taken hard questions from lots of people.

I think she can take some hard questions. And I think she's proven that she can do that. And once you go on there and you answer some of those questions, I think that matters to some of those viewers. She shows up. I don't think all of Fox viewers are that excited about Trump. A lot of them are, obviously. But there are some reasonable voters out there. And I think she's going to go after them.

I also think, yeah, there's some research that shows that when you're showing ads to voters, if

If you're just showing kind of like a clip from a network, if it's on a conservative network that they trust, maybe you get even more benefit from it, right? Like if it's like a Wall Street Journal article, maybe conservatives are more likely to think it's credible than something in the New York Times. So maybe they're thinking about what things they can lift from the Brett Baier interview if it goes well for ads. Yeah, I just think like the whole team is probably looking at the numbers, looking at how close every single state is and thinking, what can we do to shake this up?

Yeah. And the downside risk of a bad interview is like, whatever, if you're doing enough of them, um, you'll be okay. Hopefully, hopefully that's the only downside. Hopefully. Yeah. We've all been there. Yeah. Yeah. It was real bad. The last one that keeps getting reported on is Joe Rogan. There was a report. I think it was, um,

that was like Kamala Harris considering doing Joe Rogan's? Like, what kind of news report is that? How do you have a headline considering? It was like a weird float. Like, they floated that out there. I don't know where it exactly came from. It could be interesting. I mean, I think they both said they might do it. So...

I don't know. Let's give it a listen. I'm fully on board for doing Rogan. I mean, I don't know if this translates to his audience, but he has 14.5 million followers on Spotify, which would make him like the biggest podcast out there by far and much bigger than most network or cable shows. I don't think he's like...

super partisan Republican. I think he's more of an RFK guy. He has lots of weird hobby horses. Like he's obsessed. We need those voters. I mean, we, you know, like she has to get some of those too. So I think, I think it could be smart. And I think there's, there's a lot of caricatures out there of her, but when you see her like talking, like she sounds pretty normal. Yeah. You know what I mean? So I think that's good. Why isn't she on hot ones? That's my question. How come she hasn't gone on hot ones? I,

I think they would if they could. I'm not sure if Hot Ones wants them. I know. She would be so good. She would be so good. I would love to see that too.

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Hi, I'm Jon Lovett, host of Love It or Leave It. You know it can be tempting to tune out the news completely, but my producers won't let me, so instead I put on a weekly comedy show about it. Every week, I welcome an all-star lineup of comedians, performers, politicians, and random gay guys to make sense of politics and pop culture. And even when we don't succeed, boy, we have fun trying. So join us as we run down the latest headlines and figure out what the hell we're all going to do about it. Listen to Love It or Leave It wherever you get your podcasts.

All right. We talked a lot about the national stuff. I do want to take your pulse on some of these state level races because you have a ton of experiences, especially in Pennsylvania and Arizona. So Politico had a story out this morning about alleged disarray in the Democratic effort in Pennsylvania. It read to me as like.

both kind of typical finger pointing you see when Democrats are nervous, stuff that gets over torqued by reporters. There was a similar story the other day about super PAC spending and people sort of carping about the main Democratic super PAC and where they're spending their money. But also, it was worrisome. And it kind of dovetailed with some things I have heard about the organization in Pennsylvania from people in the political world. So I don't know, what do you make of that? And what do you think is happening in PA?

Okay, so this is, so I'm from Philadelphia, right? And I will say that there's a long history of hackery in Philadelphia politics where a lot of people want like a lot of attention, right? Do I think that there's like some challenges to some of the campaign? Like, yes.

I do, you know, we all worry about Pennsylvania because Pennsylvania is kind of ballgame, right? But I do think there's a lot of finger pointing that just happens so that people can say like, if the worst happens, they've already like blamed somebody else. When really this is about all of us trying to come together and win this race.

And I think there's a lot of really good people on the ground in Pennsylvania. One of the people mentioned the article, Brendan McPhillips, he has run plenty of Pennsylvania Statewide's and he knows how to win. And he's a senior advisor to the campaign. There's good people working. I just think...

I think they haven't been holding hands with as many politicians and spreading the money around to as many politicos as who wants it. And I think that's part of the problem. Yeah. I mean, it's going to be it's just a tough state, too, because there's massive spending on the presidential. But you also have this hotly contested Senate race.

And house races. And house races. But like Bob Casey is running against McCormick, who has not only the money he's raised personally, but he has two of his hedge fund billionaire buddies who dumped money into their own super PAC. So the spending in the state is just out of control. Dave McCormick of Connecticut residency fame. Connecticut hedge fund leader Dave McCormick. Right. But with that much money being spent on ads, it's like, I don't know what's actually breaking through.

I mean, it's really hard because you have a bunch of very competitive House seats in Pennsylvania. You have the Senate race. You can't go anywhere in Pennsylvania without being communicated to. One of my friends, when the Phillies lost, he said the best things, the only good thing about the Phillies losing was that they don't have to watch political ads every five minutes anymore because they won't be in the Phillies games. It's pretty intense. Yeah.

The one thing I did hear when we were there a couple weeks ago, a very well-connected person said to me, I'm worried about Harris in the Philly suburbs. Have you heard anything about that? I don't buy that. I mean, maybe maybe they're more connected than I am. But I think I think Harris is going to really turn out in the suburbs. I think I think her voters are really going to come out for her. Do you see that Trump's going to go to a McDonald's on Sunday to work the fry cooker? I hope he's wearing a full suit and tie.

This is an actual thing that's happening in Pennsylvania. I did not hear that. That's terrible. Or I guess regular, like, I mean, he has to do these things to show that he's a regular guy because there's nothing about him that is regular. Yeah, nothing says regular guy like full suit and tie pretending to work the fry cooker before you like slip somebody 100 and leave the Mickey D's. Last thing, you mentioned something about an ice cream truck for ballots giving you some hope. Yes. Okay, so let's have

some good news. We never, you know, like, so there is a Montgomery County commissioner. His name is Neil McKeisha. And Montgomery County is one of the few counties, like one of the best turnout counties in Pennsylvania. It's a suburb of Philadelphia. And

And when your ballot isn't quite right, like if you mail in your ballot and there's an error, they throw it out. Right. But what he's doing is when they come in with ballots that are that there's problems, they go in like a old like ice cream truck and go find voters and help them make their ballots correct. So their vote counts. So here are all. Yeah.

Yeah. So here are all these people out there who are trying to make their like trying to say like there's conspiracies or they don't want your vote to count. Like and here's a good story in Pennsylvania of someone trying to get every vote in so that every voice counts. I love that. We need more people like that. See, if you're if you're anxious and texting your friends about Doomer shit, go do that. The other state that we talk about a lot is Arizona. We were there a couple of months ago. It was one hundred and ten degrees. I couldn't believe it. People are canvassing.

The polling has been noisy. The Journal had Harris up two on Sunday. The Times-Siena poll had Trump up five on Saturday. The average, the Times average has Harris up two. The FiveThirtyEight average has Trump up 1.5. God only knows what's right. It's all in the margin. This is why you should stop paying attention to polls.

Like it's only going to make you crazy, make you crazy. I can't even follow them, let alone make keep track of them. So you're working on Ruben Gallego's Senate race there, which means I'm not going to ask you for any, you know, privilege information unless you want to cough them up. But I do not. OK, Democrats generally seem to be optimistic about Gallego, less optimistic about Harris. What do you think about that?

So what I would say is Arizona is still Arizona. There's still more Republicans and independents than there are Democrats. We should be concerned with Arizona. And it's not like it's going to be a walk for Ruben Gallego either. We should all be taking this very seriously on all levels. I do think that Harris is out there really trying to spread her message to voters. She's talking a lot to the reasonable Republicans

in Arizona. And I think at the end of the day, I think she's going to bring a lot of them over to her. I really do. Carrie Lake, it's so wild to watch her go from being the craziest person in all of politics to try to just sand off the edges and go like full gauzy lens, Barbara Walters, like this new person out there on the campaign trail. Is that people buying that? No, no, I don't think people are buying that. I mean, I think she is

She is someone who is really out for herself. And at the end of the day, everything comes back to what she wants. And she is not someone who is fully truthful. I do think voters see through her. But I also think like she's not really...

trying to convince anyone. She told McCain Republicans to get the hell out of the party. You know, Rubin has spent two years going to every community in Arizona, across the whole state and meeting voters where they are and talking to them. And he understands them. Like he's a working class kid. He's a veteran. And he has really connected with a lot of people. And they're like, you know, I'm a Republican, but I'm voting for Rubin. We did a live show in Arizona back in September and Rubin Geiger was our guest. I feel like he had been

Marching in a parade at like 7 a.m. that morning someplace five hours away and then drove to the show and I was like, all right, this guy's grinding. So you're working on this race. I mean, what is it telling you what you're seeing in the numbers in Arizona about Latino support for Democrats generally? Because that's a huge concern.

So a lot of Latinos in Arizona are independents, right? And I think that Democrats traditionally have used them as a turnout audience and not as a persuasion audience, which means that it's been about turning out the vote, not actually communicating with Latino voters. And I think what Rubin has been doing over the last two years is actually communicating to voters about what he wants to do as a senator. And I think Democrats...

We need to talk to voters more about their plans and not just say, like, you're with us, let's turn out the vote. And I think we're doing that. But it took a minute. Like, we've been a little slow, like Democrats in general with voters of color of understanding, like, you should actually persuade them to to vote for you. And you don't just have you can't take any votes for granted.

I would have liked that to happen a little quicker, to be honest. - Yeah, a couple of years ago. Finally, so let's talk about a couple of critical House races. We have not, we've barely talked about the House on this show because- - Nobody talks about the House. Nobody gives the House any love. - I know. - I've made this pitch before, I'm gonna say it again. If you are sitting at home and you are terrified that Trump is gonna win, the best thing you can do beyond helping Harris is making sure Trump would have a check on his power. And that is delivering a democratic House.

The House is very winnable, right? There are races all across the country, probably near a lot of your listeners. There's races in California, in New York, and then all in the purple and red states that Democrats can win.

We saw in northern New Jersey, Sue Altman is now like neck and neck with Tom Keene. That's a good Democrat to give to. Janelle Steltsen out in Pennsylvania, York, Pennsylvania. It's like traditionally Trump Republican area. But Scott Perry's like a little too went a little too far, a little too MAGA for that district. And I think she has a great chance.

There's Jonathan Nez, the former Navajo Nation president who's running against Eli Crane in Arizona. I mean, we have so many good candidates

And I just I think like, number one, the Democrats are doing the work. They're raising they're out raising all of these Republicans. They're they're they're trying to like communicate their message. And they are they are normal people and that we should try and be behind them and elect them. So is there like a dynamic you're seeing broadly? Are these House races or the Democrats running ahead of Kamala Harris? Are there candidate quality issues? I know there's so many races. It's hard to draw with a broad brush or anything we should learn from it.

I think a lot of these Republicans are running as MAGA candidates in districts where people don't want that.

And I think Democrats are doing a good job of raising money from small donors to just communicate their message and talk about what we stand for. I think Democrats have been more inviting to people who disagree than MAGA Republicans are at this moment. Yeah, that's 100% true. I mean, as you mentioned earlier, Carrie Lake told them to...

to get out of the party if you're not a Trump fan. Well, that is good advice. And also another thing you can do if you're anxious. I know we're going to all knock on doors here in some of these California races. Because California and New York, man, I mean, that could tip this whole thing.

Yeah. I mean, can you imagine like, like, I would say the the New York is where we lost the house last time. And it could be where we win the house this time, right? Battleground, New York, Battleground, California, go check out those websites, because they they can you can go out right now and help help them out. Have you guys got your shit together? Is everyone still getting arrested? What's happening in New York?

New York's a disaster. How's the state party? I'm not defending New York. I mean, let me just vent about the state party for just one second. The New York Democratic Party was not built to win general elections. Why? It is a disaster because they never thought they had to. They are a mess. They've been a mess for years. They care more about beating progressives than they care about beating Republicans. It is...

I think it needs some, you know, some cleaning out. A little refresh. Well, it's so frustrating because like you see these states where there is a really smart, well-functioning state Democratic Party, like Wisconsin, right? Where they've had people in place doing the work for years and years and years. And you can see the impact on the ground. You see how professional they are. You see them doing events in off years and winning state Supreme Court races and

And knocking on doors 18 months before an election and doing deep canvassing and persuasion and not just G.O.T.V. events and dumb ads at the end. And you're like, yeah, I will give all the money I have to Wisconsin Democrats, the Wisconsin Democratic Party, because they are so competent. But it's like, how do we take Ben Wickler, the chair there, and clone him and send him to 50 states? Yeah.

I mean, I think the problem is that there's a lot of red pockets in blue states and the people in charge have no idea how to deal with it, right? Whereas the folks who have been in the purple states have been working on it for some time. And it is some of the reddest parts of this country are in the bluest states.

And you gotta worry about, like I talked to you about all the challengers that might win, but there's also people like Johanna Hayes in Northwest Connecticut who's now got a very tough race. Like that's another Democrat we need to go support. So it's a weird moment for sure, but we gotta get our parties, they gotta get their shit together.

Gotta get our shit together, get our state party shit together. Well, listen, again, so listeners know, Rebecca has been my friend for a long time. She's someone I text about my anxiety, usually before like 6 a.m. So it's good to actually just do this on the podcast. It's a lot more constructive. But that's our show for today. Thank you so much for being here. Dan and John will be back with a new episode on Friday. It won't be as good as this, but you should still listen to it anyway. Thank you, Rebecca. Thanks, Tommy. Bye.

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Hi, I'm Jon Lovett, host of Love It or Leave It. You know it can be tempting to tune out the news completely, but my producers won't let me, so instead I put on a weekly comedy show about it. Every week, I welcome an all-star lineup of comedians, performers, politicians, and random gay guys to make sense of politics and pop culture. And even when we don't succeed, boy, we have fun trying. So join us as we run down the latest headlines and figure out what the hell we're all going to do about it. Listen to Love It or Leave It wherever you get your podcasts. ♪