cover of episode The United States of Pennsylvania

The United States of Pennsylvania

2024/10/25
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Key Insights

Why is Pennsylvania considered the most important state in the 2024 election?

Pennsylvania has 19 electoral votes, the most of any swing state, making it crucial for both candidates' paths to victory.

Why did Pennsylvania shift from reliably Democratic to competitive in recent elections?

The decline of union jobs and the appeal of Trump's message about American decline resonated with non-college-educated voters.

How has education level become a significant factor in voting patterns in Pennsylvania?

Non-college-educated voters lean Republican, while college-educated professionals tend to vote Democrat.

What is Kamala Harris's campaign strategy in Pennsylvania?

Drive up turnout in cities and suburbs, focusing on college-educated voters, while minimizing losses in rural areas.

Why is the non-college-educated voter base shrinking in Pennsylvania?

Rural areas are aging, and younger generations are moving to cities for better opportunities, leading to a decline in this demographic.

How are demographic changes affecting Pennsylvania's political landscape?

Suburban areas are growing with college-educated professionals, shifting the balance towards Democrats.

What is Donald Trump's strategy to maintain Pennsylvania's support?

Expand his base by appealing to non-college-educated voters in other demographic groups, such as Latinos and young black men.

How are newcomers changing Lancaster County's political dynamics?

Newcomers, particularly college-educated retirees, are shifting the political landscape towards Democrats.

What challenges do Democratic newcomers face in traditionally Republican areas like Lancaster County?

They often feel isolated and must navigate subtle cues to find like-minded individuals without overt political displays.

How does the changing demographic in Lancaster County reflect broader trends in Pennsylvania?

Lancaster County mirrors statewide trends where rural, non-college-educated voters decline, and suburban, college-educated voters increase.

Chapters

Pennsylvania's significance in the election is due to its 19 electoral votes and its status as a swing state. The state's political landscape has shifted from being reliably Democratic to competitive, influenced by the 2016 election and the growing divide between college-educated and non-college-educated voters.
  • Pennsylvania has 19 electoral votes, the most of any swing state.
  • The state has historically been close in presidential elections.
  • The 2016 election saw a significant shift with Trump winning the state, breaking a trend of Democratic reliability.

Shownotes Transcript

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From The New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisi, and this is The Daily. Throughout this election, one state has been at the center of every imaginable path to victory. Pennsylvania. Hello, everybody. Hello, Pennsylvania. We love Pennsylvania. It's good to be back in Pennsylvania. Yeah!

Both candidates have campaigned there relentlessly. This fall, Pennsylvania is living up to its nickname as the Keystone State. Pro-Harris groups are spending roughly 10 times as much as pro-Trump groups in key battleground states. Get this, nearly $1.5

billion has been spent on presidential ads in just the past three months. $351 million will be spent over the next few weeks. Oh my God. And both parties spent more money there than in any other state. CBS News polling shows both former President Donald Trump

and Vice President Kamala Harris are neck and neck in the Keystone State. What's very clear is that Pennsylvania is just absolutely crucial, pivotal for them. And now, it's a dead heat. Today, my colleague Campbell Robertson, on a consequential shift that is reshaping the map in Pennsylvania, making it the key not just to this election, but to elections to come. It's Friday, October 25th.

So, Campbell, you cover Pennsylvania for The Times. Explain why Pennsylvania is being talked about as the most important state in this election. So that is largely because Pennsylvania carries a treasure trove of 19 electoral votes. It's the most electoral votes of any of the swing states. Now, Pennsylvania has always been close in presidential years.

But for a long time, it was pretty reliably Democratic. And this is largely because in places like Western Pennsylvania, where you have all these union voters who have this loyalty to the party that lasted even after the steel mills closed and the factories closed, they remained loyal Democratic voters. But then 2016 came.

And when Donald Trump started making his speeches about American decline, about pessimism, a lot of these folks who were in places where mills and factories had closed heard that and thought, that man is saying things I have been wanting to hear for a long time from politicians. Right. And so they turned out for him in big numbers. And 2016, Pennsylvania went for Trump. As did the election.

And that was the first time it had gone for a Republican presidential candidate since before 92. Okay, so huge sea change in the politics of Pennsylvania. Yes. And it illustrated what may be even a bigger sea change in American party politics. You had this growing gap between voters who did not have college degrees and

many of whom had great longtime careers in these steel mills and factories, and they were increasingly voting for the Trump Republican Party. Meanwhile, you had these suburban Republicans, professionals, lawyers, and doctors, and that kind of thing, who were starting to leave the Republican Party, or if not leave the party, vote for the Democratic candidate. And so education level became one of the most reliable indicators of how a person's going to vote at the national level.

Right. And it is hard to overstate just how substantial that change has been. I used to do, as you know, demographics reporting. And, you know, it's remarkable just how much it's changed. Education was no predictor at all. And now it kind of tells you the answer in some way of how people are going to vote. That was 2016. But 2020, we saw kind of something different, right?

Well, Biden won Pennsylvania in 2020, barely, but he won Pennsylvania. And part of that is due to his strength among some of those non-college working class voters who like that Scranton Joe pro-union guy reputation. But what really helped Biden win the state was the suburban professionals coming out in huge numbers for Biden. So while it is true that Biden stemmed the bleeding a little bit on the education divide in

He also benefited from it in these suburban voters when he won Pennsylvania. So what are the dynamics in this election? And maybe start with Harris. So the Harris campaign strategy is pretty straightforward. Drive up turnout in the cities, particularly drive up turnout in the suburbs. And these are where all those college educated voters, Democrats and even non-Trump Republicans live.

and try to get those margins really high. And then in the rural areas, a lot of these are these non-college working class voters, try to lose by less, try to keep those losing margins to a level that they can be offset by the numbers they get in the suburbs. Right. So we have the education dynamic coming in as a pretty essential part of her campaign. So given that, Cam, what's

What does the landscape look like for Trump in Pennsylvania? So it's interesting. Trump is really going all in on working class Pennsylvania. He's visiting a lot of smaller cities and towns and rural areas like Butler County, where there was the rally earlier this summer where somebody tried to assassinate him. He is going all in on this working class folk. But here's the trick with that.

That share of Pennsylvania's population is shrinking. About 20 years ago, that was about 70% of the population. Now it's just a hair over 50. The non-college vote. The white non-college vote. Got it. So that's a big decline. And why is that share of the electorate shrinking? What's happening there? Well, the rural parts of Pennsylvania, the population in those counties tends to be pretty old.

And the younger generation just isn't sticking around. They're not the jobs there. The factories have gone. The mills have gone. Farming is just less and less sustainable. And so there's this slow exodus of young people to find better opportunities. Meanwhile, the southeastern corner of the state outside of Philly,

including all the way over to Harrisburg. The suburbs are growing. Suburbs produce exurbs. And they're just expanding out into these once quiet rural counties. And a lot of the people moving into these areas are college-educated professionals. They're not working on farms. They're working in hospitals or universities, which are now some of the biggest employers in the state.

Okay, so rural working class voters, in other words, voters without a college degree, continue to move toward the Republican Party in Pennsylvania. But there are just fewer of those voters in the state. Meanwhile, more educated voters are moving into these areas and they tend to vote Democrat. And that is the big math problem for this election and maybe for election cycles going forward.

Because remember, in 2020, between Joe Biden and Donald Trump were 80,000 votes. It's a college stadium. And, you know, we can all see from the polls this year that it is neck and neck. It's a dead heat. And so the real question that the election this year might settle to some degree is which of these trends has gone further? The partisan realignment of non-college educated voters, these working class voters that benefit Donald Trump,

Or the demographic changes, the shrinking of the rural working class, the growth of the suburbs, these changes that benefit the Democrats. And one of the best places to see these changing demographics and the friction that comes out of that is in Lancaster County in south central Pennsylvania. Now, most of the country knows this is Amish country.

Amish, old order Mennonites, a lot of these Christian sects there. Beautiful farmland. You have farmer's markets, folks selling jam on the side of the road. I literally currently have a jar of strawberry jam in my refrigerator right now from Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

There you go. That is what most people think of when they think of Lancaster County. But in the middle, there's Lancaster City, which is a pretty hip and multicultural city. It's got two colleges there. You've got a lot of growth in the suburbs of Lancaster City and a lot of young people in these areas. But in the county beyond the city, it is still very rural with a lot of small conservative towns. This is a nice little neighborhood.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to one of these small towns in the countryside with daily producer Nina Feldman. A lot of Trump signs. Yeah, this is pretty...

Solvingly Trump country, I think. And we were looking to talk to lifelong residents to see if they had noticed changes to the county, if they were watching the growth of the city in these suburbs. Is this 361? And that's how we met Todd and Deb Adair, who've lived in this area for their whole lives. Mr. Adair? Yes, come on in. Hi. Hi.

I hope I didn't mess you up with the Phillies game. No, I actually have it on now. So tell me about the Adairs. So Todd Adair has a long history in the area. My grandfather was a

Worked in a sewing mill, and then my mom's dad was a concreter. He comes from a line of tradesmen. On our development, we had 20-some kids in our development, so we all played together. And when he grew up, he remembers just farmland everywhere you looked. He used to ride his bike around the fields, and you can just go from field to field as far as I could see.

Everybody knew each other. Most of the folks around grew up there and their parents grew up there. His parents didn't go to college. He didn't either, but he grew up at a time where it was pretty easy to get a good lifelong job without a college degree. I always had a nudge to be a truck driver for some reason. So turned 21, dating the wife and just got into trucking and

That was the end of it. And that's pretty much what I did the last 20-some years. Now he manages a warehouse, and he lives a pretty good life. Watches baseball, hangs out with his kids and grandkids. But he's starting to see a lot of that Lancaster County that he knew change. Townhouses, you know, half and halves, whatever you want, duplexes, I guess they call them. A lot of the fields where he would ride his bike when he was a kid,

are now housing developments. Big high-dollar homes, $500,000, $600,000, $700,000 homes were popping up. And there are new houses going up almost overnight everywhere you look. And how did he feel about that? I mean, Todd said that it's a little strange. You know, you grew up in a place that was so close-knit where everybody you knew was brought up there and came from families who grew up there. And now there are a lot of people moving in.

from somewhere else. Half these people, I don't even know who they are. You see license plates from all over the Northeast. It could be people coming in for jobs from the cities. A lot of them were coming out of state to the jobs since we're right at Allentown, we're at Philly, we're at Harrisburg, easy rides. But when I pressed Todd about whether all these people coming in were changing the culture of the place. Yeah, you can see the out-of-towners moving in, but

I don't see a big change in the lifestyles. He pushed back pretty hard. I don't think this area would allow it. And he said that he did not see the basic politics of Lancaster County changing. Just in voting. I mean, I just don't think they'll... We don't support certain values. So it's dominantly Republican here. Got the Amish. They keep the town pretty...

I don't know. I just got faith in our community. I mean, it's a good town to grow up in and a good area to grow up in, and I think it'll be fine. So by this time in the conversation, Todd's wife, Deb, had come home from work. And while we were talking in front of the TV with a game, she was fixing supper behind us in the kitchen. So, Deb, does the growth in all the newcomers around here, does that worry you?

I'm a nurse. Nothing does. Well, maybe worry is the wrong word, but what do you make of it? It does kind of worry me. And she said that from her perspective, things were definitely changing around here. A growth in different cultures. And the only thing that worries me most about that is...

You know, if they're coming in from Philly or the inner cities and then they're coming out here, what else are they bringing with them? She sort of talked in broader terms about her concerns about these newcomers. But as the conversation went on, Deb and Todd started to talk about a kind of general culture issue.

that they thought really ran counter to the conservative values that were so important to longtime residents of Lancaster County. They give everything to their kids. And that's where the downfall is because as they grow up, they've gotten everything they've asked for. They get a car when they're 16, don't have to have a job and everything else. They go to college, don't need a job. It's paid for.

Good for them, but then when they come out of school, they, oh, I got to work. They described a way of approaching work, of how to raise a family, that was just not the way they did things around here. I got out of high school making $7 an hour. You know, worked two jobs. She worked, and we barely squigged by. You know, mac and cheese and hot dogs was our main course of meals most of the time.

So, you know... And not always with milk. That's true. And they're worried about this becoming the world that their grandkids are going to grow up in. Oh, I pity my granddaughter if we don't... It's not a cultural change that they welcome. And they're seeing little signs that people who they think hold these kinds of values are starting to show up in surprising places, especially in the heat of election season. It's...

To the point... For example, they told a story about going to the local fair. She was walking through the fair with our Trump sign, because that's where we get it every year. In past years, they've gone here to get Trump campaign signs. And so Deb went to do the same thing this year. She got a Trump campaign sign, and she was walking through the fair. And a lady made a comment to her about her carrying the sign. And she gave me the, like, but really now? And I'm like, we all have our own choices. Yeah.

And somebody saw her with a sign and gave her this look like, really? As in like you're voting for Trump? Yeah, in this very conservative little town. And she turned and said, well, we can all make our own decisions. Did you recognize her? No, I've never seen her. No. And you don't think that would have happened two years ago, three years ago? Nah. Nope.

So does an experience like that worry Todd? Like maybe things are actually changing more than he thinks? I mean, I don't know. It's a little thing. It's subtle. It was this one encounter. But it did seem to speak to a kind of culture clash that is brought by all these new people moving into Lancaster County. And that made us want to go meet some of them. We'll be right back.

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I'm Susan Lee. I'm a researcher and fact checker with The Daily. What I do is make sure details in our episodes are accurate. I also spend a lot of time reviewing pretty much anything a guest on the show says. Let's say they're describing the color of someone's sweater. If I find out this person actually wore a blue sweater instead of a red one, I have to make sure that we address it.

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So Campbell, tell me about these newcomers who've moved into Lancaster County. So outside of Lancaster City, when you drive around the farmland, you see a lot of new housing developments popping up. Some are for these, you know, upper scale working professionals who moved from the city out to the suburbs. But there are a lot of retirement communities here.

Now, when you think of ex-urban sprawl, you don't necessarily think of retirees, but they're a big part of the shift. And many of the retirees living in these communities are college educated. Maybe they grew up there, they're moving back, or maybe they're moving there from New York or New Jersey, Long Island. Pennsylvania has very retirement-friendly tax structure. It's cheaper, it's beautiful, there's good access to health care. This is Two-Way Street. I hope so. No.

There was no sign. And one of these retirement communities is not too far from where Todd and Deb live, on the edge of a little town called Ephrata. So the development is in what was clearly probably a cornfield 20 years ago.

The houses are well-appointed. They're newish. It's about a dozen years old. The streets have names like Liberty and Freedom and Tradition. There are well-manicured lawns and front porches with a lot of Halloween decor. And so we went to talk to a group of women who live in one of these communities. And is it farmland past here? Mm-hmm. Beautiful farm. They're all neighbors. Yeah.

Ten of them that we met, all in their 60s and 70s. A lot of whom moved into Lancaster County in the last few years. Every group I belonged to was all Trump supporters. We went to chat with them. They were meeting in what they called their, quote, support group. Okay. They told us before they found each other, when they first moved here, most of them,

They very quickly discovered that they really were political outsiders. Like, I swim at the rec center, they're all talking about Trump all the time. I had a women's group, they all love Trump. One of them was Sharon Nelson. She lived there the longest, almost 10 years. And she said that every group of people she found herself in, they were all talking about how much they loved Donald Trump. And I felt...

very alone or like an outcast, I'm like, why do I not fit in in any of these places? And for a while they thought they were on an island. They just kept their mouth shut. I moved here from Virginia. I lived on the northern neck of Virginia. Everyone had a gun.

Everyone was for Trump. Another one was Suki Starkey. She moved there more recently. She wanted to be near her kids. So I thought, yes, I'm going to get out of this hellhole. And she thought moving from rural Virginia, she would find a different political mix. And we moved here and I thought, oh, my God, you know, this is like a repeat of

of what I had in Virginia. It really is. But almost everyone around her seemed to be Trump supporters. I thought, "I gotta get out of here. These people are gonna, you know, eat me alive until I found these nice people." So slowly but surely, in little ways, it's almost like a nod-nod-wink-wink situation. They'd find out that there were other Democrats in their community. How would you know? How would it come up?

just very subtle ways, you know, it is almost like a vibe. Don't you think?

It wasn't easy figuring this out. There are no lawn signs in their development because it's against the rules there. So they had to kind of get a vibe to know who the other Democrats might be. If my husband and I or either one of us would have a conversation with somebody else that was like mine, we'd like run home. We had a big secret, you know. Guess what? I just talked to so-and-so. And they hate Trump too. That's true. They're not a MAGA. They're not a MAGA. They'd be...

be going out to get the mail or seeing somebody doing the lawn and they'd have a quick conversation and somebody said something that would give them the vibe like, oh, this might be another Democrat. And then in June... We started getting together because... Mental health. Mental health. When, after... After that Biden debate, when Democrats all over the country were really at a low point,

One of them reached out and said, "Do you all want to get together for a support group to talk about this?" And so they did. Our very first meeting was when Biden announced that he was dropping out. So we kind of— So they started getting together, and little by little, others would find out about the group, and the group was getting bigger and bigger, especially in a place that they had previously thought was just all Trump supporters.

I kept my mouth shut for like 10 years or however long it's been. And finally, I'm like, you know what? I'm not hiding anymore. So what started as a support group, eventually as it got bigger, became a group where they would organize things. We were even talking about doing post-it notes and putting them in the ladies' restroom. You close the stall and there's a note saying, your vote is private.

And they start volunteering for the Harris campaign. So the Harris campaign is there in that area? For the first time, actually, in a Democratic presidential campaign, the Harris campaign has a full-time staffed office in this part of Lancaster County. Interesting. So they are also noting this demographic change, it seems. Yeah, and while they probably don't think they can win this county this year, Trump won it by 16 points in 2020. They see where this trend is going.

and they're sending out huge teams of door knockers, and even this part of the county, and doing a lot of get out the vote. So the women in this support group had been volunteering and door knocking and doing all the campaign stuff. But on the night that we met them, it's misting. They were also preparing to walk alongside the Democratic Party float

in the big annual parade in downtown Ephrata. We're getting wet for Kamala. I'm going to get my hat. Now, this was a big step. I mean, it's one thing to go knock on the doors of people you know are registered Democrats. You're working off your list. Right. And it's another thing to walk right through downtown with a Harris-Waltz shirt on. They, like, came fully out of the closet. This was the big coming-out moment. Yes. I don't know.

I hope they don't yell things, because I'm very sensitive. And they were a little nervous. I feel like there's going to be people out there going to be yelling at us. Yeah. And maybe even somebody will throw something at us. I don't know. Jeez, Marilyn. And there were some worries about getting booed and heckled during the parade, and some even thought that

These kids who have hands full of Tootsie Rolls that were thrown out before they passed by would throw them at them as they walked by. Ow! Tootsie Roll could hurt. Yeah. So they were concerned about what their reception would be at the parade. All right, I'll see you there. We're going on a main street through town and...

People are lying on both sides, sitting in camp chairs. So we went out with them that night and walked alongside the Democratic Party float to see how they would be received. And as soon as it started, the float did get booed. That was not a surprise. But as we went on, there were a surprising number of cheers, too.

So really, these longtime residents coming up against newcomers, this culture clash, that was really on display at the parade. Yeah, and you could see it, like, physically manifest along the route of the parade. So we just walked by a duplex. And what first drew my eye was a bunch of Trump flags, a big sign that said Trump was right, the usual patriotic Trump signs.

and in the other half of the duplex was a giant rainbow flag. I stopped by to the man sitting in front of the rainbow flag house, and I said, how's this work out? He said, a lot of friction. So as the night went along, the women in the support group, who were marching alongside the float, were feeling pretty good about things. What's your sense of the crowd response been? Well, I was surprised how positive it was. I mean, there were...

It was a negative, but a lot of people gave us, you know, the big waves and high fives and everything. Did you get anything thrown at you? Pardon? Nope. I don't think many people threw Tootsie Rolls, and they felt like the night really was a success. And then we were coming right down Main Street into the heart of town, and we were passing by a big, beautiful old house with a wraparound porch strung up with garden lights and a packed front yard, big kind of a tailgate.

Let's go, Brandon! And they began shouting at the Democratic float. Let's go, Brandon! So we stopped by to talk to the guy who was sort of leading the chants, a guy named Brian Keith. He was hosting this huge party. This is the place they hate to come by, yes. Yeah. So, yeah, we're not, yeah, it's pretty obvious who we support. So...

Brian is a Republican who's voted for Trump. He doesn't love the guy, but he is a conservative libertarian, as he calls himself. He didn't grow up in Lancaster County.

And I'm like, I'm more of the redneck-y guy that Effort made more sense. But he loves this part of the county because of what he sees as its values. It's a different city than it was 15 years ago, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's just demographically it's different than it was. And so we wanted to know what he makes of these newcomers moving in. It's Effort of Pennsylvania, which was a Mennonite white bread community type of thing, right? Now it's very much a diverse community. Not that that's a bad thing.

But it's changed with the cost of living. Everything else that has happened here, it's kind of gone hand in hand. He told us, unlike Todd Adair, that all these little changes, the new people moving in, the prices going up, the different cultural views, that they really are adding up for him. Do you think that the Democrats...

So much that he told us that he's starting to see the writing on the wall. And that he's already thinking of moving farther out into the country.

Give it another 10 years and it's going to be, we're going to be out in Alberta. So he is very different than Todd then. Todd saw changes and felt like they didn't really amount to much. And Brian's saying, this is fundamentally changing my town. That's right. So which of them is right, Todd or Brian? I mean, how much do these shifts actually matter?

Well, Todd is right in the sense that the white working class is still the majority in Lancaster County and actually in the state of Pennsylvania as a whole. But Brian is right in the sense that this is moving in one direction. The working class population is shrinking year by year. And this population of college educated professionals tend to be more democratic, is growing. And that math is

is not on the side of the Trump coalition. So this trend is moving in the wrong direction for Trump. What's he going to do about it? Well, Trump knows that if he wants to keep Pennsylvania in play for the Republicans, he needs to expand his base. It would still be a working class base, mainly of folks who don't have college degrees.

But you can see the campaign already making inroads or trying to make inroads with other groups, Latinos in the small cities in eastern Pennsylvania or young black men in cities like Philadelphia, because he and his campaign realized that the working class white base is shrinking. And so they're going to have to pick up votes from somewhere else.

Right. He's looking for these working class people in other demographic groups. And as we know, he's having some success in that department with black men, with Hispanic men, particularly non-college people. And he's looking for these working class people in other demographic groups.

And if he pulls it off, that could be just as dangerous a trend for Democrats in the long run. Yes, yes. And he has to do this because it's not just in Pennsylvania where these shifts are happening. It's happening at different speeds in different places, but it's happening everywhere. I mean, you see it in Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, all these other swing states.

Exactly. Like Virginia went blue in 2019, and that was very much the same dynamic. Non-college voters in the rural parts of the state, which is territorially most of the state, were just outweighed at a certain point by the college grads moving to those thickly settled areas in northern Virginia. Right. So in some ways, Lancaster County is just a few election cycles behind where Virginia was, where the base is gradually being overtaken by these

Okay, so if Virginia is like a postcard from the future for Lancaster County, and that postcard would be positive for Democrats, what could the Democrats do to turn Pennsylvania into Virginia? Well, now look, for this election, you know, they're door-knocking and writing postcards and doing all those things to sort of get those margins a few notches up where they need them. ♪

but really in the medium and long term. Democrats just have to hope that more people like the women in the support group, you know, college educated professionals who tend to vote Democrat, move into places like Lancaster County and change the politics. Campbell, thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back.

Hey, I'm Tracy Mumford. You can join me every weekday morning for the headlines from The New York Times. Now we're about to see a spectacle that we've never seen before. It's a show that catches you up on the biggest news stories of the day. I'm here in West Square. We'll put you on the ground where news is unfolding. I just got back from a trip out to the front line and every soldier... And bring you the analysis and expertise you can only get from The Times newsroom. I just can't emphasize enough how extraordinary this moment was.

Look for The Headlines wherever you get your podcasts. Here's what else you should know today. On Thursday, former President Donald Trump said that if he was elected president again, he would immediately fire special counsel Jack Smith, who has brought two federal indictments against him. Smith has charged Trump with plotting to overturn his 2020 election loss and with illegally holding on to classified material after leaving office.

Trump's comments, made in an interview with a conservative radio host, Hugh Hewitt, were the sharpest he's made about what could become of the federal cases he's facing should he win another term in office. And the Los Angeles County chief prosecutor requested the resentencing of Lyle and Eric Menendez, who killed their parents in 1989 after what they said was sexual molestation of them by their father.

Their claims were met with widespread skepticism during their trial. But the case drew renewed attention this year after Netflix released a docudrama about it and later a documentary in which the brothers discuss the case at length in prison interviews.

The move by District Attorney George Gascon could pave the way for the brothers to walk free. They are currently serving sentences of life without parole in a prison near San Diego. The decision will ultimately be made by a judge. Today's episode was produced by Nina Feldman, Mary Wilson, and Shannon Lin.

It was edited by Liz O'Balin, Michael Benoit, and Rachel Quester, with help from Maria Byrne. Contains original music by Chelsea Daniel, Marian Lozano, and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. Special thanks to Robert Gabeloff. The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lindsay Garrison,

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Daniel Ramirez, Brendan Klinkenberg, Chris Haxel, and Maria Byrne. Special thanks to Lisa Tobin, Sam Dolnik, Paula Schumann, Larissa Anderson, Julia Simon, Mahima Chablani, Elizabeth Davis-Moore, Jeffrey Miranda, Maddie Messiello, Isabella Anderson, Nina Lassam, and Nick Pittman.

A quick reminder to catch a new episode of The Interview right here tomorrow. This week, Lulu Garcia Navarro talks with Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, who, after just two years in Congress, says he's disenchanted with it. I think people all think life is like the West Wing or something, you know, kind of show where it's snappy dialogue and it's like, you know, whatever. But a lot of it comes down to just really bad performance art.

That's it for The Daily. I'm Sabrina Tavernisi. See you on Monday.

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