9/5/24: DOJ Russian Millions To Pundits, Russiagate 2.0, Trump Insists 'Not Weird', Kamala Swing State Polls, Venezuelan Gang Story Denied, And Kamala Caves On Capital Gains Tax
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Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Boy, oh boy, are there some interesting stories out there this morning. We're going to start with this wild DOJ indictment that involves a bunch of top online influencers. The details are really quite extraordinary. So we'll break all of that down for you. Part of a broader crack

down on a Russian disinformation influence campaign. So we'll get into that broader effort as well. Trump did a Fox News town hall last night with Sean Hannity, a lot of hard hitting questions there. But there were some interesting moments that we want to take you through. It was despite Hannity that we got some. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And also

Also it was built as a town hall, but then nobody actually asked any questions outside of Sean Hannity. And then Sean didn't ask any questions. What's going on with that? Whatever. So we'll show you the highlights, lowlights, whatever lights from that. We also have some new polls to break down for you in particular, a slew of new battleground polls from CNN that are quite interesting. And if they came to fruition, would have the electoral college map

so incredibly close. So this election continues to be just as tight as it possibly could be. We're also gonna break down fact from fiction on this wild Aurora gang apartment building story that has gone viral, that Elon Musk has been promoting. I'll just leave it at that and we'll take you through all the details once we get to that plot.

Boomers are up in arms about it. Yes. Well, perhaps it gets into your mom. Yes, indeed. All right. So let's go and get to this story. Just bear with me while I go through the details, because I think it will pay off for you in the end. So the DOJ put online an indictment of two Russian nationals who work for RT. OK, what they are alleged to have done is to have funneled 10 million dollars

through a Tennessee-based content creation company called Tenet Media. Okay, we can put this story up on the screen. So your major players are these two Russian nationals. They're the ones who were indicted.

this media startup called Tenet, who has a number of very highly recognizable and influential right-wing media creators on their payroll, including Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, Lauren Southern, and a couple others I was less familiar with, Matt Christensen. Yes. And somebody Hanson. Yes. It's like the same name as somebody from the Hanson band, I don't remember, but it's not the same guy. Anyway. I actually looked it up just to make sure. The major names of Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, and Dave Rubin, I

I think many people in the audience will know. Those are the major ones. Yes, okay. And again, none of these individuals are accused of wrongdoing. However, the details here are quite extraordinary. So Tenant Media hires these influencers for extraordinary sums of money to produce some content for them. I'm talking like $100,000 a video.

Under the pretext that the Tenet Media people run by Lauren Chen and her husband, what's his name? Liam Donovan. Liam Donovan. Under the pretext, which they apparently knew was a false pretext, that there was this elusive, wealthy businessman who was funding all of this. And again, we're talking like $100,000 a video plus. Insane amounts of money for this, okay?

So turns out that this elusive businessman is totally made up. Turns out that these two RT, like Russian agents effectively, were influencing content. They were in the Discord telling these creators and the producers involved with these videos that were being produced for this money. Like, hey, let's focus in on this

angle of maybe it was Ukraine that was behind the ISIS Moscow attack. Hey, why don't you guys post this Tucker Carlson grocery shopping video? I'll show you that in a minute, which is hilarious because one of the producers was actually like, this just seems like direct shilling. And they're like, no, no, you should do it. And they're like, okay, fine, we'll do it. So directly shaping content

and getting paid through this shady enterprise that comes directly. This is what's in the indictment, okay? These are the allegations from the government. So let me read you a little bit of that article that we just had up. It says the indictment claims the personalities on Tenet were not aware of the backgrounds and intentions of the two Russians and that the funding for the company came through a Canadian shell company from a front man named, and this is the fake guy, Edward Gregorian, who did not exist.

despite the fact that Google searches for Edward Gregorian did not return any results.

Two of the commentators, and it appears that those two commentators are, one of them is definitely Tim Pool. The other one's probably Benny Johnson, potentially Dave Rubin. Yes. Are the sort of focus of a lot of what's in this indictment. In any case, despite the fact that the Google searches didn't return any hits for this dude, the two commentators went through with the deal, the indictment alleges, after receiving a resume. Let's put a two up on the screen that has a little bit more detail. Eventually, they did the deal, Benny Johnson. We think that-

that could be Dave Rubin, but one of the two of them, would unknowingly work for the Russians for $400,000 a month in exchange for

monthly videos. Guys, we work in this industry. That is an insane amount of money per video, plus a $100,000 signing bonus. Apparently, Tim Pool also got the $100,000 a video, but no signing bonus. This person opines weak negotiating skills. Let's put the next piece up on the screen. This is the Tucker grocery store situation I was telling you about. So honor

about February 15th, they say one of these producers who was using a pseudonym, pseudonym, who was also, who was actually a Russian national works for RT and one of the individuals who's actually indicted, shared with Tenet Media a video of, they say, a well-known U.S. political commentator visiting a grocery store in Russia. We all know that's Tucker Carlson. The Russian national posted the video in the producer discord channel.

Later that day, a producer privately messaged one of the founders, Lauren Chen, on Discord and said, they want me to post this, referencing the video that the Russian national had posted. But it just feels like overt shilling. Lauren Chen replies that her husband thinks we should put it out there. The producer acquiesces, responding, all right, I'll put it out tomorrow. So one of the reasons this detail is important is because it shows the direct impact that these

Russian nationals who were posing as not Russian nationals and who were involved in this producer discord were exerting on the type of content that was being produced. Let's put the ISIS Ukraine piece up here as well. It's another instance where they were trying to influence the content that was being put out by these creators. The Russians wanted to blame the ISIS Moscow attack. This person opines on Ukraine. They got commentator three to do it. So that would either be Dave Rubin or

Benny Johnson, we're not sure because the reason we're able to deduce who these people were is because the indictment lists not their names, but the number of YouTube subscribers they have. Yes. And Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson have basically the same number of subscribers. That's why we're not sure which is which. And they both ended up putting out statements. We'll get to those in a moment. But Sagar, initial reactions to this extraordinary chain of alleged events, which, by the way, no one's

is really denying it. No, none of them are denying it. Lauren Chen has not put out a statement, neither her husband, Liam Donovan. So again, just to recap in the indictment, Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson, and Tim Poole were not aware, according to the US government, that they were being

paid via Russian cutouts. But the indictment makes it very clear that Lauren Chen and her husband were aware that, quote, it was the Russians in private communications. Right. Between the two of them, multiple other circumstantial evidence guys showing that they were like, when they couldn't get a response for why invoices weren't being paid, they were Googling time in Moscow as to why a

All of this was not coming in on time. I mean, at a philosophical level, it's sad, honestly, because it's very clear that the money was just so good that nobody was not asking real questions. For example, let's put A5, please, up on the screen. This is amazing. This is delicious because at one point they're like, hey, who is the guy? I want to see something about him. And this is literally the resume that was sent to them of some mystery rich man named Edward Gregorian. Now, we don't have a full list.

The resolution on this is actually quite bad because it comes from the indictment itself, but it says, experienced finance professional and investor, deeply engaged in business and philanthropy, leveraging skills and resources to drive positive impact. Just a bunch of complete bullshit, honestly. Life and education. They say that he had a bachelor's degree in economics, a master's

in accounting, he had some professional experience in financial analysis and consulting, but they list some fake banks that he had allegedly worked at. And in general, said he was an accomplished financial professional, Mr. Gregorian. The problem is, is that a basic amount of research would have revealed that Gregorian does not exist.

because there was no financial footprint. There was no footprint on bank websites. There was no Google history. I mean, it's basically impossible in the world at this point to become a person who could afford $10 million funneling to these people without having a financial profile at all. It's basically, the chance is zero, especially if you were working in finance, LinkedIn, any bank records, bank websites. Even if you were using Archive or Wayback Machine or any of those, you'd be able to find them

And so that should have set off major alarm bells. But really what it is, is that because we work in this business, sorry, those sums are insane. And if you go on the Tenant Media YouTube channel, the videos were getting like 8,000 views. Okay, so just so everybody understands, 8,000 views. I mean, how much do you make off that? Maybe 150 bucks, maybe 100 bucks. - Maybe, maybe. - If the producers wanna correct me, they can, but it actually could be less. It could be like 50.

They say much less. Oh, okay. See, I don't even know. Well, we don't have videos that get that low amount of views, so I don't know. Especially when you consider the amount of production. Yeah, exactly. The production value and everything. I read through this entire indictment, which was...

It's enjoyable, to be honest with you, because some of the details here, again, are really quite entertaining. People were raising at the time, Tim Pool and whether it was Dave Rubin or Betty Johnson, they want all this money. There's no way this is gonna be economic. And the Russians come back to her like, no, we're good with it. Right. It's like, okay, so what are we doing here? And the other funny thing about the fake resume, so

whether Benny Johnson or Dave Rubin, whoever was the commentator that was, you know, raising these questions and was asking like, hey, you know, I can't find anything about this guy. Like, can you send me something? And so he gets this

farcical resume pack. Yes, yeah. And the one concern that he raises is somewhere in the buzzword gobbledygook that's on this resume. It references social justice. And that was the one thing that he was like, whoa, I don't know. I don't know. I'll speak up for him. That is a red flag, right? Because if somebody has that on your resume and you don't know anything else about it. Of all

- In all this situation, that was the red flag. - For me, the red flag is the money. I'd be like, hold on a second, you wanna pay me 400 grand a month to post four videos, and each of those four videos are gonna get 8,000 views. So you're gonna make maybe a couple hundred bucks at best over all of this. So what's in it for you? - But you know, the fact of the matter is,

and you can speak to this probably better than I can, like there is a lot of ideological money floating around in right-wing circles. I mean, this is like sort of in defense of them that, you know, there's all these billionaires who want to have their taxes cut. And so even if they don't, and $10 million is nothing to them. And so even if it's,

the posting of that one video isn't economic, they're engaged in a broader ideological project that they believe is gonna pay off for them over time. And so, I mean, that's what's crazy is like, obviously we don't swim in these, why we don't take money from any, it's like all dependent on you guys and you know, like really

Obviously that we do those things, but that's why when I read through this, it feels so preposterous because that amount of money just being thrown at you to do four videos a month is insane. Well, I'll speak to a couple of things. First is the way that we set up our business. I'm extremely vindicated on this because for people who, you know, we've spoken about this some at length, but

We are 100% financed by our premium subscribers through our subscription program and then programmatic advertising, which is placed on YouTube or podcast ads. That means we've never talked to an advertiser. Period. In fact, the only input that we have is that in certain categories that we don't want. So we could actually make even more money if we're willing to have like shilling credit cards or any of those.

other things play on our podcast. - If we were just willing to read ads on our podcast. - So that was my next thing. So then the next phase of that, and this is where there's been a lot of pressure always from any people who are involved in business that are like, well, you know you can make five to 10 times more if you were to just read ads. And we're always like, yeah, but should a guy who's bringing you the news really be reading a ball shaving ad? I don't really think so.

And by the way, that is where the most money is. Or Bluetooth or any of these others. If you're a comedian, I totally get it. That's fine. Get your bag. But whenever you're in news, it's just different. And so we never chased outside revenue. And that's part of what I see here is that when you're out there and you're making deals with gold companies and shaving companies and all these other things, maybe it doesn't seem as preposterous if somebody wants to pay you X hundred thousand dollars a month. And that's just in the private sector. Remember, these guys are getting

millions and millions of views. Let's be real, there's a lot of money floating around. And then secondary to that is what you identified. And this is where I'm gonna give them some defense and also just some criticism here of the DOJ where it's not 100% fair. How many people do you guys know who are on YouTube or elsewhere where you just suspect

Maybe these people are getting paid by Israel, by Ukraine, by, I mean, anybody, by Qatar, by Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, by anybody who has a vested interest in influencing US politics.

In fact, I have it on good authority that there are several so-called war YouTubers who are out there who are directly on the payroll of the Ukrainian government and or cutouts of the US intelligence community. We've covered and we will get to this in terms of secret Israeli influence operations, Qatari and influence operations, Iranian perhaps influence operations. The DOJ obviously is very particularly singling out this Russian scheme of $10 million.

Now, is that an excuse? No, because here's the truth. People with ethics or people with scruples like we would never do this. We would never even be in a position where a deal like this even gets presented because our representatives are very aware. They're like, no, it's not on the table. Not on the table. Yeah, exactly. And

Yeah, I mean, I would have a lot of questions beyond like, why is it saying social justice if someone's trying to throw that kind of money at you? That's immediate red flag. And we wouldn't even be in a position to field those deals. You're exactly right, because the people we work with know that we would never, ever even consider going down that path.

But I mean, the thing that, so your point is correct. There's obviously very selective enforcement of these laws. And if it's, you know, friends, then of the official friends of the United States, then okay, no problem, fund whoever you want, run whatever influence campaigns you want. We're gonna talk more about that when we talk about the sort of broader operation that they're conducting here, the DOJ is conducting under Merrick Garland. No doubt that it's selective enforcement, but also-

The specific thing they're accused of, again, not Tim Pool, not Dave Rubin, not whoever, but these Russian nationals are accused of. I mean, it obviously is illegal and should be illegal if the allegations are correct. Because not only, I mean, they adopted pseudonyms, they created a fake persona, they funneled, they...

laundered this money through shell companies. They were in these discord producer chats like under pseudonyms pretending to be people that they weren't to manipulate this coverage. Like this is really, it is really dirty and nefarious. And the thing that disgusts me too, Sagar is like,

We have some opinions on Ukraine, on Israel, on what we've been accused of taking money from this regime or that. And so when you actually did it, you give so much credence.

Well, I was going to get to that. I'm really upset about it. You give so much credence to these arguments that anyone who has a view that's not the like official U.S. mainstream narrative. Oh, well, they really have a secret agenda. They're really, you know, a useful idiot, like apparently Tim Pool and Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson are. And that's the issue. And that's what is that's even though, you know, like I said, I find the details sort of amusing. I also like discuss

because it gives so much credence to those bad faith attacks that anyone who descends on the Ukraine war is actually being paid in rubles by the Kremlin or whatever. - Exactly, and that on Ukraine and on Israel specifically. I mean, Lorne Chen was somebody who was very vociferous

about dual loyalty accusations and about, she actually spoke about free speech for Hamas protesters, one of the very few right-wing people who is doing that. And now everybody who is pro-Israel is dismissing her out of hand and is like, look, she was actually the one guilty of dual loyalty at the time. And guess what? They're right. It's actually true.

But she literally knew according to the indictment, look, maybe she has a defense. We haven't heard it yet. I've looked for statements from both her and her husband, nothing about whether what the allegations are true or not. That's a real problem. And also in the independent media space, like you were saying, questioning Ukraine, how many times have accusations been leveled here? You're a Russian propagandist. It's like, well, apparently not a good one because I'm not getting paid. Be nice.

You can buy a pretty fancy cyber truck, I think, with some of that money. But this is the issue, is that now all of independent people, especially people with descending views, are going to get smeared to high heaven by all of these, who knows, the Mueller she wrote, empty wheel, all of these lunatics, literal Russiagate-obsessed lunatics.

lunatics. They're having the greatest field day that they've ever had. I even see generals, people like Mark Hurtling over at CNN. He's like, this is the tip of the iceberg of the Russian propaganda machine and all that. And they're gonna take this kernel and explode it out to anybody who has a dissenting view. So I guess if any other independent creators and all that are out there, it is so imperative. Actually, the onus is on you. And I don't think it's fair, right? Because what, CNN is paying its bills-

with pharma money. So is Fox News and all these other people. And they don't have to answer any questions because theirs is legitimate and legal and that's all cool. Yeah. They take political advertising dollars and literally go to the campaigns and sell them airtime. Apparently that's fine. Remember, was it...

Saudi or one of the Gulf monarchies where they directly took a bunch of money and did a whole vertical that was just like, you know, propaganda for that country. Remember that CNN did that? Of course. Oh, and CNN, remember CNN Turk. That's actually a whole bag of worms and nobody. I don't know anything about that. My point is just they don't have to answer for all the sketchy hundreds of billions that they take from, you know, major corporations, financial interests.

Gold, Viagra, and all these other places. And that's a double standard, but it doesn't matter. We're up against a system, and the system will use this to try and smear and destroy. You've given them more ammunition than they could ever want. And from now on, that's just gonna be the classic thing that people put out there.

Why don't we get to the statements? Let's put Tim's statement up, this A6. By the way, you mentioned Lauren Chen hasn't put out a statement, at least when I was looking yesterday. She hadn't. I wonder if she's worried about legal jeopardy. Well, okay, so I spoke to Brad Moss. Yeah. It was like, she's in big trouble. The fact that she didn't even get indicted this time around is kind of astounding, and maybe she's cooperating with the government. But, yeah. Mm-hmm.

I find it hard to believe she was retweeting people and posting as of like 11 hours ago when their indictment came out. Yeah. How is that possible? Right. Well, because, again, there's no allegation that Tim, Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson, Lauren Southern, these other people did anything wrong in the indictment. They say, look, they had no idea. Right. Right.

But the indictment alleges that Lawrence and Liam Donovan did know and referring to them as the Russians and were deceiving Tim Pool, you know, Benny Johnson, Dave Rubin et al. So yeah, I do wonder if they're in legal jeopardy. Anyway, here's Tim's statement. He says, my statement regarding allegations and the leaked DOJ indictment. By the way, he corrected that it wasn't leaked. It was just like officially posted on their website. Anyway, should these allegations prove true? I

as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived and are victims. Cannot speak for anyone else at the company as to what they do or to what they are instructed. The Culture War podcast was licensed by Tenet Media. It existed well before any license agreement with Tenet, and it will continue to exist after any such agreement expires. The only change with the agreement was that the location of the live broadcast moved to Tenet's YouTube channel. I,

I and TCW never produced any content for Tenant Media, never at any point did anyone other than I have full editorial control of the show, and the contents of the show are often apolitical. Examples include discussing spirituality, dating, and video games. Yeah, that's what he's known for. The show is produced in its entirety by our local team without input from anyone external to the company. TCW is separate.

company not associated with Timcast.com or other properties. It exists solely for the production of the Culture War podcast. That being said, we still do not know what is true as these are only allegations. And then he goes, Putin is a scumbag. Russia sucks donkey balls. The journalists who wish to jump the gun create their own narrative or lie about what is currently going on. You can eat my Irish, etc. So that's his response. Basically really trying to be like, no, I promise I wasn't taking, you know, this was all my own idea. This existed before this

Russian influence operation and trying to put some distance between himself and media. I mean, it's listen in a technical sense. Yes, you are a victim. You were also getting millions of dollars to do this. So it's hard to like cry. That's the problem about the whole. I mean, you were bamboozled. It's true. But yeah, let's be real. There are a lot of people who were bamboozled.

Bamboozled, who also should have, you know, whenever somebody gets conned, you're like, I feel bad for you. But also it's like, really? You know, you really thought that an Indian guy on the phone and what, you know, that he was from Microsoft, you're supposed to give him 50 grand? Yeah, but in this instance, you're not getting conned out of money. No, no, no, 100%. You're making millions of dollars. That's my point. It's like, okay, yeah, technically, yes. But, you know, let's be honest here. Yeah. Benny also put out a statement. Let's put this up there. Kind of similar vibe with him. Statement on the leaked DOJ indictment.

Again, not leaked. A year ago, a media startup pitched my company to provide content as an independent contractor. Our lawyers negotiated a standard arms-like deal, which was later terminated. We are disturbed by the allegations in today's indictment, which make clear myself and other influencers were victims in this alleged scheme. My lawyers will handle anyone who states or suggests otherwise.

otherwise. I have Dave Rubin's statement too, which we don't have an element for because it came out later. But he says, statement on the DOJ indictment, these allegations clearly show I and other commentators were the victims of this scheme. I knew absolutely nothing about any of this fraudulent activity, period. People of the Internet was a silly show covering viral videos, which ended four months ago. The DOJ has never contacted me regarding this matter. I have no intention to comment further. This screenshot from the indictment speaks for itself. And he screenshots a part of the indictment that talks about the fact that

Lauren Chen and Liam Donovan, who ran Tenant Media, that they worked together to obscure the source of the funding. So basically saying like, listen, they tricked us. They knew they were lying. And it's really on them, not on us, seems to be the implication of screenshotting that particular part of the indictment. I mean, look, they did trick them, right? And Lauren

It's pretty wild. I mean, honestly, sorry. If this is true, you're scum. You really are because you not only knowingly took money from a foreign government, you also put other people in a position where now they're named in a federal indictment. And look-

I mean, this is the other thing. Do they have to give that money back? Like, what are the clawback things look like from the Department of Justice? This is literally foreign cash that has been washed. I don't know what that asks. I asked a couple of lawyers. They said it actually depends on what the government is going to do. If I'm the I mean, if you're the DOJ, you probably hate all these people anyway. You really going to give them a free ride? And it's not like that money has already been put in the bank and probably paid to employees like you can be setting yourself up for a very serious problem.

with the US government. The other thing is too with Lauren Chan and all of them, if they haven't even been arrested, then what? Did you roll up? Like did you cooperate now? So now you're both cooperating with the government and you were a useful, not even a useful idiot, you knowingly conspired with a foreign government.

This gets back to integrity. I mean, I remember at one point I was approached, I think it was Al Jazeera. Uh, and they were like, Oh, there was some stupid thing that they were trying to do. And I was like, Hey, you know, no offense. You know, I'm sure this is fine, but you guys take money from you from the Qatari government. I'm like, I don't take money from foreign governments. And that kind of took offense at that. Actually. They're like, that suggests that we're not independent. Like, it's not about that. It's just, it's a conflict of interest. I don't do that. Uh,

I wouldn't even take money from our own government if some national state department thing was like, we wanted to give you a fellowship. I'm like, yeah, that's weird. And that's what you kind of have to do in this business is to bring it back to the ads. We could retire several times over. We're willing to read manscaped ads. Just not gonna happen. And does that make life more difficult? I mean, I guess in a sense.

But the point is that when you're up against large forces who are gonna try and destroy you, then you should definitely have a lot more scruples. I mean, for example- You have to be unimpeachable. With Dave Rubin, to look at some of these tenant videos about Dave Rubin, it's getting

8,000 views of him being like why South Park is real life. And I'm like, bro, seriously? You really, really believed that this was making $100,000? And I should say this, Dave has happy to accuse people being pro Hamas and all this other stuff, right? So it's like, bro, what do you think happened?

Who's paying for that fancy little studio down in South Florida? And if some of this is all unfair, I'm just saying it's not like they have all this charity when they're accusing other people, especially Dave. Benny, who I know on a personal level, I believe that he didn't know any of this. Tim, I don't know him as well, but same thing.

the problem is just that this, the integrity is so important for independent media. And now, of course, all the Russian pro Ukraine people are pulling all of these clips of them who are doubting, you know, this, the narrative or whatever in Ukraine. And they're just saying, look, they were literally on a Russian payroll. You have discredited anybody in the,

independent space. And to that, I'm, you know, that is actually what pisses me off the most about this entire thing. Because again, for all of them, we all know what the actual dollars and cents look like, right? We know what the dollars and cents are supposed to look like. And when something changes orders of magnitude away from them, you got your bullshit detector should be very high. Now, if it's a Silicon Valley, American investor with a,

page and they're like, well, our plan is to start small and go big. Maybe, even though it's a little weird. But yeah, it's a conceivable plan. But nothing about this makes any sense whatsoever at all. And that's the problem. When it's a fundamentally uneconomic proposition, you have to ask,

Why? Yes. Yes. Why? Yes. Is this like what? I am obviously being a tool for them for something. What is it? Right. And, you know, maybe if it's an ideological project you agree with, maybe you can live with that. But.

But yeah, to just, you know, be placated by this phony resume and not ask any further questions is, I mean, it's embarrassing. Like there's no other word around it. And not only have you provided ammunition for, you know, people to come after any independent media creators, but you've really discredited your entire body of work. I mean, people are sharing all

the many tweets of Tim Pool saying, like, it's civil war. And like, oh, gee, I wonder why Russia was interested in having, like, this particular commentary sponsored. So, yes, this was a relatively, you know, short-lived, it wasn't a long-term media project or partnership or whatever. They'll go to great lengths in their statements to make it clear that this was a short-term project. They've severed ties, whatever. But if you think that people are going to...

segregate off this one narrow slice of your commentary from the entire rest of your body of work. Like, I'm sorry, they're just, they're not going to do that. You've called everything that you have ever said into question, whether that's fair or not, is a different story. I don't think it's fair, but that's the issue, is that, you know, when you're up against the type of people, like, especially you and I know on Israel, that is the red line, right? And on that one, they're having the big

greatest field day of their lives. I see them all with the witch hunt already began. See, her anti-Semitism was sponsored by the Russians. See, this was clearly an effort to discredit the glorious nation of Ukraine. And it's like, no, these are legitimate points of view. And I mean, also though, it is kind of interesting because it does show you where the true Russian agenda, people always say it's pro-Trump. Lauren Chen was actively trying to get people not to vote for

for Trump. Like she's just a chaos agent. She was like, she's one of these like repeal the 19th people, like don't give women the right to vote. I'm really not a familiar with her. Okay. I've like heard her name. I know of her. More I was catching up. And it's funny, there are actually people out there, this conservative commentator, Ashley St. Clair, who was on a podcast several months ago, asked about Lauren Chen. She was like, I think she's getting paid by some foreign influence. Are you serious? Which is astounding. Yeah. She was like, I really believe that

Yeah, it's pretty amazing. So credit to her. I wanted to give her a shout out because that's kind of amazing. And she was like, no, a lot of these pro-life people who are online trying to rally the vote against Trump. She's like, I think they're foreign ops. It turned out to be right. And she specifically was talking about Lauren Chen. So yeah, that's another couple of questions about maybe some of these other pro-life activists who are doing that. But

And I'll just wrap on this. There are a lot of people out there getting paid a lot of money. Russia was certainly one of them, but Israel is also certainly one of them, and Ukraine, and Qatar. And so, look, if the DOJ wants to indict all those people, I'm for it. I really am. Get all that money out of there. We'll be sitting here clean as a whistle. And that would be satisfying. But I also know that this selective

in terms of the outrage, in terms of where people are going to be looking, and in terms of the discrediting for really for all time that will follow from this. And I think that's actually a real tragedy for the independent media space. Because I know a lot of these people. Why you got to give the resistance libs so much ammo, guys. Why? Why do you do it? They're having such a field day. They really are. So anyway, it's sad. It's sad.

Get ready for a full month of fiesta y cultura because it's time for Viva Tucson. Let's celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month como nunca antes in true Tucson style. From September 15th to October 15th, join us for comida, musica y eventos that you won't find anywhere else. Our rich history and traditions make the Old Pueblo the perfect place para celebrar y aprender.

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That's KNIX.com, promo code GET15 for 15% off life-changing period underwear. Again, that's KNIX.com, promo code GET15. The 2024 presidential election is here. MSNBC has the in-depth coverage and analysis you need. Our reporters are on the ground. Steve Kornacki is at the big board breaking down the races.

Rachel Maddow and our Decision 2024 team will provide insight as results come in. And the next day, Morning Joe will give you perspective on what it all means for the future of our country. Watch coverage of the 2024 presidential election Tuesday, November 5th on MSNBC.

Let's move on to the next part. This is about Russia. This was actually the first Russia indictment to come down and it was definitely kind of amusing. The DOJ is alleging a vast Russian social media campaign to influence the US election. Here is Merrick Garland at his press conference. Let's take a listen. Today, our colleagues at the state and treasury departments are announcing parallel actions in both of these matters.

Unfortunately, we know that Russia is not the only foreign power seeking to interfere in our elections. As the U.S. intelligence community noted two weeks ago, we have observed increasingly aggressive Iranian activity during this election cycle. That includes recently reported activities by Iran to compromise former President Trump's campaign and to avoid an election outcome that it regards as against its interests.

Those recently reported Iranian activities also include efforts to obtain access to individuals who themselves have access to the presidential campaigns of both political parties. The Justice Department's message is clear: We have no tolerance for attempts by authoritarian regimes to exploit our democratic system of government. We will be relentlessly aggressive

in countering and disrupting attempts by Russia and Iran, as well as China or any other foreign malign actor to interfere in our elections and undermine our democracy.

Okay, so that was part of the big press conference. Next, let's put this one up there on the screen. They have announced a plan to counter Russian influence ahead of the 2024 election. I went through and while this RT indictment was a separate one, it actually came out much later than the original one. The original one, honestly, is a complete joke because if you go through and actually start to read what's going on,

what all of this is, they are targeting both individuals and others who basically like wrote op-eds or appeared on RT Russia Today as some sort of large encompassing Russian social media op-ed.

On top of highlighting some of the so-called Russian disinformation on social media. Somehow, Crystal, they have actually gotten worse, in my opinion, from 2016. If you'll remember all those idiot Bernie bro memes and some of the pro-Trump stuff, I will show you some of that in a little bit. But one case I've really had my eye on, and this is actually part of this investigation, let's put this up there, is that-

of the DOJ who is serving subpoenas and search warrants on certain individuals here in the United States who they allege are part of this vast Russian state media campaign. One of them was Scott Ritter. Now, Scott,

is one of those people many people who watch the show may even know. I would say it's probably fair to say he's like very anti-establishment, has a very different view, I think, in the most charitable sense of the Ukraine conflict and has been pretty vociferous about US support to Ukraine. He's been accused of being quote unquote pro-Russian, but his house was raided, as they put in here. The FBI,

went after him. And a lot of it seems to stem from the fact that he was very open about going on RT and or writing op-eds for them. Now, I think that's very different, doing something out in the open and being very open with your opinions, as opposed to what Lauren Chen and Liam Donovan were doing, which is

taking money knowingly from Russia and then funneling that to other people and basically deceiving them into some sort of large scheme. So I have been wanting to keep my eye on this. I'm not saying I'm pro Scott Ritter or anything, but he's a US citizen. No, but you don't have to be. I mean, the point is- He's a US citizen and he has a legitimate opinion. You may not agree with that opinion. Why are they-

are they going through this man's house? Yeah. And he hasn't been indicted yet, just to be clear. But yeah, this is where you get into like, listen, you're allowed to be pro-Putin. Like actually. Like this is, you know, this is America. We're supposed to have free speech rights. And even if, you know, your speech is supporting official bad guy regime of the US government, like you're allowed to do that. So, you know, that's where it starts to get. The other thing with all of this, Sagar, is, you know, you're talking about the

One of the things that they're targeting is this

This doppelganger campaign they're calling it of, you know, this is the kind of creating fake a network that use sites. They say that impersonated legitimate news entities and fake social media profiles impersonating Americans. This goes back to like some of the core like 2016 allegations of the influence campaign that was being run there. And, you know, I'm not saying any of this is good by the way we engage in these types of activities as well as does.

and we'll get to this in a minute, Israel, and no one seems that upset about that. And there's no indictments coming down about that, but we'll pause that for a moment. We should also be clear about like, have wildly expensive, elaborate, sophisticated presidential campaigns, okay? The means and

and the, you know, fake news, the things that they're putting out, like it shouldn't freak you out that Russia is running our democracy. Okay. It's even these videos, they got these top commentators on their payroll, unknowingly again, Tim Pool and Dave Rubin. These guys,

get millions of views, right? They're very popular and in plenty of circles. And even their content, you were saying it's getting like 8,000 views on these videos. Like that's nothing. That's nothing. So even as, you know, in that instance, if the allegations are true, like there should be indictments there. You're laundering money, $10 million, you're creating fake businessmen, whatever. But let's also be really clear eyed about how much impact any of this is actually having on

Yes, absolutely. And there is, going back to 2016 when you had the whole frenzy around this whatever, there was never any evidence that any of it meaningfully impacted how people voted and what the actual outcome of that election ultimately was.

Yeah, and for example, I went through and actually read this indictment whenever it was coming out. Let's put this on the screen. I want people to see what was so spooky and scary. Here is one of the massive Russian influence operations. It was a Facebook page called CNN California.

in blue, not even in the CNN logo. It had two likes and seven followers. The description was from sunny beaches to busting tech hubs, we explore the lifestyle news and development Californian. So grammatically incorrect, wrong logo and weird banner.

With seven followers. Yeah, with seven followers. Next is, quote, BBC California. Okay, like why should we care exactly? These were obviously a complete joke. And that's the point, is that they're very obvious throughout all of these. You had grammatical errors. You had social media pages with very few followers and their accounts. And it actually reminds me

of a lot of what came through the Twitter files, where you would watch the FBI get up in arms about some account that had like 12 followers that said, hey, everybody, the election's on Wednesday. And there's an FBI agent

sitting in Northern Virginia, getting paid probably $100,000 a year plus benefits, scrolling through and searching Twitter, spending our taxpayer dollars time interfacing with social media company to try and get this stuff taken down. That's what all of this read through. And I went through, guys, this was a hundreds of pages indictment. And they point out

these fake stories. And they point out, they're like, the Russian government created dummy news websites. And you'll look at it, it'll be like WashingtonPost.kp or something. Sorry, who's going to that? Like, for real? Like, do you really Google and then go to page 12 to click on WashingtonPost.kp? Are you that stupid? And if you are, like,

You probably are gonna fall for a 10 million more cycles. Yeah, well, that's what I was gonna say is, I mean, out of all of us though, especially if you are on Twitter, you just need to not believe anything that's on there anymore because so much of it is, it's not even this foreign influence, some of it is that. But people just make shit up now. I mean, it's just, I know it's always been the case, but I think it is worse than ever before under the new Elon model where anyone can get a blue check and

And then they use that as some sort of credibility and they'll just make stuff up. Their sources say Tim Walz is about to drop out. Their sources say like Joe Biden's actually dead and this is a body like they will make stuff up. So please, I implore you do not believe this.

this, you know, really, really double check anything that you are seeing spreading online because the problem has never been worse than it is right now. Last piece of this we referenced a couple times, put D6 up on the screen. We know that Israel organized and paid for an influence campaign that targeted lawmakers directly and especially black lawmakers and would pose as like black constituents trying to push the Israel agenda.

And I won't hold my breath on the indictments forthcoming for that one, which does show you it's very selectively applied. Of course. Bottom line, it's very selectively applied here. That's my point, is that there's so much filthy stuff out there and people who are trying to buy your attention. I mean, B5, I put this in a

I put this in on purpose, put B5, please, on the screen, because as you see, they are also at the same time saying, quote, Iran emerges as a top disinformation threat in U.S. presidential race. And without fail, you know, these conservatives, they're so laughable.

For years, they cry about Russiagate. And I mean, Russiagate was a scam. But then the moment that there's some BS, that it's Iran being like Iran's funding the protest. They're like the entire protest movement is being funded by Iran. I'm like, do you hear yourselves? Do you hear yourself? Did you not? Did we not just go through this? Are some of those people getting paid by Iran?

Maybe. You know, I need to see a lot of evidence. I mean, that's part of the thing, too, relating back to our tenant media discussion. The evidence is pretty unrefutable. You got wire transfers. You got private communications. You got all this other stuff. Now, again, I'm willing to hear them out. Like, if they really had some alternative explanation, that'd be fine. But...

We gotta wait and see. This is the allegation of the US government here. Here as well, though, you can obviously watch Iran, Israel, Russia, all these other people have all these influence operations that are currently happening here in America, but only Russia is called out and they were whipping it into hysteria. And that's another issue is that the Russiagate people

having the greatest day of their lives. Because you've got commentators who they despise, who are revealed to have been secret cutouts for Russian payments. On top of this, like, oh my God, everything we see on social media already. I watch these CNN freaks like Asha Raghunapa or whatever, who worked at CNN, be like, coincidentally, the Russian playbook exactly matches the Trump-Vance agenda. And you're like, okay,

Like, here we go again. Here we go. Right? Here we go again. And this is everything they've ever wanted. CNN is having a field day. By the way, who do you think broke the news that this was happening? CNN's Jim Acosta. It just tells you everything you need to know. Like, it is obvious that they want to whip this all up again. The Democrats, especially the elite ones and a lot of the commentators are loving this. We'll see if the Kamala campaign picks up on it. Wouldn't put it past them. It would be smart not to do it.

But in general, what we can really learn from this indictment is that, look, you think we're not up to very similar things in many other foreign countries. Hopefully, we're doing a much better job than CNN California. I doubt we are. Yeah, we probably aren't. Just a last thing on the Israel point that I wanted to point out is that

What they did are confirmed to have done according to multiple reports, including in Israeli news outlets. And again, this came directly from the Israeli government, is so similar to this whole doppelganger thing. They created fake news websites. Yeah, yeah, you're exactly right. They invented fake personalities interacting with lawmakers. They got caught because

Somebody who was involved with this didn't change their profile pic. They kept it as some random white dude, and then they were posting like, as a middle-aged black woman, blah, blah, blah. But it's exactly the same as the doppelganger thing that they're alleging with the Russians. So in any case, I guess Russiagate, here we go again. Yes, here we go again. But please, guys.

Whoever's out there listening, if some random person who you can't find online is offering you millions of dollars to produce a handful of videos, like maybe think a little bit about that one. I get it. You know, Cybertruck, it seems cool. I understand. You guys have plenty of money anyway.

anyway. Like they're already so rich. That is what I was going to get to at the same time. I'm like, guys, I know how much you're probably making. And it's like, it's enough. You know, at what point you're good. You're very good. You don't need to take sketchy deals. You can make plenty of money legitimately and not have problems now with the department of justice. And, you know, I mean, look, if you, I mean the legal fees that you're going to incur on a case like this. Oh my

God, some of these, you know, from what I understand, these Washington lawyers who work on these DOJ, they charge like a thousand dollars an hour, you know, just to interface with the government on your behalf. So good luck, you know, to some of those folks out there. It's not worth it. It's not worth even the public reputation hit that you'll take on something like this. It's just embarrassing.

Yeah, it'd be interesting to see what happens with Lauren Chen from here as of yet. I mean, honestly, she should go to jail. She really should. Or she should get... At the very least, she should be put on probation or something like that. And all of those people involved, Ruben, you should sue her. They really should. Like, sue... Take their assets because they...

The public reputation would be pretty easy to prove about the damages of what you've done. And second, the US government has the direct evidence of you lying to people. So screw you, honestly. I have genuinely scum, scum to put something like that onto other people. That's, if anything, maybe you can live with taking money from a foreign government, but deceiving others, that is the worst thing you can do, especially given what has happened now. Yep.

Get ready for a full month of fiesta y cultura because it's time for Viva Tucson. Let's celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month como nunca antes in true Tucson style. From September 15th to October 15th, join us for comida, musica y eventos that you won't find anywhere else. Our rich history and traditions make the Old Pueblo the perfect place para celebrar y aprender.

Mark your calendars so you don't miss out on this celebración. Visita visittucson.org slash viva. Periods. No one really loves talking about that time of the month. But at Knicks, KNIX, well, it's a lot of fun.

It's always that time of the month because as the number one leak-proof brand in America, managing your period in comfort and style is all we do. We've created an amazing line of super comfy, super leak-proof period undies you need to see and feel to believe. These underwear look, feel, and machine wash just like regular underwear, but feature hidden protection technology that can absorb from one to 14 regular tampons worth of liquid. So you feel dry, comfy,

and free all day long. Millions have already made the switch to NYX, and now you can too. Just go to NYX.com and get 15% off with promo code GET15.

That's KNIX.com, promo code GET15 for 15% off life-changing period underwear. Again, that's KNIX.com, promo code GET15. The 2024 presidential election is here. MSNBC has the in-depth coverage and analysis you need. Our reporters are on the ground. Steve Kornacki is at the big board breaking down the races.

Rachel Maddow and our Decision 2024 team will provide insight as results come in. And the next day, Morning Joe will give you perspective on what it all means for the future of our country. Watch coverage of the 2024 presidential election Tuesday, November 5th on MSNBC.

So former President Trump did a big supposedly town hall, but the hall didn't actually ask any questions. But with Sean Hannity last night, our producer Griffin pulled some of the most interesting moments from the evening when he got a question. This was kind of elicited an interesting response about the contrast between the 2016 campaign and this campaign. Let's take a listen to how he responded. 2016 was about the forgotten man and forgotten woman.

What is 2024 about? So it's not that different. It's still about the

forgotten man and the forgotten woman. People are being treated horribly in this country. We're a country that's being laughed at all over the world. And I'll be honest, if Joe Biden would be a great president, I would be happier than being the worst president in the history of our country because I want to see what's good for the country. And I would have been very happy. I have very nice places I could be. This is not easy. I got shot at. You know, I mean, I got hit.

I got hit. I could have been all over that place. But you know what? It's very simple, and it starts with make America great again. That's what we have to do.

What'd you make of that, Sagar? Because I mean, it's just, listen, back in 2016, there was a lot there in terms of talking about trade, talking about the Iraq war. It was credible to say this is about the forgotten man and woman. It's not credible anymore. I mean, your biggest agenda item in the first term was this giant tax cut largely for rich people. The type of people you

put, we were talking about this earlier, that you put in your cabinet in key positions of power like Wilbur Ross, who's known for buying up and selling off steel companies, the polar opposite of what you said your priorities were going to be. Your National Labor Relations Board was all about crushing workers. And this time around, there just isn't even a lot of rhetoric around the quote unquote forgotten man and forgotten woman. So I don't know that that's very credible at this point. Okay, you and I may know that, but a lot of people don't know.

- Of course. - I mean, how many people are looking at policy or NLRB or who knows who Wilbur Ross is? Only people who follow very closely. So look, in a certain sense, this was his best strength. I think that would be the best thing that he could quote unquote lean into. If you listen to many of the interviews that JD Vance gives, for example, this is a lot more what it is. If anything, I'm gonna read it this way. Hannity seems to be clear

that he believes Trump has maybe lost his step. And he's like, maybe we should come back to the forgotten man, right? And we should come back to some of that rhetoric. And that seems to be where you thrive the most. So he talked to Larry. I mean, look, immigration is probably his best issue. It's probably the issue that resonates most with a lot of working class issues, a working class base that he has so far. That's what he probably should be talking about.

where it's at its best. So the forgotten man thing is very powerful whenever you want to embrace it. This time around though, and I mean, look, he did a lot of this in 2020.

It's very anti-left. Now, that can work. Let's be real. It's potent. And it is one that is actually more unifying to the Republican coalition. It's a lot of these people are communists. It's the Kamala's a communist. Exactly. And actually, that's much more unifying in terms of the Republican electorate because you've got people who, small business owners or whatever, who all they care about is low taxes. And then you've got working class voters. They don't care about that at all. They're

animated about immigration or they're animated about trade or, you know, many variety of other things. But they also kind of hate cultural leftism. So this campaign to me seems much more about like cultural, like capital L liberals and being anti that. And that is potent. I mean, you can easily win the White House. I think that's what we learned in 2020 whenever he did all that last time. And it's quite clear it could work against Kamala Harris as well. I prefer the forgotten man

Yeah. But it's not really what you're describing. It's just a very standard Republican playbook. It's just very like, you know, Mitt Romney could have been launching these same sort of attacks against who and, you know, whether it's Kamala or Joe Biden or Barack Obama or Bill Clinton, whoever it is.

At some point, they've all been called communists by Republicans. So it's just, it's a very sort of typical Republican playbook. They also, obviously the subject of Kamala Harris did come up and Sean Hannity made a joke about, you know, the how the brevity of her interview with CNN. Now, when you're Sean Hannity and you're doing an incredibly softball interview with

Trump, I don't know that you have a lot of legs to stand on, but in any case, let's take a listen to that exchange. If you watch that interview, she had notes. That means she knew the questions and she had notes. She kept looking down. Nobody wants to cover it. I know all about notes. I mean, you know, it's all right if people know that, but she wasn't supposed to have notes. So she's asked a question. She looks down, keeps looking.

She had notes. That means she knew what was happening. Did her campaign, when they said that they wanted to change the rules that they had agreed to, did they ask for notes? They wanted notes. They wanted to be seated and they wanted your mic hot. They wanted a desk. You can't take the chance. You have no choice. You've got to vote for me. You've got to vote for me. Even if you don't like me.

But even if you don't like me, you can sit there and say I can't stand that guy, but there's no way I'm going to vote for her. I actually think that last part is kind of revealed. That actually is his core strategy. Is, listen, my favorability rating, it's not going to come up. It is what it is.

I need to get some people who don't like me to hate her even more. And that's the goal between here and Election Day. Now, so far, they haven't done a very good job of that. Her approval rating has gone up tremendously. But, you know, even though in some ways the time is very short between now and Election Day, in another way, it's very long. And so his goal is going to be to push up that number of double haters—

and be able to try to win a majority of them in the way that he did in 2016. And so that's his pitch is basically like, listen, you may not like me, but you got no choice. You can't vote for her. She's incompetent. She needs the notes, et cetera, et cetera. That really is kind of his core bet in terms of how he can win. I don't think it's a bad strategy either.

Remember, in 2016, he had a 35% approval rating and he still won some 48-something percent of the vote. 2020, his approval rating was actually lower and he won 10 million more votes than the last time around. The double hater thing is actually strong. And coming at it head on, I kind of like it because at this point, what? Trump has been in our lives since 2011. He's been a national political figure. Nobody is like, you know, I don't know what I think about this guy or this guy.

There are a lot of people who hate him, but there are a lot of people who will hold their nose and will also vote for him, as we've learned two times around now. So this time, this whole, look, you know, you may not like me, but you can't vote for the other guy. That's powerful. That's what happened with Biden in 2020. So again, I don't love this, like for the country. I don't think this is healthy.

But from an objective standpoint, I think it can be powerful. And it's not a bad one in particular for, let's think about like the conservative like moms and dads who are making, let's call it like 200 grand a year. These people don't really like Trump. They're much more Mitt Romney folks. They're lifelong Republicans, love McCain, love Romney. But

they don't really like Kamala Harris either. Some of them have actually been voting for her, but this time around, they're like, hmm, well, I'm just not so sure. And they hear something like that, maybe it's persuasive. It's possible. It at least puts it in your head. And it's definitely one that a lot of their neighbors and others, this is where I think the biggest conflict is, is over that Liz Cheney type voter, right? Yesterday, she endorsed Kamala Harris, by the way. Congratulations. She said, uh,

She's like, it's too much to even write in in a swing. The stakes are just too high. So I'm voting for Kamala Harris. But that fight is playing out in a lot of these upper middle class Republican circles. And that's the logic that I often hear from those types of people. They're like, I don't even like him, but I am going to vote for him. Yeah, it's the existential type of stakes.

And like I said, I think if it's going to work, he's got to be more effective. They got to find some ways to ding her up more effectively because right now her approval rating is in positive territory in most polls, which is actually pretty unusual for a modern politician at this time. The thing that he was saying about,

you know, the notes and trying to undercut her credibility and disqualify her. That hasn't worked so far. We showed that poll earlier in the week. More people found her to be qualified to be president than him. So he's got some work to do if he's going to bring her favorability numbers. But, you know, they've got a lot of ad spending plans and he's doing his interviews and getting out there and doing his thing. So I have no doubt that by the time Election Day rolls around,

some of that will land and her approval rating will take a hit between now and election day. I mean, it has probably nothing to do with her. People are going to make up their minds and they get hardened before the election. That's just how it goes. In terms of... But I do think he missed a key window here. Like, they waited too long. I said that from... I go, hey,

What are we doing here? Even this, sorry, why are we on a Sean Hannity Fox News interview? What is happening? Right, preaching to the choir. Yeah, Sean, his whole audience is voting for Trump. Like, okay. Also, Sean didn't even give him any questions from the town hall, which would have allowed them to go viral and can be covered, right? Because that's where the most interesting exchanges are. Now, this is the thing too, with Trump and the podcast strategy,

At the very least, you're getting clips of that that are going viral because they're different. So Trump in general does better, actually, I think, in adversarial interviews. This is another thing. I've been watching J.D.'s media calendar. It's all adversarial. Almost none of it is friendly. He's going on the New York Times,

the interview podcast. That's gonna be great, right? You're gonna have like Michelle Goldberg, folks like that, like ultra Russiagate libs, literally up against JD. I can guarantee you there will be some decent content that comes out of that. Trump needs to put himself more into that space because I think he actually does better in some sort of a challenging environment as opposed to this just like fluid nonsense, right?

And I'm sure it's comfortable. And I get that from a human level. It's probably comfortable to sit there and BS with Sean Hannity. But electorally, I don't see it. I don't see it for him. Me neither. I don't understand the strategy. Like, I'll say this delicately because you have personal friends with J.D., but he's the least popular person out of the four of these individuals. Why is he campaigning more than you are?

No, no, no. Why is he the one out doing the interviews? By the way, it doesn't hurt my feelings. I know you don't disagree. It doesn't hurt my feelings. I mean, that's just the facts and the numbers. It's America's job to decide what they think about J.D. I don't agree with them, but that's fine. Yeah. I don't agree with America on the law. Right. So, like, okay, you're putting your weakest asset in terms of how people feel about this guy out front to do, like, the heavy lifting of the campaign. Meanwhile, you're going on – I think he's really convinced himself –

like in the lex friedman podcast interview which was atrocious by the way but we'll save that for another day he mentioned how many views his twitter spaces with elon musk got and i was like you're really buying those numbers you really believe that that had some sort of like massive traction and was really an incredible benefit for your kid it was a disaster you guys will remember

How long did it take? We couldn't get on. The tech failed. Once it did, it sounded like crap. He was slurring. That was, you know, the microphone or whatever issue was going. But it sounded terrible. OK. And the numbers on that, anyone with a brain knows as total, complete, made up bullshit. So I think he's really convinced himself of this strategy. And

I said this before, but, you know, just look, I would like it if the alternative media sphere was more powerful than it is. But it ain't. Look at Andrew Yang and how his campaign went. That was largely an online like let me go on all the podcasts and do the thing campaign. Look at Vivek Ramaswamy, who also had this very online. Let me go on all the like, you know, alternative media, right, left, whatever podcast and do the thing. He was a four percent in the polls. So.

So, you know, he's Trump really understands television, really understands television. I don't think he understands television.

alternative media space at all. I don't think that this strategy makes any sense. I think he or his advisors or whoever have convinced them that this is way more powerful than it ultimately is. And then, yeah, and then you're spending your time doing this Sean Hannity interview to a friendly audience that already knows, loves, and is going to vote for you. None of it is very logical. I'll flip it. I think the podcast thing is great as long as it's additive, as long as you're doing both. Right, but it's really not. All right, but that's not true.

He needs to do, I think, more adversarial stuff. And they're not even really doing a lot of rallies. Like, he didn't even campaign on Labor Day. That was very odd. Like, to the forgotten man thing. And you're trying to drape yourself in, like, you know, working people and trying to win more of the union vote, and you don't even campaign on Labor Day? That's crazy. So I'm looking at his schedule. I believe he's got what? He's got a rally that is this weekend in Wisconsin. Wisconsin, yeah. After—

or that. Let's see. J.D. will give a speech in Phoenix, Arizona. I think that's today. And there will be, quote, an Agenda 47 policy tour that is in Milwaukee featuring Doug Burgum and a bunch of other people I've never heard of. So, okay. All right. That's what's on the schedule for today. Right now, he's going to Wisconsin, which, I mean, that actually makes sense electorally. But look, in general, I think he needs to work harder. I think he needs to find

flood the zone. And this is the other thing. 2016, Trump actually genuinely flooded the zone. And this is where the podcast strategy can be genuinely additive. We'll see what they do. Maybe he wants to take some time to prepare, you know, what does it prepare for the, um,

For the debate. The debate. Which is coming up. I mean, kind of natural. That would be a first. And human. That would be a first. That he wanted to prepare for a debate. He doesn't normally do that. I think he needs to work harder. I think J.D.'s strategy is much more effective, actually. And it would be 10x more effective with Trump, who's just like the most dynamic figure in modern American politics. So, look, uh,

I'm not running this campaign. Yeah. I mean, and let me just say, we'll talk a little bit more about Kamala in the pool block, but I don't think that their strategy is particularly good either. Yes. They have, you know, Tim Walz is very popular. And where is he on all of these shows? He doesn't even take questions from freaking local media. What is going on with him? I mean, they actually have a really tremendous asset in Tim Walz. He has sort of set the most effective parts of their campaign. We're about to show you a Sean Hannity clip with regard to Tim Walz in terms of, you

I think it is way more effective than the over-the-top, grandiose moralizing about Trump. The sort of like, you know, laugh at him, roll your eyes at him, I think is a way more effective strategy. The more populous elements of his policy, when those have been highlighted, like I think those have been some of the best parts of a campaign. And he's not out here doing cable news interviews.

They're shying away from talking about some of the most popular parts of their economic policy. She's too afraid to do interviews of any, you know,

significance or quantity. So it's not like I think that their strategy is great either. So let me be clear about that. Well, no, you're right. I think the reason why they don't do it is because if he did interviews and they'd be like, well, why doesn't your boss do interviews? And that's ultimately what it's about. Also, they don't want to make news on anything. They don't want to clarify anything. I'm like, so what do you believe on the capital gains tax? Your advisor said this.

Do you believe in the EV mandate? Yes or no? Because recently, apparently the answer is now no. Or maybe. Or maybe it's not. What is your reaction to the, did you watch that? You know, the clip where they asked Tim, they're like, hey, what do you think about Hamas murdering those six Israeli hostages? He's like, all right, thanks everybody. That was it. It's like, come on, bro. You want to be vice president? Or with Kamala, what is happening here? So yeah, let's not also leave them off the hook because anyway.

Go ahead. Yeah, so let's, we'll get some more on that when we get to the polling piece. But here is a question and answer with regard to Tim Walz and the quote-unquote weird allegations. Let's take a listen. Let me play, let me play. There's something, there's something weird with that guy. He's a weird guy. J.D. is not weird. He's a solid rock.

happened to be a very solid rock. We're not weird. We're other things perhaps, but we're not weird. But he is a weird guy. He walks on the stage and there's something wrong with that guy. And he called me weird. And then the fake news media picks it up. That was the word of the day. Weird, weird, weird. They're all going...

But we're not weird guys. We're very solid people that want our country to be great again. I mean, it's very simple. See, I think he's, in a certain sense, making like a Hillary 2016 mistake, which is when... What, Streisand affecting it? Yeah. You know, now they have set the terms of the debate.

It's impossible to disprove a weird allegation. And the more you're saying the word, the more you're validating the frame. So, yeah, I think it's been effective, an effective attack on them. I think they have not dealt with it well. And I think the more they talk about it, the more it sort of like gets ingrained in the psyche and the association with the term. I mean, I'll just compare. J.D. doesn't talk about it.

at all. Every time they ask, he just laughs and he's like, okay, you know, whatever, next question. I actually think it's probably more effective, right, than doing this. I don't disagree with you. We have, what, the last clip here from Trump about World War III and nuclear weapons. Let's take a listen. Everybody was afraid of Trump. You bring him back, you're not going to have any problems. It's all going to go away. The world is blowing up. The world is blowing up. This freaks... And Sean, one thing...

The world is blowing up. And when you look at Ukraine and you look at Russia, you look at all the things that are happening, we are potentially getting ready. I'm telling you, and I've made a lot of predictions, and this is not a prediction because it's so bad. I don't want it to be a prediction. We're heading into World War III territory. And because of the power of weapons, nuclear weapons in particular, but other weapons also,

And I know the weapons better than anybody because I'm the one that bought them. And, you know, we rebuilt our entire military. All right. I mean, look, the World War Three stuff, I actually think it would be better if he was campaigning on it more. You know, this is the other problem, too, with the you know, every time he's asked about Ukraine, Israel or any of these other things, Afghanistan, it's always it never would have happened if it wasn't for me. And while I get that that's

attractive answer. At a certain point, you kind of do need to have a little bit of detail or offer something or offer, because right now he's all over the map. We're pro-Israel and on Afghanistan, he's like, well, I would have kept a base in Bagram. I'm like, well, then you never actually believed in ending the

war in Afghanistan, just so you know, in terms of what that means. So you're actually not anti-war. Ukraine, he's like, well, it's like, well, okay, well, now what? You say that the deal will be ended. I mean, the war will be ended by the time you're president-elect. Great. But what is that going to entail? What if Putin doesn't agree to your deal? Then what? Is Ukraine ever going to be allowed into NATO under your watch? Yes or no? I mean, these are all questions that genuinely need answers. So look,

I think being anti-war in 2016, especially on Iraq and in contrast to Jeb Bush and the rest of the party was so effective. And I don't see that from him as much these days. Well, there's a real...

There's a real risk, like a real world risk. We talked about like foreign influence, whatever. Bibi Netanyahu would much rather have Trump in the White House. And he's trying to drag us into a broader Middle Eastern, like regional war as we speak and has long desired that, but knows that that would be a problem for Kamala Harris. And, you know, so while I don't think that this

talking point from Trump, which again, he's not anti-war. I mean, you know, obviously there's layers and layers of propaganda here, et cetera. It's not even clear where he stands on a variety of these issues. It is clear that he's way more, like even more pro-Israel somehow than Joe Biden is. But, you know, this talking point, I don't think today wins the day, but if we find ourselves in some bigger, you know, conflict with Iran and flare up in the Middle East, which is surely a

you can lay the blame for that at the feet of Joe Biden and his Vice President Kamala Harris, this talking point becomes much more salient and there's a lot of risks, a lot of risks here. Completely avoidable, you know, just focus on the politics, let alone the morality, completely avoidable risks here that the longer that Biden has allowed Bibi to jerk his chain and do whatever the hell he wants with zero consequences, the more those risks escalate and that's where we are. Yeah.

Get ready for a full month of fiesta y cultura because it's time for Viva Tucson. Let's celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month como nunca antes in true Tucson style. From September 15th to October 15th, join us for comida, musica y eventos that you won't find anywhere else. Our rich history and traditions make the old pueblo the perfect place para celebrar y aprender.

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That's KNIX.com, promo code GET15 for 15% off life-changing period underwear. Again, that's KNIX.com, promo code GET15. The 2024 presidential election is here. MSNBC has the in-depth coverage and analysis you need. Our reporters are on the ground. Steve Kornacki is at the big board breaking down the races.

Rachel Maddow and our Decision 2024 team will provide insight as results come in. And the next day, Morning Joe will give you perspective on what it all means for the future of our country. Watch coverage of the 2024 presidential election Tuesday, November 5th on MSNBC.

So we had some new CNN polls come out across a variety of battleground states. We'll show you the details of those in a second. David Chalian, who's like their top political guy. What did he say when Biden was inaugurated? He's like, you could feel the warm glow. Oh, God, the arm.

Arms of the Capitol wrapping around you. Yeah, anyway, that's him. So he looked at some of the numbers in this poll and he said there's, you know, some warning signs for Kamala Harris in terms of not fully reconsolidating the winning Biden coalition from 2020. Let's take a listen to his analysis here. If you look at the white voters without college degrees, this is a Trump based election.

constituency, obviously. You see his huge numbers with this group. You see that this is a trouble sign for Harris. She also, in a place like Georgia, is not doing well with white college-educated voters. She probably wants to make up some ground with white college-educated voters across these battlegrounds as well, Cain.

- So a couple of demographic groups, or she still has some work to do. Let's go ahead and put up on the screen the actual poll numbers so we can take a look battleground by battleground. And we have the electoral map, which I'll talk through, so just keep this up on the screen. So in most of these battleground states,

Kamala Harris is up. So in Wisconsin, up by six. In Michigan, up by five. In Georgia, up by one, which is within the margin of error. Nevada, up by one within the margin of error. Pennsylvania, tied. And then Arizona is the one where Trump has a clear lead, plus five. So the map on the screen here represents, okay, if we gave Trump, it's tied in this poll. Let's say we give Trump Pennsylvania and we give him Arizona and North Carolina, um,

What does that map look like? And he actually needs one more state to be able to put himself over the top. This map, reflected by the CNN polls, again, assuming you give Pennsylvania, which is tied to Trump, has Kamala Harris getting 273 and Republicans getting 265. Now, one of the things that we talked about earlier this week, Sagar, is that the ad spending really looks

like Trump is going all in on like a Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona campaign.

play. And that would be enough. If he's able to Georgia in this poll, Harris only up by one. If you're able to have Georgia go in your column, that would be enough to put you over the top. But it's kind of the reverse of where the Democrats were under Joe Biden. Under Joe Biden, they had this very narrow, probably non-existent, but very narrow path that they were attempting to pull off of keeping together Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, because he maintained some strength

with those industrial Midwestern states that have a larger white voting base, older white voting base, they had this really narrow, very specific path. Trump's path has, with Kamala Harris in now, narrowed significantly where now they're the ones that are charting this sort of narrow electoral college victory. Now, that doesn't mean they can't pull it off. But in a lot of ways, the tables have turned in terms of the expansiveness, we'll say, of the map.

and the various combinations of getting to 270. Yes, let's keep this up there, please, because it's actually important. One of the things you learn is that in the Senate races, the Democrats are running way ahead of Kamala Harris. That's bad news for Kamala, but it's also bad news for Trump because in general, split-ticket winch,

voting is so rare. Nevada, for example, we would have to believe that there are 9% of the electorate that would vote for Jackie Rosen and then not vote for Kamala Harris. So either that's wrong. It's hard to believe. Democrats are just going to win by five or something like that, or Trump is just going to win and that number is totally incorrect. And so that's something that you should really bake in here. The analysis is

Look, I get that the poll looks, you know, this scenario is very, you know, intellectually intriguing. I just find it so difficult to believe that Donald Trump could win the state of Pennsylvania, lose Michigan and Wisconsin.

lose the state of Georgia, win the state of Arizona, and then also lose the state of Nevada. Like to me, the swing voter in Arizona and Nevada is the exact same. The swing voter is probably a white or Latino male who is roughly the same demographic and roughly the same economic status. Same if I look at Georgia and Arizona, they have a lot of characteristics that they share. For example,

It's those white suburban voters in Atlanta and the white suburban voters in Phoenix, which are the ones who swung the vote for Biden last time around. And then in Pennsylvania, I mean, the same demographic that turned against Trump in Wisconsin and in Michigan is exactly what turned against him in Pennsylvania. It was in the

mainline suburbs of Philadelphia where white suburban voters all came out to vote. So what I'm saying is that it's the same demographic basically across all of these places where, you know, why would they be all that different in one state and not the other? Now, of course, margins matter, right? So, you know, theoretically, it is certainly possible. I just find it hard to believe, especially Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. I mean, this is the same type of voter. Yeah. And every single, you know, in all cases, they share the exact same demographic profile. Yeah. Yeah.

I tend to agree with that. It's just the elections are so national now. All of these states tend to trend in the same direction. That's why, you know, Joe Biden, even though it was razor thin in a number of these states, he wins basically all the swing states. Last time around, by narrow margins, they all sort of swing in the same direction. So I think that's

That is true. The one thing you could say is the Sunbelt demographic is a little different than the industrial Midwestern. So you could see, you know, somebody outperforming in one area, but not the other. But yeah, I mostly think that these elections are pretty national and tend to, you know, people come up with all these like exotic potential electoral maps. And I just think that's what I'm fairly, fairly unlikely. I'm like, you either win or you lose. Like it's like you're either going to win white suburbanites. And that's the other thing in the national environment that we have today.

You know, everyone talks about how we're so divided and it is true politically, but we're also more connected than literally ever before. The media diet, like the average white suburbanite living in any place in the country, they're all reading the same newspaper. They're all reading the New York Times. They're all listening to the New York Times, the daily podcast or the interview.

Same thing, like the working class voter, they're probably getting stuff on YouTube or, you know, on podcast or listening, you know, to the extent that they interact with their local stuff at all. It's not politics. So I just find it very difficult to believe, given where we are right now, that, you know, you'll swing one way and then lose another. But, you know, again, the margins do matter. So theoretically, you could win Pennsylvania. How much do you win Wisconsin?

by in 2016. It was like 10,000 votes. No, I'm thinking of Michigan. Michigan. Michigan by 10,000. So yeah, theoretically, you could lose in Michigan and you could win in Wisconsin. I could see something like that. But Pennsylvania and then also losing Georgia, I don't know about that. I just, I find it difficult to believe. But in general, I think we should highlight that, you know, things are not as rosy for Kamala as some people may think. The margin in Michigan was a little larger than you're thinking. It was 2.78%, so almost 3% of the vote.

I was talking about 2016. Oh, you're thinking 2016. Oh, okay. Yeah, Biden got 2.8 million. Trump got 2.65 million. So it was roughly 150,000 votes separating the two of them. Let's put this next piece up on the screen. This is Gen Z specific poll by NBC News. So has Kamala Harris winning 50%, Trump at 34%, someone else at 6% and would not vote

at 10%. These are much better numbers than what Joe Biden was doing when he was in the race. However, it still lags by a bit what Joe Biden did in 2020. So on the one hand, you can say, okay, she's underperforming what he did. And obviously every vote was really crucial to get him over the top. On the other hand, you could say, okay, well, maybe she has room to grow here that could benefit

at her later in the election, we'll have to see. The other thing, Sagar, here that we've taken note of a few times is the gender gap with Gen Z voters is pretty wild. It's bigger than any other demographic group by age. Young women say they're gonna vote for Harris by 30 points. Young men only favor her by four. Yep.

this is 18 to 29. That is a, I mean, we're used to gender gaps in American politics in modern history. There's nothing new, but this level of a generational gender gap is really pretty wild. Yeah. I mean, I hate to say I told you so. I don't think this is good for the country, but it's just an ongoing dynamic, especially with the bifurcation of culture and education is probably the most important one. You know, I can't wait

until the admission stats, the matriculation stats come out for college this year because the current prediction on online ed boards is a 60-40 split of girls to women. I mean, sorry, girls to men. That's wild. Like that's so...

so much bigger. And then if you think about what the Ivy League split is in the Ivies and who matter because they eventually become the American elite, it's already 60-40. It could go 66-33, which would be if you have one third. Ratios like that just skew everything. They skew all of our politics, culture, earning potential, etc. It's not necessarily a good thing. We're going to put D4 up on the screen and just look at the Nate Silver.

Something he's saying is, quote, setting convention-bound stuff aside, there has been not much positive state polling data entering the system for Kamala Harris lately. And his own projection actually lately has – what is it, Trump at 55 percent in terms of winning the overall electoral college.

If you look at Polymarket, which is the largest betting site, they currently have it at Trump 53%, Kamala 46%, which is, I mean, much, that's almost what? That's a seven-point swing of Trump to Kamala. And that largely tracks Nate Silver. I do believe, by the way, Silver is an advisor to Polymarket.

I didn't know that until I read his book, but he did flag that. Just saying. Yeah, so that's why in Nate's analysis, that's part of why, you know, with his model, which, you know, take it for what it's worth, but he has Kamala Harris ahead in the popular vote, but he favors Trump in...

in the electoral college vote. And these swing state polls that have been sort of mediocre for her post-convention are a piece of that. And then also his model kind of discounts the polls that come right after a convention because they assume there's some level of temporary sugar high post-convention, which we haven't really particularly seen for her. The polls have basically been stable. So does that mean that they're overstating her support and they're going to come down? Does that mean that this race is just

kind of like locked in where it is. And his convention didn't provide a bounce. There were extenuating circumstances there, but her convention also doesn't seem to provide a bounce. Maybe people are just kind of locked into whatever it's going to be. We shall see. But that's where things stand.

Get ready for a full month of fiesta y cultura because it's time for Viva Tucson. Let's celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month como nunca antes in true Tucson style. From September 15th to October 15th, join us for comida, musica y eventos that you won't find anywhere else. Our rich history and traditions make the Old Pueblo the perfect place para celebrar y aprender.

Mark your calendars so you don't miss out on this celebración. Visita visittucson.org slash viva. Periods. No one really loves talking about that time of the month. But at Knicks, KNIX, well, it's a lot of fun.

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The 2024 presidential election is here. MSNBC has the in-depth coverage and analysis you need. Our reporters are on the ground. Steve Kornacki is at the big board breaking down the races. Rachel Maddow and our Decision 2024 team will provide insight as results come in. And the next day, Morning Joe will give you perspective on what it all means for the future of our country.

Watch coverage of the 2024 presidential election, Tuesday, November 5th on MSNBC. Let's move on now. Aurora, Colorado. Many boomers are very, very upset about this, and it's taken quite a bit of research to figure out what the hell is actually going on here. So all started with this viral video. Let's put it up there on the screen.

What you see in front of you were what was alleged to be, quote, armed Venezuelan gangs taking over whole buildings and vandalizing public property in Aurora, Colorado, just outside of Denver. These were allegedly members of a Venezuelan gang who were migrants, illegal migrants to the United States. And that this complex was allegedly fully taken over by these people. You could see that they have

large weapons in their hands and there was quite a bit of consternation wondering whether this was like a full-on takeover. And this was like chaired by Charlie Kirk, amplified by Elon Musk. It was a whole thing. It went everywhere. So next then came the parsing of the details. So there were conflicting statements initially from the mayor, from the city, and from the police department.

So we've learned now here from the interim chief of police, Heather Morris. She says, quote, what we're learning out here is that gang members have not taken over this complex. Let's take a listen. Got quite a few of our officers out here that are out here tonight again. I've been out here for several weeks making contacts with our residents, reassuring them about the criminal activity that's happening here and how we're going to address it. We're out here. We want to reassure the

the people that live in this community, that we are actively investigating criminal activity that's happening and listening to them so that we can learn anything that we're missing. You know, what are we missing and actually find out what exactly is going on.

We're out here because we care. I mean, nobody should be wearing this uniform if they don't care. And we want the residents and the people that live here to know that we care. We've been talking to the residents here and learning from them to find out what exactly is going on. And there's definitely a different picture. I'm not saying that there's not gang members that don't live in this community.

But what we're learning out here is that gang members have not taken over this complex. We've really made an effort to the last few days to just really ask the specific questions or the direct questions in terms of the gang activity and who's actually making sure that people aren't paying rent to gang leaders or gang members, that that's not happening. And we've discovered here today and yesterday talking to so many residents that that's not the case.

We've been talking about it and they've been sincere with us. We really believe that they are sincere with us. And we're standing out here and I can tell you that gang members have not taken over this apartment complex.

Okay, that's the Aurora Police Chief. Let's put the next part up on the screen. It reiterates, this is from USA Today. What they say is not only reiterating many of the quotes that we just heard from the interim police chief, they also flag this. They say, quote, rumors of the complex being run by the Tren de Aragua gang is a large criminal organization from Venezuela.

Venezuela began circulating when that video of men carrying guns and entering apartments went viral. The Department of Homeland Security then confirmed to News Nation that the men seen in the video were Trend de Aragua members. The city of Aurora confirmed that there is, quote, a small Trend de Aragua presence in Aurora, and the police department has been taking it seriously. Now, though, they say there has been a lot of misleading information shared about what is happening in our city. I

I believe, Crystal, that a lot of this stems back to the Colorado Aurora mayor, Mayor Kaufman, who is one of the people who reacted to this by going on Fox News and implying that this was taken over. Let's take a listen. Can you confirm whether or not this gang has taken over these buildings there in Aurora?

So there are several buildings actually under the same ownership, out-of-state ownership, that have fallen to these Venezuelan gangs. I'm trying to walk it back and do the investigation as to how there's a concentration of Venezuelans in these three buildings,

Somebody put them there and somebody funded it. Whether it's federal government or not, we're trying to find out who these gangs apparently are attracted to where there's a concentration of Venezuelan migrants. And so they've in fact have kind of pushed out the property management through intimidation and then collected the rents. We have now or have had

It is ongoing operations with a task force of local law enforcement, state law enforcement partners and federal law enforcement partners to rip them out. And arrests have been made, but these operations are now are still ongoing. With the arrests that have been made, are these confirmed gang affiliated members? Yes.

You know, this is an organized criminal effort, whether it's Trende, Aragua,

that remains to be seen, but it really doesn't matter. I mean, if they're Venezuelan migrants and they're conducting crime in an organized manner. - Understood. - Okay. - Yeah. - And he's since changed his tune. - After this interview, he totally changed his story. He says, "Those people that came and talked to me," he's talking about residents of the building themselves, "didn't seem fearful, quite frankly. They gave a lot of explanation as to why they weren't paying rent. There wasn't the property management there.

the people who were the so-called gang members, again, this is all that same mayor you just heard, were extracting the rent from them. But the people that came up to me said that was not the case. They wanted to stay there, but they wanted the place maintained. He believes the property managers were chased off the premises. What we need to do is figure out how to bring it back under the control of the owner of the property.

And so there's a meeting with representatives of the owners on Thursday. I'll be participating. I think there's a pattern on all these properties. I'm going to be blunt. It's an out-of-state slumlord and hasn't maintained the properties. And that, okay, so the police chief, the residents, the mayor, all of the other city officials and neighboring Denver mayor and city officials as well now are all saying, okay,

This building is run by an out-of-state slumlord. The residents are complaining about trash that hasn't been picked up for weeks. This slumlord has already been indicted on charges with regard to not maintaining another apartment building where the sewage was backed up, the trash wasn't picked up. We're talking rodents. We're talking infestations. The residents did their own press conference laying all of this out.

And this slumlord hired a PR firm to basically push these claims to try to get out of these charges that he's already facing in court. So at this point, it's pretty clear what happened since you have the mayor, who's a Republican, by the way, Republican mayor and city officials and the police chief and and the residents all saying this is not at all what's happening.

This is about a slumlord trying to get out of maintaining the property that we are paying thousands of dollars in rent to live in. We have E5, please, up on the screen. This is from the local press, and it references what you were saying. The residents at that complex say deplorable issues are the

are the conditions are the, are the issue, not the gangs. They said, quote, they are trying to put us all in one group and all in one bag. They're trying to say that there are delinquents, there are criminals. Here there are moms, there are families. They did, I believe, acknowledge that there was like criminals that had been there, but they were like, that is not the fundamental issue. So, okay, let's step back. Like, why did this all become

a major conflagration. So this is part of actually references our original eight block is you cannot just simply believe everything you put out there. And, you know, none of this whitewashes concerns about migrants, you know, from the Denver Post, 43,000 Venezuelan migrants have arrived in the Denver area since January of 2023. And they don't even need to be committing crime for me to say that's crazy. And do you know, do you know what has happened with crime?

What? It dropped. It dropped 20%. I mean, so what? In the first eight months. That doesn't have any impact. So declines in homicides, robberies, and aggravated assaults. Well, it's very relevant to this story because obviously the point of blowing this up was like, oh my God, violent migrant criminals are taking over this town.

And while I'm sure there are some migrants, as there are some domestic-born citizens who commit crimes, no doubt about it, the overall picture here is actually the exact opposite. These migrants haven't brought crime. The crime rate has dropped 20%, as it has.

by the way, as part of a national trend in a lot of the country. It's not about migrants, it's just about national trend and dropping the vibe. True, but it's the polar opposite of the picture that was attempted to be painted with these false allegations about gang members taking over apartment complexes. And again, not just, you know,

people like Charlie Kirk, right? Elon Musk who runs the whole freaking platform elevating this claim and another completely fake claim, by the way, honor Chicago of a similar thing. So yeah, it's a cesspool. That's the bottom line. Like don't believe these people. They lie, they make stuff up. There's an ideological agenda here. I agree. And that is part of the reason that I wanted to say this. Just because it's fake though, doesn't mean that there aren't concern. And that's part of what annoys me is that when you tar yourself

by pushing stuff that ends up to not be true, you actually do disservice to anybody who has a concern, as I do, that there are 43,000 illegal Venezuelan migrants who are in the city of Denver. That's crazy. Also, whenever we are vetting, like whether something is committed by a crime or not, by pushing false stuff, you diminish genuine incidents of migrant crime and of people who are murderers and or rapists. You have to be

solid in your facts whenever you make such claims. And this is what annoys me about the entire thing. I'm combining it with the tenant stuff, is it simply allows a dismissal of any of legitimate concerns around migrant crime or even around migrant presence, period. You don't have to be committing crime for you to still be a problem if you're here. Are they receiving city services? Who's paying your rent? Is it the government? Are you getting welfare from the Denver

None of that should be allowed, period. I mean, that is why I get so annoyed about these, you know, the Elon, the Charlie Kirk and the flourishing of this stuff. In fact, just this morning, somebody told me, they said, hey, do you know about this Aurora thing? X's mom is super upset about it.

And I was like, oh, I'm actually covering it on the show tomorrow. And it's because, you know, Fox News and many of these other places are not doing their genuine due diligence in presenting that. And they're just simply putting it all out there. And then will they do a correction or will they do a follow up? Almost certainly not. Now, if it was real, would MSNBC or any of these other people cover it? No, but they certainly will cover it now because they'll be like, hey, look at these idiots who fell for all this. As they should. Yeah.

I mean, I'm not saying it's not illegitimate. The political valence of this drives me crazy. Yes. Because it is whenever you whip people up based on something fake, then you just get to dismiss it out of hand. When I think it's a very legitimate concern, period. Like, who are these residents? Are any of them even legal residents? Like, who is paying their rent? You know, why is this all being taken up

by people who are not even from here. I think that's a very legitimate concern. But then saying, you know, oh, it's like part of some major gang activity, whenever that obviously ends up being BS, then everyone should frankly dismiss a lot of the other stuff that you're saying. Because it's a very clear attempt to demonize and lie about the migrant population. And, you know, it's also very clear what's going on here. Immigration is the strongest issue for Trump. Yeah. Trump appears to be losing right now. Now, that

Who knows? I don't know if that's true. I wouldn't say that. Not when he's got a 50-some percent, 53% or whatever chance by Nate Silver. Listen, we just showed the same swing state polls in CNN. I think that he's probably a little bit behind, but reasonable people could disagree on that. In any case, what I think is very clear, immigration is his best issue. They want to have a conversation about immigration, even if that means... And Elon Musk is a two millions of dollars backer of Donald Trump, explicit backer of Donald Trump.

They want the conversation to be about evil immigrants because that benefits them politically, even if it means making some bullshit up and spreading a fake viral story. So just like, you know.

Keep these things in mind when you're looking at these stories that go viral because they are shameless about it. And I reference, I don't know if you saw this, but Elon also elevated there was like some claim that this was happening in Chicago too. Somebody had called in to 911 about a similar Chicago incident and the police,

went to the apartment complex and were like, this is not happening. People are just trying to like, make like, you know, cause a stir and create false narratives. So it was a total hoax that he also spread and shared. And I'm sure many of the people, millions of people who saw that are not going to know that that was also a complete hoax. So anyway, it's very clear this was just like,

And you're benefiting the slumlord who is screwing these residents who are paying rent and deserve to live in clean conditions without bugs and rats and sewage backup and trash piled up over weeks and weeks because you didn't pay to have the garbage collectors come. So in any case, the whole situation is just disgusting to me and the way that it was created.

The way that people ran with it, even after the residents themselves, the mayor, the police chief, et cetera, said this is completely false. It's just, yeah. It became a national story. Now you have the facts. You can make up your minds. I would say it didn't diminish. There's no way to make up your minds. It was fake. It was totally fake. No, I'm saying you can make up your minds about the migrant issue. Sure, yes, absolutely. But on this story, there is no like, you know, evaluate and decide. Everyone who's involved in this, except for the people

Clearly nefarious slumlord is saying the same thing. - Yeah, who is this slumlord? This guy got off real well, didn't he? He's like, he didn't even pay his bills. - Well, and it worked because he had a court date set. - I love the out of state thing too. - He had a court date set and the judge actually like let him push off his court date for a while while all of this was going on. So apparently, you know, at least in the short term it worked, but what a disgusting scumbag, period.

Yeah, that I agree. Yes. All right. We'll end on that note of unity. All right. We've got a lot of interesting economic stories that came out about Kamala Harris has some new campaigns, small business proposals. There's a report that Biden is going to block this nip on steel,

acquisition of U.S. Steel, something we've talked about before. And also, actually, Jeff messaged me that he has some breaking news as well about, we're talking about Elon Musk, this Trump-Elon commission that had been floated before. So a bunch of economic stories. We wanted to get Jeff Stein from The Washington Post in to weigh in on. Let's go ahead and get to it.

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Rachel Maddow and our Decision 2024 team will provide insight as results come in. And the next day, Morning Joe will give you perspective on what it all means for the future of our country. Watch coverage of the 2024 presidential election Tuesday, November 5th on MSNBC. Jeff Stein of The Washington Post. Great to see you, sir. Good to see you, man.

Always a pleasure to be on Breaking Points. Thanks, guys. Yeah, it's our pleasure. Let's go and put this first piece up on the screen. So this was some significant news, something we've been tracking for a while. It does look like the Biden administration is preparing to block this Nippon Steel. It's a Japanese steel company's acquisition of U.S. Steel. Subhead here from you and your colleague David Lynch is the move would pose a setback for relations with Japan. Talk to us about this decision.

why they would want to block this acquisition and what some of the broader context here is. Yeah, so U.S. Steel, really an iconic American company, has been suffering tremendously the last decade plus, unlike some of its sort of more nimble competitors with the more agile furnaces in the South.

U.S. Steel has lost money, I think, don't quote me on this, but something like 11 of the past 15 years or 13 years. And so they've been looking for a buyer. This Japanese company has been very interested in acquiring U.S. Steel in part because, you know, increasing U.S. tariffs on steel.

imports of steel have made it harder to get into U.S. markets. So if they acquire a U.S. firm, they get around that problem. But the Biden administration, I think correctly, is worried about the politics of a foreign company acquiring this sort of symbol of American industrial light like a few months before a very contested election in

in Pennsylvania, which is, you know, this obviously very important part of the election. And so the Biden administration tasked CFIUS, this sort of obscure government committee that sort of reviews foreign takeovers of U.S. firms. This is pretty unprecedented for Japan. Japan is a major U.S. ally. And so it was really weird and surprising to see, you know,

you know, Japan's investment into the US be scrutinized this way. But as we reported yesterday, Biden's going to block this deal. So tell us a little bit about the union as well, because I know that they were very involved in this decision.

Yeah, Biden has been under a lot of pressure from the United Steelworkers Union to not allow this to go through. There's a lot of concerns about layoffs and that the Japanese, by switching to a new ownership structure, would be really bad for the workers.

um the management the executives of the company were warning that the deal went through uh if the deal failed if the deal didn't go through that the um company would collapse i think the workers are saying that that's overblown hype these executives are trying to cash out um and we should be skeptical of of this sort of warnings but yeah the union has been very vocal and very in the year of the democratic party saying you know

We're already struggling to keep our members from defecting to Trump. Do you really want to allow this company to be taken over by the Japanese?

There's some other staying on the Democratic Party side. Kamala Harris has been seemingly trying to quell some of the CNBC revolt against her economic policies. She's trying to lean into a small business agenda. You can put this Wall Street Journal article up on the screen. She's also breaking somewhat with Biden's previous capital gains tax policy.

So she still would increase the capital gains tax, but not as much as Biden had proposed. As part of her small business agenda, she wants to institute this new $50,000 tax credit. So what can you tell us about what she is proposing here? Yeah, a ploy for the Jim Cramer vote. The coveted Jim Cramer vote. Yeah.

Yeah, they were under... The New York Times had a great story about sort of donors freaking out about the extent of the tax...

uh hikes pushed by harris just to give people a little bit of of the last few weeks of history here um harris came out with 1.7 trillion dollars in new spending measures and increased child tax credit other things that they sort of saw as sort of populist goodies that they could run on but then reporters started asking like how are you going to pay for this and then harris said oh we support the biden tax agenda which is five trillion dollars of stuff

Then people started saying, hey, wait, that has a lot of very significant tax hikes on investors through the capital gains tax and other measures. That led them to say, actually, you know what, let's kind of, I want to be careful with how I phrase this, but they seem to be saying, we want to signal that we're listening to the business community, that we're listening to investors.

You know, the only people who would be affected by this are those who earn over a million dollars a year. At least that's what they've been saying. And so, you know, numerically, it's not that big of a percentage of the voting public. But if you include people who might be concerned that they could become millionaires and be affected by this or people who don't believe that Harris is.

you know, won't lower that threshold at a certain point. This is kind of meant to assure them that she's maybe more business friendly. I mean, the Harris people are really intent on showing that they're more sympathetic to or at least open to listening to the business community than Biden was. Whether that is a message that's compatible with what they've said about banning price gouging and how those

I'll shake out. I don't know. There's some Democrats I've spoken to who are getting alarmed that, you know, Harris seems to be kind of going from crisis to crisis and kind of addressing her sort of most immediate short term political need. Obviously, the campaign would say that that's highly ungenerous and they have a grand vision. And this is all well orchestrated and thought out.

Well, okay, but then that's kind of where I want to stick with you, Jeff, because as you and I both know, each individual policy seems to be in a lab, it's getting tested, and then a statement will come out. So can you just explain to us how this fits in that context? For example, I believe yesterday they were talking about perhaps walking back from an EV mandate. Obviously, there have been previous stories about the positions on the border. There's fracking. I mean, there's ad nauseum, I could go down the list.

of what these all look like. So how does it fit into that context, as you were saying? I'm really glad you brought that up, Sagar, because I don't want to, like, not discuss that there are huge reversals of her position from 2020. I mean, massive changes from what she was articulating just a few years ago. And,

I'm not sure I have great insight into exactly what is going on inside the campaign right now about how they're thinking about these questions. But I think it's fair to say that, you know, she's so new to voters, she's still a relative unknown. And the amount of whiplash on some of these positions, I think, is a risk for the campaign. I mean, for all of Trump's sort of incoherence and his sort of

quick changes and about faces on policy, I think a lot of voters could tell you sort of in broad strokes what he stands for, tariffs and tax cuts and reducing immigration, those kinds of things. But on fracking, on all these economic policies, on environmental policies, we're seeing Harris undergo some really dramatic changes, of course, and whether those add up for voters, I think, is

sort of a big question. I don't know if that really answers what you're asking. No. Yeah. Well, it's worth keeping in mind she maintained a lot of the Biden campaign team that was failing dreadfully. So, you know, when these sort of perplexing about-face decisions occur with Harris, I think that's reasonable to keep in mind. And I mean, the other knock on her always has been that she doesn't really have a lot. And you looked into this, like she doesn't have a lot of

of core ideas. It's been more like, okay, well, when I'm trying to get ahead in California during a certain era, I'm going to be tough on crime. Then I'm going to run to the left because I think that's the lane in 2020. Now I'm with Biden and I got to win these, you know, general election moderate swing voters. I'm going to be in a different place. And that's starting to like, that's starting to feel like what's happening here very clearly. Yeah. I think the most generous interpretation is that this is sort of like trying to build as big of a tent as possible. But yeah,

I don't know if there's a metaphor in here somewhere that like if the tent is too big, then like it doesn't really. But like, we could leave, you know, we could leave the Jim Cramer vote out of the tent. Like I would be good with that, you know. But all right, well, let's turn to the news you broke with regard to Trump and Elon Musk.

Put this up on the screen. We'll put this in post, guys. Trump eyes plan that may give Elon Musk role in auditing U.S. agencies. This was some news that you broke earlier this week. This had been sort of floated that Elon would have a role in auditing federal government agencies. Of course, people immediately pointed out

hey, you have a lot of big government contracts. Seems like there could be a little bit of a conflict of interest here. And the news that you broke is that they're set to formally endorse this idea. Yeah. I mean, we'll see what this looks like if Trump is actually elected. But the idea is basically to say, like, the guy who's going to be the president of the United States

the government bureaucrats are all corrupt and doing everything wrong. Let's bring in some executives and CEOs, Musk and maybe the CEO of FedEx and some other names I've heard tossed around, the former CEO of Home Depot, apparently Trump really likes. And so the idea is, let's bring these guys in, go through all the federal books, find all the waste and taxpayer spending and come up with

sort of list that they present to Congress and say, you guys need to get rid of this. And Reagan actually did this in the 80s. It was highly, well, it was never actually implemented, but from a political standpoint, it produced all these headlines about, you know, the Department of Defense spent like $800 on the toilet or whatever. And then that became like a whole controversy that fueled the sort of Reagan message about government waste and spending. And so I think the Trump people, you know,

are spending a lot of time talking about $5, $6, $7 trillion in additional tax cuts. And so this question is growing of like, what are they going to do to pay for that? Because Trump added more to the federal debt than any other president in American history, $8 trillion over the course of four years. And so they're looking at potentially replicating that. And so this is partly an answer to that question. But as you said, putting Musk in charge of

federal regulations, federal spending, I mean, the amount of sort of direct interest he has, I mean, would he basically say that the US agency is responsible for regulating, you know, self-driving cars, that that is government waste, right? Like, obviously, I don't know if that is something he would come up with, but there's all kinds of reasons to believe

believe that he's, if not a compromised party, then one worth being skeptical of his ability to really impartially look at the government books. You don't have to be a lib to say, hey, if you get billions of dollars in government subsidies, you also should not audit government subsidies. Okay. All right.

I think that's pretty basic. And if your giant companies are subject to significant government regulation. If you're a NASA government contractor, you shouldn't also be OSA. Yeah. And I'm supportive of cutting a lot of government. Let's be very clear about that. Also, you can imagine him being not allowed to look at the things that he's involved in. Right.

The Trump people in their first term were not particularly judicious about that kind of thing. Yes, exactly. That was going to be my point about some of the people that were involved. Anything else, Jeff, that you want to go over in terms of you've broken so many different stories here in terms of how you're watching economics kind of shape within the election so far?

I mean, I think, I mean, I wasn't around for a lot of the campaigns that I'm about to refer to, but I do think it is. I mean, maybe it's just like six nerds in Washington who care about this. It's probably the case, but it's pretty amazing. Like how little detail we're getting about what the candidates like want to do for the country. Like it, it,

Obviously, it may seem quaint to even say that, but I watched basically all of both conventions. I listened to the candidates' statements and were really at an incredible surface level of policy for, I think more so for Trump than for Harris, but really even compared to what we got from Biden four years ago, but especially compared to Clinton eight years ago or Obama.

you know, candidates used to release, you know, dozens or hundreds of pages of detailed analysis about like the reason that like all of politics matters at some level, right? Like all the show, all the pomp and circumstance, all the like, like TV and radio and like media, like all of it about politics is like in service of the question, in my view of like, what do you want to do to like change the country? And,

Just in my brief time as a reporter, like that, that has gotten so, so vague. Yeah, it's not. The political incentives seem to be- We used to argue about budgets. You remember that? The president's budget said 25% less for the, you know, and people would have cable news panels about it and op-eds. And, you know, now somebody just, the Harris campaign is like, she no longer supports that. And the Trump campaign is like, he says no tax on tips. And it's like, okay, what does that mean? You know?

In what way? Eliminate taxes on Social Security benefits. That's potentially $2 trillion. Incredibly complicated. Could speed up the date at which Social Security beneficiaries stop receiving checks they need to buy food and medicine. And we have no idea how it would work.

Mandating IVF. That's $100 billion easily. And then the Harris campaign, the ban on federal price gouging for groceries and food. What does that look like? Is the FTC going to be checking all shops? I don't know. We don't know. So it's kind of a frustrating time to be a policy reporter because we're just like,

We can get hit as reporters for trying to analyze what we think they're trying to say.

And they'll say, no, no, we didn't mean that. But it's like, we don't know what you really mean. Tell us what you actually mean. Well, I mean, you can kind of see why they do it. Because on the flip example is you've got Project 2025, 900 pages of spelling out in elaborate detail what they would do. And it's a massive liability. You know, it's a big problem for them. Or who was it? Rick Scott, who put out that terrible like policy detailed proposal. And

And Democrats were hanging that around the neck of Republicans. And so they feel like there's more risk than benefit in actually telling us specifically their plans. And with Trump, you have the added, I mean, with both of them in a sense, but especially with Trump, you have the added, you know, he says all kinds of wild shit. Do you mean any of this? Like, do you really mean 10% tariff on everything? Do you mean one time he floated 20%? Is it 10? Is it 20? Do you understand what...

massive implications that would have or on the immigration thing. Like you're talking about rounding up all these millions of people. That's an unbelievable, put the morality aside, expensive, invasive undertaking. What does that look like? And when you have industries like agriculture that are dependent on 60% migrant workers,

what does this mean? But then you're, you know, it's like, well, is he even, he's probably not even really serious about that level of deep. So it makes it your, your job and our job trying to understand what the implications would be. It makes it sort of impossible. I saw this, um, what was it? Goldman Sachs analysis that was like, Oh, Kamala Harris's economic proposals would add to the GDP and Trump's. I don't even know how they're doing these numbers when you have so little detail on from either one of them.

Yeah, my wife and I rewatched Idiocracy recently. Great film. President Camacho's whole plan is like, we will fix...

what's Luke Wilson's character, he will fix everything. That's the whole plan. - That's very Trumpian. - Yep. - Yeah. - Very true, very true. - All right, Jeff, thank you so much. It's always great to see you and help us sort through what little we can glean from these campaigns. - Good to see you, man. - Good seeing you guys, thanks. - Same. - All right, guys, thanks for watching. We will see you all later.

Get ready for a full month of fiesta y cultura because it's time for Viva Tucson. Let's celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month como nunca antes in true Tucson style. From September 15th to October 15th, join us for comida, musica y eventos that you won't find anywhere else. Our rich history and traditions make the old pueblo the perfect place para celebrar y aprender.

Mark your calendars so you don't miss out on this celebración. Visita visittucson.org slash viva.

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