Early Voting, Elon's Million Dollar Giveaway, and a Side of Fries
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Free delivery on your first three orders. While supplies last. Minimum $10 per order. Additional terms apply. Rise and shine, fever dreamers. Look alive, my friends. I'm Bea Spear. And I'm Sammy Sage. And this is American Fever Dream, presented by Betches News.

where we explore the absurdities and oddities of our uniquely American experience. And we only have two more Tuesdays after this Tuesday before we should hopefully know who won the 2024 election.

V, you just returned from canvassing in North Carolina. Can we get a temp check from the road? I mean, it was the best of times. It was the better of times. It was a really good time in North Carolina. I feel very confident in the state.

The Democratic chair for the state of North Carolina is 26 years old. Her name is Anderson Clayton, and she has just absolutely invested in rural areas and gotten people excited. There's like 40,000 volunteers in the state of North Carolina for Kamala. They kept 75 of the 80 voting locations that were destroyed by the hurricane. They got those open in time for early voting. So North Carolina is pedal to the metal, ready for Harris. I had a great time. I'm exhausted.

But people on the ground were mostly like – it was a combination of very excited and –

I'm only going to vote this one more time. And if it doesn't work out, then you people better get off my damn lawn. Because I went door knocking for three days. So I was meeting with people and talking to them about it. Well, that's still a yes. It was still a yes. And there was a couple of people who answered their door and they're like, God, not again. And I'm like, every four years, I want to be here at your door talking about the presidential candidates. And they were like, I just don't know that it matters that much. And then I got to talk to them about, I was like, look,

I understand federal can be a bummer, but your state is one of the ones that could lose their Department of Education if this doesn't happen. And they were like, well, I don't want that. So, you know, I'm definitely voting local. I just hadn't decided if I was going to even bother to check a box for president. And I was like, I totally hear you, but people have feelings. And that's what I realized. They don't want to get their heart broken and feel like it's vulnerable anymore.

to be out here and to vote and to believe in something like the potential for the first female president and for it to be Kamala Harris and for us to not choose autocracy and to beat white supremacy and all this kind of stuff. It's heavy, so they get nervous.

Understandable, but then why would that result in not voting? That's what confuses me. They're the ones who actually have a vote that matters. I mean, I don't want to say that our votes don't matter, but if you live in North Carolina, your vote really matters. And it just seems like, yeah, it's really disappointing. And the way...

This was literally what Emily's in my book was about. It's that the reason we feel this way is because people have taken – moneyed interests have taken advantage of these feelings. And the way to get around this is actually to lean in rather than to give in to the apathy.

But that has to happen at scale. And it's really hard if people don't understand that because they didn't – not enough people bought our book. Well, that's true. That's really the issue. The way I felt like it was, it's like they feel like it's a gamble and like they'll lose something if they give in. And I'm like, it costs nothing. Helps everyone. Yeah.

Well, the other thing is that it's like people are super emotional about it, but you don't need to fall in love. That's like saying you want to fall in love with the subway stop that gets you the closest to the place you need to go. What if that subway stop is 10 blocks away and it's snowing? But the only way you can get there is the subway. You're not in love with it, but you

but you don't believe in it. Well, you just, but it got you there. Here's the thing. For some people, I just took the burn off it because some people, they would physically be like, yeah, I'm going to vote for her, but I don't know. I'm like not excited. I said, look, here's the thing. You go in there, you enthusiastically vote for your friends and neighbors down ballot. You throw a little tick up there for old Cammie. You throw a little, it's no big deal. You just fill in the bubble up there. I'm like, make sure you flip it over and you fill out for your state slate. That's what's

going to matter the most. And they're like, yeah, okay. It was just about taking the burn off it. It doesn't have to be this big, heavy decision. You're just voting for the felon or not the felon. It is a very simple decision.

Right. I think this every time that I pass the one house in my neighborhood that has Trump signs, it has so many. Like there are 30 Trump signs on this one house. No one else really has any signs. There's Trump or other, you know. So a lot of people have just Republican signs for down ballot, but not Trump.

Although there are a lot more Harris signs I noticed this week. Yeah. We're winning the yard sign game for sure. She is. And it's not really that blue of an area, but whatever. My point is that guy with the 27 Trump signs has the same vote as you, who is kind of apathetic and you're unsure and whatever.

Whatever. He's showing up. You each count the same amount. Your bubbles mean the same thing. Actually, if you're in North Carolina, your bubble means way more than this guy on Long Island. So – Well, and here's the thing with North Carolina. When I was talking to Anderson Clayton, she was saying – because, you know, I'm doing the live stream on election night. And I was like, well, I'm not going to be able to make a call. And she was like, you actually will. If she gets North Carolina, which we do plan to announce that night, North Carolina will be called that night.

If she gets North Carolina, there's pretty much no way for him to get the 270, I guess, or it's much easier. It's much more likely that it's her. And so I was like, all right, we'll be gunning for North Carolina. We'll be hoping for that. And it does seem like it's going to make sense. Now, I want to come back to the 40,000 canvassers in North Carolina. Every state has a lot, and we've heard there's hundreds of thousands in some states.

This election is going to be one on the ground game and it's going to be one on conversations between your friends and neighbors. It is this like personal connections. No amount of online influencer is going to do it. That's how every election is won. It's the day to day. It's the friends and neighbors. And

Donald Trump doesn't have a ground game. He doesn't have a plan. He has concepts of a plan. He has nothing. Concepts of a ground game. Elon Musk thinks he could just dump a bunch of money into it, but you cannot buy heart. You cannot buy soul. And he certainly tried. There was a story that came out saying that Trump is being defrauded by his door knockers because Elon Musk was paying like 30 bucks an hour to

I don't know, in New York for a period of time, RFK Jr. was paying $192 an hour for people to canvass for him. So it's just crazy shit. But you can't pay somebody. So when I was canvassing, there's an app called Minivan. And to all my canvassers out there, you know what I'm talking about. You have to download this app called Minivan and you put in your sheet number and it pulls up all the houses. Then you click on house number one and it'll say like, did you speak to the person? Yes, no. Are they strong Democrats, strong Republican, whatever.

You fill out your sheet, go to the next house and you do it. Well, that app is geo-located to make sure that if you say you're knocking on a door, you're by that door. And what they found was in Trump's case, people were like, not home, not home, not home, not home for all these doors are just making shit up. And then their geo-location was at their house.

They weren't in the neighborhood they were supposed to be in. So they were just faking the funk. They didn't realize it would be geolocated like that. So they were faking the funk. So they think as much as 30% of the door knockers that were out there for Trump were contaminating not just the data, but fully not knocking on the doors, which could make or break a campaign. You get what you pay for. This is America. Yeah. And if you put a $30 an hour ad on Craigslist, you are not going to get a passionate, uh,

voter advocate person necessarily. You can't get a passionate voter advocate for $1,000 an hour if that person doesn't give a shit. I'm all for paying people. This is hard labor to do this stuff. And I do think, but you're never going to get a better person to do this than somebody who's doing it because they care. So I was not paid to be out there. I did it because I care. All the people I was with, same thing. You just do it for the community. But if you are a paid canvasser, I want you to say, I'm not shitting on that. I think it's hard work and it

It requires organizers who make this their full-time job. What I wonder, though, is where are all the people who go to the rallies? Right.

Why not have them canvassed? They don't want to. They like to put on their costume. They don't want to talk to their friends and neighbors. They don't want to talk to their friends and neighbors. They do. No. On the internet. On the internet. They don't want to go knock on their doors and try to convince them because they don't... What would they say? What would the policy be? How would you answer? I answered so many questions. They have a lot to say. They're all over. They'd rather lock people out than bring them in. That's why the Trump... People who go to the rallies go there to party. They don't go there to help their neighbor, to like...

be an evangelist. They're not going to do any of that. They don't care. Okay. Well, when we get back, we're going to get to our main news where we go, we're going to talk about some hard data around the election that we're already seeing.

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All right, we are back. And we wanted to get into, I've been feeling this way. And I know, Sammy, we've talked about it where I feel like it's like 3pm. And I'm like tired, and I'm hungry. And I'm like, Oh my god, is this over yet? Can it just be election day? And it's like, no, we still have just a little bit more to go. So I've been feeling this slump. So I wanted to look at the data and see, where are we at? How is it going? I'm not alone. I need to remind myself I'm not alone, that there's so many people who care about this too. And we're all at the party together. So in North

Carolina, where I was this weekend, we know that over a million people have already voted. Early voting has only been open for three days. This was the number as of Sunday evening was just about a million people had voted. It was like 900,000 ballots in person.

80,000 via absentee, 14,000 via military or overseas absentee. And like I said, Anderson Clayton told me if we get North Carolina, which we'll know on election night, then Kamala Harris will win. That's going to be the path to win.

And then in terms of also North Carolina, in terms of the early vote demo, Tom Bonnier is doing some great analysis. You can find him on Twitter and threads. And he found that registered Democrats had a 13 point lead in the early vote so far, but a 17 point lead among people who voted already and weren't registered to vote in 2020. So new voters.

Maybe we're going to prove out our thesis that she's going to get the never voters. I think she's going to get the never voters or the people who feel invited for the first time to vote. I also think North Carolina has two things going for it that I think will sway the Democrats way. One is the governor's race, Mark Robinson versus Josh Stein. And the thing that we had to do was get people to remember Josh Stein's name.

They were saying most people will go in – He's like every kid I went to camp with. I know. They were like – It should be very easy. Maybe not for people in North Carolina. I know. Well, they were saying that most people will go in to vote against Mark Robinson than they know to vote for Josh Stein. So if you're in North Carolina, please tell your friends, Josh Stein, Josh Stein. And then so it's him versus Michelle Morrow who has never –

had her children in public schools. She's got like five kids. She's a homeschooler. She's a super Christian trad wife, has called for war, American Revolution 2.0, deep conspiracy theorist, very, very unusual woman. And so a lot of people are going in to make sure that North Carolina schools

Don't become corrupted by this woman because North Carolina, not sure if you know this, a lot of real good colleges in North Carolina, a lot of people really want their kids to have a good public school experience growing up so they could do an in-state tuition, get on a good path. And that's not going to happen if Michelle Murrow becomes superintendent of schools and puts in a, you know, a whack ass job.

fucking agenda that says dinosaurs aren't real. That's probably why they tried to institute a law that would make it harder for UNC Chapel Hill students to vote. And that, I believe, got overturned. Yeah. So take advantage of your vote.

That's the thing. I mean, we're talking about North Carolina, but this is just one example of how things are going in every state. I promise you it's happening in your state, too, where the superintendent and the down ballot is a very dangerous race. Maybe.

Maybe that could be a fun game. Find the weirdo on your ballot. Find the weirdo in your state. Everyone go Google your ballot and find the most bizarre person who is running and tell everyone you know to vote against them. So in North Carolina, Michelle Morrow. Yep, we're voting against her. She's crazy. Never wants to be in charge of the schools. She has never once –

utilized or been associated with. Nope. She's wild. Vote for Mo Green and you can go to North Carolina Dems. They'll give you the voter card because you're voting for, it was like 20 races. It was a crazy amount of people that we were talking about. So check them out. And for Josh Stein. Josh Stein. Against Mark Robinson. Crazy self-acclaimed black Nazi. Yes.

All right. What else we got? We've got Georgia. 300,000 people voted on day one, which was super exciting. And also now we know that the court said, we're not doing that hand count shit. We're not doing that. No, forget it. It's too late. It's too hard. We're not doing that. So we should have better data on Georgia on election night as well. Also, Virginia, hundreds of thousands of ballots collected.

But they were from the always vote people. So Virginia has a high percentage of Republicans that have early voted. Now, we know that Northern Virginia typically saves the day when it comes to that state. But don't get lazy. Virginia is leading with Republicans right now.

Your state matters, Virginia. You're big this year. It sure do. It sure do. And then Pennsylvania and Michigan. The gender gap is wider. These are the big ones the people are watching. These are big. The gender gap is wider now with women accounting for an even larger share of the early vote than they were at this point in 2020, which suggests that the Republicans' efforts to turn out low-propensity male voters that they've been trying to sway for Trump has not happened yet. I think this election is going to be won by women –

But it's good to see that so many people are early voting because, you know, the closer we get to Election Day, the more fuckery will abound. Yeah. And we're also seeing, you know, everyone I'm hearing from anecdotally, especially in Pennsylvania, is saying super, super tight race.

They're saying that they're worried about how she's going to perform with black men. Yeah. I don't buy that. I want to talk about that because I think there's this idea that we can say, oh, she's not going to do well with black men or Latino men or they're not doing enough and whatnot. And then I'm in North Carolina and watching videos of HBCUs

Where black men are dressed to the nines with a marching band marching to the polls in hundreds, packs of hundreds. So I want to give props to the idea that like, I don't think we should be saying the black community isn't showing up, whether that's women, men, whatever the case may be, because I think that they are showing up.

And I think it's unfair to put the burden on a community that votes typically 87 to 90 percent for Democrats. So even if they're like, oh, it's not enough, I'm starting to get like a little aggravated with that point because I don't think it's true.

Well, I think we're not sure how it will actually bear out there. This is based on polling. But what people are saying based on polling is that she it's not that the vast majority of black men are not going to vote for her, but it's that she is not doing as well as Biden was with black men at this point and that she has to she has to really vote.

keep maintain his percentage because of the demographics of the state, particularly, you know, she really needs to overperform in Philadelphia to cancel out the rural areas. And that's why we talk about fracking so much. I see what you're saying. But the reason I believe it is like, will those people turn out to vote for Donald Trump? Or do they just not? I don't know.

feel so strongly about her. Yeah. I don't think you're going to vote for Trump. I think also, I think I noticed with the frat boys on North Carolina State University when we were doing this is they were like, yeah, Trump 2024. I was like, are you registered to vote? And they're like, no. And I'm like, well, what's your deal then? And they're like, it's for the lulz.

Oh, I was like, all right. I hope that it's all for the laws. But I but I think there's a great number of this, too. But that bums out actual voters who think that like they're in community with people who are like actually for him when in fact it's like just to own the libs or be like, I don't know, whatever. Or but it also might make them feel, oh, I now need to vote. I need to make sure everyone votes because there's so many of these people. So they could be these people could kind of be hindering him because they're unserious. Yeah, they're would be the epitome of him. I know.

So let's talk data from Pennsylvania, also from Tom Bonnier. There have been more ballots cast at this point. We're recording Monday. I got this data Sunday evening, the 20th. Cast at this point than in 2020. Early vote bipartisanship shows a wider Dem lead so far than at this same point in 2020.

As of last week, so far, turnout in this election has been 16.2% of the total 2020 turnout cast before Election Day, while Republican turnout is at 14.8%. Still close. So they're behind by about a point and a half so far compared to 2020. Women are now also accounting for a larger share of the early vote in Pennsylvania than they did at this point in 2020. But it is in line with 2022.

which is when post-ops women came out again, Democrats overperformed. And then in terms of the racial breakdown, the biggest increases are among women of color, especially black women. Their turnout is 248% of what their turnout was in 2020. Yes, ma'am. And it is 146% for white women. That's what I'm saying. Women are going to get it done. It's an overall women effect. It's a women effect. I agree. Yeah. Women are going to get it done.

And just let the men know that no one wants to sleep with you if you vote for Trump. Well, that's a true – that's a true. If you have to lie to women about who you're voting for for them to want to date you, you might want to reconsider like where you're at. You know what I mean? What you're voting for at least. Like who are you loyal to? Like why would you choose Trump over a date? Like that seems weird to me. Yeah. Yeah.

Agreed. Now, Michigan is another state folks are really worried about because of the Dearborn effect and the fact that she hasn't performed well with Arab Americans. Early turnout in Michigan is 55% of where it was in 2020, and Black women's turnout is at 77% of 2020 levels. So we're still rocking and rolling. Black voters overall are a substantially larger share of the votes cast so far. So we know that, again...

I knew when she called on the Divine Nine, there was going to be no stopping what was going to happen here. And it's absolutely coming through the culture. The community is coming out for Kamala. Yeah.

And turnout by older Black women is 115% of what it was in 2020, which just like I just love to think of it. I love to think of that. The ladies are going to save the republic. You can thank us later. Of course they are. And I just love the idea of like thinking about older women voting and like this being such a meaningful moment for them, especially older Black women. Like they're so responsible for so much of the success of this country and to finally have someone

of their community. I just think like, wow, that's incredible. Well, they know what there is to lose. Yeah. That's the, that's the thing. They don't want to go back. No, neither do we. Did you see? And then I love like the little stories. I'm not sure if it was Michigan. It might've been, there was this woman who's like 82 years old and it was her very first time voting because her husband died. Didn't want her to. Yeah. So the bastard dies and she's like, the first thing I did was registered to vote. And I'm like, yes, ma'am. I love you for that. You know,

And then polling this morning is breaking for Harris, which should just encourage you to feel like your vote does matter and we've got to keep up this momentum. It does not mean that we can quit. But still very close. It's very close. We are still looking at tiny, tiny percentages. And so, so far, it's – she's leading by –

two to four points in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania. In Nevada, they're tied 48 to 48. Arizona, Trump is leading 49 to 46. And in North Carolina, he is leading 50 to 47.

This is a reliable poll that came out this morning, Monday the 21st. And what's going to happen is people see Harris is leading a little bit and they're going to get all their asses to the polls, right? So we have to keep our momentum up. We can't be like, oh, she's ahead. We could take a break. We can't take a break. We can't take a break.

Just as a fun fact, something that we know from the poll over the summer before Kamala became the candidate was that voters were deeply concerned with Joe Biden's age and mental acuity. And given the fact that Donald Trump is saying the most insane, crazy stuff is the oldest person in this

race at this point spent the other day working fake working at McDonald's instead of campaigning is dancing to music for 39 minutes can't remember a sentence is still saying nutso stuff about you send your boy to school and he comes home a girl and they don't get parental consent they're eating the cats like

dementia is real and I'm not even like joking about it. I'm genuinely concerned for his cognitive abilities and for his exhaustion. There's no way that this person is fit to serve. I wonder if voters will similarly, like the way that we kind of felt, be like, oh God, I can't get excited about Trump with the way he is.

I actually do. Yeah. And I wasn't sure because it's kind of like when you see someone every day, you don't really notice if they gain weight. Yeah. With him, because we follow him so intensely, I'm like, he always seemed so crazy to me. Like, it always seemed crazy to me. He was always breaking new – he was always pioneering new lands of crazy. So up until Biden was out of the race, he did look crazy.

though they were both equally, I think, or even though Biden, I think, is actually more sane and there, Trump has vigor. His rage and hatred for everything keeps him alive and seeming sprightly, or at least relative to Biden. Biden, though his brain is working better, he seems more frail. He has more senior moments that are just sort of

And he talks quieter. His mouth was agape.

Trump, you're used to looking like a clown. So I think it was like the relativity. But then now that we're seeing Trump every day, and I do think maybe it was the getting shot at once, almost getting shot at a second time, that can accelerate something. Also, Kamala is driving him a little crazy by dog walking him at the debate, no pun intended. I think it's possible. And once you're at that age, you do start to age quicker. Mm-hmm.

And he has some other issues and I think we're watching it. So I do think there are people who are like, okay, this is getting weird. You can't pretend he's a strong man anymore. You can't pretend he's cool. He's like shitting his pants all the time and forgetting where he is and like being a super weirdo.

Well, what's frightening is that, well, his people will never see that. But I do think the sort of a little bit more normal people might look at him and be like, this guy's not going to be the president. So if this is the one I want, I better look at the number two. I know. He's been swearing a lot, which I think is wild. Like even at the Al Smith dinner when he was like, she was a shitty VP. Mayor de Blasio, he was a shitty. I mean, you can't swear in front of the Catholics. They're so, you know.

Well, two days ago, he went on what could only be called a reverie about YouTube.

Arnold Palmer's penis. Oh, yeah. He was obsessed with the Wang man. It's just crazy. Is he coming out? He might be coming out. He has said several times that he would kiss the men, kiss the women in the group. I think there's something about him that he really is obsessed with men and male culture and masculinity. That's for sure. But yeah, him doing like 12 minutes of

fantasizing about other men who would have seen Arnold Palmer, the golfer in the shower and how big his dick was. One, I was not aware that golfers like group showered. I don't think that that's like something. It's the locker room. Yeah. But like, I don't know. Like I was like, okay, that's like a football basketball. And it's fully a fantasy. Oh, it's fully a fantasy. But I was like, it doesn't even make, it doesn't even make sense for the, for the sport he picked. I couldn't tell. Let's play the clip.

But Arnold Palmer was all man. And I say that in all due respect to women, and I love women. But this guy, this guy, this is a guy that was all man. This man was strong and tough. And I refuse to say it, but when he took showers with the other pros, they came out of there, they said, oh my God, that's unbelievable.

I had to say it. Okay. And the other thing, I don't know if you saw this, but he's been very into the AI photos of himself, Trump. So there was one of him that he put up two nights ago where he was a Pittsburgh football player, which was insane. But he also put his head on Arnold Palmer's body.

which is just so weird. This is just weird stuff. If your family member did this. Well, he did get booed at the Pittsburgh Steelers game. Yes. So that could be why he had to do that to compensate. I just think he lives in a world that doesn't exist, and he's very – it's like a lot of our parents or grandparents that are, like, red-pilled on Facebook and commenting on pictures of, like,

fake AI Jesus saying amen and stuff. I think he just... I think he's willing to live in the matrix he created, but... This did come up because Arnold Palmer was born in the place he was campaigning, which is Latrobe, Pennsylvania. It doesn't matter, though. And Arnold Palmer was a Republican. Well, it's like... But, like, why are we talking about his genitalia? What is wrong with you people? Well, absolutely. That's the problem. It's just crazy. I mean, I understand shouting out someone's hometown. We're saying that...

Harvey Weinstein got schlonged. I mean, there's crazy shit, Sammy. This is like, of all the words to use, just his brain doesn't, he's not able to mask at all anymore. He's just full crazy out here.

Well, Arnold Palmer's daughter had said that he did not support Trump and that he thought he was dishonest and a cheat. He was appalled by Trump's lack of civility. Yeah. And he couldn't believe that this was the nominee of the political party he believed in. So we know how Arnold Palmer would have felt. But I don't know. Are you going to be able to order that delicious beverage the same way ever again? I'm never. No. As a lesbian, Arnold Palmer's are off limits.

I love an Arnold Palmer. Oh, my God, I do too. But somebody had a funny joke yesterday and they were like, Arnold Palmer would be rolling in his grave if his dick wasn't so big. I saw that. I thought that was hilarious. I mean, some of this stuff, you got to laugh or you'd cry. Speaking of nutso banana stuff also, Trump shut down a McDonald's and spends an entire day that he could have been campaigning, fake working the fries at a McDonald's to like troll Kamala Harris and

I'll tell you, she's in his head big. She got him to work a fry machine when he should have been campaigning to try and prove that it's easy to work at McDonald's or that she didn't. They asked him, now that you've worked a shift at McDonald's, which he did not work a shift at McDonald's. He made a basket of fries. Barely. He spent five minutes at the fry station and 15 minutes at the drive-thru. And

So that he could say now he works 15 minutes more than Kamala. And the place was shut down. He handed out five bags of fries. It was no big deal. So he goes in and he decides he's going to work at this McDonald's because he loves McDonald's. He loves McDonald's. Fake work. Fake work at the McDonald's. And what was nuts to me is like he takes off his suit jacket and here's the beautiful beach body that he's bragged about.

And the tie is too long. And then they're putting the apron on him. He did not have the dexterity to like put on his own apron. So they're like tie this yellow ribbon around the old oak tree that ties his apron. It was not great. And then he's standing there like with his –

fake diamond cufflinks and his long sleeves. He's not wearing a hat. There was no food safety. They're going to have to, I felt like I was watching that part of the Charlie and the chocolate factory where he's like, you stole fizzy lifting drinks. This whole room will have to be decontaminated and,

That's what I felt like as a former restaurant manager watching him walk around. I was like, everything's broken. Well, I did see that actually that McDonald's had had some health code issues. Oh, for sure. Also, the people who came to the drive-thru were not actual customers. No, no, no. They weren't with the campaign. They were pre-vetted fans of his. Nor did they get to actually order. He just got whatever he gave them. Yeah.

The place was closed. So they show him and God bless this kid who trained him. I mean, he was really patient in taking it serious, who like trained Trump how to do the fries. So he does the fries. He shows them. And it's very simple. It's like, put the fries come in here. You put them in here. You wait for the timer. Which he found very impressive. You wait for the timer. You dump them over here. You put one shot of salt and you scoop them. Period. The end. This is McDonald's. This is not have it your way Burger King.

Trump goes to do it. He can't lift the fry basket with one hand. So he's like lifting it and shaking fucking oil all over the place. Then he like puts it up. Then he puts the fries in. Then he's like, can I do two scoops of salt? Like, yeah, let's give everybody a fucking heart with me. I like there's plenty of salt. And then they took these nasty, over salted, undercooked fries, put them in a bag. And that's what he got to hand out the window. It wasn't this was not a shift.

No, it was very much not a shift. The whole thing had a take your kid to work day vibe to it. Absolutely. Then they say to him, hey, now that you've spent some time at McDonald's, what do you think the minimum wage should be? And he was like, I love McDonald's. I don't know. No, he said, I think this. These people work hard. They're great. And I just saw something, a process that's beautiful. A process that's beautiful, I know. Okay, he also said,

He praised another employee for being stingy with the fries that they were giving to the reporters. He goes, oh, you're very stingy with the product. Look at that. She's a good worker. That's the kind of people you want to have. She gave them one French fry for 30 reporters. Everything's a grift. Everything's a cheap. Right. Like you are a customer of McDonald's. I was just thinking that. I was like, oh, I'd be so the opposite. I'd be like, oh, you give a nice hefty pour. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

McDonald's will survive. I like McDonald's. I get McDonald's from time to time. Yeah, McDonald's. I'm known for a large fry and a milkshake every once and again. Yeah, a large fry and Diet Coke. Something like that's nice. My favorite thing is double cheeseburger, no onions, no ketchup. That's my actual McDonald's order. That's what I like. You're making me kind of want this. Yeah. Well, we used to like – I don't know. You get off work in the middle of the night and that's all that's open and then I would like call my mom and have double cheeseburgers. So his order though is two Big Macs.

two filet of fish, large fry, large Diet Coke. And an apple pie. Of each? Two of each. In one sitting? Yes. Now, that's a lot of McDonald's

That's like too much McDonald's. Because you could do the big surf and turf, which I also enjoy. I'm a fast food. I'm okay with fast food. Where you put the Filet-O-Fish, which I think the best thing at McDonald's is the Filet-O-Fish. I think it's a very underrated sandwich. But you put the Filet-O-Fish on the Big Mac instead of that middle piece of bread and it's like a McSurf and turf. It's

Delicious. Sure. But like- It's a lot. Two Big Macs, two Filet-O-Fish, large fry, and a large Diet Coke. Although if I were having so many items, I would have fewer sandwiches and more fries. Or like chicken nuggets. Like I love to get like the burger chicken nuggets moment. Now we have a dip. It's a different flavor. We're building a meal. A little sophisticated for a man who likes very well done steak. Yeah.

Also, before he left, he said, I wouldn't mind this job. I like this job. Yeah, you should go do that job. I would come back and do it again. Yeah. Take it. He didn't do the job, but he didn't do the job. Can you imagine him doing an eight-hour or a double shift at McDonald's? It's hard. That's a hard job. There's no way. There's no way he could barely do the fake 15 minutes. Dealing with customers. The whole thing. He looked ridiculous.

I also think you can't work there if you're a felon. You can't work there if you're a felon. No, you're right. So Donald Trump can't get a job at a McDonald's. The whole thing was like a child. It was like bringing a child to be like, you're going to do the fries, sweetie. You're a joke. This is a person who wants to be a president.

He tried to do a coup. He couldn't even do it though. And that's the thing that pisses me off. Like if you wanted to come in and be strong, then they should have showed you one time how to put a basket of fries down in the oil, flip it over, put the salt on it, put it in the bag. Flip a burger, man. Flip a burger. We didn't even get to flipping burgers. That's level two. Fill the soda. There was none of that. And I think if anything, it showed he was even more out of touch. And I think he was deeply offensive to people who work in hospitality in the restaurant business because it was like he was trying to make it seem like this is stupid. And it's like it's not. This is like a critical service.

It's driving so much of Americans' economic activity here and abroad. What I would say if I were Kamala Harris or Tim Walz commenting on this, that's exactly what I would say. I would say it's nice that the president thinks that people's jobs are a joke, that people's jobs are a field trip for him to have a fun day.

and close down an actual location where people are being paid and people need to go get their food. Yeah. It's so out of touch that he would do this as a stunt when this is something that people do to feed their families. And that is what Kamala Harris said when she was talking about it. She was like, I only talk about that because this is people's main source of income and I was doing this for pocket money and it's not sustainable because she would want to raise the minimum wage. Right. Right.

Right. You think about the people who work the overnight shift and fast food and whatnot, like I'm so grateful that they're there. But it's also like it's a real job. You know, it's a real thing and it deserves respect like anything else. And it's a hard job. You're dealing with people, food safety, product quality. You've got managers on your ass. You've got a weird schedule. Kamala Harris wants to fix a lot of that stuff and Donald Trump wants to make a joke out of it.

None of it is easier than anything else. It's not easier than bagging groceries or working at a hotel or an airport. All of these are difficult jobs that would stall the economy if they stopped doing them. So the fact that he can act, and you know, what's his name? Eric Trump said something on TV the other day that was very revealing, that Kamala Harris has never signed the front of a check so she doesn't have a real job. It's like, actually, people who make money

Paychecks on the back, sir. But OK. That was the thing. He said you never had a job because you didn't sign the check. And it's like, please get the hell out of here. So you've paid for things. OK. I'm not here for it. But should we take one more break and then close it up? Yep. We'll see you back here in a second. Go on a Dunkin' Run. Go get a double cheeseburger. No ketchup, no onion.

All right. Welcome back, friends. I hope you got a snack. I'm like absolutely 100% getting a cheeseburger after this. Like now we talked about it too much. You're making me want one too. I know. I'm like I got to get fries today. There's just like nothing else I can do. Yeah. A Diet Coke and fries. Crispy, crispy Coke. So I'm going to go ahead and get a cheeseburger.

So there's this thing called Polymarket and I'm trying to figure it out because months and months, months ago, if not a year ago, I saw some democratic influencers talking about Polymarket. And I think it was like a little bit of a psyop where Polymarket tried to pretend like they're a legit company, but turns out they are like

backed by Peter Thiel and are now saying that Donald Trump is going to win the election by like, they were saying he was at like 60% and they're setting up all these polls to make it look like the election was stolen when he doesn't come in with these kinds of numbers. Have you, do you know about polymarket?

I know a little bit about it. I know that it is problematic and falls into a category of a potential propaganda tool.

So basically it's a betting market and you can bet on the US election there. However, it's illegal for Americans to bet on it. So it's all foreigners betting on it. People are looking at it as like a meaningful indicator. Like if you remember when, even when Biden was going to drop out, it was like, what are the odds? People, I don't know. It's something that people reference. It's very much in the manosphere culture. I would say that's kind of a critical piece of it.

So Trump's odds have been going up on Polymarket, but...

But there was a new analysis in the Wall Street Journal that his gains could be a mirage that's been manufactured by just four accounts that have collectively been pumping $30 million worth of crypto into bets that he'll win to try to make it look like he will win. Also important, Peter Thiel is an investor in Polymarket. Yeah, sus. Polymarket recruited Nate Silver for its board. Not Nate Silver. He.

He is someone who is driving a lot of what people believe the election odds are because people really have respected his analysis in the past. Also, he's kind of part of this

Manosphere vibe. But he's on the board of a betting site that's betting on the election at the same time as he is publishing polls and analysis. Yeah, I know. The other reason I would say this is important is because it's a slightly more meaningful signal to people because there are fewer high-quality polls this cycle. The reason for that is that it's expensive for media companies to run polls. A lot of these are run by like

you know, institutions and publications like the New York Times Sienna Poll or the Washington Post Poll, NBC. And media companies aren't, you know, doing as well. It's more expensive for them to run. And it's more challenging to actually take the polls, not to mention getting reliable and accurate sample.

So Nate Silver is one of those people who's looking at these polling averages to kind of tell people what the state of the race is and the campaigns are making decisions based on this and voters are making decisions based on this. And in a year when you don't have that many high quality polls and you have a lot of low quality polls, that seems to be skewing what people are looking at. Like we were saying before, the prevailing wisdom is that the race is very tight and

So Nate Silver is a statistician and he was the founder of this group called FiveThirtyEight. He was a correspondent at ABC News.

And he's an advisor at Polymarket. He has a sub stack. Time named him one of the most influential people in like 2009 for forecasting. Like he has a long history of being a respected pollster and statistician. And that's what's so weird. He left FiveThirtyEight and like legacy traditional media if you want to. And now he keeps coming out with these polls where everybody on Twitter who used to really super respect him is like, what the frig happened to Nate Silver? Why is he acting like this?

Because it just seems very out of character. And it seems very sus that a guy who gave Trump only a 28% chance of winning in 2016 with

The way he does stats is now saying, oh no, he's like 60%. He's like so off of everybody else's stats that it's, I don't know, it's sus. I am a subscriber to his sub stack because I want to see what everyone's talking about. And he doesn't have no reasoning for what he says. But this is where I kind of question, what is the motive? Like, do you want to get, are you trying to kind of get rage bait, engagement bait? Are you trying to get people to get

people like me to subscribe because this is now how you earn money? Or are there people or data points that have outsized influence in your mind because of the people you surround yourself with? It's a bias that anyone could have.

He sticks to his polls hard too, which is the thing. So even like if he says somebody is going to win by a certain amount and then the results are coming in, he'll kind of be like, no, but I'm not wrong. I wasn't wrong. They all do that. This thing was wrong about it. But I could see that being sort of like a pipeline to being an election denier. I'm not saying he's an election denier, but I could see people taking some of the things he says and using them to deny the elections. Yeah.

Well, this is why transparency is important. I know. It's so weird. We know he's on the board of this polymarket. Yeah. So I don't know. Every day is a new nightmare thing that I run into that I'm like, oh, I knew that that thing felt weird to me and now I'm confirmed that it is weird. Money. Money, honey. Yeah.

All right. Speaking of money, let's talk about Elon Musk because he continues to not go the fuck away. No. On Saturday, he was at a rally for his America pack.

She established earlier this year to try to get Donald Trump elected. And he announced that he is going to be giving away $1 million each day until the election to someone who signs his online petition, which ostensibly supports the Constitution. He says like, oh, it's just supporting the Constitution. They awarded the first prize to a man named John Prayer. That's fake.

So that's what I thought. I was like, of course you would name like you guys are such that is what he would name the fake man. Donald Trump always uses John as his alternate name to like no prayer. Oh, it's oh, I could win. It's suggestive marketing.

It sounds like the reading comprehension on an SAT. Like it's so stupid. It's dumb. Anyway, so he handed the guy John Prayer. Allegedly. The alleged. Yeah, the talented John Prayer a giant check for a million dollars and

at this Harrisburg, Pennsylvania rally. And he announced that anyone living in a swing state is eligible. All they have to do is sign this petition supporting the Constitution, supposedly. My take on this is that this is a data collection effort because they want to build voter profiles on people in swing states so that he can now target them with ads as he has been doing because...

I made a whole reel about this. You should check it out. Legality. Governor Josh Shapiro. I can't give a sticker. I can't give a sticker. You can't give anybody anything to vote. You can't give them money. This isn't for voting. So that's what I think he's hanging his hat on. It is a federal crime to pay people or reward them in any way to vote or to register to vote. That is an offense punishable by prison time.

Josh Shapiro said on TV on Sunday that law enforcement might want to look into it, but he's not the attorney general anymore. So he can only suggest. However, Mark Cuban tweeted yesterday that it might be against gambling law in Pennsylvania rather than election law. So battle of the billionaires. Let's get them. And he at mentioned Josh Shapiro in that tweet. Yeah.

The other thing is that he's catching the attention of Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who also went on Meet the Press yesterday. And she warned of how disinformation, specifically calling out Elon Musk and other adversaries of democracy, she called them, are attempting to hack the minds of voters ahead of the election and intentionally spreading false information to mislead Michigan voters. And she instead encouraged Michiganders to go to michigan.gov slash election facts.

Don't look at social media. Go to michigan.gov slash election facts if you want trusted and accurate election information. Yeah, because Elon Musk made a bunch of websites pretending that they were like, allegedly. He allegedly made a bunch of things that, you know...

supposedly from her supposedly saying all kinds of horrible stuff. I just, I need Elon Musk. This, this, I know he's been made an American citizen, but this has to be considered like foreign influence in our elections. Like nobody should have this much of an impact.

It is spiritually foreign interference. It is in the spirit of. Elon Musk was an illegal immigrant. I know. When at one point, let's play the clip of him and his brother saying that. In fact, when they did fund us, they realized that we were illegal immigrants. Well, I'm sure. I'd say it was a gray area. Yes, we were. We were illegal immigrants. We were sleeping in the office. We didn't have a car. The other clip.

I want to play is of Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson joking about how he's going to go to prison if Kamala wins. If he loses, man, what? You're f***ed, dude. If he loses, I'm f***ed. It does seem that way. You can't just be like, you can't just be like, yo, I'm like, how long do you think my prison sentence is going to be? Will I see my children? I don't know.

They're freaks. They're freaks and they exhaust me, which is I use that fuel to knock on more doors. But I mean, Trump has said that if he gets elected, he's going to give Musk a head government efficiency commission, which I imagine will be like when Musk went into Twitter and just made every single person tell them line by line on their budget what they spent money on. And if they couldn't like exactly give a perfect figure, he fired them on the spot. Donald Trump loves to not fill positions.

Let's not forget the last time he was president, he didn't fill one position in the Bureau of Indian Affairs. And so everything to do with indigenous people was on hold for four years. He's nuts. He doesn't have the people to make it go. He thinks by not staffing the IRS, like then people won't be able to go after billionaires to like collect their money. But in fact, like it would break our tax system and your ability to get your returns. Like,

If he does that, no one will pay their taxes. Oh, my God. Okay. Well, but I'll always have the memory of him shaking oil violently all over himself in front of a fry machine. So, there's that. Yeah, the thing is that if slash when he loses, those McDonald's photos are going to be so stupid. It's just the craziest memes ever.

This is written history. We're going to be teaching about this in politics 101 someday. The history kindles. Shall we close out? We have some exciting episodes coming up for you. We do. We have some good stuff. Later this week, we have an episode with Mark Kelly for you. He was really, really fun to talk to.

And V, you know what we should have asked him about? The Prada moon suits. I know. How stupid. These are things I don't understand always, but Prada did the design for the Artemis III moon mission space suits. And I'm wondering if maybe we're getting a little too fancy with space and we should come back down to Earth and help some people here. Look, I'm not personally that interested in space. What I want to know is...

why anyone needs to go to Jupiter's moon to go onto an underground ocean. What is that going to do? What about the people who have diseases? Does that help here at all? I think let's leave space alone. I think it's fun and it's cute and we've had a good time, but I don't know that we've ever gone to space and come back with any kind of thing that truly benefits humanity or health. Kind of like a flex. It's just a cool thing. It's a cool thing to do.

Stay out of the ocean, okay? The aliens aren't in the sky. They are in the ocean. That is something I believe strongly and I hope that they – None of these things interest me. I guess we stay in the stars. If we shoot for the moon, we'll fall amongst the stars. I don't really want to go into the ocean. No, I don't. I don't want to go into space. Hi. Leave the Titanic alone while we're at it, okay? Stop.

bothering things. There's so much to explore on this beautiful earth of ours. Yeah, if we protect our federal lands. Vote for Kamala Harris. That's all we've got for this time. Until next time, I'm Vita Speer. I'm Sammy Sage. And this is American Fever Dream, Kamala HQ Propaganda 101, your favorite channel. American Fever Dream is produced and edited by Samantha Gatzik. Social media by Candice Monega and Bridget Schwartz.

Be sure to follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Betches News and follow me, Sammy Sage at Sammy and V at Under the Desk News. And of course, send us your emails to AmericanFeverDream at Betches.com.