Kamala Harris, Brat Summer, JD Vance's couch and more – with guest Molly Jong-Fast
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Hello and welcome to American Friction, the new weekly US politics podcast out every Friday from the makers of Oh God What Now, The Bunker and Papercuts. I'm Jacob Jarvis. And I'm Chris Jones. Every week in the run up to November's US presidential election, we'll be unpacking everything you need to know about the vote. Everything, Jarv. All of it. And most importantly, which candidate is or is not brat.

And which definitely did not have sex with a couch as well. Yeah, no one's had sex with a couch. And yeah, Trump's not brat, apparently. Helping to guide us through the meme-infested wasteland that is US politics at the moment is Rolling Stone magazine politics reporter and our friend, Nikki McCann-Ramirez. Nikki, how are you? And are you having a brat summer? Are you brat? I wish I was brat. I am having a headache and heartburn summer so far. It's great. It's great. It's great.

Look, just vape at some point during the podcast and I think that will make you brat. I have been very cautious not to do that on video yet. Okay, well, you know, we'll get a gif or something for the fans, the stans. Anyway, in this episode, Chris and I speak to the one and only Molly Jong Fast to discuss the latest as Kamala Harris becomes the presumptive Democratic candidate. As long as nothing really, really crazy happens, she's basically going to be it. But you never know if something crazy could happen online.

on a Sunday like it has every Sunday forever lately. And we're also going to talk a bit about Joe Biden and his departure from the race. We'll also do our best to round up some of the other news that might have gone amiss, including Kimberly Cheadle, the director of the Secret Service, who has resigned. And J.D. Vance doing dodgy stuff with... Well, allegedly... No, not even... Factually not. Factually not. Nothing with furniture. We'll get there. But we don't know that he did it.

Look, who knows if anyone hasn't. Anyway, welcome back. You're listening to American Friction. What's time to be following American politics? So last weekend, Joe Biden took the unprecedented decision to pull out of the presidential race. And now it looks like unless anything completely out of the ordinary happens, which at the moment you can't totally rule out, Kamala Harris is going to replace him as the Democrats presidential candidate.

And it seems initially, at least, things are looking better for the Democrats. Well, Trump and his posse are not reacting well, that's to say the least. They've called for campaign money refunds after Biden left the race and made predictable sounds today.

about political violence. One Republican senator even told the crowd at Vance's Middletown campaign rally that if they lose this election, it will take civil war to save the country. There's one candidate offering brat summer and the other side offering civil war. That sums it up at the moment, doesn't it? So join us to talk

About all of that and all of the latest election news, we couldn't think of anyone better than the one and only Molly Jong Fast. Hi, Molly. Thanks for having me. Molly, it's always a pleasure. It has really been a whirlwind, hasn't it? First of all, I mean, on a professional and on a personal level, how are you feeling? I love that you asked me about my feelings. That's so very... I come on a British podcast, I do not expect to be asked about my feelings.

How do I feel? You guys are getting soft. It's because we're just getting more and more American. Yeah. To quote George W. Bush, this is weird, wild shit. No, I have to say, so I'm going to actually talk about my feelings and not just make fun of you guys for asking that question, because it's actually weird. I felt weirdly weird.

sort of sad. I mean, I knew after three weeks and polls cratering and just the absolute demoralization of the Democratic Party versus a guy who is literally

literally a criminal, right, who has criminal counts against him, who has civil counts against him, who has been impeached twice, who has led an armed insurrection. Like this was the guy that Democrats were supposed to be able to wipe the floor with. So when we saw all of those horrendous polls, it's I mean, the Saturday before he stepped down, I was like,

man, this is really not fun. Like, it's not fun to write about. It's not fun to live. It's not fun for him. And and then so on Sunday, I think a lot of us were really relieved. And so what I think is interesting is that everyone is saying in American media that no one knew. But I actually think a few people did know. And I think this was in the works for about two weeks.

because someone let it slip to me yesterday that they knew he had been working on this speech for two weeks. So I think it was pretty clear he was actually going to do this. And it was pretty clear that she was going to be as well she fucking should, excuse my French, being the vice president, the presumptive nominee. So in some ways, things really came together quickly. And in other ways,

You know, the Democratic Party, and this is why the Republican Party has had such a terrible or just has been so bad at politics for the last eight years. The Democratic Party has pretty smart leadership, right? They have people like Nancy Pelosi who, you know, passed on the torch to Hakeem Jeffries. Hakeem is like,

really smart and talented and not crazy. And then you have Chuck Schumer, who's been doing this job for a long time, who's also really smart and just sort of seasoned. And, you know, he is the... I actually think ultimately he's kind of...

He's been able to do the job as well as even though I think he's quite evil. Mitch McConnell is a really talented politician, able to do things like steal a Supreme Court seat, if you remember from season one of this debacle. So I do think that watching these watching what's happened with the Democrats, it looks very fast, but I actually think it was in the works a lot longer. Yeah.

Yeah, it reminds me of the Hemingway quote about going bankrupt that happened to me two ways, gradually, then very suddenly. And that's kind of how it crept along, isn't it? I mean, you wrote a piece with the headline, let's slow the rush to get rid of Joe Biden a few weeks ago. And then in that time between writing that and him going bankrupt,

Were you totally convinced it was right? You mentioned feeling sad around it and it felt inevitable. Yeah. Were you convinced that it had to happen? I was convinced that there needed to be a certain amount of time for voters to

and Biden and his world to see that he couldn't do it. And so like he could not. And there were all these people who had been screaming that he should have resigned forever. And I think they were actually wrong. I think he needed a process. So that debate was bad. I mean, the the unwritten story of that debate was also that Donald Trump also looked really old, like Joe Biden did not look good.

But if you hadn't had Joe Biden and you had just had like generic Democrat, Donald Trump really had lost his step, which is a pretty interesting thing to see. So I thought he needed to sort of show himself and the Democratic base that he could not because for so long in Joe Biden's origin story, you've had him like sort of

make a misstep and then be able to fix it, right? Like in the 2020 primary cycle, he lost the first two primaries, but that he came in hard in South Carolina and it was like he swept the rest of it. So I do think he needed to show the base and himself that he couldn't do it. But I would also add there was this press conference he did, a NATO press conference during that three week period where he was really good. And I think that that was important, too, because

people needed to see there wasn't like some conspiracy. Nobody hid the fact that he was 81 years old. It's just that, you know, getting older speaks as anyone who's taken away the car keys from an adult parent knows you're fine until you're not. And so I actually think that everything that happened in those three weeks really did sort of work out perfectly. But I knew he wasn't going to be able to stay because Pelosi around,

Two weeks in, or maybe even a little bit less, 10 days, it was clear Pelosi was done. And I knew what Nancy Pelosi wants, Nancy Pelosi gets. What have your thoughts been then on Harris so far? How have you felt about it? It does feel like there's a whole new energy in the race, isn't there? It's Barack Obama, but better. I mean, I don't know how this happened, because I think a lot of us after living through 2016, where we saw A,

a reality television host just win against someone who was a career public servant, that was really dispiriting for a lot of us. And we really did have this moment, or at least I had this moment where I went, oh, wow, this country is a lot more racist and sexist than I thought. And I thought it was pretty racist and sexist.

So fast forward, I think that what happened with her was just incredible. First of all, a couple things. She has gotten better and better. And that, I think, is really important. She's always been very good at certain things. Like, you know, she was an attorney's general. She was a district attorney before that.

she has always been good at, you know, like she made she made Brett Kavanaugh cry. She didn't make him cry, but she made him very confused. You know, she was doing this. You know, she was she's very I mean, she's always been a really, really good lawyer. And, you know, she's always been good at getting people to talk and, you know, sort of interviewing them. But

She became a really gifted orator, I think, over the last two or three years. Like she was pretty good and she gave great speeches. I mean, I remember when she announced in the primary in 2020 and she was good, but she's just gotten to a whole other level. And, you know, Democrats have not had a gifted orator since Barack Obama.

And then there's this groundswell because, you know, we had four years of Biden who has been, I think, a really good president and very progressive past climate, past infrastructure. But before that, we had four years of just a racist moron who, like, couldn't get anything done and who really just had the job because he was white and rich and people had seen him on television. So there is a certain amount of, you know, action.

I'm just an overprivileged white woman and I feel furious. So I can only imagine what people who've really been marginalized and treated badly in Trump's America feel. So I do think there's a real, you know, this is like backlash to the backlash. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, speaking of people who are angry at the moment, I mean, Trump is incredibly angry.

isn't he? In part because he spent loads of money on attack ads against Biden. And it's quite amusing, really, that he's now suggesting that he should get money back for that. The strategy is going to change. I don't imagine he's going to get a refund, is he? No. Do they have any point at all when it comes to looking at the fundraising side of things and the background? Or is this just for once, actually, someone who's turned around to Donald Trump and say, you

You've played the game and the game's going to be played back at you. So sort of suck it up. I mean, Trump is just a cheater. And, you know, if he can't win, he'll cheat. And that's what we're seeing now, right? He wants to sue the Biden administration for, you know, if you give money in America, we have a very tight system, though it should be tighter, about half.

federal campaign finance. But if you give money to the ticket, the Harris-Biden ticket, if Biden drops out, that is the Harris ticket, right? So that is, and that was one of the many reasons why this made so much sense.

But the thing I think is interesting is like we're not seeing Trump, right? He's where? He's playing golf. He's meeting with Netanyahu. Like, I'm not seeing him on the stump. And, you know, I also think Trump did this incredible thing, which was like a gift to Democrats, which was he decided to pick J.D. Vance.

And J.D. Vance is someone who is like beloved by tech bros, but is a very bad retail politician. And if you look at the state of Ohio where he won for Senate, they had to pour money into that race because he was just so unlikable. And even in the end, it's a bright red, ruby red state.

The governor got reelected, Mike DeWine, sort of normal, mild-matter guy, terrible on a lot of things, but, you know, sort of normal. He won by 26 points, okay? J.D. Vance, who had just endless money from tech bros, won by six points.

He underperformed by 20 points. So there were people in Ohio who went to vote, voted for Mike DeWine, and then left the bottom of the ticket blank.

It's almost so Peter Thiel isn't representative of ordinary voters. That's another conversation. I mean, he's pretty litigious, so I wouldn't go that far, but certainly it does seem... And you know, look, his other candidates were just awful too. Blake Masters, remember him? Yeah. Yeah. Just sticking with the GOP then, you've mentioned how the game has just completely changed, and it has, and it's almost instant.

In terms of the attack lines that the GOP now have to come up with, how drastic of a change in strategy is this going to be campaign-wise now? Because all of it previously was just ageism against Biden, but now they've got the oldest presidential nominee in US history. Ever. Yeah, ever. So, what is the strategy now?

Well, this is this is an incredible series of events that could only be perpetrated by the Trump team and the modern Republican Party because they cannot stop stepping on the rake. So basically, they decided that there was no way that Joe Biden would ever drop out because none of them would ever do something so selfless. Right. Forget it. That's not how it works. I mean, Donald Trump is literally running according to Republican policies.

Congressman, former Congressman Woolherd. He is literally running to pay his legal bills and stay out of jail. Right. I mean, that's what he's running. He isn't going to fuck about American democracy. So what they did was they used their entire convention, five nights of like just crazy media coverage to smear Joe Biden as being too old. Then Joe Biden drops out and.

And all of a sudden they have this woman who is 59 years old. So she's 59 and their candidate is 78. OK, and he's you know, and he's and he's posting pictures of him doing golf. Right. So I don't know. I mean, you know, America is, you know, people vote for a president that they want to be like.

In the past, obviously, we've seen Donald Trump have a lot of bluster and seen him behave like a prick, frankly. But he actually seemed at this point genuinely angry. And is that actually something that they've done with the switch to Harris, which maybe is quite smart in that

he will start to fuck up more when he's actually angry. Because we've seen him, we've seen a lot of like bluster, but he's always in character. Whereas now when I've seen him speak, it's like, no, he's actually pissed off. And when he's actually pissed off, he's even worse at getting his point across and being intelligible sort of thing. Well, it's funny because I watched that speech at the Republican National Convention and I thought...

You know, we had been a lot media people had been sent the first couple pages. You know, there was this lot of media about how this was this new tone. And Trump was now not going to be a complete lunatic. It was this conciliatory tone. And like for the first 10 minutes, I thought, wow.

All right, maybe the guy's not, you know, he's older, he's been shot at, maybe he's not that anymore. And then he just started talking about immigrants poisoning the blood of our country. And I was like, oh, no, that's the guy. And he went on for an hour and a half. So I think the message here after eight years that the mainstream media seems to not be able to process is that Trump can only be Trump.

He can only be Trump. He is always Trump. He is a liar. You can't trust anything the campaign says. You can't trust anything the Trump administration said. They just, he's just Trump. This is who he is.

Speaking of messages, there's been somewhat of a viral campaign from Kamala Harris and her team revolving around, you know, CharlieXCX and having some kind of brat summer. Yeah. There's also this talk of the K-Hive that has cropped up as well that I think you've

you've spoken about. What do you make all of this? And what exactly is the K-Hive? Okay, I can talk about the K-Hive. Brat Summer, I still don't understand. And I don't want to know. I can fill you in on Brat Summer, man. I can fill you in as a long-term CharlieXCX fan. Is she British, by the way? Can she even vote here? Yeah, she's British, CharlieXCX. I don't understand it either entirely why it's transcended. But Brat Summer, I feel like it's just kind of

I don't know, doing your own thing and smoking cigs occasionally and sort of just having a fun time. It's kind of like rejecting the whole wellness trend of stuff and having fun by actually having fun like we used to. Oh, I love that. Rather than drinking five liters of water a day or whatever people tell you to do. Doing cardio. It's kind of the opposite of that. So yeah, I think like...

Karma's apparently got that sort of... Some vibe of just being fun. Yeah. Well, she is fun. She does have that kind of authentic side to her where she does seem like she'll have a laugh. I mean, I've interviewed her a bunch of times and she's fun. She's, like, very fun and she's also...

pretty nice and funny. And, you know, she's like a normal person. And, you know, I don't know. I mean, she's been and she has been in, you know, a G.D.A. second black female senator ever. Right. Because America is so racist. We've only ever had now three black female senators, which is it. Think about how insane that is. Like insane. Yeah.

But so she's, you know, she's had to comport herself the way that Cory Booker has, you know, when you're famous and you're black and you have people attacking you all the time. But she she's pretty nice and funny. I mean, I've always really liked her and thought she was smart as a person. What I would say is I think that the problem is.

you have what Trump is. I mean, I think part of what's happened with Harris, which has been good, is that she's just been ready for the job. You know, like her work doing abortion, talking about abortion. She's been ready for the job. But I think also there's another dynamic at play, which is

A lot of the stuff the Republicans are doing is really targeting women. So abortion, birth control pills, no-fault divorces, IUDs. I mean, they have a real robust plan to return women to the kitchen. And I think that...

And even with J.D. Vance's attack on Kamala Harris, where he says she hasn't had any children, so she's not a real woman. There's a real sense in which the Republican view is this Christian nationalist. Women are, you know, broodmares kind of thing. And the Democratic view is really like women can do anything. They can have jobs. They can be president. And and, you know, like Trump during this speech, this crazy speech, he was like,

I got black jobs back. He was talking about black jobs and right. Black jobs. Like, I mean, the man cannot help not being raised. He cannot help. You know, he's always racist. Whereas she's like, here's a black job president.

You know, and so I do think that it's these very wildly diverging visions for this country. And I think that it's not like Trump could be anything like in 2016. He was a Rorschach. He didn't know. Maybe he's liberal. He was a Democrat. We know what Donald Trump is and we know how Donald Trump will lead. Whereas the Democrats are offering something that I think a lot of people would rather have. Yeah.

And you mentioned abortion there. In terms of Kamala's campaigning, obviously that's something that she, that's part of her ticket and she's strong on that already. But what kind of issues do you think that she is going to try and highlight in the run up to the election and really push on? But also, what do you think that she should probably be best avoiding as well?

So just one thing about abortion, which I think is really interesting. So basically every election since the end of Roe has been a referendum on abortion, like literally every single fucking one. And it's so funny because it's like in 2021, I was like, Texas is about to outlaw abortion with this SB8. And everyone was like, you're crazy. That's not true. And in 2022, I was like,

they're taking this abortion case. I think that they're going to overturn Roe, the Supreme Court. And everyone was like, you're crazy. And then after that, conservative pundits were like, abortion doesn't move votes. It's all baked in. OK, every fucking election has literally been like, you took away our rights over our own bodies.

So I think one of the things that I think she's very good at and Biden was not good at Biden was a is a really religious Catholic. And he even though he was able to show up for it, he had a lot of trouble saying the word abortion, like really a lot. And he did not seem like someone who felt very comfortable with that idea.

And with Harris, she's able to talk about it. She understands that fundamentally abortion is like in all of these red states, abortion isn't about abortion. Abortion is about you're a pregnant woman and you can't get you can't get care in your first trimester because doctors are afraid if you have a miscarriage, they'll go to jail. Like that's what's happening in Louisiana. Like you can't. And then you have gynecologists leaving the states because

because they don't want to go to jail. So you have, you know, something like these huge deserts where you can't get prenatal care, right? I mean, it's just like the unforeseen consequences of Roe are exactly the same as they were in the 50s, right? Doctors afraid to treat, women unable to get medical care. I mean, just craziness. So she's good at that. The thing is that, I mean, the thing that she has to do, she has to thread the needle, is she has to

explain to voters that she is a prosecutor and that she has this crime fighting law and order background, but not alienate the Democratic base by, you know, being too crime fighting. I mean, this is actually a real thing. And then she also has to be able to just engage voters on, you know, like one of the things that right now America's just so

so fucked up in certain ways. And like, you know, the media narrative here is that the border is bad, right? That the southern border is the greatest crisis in America. Okay, it's fucking not. By the way, like border crossings are down this month to like the lowest levels because Biden did this executive order, which ultimately lowered the numbers. And in fact, even before that, Biden had negotiated with the Senate for this very right wing bill that would have

really been crazy and would have ended a lot of like immigration stuff. And the Republicans, Trump told the Republicans to reject it because he didn't have anything to run on. So, you know, the things that she's going to run on are lies about the border and then inflation, which is much better here. And we have wages rising faster than inflation. So and our inflation numbers are good, but we still don't have a rate cut from the Fed. So you can't so people can't buy houses.

because you get a mortgage at 8, 9, 10%. I mean, that's craziness. So that's going to be an issue. But everything else Trump is running on is bullshit. You know, he said, drill, baby, drill. I'm going to be a dictator on day one because drill, baby, drill. We are the largest exporters of natural liquefied gas. The largest. We're like Saudi Arabia now.

Right. I mean, drill, baby, drill, go fuck yourself like there is no drill, baby. Sorry. I mean, there's just no it's all lies. I mean, so, you know, but the mainstream media, especially in America, still frames it like it's all the same. You know, the guy who wants to do authoritarian fascism and the woman who wants to give your kids free breakfast in school, basically the same. So she's got an uphill climb.

Just on a final question and probably an impossible question, one you're going to hate me for. Oh, I love that.

Obviously, there's been polling coming out since Harris has decided to run. I look at polling because I think it's fun. But there's been some polling that puts Harris ahead of Trump. There's some polling that doesn't. It's all over the place at the minute. But in your opinion, you said you've spoken to her, you've met her, you've basically followed her career.

Do you think she has what it takes to beat Trump? Oh, yeah. I mean, look, polling is a blunt object, like a log. I mean, it just doesn't, you can't get the specificity you need, right? You can look at the trend lines, right? And that's something. So what I would say is what she needs to win, and if you look back at the Obama coalition, right, that's what we should look at, the people who, you know, elected Obama. I would say she needs...

So now Democrats don't get non-college educated white voters. That group sort of went to Trump. But Democrats do get college educated white voters. And this sort of the more educated you are, the more you tend to vote for Democrats. And that is really true now. So like there's some statistic, if you read a newspaper, you're 90 percent chance more likely to be a Democrat. Like most people read the newspaper, you know, because they get that because they understand what's not true.

So but if you're so I would say she needs to she needs college educated white people. She needs black voters and she needs like 90 percent of them, maybe more. She needs some Hispanic voters. She needs to cut Trump's margins with Hispanic voters in the Sun Belt. The thing that's exciting, what I've heard from the trail so far is that Georgia is

could really she could deliver Georgia the way Warnock, the Reverend Warnock delivered Georgia. She could deliver Georgia. And if that happens, that's humongous. So I would say because remember with the Biden map, it looked like Georgia was out and maybe North Carolina was possible, but not possible. So I mean, the South, you know, Georgia, Florida, again, Florida is a complicated story. Look,

The one thing I would say is that if you look at these down ballot numbers, these Republicans are not popular.

So the question is, will Trump be able to bring out this electorate that is a low frequency voter again? Right. These people have not come out since 2020. So that's four years ago. And after 2020, you know, a million people in America died of covid because Donald Trump told them to put the light in the body and take ivermectin. Right. So.

I don't know. I mean, if my grandmother died of covid because I mean, I don't know what the sort of the effects of that are like long term. Trump certainly still has his people. They go to his rallies. But the question is, will he be able to turn out those voters? And that's the problem with all the polling right now is like they are trying to.

to gauge a voter that is just very hard to follow. So the answer is, I don't think any of us will know until November 5th or November 6th.

I think one positive thing is that when you were speaking there, you mentioned something been exciting and it felt like it's been quite a long while since I've been able to hear anyone who's Democrat leaning actually say they're excited. Oh, yeah. $250 million. 300,000 new voters. They got 500% increase in volunteers. I mean, this is a movement. This is a movement.

Mollie, it's always a pleasure to have you. Thanks for joining us for American Friction. Thank you.

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So it's always a pleasure to talk to Molly, someone we just love speaking to. And now moving on to someone else who we very, very much love speaking to. It's our very own Nikki. Nikki McCann-Ramirez is back in the room. Nikki, right, we asked Molly, but we can't really not ask you this as well. What do you think about Harris so far? It all seems pretty... Molly said it was exciting. Yeah. People feel excited for once. Yeah, I feel like she's off to a really auspicious start. Yeah.

Obviously, the fundraising numbers have been crackers. Is that British slang? If you're Wallace and Gromit, yeah. Okay, cool. I do love Wallace and Gromit. Who doesn't? But yeah, she, in the first 24 hours after Biden announced he was dropping out, raised like $81 million through ActBlue. That number has now surpassed $100 million.

Her rallies are selling out. The enthusiasm seems to be there. She's gotten some really good pole bumps, which I'm sure Chris will be very excited to talk about. And yeah, it really... Oh, hell yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But yeah, if you've been anywhere online...

in the past couple days and weeks. And obviously, like, the digital landscape isn't the most accurate representation of a politician standing with the public. But it really seems like the Democratic Party has been re-energized. It's really bizarre to see, like, hardcore leftist, progressive, centrist Democrats, kind of like blue dog Democrats, all rallying around a single candidate and agreeing that, oh, yeah, this is a good thing.

So yeah, it feels like she's hit the ground running. Things are going well.

Republicans haven't been able to like figure out what their main attack line is going to be. Obviously, there's already been a lot of racism, sexism. But Harris seems to be she seems to be surfing this wave. With all the online stuff, I mean, part of that, and we've mentioned it already, made a couple of jokes around it, but the whole brat thing, it's been really weird seeing it here in England because it's been talked about in like

quite serious TV shows trying to come up with definitions of brat and what's going on with brat. Is there a bit of a concern that maybe some political analysts are trying to take it all a little bit too seriously? Should we take it a little bit less seriously and wait out a little bit? Yeah, I don't think it's meant to be serious. It's

From like a political standpoint, a really interesting instance of like guerrilla marketing, guerrilla campaigning. It's not something that can be intentionally engineered by a campaign. And I think that's what's so interesting about it, that this is coming from not even necessarily...

die-hard fans of Kamala Harris, but people who are just really excited to have a new candidate and who, for the past, like, three months have been sitting there just, like, soaking up all of the wonder that has been, like, Charli XCX, Chapel Rowan, and Sabrina Carpenter. But...

I think, you know, like in reality, Kamala Harris isn't brat. She's not a party girl who sometimes says dumb things and like likes to dance at clubs and like, she's a politician. She's not the definition of brat. She's not the target of brat girl summer. But what all the brats, all the bratties are doing is sort of like projecting this desire of like giddy,

frivolousness and excitement that we haven't had because the matchup between like Trump and Biden was so fucking depressing and so fucking like, oh my God, we're all doomed that everyone's just excited to have something where we can be like, ah, this is fun and flirty and frivolous. And it doesn't really like,

have a lot of consequences outside of upping Harris's profile and getting young voters who are going to be a critical constituency this election cycle excited about her. Because we've talked about Biden's age and everything, but one of the other problems Biden was having is that young people were not excited about his candidacy. Biden isn't brat. Oh, yeah. But yeah, Biden's definitely not brat. But in the last couple election cycles, Biden

Where Democrats have been really successful is in the, like, states or elections where young voters turn out en masse. So this is just, like, a really nice conflagration of all those things. Yeah.

I really butchered a definition of brat summer to Molly earlier in the episode. So this is from the rcharliexex Reddit page, just to anyone who does want it clarifying. But someone said, to me, a brat summer means not caring about what the haters say, following your heart, buying yourself a treat from the gas station, living in the moment.

So just so you know, that's kind of, that's where we're at with it. And then Urban Dictionary says it's an unapologetic party or messy girl aesthetic for the summer based on the vibes of Charli XCX's new album, Brat. Yeah. So yeah, for anyone who doesn't know, which yeah, maybe Kamala Harris doesn't fall exactly into, but you know, people are saying it and it seems like it's working well. Chris, so let's go back to some more serious stuff.

The fundraising, Nicky mentioned it a little bit. Can you dive a little bit more into the numbers because you are, you're our numbers, man. Yes. And we love you for it. It's, frankly, I'm the most numerically illiterate person probably ever. So it's great that this has become my job. Then why are we putting you in charge of the polls? Honestly, I don't know how it came to this. You're good at it, man. It just happened. Anyway.

Anyway, it's been an expensive summer for politics. As you mentioned earlier, Nikki, that $81 million that was raised by Harris, that was in the first 24 hours after Biden stepped down. We're going to buy so many espresso martinis. Hell yeah. We have to.

but that was pretty impressive by Harris and it kind of shows her popularity as well and what else she's bringing to the fold but then I looked at Open Secrets for the

campaign funding totals, I guess, for the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. Some definitions first. It's split into outside money and also party committee money. So outside money is obviously donations and then, yeah, party committee money is basically what comes from within the Democratic Party or the Republican Party and it's kind of spread across the country.

to where it's needed most. So from July 25th, Harris had raised $294,201,819,000 from party committee money. There's more of this. And $130,955,548...

in outside money. That brings that to a total of $425,157,367. That is fucking mental, to be fair. It's just a really ludicrous amount of money. And then Trump so far has raised $216,857,073 in party committee money and $233,397,788 in

from outside money. That brings it... Are you with me? Okay, yeah. That brings me to a total of $450,254,861. So I forgot the numbers partway through there. Who's got more money? Well...

Trump, although since Harris has joined, there's been a bump. And it looks as though she is raising money at a faster rate than Trump is at the moment. Whether that continues, who knows? I mean, the gist of it is they've both got a shitload of money to play with. But Trump wasted all that money on those nasty ads about Biden. And that's why he's... He needs a refund. Yeah, refund that guy. God, everyone's so hard on Trump. What are you on about?

It's just really funny for a candidate to be like, actually, you should give me that money back. It's not like he paid the money to Joe Biden. It's also incredibly ironic. We mentioned this to Molly earlier that they paid for all of these attack ads that are basically ageism against Biden. Now Biden's dropped out. Trump is now the oldest U.S. presidential nominee in U.S. history. Yeah. So it's just he's really basically done attack ads against himself. Pretty much.

You know, I was being sarcastic with the give him his money back. But come on, give me back. He's got to spend it on. I'm sure. He's got bills to pay. He's got lawsuits to settle. Nikki, going on to Biden then. He gave a bit of a speech, didn't he? Explaining his reasoning and all of that. And it seemed, look, it seemed nice and cool and statesmanlike and whatever, but

But does anyone really care? Does it matter in terms of the race whatsoever at this point? Or was it just a bit like, OK, fair enough. Like, that's nice. But we've kind of forgot about you. We're on to Kamala now. I mean, there was a couple important reasons he needed to give this speech. The first one being...

He needed to reaffirm that he was going to stay in the presidency in sort of the four or five days after he announced he was dropping out of the race. Obviously, he had COVID. He was kind of out of the spotlight. We didn't really see him. So Republicans in that time period kind of seized on the, oh, you can't campaign thing.

That also means you're not able to, like, handle the presidency. You should resign from the presidency. The conspiracy rumors as well. That's the other one. Yeah. There was a lot of rumors that he had died or that he had, like, suffered some catastrophic medical incident and was, like, not actually able to govern, which is, like, secondary. But I think the biggest one was him coming out and saying, like, I'm going to focus the next six months of my life on finishing my term and continuing, you know, the Democratic project as president.

And then I think people did need to hear sort of face-to-face through the television from him.

that he was leaving the campaign, that it was his decision. Obviously, they announced it on social media across, like, all his social media accounts. And that also led to some conspiracy theories. They weren't super... They didn't gain that much traction, but that someone had just, like, pulled the trigger and posted the statement and, like, kind of forced his hand. Not the case. I think he wanted to make it clear that this was a decision he had made. And as we talked about in the emergency episode on Sunday, I think...

He really wanted to take control of the narrative that this was a decision that he had made for the good of the country, that he had put his family

Fears about the threat to democracy and all his beliefs about the longevity of the principles of America and democracy and like self-governance, which he talked about in the speech above his own political ambitions. I think for Biden, the speech was also about solidifying the legacy because he.

I mean, if you think about, like, instances where presidents have resigned or given a speech like this, there's, like, Lyndon B. Johnson when he said he wasn't going to run for another term, and there's Nixon when he resigned after the Watergate scandal. And obviously, if you're, like, a political junkie and you're into these things, you've read, like, all the president's men and you know, like, all the chaos that took place between when the scandal broke and when Nixon resigned. But in the public consciousness—

The thing that is like really the emblem of that period is the Nixon resignation speech. I actually have a copy of it on vinyl. It's one of my little treasures. But these sorts of speeches are historic.

They go into the presidential record. They are some of the like Oval Office speeches in general are some of the defining addresses that presidents give to the nation. They like kind of stand above all the press conference and like the little gaggles you do with reporters. So I think it was important for Biden not just to put out a written statement, but to put out a recording, something in his voice where he laid out his reasoning and really said,

gave a more personal address to the American public than just like a screenshot of a PDF that they put on Twitter.

Is it also kind of important for Harris as well, him presenting an image of himself to the nation, which makes sure he maintains a level of respect from people? We kind of mentioned with Molly that one of the attack lines towards Harris might be, well, you supported this guy all the way through right up until when you didn't. So I suppose he does also need to show that he's a worthwhile, viable president in all sorts of ways, because...

it helps to somewhat shut down that attack line towards Harris, doesn't it? Yeah, absolutely. One of the big things here is Harris now needs to be able to focus on campaigning

there really can't be a question about her having to split her attention between like campaigning and running the country because Joe Biden is like unable to. So yeah, you're correct. I think that's also a huge part of this. And I will point out for our listeners, one little interesting tidbit is Biden, it wasn't like so much of a risk, but it was an interesting decision. Presidents are not allowed to campaign publicly.

From, like, the White House and the Oval Office. It's considered incredibly bad form. It's, like, a whole thing about, like, you could potentially violate the Hatch Act or something like that. But Biden saying that he had made his position clear on his succession and sort of reaffirming his feelings about Kamala Harris and saying that she's, like, an incredibly capable vice president, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That was an interesting choice because...

It towed the line of what a president is allowed to say from the Oval Office. But I don't think he could have gotten through that speech without...

sort of giving the nod to Harris again and saying she is capable. She can do it. I'm going to focus on this. She's going to focus on that. Breaking the rules in the White House. Maybe Biden is a little bit brat after all. Well, he didn't break the rules. He just like went up to the line and was like, mm. Exactly. Party girl Biden. That's pretty bratty to me. Yeah, yeah. That's cool. Moving on to a Trump tangent then now. Let's...

It's been kind of nice not constantly focusing on Trump, hasn't it? And now we've got to drag it back because he's still in the fucking race. On that, though, I suppose, Nicky, is the weird issue for Trump right now. He's basically never struggled to get attention, has he? And for the first time ever, it feels like he is. It's just like people like, yeah, you're kind of boring. Like your shit's old. We've got something new. I don't fucking care about you saying your shit that you've said forever.

It's kind of wild that he was almost killed 14 days ago and it's just been like completely forgotten.

Yeah, just like no one seems to be speaking about something, which at the time, and rightfully, it will be a massive historical moment in years to come. But at this point, it just feels like the cycle, particularly online, is just, yeah, that happened. And, you know, now Harris is here. Yeah, no, I've been covering US politics in some way, shape or form for about five, almost six years now.

I don't remember a crazier month. No. But yeah, I think Trump and Republicans are like really struggling to get a toehold into this news cycle because obviously like Trump...

has started trying to attack Harris at campaign rallies, lying Kamala, laughing Kamala. It hasn't really stuck. We've obviously seen racist attacks against her, people calling her like a DEI vice president, a lot of really sexist jokes about like her dating history and things like that. And really all it has done is engineer backlash. The comment from J.D. Vance that resurfaced from...

I want to say like 2021, it was an old interview with Tucker Carlson when Tucker Carlson was still on Fox News, where J.D. Vance points to like Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, a couple other Democratic lawmakers and says that, you know, Democrats, that party is run by like childless cat ladies who like don't care about the country. That has drawn immense backlash from.

From people arguing that, like, it's a very silly position for Republicans to take that only people who have children should have a voice in this democracy. Especially because, like, Kamala Harris has stepchildren. Yeah, exactly. Discounting that just feels so disrespectful. Yeah. As someone who's got multiple step-siblings and a step-mom, it's just like, yeah, that's my family. Yeah, but also, like, there's people who...

can't have children for biological reasons. On that, I looked at the CDC and the statistics for Americas that the percentage of women aged 15 to 49 who have impaired fecundity is 13.4%. So that's not a small amount of people that he's now vilified for something that is very much out of their control. He's hated by so many more people than he could have been. Yeah, it's weird to find someone who it seems like is actually more hateable than Trump. Yeah.

But also think about how reproductive issues are such a central topic in this election cycle. The idea that like Republicans want to control women's ability to decide when they have children, how they have children, because they're also attacking IVF in some states, like birth control, all those things.

And then to turn around and say that if you don't have kids, you're not a full citizen of this country. It's an insane pitch to make to voters. It's just like, like, are you trying to fucking lose? But that's kind of been the vibe that like all the attacks they've leveled against Harris in the first couple of days of her candidacy were

have sort of just exposed how, like, hateful and divisive a lot of the Republican Party's messaging has been. Like, the idea that she's a DEI vice president, like, the idea that, like, she didn't get to her position on merit. She won multiple elections in California. She won the vice presidency running on the ticket with Joe Biden.

The idea that like the millions and millions of people who voted for her don't count. That's also been something that people are like, what the fuck is wrong with y'all? It really shifts the tone of the insults, doesn't it? Because when he was doing this sort of shit against Joe Biden, it just kind of felt like, OK, well, it's it's two old guys slogging it out and being kind of mean to each other. And it feels silly and it just felt stupid. Whereas now you look at it and you just think.

You're really horrible. It's like a reminder of Trump that it's like he's not just amusing and say stupid things about people and cause them sleepy. He's just really horrible to people on a on a personal level. And there's no line there for him. And this is quite interesting to see how that switch is completely exposed. It's easy to forget that Trump was one of the biggest mouthpieces of.

for the Obama birther conspiracies when Obama was like running for election and reelection. And, you know, against Joe Biden, he was running against a white guy. But I am not excited to see how his attacks on Harris are going to evolve because she is a black woman. He like, you know, there's like recordings from when he was on The Apprentice of him, like saying the N-word to people.

Like, I think it's going to get really ugly really quickly and not just from Trump, but from a lot of other Republicans. For sure. Well, this narrative around saying, oh, being shot at might calm him down doesn't seem to have checked out whatsoever. So I unfortunately think that his lines failing aren't going to make him think, hey, maybe I should shift. He'll just double down because that dude just doubles down on shit constantly. So last night.

Or yesterday afternoon at a rally, Trump says, quote, you know, I was supposed to be nice. They say something happened to me when I got shot. I became nice. If you don't mind, I'm going to not be nice. Is that OK? Like, yeah, he's over it. He's over it. He like does not give a shit.

Is it okay if I'm not nice? That's such a stupid question in every way. Chris, a serious thing to mention on the whole shooting thing. Yeah, let's take the tone. Yeah. Serious time. Serious time. The Secret Service boss who was in charge of all sorts of safety regulations, I suppose, when Trump was shot at.

They've quit, haven't they? What's gone on? Why have they quit? And how's this going to affect things? Because there's also the suggestion that rallies might have to change, in-person rallies might have to change. Yeah, Kimberly Cheesle, the director of the Secret Service, was facing all kinds of questions. She was facing calls to step down from pretty much everyone. And she now has. She's resigned for the reason I think we all know. She fucked it up.

And a former president, whether you like him or not, was inches away from being killed. So yeah, she stepped down. And something that was actually really interesting that was brought up during the questioning was from AOC, who everyone knows who she is.

It's Alexandro Casio Cortes. Yeah, nice. Perfect. Rep from New York. Yes, yes, that's right. Can I get on with my point now, please? She brought up the fact that the inner perimeter, which the Secret Service was in charge of, was shoddy.

shorter than the range of an AR-15, which is what Crooks is alleged to have used in the shooting, which is actually a pretty popular assault rifle that's been used in mass shootings. For example...

there was a study from the Northeastern University mass killing database in 2023 that showed that an AR-15 was used in 10 out of 17 mass shootings that included an assault rifle. So this seems like a pretty mad thing to overlook. So there's a failing there. That I thought was really interesting, quite revealing. But you're right on the rallies as well. It looks as though Trump is now going to be pulling out of doing outdoings.

door rallies, which he's been doing pretty much tens, if not hundreds of, and that's attracted massive crowds. This is on advice from the Secret Service. So he's now going to be doing more indoor events like basketball stadiums. But that means smaller crowds and that is potentially going to be more expensive to cover.

as well. It's more visible when seats are empty too in those sort of things. Yeah, that's right. And we have seen stuff like, for example, I remember last time out, there was that whole TikTok campaign to buy up seats to his rallies, indoor rallies, where people were just getting the free tickets and then not turning up.

Nikki, another thing about Trump, but again, something that I don't know why people are necessarily taking it so seriously. The Guardian wrote a piece about this in which they said we shouldn't take this so seriously. Trump keeps talking about Hannibal Lecter.

Do we know at all why he's talking about Hannibal Lecter? Other than it feels to me like he is just quite obviously trying to fuck with us and people like us to go, why is he talking about Hannibal Lecter? So there was this chick on TikTok who I think had the best explanation for it. What she proposed was, you know, Trump does like the weird word association thing.

The Hannibal Lecter comment always comes up when he's talking about immigration and asylum seekers. I saw this. So her theory is that he's kind of doing a mental thing, conflating asylum seekers.

as in like the political process through which you request emergency admittance into a country with like the concept of an insane asylum. Because he says all the time that like Venezuela and other countries are like emptying out their insane asylums and sending those migrants to the United States. So it's like political asylum, insane asylum. Oh, Hannibal Lecter, who escaped from an insane asylum. Or,

That or he's just like a really big fan of Silence of the Lambs. Yeah, I think he's just fucking around because he knows we'll talk about it. And you've got to give it to him. It's...

Pretty funny that people are actually having to talk about this. Hannibal Lecter. We don't have to, but we just are. Yeah, yeah, we chose to. We like to keep our listeners informed. Exactly. So look, if anyone's telling you that people talking about Hannibal Lecter matters very much, probably doesn't. Trump's a wanker and he says stupid stuff. The end. Line drawn. Another silly thing, though, while we're on it, J.D. Vance and couches.

JD fans and couches. And this is like the world's worst case of fact checking. It's the sort of thing where it's like, don't fact check this. Just let us have it. Not everybody fucking knows about it. I mean, so...

Well, I'm saying couches because that's what the Americans are saying. But yeah, so for settees. Settees, yeah. I'd say settee. Yeah, that's pretty cool, man. Yeah, yeah. Have you ever heard settee? Yeah, in like fancy old-timey books. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what they say. That's what they say. Oh, north. Where I'm from. In north of England. Anyway, so J.D. Vance.

And couches, what's going on there? And is it just another case of this fucking guy is just a dead weight on Trump's campaign? Okay, here's what's going on. J.D. Vance gets announced as Trump's VP pick. Kamala Harris replaces Biden, presumably replaces Biden. And someone on Twitter started this rumor that in Vance's book, Hillbilly Elegy,

He had described putting his little Vance in a latex glove and fucking two couch cushions. It's not true. But. No. No, no, no. Here's the thing.

It's not true that he wrote that in the book. We do not know that J.D. Vance has never had sex with a couch. It's one of those you cannot disprove a negative, but I'm just going to roll with it. I'm just going to roll with it. But in my view, it's incredibly funny. Like, I just picture J.D. Vance scrolling through Twitter, watching everyone having like a brat hot girl summer moment over Kamala Harris.

And then calling him a couch fucker. Just as a heads up here that I've just seen, the AP removed its fact check on this. The Verge is just reporting. Yeah. Like then they're saying we're looking into how that happened. They've taken this down because it was just really stupid. And friend of the podcast who I like to reference because he's a fellow Jay Jarvis. Jeff Jarvis was also like, how have they got time to fact check this? But, you know, Trump can just say anything he likes all the time.

Just because. The memes have been great. The thing is, the memes have been great. Do Brits use the term sectional? Sectional, no. I don't think so. So a sectional is one of those couches that has sort of like the longer area on one end where you can lay down on. Corner sofa. Yeah, okay, corner sofa. But in the US, we call it a sectional. So someone quote tweets one of the fact checks about Vance being a couch fucker.

and says, I did not have sectional relations with that couch. Like the Clintons. That's pretty good, that. I give them that. Well, it's just AP have taken it so seriously. So their assessment, AP's assessment, false. Vance does not write about performing such an act in his bestselling book. A searchable PDF of the memoir includes 10 mentions of the word couch or couches, none of which are related to accounts of salacious escapades.

Look, what a man does to his couch is between him and God and the upholstery. Yeah. Or whoever he tries to sell it on Gumtree to next. That's a big concern. Someone might have bought the couch. He can just, he can just, he, like, I saw another one that was like, he can just say those stains were Mountain Dew. His Mountain Dew. Chris, anything to say on this? Nah, I'm going to leave it, actually, I think. Yeah.

Just before we end then, let's take a look at some of the polls with Chris and the numbers and all of that stuff because he loves it. Chris, what polling has stood out to you? We're off to Emerson College polling again. I know. Let's get in the car. I'm in the car. Vroom, vroom.

Very good. Yeah. Incredible. Anyway, polling. They've looked at five swing states now that Harris has taken the wheel. Yeah. Instead of Biden. Thanks for that. Those states are Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Georgia. And they found that support for the Democratic Party has improved in all five of those states since the switch.

Trump does lead in four of them, though, but one is tied 47% to, well, 47%, and that's in Wisconsin. But also what is worth pointing out is that in all apart from Arizona, these results fall within the survey's margin of error. So it's really quite fair to say that those are potentially tied rather than, you know, Harris being on the losing end and Trump being ahead. So I thought that was really interesting that

We've basically seen an uptick in democratic support since Harris took the wheel. Yeah, well, you know, it feels strange because it...

We said with Molly that it's too early to look at it and make a prediction. But the one prediction it does feel like is that she's given Democrats a chance. And also, if there's one thing that you can be certain of, it's that brats get their own way. That's right. That's right. And that brings us to the end of American Friction. Nikki, thank you so much, mate. Thank you, boys. Chris, thank you. Thanks, Jov.

And an even bigger thanks to you, listeners. No, thank you as well, Gerv. Thank you very much. Thanks for everything. That's all right, mate. And I will thank you, listeners. If you want more from us, we're out with a new episode every Friday early afternoon if you're in the UK and in the morning if you're stateside. You can also follow us on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok. Our name on each platform is at American Frick. And a quick reminder, a favour, if you will. If you enjoy what we're doing, please do rate and review the show.

wherever you're listening to it, on whatever podcast platform it might be. Go down there, give us five stars because we love you and we hope you love us too. You've been listening to American Friction. See you next week. American Friction was written and presented by Chris Jones, Jacob Jarvis and Nicky McCann-Ramirez.

Audio production was by me, Simon Williams. The group editor was Andrew Harrison and the executive producer was Martin Boitosch. Artwork was by James Parrott and music was by Orange Factory Music. American Friction is a Podmasters production.

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