Why calling Trump and JD Vance “weird” works – plus, where the election will be won
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Hello and welcome to American Friction, the weekly US politics podcast 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.

And about who's being really weird in the really weird world of American politics. Lots of them, isn't the job? Yeah, there is. And helping to guide us through the oddities is Rolling Stone magazine politics reporter Nikki McCann-Ramirez. Hello, Nikki. Hello. Hello.

What's the weirdest thing you've seen in American politics this week? Oh, God. Probably Republicans. The 180 they've done from attacking Kamala Harris as being a DEI candidate to being like, no, actually, she's not black. She's lying. It's racist. It's bizarre. It's awful. But last week's weirdness was more fun with the whole couch fucker saga. This one has just been depressing.

Yeah. Well, in this episode, we're going to be discussing the new Harris campaign tactic of calling everything weird. Is it smart or also a little bit weird in and of itself? And to do this, we are joined by viral TikTok multimedia politics sensation who hates Tucker Carlson maybe more than anyone else in the world. It's Mother Jones' Katz Abugazale. Hey, Kat. How are you? I am great. Thank you for having me on. And also, what a title. Thank you. Yeah.

Yeah, you know, I thought we like to big everyone up on this podcast. A quick question for you first, the initial one. Who's weirder then, in your opinion, Donald Trump or J.D. Vance? If you asked me this two days ago, I would have said J.D. Vance. But after watching the National Association of Black Journalists host Donald Trump, I think this week he takes over. Yeah, he really did. He did.

He did seal it. Well, we're going to get into all of that. Plus, Nicky, Chris and I will be giving you a deep dive on the geography of the election, discussing not just how it's going to be won, but exactly where it's going to be won. And we'll do our usual roundup of the other news too. Welcome back. You're listening to American Friction.

Kamala Harris has successfully re-energized the Democratic presidential campaign. There hasn't been a monumental shift in the polls just yet, but there has been a total change in the tone from the campaign. Yeah, this has largely amounted to essentially just calling J.D. Vance and Donald Trump weird, which, you know, we can debate the ethics of calling people weird or not. I like quite a lot of weird people and consider myself among weird people. But...

It is proving quite an effective way to describe those two unsavory characters, I suppose. Nikki, is that the point basically then? This is purely a case of wanting to cut through and it's also the Dems ditching their hang-ups of what might be the most politically correct way, I suppose, of insulting their opponents and just going, right, we're going to sum this up, get to the point, they're fucking weird, don't vote for them.

I mean, I don't even think it's that politically incorrect. So for a long time, the Democrats had this like concept. It was popularized by Michelle Obama of like, they go low, we go high. Like we don't sink to their level.

I don't think there's really a way for Democrats to sink to the levels of just like sheer depravity that Republicans sink to on a day-to-day basis. So I don't even think this qualifies as being that mean. Kat and I used to work together at Media Matters for America. And for years, our former boss, Andrew Lawrence, had this like running take of

That if Democrats just focused on making fun of how cartoonishly villainous Republicans were and making them feel embarrassed about it instead of letting them steer the conversation whichever way they wanted, Democrats would retake the advantage. And I think these people are weird, but of course it isn't the policy meat of the campaign, but it is cutting through. We talked a lot about Biden's inability to be an effective messenger for the campaign.

And while Harris and her team right now are really in early days, they had to hit the ground running. They're testing out their early strategy on immigration and the economy and blah, blah, blah. They're not just sitting back on their hands. They're using a very simple, straightforward messaging tactic that everyone can understand. Everyone knows what fucking weirdos look like.

to generate widespread, arguably like memeable lines of attack in the first week of a surprise campaign. And I think it's being incredibly effective because it's not racist. It's not sexist. It's not xenophobic. It's not the lines of attack that Republicans are using on a day-to-day basis against Harris and other Democrats. But it is cutting through and exposing them for the kind of people that they are.

I agree with you. I was just playing devil's advocate on the meanness of it. And as well, I've got to be in the middle. I'm sure we've got loads of Donald Trump supporting listeners. Yeah, I'm sure that's the majority of our base. Yeah, they've completely lost themselves as to why they're listening. But you never know. You never know. We've got to be straight down the middle and all that. Kat, you are very much in the online space. Yes. Does this seem then just obvious in that context, going to this line, going for it? It's a one word conversation.

screw those guys line just feels like the the obvious route one way to go oh 100 i mean like nikki said we used to work together and watching fox news is honestly it's weird they're weird i don't know if y'all have any interest in watching a one minute compilation of tucker carlson from one night that i put together but like the meltdowns they have

are they're fucking nuts. I don't understand why it's taken them so long to do this. Because online, it's going like wildfire. Everyone knows like Nikki said, everyone knows what a weirdo looks like. No one wants to be one. And this is not weird, like, oh, you're so quirky. You you know, listen to an urban outfitters record player in 2014. This is weird. Like, you want to know when women menstruate. That's, that's fucking weird.

No one wants that. It's weird. Like I'm upset that the green M&M is no longer a sex goddess. Like that kind of weird. It's weird. Like melting down over a trans person, drinking a Bud Light for over a year, like still talking about it over a year later. Yeah. And so, yeah, I think, I think it's working because it's, it's so divorced from what normal people feel like and what normal people think and their priorities are.

Who cares about the green M&M? What average American is like, yeah, we do need to destroy the Department of Education? That's insane. Yeah.

Well, on this and the whole weird line and that side of things, how has the online right responded to this in a very measured way, I imagine? Oh, yeah, super, super measured, super normal. They're definitely taking it well. No, they have immediately started crying and whining and throwing up and pooping their pants, which is, you know, what you would expect. They've spent the last four years calling Democrats and especially queer people pedophiles and groomers.

And now that they're being called weird, they're like, that's not fair. You can't do that. You're being a bully. Like multiple people called me...

me this week, which is surprising. Why didn't you call me that before? This is exactly what I've been saying for four years. It's just they someone said, weird is the N word for independent thinkers, which is just an all time tweet. Vivek Ramaswamy kept talking about how this was, you know, bullying. And JD Vance kept trying to, like,

like swing back and be like, no, they're the weird ones. One of the most popular things was getting pictures of like, you know, a trans couple at their wedding or Pete Buttigieg, who was our secretary of transportation with his husband and their two children and posting those pictures and be like, who's really the weird ones?

And it's still them. And then Jesse Waters goes on TV and demands, like, proof that J.D. Vance fucked a couch. It's like, dude, it's a meme. Everyone knows it's true. Why are you asking for evidence? It's like when Sean Hannity would do this with the, you know, quote unquote, pee tape. And it's like, sir, why are you, why do you keep bringing it up? That's the last thing Trump wants you to do. Is it a kind of Streisand effect sort of thing here as well then that's been quite smart of using it because...

It's like the J.D. Vance couch thing is that that had to be fact checked. And you think, oh, just making him deny that is very unfortunate. And that's the same with the weird line. It's like, OK, prove to me you're not weird. And then by getting so incredibly frustrated, it does feel a little bit like, I don't know, if you were ever bullied at school, your parents probably told you to ignore it. And the Republicans are they've been minorly bullied, but

And they can't ignore it. They have a meltdown and everyone's going, okay, well, we were kind of right, weren't we? And like, the thing is, it's not just someone liking anime and then the other kids are like, you're weird. It's someone being like, like I said, wanting to know, you know, when women are menstruating, wanting to sue women for having abortions, wanting to get rid of free weather reports and accurately labeling that as weird. It's just one word. And they can't even take it. They're the definition of like, you can dish it out, but you

Absolutely can't take it. I also think it's a good alternative to this notion, which I think does hold some truth that,

People have been hearing about how, like, awful Republicans are in terms of, like, the racism, the sexism, all that for years now. And a lot of times it kind of feels like Democrats sound like a broken record where, like, they haven't switched the messaging strategy. The people who have heard the message have heard the message and the people who are like, whatever, I don't give a shit are already in that camp. So you do need something different.

to kind of make Republicans react because they've learned to shrug off attacks calling them like racist authoritarians. They don't give a shit. They embrace it. And what bonds us all better than ruthlessly making fun of shitty ideas? Like that's such a, you know, teamwork moment. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it's made me quite happy to see, you know, Americans being a little bit mean and sarcastic online. I'm like, okay, that's bonding. That's bringing Britain and America closer together, forging those bonds there. Kat, on the online side of things then, taking it away from this, Kamala Harris more generally, what have you made to her online campaigning so far? I think it's been brilliant. I think it's... And by brilliant, I mean...

She's doing what you should do. Democrats in the U.S. are really good at having every opportunity to win and then somehow still screwing it up because of, you know, these invisible ideas of, you know, democracy.

decorum or what you should do in the 90s in politics, you know, shit's updated. So when she made her header, you know, the brat album with her campaign ads, they've been great. The way that they've been interacting. I've always said our politicians should curse more and the way that she is not just in person, but also in emails makes her feel more relatable. It's like a complete 180 from the constant fear mongering, which was just

I mean, Donald Trump, Project 2025, Agenda 47, those are scary things. But when you're told how scary something is over and over and over again, it's like, okay, what am I voting for besides to...

not be thrown in a gulag, which like I don't want that to happen. But it's like you need to have something else to really get me excited. And I think Kamala Harris's campaign, I think that you have more Gen Z people working on it. Some that I know like that are actually Gen Z that wouldn't have worked on the Biden campaign. And so that's really exciting. Do you think they can sustain this energy that's been going on? For example, things like the whole Brat Summer thing did feel quite organic, right?

it's still quite a long way to the election. And we see how things far out from the election can be forgotten about. For example, we're not talking about Donald Trump being shot at at all anymore whatsoever. And these moments can just really be in the past. And one thing I do think maybe with Harris, there's been this groundswell and there's been a lot of energy. Can they keep that going when that's come from maybe almost external sources? Yeah.

Yeah, you know, there's always going to be dips and hills and campaigns. There's no way to constantly keep an energy for 100 days. But I do think if they keep this strategy, if they keep rolling with the punches rather than doing some prefabricated strategy or trying to stick to a map that maybe wasn't working in the first place, I think that they have a good chance of continuing this. I think Kamala Harris also has the benefit of, you know, she's

very tech savvy. She actually pays attention to things. Yeah, she's one of the only people in Congress that uses wired headphones because she...

knows about the tech risk of using Bluetooth headphones, which is kind of interesting. If you see pictures of her, she'll always have wired earbuds in. So she pays attention to things. And I think that that helps her be more in on the joke than say Hillary Clinton telling everyone to Pokemon Go to the polls, because there's like a difference between cringe and like kind of fun, kind of camp, you know? And I think that she can definitely, she's like the flip side.

of Hillary Clinton. Pokemon go to the polls is so shit. I love it. Yeah, I have to love it. If Kamala Harris said that in like a really fun way, I think honestly, a lot of people on Twitter would be like, she ate. Not gonna lie, she ate.

Well, allow me to bring the mood down. God damn it, Chris. Yeah, that's just what I do. Trump at the National Association of Black Journalists. We all saw it, didn't we? We all saw it. Nikki, just sum it up for us. I mean, it's hard to say what was the worst part about it without saying the whole thing, but what was the worst part about it? It was...

Such a fucking shit show. And I've seen a lot of like criticism online that the Association of Black Journalists shouldn't have invited him, blah, blah, blah. No, those are journalists. It's their job to ask questions to people in power. And I think the biggest takeaway of like why I think it ultimately was a good call to have him was because he absolutely fucking imploded. The man cannot handle difficult questions. Right.

And there was a lot in there that was false, rude, like petulant and childish. But I think the biggest thing that came out of that and that now has been taken up by like Republican media, Republican politics at large is.

Is Trump accusing Harris of like falsely adopting blackness as her identity? Harris, for listeners who don't know, her mother is of Indian descent. Her father is black and of Jamaican descent. She is black.

mixed race. She is, I think, biracial is the correct term. She was the first Southern Asian senator elected into Congress. She was not the first Black female senator elected to Congress. So people are making a big stink about how like, oh, when she got elected, she was marketing herself as Indian. It's like, no,

she achieved something very notable in becoming like the first Southern Asian senator elected into Congress. And it was newsworthy. And I don't think she's ever made qualms about like, oh, I have to pick a side. I have to like pick one identity. She's multicultural and like, that's okay. And it's,

It's insane to watch Republicans encounter like a multiracial person and just be like, no, no, no, that's not allowed. You have to pick a side. And so Trump was basically like, I think the quote was, I didn't know that she was black until a couple of years ago. Like, I thought she was Indian and then she decided to be black. She turned. She turned black. He said it like he repeated it several times.

Yeah. I mean, Nikki, I'm going to pull you up slightly on something you said there. You said that Trump wasn't very good at answering difficult questions. I don't think the question that was asked of him that prompted this particular answer was very difficult. Ultimately, I mean, doesn't this just highlight

how bad of a media performer he is. I think he's been getting away lightly because he's a bit funny sometimes and that, you know, goes viral when people pick it up. Sharks versus electricity. Yeah. But does this example that we've seen over the past 24 hours just highlight how bad of a media performer he actually is?

Yeah, and I think Kat can also speak to this, but we've talked about it. I think we talked about it in the aftermath of the debate as well, where Biden just like imploding on stage also overshadowed the fact that Trump did not have a good debate. He's not good when he's in front of an audience that isn't just a bunch of sycophants who are willing to lick his boots and just like applaud him for whatever he says. Yeah.

That's why he doesn't really sit down for interviews with networks that aren't like One America News or Fox News. He, similarly to like Biden having this sort of really insulated campaign that was very calculated about what they allowed Biden to do, Trump is not at that level. But he fully has like a roster of friendly journalists who make up the majority of his appearances. He doesn't really ever appear biased.

before someone who's willing to press him on issues. Whereas, by contrast, Biden, for all his faults in the aftermath of the debate, did sit down for multiple interviews with journalists who asked him, like, really difficult questions about the future of his campaign, his ability to stay in office. And the results of those interviews were mixed. I don't think Biden gave the performance that anyone wanted him to give. Clearly, he's no longer the candidate. But he did it. And Trump, when he accused Kamala Harris of faking her background...

He had been asked about the attacks against her, accusing her of being like a DEI candidate, blah, blah, blah. But before that, the opening question was like, hey, you've said a lot of really racist things about Black people. How do you convince Black people that they should vote for you? And he just had a fucking meltdown. Anyway, Kat has been watching a lot of Trump's like media appearances. I'd love to have your take on this. I think the first thing is I want to talk about

this biracial narrative because it's absolutely fascinating considering that Barack Obama was half Black. He was half Black and half White, but they only saw him as Black.

You have so many people that are biracial. I mean, like, I'm half Palestinian and Nazis online have no problem talking about that. The fact that they're trying to, like, pick and choose on something, like, they don't understand what biracial people are or that, like, you aren't Black if there's another race there is fascinating. It is...

in real time trying to adjust this narrative of racism in completely inexplicable ways. This has been such an insane month of politics.

And it's one of those, for like the last four years, I've been like, oh God, stop having us live through, you know, unprecedented times. I don't want to live through this historical moment anymore. But this one's kind of fascinating from an analytical level, especially if we're, you know, covering it. So that's one thing about the National Association of Black Journalists. But like Nikki said, like his appearances have been at rallies. And I'm honestly floored that his campaign let him do this. Fox News was also floored. They were like, I don't know why.

why he would go to this. I'm not sure if it was a good idea, honestly, for the NABJ, in my opinion, just because there wasn't... As much as you try to fact-check Trump in real time, you just can't because he is a steamroller and you could be platforming his lies. And I don't know what the goal was to just have him make a fool of himself on stage. If that was the goal, it would be different. But yeah, so it's just...

His media appearances have been only with friendly networks, only with friendly reporters. And after January 6th, he started to get kind of depressed. And he wasn't the same old Trump. And for like a year or two, it wasn't the same old Trump. He was more careful in what he said. But yesterday, he sounded like a caricature of himself. It was insane. It sounded like someone doing a Trump impression. Yeah.

Is this also maybe an example of when you have a lot of sycophants around you and they're who you constantly pander to, they actually do start to harm you in terms of adjusting the narrative. So I'm pushing back on the weird thing. It starts to make you look weird. Then in terms of

talking around race in this way and him being told that the way he's talking about race is problematic, and then people using words like marketing in terms of how Kamala Harris is using her race. And you think, well, here are the words you're saying. And that's kind of probably examples you're like, the problems when the right wing is saying that like, oh, she's using it in this sort of way.

He's surrounded maybe by too many people who are just telling him he's right, isn't it? Now he's just hit to a point of exposure where it's not just that he's bad at answering questions. The people who are meant to be supporting him are starting to put him in this fucking doom spiral, which is making him look even worse and worse and worse and worse. Right, and it's the same thing with JD Vance. If you're only posting on 4chan all day, if you do nothing but hang out on 4chan all day long,

You will not be able to interact with people in a normal way. You will think those things are normal. You know, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, Trump's children, were the ones that convinced him to pick J.D. Vance. And they're both incredibly online. They're in all of these right wing rabbit holes and on these far right sites like Rumble and

If you are doing that all the time, you read those ideas, you read about, you know, fucking skull sizes. The average American is not thinking about the size of someone's skull. They have no opinions on the different sizes of people's skull. And so if you're coming forward and that's like a priority for you, even if it's like in the top 20 and you just bring that up, people are going to be like,

People are going to look at you like, what the fuck are you talking about? Yeah. But also, I think a thing to point out here in terms of J.D. Vance, his wife is of Indian descent. His children are mixed race. And to watch Republicans just dive in on these attacks and J.D. Vance have to sit there.

And sort of take it on the chin, not respond, not come out against Trump and say anything at the expense of his own family. I'm just like, what the fuck are you people doing? And did y'all see the J.D. Vance quote about her where he was talking to Megyn Kelly, who used to work for Fox and

And Megyn Kelly asked about white supremacists attacking J.D. Vance for having an Indian wife. He met his wife when they were both at Yale. They've been married for a long time. This is before J.D. Vance had his whole transformation into what he is now. And here's what he said. Look, I love my wife so much. I love her because she's who she is. Obviously, she's not a white person. And we've been attacked by some white supremacists over that. But I just I love Usha.

What? What? Yeah. It's just, I don't know. It reminds me almost a little bit of when Ted Cruz just put up with Donald Trump calling his wife ugly and saying horrible shit about her, but also a thousand times fucking worse. Yeah. I actually asked my dad. I was like, how would you have felt if my mom said that after 9-11, where she was like, you know...

Look, obviously he's Arab, but you know, I love him. I love him very much. He's been accused of being Arab, but I love him. And he was like, that would feel like shit. Who would do that to their spouse, the mother of their children? And he's using his biracial children as props. It's disgusting. Yeah, it's disgusting and weird. It's weird to not love your wife, y'all.

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As we say time and time again, American politics is incredibly confusing. Chris, I often find you to be a little bit bamboozled. Yeah, that's me. But you know, you do your best. I do. But don't worry, we've got the answers. We've got some very specific answers to questions here. Today, we're going to talk about not just how the election is going to be won, but what

where the election will be won. The geography of the whole thing, pretty much. So Nikki, the Electoral College, I think it seems a little bit silly and a little bit confusing, but explain to me very quickly how it works and then the states which have the most sway in the election because of that. Okay, so the Electoral College is the process through which the states formally elect the American president because the American president is not elected through a straight popular vote.

Each state gets a certain number of electoral college votes based off the number of representatives they have in Congress, plus their two senators. So these votes are then distributed to the candidates based on who wins each state. And you need 270 electoral college votes to win the election.

So to the second part of your question, the states with the most votes are, I think, California for sure. California is number one, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio. And there's like a bunch of other states that have a vote count like in the teens. But those would be the biggest. Yeah.

So are they kind of the most important or because they're often priced in, do they become less important even if they're really big states? Because some of them you just kind of know which way they're going to lean. Well, that's kind of why the American election is really sort of like a math-based institution when candidates campaign.

They're not necessarily distributing their resources evenly across every state. You'll have states that are like absolutely going to go one direction. Like, for example, California, which I think has 54 electoral college votes, also has

almost invariably goes blue. If it went Republican, it would be like the shock of the century. Same thing with New York. New York invariably goes like Democratic. There is some talk that Republicans are making headway in New York, but it's still not really on the table for them.

And, conversely, on the Republican side, there's absolutely states that are invariably going to go Republican, mostly, like, the really rural states and the stuff in, like, the deep South former Confederacy. But...

You know sort of which states you're definitely going to win. And then the concept of the swing state is, okay, it's those states that could go either way. It's the states where the margin between Republicans and Democrats, like voters, is so thin that it could be just a couple percentage points and you want to make sure you're swinging them your way.

So every four years, you could have like a slightly different set of swing states or like proverbial swing states because it's not really an official designation. It's more so a category, like a very fluctuating category. So-

For example, in 2016, when Hillary Clinton lost, one of the criticisms of her campaign was that they had been too confident that they were going to win Wisconsin. They ended up losing Wisconsin. Like, they, I think they didn't campaign there as much as they should have. There was a lot of criticism that, like, she should have gone back a couple more times to sort of shore up support there. Yeah.

And the margin was so narrow that it was like, well, if maybe you'd put a little bit more money into Wisconsin, maybe a couple other of the swing states, Hillary would have won. Hillary won the popular vote, but she lost the Electoral College vote. Yeah, I remember writing about that when I was at Newsweek as well, because Wisconsin was a place where there was a surge of swing voters everywhere.

that kind of came out toward the end. So the polling looks sort of wrong based on people who maybe pick which way they're going late as well. So there's all sorts of factors there. Yeah, there's a kind of wild factoid about the last time a Republican won the popular vote. So Trump won in 2016, lost the popular vote.

George Bush, when he was elected in 2001 and lost the popular vote. And that one was really controversial because it came down to Florida, which now is like pretty solidly Republican. But at the time, Florida was a swing state.

And the popular vote split in Florida was so narrow that there ended up being recounts. There ended up being challenges. And then it went all the way up to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court blocked the recount proposal that Al Gore, the Democratic candidate, wanted at the time.

And it essentially gave the election to Bush. So there's also just like always a fear in this country that if there's a tie in the electoral college or some bullshit with a certain state, the election could end up once again in the hands of the court.

So it's definitely not the greatest system, in my opinion. No, it sounds a little bit complicated, but maybe less complicated than I made out initially. We're going to come back to swing states specifically shortly. But Chris, whilst we're defining terms here, what's a bellwether state then? Sheep joff.

That's how I remember what a bellwether state is. It's sheep. Like bar? Yeah, like bar. Bar bars. So the leader of a flock, or it's probably normally a ram, is fitted with a bell and is therefore referred to as the bellwether and helps locate where the flock is to...

a shepherd and therefore it's kind of a leader that indicates where certain things are so in political terms these are the states that indicate the way the entire country is likely to vote I can't look at you just remember that you've got to look at me because you're talking to me you idiot

So there's two. You sounded like a sheep then as well, Nikki. But there are two states that are perhaps the most famous bellwethers. There's Missouri, which voted for the winning president every time between 1984 and 2004. But also Ohio, which is probably the most famous bellwether, voted for the winning candidate 21 times since the Civil War in the 1860s. Right, Nikki? Yeah, but...

Critically, Ohio's predictive streak was broken in 2020 by Joe Biden. Ohio went for Trump, but Biden won the Electoral College. So are things shifting in Ohio? Is Ohio no longer indicative of the rest of the country? Who the fuck knows? This is all this is like like it for me. It's like the political version of astrology is like the predictive models about like, oh, if this state goes this way, whatever.

We're all flying by the seat of our pants. No one knows what the fuck they're doing. Well, Nikki, then, while we try and pretend like we slightly know what we're doing, I suppose, then, swing states, you spoke about them a little bit previously. But what are the standard accepted ones that generally are the swing states? But then are there places which have more recently become swing states, which maybe weren't? Yeah. All right. Swing states. It fluctuates progressively.

pretty wildly sometimes between elections. But the classics, the quote-unquote classics, used to be or generally accepted to be something along the lines of like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Arizona, Georgia, Virginia, Florida, Michigan, Nevada. Like I said earlier, Florida is kind of leaning a lot more solidly Republican this time around. So it's not really considered a

as big a player in terms of the swing state calculations for this election cycle. So for this election cycle, the big ones are probably going to be Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is going to be huge. And I think one of the ways you can tell that Pennsylvania is going to be a big player in this election cycle is that their governor, Josh Shapiro, is being considered as a potential VP pick for Kamala Harris.

Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia. Georgia's going to be huge. It had a huge role in the 2020 election, and it's expected to repeat its sort of kingmaker status. Another state that will be big...

that had a big role in 2020 is going to be Arizona. And then Nevada is, I think, the other big one. And you can tell in terms of like the potential VP picks Harris is looking at right now, Josh Shapiro, Whitmer said she doesn't want it, but Governor Gretchen Whitmer from Michigan had like a lot of chatter around her. Mark Kelly, the Senator from Arizona was also one of the sort of highlights in this process. Um,

And we've talked about it so many times. Also, if our listeners want like a deeper explanation about the Electoral College, we had that in a past episode. But we talked about it a lot. And when

a candidate is picking their VP. Sometimes they'll go for someone who they think can help them win a critical swing state. And Pennsylvania might be that state. Chris, how has Harrison talking about, uh, how things have changed at the race has changed very much of late. How has Harris maybe brought states into play that weren't into play or made them a little bit more of a toss up than they were before? Uh, well, bluntly by talking in normal sentences, uh,

helps to get points across. I mean, in general, she's just become more, she's more electable than Joe Biden. And I think we've seen that in the reflection of the polls that have been gradually been dripping out over time since she stepped into the president's shoes in terms of the election that's coming up. So we've seen the polls narrow in Arizona, for example, which Nikki just mentioned. She's five points ahead of where Biden was.

And in Georgia, she's now four points ahead of where Biden was. So we can see a ramping up in popularity for the Democratic cause. And that seems to be because of Harris and the way that she's putting herself forward. But just on Arizona being a

a swing state. And I think probably being a really important key state in, in this election, um, 33% of Arizona's population is Latino. Um, and that's a demographic where turnout across, uh,

across the nation isn't brilliant. It could be better. And Pew Research actually estimates that 14.7% of the vote in this election will come from Latino Americans. So we can already see that Harris is trying to appeal to the Latino vote, which could be massive in terms of her trying to win this election. For example, she held a

a barbecue at her residence in DC last week with Latino community leaders. And then from that, the Voto Latino Foundation, which works to get more eligible Latinos into voting and get them involved with politics, pledged $44 million to Harris's

and then said it would focus on swing states such as Arizona and Georgia. And Harris will need this kind of support, not just from white Americans, which do take up most of the electorate, but from these ethnic minorities where turnout isn't very good, especially in swing states such as Georgia and

and Arizona. And you can see sort of the playbook in Georgia as well, where she's really trying to appeal to Black voters. She held a massive rally in Georgia and Atlanta this week, which featured like Megan Thee Stallion, Quavo.

I think the majority of the press that came from that rally was the amount of enthusiasm for Harris in this critical swing state is going to be huge. So you can already see how her campaign is coalescing around like certain critical states where there are certain demographic electorate she needs to win or just certain populations she needs to convince to come over to her side. Pennsylvania is a lot whiter, but she needs Pennsylvania. Yeah.

So you've both enlightened me a lot on a lot of facts there, and I appreciate it very much. I'm going to end on a silly question for this section because that's what I like to do. You are silly. I try. And a billy. Nicky. Nicky then.

Favorite state and the most important in your opinion then in terms of the election? The answers are different. Yeah, that's true. The answers are different. In terms of state that I think is going to be most important, I think it's probably going to be Pennsylvania followed by Georgia. Those are like the two big ones. My favorite state is Texas. Ah.

I love Texas. My grandma lives in Texas, Texas, former Mexico. Emily, if you're listening, I love you and I miss you. It's a really fun state. It has a huge Latino population. I think in probably not this election cycle, it'll probably go Republican this year. But I think in up and coming election cycles, it's going to be a really fun state.

Texas is going to be one of those bellwether states that not necessarily indicates where the country is going, but is showing a demographic shift where you have growing populations of Latino voters. A lot more diversity is coming into the state now that places like Dallas and Austin are becoming like huge. They've always been big metropolitan centers, but they're becoming huge centers of like commerce and sort of alternatives to your classic,

sort of like East and West Coast cities like New York, LA, San Diego, in terms of just like hubs for young people to go to work. I think that is shifting where the electorate is going. And we've seen in past election cycles, right,

really strong Democratic challenges against Republican incumbents in that state. They haven't been successful, but they've gotten close enough to make Republicans in Texas nervous. So I'm really excited about where Texas is going. Chris, same question for you then. Your favorite, most important, the election.

Take your pick. I think my favorite is Mississippi. Okay. For the mud pies? No, not for that, actually. You know what? The best pork I've ever had was in Jackson. Oh, they make good-ass barbecue down there. Really good food in Mississippi. Like, really good. But also, I was speaking about this before I went to Jackson for a story about the water crisis, and despite the despair and all of the horrible situations that was going on in Mississippi, everyone was like,

Really nice. The most down-to-earth people in the world, and I just wish them the best. So that's my favorite state. Most important for the election? I'd like to take it back to Pennsylvania that Nicky mentioned earlier for basically the same points. Josh Shapiro is, odds on, now the favorite to be the VP. I looked today, which is Thursday, 1st of August.

And he was 40%, 10% ahead of anyone else on odds checker. And that would be massive for Pennsylvania. Obviously, he beat his rival in the midterms two years ago pretty convincingly. So I think Pennsylvania could really swing things for swing things. Swing state, swing things. Because it's a swing state. Thanks.

Thank you, Nikki. Yeah, I think it'd be really, really important. You know, it's one to keep your eye on for sure. And also, Biden's from Pennsylvania, isn't he? So I think the Democratic Party would definitely like to hold on to that just, you know, just because, you know, in his honor, I guess. For a bit of pride for Biden. Yeah. Yeah.

Now, going back to some other stories that you might not have paid too much attention to over the rest of the week, one of them being actually the president, because Biden, even though he's not running, is still very much the president at the moment, which makes it strange we're not paying as much attention to him. Biden delivered a speech outlining his desire to unite his party and his country, didn't he, Nikki? What did you make of what Biden was saying? Yeah, essentially...

As Biden sort of takes steps back from the campaign, from having a public presence on the campaign trail, we saw in his Oval Office address, he's making it very clear that his priority for the next six, seven months until the next inauguration is focusing on running the country, focusing on pushing the Democratic agenda with a split Congress agenda.

I think this speech was most notable because the same week Biden announced that he is endorsing like widespread reforms to the Supreme Court, which people have been calling for for a while now. That includes term limits on justices. I think they proposed an 18 year term limit. They also endorse the adoption of a robust code of ethics that would be binding for Supreme Court justices because right now justices...

The, like, ethics code is kind of like a friendly suggestion. There's no penalty. I don't know if we talked about this, but Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced articles of impeachment against Justice Alito and Clarence Thomas. Biden made no comment on that. I don't think it's frankly going to get past the House, honestly.

But clearly the pressure is on for Supreme Court reform. Democrats control the Senate. This is something that could be passed in the Senate. And then if they manage to flip a couple of people on the Republican side, it would be a huge win for Biden. But yeah, I think this speech was at its core sort of a formalization of this transition that Biden is making of no longer being a candidate, but

complementing Harris's messaging that Democrats are trying to move this country forward, trying to make the needed reforms and policy decisions that voters have been clamoring for, letting her focus on the messaging of that and then have Biden act sort of as the executor. Was it a twofold kind of thing then? I suppose it's almost...

in part, legacy building for Biden and him wanting to secure his own position and do something which has some long tail impact. But yeah, the other side of it really is him just going, hey, I'm at the wheel. I've got this. Don't worry about it. Kamala Harris can run. And that, we spoke about this last week, that that protects her a little bit from criticism and also just genuinely frees her up without it looking like

Kind of irresponsible, I suppose, for the vice president to be going, oh, crap, we've got a president who isn't doing so well and I'm just campaigning. Yeah, and I think we're seeing more of that from Biden this week. We record on Thursdays this morning, multiple governments, including the US, announced a

big prisoner swap between the U.S., Russia, and Germany, which secured the release of Evan Gershkowitz, the Wall Street Journal reporter who has been falsely imprisoned in Russia for more than a year now, as well as Paul Whelan, a former Marine who has also been languishing in Russian prison on pretty trumped-up charges for the past couple years. So...

I think this sort of prisoner swap, this sort of thing that doesn't rely on like congressional approval or like lawmaker debates, negotiations is really big for Biden. Because if y'all remember in 2022, I believe it was when Brittany Griner was released in a prisoner swap, there was a ton of hubbub on the right about Biden.

who had been traded for her, why other people who were already detained by Russia had not been released alongside her. The Russian government was basically like, no, absolutely not. We're not giving you Paul Whelan at the time. So he wasn't included in the Griner swap. And Trump went on this whole thing about how, like, if he was president, he would have gotten this done day one. Russia wouldn't dare to hold American citizens in jail. Yeah.

And there's actually a Truth Social post of his from like May going around where Trump wrote that Putin wouldn't release

Evan for anyone but him, that he is the only one who would be able to do it. And that's clearly not true. Biden got it done. It's a huge win for them. It was this big sort of like Republican attack line that had been languishing there for more than a year now. And I think that goes to show, like along with the Supreme Court reforms, Biden is trying to show that he can still govern and that he's moving things forward while Harris handles the future. He's passing the baton to her.

Kat, this sort of thing, do you think it, as me and Nikki were saying there, in some ways it shuts down attacks towards Harris, right?

But in terms of the right wing online narrative that goes around about all this, do you think it's useful and it shuts down those lines? Or is there also conversely the side that people are going, hey, well, this guy seems to be just doing stuff, but it's sort of behind the scenes and we're not seeing him in the front. And that adds to the sort of the discussion from the right of the Joe Biden is maybe now he's managing the country and we don't exactly know what he's doing. Yeah.

I mean, 90% of what a president does is behind the scenes. And I think with something like this, it's obviously, you know, something you talk about in like, you know, private with different people in Congress. When he brought it up, it was when he was still running for president. And it kind of felt like a break glass in case of emergency type thing of like, well, my voters would really love this. So now I'll do it. And that

Honestly, it feels kind of icky because it's like, why didn't you do this anyways? So I think the main issue is not even anything of a conspiracy or being public facing. But why are we in this position in the first place? I'm glad they're doing something or at least trying to do something. But I think actually making it happen is going to have

a big impact. And, you know, conservatives should be happy about it because if there's ever, you know, even somewhat crooked liberal justice, they can, you know, make that their entire campaign for 10 years. So this should be a win-win for everyone. I want to ask you a question about Jesse Waters. Oh, good. Oh, boy.

This weird rant that he went on that men can't be Democrats, especially if they vote for and they can't vote for women. And then if they do vote for a woman, I think what he said was they actually transition into a woman. This is true. This is scientific fact. This is true, actually. Yeah. I used to be a boy and then I voted for Hillary Clinton. And now I'm a woman. But I mean, not seriously, but seriously, Kat.

How is Fox doing? Are they all right? No, no, no. So they spent the last, I've talked a lot about this for like the last month is they've had no attacks ready for Kamala because they've spent the last four years being like, she laughs a bunch and she says a bunch of words and like, ha ha. But like, that's pretty much it. They didn't spend any time myth making, any time foundation building. And I don't think they seriously thought she would end up being the candidate. I think they thought even if Joe Biden died, actually, I know they thought because I've been watching it.

even if Joe Biden died, that they would put in Gavin Newsom or Michelle Obama, despite Michelle Obama saying over and over and over and over and over again for the last eight years, I will never do this. And so, no, they're not doing great. And then before Biden dropped out, they were also like, ha ha, we're going to be in such a good place if Kamala Harris is the candidate. But it was like they were saying it so much was sus, you know, and now we know why.

It really does seem that they, especially Fox, just saying the first thing that really comes to mind, but saying it as a broadcaster would and hoping that people believe them. Is that a good summary, basically? Yeah. And I mean, it's insane to be like, you can't vote for women in general. Because if you've got any woman you vote for, that means your junk will just disappear. That's an insane thing to say.

It's weird. But also, these gender attacks from like Vance on Harris, like the whole like childless cat lady thing. She has children. She does. She does have stepchildren. But like all these attacks and like that Jesse Waters rant in particular is

It's exposing a certain level of discomfort that Republican women have with these lines of attacks. And again, not to excuse Republican women on Fox News because they are some of the biggest arbiters of bullshit in this country, some of the biggest propagandists on behalf of Donald Trump. But when Waters said that,

All three of the female co-hosts on The Five were like, what the fuck is your problem? Jessica Tarloff, who's a liberal, she obviously was like, what the hell? Dana Perino, former George Bush, George W. Bush press secretary, was like, dude, what the hell? And then Jeanine Pirro, who is frankly one of the most insane people on that network. She was an elected judge in New York before she became a right-wing commentator. And she was straight up like,

So she says to Waters, I want to say one thing. The men who voted for me did not turn into women, okay? And she was very clearly upset about it. So I think it goes to show a couple things. I don't think it's a secret that the Republican Party has been dominated by authoritarian men who see women as props for their messaging. And now that...

Roe v. Wade has been overturned. All these attacks on like abortion and reproductive rights, the whole shit about like monitoring women during their pregnancies to make sure they don't travel out of state to get an abortion where it's legal. This whole thing about like if you don't have children, you're less of a citizen. If you vote for a woman, you're secretly trans. Right.

Republican women are uncomfortable with that message. And if you have women on Fox News who are Republican propagandists being like, no, that's fucked up. Imagine how that's sitting with voters, with undecided women voters who like maleen conservatives who are like, who the fuck are these people? Because 86% of all women...

regardless of party, thinks that abortion should be legal in one way or another. 86% of all American women, including Republican women, now it's not all the same, you know, limits, but these blanket bans are not sitting well. That's why in red states, every single anti-abortion measure that's been on a ballot since Roe was overturned has failed. Every single one, including like a special election that Ohio tried to slip in August.

August to just like throw people off their game. So that way it couldn't be passed in November. Um,

Every single one has failed because women turn out because they are not down with this shit. And listeners, if you want to hear more about the abortion issues in the US, we recorded an episode with Laura Casisto not too long ago. So go back and check that out. Yeah. And that brings us to the end of American Friction. Kat, thanks so much for joining us. Really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Nikki, thank you. Oh my God. You're welcome. Always my pleasure.

And Chris, yeah, you go get a big one. Thanks, mate. Yeah. No, you're welcome. And me. No. Thank you. Thank you, Jarv. Thank you, Jarv. Jarv, thanks very much. Thanks as ever. Thanks for writing the script and whatever. I don't know.

And an even bigger thanks to 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 the TikToks. Our name on each platform is at American Frick. And a quick reminder, if you enjoy what we're doing, please do rate and review us wherever you're listening to the show. Go down, give us five stars. We love you. We hope you love us too. And yeah, five stars. Don't go review us if you're not going to give five stars.

actually, but everyone else do go and review us. 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.