Get Off The Poll-er-coaster ft. Symone Sanders Townsend
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Rise and shine, fever dreamers. Look alive, my friends. I'm Bea Spear. Sammy's not with me today, but she is always here in spirit. Today, we are speaking to the incredible Simone Sanders Townsend, and we're going to be talking all about the election and what you can expect and what you could not expect to see on election night. It's a really great conversation that we're doing in partnership with our pals at MSNBC. Make sure you tune in.

tune in on election night to MSNBC. And remember that we'll be doing our live stream pizza party. You can watch both at the same time. You've got multiple screens in your house. Here's our conversation with Simone. First, how are you doing? You doing okay today? Well, some days it works, some days it doesn't, but I'm doing well. You know, we are barreling towards the end of voting and the beginning of election week.

I know, because a lot of folks are like, okay, V, on November 5th, what time are you going to tell me who the president is? I'm like, baby, I don't know. I think maybe like Saturday, Sunday. What do you think? What do you think the day will be like? This is my prediction. I don't think we'll know who the president is before midnight, before the clock strokes 12 for Wednesday morning at midnight. But that is the nature of our elections. And so I think people should prepare themselves that it is going to be close.

that the vote stuff is going to change. As people come in, the tallies are going to change. Some days, some hours, Donald Trump might be up in the state, and then Vice President Harris might be up. And it's just the nature of folks count the votes across this country. We don't have a national voting system. There are many voting fiefdoms across the country, and everybody has different rules. And

The polls close at different times in different places. And there's been record early in-person voting across the country, which is amazing. But there's been lots of mail-in ballots being mailed in. And in many states, those mail-in ballots are not able to be counted until the polls close on election night.

Yeah, this was maybe not the greatest foresight by the forefathers. They were like, you know what? The states should just do all their elections, even if it's a federal election. Why don't you guys just do it your way? And we'll just have at that time, there was probably only 13 different ways and most of them agreed. So it probably wasn't that big a deal. But now it's it's quite the ordeal.

something that you've been talking about is having patience on that night and throughout that week. And that, yes, the voting finishes. I like the way you said that, but election week begins. And can you just give folks, so many of our listeners are freaked out and they're so worried and they have so much anxiety. Any like thought, how do you keep yourself grounded and peaceful through the week?

Well, look, I want people to be watching MSNBC. OK, I do want people to turn on the television, but I also want people to just take a break and breathe. OK, and know that the people that you are watching, like us on MSNBC, you all and everyone is endeavoring to get it right.

People are not endeavoring to be, you know, to be first and to be the quickest. We want to get it right. And so because we want to get it right, we, from our perspective, we're going to be there to walk people through kind of what we are hearing and seeing and digesting in real time. So I would just encourage people, again, do not get caught up in, if another poll comes out, people get off the polar coaster, okay? Get off. People of both get off. The polar coaster. Yeah.

Get off the polar coaster. More than 60 million people have already voted. Just take yourself off the polar coaster, okay? When the polls close in states across the country, like when the polls close in Florida, right, we're going to start to get the exit polls. And people are going to be turning on MSNBC. They're going to be flipping through, you know, the Associated Press. They're going to be looking at all the stories on social. And again, exit polls are also just a snapshot.

And maybe everyone doesn't speak to the people that do the exit polls. So don't let that get your anxiety up.

At the end of the day, the people have the power. I know it doesn't feel that way, but I really do believe this. I believe that the people have the power. And the best way to ensure that the outcome that you would like out there, people who are listening, if you want the person that you're pulling for to win, you need to do everything you can between now and Tuesday.

To ensure that people go out and vote for that person. I will never forget after the 2016 election, I was a member of the Urban League Young Professionals. And my local chapter, we met on Thursdays. And we met the Thursday after that election. And we had a panel discussion about, oh, you know, what happens now? And I think when

when we initially made the panel discussion, people thought that we'd be talking about a president, Hillary Clinton, and that was obviously not the case. And I'll never forget, I was sitting on the panel at the time and I,

And these are, you know, the members of the Urban League Young Professionals, and especially in my chapter, these are lawyers, very well-accomplished lawyers. Many of them were government consultants, lobbyists, some doctors, like very, you know, people that know, or so we thought. And one of the first questions was, I am very concerned about the Supreme Court. What can we do? And I was looking like, y'all should have asked me. Is it time?

This is not the time. And I had to tell people, I said, look, elections have consequences. And if you are that concerned about the Supreme Court, I think this is a question you should have been asking a week ago and then doing everything in your power to pull people to the polls that way. So I just want to encourage people. Don't don't we don't want you sitting there a week after the election is over talking about, well, what can you do and wishing that you would have done more? You need to do it all now if you are feeling a level of anxiety.

That's right. I mean, earlier this week, I was watching you on one of the MSNBC shows and you were talking about the lying, the gaslighting, the whitewashing and the systemic dismantling of trust in American democracy.

Can you talk more about that? I mean, we all feel it, right? I think there's two things going on. First of all, if you look at Pew Center Research, which I do because, like, what else do I have to do? I love the Pew. And they have tracked confidence in, like, our government systems and whatnot over the course of decades.

And consistently, Congress, now the Supreme Court, right, government writ large, like the presidency, it's ranking lower and lower and lower over the last couple of years. The confidence in the Supreme Court, by the way, is in the toilet.

But the gaslighting and the whitewashing, I was specifically talking. So there's that and the confidence in like our systems. That matters because that means people are primed to not believe, unfortunately, something that is coming from one of these institutions.

I mean, just look at what happened with FEMA, for example, and how people are believing, we're believing the misinformation, the disinformation because they're so skeptical of government. Well, one candidate in this race, Donald Trump, has particularly played on those concerns, those very real concerns and the lack of confidence that some people in this country have developed over time in these various institutions. I am just appalled.

I am literally appalled. Donald Trump just suggested that former Congresswoman Liz Cheney should be put before essentially a firing squad and shot.

Months ago, he amplified posts on his social media site about military tribunals featuring people like Liz Cheney. Weeks ago, days ago, he talked about the American people who are the enemy within and named names. Yet people, many of them, you know, disproportionately in the media apparatus—okay, let's just be very frank—

are treating Donald Trump's comments as though, oh, well, you know, people know who Donald Trump is. I think one of the things that needs to happen post this election is that the media apparatus writ large, we're going to have to have a conversation amongst ourselves, okay? And then with the American people. Because...

Donald Trump has been in the ethos for a very long time. He's been on the world stage for years. He's been on the ballot. This is his third time on the ballot as president. I would argue the last...

Every time, the first time Donald Trump was on the ballot, he won. Every time since then, he's lost, okay? So yeah, the American people do know who Donald Trump is. But I think that many of us within the media apparatus have made the calculation, and even within the political apparatus, if you look at just what Republican elected officials, and even some Democrats, right, have decided, have made the calculation that because Donald Trump has been in the ethos for so long, that people know who he is, and therefore they don't necessarily care about what he says.

And I think that's wrong.

Because it's wrong. It's wrong. Well, I'm going to tell you on TikTok, we just had to tell the kids about the Access Hollywood tape. They had not, they didn't know. Wasn't that the first time? That was not even 2020. That was 2016. A lot of those kids were like eight years old back then. They didn't know about this stuff. This is their first time voting. And we're bringing up the Access Hollywood tape and they're like, when did this come out? And it's like, they don't know. They don't know. They don't know. So yes, they are familiar with who Donald Trump is. But have people heard what he said?

And I think the decision, somewhere along the way, many of us writ large decided that because people know who Donald Trump is, they don't necessarily care about what he says. And I think that that's a miscalculation. But furthermore, people don't know who Kamala Harris is. So therefore, every single thing that she says has to be picked apart. I

I'm not suggesting that the vice president not be scrutinized. She should be scrutinized. She's running to be, as she said, her own self, you know, to Bret Baier. She's like, running for president is hard. But like, don't gaslight me. Don't lie. Lest we lie to the American people like this is a regular presidential election. And it's not. And in chasing parity, okay, and balance,

fair coverage, right? Perhaps writ large, we have done the American people a disservice. That's a sobering thought. I think that's where we have to start to build it back, right? Like so much of even what I hear on TikTok is like, well, I don't trust the media, but I do trust you. I'm like, babe, I'm the media. Like I am, you know, I'm like, but it is. I'm like, how

How many times am I standing in front of a screenshot from the Washington Post and you guys don't like Washington Post? You do like them. It's just we don't maybe like the management of them and we can criticize that, but it's not the actual reporters that are doing any damage. And I think to your point, Donald Trump has really bastardized so many different industries to the point where Republican politicians are saying, don't trust the government, even though they've been in office for like 50 years. He's saying, I'm not a politician, even though he's been the president, you are the government. They're saying the media is out to get us, even though they're always on Fox News. Now talking about

things that he does and says that he can't get away from his closing argument, right? This vanity rally that he had at Madison Square Garden. I think a lot of people thought the things that got said there actually mattered. And we're disgusted by many of them. Do you think that this is going to matter to the election even more than the Access Hollywood tape did? Or is this just kind of like, do you think they're able to explain this away again? I don't

I don't know. Okay. I asked you a question and now I'm going to answer my own question. No, I want your thoughts. Tell me. Well, here's the thing. They go through this whole thing, right? And then they're trying to like say, oh, garbage people. Joe Biden called us garbage people. He got Megyn Kelly dressing up in a garbage bag for Halloween and stuff.

it's not flapping like it used to. They're not able to take back basket of deplorables and own it like they did before, ultra mega like they did before. It looks cringy to me and it looks like it's not hitting. It seems like maybe the fever broke after the Madison Square Garden rally where people are like,

wow, this is really terrible. Or am I just being Pollyanna again? No, no, no. I would never suggest that. Look, I think two things. I think that this is, we're just in a different environment than 2016. And so I think the comparison to the Access Hollywood tape is, this is just, the Madison Square Garden rally is not that bad.

I do think that ultra MAGA broke through when the Biden campaign and the Biden administration, when they were using and saying that, because it was a good distinction, frankly, for, it was a distinction that Joe Biden and Democrats can make to say, when we are being critical, right, we are not talking about you regular conservative Republicans over there that are not agreeing with the extremism and the crazy. We are talking about this subset of people within

That are now under the umbrella of the Republican Party apparatus who are. We are not talking about you, Nikki Haley voter. Right. Come on now. And I think that that was an important distinction that Democrats started making about a year and a half ago that has stuck.

They just don't use the term ultra-maggot anymore because, you know, these little—I think Democrats love these little fancy names. And, like, we really just need to just—people just need to just say the thing instead of always trying to put a nice cute little label on everything. Can we just be plain? Just speak to the people. Just say it, yeah. I think the comments at the Madison Square Garden rally, they do matter. And I would argue that the coverage of them, right, is key.

Because many, some of the things that have been, that were said at that rally are things that had been said previously, right? That they just, they just weren't covered. But the comments about calling Puerto Ricans garbage and Puerto Rico garbage, that was covered extensively. The derogatory comments about Black people and Haitians and

the watermelon, that was covered extensively. In my opinion, what has not been covered as extensively is Rudy Giuliani standing on the stage saying that, you know, Palestinian children are taught to kill and hate as young as two. That's insane. What was covered extensively is a man getting on the stage saying, oh, I thought I'd just come to the Nazi rally. Like, well, what are we doing here? This is, the coverage of the comments, I think, matters. Now, is this the thing that's going to tip the election? Mm-hmm.

it did get Kamala Harris some endorsements. Okay. Bad Bunny, JLo, Mark Anthony, all people who came out. Nikki Jam at least took his endorsement back over the Puerto Rican comments, which I think that that, that matters. Right. But it,

The impact that it could potentially have on the electorate is that it has to go deeper than just the coverage. Is the campaign putting money behind ads of what Donald Trump said and then showing that to voters? Are they using it in their turnout by the campaign? I mean, the Harris-Walls campaign. Are they using it when they're going out and asking people to vote and trying to turn their voters out, reinforcing the message? I think some of the campaign entities and entities related to the campaign are. But at the end of the day, I...

fundamentally believe that hope is a better motivator than fear. And the split screen between Donald Trump's closing argument and Kamala Harris's closing argument couldn't be more stark. And by amplifying what he has said and then providing a counter to that, a hopeful counter, I think for Democrats, that is extremely motivating. I don't believe that fear, which that's what Republicans are trying to do. Donald Trump is trying to scare people to the polls.

Well, I think the joy and the hope certainly has worked. And there are two campaigns that worked on my dad, who was a John McCain Republican, that I think probably worked on a lot of dads. One was them really leaning into Tim Walz being a girl dad. That was something that resonated with my father. And also he just found that the Republican Party got too disgusting. Talk about the Madison Square Garden rally. The thing that actually bothered him the most was Hulk Hogan, who was someone that he cared about growing up, right? Calling her a Hawk Tua actress. Like that stuck out to him in a way that he was like, that is so disgusting.

absolutely vile to every, to him, to me, to everybody. And this idea that she said she would put a Republican in her cabinet, that there would be this, there would be this rebuilding, that there would be this place for people, this permission structure to say, I just reject the circus. I just want this to be over. I want to turn the page. I think so many of these things work. Now you've known her for a long time. Is this always been her vibe or is this like,

Her just having the bravery to really attack these fear tactics that he's been running on for all these years. I think this is my sense of the campaign, where the vice president's campaign is ending and frankly how it started. It is uniquely her.

You know, she has, she spent her career in law enforcement writ large, like, you know, being a prosecutor, being an attorney general, and then obviously elected to the United States Senate before being elected vice president. And when you spend a career in law enforcement, you do have to build bridges, right? As the attorney general, she has to build, she had to build bridges and coalitions and different people coming together and working together. And I think that

She really does just want to get things done. How I described it as, she gave a speech, her first speech prior to being inaugurated, like right that week of inauguration that happened when she was vice president-elect. She talked, she gave a speech and she talked about American aspiration.

And I went back to that speech a couple days ago because the elements of that speech where she talks about the possibilities of America and whatnot, that is where she's ending right now. She says, I have lived the promise of America. She's bringing it together, wrapping it up into not a nice, pretty bow, if you will, but...

but molding it into an image that Americans across a various spectrum, whether they are Democrats, Republicans, non-party affiliated, whether they're Black, white, Latino, Native American, Asian American, Pacific Islander, you know, whether they're from a city or a rural town, they can see themselves in what she's talking about.

And I do think that that is powerful, but that is, you know, frankly, something that comes from innately her experience and just what she believes. So the question is, is it, is it going to be enough, right? For the American people. And we will find out in the upcoming week, but I,

I think that what the what the vice president has been able to do with this campaign is, in fact, remarkable and is only possible in the United States of America that a daughter of Oakland whose parents were immigrants to this country could rise through the ranks.

to become the first woman, first woman of color, first Black woman vice president of the United States of America. And she could potentially be the one, her coalition, to beat back Donald Trump who wants to rip off the Constitution. But we knew it was going to be a Black woman. We knew it was going to be a Black woman that did it. We knew it. I knew it. It always is. All right.

It always is. There's always a moment when we're like, oh, please save us. But you know what? My colleague, Melissa Murray, you know, she and I did this special for MSNBC called the Road to 2024. Black Women in America Road to 2024. And we're going to do a special with Charles Coleman Jr. and Tremaine Lee on Sunday on MSNBC about black voters. All of us are getting together. And Melissa in our special said,

She, the young women that we talked to, some of the millennial black women we talked to, were talking about how if Vice President Harris gets elected and becomes President Harris, the bar is going to be so high for her. Melissa said, what you are describing is like a glass cliff.

And the women said, yes, yes, because the bar is going to be so high. They're going to expect all of these things because the bar is always higher for women of color, Black women especially. President Harris would essentially be standing on a glass cliff. All of these issues set before her that she's going to have to rectify and fix, getting the agenda, the ambitious agenda that she set out past with potentially not having the United States Senate, right,

as a Democratic Senate to get it done, it is a glass-cliff situation. And I think that if she is in fact elected next week, in the upcoming week, that is one of the things that people should, that we're going to have to discuss and analyze and talk about. Just like how in this campaign, folks have been requiring more, folks, the media apparatus, some elected officials, some Democrats even, and Republicans are requiring more of Vice President Harris than they have required of Donald Trump, even though they are running for the same job.

Right. Even though they're not saying the same kind of things. He can't even have a coherent conversation. He can't. That's an objective observation. Donald Trump has lost a step.

And it is just very striking to me that after a month of Joe Biden is too old to be president, it's taboo to even speak about Donald Trump. I don't understand it. I really don't. And if Kamala Harris is successful in this campaign, if she and Governor Walz are elected as the next president, vice president of the United States of America—

People are going to have to analyze, like, are we asking the same? Will we be asking the same question if she was a man? That's what I used to say when I worked for her. When the reporters would come and ask me questions, I would say, now I want you to ask yourself, if we were talking about Joe Biden, would you have the same question?

And if the answer is no, then perhaps you should reevaluate what you are saying to me. Correct. I was getting, my next question was going to be, what do you think the first hundred days are like? Let's say, let's say that things go really well, right? And she does have Congress and we keep the Senate. She has this runway to do all the dreams. Now, this is a high bar. Okay, now hold on now. But let's say, let's say that we get our, we get to live our dreams, right? Let's say we got a magic wand. There ain't no magic wand. Yes.

Okay, let's say she, her first hundred days. Let's say we have Congress. Let's say we have the House. Let's say she has the House, no Senate. All right, she's got the House, but not the Senate. Okay. What do you think she'll hit first, though? Is it like foreign policy versus the demand? I mean, it's going to be hard to pick like a page to start on. Well, I think the way in a, well, this is why, this is what the transitions are for, right? And the way that the transition would work is,

The 100-day agenda, what is the 100-day agenda is usually domestic policy, right? That's good for people to know. Yeah, it's domestic policy and things that the president themselves and their administration has control of, right? And so, yes, executive orders, right? The legislation you want to send to Congress, the things you have control of.

A lot of the foreign policy pieces are things that, you know, we as the Americans, we don't have control of, right? Like, America cannot control what Prime Minister Netanyahu decides to do. America can try to affect his thought process a lot, and I think a President Harris' administration would seek to do that, but Americans are not in control of that. But she has to have a plan for what is her approach, right? And so,

agenda for many of the foreign policy pieces, not just in terms of what is happening between Israel and Lebanon, Israel and Hamas, right? Where is the plan for what is your approach going to be for the Palestinian people? What is your approach going to be for a Kamala Harris approach, right? It might not differ too much from the Biden approach when it comes to Putin,

what is the approach going to be for Ukraine? Maybe part of the 100-day agenda is some legislation, right, that is sent to Congress that they want Congress to take up, specifically as it relates to Ukraine. What about what's happening in Sudan? So there are many international pieces right there. The Indo-Pacific, right? You know, the one thing that I think Democrats and Republicans can all get on the same page about when it comes to foreign policy right about now is wanting to compete with China. Okay, so what does that look like? So that might

be, but that would be more approach-based and then maybe some legislation if there's a thing that Congress can do specifically as it relates to aid somewhere, right?

But the other pieces are going to be about immigration, right? Is she going to send the bill? Is she going to take the language from the bill that Democrats and Republicans negotiated, that very conservative border security bill, and send it to Congress on her first day? What does it mean for health care? She's talked specifically about her home care proposal. Oh, yeah, a lot of people like that.

A lot of people like the home health aides for Medicare. It's something everyone has dealt with in some way, shape, or form. It's such a common sense thing. Like, of course, why wouldn't we want to do that for everybody? Of course we would. Yeah. And it affects people in their everyday lives. But what does that legislation look like? Now, when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris came into office, there were a number of pieces of legislation that President Biden sent to Congress on the first day. The immigration bill was the first one. And then there were a number of executive orders he signed.

And that kind of set up the frame. But then the big piece of legislation that they worked to get done in the first couple of months was the American Rescue Plan. Because remember, coming out of the pandemic, America had to be rescued. You know, you had to rescue America. Then we could build back better. One could argue America was rescued. Then we built America.

The better has not yet manifested, and maybe that's what 100 days of consular heritage is going to be. Right, right. Better is on its way. But, like, what does that look like and how you cadence that out is what a transition will put forward. The other thing that's going to have to happen is the makeup of the... If she has the Senate or not have the Senate, the makeup of the Senate does matter because all of her cabinet secretaries are going to have to be Senate-confirmed. To be very clear, Sherrod Brown in Ohio...

is a sane individual who is fighting for working people and works across the aisle. Bernie Marino? I don't know. So Sherry Brown loses to a Bernie Marino. Is he going to be of the ilk, right, of someone that wants to work in a bipartisan fashion and confirm key cabinet secretaries? So then does a Vice President Harris leave a bunch of people, keep a bunch of people who hold overs from Biden?

And until she feels like she can get some people to a point where they can be voted on. Like these are all of the things that will make a difference within these first 100 days. And all of that starts with the transition. But because 106 days, you know, on November 6th, on November 5th, actually, it will be 105 days from the day that Joe Biden stepped down to Election Day.

106 days before that, Kamala Harris was not the top of this ticket. So she did not have a transition put together. She did not have, they haven't gone through and vetted people. All of that is just now starting. I want to know stupid stuff. I want to know dumb things. Like, are you going to miss the swimming pool at the vice president's mansion? Because the White House doesn't have a pool. It

got a bowling alley. Is she into bowling? Are you going to pick the Lincoln bedroom as the main bedroom? Are you going to pick something else? What portraits are you going to put up around the Oval Office? I think all of that stuff, because I'm always interested in people's business. There's nothing more fun than looking in the window of somebody else's house. I want to be like, what presidents is she going to put to surround her? What quotes will she surround herself with? What will the vibes be of the White House? Is she going to get a dog? I don't know. Who's going to be the social secretary? Who's going to be the...

Are you available? Who's going to be the social secretary? I'm not.

But what's that stuff going to feel like? What are the things she'll prioritize? Will they bring back the herb garden for the White House? Will she bring back Chef Sam? What's going to be the things that are for her? I know. She grows peppers and then she keeps them in these bowls. She gives them to folks at the White House. She grows these extremely spicy peppers.

Of course she does. Yeah, of course she does because she likes the spice. And then she'll give them to folks. She'll have to bring them in. I'm not a, you know, I don't know if we've ever discussed this before, but I'm not a chef, but my husband, he is the chef in our household, okay? See? That's what I want to know. He cooks up.

I'm like, who's going to be the purveyors? What are you going to be making for dinner? Are you going to keep the original cookie recipe or do you got something better for us? Like, I want to know all the like the day-to-day stuff she'll get to do. She is notorious for taking herbs from her garden and then giving them to people. She always gives a little basil, you know. John Townsend is a recipient of some basil from the vice president's garden. So that's one of the things that I'm sure. I would be protecting that with my life. Right? Use it on the chicken, honey. Use it on the chicken. So,

So those are some of the, yes, fun things. But I just, you know, if she is elected, the next president is going to be confronting so many crises domestically and globally. Just to be clear, women are not going to stop bleeding out and like dying from sepsis and being on the brink of losing their reproductive ability in every state in the South except Virginia just because Kamala Harris is elected president because the laws are still the laws. So who's going to change the laws?

Well, and that's what we need. We need the energy. Are state legislators going to get elected in some of these key places that can make the difference? What's going to happen in the North Carolina state legislature? You know what I'm saying? So there is going to be a lot of work to do. I just think back to what happened when we came in in the first year of the Biden administration when I still worked there. And one of the takeaways that I have from that 2020 election is that when you make promises to the American people,

Folks have to be very clear about how those promises are going to manifest themselves in reality. Because of the lack of civics that we have all discussed over the last couple of months, people, even to this day, you know, folks are like, oh, Joe Biden said he was going to do student debt cancellation. He didn't do it. He did. He did, though. Yeah.

They don't see it, yeah. The Supreme Court, you know, but like people, that's not something... He still got it done. And still found his own workarounds. But like, are people believing that she will in fact have a magic wand and be able to do all of these things?

And I think some, like, yeah, I think a lot of people are under the idea that, like, Kamala Harris gets elected and it's all good. And something that Leah Daughtry, Bishop Leah Daughtry, who has spent a long time in Democratic Party politics, said to Melissa and I during our special for MSNBC, I asked her, I said, what happens the day after election? Um,

We can Kamala Harris wins. And then what do you do if she loses? And she said, look, if she wins, we have a partner. If she loses, she was like, if she wins, we have a partner and there's still more work to do. If she loses, there's still more work to do. She said the freedom of people in this country and is not tied to whether Kamala Harris wins or loses. And I think that that is very important. Like it's not all fixed.

if she wins or if she loses. It's not all fixed if she wins, and it definitely ain't going to get no better if she loses. People are going to have to organize. So that's part of the patience. And I think at the end of the day, regardless of what happens next week, people have to...

You know how we talk about making your plan to vote? Make your plan for what you're going to do after you find out who the next president of the United States is going to be. What's your plan if it's Kamala Harris? You know, what is your plan if it's Donald Trump? What are the things you want to fight for, regardless of who the president is? And then what is your plan to contribute to society or help contribute to a coalition and get it done? Because that is what this representative democracy that we are all a part of will require of us.

going forward. You're absolutely right. It doesn't end on November 5th. It just starts election week and she's going to need this level of support to continue to push through and do the work and hold folks accountable if it's her. And on the other side, I've said there'll be a period of national grief, I think, if Trump wins, but

We can't fall into despair either. So we'll have to figure it out at the fight. Just got to find some more energy to get through the next four and then do it again. You know, got to figure it out. And I was just last thing I'll say. I mean, we didn't discuss it, but let's just be very clear. Donald Trump is laying the groundwork to claim victory, regardless of what the election results are Tuesday or Wednesday.

Like he is laying the groundwork to say he won. So can you just tell us quickly, and I know you got to go, how are you going to handle that? Right? Like you're on TV, you have a big platform. He's doing stuff that, you know, as a citizen, right? Not take journalists out of it as a citizen. You're like, I got to do something to make sure that this, that I'm holding this accountable. What are you going to do? Well, look,

I mean, I would just look back to what the networks did in 2020. And at that time, I was an advisor on the Biden campaign. And I thought that people handled it well. And there's a plan here at MSNBC and NBC, same thing, to ensure that we are just telling people what we know and being very clear about what we do not know. And

and Steve Kornacki is going to be at the big board, so I encourage folks to tune in. You know, Steve Kornacki, he just tells you how it is, honey. He just pulls up the numbers, he gets the thing, he tells you what you got, what you don't got. And we have people with extensive legal experience, like Ari Melba will be on throughout the evening to just talk about just the legality. And to be very clear, it is legal in this country. There are legal ways to say, hey, I don't think these election results are correct,

I would like a recount or I would like this. I would like the courts to weigh in. And either campaign, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, they are entitled to go through the legal avenues to do that. And so we want to make sure we're very clear that people know that that is it's not illegal to say, hey, I don't think these election results are correct, but it is not correct.

to go out and claim victory when you have nothing to back that up. And as from just a perspective that we have in this building, we are about just telling people what it is that we know to be true. And if it's not true, we're going to say, look, these things are not true, regardless of who is saying it. But Donald Trump is the only person in this race currently laying the groundwork to say, I've won. In 2020, he went to the East Room of the White House.

in the wee hours of the morning after election day and claimed that he won when he did not. He stood at the people's podium in a house

House that is representative for all the people in this country and claim that he was victorious when he, in fact, was not. No one at that point that he went to the podium knew who the next president was. To be clear, the Biden campaign at that time, we're not even sure that we were going to win. We weren't sure about our numbers until hours and hours later. We were like, OK, you know what? Once it all shakes out, we feel good that we're going to be on top.

So it is just, it is dangerous to do that because, as we talked about earlier in this conversation, people already are skeptical of institutions, right? They don't, they don't, they don't, they're not as trusting as they should be of what comes out of elected officials' mouths or even the mouths of the people on television sometimes.

and in the papers and whatnot through our institutions. So calling it out, being very clear about what we know, what we don't know is of the utmost importance for us here. And, you know, my mom still watches TV, okay? And I'm all about keeping the bar high and substantive and I'm not trying to embarrass my mother. So I'm trying to do my job. So we're going to keep it on the up and up.

We're going to tell the truth, right? So here at Under the Nest News and the American Fever Dream, we're doing a pizza party to celebrate democracy. Oh, yay! And then, yeah, we'll be live streaming the pizza party just so people feel accomplished that they voted. So many people have been brave over the last several months. We want to celebrate that. And then we'll be surely tuning in to MSNBC because, like you said, it's not just like reporters or journalists out there.

We got lawyers, experts, people who have been on campaigns before. And something that makes me feel super safe is people who went through the big lie in 2020 and know what to look for now. They know how to hold it accountable. There is a plan for it. All these folks are like somehow think that Donald Trump's like some sort of like, you know, Rocky and Bullwinkle villain is going to like pull the wool over our eyes. Not while not while Miss Townsend's watching. Not while her mom is watching. Not while Ari's watching. Not where anybody is.

That's the thing. We're being vigilant. There is a plan for it. And like you just said, we'll tell you what happened and we'll always keep it real for you. So thank you so much for being here and tell folks where they can find you. You can find me at Simone D Sanders on all platforms and absolutely make sure y'all tune in prior to election day, the weekend, Saturdays and Sundays, 8 a.m. Eastern to 10 a.m. Eastern. And then this particular weekend, we have a special 9 p.m. edition of the weekend.

Yes, on Saturday. So we're going to be up early and up late. And then on Sunday, 4 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, you can catch myself, Melissa Murray, Charles Plummer Jr., and Tremaine Lee talking about Black Voters, the Road to 2024. And then MSNBC's special coverage for the election week, it's going to kick off that Sunday evening.

Okay, so tune in. Rachel Maddow will be here. Everybody, we are working all week for you because, you know, this is why you watch. I'm excited about it. I always feel better watching you guys, so I'll be there with you. As soon as we get done our pizza party, we'll be tuned in. Thank you so much, and we'll see you soon. See you guys.

I always feel so much better when we get to speak to Simone. I mean, she's just a wealth of information. She's a great friend. She's a really honest person. And she's got frontline experience with Kamala Harris, having been a part of the Biden administration when they won back in 2020. So it made me feel better to know that they are going to be vigilant, that we know what's going to happen, that we're just as smart as anyone who's trying to pull the wool over the American people's eyes.

And tomorrow, make sure you tune in. We've got an interview with Jen Psaki. I'm super excited for this. She's my mom's favorite. I'm sure you're mom's favorite too. So we'll see you tomorrow. Until next time, I'm V Spear and this is American Fever Dream.

American Fever Dream is produced and edited by Samantha Gatzik. Social media by Candice Monega and Bridget Schwartz. Be sure to follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Betches News and follow me, Sammy Sage at Sammy and V at Under the Desk News. And of course, send us your emails to AmericanFeverDream at Betches.com.