8/8/24: Kamala Sneers At Gaza Protest, Obama Shanked Shapiro For VP, JD Attacks Walz 'Stolen Valor', Leaked IDF Torture Video, Walz Pick Signals Obama Era End, US Sanctions Backfire
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Hey guys, Ready or Not 2024 is here and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that, let's get to the show.

Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Many interesting things happening this morning. So there were a couple of big rallies yesterday for Harris Walls, one in particular in Detroit. Huge crowd and a big new poll that is going to raise a whole lot of eyebrows. We'll get into all of that.

We also have more behind the scenes reporting of how she chose Tim Walz over Josh Shapiro. So we'll break all of that down for you. Republicans have dropped a new line of attack alleging stolen valor against Tim Walz. So I'll show you all of those details and talk about whether or not we think that one will land. There is a horrific new video that we have of that rape of Palestinian prisoner by IDF soldiers. Remember, this is the situation that led to a riot.

In defense of these soldiers and their right to rape Palestinians, there's also a debate apparently unfolding on Israeli TV where you have commentators who are upset that this rape is not systematized. Of course, it may actually be. So we'll get into all of that. Our own Ryan Grim also asking the State Department some important questions there. I'm taking a look in a monologue today about why I think Tim Walz could be such a consequential pick.

And Jeff Stein of The Washington Post has done an extraordinary job reporting out the failure over years of our sanctions regime. So we're going to talk to him about that. Really a fantastic piece of reporting there. Incredible piece. Took him months and months to do, so really excited to dive into it with a lot of

him. And what else? Let's see. We've got 89 days. We're just looking at the countdown clock this morning till election day. Pretty stunning. The vast majority of the election up until the last month or so was actually quite boring. We were a bit stunned. And then all of a sudden, it becomes perhaps not only one of the closest but most exciting presidential races

in quite some time. Got real interesting real fast. It certainly did. I'm so excited for all of us to be at the DNC. Thank you to all of our premium subscribers for enabling that. BreakingPoints.com where you get all the benefits of a premium subscriber and you get to support our work here. So continue to do that. Other than that, let's start with what Crystal said. I mean, we've got these incredible rallies and

Really what it is is an injection of massive enthusiasm into the Kamala Harris campaign. Let's go ahead and play some of this. This was at the arrival of one of her two rallies yesterday. And what's stunning is that this was the second one in Detroit, obviously Michigan, a critical battleground state.

But look at the zoom out that we have in this airplane hangar. I mean, these crowd sizes are reminiscent, really, of the Obama campaign and the Trump campaign from 2016, where the crowd size, look, it's not everything. You know, losing candidates very frequently can draw large crowds. But this is not something that we had previously seen from the Kamala Harris or even the Joe Biden campaign. I remember these pathetic scenes, Crystal, of Joe Biden speaking in a high school gymnasium. This is not a high school gymnasium.

And no matter what any honest analyst can tell you, both from the data that we have and from the visuals of multi-hours, in some cases, the line, I believe, to get into her first rally in, I think it was Eau Claire in Wisconsin, was some 1.5 miles long, some three hours just to get into the space. Wow. Yeah, I mean, look, like it is undeniable something is happening, you know, on the ground here.

Yeah, no, the level of excitement. I mean, compare this to Joe Biden. It's stunning. It's crazy. Total turnaround. And it's not just the crowd size, as you pointed out. You see it in the polling data where previously Republicans had a massive advantage in terms of enthusiasm. Now Democrats, at the very least, have pulled even with Republicans in terms of enthusiasm. Now listen, were most of these people going to vote the Democratic ticket anyway, whether it was Biden or Kamala, etc.? Of course. But

But these are the people who are kicking in their $10, their $20. These are the people who are phone banking. These are the people who are posting about Kamala's brat and whatever online and generally creating a vibe of excitement and momentum. So in that respect, it really doesn't matter. It really is astonishing to see the way this thing turned on a dime. We were talking before we started the segment today. We kept saying for like a year now, it just feels like something.

thing is gonna happen and surely it did. Didn't take a genius or be particularly prescient. It was more of a gamble that in general, politics is always can eventually end up interesting. Sometimes it doesn't, but in this case, it certainly did. There was one moment though that we're all taking a look at were some highlights from the Kamala Harris campaign. We put together here some of the snippets that

prosecuting the case, quote unquote, against Trump and how she is conducting herself. Also a clash with some protesters. Let's take a listen. We fight for a future where every senior can retire with dignity. A future where we build a broad-based economy and one where every American has the opportunity to own a home, to start a business, to build wealth.

And understand, in this fight, as Tim Walz likes to point out, we are joyful warriors. Joyful warriors. Because we know that while fighting for a brighter future may be hard work, hard work is good work. Hard work is good work. Focused on the future. The other, focused on the past. And Wisconsin, we, we here, we fight for the future.

We fight for a future where every worker has the freedom to join a union. I've been dealing with people like him my whole career.

For example, as Attorney General of California, well, hold on. You know what? The courts are going to handle that part of it. What we're going to do is beat him in November. He intends to surrender our fight against the climate crisis, and he intends to end the Affordable Care Act. You know what? If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I'm speaking.

So Crystal, I think that is the duality of Kamala Harris, a very generic Democratic language against Donald Trump. I mean, who am I here to sit here and judge? She's got a massive crowd size and got major enthusiasm. But you also, that took place, that second part in Detroit, Michigan. Michigan, the site, of course, of a lot of the uncommitted voters. Allegedly, there was some meeting between her and some uncommitted donors.

or sorry, uncommitted voters prior to the rally. But then obviously the disruption in the protest, she very forcefully kind of shut them down and said, by interrupting me, you're helping Donald Trump. So I think that was a good duality to show everybody. That's 100%. I mean, it is very Hillary Clinton-esque. Absolutely. And I think that

Emma Vigeland said online, like using your like girl boss energy to shut down people who are worried about a genocide. I mean, we're going to cover some of the horrific things that are coming out of Israel with regards to their conduct in this war right now. So obviously, in my opinion, not a good look. I'm sure there are those who will appreciate that or whatever. But, you know,

She has really risen in part on the strength of how much better she's doing with young people than Joe Biden. And you don't wanna risk that. And she's earned a lot of goodwill also with the pick of Tim Walz, who was very respectful of the uncommitted voter group in the state of Minnesota. There was also a significant uncommitted movement there. He said, basically, they're saying something important. Their voice needs to be heard. So very respectful, very different tone coming here. However, you do point out, and I wanna make it clear and be

uh, fully transparent. She did meet with, um, the co-founders of the uncommitted national movement. This is per the, uh, New York times. And they, uh, argued to her in favor of an arms embargo to immediately stop the carnage in Gaza. And she said she was open to that. And she, um, gave them, uh,

They introduced them to two leaders and they also asked for another direct meeting with her. So I do think that that is different from what Biden, we know Biden was not meeting with them. He was not giving them the time of day. He was certainly not expressing any sort of openness to an arms embargo.

So that's a good indication. The response in the rally is a bad indication. That's basically where we are. Yeah, I think that's a very good summary. And that's where I think the duality and kind of where playing this out will continue. Don't forget, you know, we all continue overnight to always be on guard as well as Israel. They're like, hey, what is going to happen here?

We've seen some indications about potentially a broader war. There are discussions right now by the Israelis where they believe Hezbollah is literally going to target Mossad headquarters in the middle of Tel Aviv. So it's like, well, now what, Madam Vice President? So where are we standing on this? Are we going to fully go to war for Israel under your administration? Are you going to support that? I mean, those are big,

big question marks. And this could be a signal in either direction, you know, continuing. Now, let's say that doesn't happen, which is also, you know, I would say relatively likely or escalation goes down, then it's going to stay to the domestic front where it is right now. And that is where she has probably seen the most enthusiasm, especially coming on the heels of picking Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota. He hit the campaign trail yesterday at two of these rallies. He was very joyfully received. That's his new line. Let's take a listen.

He froze in the face of COVID and it cost people's lives. He drove the economy into the ground. And make no mistake about it, violent crime was up when Donald Trump was president. Those of you who are a little older know this. Older Republicans used to talk about freedom. These guys today, it turns out that freedom to them means government should be free to invade your exam room with your doctor.

Now look, we're pretty neighborly with Wisconsin. We get our friendly battles, but in Minnesota, just like in Wisconsin, we respect our neighbors and the personal choices they make. Even if we wouldn't make the same choices for ourselves, because we know there's a golden rule. Mind your own damn business. Mind your own damn business. I don't need you telling me about our health care. I don't need you telling us who we love. And I sure the hell don't need you telling us what books we're going to read.

All right, so there's the line, happy warrior, almost a libertarian framing there. I would just say maybe you should extend that to some other issues, but we can talk about that and debate it later. I will just look at the rhetoric itself and the way that it has been received. I think the joyful line and that energy he's bringing to the ticket is smart.

And the reason why is it gives them the change campaign that they didn't previously have. It gives them a veneer and an aesthetic previously, which obviously Democrats really were yearning for. And I think it combines, again, to bring it to the duality here kind of in the way that Kamala Harris is being received, is for the vast majority of Democrats, especially boomers, they just hate Trump. They hate him, and they always just wanted somebody who in their eyes could beat him.

Part of the reason enthusiasm was so low is they didn't like Joe Biden. They thought he was too old and they wouldn't be able to prosecute the case against Trump. Kamala really fulfills that. Then you got younger voters and a lot of others who are desperate to change the conditions of the Biden presidency. Kamala's real benefit here is that she's basically been memory hold for the last three years, shoved into a closet.

and not had any real public profile. Then she comes here, she doesn't have to fight for the ticket, doesn't do an interview, we'll get to that, doesn't do any debates, nothing, anointed, and then picks the number two. This number two is trying to inject like happiness, almost a Reagan-esque, happy warrior style language. And that is exactly the reason why I think it's smart is if we look at the 1980 campaign,

the happy warrior campaign for Ronald Reagan. So much of it was, let's just get the hell away from all this madness of the 1970s. And so there is a similar feeling right now, similar conditions, and it's the exact type of rhetoric that I would embrace if I were them. Yeah, no, it gives the sense of like, we're turning the page, you know, her thing, her mantra of we're not going back, which she sort of stumbled upon, I think, three

fits with that whole vibe as well. And the way he frames the position there on cultural issues of like, listen, mind your business. I think whichever party feels like the one that's monitoring what you're doing in your bedroom, in your life, etc. I think there is a sort of American just natural revulsion to that, which Democrats have at times definitely come across

as being the party of that. And I think right now Republicans have gotten lost in that trap of feeling like they're the ones, as he puts it, telling you what books your kids can read, what you can do in terms of healthcare and generally much more interested in the private decisions in your lives than- Well, okay, since you brought it up, it's like, okay, we're gonna say, it's like, fine. It's like, oh, we shouldn't be producing books.

It's like, so are we defending like pornographic material in like children's libraries? I think that's sick and grotesque. But again, like I also know, and a friend of mine, I don't actually know his real name. He's an anonymous Twitter account. Highly recommend him. His name is Ruben Rodriguez. And he,

highlights the very trap that I'm kind of falling into right now. If you start bringing up porn in kids' libraries, you sound, to borrow the governor's term, weird. Although I think it's real and I think it's gross. Now, how you message and talk about that is very difficult. Obviously, J.D.'s had some struggles. I think Trump is probably the best at it. He's like, it's gross. We're going to get rid of it, but we're all going to move on. He just doesn't really talk about it. But he acknowledges it a little bit. Yeah, but yeah, I mean, Trump has better instincts than like

This is Vivek, Ron DeSantis, JD definitely seem obsessed with these culture war issues. And so previously when it was Democrats who, I think in 2016, there were all these debates about trans bathroom bills, etc. And it really felt like Democrats on that were more obsessed with what happened in the bathroom. Democrats were the ones out policing language. You can say this, you can't say that, etc., etc.,

you know, now you've got Trump running a campaign that's like obsessed with Kamala's race and gender. You've got a lot of, you know, tampon Tim attacks, et cetera. And so I do think that it very much comes across that they're obsessed with these niche cultural issues and missing the broader point. And so whether you agree with that assessment or not,

I think the language lands and I think it's a very good political. I would not. Yeah, look, I agree. Like the tampon thing. Yeah, it's weird. Why are we putting tampons in boys bathrooms? It's weird. All right. But guess what? I also, I'm not stupid. I know that that's going to sound weird to the vast majority of people. And for most of them, they're like, Hey, you know, I don't,

sure, whatever, let's talk about something bigger. So that would be my advice. Let's not stick to this main thing. I see it all over my freaking timeline. I'm like, guys, this is not hitting, obviously, because people think that, A, it's niche. Now, even if you agree or disagree or whatever on the substance, you've got to think about smart politically. So even though I think he's totally wrong, I do think that it is smart framing in general, whichever party is generally more libertarian and

on the issues, at least presenting wise, usually has a better shot. Part of the reason why pro-choice is so much more popular than pro-life. You have people who are even personally pro-life are like, yeah, you know, I know somebody, whatever, want to be in this decision. I don't generally like telling people what to do. So I'll leave it there. And that's a good place to end because I think we both agree that, yeah, I mean, the most salient and powerful cultural issue right now is abortion. Yes. And that's the problem is that if you have trans, like, look, I agree. I think trans

It's very upsetting, I think it's a very important fight, but I'm not dumb and don't know that abortion is affecting way more people and people are way more enthused about it because it is so much more urgent in a sense where you have the Republican position

so far out of step, not only from the median voter, but especially the median voter in the battleground state. And then the people who are affected by it are so much more enthused. I mean, it's just empirically true. Republican voters do not show up to vote based on transgender or CRT or any of this other stuff. We had the playbook in 2022. It just straight up didn't work. Democrats care a lot more about enthusiasm. They'll crawl over broken glass to get them and five of their cousins to come out and vote for it. So that, as a

sheer political strategy, it is a smart play for them to embrace for right now. Yes. I think we have Trump out there posting about Brian Kemp to show the sort of things that he's focused on right now. I can put this up on the screen. We discussed this a little bit just to show you that he's apparently not moving on. He said the attorney general of Georgia must get moving on this. So must Governor Kemp and the secretary of state, Fulton County, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

blah, blah, blah. Anyway, so apparently he's still obsessing over Brian Kemp, who is, of course, the extremely popular Republican governor of the important swing state of Georgia. So this is what he's spending his time on. I mean, it really does feel like he...

In a certain sense, I understand they thought they had Joe Biden. They were looking at a massive electoral landslide. They were like, we're putting New Jersey into play, right? New Jersey's the new swing state. And now, and we can actually go ahead and put the next polls up on the screen. Now it's obviously a very different story. At best, it's a true, true toss up. This is a new Wisconsin poll from Marquette. It has Kamala Harris up

by one in the state of Wisconsin. So this is what most of the battlegrounds look like. It is as tight as it could possibly be. Very different picture from when it was Joe Biden at the top of the ticket. The next one, it's an outlier. Let's put it up there, guys. This is a Marquette national poll. And when you have the three-way race here with RFK in the mix,

You've got Kamala Harris at 50% and Trump at 42%, an eight percentage point lead. That is among likely voters, among registered voters. Harris is up 47-41. Previously in this same poll, the last time they did it, when it was Joe Biden in the race, Trump led 44-41. So again,

It's an outlier. We should treat it as such. And especially when you pair it with this very same pollster getting a one point lead for Kamala in Wisconsin, which is probably more reflective of where the race actually is. But this is the first time we've seen this kind of lead for her. And we should also be clear soccer.

these are the types of polls that Joe Biden was getting regularly. Yes, in 2020. Last time around. So, you know, are the polls understating Trump's support as they did last time? Are they overstating Republican support as they did in 2022? We genuinely don't know. But it's important to keep in mind that when Biden, Biden did win, of course, in 2020, but it was so much closer than polls indicated. And he was seeing a lot of

national polls and battleground state polls that had massive leads like this one. Yeah, that's a very important point. But another important point that we're learning is that if it is 50 to, what was it, 49 in Wisconsin, that doesn't include RFK Jr. on the ballot. That's just the head-to-head. That's true. If RFK Jr. is on the ballot, it's very clear in that national poll by Marquette that RFK is significantly bringing down a lot of Trump's support. And so in this particular scenario, we have to factor

factor in that RFK is going to be on the ballot, definitely in the state of Michigan and multiple other of the battleground states. Hasn't had any indication that he's going to drop out. He doesn't want to. He wants to run against Donald Trump. And it is extremely like you right now that if Donald Trump does lose, it will be largely because of RFK Jr. on top of Democratic

consolidation and enthusiasm in the Democratic ticket. So I really don't want to look past that. And you put it all together, I think I'm truly back to like a 50-50. Try not to overcorrect or anything, but I'm like, yeah, I think we're at a full on toss up. And that's where Cook Political Report, I think he sent this this morning, has moved Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia all back into the toss up.

category. And in a toss up, you know, the problem is, is that we only have 89 days until the election. You need to try and get some momentum. Donald Trump will be doing a press conference sometime later today. I think at the very least he should be doing something, but he has been absent from the campaign drill for now four or five days, which is shocking. He's not really doing rallies. What are you doing? Yeah. He's a conservative activist.

He's like, J.D. Vance is doing three campaign events a day. Where are you? Why are you at Mar-a-Lago just sitting and stewing? In a sense, I think we can, I guess, empathize to a certain extent where you're like, wow, yeah, you thought you were in the bag. You thought this was a done deal. Now you're in a full-on toss-up. I'm not sure he mentally was prepared for that. I mean, if you think psychologically, 18 straight months of running against Joe Biden, and then in the very last stretch, this candidate gets switched out.

all this massive amount of money, enthusiasm. So many of your polls are noisy right now because in a certain, you know, think about it. When you inject a new person, especially like Tim Walz, people don't even know who Tim Walz is. People are walking around, they're like, who? And so when you have to make up your mind and breath,

and put in new people. And then that really can scramble the way that people who had previously been very hardened in the way that they vote, which is very common, you know, in a incumbent versus semi-incumbent in this race. It was one of the quote unquote, the race that everybody was dreading. And, but significantly has changed all of that up. So I don't even know if I'm taking the polls all that seriously, except as a signal of democratic consolidation, real head to heads, maybe, you know, a couple of weeks out, I'll be like, okay, I think we've, we've had enough time now. People can make up

I mean, one thing you can say for sure about this Marquette poll, because it's the very same pollster. I mean, the movement towards the Democrats has been massive in the switch out. There's no doubt about that. And the other thing that's been really interesting is Biden's approval rating has jumped up too. Yeah, because it doesn't exist anymore. Well, because I mean, like-

People are the happiest they've been with anything he's done as an administration. He's been like, I promise I won't be president again. We're like, yay, good job. He's like a wax statue. Kamala's approval rating has skyrocketed, you know, in many ways.

polls at this point, she's above water in terms of approval rating. And that should be a low bar, but in modern politics, it's not. So the way that her polling has moved has been, I'm sure, astonishing to, it's astonishing to me, I'm sure it's astonishing to the Trump people as well. But the Biden thing is interesting in particular, because one of the questions about his low approval rating, low poll numbers, etc., is how much of it is just about him being too freaking old? And how much of it is about,

everything else that you may be upset with with regard to the Biden administration. And it looks like the old thing was a really big deal, just given the fact that now that he said, guys, okay, fine, I'm out, I'm leaving, don't worry about it. His approval rating has also skyrocketed. I've always believed that. I've always believed that his age has dragged down everything

I remember several months ago looking at Wall Street Journal. They did polls state by state. So they would ask people in Georgia, how do you feel about your economy, your state economy? Oh, plus 65 percent. How do you feel about the national economy? Minus 25. And a lot of liberals who are very much like unskew the economic sentiment were like, what's

going on here? I don't understand. People are lying. I'm like, no, man, you don't understand. How I feel about the national economy is a proxy for I hate Joe Biden. And so now, like I said, that scrambles everything, keeping Biden out of the race. I'm not saying the economy is good or anything, but minus 25, let's say it goes to minus two. Well, that's actually a massive advantage for Kamala Harris. I think it's been baked bone marrow at the very center of the entire campaign, just seeing this aging, dementia-ridden figure at

the top of the country is extremely demoralizing for everyone. On the top of Democrats, it feeds into the way that you think about the optimism of a literal functioning human being who can do a couple of campaign stops. And that's enough to shift

So that's really the state of the race could not have been more changed in the last couple of weeks. I think it is genuinely a true toss up right now. And she has quite a bit of momentum. She's got the remember this, too. I was thinking about it. The Republicans picked their guy at the RNC.

or coordinated the guy at the RNC right before the Biden decision. So they're not gonna get the RNC media bump, which you usually get. Now, usually those things don't matter because you've been running for 18 months. Who is this lady? Who is Tim Walz? We're gonna have four straight days of dedicated coverage, the entire national media. So the DNC media advantage here is immense because it's literally a brand new race and a brand new candidate. So there's so many inherent strengths, which has gone, what is it, 18 days now?

has done an interview. We're about to get to that. Maybe I'll go 30 days if I'm her. Maybe I'll go two months. I'm not gonna do an interview up until the very last time. So I think that's a very, the structural advantage here on the media side, on the Democratic side, on the money side too. I mean, what, they raised, what, $10 million in an hour after Tim Walz was selected. So there's a lot that is happening and the Trump people should be afraid.

The 2024 presidential election is here. MSNBC has the in-depth coverage and analysis you need. Our reporters are on the ground. Steve Kornacki is at the big board breaking down the races. Rachel Maddow and our Decision 2024 team will provide insight as results come in.

and the next day Morning Joe will give you perspective on what it all means for the future of our country. Watch coverage of the 2024 presidential election Tuesday, November 5th on MSNBC.

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Let's get to the next part. This is clearly, I think, the Trump campaign on the back foot. And they're trying to force a conversation here about, hey, why is Kamala Harris not done any interviews? JD Vance, yesterday, his plane was on the same tarmac as Air Force Two and decided to walk over to the press corps of the Kamala Harris campaign and ask them why they haven't been pressing Kamala to do more questions. Let's take a listen. I figured I'd come by and

No.

Nobody? Okay, great. Well, I hope that you've changed your mind because it'd be good for the American people and I think it'd be good for you all if she actually ran a real campaign instead of one from a basement with a teleprompter. So have a good one, guys. See ya. What would you like to hear from her? I'd love her to answer some questions. I'd love her to just answer what she wants to do and also explain why every single position she has has changed.

So he's trying to get the conversation going. Actually, some in the national media have picked it up. Let's put this up there on the screen from Dave Weigel. He says, yeah, it makes sense that Harris wasn't doing media during the Veep selection when a bunch of questions would have been irrelevant. But now there's a ticket. There's a press corps. Why don't you just shoot them some news of the day questions on the plane? You know, J.D. actually has I think he did. I think he's done like 16 interviews just in the last couple of days. Now, look, that's not an excuse.

you know, it should be Trump who's doing a lot of these interviews. Yeah. Why he's like, I think the Aiden Ross streaming thing, it's fine. Okay. Like it's fun. I'm sure it's probably very enjoyable to do an extremely friendly interview in a stream. Give him like the Rolex or something like that. He gave him a Rolex, which people are wondering if that's an FEC violation. That's all. It's an interesting one. I've never seen somebody give to interviewee something. It's usually the interviewers who are trying to curry favor, you know, with the inter, with the person who's interviewing them. So anyway, uh,

So my thing with Trump is he's doing this Aiden Ross thing. He's got an interview with Elon on Monday, which you can ask Ron DeSantis about that. And by the way, this is all fine if you're just, you know, want to gin up enthusiasm amongst people who already agree with you. Bro, you're in the fight of your life right now.

Like he's doing a press conference today. I think that's great. I think Kamala should do one too. And hopefully they're gonna try and change the conversation around that. But what do you think, Crystal? Like in terms of the strategy, because I mean, Walsh hasn't done an interview yet. Hopefully he does some. I'd actually like to see that. But Kamala, I mean, 17 days now, no major sit down. Joe Biden has done a CBS News sit down. So the freaking dead vice president is doing more interviews than you.

I think he's done two interviews since he dropped out of the race. Yeah. What's happening here? Yeah, no, I mean, listen, from a democracy standpoint- Yeah, it's terrible. It's terrible. It's terrible. Like you got put in this position. There was no open process. They canceled the primary, so that wasn't available. Then they just picked you and here we are, okay?

But and then you don't even answer any questions, do a press conference, whatever. This is so in a lot of senses, the modern media landscape. And so do I think she's going to pay a price for it? Like, I wish that she would. I wish, you know, Trump would pay a price for also mostly overwhelmingly sitting with friendly people like Fox News or Aiden Ross. He's got that 12 to 15 year old boy demo locked up there. But I don't think that they do pay a price for it. I just I

I just think that's like people have gotten used to this media landscape where all they do is friendly interviews, softball questions, go out and give a teleprompter speech, etc. And so, you know, we've actually got this this Shark Tank guy. What's his name? Kevin. Kevin O'Leary. Kevin O'Leary saying basically like, yeah, another they're in euphoric mode. Another and

going to answer any questions. And he's like, that's probably a smart strategy. And I can't really disagree because in terms of strategy, because we know Kamala, her weakness is when she is caught off guard. That's when she has had her worst moments. Lester Holt interview, you know, in the

the debates when she would be caught off guard, when Tulsi Gabbard was challenging her, et cetera. That's when she's most vulnerable. She's always been a very cautious politician in terms of who she would allow access to her. So it doesn't surprise me that they're pursuing this strategy. And unfortunately, I think it's probably the right one. Let's take a listen to what he had to say. - It's intentional. She has no intention of putting any policy out there until this convention's over.

I'm a very fortunate guy because I'm an investor. And for decades, I've been syndicating debt, primarily for real estate. Some of her closest advisors are people I work with in finance. And we're friends. So I call them up and say, hey, listen, you want to talk about policy here? And they said, listen, everything's working right now. We're going to strong arm the press on policy. We don't need to do anything. What's everything's working?

The momentum's crazy. The press she's getting right now, she's sucking... Oh, her campaign. The campaign. Okay. The campaign is working. And there's no reason to sit down with any journalist and talk policy right now because we're in the euphoric stage.

They think they can raise up to 300 million dollars before this camp before before this this whole thing's it's gonna happen over the weekend is over So that's extraordinary amount of money then it's time to talk policy then it's time to go to the center Then it's time to talk about border. All right, so they telling you where she stands No, they're just saying listen, we don't worry about this right now. We don't have a problem. No

No problem here, Houston. We're just raising dough. And you got to hand it to her. They're now talking within that campaign about a path to winning that they didn't even see eight days ago. And here's the other thing, too, Sagar, is like Kamala has already signaled that she's running away from every progressive position she took in 2020. And so, of course, any reporter worth their salt is going to ask her about those things.

And I think she very much prefers to live in this ambiguous state of like, we don't really know what she stands for. That's what you want. And allowing people to project as they did onto Obama, whatever they want to see in her. And I think they're gonna keep that going as long as they can. That's not an endorsement of the strategy. I think she should be taking questions. I think it's really important to know what the agenda would be, what the priorities would be, etc. I think she should be challenged on those things. But I-

don't doubt that that's the way that they're thinking about it. I mean, to borrow, everybody has basically said this, it's a vibes election and vibes are good whenever you don't have to take any positions. With Trump, one of the things that's sinking him with the gen pop is that he's got January 6th, stop the steal, which is, look, you can hate it and all that. It's not only a bad vibe, but

On a policy level, it's explicitly like, I did not agree with the votes last time around in 2020. Now, same with abortion, where it's a concrete thing. You appointed the justices and they overturn Roe versus Wade. With Kamala, what are you going to do at all?

all. What are you going to do with Israel? What do you think about NATO and Ukraine? What are you going to do with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act? This is literally the most urgent and pressing economic matter in decades in Washington. The extension fight, probably what, since the Bush tax cuts in 2000, I forget,

the last time that they were extended. The Democrats caved on. The Democrats caved on. Right. So are you going to do that again? You said previously I would repeal TCJA on day one. Now, that's not going to happen because it's an act of Congress. Do you agree with that? Like, which parts of it would you extend? Would you strike? What would your strategy be? Remember, Joe Biden got so many questions on the campaign trail last time around about how he was going to work with Mitch McConnell. I know his answers were mostly stupid, but-

He got a lot of questions about that. That's a great thing for Kamala Harris. You literally served in the Senate. What do you believe? What would you sign? Would you see it CTC? To what extent? How high? What is your tax policy? Are you borrowing from Joe Biden?

You've disavowed every previous position you've ever had on the border, on everything. But because the enthusiasm is still so high, Ryan said this, and I really think it's so true. She wants to get as close to that number on the ticket that previously used to pull of generic Democrat. That's all you want. You don't want to take positions, don't want to piss people off. And I

I agree, though. It's very unfortunate because many people are, frankly, totally fine with this, both in terms of partisan media. I mean, I see it all the time with Trump. They're like, oh, it was such a genius move. I'm like, yeah, it was a genius move. It's like Trump. I actually think Trump functions at his best and is able to capture the most media in hostile environments. I mean, look, you can hate that media

Black journalist event or whatever if you want. It took over the world for a brief moment. The CNN town hall that he did, same thing. I mean, everybody covered it. I think he actually functions both at a media capture level and probably at a better level in terms of showing his contrast or whatever in those. Now, does he also hang himself? Certainly. That's Donald Trump. But with Kamala and with her previous wish-washing, as you're saying, even a Lester Holt, even, I frankly think, even the most friendly interviewer of Rachel Maddow,

out or somebody. You got to ask something because then you just completely sacrifice your, you sacrifice any of your integrity, whatever scrap is left. And when you combine those two, they're still giving her a pass though. You know, you only have a few like Dave Weigel. I saw Maggie Haberman as well, retweet that. But you know, if the national reporters start to press her, it's possible she could cave, but it might be too late. I mean, they might wait a whole month. I think that's, you can't wait a month. I think that's outrageous.

Yeah, the other thing in terms of the Trump side prosecuting this case, I would keep using that term. But anyway, trying to make this case against Kamala Harris, the other weakness they have is like Trump has kind of gotten squishy about whether he's gonna agree to a debate. So you don't exactly look like you're out front and wanting to demonstrate to the American people and get into a back and forth with her either. So yeah, it's, I mean, like you said, it's sad.

that this is the environment that we live in. It's sad that it probably people don't really care that much. It feels like a kind of a process question. All of that is the case. It's sad that the press doesn't press her more on these things and doesn't press Trump more on his tendency to only sit with friendly audiences. But you're absolutely right about Trump. I don't think that with Kamala, I think the strategy

Whether I like it or not, I think it makes sense. With Trump, it doesn't make sense because he needs to reclaim this narrative. He needs to take over the airwaves the way he did in 2016. His greatest gift is...

is being able to drive the conversation and force people into the debate on his terms. Now, I personally think the way he did that at the NABJ conference was very destructive to him. I don't think it was helpful whatsoever, but it demonstrated his ability to seize the moment and force people to talk about whatever he wants them to be talking about. He's very good at that.

And so, you know, for him to avoid any sort of hostile questioning and for him to have ghettoized himself on Truth Social where no one really gives a shit what he's saying over there either. I think these and when we do pay attention, it's like, oh, you're attacking Brian Kemp. Good job. Great work with that. You know, I think these are some serious errors that he is making in this campaign. And I do think that he is.

We forget he's an older man also. He's not as feeble as Joe Biden is, was, etc. But older people, they get kind of stuck in a rut. And I think he's having trouble grappling with the switch in the top of the ticket. I think he really is struggling to adjust to that. Because even though maybe somewhere in his mind, he thought it was a possibility. He clearly didn't really believe that that was gonna happen and clearly didn't

really plan for the eventuality of that happening. And so now he's out there still talking about Joe Biden, constructing in his mind some elaborate conspiracy theory that maybe we're going to bring Joe Biden back onto the ticket and can't really move on and prosecute an effective case against the ticket that he actually is running up against. We have been so gaslit by aging politicians that I am so struck by just a return to normal. Like J.D.'s got two interviews out this morning. He did four campaign events yesterday. That's actually normal.

That's how it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be like you're supposed to be out there working a lot. The only thing that happened with Kamala that should have happened, didn't happen yesterday, is she was supposed to take questions on the plane in between stops. Okay, and we just did a whole segment about that. But she did two campaign stops. I mean, that's what you're supposed to do. Trump has been sitting in Mar-a-Lago for five freaking days tweeting about Brian, or truth, sorry, truthing about Brian Kemp.

That's not what we're supposed to do. And that's where I'm struck just by literally the age difference of having younger people on the ticket and how much more beneficial it is. I've probably never been more ageist whenever it comes to politics than it is right now. 'Cause I'm like, oh yeah, this is how it was supposed to be. I mean, you know, old McCain worked harder than both of these guys did. Joe Biden and Trump did.

Whenever he was on the campaign trail in 2008, and there was a whole national conversation. How old is he, 60 or something? 62? About whether he was too old. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Anyway. The 2024 presidential election is here. MSNBC has the in-depth coverage and analysis you need. Our reporters are on the ground. Steve Kornacki is at the big board breaking down the races. Rachel Maddow and our Decision 2024 team will provide insight as results come in.

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So let's move on to we've got a bunch of new reporting about how the Tim Walls versus Josh Shapiro decision went down. And some of this is very interesting. So let's put CNN up on the screen here. They had one of the sort of most in-depth deep dives into the interview and vetting process. Their headline is the blue walls, how a low key Midwestern governor shot to the top to be Harris's VP pick. And a couple things.

that are of note here. Number one, apparently just the vibes with Shapiro were off and the vibes with Walls were apparently very good. Walls came in and she was like, okay, well, what do you see as the role of vice president? And he was like, whatever you want it to be.

And she asked him, okay, well, do you want to be the last person in the room when decisions are being made? And he's like, if you want me there. So it was very, you know, put me in coach. I'm ready to go. I'll do whatever you want me to do. I'll be the quote unquote happy warrior. So that was the vibe with Walls. With Shapiro, it sort of echoed the concerns that Fetterman had put out.

publicly that this man is very ambitious, that he may overshadow you. He had a bunch of questions for her about like, oh, well, what would my role be and trying to carve out specifically the parameters of what that would look like. One source familiar with the meeting said it was a striking contrast

between the two individuals. But another thing I noted in this piece was the quiet, organized support campaign for walls that was unfolding behind the scenes that involved apparently Nancy Pelosi and...

Barack Obama. So here's what they say. They don't have a lot of details, but this is the lines from CNN. They say,

He had former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on his side, old allies from his 12 years in Congress representing a rural Minnesota district, as well as glowing words from former President Obama who said in a statement Tuesday of Wells, he has the values and the integrity to make us proud. They go on to say Obama also served as a sounding board for Vice President Harris to talk through how she was thinking about it. I'm sure he was just a sounding board soccer, just listening.

not offering any sort of shaping words or guidance on that. So I found that very noteworthy. That's the only place I saw that reporting about Obama's involvement here. They did mention that, you know, Shapiro came with some drama because of the comments that he had made with regard to, you know, protesters being Palestinian, pro-Palestine protesters being akin to the KKK. One of the Democrats involved said no one wanted to rip that

scab back open. So I think there were also concerns that because of how stridently he had come out in support of Israel's prosecution of the war in Gaza and against, specifically against the protesters, that that was just a can of worms that they didn't really want to open.

And so I thought that was all very interesting that the fit was different. The way they handled the interview was very, very different. And we also saw some reporting, Sagar, that there was this Josh Shapiro hype video that had come out that the Philadelphia mayor had put out. I think because he made such a sort of aggressive and the people around him made such an aggressive play, including this highly produced video, including trying to create this narrative

of his inevitability. I mean, I know if it was me, I'd be like, you think this is a done deal that you've just got this in the bag? I know that I would find that to be very off-putting if I was making that choice. Well, and I also didn't take, I think it was a Jon Favreau who used to write Obama's speeches, one of the pod save bros. Even he was making fun of Josh Shapiro's Obama mannerisms. That has to grate people like Obama.

If you're literally Obama. Yeah. Obama is, what do we really know about Obama? At the end of the day, he's in it for himself. He's probably one of the great arch narcissists in American history. He's very good at getting himself elected and getting himself a lot of media. And so in this case, it probably pissed him off that Josh Shapiro was copying him. More and more that we see and learn from behind the scenes. I do think that that was

probably the biggest, you called it, you know, credit to you, which is that he is just so extraordinarily ambitious. He doesn't know how to be a number two man. Tim Walz allegedly told Kamala Harris he has no desire to be president. Yeah. And that's one of the reasons why he was picked as the vice president, reminiscent of the Dick Cheney pick by George W. Bush. W was a very insecure man, very, very much like Kamala.

and he didn't want anybody to overshadow him. He didn't know what to do. Uh, he had been, they'd been burned by Dan Quayle because he was literally an idiot under HW. He's like, so who do I pick? And they're like, oh, you should pick somebody like Cheney because the thing about Cheney is he always loved being the number two man. And so he, as the NBA president, it really lit him up this idea that you have a non-ambitious person who will help you run stuff for you. And I

worked out badly for the country, but- He did run stuff. For W, that actually was the ideal position. He didn't really work that hard. He didn't like to think all that much. So I think that Walsh kind of pitched himself in a similar way of, I'm not gonna try and upstage you. I'm just your number two man. I'm here to help you to the best of my ability. I also don't think we can discount, now in retrospect, how much his Washington connections really worked out for him.

helped Nancy Pelosi become Speaker of the House. Pelosi's going to bat for him. A lot of his House colleagues loved him. In terms of the people, I think Amy Klobuchar was going to bat for him in the Senate. So, you know, having people in Washington who have a good relationship with you, especially when Josh Shapiro is way more of an unknown, he's never been here in D.C., I think that probably helped him, you know, much more. Yeah, I think that's right because she knew

Shapiro a little better than she knew walls going into this process, but I don't think they were like close either. The person she was probably closest to was Roy Cooper, who had taken himself out of consideration. But this was a very condensed timeline.

So if this is someone who you're going to have to potentially govern with, yeah, where can you get that comfort that this is going to be someone that you're going to be able to get along with? And so the fact that Wall's had so many people from across the entire ideological spectrum being like, yeah, it's just a great guy. Joe Biden said something. He just likes like people just like this guy. And to me, it's an incredible testament to how, I guess,

how well he's able to pull these things off, that he said he doesn't want to be president. And it was credible enough that she believed him, you know, because- Because it's like, bro, come on. I mean, all these people are ambitious. You know, Josh Shapiro may wear it merrily, but this is a governor of an important state. He's obviously excited to be in the vice presidential pick. Like, he obviously has some ambitions of his own. So the fact that he was able to pull off that line, that no, no, of course, I don't really want to be president, I think is a testament to the political ability

abilities that he has. He comes off as like a genuine nice guy. Even though he's been a professional politician since 2005 for like 20 years. He still comes off as that like, you know, high school teacher, the nice guy coach, whatever. And so he's able to pull that off. That's one thing that has been insane to me, Sagar, is the number of people online who think that Josh Shapiro is a better politician than Tim Walz, just like on the, you know, oratory, whatever. I just...

It's crazy to me because when I see Josh Shapiro, all I can see is the cheap Obama knockoff. And so, you know, Walls has his he's he's got his own thing going and it feels genuine whether you like him or not and whether you agree with his positions or not. So just on the pure political talent, I find that assessment to

be totally crazy. I'll make the Shapiro pitch, I guess, which is don't forget that the Obama knockoff either won or almost won the state of Iowa for the Democratic primary in 2020, which was Pete Buttigieg. The Obama knockoff works quite well in the Democratic primary. Look, I have a very low opinion of Democratic boomers. No offense, but you guys love yourselves some like, you know, Obama-esque type figure. Beto O'Rourke is another one.

who people like to- These people didn't do all that well, soccer. Yeah, but the Democratic elite love them. So in that sense, I'm saying like, that's who the audience and all that plays to. And when you combine that to both, I mean, look, there's undeniable at that Philadelphia rally, he got a massive,

People loved him. Even the reporters on the ground were like, the people who are here, they are obsessed with Josh Shapiro. A lot of that is also just general Democratic enthusiasm. He's got the high favorability in the state of Pennsylvania. Ultimately, what the Harris campaign found, and I'm really fascinated because I don't know to what extent this is true. They didn't believe that he could translate his personal popularity to the state of the ticket and ultimately help them win the state of Pennsylvania. I find that hard to believe,

But, I mean, I just don't know how the decision was made and how much data was there. I haven't even seen you since Tim Walz was picked. Kind of my theory was, and this kind of bears this out too in today's toss-ups, I really believe that they no longer view the Midwest as the tipping point. Because if you look at a 270 win map and you play with it, you can have Kamala lose the state of Pennsylvania but win Georgia as long as she wins Nevada. Yeah.

That's 273 electoral votes. And so with the Sun Belt, with younger people, black voters who are a lot more animated, and you got Trump literally attacking Brian Kemp in the state of Georgia, I think Georgia's a lot more in play than it was previously. Well, there's no doubt about that. And if you've got a chance in Nevada and in Georgia, you don't have to win Pennsylvania as much. And Michigan and Wisconsin have always been razor thin. PA, even though it is—

the most likely tipping point state. You don't necessarily need it in a world where the Sun Belt is way more in play. And Tim Walz is the most beloved figure by these white suburban liberals. They love him. And so if you have those people who are coming out to vote in Maricopa County and in Fulton County in Atlanta, maybe you don't need to go after the Midwest as much. I mean, let's not forget though, Tim Walz,

He, when he was in the House, the district that he ran, he's actually the only Democrat who has won that district in decades. He outperformed Hillary in 2016 by some 18 points. Trump won that district handily in 2016. And Tim Walz also won it by, I think Trump won it by 13 and Tim Walz still won it by three. So, you know, he does have demonstrated ability in politics.

Midwestern sort of swingy areas. I believe his district was sort of like half suburban, half rural. And so, you know, listen, yeah, are Democrats going to win back rural America with Tim Walz? No, but all he needs to do

is hold on to the percent of the white rural vote that Joe Biden did, and they win. That's all they have to do, because all the other coalitions are kind of coming back together. So I think they feel like he is an effective messenger in terms of that. And I just feel like they're-

There was a lot of reporting that they did do some significant poll testing. And I think if it was clear that like, if you've got Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania is in the bag. I think that would have been very difficult to resist, very difficult. But the reporting suggests that they didn't really see that Josh Shapiro helped them in Pennsylvania at all. That there wasn't a big electoral impact, whether you put Tim Walz or Josh Shapiro on the ticket.

And so that freed her up to go with the person that she had the more personal fit with. And also who, you know, he really leaned into in the state of Minnesota. They really leaned into the post Roe v. Wade environment. So they feel like he's a very effective messenger there. And then you got Pelosi and Obama saying, hey, this is your guy. I think

that made it all a very compelling fact. I think you're totally right. I recommend people watch the CounterPoint segment from yesterday about the Steve Kornacki segment because the quibble I have, and I think given the data, it's fair, is that he won in a very different environment. When you've got, as politics continues to bifurcate on the rural and suburban divide, it's very clear he activated more white liberals. He didn't win back the same people that he ran when he was Congress. Now, that doesn't mean that he doesn't know how to talk to those

people. But he definitely didn't win them in 2022 whenever he was up on the ballot. Now, can he help bring some of those people over? Maybe. I mean, this is the case that a lot of the pundits were making against J.D. When you look at the swings that he had in some of these working class districts, he actually drove up the vote in some Republican areas, but he didn't win by the margin that he was supposed to win in the rural working class voters. Yeah, I mean, he underperformed

Trump in terms of white working class. It's complicated because Tim Ryan was on the ballot. But yeah, regardless, I would not say it was perfect showing for Dainey. Let's all be honest, right? He only won by six. I think Trump won by eight. With Tim Walz, what Steve Kornacki was saying is like, if you look at those rural districts that he was supposed to activate, it just didn't materialize last time around. That doesn't mean that rhetorically he can't try and hold on, like you said. But any fantasy of he's gonna flip the

I don't think that's gonna happen. Yeah, so if you've got, like I said, he doesn't have to do better. He doesn't have to do better than the Joe Biden totals in those areas. And I think that's probably what they're aiming for. Go to B4 guys, because this was interesting. There was a Marist poll that showed that Josh Shapiro had elevated negatives and was underwater in favorability with Gen Z voters in particular. So-

If you're looking at polling, if you're the Kamala Harris team that says Shapiro doesn't really help you in Pennsylvania, and he brings this negative to the ticket with regard to Gen Z voters, and I think this has to be largely because of how aggressively he talked about the pro-Palestine protesters and his positioning on Israel in general,

then you're saying, okay, well, why do I want to bring a negative onto the ticket when Walls has this cross-ideological support across the entire Democratic spectrum from Joe Manchin to Bernie Sanders, literally. And, you know, I think it also is a statement on how,

how the rejuvenated union movement threw their weight around in this process, too. You know, we forget to talk about them, but Sean Fain made it very clear. The, you know, new leader of the UAW has been very strong and actually was at that rally in Detroit yesterday. He said, listen, I want Andy Beshear or Tim Walz. And he said he even said, listen, I'm with

them no matter what, but those are the two that we really trust. And I do think that the fact that labor unions didn't like Mark Kelly, labor unions did not like Josh Shapiro because of his charter school stance is another very Obama-esque position, by the way.

I think that also hindered them because, again, you're talking about, okay, a fracturing within the Democratic coalition. You're talking about enthusiasm. You're talking about reopening wounds that you don't really want to have to reopen. And so, you know, when you look at that picture and then you also think about, oh, she just liked Tim Walz better when she met with him.

The choice makes a lot of sense and does not have to be about anti-Semitism as is being insisted by many across the board. That's definitely a fun one. Although that discourse has mostly been killed at this point, so let's just put it into the- Let's just, yeah. So I only brought it up here briefly at the end so we can all move forward with our lives. Thank you. I appreciate that. All right, let's go on to the attacks.

The 2024 presidential election is here. MSNBC has the in-depth coverage and analysis you need. Our reporters are on the ground. Steve Kornacki is at the big board breaking down the races. Rachel Maddow and our Decision 2024 team will provide insight as results come in.

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After the selection of Tim Walz as vice president, Republicans tried a variety, I think, of different attacks. The one, though, that has been getting to stick is claims of quote unquote stolen valor. So we are gonna go through everything that we know today. It was kicked off by the vice presidential candidate for the Republicans, Senator J.D. Vance. Here's what he had to say.

What really bothers me about Tim Walz as a Marine who served his country in uniform, when the United States Marine Corps, when the United States of America asked me to go to Iraq to serve my country, I did it. I did what they asked me to do it and I did it honorably and I'm very proud of that service. When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, you know what he did? He dropped out of the army and allowed his unit to go without him, a fact that he's been criticized for aggressively by a lot of the people that he served with. I think it's shameful that

to prepare your unit to go to Iraq, to make a promise that you're gonna follow through and then to drop out. Okay, so let's go all the way back in time to 2005. Crystal, you can weigh in here if you would like. So the timeline is such. Tim Waltz is a 24-year veteran of the Minnesota National Guard. He rises to the level of Master Sergeant and then is, I believe, I don't exactly understand how the term works, but he was then-

quasi-promoted to command sergeant major. He's one of the highest enlisted ranks in the United States military. In 2005, that is the tail end of his career. At that exact moment, whenever he files to run for Congress some four months before the deployment order comes down, there is a decision that he has to make on whether he is going to go to Iraq with the Minnesota National Guard unit that he is attached to as a senior enlisted officer for the artillery unit or not.

He decides not to go and to retire. Now there's questions here around the retirement date. So if we look at, there's two separate factors. The defense of Tim Walz is that Walz did not know that his unit was going to go to Iraq. So the retirement came two months before the official order. The

The detractors say that the senior enlisted personnel and some people who served in that unit said that they knew for months before the official order came down. I spoke to some people in the military. They said, yeah, it's actually quite common before an official order comes down or not. So I would say it's somewhat believable. That is, I would say, the first of these quote unquote attacks. They didn't go to Iraq whenever he helped prepare the unit for it. Do you want to weigh in before I get to any of the others? Okay.

- He, so the specific details, Minnesota National Guard said the unit got the alert for mobilization in July. He had retired two months earlier in May and had been planning a congressional run. So there you go. - All right, so that's the timeline. The second one comes back to this clip where he had claimed that he had carried weapons in war while discussing gun control. So this was a quote from a video that was posted actually by the Kamala Harris campaign. This was the quote then that people are seizing on. Let's take a listen.

Hope woke up like many of you did five weeks ago and said, Dad, you're the only person I know who's in elected office. You need to stop what's happening with this. I'll take my kick in the butt for the NRA. I spent 25 years in the Army, and I hunt. And I gave the money back, and I'll tell you what I have been doing. I've been voting for common-sense legislation that protects the Second Amendment, but we can do background checks. We can do CDC research. We can make sure we don't have reciprocal carry among states, and we can make sure that those weapons of war that I carried in war is the only place where those weapons were at. Thank you.

All right, so that last part is becoming what's significant here for the attack. Let's put this up there on the screen. The reason why is that he claimed he, quote, carried weapons in war. Let's put NBC News up on the screen here. Asked about the video, a Harris campaign spokesperson did not deny Walz had embellished when he spoke of carrying weapons in war. They said in his 24 years of service, the governor carried, fired, and trained others to use weapons. Oh,

war innumerable times. Governor Walz would never insult or undermine any American service to his country. In fact, he thanks Senator Vance for putting his life on the line. It's the American way. So this has now become one of the, I guess, the attacks here. And it kind of stems not necessarily from this one quote, but whether there's been a pattern here of claiming service

that did not actually happen. So for example, let's put this please up on the screen. This is from a 2004 interview, or sorry, 2006 interview that Walsh did with Bloomberg News. So basically, there's a question here of whether he claimed that

to Bloomberg News' Joshua Green, some may know him, he wrote a book about Steve Bannon in 2016, on whether he deployed to Iraq. So he wrote, Joshua Green, at the time, a 24-year veteran of the Army National Guard recently returned from serving in Iraq as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. Now, this is Jeffrey Ingersoll, actually my former boss over at The Daily Caller. As he points out, Operation Enduring Freedom was actually about Afghanistan. But

The claim here is to whether he claimed he served in Iraq or not. Bloomberg actually came out and stealth edited it saying Italy in this. Joshua Green has not clarified whether he was told by...

whether he was told by Tim Walz that it had happened or not. If we go to the next part, this is the next part of the controversy, which is that the National Guard has had to come out. And I mean, they say dispute here. I would just say clarify. So Walz ran as

a retired command sergeant major. Now, apparently, he actually fully retired as a master sergeant because according to the National Guard, he did not officially reach the rank, this is what I was talking about previously, of command sergeant major, although he did use it in campaign materials. Yeah, sorry, go ahead. He reached the rank. He didn't complete additional coursework. That's right.

so you didn't check the additional coursework box. - I know this all sounds tedious. I'm going through everything just so everybody has it because the amount of misinformation and non-information that is out there, I want everybody to know the truth. Army people, please fact check me if I get anything wrong.

The ranks and all this are very tedious. I apologize. Now, as I understand, the retire, you know, claiming thing, that's a little bit of a problem because whatever, it's your DD-214, whatever your paperwork that you receive upon discharge. He was discharged officially, I believe, retired as a master sergeant despite running later. Now, why does any of this matter? Because politically, this is probably the attack that I have seen more embraced by Republicans and operatives. And it is one very familiar to the head of the Trump

campaign. Let's put this up here on the screen. Chris LaCivita, who was actually one of the people who helped orchestrate the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign back in 2004, is literally the campaign manager for Donald Trump. And so that obviously was an effort to try to bring up questions about John Kerry's service in Vietnam from people who had served with him in the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth media campaign that really was a big deal in 2004.

And the real reason too is this is part actually want to talk about with you Yeah, is how effective this is gonna be to say this is another swift boat. I don't think it's true I do think it definitely embellished military service and weapons of war thing is straight-up bullshit the issue I think for the Trump campaign Oh for was security election. That was the Iraq election. That was the military like we're gonna surge We're not gonna surge who's gonna handle so that's why it was extremely relevant here

The issue I find only here is that I think it helps the idea for Republicans to run phony. Phony was the term that we saw stuck, incompetent and others, doesn't believe in anything in our word clouds against Kamala Harris. If they could try and attach that label for Tim Walton, for Kamala, it will be a net benefit or not. And so-

It's not going to be as helpful as Swift Boat was, I think, in 2004 for the George W. Bush campaign. That's kind of where I fall on it. Although I do think, I mean, listen, you should do an interview and you should tell the truth about what happened here. I think it's a better attack than tampon Tim. I think we're...

reaching closer to something that will... I mean, listen, I could tell you, go through each of these and tell you, like, I think this is pretty flimsy. The Iraq thing doesn't really hold up in terms of the timeline. The Operation Enduring Freedom thing, all right, he served in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. They have one press release where he says something about that and him holding up a sign at a...

at an anti-war protest. We've got that next if we want to put that up there. No, but Crystal, that one's legit. Yeah. No, it's not. You can't claim you're a veteran if you didn't fight in the war. He literally said he was a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom. When I've seen, one of the clips that's circulating as like, oh, we got him. He said Operation Enduring Freedom. He goes on to explain, I served in Italy in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and here's what that means. So listen, but putting all of that aside, um,

Ask yourself this question. Is anyone going to not vote for Donald Trump because of the whole bone spurs situation? No. Why? Because number one, like you said, it's not a secure election. Number two, most importantly, he's just the type of politician who can get away with stuff like this.

And I think Tim Walz, in contrast, John Kerry, who was a terrible politician and also who really leaned very heavily on his whole war hero thing in a way that Tim Walz, he talks about his service, but he identifies himself more and Kamala's calling him Coach Walz. That's the persona he's leaning more into. But we also know because these attacks against him came out during his gubernatorial campaign as well.

He's the type of politician who can get through something like this because we've seen him do it in the past. So that would be the biggest thing I would say is just like, you know, some politicians, they really struggle when they're faced with any sort of attack or question about, et cetera, et cetera. I don't think that this will end up happening.

landing or significantly harming the appearance of Walls, I think because he does come off as just like, you know, the guy that he is, I think it's hard to put that label of phony onto him. So that would be sort of my, you know, political assessment, putting the merits of the claims. I'll put the last one up there. I actually find that the worst one.

Put that up there, please, on the screen. Well, actually, so we should have put the article. But basically, he held up a sign where he said he was a veteran, and he ran as a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom. I wasn't even in the military. Even I know it's bullshit. So that's actually what I would say I find the most egregious. Now, can he apologize and can he get his way out of it? Yeah, I think so. And generally, I mean, this is kind of what I used to say about the J.D. stuff as well whenever I was worried about it. This

bottom of the ticket attacks will work only to a certain extent. The top of the ticket is ultimately what matters. And yeah, Trump has himself no favors whenever he's basically got himself out of Vietnam. Now, in terms of politically, like what the overall effect of this has been, it is the only time I've seen Trump

the media began to pick up on some of it. Now, partially it's because it has the most teeth in terms of the attack. But I believe the way that the Trump campaign and others appear to be looking at it is they feel like this is a way that they could try to change the conversation. Not necessarily about the Tim Walz thing in general, but to try and get the media to, quote, ask questions of Walz. But what they want is for them to ask questions to

Kamala about this. And they want Kamala to have to be compelled to come out and ask questions, not just about this, but to be asked questions in general. So that's kind of how they are thinking about it. I mean, this is Chris LaCivita. This is what he did successfully with John Kerry. He turned a strength into a weakness. Yes. And that's, you know, they want to recapture that 2004 Swift Boat magic.

And something that is a strength for Tim Walls is that he has this career based on service, whether it's serving in the military or being a high school teacher, which trust me is a form of service. I come from a family of teachers or, you know, being the winning football coach, like

service, service, service, and they want to turn that into a negative. And so that's why they're really honing in on this and doing everything they can possibly with it. Exactly. The final part, it's so funny. This is just so classic Trump. One of the emerging attacks on Walsh was his handling of BLM. Well, it turns out though, Tim Walsh has been sitting on this audio for what, four years and leaked the

video or leaked audio of Trump actually praising Tim Walz for his handling of the BLM protests. Let's take a listen. Governor Walz is on the phone and we spoke and I fully agree with the way he handled it the last couple of days. I asked him to do that and the whole world was laughing.

Two days, three days later, I spoke to the governor. The governor's, I think, on the quality. He's an excellent guy. You've got a big national guard out there that's ready to come in and fight like hell. I tell you, the best, what they did in Minneapolis was incredible. They went in and dominated.

Yeah, so that's going to be tough. That's going to be tough for the Trump people.

Yeah. It's funny, I actually saw a lot of Ron DeSantis boosters who were like, yeah, this is the issue with Trump. They're like, anytime he's on the phone with, he could be on the phone with like his arch nemesis. He'd be like, you're tremendous, you're an amazing person and we love her. But, and then he would continue later. So yeah, that is as Trump as it gets. Can't attack him if Trump is a literal opponent, said that he was doing a good job on the phone at the time. Yeah, that makes it difficult. I mean, to be honest with you, I don't know if you agree with this or not, but-

I don't think that anything that happened in the COVID era is going, like whether people didn't like the decisions in COVID, didn't like, you know, what happened during BLM. I just think people are moving forward. Oh, I totally agree. And this was the problem with the DeSantis campaign was that was the COVID stuff was really central to his political status within the Republican Party. And, you know, he wanted to lean into that and actually moved away from it pretty quickly because people just were like, all right, that's in the past.

I don't really want to think about it or talk about it anymore. So even if you didn't have Trump on the phone literally being like, you've done an incredible job. It was amazing. You came in so fast and so whatever he said. Even if you didn't have that, I don't know that that really sticks to walls. I think, listen, I think it will be difficult, I think, to...

label walls as far left just because of his identity and the way, you know, white, older white dudes just code as sort of moderate in America. I think that'll be difficult. I think, you know, the flip-flop charge that you can definitely level at Kamala Harris, I think that

That is going to be difficult. So if I were them, I would just train their fire on Kamala Harris. I think she's more easily dinged up on, you know, your phone, you're incompetent. That was the big word that jumped out of our word clouds. Like, that's probably where the best juice is, even more so than the, like, far left, liberal, et cetera, et cetera. I think the more accurate thing

which is usually the one that lands and has the most teeth, is you just don't know. - Yeah. - This woman doesn't know where she is, you don't know where she is, you don't know what she's gonna be one day to the next. I think that's probably the most effective political attack that they could go with. - I totally agree with you. Incompetent is the best. I was gonna say, this is another thing I find, is anyone I find still complaining about something from 2020,

And I do this for a living. And I and I I probably complain and remember much better than most. Even I'm like, oh, it doesn't hit. And I'll tell you, I think the reason why this country has a tremendous, you know, a tremendous capacity for amnesia. Joe Biden was our presidential candidate and is our president a month ago, one month ago. Ask.

Anybody in your life will even think about Joe Biden now. They don't. They don't think about him. Donald Trump was almost a sack. He came millimeters away from getting his head split open on national television. Both he and everybody else has completely moved on from that. That was, again, not even a month ago.

And so he's like, you're talking to me about four years ago? I'm like, you know, a lot of analysis has actually been done. If you look at people's political attitudes after pandemics, just because it happened 100 years ago, by two years after the 1918, people were like, what? Who? Flu? What?

What are you talking about? They don't even think about it. And way more people died percentage ways at that time. There's an incredible capacity for amnesia within humanity. And especially in our modern media environment, anybody's relitigating something from four years ago. I mean, even somebody who tells me like, remember when this happened?

if they're trying to run on something Kamala said in 2016, I'm like, guys, it's just so long ago. I mean, the only reason the Kamala flip flop is relevant today is because she basically had no policy position and it was the default up until now. And now she's changing what she did. So I think that's relevant and that's correct today. But if you're trying to say something that she said 2012 or whatever, I'm like, that's rough, man. I just don't think it sticks both in the media environment today and

And it doesn't hit home for what Americans want. Americans want change. They want something new, and they want to move forward. And we are doing that. That, in general, just captures some of the most successful campaigns that we've ever seen. Obama, change. I mean, just the word change became synonymous with this campaign. It's probably one of the most brilliant political moves ever because it doesn't mean anything, but it also means everything.

And that's what you want. Yeah, that's exactly. And that's what the Harris people are clearly trying to seize on. And, you know, the fact that she looks, feels, sounds different gives her a real leg up in that competition. And so, I mean, you can see Republicans are struggling to figure out

where they wanna be, how they wanna approach this, coming up with a consistent message. And for people who are hopeful about the Harris-Walls ticket, they are gonna find some things that are gonna work, right? They are going to have some ads up and come up with some lines of attack that are gonna have some teeth that are gonna be more effective than, let's say, Tampon Tim. But I think they're still going through that process of workshopping things on the fly and seeing what might actually stick. Yeah, we'll see.

All right, let's go ahead and get to some horrific updates coming out of Israel. And I just want to warn everyone, trigger warning here before I show this video. I find it deeply disturbing and you probably will too. We've been discussing for a while on this show the horrific abuse and torture and violence

rape of Palestinian prisoners at this Israeli prison camp. You had a number of soldiers who were initially arrested, although I believe now they've all been released, who were arrested by the Israelis because of raping a Palestinian prisoner, specifically sodomizing him. And there were riots that broke out, including government ministers in

defense of those soldiers who, and let's go ahead and put the video up on the screen while I'm talking, who were on camera.

while they were committing this rape. So I'm gonna play this out. You can see them getting the prisoner up. They're gonna walk him over. They're going to shield themselves because apparently they know that they're being recorded. I believe this is like being live streamed into IDF headquarters. And so they shield what's going on with literal shields. But this is where the horrific sexual assault occurs. And

And, you know, the fact that there's video evidence and the fact that we have multiple mainstream media reports that say this was not an isolated incident. That particular prisoner, we can take this down now, that particular prisoner sustained horrific injuries in that

That's part of why they felt that they had to at least initially arrest these soldiers. They're also playing a bit of a political game here with regard to the ICJ, the ICC, and also some countries that are putting pressure on them of trying to show through a case or two, of course we hold our people accountable. But again, when you look at the body of evidence, this was part of systematic torture and abuse of these prisoners that occurred regularly.

So to show you the way that this is all being received within the state of Israel, I mean, this is, I don't even know what to say about this. They were debating on one of the Israeli news channels, and this is a quote unquote journalist for an Israeli daily newspaper who's arguing in favor of raping Palestinian prisoners and actually complains that the only problem he sees is that this isn't

systematized, which actually there's a question about whether or not it is the UN report. The Pramila Patten report suggested that it was probably systematized. Put this up on the screen. I'm gonna do my best to read the subtitles. He says, "I don't give a rat's ass what they did to that Hamas man." I always remember, first of all, the only thing that is a problem for me here is that it's not a regulated policy of the state to abuse the detainees.

He goes on, first of all, they deserve it. And it's great revenge that we need to give them. And secondly, maybe it will also serve as a little more as a deterrent. And he goes on from there. So,

Unbelievable. Unbelievable. And, you know, I have been certainly a critic of our country. I'm very much a critic of our country in terms of our support of what is happening here and our inability to criticize even these sort of horrific abuses. But

I have never seen anything approaching this sort of argument being made in public in the US on any sort of cable news channel, etc. Yeah, I mean, I was thinking about that interview we did with that liberal Zionist. I mean, they're out of control. Like their society and their civil society is being pushed to the literal brink where what the hell are they going to look like after this, like a couple of years from now? When you open the Overton window to this type of

activity and then basically the breakdown of literal rule of law and a basic military justice. That irony too is like, you can hate the IDF all you want. For the generals are the ones who want to prosecute these guys, but then they are beholden to these far right wing protesters and paramilitary style groups who are trying to break them out. So that secular religious divide and then the nationalist divide and all of that has now reached a point where

They have a literal hostage of the government of this very powerful state with a monopoly on the use of force in the entire region and with nuclear weapons, I would add. Yes, that's right. And this sentiment has become quite mainstream. I don't know what the numbers are, but you can see by the fact that you have Likud party ministers, which Likud is the governing party, BDB, Netanyahu's party, who are

making arguments such as this and protesting in support of these soldiers who raped on camera a Palestinian prisoner. Also really worth remembering, which we've also learned from the reporting on the ground, that yes, I'm sure some of the prisoners who are being held are in fact Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants. Many of them are just Palestinian men.

who got swept up because if you are a Palestinian man, you are automatically suspect. You are automatically assumed to be quote unquote Hamas. Not that even if this is a Hamas individual, obviously that doesn't excuse anything whatsoever because if you are a civilized people and country, this is not how you treat people.

anyone. So horrifying there. Our own Ryan Grim did a fantastic job, of course, pressing State Department spokesperson slash school Matthew Miller on, hey, you know, they're running this open torture camp. It's very clear. We have multiple documented instances and now we have this rape on camera.

What do you think? U.S. government, how do you feel about this? And of course, you get nothing but denial, dodging, obfuscation as usual. Let's take a listen. Finally, on this, like this rape and torture center that seems to be pretty clear, all sides seem to agree that horrible things are taking place here. How is it still open? Does the U.S. believe that it needs to be closed at this point and just

So we believe that all of the allegations need to be fully investigated and anyone responsible needs to be held accountable. I think that's the appropriate first step before moving to anything else. We have seen the video and reports of sexual abuse of detainees are horrific. They ought to be investigated fully.

by the government of Israel, by the IDF. Ought to be investigated fully by Israel, Sagar. I'm sure they're going to be. And that, look, especially considering that we were all basically gaslit about fake rape claims on October 7th

And it was held up by our president, by their government, and by our media. And this one is on camera. Look, what really drives me crazy is the hypocrisy. That's actually where I just come down. I'm like, what are we doing? Why are we subverting ourselves to this client state?

that it's supposed to be a reverse relationship, but they just can't help themselves. And look, again, for the Israelis, I think domestically what's been happening over there, especially recently, is crazy and is going to be so detrimental to them in the long run, not only in terms of international legitimacy, but their own domestic populace. I mean, when you straight up can't prevent prisoners in a jail from being set free and having right-wing or like protesters be hostage, you don't have rule of law as a country anymore. You straight up, it's over.

And this is a tiny ass country. This is not the United States of America. You can't even argue federalism or local or any of that. I mean, this is a small population, small place. And when they have control over nukes and all this, who knows what's going to happen there in the next 10 years? It's a big problem. How about in the next 10 days? Yeah.

Because, you know, we're really on the brink here. And, you know, I think we're all surprised that we haven't seen the Iranian response yet. But no, that has below response yet. But that doesn't mean that it's not coming. In fact, in some ways, the length of time that has gone by between the provocation and the expected attack is deeply worrying. So, yeah, I mean, you have a society that's completely unhinged. And I don't throw the Nazi word around freely, but there is no other way to describe the rhetoric.

and the ideology that was being expressed on that television program. And the fact that that has become a mainstream enough view that the military is afraid to act to adjudicate or hold accountable even the most egregious and obviously well-founded abuses is a terrifying state of affairs from our great friends, the Israeli government. It's totally crazy.

The 2024 presidential election is here. MSNBC has the in-depth coverage and analysis you need. Our reporters are on the ground. Steve Kornacki is at the big board breaking down the races. Rachel Maddow and our Decision 2024 team will provide insight as results come in.

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Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, when LBJ was considering joining JFK's ticket, he was famously counseled by former Vice President John Nance Garner that there wasn't much to be gained from the VP slot. As Garner colorfully put it, the vice presidency was, quote, "not worth a bucket of warm piss."

Now, Trump and J.D. Vance have both been desperately trying to convince themselves that's actually the case after Trump's own pick rapidly descended into heavy negative ratings. When asked if Vance was ready to serve on day one, Trump demurred before insisting that, electorally, the vice presidential pick, it really doesn't matter. Vance has, in humiliating fashion, picked up the talking point of insisting that his existence is really utterly inconsequential. This is, of course, extreme cope, even if we're just talking electorally. Biden mattered for Obama's election, Palin mattered for McCain's loss, and Pence mattered for Trump's 2016 victory.

As for LBJ, he took the job, of course, because he understood that to become vice president is to be placed on a likely path to power. Think George H.W. Bush running and winning after being VP for Reagan, Al Gore winning the Democratic nomination, of course losing to Bush, and Kamala Harris's sudden elevation to the top of the ticket. But in my opinion, the significance of Tim Walz could be even more far-reaching than that.

Walz's selection has added weight because of the amorphous nature of Kamala's own ideology, due to how Walz breaks the mold of typical Democratic politicians, and most of all, because his selection comes at a pivot point in history, when voters are desperate to shed the neoliberalism of the last 40 years but have not yet settled on what might come next. In fact, Walz could just end up being the most consequential vice presidential pick since LBJ. Let me make the case.

So up to the morning of the announcement, I really personally couldn't quite believe Kamala might actually select Walz. Just think about it. Her choice came down to a literal Obama mimic in Josh Shapiro. And I'm not just talking about the cadence and mannerisms. He's got the legal background in Obama and literally every other Democratic ticket has had for decades. Like Obama, he kept unions at arm's length, even mirroring Obama's school voucher and charter school friendly approach.

Shapiro was the darling of the Democratic consultant class and the pro-Israel donor set, and these are the types of groups that typically get their way.

And Shapiro is the type of highly educated technocrat who Democratic elites have found absolutely irresistible. But in what came to me as an absolute shock, Kamala instead selected the most diverse pick the Democratic Party has perhaps ever made. He's diverse in that his entirely ordinary everyman life is rare to the point of near non-existence in Washington.

a veteran who went to a state school before transitioning to become a public school teacher and football coach. This man literally just traveled to San Francisco for the first time ever this year. He wasn't a lawyer like Kamala and Obama or a venture guy like Vance or a billionaire like Trump. Walls literally doesn't even own any stocks, bonds, real estate, crypto investments of any kind outside of his state pensions.

He's never had a book deal. He's never done a paid speaking gig. It's actually unbelievable and diametrically opposed to the current makeup of the Democratic Party. But Walls most clearly shatters the typical Democratic Party mold by actually being interested in delivering policy wins for working people rather than simply having power for the sake of having power. As he said last year, quote, you don't win elections to bank political capital. You win elections to burn political capital and improve lives.

Can you think of an ideology more foreign to a National Democratic Party obsessed with finding excuses for inaction than this stated commitment to taking the reins and throwing your weight around?

The list of policy accomplishments Walls pushed through with a one-vote majority is quite astounding. Kyle's been touting this record for a while now. It includes universal free school meals, working class tax rebates, free college for anyone earning under 80K, 12 weeks paid family and sick leave. On unions, he instituted sectoral bargaining for nursing home workers, banned non-compete clauses, and banned captive audience meetings. And this is really just the tip of the iceberg.

The Minnesota Democrat Farm Labor Party called it the LFG agenda. Let's fucking go. Walz's House record, while overall more centrist-y, includes some real gems too. He actually stood up to Obama on TPP, Fast Track Authority. He appears to be sort of instinctively anti-war. He opposed both the Iraq War and the bombing of Syria.

But it's not just Walz's break from the typical Dem mold of virtue signaling and inaction that matters both electorally and substantively. This agenda puts pretend pro-family populists like J.D. Vance and the supposedly newly pro-worker GOP in quite a bind. As Sourabh Amari wrote in a piece warning Republicans about Walz's populist strength based on his rock-solid pro-family record of achievement, quote, it's the sort of legislation that self-proclaimed pro-family Republicans have too long resisted, even as they have lamented declining marriage and birth rates.

There's a reason these types of Republicans resist simple and popular agenda items. It's because child tax credit, paid family leave, and the like, they're all coded as liberal. The only real consistent Republican ideology is worshiping Trump and owning the libs.

That's why Vance, for example, can't just say he supports family leave or a child tax credit. Instead, he's gotta appear edgy by ostentatiously offending a large group of people a la childless cat ladies. Or he's gotta advocate for some bizarre unconstitutional harebrained scheme like letting parents cast more votes than non-parents.

Trump, for his part, doesn't even really pretend to care about any of this. In other words, Democrats are finally showing up to play in the battle for what comes after neoliberalism. And Republicans, outflanked now in populism, find themselves flailing around talking about tampons, definitely trying to recreate some Swift Boat magic from 2004, hurling around accusations about anti-Semitic microaggressions and inventing Olympic gender controversies. Which, yes, to most voters, that all seems pretty weird.

With another candidate and another time, Walz's record as the vice presidential pick might be as important as that bucket of warm piss.

But this is not a normal time, and Kamala is not a normal candidate. A look at her long history in the public eye leaves one fairly convinced she has no real ideology, no real core beliefs. There seems to be no commitment on which she won't bend, no principle on which she won't budge. She has sat for no interviews since Biden's dropout. She has hastily dropped previous policy commitments that she personally found to be unhelpful. She appears easily moved by whoever happens to have her ear. And now, Tim Walz.

She's got her ear. She could have picked the Obama cologne and instead she chose FDR in a camo hat. Now this should not trick you into thinking Kamala is herself secretly pining to be FDR. Actually, it indicates something that to me is far more important and far more exciting. For the ambitious power-seeking politician with no discernible ideological commitments, it is more politically expedient to seek out the modern New Dealer than the technocratic neolib.

Kamala reportedly did extensive poll testing before making her choice. Ruthless operators Obama and Pelosi both reportedly lined up behind walls as well. Yes, Kamala may have enjoyed his affable demeanor and non-threatening answers as opposed to the blind ambition oozing out of Shapiro.

But ultimately, she and her team made a hard-nosed, data-driven political decision. And for one of the first times ever, that calculus led to an unambiguously good and populist result. Personally, I can't think of anything that is more exciting.

As for that path to power, I got to tell you, today I think Kamala and Walz do defeat Trump and Vance. The vibes, as they say, are off the charts. But whether she loses or wins, Walz is now in the poll position to be the next Democratic nominee. And having Walz as opposed to Shapiro or Mark Kelly at all setting the course for the future of the Democratic Party is actually quite challenging.

Instead of a lawyer rerunning the Obama playbook, we've got a Midwestern populist trained in the Paul Wellstone school so disinterested in the success of the stock market that he literally doesn't own a single security. That doesn't mean the battle is won. Far from it. The US is still aiding a genocide. The world sits on the precipice of a massive war. Cracks are emerging in an economy that was already far too geared towards the wealthy and Wall Street ghouls and billionaires.

They still brazenly throw their cash around to extract political favors. All of that's still true. There is nothing inevitable about progress. But the whiff of possibility is in the air, and that, frankly, is far more than I was expecting just a month ago. Now, in 2008, I naively believed in the promise of hope and change, the idea one guy could come out of nowhere and be totally transformational, charting a new course for the country.

Everything about that political lens was dead wrong. Obama was just Bill Clinton politics in a cool modern disguise. And I now believe that the political moment is more important than the individual personality. Walz's ascent coming on the heels of some Biden shifts towards domestic populism is evidence that perhaps the

the era has shifted. That the anti-populism practiced by neoliberal technocrats is on the wane and a new logic is on the way in. That the best of the Biden administration on unions and antitrust and industrial policy wasn't a blip but a beginning.

That the labor movement is coming back to life and exerting real pressure and influence along with other left organizing like the uncommitted movement. So though you may find it cringe, I do find myself once again filled with hope. Not for a savior, though, because what is most important about Wallace isn't who he is, but a possible shift he represents. And Sagar, it is because Kamala is so devoid of any...

And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. The 2024 presidential election is here. MSNBC has the in-depth coverage and analysis you need. Our reporters are on the ground. Steve Kornacki is at the big board breaking down the races. Rachel Maddow and our Decision 2024 team will provide insight as results come in.

and the next day Morning Joe will give you perspective on what it all means for the future of our country. Watch coverage of the 2024 presidential election Tuesday, November 5th on MSNBC.

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So here with the aforementioned reporting on sanctions and also weigh in a little bit on the conversation Sagar and I were just having with regards to Tim Walz is Jeff Stein. Great to see you, Jeff. Good to see you, sir. Thanks for having me, guys. Yeah, of course. So you tweeted this. We can put this up on the screen about Tim Walz. You were taking a little glance at his economic philosophy, and he had apparently put out this idea, the economy is a garden, not a

a jungle. When you combine this with his record in the state of Minnesota, what can you say about his sort of economic view and how he might add to a potential Kamala Harris administration?

Yeah, I mean, I think if you look at his record as a member of the House, he was clearly aligning himself with the more moderate wing of the party. He had a vote score that was pretty centrist. But when he had the chance to implement pretty progressive legislation in Minnesota, it seems like he ran with that. Everyone knows by now recreational marijuana, the biggest child tax credit for low-income families.

of any state in the country after the Biden one fell apart, all kinds of other progressive legislation that, you know, they had a trifecta. There were people, you know, who were pushing it. So he had the opportunity to do it, which a lot of governors probably would do if they also had the chance. But at a minimum, we can say he did not stand in the way of progressive legislation and seems to be quite outspoken, particularly about free school lunches, which I think is an

a very effective populist policy that they can run on. So Jeff, you have always been so good at this. What has been your experience so far trying to get some policy positions and perhaps some insight into a quote unquote day one agenda from the Harris campaign? It's a really good question because in some ways,

She is a bit of a tabula rasa. It's a little bit like, what does she actually stand for? Because in 2020, she sort of was aiming for the Bernie wing of the party. Right. You guys remember, like, she called for banning fracking, Medicare for all. I think I did a story at one point that was like, is Kamala Harris's $7 trillion Green New Deal big enough? Yeah. That just looks absurd. Yeah. But...

You know, as a member of the Biden administration and since then, she's kind of distanced herself. We've seen her say that she doesn't support a fracking ban anymore. She's put distance between herself and the Medicare for all proposal. So what is it that she supports? And on a lot of issues, she actually seems to be a bit of a cipher. We don't really know where she stands on antitrust policy, which

I think you guys have done some work on industrial policy, I think is another big question mark. My sense from talking to people who have worked with her is that there's a few things that she does really care about. The things that I have heard that she feels in her bones are the care economy proposals, childcare, paid family leave, universal pre-K. Those are things that she's been working with the SEIU very closely for a long time and

she seems to feel those policies quite deeply. Medical debt, like reforming or canceling medical debt and student debt are also things that have come up a lot. Housing, maybe to a slightly lesser extent. It's an interesting, you know, I wouldn't say that she doesn't care about industrial policy or unions or infrastructure, but her, you know, Biden had for 30, 40 years been like, you know, if like you woke him up in the middle of the night, he would have like a theory about what was wrong with the economy. It's like big corporations, like, you know,

His desire to be Union Joe was solidified over years, and he had an alliance with blue-collar tradesmen that went back decades. He also, I think, obviously had a centrist legacy on credit cards and student debt. Right. Her policy positions are so much more unformed, but we're starting to see an emergence of like,

this set of issues that I think would sort of make sense to finish sort of the stuff that Biden was unable to do, the parts of the Build Back Better agenda that Manchin killed. You can see her sort of gearing up to make a push to finish those. Gotcha. All right, let's go and talk about your work on sanctions, which is extraordinary. I really recommend people read through this piece because I think it's so important to understand this. You say how four U.S. presidents unleashed economic warfare across the globe, and you track

the way that the U.S. sanctions regime has wildly expanded. And you also track the way that in many critical regards, it has failed to accomplish the goals, the supposed goals that were set out for it. So give us the broad strokes of what you were looking at here. Yeah, it's like as a reporter who covers the Treasury Department, I'm on their news list serve. And every week they send an email that's like,

New list of people who we've sanctioned. Right. And it's like, I was reading these emails, like every, it felt like almost every day in my inbox, like a new group of people would be sanctioned by the US government. And it's like,

What is the volume of this? Like that's the, was the impetus of the reporting. It's like, how big is this thing? And we reported an analysis we did internally that took a lot of time to do, but we found that a third of all countries on earth are under some form of US sanctions. And the number that really I found jaw dropping in the piece,

60% of all poor, low-income nations are under some form of U.S. sanctions. Wow. So we are talking about, I mean, just off the top of my head, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Mali, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan.

I could go on. I mean, the number of countries, Burma, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, like this is a breathtakingly large list that I think I'm so glad that reporting has gotten the reception it has because I feel like the more I report on this, the more amazed I was that people were so unaware. I mean, even I, as someone who covers this issue specifically, I was like, I had no idea that it was this. I didn't know we were sanctioning Burma.

Oh wait, that one goes back to my election. - Yeah, I was gonna say, it's actually, yeah, that's, it's fun. Which one you say betrays the law? What I found most interesting about it was about both the, how obvious it is in many cases of a backfire or of unintended consequences,

and not the Treasury Department ever factoring that into their decision-making. I see this with the Russia thing all the time. As you point out, you're like, yeah, it's weakened them some. Now we've also created, though, this entire offshore fleet of ships which just operate outside the realm of the U.S. financial system. So can you talk about, is there any feedback loop? Is there ever any assessment? Because from reading your story, it just seems like it just compounds. We invent new sanctions and we try something else, but there's never any ask-and-answer

of both bipartisan of does this actually work? Like, is this accomplishing the goal that we set out to do? It's such a good question, Sagar. I mean, I think when you talk to US officials about this, they recognize that the pressure to impose sanctions, the like sort of institutional force that pushes this apparatus along is like something happens anywhere in the world. And then there's this like force to do something about it. And because we don't want to go to war in

in some cases, because the impetus for that has, I think subsequent presidents have seen the dangers of going to war. Obviously, the disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan. Following that, there was a sense that this is politically disastrous. And then simultaneously, there's pressure not to do nothing. And so sanctions is like in this

this in-between position that presidents find that they can do something that's not war. But then there's no evaluation after the fact, after the news cycle has moved on. And so we have a chart in the story that shows

the number of sanctions that are removed after they're imposed is breathtakingly small because there isn't really any apparatus within the government evaluating whether these have worked after they've been imposed. Cuba, of course, is like the paradigmatic example of this. We've had sanctions on Cuba for over 60 years. And this is the thing where, like,

You would talk to some, you know, you talk to like a young leftist and be like, what do you think? Like the Cuba sanctions are terrible. But I was astonished by the number of like senior sort of like foreign policy hawk types that I would talk to for this story who would be like, like quasi supportive of like Afghanistan, you know? And they'd be like, can you believe we still have sanctions on Cuba? And we're like, you're like the guy who's like,

The caricature of the person who's like in the back office of the Pentagon pushing a more hawkish foreign policy. And even these people are like, what are we getting out of this? Right. And so the thing with this is like the political incentives are only to go forward. No one really thanks the government for removing sanctions. Maybe...

sort of people in those countries would feel that way, but those aren't important domestic political constituencies where you have, you know, in the case of Cuba, members of Florida, both parties are like, do not remove these sanctions or we will have a field day. And so there's only political downside for taking the risk of removing sanctions. And so then you just see them pile up, pile up, pile up, pile up. Yeah, because who wants to, I mean, listen, with regard to Florida, it's a red state now, so maybe we could have a more sane policy. Like, why are we still, why are you still doing this thing?

at this point. But to your point, it reminds me of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Everyone, there was a huge national consensus and Trump flirted with withdrawing from Afghanistan, etc, etc. But actually doing it is messy and no one wants to be that guy. It's the same thing with sanctions. It's an easy political hit. You can see him queuing up the talking points on Fox News about you took the sanctions off of Iran and how could you and these are evil people, etc, etc. So there's nothing politically to be gained from rolling the

back. I'd love for you to, you can speak to that as well. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. But dig into the Russian sanctions regime. If I'm not incorrect, I believe this is now the most sanctioned country on earth. And yes, it's taken a hit. It's not like it's been totally painless for them. But it's also had massive significant downsides. And I also don't think has been nearly as devastating to them as was initially anticipated.

Yeah, for the story we try to come up with a sanction severity index because the scale of sanctions is so hard to pinpoint. And I had experts who were like, it's wrong because of this. And experts who would say like your sanction severity index is wrong in the completely opposite direction, which made it hard to reconcile. But one thing people did agree about was that the volume of sanctions on Russia is, I think, the greatest of any country. Like we have imposed more sanctions on Russia than we have on any other country. But...

the number of sanctions can be a little misleading relative to their impact. So with a country like Iran or North Korea, we can say, do not have business with this country. We can impose a sort of breathtakingly sweeping secondary sanctions regime where we can say to European officials, you guys cannot trade with them either or we will sanction you. That's like the scale of American hegemony. It's breathtaking.

But that can also just be like two sanctions. You know, you can just impose two sanctions on Iran and cut them off from the global economy. Right. Whereas Russia, you can be like, we will not take the sanction step that cuts them off entirely, but we will sanction like Dimitri's like vodka shop that has no business in the West anyway. And then like 30 suppliers of military hardware that that like are in like Eastern Russia. So it's like

The U.S. has these political incentives to keep pushing out additional sanctions. They like try to like fool reporters into writing headlines that are like, which I think they're actually quite good at. Fool is strong, so, but like they will put out press releases that are like, like when there was pressure to respond to the Navalny death, the Russian dissident who died in prison, there was a lot of pressure on the U.S. to do something big.

And they came out with this announcement. It's like, U.S. imposes 400 sanctions on Russia in response. And, like, beneath the hood, like, almost none of these were of economically significant impact. Yeah. That's a good point. We saw this with regard to Israel. We're going to sanction these, you know, like— Yeah, the West Bank settlers. Three guys. Right. And these guys are like, we don't do any business with you anyway, so whatever. We're fine. And the Israelis were upset about the symbolic impact.

you know, meaning of that, but how much did that hurt the Israeli economy? It seemed quite little. Sorry. No, no. I was just thinking, so in the future, what's with the assessment and all of that? Well, first, like, why did you set out to write the story? Like what, what, what even, you know, inspired you to do this?

I think just just realizing that this is The main tool of US foreign policy now and it felt so under examined under explored It's really tens of millions hundreds of millions of people that are affected by this and you look at I mean I think one of the things that kind of accelerated my reporting was looking at the case of Venezuela I mean, there's so many international examples to talk about here, but in the case of Venezuela

The number of people hurt by that country's economic collapse is breathtaking. I mean, they had the single biggest decline of any economy not at war in modern history, 71% economic contraction. That is bigger than Ukraine in 2022, bigger than Iraq in 2003. It's bigger than...

Zimbabwe in the last 20 years. This is a catastrophe that is among the worst humanitarian disasters we've had this century. And there's a huge debate about the extent to which US sanctions exacerbated that. But the consensus among the economists I talked to is cutting off Venezuelan economic officials from refinancing their debt on global markets.

cutting off their main, their source of 96% of export revenue, which is the PeraVesta, which was the main, the state-owned oil enterprise, which was like the sort of lifeblood of their economy. We saw malnutrition and poverty and, you know, hunger and all these horrific indices increase. And if you ask like a friend, you know, like,

about Iraq or Afghanistan, like they'll be able to tell you like the U.S. like went in and like all these people died and like they know. But sanctions have operated in this sphere where because the language of economic warfare is so desiccated, is so removed from like the viscerality of guns and bloodshed, we don't see the consequences of

The same way, even if they can be, even if the human toll can be as severe, if not more severe, if you cut off a country's access to food and medicine, it can be worse than a targeted military strike. But because of, you know, for somewhat understandable reasons, because of the way the media works and the way human attention works, it doesn't concentrate our attention in that sort of way.

in that sort of way. So I know I'm rambling a little bit. No, no, no. It's very helpful. How much is your, what is your sense of how much our sanctions regimes on various countries, you mentioned Venezuela, have contributed to immigration flows? And that may be true here to the US, but also in other places around the world. Yeah. So we're doing, as you guys mentioned, the series. And the third story in our series was about

how the Department of Homeland Security had produced internal warnings under Trump that went to the Trump White House that said tighter sanctions on the Venezuelan regime risks fueling out migration in the region. So this was a risk that the Trump White House was made aware of in these classified reports that were described to us by senior administration officials.

And the migration crisis out of Venezuela is a key part of the humanitarian catastrophe. More than 7 million people have left Venezuela since the crisis started. That predates U.S. sanctions in part, but was accelerated by it. We are talking about...

something like a fifth or a sixth of the country attempting to leave. Wow. And then we have this situation at the border, which was, to be fair to the Republicans, was not caused by sanctions and only spiked after Biden relaxed some Trump border policies, which the left will yell at me for saying, but it's just sequentially true. Yeah. But

But there's also no doubt that a big source of migrants that was part of the Biden border crisis was migrants from Cuba and migrants from Venezuela, two countries that have been heavily sanctioned. And as we reported, they knew that that was a risk of tighter sanctions.

That's very interesting. Well, Jeff, we highly recommend people read the piece. We're going to put the description down in the link and we always appreciate it, my friend. Thank you. Love being on. Thank you. I love being able to like explain things at length. We love having things explained to us. Read the story. It's really, really good. All right. We'll see you guys later.

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