Peter Hamby: Living the Racist Porn Message Board Life
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Sponsored by the Coalition for Medicare Choices. Learn more at medicarechoices.org. Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. I couldn't be happier to be here today with the host of Good Luck America on Snapchat, founding partner at Puck, host of the Powers That Be podcast, which comes out every day, but don't listen to it before you listen to mine. He's a teen heartthrob, mostly for awkward teenage boys, and he's a porn message board culture analyst, so he's perfect for today's show, Peter Hamby.

Hey, Peter. Hey, better than tiger droppings, right? Barely, barely. He's also one of my besties. I guess I should have said that, Peter. I just, you know, I needed somebody to just chop shop with on Mark Robinson today. It's quite the story. For anybody that's been in a hole, the Republican nominee for governor in North Carolina was revealed via CNN's K-file to be a very frequent messenger on a

porn website, Nude Africa, on the site. He said, among other things, I'm a black Nazi. I'd take Hitler over any of the shit that's in Washington right now. Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I would certainly buy a few. Martin Luther King, get that commie bastard off the National Mall. He said that a woman who complained about being sexually assaulted by a taxi driver, the moral of the story is don't F a white bitch.

Sienna didn't even include some other good ones. Some peeing stuff, you know, some stuff about sleeping with his wife's sister. Some other gross stuff that's even too gross for this podcast. Dude was in it, I guess, is the big thing here. He was like living the racist porn message board life at like a very high level. If you're like have that paper trail on the porn message boards.

It's not like you're checking in once a day. Like, you know, you open the Yahoo Sports app and you see if the Reds won last night. You are spending a lot of time.

On that website and others, you're thinking a lot about it. By the way, this brings up a good point. Not that his opponent would bring this up, but like if you're thinking that much about porn and it's occupying that much headspace, sir, how much time are you going to be spending as governor of the great state of North Carolina thinking about this stuff? Or are you going to be thinking about bringing textile jobs back to the triad? You know, it's a good hit.

He's going to be thinking about transsexual sex, which he's very into, according to the many posts about that, despite, obviously... And Doc Rivers. Poor Doc, catching strays. I mean, Doc is one difference, one key difference between Doc and Mark Robinson, among many, is that he's not going around calling trans people and gays filth.

He's not going around talking about how he wants to keep trans people out of women's bathrooms. That's an interesting law that he's proposing, the bathroom law, considering one of the other things he discusses on the Porn Message Board is how he'd like to be a peeper. He'd climb on ladders and peep into ladies' bathrooms. Oh, I miss that. There's a lot of material to sort through, Peter, and I wouldn't have expected you to read every post, every piss porn post that he posted.

The other thing I think I'd like to layer in here is in addition to like logging hours on the Nude Africa message board, he also was a nightly visitor to the porn shop, the physical porn store, the video store, where you go into the back room and according to reports, you'd bring a pizza into the back room where you do this further. It's just like, I mean, how did this guy have time to like...

Make a living. He went bankrupt several times. Also, like, how did this guy find time to, you know, go to the bank, go to the grocery store? You know, I mean, this dude was logging huge hours on message boards in person, porn stores. I mean, hey, like whatever floats your boat is fine with me. But just like as a practical matter, this seems inefficient. This is something that'll send a throw up the leg of bulwark listeners. Yeah.

The MAGA grift has brought into the political class a bunch of people who, prior to Donald Trump, were just people who either lived on the fringes of society or fringes of the economy, who were weird, lonely, had a lot of time on their hands, found power.

a, you know, you would call it a cult found, you know, something to hold on to. And there are plenty of people who are Republicans in the Trump era who have- I think Mark was holding on to something. It sure is. You know, there are plenty of people in MAGA Republican politics who had nice careers as entrepreneurs and businessmen and lawyers and doctors or whatever before becoming politicians in whatever level of government. There are also plenty of people who were just like

Didn't have anything to do, you know, and they are just kind of clowns, you know, and he seems like an emblem of that. Can we tie this to the campaign, though? Like, I think Mark Robinson was already on track to lose Republicans. I talked to RGA adjacent consultant types yesterday. Like, they already thought this race was kind of gone for him. All the things you mentioned, the peeping and the piss porn. First time saying that on a content.

content activation. The black Nazi. Yeah. Don't forget the black Nazi, Martin Lucifer Kuhn. You know, there's just, there's a lot there. Okay, great. So here's, here's when you think about North Carolina and maybe you're thinking about Kamala Harris in November and how these two races are correlated. Obviously Barack Obama won North Carolina back in 08 when you were on the McCain train. Yeah.

He had spent considerable resources there organizing college campuses and black communities in the primaries.

and they continued to target it as a swing state, and they ended up winning that state. Kind of a surprise, but a good W for Obama. Since then, hasn't been a battleground. 2012 was the last time it was a real battleground with a lot of resources invested there. People forget in 2022, there was a black female at the top of the Senate race ticket there for Democrats, Sherry Beasley. Lost by three points, I think. That's the Richard Bursey. The problem for Dems is they haven't been able to maximize...

turnout in sort of more rural, out-of-the-way black corners of the state. The whites there, it's a great genre of whites. College-educated whites. For Democrats. College-educated white folks in the Research Triangle outside Charlotte over in Buncombe County, which is Asheville. Those folks are going to vote for Kamala. And we were texting about this Saturday. Like, you think about the South. Like, North Carolina is a little different.

Like North Carolina is a little more mid-Atlantic, you know, just a different kind of white, less of an SEC dad, a little more progressive, more willing to vote for Kamala Harris. Democrats need to maximize black voters.

turn out and then get all those white folks out and then a bunch of college students. So maybe the black Nazi stuff, maybe the pro-slavery stuff, you can bundle that into messaging and radio, mail, door knocks, whatever, TV, digital. I don't know how you reach voters these days, but I think it's pretty helpful. Like if you're in the coordinated campaign in North Carolina for both campaigns. Yeah.

You've made two trenchant points there, one about this election, one about the state of the party. Let's just I want to start on this election first. I'm sure everyone's heard this clip, but it's worth just listening to one more time in the context of just having heard what Mark Robinson was posting on these message boards. Let's hear Donald Trump talking about Mark Robinson recently. This is Martin Luther King on steroids. OK, now I told that I told that I told that to Mark.

I said, "I think you're better than Martin Luther King. I think you are Martin Luther King times two." And he looked at me and I wasn't sure was he angry because that's a terrible thing to say or was he complimented. I have never figured it out, but I'm telling you he's one of, right? When I said that to you, you looked like, I don't know if I liked that comment. You should like it.

You should like it, Mark. But you don't. Because you think Martin Luther King is a commie bastard and Lucifer. And we should take down his monuments.

Donald Trump was onto something there. Peter, he was onto something. He was like, he's like, I'm sensing you don't, you aren't taking this as a compliment. I'm comparing you to the only good black person I can think of in my brain. If I'm Donald Trump and that's Martin Luther King, I can't think of any others to compare you to. And so I'm comparing you to him and you don't think of Don King. Don King would be like Muhammad of the late,

Great Muhammad Ali. And you're like them combined. And he's like, it's kind of strange that Mark Robinson doesn't seem to be taking this as a compliment. I think we know why now. But, you know, some of that stuff's going to look ugly in the ads. And just that whole combo of, you know, what the Democrats need, what you're talking about, depressing turnout among Republicans.

exciting the black voters within North Carolina, bringing over the suburban ACC dads. Like this seems to help on all three counts, right? Yeah. The depressing the white turnout. Maybe not. Maybe not. You know, maybe it does. So that's the other thing. So one reason North Carolina is hard for Democrats is you do have, you know, maybe there's some bulwark

Charlotte dads out there who definitely are. Yeah. Sorry. There definitely are. Those people, if you're listening to bulwark and you live in, in, in Charlotte and you work in finance, sorry, you're not voting for Donald Trump, but the Jesse Helms whites, like the folks out in like the coastal plain out in

out in the hollers where my family is descended from, you know, those folks, they turn out for Donald Trump. They're not going to hear like kind of, I wish I owned slaves and I've bankrupted three times. I don't think they care. Yeah. There's nothing Hitler's better than everyone in America. They're still like, dude, I want this guy to run North Carolina. What? I mean, like he's a total mess in his personal life.

I don't think they care. He spends all of his life watching porn or going to porn stores and he's done nothing, but he should be in charge of the state. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah. I think that that's a down, down the line or check the box. If Donald Trump is at the top of the ticket, that's my only take. I'm just making clear. I agree with you, but I've just, you know, like this is all new and fresh. So we're just trying to state it clearly. They just don't care about it.

Like they wouldn't put this guy in charge of their local Arby's. They might feel like probably we could probably we could find somebody better. Yeah, we could probably find a better candidate. Well, the Trump campaign apparently was pressuring Robinson to drop out on Thursday before the deadline to switch candidates. That was a gambit that wasn't going to work this too late. I mean, you talked a lot about sprint primaries back in July. How do you have a primary in two hours?

Two hours? Yeah, they were looking over the debit card. It's like, you pulled off this switch. It's working out for you. Can we do this in the next four hours? Yes. No, it didn't work. But the sort of base Trump voters have a way. They are the kings and queens of motivated reasoning. Just like Mark Robinson was yesterday on television with Andrew Kaczynski saying that some internet goblins went back in time using AI to invent these fake posts. I think Trump voters...

can self-justify anything as long as Trump is at the top of the ticket and he's wearing the MAGA jersey.

I guess and I will say this you say this about Trump now Trump obviously we had Suzanne Craig on yesterday like most of Trump's businesses have been disasters and it's all kind of a big con but like he just gives off the aura of somebody that was a good businessman at least he could be like he should be in charge of stuff he was a businessman Mark Robinson's entire life was it just has been just a disaster like he's in shambles in his personal life he's like the guy that if this dad was

was the other dad on your kid's baseball team. You're like, please don't sit next to me in the stands. This is who this person is. Like, he might ask me to borrow some money. So, like, I don't know. There's got to be some gap there. There's obviously some gap. Trump is doing better than him. There's some people out there that are getting there for Trump, but not for this guy. Yeah. It's tough. You made another point, though, that I want to get into.

Because you, you know, you were for a while, I still are, but really for a while there in the mid 2010s, in our heyday, you know, kind of made your bones at like Republican events and like know the Republican people, know the types of Republican candidates, had good relationships with Republican candidates. You're in South Carolina, had good relationships with Republican candidates. And I think it's underappreciated, just like...

from a supply and demand side, like how bad the supply of Republican candidates is right now. I don't hear like the response with a quote unquote responsible Republicans, like Scott Jennings on CNN or Josh Holmes. No, none of them ever say this, but it's like when you've created a party where the only thing you need to do to win a primary is be just totally beholden to a charlatan. And like, that's all you got to do. The top two skills are like,

be the Trumpiest Trump fan in the world and be as mean to woke libs as you can. Right? Like those are the two skills like that should be at the top of your resume. If you want to win a primary, like you're going to naturally draw these people. And this was the point you're going to, like, you're going to get George Santos and Mark Robinson and Herschel Walker and Carrie Lake. Like these are the people you're going to attract, right?

Because, like, you're not judging for military service or business success or whatever. And, like, you know, we had weirdos in the Republican Party in the aughts. But, like, it is a category difference, like the candidate, like quality. Yeah, look, I think there are some exceptions to this.

I mean, obviously you have candidates and politicians in the Republican Party. Dave McCormick. Or like someone like Doug Burgum. Yeah, like self-funders. Well, he's in North Dakota. Right. No, they exist sort of outside the boundaries of like media attention and big media markets. And maybe they came out of nowhere. Like, I don't know enough about this race, I should say. But like Tim Sheehy in Montana kind of feels like someone who's like not necessarily like

full-blown MAGA Republic. You kiss the ring when you need to. I'm not saying it's most people. I'm not. So here's a good example. This is in the news right now. Mike DeWine. Like, how is he governor of Ohio? So Mike DeWine, when I first met him in 2010, he was in the Senate, right? Before he became governor, he was sort of campaigning around for the Republican ticket. At the time, he became governor in 2018. Right?

which is a very Trumpy time in the Republican party and has been reelected twice has, you know, he stood up to Trump on, in the early days of COVID. He has been, you know, a little bit of an aberration in that state. A very reasonable guy wrote an op-ed in the New York times today, standing up for Springfield and immigration, legal immigration and attacking Trump in advance for what they're saying about Springfield. Like that guy also exists in a state where,

That is no longer on the table for Democrats because it's so Trumpy. So there are exceptions out there. You know, like how does a guy like Mike DeWine win a primary? Just name ID? Well, do you think that Mike DeWine, so Mike DeWine will be term limited out there in 26. And so who are the Republicans going to attract to run for that governor's seat? Like no matter what happens in this election, is it going to be a Mike DeWine type or is it going to be a Vivek?

And like, I mean... It'll be a Vivek. Yeah, if anybody wants to take the other side of this bet from me, if there are any dispatch stands out there that want to take the other side of this bet, I would love to be wrong. I would gladly pay out. Sometimes I bet on LSU because I'm hoping, because I'm wishing. But I'm glad to pay...

I'm glad to pay out if we lose. We were at the LSU-UCLA game a couple years ago out here at the Rose Bowl. Do you have money on the game this weekend? Yeah, I think this weekend's will be better than that one. I think this weekend's will be better than that one. But, you know, I'm happy to pay. But sometimes you're wrong. I could be wrong. UCLA could surprise LSU this weekend. But all signs point to the fact that a Vivek model, not a Mike DeWine model, is what's happening. And a big reason for that, why does this keep happening?

Like it's because of the incentives, right? It's because there's nobody that's like, you know, there's no incentive to say, Hey, like to win a Republican primary in my resume, I want to demonstrate to you that I ran a business and I'm for tax cuts and I'm like that people. And I'm a good upstanding citizen. I'm a member of the community. I was a leader of the Elks club. Like nobody cares about that shit.

Like they want to know, can you own the libs? And do you like Trump? Both of these categories, though, maybe I'm being naive and optimistic here, are both backward looking. So you've got the MAGA Republican and then you've got the sort of old model Tim Republican. You know, let's attack Vivek for a second, because Vivek is the ultimate grifter cornball.

This guy, you know, he wrote a couple of books about anti-woke corporate culture. He's, you know, you know, one of these all in podcast types for somebody who postures as a business guy, an entrepreneur, an innovator, someone who's, you know, went to Harvard, uses the Internet and embraces it. No imagination. So this is the thing like this might not be your type of Republican, but can't there be some Republican out there?

To sort of like fuse the worlds and bend the narrative a little bit in their direction. Like Vivek is just grafted onto the Trump train. And he's like, I'm going to do this because I can get famous in this culture. I can get on Fox News, et cetera, and make some bucks off a few books and then run for office in Ohio. You know, I think Ohio is interesting. I mean, that same election, DeWine,

One, Sherrod Brown won. You know, like Republicans won the House vote in Ohio in 2018. And I think, by the way, Sherrod Brown can win this year against a Trumpy guy. I'm not saying Ohio Republicans will reject the vague, but it's all just like very backwards looking, very uninteresting at this point. Like the cult, maybe we're just in our blue bubbles, I guess, but it feels like it's getting old. Like, can't somebody come along and

rebrand, not the party, but like what republicanism means is

Yeah, I mean, there'll have to be some kind of fusion if Trump loses, I guess. But I don't know how you get away from the supply and demand problem. If what people are incentivizing is lib owning, then you're going to get... But isn't 2022 the counterexample? Like all the Republicans run as MAGA and lost. And that's a general election. He's on the ballot. The primary electorate. Look, Mark Robinson ran in a primary against somebody that was like...

You know, what's a good Southern name? Give me a good Southern name. Brett.

Yeah, you know, kind of like, yeah, it's like a good Ole Miss SAE name. Thad. Thad, yeah. He ran against somebody that was just like. Cooper. Yeah. Cooper. There you go. Yeah, he ran against a guy that was just like Cooper Brownstone. And Cooper was like a regional manager. He's like a business guy. He's at the Chamber of Commerce. And he wore a blue blazer. And like he also, you know, had a casual outfit that he wore.

that he got from Billy Reed or whatever. And like, he just was like a upper middle class Southern man. The like, whatever went to NC state and did everything you're supposed to do. And Mark Robinson, who before we even knew that he was a porn fiend, we already knew that he was a Holocaust denier and a freak weirdo, like beat him like 70 to 30. That's the problem. That is like, to me, the biggest takeaway from what we're learning from the mark thing. But the Vivek though, you mentioned this, I had one little note here. I'm glad you've mentioned Vivek. I want to come back to him.

To just show you how fucking weird J.D. Vance has gotten in all of this. I don't know if you saw the story. Vivek wouldn't go there on the cat eating. Mm-hmm.

Vivek got asked, he had some event for Trump and they were trying to pressure him because he's thinking about running for governor of Ohio. And they're like, so what do you think about this caddying thing? It's like, yeah, you know, it's like, I can't, he's like, I can't really, I'm not going to be the judge between what people are saying out there. I just know that there's some real problems in the community we got to deal with. I mean, if you are J.D. Vance, you got to be like, man, if I'm advancing a conspiracy so absurd that not even Vivek would go there.

They're pretty deep down the rabbit hole. Yeah. Vivek has actually in recent months tweeted a few things where like, I wouldn't say he's been urging sanity. You can see that little antenna. Yeah, exactly. Like, and this is what I'm saying. Like,

God bless the people of Ohio. This is the Peter Hamby sports slash coaching tree special. Like, you know, I have North Carolina people. My dad's from Cincinnati. My family's from Cincinnati. I'm a Reds fan. I don't think Vivek's been to a single Reds game this year. You know, challenges Ohio credentials on that. But yeah, like his antenna is toward running for governor and maybe he's got to moderate a little bit. He's like Ben Shapiro. Like he confuses being loud and

And confuses being good at debate with being an intellectual. And, you know, he can bend words to whichever direction he wants to suit his political ends. One last closing thought on Ohio before I want to get to Kamala. The Mike DeWine op-ed that you mentioned.

It was nice. It was nice. It was good. Except for one paragraph was everything that I would like. I was going to say most of that stuff really was City on a Hill, Reagan. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Could be Georgia. Compassionate conservatism. Immigrants are an important part of the fabric. Pluralism. And he was hitting all my notes. And then we get to this line.

As a supporter of former President Trump and J.D. Vance, I'm saddened by how they and others continue to repeat claims that lack evidence and disparage legal migrants living in Springfield. This rhetoric hurts the city and its people, and it hurts those who have spent their lives there. Does he have to do this? Why does he have to do this? He's 77. He's retiring. He's retiring. Come into the light, Mike Devine. It's okay. It's okay. Just kind of go down to the store, grab a couple coconuts.

Jack Kamala's fine. Kamala Waters fine. For Mike DeWine, how does he look at these people and he's like, you are disparaging and lying about my constituents and you are putting them in danger. And I'm proud to support you for president of the United States. It is. It's one of those things. So it's a little...

It leaves me wanting. People overanalyze the behavior of politicians like Mike DeWine. And by the way, this cuts to a lot of MAGA stuff and why a lot of Republicans went along with the train. He wants to keep going to the conventions and the fundraiser. Like this is his whole life.

Why? He's 77. People like going to conventions. I don't know, man. It's your whole life. Take your wife down to Del Boca Vista. Go down to Del Boca Vista. You know, that's great. It's a great life. Enjoy your golden years. You want to go to a fucking rubber chicken dinner with Don Trump Jr. in Toledo in 2025? That's what you want to do? Really? So, you know, I'm on...

the Mike DeWine Wikipedia page right now. He was first elected as a county prosecutor in 1977. I am bad at math. What is that? 40 years ago? It's a long time. It's a long time, man. When you get in the game, you become an addict. And this is like your whole life and your whole culture and your friends and the people you date and the parties and your commonalities with people. Like it's just what you do. And so, but ultimately,

By the way, I agree with you and Scott, our pal, we always text about this too. Like if you are Rupert Murdoch or you are Bob Iger or you are, you know, any super rich person, like it's the Logan Roy thing. Like if you're that rich, what's stopping you from like boating around the Caribbean all the time and like living your life and like you have 10 horse ranches, like go ride horses or whatever. And so politicians, I think the same thing, not wealthy, but like,

Yeah. You know, there's lots of things you can do. Mike DeWine, let me be your Nalaxone. Like, let me get you off this drug. You know, you can just do it. Come on down to New Orleans. It's great. We'll have a purple drink. Your life will be fine. Life goes on. You don't need to do it anymore. It's been a good, it was a 46 year run. Mike DeWine is not going to Lafitte's, my friend.

Well, we could find you something. We could take you to Brennan's. There you go. We could have a nice dinner, go to Arnott's, right? Sit up there on the balcony. Come on, Mike DeWine. You got 40 some odd days left. We got to talk about Kamala. You were texting me last night. I forget what it said. Something like, this is my shit. So let's listen to it. I'm a gun owner. Tim Walz is a gun owner. I did not know that.

If somebody breaks in my house, they're getting shot. Sorry. Yes, yes. I hear that. I hear that. Probably should not have said that. My staff will deal with that later. Kamala the cop. Kamala the rogue cop. Shooting, breaking, and entering people.

That's good, right? It was really good. Like, so our pal Keith Edwards, by the way, tweeted this last night. He tweeted the quote, if someone breaks into my house, they're getting shot. Kamala Harris. And then he tweeted a screen grab of a 270 to win map that's entirely blue. Like 100% electoral college victory. But that's the thing. Like, the Trump campaign tweeted this out as if it were a gaffe. That was weird. The Trump campaign flipped it out. What's the gaffe?

And by the way, relatable. Kamala and Doug live in Brentwood, which is, you know, not since the OJ murder. Pretty safe place. But relatable, relatable L.A. homeowner comment. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln. Other than the most famous murder of our lifetime, it's been a really safe neighborhood. By the way, by the way, I'm going to fact check myself. Home invasions in Los Angeles are up this year.

Los Angeles obviously has a crime problem. Liberals can pretend crime in cities is fine. It's not. Kamala Harris saying, I would fucking shoot somebody if they broke into my house to protect my family. Extremely relatable, not just in LA, but fucking everywhere. And so it's not just the Kamala is a cop thing that she's going back on. There's something I've noticed about her in this movie.

And this goes back to when I interviewed her in March for my Snapchat show. You know, you and I and our friends on our text groups, we've talked for a while about the Kamala Harris between 2019 and 2021 was like, what are you? What do you believe in? You don't have a coherent worldview. You feel insecure. You're always playing defense. You're not good at interviews.

When she is confident, she is very good. And for whatever reason, she has been confident since joining this campaign as the nominee. And when she talks...

about herself and when she speaks freely off talking points, she's pretty good, man. Like it was like when she was talking to Dana Bash and said, next question about, you know, her, her racial identity. When I think this was in the NABJ thing the other day, someone asked her about her laugh and she just pivoted. And she's like, be yourself. Like she's good in those moments when she kind of goes candidly off script. Like she is,

a normal person, despite being a politician. None of them are normal. We should never idolize these people. But that was a great answer. Like, it just felt relatable regardless of the politics. I was on Drudge this morning, and this is a Wall Street Journal headline. The most surprising new gun owners in America are U.S. liberals after decades of decline. U.S. gun ownership is rising among Democrats. So,

I don't really love that trend, to be honest. Well, this might be correlated here in LA and other cities. Your former city of Oakland, a big rise in gun ownership is among Asian Americans and AAPI because during COVID, these people were getting harassed and beaten on the streets. Like in LA, people were lining up, Asian folks were lining up at gun stores to buy guns. Asian people tend to vote them. I'm not saying those things are related or correlated, but I'm not sure I love it either. But you know what? It's not a bad thing for Kamala Harris to say.

Donald Trump doesn't know how to shoot a gun. Yeah, exactly. No, he doesn't. And the thing about the Oprah follow-up that I liked was it was authentic. And it was, at the debate, it was like the one moment from the debate that I was like, she's a gun owner? And like, on the one hand, it was like, that's an interesting fact I just learned. On the other hand, it was kind of like, really? You're really one? She said that in 2019. Yeah, and I'd forgotten that. I had missed that completely. She said it also a few weeks ago. I just missed it. So the debate, when she said that, I was like,

is that real? Like, did she just buy one to say it? Like, and so it was much more like, oh no, I'm a gun owner and I'll cap you if you break into my house. I liked that element of it. It just felt more real. The other point though about Kamala and how she's really

Kind of coming to our own. You were on this after your interview with her. In March, you said it was? And this was well before the switch. What struck you about that interview? I guess you were in Arizona with her, right? Was there anything that you kind of remembered that struck you as being particularly strong or giving you kind of a different look at her? So I, again, I'm not one of these reporters who's covered the hill or covered her in California going back a long time. I'd interviewed her twice before.

Once in Oakland, I was crashing with you and Tyler and did a GLA interview. Drew was there 2018, 2019. It was the first time I talked to her since being VP. And I had done some reporting for Puck about, you know, all the stuff we've been hearing about, like staff turnover in the White House, but also stuff going back to when, you know, she was AG in California. And so...

I just hadn't spent time around her. This was an abortion rights event in Arizona. She's been like since Dobbs, her portfolio under the Biden administration was abortion, but also like rallying the young people on college campuses. And so she had been spending time on campuses. She's been spending time talking about something she was comfortable with.

talking about like abortion rights. Like she's good. Remember the whole like prosecutor thing, people miss the, like people oversimplify. I can take the case to Donald Trump. That's not it. The prosecutor thing is one reason she was good in these Senate hearings is she just needs a clear target. One thing to aim at and talk about in the primary is

Like you have 10 opponents in 2020. Like, I don't know what to talk about. Got to grab something out of thin air and run on it here with abortion rights. It's great for her. And so it was that this was also during like some hot Gaza moments. And I just noticed when I interviewed her after this rally, her tone on Gaza, what's much more sympathetic to,

to the Palestinians without deviating from the Biden administration policy line. So I thought that like sort of rhetorical move was good. And that I think was sprung from spending time around college students and young people in a way Biden doesn't and didn't. And just like, it was again, this confidence that I think comes from one spending time campaigning and talking about issues that are good for her, but two, just batting practice.

So you're vice president. And this is why Kamala Harris, you and I agreed in the days of July when Biden was in trouble, she was always going to be the nominee. And it wasn't because this is the party of black women or like Kamala Harris deserves it. She deserved it because she was the vice president and she would be the best option to slot in there and run a sprint campaign. You put Josh Shapiro and Gretchen Whitmer together.

And sorry, Sarah Longwell, I know you're listening and you're a Josh Shapiro super fan. I got to tell you, the whisper campaigns are in the whispering around. Every time there's a Pennsylvania poll that's not good, the whispering that comes out about, she should have picked Josh. I'm telling you, in these secret Never Trumper basement meetings that I go to.

Nobody wants to say it out loud anymore because it's like we're not going back, but you hear the whispers. But anyway. I want to give Josh Shapiro a stray here. He won his race against Mark Robinson of Pennsylvania. White Mark Robinson? Yeah, he won his race resoundingly against a total zero. Anyway. I thought Doug Mastriano was a zero, but it turns out Doug Mastriano is like a 15.

Because, I mean, it seems like he had gainful employment and had some hobbies that weren't related to piss porn. So, you know. That's true. Good on you, Doug Mastriano. But just to punctuate the Kamala Harris thing. She, unlike these governors, had been in the cauldron of national politics as vice president for several years and running for president. Had done the media interviews previously.

Been in meetings with world leaders, been in the Oval Office. So when you show up and talk to a reporter, you know, that's small potatoes suddenly after doing that for two or three years compared to stepping into the Democratic primary in 2019. Just, again, it's confidence. It's like any interview. Like,

I'm smarter than this fucking person that I'm talking to, and I'm going to show it. And by the way, I think she kind of thinks that about Donald Trump too now. Yeah, she really does. I know you listened to the Amy Walter podcast on Tuesday. I'm a little more bullish than Amy. I think Amy was...

very insightful about kind of the demographics, but a little bit cautious on the prognosticating. You're more of a, you know, you're a pundit type. You're not weighed down by having to have race rankings. So where do you kind of see things standing here on Friday, September 20th? You'd rather be Kamala Harris and Donald Trump right now on September 20th. But remember, there was a poll, a very good high quality poll of Wisconsin from Marquette University, also in the Hamby coaching tree because my mom went to Marquette.

Biden winning by five or six points in late October of Wisconsin by five days before the election. And he won by what? One point? Less than a point? So I was talking to our pal Adisu. Actually, no, he said this very good episode of Pod Save America, by the way, with him and Dan the other day. Pod Save what? Pod Save America. It's a John Lovett podcast.

from Survivor hosted sometimes. I don't know if you know him. He lost in the first... I'll have to check that out. John Lovick got voted off in the first episode of Survivor. Which I know. I broke the news. I spoiled that for people on yesterday's podcast. Two mentions so far this week about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. More strays caught. But Adisu made an astute point, which is like,

All I know, like if the race is in a margin of error and Democrats are in a position to win right now, that's the best we can hope for. And underneath that, you know, I have tools and levers as a campaign that I can pull to get over the finish line. So,

I think Amy made some very smart points going in. And when you guys were talking about the different shades of whites in all of these states, I think you guys unlocked something that was very interesting in your conversation. And I had a conversation with the Pennsylvania Republican yesterday that sort of aligned with this. Kamala Harris is making inroads with non-college whites a little bit, which is good. We'll see if that holds. Women in particular. Yes. What's interesting is that she's kind of at parity with,

with Biden, with college whites around Philadelphia. So you would think that she would be doing a lot better with college whites around Philadelphia.

Philly. And she's kind of, according to this Washington Post poll that came out this week, she's just kind of the same. So why isn't she maximizing her numbers? And this might be why she's- Penn State whites are worse than the Wisconsin whites. Amy Walter didn't say that. I said it, but it was my interpretation of her analysis. Let's talk about different varietals of white. The Philadelphia College Suburban Whites.

How are they different than the whites of Wisconsin? This is your line, like Madison, Wisconsin, Dane County, they deliver North Korea levels to Democrats these days, like 90-10 margins. And that kind of white is the kind of white guy who wears a Futurist female t-shirt and a white woman who listens to Pod Save America. But over in Philly, you've got

Is it crime? You might know better than me, like the Philly dads who live in Bucks County, like what's different about them? Well, there are no blondes. I mean, we're really getting into it now, but, you know, it's a lot more. You got the Italians and, you know, it's just a little bit, yeah, it's different. What do you mean the Italians? I mean, I'm just telling you, like, yeah, I mean, like you have, I mean, they went to college, but it's just like a different culture, like the Catholic culture.

you know, kind of Philly sort of Italian and Greek and like that, like that is the vibe and Philly like that. Aren't you talking about like a white ethnic, like lunch bucket type? That's a non-college type. That's a non-college type. Peter, I want to let you know that many of the white ethnic lunch bucket guys who, you know, from like the Sopranos, they had children, but you know, they went to college. AJ went to college.

And AJ is a Robert F. Kennedy Jr. voter. Okay, that's what I'm talking about. Like, it's still a different, like, it's a different cultural vibe than you have around in Dane County. But in Pennsylvania, do they care about

Do they care about fracking in a way that they don't in like Detroit? Yeah. I mean, sure. Yeah. Yeah. I guess probably. But I think that I don't think that it's as much that, right? Like I just, I mean, I think that there's a more of a progress. I look, you also have the Wisconsin kind of long progressive history. Yeah. You know, in the state, I think that it's cultural and it's,

And I think Sarah Long will point this out when we were talking, I forget, on one of our 100 podcasts the other day. And she's like, the other people that are college educated, and I can't even name these colleges because I have to raise my hand. I'm an out-of-touch elite at some times. But she's from central Pennsylvania. And she's like...

you forget that college educated whites include like people that went to Mechanicsburg college. That's not real. I just made that up. But like, you know what I mean? Yeah. They're like all kinds of colleges in the middle of the state. And like the types of people that graduate from there, like they have some cultural, uh,

interests and elements that are like more closer to MAGA than college educated folks that went to, to, you know, more, more premier schools. I'm taking good luck America, my show on the road in October, we're doing like a little college tour. We are going to Penn state. So I'm interested to hear from the folks there and like turning point yesterday had a big flex where they registered like, like hundreds of voter bros, mostly bros on campus and,

ahead of the election. So yeah, I think that'll be a feeding frenzy for me and my camera crew when we get there. I'm very interested to see what they say. Just take a short second to last topic.

I was not a big fan of the white guys for Kamala call. And many listeners weren't a big fan of me not being a big fan of that. They thought it was nice. And if it was nice for you and you were on the call, I honor your experience, but I just, you know, the white guy affinity groups are a little weird for me and the whole energy around it was a little weird. And, um, I got to tell you, they put out an ad, I guess they raised money and I thought it was supposed to go to the campaign, but I,

Maybe they had a separate fundraiser for themselves. And they put out an ad yesterday. And let's just listen to a little bit of it.

Hey, white dudes. So, I think we're all pretty sick of hearing how much we suck. Every time you go online, it's the same story. We're the problem. And yeah, some white dudes are. Trump and all his MAGA buddies are out there making it worse. Shouting nonsense in their stupid red hats and acting like they speak for us when they don't. All they've ever done is screw us over. But if you're not on the MAGA train, where do you go? Isn't it just swapping out one crappy option for another? Then it hit me.

This isn't about picking teams. It's about who's got a plan that's going to make life better for me and my family. So I've been doing my own research. It goes on from there. It's just like...

It's really bad, man. Dude, the worst ad of the cycle by far. And some people are going to be like, why? So tell them why it's bad. Let me tell you why, okay? And I'm not a political practitioner like you, but I've learned a lot from you and your friends, former and current, over the years. Here's a few reasons why. My beloved high school English teacher, Miss Gunter, taught me the singular rule of writing and storytelling, which is show, don't tell.

This voice actor or AI generated bozo is just saying like, Trump sucks, Trump sucks, Trump sucks. We have a plan. We have a plan. They have a plan. I'm a bro. What's the plan? Like...

What's the plan? Why are you a bro? Yeah, why are you a bro? Who are the bros? Is the bro, like, is the white dude that's talking, is it Tim Walls? Is it Bill Clinton? Is it Baby Gronk? Is it Channing Tatum? Like, who the fuck is the white dude for Harris that is telling me here, like, to vote for Walls, Harris? So I learned something from you in 2020 that was interesting. And I also did a piece for Vanity Fair about this with some Democrats who are message testing ads against Trump in 2020. When you were doing Republican voters against Trump,

in 2020. The stuff was stripped down, but it was good because you would find our pal Brett in North Carolina or Chuck in Detroit. And they could tell me in Texas, they could be 40, they could be 60. And they would, it would be straight to camera in the recorder on their phone. And they'd be like, I voted for Trump in 2016 because I wanted to change. Now I realize he's been a disaster for X, Y, Z. And so one, you have this relatable person,

giving you permission to not like Donald Trump. And that worked because it wasn't just ad hominem attacks against Trump, which actually in focus groups and in online message testing showed backfired because it's like, okay, like leave the guy alone, but tell me why I should vote for you on a basis of issues. And the issue, by the way, could be democracy, could be he's disruptive, but it could also be something about the economy. Here's the other thing is there's no issue set at all

in here. Like, none. Like, they're not telling me any single issue, any reason, any compelling reason to vote for Harris or Walls. And then, it's such a waste of money. They spent $10 million on

on this ad they should have given it to the campaign they should have come up with some different kind of creative and it's not it doesn't tell me anything just handed it out to kids on campus or whatever yeah it's bad it also sounds just my one sentence and we'll just move past this it also sounds like it was written by an Elizabeth Warren supporter and again nothing wrong with Elizabeth Warren supporter

Nothing wrong with that if you're a Elizabeth Warren supporter. But you're not trying to reach Elizabeth Warren supporters. They're already voting for Kamala. So you want to sound authentic. The other thing that just came to mind is Harris has been very astute this campaign of not talking about identity politics. And that's good, right? She's talking to subgroups, Hispanics, black folks, young, old, whatever, women, men, based on issue sets that matter.

You can see that Kamala Harris is a black woman, a black South Asian woman. You can see that. And the reason she picked Tim Walls is apparent too, to counterbalance that. But when Tim Walls goes out and talks to white dudes, he's saying, putting things in relatable terms for those white dudes and their wives and daughters, abortion rights, whatever. And this just is, it's a very online thing.

Like it's a bunch of Elizabeth Warren supporters on Twitter who like wear Futures female t-shirts to the brew pub. And it's like, we don't need you guys. You're already voting Democrat. Yeah, great. Yeah, we already got you. It's like an idea that was concocted in like a clubhouse chat room in 2019 for other dudes to validate themselves. And it's not talking to people that Harris needs to get off the couch or pull away from Donald Trump.

I'm going to end on a positive note on this front. There's video Tim Walls out there. We'll put it in the show notes because I don't have time to get to it. But there's video Tim Walls talking to some high school bros. Tim Walls is actually good at this and sounds like an authentic person. So there is ways to do this. Maybe if you're out there, white dudes for Harris, just cut ads of Tim Walls talking instead of the AI person. Alternatively, if you don't want to use Tim Walls, if you want to go really based...

Go find that video of Dave Portnoy, Barstool Dave Portnoy, shouting about how terrible the overturn of Roe is. And literally just playing that 30-second ad in front on Roe podcast. Just literally, here's 30 seconds of Dave Portnoy paid for by white bros for Harris. That would be 100,000 times better than what you did. So there are two constructive ideas for any rich Democrats that are listening. One last thing.

I do want to mention Neil King. You knew Neil King, right? Yeah. Great guy. Great man. Great guy. He was a reporter for the wall street journal. He's a great writer, a great person. He loved the country. He did not equivocate about Donald Trump. He got cancer a few years ago, left the journal, went on a walk across America, wrote a book about it. I'll put the link to the book in the show notes as well. And, uh,

In addition to me admiring him as a writer and as a reporter that I worked with on stories, I also admired him as a father. I bumped into Neil King.

on a weeknight at a foxogen show at rock and roll hotel i walked into the foxogen show i forget who i was with maybe maybe tyler i guess probably not you or you'd remember and and some other friends and i saw neil king in the back corner i was like hey neil what's up man what are you doing he's like oh i like the man i was like oh cool you're here by yourself and he said no my daughter's up there at the front with her friends and i brought her to the show

And I was like, that is a good dad. That is the kind of dad I want to be. So Neil King will be missed. Neil, I really got to know like 2011, 2012 when you were doing that primary. He's exactly like you described. He cared about politics and journalism and media, but he had a life beyond that. He was wry and cynical in a funny way. And by the way, as a younger reporter, you always like idolize these older reporters. He always took the time away.

to be nice and complimentary of your reporting. And like some older folks didn't do that out on the campaign trail. I will never forget how kind he was while also being like a funny, cynical guy that like you and I like to hang out with and get, there's not a lot of reporters that like you, Tim would want to like go out and hang with. Neil was one of those guys. I have his book. Everyone go order his book, American ramble in memoriam of him. Just a fantastic guy. Neil,

Neil King, rest easy, my friend. Peter Hamby, thanks for doing this. Let's do it again soon. Everybody else, up next, I got just a few quick thoughts on the Olivia Nuzzi story. All right, so if you missed it, news broke that frequent podcast guest Olivia Nuzzi was in what is reportedly a romantic but not physical relationship with RFK Jr.,

and is on leave with New York Magazine. That's a strange one. Many of you have asked my thoughts. A couple have been pretty nasty about it and should maybe step away from the computer, but it is an ethos of this podcast that I'm radically candid with you. And so when stuff like this happens, I'll tell you what I think, not hide from it. And here's the deal. I have a personal relationship with Olivia. We're not divulging affair-level friends, apparently, because I was as caught off guard as anyone.

Like I said, it's definitely a strange situation. I'm still not exactly clear on the details on what that means. What I do know is that Olivia and I have a personal bond. We've been through some shit together. I also got a note from David Frum this morning. David said that among all the younger journalists who knew their late daughter Miranda, Olivia was among the most attentive journalists.

after she'd passed, drove to Toronto for the funeral, and her consideration meant a lot to them at a tough time. So people contain multitudes. Darren is two-dimensional, as they may seem online. My concern for Olivia right now is as a friend who's taken a lot of abuse and not about whatever kind of imaginary Twitter war people are in with her. As far as what that means is

her status as a guest on this podcast. I just, I don't think that's as important as the other elements out there right now. I know in past episodes, she was candid and informative and enlightening and engaging exactly what I'm looking for in a guest on this podcast, but guests also need to be truthful. And if it turns out that she wasn't practicing that, then we'll assess what happened and we'll be transparent about it whenever the time comes that she's back to work and hopefully

And hopefully there'll be a time that she's back to work because everybody gets second acts in this life. So that's all I got for you on that. I hope everybody has a very fulfilling weekend. Stay away from those porn message boards and we'll see you back here on Monday with Bill Crystal. Peace.

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The Borg Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.