Shownotes Transcript
This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. Cybersecurity Awareness Month is still going strong, and LifeLock is here with a message about phishing, the scam cybercriminals use to trick victims into allowing access to their devices so they can steal their personal info. Being aware of phishing scams is one way to help protect yourself. For comprehensive identity theft protection, there's LifeLock. Start protecting your identity today with a 30-day free trial at LifeLock.com slash podcast.
I'm Jimmy Fallon. I'm Ainsley Earhart. I'm Bill Hemmer, and this is the Fox News Rundown.
Tuesday, October 15th, 2024. I'm Dave Anthony. The election is now just three weeks away, and it's possible we could have a result like eight years ago. If polls were super, super, super accurate at the moment, probably Harris might win the popular vote by one or two points, and Trump might win the electoral college by 50-plus points.
I'm Jessica Rosenthal. While most of the attention is on the presidential race, congressional candidates are stumping in their districts as Democrats try to flip a narrowly divided House. This is, on paper, a very, very competitive district and one that we expect to be very competitive all the way down to the finish line. And I'm Pastor Cory Brooks. I've got the final word on the Fox News rundown. A lot of Americans have voted already or soon will.
But election day is closing in just three weeks from now. We have the worst president and the worst vice president in the history of our country by far. And let me tell you, she is worse than him. Former President Trump in Oaks, Pennsylvania, just north of Philadelphia, as he and Vice President Harris vie for the biggest prize among all the toss-up states with 19 electoral votes at stake in Pennsylvania. She went to Erie last night. We are
We are the underdog. We are running like the underdog. We have some hard work ahead of us. But here's the thing also, we like hard work.
The vice president also detailed in her economic plan what she calls an opportunity agenda for black men, as more of those voters consider supporting Trump this time around. Harris is also open to answering more questions lately, planning an interview tomorrow with Brett Baer on the Fox News channel in a presidential contest that's neck and neck. We've pretty much reached the ability of polls to tell us who's going to win because all of the polls are coming in tie, plus one, plus two votes.
minus one, minus two, all of the swing states. Mark Penn is a former advisor to President Bill Clinton in the 1990s and then Hillary Clinton in the 2000s. He's also chairman of the Harris Poll, which is unrelated to the vice president. If polls were super, super, super accurate at the moment,
probably Harris might win the popular vote by one or two points. And Trump might win the electoral college by 50 plus points, given the swing states. But polls cannot be as accurate as one point. They just don't work that way. I have seen in some of these battleground state polls, like you talked about one or two. But in the last couple of days,
There was a poll. The Wall Street Journal had former President Trump with a six-point lead in Nevada. New York Times-San had a five-point lead for the former president in Arizona. Of course, combined, those are 17 electoral votes, which would be very big for the former president, right? Yes, and the New York Times had this poll where Trump was winning Florida by 14 points.
If he was winning Florida by 14 points, trust me, he'd be winning all over. So I thought that poll was a bit of an outlier, but yes, that's right. There are a couple of good polls here. Trend has been that Harris had kind of her biggest moment from her announcement, convention, and debate.
And, and the Trump has been, you know, slowly but surely kind of winning back voters to, to take this thing to a, to a time, maybe slight advantage for him, but it's, it's, it's really. Why do you think Mark, you've been watching campaigns for a long time. Why do you think he has come back a little bit here and maybe taken the advantage? Is there, is it issue based? Is it, she's not doing things that she should be doing what's happening. Well,
Well, it's got to be issue based because when it comes to personal profiles, these two candidates have about the same personal profile. They each have about a favorable 46 or 47 and an unfavorable from the rest of the country. And so if that's not moving, you really see that she has a big advantage on issues like abortion and he has a big advantage on issues like the economy, immigration and crime.
So it's got to be, I think, that people are driving not on the basis of personality so much, but on the basis of issues that matter to people, that ultimately is what's going to decide the election among these swing voters. You know, in Pennsylvania on Monday, Vice President Harris put out part of her economic plan, an opportunity agenda for black men.
Is she playing defense with a traditional voting block for Democrats here? Because it seems the former president's been making inroads with minority voters and with the blue collar, the working vote, supposedly, that had been always traditionally Democrat.
This is not a strategy you would have thought necessarily coming into this election that the Democrats would have to worry about as much. When I think the Harris campaign sees defections of key voting groups, they've been very systematic at going right at them. That is, it's nothing. You know, you can see what the what the Harris campaign is doing because they'll be like an article that says, oh, Harris campaign not doing as well with black men. Next thing you know, they will roll out policy for black men.
Like it or not, I think that they've been very clear and consistent to try to address weakness after weakness. And that's helped them. The Trump campaign has been a little more mercurial. They don't seem to operate in that same fashion. They have a message. They stick to it. They don't really seem to go after, you know, that well groups that may or may not be deteriorating on them. And so it's a somewhat somewhat less reactive strategy. He has been reaching out to Democrats.
The black community trying to get more support, and it seems to have been working. On Tuesday, Vice President Harris has this interview with Charlamagne Tha God, who is influential. How, I mean, this seems like a really important voting block for her. What happens if the former president has made big gains in the black community? Yeah, I don't think that the president is going to make big gains. He might make a few points gains in the black community.
I think the vote to watch is the Hispanic vote. And I'll tell you why. When I ask black voters, how do you think the economy is doing for you? They by and large say, oh, pretty good. OK. When I ask Hispanic voters that same question, they say no. Fifty two percent. My personal economics are deteriorating very quickly.
strongly register concerns about the economy. Interestingly, I think that's the vote to watch. That's where I'd be putting a great deal of effort if I were in the Trump campaign. And it's also in the Harris campaign where I'd be worried about the largest number of defections. Black vote, it seems, will be 80% or 90%. It's going to be solidly Harris.
The Latino vote has less of a history of voting solidly Democratic, is more concerned about the economy, and is even more important in some of these Sunbelt states. - How is the turnout typically for Hispanic voters? - Turnout for Hispanic voters is building. They probably have the most potential future turnout over time. The country's gone from about 2% Hispanic
to between 13 and 15 percent Hispanic. As a group now, they outnumber the blacks. And when you take registration and voting into account, they're about equal now in our polls. That is a sea change in American voting patterns. And I don't think the campaigns have fully appreciated that.
Let's go to the man you used to advise in the 1990s, former President Clinton. Last couple of days, he's been out campaigning in Georgia. Here's his message. This whole election and the future of the country is turning out to be what people want.
who are sort of on the fence about voting, are going to do. That comes back to the turnout issue. Do you think he's right that you have to get people from being indifferent to going to the polls? Well, we have in this country about 250 million eligible people to vote, and we have about 150 million who vote. So there's about 100 million people.
uh mostly actually downscale white guys who don't like politics uh who who don't vote i think when when president clinton obama go out and they're they're soliciting people to vote they're they're they're really soliciting democrats by going heavily right democrat areas and they want to get the democratic vote on and it's kind of what you do in the last three weeks of a campaign uh
You know, because there are there's a lot of ways to vote. And, you know, I see already that, you know, mail in votes are somewhat more Democratic than Republican, which always puts the Republican votes at a little bit of risk if there's bad weather or people get a cold or what happened. Well, all this early voting changes some of that right election day is different than it used to be.
Yes. And that's where I think the Democrats have had a big advantage in the past because Democrats bought into mail-in votes and Republicans didn't. I think we're seeing the gap close. And I think Republicans realized that they had left a big opening because a vote that's in the bank is in the bank. A vote that's on the way to the polls is a vote that might not get to the polls. Yes.
And so I do think you're seeing a change. But I think you're expecting like 60 percent of the votes in the election to be mail-in. I may have somewhere between 40 and 60 percent, but an enormous number of votes now are really done by mail. I was just filling mine out here. It's a big difference in the last several election cycles. Certainly COVID changed some of this stuff. Now, when it comes to Democrats, you spoke of Obama and Clinton going out.
There are stories. Axios had a big story about a relationship that's becoming frayed between the Harris campaign and the Biden White House. Is this inevitable? Yes, it is inevitable. I mean, Al Gore dealt with this right in with President Clinton in 2000.
Yes, I was in the middle of that when I was working for Al Gore. And President Clinton would call me up and say, you know, tell Al to do ABC. And Gore would say, I don't want to hear from that guy.
Well, the economy was starting to get a little worse, right? You wanted to distance yourself, correct? Well, no. In fact, the economy was going pretty good. Well, didn't we have a recession right at the time at the end of that? No, well, that was the 2000. But that really wasn't what was on people's minds by election. At the election time, that came up slightly, I think, after. At that time, Gore could just have run on the good economy, and instead he ran more on people versus the powerful.
and ran a more divisive election. So generally you want your vice presidents to run on continuing
you know, what you're doing. And you want them to do that in a full-throated manner. And the vice presidents don't necessarily want to do that, although she's been a very loyal vice president. She said she really wouldn't have changed anything. Well, that answer last week got a lot of attention. And was that a mistake? Again, it's very hard to be a vice president. And if you're not loyal to the person you're serving as vice president, people then wonder, are you really going to be loyal to us?
So there's a certain thing about vice presidents and kind of the bind they're in. I think she could have given some answers, which is that, you know, we can't relive history. We're living now and the policies that I'm gonna talk about going forward. So I think there are a lot of ways she could have answered that, but she said what she said and she's sticking by it. And some people like a loyal vice president and a lot of people are unhappy with the Biden policies.
And so far, the Trump campaign has not really been effective at closing in on, you know, a single solitary message that that they want to win votes under. Well, they've been saying more about what you didn't do it while you were vice president. Why do we you're not really the change agent you claim to be. Do you think that could be effective for them?
I don't find that to be so effective because everybody knows the vice president is not the leader of the time. I think they're better off kind of hitting with, you know, here's what you said when you were running. Here's what you did when you were in office. And I think they hit her on her real record. I don't find this. You didn't do it as vice president. Nobody expects a vice president to be able to change the world as the most effective leader.
argument for them. Well, three weeks away now from the election, Mark Penn, former advisor for former President Clinton and also for Hillary Clinton in the 90s and in 2000s, also CEO of Stagwell Lincoln, chairman of the Harris Poll, which is unrelated to Vice President Harris. Mark, good to talk to you. Thanks very much for being here. Thank you. Thank you.
This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. Cybersecurity Awareness Month is still going strong, and LifeLock is here with a message about phishing, the scam cybercriminals use to trick victims into allowing access to their devices so they can steal their personal info. Being aware of phishing scams is one way to help protect yourself. For comprehensive identity theft protection, there's LifeLock. Start protecting your identity today with a 30-day free trial at LifeLock.com slash podcast.
I'm Dana Perino, and this week on Perino on Politics, I'm joined by Republican strategist Matt Gorman and Democratic strategist Antoine C. Wright as we examine what the candidates' best case scenarios look like for election night. Available now on FoxNewsPodcast.com or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. This is Pastor Cory Brooks with your Fox News commentary coming up.
All 435 voting House seats are up for reelection. 220 are held by Republicans. Democrats hold 212. Three seats are vacant, two that were held by late Democrats and one held by a retired Republican. So the margin is tight, to say the least. Washington Democratic Congresswoman and chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Susan DelBene, told ABC in late August...
are energized. They know that we can take back the House. They know that this is such an incredibly important election.
They know that we all have to come together and do everything that we can to make sure we win. There are 19 House seats held by Republicans in districts President Biden won in 2020 and eight House seats held by Democrats in districts former President Trump won four years ago. Most of them are in the toss-up category this time around. The Fox News power rankings have 22 toss-up seats in all. One of the most recent additions to the toss-up list is Iowa's 1st District, where Republican Congresswoman Marionette Miller-Meeks is battling for her seat
after a recent Des Moines Register poll found Vice President Harris just four points behind former President Trump in the state. Miller-Meeks noted recently to Fox that her district is always tight. She won by just six votes in 2020. Yeah, our polling shows that it's close, and this is no surprise to us. You know, the Democrats have a lot of money. We've seen they're trying to lie in by their way both into Congress and the White House.
One of the most competitive races is a swing district in a swing state, District 7 in Michigan. A seat Democratic Congresswoman Alyssa Slotkin has left to run for Senate. The Democratic candidate in the race now, Curtis Hertel, served in the state Senate and then as Governor Gretchen Whitmer's top lobbyist. He has said of his opponent...
Here in Michigan, we know the danger posed by people like Tom Barrett. Tom Barrett is an anti-abortion extremist, and we simply cannot afford to see him in the halls of Congress. Tom Barrett, as you might imagine, disagrees. Well, it's absolutely different this time than last. I mean, you look at just even the underlying factors and fundamentals. Tom Barrett is a U.S. Army veteran who ran for the seat against Slotkin two years ago, and he's running again. When I ran two years ago, I was challenging a very
powerful and well-funded Democrat incumbent member of Congress. I had a very compressed window to run my campaign because the redistricting process in Michigan kind of dragged out in a prolonged fashion. And it ended up, unfortunately, in Michigan, the underlying partisan dynamics were not very favorable to Republicans two years ago. We feel that each of those factors have changed considerably. I'm no longer running against an incumbent.
The underlying fundamentals of competitiveness in Michigan and, of course, in my district have really moved forward substantially for Republicans. This is on paper a very, very competitive district and one that we expect to be very competitive all the way down to the finish line. And with the tightness of the top of the ticket race in Michigan, it really has had a very competitive district.
dynamic down ballot into races like mine. And I think we've done a better job of getting out and identifying not just who I am, but who my opponent is in this race. And we're listening and incorporating the things that we hear people in this district talking about, whether it's the cost of living, the open border, frustrations about crime and concerns that residents have about that, or everything up to and including our national security threats that are far more present today than
than they were two years ago. Michigan is, at least on a state level, a blue state right now. A governor has higher favorability than unfavorables. Both state houses are blue. And two years ago, voters passed a constitutional amendment enshrining abortion rights in the state law. Your opponent is saying that you would push for and vote for a national abortion ban. Where are you on this?
So I've been very clear about this. I mean, certainly my own values and everything are one. When I was in the state legislature, I had a pro-life record and I am somebody who is pro-life. And I recognize or acknowledge that in Michigan, the voters passed a constitutional amendment that put this almost no limitation on abortion whatsoever into our state constitutions.
You know, that transpired as I was leaving elected office in Michigan. The circumstances of law have changed, both from a case law standpoint at the federal level, overturning Roe versus Wade at the federal level to push this down to the state level for decisions. And from there, the voters of Michigan voted no.
to enshrine, as I said, virtually no restrictions whatsoever on abortion. I've been clear with voters in my district. I didn't support or vote for that proposal, but I do not have the authority as a member of Congress to change that. Any changes, any guardrails to abortion are going to come at the state level through amendments. If the people of Michigan decide to amend or put some guardrails on that provision, it would be through another constitutional amendment. And
And I would have the same vote as anybody else in my district or across the state in that decision. At the federal level, what I'm looking to do certainly is protect the Hyde Amendment, make sure that we don't have taxpayer dollars for those that have a conscientious objection to abortion like I do, that we're not forced to pay for them through our federal tax dollars. And then the other thing I want to do is really lean into the issue of adoption.
A life affirming option that that mothers have to as a decision that they could make.
How much do you think is the abortion issue still impacting Republicans? We saw obviously, I mean, you saw it yourself. It mattered a lot two years ago, but that was a midterm. Now we have a presidential race and Democrats are saying, well, the man who appointed three justices who helped overturn Roe is running again. He's at the top of the ticket. Is this how much is this overshadowing Republican races sort of generally in your sense?
Yeah, well, I can tell you in the conversations I've had with voters and the polling that we've done, when we ask people what is the most important issue driving your decision of how you're going to vote in this election, people routinely bring up the cost of living, inflation, their family budgets, the issues that are pressing on voters.
you know, the day to day and month to month expenses and real reality that they're facing. They also express extreme frustration and acute concern for our condition of the southern border with 10 million illegal border crossings just in this administration, hundreds on the terror watch list or more that have crossed into our country illegally. You know, I'm somebody that spent an entire year of my life on a deployment down to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where I stood
face to face against terrorists who told us they wanted to come to America and kill Americans. I believe them. We have to keep them out of our country. And those are things that people are expressing to me. You know, there are those that bring up abortion and, you know, that does register in our polling as well. But the overwhelming issue that we're hearing from voters is the cost of living crisis and concern that they have.
the concerns about the southern border, issues with crime. Lansing, Michigan is the center of this district and now is ranked as one of the 20 most violent cities in America. So those are issues that more and more and more voters are bringing to my attention. And those are the things that we're running our campaign about and really focusing on the things that we think are of the top mind of voters in this district.
Sure. Are you surprised the federal race is so tight? I mean, right. It all trickles down and you can either be helped or hurt by by folks running in other races or top of tickets like Michigan might lean blue internally. But are you do you feel that more like do you feel state politics more or do you look at the race between Harris and Trump and and find the tightness there helpful or not or not?
Two years ago in my congressional district, Governor Whitmer carried the seat by, I think, 11 or 12 points. So that made the down ballot races certainly, you know, a much harder task.
inclined to overcome in the district right now, the polling that we have consistently done shows a neck and neck race, you know, one, whether it's, uh, you know, uh, president Trump, Kamala Harris, um, you know, essentially jockeying back and forth with, with almost, um, dead heat high in the district. And that really actually is in keeping with the 2020 results in, in this district. Um,
uh biden and trump were essentially tied in this district in 2020 the difference between the two was only a few hundred votes we're seeing a very close polling uh outcome in the district right now i will say i believe that president trump always over performs the polling that shows him at a particular point of ballot share it's to be determined yet what that will look like and i also think that in these closing weeks
Voters are still frustrated by what they're seeing out of the failures of the Biden-Harris administration. They're frustrated by the soaring cost of living. I've said this many times on the campaign trail that I remember not long ago in America, if you worked hard, you had a little bit of money left over at the end of the month. And now today, no matter how hard you work, you've got too much month left at the end of your money. And that is due to the failure of Biden and Harris and their agenda.
And I think people see that there's more and more Americans struggling, putting more of their daily and monthly expenses on credit cards. We have a record high credit card debt in our country, over a trillion dollars now. And I think that frustration that people are feeling is going to be expressed at the ballot box. And I think that President Trump will win this district. I have high confidence that we're going to come out of this ahead. We've got a lot of work left to do in these final weeks to do that.
But I think that the contrast between myself and my opponent, President Trump and his opponent, Mike Rogers and his opponent, voters will see that. And I think they will vote according to that frustration that they're feeling. Too much more month left at the end of your money. That's clever.
I do, while I have you, I do want to clarify or give you the chance to clarify what happened with this newspaper ad. I guess your campaign ran an ad in the Michigan Bulletin, a black-owned newspaper in your district. I guess it said in the ad that the election was November 6th. It's, of course, November 5th. The Michigan Legislative Black Caucus says you are trying to suppress turnout with that error. What is your response?
Yeah, it's a terribly unfortunate error, of course, and one that, you know, we had no intention to do. I think it's part of a circumstance of moving too quickly, quite honestly. And that's something that we need to take a measure of. We put some guardrails and safeguards in place on the campaign since then. You know, and I will point out that in the ad, we said for people to vote for me on that
incorrect date, not like we were trying to push people toward voting for someone else on the wrong date. But I will also say that regardless, that's a mistake that should not have been made. It's one that was done entirely unintentionally and one that has been corrected. And in all of our other outreach into the black community that we take very seriously, I'm making a genuine effort to attract non-traditional Republican voters to give us a chance and to give us an opportunity to represent them.
And that's something I'm sincere about and something that I'm going to continue to do. And this was an unfortunate error that's been corrected. Well, in a time when this house could flip, it's a narrow margin. How much pressure? How much pressure do you feel? I mean, you're trying to take over a seat that's being left by a Democratic hold. So no pressure?
Well, you know, you can look at it as pressure. I look at it as opportunity. And I remind the voters in my district that we have a real opportunity.
Significant opportunity on our hands, different than just about any other voters voter across our state. We have an open United States Senate seat that is one of the top most competitive United States Senate seats. We don't have a lot of open seats and swing states like Michigan, where a lot of the polling shows a very, very competitive race for the United States Senate.
And then here in the 7th District, the Cook Political Report ranks this as the most competitive top open seat in the entire country. So the voters in the 7th District, their vote is so much more amplified for the effect it will have for the presidential ballot, the United States Senate, the United States Congress, our federal policy and the direction our country takes.
Michigan Republican congressional candidate Tom Barrett and maybe the swingiest district in one of the swingiest states. Thank you so much for joining. Yes, thank you. You can go to my website, TomBarrettForCongress.com. See a little more about me, too. And thank you for having me.
I'm Emily Campagno, host of the Fox True Crime Podcast. This week, I'm joined by trial attorney Joshua Ritter to discuss the gruesome murders of Jose and Kitty Menendez and the controversial, shocking trial of their sons. Available now on foxnewspodcast.com. Subscribe to this podcast at foxnewspodcast.com. It's time for your Fox News commentary. Pastor Corey Brooks. What's on your mind?
Kamala Harris, picked for Vice President Tim Walz, has repeated the claim during the campaign that there's no guarantee to free speech. The aspect that he targets is hate speech. However, the Supreme Court has stated that our Constitution's First Amendment protects even hate speech.
One may argue that one should not have the right to call a gay man or a black man a derogatory name, but that is not the point here. The First Amendment protects the views and opinions that our government may label as hateful. I'm thankful for that, for I would not be where I am today without free speech.
When I first moved to Chicago from Indiana over 30 years ago, I kept my mouth shut. The liberal politics held sway over the Black community, and one did not swim against the current. I saw many things I did not like, mainly the continual reinforcement of Black dependency on the government. I saw failures in education and the job market that did not have to happen. I saw teens mapping their families around government policies. I saw far too much, and I kept my mouth shut.
I fear the repercussions of speaking out. The penalty for Black is often higher than other Americans, and that is often due to the stronghold that Black politicians and their white liberal counterparts hold over the community. I fear being delegitimized as an Uncle Tom. Look at Ralph Ellison or Shelby Steele or Thomas Sowell smeared as Uncle Toms for speaking truth to power.
Eventually, my resentment of the fear building up within me and my shame in looking away from the realities that I saw on the streets became too much to bear from me. When a young man born to good parents was shot and killed, I felt the nudge of God. I walked across the street from my church to the motel infested with drugs and prostitution, gamblers and murderers, and I climbed the roof in protest. That was the moment I began to exercise my freedom of speech.
I wasn't going to take it anymore. I would begin to speak the truth. I drew much strength from the civil rights foot soldiers who used the power of free speech to illustrate the horrors of segregation and white supremacy and to argue for a more moral America. I didn't stop there. A few years after raising enough funds to buy and tear down the motel, I came out as a Republican.
In doing so, I broke publicly with the politics of my community. I began to speak out against the 60 plus years of liberal policies that destroyed my community. In response, I faced death threats and I had to put my family into hiding. My church was robbed. Most of all, people accused me of speaking hatred. That is why freedom of speech is so important. Imagine if those people, some of them employed by the government, had the power to shut me down for hate speech.
We can never allow the principle of free speech to be compromised in any way. It is the greatest principle and power that man could ever possess. Look no further than me. I never stopped speaking since I announced that I was a Republican. Several years ago, Fox News asked if I wanted to work with them and we created the Rooftop Revelation series. What makes me most proud of that series is that we allowed so many people from the South Side to speak without varnish to the public.
It was raw and truth. It allowed outsiders to see directly into our community and to what the need is. That is why today I'm in the middle of building a $40 million leadership and economic center right across the street from my church. Yes, the very same location where that motel once stood. That is the power of free speech. And that is why we must never allow it to be compromised in any way.
We have everything to gain from it, especially the truth that gives us the power to advance society. My name is Pastor Cory Brooks, and this has been another Rooftop Revelation. Thank you. God bless America, and God bless you.
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