Trump 'policy incoherence' defies efforts at candidate comparisons
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So many options for toilet paper. Quintuple ply? This roll is titanium enforced. This one is made from elderly trees. Is that good? Just grab Angel Soft. It's simple, soft, and strong. And for any budget. Angel Soft. Soft and strong. Simple. Thanks to at home for joining us this hour. Josh Stein is going to be joining us live this hour. You have heard a lot about

A man named Mark Robinson, he's the Trump-endorsed Republican candidate for governor in North Carolina. He's the gentleman who CNN has recently reported described himself years ago as a, quote, Nazi. He praised Hitler. He called for the return of slavery. The Washington Post then reported on him praising Mein Kampf.

Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate for governor in North Carolina right now, he denies all of it. But I should also note that he has said explicitly that he wants to go back to a time where women were not allowed to vote. And he hasn't denied that because it's on tape. So you've heard a lot about Mark Robinson in recent days. You have probably heard a lot less about Josh Stein. But Josh Stein is the Democratic nominee for governor in North Carolina. He is the man who is running against Mark Robinson.

Josh Stein is currently the attorney general of North Carolina. And, you know, running for governor is always a high pressure thing, always a big responsibility. But think about what Josh Stein has on his shoulders right now. Right. I mean, if Josh Stein does not win this governor's race in North Carolina, it's not just like, oh, lost opportunity for the Democrats. Now, if Josh Stein does not win this race in North Carolina, North Carolina really is going to get a governor in.

who calls himself a Nazi and says he wants to bring back slavery and says he wants women to not be allowed to vote. Yeah, talk about the stakes in an election. No pressure, Josh Stein. North Carolina Democratic candidate for governor, Josh Stein, is going to join me here live here in just a moment. I'm really excited to talk with him. We're also going to be joined tonight by the former chairman of the Republican Party in the great state of Maine.

And that's because today, not one, not two, but three former chairs of the statewide Republican Party in that state just endorsed Democratic candidate Kamala Harris for president. This is three Republican state party chairmen endorsing Harris. So I'll be talking with former Maine Republican Party chief Ted O'Mara this hour as well. We've got a lot coming up.

That endorsement for Harris from those Republican Party chairmen in Maine, it's the latest in what has just been this long string of kind of man-bites-dog, unexpected company endorsements for Kamala Harris and her campaign.

It's not just former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney endorsing Harris and his very conservative former Republican Congresswoman daughter Liz Cheney. It's not just the big group of former Reagan administration officials endorsing Kamala Harris. It's not just the Trump administration officials who spoke on Kamala Harris's behalf at the Democratic Convention. It's also now more than 700 military and national security leaders.

who just this weekend signed on to a mass endorsement for Harris. The national security and retired military endorsements for Harris coming at a particularly fraught time in the international news. Israel, of course, has just launched something that looks very much like it may be a full-scale new war against Hezbollah targets inside Lebanon. Hundreds of people killed in Lebanon today by those Israeli strikes.

This is simultaneous with Israel's ongoing bombardment of Gaza, where tens of thousands of people have died.

President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris today each had separate meetings with the president of the United Arab Emirates, which is very influential in the region. Both the president and the vice president talking with him about trying to find some way out of the Gaza-Hamas-Israel catastrophe, again, now potentially spiraling into yet another full-scale conflict involving Hezbollah in Lebanon.

That Emirati president is here in the United States today for the same reason that so many heads of state from all over the world are here in the United States right now, which is that the United Nations General Assembly is this week in New York. And this happens. All these heads of state come from all over the world for the General Assembly this week at a moment of just profound peril and difficulty in so many parts of the world. And with everything going on, right, it does not help.

that in the midst of everything that's going on, the United States, the host country for the UN, the most powerful and influential and richest country in the whole world, we ourselves at this moment are apparently unsure as to whether we would prefer Kamala Harris to be our next president or whether we would prefer to go back to the guy who launched a violent attack on the U.S. Congress when he lost in the last presidential election in the United States.

I mean, the rest of the world can see that we're doing this and they have to cope with it, right? I mean, how do they explain what the future of the United States is like, given what we're doing right now, right? There was initially widespread revulsion in this country over the attack launched by Trump supporters against Congress after the 2020 election, but that didn't last. Republicans have now almost

almost universally decided that that wasn't so bad. They picked him to be their presidential nominee again. He is running for president now again by praising the rioters and promising to free them from prison. I mean, it's hard enough for so many of us to get our heads around it, but imagine being another country. Imagine being an important American ally or a country who's really relying on us right now that's got real trouble.

This week, you send your president or your prime minister or your head of state to the United Nations, right, in New York this week. And you have to say before you send your leader out into the U.N. General Assembly, right? Hey, try to make nice with both sides in America, right? America apparently is having a hard time deciding between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. So while you're there, try to develop nice relations with both sides, right?

I mean, how do you how do you do that? But they all have to do it. I mean, there's Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, visiting a factory in Pennsylvania yesterday, a Pennsylvania factory that makes 155 millimeter artillery shells that we supply to the Ukrainian military. Zelensky is there in Pennsylvania to thank the factory workers for making these artillery shells, to say that Ukraine needs as many as they can possibly make

But then he has to come to New York, right? To, yes, meet with Harris and Biden from the Biden administration, but also presumably to meet with Trump. Because looking at the polls right now, it's 50-50 Trump might win. And so somebody like Volodymyr Zelensky with everything else he has to deal with, he's likely going to have to make the best out of some kind of meeting

Presumably with this guy who tried to extort him and his government into announcing a false investigation into Joe Biden as a political favor to Donald Trump on which Trump conditioned military aid to his country. This guy, Trump, who says he's basically in love with Putin, who says as far as he's concerned, Putin can do whatever he wants, even to all our allies in NATO, who says he won't keep supporting Ukraine, who won't even say that he wants Ukraine to win.

who was asked that at the presidential debate, wouldn't even say that he would prefer that our ally Ukraine win the war, you know, and who, incidentally, Putin and Russia are helping again, again for a third straight campaign to try to get him back into the White House. Zelensky has to go meet with him and make nice with him because we, as a country, apparently can't decide. It's 50-50 right now as to who's going to be our next president. So the whole world has to hedge their bets and try to make nice with both. Our election is only six weeks away

It's tied. It's six weeks. People are already early voting in multiple states. And being this far along in the process means a couple of things, right? It means, I think most importantly, personally, you at home, if you have feelings about this election, if you have feelings about who you want to win the election, whether it's the presidential race or a U.S. Senate race or a congressional race or a governor's race where you live or the state legislature or anything, if you have feelings at all,

for who you want to win in this election, this is now officially the time that you need to do something about it to help achieve the results you are hoping for. It is now six weeks until Election Day, which means it is now time. If you care about the election results this year,

If you're not already volunteering, if you're not already offering to phone bank or do door knocking for a campaign, you're late. It's time to do it. Now, right now, no later. This is the time when you're actually supposed to start volunteering to help one way or another. So, you know, pick a race, pick your candidate, pick a ballot issue where you live. Time is short and the river rises.

Watching TV and worrying about the news doesn't count as actually doing something to help your country. If you think this election matters and you have a preference as to who wins, you must now do something other than worry. So that's the first thing. The other thing, though, is that being this close to Election Day, being six weeks out, means we now have a pretty good idea of what the campaigns are going to look like for this election, the sort of character of how each side is going to run their candidate for the presidency.

So we know, for example, that Republicans are going to keep trying to win the election this year by gaming the system, by trying to change the administration of the election, trying to change how the votes are cast and counted. Today, the pro-Trump majority on the Georgia state election board

met again and pushed through yet more changes in that crucial swing state, even after they were just warned by the state's Republican attorney general's office, the state's Republican secretary of state's office last week. They were just warned that they're doing things they're really not allowed to do. But nevertheless, today they announced more. Today they announced they're going to investigate eight different counties in Georgia.

for having rejected mass Republican challenges to individual voter registrations. Voter challenges aimed at taking voters off the rolls. The state election board with its pro-Trump majority is now going to investigate counties that didn't do enough to throw voters off the rolls.

They also today announced a whole new plan six weeks out from the election to mandate that photos of every ballot should be put online immediately following the election. We're six weeks out and they, I mean, people are already like the ballots have already gone out and this is, this is yet another new rule they want. Local officials and again, statewide officials like the AG and the secretary of state have said now on the record that what the state election board in Georgia is doing is crazy and

The word used by the Secretary of State's office was absurdity. But hey, they're going for it. If maximum chaos is what they want in that critical swing state, apparently maximum chaos is what they are determined to get.

So we've got eyes on the sort of rolling disaster in Georgia. We're also keeping eyes on Nebraska, where Republicans in the Trump campaign are trying to make a last-minute change to the rules in Nebraska that have been in place for more than 30 years. Republicans are apparently afraid that Kamala Harris may win one electoral vote from a congressional district in Omaha, which is the state's biggest city. So they are now, at the very last second, trying to change the rules in the state of Nebraska to

to block her from being able to win that single electoral vote. Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, you might have seen, has been in Nebraska trying to talk Republicans there into doing it. Today, a single Republican state senator said that he was not going to go along with this plan, that it didn't seem right or fair to him to do it this way, especially at the last minute.

The reason I say we are watching Nebraska in the wake of that news today is because, naturally, once this one Republican state senator came out and said he wasn't going to go along with it, thus apparently scuttling the Republicans' plans to make this last-minute change, Donald Trump himself is now singling out that one individual Republican state senator, singling him out by name, attacking him online, blaming him, putting pressure on him.

Which is exactly the kind of tactics Trump brought to bear in 2020 when he singled out individual local Republican officials in places like Michigan and Arizona and Georgia and Pennsylvania and all of these swing states, telling them essentially to do his bidding or else, or face the consequences.

That kind of name and shame intimidation from Trump alone and from the legions of his followers who take what they think is the appropriate action on command when he singles out someone by name for them to target. That is a rerun from what we saw from Trump in 2020, which did not ultimately work to throw out the election results in 2020, but it did

ruin the lives of a whole lot of low-level officials and state officials who he targeted by name to try to bend them to his will, right? It transformed their lives. It transformed the lives of their family members and all in very bad ways. But that's how Trump politics works. That's how he operates.

And if we have learned anything as a country from seeing previous iterations of his intimidation tactics brought to bear on low-level, obscure, state-level officials, if we've learned anything from seeing this happen before, we should have learned that the way you stop his intimidation tactics from working is by opposing them.

By recognizing when that's what he's doing and by overtly standing up for these people when they are attacked, making sure that the only people who get in trouble in a Trump-initiated confrontation like this are the people who make the threats, the people who try to intimidate and coerce public officials into doing what they otherwise would not do. When Trump singles out individual, particularly Republicans, but individual local politicians

municipal, county, state officials like that to get them to do what he wants around the election, we know, yes, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't to get them to bend to his will, but we know that it also ruins their lives. We've seen this over and over and over again. And that is why the intimidation tactics that he uses work, because it makes people afraid.

The way for us as a country to stop that is to stand up for people who are targeted in this way and make sure that anybody threatening or trying to coerce them gets busted for it. We did not do enough of that in 2020. We have to do it in 2024 as part of defending our democracy. The Washington Post this weekend front-paged a story about what they called the, quote, turbulent phase. Ha ha.

that Trump's campaign has entered into for this last six weeks of the campaign. They've described Trump's behavior in the campaign right now as, quote, "impulsive and impetuous."

The Post noted in its story, quote, "...in a single 24-hour span at the end of last month, for example, Trump amplified a crude joke about Vice President Harris performing a sex act. He falsely accused her of staging a coup against President Biden. He promoted tributes to the QAnon conspiracy theory. He hawked digital trading cards. He became embroiled in a public feud with staff and officials at Arlington National Cemetery." All in 24 hours. And that is true.

The Post goes on to describe gently, I think, what they call Trump's, quote, policy incoherence at this point in his campaign as well. And to be clear, along with the sort of just erratic behavior and outrageous behavior, the policy coherence really is off the charts, right? I mean, there's...

inexplicably high levels of interest and appetite in the mainstream press for reporting on Kamala Harris and Donald Trump as if they are similar kinds of cats, right? As if they are normal competing candidates that we can assess using the same kind of terms. But they're not the same kind of cats, right? They are not the same kind of candidates. They are not doing the same kinds of things. For example, like here's Kamala Harris getting the endorsement of 700 retired military and national security officials.

While here's Trump promising that if he's president, he's going to find where California is hiding its huge secret faucet that they use to dump all the rainwater into the ocean. And if he's president, he's going to find the handle on the gigantic faucet and turn it the other way. It takes a whole day to turn the handle, he says. So problem solved. Everybody will have all the water that they want. OK, well, here's Kamala Harris promising a child tax credit and saying how she'd pay for it.

Here, on the other hand, is Donald Trump saying he's going to abolish the Department of the Interior for some reason. Nobody even bothered asking him why. Why do you want to abolish the Department of the Interior? Here's Trump saying he wants to take away the broadcast licenses of news organizations that criticize him. Here's Trump saying he wants to put former President Barack Obama in front of a military tribunal. Ah, but Harris does want a child tax credit.

Yet one of these things is not like the other. I mean, even if you go to the less outrageous stuff. I mean, Republicans in the House of Representatives just ignored Trump's demand to shut down the government before the election. They are going ahead with funding the government against his wishes. They are not going to bring about a government shutdown, even though he demanded one. That insult and rebuke to the Republican Party's leader would have led the news for days if this was a candidate who attracted normal political coverage. But instead, eh.

You know, while Trump instead races toward Election Day, rolling out a new scam, some new money making effort to squeeze money out of his fans almost every day. I mean, this alone is completely bizarre. Imagine Kamala Harris doing anything like this. But every day there's the new Trump commemorative coin that he is selling to his supporters. This comes hot on the heels of Trump's new crypto.

cryptocurrency venture, which she has rolled out with the help of a man who literally calls himself, quote, the dirtbag of the internet, and another man who is a self-proclaimed pickup artist. Here's the candidate's wife launching her own book this week, hot on the heels of the news that the majority of her campaign appearances this whole election cycle were ones for which she was personally paid hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Here's his daughter-in-law, who he installed as the chair of the National Republican Party, nevertheless finding time in the homestretch of the campaign to drop a new single for her side hustle, where she's a singer. None of these things, from the commemorative coin to the single, none of these things are raising money for the Trump campaign or the Republican Party. They're all just personal money-making gigs for him and his family that they are launching at the height of the campaign.

Imagine if Kamala Harris was, like, rolling out a mortgage scam and some commemorative trinkets right now. Not for the campaign, but just to, like, get her and Doug some money. Trump, you know, brought a 9/11 truther to the 9/11 commemoration on 9/11. And his staff really did shove an Arlington Cemetery worker when she tried to stop them filming thumbs-up, big-grin campaign videos at gravesites.

And no, apparently he's not got any sort of problem with the North Carolina Republican candidate for governor, who he endorsed and who he has celebrated as a candidate, no problem at all. Not even after the reporting that the man literally calls himself a Nazi, praises Hitler, praises Mein Kampf, wants to take away women's right to vote, and wants to bring back slavery because, according to him, slavery was good. Imagine being a world leader from some other country.

Coming to New York for the United Nations this week, coming to the United States of America, fully briefed and cognizant that a presidential nominee in this country, in that situation, who can't even criticize or distance himself from a candidate who has said those things, a presidential nominee of one of the major parties has got essentially even odds right now of being elected president of the United States. President of the United States of America.

Imagine having to come up with, like, your contingency plans for that. For that matter, imagine being Josh Stein in North Carolina right now. The one man tasked with the one job of making sure that that Trump-endorsed, self-proclaimed, Hitler-promoting, pro-slavery candidate doesn't take control of the state of North Carolina. The Republican Party nominated that guy to be governor of North Carolina. Trump endorsed him and praised him and won't take it back.

It's the Democrats' job and Josh Stein's job to stop that guy. North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein joins us next.

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In 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court was considering what would ultimately be a landmark case. It was a group of families in North Carolina who were suing their local school board, arguing that not enough was being done to desegregate their kids' schools. Now, this is 1971, so this is more than 15 years after Brown v. Board, Brown v. Board of Education, which was supposed to end racial segregation in schools nationwide. And

But in this district in North Carolina, nothing had really changed on the ground. Most black kids were still attending schools that only had black kids in them. So this group of families brought this case to try to force North Carolina to actually desegregate its schools. Again, 1971. And the case was argued before the Supreme Court by this man, Julius Chambers, who was a North Carolina...

legal leader. He had opened the first integrated law office in North Carolina, black lawyers and white lawyers. And the law office specialized in civil rights cases. And Chambers would ultimately go on to win that case in the U.S. Supreme Court. But before the Supreme Court ruling was handed down in that case, while Chambers was still in the middle of arguing the case, his law office back in North Carolina was firebombed.

Charlotte, North Carolina, happened around 4.30 in the morning. It took 50 firefighters and seven fire trucks an hour to get the fire under control. Tons of law records were destroyed. Miraculously, they did actually manage to save the files about that specific school desegregation case that was actively before the Supreme Court at the time of the firebombing.

Now, one of the partners at this firm, a man named Adam Stein, he talked to the Charlotte Observer just after the firebombing. He talked to them about the school desegregation case potentially being motivation for that attack. And at that time, that partner in the firm, Adam Stein, he had a young son who says today that more than 50 years after that happened, he still vividly remembers the day his dad's office got firebombed when his civil rights lawyer dad died.

had suffered that attack. What he was up against in his work. That civil rights lawyer, Adam Stein, his son was named Josh. Josh also grew up to be a lawyer like his dad, also in North Carolina. Today he is the Attorney General of the state of North Carolina. He is a Democrat, and today he is the Democratic Party's nominee for governor in that state.

Now, Josh Stein's Republican opponent in the race has gotten a lot of press, especially recently. His name is Mark Robinson. He's currently in the news because he reportedly once referred to himself as a Nazi and praised Mein Kampf as, quote, a good read. Both of these remarks allegedly made as comments on a pornography website more than a decade ago. Mr. Robinson denies making either of these remarks.

But because of who Josh Stein is running against, Democrats are a little more optimistic than they might otherwise be about their chances in North Carolina this year, even if they might be a little more freaked out than usual about the stakes of what happens if they potentially lose this race.

The chair of the Democratic Party in North Carolina says that the Democrats are not ceding any ground in the state this year. They're actively campaigning, especially in rural areas that have sometimes in the past been written off as red-leaning. This year they say they're going to find every single vote, even in the most rural corners of every community in the state. They're not letting Republicans run uncontested in state legislative races. They're not letting any corner of the state be ceded as red territory.

North Carolina Democrats plainly this year are ambitious. They are energized about their chances, not just for Josh Stein in that governor's race, but for Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket, too. Joining us now is North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, Democratic nominee for governor. Mr. Attorney General, I really thank you for being here tonight. I know it's a really busy time. Thank you, Rachel. Let me first just ask you if I got that right about your father's experience when you were growing up in North Carolina and what you remember about that.

Yeah, you got it exactly right. And it warmed my heart to hear you say it. My father and his law partners are my heroes. They inspired me to do the work that I do because they were always fighting for what was right. And they wouldn't back down even after that firebombing. Chambers' home was firebombed. His car was firebombed. They were incredibly brave, but they had resolve because in their hearts, they knew what they were fighting for was right.

And it's a little bit different today, but we're having similar fights in North Carolina and across this country. And what we're fighting for is right. It's about fighting for people. It's about trying to have hope, not hate. It's about decency, not obscenity. It's about competence, not chaos. It is about a better future for all of our people. And that's what our campaign's about. And sadly, Mark Robinson represents 100% the opposite.

I want to ask you about what's going on with your opponent right now. It's still a developing story. There's news in terms of him shedding endorsements and losing support even just tonight. I want to get there, but I do want to ask you about the Democratic campaign. There's a lot of attention on North Carolina because if

Kamala Harris at the presidential level can win North Carolina. Many of the potential paths for Donald Trump to win the presidency are closed off. It's really important. Democrats do seem like they are sort of quietly confident that they might be able to do it. There's a lot of paid staffers for the Democratic presidential campaign in North Carolina. There's dozens of field offices. We have seen efforts in rural parts of the state that might previously have been written off as red-leaning because they're rural.

Can you tell me about the integration of your efforts, the state Democratic Party's efforts, Kamala Harris's efforts, and what you think about the keys to Democratic victory are just strategically and tactically in your state this year?

Yeah. There is no road to the White House for Donald Trump without North Carolina. He needs to win North Carolina in order to have a chance. That's why he's coming again. He was just here this weekend. He's coming back in a day or two. And J.D. Vance has been here twice in the last week. They are so committed to winning, but the same energy is happening on the Harris-Walls tickets. They keep coming to North Carolina because they know they can win. And there is just widespread enthusiasm online.

Honestly, the only thing I can liken it to was 2008, the first time Obama ran for president. There were people bumping into each other, knocking on doors. And it's that kind of energy. 250 field workers, dozens and dozens of field offices. And we want to be a rising boat that lifts all tides. Obviously, I'm first committed to winning this race.

But in addition to winning, I want to stamp out this toxicity and to show that there is a better way forward for North Carolina. And then I hope we're going to work our tails off to break the supermajority in our General Assembly. We're only one vote shy in each chamber. We have an important Supreme Court race. We have 10 excellent candidates running for the council state. And then, of course, Vice President Harris running for president.

Even before the recent round of reporting about online, reported online statements from your opponent for governor, and I should say he denies these statements, but even before that, he is on record saying he wants to go back to a time when women were not allowed to vote. He has said that women should not be allowed to lead. He has said that the only reason that women care about

The only reason that women want abortions or that women care about abortion rights is because they can't keep their skirts down. He has called gay people filth. He has called teachers terrible people, and in worse terms than that. That's all before you got to the most recent round of reporting from The Washington Post and CNN, that he has literally called himself a Nazi, praised Hitler, praised Mein Kampf, and said he wants to bring slavery back.

I mean, I almost feel like this is Mad Libs at this point. I don't know what else could be revealed about a candidate to make him more cartoonishly offensive to most people who are going to be considering whether or not to vote for him.

What do you think should happen in your race? Do you think that he should drop out? Do you think the Republican Party should do something to try to remove him from consideration as their Republican nominee for governor? How do you handle this tide of revelations about him?

Mark Robinson has revealed himself to be absolutely unfit to be governor, unacceptable for any elected position. I don't care what office it is, but let alone governor. And this was true before last week's story broke. And yet practically every Republican running for office in the legislature and above in North Carolina have endorsed him.

The former President Trump has endorsed them. Not a single Republican in North Carolina has rescinded his or her endorsement of Mark Robinson. It's astounding to me. No, he shouldn't be the candidate. He never should have been the candidate. He is wrong for North Carolina. He's wrong for the people. He's divisive. He's hateful. He's mean-spirited and nasty. It's just unacceptable that we would have somebody like that leading our state.

And it doesn't have to be that way. We do not have to have that kind of future here in North Carolina. There is a better path forward where we're fighting for people. We're trying to create opportunity for people. We're tapping everyone's potential so that we can build a better future for all of us. And that future is possible if we win this race. Folks out there, if they want to help us defeat Mark Robinson and create a better future for North Carolina, go to my website, joshstein.org. It would be incredibly helpful.

Josh Stein, North Carolina, Attorney General, Democratic nominee for governor. Sir, thank you very much for being here. I know you've got a very, very, very important race to run. I appreciate you taking the time. Thank you, Rachel.

I should mention that just since we've been on the air, the Republican governor of Georgia, Jostine is right that the North Carolina Republicans have not pulled their endorsements. But the Georgia Republican governor, Brian Kemp, tonight pulled his endorsement of Mark Robinson in North Carolina. We should also mention that the Republican Governors Association has announced that they will no longer be running any ads on Mark Robinson's behalf.

All right. We got much more news ahead here tonight. I just also have to tell you, we got in just moments ago a pretty jaw dropping statement from a Republican who is running for Senate. This is a new statement that apparently apparently the statement is on tape. I have read the transcript of what he said, which is jaw dropping. I have not yet heard the tape, but I'm going to hear it here with you because we just got it into the control room. We're going to turn it around for you and have it on the other side of this break. Stay with us.

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Okay, we've got this tape now. I mentioned before the break that we just got in something sort of shocking from a U.S. Senate candidate, a Republican candidate. This is coming from Ohio. In Ohio, the Democratic incumbent senator is, of course, Senator Sherrod Brown. He's running for re-election. Republicans have nominated a wealthy car dealer to try to unseat Sherrod Brown. The Republican candidate is named Bernie Marino. And we just got in this tape of Bernie Marino at a campaign event yesterday.

in Lebanon, Ohio. Watch.

You know, the left has a lot of single-issue voters. Sadly, by the way, there's a lot of suburban women. A lot of suburban women that are like, listen, abortion's it. If I can't have an abortion in this country whenever I want, I will vote for anybody else. Okay, a little crazy, by the way, but especially for women that are like past 50, I think it was something. Maybe that's an issue for you. Oh, thank God my wife didn't hear that one.

Oh, thank God my wife didn't hear that one. A little crazy, by the way, but especially for women that are like past 50. I'm thinking to myself, I don't think that's an issue for you. That tape just in from Lebanon, Ohio. Republican Senate candidate Bernie Marino saying any woman over 50 doesn't have any reason to support reproductive rights. Abortion rights? Are you kidding? Because, you know, women over 50...

I'm thinking to myself, he actually says it. I'm thinking to myself, I don't think that's an issue for you. Wow. You know, unluckily for Bernie Marino in Ohio running against Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown, women in Ohio, even women over 50, apparently do still have the right to vote, even if he doesn't think they have a right to an opinion. Good luck, sir. Amazing.

Good morning, Bangor, Maine, the Queen City, home to 30,000 people, an important and super cute international airport, a fittingly large statue of Paul Bunyan, and as of this morning's paper, a new center of no from Republicans who do not want the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, to be president again.

As headlined in the Bangar Daily News, quote, "We chaired the main Republican Party. We endorsed Kamala Harris for president." This op-ed today was written by three different former chairs of the main Republican Party. Quote, "We led our party at a time when candidates of both parties were not only civil and believed in the rule of law, but we believe had the best interests of the state and entire nation foremost in their hearts."

even when we disagreed on policies. We see these same positive characteristics are on full display in Vice President Harris and her candidacy. Sadly, they are completely lacking in her opponent, former President Donald Trump. Quote, each of us has had the honor of traveling the state of Maine to recruit and support candidates and to talk about the values that a big tent Republican Party once stood for. Trump's MAGA Republican Party is unrecognizable to us.

"Much of the leadership of today's Republican Party has joined the cult of Trump. We know that they will care little for what we have to say. But we also know that the Republican Party in Maine is still home to many honest, hardworking, principled people who, more than any party label,

want what is best for our state and nation. We hope that they will join us in supporting Harris for president. That's Robert A.G. Monks, Ken Cole, and Ted O'Meara, former chairs of the state Republican Party in the great state of Maine. Joining us now is Ted O'Meara, one of those former chairs who endorsed Vice President Harris today. Mr. O'Meara, I really appreciate you taking the time. Thanks very much for being here. Thanks for having me on, Rachel.

So what went into this decision for you and these other two former state Republican Party chairman? I think it was an easy decision for us. You know, as the op-ed states, we all led the party together.

in a different time and place when it was truly a big tent and when it stood for personal liberty and a clean environment and fiscal concern, you know, and fiscal responsibility. And today it has become a cult that really has no principles and believes whatever dear leader has to say on any given day. Liz Cheney spoke a couple of days ago about the prospect that the Republican Party may have

sort of run out its lease on credibility by sticking with Donald Trump for three consecutive election cycles and that the Republican Party may, if it can't fundamentally reinvent itself in a post-Trump way, that the party may need to go out of business and some other governing, responsible, conservative party may need to build itself from scratch in the United States. I wondered,

your thoughts on that, having had a leadership role yourself in your state? Maybe she's right, but I still think the basic foundation is there. I mean, we are the party of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt and here in Maine, Margaret Chase Smith and Olympia Snowe and Bill Coleman. And that foundation, I think, is still there. But I think we have to

Donald Trump's reign before that party can rebuild. I mean, all of us who once led the party and many of us who, like me, have left the party, none of us rushed out to become Democrats, but we left the Republican Party because it no longer stood for the things that we believed in and it no longer stood for the things that the party has always stood for.

And also, Rachel, I think over the last decade or so, just the constant chaos and insanity that we've been put through, we have to put an end to it. And the only way to do that is to get behind Vice President Harris and Tim Walz and join them in a new way forward. That's the only way the Republican Party or any other alternative party is going to be able to emerge.

You and your fellow former state Republican Party chairman, you closed this op-ed today by saying this. Former Georgia Lieutenant Governor Jeff Duncan, a Republican, put it best in his speech to the Democratic Convention last month when he said, let me be clear to my Republican friends at home. If you vote for Kamala Harris in 2024, you're not a Democrat, you're a patriot. And then you close your op-ed by saying, on November 5th, be a patriot.

I just wanted to ask what your... I mean, as somebody who spent a long time as a political professional and supported lots of campaigns and a lot of thinking about strategy, what do you think the impact is of...

Former Republicans like yourself, Mr. Duncan in Georgia, people like Vice President Cheney, Liz Cheney, and so many other Republicans, former Republican, former Reagan administration officials, former Trump administration officials, so many Republicans coming out and saying it's patriotic to vote for Harris. What do you think will be the strategic impact of that? I hope it...

helps people feel that it's okay to join us, that putting your state and your country and your family before any party label is the most important thing you can do. You know, as the op-ed talked about, there are many good, hardworking, principled people out there that still consider themselves Republican. And we hope that, you know, this is going to be a close election. And if we can encourage people

you know, just a few people to come along with us and to say it's OK this time to to vote for a Democratic candidate because it's what's in the best interest of our state and our nation and our families. I hope we can persuade a few people that that is OK to join us. Ted O'Meara, former Maine Republican Party chairman. Sir, thank you. Really appreciate you being here. Thank you, Rachel. I'll be right back.

One last thing. Tomorrow night, Alex Wagner's hosting a special edition of her show from Swing State in Michigan. She spent the day today with union members in Saginaw. Joe Biden won that county last time by just over 300 votes. But Alex Wagner's show tomorrow for Michigan at 9 Eastern is going to be really good. So plan to check that out. All right. That does it for me for now.

Hey parents, Greenlight is here to take one big thing off your to-do list, teaching your kids about money. With a Greenlight debit card and money app of their own, kids and teens learn to earn, save, and invest. You can send money instantly, set flexible controls, and get real-time notifications of your kids' money activity. Set up chores and put allowance on autopilot to reward them for their hard work. Then, learn about the world of money together. Get one month free when you sign up at greenlight.com slash podcast.