Pod Save America - Harris and Walz Meet the Press

Episode Date: August 30, 2024

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz sit down with CNN's Dana Bash for their much-hyped first big interview—and they pass the test. Donald Trump tries again to tack to the left on reproductive rights, and his campaign leans into their fight with Arlington National Cemetery over politicking at gravesites. Then, Jon and Dan go through the latest batch of national and state polls, all showing an extremely tight race. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, Donald Trump now wants you to believe he's a champion of reproductive rights. His campaign also continues their fight with the US military over Trump's visit to Arlington National Cemetery. Always a fight you wanna pick.

And we got a whole raft of new polls showing an extremely tight race. But first, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz sat down for their first TV interview since becoming the Democratic ticket, and the world will never be the same. That's right, it's 10 p.m. Eastern, as we're recording this,

about four hours later than we usually record, because we were not about to let this episode of Pod Save America become overtaken by events. Knock on wood, you have no idea what's gonna happen between now and six a.m. tomorrow. It's okay. Yeah, well, you know what? It's 10, 15 East Coast time now.

So I'm willing to take my chances. Okay, we'll see. Wow, how about that? I just put it out there. So anyway, we waited around for CNN to air Dana Bash's interview with Harris and Walls, which they sat down for after wrapping up a bus tour through Southern Georgia.

Not surprisingly, when the first excerpt of the interview dropped today, it was Dana asking Harris about why she's changed positions on some key issues from past campaigns. Let's listen. Do you still want to ban fracking? No, and I made that clear on the debate stage in 2020. That I would not ban fracking. As vice president I did not ban fracking. As that I would not ban fracking. As vice president, I did not ban fracking. As president, I will not ban fracking. My values have not changed.

So that is the reality of it. And four years of being vice president, I'll tell you one of the aspects to your point is traveling the country extensively. I mean, I'm here in Georgia. I think somebody told me 17 times since I've been vice president in Georgia alone. I believe it is important to build consensus.

And it is important to find a common place of understanding of where we can actually solve problems. All right, Dan, so we knew this one was coming and so did Kamala Harris. How do you think she did? Great. It was the right answer. She didn't get weighed down in the details of it.

She didn't let Dana Bash play gotcha with her. She just laid it out on message in a way that I think is easily understood to people because unlike politicians, people change their mind all the time and they're allowed to do so when they get new information of different experiences. So I think it was a good answer to a question

that they have known was coming since the day she became the nominee. That line, my values haven't changed. She repeated several times. I saw some folks on the Harris campaign, uh, tweeting that, uh, clearly like that. They wanted that to be the message that people take away from that. And it, you know, basically it's like two parts to this answer. Like one, my values haven't changed, but, and you heard her at the end there talk

about, you know, as I've been vice president and traveled around the country, like one thing I've learned is how to build consensus. She's also trying to signal that like, and, you know, she did this in her convention speech as well, when she said I'll be a president who's practical, who's realistic, she wants to convey that she has these deeply held values that are not changing. But in terms of how she gets to a solution, she is willing to compromise, work with other people,

find consensus, which I think is pretty smart. I thought it was a great answer. I thought it's going to like get her through, it got her through this interview, um, very well. I do think that during the debate, she will probably get pushed even harder, either by the moderators or definitely by Donald Trump on some of these. Like, okay, so you changed your mind. You're not for fracking anymore.

You're not for, uh, you know, decriminalizing border crossings anymore. Like what made you change your mind? Why did you change your mind? And so, you know, I'm sure they are workshopping like one additional answer if she continues to get pushed on it. Um, but I don't think, I don't think she

should have gone there during this interview because you don't want to make the whole interview, which was 18 minutes, all about you defending your past positions or talking about why you changed your mind or whatever. Yeah, you're going to need a specific answer for some of the specific changes. And Dana Bass tried to get her there.

She was like, you know, is there a specific science you looked at? And you could see that in a debate. Although it's just hard to imagine. Trump will push her on it, but it's hard to imagine him like pushing her in the way in which Kamala Harris will probably push Trump, like in sort of a lawyer cross-examination sort of way, I'll just probably

just sort of yell at her in a certain positions for her. But you're gonna need some specifics. Because he doesn't know what he's talking about, which is a challenge. Right, he doesn't know. He doesn't know. He doesn't understand the previous position, doesn't understand the current position, so. Doesn't know what fracking is, doesn't really know

what decriminalizing border crossings are, he doesn't know any of that, yeah. Speaking of Trump, he did jump on the phrase, my values have not changed in a truth social post where he said he agreed with her, her values haven't changed and that quote, the border is going to remain open, zero fracking, et cetera, et cetera.

So clearly an attempt by him to saddle Kamala with her old positions. You think that'll work? Well, not him truthing about it or whatever he's gonna do next, is there's tens and tens of millions of dollars of money that's gonna be spent on TV over the next 11 weeks here, or whatever it is, and they can do that, right?

Not that many people will see this interview, even though all of Washington waited for this as if it was the inauguration itself. There was so much anticipation about this interview. I mean, we're recording four hours later. We had countdown clocks earlier in the week. It's just, people's like, this is very serious. And look, it's important you should do interviews.

She did it, it went very well. But what was said in this interview is going to be less consequential over the course of the next several months than how this argument plays out in television and digital advertising, right? He will assert these positions. There will be ads that just simply assert

that she is for banning fracking in Pennsylvania. And how you effectively push back on that is gonna be key. Yes, and I do think that part of the way you push back on that is bringing the debate forward and talking about the future and what you're going to do versus what Donald Trump's going to do. And I think she did that a lot.

I think it was great, too, when Dana Bash asked, what would your priority be on day one? She didn't name a specific executive order. Executive orders are tough these days since they continue to get overturned by the Supreme Court. And she didn't even name a specific piece of legislation. But she said, the middle class is my priority.

Day one, I'm going to talk about how to strengthen the middle class, how to expand the middle class. And she started talking about some of her policies that she has already proposed regarding bringing down costs of groceries, of housing, et cetera. And she actually got a chiron on CNN when she said this, that I'm sure the campaign just loved. And the chyron just says, Kamala Harris, day one priority is the middle class. That's like a fucking pollsters dream, Dan. Put it in an ad, people, put it in an ad. Another question we knew was coming was how Harris feels

about Trump calling her race and identity into question. Here's that exchange. What I wanna ask you about is what he said last month. He suggested that you happened to turn black recently for political purposes, questioning a core part of your identity. Any same old tired playbook? Next question, please. That's it? That's it.

Okay. Next question, please. That's it? That's it. Okay. I absolutely loved that response. I'm sure there are some people who may have wanted to hear a more visceral response from her or hear her attack Trump for this. Why do you think that she and her team decided to brush it off?

Because they are smart. They have watched the last nine years of democratic politics and learned something, which is you cannot follow Trump down his rabbit holes. This is what he wants to talk about, right? He wants to make it about race. He wants to, if she were to respond to that, that would be the headlines of this whole piece, not what you would do for the middle class,

not how she would secure the border, any of that. It would be Harris, Trump's spar over her race. And she understands, as Barack Obama did, that the best way to deal with this is to push it aside and pivot. And it can be incredibly frustrating because it is such a, what he does is so offensive that it feels like you have to call it out.

But our outrage is often his fuel. So we take it, we brush brush it off which drives him fucking nuts Which is a huge bonus and move on to something else and I think she did this I was the moment when I was most confident that Kamala Harris was going to be a great presidential candidate was went the day when he brought up this attack at the National Association of Black Journalist Conference and she was speaking in front of a convention of a black sorority and she stood up there and just, she's smiled, chuckled, and then said same old stuff and moved on.

It's like, she's got it. She is figured this out. She knows how to talk about Trump. She knows how to drive him insane. She knows how to make this campaign be on her terms, not his. I thought it was great. I loved it so much. Donald Trump has made an entire career out of saying and doing sexist and

racist and xenophobic shit. That is who he is. And every time he does it, calling it out does not do anything else. It makes the person who calls it out feel better. It probably makes a lot of us feel better who feel the same way. We're trying to win an election here by moving and persuading voters.

Donald Trump was elected president saying these things already. And like you said, he would like nothing more than to have the entire campaign about her reactions to his provocations. That is what he wants. That is what his campaign wants. That is, that is what he wants. That is what his campaign wants. That is how they think they'll win.

And the Harris campaign is incredibly smart and not taking the bait. And like you said, it is a lesson that has been learned over many years. I think the Biden campaign did a pretty good job of that in 2020 as well. Not taking the bait. I think there were a lot of lessons learned from Hillary's campaign in 2016 before we knew what worked for Trump, so it's understandable. But I think I'm just, I was very, very happy with that answer. Dana also asked Harris if she would appoint a Republican to a cabinet post, and it seemed to surprise Kamala in a pleasant way. Let's take a listen.

You had a lot of Republican speakers at the convention we'll point to republican to your cabinet yes i would and then i know it now and now and in particular my dad that sixty eight days ago at this election so i'm not put in the car before the horse but i would i think i think it's really important i'd i have spent my career inviting diversity of opinion i think it's important to have people

at the table when some of the most important decisions are being made that have different views, different experiences. And I think it would be to the benefit of the American public to have a member of my cabinet who was a Republican. So our Never Trump Pal, Sarah Longwell suggested on Twitter that Kamala name Mitt Romney for Treasury What do you think about that? And then maybe he's actually it's a it's a package deal He's gonna come with Paul Ryan as budget director Look put the power thing aside and I say this with all respect for Sarah Longwell Who's one of the smartest people in politics, but absolutely not that is an insane

I kind of think Sarah was just trolling us. She is I consider me troll I think it was I think it was a joke. The idea that we would appoint a multimillionaire private equity executive who ran on cutting taxes for the rich and raising them on the middle class as our charter secretary is insane. We cannot do that. I already know what job this Republican will have.

It'll be transportation secretary. Commerce. It's always transportation secretary. Like Ray LaHood. Who was great? We loved Ray LaHood. Ray LaHood was great, but he was our Republican. I still love Ray LaH transportation. Commerce. It's always transportation secretary. Like we have Ray LaHood. Ray LaHood. Who was great. We loved Ray LaHood. Ray LaHood was great, but he was our Republican. I still love Ray LaHood, sorry.

George W. Bush, similarly appointed a Democrat to his cabinet, it was Norman Etta, transportation secretary. So there were some never Trump Republican running around out there. Maybe Trump, maybe it's like Jeff Flake or someone like that who's been drummed out of Congress by Trump, who is gonna be

the transportation secretary in 2025, guaranteed. Make Adam Kinzinger, VA secretary. That is another option. How about that? I would love that. There's plenty of cabinet jobs that are not like, look, you're not- You can't do the big three.

Well, well, the man we worked for. I know we did. Defense secretary, there were a few Republicans in the defense secretary. In hindsight, do we possibly regret that someday? You know what, we'll pause here and Rhodes and Tommy are listening, they can pick it up on Pod Save the World. That's right.

On their thoughts on our Republican defense secretaries. Anyway, no, I think it's a great idea to do though. Look, it's a simple little thing, but it is an important signal to the electorate about who she is and what she stands for and how she'd govern. And it is important important signal to the electorate about who she is and what she stands for and how she'd govern. And it is important for her to do that more than it would have been for Joe Biden because people, a lot of voters still want to know more about her before they make up their mind

to vote for her. And this is a signal that she is going, she also talked in the interview about building consensus. Voters want people, they want their politicians, whether you're on the left or on the right or in the interview about building consensus. Voters want people, they want their politicians, whether you're on the left or on the right or in the center, you don't have to be a centrist to want this. There's just a vast majority of voters want their leaders to seek consensus. That's just what they want. I assumed based on all of the tweeting about this from various people on the Harris Walls campaign and the fact they put out a statement or press release sort of announcing that she said this,

that this was their planned piece of news for the interview. There's a lot that was very smart. But now that I've watched it, it seems like- No, it doesn't seem like it's not because she seems surprised. But sometimes it's better to be lucky than good because she gave the exact right answer. So the fun part of the interview,

which Dana and CNN teased very effectively this afternoon, many times, by promising a TMI answer, was Harris's account of the moment Joe Biden called her to say he was dropping out. Again, Dana said, like, what were you doing? And she said, well, let me tell you, maybe this is TMI, too much information. And we were all left wondering, what could she have possibly been doing when the President of the United States called her to tell her he was stepping aside from the race? Let's listen.

It was a Sunday, so here, I'll give you a little too much information. Go for it. There's no such thing, Adam, Vice President. My family was staying with us, including my baby nieces, and we had just had pancakes and, you know, Auntie, can I have more bacon? Yes, I'll make you more bacon. And then we were going to sit, we were sitting down to do a puzzle. And the phone rang and it was Joe Biden.

And he told me what he had decided to do. And I asked him, are you sure? And he said, yes. And that's how I learned about it. The puzzle, is the puzzle TMI? Is the bacon TMI? Yeah. I thought she was gonna be like,

Doug was on the toilet and got the call. Yeah, I mean, the thing is, we already know so much about this is, you already said that to me at one point, and then I pointed out to you that we already knew that Doug was at SoulCycle and then having a latte when this happened. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, he was at SoulCycle. He was at SoulCycle in West Hollywood, which is the SoulCycle

I used to go to back when I first moved here. Remember how our old friend David Oxford used to say the last thing he wanted wanna do is bring out the cannon and then when it goes off, it's just a little flag that says Powell comes out. I kind of feel like that's how this was. CNN teases us so much and then it was just a very charming story about the Vice President

of the United States making bacon and doing puzzles with it. Yeah. It was a TMI, it was charming. Charming is the right adjective for that story. Yeah. Anyway, that's the story. Stepping back here for a minute because again, the TMI thing was teased.

Everything was teased. There was so much conversation in Washington and in political press about this interview. We're up a good hour past our bedtimes. And when I say our bedtimes, I mean like me and you, we live on the West coast. Still 7.30. Usually, I'm usually getting close to bed right now. What do you make of all the hysteria around this interview?

She's got to do it and then she says yes and then, oh, but she's doing it with walls so it doesn't count because it's a joint interview and then, oh, it was only 18 minutes and what is she doing and all this, but just the amount of ink spilled and tweets and segments on cable news, it's wild. It really was sort of an example of the press yearning, the political press in particular,

yearning for a different era, right? There's still a little like cable news consumption is changing in dramatic ways, particularly in this election, there was so much like hand wringing about the 200 creators that were invited to the democratic convention, as opposed to the 1400 credentialed press.

Um, like us, we had badges. We were, we were even though we, I like to think of myself as a creator. We were in the credential. We were counted in that 1400 credential press. And we, we did walk up to many real reporters and show them our badges and say, see, we're just like you, which they loved. This wasn't that, yes.

Which they loved. They thought was charming as always. They always find us. They find us as charming as the budget. Interviews are an important part of the process, but they are a tool in which you communicate your message. Right, it's not, you are not required by the constitution to do some sort of journalistic

decathlon to reach the White House. And the challenge for a lot of the press, and this has been going on for a long time, but it's kind of hit a tipping point in this election is there was always this sort of Faustian bargain, which is I'm going to take your really hard questions, many of whom will be process oriented and totally antithetical to what my messages are, what I think the voters care about. But in exchange for that, you're going to take that interview and you're going to show it to how much of people I need to see it. But that the connection between the credibility that comes from doing that interview and the reach of that interview has been largely severed in this media environment. And so there's just like a lot of like trying too hard to make this a thing.

Now, the Harris campaign waited a very long time to do their first interview. So obviously pressure was going to build. If they had done an interview a week into the campaign, then there would not have been all of this hysteria, obviously, but they obviously had a lot to do, right? They had to pick a vice president, do a convention, figure out who was going to work on the committee and do all of that in the short period. But it does show that these sort of traditional interviews are probably going to be less of a part of the campaign

than they've ever been before. And that's true on Trump's side too. All of his interviews are with Fox and Newsmax and all of that. You know, when was the last time he's sitting down with Danabash, right? Or Lester Holder, any of that stuff. It's just, we're in a very, very different media environment and I think the very insider,

and even people like us, right, who've been part of this for a long time, are struggling to figure out how to think about how some of these changes are happening. I have tried to cut down on my media criticism. I don't do it as much anymore, partly because I think a lot of the media criticism out there is, some of it's unfair.

A lot of it's unfair. A lot of it's unfair. A lot of it's unfair. I think most of it is ineffective. I think it's just the constant Twitter arguing about the headlines and what does the New York Times headline do, I don't wanna get into it, but I think it's ineffective.

But I will say on this point, it was fair to ask when she would do her first big interview, like before the convention, when this first started swirling, right? But then like a week before the convention, she says, I will schedule an interview by the end of the month, a sit down interview. She said it to a reporter who was talking to her because she took questions as she stepped off the plane. And then she had her convention and then after the convention, she picked a running mate. And then after the convention, which was a very busy week where.

Nominees typically don't do a bunch of interviews because it's the convention week and you're giving speeches and that's the message, the week right after the convention, she does her first sit down interview with her running mate, which is also a tradition. A lot of the, you know, you pick a running mate, you sit down, you do a joint interview. And the swirl around it, the debate after we had already, she already said she was going to do it. She already said she was sitting down. She had a convention, like, what are we still talking about it for?

What are we, they were like interviewing people who've interviewed her and what it was like. And it's just, it was so silly. It's just such a insular, navel gazey, inside DC thing, which again, I don't complain about much anymore. But in this case, I was like, it's not great. It's not great. The press can and should demand all the access interviews

they can get. Of course. That's their job. That's their job. That's what they're here for. But you do have to sometimes separate that from the broader discussion of democracy and what's worthwhile and all of that.

There is this balance between if it's not worth it, can it's time to take questions? They're not going to take questions. So you have to have interviews that are worth their time that actually reach people to actually to be seen and be seen, which is why we went through the rest of this campaign. I imagine the number of local interviews she does will dramatically outpace the number of national interviews because you're hitting, you know, the efficiency of a local television review dramatically outstrips the efficiency of a national television interview in terms

of reaching the smallest sliver of people who are going to decide this election. Yeah, and you know, time is finite on a campaign, especially this campaign, and we're heading into the week of the debate. Sorry, I don't imagine like a big sit down interview before that. And then after the debate, it's sort of a sprint to the finish. And you're right, there's a lot of value in local interviews in terms of reaching voters. And there's a lot of value in, we still call them non-traditional, but they're becoming more traditional, like all of these other, you know, whether it's

sitting down with creators, whether it's sitting down, you know, whether it's reaching people through other mediums, other channels, other, like, there's just a lot to do and a lot of people to reach in a very fractured environment from the campaign's perspective that they can't use a ton of her time just sitting down with the same cable networks, reporters, national networks. Like they can't just like do a round of all those because the group of people who are watching NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN are like the same group of people generally. And so they've got to find the voters who aren't consuming that content in order to win the race.

And like my view is going forward, like get past the debate, right? She got to prep for this debate. What she's being asked to do in this short period of time is totally unprecedented and almost impossible to imagine. Extremely difficult. But going forward, like her strategy should probably be some version of everything

everywhere all at once, right? Do the local TV, do drive time radio in Milwaukee and Detroit and Philly, do some big national thing. Do 60 minutes again if you can. Do a bunch of non, I hate the term non-traditional, but do a bunch of stuff that will actually reach people who don't pay attention to politics, right? Tim Walz did this interview on this TikTok show, Subway Takes, where he gets really deep into gutter repair,

which is very important. And this is one thing, Trump shows up and does a lot of podcasts that are very explicitly targeted to young men. He was on Theo Vonn's podcast last week, having a very inquisitive conversation about cocaine use. He was on this other podcast that gets a ton who the clips of which get a ton of traction on Tik TOK from a guy named Sean Smith, who's a former special operations guy there. He is, he did the Jake and Logan Paul's podcast. He is their media strip for all the craziness around the

truth and everything. Their non-traditional media strategy is incredibly smart and it's so specifically designed to hit the exact people they need who are young men of all races who do not follow regular news. And as we get further in this campaign, the Harris Walls campaign is going to,

they have an amazing digital team. They have built up an organic army, but she and Tim Walls are going to, they have an amazing digital team. They have built up an organic army, but she and Tim Walls are going to have to show up in places like that to do those sorts of podcasts, those sorts of things with creators or influencers that will go immediately viral and TikTok and get to people like that is going to have to be a big part of the strategy. And you layer that in with some of the more traditional stuff because you still have to get some of those older voters, right? That's a group she's going to have to hold on to with some of those older voters, right? That's a group she's going to have to hold onto with some of those older Biden voters in the industrial Midwest. And you're going to do that with like 60 minutes in CBS Sunday morning

is more than a Hot Ones interview. But also do Hot Ones. Also do Hot Ones. Yeah, I know that's why I was laughing. One quick thing before we go to break, stellar news. Nearly 55,000 of you have signed up for Vote Save America's Organize or Else volunteer drive. That's huge, but we're not gonna stop yapping about it until they hit their goal of 75,000 signups.

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And this ad has not been authorized by any candidate or candidates committee. Alright, let's talk about Donald Trump. Trump campaign has promised that their candidate would be more active on the campaign trail and at least on Thursday he was. He did a rally in Michigan and then flew to Wisconsin for a town hall moderated by Democrat-turned-independent-turned-Trump-supporter-slash-debate coach Tulsi Gabbard. Trump also made Gabbard and RFK Jr. honorary co-chairs of his presidential transition team. Quite a team of wackos Trump's assembling, huh?

What do you, why do you think he did that? Why do you think he named them co-chairs of the transition? Well, I imagine that the RFK Jr. thing is some part, it's either, I don't know if it's the quid or the quo in the quid pro quo that came with the endorsement and dropping out, but- It's not the pro. Yes, I know it's not the pro, it's either the quid or the quo in the quid pro quo that came with the endorsement and dropping out. It's not the pro. I know it's not the pro.

It's either the quid or the quo. He clearly, there was a discussion about RFK Junior in exchange for dropping out and endorsing Trump, wanted some role. And Trump probably wasn't in position, although maybe he did promise him like HHS secretary or something. But this was the first thing they could do.

Tulsi Gabbard. Your new Dr. Fauci is RFK Jr. I mean, Godspeed. Yeah, yeah. Tulsi Gabbard has become this sort of MAGA celebrity and she just, and I think in Trump's head, represents like, this is a former democratic member of Congress who is supporting me, right?

Who's on my transition team. And it's not, like, it's not crazy to go out to a bunch of voters who don't love the other candidate, don't love other party and say that, you know, you say it's gonna be this dictator and he's got a Kennedy and a former democratic member of Congress running his transition, right? That does, that is a, I would say not particularly

precise way or the way I would choose, but it is a way to try to sand down the edges of some of the project 2025 stuff of extremism. It's like, would a Kennedy really do this? I mean, once you know about RFK Jr. and his tendency to drive around with dead animals in his car, you might feel different. But if you just hear a Kennedy and a former Democrat,

maybe you're less likely to think he's a dictator who's gonna do X, Y, and Z. I think they are trying to target, with R.F.K. Junior and Tulsi Gabbard, some of the same voters you were just talking about, which are these sort of young, they tend to be younger, tend to be men, and to not consume a lot of political content.

And most importantly, their views of politics and institutions writ large is very cynical. They think that these are types of people who think, we shouldn't be spending, sending any money abroad. They don't understand the war in Ukraine. They think that corporations are all out to get them, but not in a way where it's like, when you hear like democratic populism,

like in a, they're putting poison in the vaccines kind of way, the RFK Jr stuff, right? And so it's very conspiratorial, right? He's just trying to, they're basically trying to reach out to all the conspiracy theorists, online trolls, anti-establishment, low-information voters with people who are good at getting attention for taking very contrarian positions that sound good to a lot of people who are sort of fed up with politics and fed up with government.

And it's interesting because it's sort of like changing the axis from left, right to sort of anti-establishment. And then, you know, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, the Never Trumpers, they all represent like the establishment. And, and Trump wants to show that like he and JD Vance and Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr., maybe they're a little wacky, but they're this like band of rebels, right? That's, that's sort of the, I think what they're trying to do. Now I think that the challenge is like, if

you like RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard and all these other people, like, aren't you already a Trump voter or are they going to bring you into vote for Trump? If you don't like Trump, I don't know about that. Yeah. I'm not sure. I mean, these are not master strokes.

They're going to deliver the election. But it is, it is, it is, uh, it's something out there. It's this, this, this group of cranks that he's assembling to try to reach out to people who are just sick of shit and want to tear everything down. All right. So Trump seemed, uh, somewhat surprised that what his campaign billed for an entire week as a town hall was indeed a town hall. He also had some insightful things to say about clean energy and other topics. Let's listen. And we're gonna make a speech. I had a speech all set for you. I was ready.

They said, sure you're actually doing a town hall. I said, oh nobody told me that. Take a look at bacon and some of these products and some people don't eat bacon anymore and we are going to get the energy prices down when we get energy down. You know this was caused by their horrible energy wind. They want wind all over the place but when it doesn't blow we have a little problem and one of the things is that JD and I are weird. that that guy is so straight JD is so He's doing a great job smart Top student the great guy and he's not weird and I'm not weird I mean we're a lot of things were not weird this woman has to be stopped

I'll tell you something about that woman though. She's eating bacon cooking bacon I'll tell you something about that woman though. She's eating bacon, cooking bacon. There's multiple times bacon's been referenced in this podcast tonight. I'm pretty hungry as is. On message as always, what'd you think of the town hall? What'd you think of him not knowing it was a town hall? That is the most, like as the former staffer in me

is I can just see that happening. Just someone forgot. I've, there've been. Well do you think, like Tulsi Gabbard was the moderator. Just someone forgot, I've, there have been, I've never. Well do you think, like Tulsi Gabbard was the moderator. Do you think he was just, like did he think he was gonna go out on stage, like was he surprised

to see her there? Did he think she was introducing him maybe? Probably, you know how he, like he has a very loose speaking program generally, sometimes I'll just spot a sheriff in the crowd and call him up and let him speak. So who knows what he was thinking, but I did once was headed to CNN with Barack Obama when he discovered it was a town hall, not an interview. And I would say he was displeased. He fortunately

kept that displeasure. I mean, I would say it was written in the briefing memo and very clear lettering, but you know, he's a busy guy. But he was very- We'll get Obama on for his responses. I mean, look, he's right. I should have written a clear memo. I fell on my sword. That's a very, I'm sure Trump did not either, did not read a brief memo, has never had a brief memo prepared for him

or did not listen when he was told what was happening. And so, sure. Yeah. Well, Trump made his big news of the day before the town hall, as he often does, because it's not like he drove a message during the town hall because that's not really his style. But before the town hall, he tried to veer drastically away from the anti-choice positions that even he seems to believe are out of step with most voters.

At his Michigan rally, he announced that under a second Trump term, IVF treatments would be totally free, either because the government would cover them directly or because insurers would be required to cover it. Trump was also asked by NBC's Dasha Burns how he'd vote on the Florida ballot initiative that would overturn the state six-week abortion ban and guarantee access to abortion through an amendment to the Florida state constitution.

Trump said in response, quote, "'I think six weeks is too short. It has to be more time. I've told them that I want more weeks. Don't know what any of that meant. Amazingly, Trump immediately came under fire from the anti-abortion right. And then he backtracked.

The campaign is now saying that he didn't say how he'll vote, which is true. He didn't say that. He just quote, believed six weeks is too short. Where do you think he lands on this? What do you make of the whole, the abortion ballot measure in Florida? Trump is very well aware of how politically toxic his abortion position is, but I am going to presume that Donald Trump is going to vote no on this amendment because his position

is that it's up to the states and this is the position the state of Florida chose. So ergo, he is fine with this number of weeks, full stop. Also, it's like the, him talking about the number of weeks is beside the point because the amendment, as I said, would not just overturn the six week ban, the amendment would enshrine access to abortion as a, as a right in the Florida constitution. So there would be, you couldn't do a 12 week ban.

You couldn't do an 18 week, you know what I'm saying? Like it's just not, which is why I think the campaign and the anti-abortion groups got so mad because if Donald Trump made it seem like he was going to vote for the amendment, it means that he wants to make abortion legal and guaranteed in the state of Florida, which he didn't say he wants to,

which should tell everyone something. So that's the abortion question. What do you make of the IVF proposal? Do you think that, should we be surprised that Donald Trump today proposed, from what I can tell, using Obamacare to force insurers to pay for IVF treatments. Which I think is how he would have to do that. I mean, using it, I think you'd have to open up

the legislation again and pass it. Like, I don't think you could just, I don't think you can do that via regulation. I think, I am like, we need to get a smarter person here, but I'm wondering if you can do it through the same provisions that allows you to do contraceptive care. Right, but that was, wasn't that in the original legislation? Yeah, I think it's the

either way. It doesn't matter either way. He's either going to pass a law or he's going to use federal rulemaking authority to require insurance companies to do this. And I'm sure plenty of people know this, but if you don't like IVF treatments are extraordinarily expensive, right? So like the idea that insurance companies are going to be like fine, this is, you know, not something that I would expect. And the idea that he's going to get a fine. This is not something that I would expect. And the idea that he's gonna get a bunch of Republicans in Congress to like get the government to mandate it is seems also a bit far-fetched.

The idea that he actually wants to do this seems like complete fucking bullshit. Yeah, I mean, it's absurd. There's, it's so poorly thought out. Like there's no, is it legislation? Is it regulation? Is there an income cap? Like there's no policy here.

There's just like, you get IVF, you get IVF. Like it's just, it's wild that he's, I mean, it's just, and it's worth noting that Donald Trump has refused to support any of the efforts that have been put forward to protect access to IVF. JD Vance voted been put forward to protect access to IVF. JD Vance voted against the bill to protect access to IVF and the Republican platform, which Donald Trump signed off on and embodies his platform, includes fetal personhood,

which would effectively ban IVF. So this is ridiculous. That is the most important point is just to go back to what happened when the Alabama Supreme Court issued that ruling that put IVF in jeopardy in the state of Alabama. It is because of this fetal personhood idea, which is when you have IVF, right?

Like some of the embryos are disposed in the process or at least they can be disposed in the process and fetal personhood taken to its logical conclusion as the Alabama Supreme Court decided to do would not allow for disposal of those embryos, which is why a bunch of hospitals after the Supreme Court in Alabama ruled on that decided to pause IVF treatments. So yes, IVF is expensive and prohibitively expensive for many families. So it would be wonderful if insurance companies could cover it. And it would be wonderful if we could fight for insurance companies to cover

it or the government to mandate it. But Donald Trump's problem is not that. Donald Trump's problem is that he has taken a position that is allowing various states to put IVF access in jeopardy, not because of the cost, but because the Christian nationalist right thinks that, you know, every single embryo is a person. It is absurd. Do you think it'll work?

Do you think this is, or do you think people are just going to be like, I do wonder in general, all of the, like, people are gonna get a general impression. Or I wonder if people are gonna get a general impression that like, a lot of these Republicans, JD Vance, Project 2025, the Republicans in Congress, they are very anti-abortion, don't like it, kind of creeps me out, you know, want the freedom to choose. But Donald Trump, nah, you know, he says stuff now and then,

but maybe he's a little more moderate on it, and so maybe I'm not as worried. That's what they're hoping that voters get, is it a very like generalized impression, particularly voters who do not pay close attention to all this. What do you think? Absolutely.

He benefits from that already. His, you know, Manhattan rich guy who cheats on his wives and sleeps with porn stars. We've said this, I've said this in the podcast before, but when Sarah Longwell has done focus groups in Ohio around the abortion measure, when she asks people if Trump is pro-life or anti-choice, whatever language she uses, they laugh.

And many people will just randomly suggest he's probably paid for abortions himself. So he has this imprimatur of moderation on it already. And just to give an extent of how important it is for Trump to fix his problem on abortion or to prevent Democrats from making him to actually portraying his position on abortion. In the 2022 midterms and the exit polls, of the 27% of voters who listed abortion as their top issue, Republicans lost them 76 to 23. Trump obviously cannot look like Blake Masters,

Hershel Walker, Dr. Oz on abortion, and if he does, he will lose this election. Yeah, no, and he's clearly aware of that. And I do think that it was very effective in Kamala Harris's convention speech when, you know, the best answer on this is Donald Trump promised to appoint Supreme Court justices that would overturn Roe v. Wade. He then appointed three Supreme Court justices that he knew would overturn Roe v. Wade.

They did it. And now a third of American women live under abortion bans in this country. That's it. So take whatever he says with a grain of salt because that's his record Incidentally, if you're freaked out about what a Trump presidency would mean for reproductive rights and you should be you know What you can do you can go to vote save America comm slash 2024 and sign up to volunteer so go there now When the Trump campaign wasn't busy trying to wriggle out of their candidates' record on abortion, they were doubling down on their fight with Arlington National Cemetery about

whether they broke the rules and maybe the law by turning Trump's visit into a campaign photo op and then shoving a cemetery official who tried to stop them. Campaign manager Chris LaCivita posted a video of the event that he hoped would quote trigger the hacks in the US Army. The Army. Picking a fight with the army over Trump, putting campaign photos out and TikToks of him at a cemetery, giving a thumbs up over the graves of fallen soldiers. That's what we're doing here. Dan, what's the strategy here,

picking a fight with the army? And do you think this has legs? I know there's, we've now gone back to, you know, to the days of, I like people who weren't shot down, you know, what you say about John McCain, like Donald Trump has insulted and offended veterans and men and women who currently serve in the military now for nine years. And every time he does, it seems like it's gonna be like, how can anyone vote for him? And this has to be the last straw,

especially, you know, a lot of Republicans who, you know, respect for the military is like a, you know, a core value of the Republican party and conservatism. And then, you know, we know what happens. What do you think about this latest? Do you think it's at least a data point in a larger story about Donald Trump that might move some voters or what?

In the, one of the groups that moved most in Democrats direction from 2016 to 2020 was veteran households, right? That's a category in the Pew validated voter study which is a household that has a veteran that lives in it. And that margin was actually enough to tip some states. And so this stuff does matter. Ultimately, there's no strategy.

There's just like doubling, tripling, quadrupling down on just being a giant asshole. And it's like proving, this is something that's like very endemic to Trumpism, which is like the more honorable the person or sacred the institution that you're willing to poke in the eye, the more true you are to the MAGA cause.

That's ultimately how you end up with a bunch of people storming the United States fucking Capitol. But that's exactly, Chris LaCivita, who is looking over his shoulder at Corey Lewandowski measuring the drapes in his office right now, is trying to prove his loyalty to Trump by just lighting himself on fire to, Chris LaCivita's a smart bloke,

he knows that there is no upside in picking a fight with the Arlington National Cemetery, but he has to do it to appeal to Trump and that will buy him credibility among MagaWorld because look at what a giant asshole you are. You must be one of us. Also, like rule number one in MagaWorld is never apologize and never back down on anything, right?

So they don't have the option of saying like, yeah, maybe they were, maybe we shouldn't have done this or we'll pull the video. They don't have the option of saying like, yeah, maybe they were, maybe we shouldn't have done this or we'll pull the video. Like they don't have the option of doing that. That's just not who they are. So they got the only way to, the only way to, uh, you have to double down. That's the only way to do it. Um, okay, before we go, there was a ton of new polling today.

And Dan, if you thought we, the Pod Save America community, we're going to let you go to bed without talking about it. You're sorely mistaken in brief we had a new Reuters Ipsos National poll showing Harris up for 45 41 a new Wall Street Journal poll showing her up one 48 47 Quinnipiac poll showing her up to 49 47 Emerson swing state poll showing Harris slightly ahead in Michigan Nevada and Georgia and tied in Pennsylvania Bloomberg morning consult battleground polls showing her up everywhere and Tide in Arizona. And then as you were, you and I were talking about earlier, the

big drama in the, in the polar coaster community, uh, is that Nate Silver. It's a big, it's a big community. Let me tell you. It's a big community. Nate Silver moved Trump to a slight favorite in his projection, mostly because of Harris's problems in Pennsylvania and by problems, we should just say that it is, the race seems tied there or she's like down one, depending on the poll that you're looking at. And it becomes very difficult to find a path to 70

without Pennsylvania. So to take that last part first, what do you think's going on in Pennsylvania? You talked about this in your message box on Thursday as well. In Pennsylvania, thus far in the polling, if you talk to people involved in the effort, super PACs elsewhere about the battlegrounds,

Pennsylvania is acting tougher than Michigan and Wisconsin right now. And there are a couple of reasons why that might be the case. I mean, one very simplistic reason is, it is where Trump was shot, and that got tremendous amount of coverage there. It's hard to go back to six weeks ago, whenever that was, but everyone thought the election was over

because of the Trump's photo and that incident and what it all might mean. That coverage penetrates most there. It's also a state that just has a huge variety of voters that you need to get. You have to get tremendous turnout out of Philly. You have to crush in the suburbs. Then you have this huge swath of the state

which contains a very mega demographic friendly group. A lot of working class white voters. These are the people who turned out contains a very mega demographic friendly group, right? A lot of working class white voters. These are the people who turned out and delivered the state for Trump in 2016. And so when we, it is hard, it's performing a point or two different than Michigan, Wisconsin.

Now, if you had asked, it's the beginning of the cycle based on 2020 and recent elections, you would probably say that Michigan was the easiest of the blue wall states, Pennsylvania the second and Wisconsin the hardest, Pennsylvania the second, and Wisconsin the hardest. But so much, and that's in part because Wisconsin is the least diverse, but Trump has made inroads with black voters and Latino voters to some extent, right?

Not as much as we probably thought a few months ago, but still doing better than he was doing in 2020. And so that's why it's been a little trickier. It's not entirely clear why that is, but those would be some of the reasons. Seems like, and we talked a little bit with Dan Cannon about this, who's the Battleground States Director

for the Harris campaign. But it does seem like in Pennsylvania, what she needs to do is focus on black voters that Trump has made inroads with, and some who just don't know her, and some who are not paying close attention to the race, and also try to increase her margins in the Philly and Pittsburgh suburbs, particularly with women, because she probably has more room to grow there, and then hold, or as best she can, Biden's numbers with sort of non-college white voters in the more

rural areas, right? And she might have some room to grow over Biden's numbers with non-college white women because of Dobbs. Yep. So that's sort of the path in Pennsylvania. But I mean, the reason that that affects the entire projection with Nate Silver or wherever else is because Pennsylvania is so critical. I mean, the reason that that affects the entire projection with Nate Silver or wherever else is because Pennsylvania is so critical.

If she doesn't win Pennsylvania, but she wins Michigan and Wisconsin, she would need Georgia plus Nevada or North Carolina plus Nevada or Arizona plus North Carolina or Arizona plus Georgia. Like you need two other states. And Arizona and Nevada alone is not enough to make up the gap.

Right. That is the key. That is the key. So Kamala Nushi was getting the flip-flop question from Dana Bash and you know you're getting this one from me. Does this count as a convention bounce? Are we in a, are we in a bounce, winning bounce territory? Well, the bounce is sort of a fake thing. In the last three elections, the average bounce

of all the candidates is 1.1 points. Yeah, I saw that in your message box and I was like, wow, I didn't know that that was only one point. Yeah, Obama and McCain had decent sized bounces in 2008. Biden had no bounce in 20, Trump had a minus one bounce. Now those were bizarre conventions because of the pandemic, so, you know, give a grand assault. Very little bounces in 2016. It's just as we've become more polarized, minus one bounce. Now those were bizarre conventions because of the pandemic. So, you know, give a grain of salt,

very little bounces in 2016. It's just as we've become more polarized, there's just less room for bounce. The electorate is less elastic. There's less places to grow. You have fewer people on the other side who will come over to your side because they saw a good speech during the convention.

It's harder to get people to pay attention to the convention now. And so where the convention relate, where you see bounces if you go back in history is when the party is divided before the convention and then they come together at the convention. That helped Obama a lot in 2008 because of how late that primary against Hillary Clinton had gone. But the party united behind Kamala Harris six and a half minutes after Joe Biden called her. And so she kind of got her bounce already. So it's not a statement that the convention was a failure in any way, shape or form,

it was actually like a rip roaring success, but she had sort of banked much of all the bounce before then. So maybe she has a point. I looked at the New York Times polling average and it was 49, 47 before the convention and it's 49, 46 now. So, you know, she's up by three instead of up by two,

but so, you know, I think the convention bounce is a little bit of a fallacy. And to your point about just consolidating the party, it's just one poll, but in the Quinnipiac poll, she's winning Democratic voters 98% to one. Yeah. I mean, remember like the days when it was like, Biden was winning Democrats like 85%, 84% less,

you know, I mean, that is just, that's extraordinary. So yeah, she's got work to do with independence, she's got work to do with sort of low info voters, sporadic voters who don't turn out in every election for sure, but that's the work of the next 68, 67, whatever number of days now we have. If you wanna see how divided the country is, look at the internals of that Quinnipiac poll,

which is, as you said, Kamala Harris is Democrats, 98 to one. Trump is at, I think, like, 86-4, 96-4, I think, Republicans and independents are equally divided, 45-45. So it's like. Yeah, and it's a close race, close country. Okay, that's our show for today.

Everyone enjoy the long weekend. Huge news. We're gonna have a special episode of Polar Coaster for you on Tuesday, and then we'll be back in your feed with more PSA on Wednesday. Bye everybody! If you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and more, consider joining our Friends of the Pod subscription community at Cricut.com slash Friends. And if you're already doom-scrolling, don't forget to follow us at PodSaveAmerica on Instagram,

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