Pod Save America - Trump Blames Harris for Assassination Attempt

Episode Date: September 17, 2024

Donald Trump wastes no time blaming Kamala Harris and Joe Biden for the latest attempt on his life. JD Vance defends spreading lies about Haitian immigrants as a way to draw attention to border policy. Jon, Lovett, and Tommy discuss how Democrats can respond to the blame game, and whether or not to make the pet-eating smears a campaign issue. Plus, Kamala Harris does more interviews, and the Trump family plunges into the crypto business. 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 Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Editor. On today's show, JD Vance admits the pet-eating conspiracies are fake as the people of Springfield continue to deal with bomb threats. Sounds like he's eating crow.

Boo! Kamala Harris sits down for more interviews as Donald Trump once again dominates the news, and with just 50 days to go until the election, the former president makes his most important announcement, yet the Trump family is finally launching a crypto platform. We've all been waiting.

It's about to- Great timing, man. Great timing, right at the top of the crest. Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. But first, as I'm sure you all know by now, it appears as though another lunatic tried to assassinate Donald Trump on Sunday while the Republican nominee was playing a round of golf at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach.

Secret Service agents spotted the muzzle of an assault rifle poking through the bushes near the next hole. They opened fire, the suspect fled, and then was arrested in a highway stop. Ryan Wesley Routh, age 58, has been charged in federal court with possession of a firearm by a felon and possessing a firearm without illegible serial number. More charges could follow as the FBI continues to investigate. Leaders of both parties have expressed shock and anger

that an attempted assassin could get so close to the former president, especially after he was shot at a rally just two months ago. President Biden did a quick press avail before getting on the helicopter on Monday at the White House. Here's what he said.

Thank God the president's okay. I think we got a full report so far. We're down there tonight. But one thing I want to make clear is service needs more help. And I think the Congress should respond to their needs if they in fact need more service people. So. Is there anywhere else we could do the press conference?

I know. No, we just do them by the jet engines now. Trump did them by the jet engines. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know.

I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I, need more services. So. Is there anywhere else we could do the press conference? I know. No, we just do them by the jet engines now. Trump did them by the jet engines, Biden did, this is just a new thing.

Maybe if Kamala Harris wins, she can put an end to that press. Anyway, this is a small issue. Apparently Trump and Biden spoke this afternoon after that. They had a, wait, I said a cordial conversation. Trump said we had a nice talk. Oh, we got to stop meeting like this. We're going to talk about the predictably insane political fallout in a bit, but let's

start with how this could have happened again. According to the charging document, uh, Routh hid along the edge of the golf course Saturday night and waited there for about 12 hours. We've all been through a lot of Secret Service sweeps. It does seem hard to believe that someone hanging around the President's golf course with an AK-47 and a sniper scope

wouldn't get spotted for 12 hours. Do you think it's fair for the Secret Service to be in the hot seat right now? So I think the golf course is like 15 minutes from the club. So it's not the same terrain. It's also like, this was not a scheduled golf outing. This is what's called an OTR.

So Trump didn't announce it ahead of time. He just decided to play golf and then went to the golf course. So there's just a different level of protection for events like that. You're not securing the entire perimeter necessarily for a candidate versus the president. It does raise the question that if it was an OTR

and wasn't announced, how did the gunman know that he would be there? Because Trump plays golf every single Sunday. I mean, I think there's a broader, look, the part of this is obviously not Donald Trump's fault, but every conversation with Secret Service about protecting an outing or going somewhere, whatever you want to do, it's a back and forth.

You know, like you're pushing them to let you do things to get into the crowd. You're pushing to go overseas into war zones. They're pushing back and saying that's not safe. And apparently in the past, the Secret Service has told Donald Trump, hey man, people can see you from public roads when you're golfing.

Like here's news media footage of you on the golf course. Like a sniper rifle would have the same exact vantage point. Yeah, the Washington Post basically said that the Secret Service said, hey, you wanna golf at your clubs, but it's too predictable because basically people know that you'll be at the club that you own closest to where you're currently staying,

which is public information. Every Sunday. And so when President Obama was golfing, and he golfed too much, no I'm kidding, he would go to military bases and more secure places. And this is just, I think people were rightly pretty upset about what happened in Butler, and so they're kind of drawing that into this

and assuming that something went wrong here, which is why I think in their press conference, the Secret Service was pretty, like, irate about saying that this was the system working. Like, whether that's totally true, I don't know, but I do think this is just a different circumstance and the challenge of securing a giant golf course surrounded by public roads

that the president often goes to, which is why I think you get to President Biden and Ro Khanna talking about wanting more support for the Secret Service, because if this is where Trump is going to be regularly, clearly it is very hard to secure something as big as this. And like Tommy said, it is always a negotiation between the Secret Service and the protectee.

In this case, it was Trump, but like, you know, Obama would have these negotiations with the Secret Service all the time. The Obama administration would, Alyssa Mastromonico could speak to this better than us, but especially with events that are announced ahead of time, even though there's more protection, sometimes if it's open air, it's outside, there's a big crowd. If it's in a foreign country, right? Like secret service just gets nervous about this stuff.

Oh yeah. And at the end of the day, they always defer to the protectee because either it's the president or a former president or whatever, but they can at least voice their concerns before that and try to give the best advice they can and warn the protectee of what might happen. Yeah, I just think we need more information here.

In Butler, clearly, it was similar in that you had some individual agents doing heroic work. The PPD people, the people around the president dove on him after the shots were fired, they put themselves in harm's way. And then in this case, you had some member of the PPD detail walking the perimeter of the club, saw the gun muzzle, engaged the person,

drove them away, right? So Secret Service did their job on a sort of individual basis, but there's a question of like, hey, is this process, is this system working? Yeah. If you, like, can we call something an OTR when you are doing it so regularly? I think probably not.

I think like people, so just why the difference between OTR, like what that is traditionally is you don't assume that there's somebody waiting to kill the president at every random coffee shop in America. So if the president just is gonna stop on an unpredictable way at a ice cream place or a restaurant or something to meet people,

they don't do as much to secure that because you would never know the president was gonna be there. They keep calling this a golf outing and OTR, but everybody knew he was gonna be there, especially including this guy who was laying in wait for 12 hours. So, love it as you mentioned, Ro Khanna was one of the first Democrats

out of the gate with a response. He said that Secret Service should immediately come to Congress and tell them what resources are needed to expand the protective perimeter so that they can allocate resources in a bipartisan vote on the same day. In the times there was a suggestion

from a former Secret Service agent who protected Obama that Trump should get the same level of protection that current presidents get because he's a former president running to be president and is an extremely polarizing figure and so you want the same level of protection. At the press conference on Monday, the Secret Service said Trump has the highest level of protection.

What do you guys think about it? So first of all, one thing that came out of that press conference I think is worth mentioning is that the acting head of the Secret Service made a point of saying that the Biden administration, Department of Homeland Security, Congress, like there is bipartisan support and that the Secret Service feels supported by Biden,

by his administration, by Congress, only because there's so much, I'm glad that he did that, because you could see Republicans saying, oh, this is the Democrats not wanting Donald Trump to have defended, and that's not there. Though it's interesting because Biden did say, with the helicopter blades going,

that Secret Service is stretched thin and does need help. So I do think there's a seems like there's a resource issue here. Yeah I mean watching the acting director I mean he was like look yeah we need we've been doing more with less for a very long time but also you can't just tell me to like give more agents over time because he said I wrote that a quote down men women of the Secret Service right now we are redlining them meaning like we are working them so far beyond their capacity to do just more overtime. So there does seem to be like an aggregate manpower

question. And there also was some back and forth on whether Trump's getting the same detail. Yeah. So the local sheriff, who his kink seems to be telling reporters they only get two or three questions and then shutting the rest down, which is very funny, the Palm Beach guy,

he said yesterday that if Trump had been the sitting president, they would have actually been able to like man the perimeter at the course. The acting director today seemed to push back on that, although he might've just been saying, hey, like the president, Trump has PPD, which is the presidential protective detail, a cat team, which is the counter assault team,

which are the super, super heavily armed guys who basically, if there's an incident, go towards the shooter and engage them so the president can flee. But it's not clear that they have the uniform detail agents making a huge perimeter around the president the way you would do with a sitting president. And someone asked Dick Durbin about this.

And he was like, the problem with resources for the Secret Service is it's not like you can just go hire more Secret Service agents off the street, right? Like that's the, it's a finite resource here that you have, needs time to actually get more of them. Yeah, also, by the way, like, this is, he said do more with less. This has been an ongoing issue

with the Secret Service forever, right? I remember in 2008, I just went and looked back at it, that there was this issue around defending so many presidential I remember in 2008, I just went and looked back at it that there was this issue around defending so many presidential candidates when in 2007, the race had already seemed to begin. You have a former first lady running for president, former president campaigning on her behalf. You have Barack Obama had already begun receiving threats

when he's campaigning. And so like, this is just the point that they're always trying to provide 100% fail safesafe protection and that's impossible and there's always limited resources. Let's talk about the perspective assassin. Routh has an extensive arrest record, including a 2002 conviction that involved a three hour standoff with police

that resulted in charging him with possessing a weapon of mass destruction, characterized by local press as a fully automatic machine gun. As for his political views, they've been all over the place. He says on social media he backed Trump in 2016, Biden in 2020, and has supported the typical combo of Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard, Nikki Haley, and Vivek Ramaswamy. Those are his different candidates. He's also fairly obsessed with the war in Ukraine

and has routinely contacted the Ukrainian military with what one official described to the New York Times as quote nonsensical ideas that can best be described as delusional. Of course, none of these details matter to Trump who waited less than 24 hours to blame Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, calling them quote the real threat. In an interview with Fox

where he also said that quote, their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at and they are the ones that are destroying the country both from the inside and out, lovely. Trump also posted that quote, because of this communist left rhetoric, the bullets are flying and it will only get worse. So our borders must be closed

and the terrorist criminals and mentally insane immediately removed from American cities and towns. So the rest of MAGA world has of course followed suit with Don Jr blaming radical leftists and Elon Musk tweeting, quote, the incitement to hatred and violence against president Trump by the media and leading Democrats need to stop.

And this is after Musk tweeted and then had to delete a tweet where he said, no one is even trying to assassinate Biden slash Kamala. And then later claimed this was some kind of a joke. That no one got. You just didn't get it. That is some of the best comedians in history, just people don't get them at that time. He's so dry.

He's just so good. He's so funny, we don't get it. Well, he also posted. He's post comedy. He kind of made excuses for himself by saying, like, man, you know, a joke works in the room. You tell it to a bunch of people and then you post it online, it doesn't work as well. Which is with just a window into such a bleak and empty existence that he must have,

just spouting off this nonsense to a group of yes goons that are sitting around in a circle saying, great one, Elon, post it, my man, post it. You're the best. Sometimes a joke works with all the people you paid, but then it doesn't outside, huh? Yeah, that's called love it or leave it. Ha ha ha ha ha.

Ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha. Oh. So after the first assassination attempt, there was a brief period of so-called unity. Donald Trump was a changed man. Everyone was gonna hold hands. He only told that story one time.

Only, yeah, he was only gonna tell that story because it was too painful. And then on Twitter Spaces. Right, now we're just, we're right into blaming the left. Doesn't matter what the details are about this guy. Doesn't matter anything, anything that happened, any of the investigation, what it might uncover, whatever, it doesn't matter.

We're going right after the left immediately. Were you guys surprised at how fast this happened? And what do you make of their response in general? Here we are sitting 24 hours after this happened. Surprised? No, not surprised. Look, this is like a conspiratorial movement, like a paranoid movement that doesn't care

what the facts say, just whatever is useful. It is useful to them in this moment, in their minds, to believe that this moment in their minds to believe that this is some leftist. So they're going to say it. That's what ties all these disparate lies that they're telling. Are they useful? Then they're going to tell them, I think we are past the point where we can expect Don Jr. to show the kind of, I don't know, seriousness, wisdom, maturity to understand that the stakes of political violence are too high to behave in this way.

So you'll wait a long time for Don Jr. to show that kind of maturity. So no, I wasn't surprised. It is one of the rare times I am sympathetic to Trump. I mean, almost getting shot in the head has to have screwed him up. It has to, it would mess up anybody. Like you'd be scarred for life if you almost, you literally just ducked a bullet. Then for it to happen again, I would be absolutely furious.

Now that doesn't like justify blaming Democrats like putting out all these statements that are clearly going to just make, inflame everyone's worst instincts in this moment. It's also like in the first case, in the butler shooting, that shooter was immediately killed. He didn't have much of a social media presence. They couldn't find a lot of information about the motive.

This guy is sitting in custody. They have him, they have his gun, they have his social media posts. Like we will. He sounds like many broken brain people on the internet, frankly, if you look through his Twitter feed. Yeah, I mean to the extent that he has a motive beyond maybe just having lost his marbles,

like we'll be able to figure it out. I think that was the motive. Yeah. I mean, look, they decided to hang their hat on, you know, the fact that he said he supported Biden in 20, that he wanted Trump to lose, that he said bad things about Trump, even though he was a former Trump supporter himself.

Right? They don't care what the full picture is or what the motivations are, or whether this guy's mentally disturbed or anything. Right? All they care about is they had one little thing, and they were able to say, boom, he's a radical leftist. He's fully politicizing.

Of course, of course. I'm just saying, on a human level, boy, would this have fucked me up if I were him. He also said in that Fox interview, he said yeah, that's completely different. He said in that Fox interview They use highly inflammatory language. I can use it too far better than they can but don't I mean if Donald Trump wanted to do the first interview and be like I can't fucking believe this almost happened to me again What is wrong with the Secret Service? There's too much violence in this country. There's too much potential for violence Maybe hey, maybe I should look inward too

I mean like if he said but if he said that and he was just really angry, that'd be one thing. That's not what happened. Yeah, the guy's anti-Trump, he tried to kill Trump. That goes, he's a wacko. The jump to, this is not being incited by Democrats. This is just a narcissistic, mentally ill fucking wackadoo that's been posting all kinds of things for years. a narcissistic, mentally ill fucking wackadoo that's been posting all kinds of things for years. It's like, of course it's absurd to tie it to Democrats.

Of course it's dangerous. Of course that's what he does. How do you guys think that the Harris Walls campaign and other Democrats should react to all of this? You know, so far they've done everything that you would expect normal politicians to do, right? You have, like I said, Ro Khanna was out there saying we should give them more protection. Most Democrats have said that. Joe Biden had a call with them. Kamala Harris put out a statement

saying this is horrific. We got to, you know, all the, everyone's doing the right thing. And now all these Democrats are also getting attacked by Donald Trump and getting blamed for this. Do you just ignore it and move on? Do you punch back? I was thinking about that. I feel like there's two, I had two different sort of, I think ways to try to talk about it without just like taking the punch right in the face and then ignoring it.

One is to say, this is awful. This shouldn't happen in this country. We denounce political violence. But we also need leadership that understands that in moments that feel dangerous and threatening, you turn the temperature down, you don't turn it up. You try to demonstrate the kind of politics you want to see, that you don't go around attacking everybody you can think of because you're upset. That's not what a leader does.

A leader tries to bring the country together and try to remind people about how dangerous political violence is, whether it's from the left or from the right or for some crazy guy. I think that's one way to do it. I think the other way to do it is to say, we denounce political violence. We denounce political violence when it's against Donald Trump. We denounce political violence when it's Donald Trump inciting an insurrection. It's dangerous to a democracy.

It's dangerous. We're glad Donald Trump is safe and we're glad Democrats and Republicans are denouncing this kind of political violence. And I'm really glad Democrats and Republicans came together to denounce the kind of violence we saw at the Capitol. We ought to put a stop to all of this, that kind of thing.

Those are the two thoughts. Yeah. Yeah, and I think the most important thing was what Joe Biden did, to call him to offer more resources. I mean like It's crazy. We can't get our arms around this problem Like we should be able to like the the message it sends the entire world that we can't protect the president United States is insane to me also potentially the next president. I did also not to have what are we doing?

I know we have this same exact conversation about gun violence and and and gun legislation Every single time something like this happens. But the guy was a convicted felon who was convicted, he had three hour standoff with police in 2002 where we had a machine gun, multiple other weapons charges. Yes. Like this person should not have been able to

get a gun and you know, most laws in most states say that they, he shouldn't have been able to get a gun. So perhaps he got it illegally or whatever. But like the idea that criminals, mentally unstable people can get their hands on these weapons is absurd, absurd. Yeah, I also like,

I do think we just need more information to know, like the Secret Service is saying that their systems worked. Then there's a question how close this person was able to get to Donald Trump. They're describing it as an assassination attempt, assassination plots, attempts, whatever, are foiled. They happen, right? Like I forgot about this in just last year,

in August of last year, Biden was going to Utah. Before Biden went to Utah, FBI went knocking on the door of a guy that had been issued some shred. The guy ended up, they ended up killing the guy. They called himself a MAGA Trump-er. A January 6th rioter was arrested June of last year outside of the Obama's home in DC with weapons and explosives outside the Obama's home.

Yeah, this is why the Elon Musk tweet was just so wrong on so many levels. First of all, there's publicly documented incidents of where there have been threats against Obama or Kamala Harris or Joe Biden. Second of all, he doesn't know all the threats the FBI and the US Secret Service sees every single day against the president or these candidates.

It would chill you to your core. It's terrifying. And so saying something like that, that attempts to make this a Republican versus Democrat thing is just stupid. And I think if like Kamala Harris, if she's asked about it, I think your answers are right, Levitt.

And I also think it's just, I take these things extremely seriously. Like the attempt on any leader's life is very serious. And that's why we're working with Secret Service. We're gonna make sure there's enough protection. And it doesn't sound like Donald Trump and his people are taking it seriously. It sounds like they're looking at it

as another political opportunity for his campaign, which is what he does. And I think that's just dangerous. It's dangerous for him. It's dangerous for all of us. It's dangerous for the whole country. This is why we can't go back to this. I mean, you put it right in the category, which

the Springfield thing is as well that we're about to talk about, of it is purely for Donald Trump's own political gain and nothing else. That is all he sees this stuff as. It's also just, man, we just didn't know how many people did not have the responsibility, the perspective to be able to talk about this in public. But like John Jr., all of them, Ted, all these guys,

they just don't have the ability to treat this seriously. They can't, they don't truly accept the stakes of like what happens to this country if we really do descend into political violence. ["Decline Your Own Way"] So, other than blaming Democrats for a lunatics attempt on the former president's life, it was a pretty standard weekend for the Republican ticket. There's a headline I loved in Sunday's Wall Street Journal that I think really summed it up well.

Quote, Trump posts disdain for Taylor Swift. Vance defends pet eating claims, subhead, Republicans had planned to campaign on the economy, but that topic is getting less attention. The paper is of course referring to Trump posting on Truth Social on Sunday, in all caps, I hate Taylor Swift. Do you think we would have led with that

if not for this horrible assassination attempt? I mean, it was the kind of post that I was getting so many texts from people who were like, wait, is that real? Yeah, me too. Or is that like a parody thing that someone did? And I looked twice, I went onto Truth Social, I really wanted to make, he did, he just wrote,

I hate Taylor Swift in all capital letters. It's like she has the most intense online fan base. I would not wanna kick that beehive just for purely political reasons. It's also, it's not even like he's trying to needle her or take a shot at her. He just, it's just, I hate her. That's it, that's all he had to say, I hate her.

Right, right, this is sort of like, because she doesn't like you. Right, yeah, that's it. You actually were putting out AI images of her support being important to you literally a week ago or two weeks ago. It is the most distilled example of how Trump works. Yeah, you think Trump bad, you bad.

You like me, you're good. You don't like me, you're fucked. That's it, that's his presidency. So anyway, that was just hours after his running mate did a tour of the Sunday shows. Why, they just keep putting JD Vance out on all of these Sunday shows. It's so weird that he has become like

the de facto spokesperson for the Trump campaign because Trump can't do normal interviews or refuses to, doesn't want to, he just wants to keep posting and doing his rallies. So they send JD Vance out as like the ultimate Zamboni, Trump Zamboni trying to like intellectualize all the random threads of Trumpism. I guess they decide, it's interesting to think about

because the last time he did the full round of Sunday shows, I feel like maybe you could say it was better for him than his previous outings in the public that were about fucking couches and women not having children being awful. Obviously it was bad for him, but I didn't describe. And this one's about eating pets. Yeah.

Hasn't improved too much. He also spent half of the day Saturday, like just in old school Twitter fights with random people. Yes. Oh yeah. He's posting through it. He was fighting with Crystal Ball, he was fighting with Zaid Jalani, like not folks you guys at home probably know,

we know, cause we're sickos. We're posters. We're in the political world. We're posting through it too. Like thoughtful people on the sort of progressive, Bernie sort of spectrum, but like, what are you doing, man? So anyway, after he's finished posting on Saturday, I guess he didn't do Sunday show prep. Then he goes on the Sunday shows.

And he said this, his most contentious interview was with CNN's Dana Bash. Here's how it went. The American media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes. If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's what I'm going to do, Dana, because you guys are completely letting Kamala Harris coast. We ought to be talking about public policy.

Sorry, you just said that you're creating the story. What's that, Dana? You just said that this is a story that you created. So the eating dog we are asking is not accurate. We are creating, we are, Dana, it comes from firsthand accounts from my constituents. I say that we're creating a story, meaning we're creating the American media focusing on it. I didn't create 20,000 illegal migrants coming into Springfield. Source next door. Yeah, man.

Jesus. Look, whoever calls into my office and says anything, we automatically believe that person. We just share it. And I've been a Senator for a while, and I just decided to start drawing attention to this a week and a half ago. Right, yeah.

Also, the 20,000 number is not right. It's just completely. This particularly not right is the illegal part. Yeah, well that's. They're all legal. Yeah, but it's not, yes. It's just wrong and every, it's wrong all the way down. Anyway, Ohio's Republican governor, Mike DeWine,

went on ABC's this week to push back on some of these claims from JD Vance and Trump, let's listen. I think these discussions about Haitians eating dogs and cats and other things needs to stop. We need to focus on what is important. What is important is that we get primary care health to everyone in a very growing city, that we do other things in regard to housing. These are kind of basic things that we need to do. We need to focus on those and not this discussion about Haitians eating dogs. It's just not helpful. And again, these people are here legally. They're here legally. So in the week since the debate, bomb threats have shut down Springfield City Hall and a

middle school, caused lockdowns at two hospitals, evacuations at two elementary schools. And on Monday, officials closed a college in town for the week because of continued violent threats, including shooting and bombing. You think that's the media attention JD Vance was hoping for when he created the story to focus the media on the suffering of the people of Springfield?

I think that, look, a week and a half ago, we were not talking about the 1990 Immigration Reform Act as passed by George H.W. Bush and passed by Congress in a bipartisan way to create the temporary protected status program. And now that's all we're talking about. It is the conservative mantra as coined by our friend Ben Shapiro used to be facts don't care about your feelings.

Now it's my feelings are all that matters. And, you know, I'll make up my own facts. So that's lovely. The conservative mantra as coined by our friend Ben Shapiro used to be facts don't care about your feelings. Now it's my feelings are all that matters and I'll make up my own facts. So that's lovely. Like no one was talking about this until JD Vance started posting cat memes. That's something that he said on a national television program.

It's like in a sense, this narrative is no different than all the news cycles about caravans in past elections. Remember 2018, 2020, there was always some scary sort of ISIS filled caravan coming towards the border. Now it's this more lurid example of people allegedly eating, you know, Fido. The thing, they're really stretching when they get to the geese.

Geese absolutely suck. They're here illegally from Canada. Eat them all. But also the guy that was photographed with holding the goose, the dead goose, it was a different town and it was roadkill. And so he was just picking it up off the street. Also, also, RFK Jr. famously tells stories

about finding and eating roadkill that he finds on the side of the road. Picture of him looking like he's eating a dog, dog carcass. We went so quick from they're stealing your cats to they're eating city geese. What the fucking King's deer? You can eat city geese. Who cares? We are a week from the debate. I can't believe that by the way. Yes. Well, we got to the debate that Donald Trump lost badly according to all the polls

and we are talking about they're eating the dogs, they're eating the cats. It's been remixed on TikTok as a song. It's all everyone's talking about. It's in the news. A Trump advisor told the Bullworks' Mark Caputo that they are happy to quote, take the hit on the fake pet eating story, quote, to prove the bigger point. We talk about abortion, we lose. We talk about immigration, we win. Trump is also

reportedly planning a trip to Springfield, but we don't have details about that yet. What do you guys think? Is this issue a winner for the Trump campaign, Tommy? I mean, look, I did wake up this weekend and read the news and think Republicans have successfully elevated the issue they want to talk about to the top of the agenda, which is immigration. And they're doing so in a very racist, divisive way. So this is the terrain Trump wants to be on. Now I think we've seen enough focus groups and data from the debate that shows that people basically mocked him when he started ranting about people eating dogs and cats, etc. They thought it did not play well with anybody, not Trump voters, not undecideds, not anybody.

So this could be just like self-interested spin from some advisor, it could be bullshit. But it's just something we wanna be mindful of. Republicans want the focus to be on immigration, we want the focus to be on abortion access, democracy, the economy, other things, and it's just something to have in the back of your mind. democracy, the economy, other things, and it's just something to have in the back of your mind.

I saw that quote and I thought, well, that's one way to spin a week of news cycle about people lying, about people eating pets, and you're a candidate losing a debate by saying something that people laughed at. Do I think we're on better ground when we're talking about abortion? Yes, but do I think that this is automatically a winner because the issue is a winner for them when they're talking about it in this completely ham-fisted and ridiculous way?

And by the way, their strength is on the border. We are figuratively and literally so far from the border. We are talking about legal Haitian immigrants and a racist attack on them. I think that there's no reason you can't turn this to your advantage by saying, A, obviously we need to address our immigration system, but this is a ridiculous attack on legal immigrants who did nothing but come to a place that the city

and the Republican governor and businesses wanted them to come to to build a better life. And two, the reason they wanna talk about this is because they wanna talk about anything other than their position on abortion, on taxes, on the environment, not on guns. They wanna scapegoat immigrants instead of talking about what matters to you.

And I think if you can do both of those things, I don't think there's any reason to think we shouldn't be talking about cats and dogs and geese. Yeah, I think they succeeded in elevating the issue of immigration, so that that's what we're talking about. And they succeeded at getting away from a discussion of how bad Donald Trump was at the debate

and how good Kamala Harris was. I don't think this was the immigration discussion that they wanted to have. And I think they probably acknowledge, they're acknowledging that too, right? Like it's not the perfect immigration conversation since it's fucking looney tunes. Um, but yeah, it is. I think what Trump tries to do and is successfully does is like, he just wants the attention. He doesn't care if it's good attention or bad attention, he just wants to be.

He wants to drive the conversation. He wants to be the main character. And she was the main character for too long and she won the debate and so he just like worked his way back in. Do I think it was a strategy to work his way back in? No, all these things are just like instinct and he says something stupid

and then it's like, there's some reaction to it and he's like, oh, I'm getting some reaction. Let's just do more now, right? Like it's all instinctual, but it's still fucking. And what it's only like, look, all he talks about is whatever is six feet in front of his face. And I think he is embarrassed about his debate performance. He knows he got his clock cleaned and so they're constantly spinning it.

But on some level, I do think they've successfully gotten back to terrain they wanna talk to. Now you're right about all the distinctions. This is not illegal immigration. This is temporary protected immigration, this is temporary protected status, et cetera, et cetera. No one knows what the fuck any of that means, right? So they're just like, they're talking about a lurid story, they're lying, it's this racist

imagery, it's spreading on social media, and there's a piece of that that they think might be helpful to them. They could be completely wrong, but I kind of took it face value that there's some strain of thought in the campaign that believes this. Well, and let's talk about it from the perspective of, of Kamala Harris's campaign. Right.

So they every morning get up and think, okay, we have some work to do one. We have to like continue to disqualify Donald Trump in the minds of voters and, and, and define him as too risky for a second term. The bigger goal is to define Kamala Harris in voters minds who don't know her that well. And as particularly voters who haven't decided

whether they're gonna vote or whether they're gonna vote for her to make sure they know who she is, what she stands for, what her plans are. And I'd say on that part, they didn't get as much done during the debate as probably they need to because she had to spend the entire time kicking Donald Trump's ass, which she did.

And so they got the disqualified Trump part. But now in the next 50 days, they have to figure out ways in addition to paid media to break through every day with what's Kamala Harris's vision? What's her plan? How does it compare to Donald Trump's plan? And I would say from that perspective, it's tough to have this in the headlines all the time or in the last couple of days because you're just coming out of this debate, you have all this momentum. So like, how do you, what's the next step, you know?

And so that's tricky. No, I agree with that. And also like if you're in a swing state, you're seeing national news headlines maybe, or somehow you're seeing the news by osmosis about this debate about something going on in Ohio, immigrants, dogs, you know it sounds insane and stupid and Donald Trump's crazy,

but also you're being deluge with ads by Donald Trump saying, Biden failed at the border, Kamala will fail at the border, the border is broken, criminals are sweeping in, they're doing their, an immigrant got in a car accident, an immigrant did this, an immigrant did that, and you're sort of seeing a lot of that day in and day out. I do worry about that too. Like it's a little more effective

in the context of a bunch of heinous ads. Well, it raises the question, they have so far ignored this story on the campaign trail. The campaigns put out statements and posts and stuff like that, but Kamala Harris has not really talked about it, Tim Wallace hasn't really talked about it. I think that's obviously by design, I think that's probably been fine so far. At some point, they'll

either get a question in interviews or they'll have an opportunity to comment on it. I sort of wonder if Kamala Harris doesn't go out there and say like, you know what? This isn't about helping the people of Springfield. This is about helping Donald Trump and JD Vance's campaign, which is like their entire stance on immigration is about helping their campaign. It looks, she said in the debate, it's not, it's not an issue, a problem to solve. It's a problem to run on. And people in Springfield, they want to live their lives.

They want affordable housing. They want good healthcare. They want public safety. They don't want to be used as political props for Donald Trump and his campaign that like they need help. And that's what we need to do. And then she has an affordable, The real problem that led the city manager in Springfield to send a letter to Congress that JD Vance was copied on

that started this whole thing was we've had this influx of immigration over the last couple of years and it's driven up some housing price, made housing tough here for people. So we need help with housing. Didn't say we need help on immigration because it was all legal immigration. And they believe that the immigrants have benefited

the economy and the city as a whole, but we do need help with some housing. Well, Kamala Harris has got a great housing plan that she can talk about. And JD Vance and Donald Trump don't give a shit about housing, nor do they give a shit about anyone in Springfield having healthcare, you know?

So I might just drive that. Yeah, I think this is also something you can make fun of at a big rally. Oh yeah. I think So I might just drive that. Yeah, I think this is also something you can make fun of at a big rally. Oh yeah. I think you start with just mocking this. And then I do want, you have to land at the serious point, but I just start saying like,

what are these fucking people talking about? These people are out of their minds. They're ranting and raving about this made up stuff. They sound ridiculous. They are ridiculous. They're embarrassing. Like kind of like, just like, just mock them mercilessly. Moments like this remind you that Trump also is backed

by a right-wing propaganda apparatus. Like the New York Post did a story about a Haitian motorist who made an illegal turn in Springfield, Ohio. This is the headline, smash it into mom driving with autistic daughter. So this was a minor traffic incident with no injuries involving licensed drivers, hundreds of miles from New York that somehow make it to the page of the New York Post?

Hmm, I wonder why that happened. They got an Ohio traffic reporter on the way. Yeah, they got Pete, the reporter. Okay, two quick things before we go to break. As usual, we're asking all of you who love this show to share this episode with five friends and to subscribe to Pod Save America on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.

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any candidate or candidates committee. Kamala's continuing to do more interviews. She's doing a live stream with Oprah from Michigan this week and over the weekend she sat down with a local ABC affiliate in Philly made no news whatsoever. You guys think that's the right strategy? What do you think about the interview stuff? Yeah, I mean, you're not doing the Philly interview to make news with ABC affiliate. You are doing it to get more coverage on that station in that market. So I think if the worst that comes of this is that Axios is mad that you didn't create a headline for them, like that is fine.

So she should be doing way more of this stuff. In 2007, in the primary in Iowa, we did local news at every event. You got more coverage if you did that. And 99% of the time, it was about substantive policy stuff. And 1% of the time, it was about why you didn't wear a flag pin. And that controversy dogged you until the end of time.

Yeah, it's a little like. Sounds very specific. You don't. KCRG. You make news at the national level to try to reach the people at the time. Yeah, it's a little like. Sounds very specific. You don't. KCRG. You make news at the national level to try to reach the people at the local level who might otherwise not have known whatever else you were talking about that day.

You're talking to the people. You've done the local interview is how you get to those people. I think Kamala Harris should be making news. Do it at a rally. Make news about this at a rally. You don't need to make news in a local interview. Yeah, it's also just do more of these, do more local TV.

Like you, part of this process, like it's great to do the local TV hit when you're in Philly, but the next step is do a satellite tour when you're sitting in Philly. So you're talking to stations in North Carolina and Pennsylvania and Georgia and like everywhere. Yeah. And I thought that watching the interview,

it was a good interview. Like as she went on, again, she looked more comfortable and especially, and sounded more comfortable, especially she got to issues of public safety and criminal justice and gun safety where she has like worked a lot. You know, I think the economic stuff can be like a touch tighter and more comparative with Donald Trump.

Even in local interviews, when you're not making news, like he wants a tax cut for the rich, I want a tax cut for the middle class. He wants this, I want this and just sort of do that. He wants this, I want this, and just sort of do that. But I think, again, you just keep taking swings at these. Yeah, take swings, and then find ways to elevate the things you wanna talk about. Like, for example, I saw a story today in ProPublica

about a woman in Atlanta who died because she had a complication from a medication abortion and then could not get a completely routine procedure called a DNC to fix it. And that is because earlier this year, Georgia made it a felony, punishable by up to a decade in prison to perform that procedure.

So go to Atlanta, sit with their family, talk to the doctors in the state, do a press conference, do TV interviews. Like talk about the fact that this woman's six year old kid now doesn't have a mom because she couldn't get a completely routine procedure in the state. Like that is, like this woman, Amber Thurman,

like that is the kind of story that I think makes news locally, makes news nationally, gets you on the train you wanna talk about, and highlights like a huge contrast in this election. And I also think you're right that some of the stuff you wanna do is like a topper or an insert at a rally speech, but I do think something like that is great to do in a local interview,

knowing that when you tell this story in a local interview, not only will it make news in that local station, but national reporters will pick that up and it will drive national coverage as well, right? So I think you can do both. Republicans constantly do this, but it's like, it's always some grisly murder of a white girl by like a migrant, right?

That's like what they look for. We should be highlighting stories like this. Absolutely. Speaking of made up Republican stories, they're also circulating a tweet now from an anonymous, an anonymous right-wing account called Black Insurrectionist, I Follow Back True Patriots. That's the whole Twitter head. This account posted a completely unverified affidavit

from an ABC whistleblower that says everyone at ABC News wanted Harris to win. They gave the Harris campaign a list of questions ahead of time, and they promised not to raise certain topics. This is- Said the whistleblower, gorsh! Is goofy.

What? It's Disney. Wow. The whistleblower is goofy.h, is goofy. What? It's Disney. Wow. The whistleblower is goofy. Wow, okay. Gorsh. Another post that was not black insurrection, it was some random blog, said that the whistleblower has now died in a car accident also.

Oh no, they got him. They got him. Marjorie Taylor Green shared that one, I believe. Yeah, and Ted Cruz shared the black insurrectionist affidavit, GOP donor Bill Ackman, quote tweeted it at Bob Iger, Disney CEO Bob Iger demanding a full investigation. He's at Angel City getting on what's this now? Like, I just raised this because is this something to take seriously or is this just chum for the MAGA base

and we all just, although there was a Republican House member on TV saying like we should have a congressional investigation into this, into ABC, which I think is great because then they can just play footage from the ABC debate. Yeah, just, yeah, and why didn't you follow up here? It's ridiculous. I think this is stupid and in the same way

that Republicans harping still on Joe Biden, I think is good. Like anything that's like, yeah, you be out. I don't think Martha Raddatz is gonna get a lot of electoral votes at this rate. But I do think there is something serious happening, which is that there was some kind of blood brain barrier between senators and right wing cranks on the internet,

even right-wing cranks who were also venture capitalists. There used to be some standard, a senator wouldn't just share something so inflammatory and obviously stupid because they had some respect either for their constituents themselves or the country, some combination, those things seem to be gone. And like this conspiratorial mindset is really dangerous. It is just dangerous.

Like Ron DeSantis goes to the microphones and says, "'Florida is gonna be conducting its own investigation "'into the assassination attempt.' "'Why? "'Because we can't trust the Department of Justice. "'Why? "'Because they've launched this witch hunt "'against Donald Trump.

And some of them are like, oh, the FBI is in on it. There were moles in the Secret Service and the FBI that planned the assassination attempt. I mean, this is what they're, and look, I think that, again, squaring the circle between they are dangerous and plotting all this and they are a bunch of fucking clowns, they are a bunch of fucking clowns who shouldn't have power

because the consequences are very dangerous when you have a bunch of clowns who tweet this shit and you give them some power and you give them subpoena power and they can pass laws and God forbid Donald Trump becomes president of the United States. Like that's a, it's scary. And the guardrails that used to exist are just gone. Like there was a difference

between how elected Republicans spoke and right-wing radio hosts and commentators spoke. Those Republicans in elected office very much enjoyed the way in which those hosts and people inflamed the base, but they didn't fully embrace it. They kept some distance. They kept some respect for their institutions, for the truth, for their role, and that being gone is very dangerous. It tells you what kind of Republican party

will be in power if Donald Trump wins. Yeah, the kind of Republican party that's gonna, his, you know, Chief of Staff Laura Loomer flying around with Donald Trump. Don't give him any ideas. Yeah, I kinda think this is a problem that goes beyond the elected Republican Party because it shows that misinformation and disinformation

is coming from literally anywhere. Like this is not AI, this is not a deep fake, it's not a cheap fake, it's someone tweeting essentially a Word document with a bunch of allegations in it and all of a sudden it is just going everywhere. Like Bill Ackman is a wildly successful huge asshole, but hedge fund person who should in his job be able to vet good and bad information

to make stock trades. Instead he's sharing this to millions and millions of people demanding a response from Bob Iger via Twitter. You know, you have Elon Musk sharing this stuff. I mean, it's just- I'm telling you, all these rich people, they've had too much time on their hands and they've spent too much time online

and all their brains have been fucking pickled by the internet. It's just, it's so funny though. Like for the years and years and years we heard that social media sites were too liberal and biased towards progressives and you've got Elon Musk sharing this stuff. And now I think I read today he spent more than

30 million dollars on his super PAC to help Trump. You've got Elon Musk sharing this stuff, and now I think I read today he spent more than $30 million on his super PAC to help Trump. You know, it's just like so, so thoroughly tilted the other direction in terms of Twitter being just a, you know, feeding ground for all things MAGA, and yet we're still locked into this idiotic framework where people complain about liberal bias in tech. But even, like, yes, I agree with all that,

but even without Elon Musk and these right-wingers kind of taking over Twitter, there is something inherent to a kind of media that encourages paranoia, that encourages people to share false information, to not be able to trust information that rewards right-wing politics. I mean, I think we see this all over the world.

It's not Bill Ackman and Elon Musk why we see right-wing politics. I mean, I think we see this all over the world. It's not Bill Ackman and Elon Musk why we see right-wing movements all over the world. There is something inherent to this kind of technology that is like really inflaming people's worst instincts. And like, it doesn't, I guess it shouldn't surprise me that it applies to people that are kind of just living their lives and it applies to elected officials

and highly successful people who have the same fucking adult broken brain, but it does a little bit. It's believing in conspiracies and misinformation. It has nothing to do with level of education, wealth. It can happen to anyone, partisan identification even. We've seen some loonies on the left too online. They just happen not to be in elected office.

And they just get amplified easier now. Which is the difference. What do you think, Laura Lumer, press secretary? Yeah, that's what they've been saying before. That's what she wants. She wants press secretary. Trump did call her a free, Dan and I talked a little bit about this on Friday's pod.

Then Donald Trump was asked about her at an event and his answer was really, he was just sort of like, she's a free spirit. She's a free spirit. She's been a supporter of mine. I can't control what she says. It sounds like someone who doesn't wear shoes sometimes as opposed to just a right-wing maniac.

Yeah, no, I know. Yeah, she definitely picks wildflowers. I agree, free spirit for sure. She's like a free spirit white nationalist and proud, self-proclaimed proud Islamophobe. Yeah, that's who she is. So before we go, Monday was also quite a big day for World Liberty Financial,

which is neither a bank that collapsed during the financial crisis, nor a company from one of those reverse mortgage ads. It is in fact a new crypto lending platform and cryptocurrency launched with just 50 days left until the election by Donald Trump and his two adult sons. Here's Trump doing a teaser. Join me live on Twitter Spaces at 8 p.m.

the September 16th for the launch of World Liberty Financial. We're embracing the future with crypto and leaving the slow and outdated big banks behind. Ah. Unfortunately, we are recording this just one hour before this event. So we have no idea what will happen. But I'm betting that nothing, it won't go seamlessly.

It's on Twitter spaces. Can I make a prediction? Again. Here's my prediction. If Donald Trump is not elected the next president of the United States, there will be federal indictments related to this. That's my prediction.

I'm just gonna throw it out there. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. I could be wrong, but if I'm right, remember. Well, Tommy, are you gonna buy or not? Well, unfortunately my shares of DJT stock are underwater so I can't really, I don't have a lot of liquidity. Wow, you're gonna wait for those values to recover. Hey, you have to buy low, sell high, I think they say.

But yeah, no, I just think credit to them for finding something more scammy sounding than the Lee Greenwood Bible Pack they were selling earlier this year. That takes work. I mean, just the amount of different ways you can just pump money into this guy's pocket. Endless.

Behind the scenes now, it's like you could stay at Trump properties, you can buy Trump stock, apparently you can now buy crypto. Trump trading cards, NFT business. NFT business. The new Save America coffee table book where he threatens Mark Zuckerberg with jail time. Well that's just a good read.

In a coffee table book of pictures. That's just, that's something that's happening. You know what, you know what, I don't love it, but better than that Tom Ford book everybody has. Random boring architecture. Yeah. We got Melania Trump, she's got a new book out. Oh wow, you have a book of photos

from Madrid, a place you've never been? She's promoting her book with a video that suggests that the Butler shooting might have been a conspiracy. Yeah. So everything is either a vote getting attempt or a money making attempt from the Trump. And really, the vote getting attempt

is just a future money-making attempt, really. Yes, you know what I was thinking about when I saw this? I was like, okay, what is the polling right now if Donald Trump was wholly committed to doing what he should do to win? And it actually is kind of a chilling, I'm glad he's launching crypto and that Melania is putting out conspiracy theories

to sell her book, which I'm sure will be a wonderful beach read. But like, and rambling about eating pets. How fortunate we are that in this 50-50 country, this guy is out there doing this shit. I don't think it's fortunate. I look at the Trump Media and Technology Group Corp is DJT stock.

You can watch it just go up and down based on where he is in the polling. When he has a bad day, like after the debate, it dropped when he has a good day and his number goes up and the 538 average, it goes up. It's just like, it's a way to bribe him by buying the stock. Which is silly because they'll be, you'll be able to bribe them with cash.

Right. This is just much more efficient. What are you doing? He takes cash. Also, he's not gonna know what to do with crypto. Yeah, he's like, uh, don't do it, do they give me computers? Don't do it, they give me computers

and we sell the computers? Is that how there's, how do I make money here? Do I just give someone a laptop at the store? Yeah, yeah, you guys make fake coins and hand it to them. Oh, okay, So before we go we just want to briefly discuss an upcoming event that will likely eclipse the crypto announcement in both media attention and importance We here at Pod Save America are very proud to announce that we've been given an exclusive preview of this fall's October surprise Let's listen. Oh no.

A lot of people think of Survivor as a test of endurance, as an experiment in deprivation. But in the end, it comes down to a vote. And you call it a jury, but really that's an election But in the end, it comes down to a vote. And you call it a jury, but really that's an election. And so for me, I think of Survivor more than anything as an experiment in democracy. Hell yeah. That's cool. I didn't hear that. I had never heard that. Well, what's up George Washington?

Yeah, that's good. That was good. I am sweating through my clothes, but it's good. Love it to know we were gonna play that. That was just an exclusive clip we got from CBS. Yeah, that's right. Came right to us. That's right.

It was supposed to be a surprise for you. Survivor. When Jeff Probst was like, how do I fold this season into the election cycle? Did you have that line ready or did you have to noodle on it for a bit? Uh, I came to Jeff with that, yeah. I like that, he's the idea guy. No, we uh, no, I'm excited.

Wednesday's, Wednesday's starting this week. This week? Where can people watch? On CBS. You remember CBS? Sort of. Yeah. That's where the V-shoot is.

Of course, of course. Yeah, so you'll watch it on CBS and then you'll, you'll tell me how you feel. The Big Bang Theory. It's uh, yeah, no, it's happening. How you feeling about your, your Theory? It's, yeah, no, it's happening. How you feeling about your edit? That's really, you know what? So far that clip, so far so good.

We'll see, we'll see. That was mostly music. That music was exciting. Great music. Very exciting. Like the strings. You know, look, you know, you put your faith in the hands of the survivor gods, see what happens.

Slip some crypto to those editors over there. I'm excited, I'm excited. Stop the steal. I'm excited. Yes, the one thing, spoiler alert, I did an insurrection. You're doing the same. You guys just stormed Jeff Brobs.

Well, everyone tune in to see what happens. I sure will be. That's our show for today. Dan and Adesu will be back That's our show for today. Dan and Adisa will be back with a new show 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 Pod Save America on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content, and more. Plus, if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review to help boost this episode, or spice up the group chat by sharing it with friends, family, or randos you want in on this conversation. Podsave America is a Crooked Media production. Our producer is David Toledo. Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farah Safari.

Reed Cherlin is our executive editor, and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglund and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by Hallie Kiefer. Madeleine Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroote is our head of production. Andy Taft is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Hailey Jones,

Phoebe Bradford, Joseph Dutra, Ben Hefkote, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kirill Pellavive, and David Toles.