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Episode: Six Days Left: Closing Arguments, Racist Jokes and Burning Ballots

Author: The New York Times
Duration: 00:36:39

Episode Shownotes

In the final week of the race for president, Donald J. Trump’s big rally in New York appeared to backfire, while Kamala Harris’s closing message cast her as a unifier. Fears about election interference also resurfaced after arsonists burned ballots in three states.The Times journalists Michael Barbaro, Lisa Lerer, Shane

Goldmacher and Astead Herndon try to make sense of it all.Guest: Lisa Lerer, a national political correspondent for The New York Times.Shane Goldmacher, a national political correspondent for The New York Times.Astead W. Herndon, a national politics reporter and the host of the politics podcast “The Run-Up.”Background reading: Trump at the Garden: A closing carnival of grievances, misogyny and racism.Michelle Obama made a searing appeal to men: “Take our lives seriously.”Investigators have identified a “suspect vehicle” in the ballot drop box fires in the Pacific Northwest.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Full Transcript

00:00:01 Speaker_09
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.

00:00:05 Speaker_01
In the final week of the race for president, Donald Trump's closing argument to voters appeared to backfire.

00:00:19 Speaker_02
So anger, frustration, disgust. A closing carnival of grievances, misogyny, and racism.

00:00:27 Speaker_00
It was so incredibly crude.

00:00:30 Speaker_09
Kamala Harris seized on abortion with a message aimed at men.

00:00:34 Speaker_07
Former First Lady Michelle Obama speaking to male voters there with the message, we as women will become collateral damage to your rage. Does that help get votes for Kamala Harris?

00:00:46 Speaker_09
And fears about election interference were fueled by burning ballots across three states.

00:00:53 Speaker_00
Hundreds of ballots stuffed in drop boxes went up in flames on the West Coast. Now the search is on for whoever set that fire.

00:01:00 Speaker_09
Today, I talked through all of that with three of my colleagues, national political correspondents Lisa Lair and Shane Goldmacher, and the host of the run-up podcast, Astead Herndon. It's Wednesday, October 30th. Well friends, it has finally happened.

00:01:24 Speaker_09
This is our final campaign roundtable before the election. Sniff, sniff. All good things must come to an end. Stead Herndon, Shane Goldmacher. Hello.

00:01:36 Speaker_02
Hey.

00:01:37 Speaker_09
Thank you very much for marking this historic moment with us. We really appreciate it. A very quick note on our timing here.

00:01:44 Speaker_09
We are having this conversation at around noon on Tuesday before Vice President Kamala Harris delivers a very big speech on the National Mall tonight.

00:01:54 Speaker_09
We will talk about that here, of course, showcasing your collective predictive powers or lack thereof. So let us jump in. I think that we have to start with the closing argument that we have heard in the form of Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden.

00:02:12 Speaker_09
Shane, you were there.

00:02:14 Speaker_08
Yeah, this was quite an event, and it was an event that his campaign had billed as a big speech for him.

00:02:19 Speaker_08
This is a place, an arena that he had talked about wanting to go, and he pulled together basically the breadth of the current Republican Party, showing how much it is now the MAGA movement.

00:02:31 Speaker_08
Not to mention 20,000 people in the capital of blue state America. Yeah, and it was filled with red hats and people were excited. The first like three or four people I talked to in the hallways had come from out of state.

00:02:42 Speaker_08
This was a sort of a Mecca moment. Trump taking over the middle of this blue city and they were really hopeful and excited for this.

00:02:50 Speaker_02
I was also there literally eating popcorn with Shane. We had a very large box of popcorn because this was a show. I mean, this was like lights, it was splashy, it was very long.

00:03:02 Speaker_02
I think I was there for nine hours and I think Shane was there for even less. longer.

00:03:07 Speaker_02
Speaker after speaker talked about how particularly emotional this was for the Trump family, because you got this sense that they felt that their father had built New York, pointing to all his buildings and projects in the city, and that New York, a deeply blue state, had cast him out, had persecuted him.

00:03:24 Speaker_02
This was the narrative that came up again and again. And now they were back, and it was supposed to be this hugely triumphant moment designed to show

00:03:32 Speaker_02
the scale and the reach of what they believe their father and Trump himself believes he has built, which is a movement. And then... And then.

00:03:39 Speaker_08
So they had this huge list of speakers, right? It was like, I saw this run of show beforehand. I was like, wow, this is a lot of people. And they had a section called the Hype Act.

00:03:47 Speaker_08
And it was a series of people, and it started with a comedian who made a series of beyond off-collar remarks, just pure racism.

00:03:56 Speaker_08
And this is a person speaking at an event that the Trump campaign has built as one of the most important, on the middle of the stage with Trump's name on it, making jokes about Puerto Rico. Let's play, actually, from this comedian.

00:04:11 Speaker_06
There's a lot going on. Like, I don't know if you guys know this, but there's literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. Yeah. I think it's called Puerto Rico.

00:04:20 Speaker_09
Even the audience seems to recognize, you can hear it, that this has gone too far.

00:04:29 Speaker_02
Right, and from that point, it was a series of speakers who made a number of off-color and racist, sometimes misogynistic comments.

00:04:37 Speaker_02
Tucker Carlson got up there and made a couple, I guess they were supposed to be cracks, but they were fairly racist cracks, about Harris' race and gender. Can we just play that?

00:04:47 Speaker_09
Because I think hearing all this collectively is what gives it its power. This is what Tucker Carlson said about the vice president, the Democratic nominee.

00:04:56 Speaker_05
It's gonna be pretty hard to look at us and say, you know what, Kamala Harris, she's just, she got 85 million votes because she's just so impressive.

00:05:06 Speaker_05
As the first Samoan Malaysian low IQ former California prosecutor ever to be elected president, it was just a groundswell of popular support.

00:05:19 Speaker_09
What is he doing? Being racist. He's manufacturing racial identity for sport.

00:05:30 Speaker_10
The Harris campaign, obviously formerly the Biden campaign, has thought for the last two years that come the end of this election, the Trump campaign would re-remind America of its extremism. And it's who the Trump campaign has been.

00:05:45 Speaker_10
and especially in 2024, has decided to lean even further into that. And I don't think that anyone holds Donald Trump personally responsible for every word that comes out of every person who supports his mouth.

00:05:58 Speaker_10
But I do think that the decision to put those people up there, and the fact that it overlaps with rhetoric that Donald Trump himself has said over the years,

00:06:08 Speaker_10
is the thing that re-reminds folks of the type of blame-the-other, bigoted ideology that Trump is associated with. And that's where the Harris campaign wants to be.

00:06:19 Speaker_02
You know, and the other thing that struck me about the event is how, like, all Trump events are fueled by grievance. It is like, this is their big chance. They're in the garden, man.

00:06:28 Speaker_09
They know the media is

00:06:30 Speaker_02
all over the media is all over it. And so much time was spent talking about how they were wronged by New York City, how they were wronged by the courts, how they've been wronged by big tech.

00:06:40 Speaker_02
So this could have been an opportunity to project some kind of future vision for the country. And more importantly, what they would do. for voters.

00:06:49 Speaker_02
I kept wondering to myself, does some random voter who's undecided, probably not paying that much attention in Wisconsin, do they care that Trump and the Trump family feels slighted by New York City? Like, why would they care about that?

00:07:01 Speaker_09
You're saying This kind of a message merely bathes the base in a familiar vocabulary of grievance, in some cases racism. It fails as a result to look at the persuadable swing voter and say, I got something new to offer you.

00:07:20 Speaker_09
And of course, that's the person who's going to decide the selection.

00:07:23 Speaker_02
And to win, Trump has to expand his base beyond where he was in 2020.

00:07:28 Speaker_10
And he's putting Tony Hinchcliffe on the stage. This is the comedian. At the same time, he's not putting Nikki Haley on stage.

00:07:33 Speaker_02
Right, right.

00:07:34 Speaker_10
At the same time, he's not embracing— This is not outreach. Yeah, right, right. He's not— There's no reason that this couldn't be a campaign that included all sectors of the Republican Party.

00:07:44 Speaker_10
The reason we are getting the MAGA, masculinity, piss everyone off as my form of manhood group of, like, MAGA movement projected on that stage, it's just because

00:07:56 Speaker_10
In the last four years, I think kind of driven through Trump's own feeling of slightness from the judicial and legal system, he's decided to double down on that front. That's the lesson, I think, of this year. They chose not to be additive.

00:08:08 Speaker_09
Let's talk about how Kamala Harris reacts. Her campaign seizes this with ferocity, Shane.

00:08:16 Speaker_08
Yeah, it turned out that they had things happening that day that really helped them, which is she was in Pennsylvania and at a Puerto Rican restaurant that afternoon as she's made a very... Coincidence.

00:08:27 Speaker_09
Coincidence, but actually... When a crude joke about Puerto Rico being a floating pile of garbage is being made.

00:08:34 Speaker_08
And the reason she's at a Puerto Rican restaurant is there's 500,000, 600,000 voters of Puerto Rican heritage in Pennsylvania, the most important state in the country, and she's making an explicit appeal to them.

00:08:45 Speaker_08
And so at the same time that Trump has a warm-up act making these insults, she has supporters in that community amplifying her message.

00:08:55 Speaker_08
You know, she immediately cuts a small ad, they roll out a number of endorsements, and really they're using this to draw attention to Trump and Trump's divisive rhetoric in exactly the way Asset is describing, saying that this encapsulates what you would get.

00:09:10 Speaker_08
if you get four more years of Donald Trump.

00:09:11 Speaker_02
These are like the ultimate persuadable voters, like Latino voters have been a group that both campaigns have fought about. And it's also a group where the Trump campaign believes they have made inroads.

00:09:22 Speaker_02
So it is precisely the kind of people that they need to appeal to to win the election. And that as a set point now, broadening the intent theoretically could have brought them in.

00:09:32 Speaker_09
Well, let's talk about the Latino electorate for just a moment, and I want to kind of test the proposition that this is going to make much of a difference. And here's why. The latest Time Siena poll of Latino voters had really interesting findings.

00:09:47 Speaker_09
Not only did it reveal Trump's strength with this group of voters, It finds that Harris has underperformed with Latino voters compared with the past three Democratic candidates for president.

00:09:59 Speaker_09
And really interestingly, that poll found that a majority of Latino voters do not feel that when Trump is talking about immigrants, and in theory, Latino Americans in a negative way, that he's talking about them.

00:10:13 Speaker_09
There's some kind of a built-in immunity this poll found to that. And so, my question is, why would this be any different?

00:10:20 Speaker_10
Well, I think, one, he wasn't talking about Latinos in general. He was talking about Puerto Ricans. It's not as if this was a general thing about the group broadly.

00:10:27 Speaker_10
You know, there can be a feeling that even when someone demeans immigrants, that that's talking specifically about illegal immigrants, not people who came here legally.

00:10:34 Speaker_10
But what I'm saying, it doesn't actually have to be about you think he's talking about you for it to matter to you. Like, a lot of times, even when we were thinking about four years ago in the Democratic primary, the people who are most

00:10:46 Speaker_10
motivated by messages of racism or accusations of racism coming from Republicans, weren't even necessarily the groups it was targeting, but liberals who become more enthusiastic when they realize they're fighting a racist monster on the other side.

00:10:59 Speaker_10
So some of the energy that this drives It motivates Black folks. It will motivate white liberals. And it's the reason Democrats ceded this election to their terms.

00:11:09 Speaker_10
They have been okay with this being a Trump referendum, because they think Trump referendum still helps them win. Part of the reason Donald Trump is an unpopular figure is because people think he's a bully, he's mean.

00:11:20 Speaker_10
Like, I think sometimes we can over-index and think that because the scandal hasn't invalidated him fully, it means it doesn't matter. And I don't think that's true.

00:11:29 Speaker_10
Frankly, I think that, like, Democrats have built Trump into this unbeatable figure when that's never what the data or reporting has ever said. Just that you cannot assume that the coalition will hold together on anti-Trumpness alone.

00:11:40 Speaker_09
Okay, remember, in theory, we're still inside Madison Square Garden, you're still working on that bag of popcorn, and Donald Trump takes the stage, he talks at length about undocumented immigration, he says election day will be the day that America experiences independence from undocumented immigrants because he will begin mass deportations, and then he comes around to the enemies within.

00:12:06 Speaker_01
And we have to defeat them. And when I say the enemy from within, the other side goes crazy, becomes the sound of, oh, how can he say? No, they've done very bad things to this country. They are indeed the enemy from within.

00:12:21 Speaker_01
But this is who we're fighting.

00:12:23 Speaker_09
And so when Trump is finished with his portion of his big Madison Square Garden closing argument event, it's very clear that he is reinforcing his determination to challenge democratic norms.

00:12:37 Speaker_09
And all of that made me think about yet another Times poll. God, we poll a lot of issues. And this poll was about the question of democracy. Shane, I'm sure you looked at this poll really closely.

00:12:51 Speaker_09
It finds that half of Americans doubt that democracy is working for them, and that the American experiment in self-governance is functioning well.

00:13:01 Speaker_09
And clearly, in that context, the way Trump talks about democratic norms takes on a different meaning, right?

00:13:09 Speaker_09
I mean, he's banking on Americans thinking, sure, some people are gonna say I'm assailing democratic norms, but democracy isn't working for you.

00:13:18 Speaker_08
I mean I think one of the most interesting things about Trump's speech was what was happening above him in the arena. So there's a big jumbotron and it says Trump will fix it. And it doesn't say what the it is. And the it lets

00:13:33 Speaker_08
The public voters apply what they want to. So for voters who think democracy isn't working for them, Trump is going to fix it, right? This was the original appeal in 2016.

00:13:42 Speaker_08
He may be a bull in a China shop, but you don't like the way the China shop looks. You may have these grievances that were aired on stage. He is going to fix that.

00:13:52 Speaker_08
Now, the professionalized side of his campaign says the it is inflation and immigration and concerns that are voiced by broad swaths of Americans. But people get to hear what they want, and I think

00:14:02 Speaker_08
The idea is that many people feel alienated by our institutions, and he is saying he will fix it, he will break it, and he will do it in whatever way he thinks is best, and you should trust him as this one singular figure as he's presented himself for eight years.

00:14:19 Speaker_02
I mean, one thing that I think is important to note here is that he is putting forward with this a very different form of American government and is not necessarily as democratic as we think of American government to be.

00:14:32 Speaker_02
He is in a situation where his opponent, the Harris campaign, is calling him a fascist. He has his ex-officials, as we talked about last week, coming out and saying he would use his power to prosecute his political enemies. And he names them.

00:14:45 Speaker_02
I mean, there's been a series of interviews he's done on Fox News where the Fox News hosts say, this is metaphorical, right? You don't actually mean these actual people who oppose you. And Trump says, no, no, I do. I mean, Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi.

00:14:58 Speaker_02
So he is saying to America, I will prosecute my political opponents. I will fire Jack Smith. I will change the Justice Department. Maybe I will limit the independence of the Justice Department.

00:15:11 Speaker_02
He is putting forward very clearly for all of us to see a very different form of American government, and I think a less democratic one.

00:15:18 Speaker_09
This argument's at the center of Kamala Harris's, we believe, closing argument to be delivered in several hours. Right, Shane? You've gotten briefed on that closing argument. And the reason I want to ask you to talk about the closing argument is,

00:15:32 Speaker_09
that there's a debate within the Democratic Party, you've written about it, about whether closing on Trump as threat to democracy is a good plan, if it matters to enough voters. Democracy is not really a kitchen table issue.

00:15:49 Speaker_09
So what do you understand to be her closing argument that's gonna be coming tonight, and how do you think the campaign thinks about this critique from within the Democratic Party that that's not the right place to land this plane?

00:16:00 Speaker_08
I think her campaign thinks that they're not trying to land the plane that way, even if it can appear that way in recent days.

00:16:06 Speaker_08
And the argument that they've said she's going to make tonight is that Trump is entering the White House or would enter the White House with an enemies list and without the staff that's now denouncing him.

00:16:18 Speaker_08
And she would enter the White House with what she's calling a to-do list of things that actual people care about, grocery prices, housing prices, and also abortion as one of those closing messages.

00:16:28 Speaker_00
She's trying to

00:16:30 Speaker_08
pull together the concerns around Trump and pivot from them to make it back-centered on voters versus just Trump.

00:16:38 Speaker_08
Her campaign has done some ads that are just former Trump officials and saying, you know, we don't think that Trump would be good in the White House.

00:16:45 Speaker_08
Future Forward, which is the biggest super PAC supporting her, has been doing tests of all of the ads, Trump ads, Democratic ads. That ad tested relatively poorly. Interesting.

00:16:54 Speaker_08
It's other ads where you have regular people saying Trump looks scary and bad and he's going to give taxes to the rich. And I actually think Kamala Harris will help me on my grocery prices.

00:17:03 Speaker_08
Those are the messages in general that have fared better for Democrats. Democracy doesn't land us dead.

00:17:09 Speaker_10
Yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting. I certainly agree with kind of the broader points they're making here. I think it landed in the midterms with a specific electorate and kind of specific races that had stakes that were important for Democrats.

00:17:21 Speaker_10
You saw them able to cast the Carrie Lakes, the Doug Mastrianos as extreme, and that was really important for them. And they won those races.

00:17:30 Speaker_10
I think before we say that it doesn't land, we should acknowledge that it's not like Democrats are working from the premise that there is a problem with democracy they have to fix.

00:17:40 Speaker_10
They're mostly saying, the way the system's working is okay, and Donald Trump broke it. And what I hear mostly is an agreement on a problem that Democrats don't really speak to. Just explain that.

00:17:51 Speaker_10
It would be one thing if Kamala Harris was saying, our political system is not working. And Donald Trump is exploiting that in a poor fashion. But here is what the Democratic Party is going to do to make that system work better. She's not saying that.

00:18:03 Speaker_10
And be more responsive. That is not what they're saying. What I think their attack on Trump sometimes sounds like is a defense of a status quo system. Right. Not an acknowledgment of a problem and a pitch to improve it. And so it doesn't shock me.

00:18:16 Speaker_10
It doesn't land for a certain group of people. And it only lands for kind of moderate Republicans. Because those are people who are usually pretty invested, who think the status quo is not all that bad.

00:18:24 Speaker_09
That goes back to the poll. When you criticize Trump for being a threat to democracy, you may reinforce the idea that you think democracy is going well for people. When that poll shows, it's not. You're hearing that too when you talk to voters.

00:18:35 Speaker_10
Yes, and all I'm saying is it's not like they've ever tried the opposite. to present a different type of vision of how you would reshape government to work better for people. They've never tried that. That's not their effort, really.

00:18:47 Speaker_10
So all I'm saying is, I don't like when the democracy argument is dismissed as ineffective. When the democracy argument they're giving is just Donald Trump is bad. They're not presenting a competing vision on how a system can work better for people.

00:19:00 Speaker_10
And in my reporting, I feel like that's the thing I hear the most with the type of voters they lose. And so if Donald Trump is promising change, And that is Bull and China Shop. You know, I can see how he picks off a couple of those people.

00:19:14 Speaker_10
when it feels like the other side is offering stability, but you don't like what's in the China shot.

00:19:20 Speaker_08
And the challenge from the beginning for Harris taking over from Joe Biden so late in this race is you are the sitting vice president. You have a deep challenge to be representing change.

00:19:32 Speaker_08
Now, they made a big pitch at that at the beginning, and I think it was actually one of her successes early in this race was embodying change, but she has struggled more recently to differentiate herself from Biden and to represent a totally new vision.

00:19:47 Speaker_09
We're going to take a break. Lisa, would you take us out on break?

00:19:53 Speaker_02
We'll be right back.

00:20:02 Speaker_09
Okay, welcome back, Esthead, Lisa, Shane. The Harris campaign is not just focused in its closing argument days on democracy, of course, it is focused on several issues.

00:20:15 Speaker_09
It felt like over the past few days, the focus that broke through was the Harris campaign's emphasis on abortion. And it enlisted Michelle Obama, Lisa, to deliver a speech, I believe it was in Michigan, that has been zooming across the internet.

00:20:33 Speaker_09
And I want to play a portion of that speech from Michelle Obama.

00:20:38 Speaker_04
So to the men who love us, let me just try to paint a picture of what it will feel like if America, the wealthiest nation on earth, keeps revoking basic care from its women, and how it will affect every single woman in your life.

00:21:00 Speaker_04
Your girlfriend could be the one in legal jeopardy if she needs a pill from out of state or overseas, or if she has to travel across state lines because the local clinic closed up.

00:21:10 Speaker_09
This was far more explicit, I thought, than the message to women we heard last week from Congresswoman Liz Cheney, which we had talked about. She encourages women to vote for Harris. Your husband, your friends, they don't need to know.

00:21:27 Speaker_09
This is a message to women, but really also to men, that the women in their lives could die under a Trump presidency.

00:21:36 Speaker_04
— If your wife is shivering and bleeding on the operating room table during a routine delivery gone bad,

00:21:46 Speaker_04
her pressure dropping as she loses more and more blood or some unforeseen infection spreads and her doctors aren't sure if they can act, you will be the one praying that it's not too late.

00:21:58 Speaker_04
You will be the one pleading for somebody, anybody to do something.

00:22:04 Speaker_02
Yeah, it was an extraordinary message. And it was, I've spent a lot of time listening to politicians talk about abortion on both sides of the aisle. You wrote a whole book about it. I wrote a whole book about it.

00:22:13 Speaker_02
I have never heard someone make an argument quite like this. You know, abortion is always seen as a woman's issue historically.

00:22:19 Speaker_02
It's not, of course, because it takes two people to make a baby, sometimes more, last I checked, depending on your fertility situation. So it's a much broader issue that it really encompasses men, too. And politicians have shied away from that.

00:22:33 Speaker_02
Michelle Obama did not. She addressed it directly to men. And this is an argument the campaign has made through the stories of women who have faced these really gut-wrenching medical and emotional choices and situations over their pregnancies.

00:22:47 Speaker_02
But having Michelle Obama make it so explicitly to men, I think laid out the stakes that the Harris campaign would like to fight this election on in a different and really direct way, and one that shows sort of how this issue has evolved.

00:23:01 Speaker_02
in the post-Roe era. We're in a different place than we were in 2020 when Roe was on the books.

00:23:07 Speaker_09
It was interesting to me that both Barack and Michelle Obama have used this very precious time on the campaign trail on behalf of Kamala Harris to appeal to men in a very different way, obviously, than Trump is seeking to do so.

00:23:21 Speaker_09
Shane, how important is a moment like this and where is the campaign trying to take the question of abortion in these last hours?

00:23:29 Speaker_08
I mean, I would take Michelle Obama's speech, Trump's appearance at the Garden, her speech tonight and say the entire goal for both sides is to get the very tiny sliver of undecided voters to be thinking about the issues that are better for the Democrats or better for the Republicans.

00:23:47 Speaker_08
If you are an undecided voter and you are thinking about abortion, you are probably more likely to vote for Kamala Harris. Abortion rights are widely popular in this country. Trump's decision to appoint justices that overturned Roe is not popular.

00:24:03 Speaker_08
If that's what they can get people to think about, that is a winning issue for Democrats. But the idea is, can you get people to focus on those issues? Can you get people to focus on the potential threat that Trump has to democratic institutions?

00:24:16 Speaker_08
And on the Trump side, what he has not done as well recently is get people to focus on the issues that are good for him. Immigration, people's frustrations about the economy.

00:24:25 Speaker_09
Lisa, I suspect it's because of what Shane is saying that the Harris campaign thinks that they are more effectively communicating on the issues that are mattering.

00:24:35 Speaker_09
two swing voters than the Trump campaign is, that you were confident enough to boldly report that the Harris campaign's staffers believe, and I'm sure it's tentative, that they're doing okay right now.

00:24:50 Speaker_09
There's a confidence that they might win, which is always a very risky thing to ever write.

00:24:56 Speaker_02
Yeah. I mean, look, it's where they are. Right. So I'm reflecting what my colleagues and I have been hearing from people at the top levels of this campaign.

00:25:03 Speaker_02
And the phrase that kept coming up actually was nauseously confident, which is sort of a variation on cautiously confident, I guess, which is not to say this race is not extremely tight. It is. It's neck and neck. And it could really go either way.

00:25:16 Speaker_02
Why are they nauseous?

00:25:17 Speaker_02
But they believe that they are closing out on a message that's resonating, that some of these, this sense that they've been so desperate to remind people of with Trump, you know, his, the things that people didn't like about him, his divisiveness, his style, that in this final week or so has been front and center.

00:25:35 Speaker_02
So they believe that favors them. They're also happy with the abortion argument and how that's been landing. They see that that's motivating, particularly to female voters who are turning out and voting, they believe.

00:25:46 Speaker_02
And early voting has not necessarily looked as strong for them. There's been a high level of Republican turnout. But their sense on that is that Republicans are effectively cannibalizing their election day vote.

00:25:58 Speaker_02
These are people that would have voted anyhow, and now they're just coming out earlier. So what they think is this is a race that this is going to be a real shocker for everybody. So please brace yourself.

00:26:07 Speaker_02
It will be a race that is decided on election day. Is there a line right now?

00:26:11 Speaker_08
Look, I mean, you can also see what the Trump team is doing, which is that Donald Trump today is calling a news conference in Florida for basically a do-over because he didn't, in fact, delivering the closing message at Madison Square Garden.

00:26:24 Speaker_08
He is trying to gather the cameras and do it again because it was drowned out by the speakers that he selected, that his team selected to precede him on stage.

00:26:33 Speaker_10
Yeah. If the polling tells us it's 50-50, I think it comes down to which campaign's theory of the case matches the most on the electorate as we get to the day. And you can see the reasons why the Harris campaign has growing confidence there.

00:26:48 Speaker_10
Their voters are ones we know are more likely to turn out. They have an election.

00:26:52 Speaker_02
You mean women? I mean, women, I mean, more college educated.

00:26:55 Speaker_10
I mean, like, I mean, they're the type of people who are more likely to have voted in the midterms.

00:27:00 Speaker_10
I mean, anti-Trump motivation is the surest reason of coming out rather than, you know, the thing about betting on the Joe Rogan bros is they got to actually go.

00:27:09 Speaker_02
They have to be registered.

00:27:10 Speaker_10
Yeah, and so like sometimes even when, you know, we've done episodes focusing on low propensity voters, young men and people like that, and sometimes I'll go through this whole process with them and at the end I'm like, yeah, I see the theory that the Trump campaign is going to convert this guy into voting, but I'm not sure little bro here is going to vote, right?

00:27:26 Speaker_10
And so like that gap between who they're appealing to and their likelihood to come out is a challenge for them.

00:27:33 Speaker_10
And so one thing I think that we have to acknowledge is Trump has the harder task in this election, but does not make it an impossible one.

00:27:40 Speaker_10
And to me, the most important factor and the reasons why he still has an issue set that really works for him and a lane that works for him, are you changing the page from Donald Trump in that era and that tone of politics, or do you want to turn the page on Biden and that administration's policy?

00:27:57 Speaker_10
And I think we cannot understate The opportunity for a switch was a chance for them to reset in a lot of ways, but they've basically run the Biden campaign with Kamala Harris at the top. And like, I think abortion rights is taking up more prominence.

00:28:11 Speaker_10
I'm not saying exactly, I don't think that's true exactly. I think the mere act that she can campaign in five states over two days just means it's not the Biden campaign, right? Because he can go places. But I'm saying, creating the anti-Trump coalition

00:28:25 Speaker_10
is a choice they had to make partially because they tied themselves for two years to the status quo, to an administration that was unpopular. And that is still the barrier they are overcoming.

00:28:36 Speaker_08
The Democrats feel good about how the last couple of days have been and the focus and can they have shifted people's focus to these issues.

00:28:44 Speaker_08
The reason the Trump team is confident and has been confident is the one issue that for many, many months is the most important issue in this election is the economy.

00:28:53 Speaker_08
And on that issue, Donald Trump has maintained his advantage, that overall more voters trust Donald Trump on the economy. And so for them,

00:29:03 Speaker_08
If voters move back to the issue where they've cared most, the Trump team has felt confident that that is the way that where they can win this race. The Harris people are successfully pivoting the conversation, not just on that issue.

00:29:15 Speaker_08
So we don't know on Election Day what issue most of these most important swing voters are going to be thinking about. And that's what this week is very much about.

00:29:22 Speaker_02
I hear I hear it'll be decided on Election Day. That's the breaking news.

00:29:28 Speaker_09
Speaking of Election Day. There have been some really worrying incidents involving ballots over the past couple days, and I don't want to make too much hay out of three ballot boxes in three states being lit on fire.

00:29:40 Speaker_09
But three ballot boxes in three states were lit on fire. How much should we be worried about that, do you think?

00:29:49 Speaker_02
I mean, one thing that struck me throughout this whole race is how much concerns of violence have been present, particularly among voters. It's more than anxiety. It's fear. It's menace. I think it is definitely out there.

00:30:02 Speaker_02
And I think people are worried about it.

00:30:04 Speaker_10
I don't see a universe where the result is believed. Trust it.

00:30:10 Speaker_02
Like what is that universe?

00:30:12 Speaker_10
I don't like I don't disagree I don't really I don't what are we preparing for like agreement? I don't think that's the lesson like I mean just the last point I don't think so I'm saying like Even if Trump wins. Even if Trump wins.

00:30:26 Speaker_10
I don't think... I think the left has changed from 2016. I think there's been some... I think when you saw the Biden dropout moment, there's some deranged activity on the Democratic side, too. So all I'm saying is...

00:30:39 Speaker_10
My, I don't think, I wouldn't put this on other people. Like, I would love for a universe where the results are believed. I believe that is a bad thing for our future and a worrying thing for trust in our elections.

00:30:52 Speaker_10
But I say it is my expectation that the result is not believed. Does that mean we have the conditions for some of the most scary stuff we've seen? I'm not saying that. But I think we are now working from a baseline of distrust.

00:31:05 Speaker_09
Can I somehow end on a note of... if not levity, personal... How are we gonna make this turn? Election day. The thing that I think most people don't know about election day and campaign journalists is that basically almost nothing happens.

00:31:23 Speaker_09
There's a lot of waiting. Everyone has their ritual. If I may, ask you all about your election day rituals. Anything you've got for me.

00:31:33 Speaker_02
Hmm. I try to go to yoga in the morning.

00:31:35 Speaker_09
There it is.

00:31:36 Speaker_02
For one moment of something before, because as Asted so nicely pointed out, we're headed over the cliff. So who knows when I'll go to yoga after election day. And then I time the coffees. through the remainder of the day.

00:31:50 Speaker_09
Instead, you're not on a plane.

00:31:52 Speaker_10
No, I think I'll be here. I don't think I have a different election day. Every day that's... This is a routine of the last three, four years.

00:32:00 Speaker_10
Every day that's gonna be super intense, I go to this diner near my house, order the same thing, and it starts my day off well.

00:32:06 Speaker_02
So you eat and I go to yoga?

00:32:10 Speaker_10
And is the, what is the, what's the order? Corned beef hash and eggs, eggs with cheddar. It's a heavy start. Yeah, and even maybe a side of turkey sausage if I'm going crazy, you know?

00:32:21 Speaker_02
And then you are able to stay awake for the remainder of the day?

00:32:23 Speaker_10
Well, actually, I like work. It's like, it just kicks the day off better.

00:32:27 Speaker_08
Shane, I don't know that I have an election day tradition. I, yeah, I mean, I was in Pennsylvania last time. I'll be here in the office this time, and I may try to fit in a run in the morning or something active.

00:32:40 Speaker_02
No turkey sausage.

00:32:41 Speaker_08
No turkey sausage. What's yours?

00:32:45 Speaker_09
What's yours? What's my elaborate ritual? I don't want to talk about which Taylor Swift songs I listen to anymore. That's between me and her. Thanks for asking. Shane, Lisa, Estead.

00:32:59 Speaker_02
Thanks for having us.

00:33:01 Speaker_09
Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Cheers.

00:33:10 Speaker_03
So listen, one week from today, you will have the chance to make a decision that directly impacts your life, the life of your family, and the future of this country we love.

00:33:28 Speaker_09
In her closing argument on Tuesday night from the National Mall, Vice President Harris described Trump as a petty tyrant determined to exact revenge against his enemies and accumulate unchecked power.

00:33:44 Speaker_09
And she cast herself as a unifier focused on preserving democracy and addressing the everyday needs of working Americans.

00:33:56 Speaker_03
Donald Trump has spent a decade trying to keep the American people divided and afraid of each other. That is who he is. But America, I am here tonight to say that is not who we are. That is not who we are.

00:34:29 Speaker_09
For even more campaign coverage, listen to tomorrow's episode of The Run-Up. ASTED focuses on the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania, the voters there that Kamala Harris is depending on, and exactly when the state will count the votes.

00:34:49 Speaker_09
We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. On Tuesday, Israeli airstrikes in northern Gaza and eastern Lebanon killed dozens of people.

00:35:06 Speaker_09
According to Palestinian officials, the strike in Gaza destroyed a residential building, killing at least 93 people, 25 of whom were children. U.S. officials called it a, quote, horrifying incident with a horrifying result.

00:35:23 Speaker_09
According to Lebanese officials, the strike there occurred in a district where Hezbollah holds sway, killing at least 60 people. It was not immediately clear how many of the dead were militants or civilians.

00:35:37 Speaker_09
Meanwhile, Israel said that four of its soldiers were killed in northern Gaza, adding to what has become the deadliest month of the past year for Israel's military. In October alone, 59 soldiers have been killed.

00:35:56 Speaker_09
Today's episode was produced by Nina Feldman, Claire Tennesketter, and Rochelle Bonja. It was edited by Paige Cowan, Liz O'Balin, and Maria Byrne, contains original music by Dan Powell and Marian Lozano, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley.

00:36:15 Speaker_09
Our theme music is by Jim Rundberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderly. That's it for the daily. I'm Michael Balboa. See you tomorrow.