WEBVTT 00:00:23.600 --> 00:00:28.700 Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, August 10th, 2024. 00:00:29.020 --> 00:00:33.940 It is 2045 UTC as we're starting to record. I am Sam Minter. 00:00:34.800 --> 00:00:40.460 Yvonne Bo is not here today, and I had no volunteers to do it with me, 00:00:40.520 --> 00:00:44.420 so you got one of these solo shows we had had last week. 00:00:44.620 --> 00:00:47.680 Yvonne will be back next week as far as I know right now. 00:00:48.040 --> 00:00:50.900 So let me give you a little idea of the agenda. 00:00:51.840 --> 00:00:55.360 I'm going to start out with a, but first I have a movie. I'll talk about a movie. 00:00:55.560 --> 00:00:59.340 And then I think I'm going to break it into three segments. 00:00:59.900 --> 00:01:03.760 And first is going to be Harrison Waltz. 00:01:04.380 --> 00:01:08.720 Waltz. It's not Waltz. It's walls, walls, not Waltz. 00:01:09.160 --> 00:01:14.500 It's like the thing you walk into when you're not watching where you're going. 00:01:14.820 --> 00:01:19.740 It's not the dance. Anyway, Harrison Walls, and we'll talk a little bit about 00:01:19.740 --> 00:01:23.080 them and their campaign and how that's going and the VP pick and all that, 00:01:23.120 --> 00:01:24.480 because that happened since the last show. 00:01:24.880 --> 00:01:28.420 And then we'll talk about Trump Advance a little bit on the next segment, 00:01:28.500 --> 00:01:32.280 on some of the things going on on that side of the campaign world. 00:01:32.760 --> 00:01:36.200 And then finally, we'll end up with an election graphs update. 00:01:36.300 --> 00:01:38.820 I'll update you on how the polls are doing and how that's looking. 00:01:39.740 --> 00:01:44.780 As of this moment, when I'm recording, it changes every day because there are 00:01:44.780 --> 00:01:47.760 new polls coming out. But as of when I'm recording, I'll give you the update. 00:01:47.980 --> 00:01:50.040 That is the general plan. 00:01:51.100 --> 00:01:59.360 And yeah, it's fun. It's fun, exciting and fun and whatever I'm doing this. 00:01:59.500 --> 00:02:02.900 You know how sometimes on the, when I end up recording on the weekends, 00:02:03.080 --> 00:02:08.120 I end up doing sort of one segment at a time and then taking a long break and 00:02:08.120 --> 00:02:09.880 doing other things and then coming back to it. 00:02:10.200 --> 00:02:14.840 I have no idea. I might, I might do that. Now that we're doing the live streaming 00:02:14.840 --> 00:02:19.380 thing, which by the way, youtube.com slash at curmudgeons hyphen corner, 00:02:19.540 --> 00:02:23.680 you can see like the live streams when I do this. 00:02:23.760 --> 00:02:29.760 If you subscribe and click the bell, you'll get some sort of notification, blah, blah, blah. 00:02:30.620 --> 00:02:34.460 Or if you follow the curmudgeons corner account on Mastodon, 00:02:34.620 --> 00:02:38.260 which you can find the link to on curmudgeons hyphen corner.com, 00:02:38.380 --> 00:02:40.900 there'll be a little announcement when I go live. 00:02:40.900 --> 00:02:45.940 But like I was thinking, you know, if I do it in segments now, 00:02:46.060 --> 00:02:49.520 then the live streams will also be in segments. 00:02:49.700 --> 00:02:53.360 And I'll be like, you know, I'll do this for a little bit and then I'll come 00:02:53.360 --> 00:02:54.760 back later and I'll do it a little bit. 00:02:54.780 --> 00:02:58.820 It'll be a little weird, but whatever, you know, whatever. 00:02:59.380 --> 00:03:02.940 So anyway, that's the plan. And I guess I could just get started. 00:03:03.600 --> 00:03:10.720 The movie this time around is one I watched in February. We're that far behind at the moment. 00:03:10.940 --> 00:03:14.900 And it's The Last Temptation of Christ from 1988. 00:03:16.240 --> 00:03:21.480 And I can tell you, you know, to start out, I'm giving you a thumb sideways. 00:03:22.520 --> 00:03:26.140 Because really, first of all, it's long. 00:03:26.320 --> 00:03:29.620 It's 163 minutes. i felt like 00:03:29.620 --> 00:03:32.720 it really really didn't need to be that 00:03:32.720 --> 00:03:36.760 long and for i'm 00:03:36.760 --> 00:03:39.560 gonna say roughly the first half but it may have even been 00:03:39.560 --> 00:03:46.060 more than the first half i was dragging through it i was not impressed at all 00:03:46.060 --> 00:03:53.920 it was just sort of it felt like you know that you were going for anybody who 00:03:53.920 --> 00:03:57.020 doesn't know This is a, a religious drama. 00:03:57.160 --> 00:04:00.760 Obviously you could probably tell by the name back in the eighties. 00:04:00.780 --> 00:04:03.700 It was a major, like there was a major 00:04:03.700 --> 00:04:07.360 controversy around it and it being sacrilegious and blah, blah, blah. 00:04:07.540 --> 00:04:15.100 And, you know, whatever it has, William Defoe plays Jesus, I guess. 00:04:15.240 --> 00:04:17.200 And there are a few other people in it. 00:04:19.260 --> 00:04:23.040 And, and, and the thing is like the first part of the movie. 00:04:23.040 --> 00:04:26.760 And like I said, it may have been the first three quarters of the movie. I don't know. 00:04:27.140 --> 00:04:32.480 Basically does the standard retelling of the Gospels. 00:04:32.720 --> 00:04:37.120 You know, there are a few things because it's fictionalized, 00:04:37.120 --> 00:04:39.340 obviously. Well, I mean, all things fiction. 00:04:39.480 --> 00:04:43.360 But anyway, my personal opinion on religion, but whatever. 00:04:45.080 --> 00:04:49.720 It's the standard story. With a few little things here and there to sort of 00:04:49.720 --> 00:04:58.540 humanize Jesus a little bit and make him not seem completely like a superhuman 00:04:58.540 --> 00:05:03.460 divine creature that's perfect or whatever. So there were a few elements to humanize him. 00:05:04.520 --> 00:05:06.260 And that was fine. 00:05:07.460 --> 00:05:11.320 The first three quarters of the movie, maybe it was a half, maybe it was three 00:05:11.320 --> 00:05:16.640 quarters, I don't know, it was the standard biblical retelling of the story, 00:05:16.800 --> 00:05:18.500 of the standard gospel story. 00:05:19.120 --> 00:05:24.920 Jesus grows up, he discovers he's got this special relationship with God, blah, blah, blah. 00:05:25.260 --> 00:05:28.580 And honestly, I was a little bit annoyed. 00:05:28.880 --> 00:05:35.020 I said it humanizes him a little bit, but not a lot, actually. 00:05:35.020 --> 00:05:40.940 There was a lot that was sort of like, you know, oh yeah, he is talking to God. 00:05:41.400 --> 00:05:46.400 He is doing whatever. Although there was a constantly like, is he talking to 00:05:46.400 --> 00:05:49.180 God or is he mentally ill? 00:05:49.700 --> 00:05:54.580 You know, and that was very unclear. And I guess that's part of why people were upset about it. 00:05:55.400 --> 00:06:02.480 But I, his, just the way he spoke and sort of these, oh, I'm calm and blah, 00:06:02.600 --> 00:06:06.020 blah, blah. It just really irritated me. 00:06:06.080 --> 00:06:09.160 I was like the first half. 00:06:09.640 --> 00:06:14.380 I sort of alternated between mocking how like, Oh look, this, 00:06:14.480 --> 00:06:17.340 this guy really is troubled. Somebody should get him help. 00:06:17.940 --> 00:06:24.320 And just being annoyed by the tone he used and the way he talked and then being 00:06:24.320 --> 00:06:28.620 annoyed more when it seemed like, okay, well some of the things he's doing is 00:06:28.620 --> 00:06:30.980 are real and there's things. 00:06:31.180 --> 00:06:36.120 And, and I don't know, But it's still a fairly standard interpretation, 00:06:36.480 --> 00:06:38.880 and I felt like it was slow. 00:06:39.820 --> 00:06:40.880 It was boring. 00:06:43.200 --> 00:06:52.200 They were clearly trying to make him seem human, but he was still human in a way that was... 00:06:53.180 --> 00:06:57.820 Still seemed like, oh, he's not quite right. 00:06:59.580 --> 00:07:06.180 He's not quite relatable. He's either being super good or he's not well or something, 00:07:06.320 --> 00:07:08.400 and it just never quite gelled for me. 00:07:08.720 --> 00:07:15.280 And it just was not clicking in an entertaining way for me. 00:07:15.360 --> 00:07:19.700 It was like, oh, God, how much longer is this? Do we really have this much time left? left. 00:07:21.220 --> 00:07:26.060 But, and this is why I end up with a thumb sideways instead of a thumbs down. 00:07:26.700 --> 00:07:33.200 I liked the ending because the, the ending and I have spoilers here for, 00:07:33.220 --> 00:07:39.140 you know, a, what, 1988, how long ago was that? Oh God, too long. Let's not do the math. 00:07:39.660 --> 00:07:43.960 I'm trying to, it's 30 some years. Anyway, spoilers. 00:07:45.100 --> 00:07:51.520 The bottom line is that, and this I think is the thing that causes the title, 00:07:51.620 --> 00:07:52.960 The Last Temptation of Christ. 00:07:53.180 --> 00:07:55.200 It's the thing that caused most of the controversy. 00:07:55.460 --> 00:08:00.260 I mean, some of it was the stuff before this when he was clearly tempted by 00:08:00.260 --> 00:08:06.460 Mary Magdalene and had some human frailties that came into play. 00:08:06.660 --> 00:08:15.720 But the key here is while he's getting crucified, He's basically offered a chance at a normal human life. 00:08:15.940 --> 00:08:24.800 And it diverges into an alternate history where he walked away from the crucifixion 00:08:24.800 --> 00:08:29.320 and went and got married, had children, 00:08:29.580 --> 00:08:38.120 lived a good long life, and the history of the region played out in the background around him. 00:08:39.060 --> 00:08:47.680 And this was the last temptation. to not end up crucified and become the savior 00:08:47.680 --> 00:08:51.440 and all of this kind of stuff, but instead live a nice human life. 00:08:52.720 --> 00:08:57.280 And then sort of at a certain point where that has gone on for a while, 00:08:57.420 --> 00:09:03.420 he's basically given the choice of like, look how things are going wrong in 00:09:03.420 --> 00:09:06.600 the world because you didn't make the sacrifice. 00:09:07.740 --> 00:09:12.980 Here you go. Can you go back? And then, you know, he makes the choice to go 00:09:12.980 --> 00:09:21.020 back and have the, you know, the crucifixion play out as the Bible story had originally said. 00:09:21.020 --> 00:09:23.460 That. That's the last temptation that was being talked about. 00:09:24.140 --> 00:09:30.940 This was an adaptation of a novel as well from 1955. 00:09:31.700 --> 00:09:36.100 So I have not read the novel. I've only seen the movie. 00:09:37.000 --> 00:09:41.260 But I liked the ending. I thought that was actually creative and interesting 00:09:41.260 --> 00:09:50.740 and a nice spin that was doing something different that I had not seen before with this. 00:09:50.860 --> 00:09:57.200 And I'm, I'm sure others have, of course, but like it was actually like that part had my attention. 00:09:57.860 --> 00:10:02.280 That part had me being like, Oh, this is cool. 00:10:02.400 --> 00:10:06.680 This is a nice, like it's diverged from the Bible story. 00:10:06.860 --> 00:10:09.820 And now we're talking about something that's more interesting. 00:10:10.040 --> 00:10:17.000 It's just that to get there, You had to slog through like two hours of a not 00:10:17.000 --> 00:10:21.480 particularly great retelling of the standard Bible story. 00:10:22.840 --> 00:10:31.840 And, you know, I mean, there are, of course, many movies of the standard retelling of the Bible story. 00:10:32.540 --> 00:10:36.480 It's just this one didn't really do it for me for that part of the movie, 00:10:36.580 --> 00:10:39.240 which was most of the movie. 00:10:40.340 --> 00:10:46.660 Which is why I give it a thumb sideways. If it had only been the standard story 00:10:46.660 --> 00:10:51.780 of Jesus's lifetime, then I'd be like, oh, okay. 00:10:52.420 --> 00:10:56.880 It's interesting in that it's kind of gritty. 00:10:56.880 --> 00:11:03.540 They tried to make it seem a little bit like a little realistic in terms of, 00:11:03.540 --> 00:11:07.200 you know, the, the, I don't know, things are dirty, 00:11:07.320 --> 00:11:12.640 the technology of the day, you know, I don't know, not super realistic, 00:11:12.780 --> 00:11:19.300 but it has the, the gritty sort of aspect of things. 00:11:19.300 --> 00:11:27.180 Some things were still stylized, but it was long and boring, 00:11:27.380 --> 00:11:29.720 and I didn't like the affect of the characters. 00:11:32.700 --> 00:11:39.040 They're not quite fully cartoonish, but they're also not quite realistic, 00:11:39.220 --> 00:11:42.920 and it's sort of this uncanny valley in between. 00:11:44.310 --> 00:11:49.250 And so like that part of it just really didn't grab me and it was a slog to get through. 00:11:49.470 --> 00:11:53.190 I don't know how many different sittings it took me to get through this. 00:11:53.410 --> 00:11:54.870 Alex and I watched this together. 00:11:55.270 --> 00:11:57.810 Alex and I watch all this stuff together, you know? So, 00:11:59.870 --> 00:12:04.230 but yeah, but that last little bit, the last little bit was actually interesting 00:12:04.230 --> 00:12:09.830 and thought provoking and was like a nice twist. 00:12:09.950 --> 00:12:14.970 And, you know, so overall thumb sideways. And that's where we are. 00:12:17.090 --> 00:12:22.450 That's enough movies. Next week, I'll do Yvonne's favorite that got added to 00:12:22.450 --> 00:12:24.750 the list because he mentioned it a couple times. 00:12:26.810 --> 00:12:31.050 And coincidentally actually came up and got watched like the week after the 00:12:31.050 --> 00:12:34.170 last time you mentioned it or something, which is Howard the Duck from 1986. 00:12:34.630 --> 00:12:35.790 But we'll do that next week. 00:12:36.550 --> 00:12:43.270 Assuming no major breaking news that throws the whole agenda out the window. Okay. 00:12:44.410 --> 00:12:53.370 I'm going to take a break and yeah, so here's, here's a spot to listen to enjoy, enjoy the break. 00:12:54.090 --> 00:12:58.850 And I think I'm going to just keep going at least for now. We'll see how it goes. 00:12:59.450 --> 00:13:03.390 Boom. Here comes the thing, right? I guess I should hit, say boom after I hit 00:13:03.390 --> 00:13:06.970 the button, but then I'd step on top. Whatever. Here you go. 00:13:07.590 --> 00:13:11.230 You're supposed to say do, do, do, do, do, do. 00:13:11.230 --> 00:13:15.990 Do alex samsula alex 00:13:15.990 --> 00:13:19.530 samsula is awesome its videos are fun and 00:13:19.530 --> 00:13:25.910 today once again we have one of our most loyal subscribers here to tell you 00:13:25.910 --> 00:13:31.370 how awesome alex samsula is i'd say on a rate from one to ten alex samsula is 00:13:31.370 --> 00:13:39.370 awesome at i don't know 37 82 he's pretty radical his videos are They are phenomenal. 00:13:39.990 --> 00:13:45.310 They're full of creativity. And they're so funny and exciting to watch. 00:13:45.750 --> 00:13:51.750 Wow, what happened to your voice then, Amy? Was that Dad pretending to be you 00:13:51.750 --> 00:13:59.390 because the audio was distorted when it really wasn't because I told him to? Yes! 00:14:00.050 --> 00:14:04.670 Good job on remembering, Dad. Do, do, do! 00:14:06.150 --> 00:14:12.290 Okay, we are back. And so this is now the Harrison Walls part of the show. 00:14:12.510 --> 00:14:15.830 You know, that kind of sounds like one name, Harrison Walls, 00:14:15.830 --> 00:14:20.530 like Harrison Ford, except it's Harrison Walls, but no, it's Harris and Walls. 00:14:20.570 --> 00:14:23.910 So we'll start with Harris picking Walls. 00:14:25.370 --> 00:14:30.570 Look, we talked last week with Ed. Ed had talked a little bit about Walls, 00:14:30.570 --> 00:14:32.970 pointed out some policy choices he'd made. 00:14:33.290 --> 00:14:37.530 But a lot of the speculation was still on Shapiro. 00:14:38.650 --> 00:14:43.930 And apparently, it really did come down. The last two real candidates were Shapiro and Walls. 00:14:44.510 --> 00:14:48.910 They did a final set of interviews with Kelly as well the last weekend. 00:14:49.050 --> 00:14:53.590 But apparently, he was in the number three slot anyway. 00:14:53.810 --> 00:14:57.470 The question was how number one and number two were going to go. 00:14:57.910 --> 00:15:02.690 And Walls had been seeing, and we already talked about this a little bit last 00:15:02.690 --> 00:15:07.010 week, had been seeing an uptick in the excitement about Walls. 00:15:07.010 --> 00:15:12.190 Or I should say, not the excitement, there'd been a lot of people pushing for Walls. 00:15:12.410 --> 00:15:17.490 And there'd been a lot of additional buzz about him and people vocally going 00:15:17.490 --> 00:15:21.030 on TV and such and saying, we want to do Walls. Walls is the right great guy, 00:15:21.110 --> 00:15:21.890 you should go with walls. 00:15:22.210 --> 00:15:26.930 And meanwhile, there was a bit of a campaign against Shapiro. 00:15:27.130 --> 00:15:33.690 There were a number of people, especially from the left and especially from 00:15:33.690 --> 00:15:40.330 folks where the main issue was Gaza, expressing all sorts of concern about Shapiro. 00:15:40.530 --> 00:15:43.870 They were bringing up his history with a sexual harassment suit. 00:15:43.970 --> 00:15:49.850 They were bringing up just how vocal he'd been in supporting Israel real since 00:15:49.850 --> 00:15:58.770 October 7th and generally saying, you know, you should go someone else, someone else, please. 00:15:58.890 --> 00:16:03.030 And after the choice, there's also been reports that the Trump campaign was 00:16:03.030 --> 00:16:08.330 actually leaning into this and doing sort of a whisper campaign against Shapiro 00:16:08.330 --> 00:16:13.330 because they really didn't want Shapiro because he would bring Pennsylvania and blah, blah, blah. 00:16:14.630 --> 00:16:20.190 But apparently from the reporting on this, and I forget which outlet had sort 00:16:20.190 --> 00:16:21.610 of, there's a detailed report, 00:16:22.870 --> 00:16:27.630 Here's how it went down sort of narrative of the last weekend and Harris's choice. 00:16:28.190 --> 00:16:31.510 But the leaks that came out of that said, you know, yeah, all of those things 00:16:31.510 --> 00:16:38.370 are potentially, you know, yeah, we didn't want to sort of intentionally poke 00:16:38.370 --> 00:16:40.150 people on the Gaza issue. 00:16:40.150 --> 00:16:47.210 Like, if you look substantively, I still said it wrong. 00:16:47.370 --> 00:16:53.790 If you look across the positions of like the actual policy positions against 00:16:53.790 --> 00:16:56.890 Israel of all of these candidates, they're actually pretty similar. 00:16:57.170 --> 00:17:01.350 The difference was how Shapiro went around saying it. 00:17:02.250 --> 00:17:07.690 And of course, maybe there's some anti-Semitism in the mix as well, 00:17:07.870 --> 00:17:10.450 because of course Shapiro is Jewish. 00:17:11.170 --> 00:17:17.790 But the Harris people said, you know, it was a factor, but it wasn't a big factor. 00:17:17.790 --> 00:17:23.050 In the end, what it came down to is those final interviews with Harris. 00:17:23.450 --> 00:17:31.890 And basically, Shapiro came in asking all sorts of detailed questions about 00:17:31.890 --> 00:17:35.090 what his exact role would be as vice president. 00:17:35.870 --> 00:17:39.390 What decisions would he get to be a part of? 00:17:39.670 --> 00:17:43.470 What would his areas of responsibility be? 00:17:43.470 --> 00:17:47.710 And basically asking, 00:17:47.990 --> 00:17:56.030 you know, trying to negotiate what the job would be to make it right for him 00:17:56.030 --> 00:18:00.830 in terms of what he wanted, his future political aspirations, all kinds of things. 00:18:01.430 --> 00:18:08.170 But in the final interview with Walls, Walls basically just kept saying, how can I help? 00:18:08.350 --> 00:18:15.690 You tell me. You tell me. I'll help however I can in whatever way you want me to tell me what you need. 00:18:16.590 --> 00:18:20.970 And when asked if he had any ambitions to run for president himself, he was like, no. 00:18:22.320 --> 00:18:27.580 Now, who knows what that would look like if she wins and someday, 00:18:27.800 --> 00:18:32.020 you know, eight years down the line, whatever, he may change his mind. 00:18:32.080 --> 00:18:37.360 But right now he's like, no, no, I, I, I, no, just tell me how I can help. 00:18:38.560 --> 00:18:45.900 And that plus like, you know, apparently, you know, Harris knew Shapiro for 00:18:45.900 --> 00:18:47.620 years and years and years and years. 00:18:47.620 --> 00:18:50.360 Personally she didn't have that 00:18:50.360 --> 00:18:53.140 kind of long-term relationship with walls 00:18:53.140 --> 00:18:56.460 but apparently they hit it off immediately they hit 00:18:56.460 --> 00:18:59.400 it off immediately they got along well they were 00:18:59.400 --> 00:19:05.740 able to laugh together and there was just you know the vibe check passed right 00:19:05.740 --> 00:19:12.600 and also there's his sort of history and the things that have come up about 00:19:12.600 --> 00:19:16.500 sort of his background since then i mean obviously Obviously people knew this 00:19:16.500 --> 00:19:18.060 beforehand, but I'll be honest. 00:19:18.240 --> 00:19:22.480 I had not spent the time to look deeply into walls until after he was picked, 00:19:23.220 --> 00:19:30.460 because until the last maybe 72 hours before he seemed like he was probably 00:19:30.460 --> 00:19:36.140 an also ran like, and then in the last week he started to get some buzz. 00:19:36.280 --> 00:19:42.120 And in the last 72 hours it started to look like, Oh yeah, he's definitely a contender here. 00:19:42.960 --> 00:19:49.100 But, you know, we've got this whole, you know, he's not from Pennsylvania. 00:19:49.680 --> 00:19:55.540 He's not from one of the key swing states. Minnesota was more blue than those, 00:19:55.740 --> 00:19:58.020 but he was from the Midwest. 00:19:58.760 --> 00:20:03.240 He's sort of homey. He served in the National Guard for a long time. 00:20:03.480 --> 00:20:07.780 He was a freaking teacher. He was a football coach. 00:20:08.680 --> 00:20:10.340 He's got a cute little family. 00:20:11.420 --> 00:20:14.340 He's got a wicked sense of humor. 00:20:14.420 --> 00:20:18.780 He came up with that whole weirdo attack on the Republicans, 00:20:18.900 --> 00:20:22.020 which has been working incredibly well the last couple weeks. 00:20:23.200 --> 00:20:25.760 Actually, he didn't say weirdo. They've started to say weird. 00:20:25.840 --> 00:20:28.640 Some other people have started to say weirdo. He just said they were weird. 00:20:28.980 --> 00:20:36.220 But all of that, and he was doing lots interviews where he was quick on his feet. 00:20:36.380 --> 00:20:42.100 I even like right on the, the, the Eve of, 00:20:42.740 --> 00:20:49.100 Harris's decision, he was on that white dudes for Harris call and like made 00:20:49.100 --> 00:20:52.800 some really pointed statements that got a lot of good attention about, 00:20:52.920 --> 00:20:57.680 you know, he just wanted to see Donald Trump's face when he realized that a 00:20:57.680 --> 00:21:00.420 black woman had kicked his ass, you know, things like that. 00:21:00.420 --> 00:21:03.700 And so yeah. 00:21:05.430 --> 00:21:13.550 That, so she picked him and since that pick, he's been blowing it out of the water. 00:21:14.130 --> 00:21:19.230 You know, he has been doing great. You could see like when, when they did the 00:21:19.230 --> 00:21:23.070 first event together in Philadelphia, you know, she talked first, 00:21:23.170 --> 00:21:28.710 introduced him, then he came on and talked and you could see her behind him on the stage. 00:21:29.210 --> 00:21:32.450 And when he got certain zingers off, I mean, for God's sake, 00:21:32.470 --> 00:21:34.570 he made a couch joke about 00:21:34.670 --> 00:21:42.530 Vance in such a way that, you know, if you are not terminally online and don't 00:21:42.530 --> 00:21:45.230 know all of that, then it would just be go over your head. 00:21:45.330 --> 00:21:48.790 It was like, she, he was talking about him getting off the couch and it'd be 00:21:48.790 --> 00:21:52.750 like, you know, he implying he's lazy because he doesn't want to get off the couch. 00:21:53.030 --> 00:21:59.090 But if you've been following, you know, the zeitgeist, then, you know, all about. 00:21:59.730 --> 00:22:03.010 The the stuff about the couch which again was 00:22:03.010 --> 00:22:06.110 just some guy made it up you know like 00:22:06.110 --> 00:22:09.270 who knows what he has or has not done with couches 00:22:09.270 --> 00:22:14.730 but some guy just made it up and yet it is a meme and they've had to respond 00:22:14.730 --> 00:22:19.930 to it and they've had to go anyway but you know he made that comment and you 00:22:19.930 --> 00:22:27.350 could see her like behind him nodding and smiling and being like yeah i made the right choice here. 00:22:27.510 --> 00:22:31.590 And it wasn't just that comment. It was several other points where you could 00:22:31.590 --> 00:22:38.730 see her being satisfied with her choice because of the way he was sort of bringing it. 00:22:39.810 --> 00:22:43.270 Now, Shapiro at that sort of launch announcement also gave a speech and was 00:22:43.270 --> 00:22:47.970 a very rousing speech and put his support 100% behind walls. 00:22:48.290 --> 00:22:52.710 And it's clear he's going to be part of this campaign. He may end up in the 00:22:52.710 --> 00:22:56.630 administration later, or he may end up staying governor of Pennsylvania for a long time. 00:22:56.670 --> 00:22:58.970 Who knows? But the... 00:23:00.280 --> 00:23:04.080 But Wallace has been doing great. And I've been watching like one of the things 00:23:04.080 --> 00:23:07.880 that was going around on TikTok while he was governor. 00:23:08.060 --> 00:23:13.580 I mean, he's still governor, but he's made a whole series of like social media 00:23:13.580 --> 00:23:16.980 posts with his daughter when she was a teenager. 00:23:17.060 --> 00:23:21.740 I guess she's like 22 now or something. But there's a whole like history of 00:23:21.740 --> 00:23:26.960 videos of him and his daughter from like when she was 15 up to the present where 00:23:26.960 --> 00:23:36.340 they're just doing things like father-daughter things and being funny and being relatable. 00:23:36.340 --> 00:23:39.520 And yeah and 00:23:39.520 --> 00:23:42.720 meanwhile like he's got like you know the camo 00:23:42.720 --> 00:23:46.000 hat has now become part of this and it's like one of 00:23:46.000 --> 00:23:48.780 those like the camo hat 00:23:48.780 --> 00:23:55.100 has been a signifier of right wing maga kind of orientation for a long time 00:23:55.100 --> 00:24:00.580 and there he he does his little you know they do the mocked out phone call of 00:24:00.580 --> 00:24:03.480 like we're gonna call and tell you that you're the pick and we're gonna have 00:24:03.480 --> 00:24:06.420 cameras is everywhere and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, yeah. 00:24:07.860 --> 00:24:11.760 Yeah, of course that's planned out, but he was wearing that hat there and now 00:24:11.760 --> 00:24:16.620 they've got camo hat merch with Harris walls on it. 00:24:16.840 --> 00:24:22.600 And it's been pointed out that that look is similar to a Midwest princess look. 00:24:22.680 --> 00:24:23.900 I think that was Chapel Roan. 00:24:24.000 --> 00:24:26.740 Was that Chapel Roan? Let me check. 00:24:27.900 --> 00:24:32.160 Yes, it was Chapel Roan. See, I'm not up on all this stuff myself. 00:24:32.320 --> 00:24:36.860 You know, I mean, I have heard some of her songs, but anyway, it was Chapel Roan had 00:24:36.920 --> 00:24:40.400 a midwest princess hat that's the same sort 00:24:40.400 --> 00:24:43.500 of camo pattern and the same color lettering so they're tying 00:24:43.500 --> 00:24:46.200 into that zeitgeist as well but like 00:24:46.200 --> 00:24:51.900 all these videos of him and his daughter are like funny they're relatable they're 00:24:51.900 --> 00:24:56.700 you know he's human and you know they're all these people talking about his 00:24:56.700 --> 00:25:03.860 sort of dad energy because you know they're jokes online about like you know, 00:25:04.720 --> 00:25:09.080 Tim Walls is the kind of guy who would tell you to make sure you wear your sweater 00:25:09.080 --> 00:25:11.480 when you go outside, things like this. 00:25:13.000 --> 00:25:15.720 And I think they're a good pair. I think it was the right pick. 00:25:17.040 --> 00:25:21.940 I had been predicting probably Shapiro just based on Pennsylvania. 00:25:22.500 --> 00:25:27.880 But here's the thing. I think maybe Shapiro could have sort of pulled Pennsylvania 00:25:27.880 --> 00:25:33.200 over the line and made Made sure Pennsylvania was solid, maybe, 00:25:33.360 --> 00:25:35.060 because he was really popular in Pennsylvania. 00:25:36.040 --> 00:25:39.320 But I feel like he might have lost voters elsewhere. 00:25:41.060 --> 00:25:47.040 Meanwhile, I feel like, and we'll see if this gets backed up by any polling or anything else. 00:25:47.060 --> 00:25:54.260 Usually VPs don't matter. But I feel like he's got the right kind of Midwestern 00:25:54.260 --> 00:26:00.020 every guy persona that could help in a whole bunch of states. 00:26:01.510 --> 00:26:07.690 And even aside from sort of like, does the vice president make a difference 00:26:07.690 --> 00:26:09.430 because they're the vice presidential candidate? 00:26:09.590 --> 00:26:11.830 He's a really great campaigner. 00:26:12.170 --> 00:26:18.450 Like watching their speeches, Harris's speeches and Walz's speeches, Walz does really well. 00:26:18.850 --> 00:26:23.150 He has like the crowd eating out of his hand all the time. And like, 00:26:23.190 --> 00:26:24.510 look, they're excited for Harris too. 00:26:24.610 --> 00:26:29.350 I'm not going to take any of that away from Harris. Harris is like the focal 00:26:29.350 --> 00:26:33.970 point of all of the excitement, but Walls does not bring that down. 00:26:34.610 --> 00:26:40.270 He pushes it up and emphasizes it, but in different areas, like they're, 00:26:40.270 --> 00:26:41.130 they're complimentary. 00:26:42.070 --> 00:26:48.010 And I'm sure she also feels like he would be a good person to govern with for 00:26:48.010 --> 00:26:50.230 four to eight years, you know? 00:26:50.230 --> 00:26:58.750 And so I think he was a good, also, also he's known as a progressive. 00:26:58.910 --> 00:27:04.030 He made a lot of the progressives in the democratic coalition happy with the 00:27:04.030 --> 00:27:08.550 choice because they're like, look at all of these things he's done in Minnesota. 00:27:08.550 --> 00:27:11.350 Minnesota when he was in Congress, he was more centrist. 00:27:11.410 --> 00:27:16.130 But once he was the governor in a state that gained a trifecta of Democrats, 00:27:16.410 --> 00:27:18.070 he pushed through a bunch of stuff. 00:27:18.670 --> 00:27:26.130 Now, you know, people, there were a whole bunch of sort of never Trump Republicans 00:27:26.130 --> 00:27:30.150 who expressed disappointment at the choice. 00:27:30.250 --> 00:27:34.410 They were really hoping for Shapiro Shapiro's more centrist. 00:27:34.410 --> 00:27:42.950 And this guy is progressive, he's more radical, he's going to scare away the people in the center. 00:27:43.670 --> 00:27:52.270 And look, my take on that is that it's actually about time for... 00:27:52.270 --> 00:27:54.170 Look, I've said this before. 00:27:54.310 --> 00:27:58.930 I'm going to say it again. It's time for Democrats to stop running scared from their values. 00:28:00.350 --> 00:28:08.890 We don't need to cater to how can we water down everything to the point that 00:28:08.890 --> 00:28:13.970 we can convince some sliver of conservatives to come over the edge. 00:28:14.470 --> 00:28:19.930 The fundamental issues at play when you pull the issues themselves, 00:28:21.010 --> 00:28:26.070 the Democratic position has 60 to 70% majorities. 00:28:26.770 --> 00:28:30.810 Overall, we're a 50-50 country. We're split right down the middle right now. 00:28:30.890 --> 00:28:32.470 There's no question about that. 00:28:32.730 --> 00:28:36.250 And there's some issues that the Democrats are behind on. 00:28:36.590 --> 00:28:42.050 Like immigration, for one, is one where the Democrats always pull a little low. 00:28:43.250 --> 00:28:47.530 And there are a few others like that. But on the sort of these key issues that 00:28:47.530 --> 00:28:50.790 are here over and over, and the economy too. 00:28:50.790 --> 00:28:55.510 For whatever reason, Democrats pull badly on the economy right now, 00:28:55.550 --> 00:28:59.390 even though economy is going great by all the empirical standards. 00:28:59.750 --> 00:29:01.730 But people don't feel like that. 00:29:02.290 --> 00:29:05.130 But on all of the social, I mean, 00:29:05.150 --> 00:29:10.950 one of the things they're pointing to when they talk about him being progressive 00:29:10.950 --> 00:29:19.750 is making sure that kids have free school breakfast and school lunch in Minnesota that need it. 00:29:19.750 --> 00:29:22.770 This is not a super controversial position. 00:29:24.770 --> 00:29:31.030 Most people are fine with school meals being paid for out of taxpayer dollars. 00:29:31.490 --> 00:29:37.970 Oftentimes, people are fine with that being for all kids, but certainly for the kids who are at need. 00:29:38.910 --> 00:29:44.270 He's also gotten criticism for making sure there was funding to put feminine 00:29:44.270 --> 00:29:49.150 hygiene products in the bathrooms in elementary schools. 00:29:50.510 --> 00:29:55.190 Like, well, you know, well, fourth grade, you know, it was one of being controversial. 00:29:55.310 --> 00:29:58.810 And, you know, on the one hand, you know, people are like, well, 00:29:58.910 --> 00:30:00.390 that's too early, blah, blah, blah. 00:30:00.470 --> 00:30:05.250 Well, you know, kids mature at different ages, better to have the stuff than not have it. 00:30:05.290 --> 00:30:08.710 Also, people were concerned about, you know, are you putting these things in the boy's room? 00:30:11.030 --> 00:30:15.630 And it's unclear to me whether they actually were, I think the law just didn't prohibit it. 00:30:15.630 --> 00:30:18.910 And in which case like okay fine 00:30:18.910 --> 00:30:21.830 like i i know there's this whole trans panic thing going 00:30:21.830 --> 00:30:24.710 on right now but like you know if they're 00:30:24.710 --> 00:30:27.830 why not how does it hurt anything 00:30:27.830 --> 00:30:30.770 like you put it in an accessible 00:30:30.770 --> 00:30:37.030 place where kids who potentially need it have access and if kids who don't need 00:30:37.030 --> 00:30:43.190 it have access who cares you know it's it's you know so anyway and this is another 00:30:43.190 --> 00:30:48.250 thing where you know All of these sorts of issues, like. 00:30:50.090 --> 00:30:55.450 Democrats need to just not hide from these things and be proud of their positions 00:30:55.450 --> 00:30:57.910 and say, yes, this is the morally right thing to do. 00:30:58.070 --> 00:31:02.850 If you disagree, you're the weirdo, which is what he's been doing. 00:31:02.990 --> 00:31:08.730 And I think that going with him actually makes that stronger. 00:31:08.970 --> 00:31:13.170 Now, again, you know, I was saying for a while, like, hey, we'll go with AOC. 00:31:13.310 --> 00:31:16.990 That would really push that like question to the forefront. 00:31:17.230 --> 00:31:21.410 This isn't going that far. And obviously AOC would have all kinds of other issues. 00:31:22.050 --> 00:31:26.810 But I think this goes like the right way in that direction. 00:31:26.930 --> 00:31:34.190 On the one hand, he has got a history of pushing those sorts of agendas. 00:31:34.230 --> 00:31:40.470 On the other hand, his persona is all sort of Midwestern every guy. 00:31:40.470 --> 00:31:43.830 You know the the camo hats the 00:31:43.830 --> 00:31:47.110 apparently he was winning congressional shooting 00:31:47.110 --> 00:31:50.750 competitions you know so he's 00:31:50.750 --> 00:31:53.830 he's a gun owner he's a hunter he's uh you know 00:31:53.830 --> 00:31:56.770 so you sort of balance off that with oh 00:31:56.770 --> 00:31:59.830 yeah but also look you know he 00:31:59.830 --> 00:32:02.550 he's not some crazy liberal that wants to take away 00:32:02.550 --> 00:32:05.570 all your guns he's a hunter but at the same time 00:32:05.570 --> 00:32:09.990 he's for reasonable restrictions on 00:32:09.990 --> 00:32:13.110 guns to make sure as much 00:32:13.110 --> 00:32:18.750 as possible you're giving them you have to show some level of responsibility 00:32:18.750 --> 00:32:26.790 and that you're not dangerous to have on etc and that maybe you don't need the 00:32:26.790 --> 00:32:33.010 super powerful guns capable of like killing many, many people quickly, you know? 00:32:33.010 --> 00:32:37.630 And so it's sort of, you have those things bouncing off of each other. 00:32:37.650 --> 00:32:39.350 Anyway, I think it was a great choice. 00:32:39.730 --> 00:32:42.510 And the more I see of him, the more I like him. 00:32:42.670 --> 00:32:49.230 And the more I see them together, the more I can see him and Harris working great together. Um. 00:32:50.600 --> 00:32:54.700 So the folks who are pushing waltz, thank you. 00:32:55.040 --> 00:32:58.420 Like I didn't know about this guy, but I think he's great. 00:32:58.520 --> 00:33:05.700 His personality is great. His personality works well with her and he's, he's fun to watch. 00:33:05.780 --> 00:33:09.920 Like he's a funny guy and he's personable and whatever. 00:33:10.120 --> 00:33:15.120 And I think their chemistry is obvious, like on the, on the stage as well. 00:33:15.180 --> 00:33:17.500 Like I said, they compliment each other there. 00:33:17.580 --> 00:33:20.720 It's not like he's her clone. it's also not 00:33:20.720 --> 00:33:24.040 like people hillarized hillarized people criticized 00:33:24.040 --> 00:33:26.960 hillary clinton for picking her not herman 00:33:26.960 --> 00:33:31.500 kane the other kane 00:33:31.500 --> 00:33:40.600 anyway uh tom kane tim kane who is tim kane right yes tim kane as sort of the 00:33:40.600 --> 00:33:46.980 boring white dude who would stay in the background and not rock the boat not 00:33:46.980 --> 00:33:50.100 take attention away from the top of the ticket, blah, blah, blah. 00:33:50.680 --> 00:33:56.480 And on the one hand, you know, Hey, walls is, you know, white dude. 00:33:56.880 --> 00:33:59.960 He's almost exactly the same age as Harris. 00:34:00.100 --> 00:34:03.540 It's like six months older, I believe, but he looks a lot older. 00:34:03.660 --> 00:34:07.840 So he sort of brings that older white guy vibe, but at the same time, 00:34:07.840 --> 00:34:10.800 he's not boring. He's not quiet. 00:34:11.040 --> 00:34:14.980 He's not staying in the background. they are clearly 00:34:14.980 --> 00:34:21.040 working together and she is lifting him up as much as she as long as much as 00:34:21.040 --> 00:34:26.400 he is pushing her up and anyway we'll see how it goes but so far very exciting 00:34:26.400 --> 00:34:32.580 and they've been going around the country having the you know the rallies in 00:34:32.580 --> 00:34:34.340 the swing states that have all been huge, 00:34:34.840 --> 00:34:38.000 sold out at large venues. 00:34:38.720 --> 00:34:50.240 And there were a number of comparisons of the rallies on the Trump side and the Harris side. 00:34:50.500 --> 00:34:54.840 Some of these were unfair. Look, the most recent Trump rally, 00:34:55.020 --> 00:34:57.540 he had been a while since he'd had one, was in Montana. 00:34:57.820 --> 00:35:03.760 And it was on the same day as a Harris walls rally in, in the Phoenix, Arizona area. 00:35:03.880 --> 00:35:10.120 And people pointed out like the local Phoenix metropolitan area has like five 00:35:10.120 --> 00:35:14.420 times the population of the entire state of Montana, you know? 00:35:14.480 --> 00:35:18.940 So yeah, the Montana rally is going to be smaller anyway. 00:35:19.460 --> 00:35:24.180 And so maybe that's not quite fair. And they were also comparing a few Harris 00:35:24.180 --> 00:35:30.220 walls rallies to ones that was just Vance by himself, also probably an unfair comparison. 00:35:32.670 --> 00:35:37.310 But there have been comparisons that were at the exact same venue. 00:35:37.510 --> 00:35:46.150 The one in Georgia, in Atlanta, is an example where the Harris Walls rally absolutely 00:35:46.150 --> 00:35:48.750 packed the stadium they were in. 00:35:49.030 --> 00:35:53.030 And they showed a comparison, one with Trump, from a little earlier. 00:35:53.250 --> 00:35:58.350 I don't know how old it was, but not like super, super old, but not like the 00:35:58.350 --> 00:36:05.650 previous day either. either, where Trump had a lot fewer people in there, whole sections empty. 00:36:05.910 --> 00:36:08.610 And also, for that matter, just the energy. 00:36:09.570 --> 00:36:15.450 Like, even of the people who were there, the Harris Walls rally was pumped. Everyone was excited. 00:36:16.530 --> 00:36:21.430 Everyone was chanting. There were people waving signs excitedly. 00:36:21.490 --> 00:36:28.150 There was just lots and lots of energy. Whereas watching the Trump one, 00:36:28.430 --> 00:36:33.090 people were just sort of sitting there, oftentimes looking bored. 00:36:34.090 --> 00:36:43.430 You occasionally get the reaction, but there was a substantial difference in 00:36:43.430 --> 00:36:44.530 the energy levels there. 00:36:46.210 --> 00:36:50.770 Anyway. Okay. The other thing I wanted to talk about before leaving Harris walls 00:36:50.770 --> 00:36:58.290 and taking the next break, et cetera, is the whole complete collapse of Michelle Obama's. 00:36:58.790 --> 00:37:00.570 When they go low, we go high. 00:37:01.450 --> 00:37:05.650 And what's my, my ultimate take on that is that didn't work. 00:37:06.850 --> 00:37:12.030 I love the idea of it at the time. That was back in 2016. 00:37:12.950 --> 00:37:17.270 I love the idea of it at the time, but it did not work. 00:37:18.250 --> 00:37:21.810 So people are talking about like a, I mentioned the couch joke. 00:37:22.710 --> 00:37:24.990 People are also talking about the weird thing. 00:37:26.290 --> 00:37:30.750 Kathy on our curmudgeons corner slack this week was saying, you know, 00:37:30.750 --> 00:37:34.530 they got to cut it out with the weird thing. 00:37:34.530 --> 00:37:42.590 It was funny the first couple times, but now as they're repeating it, it's getting grating. 00:37:43.190 --> 00:37:50.430 And look, so I replied back on our Commodions Corner Slack about this. 00:37:52.150 --> 00:37:56.290 Well, let me read you all the comments. Like Kathy said, they need to stop with 00:37:56.290 --> 00:37:57.810 the Trump Vance weird references. 00:37:57.930 --> 00:38:01.290 It was funny and good when it popped out of his mouth the first time. 00:38:01.410 --> 00:38:06.510 And I get that it probably drives Trump crazy, but now they've run with it and 00:38:06.510 --> 00:38:09.210 they are both saying it at rallies, et cetera. 00:38:09.250 --> 00:38:11.810 I feel like it's sinking to Trump's level of name calling. 00:38:12.130 --> 00:38:16.430 And I don't think it's a good look for them. They need to show they are above all that. 00:38:17.550 --> 00:38:20.810 And and look my and then 00:38:20.810 --> 00:38:25.670 bob jumps in i feel like it connects to people in a way that calling them fascists 00:38:25.670 --> 00:38:31.030 or dangerous to democracy didn't or dangerous to much or dangerous to democracy 00:38:31.030 --> 00:38:37.750 didn't and here's the fundamental look i'm going to paraphrase what i said on the slack but, 00:38:39.030 --> 00:38:43.170 dangerous is appealing i think we might have mentioned this last week on the 00:38:43.170 --> 00:38:50.570 show but But dangerous is appealing, but people don't want to be associated with weird or creepy. 00:38:51.070 --> 00:38:55.130 Of course, your MAGA true believers are just going to dig in. 00:38:55.490 --> 00:38:59.310 They weren't going to flip anyway. That's not the target for these things. 00:39:00.190 --> 00:39:06.950 Meanwhile, it energizes those of us who felt this way for years and are having 00:39:06.950 --> 00:39:08.190 our feelings validated. dated. 00:39:08.250 --> 00:39:15.270 I mentioned before, like the Democrats have for years been in sort of this defensive crouch. 00:39:17.070 --> 00:39:22.050 Like whenever, like these sort of fundamental values come up, 00:39:22.070 --> 00:39:25.770 I've sort of been like, you know, maybe we are the weirdos. 00:39:26.530 --> 00:39:31.730 Maybe we're the ones who are out of touch. Maybe the Republicans really do represent 00:39:31.730 --> 00:39:33.430 sort of the real America. 00:39:33.470 --> 00:39:37.270 That's why you get all of these, He's, you know, let's go talk to people at 00:39:37.270 --> 00:39:40.490 a diner in Missouri and see what they think. 00:39:40.550 --> 00:39:48.130 You know, this kind of stuff, it validates the core constituents of the democratic 00:39:48.130 --> 00:39:53.170 party that no, you're not the one that's out of step. 00:39:53.270 --> 00:39:56.870 They are Trump and Vance. 00:39:56.990 --> 00:40:00.610 And frankly, yes. Also the people who support them. 00:40:00.710 --> 00:40:06.150 They're the ones who are out of touch. We need to get back to the area. 00:40:07.830 --> 00:40:14.090 Yvonne and I have talked about how Trump sort of gave license to all the racists 00:40:14.090 --> 00:40:16.830 and misogynists to be open about that. 00:40:17.490 --> 00:40:20.370 Whereas before, they were out there, but they were hiding. 00:40:21.290 --> 00:40:24.310 They knew that wasn't acceptable in public. 00:40:25.370 --> 00:40:28.710 But no, let's bring that back. Look, no. 00:40:29.530 --> 00:40:32.730 They're the ones who are out of touch and need to be shunned. 00:40:33.170 --> 00:40:36.990 They don't get to claim the mantle of normalcy. 00:40:37.410 --> 00:40:44.190 Not anymore. We need to be done with that. They're the ones that the modern world has left behind. 00:40:45.990 --> 00:40:50.490 This is the Democrats reclaiming the ground of the normal person. 00:40:51.570 --> 00:40:54.970 This whole thing that's been going on for decades with the Republicans trying 00:40:54.970 --> 00:40:58.690 to claim that they're the real Americans, they're the normal ones there, 00:40:58.850 --> 00:41:06.630 and the left-hand side of the political spectrum were the deviants and the weirdos. No, no, no more. 00:41:07.550 --> 00:41:11.930 They're the freaks, and it's time to be loud about it. Especially like in this 00:41:11.930 --> 00:41:18.030 world, like where the magas have taken over, you know, it was, 00:41:18.030 --> 00:41:22.490 it was an entirely different world when we were talking about George W. 00:41:22.550 --> 00:41:26.270 Bush or George H.W. Bush or Romney or whatever. 00:41:26.470 --> 00:41:31.350 Like maybe there's some, obviously there were some of these people in the background 00:41:31.350 --> 00:41:37.050 supporting them anyway, but those people were, even when they held despicable 00:41:37.050 --> 00:41:39.910 views were somewhat more normal. 00:41:40.750 --> 00:41:45.850 You know, and like a lot of the discussion was around sort of, 00:41:45.850 --> 00:41:53.650 yeah, you know, tax rates and economics and like, is approach A or approach 00:41:53.650 --> 00:41:55.270 B better at getting this? 00:41:55.870 --> 00:42:00.430 We've moved into an area where the fundamental disagreement is not on the method 00:42:00.430 --> 00:42:02.770 to get to a future that everyone agrees on. 00:42:02.770 --> 00:42:07.750 It is instead a fundamental difference on what that future is and who is included 00:42:07.750 --> 00:42:14.910 in that future as a first-class citizen and what's left in the Republican Party 00:42:14.910 --> 00:42:17.470 that has not fled already. 00:42:18.270 --> 00:42:24.530 They're the freaks, and it's time to be loud about it. Now. 00:42:26.080 --> 00:42:30.640 Do Harris and Walls themselves have to be making couch jokes? No. 00:42:32.980 --> 00:42:36.160 Both Bob and I and our Commodions Corner Slack agreed on this. 00:42:36.460 --> 00:42:40.580 There are plenty of surrogates who can do that for you. 00:42:41.460 --> 00:42:46.200 The whole internet is excited about that meme, and I don't know how long it lasts. 00:42:46.360 --> 00:42:51.960 It already shows signs of fading out. but you know you can do that wink or a 00:42:51.960 --> 00:42:54.660 nod to the conversation that's happening online, 00:42:55.160 --> 00:42:59.700 once or twice but then you don't have to push it they don't have to discourage 00:42:59.700 --> 00:43:04.620 other people they don't even have to like talk about it they just do the wink or nod a couple times, 00:43:05.500 --> 00:43:13.640 but i think the weird thing is different i think it is fundamentally i think it it triggers 00:43:13.820 --> 00:43:23.160 the people it's aimed at because it's not like the sexy sort of opposition. 00:43:23.880 --> 00:43:30.460 It's not the, oh my God, you're dangerous and we're afraid of you because that's positive. 00:43:30.680 --> 00:43:34.540 People get excited about that. They like being dangerous. They like that Trump 00:43:34.540 --> 00:43:39.440 and Vance and everybody else sort of trigger folks on the left. 00:43:40.140 --> 00:43:45.480 This flips that whole narrative and says, no, yes, you are dangerous. 00:43:45.640 --> 00:43:46.880 We're not going to say you're not. 00:43:48.360 --> 00:43:54.520 But fundamentally, your positions are outside of the mainstream. 00:43:54.980 --> 00:43:59.760 Your positions are minority weird positions. 00:43:59.760 --> 00:44:02.460 Acquisitions your what you are 00:44:02.460 --> 00:44:05.740 advocating for is un 00:44:05.740 --> 00:44:09.760 is unpopular and deserves 00:44:09.760 --> 00:44:13.560 to go into the dustbin of history it's not 00:44:13.560 --> 00:44:21.300 you know no we're not going to idolize some mythical point in america's history 00:44:21.300 --> 00:44:30.600 that you guys think was perfect especially if it's not the freaking 1950s or 1890s Come on. 00:44:32.640 --> 00:44:36.280 Anyway, they can evolve the weird thing. They can use other terms. 00:44:36.300 --> 00:44:40.060 I'm okay with sometimes calling them freaks. I'm okay with, you know, 00:44:40.060 --> 00:44:41.760 sometimes calling them creepy. 00:44:41.940 --> 00:44:51.200 There are other words you can use, but I like the basic theme of pounding over and over and over. 00:44:51.320 --> 00:44:56.060 No, they are not the normal ones. Their positions are not the default. 00:44:57.660 --> 00:45:04.220 Ours are. They're the ones who are out of step for wanting to ban books, 00:45:04.380 --> 00:45:12.800 for wanting to keep women from getting abortions, from wanting to stop no-fault 00:45:12.800 --> 00:45:14.280 divorce for fuck's sake. 00:45:14.760 --> 00:45:19.160 They're folks on the right who are talking about getting rid of contraception. 00:45:19.200 --> 00:45:22.820 Now, some of these are clear minority positions that they wouldn't get through, 00:45:22.900 --> 00:45:25.800 but they get the time of day in that discussion. 00:45:26.160 --> 00:45:31.940 No, all of those things should just be immediately tossed out as no. 00:45:33.180 --> 00:45:37.520 Like 80% of the population thinks that's stupid. 00:45:38.100 --> 00:45:40.500 70, 80%, depending on the issue, whatever. 00:45:41.660 --> 00:45:47.560 No, you're just dumb. You're dumb and you're out of step and you're pushing for something 00:45:47.680 --> 00:45:51.280 that is unpopular and 00:45:51.280 --> 00:45:54.560 considered an oddball freak 00:45:54.560 --> 00:45:58.580 position by the majority of the country so don't 00:45:58.580 --> 00:46:05.540 give up weird okay we're going to take a break when we come back it'll be time 00:46:05.540 --> 00:46:12.540 for uh trump and vance so oh let's see what's our next break so when i roll 00:46:12.540 --> 00:46:15.040 numbers for this The next one should actually be an Apple dream, 00:46:15.220 --> 00:46:19.600 but I've decided I'll save that for when I have a co-host who can react to an Apple dream. 00:46:20.200 --> 00:46:23.620 So the next one is this instead. 00:46:24.180 --> 00:46:28.440 And I guess I'll, I'll keep going. I might as well finish the sucker up instead 00:46:28.440 --> 00:46:31.860 of splitting it up over multiple days. You know what I mean? Anyway, here we go. 00:46:33.860 --> 00:46:36.640 What are you doing? No, that was bad. 00:46:38.920 --> 00:46:44.280 Oh! No, that was bad. People, people, people, people, people, people. 00:46:44.580 --> 00:46:47.600 No, no, I don't like that anymore. 00:46:50.540 --> 00:46:52.920 Once upon a rainbow, 00:46:55.540 --> 00:47:03.260 You were on the floor Eating the bugs that you found, 00:47:05.540 --> 00:47:06.880 Upon my face, 00:47:09.540 --> 00:47:11.600 What? Bye. 00:47:15.250 --> 00:47:19.510 Okay. I'm back. So next up the Trump and fan, the fans, fans, 00:47:19.690 --> 00:47:21.670 I should learn to talk, right? 00:47:22.390 --> 00:47:26.630 Next up the Trump and Vance part of things. 00:47:27.110 --> 00:47:30.970 And yeah, I know, look, aside from the movie, this show is all politics this time. 00:47:31.290 --> 00:47:35.290 That's what I gravitate towards. You know, if I don't have Yvonne with me, 00:47:35.370 --> 00:47:38.970 Yvonne might be like, Hey, let's go talk about the economy for a minute. 00:47:39.070 --> 00:47:42.230 There were job numbers and all that. Of course, even that would probably be 00:47:42.230 --> 00:47:46.470 spun based on the possible impact to the election and stuff. 00:47:46.750 --> 00:47:51.070 But you know, look, we are, how many days is it now? 00:47:51.810 --> 00:47:55.670 We are, I just closed the window that would tell me I was stupid. 00:47:55.850 --> 00:48:05.770 Like, you know, that way, as of when I am recording this 87.1 days left until the election, 00:48:05.850 --> 00:48:11.310 not until the election, until the polls start to close and we start getting results, 00:48:11.670 --> 00:48:17.730 people will be voting like a month from now, the very earliest of the early 00:48:17.730 --> 00:48:19.750 votes starts in like mid-September sometime. 00:48:20.990 --> 00:48:25.810 That's a small, small trickle more come later, obviously, but we're less than 00:48:25.810 --> 00:48:28.570 90 days away. It's going to be all politics pretty much. 00:48:28.870 --> 00:48:32.310 It's straight through until the election. You know, that's just, 00:48:32.310 --> 00:48:33.350 that's just how it works. 00:48:34.630 --> 00:48:41.310 But anyway, the Trump Vance folks, the big, so questions that have been coming up. 00:48:41.330 --> 00:48:46.190 First of all, now that Biden has dropped out, there's more and more discussion 00:48:46.190 --> 00:48:52.250 of Trump's age and Trump's mental ability and what's going on there. 00:48:52.410 --> 00:48:57.910 Now, I still don't think there's as much of that as was being discussed about 00:48:57.910 --> 00:49:03.150 Biden, and I think that's probably a problem one that should be fixed. 00:49:05.130 --> 00:49:12.530 But first of all, Trump essentially disappeared for a while. 00:49:13.510 --> 00:49:19.610 He, you know, after, after the Republican convention, he basically took a few 00:49:19.610 --> 00:49:23.090 weeks off and you didn't see him. 00:49:23.110 --> 00:49:27.250 You saw Vance going around and having events, but not Trump. 00:49:27.670 --> 00:49:31.810 He had like one, after 00:49:31.810 --> 00:49:35.270 the conventions i think now the charitable way 00:49:35.270 --> 00:49:38.690 to put this is okay maybe he was 00:49:38.690 --> 00:49:42.430 traumatized by the assassination attempt that would be fully understandable 00:49:42.430 --> 00:49:47.810 doesn't want to do big public events anymore because look what almost happened 00:49:47.810 --> 00:49:55.690 look what did happen but i'm not sure that's it now of course there's a whole like. 00:49:57.010 --> 00:50:02.310 How would Trump react to that? Like a normal candidate who didn't have sort 00:50:02.310 --> 00:50:11.550 of Trump's issues could actually like admit that and talk about it and generate it into a plus, 00:50:11.610 --> 00:50:16.370 you know, I'm not saying like, Oh, I'm, I'm scared. 00:50:16.490 --> 00:50:19.010 So I'm going to go cower in the bank in the basement. 00:50:19.290 --> 00:50:23.790 But somebody who like, if this had happened to walls, we were just talking about walls. 00:50:23.790 --> 00:50:27.910 He could go on TV and give interviews about how, yeah, 00:50:28.030 --> 00:50:33.250 this shook him up and it changed his views of the world and he has to think 00:50:33.250 --> 00:50:36.390 a little bit different about things and blah, blah, blah, blah, 00:50:36.430 --> 00:50:42.970 blah, and come off as human and thoughtful and whatever. 00:50:42.970 --> 00:50:48.150 Of course, Trump can't possibly do that. His psyche would not allow that. 00:50:48.390 --> 00:50:51.890 But maybe he's hiding a little bit because of that. 00:50:52.350 --> 00:50:59.710 It also seems a little bit like it's still him just not knowing how to deal 00:50:59.710 --> 00:51:07.030 with Harris as an opponent instead of Biden because everything had been around Biden. 00:51:07.030 --> 00:51:10.090 And this is an entirely different dynamic. 00:51:10.290 --> 00:51:16.330 And so maybe they're recalibrating. Like he said, in response to some criticisms 00:51:16.330 --> 00:51:18.830 about not being around two things. 00:51:20.470 --> 00:51:22.850 One, he was like, look, I am campaigning. 00:51:23.800 --> 00:51:27.180 I'm talking to a lot of people on the phone. I'm raising money. 00:51:27.940 --> 00:51:30.660 I'm, you know, I've had a few interviews, blah, blah, blah. 00:51:30.940 --> 00:51:36.720 He's just not doing the rallies and stuff. He also said that he is giving them 00:51:36.720 --> 00:51:41.280 through the democratic convention, you know, like they're going to have their 00:51:41.280 --> 00:51:43.820 convention and then he'll sort of resume after that. 00:51:44.100 --> 00:51:46.580 Well, I guess that's very nice of him. 00:51:47.000 --> 00:51:50.520 Like that doesn't sound like it is. 00:51:50.520 --> 00:51:56.900 It is sort of, in the past, has been somewhat traditional for the other campaign 00:51:56.900 --> 00:52:02.440 to lay low a little bit actually during the other party's convention, 00:52:02.640 --> 00:52:08.140 but not the time in between, especially if there's a long time in between like we have this time. 00:52:08.320 --> 00:52:12.760 Like sometimes they're only days apart, but this time we've got weeks in between. 00:52:13.120 --> 00:52:16.040 And yeah, I don't quite buy it. 00:52:16.060 --> 00:52:19.480 It's like, oh, we're giving them some polite deference. 00:52:19.480 --> 00:52:22.540 We're giving them some respectful time to 00:52:22.540 --> 00:52:25.660 do what they need does that sound like donald trump to you no 00:52:25.660 --> 00:52:28.760 but then he decided 00:52:28.760 --> 00:52:32.880 to come back from that because like apparently all of the attention that harris 00:52:32.880 --> 00:52:38.620 has been getting while he's been doing nothing and you know during this you 00:52:38.620 --> 00:52:44.940 know biden drops out harris takes over harris picks a vp there's all this massive 00:52:44.940 --> 00:52:47.880 excitement and And she's been getting all the press. 00:52:48.760 --> 00:52:52.840 Nobody's been paying attention to him. And apparently that was really getting to him. 00:52:53.140 --> 00:52:57.520 And then the coverage of her big rallies and all of this kind of stuff. 00:52:57.740 --> 00:52:59.180 So he held a press conference. 00:53:00.480 --> 00:53:02.880 And at first people were talking about, is it really going to be a press conference? 00:53:03.040 --> 00:53:04.740 Is it going to take questions? He did take questions. 00:53:06.660 --> 00:53:12.400 Now, there were no follow-ups. The questions weren't like hardball questions for the most part. 00:53:12.860 --> 00:53:17.640 And what it ended up being is, yeah, there was a sporadic question asked by 00:53:17.640 --> 00:53:21.020 an interviewer, but basically it was Donald Trump talking and rambling, 00:53:21.100 --> 00:53:26.920 just like he does at his events, just sort of going off prompts from the reporters. 00:53:26.920 --> 00:53:36.380 Supporters and the overall consensus of people watching it, even from his own 00:53:36.380 --> 00:53:39.920 supporters, was that it was bad. 00:53:40.320 --> 00:53:45.660 And I guess this adds to the one other event he did. It was of course that conversation 00:53:45.660 --> 00:53:51.980 with the, whatever it's called the black journalists association that went badly the week before, 00:53:52.080 --> 00:54:00.400 but this press conference was just rambling and incoherent, full of lies as usual. 00:54:00.680 --> 00:54:07.340 He told a story about being in a helicopter accident that apparently never really happened. 00:54:07.580 --> 00:54:10.680 Or I should say, people have dug into this a little bit. 00:54:11.000 --> 00:54:18.420 It appears to have conflated several different events that did happen. 00:54:18.820 --> 00:54:22.600 Like he was in a helicopter in the 00:54:22.600 --> 00:54:28.320 90s that did have to come down quickly because of some sort of problem. 00:54:30.040 --> 00:54:36.620 But he may also have been mixing that up with a helicopter ride while he was 00:54:36.620 --> 00:54:43.180 president that was to view like wildfire damage in California. 00:54:43.920 --> 00:54:51.200 And the people that he was saying were in the helicopter with him were not the 00:54:51.200 --> 00:54:53.700 people that were in either of those two helicopters. 00:54:55.260 --> 00:55:01.720 And he had stated that, well, he had stated that Willie Brown was in the helicopter, 00:55:01.780 --> 00:55:06.100 who famously was in a relationship with Kamala Harris decades ago, 00:55:06.240 --> 00:55:11.660 and that he had said all kinds of bad things about Kamala Harris. 00:55:12.080 --> 00:55:18.740 But he was not in that helicopter at all. He never has been in a helicopter ride with Donald Trump. 00:55:19.860 --> 00:55:26.560 People speculated that he was talking about a helicopter ride with Jerry Brown, 00:55:26.640 --> 00:55:31.400 who was the governor of California at the time and was on that helicopter where 00:55:31.400 --> 00:55:32.900 they were looking at wildfires. 00:55:34.300 --> 00:55:39.700 But Jerry Brown, first of all, hard to get Willie Brown and Jerry Brown mixed 00:55:39.700 --> 00:55:43.240 up other than they both have the last name Brown. 00:55:45.270 --> 00:55:50.130 But he says, you know, we didn't talk about Kamala Harris at all. 00:55:50.690 --> 00:55:58.270 Meanwhile, in the 90s, apparently it was a state senator named Nate Holden who 00:55:58.270 --> 00:56:02.750 was in the helicopter with Donald Trump that actually did have issues. 00:56:03.630 --> 00:56:10.370 Another black guy like Willie Brown, but very different, very different role, 00:56:10.530 --> 00:56:11.490 very different timeframe. 00:56:11.870 --> 00:56:15.850 They have different builds, but whatever. Donald Trump could get the mixed up. 00:56:16.450 --> 00:56:20.190 And he also says that they did not talk about Kamala Harris at all. 00:56:20.310 --> 00:56:26.230 So like, it seems like this particular event is a Trump conflating a bunch of 00:56:26.230 --> 00:56:30.030 things and be making up some additional embellishments that actually had nothing 00:56:30.030 --> 00:56:33.210 to do with it. that would serve his story for some reason. 00:56:33.290 --> 00:56:40.990 Now, Trump is protesting this, says he has records, says everything he said 00:56:40.990 --> 00:56:42.370 was true and blah, blah, blah. 00:56:42.630 --> 00:56:47.590 But this is a typical Trump pattern. This has happened for a long time. This is not new. 00:56:48.050 --> 00:56:55.230 But the degree to which he dissembles and rambles and talks about things that 00:56:55.230 --> 00:56:59.630 bear no resemblance to the issue at hand is increasing. 00:56:59.930 --> 00:57:04.810 There was another example of a question that was asked about whether he would 00:57:04.810 --> 00:57:10.470 support banning the mail order abortion drugs or just abortion drugs in general 00:57:10.470 --> 00:57:14.330 at a national level, having FDA take action. 00:57:14.590 --> 00:57:22.190 And he went on for several minutes about stuff, but never coming anywhere near that question. 00:57:22.190 --> 00:57:27.650 Now, politicians often don't answer the question and talk about what they want 00:57:27.650 --> 00:57:34.550 to talk about, but it didn't feel quite like that. It felt more just disconnected. 00:57:34.910 --> 00:57:39.270 And look, there's been more and more of that. And so the question is, 00:57:39.350 --> 00:57:45.010 are we going to do the deep dives into, is Trump competent? 00:57:45.150 --> 00:57:49.090 Is Trump up to the job? Is Trump suffering mental decline? 00:57:49.410 --> 00:57:52.230 Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. of course the 00:57:52.230 --> 00:57:55.210 answer to that is twofold one yes he 00:57:55.210 --> 00:57:58.290 clearly is declining from where he was four eight or 00:57:58.290 --> 00:58:02.150 longer years ago but two 00:58:02.150 --> 00:58:07.590 and one of the reasons that people don't dig into this as much he was never 00:58:07.590 --> 00:58:15.350 competent for this stuff never not it you know so is he worse now yes but he 00:58:15.350 --> 00:58:20.430 clearly was unqualified for the position in 2016 too and people didn't give a shit. 00:58:21.640 --> 00:58:29.880 So I don't know. But unlike when Biden was in the race, now that the opponent 00:58:29.880 --> 00:58:33.260 is Harris, the Democrats can make this case. 00:58:33.800 --> 00:58:37.560 They can talk about Donald Trump's age, 00:58:37.780 --> 00:58:46.460 his incoherence, his confusion at times, his general mental state, 00:58:46.560 --> 00:58:52.600 and whether he's up for it or appropriate or whatever. They can make this an issue now. 00:58:52.660 --> 00:58:59.840 They couldn't when Biden was there because everything we know about Joe Biden's age. 00:59:00.160 --> 00:59:07.700 I would argue that no matter how much, with all of the decline that we've talked 00:59:07.700 --> 00:59:14.100 about Biden potentially have, he's still miles better than Trump ever was. 00:59:15.400 --> 00:59:19.940 But as long as Biden was there, the Democrats couldn't make that argument because 00:59:19.940 --> 00:59:22.340 it would just be tossed right back in their face. Now they can. 00:59:22.760 --> 00:59:29.680 Now they can talk about, you know, look at Trump appearing to be sundowning himself. 00:59:30.800 --> 00:59:38.200 And, you know, he's incoherent and he doesn't know what he's talking about and X, Y, Z. 00:59:39.060 --> 00:59:46.040 One aspect of this is going back to the absence from the campaign trail. 00:59:46.160 --> 00:59:49.400 And Trump apparently signaled he's still going to be absent for a while yet 00:59:49.400 --> 00:59:52.580 until after the Democratic convention. He's not going to be doing much. 00:59:52.920 --> 00:59:56.540 Something here, something there, but not like going at a pace. 00:59:57.940 --> 01:00:02.920 And people have talked about this also as part of, you know, 01:00:02.920 --> 01:00:09.420 he was in the mindset. set, he's got this on the bag that no one's going to vote for Joe Biden. 01:00:10.040 --> 01:00:14.220 And he can basically do a low-key campaign, mostly from Mar-a-Lago, 01:00:14.360 --> 01:00:16.160 do a couple events every once in a while, 01:00:16.800 --> 01:00:22.140 do some interviews, but basically be out golfing several days a week, 01:00:22.240 --> 01:00:25.800 be hanging out at Mar-a-Lago and cruise to a win. 01:00:26.700 --> 01:00:31.800 That is no longer true. And he's having a hard time adapting to the the change 01:00:31.800 --> 01:00:40.720 in situation and some of the things he says even seem like you know while on 01:00:40.720 --> 01:00:45.920 the one hand he's denying that that's the situation he says he's surging in the polls he's not. 01:00:47.880 --> 01:00:54.060 All of this kind of stuff, is he going into sort of a self-destructive spiral 01:00:54.060 --> 01:01:03.380 where he's just sort of curling up in a ball and letting things happen to him? I don't know. 01:01:03.500 --> 01:01:08.440 Maybe the last couple weeks have been that. Maybe he'll pull out of it and you'll 01:01:08.440 --> 01:01:12.480 see more of the old Trump, I guess. Yes. 01:01:12.860 --> 01:01:16.080 Yeah. And some of them may just be the comparison because he looks older. 01:01:16.400 --> 01:01:22.580 He looks more feeble. He looks like less competent even than before. 01:01:22.980 --> 01:01:29.840 And, and maybe I'm convinced some of that is real, but it's also just the comparison 01:01:29.840 --> 01:01:37.120 again, like stick them next to Biden. Biden, then it's a, Oh my God, we got two old men. 01:01:37.600 --> 01:01:44.960 You know, they both suck. Stick them next to Harris and he doesn't have her energy. 01:01:45.320 --> 01:01:49.420 You know, his criticism of, of Jeb Bush was low energy. 01:01:49.520 --> 01:01:54.200 Well, you know, in comparison now, who's the low energy one? Donald Trump is. 01:01:55.500 --> 01:01:58.840 And so is he quiet quitting? 01:01:59.260 --> 01:02:08.260 Is he sort of not giving it his all and sort of recognizing that he's in trouble? 01:02:08.860 --> 01:02:12.780 I don't know. I feel like, you know, his impetus for running again still was 01:02:12.780 --> 01:02:15.060 like, he doesn't really want to be president again. 01:02:15.260 --> 01:02:18.940 He wants to like get away from all the legal shit. 01:02:19.300 --> 01:02:24.480 And his best way to do that is to win. And then he can make the federal cases 01:02:24.480 --> 01:02:29.160 go away and pause the state cases because they won't want to do stuff while he's in office. 01:02:30.020 --> 01:02:33.340 And, you know, and by the time he finishes another four years, 01:02:33.360 --> 01:02:36.560 he may be dead anyway, or they'll, they'll drop it just because, 01:02:36.580 --> 01:02:38.520 oh, look at the pitiful man. I don't know. 01:02:39.100 --> 01:02:41.780 But, or in for the federal stuff. 01:02:42.380 --> 01:02:45.960 Yeah, he'll come up with other things. But the main thing is, 01:02:46.340 --> 01:02:53.300 I don't know, but he at the moment is, is clearly struggling. 01:02:53.920 --> 01:02:57.420 At least, I don't know if he's got some sort of internal mental struggle of 01:02:57.420 --> 01:03:00.060 what to do. That's not necessarily what I'm saying. He's just not doing well. 01:03:00.500 --> 01:03:05.560 He is not responding well to the challenge of Harris taking over from Biden. 01:03:05.560 --> 01:03:11.600 And he seems to be spiraling a bit and doing things in desperation. 01:03:12.180 --> 01:03:19.880 And when he does do things, his level of incompetence and is shining through 01:03:19.880 --> 01:03:26.440 in a way that hopefully will get more attention than it has the last few years. I don't know. 01:03:27.280 --> 01:03:30.920 Again, it changes everything when you take away the Biden comparison. Harrison. 01:03:31.740 --> 01:03:35.280 Meanwhile, Vance has continued to be underwhelming. 01:03:35.600 --> 01:03:43.060 He's continued to be more the butt of jokes than an actual lift for the Donald Trump campaign. 01:03:44.100 --> 01:03:48.440 We may be past the worst of that. It seemed like there were a couple of weeks 01:03:48.440 --> 01:03:51.120 where the hits just came on coming for Vance. 01:03:52.040 --> 01:03:57.200 It seems to have slowed down a little bit, but he's still clearly unpopular. He's not, 01:03:59.460 --> 01:04:03.740 He's not doing a lot to help, and arguably he's been hurting. 01:04:04.920 --> 01:04:09.720 When Trump was asked about the weird comments recently, he said, 01:04:09.900 --> 01:04:13.400 oh, but they're not talking about me. They're talking about J.D. 01:04:16.700 --> 01:04:19.740 And no, sorry, they're talking about both of you. 01:04:19.980 --> 01:04:28.440 But J.D. has definitely been the lightning round, lightning rod for those criticisms. 01:04:28.440 --> 01:04:35.140 Because Donald Trump has never really cared about any of the policy issues. 01:04:35.220 --> 01:04:45.320 It's clear that he can change policy positions at a moment's notice if he thinks that will help him. 01:04:45.920 --> 01:04:50.060 J.D. actually seems to be a true believer in certain areas, especially some 01:04:50.060 --> 01:04:53.880 of the weird versions of family values 01:04:54.100 --> 01:04:59.580 that basically, you know, the purpose of a woman is to have babies, 01:04:59.700 --> 01:05:02.960 you know, and that sort of thing. 01:05:04.680 --> 01:05:14.340 So yeah, Vance has not helped in terms of this kind of stuff, 01:05:14.460 --> 01:05:18.580 but you know, Trump clearly 01:05:18.900 --> 01:05:21.660 is struggling to figure out what to do. 01:05:22.100 --> 01:05:27.520 And again, I don't want, I don't mean to imply some sort of mental battle with 01:05:27.520 --> 01:05:30.580 inside it, with inside, within Trump's head. 01:05:30.660 --> 01:05:35.040 I don't know if he's that self-reflective to be able to do that, 01:05:35.160 --> 01:05:40.440 but he's struggling to actually be effective in this situation. 01:05:40.920 --> 01:05:49.040 And I don't know, I think it's too early to say that this will continue through to November. 01:05:49.780 --> 01:05:55.240 There are plenty of ways that Trump could sort of pick things up and reverse 01:05:55.240 --> 01:05:59.760 the trend and get back on his game, but it hasn't happened so far. 01:06:00.280 --> 01:06:05.640 And meanwhile, the Harris campaign has been running on all cylinders. 01:06:06.440 --> 01:06:13.300 So we'll see. Now that seems like a good time to take another pause and come 01:06:13.300 --> 01:06:20.000 back with a little bit about the election graphs analysis and what the polls are looking at, 01:06:20.080 --> 01:06:25.000 and what the polls have been looking like lately. 01:06:25.960 --> 01:06:31.200 And we'll talk about that and then wrap up the show. So continuing to go right through, 01:06:31.360 --> 01:06:37.960 and this was a random pick, but it's apropos, here's the election graphs break, 01:06:37.960 --> 01:06:43.760 and then we'll be back and talk about election graphs and the polls and all that kind of stuff. 01:06:47.250 --> 01:06:51.750 Do you want to understand what is really going on with the presidential election cycle? 01:06:52.270 --> 01:06:56.090 Then go to electiongraphs.com right away. 01:06:56.970 --> 01:07:01.210 There you'll find charts and graphs covering the nomination processes in both 01:07:01.210 --> 01:07:04.930 parties and the general election race for electoral college votes. 01:07:05.530 --> 01:07:10.470 For the delegate races, we track not just delegate totals, but also the ever-important 01:07:10.470 --> 01:07:15.570 analysis of how each candidate has to do with the remaining delegates in order to actually win. 01:07:15.810 --> 01:07:20.330 For the Electoral College, we track state-by-state poll averages to categorize 01:07:20.330 --> 01:07:24.610 which states are actually in play and which are not in order to show you the 01:07:24.610 --> 01:07:28.790 range of likely electoral results and how that changes over time. 01:07:29.630 --> 01:07:33.950 Sure, you can get some of this stuff elsewhere, but not in exactly the same way. 01:07:34.090 --> 01:07:39.650 And not from me, Sam, your prime curmudgeon. I think my election trackers are 01:07:39.650 --> 01:07:44.310 better than the rest, so come look at mine, electiongraphs.com. 01:07:47.450 --> 01:07:52.950 Okay, we are back. So, election graphs, first of all, so I'd been talking about 01:07:52.950 --> 01:07:55.730 how Harris was surging and all of that kind of stuff. 01:07:56.630 --> 01:08:04.670 Now, and on August 1st, for the first time, Harris took a narrow lead on my 01:08:04.670 --> 01:08:07.950 election graphs averages in the tipping point metric. 01:08:08.410 --> 01:08:11.910 Again, for those of you who don't remember, the tipping point is the margin 01:08:11.910 --> 01:08:15.750 in the state that would put the winning candidate over the edge to win. 01:08:16.050 --> 01:08:23.170 She took the lead on that on August 1st in my, well, distinctions most people don't care about. 01:08:23.230 --> 01:08:29.730 August 1st was the date where I, where we got the polling data that indicated she had gone over. 01:08:29.890 --> 01:08:32.770 But of course those polls were for a little bit earlier. 01:08:33.630 --> 01:08:36.990 So if you look at the date, when it looks like that happened, 01:08:37.070 --> 01:08:44.670 it was July 27th was when she actually. 01:08:46.150 --> 01:08:51.870 Had polling averages that, you know, put her in a very, very slight lead. 01:08:52.150 --> 01:08:56.270 And that's because Pennsylvania and I, you know, first Michigan and Wisconsin, 01:08:56.390 --> 01:08:59.930 and then later Pennsylvania went on to the blue side of the line. 01:09:00.490 --> 01:09:04.810 It looks like now that we've got polls going back a little bit, 01:09:04.870 --> 01:09:12.510 uh, on my tipping point metric, Harris hit a maximum on July 29th. 01:09:12.890 --> 01:09:18.490 I think I said last week, I didn't think she'd quite hit a leveled off yet, 01:09:18.570 --> 01:09:21.750 but I was wrong at the moment. 01:09:21.810 --> 01:09:26.830 Anyway, it does look like she hit a maximum on July 29th, 01:09:26.830 --> 01:09:30.690 which of course we didn't know until a little bit later as those polls came 01:09:30.690 --> 01:09:36.890 out and then gave up the lead again on August 2nd. 01:09:37.110 --> 01:09:44.490 And so as of right now, So it went from when Biden dropped out, 01:09:44.570 --> 01:09:50.630 the tipping point in the Harris versus Trump match was Trump up by 2.9%, 01:09:50.630 --> 01:09:56.790 which was significantly better than the same thing for Biden versus Trump, 01:09:56.990 --> 01:10:01.350 which I believe Trump was up by like 4.9, maybe even 5 at the end. 01:10:01.490 --> 01:10:03.690 Man, I should check. Hold on. 01:10:04.630 --> 01:10:12.250 It was 5%. Tipping point was Trump ahead by 5% in North Carolina as of the very last Biden polls. 01:10:13.150 --> 01:10:20.910 But it went from 2.9% in the Harris versus Trump rage, Trump up by 2.9%, to Harris up by 0.7%. 01:10:20.910 --> 01:10:25.250 And as of now, it's back to Trump up by 0.5%. 01:10:25.250 --> 01:10:31.070 That is exclusively that last movement because of Pennsylvania, 01:10:31.370 --> 01:10:36.150 essentially. Essentially, exclusively, essentially, I'm obviously hedging a 01:10:36.150 --> 01:10:39.110 little bit there, I guess I shouldn't be hedging. This is all about Pennsylvania. 01:10:39.670 --> 01:10:42.770 Pennsylvania is the key state for a short period of time. 01:10:43.250 --> 01:10:48.230 Harris pulled ahead in Pennsylvania. Now she's behind in Pennsylvania again by a very small amount. 01:10:48.950 --> 01:10:55.870 The bottom line is that right now, if you just straight out to trust the polls, you. 01:10:57.140 --> 01:11:02.700 We're, we're in a very close race. You know, it's, it's essentially neck and neck right now. 01:11:02.720 --> 01:11:08.800 Trump's up by 0.5%. A few days ago, Harris was up by 0.5% and it'll probably 01:11:08.800 --> 01:11:10.060 bounce back and forth again. 01:11:10.320 --> 01:11:14.440 That initial big push towards Harris, 01:11:14.700 --> 01:11:23.700 Harris, that initial big movement towards Harris seems to have maxed out though, 01:11:23.760 --> 01:11:25.620 at least in the short term. 01:11:25.620 --> 01:11:33.180 But I want to caveat that by saying the counter movement is all about Pennsylvania. 01:11:33.500 --> 01:11:35.460 It's just Pennsylvania is the key state. 01:11:36.120 --> 01:11:39.940 Everywhere else, she continues to look like she's getting stronger. 01:11:40.860 --> 01:11:46.460 Michigan is still trending in her direction. Wisconsin is trending in her direction. 01:11:46.940 --> 01:11:50.640 Nevada is trending in her direction. It just went blue with the most recent 01:11:50.640 --> 01:11:54.940 set of polls. and red states have gotten less red as well. 01:11:55.100 --> 01:11:58.140 Arizona is trending towards her right now. 01:11:58.660 --> 01:12:05.080 Trump is only ahead in my poll average for Arizona by 0.2%. Georgia has been 01:12:05.080 --> 01:12:08.220 trending towards her. North Carolina has been trending towards her. 01:12:08.560 --> 01:12:14.340 So like all of these key swing states have been moving in the Harris direction 01:12:14.340 --> 01:12:19.800 except Pennsylvania, which went rapidly in the Harris direction, 01:12:20.000 --> 01:12:21.480 but then has been bouncing back. 01:12:22.280 --> 01:12:31.420 However, some of those polls have been by pollsters that traditionally have leaned red. 01:12:31.680 --> 01:12:35.700 For instance, one of the polls currently in averages Pennsylvania is Trafalgar, 01:12:35.760 --> 01:12:39.060 who has been criticized over and over and over again for. 01:12:41.040 --> 01:12:46.940 Artificially, who knows what their methodology is, showing results that were 01:12:46.940 --> 01:12:50.540 better for the the Republicans than what anybody else was seeing. 01:12:51.820 --> 01:13:01.580 And they have Trump up by 2%. And if the Republican-leaning pollster is saying 01:13:01.580 --> 01:13:05.780 Trump's only up by 2%, then, yeah, 01:13:05.840 --> 01:13:08.520 factor that into your consideration. 01:13:09.100 --> 01:13:13.060 And again, the average ends up being only Trump by 0.5%. 01:13:14.000 --> 01:13:21.360 And so that could easily move back. Right now, of the five polls I include in 01:13:21.360 --> 01:13:27.640 my average right now, one has Harris up. 01:13:27.800 --> 01:13:32.460 It's one of these that released multiple versions, depending on whether you're 01:13:32.460 --> 01:13:40.560 looking at likely voters, registered voters, head-to-head, or with third parties attached, whatever. 01:13:40.560 --> 01:13:44.640 Whatever, range from Harris up by two to Harris up by four, depending on which 01:13:44.640 --> 01:13:46.900 of those combinations you like to look at. 01:13:48.560 --> 01:13:53.140 Meanwhile, we have Trafalgar. That was Sienna, by the way. 01:13:53.660 --> 01:13:57.440 Then we have Trafalgar with Trump up by two, Redfield and Wilton with Trump 01:13:57.440 --> 01:14:03.360 up by two, Fabrizio Lee tied, and PPP Trump up by one. 01:14:03.820 --> 01:14:08.140 Those are ones in my average right now. But it's right on the edge. 01:14:08.260 --> 01:14:18.800 But I think it is real that we had a big, big, big reaction to Harris roughly from... 01:14:20.190 --> 01:14:27.690 Roughly from when Biden dropped out, which was, I think, the 22nd to around 01:14:27.690 --> 01:14:33.770 the 29th. So the first week or so, things moved really, really rapidly towards Harris. 01:14:33.950 --> 01:14:42.130 And in part, like this is, you know, just to be clear, where my average as of 01:14:42.130 --> 01:14:47.550 the time that Biden dropped out, Harris wasn't running. 01:14:47.550 --> 01:14:52.810 There were a smattering of polls that include Harris as a hypothetical, 01:14:53.170 --> 01:14:58.850 but they were just a hypothetical and they were over a long period of time. 01:15:00.230 --> 01:15:04.430 Many, many states did not even have the full five polls I use in my average, 01:15:04.490 --> 01:15:06.970 so I had to use old elections brought in. 01:15:06.970 --> 01:15:11.450 And still some states don't, but like all of the really critical states at this 01:15:11.450 --> 01:15:16.330 point have at least five actual Harris versus Trump polls. 01:15:16.510 --> 01:15:20.710 And I think all of them at this point have five polls that were actually after 01:15:20.710 --> 01:15:22.350 Biden dropped out at this point. 01:15:22.490 --> 01:15:28.090 Some other states that like Iowa is still showing up as a close state on my 01:15:28.090 --> 01:15:32.790 site because nobody has polled Harris versus Trump yet in Iowa. 01:15:32.910 --> 01:15:36.170 But those things will take care of themselves. All the close states that now 01:15:36.170 --> 01:15:41.830 have, all the real close states, like not counting Iowa, have lots of polls now. 01:15:41.970 --> 01:15:47.850 So that first big move towards Harris was just the first polls that actually 01:15:47.850 --> 01:15:52.730 had Harris as a real candidate, not some hypothetical, but, oh, 01:15:52.750 --> 01:15:55.310 no, she is really the Democratic candidate. 01:15:55.550 --> 01:15:57.310 And we saw that big move. 01:15:58.560 --> 01:16:03.320 Four or 5% move in most States. And I think we are, you know, 01:16:03.320 --> 01:16:07.460 like I said, it's mainly Pennsylvania, but I think even in the non Pennsylvania 01:16:07.460 --> 01:16:10.360 States, we've leveled out a little bit in Pennsylvania. 01:16:10.400 --> 01:16:13.720 We've are actually gone back towards Trump a little bit. 01:16:14.000 --> 01:16:18.180 And maybe some of it is because of sort of Republican leaning pollsters. 01:16:18.360 --> 01:16:21.460 We shall see, but here's the thing. 01:16:21.900 --> 01:16:27.280 I am not yet convinced that that's a, okay, we've bottomed out. 01:16:27.300 --> 01:16:30.840 And now we're at the real state of the race that we're going to have from now until November? 01:16:32.020 --> 01:16:39.400 Maybe. If so, the real state of the race is a neck biter. Is that the right word? Neck biter? 01:16:40.960 --> 01:16:47.700 You know what I mean? Nail biter. That's what I meant. Not neck biter. Okay. Well, fine. 01:16:48.260 --> 01:16:50.400 Maybe that's the title of the show. Neck biter. 01:16:51.900 --> 01:16:55.240 Anyway, I'm not yet convinced that that's the true final state of the race. 01:16:55.540 --> 01:16:57.380 We've got a bunch of things coming up. 01:16:57.820 --> 01:17:00.100 The Democratic Convention hasn't yet happened. 01:17:00.560 --> 01:17:07.080 And Trump's bounce, if any, from his convention was immediately neutered by 01:17:07.080 --> 01:17:08.560 the Biden-Harris announcement. 01:17:09.820 --> 01:17:15.000 There's no immediate event right after the Democratic Convention that's likely to do that. 01:17:15.340 --> 01:17:18.360 So we probably will have some sort of bounce out of that. 01:17:18.440 --> 01:17:24.740 It's going to be a big, exciting party. with, if any of the rallies so far are 01:17:24.740 --> 01:17:29.700 an indication, with a lot more excitement than we got out of the Republican convention. 01:17:30.080 --> 01:17:35.700 So we'll see how that goes. Biden and Harris did actually agree to a debate now. 01:17:36.780 --> 01:17:42.560 Trump had tried to back out of the already agreed to second debate scheduled 01:17:42.560 --> 01:17:47.000 with Biden for September 10th, I believe it is, on ABC. DC. 01:17:47.800 --> 01:17:52.980 And his backing out wasn't playing very well. So he ended up agreeing after 01:17:52.980 --> 01:17:55.020 all, basically to all the original conditions. 01:17:55.440 --> 01:17:59.820 So complete retreat. He was like, I'm not going to come after all. 01:17:59.900 --> 01:18:01.320 How about this debate on Fox? 01:18:02.000 --> 01:18:07.080 And Harris was like, well, I'll be there. Whether you're there or not, I'm going to be there. 01:18:07.180 --> 01:18:10.100 He eventually backed out and they're going to the debate. So that's going to happen. 01:18:10.540 --> 01:18:15.740 I have a feeling that's going to play differently than Biden versus Trump did as a debate. 01:18:16.360 --> 01:18:23.120 And then we've got coming right up after that is if things go as scheduled, 01:18:23.260 --> 01:18:29.540 which who knows, they may not, then we've got Trump's sentencing coming up for his New York trial. 01:18:29.820 --> 01:18:35.300 We'll see how that goes. Now, there may be ways to delay that further depending 01:18:35.300 --> 01:18:40.620 on judge rules against him on immunity stuff. He immediately appeals. 01:18:40.840 --> 01:18:44.740 It gets delayed. Who knows? So take that with a grain of of salt, 01:18:44.860 --> 01:18:46.420 but it is scheduled to happen. 01:18:47.460 --> 01:18:53.720 So there are lots of things. And then if the current trends keep up with the 01:18:53.720 --> 01:19:01.240 highly energetic Harris campaign and the lethargic Trump campaign and the huge 01:19:01.240 --> 01:19:06.280 enthusiasm gaps we're now seeing that are very different than they were with Biden, 01:19:06.400 --> 01:19:09.120 then I could see things moving back in the Harris direction. 01:19:09.760 --> 01:19:14.460 But a thing to keep in mind as well, though, and so far I've only talked about 01:19:14.460 --> 01:19:16.120 the tipping point on election graphs. photographs. 01:19:17.060 --> 01:19:23.400 But here's the thing compared like right now we have Trump ahead by 0.5, 01:19:24.020 --> 01:19:26.280 which okay, squint a little and call it a tie. 01:19:26.400 --> 01:19:34.640 It trumps a little bit ahead, but call it a tie at this same time in, you know, what did I say? 01:19:34.720 --> 01:19:40.200 We're 87 days before the election. I said 87.1 before now it's down to 87.0, 01:19:40.220 --> 01:19:42.940 you know, cause I've been talking for a little while. 01:19:43.700 --> 01:19:47.400 I haven't been talking for a whole 10th of a day, but rounding, blah, blah, blah. 01:19:47.540 --> 01:19:53.660 But anyway, on this exact same day, 87 days before the election, 01:19:53.860 --> 01:19:55.860 we have Trump ahead by 0.5. 01:19:56.060 --> 01:20:03.660 But in 2020, Biden was ahead by 5.1% in the tipping point at this time. 01:20:04.040 --> 01:20:08.720 And in 2016, Clinton was ahead by 6.0. 01:20:09.440 --> 01:20:11.360 So right now. 01:20:12.820 --> 01:20:20.420 Harris is still 5.5% to 6% behind where the Democrats were in the last two elections. 01:20:21.640 --> 01:20:26.240 And obviously, in 2020, Biden won, but just barely. 01:20:26.660 --> 01:20:36.860 And in 2016, Clinton lost. So, when speaking to potential differences between 01:20:36.860 --> 01:20:43.100 where people are polling 87 days ahead of the election to the actual results, 01:20:43.400 --> 01:20:45.860 in those last two cycles, 01:20:46.180 --> 01:20:54.780 obviously, the final results were a lot more Republican than where polls had things at this time. 01:20:55.260 --> 01:20:58.260 And Harris is way behind. 01:20:58.980 --> 01:21:03.960 Those paces. Still, even though she's doing significantly better than Biden 01:21:03.960 --> 01:21:08.100 was, she's still significantly behind the pace of those last two elections. 01:21:08.500 --> 01:21:14.240 And so there's a lot of excitement on the Democratic side right now, 01:21:14.320 --> 01:21:23.100 but this is by no means at the spot yet where you can say hey, Harris has got this. 01:21:23.520 --> 01:21:27.000 She has pulled ahead in national polls. 01:21:27.680 --> 01:21:31.860 She's only slightly behind on my election graphs thing based on state polls. 01:21:32.080 --> 01:21:34.820 The betting markets now have her ahead. 01:21:35.200 --> 01:21:39.780 Let me just check election betting odds right now, just real quick. 01:21:42.060 --> 01:21:46.180 Electionbettingodds.com, by the way, is a place that aggregates a whole bunch 01:21:46.180 --> 01:21:51.420 of different betting sites to try to determine, you know. 01:21:52.530 --> 01:21:56.850 The aggregate, they aggregate Betfair's, Smarket's, Predictit, 01:21:56.910 --> 01:22:01.030 and Polymarket, apparently, which are a bunch of like political betting sites. 01:22:01.450 --> 01:22:06.450 Anyway, right now they have Harris's chance to win at 52.9%. 01:22:07.390 --> 01:22:13.790 And Trump at 44.8. And then a whole bunch of other random stragglers as I guess 01:22:13.790 --> 01:22:19.750 people think what would happen if the meteor hit both candidates and somebody else had to run. 01:22:19.750 --> 01:22:25.670 So, I mean, they've got Michelle Obama at 0.6%. She's not running. 01:22:25.770 --> 01:22:28.130 She doesn't want to run. She doesn't want to be president. 01:22:28.830 --> 01:22:33.710 Whatever scenario that would make her president is like way an oddball. 01:22:33.890 --> 01:22:39.370 They betters are crazy for some of this stuff. But anyway, they have Harris 01:22:39.370 --> 01:22:42.050 essentially at 53%, which is close to a toss-up. 01:22:42.570 --> 01:22:50.810 My analysis using how far election graphs averages have been from the actual 01:22:50.810 --> 01:22:53.730 results 87 days in advance of the election, 01:22:53.910 --> 01:23:00.170 depending on how correlated states are with each other, I provide both extremes of that view. 01:23:00.310 --> 01:23:09.370 I have odds somewhere between 28.9% for Harris and 38.7%. So I still have her as an underdog. 01:23:09.490 --> 01:23:12.710 And the reason for that is exactly what I just said. 01:23:12.910 --> 01:23:18.130 I take into account 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020. 01:23:18.450 --> 01:23:25.370 But on aggregate, looking at all of those, polls have underestimated the Republican. 01:23:26.490 --> 01:23:33.470 And so I have got, I essentially assume that, okay, they're still underestimating the Republican, 01:23:33.590 --> 01:23:40.210 which would mean that Harris being behind by 0.5% might in the tipping point 01:23:40.210 --> 01:23:45.830 state may actually be behind, may actually be that she's behind by several percent 01:23:45.830 --> 01:23:47.250 in the tipping point state. 01:23:47.350 --> 01:23:52.010 Like in other words, have I said in other words, like eight times, that's fine, whatever. 01:23:53.020 --> 01:24:02.160 Bottom line is my analysis sort of says, hey, got to assume polls are underestimating 01:24:02.160 --> 01:24:05.960 the Republicans in the close states again, which means if it looks like it's 01:24:05.960 --> 01:24:07.860 neck and neck, the Democrats are actually behind. 01:24:08.300 --> 01:24:17.020 And so the Democrats, and yes, me, and Harris, et cetera, should not actually 01:24:17.020 --> 01:24:21.540 think or act like they're ahead unless they're ahead by a lot. 01:24:22.620 --> 01:24:26.280 Not right on the edge, right on the edge. 01:24:26.560 --> 01:24:31.440 You treat like you're behind and maybe the polls are wrong in the opposite direction. 01:24:31.440 --> 01:24:35.920 This time I've talked on this show before about a variety of reasons why you 01:24:35.920 --> 01:24:43.260 might think that they're, you know, I've talked before about the, how midterm, how, 01:24:43.400 --> 01:24:47.620 how midterm special, special, how special elections have gone since the midterms 01:24:47.620 --> 01:24:53.540 and also have generally underestimated the Democrats or the Democratic position on referendums. 01:24:54.480 --> 01:25:00.240 And we've also talked about maybe pollsters are overcompensating for their errors 01:25:00.240 --> 01:25:01.480 in the last couple of cycles. 01:25:02.000 --> 01:25:05.580 We've talked about, look, there are a variety of other things. 01:25:05.640 --> 01:25:10.400 You can come up with all kinds of reasons why, hey, the polls are probably wrong 01:25:10.400 --> 01:25:12.000 in the opposite direction this time. 01:25:12.400 --> 01:25:18.900 But again, there's so much room there for motivated reasoning where you look 01:25:18.900 --> 01:25:24.680 for reasons why the Democrats may actually be in a better position than the 01:25:24.680 --> 01:25:27.060 polls indicate rather than in a worse position than the polls indicate. 01:25:27.380 --> 01:25:32.380 And I'm just like, you know, let's just look at the data from the previous years, use that assumption. 01:25:32.860 --> 01:25:36.680 Polls are going to be wrong and they have been wrong in the opposite direction 01:25:36.680 --> 01:25:39.300 before. It's not like they always underestimate Republicans. 01:25:40.000 --> 01:25:44.680 They sometimes underestimate Democrats. They underestimated Obama in one of the two years. 01:25:44.740 --> 01:25:50.240 I always forget which one, but you know, so yeah. 01:25:50.880 --> 01:25:56.020 So Harris is doing a lot better than Biden, but, and it's close to a toss up 01:25:56.020 --> 01:26:04.760 even like my, my odds, like I said, I think are between 28.9 and 38.7% chance for Harris. 01:26:05.120 --> 01:26:09.940 And I think we're probably really closer to the higher end end of that range 01:26:09.940 --> 01:26:16.760 than the lower end because polling error, the same pollsters are polling all the close states. 01:26:16.920 --> 01:26:20.380 And if they get one, if they have a systematic bias, it's probably going to 01:26:20.380 --> 01:26:21.620 apply to all the close states. 01:26:21.780 --> 01:26:26.120 So I think it's closer to the uniform swing probabilities than independent states, 01:26:26.280 --> 01:26:30.360 which means it's closer to the 38.7 than it is to the 28.9. 01:26:30.560 --> 01:26:35.340 So, and round the 38.7, we're basically talking a 40-60 race right now, 01:26:35.460 --> 01:26:42.020 which is close to a toss up Trump slightly favored, but we're basically talking, 01:26:42.180 --> 01:26:45.020 this is not a race that anybody has wrapped up. 01:26:45.080 --> 01:26:48.180 Either side could easily win right now. And. 01:26:49.830 --> 01:26:55.390 And Harris is doing great so far, but there's no letting up the gas, 01:26:55.590 --> 01:26:57.490 no letting up the gas at all. 01:26:57.590 --> 01:27:01.290 They have to keep this momentum through to 01:27:01.290 --> 01:27:09.270 November and hope that Trump stumbles some more and hope that the Democratic 01:27:09.270 --> 01:27:13.930 enthusiasm brings a lot of people out 01:27:13.930 --> 01:27:18.270 to vote who wouldn't otherwise while demoralized Republicans stay home, 01:27:18.370 --> 01:27:20.850 basically. That's the formula here. 01:27:21.430 --> 01:27:26.390 And that formula looks good right now. 01:27:27.630 --> 01:27:36.690 I'm hearing more and more anecdotal stories of people who voted for Trump in 2016, 01:27:37.210 --> 01:27:44.850 2020, or both, who are now at least thinking about Harris, some of which have flipped entirely, 01:27:45.510 --> 01:27:47.270 but who are at least thinking about it. 01:27:47.270 --> 01:27:50.130 That's anecdotal you know treat 01:27:50.130 --> 01:27:54.910 it for what it is but you hear a lot of that you i've seen people talking about 01:27:54.910 --> 01:28:02.570 how the overt signs of enthusiasm like people driving around with with trump 01:28:02.570 --> 01:28:09.050 flags on their truck and stuff like that is a lot less than it used to be even in the reddest of places, 01:28:09.870 --> 01:28:15.870 where you know those may still be trump voters but the enthusiasm the enthusiasm is flagging, 01:28:16.410 --> 01:28:22.730 so we'll see anyway that's the state i probably should do another election graphs 01:28:22.730 --> 01:28:30.590 post soon i don't know if i'll get to one this weekend or not i did one at the 100 day mark so it's been, 01:28:31.150 --> 01:28:36.850 that'll be two weeks tomorrow i guess can i do my math that i think that's right i don't know, 01:28:37.690 --> 01:28:42.650 maybe not i don't know sometime i i should probably do i need to be doing them 01:28:42.650 --> 01:28:47.110 more and more rapidly as the election approaches, but I don't have it in me 01:28:47.110 --> 01:28:52.070 quite yet to do it weekly or even every two weeks seems like, I don't know. 01:28:52.930 --> 01:28:56.350 Of course, I can do them more rapidly. 01:28:56.550 --> 01:29:00.770 If I do them more frequently, I don't have to do as big a post. 01:29:00.870 --> 01:29:05.250 I can do something quick, but I'll make another post sometime. 01:29:05.470 --> 01:29:09.110 I don't know when, this weekend or next week. I don't think I'll let it go past 01:29:09.110 --> 01:29:11.770 next weekend, but we'll see. Because there have been exciting developments. 01:29:12.170 --> 01:29:15.210 Harris first took the lead, then she dropped it again, then whatever. I don't know. 01:29:15.990 --> 01:29:20.490 I expect at this point, it's going to go back and forth a few times before things 01:29:20.490 --> 01:29:21.830 stabilize more, but we'll see. 01:29:22.530 --> 01:29:25.450 Okay. That's it. You guys know the drill. 01:29:26.830 --> 01:29:30.690 Election graph. No, I keep doing that. Election graphs.com. Yes. 01:29:30.690 --> 01:29:31.830 Look at election graphs.com. 01:29:32.010 --> 01:29:35.470 All kinds of good stuff there, but no curmudgeons hyphen corner.com. 01:29:35.730 --> 01:29:39.390 You can see our archives. You can read transcripts of recent episodes. 01:29:39.390 --> 01:29:46.210 You can find all the ways to contact myself and Yvonne and you can link to our 01:29:46.210 --> 01:29:48.230 Patreon where you can give us money. 01:29:49.150 --> 01:29:52.290 At various levels, we will mention you on the show. We will ring a bell. 01:29:52.410 --> 01:29:56.310 We will, what else will we do? Send you a postcard, send you a mug. 01:29:56.470 --> 01:30:00.950 And at $2 a month or more, we will invite you to their curmudgeons corner slack 01:30:00.950 --> 01:30:05.430 where Yvonne and I and others are talking throughout the week. 01:30:06.130 --> 01:30:08.570 It's a lot of fun. The more, the merrier. Please join us. 01:30:10.110 --> 01:30:14.210 And, oh yeah, I said $2 a month. Did I also say, or just ask us? 01:30:14.530 --> 01:30:18.490 I usually say that if I missed it or just ask us, we'll, we'll let you. 01:30:19.530 --> 01:30:23.270 And also, I haven't yet added a link to that site, but I mentioned earlier, 01:30:23.690 --> 01:30:33.150 youtube.com slash, slash, very exciting, slash, youtube.com slash at, 01:30:33.390 --> 01:30:37.530 the at sign, very important, curmudgeons-corner.com. 01:30:37.530 --> 01:30:44.750 We'll get you to the YouTube versions of these shows, which for the last, how long has it been now? 01:30:45.170 --> 01:30:51.450 This will be the sixth, no, fifth. There was one that I split into two separate parts, I guess. 01:30:52.370 --> 01:30:57.070 Fifth episode that I have live streamed while we're recording it. 01:30:57.070 --> 01:31:05.330 So you can get the unedited with all the ums and ahs and long pauses while I 01:31:05.330 --> 01:31:10.850 look things up, pauses while the dog is barking or Alex interrupts me, etc. 01:31:12.070 --> 01:31:18.590 All coughs, all kinds of things that get edited out of the audio version usually. 01:31:19.930 --> 01:31:24.550 Yeah, go check it out. Subscribe, click the notification bell. 01:31:24.550 --> 01:31:28.470 And eventually I'll add a link to the website for that, but I haven't yet. 01:31:30.130 --> 01:31:35.790 What else is left here? I usually do a, whatchamacallit, a thing from the Slack. 01:31:35.930 --> 01:31:38.610 Should I do a thing from the Slack before saying goodbye? 01:31:39.090 --> 01:31:43.450 I guess I should. It's tradition, although usually Yvonne does that. 01:31:44.750 --> 01:31:48.810 Oh, I know what I'll mention. I don't have a whole topic on this, 01:31:48.890 --> 01:31:51.110 but it's worth noting and making sure it's there. 01:31:51.590 --> 01:31:55.390 We have not talked about the war in Ukraine for a long, long time. 01:31:55.710 --> 01:32:00.750 This last week has had a significant development. Well, two significant developments I'll mention. 01:32:01.030 --> 01:32:05.070 Number one, the Ukrainians have invaded Russia now. 01:32:06.070 --> 01:32:11.490 Now, for a long time, they've been sending drones into Russia proper, 01:32:11.650 --> 01:32:15.110 attacking various military installations, 01:32:15.290 --> 01:32:21.110 things along those lines with drones and missiles and all kinds of other stuff. 01:32:21.450 --> 01:32:29.010 But they have done a ground incursion into Russia and not just special forces 01:32:29.010 --> 01:32:32.870 doing random little sabotage over the border, which they've done before. 01:32:33.190 --> 01:32:35.470 But they're actually taking and holding territory. 01:32:36.150 --> 01:32:40.770 As of the last update that I saw, they'd taken about 45 square miles, 01:32:40.970 --> 01:32:43.190 including a couple settlements and villages. 01:32:43.630 --> 01:32:50.310 They've got Russian forces retreating from those areas, civilians retreating for those areas. 01:32:50.370 --> 01:32:56.610 They're taking POWs as well. And meanwhile, Russian forces have had to move 01:32:56.610 --> 01:33:03.930 from other parts of the battlefield from inside Ukraine, 01:33:04.170 --> 01:33:11.490 have had to pull out in order to go defend Russia proper from the Ukrainians. 01:33:11.490 --> 01:33:17.110 And apparently the target of this, unlike the Russian invasion of Ukraine, 01:33:17.430 --> 01:33:22.830 as far as I know, there's no intention to permanently hold any of this territory. 01:33:23.230 --> 01:33:29.750 They are specifically doing this to remove a couple of military installations 01:33:29.750 --> 01:33:35.930 that were being continuously used to attack them and to divert those troops from other places. 01:33:36.790 --> 01:33:43.390 So we'll see how that goes. The other Ukrainian news is they are starting to 01:33:43.390 --> 01:33:52.730 deploy robot dogs on the front lines. 01:33:54.060 --> 01:34:02.720 Currently, the reports so far are not that these are weaponized robot dogs. I'm sure that's coming. 01:34:04.660 --> 01:34:13.120 The Ukrainian war has seen on both sides massive exploration of the ways that 01:34:13.120 --> 01:34:14.700 you can use drones in warfare. 01:34:15.040 --> 01:34:19.300 Drones have been used in warfare for a long time, especially the expensive ones, 01:34:19.300 --> 01:34:21.900 but even the cheaper ones. 01:34:22.040 --> 01:34:27.720 But they have really been working on taking off-the-shelf drones, 01:34:28.020 --> 01:34:34.440 adding weaponry to them, and using them as an active part of the battle on both sides in a way, 01:34:35.100 --> 01:34:37.900 to a scale that has not been seen before. 01:34:38.160 --> 01:34:42.360 And they're really iterating quickly on that technology, making it better and 01:34:42.360 --> 01:34:46.440 better, which is kind of scary, but it seems inevitable as well. 01:34:46.920 --> 01:34:53.220 Anyway, the robot dogs are apparently at least initially not going to be directly armed, 01:34:53.300 --> 01:35:00.620 but are being used essentially for spying and being able to sort of sneak up 01:35:00.620 --> 01:35:08.280 on enemy emplacements in a way that would be very risky for a human soldier to do, 01:35:08.400 --> 01:35:10.820 get some reconnaissance and return. 01:35:11.940 --> 01:35:15.700 Potentially some mind detection, some other things like that. 01:35:16.280 --> 01:35:22.520 But, you know, come on, let's be real. Somebody is going to strap guns or explosives 01:35:22.520 --> 01:35:29.160 to these things sooner rather than later, and that will be a part of how the war continues, 01:35:29.420 --> 01:35:32.480 even if right now they're using them for surveillance and stuff. 01:35:33.000 --> 01:35:36.220 Because also, the ones I've seen of these aren't that quiet, 01:35:36.660 --> 01:35:38.560 so I'm not sure they're the best for stealth. 01:35:38.740 --> 01:35:42.620 I guess it's still like, you know, compared to sending a human in, 01:35:42.760 --> 01:35:44.320 you're not risking the human. 01:35:44.460 --> 01:35:47.860 At worst, you're risking the dog, which isn't a real dog. 01:35:47.860 --> 01:35:50.900 But these things are still kind of expensive though compared 01:35:50.900 --> 01:35:53.720 to like a lot of the other warfare they're using with 01:35:53.720 --> 01:35:58.040 off-the-shelf drones that are not that expensive these dogs these robotic dogs 01:35:58.040 --> 01:36:01.700 are still a pretty penny so they're they're probably going to be careful with 01:36:01.700 --> 01:36:07.940 them but apparently they're deploying the robot dogs so i think that's it i'm 01:36:07.940 --> 01:36:11.680 gonna say goodbye now hopefully yvonne will be back next week hope you enjoyed 01:36:11.680 --> 01:36:13.340 the show even though it was just me, 01:36:14.120 --> 01:36:19.540 And if you've been watching on video, you've seen my son doing some things in 01:36:19.540 --> 01:36:22.120 the background at various times, interrupting a couple of times. 01:36:22.960 --> 01:36:25.640 You won't notice on the audio version, hopefully. 01:36:28.040 --> 01:36:32.220 I keep him in when he contributes, but when he just interrupts me, I edit those. 01:36:34.280 --> 01:36:39.660 Anyway, we're done. Thank you very much for joining us. Stay safe. Have a good week. 01:36:40.240 --> 01:36:47.960 Enjoy. Roy and I'll be back next week. Hopefully with Yvonne. See ya. Bye. 01:37:20.980 --> 01:37:25.780 Okay. I'm going to hit stop now. Anybody who's still left. Bye.