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- [00:00]
Kamala Harris
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- [00:38]
Tim Miller
Hello, Michigan State.
- [00:45]
Magic Johnson
And it's good to be in the.
- [00:47]
Bill Kristol
House of my dear friend Magic Johnson. Go green. All right. All right, East Lansing, are we ready to do this? Are we ready to vote? Are we ready to win? Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. That was Vice President Kamala Harris at her final rally in Michigan on Sunday evening, East Lansing, home of the Spartans. And she is a barn burner of a schedule over the next 48 hours. And I'm here today with Bill Kristol, of course, because it's Monday. How you doing, Bill?
- [01:33]
Tim Miller
Fine, Tim. How are you?
- [01:35]
Bill Kristol
The vice president has made a little change to the stump speech for the close. She's not mentioning Donald Trump anymore. What do you make about that? If anything?
- [01:44]
Tim Miller
I think that's wise. I think by now everyone knows what the alternative is. And Trump has spoken for himself over this last week quite well enough, I think, from Kamala Harris point of view.
- [01:54]
Bill Kristol
He has indeed. We're going to have much more to talk about that. But first, if there's a day to do horse race, it's the day before the election. And so I think we might as well do some horse race. Yesterday I had to do the emergency bonus pod with Queen Anne Seltzer, the outlier queen from Iowa, who once again kind of rattled the cage of the political world with a poll results that was out of step with what the trend had been. The last two presidential times she had done that in ways that made things look better for Trump. This time, the inverse. Wondering what you made of that and just kind of the broader what you're kind of seeing out there. Obviously, there are other polls. New York Times, Sienna NBC. There's been other polls over the weekend as well.
- [02:37]
Tim Miller
So on Ann Selzer, she's polled Iowa many times. She's been quite accurate. The last two times, she was right on the money with Trump's margin, I think seven and eight points right in 2016 and 2020. I remember so vividly that Saturday night in 2016, right before the election day, everyone thought Hillary was going to win. I was actually nervous because of Comey and Just it seemed like it was tightening some. And so I kind of thought there was a chance Trump would win, but I still thought Hillary would win. And I remember seeing that poll. I think she always drops it at 7pm Eastern time. Isn't that right? On Saturday night and talking to two friends, I still had Republican friends at this point. These were two Republican members of Congress from the Midwest, one a senator, one a House member. And both of them said, oh, my God, if I was really plus seven, I think, I think that's what you found in 2016. Plus eight or plus seven, I can't remember. For Trump, Wisconsin and Michigan are not easy for Hillary. I mean, they're not going to be eight points to the left of Iowa. They could be five points to the left of Iowa. And they were actually. And Hillary lost them by 1 and 2 points. And then in 2020, when there was a. When Biden was up by 8, 9, 10 points at a lot of the national polls, she showed again a Trump +8, which I think was exactly what happened, which suggested that the erosion was not nearly as bad from 2016. Unfortunately for Trump, luckily it was enough for him to lose. So she's been right the last two times she polls in a more traditional way. She doesn't do a lot of waiting. She doesn't assume, doesn't look back at the vote for 2020. She asked people what they, who they're for, are they going to vote and who are they? For now, Iowa, they have better response rates. It's such a, you know, such a nice state where they answer the phone and everything that maybe you can do it.
- [04:08]
Bill Kristol
Brand, I think also helps. You're calling from the Iowa poll in a time of losing trust. You know, I especially a time where she has been kind of favorable to Trump and Republicans. She mentioned on the pod yesterday, which I had forgotten, that she was also counter conventional wisdom on the Braley Ernst race in 14 in favor of Ernst, more so than the other pollsters. And so, you know, maybe there's like a trust building there and older population. There are a bunch of reasons where you could understand why maybe Iowa polling would be. Would have fewer problems than we see some other places.
- [04:40]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Or that you couldn't quite do what she's trying to do nationally. So to be fair to the other pollsters, they're not. It's not so obvious you could pull off what she pulls off in Iowa, but she has been accurate. I don't know. Everyone sort of immediately says, well, of course Trump's not gonna actually Lose the state by three. I mean, maybe he'll just win it by two or three. But even that would be a move from the seven grade he had the last two times and that would be a ballgame if everything else moved accordingly. Now, there are a couple of things one should say A, I'm not so sure Trump will. I mean, why can't you just be right? Maybe Trump will lose the state by three. People are being a little too quick to say, I don't know, she's the best pollster in Iowa. She has A plus the Harris. You know, she's the latest pollster. I mean, they've met a couple other people, hurried into the field to try to correct it and to herd back to plus seven or something. But I don't really trust those polls. Secondly, interesting question is for me is, I mean, obviously there's some spillover from Iowa to other states. If I was going to be plus three Harris, Harris is going to win. Wisconsin and Michigan, on the other hand, Iowa has had this been slightly different. I mean, the abortion issue has been really hot and central in Iowa. Yeah, they passed a very strict law. Given that Iowa is not Mississippi or Alabama seems particularly strict compared to some of its neighbors.
- [05:46]
Bill Kristol
Six weeks.
- [05:47]
Tim Miller
Six weeks. With very few exceptions. If I recall, it was much debated when it went into effect. I believe it's been a big issue at the state level in some of the races this November and in some of the congressional races, but a lot of advertising about it. It's front and center in people's minds. If it's less front and center in other people's minds in other states. If you already have a Democratic governor, you're not too worried perhaps about abortion rights, arguably it's a little less salient. So you can't just mechanically assume that because Iowa is, whatever it is, it's going to transfer one to one, so to speak, to other states. On the other hand, just to finish that up, though, I generally think Dobbs has been underrated at abortion. The abortion issue has probably been underrated this year, even in states where it's not sort of quite in people's face.
- [06:30]
Bill Kristol
So, yeah, I want to go a little deeper on the abortion thing, but just first, just on the demographic part of it. Yes. Just because Iowa moves, let's say she's wrong in the margin of error and that Trump actually wins Iowa by three or four. Right. Which is a three or four point move better than Biden. That does not mean that states are uniformly going to move three or four points to the left. There are a couple of reasons it could be for that. You know, one which you just mentioned the salient to the abortion issue. Another reason could be that, you know, the way to square the circle about why I was moving in a way that doesn't feel in touch with the national electorate is just demographics. I was super white. It's possible that Kamala Harris is doing better with white voters, particularly older white voters and particularly older white women, you know, which is what showed in the Seltzer poll, which ties the abortion point and at the same time is losing a little altitude with black and Hispanic men. We don't know this to be the truth, but there's some evidence of this in the polling. Right. And so you're moving three points in a very white in an older white state. That would not necessarily translate to Texas or whatever. I had several texts about, if this is Iowa, what's Texas? I'm like, well, the demographics of Iowa and Texas are very different, but the demographics of Iowa and Wisconsin are very the same. Okay, not exactly the same, but quite similar. And if you don't recall, Joe Biden won Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania last time. So if she's moving the right direction in Iowa, even if it's not as much as Seltzer says, that augurs almost certainly well for Wisconsin. I mean, it also would have to be way off for Wisconsin to be wrong, to be out of Harris column a little less in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Right. Because they have some different elements there that we could talk about, but still quite a few similarities. And so, all things considered, the thing that's so encouraging for me is kind of like she could be off by a lot and have it still be really good for Harris in the upper Midwest.
- [08:32]
Tim Miller
And there are other indications that are slightly in the same direction, I think. So I'd say in Texas. Texas, of course, had less of a margin for Biden than Iowa in 2020. I take the point that Texas wouldn't necessarily move as much as Iowa or may move at all. On the other hand, all red in several polls now has been within a couple of points of Cruz in Texas. In Nebraska, which is not too far from Iowa, I think, from my east coast provincial point of view, but I think they're sort of near each other, correct?
- [08:57]
Bill Kristol
That is correct. Actually, key Nebraska House district, Nebraska, too, is Omaha, which the media market bleeds into Iowa, and Council Bluffs, Iowa, gets Omaha ads. So actually, they have been advertised, too.
- [09:11]
Tim Miller
And the last poll there, I think had Paris plus 10 or 12, which was more in the district than Biden. And that Senate race has been surprisingly competitive. We'll see if Osborne the independent can really come back close or pull it off. But even so. And then Florida, where abortion has also been very much in the news. Scott has been in some independent polling only two or three points ahead. So I wonder if there is a little bit going on in the states which would include Texas and Florida, where abortion has been front and center. The gender gap is massive in Selzer's poll and Anne's poll in Iowa. I don't know if it can be as massive in other states. And there are other things going on in these other states, obviously, but it is different from the conventional polls, obviously. But there are indications that push a little bit in that direction in some of these other states. And finally, I think in Michigan, I just read. So Michigan has some Harris +1 poll. The Michigan, I think it's the Free Press poll. Who does, you know, serious guys done polling there forever. He did a bunch of polls this year. He didn't change his weighting from poll to poll, he said, because that would be kind of crazy. You can't change midstream. But he now thinks, looking at the early vote, that he has underweighted younger voters, minority voters and women. Just from the looking at the people who are actually out there voting, again, the early vote can be off. Maybe women are disproportionately voting early, et cetera. And people don't quite understand. If you have a systematic underweighting of 1 or 2 or 3 percentage points of big groups of the population that are skewing strongly in one direction. So you're underweighting. If you underweight a group that's voting 50, 50, it doesn't matter much, right? But if you underweight a vote that's a group that's voting 85, 15, like blacks or 60, 40, even like women, you could be off by two or three points in your final numbers. That seems to be what he's hinting, at least in a kind of good faith way.
- [10:54]
Bill Kristol
I think just a couple of nerdy points on this. I was going to save it to the end, but we're already in the muck now, so we'll just get into the early vote nerdy stuff and the polling stuff. So for people who don't understand, the simplest way to explain the weighting is you can't just call a thousand people and just look at the numbers from the 1000. You answer, particularly these days, because all 1000 will be people over 50. It's very gentle like just, just looking just at age. It's very challenging to get 18 to 30 year olds on the phone and so you know, at minimum you have to weight by age. Also there are racial particularly in diverse states which makes Anselt's job easier. Right. Like you don't, you can't do a thousand poll and have 980 of them be white people in Georgia. So there, there's some minimal waiting you have to do. And Seltzer does it based just on gender, on age and on demographics. Right. But what happened in 2016 was nobody was waiting for college education and non college people weren't answering the phones as much as college educated voters were. And that's what caused the Trump Ms. In short there are other things that happened but that's like the main thing that happened that caused the Trump miss because Trump was doing way better among non college and so people to try to fix that started waiting to all this other stuff like college attainment. We mentioned with Anne Seltzer 2020 vote. And the more stuff you wait to, the more you're guessing what the electorate's going to be rather than letting the electorate tell you what it's going to be. That's a sum up.
- [12:24]
Tim Miller
Yeah. And just one footnote on that. That's a very good explanation actually. You should really take that on the road. It was very clear. But also Democrats seem to partly this relates to college education, seem to answer the phone or talk to pollsters a little more than Republicans. So if you know that your state's sort of 5050 Republican, Democrat and suddenly you've got a 20 point gap in Democrats answering your phone, you've got a problem. Now you could wait it back to 50 50, but do you wait it to exactly 50 50? You don't know if it's going to be 50 50, maybe it's 48, 52. So there's I agree especially the judgments that are not judgments of age and the gender which are mostly baked in though not entirely because you don't know exactly what the age distribution of the vote will be or the gender distribution but they're more solid, let's say.
- [13:05]
Bill Kristol
Correct.
- [13:05]
Tim Miller
But when you start waiting to recall vote or to order party id, which a lot of people are doing and it's to say they don't, they sort of have to almost. On the other hand it's very unreliable and I think she does not do that. Right. She does. She only waits to objective factors, if I could put it that way, not to geography.
- [13:23]
Bill Kristol
She wants it also Iowa makes it easy. It's only four congressional districts. And again, there's a lot of ways it makes it easier for her, but this is why it makes her more reliable. She waits to each of the four congressional districts because you want to make sure you're getting enough rural and etc. So I guess my final caveat on this is when you do real statistics like Anna's doing, you have real outliers. Right. Like that's the other thing with our there's a reason why we don't have outliers on the other ones because they're not really doing random sampling polling, they're doing modeling. And so you don't have outliers when you're modeling. Anyway, that's enough nerd talk for today. One more thing on the early vote, which is interesting to the Detroit pollster, what he said, because you are getting a cross current of indicators. So if you're just obsessively refreshing X right now and you follow a bunch of election nerds, you'll see Republican election nerds being like, the rural turnout is huge and that's great for us. And the black turnout in the city is down a little bit. And that's what they're hanging their hat on. And that's true. And that's something that's a little concerning. And it's going to be the job of the Harris turnout operation today and tomorrow to balance that out. But then on the other side of the ticket, there's a 10% gender gap right now.
- [14:31]
Tim Miller
10%.
- [14:32]
Bill Kristol
That is the little stat that connects to Selcer. I'm like, if that, if that maintains and we go from whatever it usually is, obviously that's good news for the vice president. So that ties into your abortion article from yesterday. You mentioned that earlier, but you wrote over the weekend just about how it's not as if people haven't been talking about abortion. But looking back at the midterm, looking what we've seen from Early Vote and Seltzer, it just might be as simple as Roe.
- [15:00]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Looking at those referenda in states, in red states where abortion rights were defended and abortion restrictions were defeated, that's pretty striking. Now, maybe it doesn't translate. I've been sort of uncertain that it would translate in a presidential election. If people think especially if their rights are safe in their own states, that's where you get to the Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania having Democratic governors kind of situation. Maybe they don't vote on it at the national level. On the other hand, Dobbs Carville made this point to me in a conversation just a month ago. He's kind of simple, but as always with James, very perceptive. Dobbs is kind of a big deal and I do feel like a certain number of our friends, and maybe I'm a little guilty of this too. We want to analyze a million different things. Harris's campaign and Trump's campaign and the economy and immigration and we're balancing all these issues. Dobbs is actually, I mean, immigration, fine. It's been an issue forever. Biden's messed it up some that he maybe corrected himself. You could argue about it forever, you know, Haitians and you can demagogue it. The economy's got a little better. Dobbs is just a big thing that happened in the last cycle. New news makes the most difference. What's new since the last cycle, January 6th. Some of us have been a little disappointed that hasn't made more of a difference against Trump. Maybe it still is a little bit. Ukraine, most people don't vote on that. I will stipulate. And Dobbs really. And so I feel maybe it just is big enough to move 3, 4, 5, 6 points. Maybe it'll make the whole difference, really this time. People don't like quite acknowledging that for various reasons, both kind of good and bad, I would say. But it's a true thing that really happened that has had real effects in real states that have been much publicized and that you can plausibly argue that who you vote for for president, but also for Senate and for governor, that it will affect policy in that area going forward. Right. It has the elements of what makes an issue a voting issue, it seems to me.
- [16:52]
Bill Kristol
Yeah. And just the one sentence I'd add to that is that Republicans have done an awful job at taking the air out of the issue. Just awful. Right. I mean, Lindsey Graham got much maligned for saying when Dobbs first was overturned, like, maybe we should just have a national 20 week, like standard and rules. And as it turns out, I probably would have hurt Republicans in the midterms because I would have done more poorly in the blue states where they picked up seats like New York and California. But for this presidential election, it might have helped somewhat because just like the draconian nature of the six week laws, the five week logs, these horrific stories that the campaign's been able to run on, and Trump and Vance's inability to have any coherent message about this is also going to be something they're going to look back on with regret if they don't win tomorrow night. Long time listeners of the podcast know that. Well, I'm not really a pet man. A pet of sorts adopted our family recently. The name was Aretha because the cat came up onto our front porch as we were blaring Aretha Franklin one morning. We later found out that the cat is a boy. So it's a boy named Aretha. But ever since then, he's been coming around trying to eat some little snacks, you know, hang out, cuddle up on the Varka lounger. And that cat has never been happier than when we turned from the random cat food we were buying at the store and upgraded to Smalls. Smalls cat food is protein packed with preservative free ingredients you'd find in your fridge and it's delivered right to your door. That's why cats.com names Smalls their best overall cat food. Smalls was started back in 2017 by a couple of guys home cooking cat food in small batches with their friends. A few short years later, they've served millions of meals to cats all across the United States. You know, for me, another big plus for it. It's not just that Aretha likes it, not just that the neighborhood cat is happier now, but the smell is much more pleasant. I mean, you can just sense that the Smalls cat food has real food and ingredients in there. It's not stinking up the front porch. And, you know, that's a win for everybody. After switching to smalls, 88% of cat owners reported having overall health improvements. That's a big deal. The team at Smalls is so confident your cat will love their product that you can try it risk free. That means they will refund you if your cat won't eat their food. So give your cat the gift of great cat food this holiday season. Head to smalls.com thebullwark and use promo code thebullwork at checkout for 50% off your first order plus free shipping. That's the best offer you'll find, but you have to use my code. TheBullWork for 50% off your first order. One last time. That's promo code. TheBullWork for 50 percent off your first order plus free shipping. Trump is. I wrote down the word unraveling. I hate that word because he's like, he's unraveled. There's no Ravel to undo with him. I wanted to play the vice president at the beginning because say what you want, but she, she has energy, she seems happy, she seems invigorated out there and he is blustering and low energy and rambly. And there are a couple of lines from the weekend where he ended up venting some frustrations that I want to listen to. Let's first hear from Donald Trump talking about whether maybe the press might need to take some heat.
- [20:25]
Donald Trump
And I have this piece of glass here, but all we have really over here is the fake news. Right. And to get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news. And I don't mind that so much because I don't mind.
- [20:53]
Bill Kristol
Remember the Liz Cheney discourse about how, oh, he was just calling her a chicken hawk or can we parse the language? Well, here he is again for the second time in the week, fantasizing about having his enemies be shot. Yeah.
- [21:06]
Tim Miller
The violence is a feature, not a bug. Right. Or the threat of violence or the relishing of potential violence against enemies. Absolutely.
- [21:14]
Bill Kristol
Yeah. And then we have this about his regrets about the end of his last term.
- [21:20]
Donald Trump
The country. The day that I left, I shouldn't have left. I mean, honestly, because we did so. We did so well. We had such a great. So now, I mean, every, every polling booth has hundreds of lawyers standing there. It's all about the lawyers. Everybody's standing lawyers. Nobody should have that.
- [21:40]
Bill Kristol
A lot to unpack there. I shouldn't have left is a very, it's a very specific way to put that. You know, I guess you could imagine if you're being generous, Donald Trump saying something like, you know, I should have been reelected. Right. Like we should have stuck the course. You know, the Joe Biden has taken us off path. I shouldn't have left though, was pretty ominous way to put it.
- [22:06]
Tim Miller
Yeah. It strikes me also, don't you think it's the kind of thing you say when you don't think you're going to get back in and you therefore shouldn't have left in the first place. I feel like there's a little bit of him sort of acknowledging that he doesn't think he's going to win tomorrow.
- [22:20]
Bill Kristol
Little psychoanalyze. I try not to psychoanalyze him. I don't like being inside the brain. The other element of it, you have the lawyers, you know, and I guess it's kind of like this is even need to be said on this podcast. But it's like the only reason there are lawyers everywhere is him. All of this is self inflicted. I was multitasking my football on in the background yesterday. And his like kind of the closing ad that they're running, like in the 92nd ad about how Kamala broke It and Trump will fix it ran. And it was just so striking to me listening to it. Actually I want to play just like the last 20 seconds of it. Let's listen to that.
- [22:56]
Donald Trump
And we are going to launch a new golden age of American success for the citizens of every race, religion, color and creed.
- [23:07]
Kamala Harris
Remember, Kamala broke it. President Trump will fix it.
- [23:11]
Bill Kristol
I was listening to this and it's like it's almost a winning message. Like if it wasn't Trump, right? Like if the candidate was different, you know, you could imagine a world where they're offering, look, you know, we're going to change the course. People are unhappy with inflation, people are unhappy with the border and the uncertainty around the world. And you know, we need to reinvigorate the country and we need to unite the country back together. But like that message, just in contrast to everything that Donald Trump puts out into the meat space of like the actual news, it just doesn't work. It's all been so self inflicted. Like the obsessions about 2020 we just mentioned, the abortion stuff, the shooting of the press, all of this stuff. It's such a contrast to 2016 where he really did let the more effective part of his message draining the swamp, American carnage, blah, blah, blah. He let that lead in the end and they were unable to do that this time.
- [24:13]
Tim Miller
And of course Comey with Clinton led for those last 10 days and Clinton was the story, not Trump and he gained as a result. And I think that's Even true in 2020. People think when they look back, I don't remember that quite as well because weird with the pandemic and stuff, but he managed to stay out of threatening violence, even more violence and so forth, or doing truly crazy things. Yeah, I mean, look, his paid campaign has always, I think has been strong. I mean he. And it shows you that a normal Republican, if Mitch McConnell had led the Senate to convict Trump in 2021 and if it's not 100% certain, but if that had been understood to preclude him from running again and if he had accepted that preclusion and if the Republican Party had accepted it and if he.
- [24:53]
Bill Kristol
Moved to Elba and you know, whatever and been banished and had his Twitter taken and had all communications devices taken away from him, but if he were.
- [25:01]
Tim Miller
Not the nominee, I guess is what I'm trying to say in a long winded way, yeah, the Republicans would probably be winning this race. Biden Paris is not a very popular administration. There are plenty of things to complain about. The world is kind of chaotic and the country and the economy is good, in fact, but you know, inflation and so forth. So maybe they could have handled Dobbs sort of as you were suggesting earlier, in a defter way a regular candidate could have, certainly. I think Nikki Haley could have. And I think that person would probably be ahead of Harris. Certainly ahead, incidentally of incidentally. Here's another kind of bizarre thing about writing this thought experiment. Of course, if it hadn't been Trump, maybe Biden wouldn't have suggested the June 27 debate. Right. Because it's such a weird thing, such an early debate. Biden, therefore Biden would be the nominee. What does a Nikki Haley, Joe Biden race look like at this point, which is entirely possible. Alternative history. Right. And instead we have Trump and Harris. So maybe in this case these contingent events, the gods decided to do a favor for the United States of America.
- [25:59]
Bill Kristol
God willing, you're left to the God's ears and back on down, I guess. Yeah, I have a little bit of clarity on this Monday morning. Sometimes it's tough, you're in the muck to know what is landing, what is breaking through, what is just stuff that political obsessives are talking about. And what I did Ponzi of America last week and John Lovett asked me, he's like, is this one going to break through? And I'm like, I don't fucking know what's going to break through. It's hard in the moment to tell, except for like in extreme circumstances, but with a little bit of distance. I just, I do think that the last two weeks have been really bad for him and really formulated around MSG that all of this other stuff, the threats of violence, the John Kelly, it just has been an inverse of 2016 and 2020 in the Information environment. We've seen numbers showing that late deciding voters are breaking for Harris. We saw it in Iowa, Pluff saying that internal says that Cohn said that his New York Times Sienna poll said that. And then we had this. My favorite story of the weekend. Huffington Post went to a supermarket in a Puerto Rican neighborhood in Pennsylvania interviewing people coming in and out of the supermarket. And they interviewed one person who said that they saw Trump's decision to pose in a garbage truck at a campaign stop as an additional insult. If he didn't have nothing to do with it, what's he doing in the garbage truck? I just, I love this story so much. It's like this too cute by half effort to like try to do a bank, triple bank shot attack. It's really biden calling you garbage. No one got that. Except for viewers of the Five on Fox. Like regular people are just looking at seeing the pictures of Trump in the garbage truck and connecting it to the Puerto Rico garbage joke, which really gives me a lot of pleasure.
- [27:49]
Tim Miller
Yeah, no, that's a wonderful story. I was struck by that too. No, and I think Trump's been dominating the news for the last 10 days. And in that respect, Harris is probably wise, don't you think, to get back to what we started with, to simply have a positive message at the very end. I hope some of the other groups are reminding people about Dobbs and about a few other things about Trump's agenda, even the downside of his economic agenda. But Harris herself should be upbeat.
- [28:16]
Bill Kristol
I felt like I left a little bit on the bone with Medi Hasan on Friday on this topic. Not the Gaza protesters. We covered that pretty fulsomely. It's Jeffrey Epstein and Trump because I just like, it is wild. If you spend any time in the manosphere, the conservative right wing media world, there's this obsession over that there's some deep state Jeffrey Epstein conspiracy, that the Clintons are involved and like the frazzled drip and all the, you know, the pizza and John Podesta. Who the hell knows who's involved with this? Bill Gates. And yet Donald Trump was president when Epstein was killed. He was in federal custody, which was run by Bill Barr, whose former law firm had some connections to Epstein. And then we've had two stories over the last two weeks about Trump's connections with Epstein. One was a woman talking about her experience with Epstein and Trump. And then over the weekend we had Michael Wolf releasing some tapes of Epstein himself talking about Trump. I want to listen to both of those back to back when Jeffrey looked.
- [29:26]
Virginia Giuffre
At me and said, you know, let's go stop by and see Trump. And so we went to Trump Tower and went up the elevator and moments later Trump was greeting us and he pulled me into him and started groping me. He put his hands all over my breasts, my waist, my butt. And I froze. And I froze because I was so deeply confused.
- [30:08]
Bill Kristol
So how do you know wolves closest? I was Donald's best friend for 10 years. That was Epstein responding to Wolf there at the end. I guess I have two thoughts. All of the Trump sexual assault stories are the same, you know, so it's like if you're ever wondering for any evidence about whether are women, is this true or women making this up or like whatever, are they just trying to get attention? It's like everyone's stories is exactly the same. They're independent of each other, and they're all exactly the same as how Trump described the way that he treats women in the Access Hollywood tapes. And so to have that just grotesque behavior tied to his continued, continued evidence of an extensive relationship with Epstein, I don't know, feels like that should be another major thing that people are talking about. Seems as important as the Comey letter to me. I guess, as for the final week of the campaign, and maybe it is.
- [31:03]
Tim Miller
Affecting women, senior votes, including especially senior women. I mean, these women whom he was groping are in some cases, this was 20 years ago, and they're now in their whatever, 40s, 50s or something like that, 60s, I don't know. Women of my age have had similar experiences, I believe, in their 40, 50 years ago, in their work careers and in their social, social lives. And I wonder how much of that is kicking in a little bit beneath the surface. That fantastic Julia Roberts ad that the right went crazy about where she's encouraging women to vote as they wish in the privacy of the voting booth and they don't have to tell their husbands how they voted. And I love the rights. Going crazy about that, I thought. Didn't you think it was very revealing somehow? It was so disproportionate and nuts, basically. It's like, who's ever heard of such a thing? The American family has got a crater if one spouse isn't entirely honest with the other. Like, what world have they been living in, you know?
- [31:59]
Bill Kristol
Yeah. And this idea, it's kind of also about control.
- [32:01]
Tim Miller
Yes, right.
- [32:02]
Bill Kristol
Yes, it is. Like, there's a lot about control. Like, it should be, the man should have control over the vote in the House. It's overcompensating for something for sure. It ties to all of this. Right. It ties to the abortion stuff. We've been talking out of the top to Trump's behavior. The one of the Harris lines which first took over at the nomination, which was like, I know his type. You know, I was thinking about that line again as you were discussing, like, there is going to be certainly a generation of women that know his type. And it's been a long. Which will take us to our next topic. A fucking too long hobby horse for my nine years. Like, ever since, however long, whatever, ever since December of 2016, that, like, because Trump won after Access Hollywood, there became this conventional wisdom that people didn't care about Access Hollywood. And I continue to just say, like, that it was just wrong. Some people were impacted by it. Not enough People and there were, people didn't know like people didn't know all the details. People didn't know the stories about all the women and they knew some of it. And you know, over time he's increasingly revealed and it's been increasingly revealed thanks to other women coming forward. Like everything that he bragged about on that bus to Billy Bush is exactly how he behaved. And hopefully some of the women that Ann Seltzer talked to in Iowa know his type and don't want somebody like that around, you know.
- [33:27]
Tim Miller
Well said, well said.
- [33:28]
Bill Kristol
What do we want to do? Prediction first or exhortation first? How about prediction first? Where are you at? Bill Kristol? You were, I should remind people, I should remind people. You were a little, you were a little Seltzer ish yourself. During the midterms there was I guess a range of views at the Bulwark about the midterms and the red wave. There are a couple catastrophizers who won't be named. I was sort of in the middle. I thought it was going to be a strong night for Republicans but not, not as strong as the polls said. But it went better than I expected. Like for example, I thought Gary Lake was going to win in Arizona and I thought Cortez Master was going to lose in Nevada. So those are two states I was wrong about once. I'd love to be wrong about those again. But you were the most bullish I believe in 2022 about the Democrats chances. So I wonder if you could talk about why that was then and what you're thinking now.
- [34:18]
Tim Miller
I mean in 2022, I think I was following the polls and everyone else was following history and a presumption that we know what happens in off year elections. The party in power just gets clobbered and that was going to have to happen even though these elections are less, more different from each other than one might expect. And there were reasons why it ended up being a more neutral, let's say result. I think nationally I don't know what's going to happen obviously. I even hate to say what I kind of do think because I don't want to jinx anyone but an evil eye and all that and I'm a superstitious guy. But having said all that, no pressure.
- [34:50]
Bill Kristol
If you don't want to jinx it, you can write it down on a piece of paper and take a picture of it next to the newspaper and we can see if you are right.
- [34:56]
Tim Miller
I feel I should share it with all your viewers and listeners. You know I think Harris is going to win. I do think there's a bit of a late break. I think maybe the polling is not captured from the beginning, the gender gap also I think the minority, the notion that minorities were deserting Harris will turn out not to have been true, maybe somewhat with Hispanic, young, Hispanic, Latino men, but not, I don't think with African Americans in any significant numbers. And I think the turnout could be pretty good. So I think Harris wins and I think we know the winner by basically no, I mean not know for 100% certain, but know well enough the winner by midnight Tuesday night.
- [35:32]
Bill Kristol
Midnight Tuesday night. Let's just talk about that for one second then. So the way it works, Georgia is really sped up how they're going to count. So Georgia closes at 7:00 on Tuesday night. And if it's not that close in Georgia, we could know who won Georgia by 9, 9, 9:30. They changed the way they count to make it more like how Florida does, where they count quickly. They pre count votes have come in early. North Carolina then goes at 7:30. It's the one state where I can't get a good read on how long it's going to take. I've had some people catastrophize about North Carolina and others tell me that they think it will also be relatively quick. Not as quick as Georgia, but maybe like by midnight we could know North Carolina, Michigan closes, we're going to see in Michigan and Wisconsin is what we all saw last time. Right. Which is an early wave and then kind of subsequent dumps from Milwaukee and Detroit that help, that help the Democrats. Those kind of cities will come in kind of around midnight, around that time that you talked about. So long story short, we will probably know Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Michigan, at least directionally. I don't know if by midnight, but around that time. And so depending on how close the election is, I mean if those states are split and Pennsylvania is going to take till Wednesday, maybe Thursday morning, maybe Thursday night for Pennsylvania, then it could be longer. But if those states, you know, are three one one direction and Pennsylvania kind of looks like it's that direction, then I think that would be the scenario where we would know, you know, late on Tuesday evening or early Wednesday morning.
- [37:13]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I would just add two quick points. I mean when I say no, I don't mean literally that there will necessarily be more votes on the board for Harris, let's say, than for Trump and at 12:01am Wednesday morning from Michigan or even from, or Wisconsin for that matter. But I think we'll know in the sense that we'll have enough precincts, we'll have enough data, we'll have a sense of what the margin is going to be, what the turnout will have been in those areas that are coming in late that are good for Harris. So we can do a pretty high confident projection. That's how people do after all, call these states. I mean maybe not 100% confidence, but pretty high confidence. I think that's quite possible. I don't know if that'll be the case. We learn something from non swing states just by looking at the margins. Right. And we might know by it might be totally indeterminate. The margins might be exactly what they were in 2020 or 2016. They might be fluctuating. In some states, as we've been discussing, Harris might be doing a little better than she did than Biden did in 2020. In other states the margin might be a little greater. On the other hand, if consistently the margin is in one direction. If Indiana and Kentucky to take two states that are not going to be competitive closed in 2016. But you can look both statewide and it's sort of Louisville suburbs and Indianapolis suburbs which presumably are somewhat reflecting suburbs in other states and Michigan and Wisconsin and so forth. And if they're consistently running, I don't know, three points better for Harris than they were for Biden. That would tell you something. So again, when I say no, I don't mean no like 100% knowledge, final vote count. I mean have a very good sense of where this election is going. And I don't think that's impossible.
- [38:44]
Bill Kristol
It's not the full bill. Chris Will Hopium that Georgia will be called by for Kamala Harris by 9:30 and we'll just all be on easy street. That's not where you're, that's not where you're going.
- [38:51]
Tim Miller
I'm thinking Georgia could be called Georgia. Georgia and North Carolina could both be called by 9:30 or 10. They certainly were in 2016. I remember sitting there on the ABC set next to Stephanie Carter and watching Florida not come through, which everyone thought was the key State in 2016. The Clinton campaign spent more there than anyone else. And then watching going up the coast, this is the way I think of it. I made up this slightly not correct but that somehow we Florida went bad and then Georgia went bad and then North Carolina went bad and it was like, okay, give up on all the southern states. Now it's the blue wall. And then the stuff started to come in around 9, 9:30.
- [39:23]
Bill Kristol
Okay, okay, okay. I can't do anymore. I can't do anymore. We're not going back. We're not going back. All right, finally, your morning shots this morning. We should end there. It's good. I get a lot of this same question, which is, you got to be tired, you got to be sick, you got to be whatever. And you wrote about how you are not exhausted, dispirited, or discouraged, and you feel like you've had the privilege to be allowed to fight a good and worthwhile fight. I'm there, too, but I want you to just share a little more about that.
- [39:51]
Tim Miller
No, I guess. I mean, I also. Everyone says you must be exhausted. I am a little exhausted and tired and at times depressed by what we've seen about the country and about some of our friends and former friends. But I also. It's been, you know, it's been the good fight. It's been inspiring to fight it with you and with our other colleagues at the Bulwark and with all of our readers and viewers and with many people beyond in the not just endeavor Trump world, but the pro democracy world and pro freedom world. And I feel in that respect, one doesn't want to overdo how much of a burden it's been. It's been, you know, we've been doing the right thing. I hope we win. But either way, it's been sort of inspiring almost to be fighting what I. I think really is the right fight. And as I said in the piece, it's not that I'm so smart that I understand exactly what the right fight is all the time. I've made plenty of mistakes in that respect. But I feel like I look around at the people I'm fighting with, and I feel, you know what? This is the right. The right people to be on the same side as.
- [40:46]
Bill Kristol
Amen, brother. I'm with you. And God forbid you're wrong in your prediction, I'm going to keep fighting with you until we don't got to fight no more. I don't want to leave people on that. I should have left people on your positive note. Shouldn't I have? Come on, it's the Bulwark podcast. We got to keep people. People steeled. You know, you don't want to be too high on your own supply going into election day. Bill Kristol. It's just. It's been an honor to do this with you every Monday, and I look forward to doing it with you next Monday, hopefully with the president elect, Kamala Harris.
- [41:17]
Tim Miller
Same here on both counts. Tim.
- [41:18]
Bill Kristol
All right, guys, we are. I don't know. As I sit here today taping this at 8:49am on Monday, I think we're probably about 40 hours to freedom and we're not going back. I'll see you all tomorrow for another edition of the Bulwark Podcast. Peace.
- [41:34]
Magic Johnson
You got your hair permed, you got your red dress on screaming that second gear was such a turn on and the fog forming on my window Tells me that the morning's here and you'll be gone before too long. Who taught you those new tricks? Damn, I shouldn't start that talk. But life is one big question when you're staring at the clock and the answer's always waiting at the liquor store. 40 ounces to freedom. So I take that walk and I know that's.
- [42:38]
Bill Kristol
The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.