The US Election - An American Horror Story?

[00:00:03] The last few days of the race for the White House. The closest contest for a generation. And one that has polarised the US like no other. Harris supporters accused Trump of planning a fascist transformation and tariffs that will crash international trade. Trump backers say Harris is a communist who will open the borders and lead the nation to disaster. And this is a race that matters for the whole world. The US is still the only one.

[00:00:30] Indispensable nation.

[00:00:31] So four days out, what is going to happen and how will America and the world deal with the aftermath?

[00:00:37] The why curve.

[00:00:39] Do you know what, I wonder whether, I mean we are all quite worried aren't we about you know the way this is going to turn out. If it is Donald Trump, are we going to find these massive tariffs that are just going to bring the whole globe.

[00:00:51] If he means it, exactly.

[00:00:53] So there is the question about how much he actually, you know, how much he seems to be a lot of riffing going on. He talks like when you are talking for three hours at a time, you know, you are just going to make stuff up.

[00:01:05] Well, no one really knows. And the point as before, as back in 2016 is who his team are. That's what really matters because they're the ones who will actually probably get things done.

[00:01:15] Yeah.

[00:01:15] I mean, you know, he just says whatever comes out of his mouth at the time. I don't think it necessarily forms any particularly logical position.

[00:01:22] And obviously, J.D. Vance, who seems if he gets in likely to be a fairly activist vice president. Yeah.

[00:01:30] Perhaps a bit more activist than Kamala Harris.

[00:01:32] And then Elon Musk. Yeah.

[00:01:34] As well, you know, helping to drive the agenda with the ability to amplify the messages that much further as well, you know, with the promise that he will have a role in the new government too.

[00:01:43] But we don't know. I mean, the thing is, at this stage, everything I've seen, I mean, we're going to hear in a minute from someone who's seen it right up close, suggests it is still too close to call.

[00:01:54] You know, it's the swing states. It's the classic thing. It's only certain states that really make a difference.

[00:01:59] And when I think it's in Nebraska, there's one particular area that could make a difference.

[00:02:04] I mean, in a tiny area that would actually make a difference in the electoral college, which is the weirdness of the system.

[00:02:09] Yeah, it is a weird system, isn't it? And will he go quietly if he loses? That's the question.

[00:02:14] And the answer to that is almost certainly no, isn't it? So what can he do?

[00:02:18] So he's talking about this little secret he's got.

[00:02:20] Oh, really?

[00:02:21] Yeah. He says, you know, he thinks that they'll gain the Senate pretty easily, but he's got a little secret about how they're going to gain the House, whatever that might be.

[00:02:31] It involves Mike Johnson. Well, maybe. It involves Mike Johnson, the Republican.

[00:02:35] Storming Congress?

[00:02:35] Well, I don't know. Well, I mean, let's talk to our guest today about this one.

[00:02:39] Because it's interesting because this is a story that has emerged over the last couple of days.

[00:02:42] So let's talk to...

[00:02:44] Yep. Dr. Thomas Gift. He's Associate Professor of Political Science in the UCL School of Public Policy.

[00:02:49] Founding Director also of the UCL Centre on American Politics.

[00:02:53] He's been on the programme before and he's here now.

[00:02:56] A couple of times. Yeah. And he's here again.

[00:02:57] So, Thomas, yes, this idea that Donald Trump is saying that to win the House, he's got this little secret, him and Mike Johnson, that is going to have a big impact.

[00:03:09] Have you any idea what they're talking about?

[00:03:11] I mean, there is some speculation that he's talking about, well, if it's contested, if it's a close draw, then the House is going to decide.

[00:03:17] And he's got a way of using the House to basically make the decision.

[00:03:23] I admittedly have not heard that. So this is news to me. I'm not always exactly up to date.

[00:03:29] Phil listens to some pretty dodgy broadcasts, I have to say.

[00:03:32] Well, it was in the Guardian, actually.

[00:03:34] Well, that's really intriguing.

[00:03:37] I'd be hesitant to speculate too much, given that I haven't covered that.

[00:03:41] Well, let's take the thing head on and say, as we are now, we will be when this is broadcast, which is four days out from the actual day of voting.

[00:03:52] What? I mean, when you've been the last time you were with us and you've been with us before several times, you were calling it essentially for Trump saying that was the most likely outcome.

[00:04:00] Do you still feel that?

[00:04:01] I think at this point it's really a toss up.

[00:04:04] And, you know, I hate to not be more definitive, unfortunately.

[00:04:08] But if you look at the polls, it really is neck and neck.

[00:04:11] That's true nationally when it's where it's about 47, 48, Trump or Harris, depending on the poll that you look at.

[00:04:19] And it's especially true in swing states.

[00:04:21] You know, some recent polling aggregators show that literally in every single state that could determine this election, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, et cetera.

[00:04:32] They are all within the margin of error.

[00:04:34] It's historically close.

[00:04:36] I think that anyone who is kind of making a prediction here is just basing it more on a hunch than anything else.

[00:04:43] And that's down, as you say, to the polls.

[00:04:45] Now, one of the interesting things with the polls, and I've been following some of what even the pollsters are saying, is that like the last time with Trump, you can't necessarily tell.

[00:04:55] People will not tell pollsters what they're doing necessarily.

[00:04:59] They won't even be honest about it.

[00:05:00] Someone said to me that a lot of women, for example, and there's a lot about women's rights in this election who are in perhaps Republican families will just actually vote against Trump because of the issues to do with reproductive rights, but won't tell anyone.

[00:05:16] And then you also on the other side, though, you get people who are Trump supporters, maybe a little bit embarrassed about it and don't want to say that they are.

[00:05:22] And then there's the third type, which are the people who are, you know, anti-establishment types who support Trump, who will say if they get asked, they'll say they support Kamala Harris because they think that that will incite more people.

[00:05:37] If the polls are swinging in her favor, that'll force more Trump supporters out to vote.

[00:05:43] You know, so are people gaming the system?

[00:05:46] So, yeah, we really don't know.

[00:05:48] How much can we trust the polls?

[00:05:49] That's the question.

[00:05:49] We can't.

[00:05:50] I think all of those possibilities that you just outlined are certainly realistic and they may just wash out in the end.

[00:05:56] But the one thing that we know is that polls are limited in what they can tell us.

[00:06:00] You know, they're useful for what they are, but I think reading too much into them is a mistake.

[00:06:06] I mean, anytime you're talking about polls that are within the margin of error, especially even small blips, there's a tendency to overread them.

[00:06:15] My colleague at UCL, Brian Kloss, who writes for The Atlantic, actually had a terrific piece that just came out yesterday on shortcomings of polls.

[00:06:24] So I certainly encourage listeners to go there for a really in-depth analysis.

[00:06:29] But, yeah, all these polls have sort of different methodologies.

[00:06:33] They sample different voters.

[00:06:35] Voters who participate are unlike voters who don't participate.

[00:06:41] And we've seen in the past certain factions of the population, particularly white working class or lower class Americans.

[00:06:49] They tend to get undersampled.

[00:06:51] Now, some surveys try to correct for that using a process called weighting.

[00:06:56] But even there, it's very important.

[00:06:58] And it's hard, isn't it, as well?

[00:06:59] They're having great difficulty actually getting people to meet all of the various segments to get this sort of weighted survey because people don't want to take surveys.

[00:07:09] Increasingly, that's an issue around the world.

[00:07:11] But I think it's particularly the case in the United States.

[00:07:13] So they're actually having difficulty getting sufficient sample sizes, I've heard.

[00:07:16] No, I think you're absolutely right.

[00:07:18] And it's important to keep in mind that even some of the best polls that we have out there are only sampling 1,000 or maybe 2,000 people at a time.

[00:07:27] And so that makes it even more difficult when you're trying to generalize from that sample to the broader population of 330 million or so Americans,

[00:07:35] getting sufficient numbers for each of those demographic groups, Latinos, Blacks, whites, working class, middle class, upper class.

[00:07:44] It's almost an impossible task.

[00:07:46] So there's a lot of guesswork going on in how this sampling occurs and how it's weighted.

[00:07:51] There's also even the problem of fraudulent responses, right, that people will answer polls and give all the wrong answers because, you know, they just kind of want to mess with the system.

[00:08:02] It is easy.

[00:08:03] Well, I think across the whole world there are problems exactly the kind you're taking, you're saying.

[00:08:06] Partly because people are aware about their data, in inverted commas, being used, I guess.

[00:08:11] But, I mean, let's go away from polls then because you are from Pennsylvania, if I remember.

[00:08:17] You've been in Pennsylvania pretty recently.

[00:08:19] And Pennsylvania is the most important of the swing states.

[00:08:22] Is that right?

[00:08:22] I think it's the swingiest of the swing states is what I've called it.

[00:08:26] If you look at some of the data forecast from 538, they showed that if Donald Trump wins Pennsylvania, his odds of winning the White House are 96%.

[00:08:34] If Kamala Harris wins Pennsylvania, her odds of winning the White House are 91%.

[00:08:40] That shows you just how important Pennsylvania is for a couple of reasons.

[00:08:43] One is that it has 19 electoral votes.

[00:08:45] And, of course, we have to get to 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.

[00:08:49] But also, it's a bellwether for how other states are going to vote.

[00:08:53] We talk about the blue wall, which is Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin.

[00:08:57] A lot of them have sort of very similar demographic makeup.

[00:09:01] So I really think that Pennsylvania is going to matter a lot.

[00:09:03] It's one reason why so much energy and attention and money is being thrown into the state.

[00:09:08] I talked to my parents just a couple of days ago, and they said that they received nine flyers in one day in the mail from the Trump and Harris campaigns.

[00:09:18] We see Elon Musk offering Pennsylvania voters $100 if they sign his pro-Trump super PAC petition.

[00:09:29] He's even entered Pennsylvania into a drawing to win a million dollars each day from here until the election.

[00:09:35] Yeah, and also matching the dollar for dollar, what you donate to the Trump campaign.

[00:09:41] This is bribery, isn't it?

[00:09:43] I mean, have we reached that state?

[00:09:44] Well, I do think that there are some legal challenges.

[00:09:46] But at the same time, there are some loopholes as well.

[00:09:49] And so I think Musk is able to kind of circumvent what the law maybe was intended to do by saying,

[00:09:56] hey, I'm not actually giving out any kind of compensation for your vote.

[00:10:00] I just want you to come to my website and sign this petition.

[00:10:04] Of course, it's got Trump ads all over the place.

[00:10:06] So it's a very gray area.

[00:10:08] But I think it's going to be hard to prosecute simply because if you look at the law as written, federal law,

[00:10:14] I think it's unlikely that he's technically violating sort of the legality.

[00:10:19] So the people you know, are they, I'm not going to ask you, you know, which side of the fence your parents are sitting on,

[00:10:25] but are they bolted on on whatever side it is or is there quite a bit of sway going on?

[00:10:30] Well, it's really hard to generalize because I was spending my time in a very small town called Chambersburg, Pennsylvania,

[00:10:36] which is in the south central part of PA.

[00:10:38] It's about 40 minutes south of Harrisburg.

[00:10:42] And it's a very Republican area.

[00:10:43] It's about 70 percent Republican.

[00:10:46] And so it's definitely going to go Trump.

[00:10:48] And whenever I was home, I saw Trump flags.

[00:10:51] I saw Trump bumper stickers.

[00:10:52] I've seen F Biden flags that have been up since 2020 that people never took down.

[00:10:58] So there is certainly a lot of enthusiasm for Trump there.

[00:11:01] But, you know, of course, if you went to a suburb of Philadelphia, say, or Pittsburgh,

[00:11:05] it would probably be the exact opposite where you see wall signs and Harris signs.

[00:11:10] And so it's it's very, very hard to know.

[00:11:13] But the polls, again, suggest that it's basically 50-50.

[00:11:17] You're saying they're historically Republican.

[00:11:19] I mean, the Donald Trump's Republican Party is very different to previous Republican parties, isn't it?

[00:11:25] So they so it's not it's not tradition, is it?

[00:11:28] Or is it is tradition just the overriding factor?

[00:11:31] And they just seem to be ignoring the fact that actually that the whole color of the party that they are sitting behind has completely changed,

[00:11:39] for example, to a protectionist agenda rather than a free market agenda.

[00:11:42] Absolutely.

[00:11:42] I mean, I can't agree more that this is not your father's Republican Party, so to speak.

[00:11:47] This is not the party of Mitt Romney.

[00:11:48] It's not the party of George W. Bush.

[00:11:50] It's not the party of George H.W. Bush or Reagan.

[00:11:54] I mean, it is way more protectionist now.

[00:11:56] It is way more appealing, I guess, to some white, blue collar voters.

[00:12:02] But even despite some of the changes that we've seen internally within the Republican Party,

[00:12:07] I think still people identify as Republicans.

[00:12:10] And so they're on the red team.

[00:12:11] And so if you're on the red team, you have to support the red team,

[00:12:14] almost regardless of what the policies are or what the individual stands for in terms of their morals or character.

[00:12:21] So you're saying even though the morals and character look pretty awful,

[00:12:25] it's so dyed in the wool, they're just not capable almost of not voting Republican.

[00:12:30] That's my sense.

[00:12:32] Very few voters are kind of leaving the Republican Party or leaving the Democratic Party.

[00:12:36] If they are, they're being sort of independents and they still kind of lean in one direction or the other.

[00:12:41] That's what the data seem to bear out.

[00:12:43] But I think that it's so deeply embedded in people's consciousness, in their identity,

[00:12:48] that they're on one side of the partisan aisle or the other.

[00:12:51] That's true for Republicans.

[00:12:52] It's also true for Democrats that not much is going to budge them when it comes to the vote.

[00:12:59] And it's one reason why I think that there are just few truly swing voters out there

[00:13:03] and that much of what this election is going to be about is just ensuring that the bases come out,

[00:13:09] that there's sort of base mobilization there, which is large part dependent on kind of the ground game of these campaigns.

[00:13:16] So if you went back 10 years and you said, look, in 10 years time,

[00:13:20] there's going to be an election in the United States that is basically over protectionism,

[00:13:25] that we know about tariffs, bringing jobs back, protecting the American worker.

[00:13:30] If you're a Republican voter, you'd say, oh, my goodness, what are the Democrats thinking?

[00:13:35] You'd be assuming it would be a Democratic policy, wouldn't you?

[00:13:37] You would.

[00:13:38] And now it really is sort of the Republicans because Trump is campaigning on 10 to 20 percent tariffs

[00:13:45] for all imports into the United States or upwards of 60 percent tariffs on imports from China,

[00:13:51] which is just a complete about face from what the Republican Party used to stand for,

[00:13:57] which was free trade, laissez-faire economics, kind of the invisible hand, et cetera.

[00:14:02] But this shows you kind of the power of what political scientists would call elite cues,

[00:14:06] that many Americans don't necessarily have strongly formed opinions on something like trade.

[00:14:12] And so they're looking to political elites and their leader in particular to tell them sort of what to think on this issue.

[00:14:19] So we see this on trade.

[00:14:20] We've also seen it on Russia, for example.

[00:14:22] If you asked if you posed the same hypothetical 20 years ago about sort of how opinions would be toward Russia,

[00:14:30] it would not in any way resemble what Republican attitudes are toward that country now.

[00:14:35] Yeah, it is extraordinary.

[00:14:36] And what about, you know, we're talking here, you mentioned blue collar workers.

[00:14:40] But what about the communities that we're hearing about, you know, the Hispanics, black Americans?

[00:14:46] They don't seem to be moving necessarily again in the same way.

[00:14:49] Before the big controversy, of course, about the Puerto Rican joke, which as we as we're talking right now,

[00:14:55] it seems to be a big thing.

[00:14:57] This very unpleasant joke told at a rally at Madison Square Gardens that maybe has alienated some of the Hispanics.

[00:15:03] But the Hispanics that you'd assume would normally support the Democrats aren't necessarily doing so.

[00:15:09] Yeah, and that has been an assumption of Democrats for a long time, that demographics is destiny,

[00:15:15] to use a phrase in that for the more and more immigrants that come into the United States,

[00:15:20] they're kind of natural Democratic voters.

[00:15:22] But it turns out that that's really not true.

[00:15:25] First of all, there's a lot of heterogeneity across the Latino and Hispanic communities.

[00:15:31] Many of them are not single issue voters just on immigration.

[00:15:34] And a lot of them have the same concerns that Americans have writ large over the economy,

[00:15:41] even sometimes over immigration, if they've come here legally, for example,

[00:15:44] and maybe resent undocumented immigrants coming into the United States.

[00:15:49] So that's true of the Latino community.

[00:15:52] Trump has really made significant inroads with black community, particularly black men.

[00:15:57] A recent New York Times CNF poll found that 78 percent of black voters support Harris.

[00:16:02] That seems like a lot, but it's down significantly from about 85 percent who voted Biden in 2020.

[00:16:08] When you break that down by gender, the divides are really stark.

[00:16:13] About 20 percent of black men want Trump elected compared to only 12 percent of black women.

[00:16:18] So if Harris is going to win, she has to get these demographics that have been traditional strongholds of the Democratic Party.

[00:16:24] And she does exhibit some weaknesses in those respects.

[00:16:27] And is it because, I mean, the whole threshold of getting someone of color into the White House has already been met?

[00:16:32] Obama, of course.

[00:16:33] So that issue that, you know, there might be a person of color again as president isn't really so much of an issue.

[00:16:39] But a woman, you know, is that just a step too far for America?

[00:16:43] Yeah, I mean, I still think that Americans are open to electing a woman.

[00:16:47] Hillary Clinton got the majority of the popular vote in 2016.

[00:16:51] There are certainly segments of the population who will not vote for Kamala Harris because she's a woman.

[00:16:56] I think at the same time, though, she is getting votes because she's a woman as well.

[00:17:01] And I'm not sure how that that really nets out.

[00:17:04] But I was being a little bit sarcastic.

[00:17:08] But I'm just wondering whether actually because the markets are not really factoring in a win on either side.

[00:17:15] We're not seeing big moves in the financial markets, except perhaps we are seeing bond yields starting to rise as though there's this expectation that inflation might come back again.

[00:17:24] I'm sure they'll rise even faster if Trump does win and pushes ahead with his task because inflation will come back that much faster.

[00:17:31] But I think generally the markets are just going, well, whoever wins, there's just increasing U.S. debt.

[00:17:36] And that's all they seem to be caring about at the moment, as if they actually believe if it is Donald Trump, a lot of what he's saying is actually bravado.

[00:17:45] He's not going to see through a lot of these changes.

[00:17:48] And he's not really got very long anyway.

[00:17:50] I mean, halfway, you know, get to midterms and, you know, probably not a great deal he can do.

[00:17:54] So how much damage can he do in four years?

[00:17:56] Well, I think you're absolutely right, first of all, that both candidates are going to be bad for the U.S. debt.

[00:18:03] I think there's absolutely no doubt about that.

[00:18:06] According to the Committee for a Responsible Budget, which is kind of a nonpartisan organization,

[00:18:12] they've estimated that Harris would increase the national debt over the next decade by about $3.5 trillion and Trump by about $7.5 trillion.

[00:18:21] So there's going to be more spending than there is revenue being generated.

[00:18:25] You know, both of these candidates are promising lots of giveaways.

[00:18:29] With Harris, it's $25,000 down payment assistance for first generation homebuyers,

[00:18:35] $6,000 tax credits to families during the first year of a child's life, federal bans on police gouging.

[00:18:42] For Trump, it's making the 2017 tax credits permanent, slashing the corporate tax rate from 21% to 15%.

[00:18:50] So it's hard to sort of think about how markets are going to sort of price all of this in.

[00:18:55] But I think if they're going to expect anything, it's going to be more printing of money by the Federal Reserve.

[00:19:02] I expect that there to be also kind of pretty loose monetary policy.

[00:19:06] Yeah. So the money people, I mean, it's interesting how much money has gone from Silicon Valley into the Trump campaign.

[00:19:14] What are they betting on?

[00:19:15] What is it that they want so much?

[00:19:17] Because, I mean, Elon Musk, you know, I guess it follows to some extent his social agenda.

[00:19:22] Peter Thiel, perhaps similarly.

[00:19:24] But there seems to be a move.

[00:19:25] Is it that they think they can perhaps control through J.D. Vance potentially a Trump presidency to their benefit?

[00:19:32] Yeah. Do they see him as just an empty vessel to which they can pour their own ideas?

[00:19:35] I suspect they do.

[00:19:37] Well, I think that there's sort of a mix of individuals and what their motivations are.

[00:19:41] Certainly some of these billionaires do have kind of an ideological axe to grind.

[00:19:47] To put it one way, I think that Elon Musk really does believe in free speech.

[00:19:52] And he really thinks that Donald Trump sort of would be a candidate that's better on that front.

[00:19:58] But, yeah, I mean, when we think about just lobbying generally or when we think about fundraising,

[00:20:02] a lot of these firms in Silicon Valley, big tech or in Wall Street, they're giving money to both candidates, in fact,

[00:20:11] because they want to be on the right side regardless of what the outcome is.

[00:20:15] They expect preferential policies, even if it's not an explicit pre-quot, quid pro quo.

[00:20:21] There's sort of a general expectation that kind of deregulation, tax cuts and so on might be on the horizon.

[00:20:29] So a lot of what Donald Trump is saying he's going to do doesn't stack up, does it?

[00:20:35] So the idea of the tariffs of 20% on everybody starts a trade war with Europe, obviously, first of all.

[00:20:42] The 60% with China just extends the trade war with China.

[00:20:45] It pushes the price up for American consumers.

[00:20:49] Nobody wins in that situation.

[00:20:50] It just hits global trade.

[00:20:52] But he seems to think that is not the case.

[00:20:56] But when he's faced with the reality, I mean, would he do it right at the beginning or would he phase it in?

[00:21:02] And how quickly after he starts to phase it in would he realize, ah, this doesn't look like it's such a good idea.

[00:21:07] We're starting to see the consequences.

[00:21:08] Does he mean any of it at all anyway?

[00:21:10] Yeah, exactly.

[00:21:10] Or is it just all bravado?

[00:21:12] Is it just policy riffing?

[00:21:14] I've heard it described as.

[00:21:16] Some of it may be policy riffing, but I think some of it is genuine.

[00:21:20] I think when Trump talks about increasing tariffs on China up to 60%, they may not reach that level.

[00:21:26] But this is one issue on which he's been pretty consistent all the way back to the 1980s and the 1990s before he was involved in politics.

[00:21:34] He would say that kind of China is eating America's lunch.

[00:21:37] And when he came into office, he did ratchet up tariffs against China and highly sort of impulsive, highly volatile.

[00:21:45] And the Harris campaign has kept a lot of those tariffs in place, but moderated them and has done so in a way that's just much less unpredictable.

[00:21:55] But yeah, absolutely.

[00:21:56] I mean, at some point, American voters are going to feel this in their pocketbooks because these higher prices are just going to be borne by consumers.

[00:22:05] In the end, imports come in, there's taxes, and then that has to be passed on to the American people.

[00:22:11] So he may say that it's not going to happen.

[00:22:13] As you say, elite cues essentially is what people are working on.

[00:22:15] They don't necessarily know what the outcome is going to be.

[00:22:18] But there's one area where – I mean, I'm just interested to know your take on this.

[00:22:21] Some people described this a few weeks ago as the abortion election.

[00:22:25] That actually the great unknown is how many women in many Republican circles will feel actually when it comes to putting their vote that this whole issue of reproductive rights and where it's gone, Roe versus Wade being struck down, everything else, is actually underneath going to make a difference.

[00:22:44] Because, you know, there are an awful lot of women voters out there who says they vote one way particularly.

[00:22:48] But a sense that this may be the great unknown that may actually really affect this election.

[00:22:53] What do you think?

[00:22:53] Well, I think Trump realizes that this is an Achilles heel for Republicans generally and for him specifically because we saw it already.

[00:23:00] In the 2022 midterms, there turned out to be no red wave.

[00:23:04] There was significant Republican underperformance in large part, according to exit polls, because of the abortion issue.

[00:23:10] And then we've seen Democrats win a number of state-level referenda across the country over the last couple of years.

[00:23:16] Democrats have painted Trump as supporting a national abortion ban, which he has not said, but he has been kind of equivocal on what his position is.

[00:23:25] And he's being equivocal because he knows that he needs to kind of tack in both directions.

[00:23:29] On the one hand, he really relies on the evangelical Christian base coming out for him.

[00:23:35] But at the same time, he knows that there are a lot of suburban women and others who are really energized by this issue and will come out to vote against Republicans if they're perceived as too extreme.

[00:23:46] So I don't think it's at all an overstatement to say that this could end up being the abortion issue.

[00:23:52] And maybe that's the ultimate decider.

[00:23:54] But then that's why he's trying to say, I'm throwing it back to the states to decide.

[00:23:57] He's trying to take it so it's not a federal issue.

[00:23:59] Yeah, but I mean, how deep does that cut?

[00:24:01] In the end, people, Thomas, a lot of Americans, a lot of Britons, a lot of every electorate, don't really have necessarily a very deep view about the way politics works.

[00:24:10] But there will be something that absolutely they feel affects them directly, potentially, and is right or wrong.

[00:24:16] And they'll just simply go for that.

[00:24:18] No, I 100 percent agree.

[00:24:19] And that's why I think Republicans really do have a problem with the abortion issue, because Trump is directly tied to it.

[00:24:25] He installed three conservative Supreme Court justices who ultimately overturned Roe versus Wade.

[00:24:32] You know, Trump has claimed in the debate and in other places that all of these legal experts thought that it should go back to the states.

[00:24:40] This is just kind of democracy in action.

[00:24:43] And in fact, that he's doing people a favor.

[00:24:46] Polls definitely do not show that.

[00:24:48] The polls definitely show that Republicans are on the losing end of this issue politically.

[00:24:52] And it seems his approach is very much, you know, I am the anti-establishment candidate.

[00:24:58] Kamala Harris is just representing the establishment.

[00:25:01] I'm just looking at an email in my inbox here saying, this will make your blood boil.

[00:25:06] I was about to step on the rally stage here in Georgia when my team broke the news to me that Comrade Kamala broke the record for the biggest fundraising quarter in history.

[00:25:16] She'll use her billion dollar slush fund to crush our MAGA momentum.

[00:25:20] I should add, of course, that Phil is a Republican in terms of his email.

[00:25:24] Yeah, I get all their emails.

[00:25:25] He's MAGA all the way.

[00:25:25] I don't know how I got onto their emails.

[00:25:27] This is years ago.

[00:25:28] We all know.

[00:25:29] I get like four a day now.

[00:25:31] But they're all taking that tack that we, basically, we are the underdogs.

[00:25:35] She's got all the money.

[00:25:37] It's the establishment that is funding her.

[00:25:38] And we are fighting against the establishment, which, of course, is the approach he's been taking all along.

[00:25:44] He's just ramping that up.

[00:25:46] She is the she is.

[00:25:47] Kamala is the comrade that's part of the establishment, the left wing, left wing establishment with all the money.

[00:25:52] I completely agree.

[00:25:54] I mean, Trump has positioned himself as the underdog.

[00:25:56] Kamala Harris has also used that phrase as well.

[00:25:59] Kamala Harris has also sort of positioned herself as representing the next generation and in with the new.

[00:26:05] But, of course, she's invariably tethered to the current administration, both its successes and its failures.

[00:26:11] But Trump, in particular, has always gained some of his appeal as presenting himself as kind of the renegade candidate from the outside, being in business, cleaning up the swamp, et cetera.

[00:26:25] He used that to his advantage, certainly in 2016.

[00:26:27] It's a little harder to make that case since he did spend four years in Washington.

[00:26:32] But, you know, he's outside of office and he's going to use whatever.

[00:26:35] So if abortion rights are the Achilles heel for Trump, what's the Achilles heel for for comrade Kamala?

[00:26:43] Well, I was going to raise that particularly in relation to foreign policy.

[00:26:47] I mean, it seems an odd thing in U.S. elections because foreign policy doesn't win or lose election necessarily.

[00:26:52] But what about there's been a lot of talk about the impact on Muslim voters?

[00:26:57] And they're not vast numbers, but in some of the swing states, they are important.

[00:27:00] And I've seen lots of videos of Muslim voters and Muslim organizations say, well, we're not going to back Harris because of the Biden policies in regard to Gaza and the Middle East.

[00:27:10] Does that matter?

[00:27:12] Does it matter?

[00:27:12] And yet they would vote for Trump, who's going to support Israel?

[00:27:15] This is what's raised, of course.

[00:27:16] Maybe they just won't turn out for Harris.

[00:27:18] That's the problem.

[00:27:18] I mean, Thomas, what do you think?

[00:27:19] Well, I actually wrote a piece on this in The Hill a couple of months ago where I argued that this is not going to have as much of an impact.

[00:27:26] But the issue has become kind of more salient than maybe I expected at the time.

[00:27:30] And we did see the protest vote while Joe Biden was still the Democratic nominee in Michigan in particular, where, you know, more than 100,000 Democrats voted uncommitted.

[00:27:41] It was Dearborn, isn't it?

[00:27:42] This is a huge sort of Muslim area.

[00:27:44] Absolutely.

[00:27:44] And Michigan generally has the largest Arab American population in the United States.

[00:27:50] So that absolutely is a significant issue.

[00:27:53] When you're talking about sort of is this going to really affect the vote?

[00:27:57] I mean, when you're talking about maybe 10,000 votes here, 10,000 votes there, I think that it could.

[00:28:02] If I'm just talking about sort of the general Achilles heel of Kamala Harris, I still think it's the economy, despite the fact that there are a lot of positive indicators in terms of employment.

[00:28:11] You know, inflation has certainly cooled.

[00:28:14] If you just look at cost of groceries now compared to pre-pandemic levels, they're up about 20 to 25 points.

[00:28:23] Trump has really tried to hammer that over and over and over.

[00:28:25] Of course, framing himself as the business candidate, the one who can kind of get Wall Street going and Main Street going at the exact same time.

[00:28:33] So I think he would be smart in this closing week to keep the emphasis on the economy.

[00:28:38] Yeah, because that obviously is a uniquely American thing, isn't it?

[00:28:41] I mean, nowhere in the world have we seen prices rise since the pandemic.

[00:28:45] I mean, that's just purely American.

[00:28:47] But I mean, I guess people don't want to look overseas and find the truth there.

[00:28:51] So I just wonder, getting back to this idea about, you know, how much of what he's saying will he carry through on?

[00:28:59] Not just the economics.

[00:29:00] What about the politics?

[00:29:01] You know, clearing out, saying that people who are disloyal will be dismissed from the civil service.

[00:29:08] That kind of thing.

[00:29:08] Yeah, and the millions of illegal migrants who will be turfed out of the country as well.

[00:29:14] I'm not quite sure the practicalities of that.

[00:29:16] But I mean, it's, yeah, we're getting back to this idea of policy riffing.

[00:29:20] Because he was on Joe Rogan, which is the number one podcast.

[00:29:23] We're just below that, I think.

[00:29:25] Yeah.

[00:29:25] We'll get there.

[00:29:26] But it's hard to believe.

[00:29:28] Just a few more audience members.

[00:29:30] Yeah, exactly.

[00:29:30] Do what you can.

[00:29:31] Just the odd tens of millions.

[00:29:33] But three hours he spoke to Joe Rogan for.

[00:29:35] And in that time, obviously, you're going to make stuff up.

[00:29:38] So that really was policy riffing.

[00:29:39] So, and this is where you get stuff that just doesn't make sense.

[00:29:42] So he said, you know, he's going to replace income tax with tariffs.

[00:29:47] So all the money he's getting from tariffs will mean he can cut income tax out.

[00:29:50] So no one will pay income tax in America.

[00:29:52] As a, for example.

[00:29:52] Of course, the problem with that is the whole idea of the tariffs was to try and get companies

[00:29:56] to come and base themselves in America, in which case they wouldn't be paying any tariffs.

[00:30:00] So then he'd have to bring the income tax back.

[00:30:03] But Joe Rogan obviously didn't.

[00:30:04] Yeah, well, none of it makes sense.

[00:30:05] No, none of it makes sense.

[00:30:08] So does that.

[00:30:08] It's economically illiterate.

[00:30:10] And none of this will ever happen either.

[00:30:12] There's just so much promising and talk.

[00:30:15] And nothing's getting through Congress approximating what you just described.

[00:30:19] Well, that's what we haven't really mentioned.

[00:30:20] From the fact that this is a general election, not only whoever gets in the White House.

[00:30:25] What's your thoughts about how Congress is going to look from what you hear at the moment?

[00:30:29] I mean, are the Republicans going to hang on in the House, for example?

[00:30:33] Boy, I think the Senate is more worrisome to Democrats right now.

[00:30:38] I think that the Republicans will probably hang on to the House.

[00:30:43] But it's really hard to say.

[00:30:45] There are a lot of close races.

[00:30:46] In the Senate in particular, there are just a number of different states where Democrats are defending seats in areas that are really moderate or states that are pretty moderate.

[00:30:56] So I'm sort of more inclined to think that they're going to lose the Senate.

[00:31:03] And if Trump doesn't win next week, have we got January the 6th on our hands again?

[00:31:08] Well, that's a really good question.

[00:31:10] I don't even know how to answer it.

[00:31:12] I think that there certainly will be contestation.

[00:31:15] And Trump has already said that he has kind of lawyers and volunteers ready to contest the vote in states across the country.

[00:31:24] Whether that leads to any sort of incidence of political violence, I certainly hope not.

[00:31:28] But it certainly makes sense to kind of be vigilant, given what we saw.

[00:31:32] Well, you hope not.

[00:31:33] But these guys are, we know, very old guys, people generally, are very fanatical.

[00:31:39] I think that's not an unreasonable way of putting it.

[00:31:41] And they're armed.

[00:31:43] You know, the potential is there.

[00:31:45] The potential is definitely there.

[00:31:46] And I think in large part, it will depend on how Trump conducts himself.

[00:31:51] But from what I've seen from Trump, there's no reason to think that he will kind of concede the election and gradually and sort of fade into the sunset.

[00:32:00] I mean, he's going to fight tooth and nail because this is his last political battle.

[00:32:04] And if you look at the data, a majority of Republicans still think that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.

[00:32:11] They're going to think it even more this time around.

[00:32:16] And so, yeah, there's some dangers.

[00:32:17] I don't think that it will lead to kind of mass scale political violence.

[00:32:22] I do think that there's some apocalyptic visions out there that are quite unrealistic, in my view.

[00:32:28] There are also some indicators that I think look better this year than in 2021.

[00:32:33] So we have the Bipartisan Electoral Reform Count Act, which sort of limits the number of justifications that Congress members can put forth, you know, contesting the outcome of an election.

[00:32:46] But still, yeah, it's...

[00:32:47] But if you can't contest it, then that's where the violence comes in, doesn't it?

[00:32:51] So it will almost certainly, courts will be involved in this.

[00:32:55] If it's a narrow win on either side, well, if it's a narrow win for Kamala Harris, then he'll get the courts involved.

[00:33:01] If it's a big win for Kamala Harris, isn't he going to say, well, this is clearly corrupt?

[00:33:06] And, you know, because it was so close in the opinion polls, how can it be a big win and therefore, you know, demand even more from the courts?

[00:33:15] But contraria-wise, if he wins by a little, Kamala Harris, I mean, the language about what to expect from a second Trump presidency has been very extreme.

[00:33:25] I mean, there may maybe there'll be violence on the other side.

[00:33:28] Is that possible, Tom?

[00:33:28] Again, I really hope not.

[00:33:31] But Trump has promised, you know, a retribution tour.

[00:33:33] He's very explicitly said that he would use the Justice Department and other apparatuses within the federal government to go after his political adversaries.

[00:33:41] You know, you hear kind of visions of, you know, Trump tanks kind of running down Pennsylvania Avenue.

[00:33:49] I think probably the reality will be some somewhere in between if Trump does win.

[00:33:55] I do think that he will use the Justice Department in particular to go after some of his political adversaries in a way that is just sort of unprecedented.

[00:34:03] And let's, yeah, let's not forget the little secret as well.

[00:34:07] Whatever that might be, we'll find all about it.

[00:34:09] So final question then, Thomas, when does America go back to normal?

[00:34:13] When does it become a normal functioning society?

[00:34:15] Yeah, what is normal anymore?

[00:34:16] I'm not even sure.

[00:34:18] And so I guess I am somewhat encouraged that after Trump, the Republican Party might not snap back to exactly what it was pre-2016, but have sort of a more sense of normalcy.

[00:34:33] We saw in the vice presidential debate between Tim Walz and J.D. Vance.

[00:34:38] It's very civilized, isn't it?

[00:34:39] It was kind of a general, I mean, there were some moments, but it was kind of like a civil discussion.

[00:34:45] You know, there was talk about policy.

[00:34:47] You know, there were places where each of them sort of showed deference to the other.

[00:34:53] I would hope that that's sort of the Republican Party of the future after Trump, just because Trump is just such a uniquely iconoclastic figure.

[00:35:01] I'm not sure if there's someone that can just kind of take his mantle and run with it.

[00:35:05] He's kind of uniquely charismatic, for better or for worse.

[00:35:09] And I just don't see any kind of comparable figure being able to do it.

[00:35:13] You'll be writing the book, The Trump Era.

[00:35:16] Yeah.

[00:35:16] What it was like living through it.

[00:35:18] And how much, the Trump era and how much he made.

[00:35:20] I mean, that's always something I haven't talked about.

[00:35:22] Maybe we'll revisit it.

[00:35:23] Is he just in it for the money?

[00:35:25] You know, given that that's what drives him generally.

[00:35:28] You know, it's partially power, but is it, you know, money for him and his mates?

[00:35:32] And to stay out of jail this time around.

[00:35:34] Yeah, that too.

[00:35:35] Yeah.

[00:35:36] Well, we'll see.

[00:35:37] We will see what will happen.

[00:35:38] A lot to think about.

[00:35:40] Nothing we can have any influence on.

[00:35:42] You, I guess, have voted or are voting.

[00:35:44] Did you vote early?

[00:35:45] Yes, I sent in my absentee ballot a couple of weeks.

[00:35:48] I'm sure Donald Trump would be very pleased about that.

[00:35:50] Right.

[00:35:50] OK.

[00:35:52] And you've got the guns loaded for you already.

[00:35:54] All right, Tom, it's good to talk.

[00:35:55] I'm sure we'll have you on again.

[00:35:56] I'm wondering whether, in fact, you know, Roger's trying to get you on as the regular co-host.

[00:36:01] Well, it's a pleasure being on.

[00:36:02] I always have a lot of fun with you guys.

[00:36:03] Yeah, it's always good to have you on.

[00:36:04] Really good.

[00:36:05] Thanks a lot.

[00:36:05] Cheers.

[00:36:06] Well, there we are.

[00:36:07] What is going to happen?

[00:36:09] Thomas certainly isn't willing to call it at this stage.

[00:36:12] But by the time of our next podcast, I guess we'll know.

[00:36:15] We will know.

[00:36:16] Well, perhaps we'll know that no one's, we don't know.

[00:36:19] I think that's the more likely outcome, isn't it?

[00:36:21] It's like he will be challenged, as we've just said.

[00:36:24] And so the question is, what form will that take?

[00:36:26] Yeah, and how is it going to affect the world?

[00:36:28] Because that's really what we want to focus on next week.

[00:36:30] We're going to talk about, I mean, this matters for everybody.

[00:36:34] Matters for the world.

[00:36:35] It matters in terms of the economy, as you mentioned.

[00:36:38] And where does the world go from here?

[00:36:40] I mean, is this all we witness?

[00:36:44] It's in the beginning of the isolationism of America.

[00:36:46] You know, it's taking a long time coming, isn't it?

[00:36:49] But you feel like the ultimate outcome out of all of this might take a while,

[00:36:53] is that America's place in the world is diminished by this whole experience.

[00:36:56] We will be looking at that and bringing, well,

[00:36:59] mulling over whatever we actually do know at that stage this time next week.

[00:37:04] Next week on the Y-Cave.

[00:37:05] Join us for that.

[00:37:06] And we'll be here, hopefully.

[00:37:08] You know, my days are clean now.

[00:37:10] But we'll be back next week anyway.

[00:37:11] We'll see you then.

[00:37:12] The Y. Curve.