Trump's Debate Style Leads To A Swift Lead For Harris
This is a preview episode of The Muckrake Podcast's Patreon show that happens every Friday. To unlock the full show and a host of other great things, visit http://patreon.com/muckrakepodcast
Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman continue discussing the fallout from the debate on Tuesday night, including the "surprise" endorsement of Harris by Taylor Swift. They also cover the in-fighting amongst MAGAs Laura Loomer and Marjorie Taylor Green (#GoodTimes) before finishing on the racist tropes being spread about Haitians in a last ditch attempt to court more GOP votes.
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Oh, I thought that one was going to blow up on me.
Hey everybody.
Welcome to the Weekender Edition of the McCartney Podcast.
I'm JJ Sexton.
How you doing, Nick?
I'm good.
I'm good.
It's a, I got to the gym today for some in a while.
So, uh, I'm waiting for those endorphins to kick in.
Nice.
I've got, okay.
So no reason for me to talk about this whatsoever.
One of my favorite things I've ever bought, Nick, is I, I, I got a basement fridge.
Which is the song of my people.
As a Midwesterner, this is an exciting thing.
I don't know how you feel about it.
I want the fridge turned up as high as it can go.
I want my things to be cold.
So you want it to be turned down as low as it can go.
Okay, if we want to be pedantic.
Yes, I want the fridge turned the lowest temperature imaginable.
Yes.
Oh, I have one as well, and it was a revelation when we were like, hey, we can go even lower than the regular fridge, and it is.
There's no other way to enjoy a beverage without it being spicy.
I am an Icarus though.
I fly way too close to the sun.
I have it turned down so low.
Beer isn't going to freeze, but Nick, other drinks are going to freeze.
And so I'm just like slushing it up and like it leads to unstable cans is what I would say.
I might have to turn in my California card by saying that a slushy Coke, man, there's something to that that's out of this world.
There are few things as good as that.
I agree.
Back in the day when I was a kid, I used to put the Coke in my grandma's freezer and forget it.
Yeah.
Oh, baby, that's a good day.
Yeah, it is.
But we should probably tell everybody who's listening to this what we're doing here and why.
I mean, we'll have a slushie conversation.
This is The Weekender, and we get to talk about all... It's The Weekender!
I wouldn't be talking about a slushie, like, on the regular edition.
We're allowed to do this.
It's The Weekender edition of the Mike Craig Podcast.
As always, go over to patreon.com slash MikeCraigPodcast.
We have a lot to talk about, Nick, that isn't slushie-related.
We gotta go over the fallout from the debate.
Nick, we got to talk about celebrity endorsements.
I'm sorry.
The reason why I brought it up, though, was because we do know that thousands upon thousands of people will listen to this, probably new people to coming in and seeing what's this all about.
And so It's important to understand like, yeah, this is our, this is the one that you can get the whole version for.
If you go over to patreon.com slash muckrank podcast.
And by the way, to go ahead and sweeten the pot after this debate this week, we went live immediately after.
I think I'm going to say something, Nick, cause I like to like to pat ourselves on the back.
One of our best post event shows I think we've ever done.
Really, I was going to actually ask you your feelings about it because it was a whirlwind and a lot to cover.
We did it, you know, and I didn't know what I was having trouble wrapping my head around what how it went.
But I felt good about it when it was done.
Then I got a bunch of feedback from people who really, really enjoyed it.
By the way, thanks for everyone for coming out.
We had, we had hundreds of people come out and see this thing, watch this thing.
Since then, I think people have enjoyed it.
You can go back and listen to the full thing.
We're going to talk a little bit about the debate today, but patreon.com slash my great podcast.
Okay, Nick, after this debate that took place on Tuesday.
It was a consensus that Harris, let me check my notes, this is a political science term, beat the living shit out of Donald Trump at this debate.
The polls have shown this not just in terms of like post-debate reaction, But also, one of the first main polls that has come out.
I've taken a look at a little bit of internal polling over the past couple of days.
The Democrats think that she might be up, depending upon what you're looking at, as far as 8 to 9 points, basically within a window of opportunity.
Reuters has come out, put her up 47-42, which shows that there might have been a 1 to 2 point bounce after this poll.
Nick, before we get into the actual fallout from this debate, we've had a couple of days now to sort of digest what's happened.
How do you feel about it looking back on what took place Tuesday night?
You know, I think I felt like it went as well as it possibly could have gone for her.
I mean, were there moments when she could have been better and when he could have been worse or whatever and separated it more?
Yeah, but that's about as good as, you know, you could hope for.
And then plus, if you look at the whole campaign, the way it's been going, you know, she's pretty much done everything as well as she probably, as she could have done.
Everything has gone pretty much as going to, according to plan.
As much as any campaign can control these things, right?
And the funny thing is, it's like, people are saying it's the worst debate performance of all time, and you have, you know, some people to leapfrog over.
But if you wanted to say the Biden-Trump first debate was that before that, Trump was so bad at that as well in his debate, overshadowed by Biden's poor performance, that I'm not even sure that should even be included in that list anyway.
Oh, I think they're right neck and neck with two of the worst debate performances we've ever seen.
I've rewatched the debate.
I went back because that's the type of sicko I am.
And knowing what we saw and now going back and looking at it, we talked about it on the post-debate show, there were places where And again, I'm going to quibble with the agenda and what she communicated, right?
That's where I'm coming from.
But in terms of spectacle, what these types of debates are supposed to do, this has dominated the media narrative.
It's dominated the political discourse.
A large part of what we're talking about today Like we have, our three main segments here are about the results from the debate.
Things that have been set in motion and how things are starting to shape after this thing.
It was, it was an absolute rout.
And watching it again, it was all the more obvious how much Harris's debate plan came to fruition, how, again, untalented Donald Trump is.
It really, really shined through.
I have only in the last couple of days as I've processed and digested this, I have only come to become more and more convinced that this was one of the more dominating debate performances that we have seen in modern history.
I mean, I can't disagree with you.
I feel like it is easy pickage when you have someone who's smart and capable and prepared, because he fell into every single trap that she set.
Every one.
Every one of them.
It was uncanny, and he comes off as angry, and he comes off as being unhinged and conspiracy.
You know, I wish, I guess the only thing I would have said was, she didn't attack the cognitive decline.
And I suppose she can't because if she does, she's afraid that that will open up an attack on her for Biden.
A, that they were hiding it this whole time and that she should be impeached, you know, whatever, that can get bogged down in some other things.
So I kind of get it, but so much of me was like waiting and holding up my hands and just excited for her to drop it on him.
And they didn't quite do that.
And, um, I, I wish that would sort of, maybe it's just me and my, my fantasies, but, uh, that was the only thing I would have said I would have loved to have heard from her.
Yeah, I think there was room for that.
What I want to start with, Nick, so when we went live after the debate, like after a debate, there's a ton of stuff that happens.
And there were multiple stories that were developing as we were doing our post-debate show.
And it starts with, and for anybody who maybe doesn't have sort of inside knowledge of how this stuff works, immediately after the debate, The media is camped out in what's called a spin room.
And this is where you have a bunch of surrogates who are trying to talk to the media in order to spin what just happened on stage and what just happened on television.
You know, you have a bunch of people who are like, my candidate obviously won, this is how this thing works, like trying to shape the narrative coming out of it.
One of the worst signs that you can have after a debate is if one of the debaters, one of the performers, one of the candidates goes into the spin room.
This is known as one of the most desperate ploys that you can possibly have.
And let me tell you something.
Donald Trump is not sprinting anywhere.
He is not running anywhere.
He is incapable of doing it.
He got to the spin room as quickly as possible in order to try and mitigate whatever he had done afterwards.
He went, he talked to reporters, obviously he told everybody as he was sweating and looking terrible that he had won.
And what we have here is a clip of, you know, the winner of the debate, Donald Trump, going down and finding his favorite boy, Sean Hannity, in order to tell him, you know, like, I absolutely dominated this debate.
She wants a second debate.
What's your answer?
Because she lost.
She wants it because she lost.
Do you have an answer?
Well, I don't know.
I have to think about it.
But if you won the debate, I sort of think maybe I shouldn't do it.
Why should I do another debate?
She immediately said, we want another do it.
You know what happens when you're a prize fighter and you lose?
You immediately want a new fight.
You want a rematch.
You want a rematch.
The guy that won is sort of happy and thinking about it.
Would you be inclined to say yes or no?
Maybe if it was on a fair network, I would do that.
But I think let Hannity moderate it.
Yeah, no, I think I would be fair.
Like I did Newsom and Ron DeSantis.
I think it would be fair.
You would be fair, actually.
I would be fair.
You want to know the truth.
There's nothing like, you know, trying to get your own gig going.
Isn't that gross that Hannity's like, I don't know.
I mean, I could debate it.
I mean, and by the way, if I was Kamala Harris, I would say, sure, let Sean Hannity handle the next debate.
At this point, she knows that she can absolutely destroy Donald Trump.
Be like, yeah, we'll do it on Fox News.
We'll have Hannity do the whole thing.
But you'll notice what happens here, Nick.
Not only does Trump sort of throw water on the idea he'll debate her again, he says, oh, you lose the fight, you want to have a next fight.
He already says that he could be open to another debate.
He's already broaching that and he's already trying to spend his defeat in the debate.
Yeah, cause it's, you know, that's how bad it was.
You got Vivek standing in the background like, you know, like a little lost puppy waiting to... Tim Scott and Vivek are standing there like the two little gang members who are just like, yeah, yeah, that's great.
Okay, boss.
Yeah.
No, you absolutely, you did it.
Yeah.
You won that one.
You won.
You're the best.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's like the enemy of the little rascals.
There is no way to spin that other than desperation, and he sensed immediately that he lost.
He had the mugshot face.
That was another term coming up these days.
He kept assuming that mugshot face, and it just looked worse and worse as it was animated a little bit, too.
It wasn't just frozen like the Yeah, so we have this.
seeing.
And just, you know, all the little digs that she did to him were really, you know, again, is it going to change votes?
It looks like there's been a bump, obviously, with the polls.
But at the very least, it does serve to kind of, you know, maintain the enthusiasm that maybe the other side has that's against Trump, you know, to sort of enjoy the roasting, if you will.
Yeah.
So we have this.
And by the way, Nick, you know, because we were doing the post-debate show, so we weren't able to watch the networks in real time.
I have to assume Fox News, which, tell me if I'm incorrect, was literally created in order to be a propaganda machine of the Republican Party.
I'm correct in that, right?
Yeah, if they could go back in time to Nixon era, they would have done that too.
And I have to assume that if Donald Trump had any sort of a claim on winning this debate, you have to imagine that Fox News is carrying that water, correct?
Oh, yes, like Sisyphus.
Okay, let's check in on Fox News, America's News.
Our nominee, Tim Walz.
This is a different person who was well prepped, well prepared, had answers, and knew where she was going.
Not only a different person from the person she was in that interview on CNN, but a different person from the absolute dunderhead so many of us thought she was during her conduct as vice president when she would come out with these ludicrous statements.
Started nowhere and ended in midair.
Unburdened by the past.
Unburdened by common sense.
And here she was tonight.
She was composed.
She was prepared.
She kept her cool.
She saw advantages.
She took them.
She baited him successfully, which is the story of the debate, in my view.
So she came out ahead in this, in my opinion.
No doubt.
Now, whether it'll move the needle in the race, very few things seem to.
But that remains to be seen.
We're off!
Britt is getting a little bit gruff in his... Britt, listen, being a Republican capitalist stooge doesn't age you well.
We've seen this.
This was, and I went back and watched all the coverage on Fox News, basically 95% of the Fox News personalities admitted that not only did she win the debate, but that she dominated the debate.
The one outlier was Jesse Watters, who is a crazy person, Who said, you know what I loved?
I loved it when he talked about the Haitians eating pets.
If that tells you where he's coming from.
But if you lose Fox News in terms of carrying the water and whitewashing a debate for you, that should give everyone a really, really good view of how bad of a night this was for Donald Trump.
Oh, absolutely.
Especially when you hear Brit list the things that she was, you know, she's well prepared and she debated them and all that stuff.
It basically is saying Trump didn't do any of those things, right?
So it's not even just that he's praising her, but you can kind of feel that in the subtext.
And yeah, it's huge.
I mean, we've seen Fox at different points be, you know, done with Trump.
And then the corpse of Fox News comes back and takes over again.
It's like that, like in The Thing, you know, like eating a dog.
Oh, there's another dog reference.
Which I'm still, by the way, I am traumatized.
I am, by that movie, traumatized.
Sucks.
The movie sucks?
Oh no, you're talking about the thing.
I thought you were talking about the conspiracy theory about Springfield, Ohio, which has just been a rolling, like, traumatic thing to even have to talk about.
Oh, and we will.
It's on the rundown.
Yeah, unfortunately.
We'll talk about that when it comes time for that.
But yes, it's fascinating to see that.
Will there be the thawing out, like we keep talking about, of some section of this Republican Party that does watch Fox News?
It looks like there is, right?
It looks like there are enough of those normies that supposedly are waking up out of this fever.
I just, I don't think they're waking up out of a fever.
I don't think they're thawing.
I think what's happening, and this is something else that we're going to talk about in a little bit, we have seen a civil war within the Republican Party.
It was won, at least the initial push of it, by Trumpism and MAGA.
I think a lot of people right now Are sort of wrapping their heads around the idea that Donald Trump could lose this election or maybe that he has lost a step or something, which he obviously has.
I think that they want to take back the party in order to try and succeed towards the same things that they've wanted.
They're just looking for something else.
We covered this for a while.
They really wanted Ron DeSantis.
They really, really badly wanted Ron DeSantis.
And now I think what's coming into full view is a situation where they see an opening where they might be able to take back the party.
And I don't think that's necessarily true, but I think a lot of these people are starting to maybe imagine or fantasize that they might be able to take part in it.
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