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Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman discuss Kamala Harris's appearance on Fox News and her verbal sparring with Bret Baier: was it worth it? Did she sway anyone watching? They move on to Trump's utterly bizarre dance off for 30 minutes to conclude one of his appearances before discussing some seedy rumors being planted by nefarious means to smear Tim Walz's name.
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Hey, welcome to the Weekender Edition of the McRick Podcast.
Nick, I heard from people they were upset they didn't hear the can opening last week.
It got cut off in the editing, so I wanted to make sure that it was there.
Okay, well that's good.
I mean, they're going to be upset that you didn't say, hey everybody.
Hey everybody!
Welcome to the Weekender Edition of the McRick Podcast.
I'm Jared Yates.
I'm here with Nick Hausman.
How are we doing, pal?
We're doing well, actually.
Today, I might have had a little bit of a moment of clarity where...
You know, I was pretty down, I think, the last show.
Crushed wall-ins.
I might have felt like, you know what, there might have been a turning point here.
There's something that, in my mind, might feel like the polls, something has changed, and maybe in more of a Connelly's favor.
I think before we get into, and we have an absolutely full show here today, we are talking about everything from Harris' appearance on Fox, Yeah.
Tim Walz that are completely absurd and dangerous and telling as well as a whole host of other things.
Before we get going, though, Nick, what you're talking about, I think, speaks to the larger emotional journey of an election like this.
And I've heard from so many people.
I've seen it in the muckrake community.
I've talked to friends.
I've talked to people within the political community.
Everyone feels right now that it's just they feel like they're being tossed about in a storm and they're never really able to get like their equilibrium to them.
Right.
I mean, but it also feels like Trump, there is a moment, perhaps, where he can finally do something and say something so bad and do something so ridiculous that there may be just enough on the margins there could be that shift.
And that's kind of like where I'm feeling right now.
It does feel like they realize they need to continue to go deeper and darker and more hate-filled and all those things.
And I just feel like at some point that's going to break a little bit, you know, for a few people here, people there.
Yeah.
Maybe in much the same way people might break and want to sign up for our Patreon, which is what they're still doing to give us the whole thing.
I would suggest that they join our Patreon to not break.
I would say join the Patreon so you can be part of a community that is taking on all this stuff together.
It is patreon.com slash mcgregpodcast.
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Nick, let's start with...
You know, this is The Weekender.
I'll go ahead and say this.
I texted you yesterday before I watched Kamala Harris go on Fox News.
I said, I think this is a disastrous idea.
I don't think it's going to change anything.
I still pretty much stand by the latter part of this.
But I do have to say, before we examine what happened in all of this segment on Fox News...
I do think Harris did as good of a job as she could have done in this environment.
I still don't know why it was necessary.
I still have my issues with it.
But I think as we're going to see it and as our coverage will show, I think that she kind of went in and did the best that she possibly could.
It kind of felt like a debate, in a way, to me.
And I don't know if Brett Baer intended to have it as a debate, because he kept talking over her.
And it got to the point where it's like, this is the Vice President of the United States.
She deserves a certain amount of respect anyway in that setting.
And he kind of wasn't giving that to her in a weird way.
But I do think that she had enough moments where they could package and make into nice video stuff.
And she probably got to say some of the things that we all had just wanted to say to Fox News and to Trump.
So that was worth it, I suppose.
But I don't know what the purpose of this whole thing was because the first thing you'd say to yourself is, you know, did she, anybody who normally watches Fox News switch their vote to her?
And I just have a hard time picturing that scenario actually happening.
I would put good money on the idea that not a single human being is going to change their vote because of her appearance or performance on Fox News.
Yeah, I mean, that's how I feel.
Now, here's the thing.
Would it be possible if they had all thought that she was this stupid tramp that...
Forgive me for saying it that way.
This is what Trump...
I mean, that's the way they have portrayed her on their network.
Yes.
And would they have walked away?
And I feel like I've seen a few tweets that have actually said this and said, you know...
She isn't as dumb as I thought she was, or she seems a lot more professional.
Like, there might be an inkling of that, which at least gets back to some sort of modicum of, like, respect for the office and of the person herself.
So maybe she established herself as a real human being in the eyes of some of these people who only had assumed that she had slept her way at the top and she doesn't deserve where she is, and all those absolutely heinous things that they have been fed the last, you know, three months.
Well, so I'll go ahead.
I have a couple of stray thoughts that I think interlace with what you've said so far, which I think is accurate.
First things first, when it comes to the Harris campaign, and we have both been critical of the Harris campaign now for the past couple of months, it's been a dismal effort.
There's been a really bad strategy that's been at play.
But to go ahead and say, if I'm in the room with the Harris campaign coming up with strategy right now and someone throws out going on Fox, basically when you weigh these things, you do one of two things.
What is there to gain from it and what risk are you taking by doing it?
Right.
The idea of what to gain from it is the idea that you might be able to pick off a few Fox News viewers, some Republicans, which is what the Harris campaign has been going after for the past couple of months to all of our dismay.
But Nick, what do you have to lose?
Brett Baer is not the sharpest tool in the shed.
Let's make this clear.
And he looks like a newsman, which is why he's in the position that he's in.
But he's not actually good at what he does, right?
If he would have been more competent, and if Harris would have had a bad showing, and we've seen interviews with Harris that have not gone all that well.
With CNN, the CNN interview did not go well for her.
Right?
So she walks into hostile territory.
She did really well in this environment, but also think about what could have gone wrong.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, it really could have fallen apart in a big, bad way.
I do not think the gamble was worth it.
I will say on that note before we get to it, Nick, it is obvious to me that Pete Buttigieg prepared her for this.
And we know that Buttigieg has made his living recently going on Fox News and running circles around their clown car team.
And it is obvious that he prepared her for this, gave her some pointers on how to talk around Fox News as bullshit.
And that's fine and good, but I do not understand deep, deep down what this was worth.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, we can dissect it, and I think it's really interesting to see what happened, but I do not understand what the benefit was, what the cost-benefit analysis of this thing really, really was.
Well, obviously, the ultimate goal would be to try and get some votes.
Yeah.
But in my mind, the only way she could have done that is if she had done kind of what Buttigieg does, which is go on often.
Now, that said, Fox News would never have her on more than, like, the once or twice, because they would get wise real quick, that, like, wait a minute, she's trying to ingratiate herself with these people, and that might work if she had enough time, maybe, but...
So that would be part of it.
And for what it's worth, Brett Baer is...
I'm shocked.
Like, you know the guy...
wife and then pretends to go into work every day, you know, and then they find out years later.
Like, Brett Baier is kind of that guy, but somehow he's in the name.
I can't believe he's seen it.
Because there are times when he has been somewhat reasonable.
We've seen him be a little bit reasonable compared to the other Fox people, and I can't believe that they kept him on it.
And by the way, after this, if it continues to push him, we're like, oh, Kamala, she held her own, whatever.
Like, I don't know how long Brett's in it for that job.
He's going to maintain this out there after this because you had to ask what was in it for him.
And if he doesn't have a good showing, then they might finally get rid of him.
I will never look at Bret Baier again and not think about a horrified wife opening up his briefcase and just finding three weeks worth of uneaten sandwiches.
And orange.
Yeah, just moldy oranges after having lost his job.
Well, Nick, let's get into this, and I think there's a lot to glean from it.
From the very, very beginning, the opening salvo of this...
I'm not going to call it an interview.
I'm going to call it more of a stress session.
It became very obvious, very clear what Bret Baier and what Fox News were doing here.
And I want to point out before you play it, Nick, what you said is exactly right.
She is the sitting vice president of the United States of America.
And if you are a news organization, and Fox News is not a news organization, it's a propaganda organ...
If you are an actual news organization, which is one of the reasons why she shouldn't have went on here in the first place, is to treat it like it's legitimate, and it gives it legitimacy, this opening shows you everything you need to know about who they are and what they're trying to do.
Tell pollsters all over the country, and here in Pennsylvania, that immigration is one of the key issues that they're looking at this election, and specifically the influx of illegal immigrants from more than 150 countries.
How many illegal immigrants would you estimate your administration has released into the country over the last three and a half years?
Well, I'm glad you raised the issue of immigration because I agree with you.
It is a topic of discussion that people want to rightly have.
And you know what I'm going to talk about right now.
Yeah, but just a number.
Do you think it's one million, three million?
Brett, let's just get to the point, okay?
The point is that we have a broken immigration system that needs to be repaired.
So your Homeland Security Secretary said that 85% of apprehensions.
I'm not finished.
We have an immigration system.
It's a rough estimate of 6 million people have been released into the country.
And let me just finish.
I'll get to the question.
I promise you.
I mean, I got to stop for a second here.
They must have shit their pants when they thought they came up with the gotcha question to start the whole thing like this.
They were so excited that this is going to be the number.
You know, she's not going to know the number, man.
And it's going to look terrible.
Well, even saying any number would have been bad for her.
If I'm prepping someone for this interview, you know something along these lines are coming.
I will say, she does take on this adversarial tone because she knows that what's happening is a struggle, right?
The correct answer is, I know what you're doing.
I know why we're going down this road.
I understand who you are.
And telling the people who watch Fox News, you are watching propaganda.
Like, that's the correct answer.
She does seem like she's trying to dodge the actual question and then turns it into, yes, immigration is an actual issue, which exposes a weakness on the flank, which is she has been in a presidential administration for four years now.
So if you go ahead and legitimize what they're saying, there's not a whole lot of coming back around this.
But that being said, Nick, if Brett Baer had an ounce of talent in his body, this could have gotten very, very ugly very, very quickly.
But it just so happens she is able to sort of stagger for a second and then come back around.
Oh, I wouldn't even say it's, again, she sort of reframes the question to answer it the way she wants to, which is like, you know, an artful way of doing that without having to say whatever number they have and have to guess.
And I think it's a little bit refreshing that she's willing to say, yes, there is issues in the border, and then she can, you know what she's going to say, she'll be able to pivot against Trump.
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