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May 11, 2021 - Rudy Giuliani
01:07:06
WHO WON 1st PRESIDENTIAL Fight? | Rudy Giuliani’s Common Sense | Ep. 74
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Hello, this is Rudy Giuliani with Rudy Giuliani's Common Sense.
So we have two really wonderful guests to talk about the election, probably a little emphasis on the debate since it just was two days ago.
And the two of them are very, very interested and very involved in New York politics.
Hank Sheinkopf, who's worked on the Clinton campaign nationally, the Mike Bloomberg campaigns, of which there were three in New York for mayor, and then so many others I couldn't possibly mention all over the country.
Hank is one of our, I don't know if you'd like me to describe him this way, one of our senior political experts in New York City.
Few people know as much about the city as Hank does.
So, we go to a different generation.
A.J.
Castamatidis, Andrea Castamatidis, is the chair of the Manhattan Republican Party.
She has kept that party together.
She's kept it strong.
She's building it.
And she's from a new generation of politics, although she's been in politics for quite some time.
And politics is in her blood, with her dad and her brother, and they're all very much involved in politics.
And AJ represents, for me, the future of the Republican Party in New York.
And it's an opportune time to talk about the Republican Party in New York because of the issues of, is this another chance for a Republican to put together some kind of coalition and win next year?
So we'll have him back next year to talk about that.
But this year, we're going to talk about the presidential election and where we are.
And we'll start with Hank.
Hank, so we're only a few days after the debate.
We've got to start with that.
Just give us your general impression of how does the debate go?
Not who won or lost, who cares?
Who changed votes?
Did anybody change votes?
I don't think anybody changed any votes, Mayor, and I think that's the problem.
Joe Biden started out in the first half not doing very well, was not clear enough or firm enough in what he wanted to say.
Donald Trump wiped him out in the first half.
In the second half of the debate, well, it was kind of a mixed bag.
Both of them got their points in.
But the problem here is that Americans were kind of confused at the end of it.
So suppose it had been just the first half of the debate.
confused because it really wasn't about issues or about discussion. It was about
personalities, who didn't like who, and who could frankly tell the President
of the United States that he was a clown and who could frankly tell the other guy
that he didn't know anything, the former vice president. I mean this didn't serve
our purpose as well in this country.
So suppose it had been just the first half of the debate.
Would you have felt better about it?
First half of the debate I'd say Donald Trump did what Donald Trump knows how to do best,
which is he's an entertaining fellow who can get every once in a while a good
policy line in, but who does what people want.
They want entertainment and excitement.
And frankly, that's what he brings to what is, in many cases, a more abundant political situation.
So they came in with a certain number of votes.
We don't exactly know what it is.
You think they walked out with pretty much the same number of votes?
Nobody gained anything.
Trump firmed his base up again by doing what he knows how to do, which is to be Donald Trump.
Joe Biden, did he bring the younger lefties in that he needs to win this thing big?
The answer is low.
No, he did not.
Okay.
AJ, you were there.
I wasn't there.
I was at the Trump watch party.
Okay, okay.
So how did you view it?
So I think that President Trump did exactly what he needed to do.
He didn't gain or he didn't lose, which I agree with you on.
But I would disagree saying that I think that Joe Biden really did lose votes because the majority of the country is in favor of law and order.
And he said in the debate that he wasn't opposed to funding the police.
He said that Antifa was an idea and not an organization.
That was a very... Yeah.
I wondered about that statement.
That's a very strange way to describe an organization that's been made a domestic terrorist group.
Absolutely.
So he said that.
He refused to say that he supported law and order.
And I think the majority of Americans are scared right now.
And that's why there was such a shift in policy after the DNC when the DNC didn't mention any of the violence.
Do you think that changed votes?
Yeah, I think that was a huge mistake for him to say that he wasn't opposed to defunding the police because Americans are scared and I don't think they want that to happen.
What do you think happened to the president since At some point the debate turned into three people yelling at each other, or at least that's what it seemed like.
I think the president probably is considered more responsible for that, not because he did it alone, but he was the most dominating when that happened.
I can count almost as many interruptions by their side, by Biden, as I can by Trump.
Except you can't hear Biden.
Biden's interruptions were, I want to say, like below the... When Trump interrupts, it's like an atomic bomb.
His interruption is worth three interruptions of somebody else.
So he looked like the guy who was really interrupting the debate, but they were all doing it.
So how much does that hurt him?
I actually think that that was a plus, because during difficult times, people look for a strong leader, someone that is assertive, going to stand up for them, and President Trump really came across as that figure.
Like, when New York City was in trouble, we elected you, Mayor Giuliani, because you were a tough leader, and during these times, people want a tough leader, and Joe Biden just looked like a wimp next to him, and we don't want wimps.
And I mean, I think people all realize that Chris Wallace was ganging up on President Trump.
And I think, you know, everybody understands that situation as well.
Well, you know Chris Wallace really well.
I've been interviewed by Chris, I don't know how many times, in different capacities.
Gosh, going back to when I was U.S.
attorney, mayor, candidate for president, and then surrogate for other people.
Right.
I once said this.
I don't mind saying it again.
I always thought he was like one of the best interviewers in television.
It's great news, man.
It really is.
For a simple reason.
He follows up.
A lot of them ask you a question.
You answer it the way you want, because you were trained to do that.
You don't answer the question.
As a political candidate, people should realize, I was told, don't answer the question.
Give the answer you want to give.
A lot of reporters let you off the hook for that.
He was relentless.
If he would ask me a question about something and I would change the subject, he would go right back to the subject.
He wasn't nasty.
Some of them are nasty, but very firm.
So how did you perceive his handling of it?
Because as a Trump partisan, I thought he was unfair to Trump.
I thought he was tougher on Trump than he was on Biden.
Whether he was tougher on Trump or not as tough on Biden or tougher on Biden and not as tough on Trump is not the question here.
The problem here is somewhat different.
Joe Biden answered questions, which you don't do, and he couldn't answer them in a way that made sense.
So maybe Chris Wallace was trying to protect him, maybe he wasn't.
Donald Trump is being Donald Trump, which is an uncontrollable element with tremendous energy and is doing what it's supposed to do.
That's a collision that's not, you cannot moderate such a collision.
Wallace did the best he could.
There was no way he could come out of this hole.
Right.
No way whatsoever.
It's not impossible.
And the first half of the debate proves it.
Donald Trump unquestionably cannibalized and took Joe Biden apart, but he also took apart Chris Wallace.
Yes, I tweeted out somewhere during the debate, because people were asking me, I said, well, the way I look at it is very good debate, very tough, very close between Trump and Wallace.
Biden, not much of a factor.
One way to think of it.
One way to think of it.
But they were, they were, whether, not on issue so much, but on style and feeling.
It filled much the energy in the debate with Trump and Wallace, Trump and Wallace.
The lack of energy was the Biden, the Biden situation.
Can we get back to something, Mayor, that A.J.
said a moment ago?
Sure.
She's right that people are afraid.
The data shows that very clearly.
People are afraid of?
They're afraid of the present set of circumstances in our streets.
They're looking for someone who'll say something clearly about it and do something about it.
So the president exactly comes across much stronger.
And Joe Biden's mistake was not being strong on that issue.
Instead of saying, instead of using the words law and order, he could have said something different.
It used to be my problem.
I used to answer questions and it was David.
the president then to take charge of the event and Wallace was unable to
negotiate or mitigate between it whatsoever. Joe Biden created the problem
for himself not vice versa. It wasn't the president. He did it. Bad form.
This could be my problem. I just answer questions and it was David, it was David,
it wasn't David, it was Roger Ailes who taught me you don't answer the
questions you give your answer.
That's correct, always.
But he's been there 47 years, you would think he would know that.
You know, his attacks against Trump on the campaign trail, which he did that on much of the campaign trail, maybe now, but it was out of the, but even the ones he would do from the basement, his attacks on COVID and even the ones he has on television are pretty brutal.
They weren't nearly as cogent and as, the attack he made against him on COVID, I almost don't remember.
The president gave a very good response on COVID, probably one of the best substantive responses, where he laid out how early he did it, what he did, the ventilators, the whole thing.
So it almost seems like Biden didn't do the best that he could in getting out his best arguments.
I don't think he came away from that debate thinking, the president screwed up COVID.
If anything, he'd come away from it saying, oh, it did better than what I thought.
Or did it turn out not to be much of an issue?
Is that correct?
Or do you think that he scored on that?
I don't think anybody scored on it.
There's a lot of dead Americans.
The president's issue was not to talk about how wonderful he was on COVID, but to talk about, frankly, how Joe Biden didn't have the character or the strength to do what the president had done, which is a different dynamic.
And that's the argument that helped Trump win that debate, if you think that's the case, or at least the first half of it.
And the first half is the one people watch the most.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
After that, they go to sleep.
This would be an opportunity to take a short break.
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A lot of conversation to go.
It's pretty interesting, isn't it?
So, but now, now that we go to, now that we get, you know, we're in the, in the days after the debate, sometimes people on the night of the debate win and three days later they lose.
As it sinks in, How do you think it's sinking in?
I mean, as people look back on it, even the people who didn't watch this debate will pretend they did and they'll have an opinion on it.
What's their opinion going to be?
Well, I think the media is always against President Trump and they're going to spin it whichever way that they want it and take specific sound clips.
But I think from a Republican's perspective, we definitely think that it's a win because there's no question that President Trump came out looking stronger from the debate.
I think the most long-term thing that comes out of that debate is the way Trump separated Biden from his base.
And I didn't think Biden handled that well because he didn't have to go that far.
Like, he's not in favor of the Green New Deal.
It's on his website.
You had to say something like, I'm not in favor of some of the provisions of the Green New Deal, like X, Y, and Z. It was kind of a lazy answer.
If I were in that position, and I knew how important it was, and I had to please both sides, I'd find one or two things in the Green New Deal that I wasn't going to do, but say, but I agree with the thrust of it.
But am I wrong?
Isn't that like a really strong, Look, the problem is endemic to the nature of the Democratic Party today and today's Republican Party.
Today's Republican Party is much more cohesive.
It's much more single individual based.
It is much more regional.
The Democratic Party has a different set of problems, which is all over the place.
Its coalitions are too elastic to function.
There's no central leadership.
It represents too many constituencies, and by definition it can't succeed.
That's why Democrats don't win elections in the places that they should.
So there has to be an overriding national argument that will get voters to vote Democrat in that kind of election.
So what's the overriding national argument now?
Get rid of Trump?
Get rid of Trump is part of it.
Those who don't like him have never liked him and will never like him.
The problem for Biden is how does he get the left that he needs to secure heavy electoral voting, heavy electoral college vote states.
That's a different problem.
There's a thought in politics, it goes back to even the older politics, that if you're sufficiently left and the other guy is sufficiently right, you don't have to go any further left.
They'll vote for you anyway.
Correct.
I kind of feel that that's changed a little.
Those people on the left, they'll vote for you anyway, but to really get that extra 5% to vote for you, they've got to be enthusiastic about you.
Well, the problem is destruction of labor unions has made getting that other 5% very hard, because you don't have a turnout mechanism that really relates to people.
You hire everyone to do everything today.
You don't have the bodies you used to have, and the labor movement was a significant part of those bodies for the Democrat Party.
They don't have them.
It just doesn't exist.
Andrea, you're in a very interesting position.
You're in the capital of the world, the major city in America, New York City.
But us, people who live in New York, we feel like our vote in the presidential election is a joke.
We don't mean anything.
You could get 10,000 people to vote for President Trump.
They're going to get the electoral votes.
I'm surprised we even have a turnout in that kind of an election.
How do you keep the Republican Party in New York vital?
Because there must be a lot of discouragement that happens.
All right.
Well, I think that there's a huge opportunity now with what we're talking about with the law and order issue, because crime is a huge problem in New York City.
And, you know, the rich people are either leaving or they're hiring private security, but it's really hurting the poorer citizens.
So it's really starting to hit home with a lot of people.
Crime up 300 percent.
People don't want to see their children shot in the streets.
So I think that the Democrats are going to have a real problem, actually, when Joe Biden comes out and says that he's not opposed to defunding the police.
People want to be able to call the police if somebody breaks into their home.
And I think that is a terrifying issue.
And I think that's going to help move the needle in Republicans' favor.
And we might have a chance to build the Republican Party here in New York.
Why is it that New York Maybe it's the same in Philadelphia and Chicago.
It's like they're old-timers.
They can't split tickets.
They can't vote for Republicans.
They're stuck.
And even when you get the most obvious choices.
You know, when I ran against David Dinkins in 1993, the city was in worse shape than it is now.
The positive hasn't gotten there yet.
We had over 2,000 murders.
It's almost ridiculous to say this.
Over 2,000 murders.
We had 10.5% unemployment.
Worse than the COVID unemployment.
10.5% unemployment.
We had 600, no, I'm sorry, 1.1 million people on welfare.
I don't even want to go drastic.
People leaving the city.
It was a disaster.
We had a guy who had a chance to be mayor.
And compared to the present mayor, he wasn't bad.
At that time, he was a bad mayor.
A lot of issues.
Two riots had occurred under him, one of which he mishandled, the one in Crown Heights.
There were so many issues.
If we were running in one of these non-denominational mayoral races, through no fault of my own, I would have won by 15%.
And I won by a narrow two.
He could easily have been re-elected, even though the record was so bad.
Which gives you a sense of how strong a democratic city it is.
Right.
Now we're 20 years later, 25 years later, it's still the same way.
Chicago keeps electing Democrats and Every weekend in Chicago, somewhere between 10 and 20 people get shot, and somewhere between 4 and 10 people get killed.
It never changes.
Why does it never change?
There are two things going on.
The research by political scientists, people who study urban politics, is really interesting to look at.
Why?
What's happening in cities generally is they're becoming whiter and younger, not blacker, number one.
Number two, what that means is that it's fascinating.
Those younger white people that move into the cities are voting much more to the left, much more liberal and much more democratic, worse so than their predecessors were.
You don't have this.
We had in New York City when I was running, we had basically people over 55 up until the 80 or whatever.
And even though they were Democrats all their lives, they would cross over sometimes if they saw a good Republican.
The only way I think you create cross-server voting is to focus on specific issues and not use necessarily in cities the Republican moniker as a way to get there.
Oh, gosh.
You create fusion tickets that make Republicanism part of it.
so that you redefine the argument in a way that works at the present moment.
Weirton won in Los Angeles the year that you won because the city was ready for a Republican,
but they had they have non-partisan voting. Right, which is easy. Philadelphia has partisan voting.
So if we had non-partisan voting in New York, would it then become easier for a Republican to win?
If we had non-partisan voting in New York, it would be easier to elect anyone.
There are no Democrat machines anymore.
People think there are.
They really don't exist.
I mean, there is no machine in Manhattan.
There is really no machine.
The Bronx machine is a mess.
They can't even put a speaker candidate together.
You know, if you think about it from home with Queens.
The Queens machine is contracting.
Staten Island has a Republican operation that works very well.
Yeah, right, sure.
Maybe one of the best in the city.
Queens or Brooklyn.
I mean, it just doesn't exist.
So what is driving those votes?
What is driving those votes?
Hard to say.
I think that there is a general attitude about something called progressive that no one seems to understand.
Well, my bet is over time, those younger people are going to become more conservative more quickly, and the ethnic breaks are different today.
You don't have traditional ethics that voted in particular ways, like for Republicans in the outer boroughs.
You don't have it anymore.
The same way you don't have it in the other cities throughout the country.
And as Chicago is much more black dominant in its politics.
Yes, right.
So the population here in New York is somewhat different.
Can you elect a Republican in New York?
You can elect a fusion candidate in New York.
Even now?
Even now.
If you are able to target the arguments in a New York way.
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Thank you for returning.
Does it, but does it matter?
That de Blasio has put the city in this condition.
For example, if the city was in the condition it was in when, oh, when de Blasio ran two terms ago.
I mean, whatever people think, I mean, Mike Bloomberg turned over, I think, a really well-functioning city to de Blasio.
Certainly with a budget surplus.
Yeah, but also Mike was a, Mike was a, Businessman, and he was a kind of a perfectionist.
So all the agencies were in about as good a shape as they could be in.
Obviously, they don't all work, but in as good a shape as they could be in.
He gave him like a nice city, which I think sustained de Blasio for a while.
Hard to screw up a nice city so fast.
Are people still interested in that?
I remember I always had all the good city groups on my side.
A lot of them were filled with Democrats.
But because I was talking about reform, because I was talking about the things they were interested in, they were able to overcome being Democrats and vote for me.
Did that happen?
Ever?
The problem is participation in those kinds of good government groups is declining, not increasing in activity.
Why?
Because people are not joining organizations.
Communal fraternal organizations are dying.
And by the way, so is religion in New York City in most cases.
It's either going to extremes.
Churches are being sold off, reasonably so, so the archdiocese and church operations can survive in other ways.
Synagogues are collapsing unless they are further to the right.
Ditto.
So something else is going on.
You think about it.
The communal nature of our city has changed, therefore identification has changed.
We have to create new kinds of group identifications, and my sense is that they will be on particular issues.
Crime as a broad-based argument is not the issue.
The issue is how it impacts particular people who want to change the discussion.
Right, right.
What can the Republicans in New York, of which, you know, despite the fact that we're only, what, 14, 15% of the city, and I don't know, 30% of the state, when you apply that against how many New Yorkers there are, those are a lot of Republicans.
In another place, there are enough Republicans to make a state.
What can they do to contribute to the election of the president, who they feel as strongly about as other Republicans, But in their own state, there isn't much useful for them to do unless it spreads out.
So how do you use them in an election year like this?
Well, there are many things that they can do.
They can make phone calls for President Trump to help turn out the vote, because voter turnout is going to be key, making sure that our voters turn out, because we have such a strong base.
And if we can get them out, I think that we can win.
So that's another big thing.
And then maybe deploying to some of the key swing states, knocking on doors and doing work there.
That's amazing.
Then they could better use their time going to one of those states where we really need those electoral votes.
When I was running for president in, really it was 2007, for the election in 2008, the whole year of 2007, every place I went there were New York volunteers.
Some of them were volunteering for me, a few were volunteering for other candidates, but I was a hometown candidate.
And then some of them were just helping with the Republican Party there.
It's like, gee, we can't do useful work here, so we'll go there.
Does that still happen?
Yeah, absolutely.
You've got people going out to Florida and Michigan and all these places that need help.
And we deploy people all the time all over the country.
And, you know, because I have to say, if President Trump wins New York State, we're going to sweep the entire country.
So I think everyone's time is better used other places.
How about if he wins New York City?
You know, Hank, I tried to figure out how many Republican presidential candidates One New York City.
I think there was one in the 20th century.
I can't forget it.
But the most important thing is Lincoln lost it twice.
Lincoln lost New York City twice.
Lincoln!
Wow.
Well, I was in five states on Monday.
I went around with Donald Trump Jr.
and Kim, and it was an incredible experience.
They're working so hard, I have to tell you.
When I first campaigned with Donald Trump, big time.
I mean, I started working on his campaign Oh, I would say in March of 2015.
When he first announced, I didn't believe it.
In fact, I was on Fox & Friends a couple days before he was going to announce, and Brian Kilmeade asked me, who are the serious Republican candidates, and who are you going to endorse?
I said, well, I don't know who I'm going to endorse.
They're all good.
And some of them are close friends, so it's going to be very hard for me.
Jeb Bush, who had campaigned with me three times, and I campaigned for him in Florida because we had a lot of the same supporters, as you imagine, right?
New York and Florida, like this.
Then I was very close to Rick Perry.
Rick Perry was one of the chairmen of my campaign, which I thought was really a coup, Governor of Texas supporting me, so I owed him.
Marco Rubio, I was the second Republican to endorse him because I wanted to beat his opponent.
Mike Huckabee was running again.
I had become very close to Mike running again.
So I had a bunch of friends, all of whom were credible candidates, particularly Jeb Bush.
Everybody thought he was going to dominate.
So I go on, who are the serious candidates for president?
I said, I'm going to put this in no order of importance because I have no idea who's ahead or behind.
But these are the people I think can make good presidents.
I named five people.
Get back to my office.
About 10 o'clock, I get a call.
Mayor!
Yes?
This is Donald.
Oh, Donald, hey, how you doing?
What?
What am I?
How long have they been friends of yours?
I said, well, you know, Jeb, 10 years.
How long have we been friends?
18 years?
20 years?
Are you mad at me?
No, I'm not mad at you.
I'm running for president!
You don't even mention me?
I know you've got to take a little while to do an endorsement.
You'll endorse me, though.
I know you'll endorse me.
Not bad if you play around a little.
Looks like you're thinking, but I'm running.
I said, Donald, this has something to do with The Apprentice or something.
I'm serious.
I got off the phone.
I called Tony, my friend Tony Carbonetti.
I said, Tony, he's serious.
And Tony said, Bull, no way.
He's not going to run.
But wow, he was convinced right from the very beginning.
A few months later, I said, oh boy, he is running and I'm closer to him than the others.
And I said, okay, I joined the crazy campaign.
At the time, I think I was the fifth or sixth person working on the campaign.
Not quite that bad, but it was a little, a little tiny, a little tiny thing.
So he had that big movement going for him then.
I think that's what won it for him.
That's why I thought he would win.
I thought he'd win when I go see the crowds and all the enthusiasm.
I said, my God, this is not just people who say, I'm going to vote for him and stay home.
These people are going to go.
They're standing out at 90 degree heat.
5,000 to see this guy in June.
What are they going to be doing in November?
Does he have that same kind of enthusiasm now?
He is a disruptor in a society right now that seeks a disruptor.
I'm the idiot that said in January 2016 that he would be the nominee.
Check the clips.
In May I said he'd be the president.
People thought I was out of my mind.
And based on?
Based on the fact that if you look at the country and the The racial divisions, the regional divisions, the loss of jobs, the changes in the economics, and frankly, the fact that our demographics are shifting so rapidly, that there was a place for a disruptor to enter into the discussion and be victorious.
This country is going through tremendous change.
And now?
How has it changed four years later?
Four years later, he's still the disruptor.
Frankly, there's a personality cult associated with him.
He has to convince people of a record that is less interesting to people than his personality and his behavior.
He's the entertainer-in-chief as well as the president.
And it's an extraordinary combination, and people are, frankly, bored by everything else they see around them.
But remember, I want to go back to something you said a moment ago.
Republicans in this state, in New York.
Yeah, right, which are different.
Republicans in New York City, like you, tend to get elected in a crisis.
The crisis, going back to LaGuardia, was corruption.
The crisis for Lindsey was breakdown of services.
Okay?
You got it, yeah.
The crisis for Giuliani was crime.
Right.
The crisis for Mike Bloomberg was 9-11.
When you look at that, you understand the mark.
So what's going to happen here is reflective, frankly, of what will happen in the Midwest, north of New York City.
People are in a crisis north of Orange County.
Medicare doesn't work.
They can't have guns and they can't get cops.
It takes 45 minutes to an hour to get a cop when you get north of Orange County because they depend upon the state police.
Even in the rural areas?
In the rural areas, they're worried.
They're scared to death.
They can't get gun permits because of the changes in the law a couple of years ago.
Correct.
They're angry.
So the question becomes, and what will benefit AJ over time, if that anger starts to seep south?
Right.
Could there be changes in the structure?
You bet.
But Donald Trump has led that revolution of change because he has woken up the disaffected in an emotional way.
You did it in New York City.
Few people are able to do that.
He's done it.
Whether Republicans like it or not or Democrats like it or not.
Very different.
He's the Newt Gingrich of his generation for the Republican Party.
He's shifted the discussion, the dynamic, and the very way that people feel about that structure of Republicans.
It's no longer, you know, let's go to a club and have a cigar.
It's let's go kick someone's ass.
It's a very different question.
As I sit here, and this takes me back 30 years or 20 years or whatever, I say to myself, I can now conceive, even in the strange times, I can conceive of a Republican government.
in two years.
Easier than I can a Republican mayor in a year.
Because I think Hank is right, it takes crisis.
I'm not sure, I'm not sure, maybe, that we're quite at that crisis level.
I think we're getting there.
So how do you prepare?
How do you, do you find that, for example, are there more people volunteering,
more people coming in, more people interested in helping the Republican Party?
Absolutely.
Since, really, the whole defund the police movement happened a few months ago, that was a key factor that happened.
And since then, people have really looked for a voice.
They feel very desperate.
We've had so many people reaching out to the Manhattan Republican Party, wanting to volunteer.
Of course, that makes sense.
My Twitter following has doubled in three months.
People are looking for a voice.
They're scared.
They don't know what to do.
And I think this is going to be a huge issue that is going to catapult us to become more conservative.
It is.
I mean, it is often the police because that's the key.
The police are the key to municipal services.
That's really what did it because people have seen it.
I mean, even in nice neighborhoods, people are getting held up at gunpoint.
Right.
I mean, this is something.
I was fortunate to grow up when you were mayor.
I have never seen crime before this year.
I was like, what's that?
Crime?
So it's surreal.
Hank will agree with me.
And maybe this is against my political position, but we've got to be truthful.
It hasn't gotten to anywhere near what it was like yet.
No, it's heading that way.
Nothing compared to what you went through, but something important that AJ touched on that will make sense to you, Mayor, because of your own history, your extraordinary history.
Broken windows theory, Wilson and Kelling, they had a point.
The disruption that A.J.
talks about, guns, being held up with a gun is one thing, but chaos in the streets is what people are responding to.
The mayor's job is, frankly, to make sure that the lights are turned on in the morning when people wake up.
That's how New Yorkers really believe it.
And that at night, he shuts off the lights so they can go to sleep.
And so long as they believe the mayor is doing that, There is order.
When the mayor isn't doing that, and there is disorder, the combination is broken windows.
That's when the theory has value.
Because it means that somebody has to do something.
Why?
Because if not, the public loses their confidence in the entire political system.
And when they do that, they vote Republican in New York City.
That's the difference.
That's the crisis that occurs.
And it still happens.
A couple of years ago, there were people saying, that's all gone now.
People can't vote Republican in New York.
Cities are gone.
Nobody's going to vote for a Republican in a city.
New York being one of them.
I've actually always thought New York is the city that can most easily vote for a Republican.
I think there's a place for it.
If you look at Chicago and Philadelphia and these places, 55 years in Chicago.
There's one city that has 100 years of Democrats.
Philadelphia's elected Republicans in the past, but can you have a Republican mayor in New York City?
Can you have Trump as president?
Can you have the chaos we're having?
People thought it could never happen.
It's all happening.
About New York specifically, you can elect a fusion candidate.
You can elect a fusion candidate.
It depends how the campaign is run.
So people should understand by a fusion candidate, it means running on two or three tickets, but not just like in some places you're on those tickets and it's ceremonial.
Right.
You activate that party and it becomes a place where a Democrat, who could never possibly vote for a Republican, can vote for you.
He doesn't have to pull down the Republican lever.
I can't tell you how many people, old people, older people, who come up to me and say to me, Well, studies have shown, frankly, there's enough real research on this.
African Americans will vote Democrat under most circumstances.
I mean, it's going to be very hard to ever move on those numbers.
It's just part of the culture, as voting Republican was for black people not so long ago.
Right, Jackie Robinson, that whole generation.
Correct.
And since Jack Kennedy's presidency, may he rest in peace, it was about voting Democrat.
Right.
Because of certain things that were done by the Kennedy administration's civil rights.
The Kennedy administration's civil rights bill.
Correct.
That's what did it.
So could you change that?
Not likely.
But the good news for Republicans is that New York City, again, is becoming younger and whiter, which will present opportunities over time.
So I guess getting it back to the national Last time he did it, I'm not sure if he thought he was going to get a big black vote then.
I don't think he did.
I think he did it because, in a way, almost he was being challenged to do it.
They were saying, he won't go into a black community.
He won't go into the black, he won't talk to African American people.
Now, the thing I know about him is, Whatever else you think about him, that doesn't even affect, he's completely non-prejudiced.
He deals with the black community, the white community.
The joke about him was, yes, color does affect him.
He likes green.
It's not black, not white, it's green.
You can make money, you're good.
So he went out and he did some very, very good speeches about, you have nothing to lose, He recites all the things that are wrong.
Give me a chance.
I can't make it worse.
I should tell you he borrowed that from my 1993 campaign because I did that same thing.
And not to be a Biden, somebody gave it to me.
I didn't invent it.
Probably Garth.
Things are so bad.
In my case, we had a million people on welfare.
We had 2,000 murders.
We had unemployment.
I said, I tell you what, I can make this promise.
I won't do any worse.
Well, he repeated that in the context of, and he added some things to it.
It really worked with the audience.
They go crazy.
But then it didn't turn into much of a vote.
I didn't see a pop of any kind.
There was a pop in his Hispanic vote, but not in that.
This time, the early polls look like you could get a very, very sizable proportion, 15%, 12%.
You think that's possible?
I do think it's possible because I think President Trump has really kept his promises to the black community.
Record low African-American unemployment.
He has criminal justice reform, record funding for African-American colleges.
And I think a bigger issue now is The majority of African-Americans do not want to defund the police because it's their neighborhoods that are being hit hard with crime.
And I think they actually appreciate President Trump for supporting the police, which is in turn supporting their communities.
So I think you're going to see a lot more of an African-American vote turn out for President Trump because they don't want to see their neighborhoods getting burned down.
On the cop thing, it's about, if someone were to create an ad that says, I'm Republican, you know that, I respect you, here's what I'm going to do about criminal justice reform and police, I'm going to make sure the cops respect you and that they do their job.
The issue is not people hating cops per se.
It's this feeling that they're being taken advantage of or being disrespected in the street, which makes it harder.
There's got to be a way to get that message across.
Cops are doing their work.
The idea that cops aren't working, that's absurd.
I mean, you have to reveal.
I mean, I work for the cop unions in New York City.
I have to say it.
But look, they're investigating, they're patrolling, and they're arresting.
Politicians are undermining them.
If someone can come up with a message for Republicans that says, look, we're really not bad guys.
We want to keep you safe, by the way.
We're going to make the cops respect you, and we're going to make sure you're safe, you win the argument.
But what's happened is the Democrats have been allowed to get away with making this a sharp-edged argument with no room in the middle.
Right.
So long as there's no room in the middle, Republicans can't do well.
Right.
Because people have to be given the option to make a choice.
Republicans to get elected need independents and then they need Democrats who are independent Democrats who are capable, under the right circumstances, of moving Moving into a one-time only Republican vote.
And the Republicans have to step back and say, wait a second, okay, they got to be able to say the following, which is, we haven't been right about some things, but we're right about other things, and crime is one of them.
By the way, we're going to make sure the cops respect you, but we're not going to allow you to get hurt.
Right.
Right.
If they can say that in a way that makes sense with capable messengers that aren't going to freak people out, they got a shot at picking up those votes over time.
So what does that have to do with this election in the sense that can Trump get a bounce?
Do you think Trump will get a bounce?
I've forgotten what it was.
Was it 5% or 8% last time?
I don't remember.
It was one of those.
Can he get a bounce in that number?
Do you expect him to get more?
Let's say he got 8% last time.
Do you expect him to get more than 8% this time?
Yes, I do.
And I think what you said was absolutely the right message, because I think that's what Americans are looking to hear.
But the problem is, the Democratic Party has moved so far left on this issue, including Joe Biden, who everybody thought was a moderate when he said he wasn't opposed to defunding the police, saying Antifa is not an organization when they're burning down neighborhoods.
And I think that really scares people.
And I think that will definitely give President Trump a bounce.
So it's not going to it's not going to make a difference in New York.
But there are states where we got swing states where the black vote in a close election.
Ohio has a classic.
We were in Cleveland for the debate.
That's a Detroit for Michigan.
Wisconsin, they they hate all of the violence.
Wisconsin, which I don't think most people would know, has a fair number of does.
Minneapolis, Minnesota, 17 percent.
African-Americans and others who are not white can make the difference in those races.
The question is, does the Republican Party, does it have too sharp edges?
Is its edges too sharp as an idea?
It's his edges.
Correct.
President Trump.
Correct.
And those places that defines the Republican Party as something that is too harsh to hold on to.
What the Democrats have done and beaten the Republicans on this one argument is some level of compassion.
There's got to be a way if in order for Republicans to extend their reach into urban areas to be able to become the party of crisis and the party of compassion at the same time.
Not simple.
Right.
But her generation can do it.
A.J.' 's generation can do this because they have a whole different worldview.
Right.
They weren't brought up.
I was a Democrat until I was 30 something.
And I was a Democrat.
If I could think of it, I mean, Democrats were better to poor people.
Republicans weren't.
Correct.
And then John Kennedy came along that created a hero for you.
Correct.
And it wasn't until I was an assistant U.S.
attorney could think for myself that I started seeing that being good to poor
people.
Number one, I was investigating corruption.
So it may be very sour.
So getting means three to one.
The poor people get one.
The bureaucrats and the politicians get three.
So if you're going to fund poor people, you're going to have to put in three times more money to get money to them.
Disgusting.
It was the Model Cities administration that had been put together, strangely, by a Republican, John Lindsay, but who really acts like a Democrat.
The second thing that got me was the George McGovern, so far to the left, Who now probably looks like a conservative, so far to the left, and it will imperil us with regard to the Soviet Union.
And my generation was probably less flexible to make that kind of change.
I do get the sense that her generation, if they were faced with similar things, would find it easier to make a change like that.
Possible.
I mean, look, I think of this through my own life.
I mean, poor kid, no family really.
I was out of the house.
What house?
I was never in a house.
I was out at seven.
Essentially, on my own, working.
If it hadn't been for New York, I wouldn't be anyplace.
And I came out of trade unions, and that was the way I made my way.
The institutions that created me, and people like me, that gave us those opportunities, have fallen apart, or been abandoned, or have no place to go.
So what do people like me do?
They wander in the Neverland.
Sometimes they like a Trump.
Sometimes they like a Giuliani.
They don't really like a de Blasio, but they'll live with him if they have to.
Those people like me are the people in the next generation that she needs.
Right.
And they're the people that Donald Trump needs today, and he's got.
Does he have them?
They're alienated enough that they're going to look someplace for protection.
Ultimately, politics is about protection.
Let's think about Trump for a minute, and AJ can take a few notes for next year.
But what about them do you have to appeal to, to move them over?
What's the key?
If you can think of one thing, Hank, what's the key thing?
You have to appear compassionate and strong at the same time.
You've got the strong part.
The strong part that Republicans have, the compassionate part, it doesn't appear that they have.
And that's the problem.
Now, Trump appeals to people who are less concerned about compassion.
But in order to get the Democratic electorate, there has to be something that's a heartstring tug, that has less to do with strength than it has more to do with something else.
So that opens up a lot of people.
Absolutely.
So I remember after 9-11, the New York Times wrote an editorial saying, we never saw him like this.
You make my case.
Basically saying, he was a cold, hard-hearted bastard.
Boy, I don't know what happened to him.
Well, not true.
It was the same me, except I was emphasizing that I'm part of myself.
And I think Trump has some of this problem, too.
I took over a city where you couldn't be compassionate.
You didn't have time for it.
You got 2,000 people dying.
You've got hundreds of thousands on welfare.
You do get affected by the attacks on you.
Everybody's your enemy.
You've got to get through your enemy.
You also had City for Sale at the time.
You had major corruption scandals.
Jack Newfield, may he rest in peace, used to say to me that, Hank, the Democrats will never win anything unless they understand how to deal with crime.
What AJ is referring to two generations later, quite frankly, is the very same condition.
The Democrat Republicans have had to take that as that harsh behavior and lose the compassion on the other side.
Right.
And until those two can meet in some place, it's going to be hard.
It's going to be very hard to get what you need.
From the first day he was in the White House, they wanted to impeach him.
No matter who you are, it tends to create a... But what you're saying is the compassion part then wins over the ones that haven't been won over already.
Correct.
It solidifies the people that are leaning.
And they wouldn't want to be someplace.
Politics is about belonging somewhere.
And there's a whole part of this country that doesn't feel they belong, and they're regional, and they're, as you said in the beginning, concentrated, and they're with Trump now.
The question is, what do Republicans do long-term?
Right.
Different issue.
So, A.J., even though you're the head of the Republican Party in Manhattan City, urban, you move around a good deal, both within the state and the country, with Republicans.
There's the big thing about it.
How can Trump get the suburban woman to vote for him?
First of all, is the suburban woman not voting for him?
And I imagine not in the percentage that they should be.
And then how do you make the appeal there that brings that number down, even if you don't change it completely?
So I think before people were making the case that President Trump was losing the suburban woman because he's more abrasive.
Which, as a New Yorker, I love his abrasive, honest, you know, tough attitude.
But now I think I would make the case that he's actually winning the suburban woman.
Because, I hate to hammer this home completely again and again and again, the crime issue.
I think suburban women, they're worried about their families, they're worried about their neighborhoods.
That's the number one thing they care about is their family.
And they're absolutely terrified about Antipa and all of these people coming into neighborhoods, throwing things, protesting, breaking into homes, holding people up, burning buildings down.
And I think that issue is going to bring them over to President Trump.
Here's a man who's a genius on ads, so I'm going to give him an ad.
If you were representing Trump, would you use as an ad the McCoskeys, the two people Whose house was invaded and had to stand there with guns protecting themselves?
Or is that too insensitive?
Is this what America has come down to?
That decent people have to stand outside their homes?
And I go to black to white faces on their wheels.
Stand outside their homes, even armed to protect themselves against crowds.
Is that where we've come to?
Is that where we want to go?
No, it's not.
One man has stood up for us.
He said, there's a line you can't cross.
We can do it right now.
I'm making the ad right now.
I'm writing the ad off the top of my head.
There's a line you can't cross.
There's a place you can't go.
And it's a place where Americans get hurt.
We can't let that happen.
Protect American families.
Donald Trump.
That's a great end.
I can see the visuals.
Something like that would be an effective end.
I can see the visuals.
I mean very, very, you know, black and white on the front end.
Good music.
Um, you know, slow, slow, slow, slow, uh, you do wipes in of the, of the, of the photos.
I mean, I can see it, you know?
I mean, the stuff, the most of the stuff that gets done today in ads is crappy.
I mean, I have to tell you, they don't move me and I think ads have to be emotional.
Everyone, I mean, it's amazing.
It's like, it's like the commercials in general, and then they cookie cutter.
You got the same cookie cutter ad.
I did see one though.
Before we conclude, I did see one that may win the award as the best one.
It's for, it's for, it's for Kayla, Kimberly.
Kim Klesik.
Klesik, Kimberly Klesik.
And she's, she's running in Baltimore in Elijah Cummings' old district, right?
And I, for some reason, I pay a lot of attention to that district because during the Baltimore riots, Just for some reason I happened to see his press conference and it looked like Harlem in the old days, not Harlem now.
In the back of him there's all this garbage and houses falling apart.
Big press conference and he says, nobody's done anything for this district for 40 or 50 years, something like that.
This district is ignored.
Nobody's done it for 40 or 50 years.
And I'm looking at it, I'm saying, I get out my... How long has he been there?
23, 24, 25 years.
Wow.
But nobody, of course, asked him the question.
Who's going to do it for them?
You.
You're the one.
You're the one who's got to go fight for them and get them what they want.
And I know congressmen.
When I was mayor, some were much better than others.
So Baltimore is a, so she's running in that district to replace him.
She's a beautiful, young looking, she's 38, but she's younger looking than 38.
And she has this commercial, I don't know if you've seen it.
The first one is, she's got a beautiful red dress on, tastefully short, high heels.
And she's walking that way through the ghetto, you know, the old ghetto kind of thing.
And she's doing her commercial.
I'm sure it's a voiceover.
She's doing her commercial that way.
And all you see is this beautiful black woman, very tasteful, beautiful dress on, and she's walking around.
It's a very strong message.
I can't remember the message exactly, but I think you'd like it.
It's a very strong message about how this district has been allowed to deteriorate.
Nobody has cared for 50 years.
Every single one of them have been Democrats.
Every single one of them.
Or a lot of them became rich, or their wives became rich.
And as Cummings said, it's gotten worse.
He said, there's a reason for that.
The reason for that is you don't have somebody that's really fighting for this district, who's independent enough.
And I'm the one that should get it.
It almost looked like a mayoral ad.
I thought she was running for mayor at first.
She popped out at me and I interviewed her.
She's a heck of a candidate.
I mean, it's all for real.
Now she's done a second one.
I'm sitting there.
I see the first one.
It's starting again.
Same thing.
She's walking through.
And you see another woman.
One woman comes out from the side.
She's got a red dress on.
She's a big, tall, very good-looking white woman.
And he said, oh, come here.
And I got a big, tall Hispanic woman.
Then an Asian woman.
Then black women.
Then Asian women.
Then black women.
By the time you finish it's her and behind her about 100 women walking through the bad streets of Baltimore.
It's the best ad I've seen so far this year.
Sure it's good?
You've got to watch it and tell me what you think of it.
I don't know if it's enough to crack through and that's like winning in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
So let's get to the real question.
All they really care about in interviews like this is who do you pick?
I think today, this is October 1st, today the President wins and the Democrats take the Senate.
They win the Senate, they win, they probably pick up four seats I would guess.
So wins close?
So we go into one of those big battles.
It'll be tough.
So let's say he wins.
Even by the same number of electoral votes last time.
Then he wins.
But each one of those states, though, are just as close.
Like, what the heck was it?
He lost Minnesota by a point and a half, and then he won Wisconsin by a point and a half.
So they challenged Wisconsin.
They challenge all the states, and then we have all these mail-in ballots.
You foresee that as we're walking into a constitutional crisis?
I think we're walking into a constitutional crisis.
And by the way, to put it in some context, the imperial presidency has been a problem probably since the Second World War.
The imperial presidency has been a problem since the Second World War.
The president will have the power of that office to do whatever he needs to do.
The question is, will the courts comply or will they be very independent or will they follow the law?
is an institution very different than what we thought it was.
The president will have the power of that office to do whatever he needs to do.
The question is, will the courts comply or will they be very independent or will they
follow the law?
We don't know.
Just because you make the appointments, as you know, Mayor, doesn't necessarily mean
Of course, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But the power of the presidency is much more significant than it's ever been.
What you're telling me, I think, is unless the election is a landslide, which is not foreseeable, right?
Not likely.
Not something any of us are counting on, on either side.
I pray for it.
We're going to have long, long election battles after.
It'll be a long election battle, very likely.
And then we...
Get it done before the Electoral College.
I think it's on the 14th of December.
We hope.
It's not good for the country to have these kinds of battles.
Then it goes to the House.
No, it's not good for the country to have these kinds of battles.
Then it goes to the House.
We don't need divisiveness right now.
That's the other side of it.
What do you think, AJ?
Is it going to be, I don't even say close, but within the margin in which you can challenge an election in enough states so we hold this thing up for months and months?
Yeah, I mean, I think President Trump is going to win just because he has made the case on the economy.
And after the global pandemic, which decimated the economy around the world, people are going to need him to get the economy back on track.
And he's proven that he can do that, the law and order issue.
So I think, you know, he could actually win more this time.
But if it is close between the Democratic shenanigans of the Basically, Hillary has put the gauntlet down.
Hillary has said—she went further than I ever thought she would go.
She said, don't concede on election night.
No matter what, don't concede.
to give up power last time.
I think this time it's going to be even worse.
Well, I mean, basically, Hillary has put the gauntlet down.
Hillary has said, and she went further than I ever thought she would go.
She said, don't concede on election night.
No matter what, don't concede.
Now, I'm not sure she envisioned no matter what, 10 percent win and do it.
But it sounds that way.
And I think that's what triggered the Republican concern, including the president, that this is going to be a very
bad, bad election.
I think that one quote sits in his mind as they're going to do anything they have to do to steal this election.
That is what it sounded to him.
Don't concede no matter what.
So it could be a heck.
It could be a heck of a battle.
And then.
I don't know if people realize this.
They're talking about the courts.
The courts are important.
The courts are important for one of the things that might happen if the Republicans maintain their three vote margin in the House.
Because the House votes by single delegation.
So Idaho is as much as California.
Because if you get past December 14th, the election goes to the new House.
Then the Democrats are going to want to try to get it done in the Electoral College.
They're not going to want it to fall back to a... On the other hand, if that should flip, and I think it's only a three-state margin for Republicans in the House, and it's one vote more for the Democrats, the Republicans are going to want to get it resolved before we get there, which we did in Bush and Gore because it got resolved in the Supreme Court.
So for me as a lawyer, this will be the most fascinating electoral period ever if it goes that way.
But it's bad for the country.
I think there's something... I think it hurt the country when we went through Bush v. Gore, and it's going to be 10 times more acrimonious this time.
It was a gentlemanly relationship, more.
It was a gentlemanly relationship more.
It was a little...
Now, wow.
Institutions matter, Mayor, as you know.
The danger to these institutions, which buttress democracy and make it work, will not be insignificant.
Any American should be very concerned about this.
Very.
We take this democracy for granted.
We should not.
So two questions for you, Hank.
You think right now Trump will win?
Yes, I do, today.
But you think he'll win by a margin that creates the necessity for recounting and No, we have never had the number of absentee or mail-in ballots that we will have this time.
And I question whether election officers in some states will frankly be able to process the amount of activity and time.
And that will allow local Republican and Democrat parties to get into battles in local courts.
So who knows how long that process will take.
That's why it's important to have stability in the other chambers of the government, i.e.
the House and the Senate.
Now, do you foresee that, or are you saying when you say you think he'll win now, if things remain roughly the same, he wins?
Things remain roughly the same.
Unless something bad happens.
The wonderful thing about politics is it can change tomorrow.
Everybody's got it planned out, but 13 seconds in this game is like 10 years in anything else.
So George W. Bush 43 was headed to the White House.
He was ahead of Gore by a couple of solid points.
And then they revealed the DWI on the Thursday before the election.
And according to Karl Rove, that's the thing that narrowed it down to zero.
They were both there with almost exactly the same number of votes.
Very smart guy, Rove.
I think that the institutions are in danger of losing their legitimacy.
And I do believe that this will be a very close election.
And that it will then be perceived by the public as not about what's good for the nation, but what's good about getting power for particular people.
And that will impact the presidency as well as the Senate and the House.
A.J., what do you think?
I think President Trump's going to win by a much larger margin this year.
I think there's a lot more at stake, and Americans realize that, and now that their safety is threatened more than ever, the economy more than ever, and I really think that's going to turn out.
And, you know, polls don't really matter, because if you look at the polls last time, it had President Trump behind so much.
But this time, I think the Trump effect, the people not wanting to say that they're voting for Trump, is even greater and the polls are even closer, so I think that this reflects that people are really turning to President Trump, who even previously hadn't.
So that says to me, both of you saying that says to me that despite the polls, which have closed somewhat, we don't know exactly how they've closed.
They're going to close more, I think, Mayor.
But what you're saying is if you could win now, those polls really don't reflect the hidden vote.
Well, I had a hidden vote.
I was running against an African-American candidate, and I always thought it was about 5%, 6%.
And it turned out to be that.
The day of election day, I was behind by 6% when I won in the exit poll, and I won by 2%.
And I attribute that 6% to people who said, I'm going to vote for David Dinkins because he was African-American, and they didn't want to be thought of as racist.
And it was just easier to say that.
I agree.
I know you've got a big percentage here for Trump, because people come up and tell me.
I had one guy come up and tell me, I can't vote for Trump because my wife will make it hell.
I said, well, then don't tell her the truth.
Tell all your voters for Hillary or whatever.
He said, I never lie to my wife.
I said, do you ever cheat?
He said, yeah.
I said, well, that's lying to your wife.
He said, well, it's different.
OK.
All right.
Well, it really has been fascinating.
We'll have to do it one more time.
But I tell you, I've got to book you guys for next year.
I think the conversation about the New York race We'll be as equally as interesting.
And maybe anytime a Republican gets elected in New York, it's historic.
Maybe it'll be a historic election.
I hope so.
Well, thank you.
Thank you very much, AJ.
You do a great, great job.
You do a great job without, you know, all the all the positive reinforcement you should get because you're in the you're in the lion's den.
But you do a great job.
You're a lion tamer.
And you know how much respect I have for you.
Thank you, man.
I think this man is one of the best political analysts in the country.
Probably one of the few with an open mind.
So I love this country and I believe in bipartisanship.
And I'm sad to see what's happened.
It troubles me greatly about the future.
It really does.
Also, I think you have your own ideology.
But you don't let it get in the way of your objective judgment, which is very, very remarkable.
And very few people have that anymore.
I love America.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Hank.
Thank you.
Great, great pleasure.
Thank you very much.
AJ, thank you.
Oh my gosh, we shouldn't have shook hands.
Dr. Fauci says, no more handshaking.
You know what I have in my pocket.
You want a little?
I always carry it with me.
Here you go.
Come on, that's it.
On the way out.
Well, I hope you enjoyed this.
I did.
I think that...
Some of the things discussed here are going to be, we'll be discussing the day after the election and we'll be discussing it for the New York election and some of the others.
These are, these are things that don't get resolved in one election, no matter who wins.
They're going to be, whoever wins, there can be a lot of issues that fall out of that.
I agree with him.
It'd be very hard for me not to.
I mean, I am a very strong partisan and a good friend of his, but I did feel in I did feel in 2015 at the first rally I went to him in Ohio, and there were 10,000 people outside of 5,000, 5,000 people or 6,000 people in the arena.
And it was about 96 degrees.
They already had had some people that had fainted.
He pulled up.
I said, Donald, because I call him Donald then.
I said, Donald, I think we should stay in the bus so that all these people out here can get in the arena and not sweat.
They don't have to do that.
So we're going to let them sweat out here?
And he said, no, we've got an equal number inside.
Now, I'm used to election enthusiasm of that kind starting about now.
It's October.
I remember every election I was in, no matter how popular, all of a sudden you get into October, you can feel it.
You can feel the enthusiasm starting to build.
The crowds get bigger.
They're feeling the election.
These people were doing it way back in June.
And I said to him, you're going to win.
With this kind of enthusiasm, you win it.
So I don't know.
I haven't traveled with him as much.
I did twice.
I kind of see that.
So for me, that's sort of my bellwether.
If his enthusiasm level is 10%, 15% higher than Biden's, I think he wins.
Because I think Hank is absolutely right.
This is about two groups.
There's something in the middle, but not that much.
And maybe if you lose a little in the middle, but you add 10% more people voting from the base, well, you're ahead.
So it's a very different kind of election.
It'll be interesting to see how it comes out.
And even though as a lawyer, I would love to see all those legal battles, just as an academic matter, it would be terrible for the country.
So let's hope it doesn't happen.
Thank you again.
And thank you for listening.
And we'll be back, you know, in a couple of days.
Thank you very much.
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