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Zip recruiter for free at zip recruiter dotcom crooked. Welcome to Positive America, I'm John Favrot. I'm John Lovett. I'm Tommy Vietor. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. This is our last pod before Election Day. So we've got the whole crew here to talk about Joe Biden and Donald Trump's closing arguments and strategies. Offer some final thoughts and answer a few of your questions. Then at the end of today's show, you'll hear some conversations we had this week with a few outstanding votes, Save America volunteers who've been working incredibly hard for a very long time now.

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We're not doing a live stream the whole election night because we're too nervous.

Just going to be honest with all of you.

But what we're going to do is you can follow us on our group thread with some of your other crooked friends as the results start to come in. We'll be on group thread all night and in the group that will be commenting on the results will be giving you information, county results as they came in. All the good stuff right in one place with some levity, hopefully.

Yeah, yeah. I think we could we could be live on video or we could self medicate throughout the night, but we couldn't do both and we made our choice.

Yeah, my commentary is going to range from mediocre jokes to disinformation and I might not remember any of it.

So get ready for college towns vote. All right. And then the next Pudsey of America will come out on the Wednesday after the election, November 4th. Hopefully the election's not still going on, but it probably will be.

So until then, keep up to date with the news with what a day?

Kirkenes Morning Daily News podcast and the Nightly What a Day Nightly newsletter will have that every day. Subscribe to both at Crooked Dotcom. What a day that is next week. All right, let's get to the news. We head into the final few days of the race in the midst of the country's worst covid outbreak yet.

And both candidates are responding with slightly different closing arguments. Here are a few clips of Donald Trump from his very crowded mass rallies.

Many of our greatest companies and labs are coming out very quickly with the vaccines are doing great. Very shortly, very quickly, it's going to be delivered fast. That will quickly end the pandemic. It's ending anyway. We're rounding the turn.

You know, some people said I get a call from all the experts, right. Guys that ran for president six, seven, eight times, never got past the first round, but they called me up. Sir, you shouldn't be speaking about you shouldn't be saying bad things about because nobody cares. I disagree. You know, maybe that's why I'm here and they're not, but. They say they say, talk about your economic success. Talk about thirty three point one percent, the greatest in history.

Now, look, if I do, I mean, how many times can I say it? I'll say it five or six times. The speech, thirty three point one. Oh, Biden does. It talks about covid, right. He doesn't call it the China virus. You know why? Because China hasn't paid off. He can't use that term.

No, it's covered. You turn on the news, covid, covid, you know, when they're going to stop talking about it so much. November 4th. You're right. November 4th.

So at the very end of the 2016 campaign, Trump was relatively emphasis on relatively disciplined in terms of message. Hillary was corrupt. He was the one who would take on the Clintons and the entire political establishment on behalf of forgotten Americans.

What's the message this time around? Is there is there something we're missing here? Dan, you want to take a cut of this? Maybe there's something we're missing.

I don't know. I want to hedge my bets in case this goes horribly wrong. I don't know. I mean, like he it is an example.

We've talked of this before, but it is an example of just how bad a messenger Trump is, is he gets this GDP number.

It is deceptive and it actually speaks to the problems. He created the economy. But the headline is greatest GDP growth in history, and he can't find the time to actually talk about it like. And so it's basically his closing metrics. And he has one is I'm the victim here, my grievances. And here are some things I would like to see on Tucker Carlson today. Like, that's fully what his message is, I guess.

Tommy, what did you think of Trump's closing message? He's really into the laptop. He's really into the laptop. I don't know if he can explain the scandal.

Yeah, it ranges from, you know, adverb abuse to bubble linsky fantasies. I don't know. I mean, it seems like even Tucker Carlson is tired of the Hunter Biden controversy, whatever it is. Exactly. It kind of reminds me of the early days of Benghazi when they were still trying to figure out what the scandal actually would be before they settled on talking points. So, yeah, look, I'm with Dan. I don't want to sound cocky, but I'm I'm not I'm not picking up a message that says this guy will fight for me.

Love it, how much of Trump's challenge is a message problem and how much is a covid problem?

Well, it's hard to say because it's like. There's two ways that Trump could have gone in the homestretch of this campaign, one could have been to kind of fight inside of Democratic politics, you know, become more serious about covid after he had covid drive some kind of message around a second term agenda. But the fact that they don't have that second term agenda, it's like, how do you you know, it's it's I forgot the second term agenda.

That was a big one little thing they forgot in the campaign.

It's connected, right. Because one of the biggest questions people have is what are you going to do to end the pandemic and revive the economy? Mark Meadows goes on television this week and says right after the election, we're going to roll out our plan for we have all kinds of plans in the works. You have the promise of a health care plan. If the Supreme Court repeals Obamacare, then you say, oh, after the election, all the therapeutics are going to come.

So there's this sort of like Wag the Dog, like Hollywood promise of like all these wonderful things that are going to happen after the election. But that's not a second term agenda. And so they resort to the Biden stuff. So it's like his choice was, do I fight this inside of Democratic politics and make an actual argument in the homestretch? Or do I abandon all premise of that and just go to misinformation and distraction and propaganda? And that's the choice he made.

It may work because his actual substantive argument that he would need to be making inside of ordinary politics is so terrible in the midst of a covid pandemic, in the midst of an economic depression. So he just made his choice. I don't think we know right now. None of us want to believe it can work, but it could work. Every so often there are tweets from Donald Trump, ostensibly from Donald Trump, that say, you know, I'm not your typical politician, I never was, but I'm fighting for you.

And they're these, like, form written tweets that that the campaign must send out that you can tell is the message that they wanted in the homestretch. And I'm sure their advertising is closer to a message that actually works. Maybe he is so far off message, like if you tell me that Donald Trump could win, I won't argue with you. If you tell me that, you know, Donald Trump's campaign for the last four years has been finding and registering noncollege white voters to turn out in droves on Tuesday.

I won't argue with you there either. If you tell me he's been good in the homestretch with his closing message. I think you're full of shit like that. I will. I think this is it is absolutely insane when he's doing that. He's going from state to state, most of which have horrible covid outbreaks. And he's talking about Hunter Biden.

He spent a day on Myles Taylor, who is turns out to be anonymous, literally, literally anonymous, the Trump admin, literally, literally anonymous, still anonymous and still anonymous. The Trump administration official who wrote the op ed and then wrote the book.

And a big fucking hero, right? My reaction was what a stupid story. And then Trump talked about it for like a full day.

Let's do it one last change research poll and say open ended. Who is Miles Taylor? Did he work in government or was he on Tool Time? Like I said, this guy. Let's see. Let's see how this time we should put up let's put up a picture of Myles Taylor and a picture of Tony Belinski and see if anyone can guess who's who he was attacking. Rick Snyder, the former governor of Michigan, for endorsing Joe Biden like he is fucking off the rails.

If he wins this thing, it will be in spite of anything he has said in the last two weeks.

I do feel confident saying that who is the Republican politician who ran for president and lost and who called it, had a private conversation with Trump to try to give him some helpful advice?

And Trump's response, who is my first reaction? My first reaction that was it must have been Chris Christie, but I don't think they're on speaking terms anymore because he almost killed them. Chris Christie got out of the hospital, barely survived a run in with Donald Trump to vote for Donald Trump. So that's Donald Trump.

Like, I don't I don't think it's and also the Hunter thing just does not seem to be breaking through in any kind of way, because there's a great Politico story about how, like everyone in the Maga universe, Tommy, you were touching on this. Like they can't even keep the story straight, like Seb Gorka was interviewing Steve Bannon. And he's like, Steve, when's the bombshell?

And seems like it's out. Yeah, I wondered this morning. I was up way too early and I wandered over into some of the darker corners of the Internet and the place they've gotten to on the Hunter Biden story is so gross. It is so irrelevant. It is so far from anything anyone would give a shit about when it comes to Joe Biden himself. It's just like character assassination. It's about revenge. It's just the most vindictive, cruel, like baseless garbage.

It's it's it's embarrassing. It's Rudy Giuliani just being drunk and on live TV all day long. That's all that's happening. It's interesting, though, you know, I think we have a little bit of a memory hole around 2016, which is we remember it is like the emails as the ultimate thing that brought down Hillary Clinton. But we like, you know, even going back and looking. You forget just how much shit Trump was trying to throw against the wall in the closing days.

And he's doing it again now. There's a reason it's not as effective as Joe Biden, but it's also just, again, like he would help himself so much with a positive agenda before he gets to the improv misinformation, propaganda portion of the rally. But that's all gone. That's all gone. He just gets up there and he starts riffing about Hunter Biden and how covid is a hoax.

I mean, Dan, we talked about this in our change poll, right, that we saw. I mean, and Brian Beutler has a good piece on this. And cricket, like the word cloud of Trump and Clinton at the end of the 2016 race for Clinton, it was just email was the biggest word in the whole word cloud. And when we do the word cloud in the change poll and then CNN did one, two, you know, for Biden, you can see sort of corrupt and sun popping up there, but it's all from Trump voters entirely.

So it's smaller. And you also see words like presidential, empathetic, caring, competent. Right. And I think right now for Trump, voters like, yeah, if you talk to them, they'll probably tell you all kinds of crazy shit about Hunter Biden. Know we've had volunteers. We've talked about this before. They contact Trump voters and they talk about pedophilia and all kinds of really dark stuff. So, like, it's breaking through to the Trump people.

But it does seem, Dan, like he's given up on persuading swing voters a long time ago.

I don't know that he is actually giving up. I just I just think he's wrong about what swing voters care about because he lives fully inside the Fox News universe. Right. Like we talk about this with Fox before is like when he watches Fox, he thinks he's looking out the window of what America looks like. He's really just looking in the mirror. It has become like this self actualization of propaganda where the people who are hearing and saying and have all become one.

I think there is a way to look at this and say that Donald Trump, because he has not been able to truly penetrate the Hunter Biden message or or, you know, all this other sort of like right wing marginalia. As I say, that somehow, like our institutions have resurrected themselves in 2016 or the right wing media machine as we can. I actually don't think that's the case. It's just the context is different. Right. We have one singular issue that is affecting everyone's life in the pandemic.

You cannot escape. It dominates. You can't leave your home. It's affecting your kids. School is affected your work. It's affected your Thanksgiving plans. And there's nothing that Donald Trump or Fox News or Sean Hannity or Rudy Giuliani can do to change that in Trump's problem is he refuses to address the reality he's dealing with. Like he he needs a you can't run a campaign that ignores the biggest issue in the country. And like and that's what Trump does on his best day.

On his worst day, he ridicules the biggest issue facing the country. Like just today.

Right. You can just about just just today, as we were talking about this in one of his many super spreader rallies he's doing today, he makes fun of Laura Ingram for wearing a mask. She is at the event and wearing a mask. I mean, this is a politically correct where I get so two problems with that one. Incredible.

Would you like you are doing large on social distance, largely unmask crowd events in the middle of a huge coronavirus like you are making fun of masks or you know, you're ridiculous. I'm wearing a mask. It is also noteworthy the person wearing a mask is one of the primary faces of a network that has spread a massive amount of misinformation about mass of it is very clear. That's why people like Laura Ingraham are in on the grift. Right? They know that the idea is to say, Max, I'm good for you, but I'm going to protect myself.

I don't care if you get killed.

I think there is an incredibly telling quote from a former senior administration official in Politico.

They said, if you think of it as a big deal, then you're not voting for the president, that that's how they see the race or you're dead or you're fucking dead.

Glad they granted anonymity for that sharp insight. What what a fucking genius. Wow. Nailed it on background, Politico. Thanks for that. I guess that's their place, right? Like, if you think it's a big deal, you're voting for Joe Biden.

If you don't, then if you think gravity's a big deal, you're not going to jump out a window like. That's right.

Can I make a quick pitch, which is Dan's idea of when you sort of like you live within your own constructed universe and you think something's a big deal when no one else outside of it does? I think we should call it getting Strathfield right. It's when you bite on a pitch you reported out you and you think you just had the biggest blockbuster scoop in the world about Bob Belinski or whatever the guy's name was. But you got strangled because no one else cares.

The news side of your own. Wall Street Journal, Kim Strassel undercut your whole story. John, like that pitch so much, he left me, John just left. I was just left quick now before he comes back. Sorry, I'm. I don't care about polls. I don't care about polls.

Yes, you do.

I do. I do. I really do. So let's talk about Joe Biden. His message has basically been the same since the primary. Here is a closing ad that the campaign released this week.

I started this campaign saying we're in the battle for the soul of the nation. I believe that even more deeply today. Who we are, what we stand for, maybe most importantly, who we are going to be. It's all at stake. Characters on the ballot. The character of the country, and this is our opportunity to lead the dark, angry politics of the past four years behind us, to choose hope, over fear. Unity over division.

Science over fiction, I believe it's time to unite the country, to come together as a nation, but I can't do it without you. So I'm asking for your vote. We need to remember, this is the United States of America and there's never been anything we've been unable to do when we've done it together. Dan, why do you think that's worked for Biden so far? The primary reason is that it is truly authentic to him. He's not trying to be anything he isn't or anything he wasn't before, and it's because it's authentic to him, it comes out that way and.

I think that message could be very effective in a more normal time, but it is even more effective in the moment we were in where empathy and competence and hope for something better just stand. So I just feel so much more important than it would like in a time that felt more normal, like 26 2016 was normal. But compared to this, anything is normal. And I think the thing that is interesting, I have been trying to do sort of a audit of the things that I've gotten right and wrong and this election and we talk throughout the primary about the best way to beat Donald Trump was to have the strongest contrast with him.

Right, to be changed to his status quo. And because that's how the that is that that is our lived experience working for Barack Obama. And there was a fear because Joe Biden was also. A white man in his 70s who was someone who had spent nearly a half century within the system, that he would not represent change in the way you would need to to defeat Trump, that he would be there wouldn't be enough contrast. But ultimately, when you sort of this really hit me at the during the second debate is Donald Joe Biden and Donald Trump may be of the same generation and the same gender and the same race, but they're the two potentially the two most different people you could possibly find.

Right. Joe Biden is December. Trump is in decent Joe Biden is a unifier where Trump is divisive. Joe Biden is serious and competent were Trump is unserious and dangerous. And I think that and the Biden campaign, to their great credit, never diverge from that. They never did anything that put in. They had to take a lot of lumps. The primary never did a single thing that took them away from who Joe Biden is and what he could do.

And I think, you know, I don't know, like they said, we don't know what's going to happen. But it is a message that has been incredibly effective and has been because it's been so incredibly authentic. Love it. Did we underestimate the potency of Biden's message in the primary, or do you think the context changed because of the pandemic and the recession? I think I think yes, I think another thing happened, too, which is that Biden did an excellent job.

The campaign did an excellent job addressing those concerns. I think, you know, in the primary, we talked about this a lot, that there's this pool of voters we need to appeal to that are looking for normalcy, whatever that means. And they're independents, they're moderates or suburban voters or the kind of people that gave us the midterms. And at the same time, there is this progressive base and this big pool of marginal voters or nonvoters for whom normal is a crisis and are looking for genuine change, who are very, very skeptical of politics, who are skeptical of politicians.

And what has been striking to me is how Biden has on issues that take off on social media, that real cable news. Right. Terms like defund the police, questions about whether or not he'd be willing to denounce violence in protests. He was consistent in making sure he appealed to those kind of moderates and those independents that he needed. But on the policy front, he puts AOC and John Kerry together to figure out a consensus climate policy that doesn't exactly embrace the Green New Deal, but goes incredibly far and embraces some of the goals that people like Jay Inslee had in the primary.

He calls upon Elizabeth Warren to help develop the economic policy. He works with Bernie Sanders to get his Buy-In on a health care plan that's not Medicare for all, but as a public option and is more robust than what he offered in the primary. So there was this really, I think, smart effort to appeal to both of those big groups at once, one on policy, one on rhetoric. And I think it was really effective. So I think it wasn't that those concerns were wrong.

It was that they did an exquisite job of addressing them and threatening and really, you know, walking a really fine line over the past six months. Tell, what do you think? Look, if the Biden campaign wins by one vote, I think they deserve all the credit in the world and I will celebrate them in perpetuity. Anyone who suggests they knew how this campaign was going to end when it started as a fucking liar. We're in the middle of a historic pandemic.

No one predicted this. No one planned for this. Right. I think the one thing that's probably true out of the primary is voters weren't looking for a revolution or necessarily for inspiration. They were looking for an alternative who they thought could win and they may have chosen wisely. We'll find out. But I mean, that was the driving issue during the primary was whatever electability meant, they thought Joe Biden was it. The polls suggest he's running ahead.

We'll find out.

I will just say on message, I remember in the primary I was drawn to Elizabeth Warren's message because I am a fan of economic populism, partly because I believe that inequality is an enormous challenge in this country.

But I remember when we've had we used to have discussions about Warren's message and we would say, I do think there's something a little bigger necessary. Like she talks about economics a lot, but the country's going through something bigger. And right there all along, it really was Joe Biden talking about this is a battle for the soul of the country. And Dan, we've talked a lot about is it a referendum or is it a choice? And of course, it's easy to say that it's just a referendum on Donald Trump, which this election has become, but that the Democratic candidate should also strive to make it a choice as well.

And Joe Biden actually from the beginning laid out that it was a choice, that it was a choice between the type of country that Donald Trump represents and where he was taking us and sort of the better angels of our nature and the better, better angels of our history. And by talking about a battle for the soul of the nation, it actually was right now, I do think that the pandemic made that a much sharper message.

And I also, by the way, I think it made it a sharper message because the crisis we went through as a country is a crisis where a lot of people were dying and a lot of people were suffering. And Joe Biden knows suffering and knows tragedy more than most people in public life. And I think we sort of underestimate the potency of his message because it is so rooted in his own family's experience. And there's a lot of people out there grieving right now and have, you know, gone through a lot of loss.

And I think Joe Biden's empathy is like like you said, it is it stands in stark contrast to Donald Trump. But it also just you know, sometimes the moment just works out.

The man meets the moment when you say hope and history rhyme, John. Yeah, right. Like and like I said, like, well, like Tommy was saying, like, I don't think anyone could have predicted that. But suddenly we're in a pandemic. And the guy running against Donald Trump is someone who's experienced a lot of loss in his life and is a really good, decent human being. And so it matches up pretty well.

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All right, let's talk about the closing strategies from both campaigns. Joe Biden's trying to win with a rather conventional strategy of persuading and turning out the most voters and states that add up to 270 electoral votes.

Donald Trump is trying to win by doing everything he can to prevent people from voting in the states that had up to 270 electoral votes. The New York Times describes the Trump playbook in. Pennsylvania, which may be the most pivotal state of all as, quote, a three pronged strategy that would effectively suppress mail in votes in the state, moving to stop the processing of absentee votes before Election Day, pushing to limit how late mail in ballots can be accepted and intimidating.

Pennsylvanians trying to vote early. Trump campaign is shopping around for right wing judges to help them suppress the votes in other states as well.

On Thursday, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that mail in ballots in Minnesota must be received by 8:00 p.m. on Election Day, even though months ago the Minnesota secretary of state had extended the deadline to November 10th so long as the ballots were postmarked by Election Day. The court has ordered all ballots arriving after November 3rd to be segregated in case the ruling is appealed. First question, Tommy. What do we do about this?

I mean, I think the only thing we can do is do another volunteer shift, tell people to vote early in person or to take their ballots and put them in a Dropbox. Do not put them in the mail. It is it is way, way too late to put any ballots in the mail. But just, you know, we shift our messaging accordingly. I do think the thing that people just need to really get here is how disgusting this is.

Trump and all the Republicans are lying about wanting an outcome on election night. That is not their motivation here. In fact, they are taking steps in Pennsylvania to slow down the counting process by refusing to let certain boards of election like open the ballots and prepare them to be counted. What they want to do is lay a pretext to invalidate a bunch of vote by mail ballots because that's what they think. Democrats are overwhelmingly voting by mail, right? It is a really dirty, dirty game and it's something we need to remember no matter who wins.

If Joe Biden pulls this out, we need to take a whole bunch of steps to prevent voter suppression like this from ever happening again. This is absolutely disgusting. And then on top of that, they're slowing down the entire postal service on purpose because they don't want to vote by mail ballots to show up to begin with. I mean, it's just it is like it's mind bogglingly brazen and happening in the open. Dan, what's the right way to talk about this for Democrats?

What's the what's the right way to message all this in the homestretch? Because, you know, you and I talked about this last part, but there's a lot of alarm, understandably, out there.

But, you know, I also we don't want to sort of scare people into thinking that their votes won't count and that it's not.

I mean, we have to talk about this from a language of empowerment and voting as an expression of our political power. We control what is going to happen here. Right? Not Brett Kavanaugh, not Donald Trump, not some mega election official in Erie County. There are more people in the battleground states in this country who support Joe Biden and support Donald Trump. If they turn out and vote, we will win. And I think we have to do two things.

We should not dismiss what is happening here because we should use it to motivate us to work even harder the next few days. We should file it away for afterwards, because as soon as this is election over, whether Joe Biden wins by a little, he wins by a giant fucking margin. We have to fix the system in this country. So the presumption is on counting all of the ballots from as many eligible voters as possible as opposed to the opposite, where now the burden is on you to prove your eligible voter before you get your vote counted.

And I do like I appreciate The New York Times for reporting on this in the way you talked about it. But talk about fucking normalizing anti-democratic chicanery. Right? Like they have two strategies. The Democrats want to get people to vote. The Republicans are doing shit that would receive a sternly worded statement from the State Department if it happened in another country. Right. That if you're trying to steal an election, that is what you're trying to do. There is one side trying to win fair and square and one side is trying to steal it.

They are a bunch of fucking yahoos who represent a minority of voters. So I don't think they're going to be able to steal it. But let's not treat it as if it's a political strategy, like he's trying to close on health care.

You see a lot of these headlines because we won a few cases and it'll say victory for Democrats. And a court says that ballots can count like victory for Democrats, that people's votes get to count. That's a victory for Democrats.

Well, it's I do not think political reporters are comfortable covering news that is actually not politics and this isn't politics. There is a big group of people who are pursuing politics. The reporters are part of that group. Democrats are part of that group. Voters are part of that group. These people are outside of politics trying to stop politics. That's what we're talking about here. And so when whenever it is covered inside of a political argument, it's another sign of how the press has been victimized by Trump because they don't have the language or they're not willing to use the language to describe it honestly, because it means admitting that there's one campaign that is both inside of and for democratic politics and democracy generally.

And there's one that just isn't. And his whole campaign strategy relies on being outside of it.

And it's very similar to how climate change is covered in this country, which is one side is for science to save the planet and one side isn't. But you have to treat that as two sides of the same coin instead of one side being right, one side being absolutely dangerously fucking wrong. Yeah, and it is sort of like these, you know, you make the point about we need to think about voting rights after this election, but like this is why I think, like win or lose, the fact that we are so anxious, the fact that we are so nervous, the fact that Trump can win is a sign of just how much like, you know, there's anti-democratic forces set against democratic forces.

We don't know how it's going to turn out. Our job after this election, regardless, is about it's about voter suppression. It's about figuring out how to counter misinformation and propaganda. And that's true regardless of the outcome.

But it's not just Pennsylvania, like the people of Florida overwhelmingly voted to re enfranchise formerly incarcerated people, but then the Republican Party in Florida put in place what is clearly a poll tax to prevent them from voting and then made it almost impossible to figure out how much you owe so that you could pay those fines. These are like so brazen, so anti-democratic, so un-American actions by these people that, yeah, I mean, we just we can't we cannot forget it is all I'm trying to say.

And they pack two courts to do it. They packed the Florida Supreme Court and then they rigged the U.S. Supreme Court to make sure that their poll tax stayed in place.

Yeah, if Joe Biden wins, I do not want to hear the fucking pundits and older Democratic strategists talking to the pundits and talking to the reporters, being like these Democrats, pretty extreme with their court reform. Like we have fuckin right wing maniacs on courts right now invalidating ballots. And you're going to tell us that, like, that court reform is extreme. No.

And look, you know, part of the challenge here, too, is that a whole group of Republicans don't believe there's any political price for being against democracy that that. Now, of course, you know, I talked to Brian shots about this. You know, the you know, the Biden campaign, Democrats generally, they're campaigning on health care. They're campaigning on sort of, you know, meat and potatoes like basic issues. And they should that's the issues that they think that they can win on.

But there's a real I mean, we need to be honest after this election that that democracy as a campaign issue. Right. Is treated like a process. It's treated like it's treated like a sideshow. And we have to figure out how to have a conversation, a political conversation that resonates people about the importance of democratic institutions in and of themselves.

Yeah, I just I think that posture is important here. Like, I saw people being like, well, this Pennsylvania thing, that's why we just got to win one of the Sunbelt states and call it like, yeah, I hope we win the Sunbelt states do. And I think we have a good chance. But like, you know, let's not throw away Pennsylvania just because it could take till Friday. And just because on election night, you know, Donald Trump could be up 10 to 15 points in Pennsylvania because they haven't started counting the mail in ballots yet.

We're going to sit and we're going to wait.

We're going to count the ballots and the winner is going to be the winner, John. Like we just got to be. I just disagree with you. I read a great op ed by David Gergen in The Hill who suggested that counting all the votes is divisive.

And I think that you should really maybe tone down the rhetoric and maybe just go to the Red Hand with Steven Miller and kind of work this out.

I do have faith that most reporters get to do at this point. I also, by the way, like I was thinking about our change research poll, how like 90 percent of voters who want to vote in this election are paying close attention to the news. And so I do have faith that, like people who want to vote are going to figure out how to vote to make sure they go to their Dropbox or go in person if they can't. You know, obviously, I am worried about the people who have already put their ballots in the mail with a couple of days left and mail delays getting them there.

But a lot of everyone should know that a lot of state parties, a lot of organization are doing everything they can, digital advertising, talent, talking to as many people as possible to let people know that they should not be putting their ballots in the mail. They should be dropping them off at a drop box or at their county election office or show up on Election Day. And everyone who's listening, you should tell everyone in your life the same thing.

We just got to spread the word. But fortunately, people are very, very engaged in this election and are paying.

And for all we know, these idiots could disenfranchise a bunch of Republicans. Right? I mean, this could cut both ways. It is immoral. It is terrible. Just count the votes.

Republicans should get to vote, too. OK, let's take some questions.

Questions anonymous.

So I assume this is Myles Taylor, by the way. Earlier I said Tool Time. I obviously meant home improvement. Tool Time was the show within home improvement was very meta.

Tommy. I knew what you meant. I knew exactly what you meant, how we all got it. We I'm a guy. I'm a fan. I know you live inside the Tim Allen extended universe.

Did Tim Allen's comedy for me just doesn't get any better. You know, this is a man's catch. It's been canceled, but this is a man's kitchen because I use a chainsaw to cut a potato like a man anyway.

OK, so the question is the question for Miles Taylor is do you think there was any media lessons learned from twenty six to George Waller?

Just like message? They say he got the Tool Time thing wrong and had to fix it, like what happened there? No, no, it's not true. Do you think do you think Jordan watched Jordan was definitely not a lie. No, but I bet she she Googled it for sure. There's no one way so that maybe maybe they have they learned lessons.

I think they have. I think we need to give the media some credit for for learning some lessons. If you look back at the hysterical media coverage at the end of twenty sixteen, it was way worse. That was in part because Jim Comey was helping The New York Times put on its front page totally alarmist allegations that the email scandal had been reopened by the FBI. But there was also like the Drudge Report, people were running with all the email stories like I do think the way that the Hunter Biden controversy has been handled by the mainstream press has been markedly different than last time.

Am I wrong, Dan? I would love to hear Dan's Dan's retort to this. Yeah, they've learned some lessons.

Yeah, they have. I mean, there's certainly more fact checking that, you know, like the presence of someone like Daniel Dale coming on CNN and going line by line through Trump's lies as anchors themselves are doing it more. Jake Tapper has very aggressively done this multiple occasions. Others, you know, others have done it as well. You know, there have been more really good interviews with Trump, like the ones Savannah Guthrie did where they were. You pushed back aggressively against it.

And you treat it like one of the problems in 2016 was Hillary was treated as if she was president throughout the entire campaign. And given that level of scrutiny and Trump was treated as a sideshow, who could never be president. So we didn't the media establishment did not care enough about what he did not say that there wasn't like a lot of bad coverage of him, but it just wasn't treated with the same seriousness as Clinton was. I I am skeptical that this will stick around forever.

There's a tendency to really adjust to what happened in a in political coverage of just what happened in previous election. They get right back into the stupid cycle afterwards. But I'm actually. Less concerned in the long run about how the press handles this than how Facebook handles it. Right. And Facebook has clearly learned zero fucking lessons and it's gotten worse over. It's gotten worse over time. Terrible. And like that, like we can feel great about like it's easy for us to say, wasn't that great that Kim Strassel had that stupid fucking totally fake thing?

And then The Wall Street Journal behind their paywall came back and said it wasn't true. Like, that's all happening within the universe of people who follow politics incredibly closely. We're not paying enough attention to still what is happening on Facebook and what that is doing to absolutely shift people's belief, spread conspiracy theories, spread misinformation and totally fuck up our politics. And that is, to me, the much bigger challenge than how the group of very Twitter savvy, cable news friendly media people handled this election.

Yeah, it's like what do you do, what do you do when the head of Facebook's editorial board is Dan Bongino?

You know, now I'm trying to be better about not classifying the media as one group because I think there are a handful of the usual suspects who have learned zero lessons. And we all know who they are.

I'm not going to name them all here, but name five.

I think they're now a much smaller group and a much smaller portion of the larger political press. And I think, by and large, the political coverage has been quite good and responsible for this election.

All right, Paul and Andréa from Australia asks, There's so much focus on where candidates go or don't go in the last weeks of the campaign. Why isn't this an antiquated approach to what drives turnout and engagement in a digital world, or is there evidence that it makes a difference? I don't have an answer to this question. Dan, what do you think? I feel like you might know it does make it does so make a difference. Like in a normal world, you would go you'd have a big rally, you would sign everyone and you'd recruit a bunch of volunteers.

You would what we would often do in 2012 is you would have an early vote rally that is near an early vote location and then people would leave in mass to go vote at that location. It's different here, but it still matters because you're still you're getting more press coverage when you go. You're becoming more a part of the conversation there. It has more impact than just doing a zoom event. We sort of saw the sort of perils of a purely Zoom's style of regional campaigning early in this campaign when Biden was doing like a Florida seniors town hall, they assumed he would do it, but it would get it would have no impact in Florida.

But there was still something that I mean, it's antiquated, obviously, about an airplane landing in Florida. All the television networks being there to film Joe Biden or Kamala is getting off that plane, putting it on the news. People talk about it more. So it it has it like it's not a big game changer with everything, but it has impact. And the more you the more coverage you get, the more people who would not otherwise vote may be reminded to do so in the way that ensures the vote is counted.

So I think it is certainly worth doing. I mean, Trump gets to capture the data for everyone who comes to his rallies. That's the upside. The flip side is one out of 20 dies from covid.

But you see that do you see that cap study that showed that half of Trump rallies have led to a spike in coronavirus cases in that community?

Did I see that cap study pause there? Of course I saw that cat study.

Did you say that?

I say that because Jesse Lee also did to the.

Yeah, well, send me something I retweeted.

It does seem, though, this year that the super spreader rallies may be counterproductive.

And we don't know right now that regardless of the regardless of the truth, regardless of how many people, how many people Trump leaves on the battlefield, you know, the press coverage has always been, you know, a mix between, you know, what he says and also the fact that they are dangerous and irresponsible event.

And the polling is very clear on that to the people. Even even Trump supporters oppose doing these rallies.

If they think it's crazy, they do. So Tiffany asks in the final days, how much sleep are the campaign managers getting in, Amelia, as something similar? What are these last few days look like for campaign staffers? Tommy is someone who was out in Iowa sleeping on an air mattress, driving around a truck that you abandoned in the state.

What did what is it like in those last few days on a campaign as a staffer?

Oh, I mean, what a normal campaign would be like is you would you know, your bad call time would be at, what, 5:00 a.m.? You drive to the airport at 6:00, you get on the plane, go to your first event, you'd eat while on the ground, you'd watch the event. You go back on the plane, you'd eat in the plane, you land somewhere else, you'd eat again on the ground. You don't get on the plane, then you fly somewhere else.

And then you drink with some reporters who you mostly hate until 1:00 in the morning.

And then there'd be another bad call at around 5:00 a.m. and everybody said a lot of emails in between. It sucks. Actually taught me, as you were just saying, that I'm like, oh, I miss the campaign. It's so horrible. I kind of miss the I miss it a little bit.

I'm eating like that. That's how I'm eating. That's how I'm eating right now.

Well, this this is a similar question. Jenny asks, where were you and what were you all doing on election night 2008? In 2012? Let's start with 2008. Love it.

Where were you in doing that? I was watching, so I was just watching the returns as a you know, as a as a Hillary right. And voter.

I was just I was like, no. I will tell you, though, my honest feeling on election night was I had I did sincerely have conflicted feelings about it because we had been part I was part of the Hillary campaign.

And I remember over the course of that night, all the ambivalence sort of went away. Like I remember feeling it in real time, like, oh, my God, this is happening. This is so exciting. And then I remember walking from my house to the White House because I was in D.C. where I lived and just being outside with everybody outside of the White House, just hectoring George W. Bush, the previous worst president in history, while he while he watched, returns himself.

And I always remember being outside of the White House on that night. I remember we were in the three of us were in the Chicago headquarters in the Obama campaign, and I remember the moment that it happened because they called Ohio and when they called Ohio, that's when we really knew it. And I was sitting next to you, Tommy, and we just like looked over each other like, holy shit, this just happened.

Yeah, we won. Are you fucking kidding? I don't remember being happy. I remember being like, what do you mean? They called Ohio. What are you talking about? Yeah, that's right. You confused. This didn't happen.

And we got on some weird tram and went down to the park and then watched him speak to Grant Park and then went to some club until like five in the morning. We're all like fucking walking pale zombies.

And I don't remember after that very drunk, very dark and twenty twelve wasn't is twenty twelve wasn't quite as celebratory though. It was pretty solid.

No we were like in a hotel room and I always remember was burning you and I was burning Benghazi documents.

I would I don't know that. That's right. You were burning Benghazi documents.

Dan and I were in a hotel so I mean I was both times in 08 12, I was in the quote unquote boiler room. Everyone sits for fifteen hours in a room, sort of like people from the field staff, the legal staff. And you just get data the whole time. And it's incredibly exhausting. And it's like ten times worse than just scrolling Twitter because you're going to call that. And I remember very famously in 2012 getting this call that said turnout is way down in Cuyahoga County, where Cleveland is way down in the Cleveland precincts.

And we're we are like very concerned. I have to call Obama and tell him he's got to get put a suit on and start doing Cleveland satellite hits. And in between calling him and leaving a message and wait for him to call me back, we find out the turnout was not down.

So for forty minutes, we were in an absolute panic that maybe we had because you lose Ohio, we thought we were going to lose our total panic, only to discover it's not that turnout was down in Cleveland is that it was so high that they couldn't keep up with the numbers. And so we were just getting our reports. And and then the other thing, and this is something relevant to election night in some ways for us this time is the moment that we knew we were going to win in 2012 was when the polls closed in Florida, because we if you remember and I think we've been reminded this by some of these tweets that show what the polling averages were.

The Obama was down in the polling averages to Romney up until the very end because both the Washington Post ABC poll and the Gallup tracking poll were giant pieces of shit that were fucking everything up, and there were so much less polling. So it was skewing everything. And we were so we were confident based on our data, we were going to win. And we were like looking at a model. We were trying to tell reporters we had a gazillion conversations with the idiots at Gallup trying to say, you're doing this wrong, you're doing it wrong.

And they very arrogantly told us they were not. They then abandoned their entire polling model two days after the election. But I'm not still bitter about it. But the guy that is something like that is that is a small and old grievance. I let I let none of them go with then. But then when Florida came in and they dumped the early vote in and we saw what the margins were, that matched our model within a point, we knew we were going to win at that point.

But as you remember, we ended because Romney would not concede that speech was so late. And we went back at the end of the night with Plouffe and a bunch of other people to Axelrod's hotel room for our party because.

But all the bad shit goes wild. But all but but it was so it was on Tanguis and tap late night. It was so late at night that there was nothing on tap. The kegs were kicked because they stopped serving booze in Chicago and someone it was neither you nor I tried to convince the manager of the hotel that because we were friends with Rahm, the mayor of the city, we should be able to get booze.

But it did not work that smart. Boleyn's get the bar over here. I read you guys something crazy I just saw.

Trump is apparently going to watch election returns from the White House with Pence. But at Mar a Lago, they're hosting an event for 400 people to watch to watch returns. So if you want to pay a ton of money, go to Málaga.

Of course, he's not going to watch it tomorrow because he's going to be in the White House barricading himself inside the White House in case you make it up, making a pillow for it.

This this question is from Robert Phifer, who I can only assume is a relative of yours. Dan, how much CBD oil is the maximum safe amount to consume in one night? Love it.

Well, it's so funny you ask that because that is of my relatives. That's my brother. I confirmed by confirmed by tax this morning. That was that was his question. Yes. Thanks for a great question. Thanks for a great question.

I not know the I don't know if science has an answer, but we were interested in you. Look, twenty twenty is all about untested medical experiments on yourself.

That is what this year has been about. And so keep us posted. Put it in the Lancet. You know, I say infinity.

Yeah. I think. I think I think you're fine. Don't worry about it. All right. Final question for you guys. For four years we have been out of the prediction business. We are not getting back into it now, don't worry. But in these final days, what is worrying you? What is making you feel hopeful? Let's all start with worrying so then we can all end on a high note.

Voter suppression. Who wants to go first? Tommy says voter suppression. Yeah, it's the it's the system, it's like I am not worried that Donald Trump has some magic trick up his sleeve or he has some closing message or that Joe Biden's going to do something customer's race. My concern is that America is completely fucked up, perverted political system that could collapse under this. That's that's the thing that keeps happening. Love it, yeah, that's how I feel, you know, I think our goal has been to make sure that everybody does their part, donates volunteers votes.

I think everyone no one no one is taking it for granted. Everybody is pulling out all the stops. And so what stands in our way? It's not the sophisticated message or argument for a second term by Donald Trump. It's the anti-democratic forces we've been talking about. And they're very strong. And at this moment, we don't know if if democracy is strong enough to overcome them. And that is what makes me nervous. It is. And it and, you know, there will be if we do lose, like there will be so much hand-wringing, so much guilt and so much shame, because even that is easier, I think, than facing just how unfair and rigged this election was.

And notions of legitimacy are always grounded in like the law and the process. But there is legitimacy inside of the kind of campaign a person chooses to run. And Donald Trump is not running a legitimate campaign. I'm worried about of that.

I still have a little bit of fear about the potential surge of, you know, Trump voters who did not cast a ballot in 16 that the campaign has registered since then, showing up in big numbers at the polls. I never underestimate Trump turnout.

And, you know, I also we have a number of voters, groups of voters who feel more comfortable voting in person and not by mail and not early voting, especially voters in the black community, in the Latino community, young voters. And a lot of this is like really hoping that they all turn out on Election Day. And I know that the campaign and other organizations are intensely involved in making sure that they turn out those voters and help those voters turn Election Day.

But you could see the combination of a Trump surge with his voters and a little less turnout among R's on Election Day causing issues. But that's just little something that keeps me up at night.

What's making everyone feel hopeful?

Early vote. I mean, I share your concern that you could see a big surge of Trump voters on Election Day, but a vote banked as a vote banked and we're saw also broken and burned by 2016, that we don't sort of reflect on that fundamental point. And then if you look at the early vote numbers in places like Florida there at seventy two or seventy five percent of their statewide totals for twenty sixteen of those votes, like a quarter of them, are people who didn't vote in Florida in 2016.

And the data nerds have been able to figure out that Biden has like a nine point advantage among those people. So Democrats are voting early because we do vote by mail and we are more motivated. But also among new voters, you're seeing suggestions that Democrats are doing well there as well. All of it could change, but it is hopeful.

Dan, I have to admit, I don't know whether it's the anxiety or the fact I've been getting up at 3:00 in the morning only to wake up to a text from you with a state poll of middling quality said to me, come on, I always send high quality people.

When you're searching for my father over here, I never give you a troublemaker, Gerfaut, but Makone or bust.

But I've been a bit like in the last few days.

I've been getting like it's been sort of like the whole thing, been sort of emotional.

Like I just spoke to I just was speaking to the crooked media political meeting and I got kind of choked up doing it. I spoke at a staff call for the North Carolina field staff and got choked up. And it is like it didn't I don't like we do not know what's going to happen. Donald Trump could still win this election. But if you think about where where we were the day after the election in 2016 and what has happened since is that it didn't have to be this way.

There was an alternative scenario where people just checked out and they said, fuck this, if politics is this broken that this guy can be elected president with fewer votes than I'm out. Right. And the exact opposite thing happen. And we've had this incredible privilege to see this back when we could leave our homes and we would travel to do Podsednik America stuff is that people became engaged like never before. Right. It started with the women's march. And then people go to the airports and the amount of activism that people who have put so much on the line and given so much of themselves to try to take this country back and try to fix what happened in 2016 is it's like it.

It's very inspiring and it is very hopeful in the long run and the fact that people kept doing it right, this is not a time where people have extra money or extra time. People are working or struggling in this pandemic and they are still working their asses off. I mean, I talked to a volunteer of a bunch of American volunteer the other day who is a first generation immigrant, cannot vote in this election and has been working his ass off in Miami-Dade County for months now.

And it's like that is something that like for all the darkness in America and in our politics, like that is really fucking open. It's not something we've ever really seen in a very, very long time.

Well said. Love it. Yeah, I mean, I was thinking about what we were worried about at the beginning, right in the early days of twenty seventeen and I and I remember we had a lot of conversations about whether or not our institutions would hold up. And I think the jury's still out. And I think we had a lot of conversations about the harm that Trump could do. And our fear that there would be a crisis in that crisis happened, the crisis that we feared happened.

And it cost us dearly. But at the same time, there was, especially after the women's march, the protests against the Muslim ban. There was this fear, right, that that this coalition would be exhausted and that the kind of powerlessness, the disenfranchisement that comes in facing a kind of impressive authoritarian like Trump would exhaust people that by that maybe they would have protested at the beginning. But by the time we got to twenty eighteen or by the time we got to twenty twenty, that people would have given up, that they would have been exhausted, that they would have run out of steam, or that just the, the, the stakes and the, the fear and the anxiety and just disagreement would drive a rift inside of the Democratic coalition.

That happens when you face an authoritarian like this, that happens when you face right wing nationalists. And we head into this election with an incredibly united coalition that runs all the way from the right of I mean, to say see seeing Bernie to to John Kasich and Cindy McCain and the Lincoln Project. And everyone is under one big tent and everyone has behaved. It's an extraordinary thing. And he's behaved.

And, you know, look, we will have we will decide what we think of the Lincoln Project come Wednesday when it's like it's sort of like a messy, silly coalition.

Right. There's parts of it that make you roll your eyes. But like by and large, everyone has behaved and like just sort of driven towards the same goal together. People have argued at times, but in the background, everyone's been like, I want to be careful here because this is the real threat, Donald Trump, and we've got to sort of get together and focus on that.

And that's extraordinary. That's an extraordinary moment in history. That's never happened before. This has never happened before. We've never faced a threat like this before and we've never responded like this before. And so I think a lot of the uncertainty comes from that. But I think we should be incredibly hopeful in what we built and what we did together, because, as Dan said, it just didn't have to go this way. Yeah, and I just I mean, that all makes me hopeful, too, and I want to give a special shout out to all of the votes of America volunteers and everyone who has volunteered and donated over the last four years.

You know, you guys have raised forty two million dollars as of as of a few days ago, over forty two million dollars, almost three hundred thousand people signed up to adopt a state. 4000 have joined the volunteer community here, more than eight million calls made. Six million to 600000 unregistered voters have been contacted through our program. Two and a half million total unregistered voters contracted through all of VSA registration efforts. Twenty seven thousand poll workers recruited. Seventeen hundred voter protection lawyers.

I mean, it's just that is a credit to all of you is a credit to our unbelievable, fantastic team at Crooked Media. Every single person who works at this company has been part of that and made that happen. And, you know, you guys are about to hear some some of the from some of these volunteers and some interviews we did the other day. But like, you know, I had the chance to talk to two of them.

And they you one was 13 and one was 18.

And I do think, you know, one of the one of the many, many reasons I want us to win on Tuesday is so a lot of the young people who are involved right now still believe that politics is worth it, that you can make a difference, that organizing works, that activism works, and that you can still hold on to that belief and that, you know, we're not cynical about the ability to change this country.

That, to me, is one of the most important things about this election, because that will sustain us for a long, long time.

And and you guys should all know that no matter what happens on Tuesday, we will be here because Joe Biden wins or Joe Biden loses. We're going to have a lot of fucking work to do and have a little more work to do if he loses.

But we're going to have a lot of work to do if he wins, too. This fight does not end with this election. Everyone should take a breath. Everyone should hopefully relax and not think about politics for a little bit. But all of the forces that gave rise to Donald Trump are still going to be here the day after the election, even if we win and we're going to have a lot of work to do. So I hope everyone who got involved and is organizing this volunteering sticks with us and sticks with sticks with this, to quote someone cooler than us.

We're not going back to brunch now. That's because there's still a raging pandemic and thousands of people are dying.

But we're also going to have to keep working. We're not going back to brunch with plexiglass dividers, too expensive, Plexiglas is too expensive, it's too expensive, too expensive. All right. You'll hear from some of our fantastic volunteers and you will hear from us right before polls close on Election Day on our live stream, Chirikure dotcom slash election. And then we will have a full pod on Wednesday. We'll see you on the other side. Holy shit.

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You can get honey for free today. It join honey dotcom PSA that's join honey dotcom slash PSA. My name is Enrique Rossel, I'm from Miami, Florida. I'm a first generation immigrant and I've been volunteering with ballot caring with the Miami-Dade Dems. I've been doing phone banks, text banks. I've also been poll observing in front of a lot of our local poll places which have been really, really interesting. So I've been trying to dip my toes into whatever I can, you know, to to help out and get as involved as possible.

First of all, I want to say, you know, as a first generation immigrant, things have been rough, you know, with my family growing up. But but there's always been like this like image that I had, you know, of America and what I grew up hoping that America was I'm thinking that America was and knowing that America was and could be. And I think, like, you know, I just didn't see that in the last four years.

But starting off, I remember in twenty sixteen, I was 20. I had never been involved politically in a campaign. And I remember the day of Election Day. I was so full of nerves. I went home and I couldn't really turn on the news and watch it all unfold, you know, with the Electoral College. So I got home late from work and instead of watching and I just went straight to sleep. And I remember like 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, it was super late.

My dad. So my dad is also he he's high risk. I mean, he's he's obese and he's got diabetes. And the first time we were ever able to have health care was with the Affordable Care Act, with Obamacare. And I remember when Trump won in like three or four in the morning, my dad came into my room and woke me up. And I remember I remember clear as day. He was like, Trump won. I don't know what's going to happen with my health care.

I don't know if we're going to be able to get my my weight loss surgery. I don't know what's going to happen now. And he was so scared and I don't see my dad scared very often. And that feeling of of hopelessness, you know, and that feeling of like just not being able to help my family and not being able to understand what was going to happen in the future was, you know, really devastating. And I was really scared to start phone banking and stuff like I'm sure a lot of people were because it's scary.

I was like, am I even prepared, you know, to answer questions? Am I you know, do I have the knowledge to help? You know, even with the training? Sometimes it's a little bit scary. I remember the first time that I that I was carrying I was going through and was getting a lot of voice, is getting a lot of voice mails. And I was in a room with a lot of people and then somebody had a Spanish speaker and nobody in the room call except for me knew how to speak Spanish.

And that's something that I really was so happy to be able to help with, because my Spanish isn't perfect either. You know, I'm an immigrant here, so I live in Miami. I speak English most of the time. Right. So my Spanish is a little choppy sometimes, but being able to like use my background and use my heritage and be able to help somebody, you know, another Hispanic person, make sure that their vote gets counted, you know, was was really, really nice.

So I'm hopping on the call with this voter and helping her through the entire process of getting her ballot card. And that's when I was, like, totally hooked. I was like, I have to keep doing this. This is so great. So I really believe in Joe Biden's plan. And I think that Joe Biden has a great plan and the compassion that he displays, you know, just the way that he handles everything. I think that's what I always thought America could be going up, you know, and I really want to just live in America again where I feel proud and happy, you know, wearing the American flag.

I remember growing up, my sisters and I would be so excited for the Fourth of July and to wear the American flag and to go celebrate and look at the fireworks. And that sentiment just hasn't been here, you know, the last four years. And I think that Joe Biden and I think that with Joe Biden's plan, we can get back to that America where I look at the flag and I'm proud of what it what it means and what it stands for.

Hey, Enrique.

Mr. Fischer, then I got to tell you, listen to you talk was so inspirational.

I maybe feel just so humbled by everything you're doing. It is truly you're incredibly impressive. The work you're doing is so critical. And I just I just wanted to say thank you know, I mean so much.

I had no idea you were going to be here. I thought it was somebody named Kyle. This is so great. I, I mean, no thank you for all that you do.

You know, like I said, I wouldn't be doing half of this if it wasn't for four votes of America. And I you know, I listen to you guys, you know, and I love you know, it just makes me feel better about everything that's going on in the world. And I just love what y'all are doing. And it's really inspired me to to keep doing this. You know, I had always wanted to get involved politically, but if it wasn't for your podcast, I probably would never have found the avenue to to get started.

So I really appreciate all your work and and everything that you guys do.

I mean, that that means the world to here. And I just want you I know you're going to work your ass off of these last few days here. You've been working your ass off for so long. But take a moment and just reflect for a little bit on what you're doing, because this like this is one of the most important moments in American history. This is where we're going to make a decision on where this country goes and the fact that you have stepped up in this moment when your friends, your family, your community need you so much and you work your ass off to do this like this, which is what you're doing, is so inspiring, I think, because of your work and the volunteers all across this country.

I believe it's nervous as I am, but I know it's like we're all feeling this way. We're all freaking out. We're looking at what various needs tell us on Twitter about the polls. But if we keep doing what we're doing, if more people do what you've been doing all the time and we keep doing that work for next year, I think you're right. I think we're going to wake up. I don't know. It'll be Wednesday morning or Thursday morning.

We'll wake up and we will be. And we will set this country in a much better direction, and the message that we're trying to give everyone is we have to work through up until the moment the polls close on Tuesday. But that's just the beginning, because if we win this election, then the real work begins of fixing this democracy and undoing the damage that Trump has done. But you're already there. Are you already preparing to do that work?

So I'm just so grateful to you and humbled by what you're doing. And the idea that our podcast could have played the tiniest role in getting you more involved in politics is the entire reason why we started this thing. So thank you so much. Definitely.

No, it was it was great talking to you, seriously. It was awesome. And I can't wait to, you know, keep listening to everybody else to see how I love them. They're great. Be safe. Thank you so much.

So my name is Valerie Zembiec. I'm based in Portland, Oregon. My adopted state is Michigan. So that's been my primary focus, although also helping out with other battleground states wherever I can. So my son just turned for a couple of weeks ago and that means that he was born a few weeks before the twenty sixteen election. So I during that election cycle was very much like distracted by the fact that I was about to have my first child and not really do any volunteering.

I mean, I think I donated very minor amounts of money to that campaign. And so, of course, at the time I lived in New York City and could not actually stay awake through the election results that night. So I woke up the next morning. It was just like what, like went to bed and it seemed fine, woke up and found out that Trump won. And that was just devastating. And I think just having this new little baby, it was sort of like, what have I done?

I brought this child into this world where this person got elected. And that is onto me literally ever since. And so I think with everything that's been going on with covid and with Black Lives Matter and the issues with the police and stuff, I was really feeling sort of down about the fact that, like, here I am, the single mom sort of stuck at home with my four year old and like, what can I do? And then a friend, like a colleague from an old job posted about adoptive state.

And I was like, oh, man, this is perfect because, you know, I've always sort of lived in places. I grew up in Texas, where it was very red when I last was able to vote there. And then I lived in New York or was always very blue. And now I'm in Oregon also very much a blue state. And so I was like, that seems like a way that I can really proactively help out in a manner that will make actual tangible change to help out in the state.

That is a true battleground state. And I have a job. I work in the music industry and one of the catalogs that I represent is based in Michigan. And I have several friends who went to college there and still have ties there. So I sort of feel like small ties to it. But Michigan just sort of jumped out at me as an option. So that's how I came to the whole BSA crew.

I actually had a textbook exchange with a woman in Michigan and she thought that she couldn't vote because she was a convicted felon. She had served her time and she had done her parole work and everything. And I was actually able to help her realize that she could be re enfranchised. So that was huge. I mean, I feel like I have a great at least one or two incredible interactions, pretty much every phone or text bank. I mean, I have never volunteered for a political campaign before anything in my life.

And now I'm like helping people in real time with how to vote, how to track their ballot. So that's that's been great. We should all be really proud of the work that we've done so far, but we can't stop yet. We have to keep going. And I like I used to run half marathons and there's like this concept in distance running. It's called like having great kick. Like, that's what makes the difference between a really good marathoner and a great marathoner is somebody who can go that incredibly far distance and then turn around and just pull it out right at the end.

That's what helps people win races. Right. So I think we're in that phase right now. Like we we've been running and running and we're tired and we really just want to be able to go home and take the nap. So we want to take after our races run. But like, we can't do that yet. We have to dig down deep and find that last bit of push, that kick and really just like give it our all as we go through the tape, so to speak.

So I know I know that we're going to be in it to win it. For lack of a better phrase. This lets you get out the vote. Dave.

Hi, Mallory, thank you so much. Thank you so much for volunteering so much. Thank you for having such a great attitude, too, in these five days, because I know that I am struggling to have a good attitude right now. Now that I have a bad attitude, I'm, you know, equal parts, fearful and hopeful. But I just think it's a good reminder that we need to run through the tape. You know, I know I've never seen tape and I've never run toward it, but I'm glad that you have.

And I understand the metaphor that's good, I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not that desperate.

Well, Mallory, thank you for everything that you're doing for being a super volunteer. We're so grateful. Thanks for adopting Michigan.

We've got to get Gary Peters into the back in the set of Gary Gary. I'm all about it. Team Gary that Gary. Gary got to get Gary, Gary, the whole Gary. Gary is doing a lot of work to win Michigan. All right. So thank you.

Absolutely. Thank you so much. So nice of you to say thanks. And you guys are so inspiring. This is great. What you've done here is is amazing. I'm so impressed by all of it. So thank you.

So. My name is Autumn. I'm originally from Alabama, but I live in Massachusetts. I've been living here the past couple of years and I adopted Pennsylvania. So I've been doing a lot of phone banking and texting and writing letters and all of that campaign for both down ballot races as well as for the presidential race. So I am I'm an autistic woman and we, especially those of us who are late diagnosis, we tend to struggle with comorbidities like depression and anxiety disorders, OCD, PTSD, things like that.

So access to quality mental health care is really, really important for my well-being. And I'm lucky enough now to have that access. But most of my life, I don't have that access. And I really had to basically gamble with tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt and move across the country thousands of miles away from my friends and family, from everyone that I know just to get a damn therapist. So I know that there are so many other people who don't have that option, who don't have the option to move across the country for health care.

And I know that there are so many people who don't have the privileges that I've had that have allowed me to get here in the first place. So many undiagnosed autistic people or misdiagnosed autistic people, particularly black and indigenous people, end up in prison or worse, effectively for lack of access to good quality mental health care. All of that said, fixing all of this starts with getting Donald Trump out of office and phone banking. It can increase turnout by as much as three point eight percentage points.

So that's all I need to know to to sort of push through those anxieties and all of the things that make you reluctant to actually take that jump and get into volunteering. There's so much that's rewarding about it. A lot of it is difficult. I'll be honest, there some days where you kind of have to push through. But always on those days, there's always something that that I can get really excited about, whether it's even just the people, the community that we're volunteering with has been so incredible to be a part of.

And the conversations with voters, that's the other big thing. There's I mean, just volunteer do it even though you don't want to do it, even though you're tired. I mean, if you are able bodied and capable of it, then then do it. There's no reason not to because we need a landslide. And the way that we do that is if we all push for this extra percentage points, we need to get every single one. That means texting, it means phone calls.

It means talking to all of your friends. You have to get involved. Do it now. Go sign up for shifts. Hi, Autumn. Hi. Hi, John.

Good to see you. Thank you so much for all that you're doing and the volunteering that you're doing. Thanks for telling your story. Thanks for being here. Thanks for pushing other people to volunteer. Thanks for adopting Pennsylvania. How are you feeling? Where's your head at? I'm feeling good.

I'm feeling my head is that I can't think too much or too hard about anything until November 4th. So that's where my head. Yeah. How are you.

Where is your head man. Oh what. It's I'm embracing I'm embracing the anxiety because I'm trying to remember that this feeling doesn't matter. Right. Right. Dread dread is a fear of an outcome, but that the outcome is worse. Right. If things go terribly, this dread is nothing. And if things go well, this dread is forgotten. So it doesn't really matter. You know, anxiety is just your body caring.

Yeah, no, I mean, it's your stomach wanting to win. It's one hundred percent.

The thing that really drives me, it's just I got to do something. I got to do something with all this anxiety.

What is it been like as someone. He was neuro atypical, making calls. It was a journey just getting to the point where I would do it. It's a lot. I'll be I'll be square with you. It's definitely something that I had to really, really push myself to do. But it's also it's interesting because it's really a lot like sales. I did work in customer service for a long time and did a lot of like I sold mainly discount cards at a bookstore, so.

That is surprisingly a lot like phone banking, and that actually gave me a lot of the tools that I needed to be able to do it.

I like that. I like that. Trying to elect Joe Biden and prevent America from descending into a kind of neo autocratic, shambolic, failed state is a bit like getting people to buy gift cards. Yeah, I think that's a discount cards that discount cards discount. Yes. No, I it matters. It's a big difference. Don't get your credit card out. Yeah, well, Adam, it was so nice to meet you. Thank you so much for what you're doing.

Thank you for volunteering. Let's go win this thing. Yes, let's do it.

Thank you for having me. And thank you for everything that you have all been doing and for gifting us with this amazing community that we now have. Hi, Andrew.

He has his on hokum land in Phoenix, Arizona.

Sam, him. Same thing.

We work in the entertainment industry, which has been annihilated by the pandemic.

And so we are in the unique position of being fully unemployed right now and had the ability to commit to full time volunteering.

And I feel like a big reason to volunteer is for all of the people who actually can't and would like to be volunteering. You know, we've known how important this election is, even as our important every day. And so as soon as we realized we actually could clear out the space to really go hard, we knew we had to. And you can draw a direct line from what we do or anyone that works in entertainment or hospitality to how this administration has handled the pandemic.

So you literally can say, if I do this, it is going to mean I can work sooner, I can return to a life that could possibly offer me a paycheck. And also, it's selfish. I'm a remarkably anxious person and I don't want to wake up on November 4th and feel like I could have done more. I want to wake up and say, like I am X amount more broke because I spent a chunk of my savings going to a swing state.

I want to wake up and think I'm tired and my lower lumbar is an intense pain because I walk so much. I'd rather feel bad than what I felt in twenty sixteen. That is for sure. We have been in Phoenix for about a month, bouncing between Tempe, Mesa all around, and we have been canvassing, we have been phoning folks. We've been doing all sorts of other things. I think the most moving thing for me is that humans are so hungry to talk to other humans.

It's how we're wired. And in fact, canvassing is like what we actually are made to do as humans because we are social creatures with a social brain. And it is so rewarding to talk to people who don't know where to go, who don't know that the election is on the third and not the fifth, who are genuinely undecided. And the highlight for me is which is both an uphill battle for us in the future, but critical right now is everyone is getting terrible information.

Anyone who is undecided right now, it is because they do not have clear information. So a lot of our work is just saying, hey, here's what we know about that. And having that real connection with humans has been so moving and worthwhile.

I would also add that just being in Arizona, it has really I think one of the more awful things that's happened in the last four years is that Democrats and Republicans have become like cartoon versions of themselves.

And like the bias is so real, like you you look at somebody and you assume certain things.

And we're in Arizona, which neither of us are from Arizona. We've never spent time in Arizona.

And we're pretty much always wrong if we're making a guess about like someone's values or how someone's going to vote and being. And we're in Maricopa County. We're in the biggest swing district in the country.

And seeing the move of Republicans for Baida and seeing the move of Mormons for Biden, it's just like a vision of frankly, like how democracy works and like how many people care about this election that I think we certainly have never seen living in New York and Los Angeles.

And it has, frankly, given us a lot of faith in human beings to not just be garbage.

We also we saw Kamala speak yesterday, which is one of the cool things about being a volunteer is like sometimes the candidates are around.

And she said, I think I'm paraphrasing, but she said that democracy is only as strong as our willingness to fight for it and feeling that with our bodies right now, feeling that intersecting with people from everywhere, people of all ages, intersecting with people who are actually willing to unite around a thing, seeing that physically like actually.

In that I think no matter what happens with the election is like enough to power us through for a little while, and I don't believe in, like, shaming people into volunteering, but I do really wish that everyone can participate in this as an act of joy, because that really is what it feels like.

Hi, how are you guys? I was just listening to you all morning. You were giving me additional anxiety.

Thank you so much for all the work you're doing and thank you for all the incredibly lovely moving reasons you're doing it. I especially liked faith in human beings to not be garbage that that really resonated with me.

Like, why is that like not like should not be everywhere.

Like, yeah. You would think that that would be, you know, a good reason for all of us to do something. Listen, I just you know, we just wanted to first of all, hear your voices, get people on the podcast itself who have done so much work and who like obviously I have no idea if Joe Biden is going to win or not, nor does anyone, as evidenced by John and Dan's just dripping anxiety on the most recent podcast.

But if we do it and I think it's going to be because a lot of people stepped up and worked their asses off and gave like so much of themselves and their time and their money to this cause. So we just wanted to say thank you. Wow. Oh, my God. Q Thank you. Thanks for all the work you're doing. Thank you. We know so many people who are volunteering because of the work that you're doing. So we really it means a lot.

Thanks for connecting.

It means the world to me and this world. John and John. Dan and our whole team. And so just thank you.

Yes. My name is Salvatore Bizzaro. I am originally from Italy. I came when it was I was 15 and a half. I'm an immigrant to the United States and I really care about the immigrants and what they can contribute to to the United States. I am making phone calls in Florida to the Latin population of Florida, not only in Miami-Dade County, but also in central Florida and in some called northern Florida, but mostly concentrated on Miami and the Sarasota Tampa area and Orlando as well.

I always do things, you know, I always volunteer to to try to elect Democrats. And since I vote in Florida, I decided that was a very pivotal state and needed me reaching some Latino communities. I've spoken mostly with Puerto Ricans, Colombians, Venezuelans and and Cubans. The most rewarding part is when I asked them whether they can ask two or three more people to vote for Biden to vote on the Democratic ticket. And I get an answer from one family.

I said, well, in my household, four people voted for Biden. And then I got another answer. In Miami-Dade County, this woman said, well, we have a family of ten people in two households and we all voted for Biden. And the most rewarding one was was one yesterday from Miami-Dade County as well, when this woman told me that 20 people voted for Biden in her family. So that those are the most rewarding ones. I get some pretty bad calls as well.

You know, you have to be very vigilant because we know our Republicans may still elections. We have seen that in the past. And and it's much more of an effort now. So don't be afraid to make phone calls. Even if even if you get one person to vote for Biden, it's a good deal.

Hey, Mr. Bizzaro, this is Tom of Utah. I'm also I mean, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, too. I see you on TV all the time, all my favorite TV programs.

I just want to say thank you so much for everything you're doing for for the Votes of America program for adoptive state and also for for letting G.S. work with us. He's basically single handedly propped up the company as every other sponsor slowly fired us during a pandemic. He was the only person on the planet that was able to bring in new sponsors that actually help us continue to build out this team that allowed us to have this whole Vote Save America program. So we owe you one hundred times over.

Listen, you know, if you had not worked for you and, for example, accept the job from Rush Limbaugh, I would. I told them if you know it's up to you to do whatever you want to do, but don't ever call me again.

If you're the butt buddy, would you accept the job that was before you?

I was listening to your stories earlier and the story about calling a house or 10 or 20 people tell you that their family voted for Biden is like it's music to my ears. The only thing that's it's calming my anxiety today.

Well, that's good. I make about one hundred and fifty calls today.

Wow. That's incredible. And they all going into Florida. Yeah. They're all going to Florida. God, that's amazing.

That is such important work again. Like I still have no idea Biden is going to win. But I think if he does, the difference this year is people like you making that many calls and it just wasn't happening in twenty sixteen. There's wasn't that energy, you know. Right.

I'm very afraid that I wake up after the same way that I did into sixteen, you know, but I'm, I'm hoping a little bit more this time. Yeah. I'm more hopeful.

We're all, I think we're all scared, but I've just been amazed at how many people are are channeling that fear into into work and enthusiasm and something really good. Yeah.

Let you get back to other calls, but thank you. I will have a great day. Yes. Thank you very much. Thanks.

My name is Matty. I'm from the middle of nowhere, Georgia. I have volunteered in my daughter's state of Pennsylvania, but I've also been volunteering a lot in my home state of Georgia because it's a very competitive state here. I have been doing a lot of phone banking and text banking in Pennsylvania. It's been for IDN and for down ballot candidates. And then here in Georgia, I have been doing work for John Asaph in his Senate campaign. I decided to volunteer because this is my first election ever.

I just turned 18 last month and I voted for the first time last week, which was really exciting. And I decided to get involved because this election is the most important of our lifetimes, as we can see. Elections have consequences. We just saw Amy Barrett get put on the Supreme Court for her entire life. That's a 40 year conservative Supreme Court. So four more years of Trump in the White House would be disastrous to my entire generation. I think for me, the most rewarding part is the voters who are voting for the people who just became citizens.

And this is their first time being able to vote. The people who ask, hey, I want to volunteer. I think my favorite conversation I ever had was with a woman in Pennsylvania. She was seventy eight years old, I believe, and she said that she had voted in every election since. So I think it was like the early 60s, she said. And she told me she was like, How old are you? You seem pretty young.

And I told her that this was my first election. And she said that it made her so happy to see all of these people getting out there. And she even asked me how to become a poll worker in Pennsylvania, because even though she was 78 and at risk, she felt that this election was just too important, that she was willing to go and help people cast their vote because she just believed that democracy is important. And she's very excited to be voting for Joe Biden and all the Democrats.

And that call just gave me hope because I feel there's a lot of uncertainty around this election in this year. But women like her and all the voters that I've talked to that have been like, yes, I'm voting for Biden. I'm so excited. Let's go. Those calls just one person can make the whole difference in this election. It's so rewarding to just connect with people and to the volunteers. I just want to say thank you. I know it's really cliche, but one volunteer reaches one more voter reaches five people.

It's like the diffusion, the six degrees of separation or whatever it is. Talk to the people immediately in your life if they voted, see if they want to volunteer. See if they want to adopt state and help out people in that state. Just talk to people. Talk to them in person if you can. If not, try to avoid just social media is good, but I really think that we could all just spend a little bit of time not screaming on Twitter just up until the election.

I would like to see some just humanity. Let's all just be positive and optimistic and go into this election that no matter what the outcome is, on November 4th, we will know that we did everything that we can do. Hey, Maddie. Hi. I just wanted to say thank you and I currently have five thirty eight up on the screen and then of the screen here, I've just been I've just been scrolling Twitter.

So despite all that, just listening to you give those answers to Elijah has been the most inspiring part of my day.

And I know you talked about, um, callers giving you hope, but you give me hope and thank you.

Actually, the fact that you are 18 years old and dedicating so much time to doing this, I was not doing that at 18 years old. I wasn't really politically active until college. But you feeling good about Georgia?

Kind of. Um, so the Senate debate was last night. I'm not sure if you saw John USCIRF was amazing. Yes.

I woke up this morning and saw him destroy David Perdue, which was amazing. Absolutely amazing.

I didn't know that John also had it. Oh, he has it in him. One of my friends actually saw him last week in Athens on the University of Georgia campus and said that he was a phenomenal speaker and he really is. And his ads are also really good, too. They're everywhere. So I feel pretty good. I don't know if both our seats being realistic, but I think if we can flip Perdue's seat, that would be really rewarding.

I mean, I don't know either, but Georgia would be so sweet to win. Like I mean, just especially after, you know, in 18, I was like, so excited about Stacey. I know. And her campaign. And then I've talked to her since then.

And just the sheer amount of work that all of you have done in Georgia to energize people, register people like turn into a purple state, maybe turn into a blue state. It is very inspiring. And the fact that no matter what happens on Tuesday, Georgia is going to be a competitive state for sure, for the future forgood is just it's just amazing.

So, so exciting. Well, anyway, I just I just wanted to say thanks. I hope that you are incredibly proud of the work that you've been doing.

And I hope that whatever happens on Tuesday, that you stay engaged and active in politics because, you know, the world needs you. And you should also know and feel good about what you've done so far, because at a moment when the country was in danger and democracy was in danger, like you stepped up and you did your part and you'll be able to say that for the rest of your life.

And this is not something pretty special. Yeah.

So keep up the good work. And, you know, let's let's run through the tape, you know, thank you so much for all of this.

My name is Herschel Dobi. I'm living and volunteering in Arizona. I'm only thirteen. I can't vote in this election or the next one. So why am I making thousands of calls to voters? One, I listen to Jon Favreau podcast, The Wilderness two, he introduced me to an amazing local candidate, Christine Marsch. And three, no matter how many Marvel movies I watch, there's just no such thing as superheroes. So there's just normal people doing the right thing.

And right now the right thing is to help people vote. As a volunteer, I've talked to so many people who are here discouraging messages about voting, it won't count. It doesn't matter. But the truth is encouraging. Your vote will count. It does matter how you choose to vote. Today has the potential to give us all a better future and being able to give people that information and help them know what they need to do. It feels really good.

I talked to this one man a few days ago, he hadn't heard of any of the candidates I was talking about, I was actually phone banking for some state Senate candidates. So I stayed on the line while he looked through all of their websites. And he just kept on telling me, I like these people. I think I'm going to vote for them. I went through all my talking points. I told him about text updates, everything, and just afterwards it felt like he knew everything you need to know to go vote.

I'm only 13, so I don't have social media, but if any of you find yourselves freaking out or I'm scrolling on Twitter, just take a deep breath and remember to focus on the important thing, and that is having one on one conversations with real people. A tweet isn't going to change someone's mind. A like isn't going to make people vote. But what will help is giving people the information and encouragement they need to make the right choice come Election Day.

Hey, man, how's it going? It's going well, I'm kind of tired, but I could not be, like, more energized, honestly jittery or freaking out, but still same.

Same. I feel the same way. I will say that just listening to your advice right now, that is like advice for me to I need to just have some more one on one conversations instead of doom scrolling through Twitter, because I'm on a roller coaster of emotion right now.

How are the calls today? How are the phones?

I have not had a shift yet. Today I have a four to six one for Christine. But phone banking during the week has been so much better than that on the weekends. I don't know why. I think it's because a bunch of big organizations like BSI are just absolutely bulldozing all these states with calls but calling on like a weekday night. I've got like a 10, 15 percent contact rate.

So it's been nice how you feel about Arizona. I feel really good. I've been calling a lot of persuasion less and like for every two diehard Trump supporters I get, I also got a lot of people who are like, oh, yeah, I'm going to vote for him or oh yeah, I like Mark Kelly. It's cool that he's an astronaut.

That's good. I feel pretty good about Arizona, too. I have ever since we did that episode in the wilderness when we did Southwest and we talked to Christine Marsh. I've been I've been bullish on that state, so I'm glad you're on Team AISI. I just wanted to say, and I know I've said this before, but I just wanted to thank you for doing this and and not just for volunteering. I mean, I know you said that there no such thing as superheroes, but you're pretty close, man.

I have to tell you, for a thirteen year old to be you are you are well beyond your years and you have a wisdom and a way to inspire people that most 20, 30, 40, 50 year olds don't have. And so I really I the future is bright for you. And I hope that whatever happens on Tuesday, you stay involved and engaged in politics because we need you. And when I say we, I mean everyone who cares about politics and the country.

So please stay involved and please stay engaged because it is rare to find people as talented and hopeful and inspiring and and just as dedicated as you are. So we're really grateful for you, man.

Thank you. I'm grateful to you for inspiring me and getting me into this.

Well, I'm happy to help you to do whatever I can. Five more days, man, bring it home, five more days. Oh, God. All right, buddy, I'll let you get back to your life.

Thank you. This is a lot of fun. God Save America is a crooked media production, the executive producer is Michael Martinez, our associate producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Soglin is our sound engineer thanks to Tanya Nominator, K.D. Lang, Broman, Papadimitriou Quynh Lewis, Brian Semmel, Caroline Reston and Elisa Gutierrez for production support into our digital team, Alija Konar Melkonian, Elfriede and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos every week.