The presenting sponsor of positive America is zip recruiter hiring can be challenging, but the recruiter makes it fast and easy. Monica Starks needed to hire for a pivotal role at her construction company group, but was having a tough time finding the right person, especially with so many candidates out there.

So she switched to zip recruiter.

Zip recruiter doesn't depend on candidates finding you would find them for you. Its technology identifies people with the right experience, Tommy, and actively invite them to apply to your job. And that's how Monica found Lamont Jenkins. She said that Zipp recruiters sent Lamont's profile to her around five minutes after she posted her job because he was a great match for the role of five minutes. Imagine that through zip recruiter. Monica's company has hired everyone from accountants to project managers to field scientists.

But Monica is not the only employer who loves it. Recruiter Four out of five employers who post on the recruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Imagine if we needed a role to fill a cricket media and we found the person after five minutes of posting the job. Be cool, see for yourself as a recruiter makes hiring faster and easier. Try it now for free. That's right. Free as a recruiter. Dotcom slash cricket. That recruiter dotcom slash crooked zip recruiter dot com slash cricket.

Coming up, we sit down with Zipp recruiter labor economist Julia Pollak to get her take on hiring trends and how she thinks our country is flashing back to the 1950s. Stay tuned until the end of the episode.

I do feel that Vice President Biden and Senator Harris are the best choice to lead our country, and I am endorsing them to become president and vice president of the United States.

In my opinion, you are a certified badass. I am honored and thank you for that huge compliment. Welcome to parts of America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm John Lovett. I'm Tommy Vietor.

And that was a vote Save America founder Dwayne the Rock Johnson, who who endorsed Joe Biden, Kamala Harris over the weekend and then linked to vote Save America.

The Mormon Church endorsed all of us. What an endorsement. Yeah, cool.

But the endorsement I cared about, it was Michael Martinez's best day. I think Crooked Media are our fabulous producer who's a big fan of the rock, not just endorsed.

Joe Biden came off the sidelines as a longtime independent, but also is now the founder of Save America, as it says on his Instagram page, and and shout out to the tensile strength of the fabric of that sweater.

Yeah, no kidding. My God, that could hold up a suspension bridge.

And today's part, I talked to Obama campaign manager David Plouffe about the state of the race and what it's like to prep a candidate for presidential debate. Before that, we'll talk about Donald Trump's nomination of Judge Amy CONI Barrett to the Supreme Court, the New York Times investigation into Trump's taxes and what Joe Biden needs to get out of tomorrow night's debate.

And I just want to win. I just want to say congrats to both of you both on the Patriots victory and the fact that the charges against Bob Kraft were dropped.

Yeah, you really worked up on that one. You waited for that?

No, I just didn't want to say it. When the mikes weren't on, I thought of it moments ago. I could have said it right then. I saved it for a second. The Bob Kraft, speaking of the Bob Kraft Gravett, his charges were dropped.

Speaking of debates, let's do.

Speaking of debates, there's no better place to watch the debate than on crooked dotcom debate, where a bunch of us from Crooked Media will be doing live commentary on our group threat. Again, that's going to be Tuesday, September 29th at 9:00 p.m. Eastern, 6:00 p.m. Pacific at crooked dotcom slash debate. So come hang out with us. Love it.

You had a show this weekend. How was it? We had a great love it or leave it. Check it out. I plug in every week so I know that not many of you are doing with this plug ass at this point, so why bother? You should check it out. It's your loss. It's doing great with that.

I like that. That was a good pitch. Go, go, listen, go. Listen, everyone.

Tara Brown was on. It was fantastic. It's a very funny episode.

Check it out. Excellent. All right. Let's get to the news.

With just 36 days to go in an election that's taking place in the midst of a deadly pandemic. Donald Trump has nominated a Supreme Court justice who has written that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional if confirmed. Amy CONI Barrett would be the court's youngest justice at only forty eight years old, she's been a judge for just three years on the Seventh US Circuit Court of Appeals. Before Trump appointed her in twenty seventeen, she was a full time professor at Notre Dame Law School, where she developed an extremely conservative judicial philosophy.

Here's what she said about that in the Rose Garden on Saturday.

I clerked for Justice Scalia more than 20 years ago, but the lessons I learned still resonate. His judicial philosophy is mine, too. A judge must apply the law as written. Judges are not policy makers and they must be resolute and setting aside any policy views they might hold.

Her judicial philosophy is Justice Scalia. Is that sort of spells it out? Does not. Great.

I want to talk about it in the nomination fight, but I just want to talk quickly about the other serious candidate. Under consideration was Barbara Lagoa, who serves on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Lagoa is from Florida. She's Cuban-American. She won a lot more Democratic votes during her circuit court confirmation. She has a less controversial record. She hasn't been openly hostile to universal health care during a pandemic.

Love it. Why do you think Trump didn't choose her? Like, what does it say about the Trump campaign that they didn't actually go with what may have been the more electorally palatable choice?

I think that there's a been a dirty deal at the core of conservative intellectual support for Donald Trump from the very beginning, including from people like Mitch McConnell and, you know, serious adjacent conservatives or what they call serious conservatives. And they've wanted Amy CONI Barrett from the beginning. She is an exemplar of their right wing judicial philosophy. She is. Putting someone like her on the court is what makes Donald Trump worth it. And Donald Trump knows that because he knows it's transactional for them and it's transactional for him.

I like that he didn't like that she had ties to Jeb Bush.

I just think that that was my favorite part of the grievance. Running through this whole narrative is really it's just a treat for all of us.

What do you think a conversation between Donald Trump and a potential Supreme Court justice is like?

Like what? What superficial level of the law does he know to ask about? Is it just about cases about him before the court?

Do we think. Well, this is what's funny about so the CNN has a great tick tock on, like, why he didn't choose Lagoa and why he chose Barritt. And it's for it's so funny that it's for both the reasons Lovatt mentioned and the reason Tommy mentioned, which is classic Trump, like there's a dirty deal that he made with conservatives and there's political considerations. And then there's just the very personal, oh, Jeb nominator. So I don't like her anymore.

But it was funny, you, me, that in the CNN ticktock, they mentioned that they basically were trying their best to prevent Trump from eating, even meeting Lagoa. They didn't want to meet her because they were afraid he would get too excited that she would like bring in a Cuban voter. He would say something crazy to her, like they don't want him meeting with these people. You can't even have a conversation. Who knows what else is too stupid.

So let's talk about how both parties are approaching this nomination fight. Trump and Republican senators and Magga pundits have already concocted an alternative reality where Barrett is being persecuted by Democrats because she's Catholic, a religion shared by the Democratic nominee for president, the Democratic speaker of the House, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and a Supreme Court justice appointed by the last Democratic president. Tell me, why are Republicans doing this? And aside from the reasons I just mentioned, like why is it such an absurd accusation?

Yeah, I mean, on the absurdity question. So Joe Biden is Catholic. He would be the second Catholic US president after JFK. If Barrett is confirmed, the Supreme Court will have six Catholics that have nine people, 30 percent of Congress is Catholic. The suggestion that, like somehow Catholics are an aggrieved party in this country is so completely ludicrous. It stems from this moment in the 2017 confirmation hearing with DFI, which she said something that was kind of dumb.

But what's clear is they don't want to talk about the ways that she would rule. They don't want to talk about getting rid of the Affordable Care Act a week after the election in the middle of a pandemic. And so they do what they always do, which is try to create these sideshows. You've clowns like Hugh Hewitt saying that all progressives hate all Catholics and making these, you know, absurd blanket statements based on some tweet they saw that offended them.

And it's you know, it's actually kind of laughable this time around. Look, I'm I'm a self hating Catholic, but, you know, not all of us are, I mean, it's just it is like completely ridiculous for them to be talking about her being persecuted because of her religion somehow.

And Democrats hate religion, love the United States banned immigration from predominantly Muslim countries and they are all behind him 100 percent. Right, love. What do you think about the whole Catholic controversy?

Yeah, I would just add to it that they think that there is a kind of pool of maybe moderate or gettable Catholic voters out there. So it's sort of a two to two for one thing. Right. You can get the conversation away from the radicalism of her actual judicial philosophy and get it on to ground. They feel more comfortable debating and you can maybe kind of make some kind of appeal to these people that I just find hard to believe will work because it's so ludicrous.

So, yeah, like they are trying to say that the left hates Catholics because the left doesn't want to criminalize abortion, but the right doesn't agree with the Catholic Church and especially this pope on immigration, on climate change, on health care, on poverty. Donald Trump called this pope disgraceful. So it's not actually about being offended by anti Catholic bigotry. It's about the fact that Joe Biden is winning over more white working class Catholics than Hillary did.

It was like a completely cynical play for a group of voters that they're losing.

Well, it's it's there's a connection, too, I think, between the the manufactured grievance around an attack on Catholicism when the court left six Catholics on it. If this person is confirmed in the same way that they claim that there has been this great, you know, scorched earth campaign to prevent conservative judges from reaching the bench when they're about to achieve a six three majority there, their whole mode of running these kinds of campaigns is rooted in grievance and rooted in the fact that liberals are running roughshod all over them.

But it doesn't work as well when they're winning. Doesn't work as well when they've successfully been able to remake the courts, when there's no reality to the accusation, whether it's around attacks on conservative judges generally or this ridiculous Catholic basically conspiracy.

I also think it's very easy for Democrats to, like, avoid falling into this trap because there's no views that Barrett holds because she's Catholic that are different than views that a normal conservative would have who isn't Catholic.

Right. Look, there is no need to talk about her religion. She's just a right wing. She believes in a right wing judicial philosophy. That's all you need to know, you know? Yeah.

It's not it's not it's not a well hidden trap. It's there's not a lot there's not grass over the hole. Just walk around it.

Dianne Feinstein said this. Twenty seventeen confirmation hearing, like the dogma, lives loudly within you. And she was referring to an article Barrett wrote in ninety eight that said something like The duty of judges, something about a duty to judges, put their faith above the law and potentially recuse themselves in cases around the death penalty, et cetera, et cetera.

But she is not actually lived up to that suggestion. She has repeatedly ruled on death penalty cases. So it sort of undercuts the entire argument. All that said, yeah, this is just a sideshow. They just don't want to talk about the ACA. They don't want to talk about her overturning Roe vs. Wade. There's a whole bunch of really unpopular positions she will undoubtedly take if she is confirmed. I will say I'm a little surprised that it doesn't seem Republicans understand at all the political danger that they're in here and having a nominee that is so openly hostile to both the Affordable Care Act and Roe.

I mean, Senator Mike Lee said over the weekend the fact that Congress chose to enact an unconstitutional law shouldn't tarnish Judge Barrett in this. And Donald Trump himself tweeted, Obamacare will be replaced with a much better, far cheaper alternative if it is terminated in the Supreme Court. So saying that it might actually be terminated with her on the court, why love it?

Why doesn't why don't they seem to think this will hurt them or do they just not care about the politics?

Yeah, there's also been a few conservatives who have tried to say, don't worry, she won't. Actually, this case isn't going to it's not going to happen. Don't worry. They won't actually overturn the ACA. So I think some do recognize the the pitfalls in this, you know. It's really hard to say. I think they I think that there's a there are different equities in this. I think Senate Republicans have a different set of goals. And Donald Trump, I think they believe in her philosophy.

They want someone like that on the court. It feels sometimes in this past couple of days that we're watching like these Senate Republicans. And Mitch McConnell is like an old gang getting together for one last heist, just one last time while the walls close in. You know, they probably wouldn't have done it otherwise, but the score was so big they couldn't walk away. So, you know, I think they just what they're pushing their chips forward and want to go out as legends.

You know, I just think, like, this is what they do on almost everything, right?

I mean, they talk about discrimination against white people. It's all about grievance. Right? There's always a group that's in power and they try to act aggrieved as part of their political strategy, which is just to rally the base, sort of invoke this tribalist partisan sentiment and try to own the lips. You know, I mean, they want to make it about those things. They want to make it about defeating Democrats in partisan advantage and not about the issues that ever come before the court.

And that's sort of like the whole the whole play here. And I think it was for cabinet to and many others before him. I will say I'm very proud so far of the Democrats for really keeping this on the message of the Affordable Care Act, and I think that's going to be the main challenge in the hearings because they're going to want to, like you said, time. They're going to want to make it about grievance.

And we just have to hammer ACA for the next four weeks, which again, closing out the last couple of weeks of this election about making it about Trump and Republicans wanting to overturn the Affordable Care Act in the middle of a pandemic. I can't think of a topic I'd rather talk about for the last couple of weeks of the election.

Yeah, I also think, John, to go to your question to you know, they know that they have a pool of very dedicated voters who vote on these issues and they are counting on the fact that enthusiasm amongst a minority that supports overturning Roe, that supports a right wing judiciary, will surmount the losses that come from people worried about Roe, worried about the Affordable Care Act, fundamentally at odds with a court that is so far to the right.

So we're going to talk all about the debates in a minute. But one of the issues that will almost certainly come up is today's New York Times report that Donald Trump only paid seven hundred and fifty dollars in federal income taxes in twenty sixteen, in twenty seventeen, and no federal income taxes at all in 10 of the past 15 years.

The piece says that Trump has avoided all these taxes because his businesses reported losing more money than they made, which also means that Trump will have to pay back hundreds of millions of dollars in loans over the next few years.

As The Times wrote, quote, Ultimately, Mr. Trump has been more successful playing a business mogul than being one in real life.

Tommy, reactions to the story. Any other financial malfeasance? I miss there.

So much of it, such a long story. My reaction is, is multipart and probably contradictory. I mean, in some ways, we knew a lot of this. We've seen previous glimpses into his financial life that showed the entire persona as a successful businessman is just is made up. He inherited a ton of money from his dad. He squandered it. And then whenever he looked upon a business idea that did make him money like Trump Tower or The Apprentice, he he squandered that by investing all the profits in stupid things that lost money, like a dozen golf courses or whatever.

So it shows his brazen public corruption, which is shocking but not surprising, I guess.

And it also explains it like failing to divest his businesses, to steering government business, to like his golf courses all the time, like trying to get the G-7 there, for example, was born not just of his ego, but also desperation. Like he knows that the US government could foreclose on him if he's not able to pay these debts. And so, you know, the other piece of it that just drove me crazy is it made me mad at Jeff Zucker all over again in The Apprentice, because not only did that show manufacture his image as a great businessman, it provided him a literal financial lifeline that kept him afloat long enough to run for president.

And then my bigger takeaway, I think, was probably that it made me nervous all over again about what this guy will do to maintain power, because it's not just about ego and not wanting to be a historic, failed one term president. It's about existential, legal and financial threats for him and maybe even for his kids. I mean, there's some stuff in there about Ivanka getting these consulting fees, which was clearly not a consultant on the project that lead me to believe she could be in some trouble, too.

So there's a lot to this. And it sounds like The Times is going to keep rolling out stories for the next couple of weeks.

What did you think of the story and how do you think Biden should talk about this issue? There's like a hundred different targets in the story and a lot of details. But like, how would you sort of drive at this?

Yeah, it's that's it is hard to sort of drill down. Like, what's the most valuable political piece of this? I don't feel like I know exactly. But you look at the seven hundred fifty dollar taxes. You know, Dan wrote about this in the newsletter, people can't stop talking about message box. But it seems pretty clear, right, that there are some core idea here that fits with the larger story of Trump, which is this is somebody that cares about only himself, who used a rigged tax code to to get money that he didn't deserve to keep himself afloat.

He then became president and rigged the tax code even more to protect himself and other people like him. You know, I something that I found striking is, you know, you look at these you know, there's been a lot of I think I don't know, I think with Trump, there's this right wing cynicism that's sort of like this is what these people do. And, you know, no, no, hold on a second. This is extraordinary.

And then it's like this is unusual even for the super rich, even for tax cheats. This is very unusual. And you say, oh, well, you know, what's the problem here? You know, the crime is what's legal is like, yeah, it is. The crime is what's legal. It is a crime. What Trump is able to get away with legal legally. But also the crime is what is very clearly a set of illegal acts inside of these manufactured losses and these fake consulting fees and the kind of you step back and you look at it and you see like there is stuff we don't understand here.

There is a kind of, you know, when when when scientists, you know, look up and try to find a black hole, you can't find the black hole, but you can see that it's disturbing things all around it. You look at Trump's finances, you look at Trump's ridiculous borrowing and spending habits and tax cheating, and you say there's some piece of this missing. There's some way to make sense of this that we can't see illegal contact, illegal money moving around the world.

And it has driven him from the day he became president. Now, should Joe Biden say all that? I don't think so. Probably should focus on the fact that Trump didn't pay taxes and he's a tax cheat who wants to help millionaires and billionaires just like him and rig the system against the middle class.

But I'm just telling you what bothered me. Well, I think there's a little bit of both, though.

I mean, we have talked before about, you know, in 2016, like Trump's economic appeal was based on he said that, quote, All my life I've been greedy. Now I'm going to be greedy for the United States of America. And it was somewhat believable because you're like, yeah, he is a greedy asshole, but maybe he'll use some of that magic to help all of us, right? Well, it turns out he just decided to be greedy for himself.

He didn't give a shit about the rest of the country. He got into office. He used the office to steer money to his businesses to sort of like, do you have like lobbyists and foreign actors and everyone else, like, give money to Trump properties because he needed the money and didn't do it, didn't do anything for anyone else. And now we have eight percent unemployment. The guy couldn't even give people an extra six hundred dollars a week for unemployment benefits.

He wants to take away their health care coverage. He doesn't want to give any more direct payments. He doesn't want to help any more small businesses in the middle of a pandemic. But meanwhile, he's working the system as hard as he can to pay off his debts. That's who he is. That's who he is.

Yes, but not how you want to close out a campaign for being honest here. I mean, there's a bunch of pieces like there's some there are juicy details in the story. Like, I bet you 80 percent of the country ultimately knows that he paid seven hundred and fifty bucks in federal taxes one year. I bet a similar number here is about the seventy thousand dollars in write offs for haircare or whatever it was.

And to your point, in 2015 and 16, he did have this populist side of him. He pretended that he was going to change the way you tax hedge fund guys because they were getting away with murder. This story shows that he has been exploiting all the same loopholes. He is a tax cheat. And you have to make a case about a corrupt system that lets rich jerks like Donald Trump use tax loopholes and accounting tricks to do things that would get the rest of us audited or maybe thrown into jail.

So I do think this is a big deal. I think Biden should play this up at the debate. And it's something that people hear. And for all the Teflon Don, nothing impacts him. This will be remembered. This will undercut his core argument for why he ran in the first place, which was that he's a successful business guy who could translate that to running the country. That didn't happen. Well, and again, remember our change research polling in the six battleground states of new and infrequent voters, the message that was most successful at actually moving voters towards Joe Biden was an economic message.

We wrote up that contrast to Donald Trump's plan and Joe Biden's plan. And it was populist in nature. And this just puts a finer point on that. Trump, if elected for a second term, wants to give the 10 richest billionaires in the country a 17 billion dollar tax cut. Joe Biden would raise taxes on the one percent, raise taxes on big corporation, cut taxes for the middle class, 15 dollar minimum wage free college. If you're making under one hundred twenty five thousand expanded rent subsidies, 12 weeks paid family leave.

Like if I were the Biden campaign, I would hope in the debate that not only would you hit him for the tax story, but talk about what you would do to change the tax system, what you would do for people and what Donald Trump will continue to do for people just like Donald Trump.

Now, I also one thing that that you take away from this, too, is there is a lot of political value, I think, in talking about going after white collar crime, that we need a new and renewed focus on white collar crime. There's, you know, ProPublica put this out. Few people have been talking about this, that the most audited county in America is a small, rural, poor black county in Mississippi because they audit people who use the earned income tax credit, but they don't take care of and don't go after and don't look at people like Donald Trump.

And I think there's a lot of like that's good populism to me. I talk about that.

Of America is brought to you by talk space, imagine having a personalized judgment, free support system available 24/7. Imagine it for as little as I fucking kill for those sixty five dollars a week for work. Have that with me and. Oh, my God.

Yeah, please. It's called Love It or leave it.

In my judgment, I get get some robe and gavel's, you know, talk space believes we all deserve to feel our best.

Their mission, make therapy affordable and accessible for all. And with thousands of therapists licensed in over 40 specialties, you're sure to find the support you need to to is a fraction of the cost of in-person therapy.

Election anxiety should be a specialty that forty one. It's a new line of business free idea for you taxpayers. That's a great idea.

And now taxpayers covers 40 million people for online therapy through their insurance or employer. The Talk Space Network is composed of thousands of licensed therapist experience in treating depression, anxiety, substance abuse, trauma, relationship issues, food and eating and more talk spaces secure and private. Using the latest encryption technology to keep your information safe, I found a therapist on talk space and he used to be from Boston, but he actually moved to Seattle to be near to his dad.

Was he like he sort of a bit persnickety? He's always meddling in people's business and basically there's this ongoing conversation he has with his father.

Like what's more important, you do do do do do street smarts.

You know, sometimes I feel like my brain's a bunch of scrambled eggs, you know. I hear the blues, the Colin Fraser will be down to Chaz like protesting with everybody. What do you think? I think he'd be donating to the Lincoln Project, very Lincoln Project vibe from Frasier Crane.

Where was I? We all need someone to talk to. Taxpayers wants to give us the support we deserve at a price we can afford. Match with your perfect therapist at taxpayers dotcom or by downloading the tax base app. Don't forget to use promo code Krukow to check out for one hundred dollars off your first month. That's one hundred dollars off your first month tocks. Face.com Promo Code Cricket Pottsy America's Brighty by Neum.

There's no question twenty twenty is piling on the stress between the election and everything else in the news. Yeah, hard to make time for yourself. All those things to make time for yourself of the election and the, you know, the Trump not transitioning peacefully.

And it's ironic, the idea of other things. It's hard to make time for yourself. It's hard to make time, not for yourself.

You know, it's hard for the press corps to make time for a follow up on, hey, are you really going to ignore and get rid of ballots? And instead they ask about the royal family. So that doesn't give me a lot of hope.

Tell me this is why we're eating so much, because it's stuff like that. I just I just ate some chips. While you were talking about that with anxiety, rising healthy habits have been falling by the wayside. When there's so much going on, it's hard to recommit to yourself. Whether it's losing weight or getting fit for. Good news is here to help you stay on track, whatever your fitness and health goals are. Look, we love new it's not just about such, it just keeps you on a keeps you on a plan, you know, it's but it's about feeling healthy.

Got to have a good sort of good what you call it, their discipline. You want routine, you want discipline. You want better self care. You want to feel confident. Well, it says here maybe it helps with just an overall glow. I love it. I've noticed that your glow is a little more. Noticeable these days. Yeah, tell us about your gloop love. Tell us about your. How did you blow up so much? Hate this.

I hate this. Mm hmm. Hate it.

Pneuma. Just your lifestyle helps you understand the psychology behind better decision making through features like tracking steps and recommending healthy recipes of moderation over restriction. No food is good, bad or off limits can be used alongside many popular diets. Neum is not a diet, though. It's a healthy and easy to stick to way of life.

In all seriousness, I had some trouble midway through the whole pandemic where, you know, early on I was keeping to a schedule, come out and say late May. All of a sudden I looked at myself in the mirror and said, You're a person who doesn't remember what it's like to work out or eat something that doesn't get wrapped in a bun. And so I made some some new M changes, you know, fix things. All right. Am I still having chicken parm?

It's because it's about moderation, not restriction, if you want to build healthy habits, the last sign up today at News.com so I could get started with your trial, just visit News.com crooked. You can pair up with a virtual health coach and join a group of like minded numerous. That's Noem Dotcom crooked.

All right, let's move on to the debates on Tuesday night, Donald Trump and Joe Biden will face off in the first of three presidential debates. This one will take place in Cleveland, Ohio, and be moderated by Chris Wallace of Fox News, who chose the following six 15 minute segments, the records of Joe Biden and Donald Trump, the Supreme Court coronavirus, the economy, race and violence in our cities is what he's calling it and the integrity of the election.

Joe Biden has been preparing with his staff, while Donald Trump has been preparing by demanding that Joe Biden take a drug test in between rounds of golf.

Love it. Considering where the race is and how many voters have told pollsters they've already made up their minds, how much do you think these debates matter?

You know, it's nothing has fundamentally changed the dynamic in this race. The coronavirus hasn't done it. Nothing we've seen in the past, like three months have been able to move the polls very dramatically. You know, when people go and say things like, oh, this tax story doesn't matter, it's like, well, OK, but but for Donald Trump, things have to start mattering and have to start mattering a great deal to start changing the dynamic to.

I think it's possible that something can happen in a debate that can fundamentally change the the dynamic in this race. Right now. It doesn't seem like it. I think of it as an opportunity for Joe Biden to, you know, make a case for himself while dodging the kind of bullshit and torrent of lies and misinformation and attacks and nonsense that will come from Donald Trump to seem presidential to to to demonstrate the kind of leader he will be and give, you know, the the the people we've been talking about in our polls and and in other polls that are kind of looking for that are leaning towards Joe Biden and are looking for information, looking for a reason to come on board.

Tell me, what do you think?

And if you're on the Biden campaign, what do you want voters to take away from this debate? I mean, so here's what we know about debates. Like a ton of people watch them. The first Clinton Trump debate had eighty four million viewers and then the coverage probably reached tens of millions more. We also know that in twenty sixteen, only 10 percent of voters said they had made up their minds during or after the debates.

And I suspect that number will be lower this year, given how many people are already decided. So that does suggest that it's going to be hard to move the numbers a lot. I also think for Trump, like your debate performance isn't going to convince anyone that you did a good job of the coronavirus, that that ship has sailed.

I want to see Joe Biden being the the optimistic, happy warrior who's going to fight for the middle class because that's who he is. I love the framing of Scranton versus Wall Street. I think that's aided enormously by this New York Times tax story. And, you know, it's effective because the minute Biden started down that path, Republicans were crying about class warfare.

Right now, no, how dare you do this right.

You know, that's when when it hurts. I think he needs to get past delivering a message about Trump being a bad human being, be immoral, being unethical. It's got to be a bigger story about Republican policies that are corrupt and helping rich people cheat, like we talked about a minute ago. You know, I also would love to hear him say something like, I get why people wanted to change in 2016 and considered voting for for someone new, something different.

But it's clear that you are not up for the job and you have failed. Right. And so talk about who you are, what you do. Do it with a smile. Don't get down too deep into the mud.

But also, I don't think you can, like, let Trump just lie the whole time. Yeah, I mean, I keep thinking of Michelle Obama's line from her convention speech that Donald Trump is in over his head and like if I was Joe Biden, the frame I'd want to put Donald Trump in is not he's a liar. He's a scary authoritarian, is bad for all that kind of stuff. He is weak. He is ineffective. He is in over his head and he is out of touch with the problems of the country.

He has no fucking idea what's actually going on in people's lives. He is because Donald Trump will try to paint Joe Biden as like an addled old guy. Right. Who he's been trying to do that the whole time.

Joe Biden can turn that on him early and show that he's sort of like the dotty old racist, as Lovett says, like doesn't know what the hell he's doing, isn't in control of his government chaos all around him. All he cares about is himself, doesn't care about other people. And then I do think it's a it's an opportunity for Joe Biden to sort of lay out in broad strokes, not details like what he's going to do for the country, for some of those wavering voters.

Love it. If you're prepping Biden for Trump, what would you tell him to expect or would you tell him to watch out for?

I think it's almost like you can almost like have in debate prep Donald Trump played by a noisemaker to somebody that does this for somebody that spins a ratchet and just makes noise because, yes, it just doesn't really like maybe that's too glib.

Maybe that's not right. I like Donald Trump is a broken old racist fool and he's going to make a lot of noise, is going to throw a lot of shit out there. He's going to interrupt. No puppet, no puppet. Your puppet. We're gonna remember. It's going to be the same. He's prepping. There's no there's no prep. So there's no new there's no no material going into his brain. No new material has entered his brain in quite some time.

So it's going to be a kind of like noisy bit of all the kind of greatest hits he's going to attack Joe Biden in every way possible. This is, as Tommy said, you know, eighty million people, maybe more, maybe more watching this year is I'm doing just sort of reach the country and kind of situate the race, the scale of it, the stakes of it, the pain the country's in the seriousness of the economic crisis, the seriousness of the pandemic, the seriousness in terms of the threats to our democracy and kind of use it as an opportunity to simply be president.

We've talked about this a lot that, you know, in many ways, you know, Donald Trump has tried to run as a challenger, right. To kind of declare bankruptcy on his first four years and get a restart. And Joe Biden has been demonstrating throughout this campaign that he is showing you what a president is supposed to do, that this is what a president sounds like. This is what a president looks like. And and I think for a lot of people, that's going to be really important.

And I think there's a lot of people out there who will that will resonate with for quite deeply and maybe for the first time seeing it on this stage that has such history to it.

And by the way, don't let him slip into Challenger mode. Trump, don't let him act like he's the challenger. I think it's one of the reasons that, like I mean, partly because he was a senator for so long. But it's good for Joe Biden to continue to call him Mr. President, Mr. President, President Trump and not Donald Trump. Right. Like, I think he I think it helps to remind people as they're talking about all the problems and all the crises the country is facing.

You are the president, because Donald Trump is going to complain about everything. He's going to blame Joe Biden. He's going to blame Barack Obama, is going to blame politicians in Washington for the last 40.

He's going to do the 47 years you've been around. Forty seven years and you haven't changed anything. Hey, man, you're the president right now. Right now. So Trump's obviously going to lie for most of the debate. On Sunday, the Commission on Presidential Debates co-chair Frank Fahrenkopf Jr. said that he doesn't expect Chris Wallace or any of the moderators to fact check the candidates because, quote, the minute the TV is off, they're going to be plenty of fact checkers at every newspaper and every television station in the world.

That's not the main role of our moderators. Tommy, should it be up to Joe Biden to fact check Donald Trump for the entire debate? Should it be up to the moderators? What do you think?

No, I mean, some of my advice to Joe Biden would be don't shake his hand.

You know, you never know if you just like high five covid handkerchief, like don't kind of look dumbstruck when he's lying and don't fact check him on everything because you don't have to. But what's the point of having a moderator if they're not fact checking in some way? You might as well just have them read the questions to themselves off of cards. I just don't I don't understand this. The US media can be aggressive in a lot of ways. Presumably that's why you picked Chris Wallace.

Why are they so oddly passive about this? Because if you don't do any fact checking, you advantage the person who is willing to lie the most. You play into the Trump in, you know, alternate facts. Facts don't matter. Reality, I don't get it. I find it so infuriating. I'm not saying you need to fact check in real time every statement he made, but like some things are true and some things are false.

Why is that not relevant in a political debate to see who becomes a president? United States. Well, what do you think? Yeah, I mean, sort of, you know, sort of what the point of refs are, you know, make sure that there some. Otherwise there's no rules. Right. If misinformation and information are treated equally over the course of the debate, that does a real disservice to the people watching. And, yeah, there's going to be tons of fact checking and people going over the thing.

But do you have any respect for the people that are tuning in and aren't as well versed in every policy detail as you earn any respect for them trying to trust you, to help them understand the stakes of this election, any any fealty to them as opposed to to Donald Trump and the two parties like any any regard for those human beings at all? That would be my that be my question.

Well, they're like, you know, Joe Biden can fact check them and Donald Trump, but like Joe Biden is running for president, as is Donald Trump, they don't have the same kind of credibility when they fact check each other because they obviously have their own interests at heart. Look, I know the craziest thing is being like, oh, it's up to Joe Biden to fact check Donald Trump.

No, it's fucking not. It doesn't make any sense. That's why you have a moderator. That's what you have a neutral party. Right. And I get it like it would be impossible to spend 90 minutes fact checking everything. Donald Trump says, Chris Wallace, Kristen Welker, all these debate moderators, they cannot do that. But there's going to be big ones. There's going to be obvious ones that you can jump in on at times.

It's also, you know, you kind of go back to like, what is the purpose of this debate? It's not actually a debate contest. It's an opportunity for these two people to hash it out over who's best to lead the country. If it's Joe Biden's job to not only tell the American people what he'll do as president, but also protect the American people from the misinformation coming from the other podium, that's a lot to ask for. Want for the other person to do.

That's a real steep climb to put on one side. And it really does advantage misinformation. And one of the lessons of the last five years is we have a fundamental problem in which we are not doing enough to disadvantage the use of misinformation. Chris Wallace is a real opportunity to help the American people face the crisis of misinformation. That is his job. There's no other reason to be there. Otherwise, print the questions out and put them on big signs and show the signs.

But also, you know, if the moderators job isn't a fact check, OK, but we also know the press doesn't view its job as a fact check either. They often score these things on style points, right? I mean, the famous Ronald Reagan, there you go again. Line was his way of spinning out, of getting called on all the things he lied about or his very extreme positions that he had taken previously in his career in the press was like, oh, what a performance.

The audience laughed. He seemed genial, like, what's the point? Why is anyone doing this nonsense if we don't care about facts and truth? I mean, I feel like this is one of the first times where I've really felt like we have not learned anything from 2016. These debates are they're not on the level, guys.

They're not on the level. All right.

So in these in these last thirty six days, upwards of America, we are going to take some questions from you guys since we don't have a mailbag episode between now and the election. So we're going to end every episode with a few questions.

I think we might have some music for those questions.

Meredith Graves via Facebook asks, I have monthly donations set up to various candidates, but still get bombarded with panicked sounding texts about quarterly fundraising deadlines, et cetera. What do these deadlines actually mean? Are they important? To me? They're important.

I mean, they're their moments when campaigns have to disclose publicly how much money they've raised. And if you have a good quarter, it's seen as a sign of momentum and success with your candidacy. If you have not raised a lot of money, it's seen as a sign that you could be in trouble. It's also something that's looked at by the campaign committees in Washington, like the DNC or the DNC when they make determinations at the end of an election about where to put their scarce resources.

So that's why people are always brow beating you at the end of the quarter. They just want to post the best number they possibly can before it becomes public. Alex Alex Goebel via Facebook asks, Can a conservative majority in the Supreme Court block any possibility of an expanded court or other Supreme Court related reforms, even if we get a Democratic House, Senate and president? Love it. You got thoughts on that.

So there's nothing in the Constitution that requires there to be nine Supreme Court justices that said anything is possible with a conservative court trying to maintain its power. But Congress has broad leeway to add justice to the Supreme Court. It's happened many, many times in our past and there's no reason to believe they couldn't do it again.

Yeah, I think that's the best bet is like there's precedent for it. They've changed it. The Congress and the president have changed the of Supreme Court before via legislation it has gone through. It can happen again.

Grant Weaver via Community asks, Can you go into more depth on how campaign money is spent? We hear about large amounts of money being raised. Just curious how many TV or digital ads that gets the campaign, how many voters, etc.. The numbers are so abstract, I do not know exactly. I don't know if you guys do exactly how much money every ad costs. It depends on the market. First of all, there are some media markets in the country that are more expensive, some bigger cities than others.

But obviously campaign money is spent on digital ads, on television ads, on polling and data.

So they know which group of voters to talk to you, how the campaign is doing, how to reach different voters, voter contact staff, organizers, volunteers. Am I missing anything? What else is campaigns?

Spend money on pieces of mail that gets thrown in the garbage mail, junk food mail that gets thrown in the garbage.

Yeah, I think you nailed it. I'd take out volunteers because they're free.

But yes, I mean, look, organizers unfortunately, a lot of this money is going to be spent on television ads, which is, you know, not how you wish democracy worked, but often can be effective.

That's true, Alex Triggermen asks, Oh, guys, why do I keep eating late night dominos? Love it.

Well, you know, we're in a pandemic and crisis in our democracy and a growing self-evident climate crisis and one of the most important periods in politics in our history, surrounded by, you know, chaos and anger and. Fear. So normally you might turn to say, grabbing a drink with an old friend at a bar or or, you know, maybe going to the old bowling alley, you know, knocking down a couple a couple of pins. But many of these things are not available as the pandemic has basically drained joy from our lives in the failure to contain it has meant we can't go back to the things that made life worth living.

And so if you at night decide at 10 o'clock to add dinner number two by ordering yourself a toss pan pizza, you know what? Don't say UGG say I deserve it. That's what I say.

It's better than Papa John's been. Download some neum.

I can't believe it. It is now six months of every day saying to myself, you know what? You deserve dessert today. Every day for six months, I had a slice of coconut cream pie last night, that sounds good.

Very good. Good. All right.

If you have other questions, you can text us any time at three, two three four zero five nine nine four four.

We might just answer your question on an upcoming positive America. When we come back, we will have former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe.

Party America's brought to you by Brooklyn, and there's lots of great ways to start off your day eating breakfast, meditating, walking the dog. What about starting with making up your bed? When you make your bed in the morning, it starts a chain of daily successes.

So what feels better than making your bed every morning? How about the sheets that go on it? Go with Brooklyn, home of the Internet's favorite sheets.

We have Brooklyn and now it's on our bed currently in Brooklyn and sheets and the pillow cases, of course, the whole the whole shebang. And they are fantastic, very comfortable. They look really sharp. I love Brooklyn, you guys. Absolutely. Brooklyn are fantastic sheets. Thank you. Super comfy.

Did you know it was founded in early 2014 by husband and wife duo Rich and Vicky full up, obviously. Obviously, I knew that they wanted to find beautiful home essentials that didn't cost an arm and a leg. Today they're on a mission to make you comfortable. No middleman, just great product and service. Over fifty thousand five star reviews and counting. Brooklyn and sheets are the perfect place to start making your mornings great Brooklyn and so confident their product that all their bedding comes with a lifetime warranty, get 10 percent off your first order and free shipping when you use promo code, crooked media only at Brooklyn and Dotcom, Brooklyn and everything, you need to live your most comfortable life.

Pudsey. America is brought to you by made to fail. Innocent people murdered at the hands of police. A broken unemployment system in Florida. Crowded elections in Wisconsin during a global pandemic. Rampant political corruption in the state of Georgia. All these things didn't have to happen. A new podcast made to fail connect the dots between these government failures and pulls back the curtain on the conservative policies. The time and time again have failed. The people they claim to protect made to fail takes you state by state through the policies, programs and systems that have let us down and whose damage has been amplified by this unprecedented global pandemic.

You'll hear from the people and families who have been exploited by these failed policies and the experts who've been studying these issues every step of the way. As it turns out, these failures weren't by accident at all.

They were by design. Get the full story download made to fail today wherever you get your podcast.

Joining us today, yet another former Obama staffer who's gone on to become a host of multiple podcasts, Campaign HQ and Battleground, he's also the author of A Citizen's Guide to Beating Donald Trump and Ripples of Hope. David Plouffe, welcome back to the pod. Thanks, John.

Always good to be with you. Just following in your esteemed footprints. We're all following your podcast journey.

Now, imagine imagine if Obama knew that then when he left the White House, all of us would just go just go make podcast. Now, that's our that's our thing. He'd be horrified.

Well, he's now he's a podcast guy, and he jumped on the bill as a holdout that.

Yes.

All right. I want to talk about the map and the debate. But first, I want to get your reaction to this New York Times tax story. Biden folks already out with an ad about how almost everyone else in America pays more taxes than Trump.

How hard would you hammer this issue, knowing as we do that most undecided or uncertain voters already have a largely negative view of the president and want to know more about Biden. Well, I think yeah, I would not make it front and center, Nesterov, us just talk about the debate. So. Right, we're going to talk about our democracy and Trump wanting to basically not accept election results. You can tie this to that, which is now we know why he doesn't leave the White House.

He sees it as a safe house because he fears what's on the other side in terms of investigation and debt and recriminations. I think when you're talking about your economic plans, your tax plans, how are you going to rebuild the economy post pandemic? I think putting this front and center is important to say you can't trust this guy. This is the way he sees the economy.

So, you know, to me, it's still who do you trust to ultimately get out of the pandemic? But a lot of that is your economic plan. So to me, it's just another piece of really important weaponry, weaponry in your core argument already making.

So let's talk about the map. As you've known since we first started working together in 2008, I'm unable to step off the roller coaster even for a brief moment. I think back then, the state that I bugged you about the most was Pennsylvania. Obama won it twice. Hillary lost it very narrowly. And now Biden has a small lead. But it's a lead that's not quite as large as his leads in Michigan and Wisconsin, even though he's from Scranton, lives next door in Delaware.

What's your sense of what's happening in Pennsylvania and what Biden needs to do there to get over the top?

Well, John, first of all, it's good you've just fully embraced your roller coaster issues and you're going to try why lie to everyone else and myself?

So I do think Pennsylvania is a this state where Trump is, of all the battlegrounds, sort of outperforming his core political standing. So I think part of that is the state itself is changing a little bit. So any Republican may benefit from that. But I think Trump is a very strong Pennsylvania candidate. He's going to over perform in the areas between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. He's going to over perform, I think, in some of the exurban areas outside of Pittsburgh.

So there's so many parts of Pennsylvania. So what is going to be Biden's margin out of southeastern Pennsylvania, both Philadelphia City and the suburbs? What kind of margin can he walk out of Pittsburgh with?

But, you know, Trump, as you know, one Erie County, we won it in 2012 by 18 points. It's a big blue collar county trump card.

He also did very well along the river, including in Scranton. And so to me, if Biden can walk out of southeastern Pennsylvania with margins like Hillary had or even better, I do think he's going to do better in some of those big blue collar counties. I think there's a there's a mistake when we think, well, Trump just blew it out in rural areas and exurban areas. He also did quite well in some of these blue collar, the eastern and western parts of Pennsylvania being the greatest examples.

And I think Trump's going to get really good turnout. I think he's going to drive turnout in Pennsylvania. So I think some of this is you remember back in 2012, John, I mean, we won Pennsylvania, but it was closer to where confident we're going to win. We didn't throw everything into Pennsylvania. We did other states like Ohio, but we could see that moving a little bit. And so I think Trump's going to drive big turnout there.

So to me. But if Biden can take back some of the territory Trump took in Erie County, in Northampton County, in areas like Scranton, he's not going to win it by six or eight points, in my view. My, my my view is Biden ceiling. There may be four or five points at the max, but right now I'd rather be Biden than Trump. But that's that's what makes me nervous is I think Michigan looks like almost a done deal for Biden.

Is there any other state right now you'd say, oh, we definitely got that. I don't feel that way about any state. I feel pretty good about Wisconsin, Arizona. But Pennsylvania may be close to that's when you know and you're encouraging so many people to be active, adopt states. We've got to keep that up because that's what keeps me up at night. It is maybe less a poll that comes out than just I can't say oh to seven.

He's done. It's just not know.

I feel the same way. And I feel like you just said better about Wisconsin and Arizona, but I don't feel like either of those are locked down either. Especially I feel like some of the polling in Arizona has been a little tighter. Why did you I'm surprised that Pennsylvania end up ended up being closer than Wisconsin. Do you think it's something about the electorate in Pennsylvania that's different or their issue areas? What?

Well, I think the some of the areas outside of Pittsburgh are getting more conservative. They, you know, eight to 10, 12 years ago, Democrats would do better in some of those counties.

And some of those counties have a decent amount of population. So you add to your margin there. If you're a Republican, those are real votes you're putting on the board. I also think the the the James Carville in a way that insults people. Pennsylvania, you call the pencil tuqay, right, between Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. But, you know, Trump won some of those counties. Seventy five, twenty five where we might have been able to keep them at fifty eight.

Forty two or 60 40. So some of that's unique to Trump, but just some of it's the state is getting more conservative and not the. On this election, listen, the Electoral College is not static, it doesn't mean the end of this decade. If Arizona becomes like Nevada and North Carolina becomes like Virginia, those would be two big moves, the Electoral College to our side and much less Texas. But, you know, some of these upper Midwestern states and Pennsylvania could get harder and harder over time.

So this isn't just like we're going to keep them all and just add Texas and Georgia and Arizona. My guess is we're going to have to replace some of those states over time.

Well, let's talk about Florida. We have talked about that state where a Biden win could actually end the election on Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning. The race is incredibly tight there. I'm still haunted not only by Hillary's narrow loss, but Nelson and Guillaume's losses in 18, especially after the polls showed both of them with a small but stable lead the whole time. What's your sense of of Florida and what Biden has to do there and what's going on there?

First of all, it's enormously frustrating, and I've done this as well to say, well, if he wins Florida, that means the election's over. Like, that shouldn't matter. Or, you know, it'll be clear he's going to win by a lot.

So then Trump will finally concede, like Biden, if Biden wins by one vote or one state, he should be that he'll be the president. So Florida, to me, is the place where some of Biden's outside strengths, outsize strengths are some of the electorate really come into focus. So his strength with white senior citizen voters, his strength with suburban women, which was true for us and certainly for the party in 18, but we're seeing him at even higher levels in some places that in the northern part of the state, in the central part of the state where there's so many swing voters really gives him, I think, an advantage.

The question will be, just like in Pennsylvania, I think Trump's going to drive huge turnout. It's actually the of all the battleground states in 16 based on the data I've seen, the place where I think Trump did drive great turnout. He didn't drive great turnout in a lot of places. He got it in Florida. One of the reasons Hillary lost, I think he'll add to that. And clearly, he's making a play for Cuban-American voters, the Venezuelan community.

Now, Biden is not going to win the Hispanic vote in Florida by 70 30 like you might in Arizona, because Trump's going to do well with Cuban-American voters in particular.

But if Biden can keep the Cuban vote close in the southern part of the state and do very well with the Puerto Rican community, Colombian community, Venezuelan community, you know, he could probably get in, let's say fifty five, fifty six range. So to me, I like what's happening with Florida, with Biden's strength in the central and northern part of the state. What keeps me up at night is Trump's is Trump going to get outsized turnout? And Biden, either from a voter turnout standpoint, doesn't meet his mark.

And I remember back in 60, John, it wasn't just polls.

The early vote looked exceptionally good for Hillary Clinton. And then the Election Day story was much different for Trump versus Clinton. So you got to run through the tape all the way through. So but I feel good about Florida because Biden also, you know, and Biden know every candidate has strengths and weaknesses, some of his weaknesses with younger voters and intensity. You know, it's getting better. And I think the debate can go a long way to to closing that gap.

But he has unique strength with older voters. And, you know, I think that is why his lead in Florida, by the way, he has better numbers in Florida than we had in either of our two races. Right.

You remember back in 2012, news organizations said they weren't going to pull Florida anymore because Romney had won it. I do remember that. So, you know, I feel this is where, like, we shouldn't be dishonest with people.

Biden's in a really good place in the race in Florida included. But polls aren't votes. And so when you look at how many votes are actually going to be cast in Florida, you know, millions and millions of votes, maybe 10 million votes, you know, Trump's going to bring his turnout, I think. And so that's Biden's challenge. I think if it was just a normal turnout election, I'd feel exceedingly confident about Florida. There's a lot of work to do to make sure that he reaches his turnout.

And there's like Florida is like running a campaign on the planet. It is super complicated.

It's large. And so Trump's had an advantage because he's an incumbent. He's playing his Florida campaign for four years. And you're really starting to see Biden, I think, pick up the pace with some really great Spanish language media. I think they're doing a lot of good organizing work, though, virtually on the ground. So to me, it is a checkmates state, not because that means Trump will concede. It just means it doesn't mean Biden's at the presidency, but he's at two fifty nine if you are to sixty one if he carries all the Hillary states and that one.

So then he just has to have one state of some significance, like Wisconsin or Michigan. That point Florida and Michigan is probably your straightest way to the presidency, right.

If you're the Biden campaign, how much time and money are you spending in places like Georgia, Ohio, Iowa, even Texas, where the race is closer than we might have expected, but they aren't likely to be the tipping point states that get you to 270. Well, one of the surprising things is from a financial standpoint, they probably have the resources to do it all. We didn't expect that to be the case. So here's what I'd say.

Is there a scenario where Joe Biden loses Arizona, loses North Carolina, loses Florida and wins Texas?

I don't think that's likely right. So same thing. Is he going to lose Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin and win Ohio? No. So these are likely is three hundred and thirty or three hundred fifty eight electoral votes.

So I wouldn't spend a dollar an ounce of brain power or any staff time on those states until you're comfortable. You're doing everything you need to do in the core battlegrounds. And I think they probably have finances to do that. So the question is, as long as they're not straining their staff too much or their creative teams too much, yeah, they've got the money to go put spots on the ground and do some organizing in the JORGES in the I was in the Ohio's in the Texases.

So you can't do that in a way that would sacrifice anything in the core battlegrounds. But you see, Trump has taken the bait. I mean, he's also spent money in those states. He's starting to restrain that a little bit. To me, that's malpractice. I mean, Donald Trump is now getting outspent by Joe Biden and he's losing. So their campaign is the one that can't waste a single dollar, a single second of thought on a state that's not a tipping point.

Electoral College state.

Are there any groups of voters that are sort of keeping you up at night?

Like I've been looking through some of these polls in the data, and it's like young voters, particularly young voters of color, particularly young voters of color who are men, not ness.

You know, Trump has won over some of them, if you believe the polls.

But there are also sort of inching up in the undecided column and the third party column, like I'm just not sure what to think about that. But it does seem to be something that's fairly consistent in all of the data.

Right. And again, we should we should talk about this through the prism of Joe Biden is in has a stable and significant lead right now in the states he needs to win. So you're looking probably more for things that could slip than areas you're disappointed with.

But listen, I think we ought to take the Michael Jordan mentality to politics, which is if you're heading the half time winning by eight, you're like pissed and kicking chairs because you're not up on 16.

OK, so where where could we see slippage? Yes, you're right. Young, both Hispanic and young black men, both in terms of turnout, but also vote share. Trump is clearly, if I recall, he got maybe 10 or 12 percent of the male African-American vote back in 16 actually didn't get much attention.

But you like to get that now south of 10 again. So that's an issue. And then certainly on turnout, does Biden either keep or get as close to possible maintaining his current support with seniors?

You've got to watch that carefully. Is there any movement there?

College educated white men have definitely been a source of strength for Biden. Right now, they're not a massive share of the swing electorate. But do you see any slippage there as we get closer to Election Day? And then listen, suburban college educated women may end up voting for Biden and Democratic Senate candidates almost to the same level that Hispanic voters do. It's becoming a core Democratic base. So I think you're watching. That's where we are in the race, which is on I think on the persuasion side of things, Biden's basically the ceiling.

So what you're watching for there is or is there any slippage with the Biden campaign trying to do is just keep those voters where they are? I don't think there's much more to be gained then. I think on the turnout side, you know, John, that's when you're looking at polls at 3:00 a.m. Pacific Time. And that's what's got me up at 3:00 AM. It's just it's not on hard. I don't think it's likely to happen, but it's not hard to construct a scenario where Trump gets Bush 04, Ohio, like turn out in five or six states.

Biden just doesn't meet that mark and then doesn't mean Biden will lose.

But then I think it's going to be exceedingly close. So to me and that's where I think the debate can go a long way to exciting Democrats. People have waited four years for this fraudulent grifting criminal to be held to account. And other than Chris Wallace for a few minutes, they haven't had it. And if Joe Biden can do that, I really think that's going to help him with swing voters, but also help with the intensity. So those are the groups that worry me.

I think Miami-Dade County, there was a poll that came out from Bendixen Amandi that got a lot of attention, rightly so, that showed Biden not doing quite as well as you'd like him to do. He's offsetting some of that with his strengths up in the central and northern part of the state. But I'd also pay attention there. Now, there it is, the Cuban community, young Hispanics, young black voters, you basically it's a window into all that in a place that's really hard to reach voters.

So, yeah, those are all the voting cohorts I think we need to pay. Really, really. And then listen in early vote where we we we don't know how you voted, but we know that you have requested a ballot or that you've returned it. Are you seeing a lot of first time, Republik? And voters, are you seeing a lot of infrequent Republican voters, that would be a signal that Trump's going to really, really juice his turnout.

OK, what what's your level of concern or do you have any concern about the fact that Democrats aren't out there knocking on doors but the Republicans are because they don't give a shit that we're in the middle of a pandemic?

Well, yeah, my view on doorknocking, I think most people who would be targets for door knocking don't want someone at their door. It's the same thing with the rallies. Like Trump's rallies kind of reinforce the core BIID message that this guy is a reckless narcissist.

You know, he's going to do two events in Wisconsin and two of the five highest covid test areas in the country this week.

So that being said, there's no doubt that it's a missing part of the arsenal. There are some people that maybe the only way you get them to register or maybe the best way to convince them to turn out. So if I were the Biden campaign and there's a lot of other Democratic groups, obviously they're also taking this approach, which I think is the right approach, which is to put safety first. But if you get to the point where there's a decent chunk of voters in a state who seem like they'd be open to receiving a Dornoch and you've got plenty of people willing to do it, you can do that in a safe way.

So I let I'd let the health experts and science guide that. I don't think Trump is gaining much from from this activity, but it does worry me a little bit because, you know, we don't live in one hundred percent virtual world. And I think the Biden campaign and John, you guys have been so amazing with votes save America, getting people activated. People are doing great. Texting and phone call and phone answering rates are on postcards sharing content.

So, you know, that's a lot of the pie. But the missing piece of the pie is that human contact. And again, my sense is right now, there's not a lot of people who are interested in having that. But it makes me nervous because as we know from the Obama campaigns, you know, it was great it to be the best voter contact there was. Right.

All right. Let's talk about this debate. You and I have been part of some successful debate prep sessions, few memorable, unsuccessful debate prep sessions.

What would you be telling Joe Biden that he needs to get out of this debate? Like what is the list of top things he absolutely has to do knowing that you can't have him do everything that you need, like two or three things like don't leave the stage without doing this. Yeah, well, you know, John, I think in general elections, we had like five well, I don't know if the prep sessions were good. We had five good debates.

We had some bombs in the primary for sure. I think that.

My view is the most important thing from an attribute standpoint is for him to be tough and in command. Tough in command, is that like how much does he need to because, you know, I think there's like a difference in how the judges score the things like debates and maybe what he needs to do from an electoral voter standpoint. Right. Which is like we know from the data that that Biden needs to like people want to know who Biden is, what he stands for, what he's going to do.

Right. So that's like really important.

On the other hand, Trump's going to be a maniac, Adam, the whole time. And like, how much does Biden need to parry that attack back, defend himself? Like, what's the balance?

Well, it's it's such a hard first of all, successful candidates in debates, you know, remember who they are. So, you know, he has to be who Joe Biden is. So here's the thing. His empathy for those that know it, his experience, people's confidence that he would put together a good administration, all those things are things he should remind people of.

But right now in the race, to the extent there are still some swing voters and there's some soft Biden's voters and maybe a few soft Trump voters and you know, who are like they've heard the comments, they've seen the ads.

Is Biden up to this? They're not looking at his interviews. So I think he's got to answer the mail there. And then, you know, we could we could use a little bit more excitement among younger voters on the Democratic side.

So to me, it's not chasing down every Trump attack. It's not being defensive. It's not being angry on your own account. It's being angry, you know, in a controlled way on behalf of the American people. Yeah, right. So, you know, Trump is not a normal incumbent president. He has failed the country. He's suggesting he's going to basically end our democracy and turn it into an autocracy. Hundreds of thousands of people have died.

Many of them didn't have to. If he'd handled this differently, we now see that he is maybe the best example of a corrupt cheat and fraud from a tax and business standpoint. I think Biden needs to channel the anger people have and really be tough with him, not in a yelling way, not in a screaming way, just in an intense way. And he needs to do that. Basically, the American people are his client. So as you know, you and I have never believed that a successful debate is determined by who had the best line.

It's good to have one or two of those, particularly in social media world. So Biden just needs to be a consistent performance where it's he basically puts Trump on trial. I think he can make them somewhat. I think he should interrupt Trump when Trump's lying somewhat and then obviously fill in. But what's important is the next four years and here's what I'm going to do. What Biden can't do is spend time defending his vote from nineteen ninety four, statement from nineteen seventy six.

We know Trump's going to come after Hunter now. I think the comeback is even easier with this tax story. That is a place where I wouldn't know. No one wants to hear about our children. You know, I would have ten or fifteen seconds where you go right at Trump and his family and say, but let me focus on the rest of the American people.

So this is a hard debate to prepare for. You know, you want to win the pandemic exchange, the exchange on tax rates, the exchange on democracy, and you can prepare for that. But where Trump takes this debate, you don't know. And so I think with Biden, you've got to embrace his unpredictability and say, you know what? You're going to go out there with some core things. You've got to get done, but you need to be agile.

And that means Biden may color out the lines, you know, two or three times as well. But that's OK. But I want I want swing voters to watch that debate tomorrow night and say this guy is up to the job. I think he can dig us out of this hole. And I want younger voters in particular to say that was one tough sob. I loved how he just basically pushed Trump all over the stage, metaphorically. Yeah, I know that's a big standard, but I think that's what we need because I think a good first debate can help not put this race away, but really freeze a lot of the great things we're seeing right now with different demographics, as you asked earlier.

And it's going to make it really hard for Trump to unwind that fully.

Brenna's, who played Donald Trump in the mock debates with Hillary Clinton back in 2016, wrote a piece in the Post a couple of days ago and he said, Donald Trump is a bad debater, but he's hard to debate. Like what?

What do you think like Biden should be prepared for in terms of Trump and like surprises from Trump? Or do you just have to just go in there and think he's going to be fucking nuts, he's going to be just like his Twitter feed and I just have to play my game and not worry about him?

Well, I think yeah. So you can't prepare for every wild punch he's going to throw, but I think you're going to have a sense of how you'll deal with stuff that maybe you weren't anticipating.

One is, you know, you once again are just flat out lying to the American people. You once again are distorting reality because you're worried about yourself, not the American people. And, you know, it's time we had an American president who spent every waking moment thinking about them, not about the latest political attack or tweet. You're going to send whatever it is you need to have a home base to get back to. And so whatever wild punch Trump throws, the key thing is for Biden, in my view, no matter what, it is not to really address it, you know, just.

Basically, to put it in a corner of lying or narcissism or cheap political attacks, you know, if he does have to respond to it, do it in like five seconds and then get to your core argument. I mean, as you know, your answer segments are so short, they are so short.

So he's got to be prepared, I think, for whatever his retort is to get that done in five or 10 seconds ago, the meat of his answer.

But listen, we know one of Joe Biden's strength. Yes. His empathy and his goodness. And he's one of the most empathetic people on the planet, not just in politics, but as you know, he's got some broadeners. He's got some toughness. He's got Scranton on his sleeve. And I think he needs to bring that. I don't want this to be like a geriatric WWE match. I don't think that works for that.

But here's the thing. Trump's the bully. Right, there can't be a single moment in that debate where it looks like Trump's getting the best of Biden, and I think, well, Biden is in Trump's head. It's why he got impeached. And I think Biden can really utilize that. I think Trump's going to be wetting his depends tomorrow night.

I really do predebate. Now, the thing about Trump is he'll look like there's nowhere he'd rather be than at the debate. And I think it's important for Biden. I think Biden will like you want to be the happy warrior, like there's no place I'd rather be than right here talking about my record, your record, the American people. So this can't look like a root canal. No.

I mean, look, I think Trump wants to play authoritarian strongman who looks really tough. He says the word strongly doesn't make sense a million times every couple of sentences.

And I do think there's sort of an opportunity for Biden to paint Trump as an ineffective, weak U.S. president who's also confused. Like, I think he should turn a lot of the lies into confusion, like Trump's, because I protect people with pre-existing conditions by be like, do you even know that you're in court right now trying to take away pre-existing conditions?

Are you confused about what your own government's doing like he is? Because Trump will try to make Biden look like he's having senior moments.

He doesn't know where he is.

He can do that to trump the magazine week week, mock him in an appropriate way.

That's what I'm saying. I'm not saying like a screaming match. Right.

Those moments of strength through your confused, you know, the the mocking Trump's never face that.

I mean, he's literally had two or three tough interviews in an entire first term. And those are some of the worst interviews any political figures ever given.

So imagine having an opponent who clearly has been in your head, your entire first term, the person you feared facing, challenging you, mocking you, you know, undercutting your arguments. I think it could be a really powerful like I think, listen, Trump is I love what Felipe said. I mean, he's not a classic debater, but he's hard to prepare for. He's just throwing haymakers. But I think there's a chance you could get halfway in this debate.

And it's clear Trump, who I think will enter the arena as I am so happy to be here, I finally have my chance to take on the addled, you know, drug infused Joe Biden.

You get the sense that he's not having a good time. And that could be that could be really devastating for him.

Well, we know, I mean, from experience that incumbent presidents don't usually do quite well in the first debate, partly because they don't like being challenged, because they haven't been used to being challenged for many years. And Trump is, you know, more in that category than almost any other incumbent president. Yeah.

And I also think to your point about confusing, also say, listen, you may even think that, Mr. President, because you live in this like weird world where in your own head and Fox and Breitbart, because we know anybody that we're cared about in this election, you know, doesn't like those entities. Right. Right. So this whole like you live in your own little reality district. You're a successful businessman. You tell yourself when clearly you're a billion dollars in debt, whatever the issue is.

I think you're right about that, which is not a policy distillation. This is very much a performance event, more so than even the ones we were involved in that drove our boss crazy, that they were a performance event before policy seminars.

But this in particular, I think, is going to be nobody is going to vote against Joe Biden because they don't think he understands health care or taxes or foreign policy like he's got, that he can reinforce that. Part of that is just less what he says than the energy and kind of the advocacy he brings to that. But I think a lot of this is the performance piece of this, which, you know, again, maybe that shouldn't be the way our debates are, but I think they are in this one even more.

So we will see. David Plouffe, thank you so much for joining us. Everyone go listen to Campaign HQ and Battleground with Steve Schmidt. Excellent podcasts and thanks for coming on.

And, I don't know, a couple more weeks hanging out there.

Well, let's hope so. Imagine if we're counting votes through Thanksgiving. I mean, we're going to need round the clock support for you.

Peel me off a ceiling somewhere. All right, man. Thanks for doing, brother.

Thanks for joining us today, thanks to all of you who sent in some questions and we will have the debate tomorrow night, will be on Group Threat Tuesday night. Check it out. And then on Wednesday, we will have a special party of America with all four of us doing a debate recap for all. We're all still breathing.

And we got you know, I here we got the the creator of message box for that one. We do the yes message box guru Dan Pfeiffer will be in attendance on Wednesday, and then Dan and I will do our usual Thursday part on Friday. So three pods this week, lots of content.

Talk to you guys later, like. Pottsy of America is a cricket 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, Roman, Papadimitriou Quynh Lewis, Brian Semmel, Caroline Reston and Elisa Gutierrez for production support into our digital team, Elijah Konar Melkonian, Elfriede and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos every week.

We've teamed up with our present sponsors recruiter to bring you an actual real life expert on what's going on with higher across the country.

Believe it or not, the industry is doing well right now, are not the ones economists had in their models of an economic downturn.

So we've never seen anything like this.

This is it. Recruiters, labor economist Julia. She tracks the trends in hiring in the overall economy.

So despite what a disaster this year was, or maybe because of it, RV rental and manufacturing companies are doing a roaring trade right now after months of sheltering at home, a road trip in your own personal RV or rental, maybe you know just what you need, a change of scenery, no public toilets.

And if you're into cycling or gaming, like John Lovett, job seekers and entrepreneurs are going to do well in that sector.

When the mall is closed and the bars are closed and sports teams are quarantined, you know, it's not surprising video game traffic is through the roof.

Think about it this way. Well, we might think of as retro recreation, fishing, gardening, golf, they're all kind of back again.

The country is in some ways going back to the 1950s. People are investing in their backyards. That's as far as many people are going for the next few months, even though the job environment feels upside down.

And what isn't these days, zipp recruiters making things as smooth as possible if you're hiring or looking for a job.

One fear that job seekers have right now is that the jobs that they see posted online may no longer exist. Well, Zipf recruiter has done the homework for you, and so we've added and actively hiring during covid-19 banner to jobs where employers have verified that they are extending offers.

If you have job opportunities to post and want to find qualified candidates fast, go to zip recruiter dotcom slash cricket to try for free.

Same goes for you job seekers. Zipp recruiter dotcom slash crooked again. Friends of the pod can try it for free at Zipcar recruiter dotcom slash cricket.