May 16, 2024 • 30 mins
In the Biden-Trump debates, no one wins. Dr. Jonathan Metzl joins to discuss and debate what Democrats need to be doing ahead of this year's historic election.
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
Good morning, peeps, and welcome to ok F Daily with
Meet Your Girl. Daniel Moody recording from the Home Bunker.
I want to start off today with talking about the
two debates that were announced. So first off, I got
to say that I will be surprised if these debates
(00:33):
take place. The first one is supposed to happen, I
believe in June, I want to say, And this second
one is supposed to take place in September. And the
Biden administration is calling for, you know, two debates instead
(00:53):
of three, and putting them much earlier in the calendar year.
And you have some folks that are having the most
ridiculous takes on this change, right and talking about, oh,
the Biden, particularly Nate Silver, who I don't understand at all,
but who says that the Biden administration is supposed to
(01:14):
be the organization is supposed to be the administration that
upholds norms. First off, what the fuck norms do we
have left in this country? And are we supposed to
pretend that Donald Trump did not blow off debates, did
not bring COVID to one of the debates that he
attended as a way to I don't know, get Biden
(01:37):
sick or everyone in the audience sick. Do we not
recognize that we no longer live in an environment where
political norms are upheld? And so this idea that one
party is supposed to be the party that holds up
political norms while the other one can be as badshit
crazy as they'd like, doesn't make any sense to me.
(01:58):
And so I think that it is incredibly important one that,
of course there'll be some sense of normalcy, meaning that
the Biden administration is going to move forward as they
would normally do when seeking a second term, but they're
going to do so on their terms of what makes
sense for them. Because Donald Trump, like, why are we
(02:19):
trying to negotiate in good faith with the domestic terrorists?
I have no idea. Also, I think that debates are stupid.
No one is going to watch a debate for anything
other than some type of entertainment value. People do not
make decisions about which candidate they're going to vote for
based on how someone performed with prescripted questions by a
(02:41):
moderator that is not going to offer any type of
hard questions, that is not going to do any type
of follow up like this. Debates are essentially a game show, right,
If you really want to hear from people, if you
really want to understand the substance of whatever the campaign
agendas are, then to me, town halls make more sense, right,
(03:03):
actual town halls, and not with your super supporters, but
with the mix of independence, Democrats and Republicans from all
walks of life that actually reflect America and allow people
to ask questions that like make sense to their day
to day lives, and the candidates then respond to that.
I can tell you that I remember. I'm not, you know,
(03:25):
too old to remember when MTV was doing you know,
debates and Bill Clinton went on, right, and you're sitting
with a group of like, you know, young people and
getting to know what's on their mind, and like you,
there's no way to really prep right, like you're you're
(03:45):
listening and you're answering questions and you're trying to connect.
I miss those days. I don't think that we'll ever
return to them. But I think that it's important for
us to understand that like, this is political theater. This
is not some type of framework that is meant to
give you any more or less information than you have
right now. And the fact is is that most people
(04:07):
only begin to tune in to the election, maybe about
two months to a month beforehand. So even this first
debate taking place on June twenty seventh, will most Americans
be tuned in, probably but probably to see what kind
of hot shit is going to come out of Donald
Trump's mouth, whether or not he's going to fall asleep
or fart, and whether or not the moderator who, regardless
(04:30):
of who they are, going to have the worst job
on that day, because no one will think that they
did well, and if they do do well, it'll be
based on you know, which candidate ended up doing well.
No one wins in this right, But I think that
the takes that I'm seeing on social media around the
scheduling and whether or not Donald Trump will actually show
(04:53):
up and show up in a way like I don't
really care. We already know who Donald Trump is, right,
anybody with eyes and ears no know what Donald Trump is,
what he is about, what he cares about, and what
The plan that the Republican Party has for this country
is Project twenty twenty five. It is about finishing the
gut job on our democracy, taking over the agencies and
(05:15):
rooting out who they deem as you know, politicized actors,
which is exactly the opposite of who works in government, right,
they are apolitical. But the fact is that you know,
we know what the Republicans are going to do, whether
it is voting against raising the age of children to
(05:38):
be able to get married right until they are adults
at like eighteen, whether it is reversing child labor laws,
whether it is further marginalizing trans people and the LGBTQ community,
whether it is trying to stamp out the advancements that
black people have made since the Civil Rights movement, whether
(05:58):
it is to criminals lies Latin X people, whether it
is to criminalize migrants and immigrants that are trying to
find work in this country because of the ways in
which the United States has interfered in the political structure
in their countries making it unsafe, which America has done
(06:19):
for decades in Latin America. So I think that what
we have to understand here is that debates, I think,
in this day and age again are mostly of entertainment value,
and the fact remains on whether or not Biden can
really sell right what his vision is for America. In
(06:43):
stark contrast to Donald Trump. Now, Biden has a lot
of other issues that are in front of him, Gaza
being the most glaring one, with net and Yahoo most
recently saying that they're not a whatever it was, some
colony or whatever it was of the United States. And
(07:04):
you know, here's what I will say about net Yahoo
who this is what he said, We are not a
vassal of the United States. When it pertains to Biden
saying that the RAFA invasion is the red line, you know,
my whole thing is that Netanyahu has been playing chess,
and I don't know what the fuck game Biden has
(07:25):
been playing in Gaza, but he is losing. He is
losing public sympathy, he is losing public engagement, and the
unrest around. Our tax dollars going to fund a genocide
are getting bigger and bigger and bigger by the day.
And so when this man Netnyaho decides to publicly embarrass
(07:46):
Joe Biden and the United States, do you know what
I do in response to that, I pull the fucking
funds right and stop playing games and let Netanyah who
know who exactly is in charge and he wants to
go it alone to pursue his genocide, then let him
fucking do that right, But Joe Biden is facing that
(08:07):
in this election right where a war that is not
happening on our shores are shaping public opinion, and not
to mention the trials that are taking place right and
people feeling like in some instances that these are politicized
when in fact that they're not. Because had Merrick Garland
(08:28):
done what the fuck he was supposed to do in
twenty twenty one, we wouldn't be here right now. So
will Biden the Biden that we saw at the State
of the Union show up at these debates? I think
if that Joe Biden shows up and is very clear,
is very assertive, is forceful and commanding, then I think
(08:48):
that we have a shot. But right now we're at
a fifty to fifty toss up and that scares the
shit out of me. Coming up next, my friends, our
conversation with our in house doctor, doctor John Than Metsill,
where we talk about Biden's latest poll numbers, whether or
not they matter, what Democrats need to be doing in
these critical days leading up to the twenty twenty four election. Folks,
(09:17):
you know that whenever we have the opportunity to speak
with our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel. We are
always thrilled it is you, and so this week we
are going to discuss Joe Biden's latest poll numbers, which, surprise, surprise,
not great. You know how I feel about polls this early,
but we'll still dig into them because I think it's
(09:38):
a good barometer for where things stand right now, as
we can all see different headlines playing out. Jonathan, So
you're saying, latest polls tell us Biden is down everywhere.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Yeah, that it was a couple of days ago, and
whys and other people have been tweeting about this A
lot two things have a first, Biden's pretty much down
at least five percent in most swing states according to
some pretty convincing polls recently, and it's true across the board.
And so that's point number one. And then point number
(10:14):
two is he and his advisors at least are saying
publicly in these interviews and stuff that they're not concerned
about it. And so, you know, I guess the question is,
did they share your disdain for polls. One of the
things a lot of articles are pointing out right now
is that Biden voters are much more invested in speaking
to polsters, and so If anything, the fear is that
(10:37):
it understates the number of people who are actually voting
for Trump. So I guess the question is, you know,
where are we now? Like may I think it is?
What does this mean? Is there going to be some rallying?
And usually there's a bump? I mean, think about Biden
for example, everybody thought he was weekend at Bernie's and
then he did that stadium with the Union dress, and
(10:58):
all of a sudden, everybody's like it totally stopped all
that talk about you know, at least for now all
that talk. So is there going to be like a
bump moment, a turn moment? Do they have some secret
strategy that civilians like you and I don't know about,
like the old member like Obama, like they had this
secret where like people didn't know about like digital marketing
(11:19):
quite yet or something like that. And so is there
some is there people smart people? Or is this oblivious?
And I hope it's not the third one, but it
just seems like the the I mean again, there's so
many things that could happen. Trump could get convicted. I
send you a great article about you did ye? Trump
(11:40):
now being as smart as he thinks he is this.
This trial shows it that his impulses are often wrong.
So there's a million things he could do wrong. But
I don't know, like, what do we do at this point?
You know, for a while there was a oh my god,
we're going to go to the convention and then we're
going to nominate like Omegatron or I don't know, stay Puff,
(12:02):
marshmallow Man or somebody else. But I don't know what's
your sense of all this?
Speaker 1 (12:08):
So I will say this that everybody knows that, you know,
polls are subjective, right, depending on the questions that are asked,
who they're asked, and how they're sent and all of
these things. I say that as a precursor. I think
that largely when I talk to folks, the Biden administration
has a lot of wins. And I'm just speaking domestically,
(12:30):
they have a lot of wins. What they are terrible
at as every single Democrat, it seems, is really talking
about those wins. Where I think that there is a
lot of issue right now is that one Biden is
not I think that the people that are around him
(12:51):
do not have the pulse, like their finger on the
pulse of what's happening on the ground. I think that
they believed that with Donald Trump dogged, with all of
these different trials, with him saying these outlandish things and
spiraling out of control, that that was going to be enough. Right,
it's not because the only people that are paying attention
(13:14):
to the Trump trials are people that watch CNN and MSNBC.
It is not being played on Fox, it's not being
played in the right wing. It's not being talked about
at all. So even when reporters, when people go to
Trump rallies and they're like, well, what do you think
about what's happening in the electoral fraud trial the hush
money case, they don't know what you're talking about. So
(13:37):
two things can be true. I don't think that Biden
is getting the right advice. That's one two. I also
don't think that Trump is expanding his base at all.
He is not going to be able to win without
expanding his base. The only people that we talk to
are the most fervent Trump supporters that don't care who
he kills, what he does, any of that. But that
(14:00):
is thirty percent of the population. You're not going to
win with thirty percent.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
I mean. The red herring, of course, is the Helman
and the brain campaign of RFK Junior, you know all
these other things. I just texted you the polls, But
I mean, I don't know. Like again, I don't want
to oversimplify them. Like there's a million times that I've thought,
oh my gosh, you know, those people are idiots, and
(14:28):
then it turns out they had some strategy I didn't
know about, and that you know, they probably have access
to a lot of data, a lot of methods. But
I will say that, like I study guns, right, eighty
five percent of people support background checks, but that doesn't
mean anybody's going to win an election based on a
background check, right. People don't vote based on gun issues.
(14:49):
Liberals don't vote based on gun issues. So even though
eighty five percent of people will tell you I support
background checks, Democrats for so long have misinterpreted with that
data means because popular support is not the same thing
as winning an election. And so I don't know there.
I mean, I just feel like we're like floating around
in space right now. There are so many different medias
that could hit us.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
You know, that's good, that's such a good enough.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
I mean, I went down the route all of watching
the part of the speech of RFK Junior's vice presidential candidate,
Like I do, it is time and and so you know,
I just think there's so many things that could happen.
But again that's where like having a really robust they're
(15:35):
gonna have to mount some kind of really robust, vibrant campaign.
I mean, there are things that are happening, Like did
you see that Biden now is raising all these tariffs
on China in ways that people are actually going to feel,
So you know, that's such a Trump move. He's kind
of taking a page out of Trump's playbook. So I
mean again, there if for some if some miracle, they
(15:59):
get a a cease fire and some viable strategy forward.
I mean, I actually think, in my opinion, Lincoln's making
a ton of sense right now about the long term plan,
and so if any of these things could kind of
change course. And I don't know what's happening behind the scenes,
but I will this is what let me say. This
is my long way of sharing your nervousness but not
(16:22):
wanting to articulate it.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
I mean, but I will say this, Like to be honest,
I think that Joe Biden needs to not run a
campaign against Donald Trump. I think that he needs to
run a campaign against the Republican Party. Yeah, and I
think that what we are missing right now, and I
literally just talked about this on another show, is that
(16:46):
the Republican Party take out Donald Trump and the circus
of the trials, right, and now all of these Republicans
going down to the courthouse where his family isn't even
so that they can show their.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Subject, well Johnson's corn trial.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Right or auditioned for you know, Vice president, Like, this
is what they're doing, right, to show their support. His
own family's not showing up except for Eric and who
cares about him. But in the meantime, what do we
have going on in Missouri? Well, the Missouri Republicans have
decided to block a measure to raise the age of
(17:23):
marriage from sixteen to eighteen years old. Right in twenty eighteen,
the age to marry in Missouri was fourteen years old.
Oh yeah, right, and they raised it from yeah. And
so now two of there are Republicans that are blocking
it with the audacity of saying that people need to
stay out of other people's private lives, the audacity right,
(17:45):
at the same time that they don't want to raise
the age of child marriage. They're also rolling back child
worker protection laws in Alabama, right, and in Florida. You
are seeing this attack of this slow roll back of
an industrialized modern country into like back to a developing age.
(18:09):
And we're not paying attention to that because we want
to know if Donald Trump is farting or is falling
asleep in a courtroom. And I'm like, and meanwhile, you
have Republicans that are literally we just Arizona people might
not have had that eighteen sixty four piece of legislation
stay on the books if not for it making the headline.
(18:30):
So we're not talking about what this party as a
whole is doing outside of what Donald Trump is doing.
So if I'm the Biden campaign, I don't care about
Donald Trump. I care about what Republicans are doing with
or without him, right, and making the case that the
American people need to see that.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Okay, I want to give you three rebettal points.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Viral means, can we.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Get a screenshot of the do it? Okay? See here's
the I'm from Missouri and I live in Tennessee, and
Tennessee you can marry your cousin now it's legal.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Yeah I can't. That's not real life.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
But the thing is, it's not like that's any surprise,
but this keeps happen. People don't lose elections in red
states for this, and so the Republican Party is a
known quantity and and and they still win. And it's
not because they have public public support. It's because they
have from the ground up rigged the system by jerremandering
and so people are safe, like nobody's even after the
(19:40):
Covenant School shooting, when all these Republican ams were demanded guniform,
they didn't have. They didn't threaten these guys. And so
in a way, part of the story is about the
it's about the system. And that's why I was kind
of hemming on a little bit before, is like, what's
the goal of a presidential election which I don't know
enough about, but is it sway popular opinion or is
(20:02):
it to convince these twenty people in this one little
area that might swing a swing state? You know, I
think it's it's just the checks and balances about this stuff.
And I the reason I say this is because like
every time in Tennessee, like literally a month ago, they
legalized and it's because a guy, one of the legislators
had had marry his cousin, and I'm like, oh my god,
(20:24):
there people are going to see it for it. But
now look, I mean, we've got Mike Johnson at the
porn trial, you know, at the adultery trial, and so
it's all it's a power game. It's a power game,
and so the question is exposing stuff that will that
bring people to our side or are we trying to
just mobilize our own coalition.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
I mean, I think that we're only trying to mobilize
our own coalition, So.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
In that sense, I mean, and I don't know why
this is, but like if you turn on a s
NBC or something like that, it's Trump for four hours
every single night. Yeah, get a story about Biden. But
like last night there was a two hour special about
the Trump trial, and then the next show was a
whole hour about sun trial. And maybe they feel like
(21:10):
that is what drives revenue or audience. Now, there are
some I think great lessons about the Trump trial. I
mean Trump, I don't know what's going to happen. I
cannot believe that they're going to get a unanimous jury
on anything about Trump, just because the way the country is.
But there are great articles in Politico really looking how
Trump is giving all this advice. That's terrible. He's not
(21:31):
as smart as he thinks he is. He's sabotaging his
own case by his own stubbornness, all these kinds. But
there are things about Trump that, if you follow that trial,
would make you nervous about that guy being president, even
if you didn't know anything about all the other stuff
you've done. So I think there are stories about that,
but its just I don't know. I felt this for
for a while, like if Biden was in our nominee,
(21:54):
if it was Gvin Newsom or somebody else, it just
seems like we would have a more news worthy candidate.
But we don't, and so in that vacuum, it's just
four hours a night of Trump. And so in a way,
like liberal media and all that kind of stuff in
our Twitter feeds and all that all kind of play
into that. And so I guess my question for you is,
(22:15):
are you suggesting I don't know why they do that. Honestly,
it doesn't make any sense to me except that it
probably drives ratings or something. But are you saying we
should focus on other stories or something or what?
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Yeah, I think that First of all, what MSMBC does
with their four hours of Trump trial coverage, This is like, honestly,
this is not the O. J. Simpson trial. This is
not a murder trial. If it was the document's case, right,
and if it was actually televised and then you're playing
back clips, this wouldn't that would make sense. In the meantime,
(22:54):
you have Senator Katie Britt who just rolled out a
piece of legislation to start a pregnancy database to track
women's pregnancies nationally, right, to track their movements. No linkage
to obgyns, to actual reproductive health clinics. No, it's all
(23:15):
about religious zelots and these fake clinics that they put
up to scare women into having their babies. She's created
a national policy around that. That's a fucking headline news story, right.
That goes along with the IVF blockages that came out
of Alabama. That goes again to say half of this
(23:35):
country are women and people with uteruses. Pay attention to
what they're doing. Because Donald Trump becomes president and you're
looking at this abortion band that's in twenty states being
in fifty states, and you're looking at these national registries
right like these to me are important stories that are
not being like even if Biden was only putting this
(23:58):
shit up in his social fi feeds, right and saying,
look at what the Republicans have done now, right, like,
you have got to show people that their agenda is
much bigger than Donald Trump. And to your point, Yeah,
if we had a different candidate, I don't even know, Jonathan,
if they would be newsworthy, because we've been so conditioned
(24:21):
over the last nine years to never turn a camera
away from Trump. Yeah, Like, I just I don't know
who the candidate would be that would take the camera attention,
the news attention away from Donald Trump.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yeah. No, I mean again, this is this is the
situation we have. We're down five points, and if we
rebuild our coalition, we win. And not only if we
if we rebuild our coalition, we win, but if we
rebuild our coalition and we beat Trump, then we also
change the Republican Party because he will have brought the
presidential election twice and that'll be I think the last
(25:00):
straw for a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
And so you know, but do we really, like we
always say, and I feel like you and I have
said this multiple times, this will be the nail in
the coffin for the Republican Party. This will be the
end for the Republican Party. Do we believe that trump
Ism hasn't been metastasized so much in this country that
if he loses, it doesn't just continue.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Well, I mean, look, I live in Tennessee. Trump is
not the president of Tennessee, and we have horrible everything,
you know. Yeah, And so I don't think it's the
end of the far right turn to the conservative movement.
But I do think that somebody who if Trump loses
two presidential elections, I would bet that he will not
(25:47):
be the nominee the next time after that. And so, yeah,
because his whole brand is not losing, And so I
do think it would be something like the end of
that particular chapter, not the not the ideology. But I mean,
I guess the reason I think that's important is because
(26:09):
think of all the all the deals we haven't been
able to make, all the yeah, from Ukraine to healthcare reform,
all these things, I mean, we haven't really Like when
they put out the Affordable Care Act like seventy five
thousand years ago, the idea was, this is version one
point zero, and we're going to improve this by all
(26:30):
negotiating and improving it, and by now we would probably
have a public option and we would have public health infrastructure.
But like literally the Trump campaign was like, that's bad
for our re election and so we're not gonna, you know,
do it. And remember during the pandemic they tried to
like overturn the whole ACA. So it's all these things
where he just stands in the way of like governance
(26:54):
in a way, and so I don't know, I just
I think there was something encouraging to me that like
things could really change for the better if he That's
my personal thing.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
I mean, I look from your lips to God's ears,
because I believe that if we are able to pull
off this election, Biden puts up the same numbers that
he did in twenty twenty and we're able to win.
I do believe that Donald Trump's all of his trials
will proceed right the ones that are on hold, and
(27:26):
I think that he will fade from the public political discourse.
He'll still be news because of who he is, but
I fear I believe that he will fade from the
public the political discourse in terms of like we're not
going to be looking four years out right to see
if he'll run again in twenty twenty eight, right, And
(27:48):
so I think that, yeah, we'll have an opportunity to rebuild.
But I don't think that trump Ism goes away, No,
And so I don't know, for instance, if NICKI Haley,
who has yet to endorse him, who is the longest
lasting Republican you know in the primary challenge, who is
not directing her voters to go after Donald Trump? And
(28:10):
Donald Trump has said I don't want your voters, right,
and we're talking about elections that are one in these
swing state areas by thousands of votes, not hundreds of
thousands or millions, you know, thousands of votes, and he's
negating that. I don't know if the Republican Party reverse
his course and goes back to being normal Republicans. I
(28:31):
think that it's been a decade of crazy. I think
they just annoint a new person. But your final thoughts, well.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Again I just said my final thought is always the same,
which is, we need to rebuild our coalition, like starting
yesterday and so and not that that's not happening, but
it's there's so many things are so so much more
complicated than they were even in twenty twenty, which is
hard to believe. I mean, we're in the middle of this,
you know, horrible time. I'm in all these things. But
(29:01):
right now there are so many competing narratives and that's
kind of part of the point. And so I think,
I think everything we need to do is to rebuild
our coalition again because I just I interview a lot
of people who are well, we'll talk about it coming
forward going for you know, there's a lot of regret
(29:23):
by people who are in our position right now who
then vote for some fascism, like why didn't I, why
not do more? And I don't want to be in
that position one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Well, we will leave it there. Next week, folks follow
us on social if you don't already follow Jonathan and
I because we are going to start our reading group
conversation next week with two articles that we will tweet
out and post so that folks can get engaged now
and prepare for that conversation next week. Thank you, Jonathan,
(29:55):
always appreciate you, Take care, and.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
I'm going to practice the look all day.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
That is it for me today, dear friends on woke
A app as always power to the people and to all
the people power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.
Good morning, peeps, and welcome to ok F Daily with
Meet Your Girl. Daniel Moody recording from the Home Bunker.
I want to start off today with talking about the
two debates that were announced. So first off, I got
to say that I will be surprised if these debates
(00:33):
take place. The first one is supposed to happen, I
believe in June, I want to say, And this second
one is supposed to take place in September. And the
Biden administration is calling for, you know, two debates instead
(00:53):
of three, and putting them much earlier in the calendar year.
And you have some folks that are having the most
ridiculous takes on this change, right and talking about, oh,
the Biden, particularly Nate Silver, who I don't understand at all,
but who says that the Biden administration is supposed to
(01:14):
be the organization is supposed to be the administration that
upholds norms. First off, what the fuck norms do we
have left in this country? And are we supposed to
pretend that Donald Trump did not blow off debates, did
not bring COVID to one of the debates that he
attended as a way to I don't know, get Biden
(01:37):
sick or everyone in the audience sick. Do we not
recognize that we no longer live in an environment where
political norms are upheld? And so this idea that one
party is supposed to be the party that holds up
political norms while the other one can be as badshit
crazy as they'd like, doesn't make any sense to me.
(01:58):
And so I think that it is incredibly important one that,
of course there'll be some sense of normalcy, meaning that
the Biden administration is going to move forward as they
would normally do when seeking a second term, but they're
going to do so on their terms of what makes
sense for them. Because Donald Trump, like, why are we
(02:19):
trying to negotiate in good faith with the domestic terrorists?
I have no idea. Also, I think that debates are stupid.
No one is going to watch a debate for anything
other than some type of entertainment value. People do not
make decisions about which candidate they're going to vote for
based on how someone performed with prescripted questions by a
(02:41):
moderator that is not going to offer any type of
hard questions, that is not going to do any type
of follow up like this. Debates are essentially a game show, right,
If you really want to hear from people, if you
really want to understand the substance of whatever the campaign
agendas are, then to me, town halls make more sense, right,
(03:03):
actual town halls, and not with your super supporters, but
with the mix of independence, Democrats and Republicans from all
walks of life that actually reflect America and allow people
to ask questions that like make sense to their day
to day lives, and the candidates then respond to that.
I can tell you that I remember. I'm not, you know,
(03:25):
too old to remember when MTV was doing you know,
debates and Bill Clinton went on, right, and you're sitting
with a group of like, you know, young people and
getting to know what's on their mind, and like you,
there's no way to really prep right, like you're you're
(03:45):
listening and you're answering questions and you're trying to connect.
I miss those days. I don't think that we'll ever
return to them. But I think that it's important for
us to understand that like, this is political theater. This
is not some type of framework that is meant to
give you any more or less information than you have
right now. And the fact is is that most people
(04:07):
only begin to tune in to the election, maybe about
two months to a month beforehand. So even this first
debate taking place on June twenty seventh, will most Americans
be tuned in, probably but probably to see what kind
of hot shit is going to come out of Donald
Trump's mouth, whether or not he's going to fall asleep
or fart, and whether or not the moderator who, regardless
(04:30):
of who they are, going to have the worst job
on that day, because no one will think that they
did well, and if they do do well, it'll be
based on you know, which candidate ended up doing well.
No one wins in this right, But I think that
the takes that I'm seeing on social media around the
scheduling and whether or not Donald Trump will actually show
(04:53):
up and show up in a way like I don't
really care. We already know who Donald Trump is, right,
anybody with eyes and ears no know what Donald Trump is,
what he is about, what he cares about, and what
The plan that the Republican Party has for this country
is Project twenty twenty five. It is about finishing the
gut job on our democracy, taking over the agencies and
(05:15):
rooting out who they deem as you know, politicized actors,
which is exactly the opposite of who works in government, right,
they are apolitical. But the fact is that you know,
we know what the Republicans are going to do, whether
it is voting against raising the age of children to
(05:38):
be able to get married right until they are adults
at like eighteen, whether it is reversing child labor laws,
whether it is further marginalizing trans people and the LGBTQ community,
whether it is trying to stamp out the advancements that
black people have made since the Civil Rights movement, whether
(05:58):
it is to criminals lies Latin X people, whether it
is to criminalize migrants and immigrants that are trying to
find work in this country because of the ways in
which the United States has interfered in the political structure
in their countries making it unsafe, which America has done
(06:19):
for decades in Latin America. So I think that what
we have to understand here is that debates, I think,
in this day and age again are mostly of entertainment value,
and the fact remains on whether or not Biden can
really sell right what his vision is for America. In
(06:43):
stark contrast to Donald Trump. Now, Biden has a lot
of other issues that are in front of him, Gaza
being the most glaring one, with net and Yahoo most
recently saying that they're not a whatever it was, some
colony or whatever it was of the United States. And
(07:04):
you know, here's what I will say about net Yahoo
who this is what he said, We are not a
vassal of the United States. When it pertains to Biden
saying that the RAFA invasion is the red line, you know,
my whole thing is that Netanyahu has been playing chess,
and I don't know what the fuck game Biden has
(07:25):
been playing in Gaza, but he is losing. He is
losing public sympathy, he is losing public engagement, and the
unrest around. Our tax dollars going to fund a genocide
are getting bigger and bigger and bigger by the day.
And so when this man Netnyaho decides to publicly embarrass
(07:46):
Joe Biden and the United States, do you know what
I do in response to that, I pull the fucking
funds right and stop playing games and let Netanyah who
know who exactly is in charge and he wants to
go it alone to pursue his genocide, then let him
fucking do that right, But Joe Biden is facing that
(08:07):
in this election right where a war that is not
happening on our shores are shaping public opinion, and not
to mention the trials that are taking place right and
people feeling like in some instances that these are politicized
when in fact that they're not. Because had Merrick Garland
(08:28):
done what the fuck he was supposed to do in
twenty twenty one, we wouldn't be here right now. So
will Biden the Biden that we saw at the State
of the Union show up at these debates? I think
if that Joe Biden shows up and is very clear,
is very assertive, is forceful and commanding, then I think
(08:48):
that we have a shot. But right now we're at
a fifty to fifty toss up and that scares the
shit out of me. Coming up next, my friends, our
conversation with our in house doctor, doctor John Than Metsill,
where we talk about Biden's latest poll numbers, whether or
not they matter, what Democrats need to be doing in
these critical days leading up to the twenty twenty four election. Folks,
(09:17):
you know that whenever we have the opportunity to speak
with our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel. We are
always thrilled it is you, and so this week we
are going to discuss Joe Biden's latest poll numbers, which, surprise, surprise,
not great. You know how I feel about polls this early,
but we'll still dig into them because I think it's
(09:38):
a good barometer for where things stand right now, as
we can all see different headlines playing out. Jonathan, So
you're saying, latest polls tell us Biden is down everywhere.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Yeah, that it was a couple of days ago, and
whys and other people have been tweeting about this A
lot two things have a first, Biden's pretty much down
at least five percent in most swing states according to
some pretty convincing polls recently, and it's true across the board.
And so that's point number one. And then point number
(10:14):
two is he and his advisors at least are saying
publicly in these interviews and stuff that they're not concerned
about it. And so, you know, I guess the question is,
did they share your disdain for polls. One of the
things a lot of articles are pointing out right now
is that Biden voters are much more invested in speaking
to polsters, and so If anything, the fear is that
(10:37):
it understates the number of people who are actually voting
for Trump. So I guess the question is, you know,
where are we now? Like may I think it is?
What does this mean? Is there going to be some rallying?
And usually there's a bump? I mean, think about Biden
for example, everybody thought he was weekend at Bernie's and
then he did that stadium with the Union dress, and
(10:58):
all of a sudden, everybody's like it totally stopped all
that talk about you know, at least for now all
that talk. So is there going to be like a
bump moment, a turn moment? Do they have some secret
strategy that civilians like you and I don't know about,
like the old member like Obama, like they had this
secret where like people didn't know about like digital marketing
(11:19):
quite yet or something like that. And so is there
some is there people smart people? Or is this oblivious?
And I hope it's not the third one, but it
just seems like the the I mean again, there's so
many things that could happen. Trump could get convicted. I
send you a great article about you did ye? Trump
(11:40):
now being as smart as he thinks he is this.
This trial shows it that his impulses are often wrong.
So there's a million things he could do wrong. But
I don't know, like, what do we do at this point?
You know, for a while there was a oh my god,
we're going to go to the convention and then we're
going to nominate like Omegatron or I don't know, stay Puff,
(12:02):
marshmallow Man or somebody else. But I don't know what's
your sense of all this?
Speaker 1 (12:08):
So I will say this that everybody knows that, you know,
polls are subjective, right, depending on the questions that are asked,
who they're asked, and how they're sent and all of
these things. I say that as a precursor. I think
that largely when I talk to folks, the Biden administration
has a lot of wins. And I'm just speaking domestically,
(12:30):
they have a lot of wins. What they are terrible
at as every single Democrat, it seems, is really talking
about those wins. Where I think that there is a
lot of issue right now is that one Biden is
not I think that the people that are around him
(12:51):
do not have the pulse, like their finger on the
pulse of what's happening on the ground. I think that
they believed that with Donald Trump dogged, with all of
these different trials, with him saying these outlandish things and
spiraling out of control, that that was going to be enough. Right,
it's not because the only people that are paying attention
(13:14):
to the Trump trials are people that watch CNN and MSNBC.
It is not being played on Fox, it's not being
played in the right wing. It's not being talked about
at all. So even when reporters, when people go to
Trump rallies and they're like, well, what do you think
about what's happening in the electoral fraud trial the hush
money case, they don't know what you're talking about. So
(13:37):
two things can be true. I don't think that Biden
is getting the right advice. That's one two. I also
don't think that Trump is expanding his base at all.
He is not going to be able to win without
expanding his base. The only people that we talk to
are the most fervent Trump supporters that don't care who
he kills, what he does, any of that. But that
(14:00):
is thirty percent of the population. You're not going to
win with thirty percent.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
I mean. The red herring, of course, is the Helman
and the brain campaign of RFK Junior, you know all
these other things. I just texted you the polls, But
I mean, I don't know. Like again, I don't want
to oversimplify them. Like there's a million times that I've thought,
oh my gosh, you know, those people are idiots, and
(14:28):
then it turns out they had some strategy I didn't
know about, and that you know, they probably have access
to a lot of data, a lot of methods. But
I will say that, like I study guns, right, eighty
five percent of people support background checks, but that doesn't
mean anybody's going to win an election based on a
background check, right. People don't vote based on gun issues.
(14:49):
Liberals don't vote based on gun issues. So even though
eighty five percent of people will tell you I support
background checks, Democrats for so long have misinterpreted with that
data means because popular support is not the same thing
as winning an election. And so I don't know there.
I mean, I just feel like we're like floating around
in space right now. There are so many different medias
that could hit us.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
You know, that's good, that's such a good enough.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
I mean, I went down the route all of watching
the part of the speech of RFK Junior's vice presidential candidate,
Like I do, it is time and and so you know,
I just think there's so many things that could happen.
But again that's where like having a really robust they're
(15:35):
gonna have to mount some kind of really robust, vibrant campaign.
I mean, there are things that are happening, Like did
you see that Biden now is raising all these tariffs
on China in ways that people are actually going to feel,
So you know, that's such a Trump move. He's kind
of taking a page out of Trump's playbook. So I
mean again, there if for some if some miracle, they
(15:59):
get a a cease fire and some viable strategy forward.
I mean, I actually think, in my opinion, Lincoln's making
a ton of sense right now about the long term plan,
and so if any of these things could kind of
change course. And I don't know what's happening behind the scenes,
but I will this is what let me say. This
is my long way of sharing your nervousness but not
(16:22):
wanting to articulate it.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
I mean, but I will say this, Like to be honest,
I think that Joe Biden needs to not run a
campaign against Donald Trump. I think that he needs to
run a campaign against the Republican Party. Yeah, and I
think that what we are missing right now, and I
literally just talked about this on another show, is that
(16:46):
the Republican Party take out Donald Trump and the circus
of the trials, right, and now all of these Republicans
going down to the courthouse where his family isn't even
so that they can show their.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Subject, well Johnson's corn trial.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Right or auditioned for you know, Vice president, Like, this
is what they're doing, right, to show their support. His
own family's not showing up except for Eric and who
cares about him. But in the meantime, what do we
have going on in Missouri? Well, the Missouri Republicans have
decided to block a measure to raise the age of
(17:23):
marriage from sixteen to eighteen years old. Right in twenty eighteen,
the age to marry in Missouri was fourteen years old.
Oh yeah, right, and they raised it from yeah. And
so now two of there are Republicans that are blocking
it with the audacity of saying that people need to
stay out of other people's private lives, the audacity right,
(17:45):
at the same time that they don't want to raise
the age of child marriage. They're also rolling back child
worker protection laws in Alabama, right, and in Florida. You
are seeing this attack of this slow roll back of
an industrialized modern country into like back to a developing age.
(18:09):
And we're not paying attention to that because we want
to know if Donald Trump is farting or is falling
asleep in a courtroom. And I'm like, and meanwhile, you
have Republicans that are literally we just Arizona people might
not have had that eighteen sixty four piece of legislation
stay on the books if not for it making the headline.
(18:30):
So we're not talking about what this party as a
whole is doing outside of what Donald Trump is doing.
So if I'm the Biden campaign, I don't care about
Donald Trump. I care about what Republicans are doing with
or without him, right, and making the case that the
American people need to see that.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Okay, I want to give you three rebettal points.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Viral means, can we.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Get a screenshot of the do it? Okay? See here's
the I'm from Missouri and I live in Tennessee, and
Tennessee you can marry your cousin now it's legal.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Yeah I can't. That's not real life.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
But the thing is, it's not like that's any surprise,
but this keeps happen. People don't lose elections in red
states for this, and so the Republican Party is a
known quantity and and and they still win. And it's
not because they have public public support. It's because they
have from the ground up rigged the system by jerremandering
and so people are safe, like nobody's even after the
(19:40):
Covenant School shooting, when all these Republican ams were demanded guniform,
they didn't have. They didn't threaten these guys. And so
in a way, part of the story is about the
it's about the system. And that's why I was kind
of hemming on a little bit before, is like, what's
the goal of a presidential election which I don't know
enough about, but is it sway popular opinion or is
(20:02):
it to convince these twenty people in this one little
area that might swing a swing state? You know, I
think it's it's just the checks and balances about this stuff.
And I the reason I say this is because like
every time in Tennessee, like literally a month ago, they
legalized and it's because a guy, one of the legislators
had had marry his cousin, and I'm like, oh my god,
(20:24):
there people are going to see it for it. But
now look, I mean, we've got Mike Johnson at the
porn trial, you know, at the adultery trial, and so
it's all it's a power game. It's a power game,
and so the question is exposing stuff that will that
bring people to our side or are we trying to
just mobilize our own coalition.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
I mean, I think that we're only trying to mobilize
our own coalition, So.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
In that sense, I mean, and I don't know why
this is, but like if you turn on a s
NBC or something like that, it's Trump for four hours
every single night. Yeah, get a story about Biden. But
like last night there was a two hour special about
the Trump trial, and then the next show was a
whole hour about sun trial. And maybe they feel like
(21:10):
that is what drives revenue or audience. Now, there are
some I think great lessons about the Trump trial. I
mean Trump, I don't know what's going to happen. I
cannot believe that they're going to get a unanimous jury
on anything about Trump, just because the way the country is.
But there are great articles in Politico really looking how
Trump is giving all this advice. That's terrible. He's not
(21:31):
as smart as he thinks he is. He's sabotaging his
own case by his own stubbornness, all these kinds. But
there are things about Trump that, if you follow that trial,
would make you nervous about that guy being president, even
if you didn't know anything about all the other stuff
you've done. So I think there are stories about that,
but its just I don't know. I felt this for
for a while, like if Biden was in our nominee,
(21:54):
if it was Gvin Newsom or somebody else, it just
seems like we would have a more news worthy candidate.
But we don't, and so in that vacuum, it's just
four hours a night of Trump. And so in a way,
like liberal media and all that kind of stuff in
our Twitter feeds and all that all kind of play
into that. And so I guess my question for you is,
(22:15):
are you suggesting I don't know why they do that. Honestly,
it doesn't make any sense to me except that it
probably drives ratings or something. But are you saying we
should focus on other stories or something or what?
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Yeah, I think that First of all, what MSMBC does
with their four hours of Trump trial coverage, This is like, honestly,
this is not the O. J. Simpson trial. This is
not a murder trial. If it was the document's case, right,
and if it was actually televised and then you're playing
back clips, this wouldn't that would make sense. In the meantime,
(22:54):
you have Senator Katie Britt who just rolled out a
piece of legislation to start a pregnancy database to track
women's pregnancies nationally, right, to track their movements. No linkage
to obgyns, to actual reproductive health clinics. No, it's all
(23:15):
about religious zelots and these fake clinics that they put
up to scare women into having their babies. She's created
a national policy around that. That's a fucking headline news story, right.
That goes along with the IVF blockages that came out
of Alabama. That goes again to say half of this
(23:35):
country are women and people with uteruses. Pay attention to
what they're doing. Because Donald Trump becomes president and you're
looking at this abortion band that's in twenty states being
in fifty states, and you're looking at these national registries
right like these to me are important stories that are
not being like even if Biden was only putting this
(23:58):
shit up in his social fi feeds, right and saying,
look at what the Republicans have done now, right, like,
you have got to show people that their agenda is
much bigger than Donald Trump. And to your point, Yeah,
if we had a different candidate, I don't even know, Jonathan,
if they would be newsworthy, because we've been so conditioned
(24:21):
over the last nine years to never turn a camera
away from Trump. Yeah, Like, I just I don't know
who the candidate would be that would take the camera attention,
the news attention away from Donald Trump.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yeah. No, I mean again, this is this is the
situation we have. We're down five points, and if we
rebuild our coalition, we win. And not only if we
if we rebuild our coalition, we win, but if we
rebuild our coalition and we beat Trump, then we also
change the Republican Party because he will have brought the
presidential election twice and that'll be I think the last
(25:00):
straw for a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
And so you know, but do we really, like we
always say, and I feel like you and I have
said this multiple times, this will be the nail in
the coffin for the Republican Party. This will be the
end for the Republican Party. Do we believe that trump
Ism hasn't been metastasized so much in this country that
if he loses, it doesn't just continue.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Well, I mean, look, I live in Tennessee. Trump is
not the president of Tennessee, and we have horrible everything,
you know. Yeah, And so I don't think it's the
end of the far right turn to the conservative movement.
But I do think that somebody who if Trump loses
two presidential elections, I would bet that he will not
(25:47):
be the nominee the next time after that. And so, yeah,
because his whole brand is not losing, And so I
do think it would be something like the end of
that particular chapter, not the not the ideology. But I mean,
I guess the reason I think that's important is because
(26:09):
think of all the all the deals we haven't been
able to make, all the yeah, from Ukraine to healthcare reform,
all these things, I mean, we haven't really Like when
they put out the Affordable Care Act like seventy five
thousand years ago, the idea was, this is version one
point zero, and we're going to improve this by all
(26:30):
negotiating and improving it, and by now we would probably
have a public option and we would have public health infrastructure.
But like literally the Trump campaign was like, that's bad
for our re election and so we're not gonna, you know,
do it. And remember during the pandemic they tried to
like overturn the whole ACA. So it's all these things
where he just stands in the way of like governance
(26:54):
in a way, and so I don't know, I just
I think there was something encouraging to me that like
things could really change for the better if he That's
my personal thing.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
I mean, I look from your lips to God's ears,
because I believe that if we are able to pull
off this election, Biden puts up the same numbers that
he did in twenty twenty and we're able to win.
I do believe that Donald Trump's all of his trials
will proceed right the ones that are on hold, and
(27:26):
I think that he will fade from the public political discourse.
He'll still be news because of who he is, but
I fear I believe that he will fade from the
public the political discourse in terms of like we're not
going to be looking four years out right to see
if he'll run again in twenty twenty eight, right, And
(27:48):
so I think that, yeah, we'll have an opportunity to rebuild.
But I don't think that trump Ism goes away, No,
And so I don't know, for instance, if NICKI Haley,
who has yet to endorse him, who is the longest
lasting Republican you know in the primary challenge, who is
not directing her voters to go after Donald Trump? And
(28:10):
Donald Trump has said I don't want your voters, right,
and we're talking about elections that are one in these
swing state areas by thousands of votes, not hundreds of
thousands or millions, you know, thousands of votes, and he's
negating that. I don't know if the Republican Party reverse
his course and goes back to being normal Republicans. I
(28:31):
think that it's been a decade of crazy. I think
they just annoint a new person. But your final thoughts, well.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Again I just said my final thought is always the same,
which is, we need to rebuild our coalition, like starting
yesterday and so and not that that's not happening, but
it's there's so many things are so so much more
complicated than they were even in twenty twenty, which is
hard to believe. I mean, we're in the middle of this,
you know, horrible time. I'm in all these things. But
(29:01):
right now there are so many competing narratives and that's
kind of part of the point. And so I think,
I think everything we need to do is to rebuild
our coalition again because I just I interview a lot
of people who are well, we'll talk about it coming
forward going for you know, there's a lot of regret
(29:23):
by people who are in our position right now who
then vote for some fascism, like why didn't I, why
not do more? And I don't want to be in
that position one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Well, we will leave it there. Next week, folks follow
us on social if you don't already follow Jonathan and
I because we are going to start our reading group
conversation next week with two articles that we will tweet
out and post so that folks can get engaged now
and prepare for that conversation next week. Thank you, Jonathan,
(29:55):
always appreciate you, Take care, and.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
I'm going to practice the look all day.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
That is it for me today, dear friends on woke
A app as always power to the people and to all
the people power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.
Host
Danielle Moodie
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