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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. It's a Supreme Court decision day. It's Trump and Biden Debate Night, two program notes. First, you can listen to the debate right here if you haven't heard that yet. This is new since yesterday's show. In the afternoon yesterday, CNN agreed to let NPR stations air the debate on the radio. If you're driving tonight or don't have a video source or whatever, it's live debate coverage on WNYC at 9 o'clock tonight.

The other program note, same as yesterday at this time, if we get the presidential immunity ruling today from the Supreme Court, I'm going to step aside and we'll be handing off to NPR in Washington for a special coverage with Nina Totenberg and others, and the greater resources they can bring to bear at the network in DC. So just letting you know that might happen. And if it does happen, it'll be soon as the Supreme Court announces its decisions just after 10:00 AM Eastern time. We will let you know about any major decisions they announce as soon as they cross their feed.

Now that the housekeeping is out of the way, let's talk. Peter Hamby is with us. He's been writing about the presidential race for Puck News. He also hosts their podcast called The Powers That Be. His experience puts him in a good position to preview tonight's debate because he worked for CNN for a long time and won Emmys there for coverage of election nights in 2012 and 2006, plus a Peabody Award for CNN's Hurricane Katrina coverage and a Murrow Award for innovation for creating the Snapchat podcast Good Luck America. He lives on the West Coast, so Peter, thanks for getting up early for us. Welcome to WNYC

Peter Hamby: Good to be here, Brian. I was there in New York last week enjoying the Heat Dome, but I'm a fan of the show, so I'm happy to get up early out here.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you so much. Hope the wildfires don't get you now that you're back in California. Everybody's talking about how Trump and Biden are preparing for tonight's debate. Based on your experience at CNN, how do you think the moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash are preparing?

Peter Hamby: I'm glad you asked that. I was thinking about talking about that a little bit before I came on. In my time at CNN, I was behind the scenes many, many times, untold a number of debates. Those were all primary debates. Of course, this is the first national general election debate that's owned and operated by a single television network, but CNN does a very good job of these things. There are obviously a lot of dart throwers and critics on Twitter every time a network runs a debate, but CNN, they do all the bells and whistles. There's a huge production team down there. They've been down there for weeks setting up the set.

The way the anchors prepare for this, and I should say Dana and Jake are-- even before they were announced, I would've guessed they would be the two moderators because they are generally very scrupulous and fair and experienced, and like it or not, they have good sources and connections on both campaigns. They've just been around the block in Washington and know these people, so I can see why both campaigns consented to having them moderate the debate.

Basically, both of them are doing their own version of debate prep, the same sort of thing that Biden is doing up in Camp David. We don't have a lot of details on exactly of what Donald Trump is doing. He's pretending at least that he's not doing a lot of formal debate prep, even though I suspect he's doing some. They are in a room-

Brian Lehrer: I'm glad you said that by the way.

Peter Hamby: -with a bunch of executive producers and researchers just going over questions and topics and honing down on what they're going to ask because they know that 90 minutes for them is going to go a lot faster [laughs] than it seems and then you're also dealing with a wild card like Donald Trump. The timing aspect is going to require a lot of preparation while also getting in the questions they want to talk about.

Brian Lehrer: What do you think their main goals are for this debate in the biggest picture sense, other than good publicity for CNN? Is it to graze through many issues for side-by-side comparisons on policy? Is it to focus on a few big ones like maybe inflation and democracy and take a deep dive? Is it to have an entertaining fight? Or do you think they're asking themselves this kind of question at all?

Peter Hamby: I don't think they would ever admit they want an entertaining fight, but I think that's exactly what they would like, as much as they're trying to control the atmospherics by muting microphones, no studio audience, et cetera. By the way, again, having been in a number of CNN primary debates over the years, those are all new rules for me. You generally want the studio audience. It makes it more lively. That's something that CNN and other networks have baked into their productions in recent years.

But remember, the last time I think Trump was on CNN, he did a town hall with Kaitlan Collins, I think in 2023. It was in New Hampshire, I believe. The crowd was full of MAGA partisans who were screaming, cheering Trump on, cheering him on when he was attacking Kaitlan Collins and calling her a "nasty person". It was just an ugly spectacle, and so I think they're smart to not have the studio audience.

All that being said, I think that Jake and Dana are going to focus on the issues that they talk about on their shows quite frequently. Yes, they're going to talk about January 6th and democracy and what Trump really thinks about the people who are convicted on January 6th, whether he thinks they're political prisoners or not. They're going to talk about his criminal conviction and try to get Biden to open up about that because the president has been pretty scrupulous, and this includes when talking about his son Hunter, about the justice system.

His campaign is weighing in calling Donald Trump a convicted felon in their television ads, but the president himself has been reluctant to say that from the bully pulpit of the White House. Then yes, the issues of the day, cost of living, immigration, Ukraine. I think what they really are trying to do here is these two haven't been in the same room together since 2020, since the last debate they had together. This is obviously a huge media moment. The information universe has changed substantially, and not just from 2020 but from 2022. People are dialing into get political information from a variety of sources and screens and platforms. It is so atomized these days.

This is the one moment this year so far where you could get 50, 60, 70, 80 million people tuning in. They realize the stakes and CNN wants to make sure that they live up to their calling as the most trusted name in news and focus on issues, issues, issues. I think both of them understand that these two will get into it regardless of whether they poke them to have a brawl. These two don't like each other. They genuinely don't like each other. It's more than just-

Brian Lehrer: They notice that.

Peter Hamby: - a political show. Yes. [chuckle]

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we invite you in. If you plan to watch the debate tonight, what will you be watching to see? 212-433-WNYC. If you've already made up your mind between Biden and Trump like most people have, why will you watch the debate if not to help you decide? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Will it be like watching the Subway Series last night? You're either rooting for the Mets or you're rooting for the Yankees? You're rooting for Biden or you're rooting for Trump? Is that why you're going to watch? If you're an undecided voter, what answers are you hoping to get from the candidates that will help you make up your mind?

Will it be about policy, like who's got better plans to fight inflation? Will it be more about personal characteristics, like which one is more inspiring or seems more cognitively with it since they accuse each other of being deficient in that way or why else will you watch the debate tonight? Decided or undecided voters, 212-433-9692, or any questions for Peter Hamby from Puck News. 212-433-WNYC, call or text, 212-433-9692.

Peter, the rule that you mentioned about keeping the mics turned off when it's not your turn to speak. I had a journalist guest yesterday who thinks this is a bad idea for at least two reasons. One, people are served by hearing candidates actually interact with each other over the key issues. And two, if Trump wants to make it a point of grievance, he'll shout over Biden anyway, in a way that Biden's mic will pick up in the background and the moderators will have to address it anyway. I'm curious if you have an opinion about whether that rule is likely to serve the public interest.

Peter Hamby: I am fascinated by this too, Brian. I think at first blush, everyone agrees, great idea. We remembered what happened in 2020 during those two debates. For my Snapchat show, I was going back on YouTube yesterday and watching some clips. The crosstalk over each other and over Chris Wallace clearly frustrated Biden, was intentional on Trump's part. That's his personality. I think most people agree that the candidates rolled over the moderators. Not that that's an easy job.

One thing I am interested in is, again, this is the first debate in a general election in modern memory that's being held outside of the Commission on Presidential Debates, which traditionally negotiates and hosts, and broadcasts these debates, three debates plus a vice-presidential debate every four years. The Brahmins over there, I guarantee you, are watching this debate and they are interested in this microphone question. I guarantee it because they think there could be unintended-- I know they want this not to go well so that, one, the candidates come back to the Commission on Presidential Debates at some point. But two, I think there could be unintended consequences.

I think, yes, Trump could shout at Biden and he's eight feet away from him on that stage. He can still hear Trump talking. That is something that the studio audience might not hear, but the moderators and the candidates will. There's also-- I assume there will be at least one or two commercial breaks and the candidates are not allowed to talk to their staffers, so what happens in those moments?

I just think that there could be some unintended consequences we're not prepared for here. It also means that you might end up hearing more from the moderators themselves, Jake and Dana, as they try to interrupt to stop people even if their mics are muted. That gets into risky territory only because Donald Trump has been laying the groundwork for about a week now that-- and this is from his predictable playbook, and it's not coming from [chuckles] anything but self-interest, and not good intentions to attack the media, and say they're biased, and liberal, and they're trying to spoil this for him. I think it's one unpredictable factor that CNN has inserted into this for sure.

Brian Lehrer: As somebody who works in an audio medium, I wonder if we'll even see what the state of the art of what they call directional microphone technology is. We have in radio directional mics and omnidirectional mics. If you're out on location and you want to get a lot of natural background sound to help paint the scene for the listeners once you produce your piece what it's like wherever you are and interviewing people, you have an omnidirectional mic that picks up sound from all directions. It's just like the name says. If you want just that voice in its pristine purity as much as possible, you have a very directional mic.

Clearly, they'll have directional mics there, but we'll see if the candidates being just a few feet from each other can even be heard. If the mics can be that pinpoint in the technology so that the one trying to scream in the background doesn't actually break through. I don't think that technology exists, but maybe we're about to find out.

Peter Hamby: Well, I guarantee you the people viewing don't know a lot about this stuff. This sort of thing leads to conspiracy theories too when debates happen. Back in 2004, George W. Bush had this lump in the middle of his suit jacket during a debate with John Kerry and Jim Lehrer. People on the left were like, "What is that? What is that?" It turned into this wild conspiracy theory. Again, like pre-social media, but still in the blog days. People thought he was getting stuff fed to him through his earpiece.

Whatever, it was absolutely nothing, but any sort of-- especially these days, technical thing that might be obvious to those of us that work in film and audio production. That's not necessarily the case for the viewers who don't understand the details of these things.

Brian Lehrer: What about having no audience? That's getting less attention than muting the mics. Do you think that serves a public purpose or advantages one candidate or the other?

Peter Hamby: I think it does. I'm supportive of this. Not that my opinion matters here, but again, I was at CNN debates in 2008 and 2012, the Democratic and Republican primaries where-- and again, like in the primaries, a lot of the audiences for these things are stacked by the local state party, and certain donors get in, and they can cheer for their favorite candidate. In a case like that where'd you have six, seven, eight candidates on a primary debate stage, someone would get a lot of cheers and jeers and someone would just be ignored. That projects the energy and momentum on the screen that is valuable to a candidate.

I think Donald Trump would benefit from that in this situation just because his supporters are louder and certainly more shameless and honestly, more passionate and motivated than Joe Biden's at least according to polls and anecdotal evidence. Look, again, last year, Donald Trump appeared on CNN in a town hall with Kaitlan Collins, one of their more fair and experienced journalists covering Donald Trump. The crowd was filled with New Hampshire Republicans who cheered Trump constantly and it interrupted Kaitlan when she was trying to ask questions. It gave Trump this coat of armor against her questions and allowed him to frame her as biased to say, "Look, I'm under attack." He is a candidate of permanent grievance.

I do think that not having a studio audience is helpful in that sense. Then again, 90 minutes goes by really fast if you're a moderator and a candidate, unless you're totally screwing up then it goes on forever. But I think it helps with timing just from a production perspective because Jake and Dana aren't going to have to be interrupting the audience and saying, "Please calm down, we're trying to have a debate here," which we've seen again in lots of past debates and in general election debates as well.

Brian Lehrer: I invited the listeners to call in and say why they'll be watching tonight or listening on WNYC if they're decided voters or if they're undecided voters. What I didn't say was, "Yes, you're also invited if you plan to not watch the debate tonight," but Jen in Park Slope called in anyway despite that omission of being explicitly invited. Jen, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Jen: Hi, Brian. Thank you. I am not going to watch tonight because I'm so worried for Biden and nothing that they could say or do would change my vote. Trump's bullying and lies, it would stress me out so much, I might end up in the ER. Just my fear for Joe messing up and being endlessly mocked and more of the same is just not worth it and I know that I'll hear the headlines on your show tomorrow.

Brian Lehrer: Jen, thank you very much. Yes, we will definitely be breaking down the debate on the show tomorrow. By the way, I'll tell you now that we plan to do it in two ways. We plan to continue the thread that we started earlier in the week, focusing closely on inflation as an issue in this race and as an issue in the debate. We plan to have somebody with some economics expertise to analyze what both candidates said about inflation and other economic questions tomorrow, so it's not all just about style, and that at least half our analysis tomorrow is about substance on that key issue that Americans tend to put number one above the culture war issues and other things.

That's one thing we're going to be doing tomorrow and we'll have general debate analysis and your reactions as well. Jen, I'll be talking to you then, but Peter, that's a category that I don't know if the posters have tapped, Biden supporters who are just too nervous that Trump might beat him in the debate and so will not tune in for that reason.

Peter Hamby: I think Jen in Park Slope is onto something. I think that there's certainly a lot-- look, there's been a lot of coverage about frustration with Biden among Democrats, young Democrats in particular, young Progressives who might not vote for him or stay home. There's been a lot of commentary out there about replacing Biden on the ticket for aforementioned reasons. Has it been a lot of coverage of people who are committed Democratic Biden voters who are just really nervous? They call these bed-wetters on Twitter, Democratic bed-wetters who read the polls and are worried. I'm not saying Jen is a bed-wetter, but pollsters have actually looked at this.

Just yesterday from Gallup, they said 57% of voters say they're extremely or very likely to tune into at least some of the debate. Republicans though are more likely than Democrats to tune in. It's a narrow number, 63% to 60%, but I think that's the case. I think a lot of Democrats are worried. This was true by the way in 2020, and by the way, going back and watching those clips yesterday, it's obvious that Biden has aged. People can say that it's unfair to say that Biden is old and Trump is not, they're both old. Biden feels older. You can even see it in the debate from four years ago. I remember sitting down here in Los Angeles with some Democrats to watch that debate.

They were nervous then because Biden hadn't been on that stage before. Trump had, and so I think now people are even more nervous on the Democratic side. One question here though is I'm interested in the Jen case because whether she decides to tune in or not, this is the earliest debate we've had in modern history. I've talked to people who are registered voters. People just anecdotally in my life who didn't even know there was a debate this week. It's summertime. I'm interested to see how many people tune in and watch it live. Gallup said only 37% of adults are highly likely to listen or watch the debate live, highly likely.

I think there's a lot of voters out there who might watch the clips afterwards. They might be cord cutters, even though you can stream this and just see what happens through the push alerts and the clips that happen throughout the evening or the next day and maybe that's what Jen is going to do.

Brian Lehrer: Here is a snarky text from- -a listener who obviously believes Trump is an existential threat to our country. The listener has this fake little bit of dialog that they made up. Flight attendant, "Our dinner choices tonight are chicken or feces with broken glass and arsenic sauce." Then an undecided voter pipes up and says, "How is the chicken prepared?"

You might have to think about that one for a minute to get it. You know what I mean? The commentary there is that people are looking with too much of a detailed eye at Biden policies when Trump is an existential threat to the future of the country.

Peter Hamby: Yes. This is also a big challenge for Joe Biden. A lot of people, and not just liberals, we should say, want the Biden campaign to be screaming from the mountaintops about how Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. They gesture at this. They dropped a new television ad this week. They tried to do both things that the Biden campaign is trying to do, call him out for himself, out for revenge, unfit for office, while also saying he wants to give tax cuts to rich people and he doesn't care about the middle class. Joe Biden cares about you.

Poll after poll after poll after poll. It's getting repetitive and cliched even to say at this point, voters cite economy and the cost of living as their number one issue. Democracy, it's just not a question that's even been tested in polling as a campaign issue until this cycle, really. Harry Enten on CNN did a segment on this yesterday that I found really interesting. He went back through about three, four decades of presidential year polling on issues.

Obviously, people test abortion and immigration and the economy and exit polls year after year after year in polling before elections. This is the first cycle in which pollsters have tested, "Are you voting on democracy? How important is democracy to your vote?" and it's not ranking as high. It does not outpace the economy as-- Existential is the word we should be talking about because it's existential versus practical for a lot of people.

The problem for a lot of voters, and I know we're going to talk about this later in the segment, is that people are starting to look back on the Trump years through a teeny bit of rose-colored glasses. We did a poll with Echelon. Puck and Echelon did a poll a few weeks ago. This is back in May. They found that 49% of voters out there strongly or somewhat approved of how Trump handled his job as President. I saw that and I said, "Huh, that seems a little weird." I went back and looked.

Trump averaged a 38%-- sorry, Trump averaged a 45% job approval rating during his actual term. He averaged a 38% approval rating in those final few months when he was in office. 49% of voters now look back on Trump. They're either lying or they're saying they're remembering those years more fondly. I think a lot of people separate the pandemic from the Trump years. They don't necessarily blame Trump for the pandemic. This is true, especially if you're younger, maybe you look back and you say, "Oh, the economy was pretty good back then before the pandemic hit."

Now, certain costs are higher, and Biden doesn't project a lot of confidence out there, according to polls. The Biden campaign is trying to satisfy a lot of people out there who want to talk about how he might completely unravel the constitution, but they're also trying to be sensitive to the fact that people are paying a little more for gas prices. They're paying a little more at McDonald's. They're paying a little more for certain things at the grocery.

Interest rates are still high. It's hard to carry a credit card balance. It's harder to get a car loan. It's harder to buy a house. Those are really pressing issues for people, and not necessarily what MSNBC is talking about in primetime each night.

Brian Lehrer: Right, and that was an interesting article you wrote that had a headline, The Left's Trumpnesia Problem. I think you just summed that up. By the way, a number of people are writing in to say, "Take the chicken." A few other people are writing in to tell us that that chicken versus feces dish comparison came originally from David Sedaris. Credit where credit is due. Monique in Tarrytown, an undecided voter. You're on WNYC with Peter Hamby from Puck News. Hi, Monique.

Monique: Hi. I think I'm more unique listener because I have three children in the military. A couple of weeks ago, I was at my son's infantry graduation where the speaker said that we were one miscalculation away from combat. I think that it's-- for me, I'm looking for the Commander-in-Chief. I am looking for our foreign policy. I'm looking for what we're doing for security. I'm looking for our nation and how we are, and most importantly, if I can put in a plug, we need to be unified because it is to our enemy's benefit whoever ends up being president, because we cannot be a divided country for the sake of the soldiers.

Brian Lehrer: Monique, do you have an impression today? If you had a vote today, and if I'm framing your decision matrix right, do you have an impression of which candidate is more likely to get us into a war that would put your kids in the military at risk?

Monique: It's a complex issue because it's so big. I feel like not vetting who's coming into this country is a big security risk, but at the same time, I also think that what is being done in creating alliances with the Philippines and with South Korea, and creating a more unified group of people is really important in order to offset threats from China. I'm really torn because I talk to my kids on who do you want to be the Commander-in-Chief, and they all have different opinions.

That's why I need to discern who would keep our country safe on so many levels, because the military is a deterrence, but diplomacy is a tool that we need. It's about policies. It's how we approach the world, how we approach NATO, also how we approach building ourselves up to protect ourselves.

Brian Lehrer: Monique, thank you very much. Do call us again. I know you've called us before. Keep calling us. When you make up your mind, I'll be curious to know which candidate you decide on. Brian Lehrer on WNYC with Peter Hamby from Puck News as we preview tonight's debate. Stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we continue to preview tonight's Trump-Biden debate with Peter Hamby from Puck News, former CNN. Listeners just can't resist but to further the feces versus chicken analogy. One person writes, "For me, it's less a comparison of chicken versus feces and more a comparison of, do I want a feces sandwich or a feces and pea sandwich?" That gets to the large number of double haters out there, what they call double haters, right, Peter?

Peter Hamby: Yes. I'm curious what-- I mean, feel free to text Brian. Everyone spam us with calls, what RFK Jr., Jill Stein, Cornel West and Chase Oliver would be on the airplane menu. I'm curious what people think.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, okay. Name a dish for those third-party candidates. Who is this debate for? Seriously, I heard the number 6% this morning as an estimate of the percentage of undecided voters in the key swing states. Monique, even though she's in New York, she's in rarefied company at 6%, but that doesn't take turnout of the base into account when they measure it that way, I don't think so. A lot of people who've already made up their minds will be watching. Who do you think this debate is really for, as either Trump or Biden or the CNN producers see it?

Peter Hamby: This is an important dynamic to recognize. My colleague, John Heilemann, did an interview with Jen O'Malley-Dillon, who is Biden's campaign chair. That's on Puck. People should go check it out. Just the transcript of it is fascinating. They were both pretty blunt, that this is an election for about 6% of voters in six states. Those are all the key battlegrounds, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. The latter three, by the way, Biden is losing narrowly, but if he wins those three, he gets reelected.

They're talking to voters in those states. Jen O'Malley-Dillon and the Biden campaign insist actually that North Carolina is a little more in play than the media would like to admit. I'm actually sympathetic to that argument. But yes, those are the voters people are talking to, and it's a constellation of people. It's not just-- This gets to what I was saying about Biden's messaging. It's swing voters and independents and non-traditional- -voters and then it's also the base.

The challenge for Biden has obviously been, if you look at Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia in particular, Black voters under the age of 30, younger Black men, people who voted for Biden last time are not demonstrating similar enthusiasm for him this time around, and he needs to get them to show up to vote. We're talking about a grand total, just to answer your question of about a million voters in this country.

Again, the first presidential debate in 2020, 70 million people tuned in for the spectacle. Yes, you have to rally the base. Yes, you have to inspire people on your team, but they are talking squarely to voters in these battleground states and trying to get them motivated to vote, but also importantly, given the reputation of both of these men, to vote against the other guy. Negative partisanship is the defining factor of this election.

Brian Lehrer: Nick in Queens is going to watch tonight's debate. Nick, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Nick: Hey, Brian. How is it going? I was just going to say I really liked the Mets-Yankees comparison, which I did watch last night, but I think it's just become this sports team thing. I think most people are just going to tune in to see the spectacle. They've already decided other than your last caller, which is surprising, that we have undecided voters in this political climate. It's maybe a dangerous road that we're going down where it's people are tuning in just to see how this plays out, just to see these two teams go head-to-head.

Brian Lehrer: Right, but that's bad for democracy, isn't it? That encourages the fight for the fight's sake as opposed to clarifying any issues.

Nick: Correct. Yes. I'm going to tune in. I know that I'm going to vote for Biden, but I almost feel shame that I'm going to tune in because I just want to see how wild this thing is going to get.

Brian Lehrer: There you go. Nick, thank you very much. Well, Peter, Nick was candid anyway.

Peter Hamby: Certainly, and I assume Nick in Queens is a Mets fan. Congratulations on the game last night.

Brian Lehrer: [laughs] I gave up once they put the tarp on the field for the second time and went to sleep. Anyway, go ahead.

Peter Hamby: Yes, we don't have a lot of rain delays for Dodgers games out here. Nick brought up something interesting in your conversation with him just now, is the idea of the spectacle versus the issues. One thing that just jogged, and this might not be answering your question, it's just that Biden has struggled so much to communicate what he's done to audiences and universes of voters who actually like him on the issues.

A lot of people, this gets to young voters, again, they don't know that both with the Infrastructure Act and the IRA, Biden made the largest climate investment in American history. They actually don't know a lot about the fact that he's forgiven over a billion dollars in student loans. A lot of these things just get lost in our current information environment.

I do think, and this is a challenge for Biden, just because of the way he talks, but I do think Biden really wants to get out there certain issues that people might not actually know about. Here's one that's very salient this week. Border crossings are actually down 40% since Biden passed these asylum orders a few weeks ago.

Trump is trying to say that there's chaos at the border. Look [laughs] the border has not been great. Democrats, Independents, Republicans agree Hispanic Latino voters agree that the border is out of control and Biden has realized he needs to take action there and he has. But Secretary Mayorkas from Homeland Security was in Arizona yesterday talking about this. Border crossings are down. Biden needs to get messages like that out there to people in these moments.

The challenge for Biden talking about these things, as I mentioned, isn't that Biden is 81 years old and it's he rambles a lot. He has always, and I think the first time I interviewed him was 2007, and he's obviously been around public life for 50 years now, he has always had this sort of self-indulgent way of talking about issues. He rambles. He wants to talk about his accomplishments and what he's done.

Look, he needs to do that tonight, but he also needs to do this forward-looking messaging as well and talk about what he's going to do for people and tell people that, "Yes, prices and inflation aren't where we want them to be, but we're working hard. That guy doesn't want to do anything for you." That's what Biden's message is going to be. I do think he wants to talk about issues and bring up certain facts. I'll be interested to see how Trump responds to those things.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, and I hope so, because so much of the debate preview chatter in the media, I'm sure you've heard this, is about things like Biden will be trying to get under Trump's skin, so Trump loses his cool and looks unhinged. If that's what Biden has been rehearsing for at Camp David, I don't know if it would move the needle very much, even if it works. Because I tend to think people know enough about both of their personalities that they're largely numb to that dynamic at this point.

I said on the show earlier this week that I hope the moderators do a robust series of questions on who's got better plans to fight inflation going forward and not just look at their past records. You just put that on Biden, make sure Biden, you talk about going forward. Economists keep saying Trump's populous plans are very inflationary, like a 60% import tax on all goods from China tariff and a big tax cut funded by borrowing. Even though those things as slogans might make a lot of people feel good, they're inflationary.

I want Jake and Dana to ask an explicit housing question, since that's the biggest inflationary burden for so many people, who's got the better plan to keep rents and home prices manageable? But it'll take more than one round of two-minute answers to really get there on these economy essentials. Do you think I'll be disappointed in this respect?

Peter Hamby: I think you might. I'm so glad you brought that up. I've spent a lot of time focused on voters under 30, young millennials and Gen Z. Again, I write about that at Puck a lot. It's really my focus at Snapchat in my political show there. Any poll you read, any focus group, the cost of housing is the number one thing for young people. They want access to this economy and don't feel like they can get it.

We partnered at Snapchat with John Della Volpe, who runs the Harvard Youth Poll. He's probably the best pollster on youth public opinion. We did a poll with him at Snapchat and we just said, "Run wild John, do whatever you want. We want to know. We want to go deeper and scratch beneath the surface on what young people are thinking."

He asked a very interesting question, not about what the top issue is, but what's stressing you out and far and away, the thing that is causing the most stress for Gen Z registered voters is rent. It's rent. If you go up a little bit generationally and you get into the millennials, again, it's a cliche that we all want to own a house- [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Yes, inability to buy a house.

Peter Hamby: -like our parents. They could buy a house, getting a loan for a car, carrying debt on your credit card, those fees start to go up. If you're trying to buy a house in the year 2024 and your interest rates are 7%, that's a brutal monthly on your mortgage. That stuff doesn't get talked about a lot in the media and that gets to the delta, I think, between some of the elite media commentary we hear about Trump's trials and democracy and Hunter Biden and all these things that make it on the news versus what people who don't follow the news every day think about in Milwaukee- [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Yes, totally.

Peter Hamby: -and Arizona, et cetera.

Brian Lehrer: One more call. Michael in Red Hook. You're on WNYC. Hi Michael.

Michael: Hey. Hi. I told you a screener, I'm an undecided voter, torn between voting for President Biden and not voting. The main issue is-- there are a few, but is that, I just think it's grossly irresponsible of him to be running. He came in supposed to be a caretaker president. He should have spent the four years setting up a successor. Kamala Harris isn't that successor. I am very sorry to say.

Statistically speaking, American men don't usually live to be 86. He's probably going to die in office. It's the elephant in the room. Nobody will talk about this. I think he's cognitively okay, but he clearly has physical issues right now, and it makes me angry, because I think it's just irresponsible of him to be running.

Brian Lehrer: Trump's about as old Michael, right?

Michael: Yes. Oh, good, there's no question. I'm certainly not going to vote for Donald Trump. That's not the issue, but I'm angry at Biden for this. I am. He should have put us in a position to have- -someone else, to have a successor, and he hasn't done that.

Brian Lehrer: Michael, thank you very much. I guess Michael has thought through. We don't have to go there and we're running out of time. His answer to the obvious follow-up question, which would be, "Isn't a non-vote of vote for Trump, who you really don't want to see in office?" Maybe he feels he can do it because he is in New York State, where presumably it's not going to be contested. They are within single digits of each other, according to a couple of recent polls, but I know those are registered voter polls, not likely voter polls, meaning Trump probably does a little better in them than reality, but I don't know.

Peter, to finish up, how much do you think the name Kamala Harris or the name of the vice president running with Trump, vice presidential candidate running with Trump, if he names that person today, as some people think he's going to, is going to come up as a factor?

Peter Hamby: I don't think that much. I think Kamala Harris's unpopularity, it's there. I think it tracks pretty closely with President Biden. Neither of them are very popular. I interviewed Kamala Harris for my Snapchat show a few months ago in Arizona. I think she's actually, after some early stumbles that we can all admit, and even people in the White House admit that, has found her footing in going after voter subgroups that Biden needs. She was just in Atlanta, for example, doing an event around gun violence with Quavo, who is one of the most famous rappers alive

She, when I interviewed her, was in Arizona talking about abortion rights. Her poll numbers at various points in the last year among Gen Z and Millennials have actually-- her approval ratings have been higher than Biden's. I think we kind of underestimate her appeal a little bit with Black voters and women in particular. I don't think Trump is going to go after her. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Is her liability-- Oh, I'll let you finish that thought about, you don't think Trump is going to go after her. Is her liability just basically that Republicans will say, "Angry Black woman," and that will stick with some moderate white voters?

Peter Hamby: I think there are certainly elements of racism and sexism out there that Republicans have employed against her and will continue to. What I think about tonight though is that Donald Trump realizes Joe Biden's biggest liability is Joe Biden, and he is going to keep the focus on Joe Biden, on his job approval ratings, immigration and the economy. The flip side of that, of course, as I mentioned, Donald Trump's biggest liability, he's Donald Trump. I just don't think the running mates are going to be much of a factor in the debate.

I do think that Donald Trump could easily announce his running mate tomorrow, this weekend or next week if he wants to change the news cycle, because that's the main thing you get out of a vice presidential nominee, is you get swarming news coverage for a few days. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Right. So if he has a--

Peter Hamby: You might get a polling bump, but the polling bump, if there is one-- like States of The Union address-- is that how you say the plural, States of the Union? [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: I don't think so.

Peter Hamby: Typically, don't move the needle that much in polling. Biden got a modest bump this year. Debates can have a meaningful effect. They can swing five or three points, and in a race this close, that could be very consequential. The one thing I'll leave you with, Brian, we should pay attention to this debate tonight. There is a debate in September, ABC News is hosting, there's no guarantee that happens. Both of these men could pull out of it by the time that happens, so this might be the only debate.

Brian Lehrer: Wait, I've heard you say that now. I've heard your Puck colleague, John Hyman, say that. Under what circumstances do you think one of them would refuse to go through with that second debate?

Peter Hamby: It just depends on the political moment. It's a higher stakes time, closer to the election, after the conventions. If one of them sees more risk than reward in doing the debate, I don't think there's any-- ABC News can't take them to the Supreme Court. [laughs] I think it's more likely Donald Trump would be the one that chooses not to debate. I think Biden has to debate, given his political stature at the moment. People aren't sure about him, so he has to project strength. I think Donald Trump could pull out and think that he wouldn't face consequences in September. I'm not saying it's likely, but I'm just saying it's possible.

Brian Lehrer: Peter Hamby writes about the presidential race with a particular focus on Gen Z for Puck News. He also hosts their podcast called The Powers That Be, and a podcast for Snapchat called Good Luck America. Peter, thank you so much for joining us today. I'll be reading you.

Peter Hamby: Thank you, Brian.

 

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