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Tiffany Hansen: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Tiffany Hansen filling in for Brian today. Brian will be here, however, tonight for a two-hour special on the election and the media starting at eight o'clock. That is America, Are We Ready? Brian joined by Brooke Gladstone and Micah Loewinger from On the Media. That conversation happening at eight o'clock tonight. Today, however, we will talk with WNYC's lead Eric Adams reporter Elizabeth Kim, who will be here, as she always is, on Wednesdays to report on the mayor's weekly press conference, the only one where he takes questions from reporters on any topic.

Here's a spoiler alert. The reporters asked why the mayor refuses to join the chorus of Democrats who are comfortable calling Trump a fascist. We'll ask Liz about that. Plus, have you noticed how many food recalls are out there right now? McDonald's Quarter Pounders, some types of boar's head, deli meat. The Trader Joe's right around the corner from our office here has a very long list of products with precooked chicken posted by the registers that are now off limits. We'll talk about why this is happening and what you need to know. Plus, we'll wrap up the show today by asking you to call in to tell us what your book club is reading.

First, however, we're obviously less than a week away from the presidential election. I doubt that has failed to cross your radar. Candidates making their closing arguments to voters. Polls show a deeply divided electorate. There is much being said on all sides about what will happen if the other candidate wins. Plus, believe it or not, some voters are now just now tuning in to the political conversation in an effort to make an informed decision on Election Day.

With us to talk about the state of the race now six days out from election is Philip Bump, a national columnist for The Washington Post and the author of The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America. That book came out last year. Hi, Philip. Welcome back.

Philip Bump: Happy to be here.

Tiffany Hansen: All right, listeners, Philip and I would love to have you in on this conversation as well. Have you seen a shift in the way campaigns are approaching these final days of the election? Have you shifted your vote in response? In particular to our Puerto Rican listeners, we are going to talk about former President Trump's rally at Madison Square Garden. Did the comments about Puerto Rico made by a comedian at that rally sway you one way or the other? We'd love to hear from you. Call us. Text us 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC.

Philip, let's just start with that rally this past weekend on Sunday at Madison Square Garden. Did it really signal a final phase for the Trump campaign that we could take note of?

Philip Bump: I'm not sure if there was a dividing line before and after the rally beyond the comments that you just made, which I assume we're going to get into more. I think it was a distillation of the way in which the campaign has run. I think one of the things that was striking about it was that it was essentially a micro version of the entire Republican convention, which I think reinforces the extent to which the Garden rally was to a large extent, something that was focused on Donald Trump's psychology. Making him happy.

He clearly wanted to do this event because of this longstanding feeling that he has that perhaps Manhattan society wasn't as welcoming to him as it should have been coming from Queens and yada yada, yada. All these armchair psychiatrist interpretations we've had of Trump's actions over the years, which I think is undergirded by some very obvious manifestations. One of them is I want to have a big rally at Madison Square Garden because that is the apex of success as an entertainer in the city of New York. There's an aspect to that, but then just the fact that it was this re-encapsulation of what had occurred at the convention, which I think was the high watermark of his political career.

He was leading in the polls for really the first time by a substantial margin. He seemed as though his reelection was inevitable because he was at that point still running against President Biden. It really was the celebration of Trump, which of course Trump loves above all else. It was that, but then it was this very insular speaking within his own bubble event in which people just said the things that are said all the time on right-wing social media and in pro-Trump environments, except that it was broadcast to everyone. That's why it became a problem very quickly.

Tiffany Hansen: It was a little bit of the RNC, but also the RNC unchanged. Getting to those comments that I mentioned, there was a comedian, Tony Hinchcliffe, who made some extremely reprehensible comments about Puerto Rico and other comments, of course, which we're not going to repeat here. Just catch us up here. What have we heard from Trump about the comedian? I think he's fair to say distancing himself. He doesn't know who the guy is, right?

Philip Bump: Yes.

Tiffany Hansen: What else has he said about the comments to this point?

Philip Bump: I think the most detailed response he gave was last night in a conversation with Sean Handy on Fox News in which you said exactly what you just articulated. I don't know the guy. Which of course begs the question why is he at your rally? [laughs] How can you be so unfamiliar with him? That no one's ever done more for Puerto Rico and that the reason that people think that he doesn't like Puerto Rico is because of the media and yada, yada, yada. He has tried to do some distancing between himself and these comments.

I really think it's worth noting that to a large extent, had Hinchcliffe not said these things that attracted so much attention, particularly about Puerto Rico, we'd simply be talking about these slightly less egregious things said by everyone else, including by Donald Trump himself, who used the same rhetoric that he often uses about immigrants. The context for it and the proximity to the election, I think would really draw a lot of attention to what Trump himself had said instead of this focus instead on what Hinchcliffe has said.

It's not as though Hinchcliffe was an outlier. He was merely ahead of the curve, if you will, and attracted the most attention, which to some extent shielded everyone else from the same level of scrutiny.

Tiffany Hansen: It's curious to me. He was on Hannity last night. He, Former President Trump was on Hannity last night, distancing himself. That we didn't see that immediately. I guess maybe it shouldn't be surprising to me, but that we didn't see that distancing immediately. I do want to get to President Biden's comments a little bit later, but that came with an immediate clarification. I'm curious why. I guess it wasn't that long, but in the political sphere, it took a little while for the former president to distance himself from that.

Philip Bump: I think there are probably a couple of reasons. One is that he himself didn't say them, and so I think that he was granted a bit of a buffer space from his own supporters as a result of that. The other is that he just doesn't apologize for stuff. He's been running for president consistently since 2015, essentially, so nine years. The only time I can recall when he very quickly walked back something that he himself had said was in the aftermath of the Access Hollywood tape in October of 2016.

That was both because he was dead for rights. It was his own voice saying those awful things. It was also because he had not yet learned that he didn't have to apologize. He learned from that, in part, but over the course of his presidency, there was no need for him to walk things back. His support would still be there. He could still be as fervent and rude as he wanted to be, and that there was not really any value. All it did was show weakness, which is one of the things that he tries to avoid the most.

Tiffany Hansen: Issuing an apology is not really in his wheelhouse in general. I'd like to bring Andrew in Maplewood into the conversation. Good morning, Andrew.

Andrew: Hello. Good morning. How are you?

Tiffany Hansen: Good, thanks. You had something? Yes. Chime in for us.

Andrew: I'm second generation Ecuadorian, Puerto Rican, and Cuban, born and raised in New York City public schools, Queens College, Flushing, New York. It's interesting because my name is Dellatore and it's Ecuadorian, but many people think it's Italian. My children use the term white-passing. People think you're not Latino. You get to hear the most horrible, demeaning comments against Latinos and people of color when they don't think that you're Latin American, and things just basically people say and think when people aren't watching.

I just can't fathom how any Latino can support that candidate. I'm also a lieutenant colonel in the Army Medical Corps. I'm a military person. I support our troops. This is ridiculous. It has gotten to the point where people just are-- again, I don't want to sound-- I'm registered independent. I'm not a Democrat. I don't like the word liberal. I prefer the word progressive, but I find it just horribly insulting. I would urge any Latino out there to send a message. This is not tolerable.

Tiffany Hansen: Andrew, thank you. Philip, Andrew mentions the comments that he hears when people think other people aren't listening, but when you say those things on the stage of Madison Square Garden and it's obvious that thousands and thousands and millions of people are listening, that's a completely different kettle of fish, as they say.

Philip Bump: It is theoretically, but I think it's important to recognize first of all the extent to which Donald Trump and his supporters exist in a very closed-off bubble of conversation. It really is the case. There's a lot of criticism from Trump and others that the media and liberals live in a bubble. Fine, whatever you want to say about that, but it's obviously the case that they do. Elon Musk bought Twitter in part in order to help reinforce that bubble and has been very effective at it.

That you can believe, for example, the 2020 election was stolen, as most Republicans do, necessitates that you reject the reality because it simply wasn't, which reflects the fact that there is this closed-off universe of conversation. In that room on that night, that bubble existed. There's cameras there, but you're Tony Hinchcliffe who just says these obnoxious things all the time, anyway. That's one thing, but the other speakers who were saying disparaging things about Kamala Harris were saying disparaging things about Democrats, Trump, who was saying disparaging things about immigrants, along with Stephen Miller.

That's just a conversation to people who are cheering at everything you say. Donald Trump thrives on that. Part of what he loves about politics is going and saying things and having people clap at him. He loves it. This is one of the things that really motivates him. In that room, in that moment, you're not thinking about the cameras, you're just thinking about, I'm saying these things and people are eating it up and they're cheering for me and the energy is rising. Then you get into trouble. That's exactly what happened.

Tiffany Hansen: You get into trouble with Puerto Rican voters, I would assume. We've been thinking a little bit about Puerto Rican voters in Florida, but also Puerto Rican voters in places like Pennsylvania. We're seeing the fallout from this, aren't we?

Philip Bump: Yes, there are actually four swing states in which the margin in 2020 was smaller than the size of the Puerto Rican population, which is striking. In Pennsylvania in particular, there are areas of Pennsylvania, particularly around Philadelphia, where there are very large populations of people who were born in Puerto Rico. We always get into this dangerous territory when we start to assume we'll look at the population size versus vote totals. We don't know how many people voted in 2020. We don't know how many of them are already planning on voting for Kamala Harris in the first place, so it's hard to say.

This election, as you noted at the outset, is very much one that is on the edge of tipping one way or the other. It really is a coin-toss election in a way that we haven't seen. We know 2016 was close. We know 2020 was close in swing states. This election is really, really close in a way that is exceptional even by these standards of closeness. If you have someone making these comments and it spurs 1,000 more voters to come out and back Kamala Harris who were going to stay home otherwise, that could potentially make the difference.

It's that own goal that you really want to avoid as a campaign with seven days left before election, nine days as it happened to have been on Sunday, and yet here they are scoring on themselves.

Tiffany Hansen: It could make a difference in places like Florida that are deeply red, but also in Pennsylvania, that's where Trump was last night. Let's just take a listen to what he was saying last night in Allentown.

Trump: I'd like to begin with a very, very simple question. Are you better off now than you were four years ago? I'm here today with a message of hope for all Americans with your vote this election. Oh, do I look forward to this election? Do we look--

[cheering]

We, I'm going to say we because we're going to do it as a group. Look, Mr. Wall over here, he's the greatest guy. I want to buy one of those suits. We will end inflation. We will stop the invasion of criminals into our country, and we will bring back the American dream. We're doing it together, Pennsylvania.

Tiffany Hansen: Philip, we hear him double down as he has over and over and over about immigration and the invasion of criminals, as he puts it, into our country. I don't know. I would imagine that following all of this fallout from the Puerto Rican comments from Sunday's rally that he might tone it down a little bit on immigration. We don't hear that here at all.

Philip Bump: No. I think it's worth pointing out that Mr. Wall is a dude who wears a brick-covered suit to all of his rallies. That's what he's talking about there because people aren't aware. It's very bizarre. I'd love to see Trump in one of those suits, just for the record. He's not going to. He has made the bet that immigration and more broadly, hostility to foreign actors is going to be the thing that gets him reelected. He understands, I think it's safe to say, that his base of support is strong and solid, not going anywhere, that it's getting them out to vote that's going to make the difference. He's not going to convince anyone-- the guy's been running for elections since 2016 for nine years now.

There are very few people who don't understand who he is and what he stands for, and so it's not as though he's going to persuade a lot of people. I think that we can all agree. He's just trying to make sure that he reinforces to people why they've got to go out and cast a ballot. He is leaning into immigration, as he has over the past several months, in part because he thinks it is a weak spot for Harrison, in part because he thinks that it is a strong point of his own. He's going to keep saying it. I think that the extent to which people judge him on his rhetoric about immigration, I think it will be determinative in terms of what happens with the election.

I think it also is very indicative of what it is he actually plans to do should he be reelected.

Tiffany Hansen: Philip, let's bring Mary in the Bronx into the conversation. Good morning, Mary.

Mary: Hello. Good morning.

Tiffany Hansen: What do you have to add here?

Mary: I just wanted to share my story that I'm Puerto Rican. My whole family, we are all Puerto Rican. My grandfather served in the army for 30 years as an army sergeant from Puerto Rico. He served in the Korean War. He gave up so many years of his life. His five children, my mother included, were so distraught when we heard the comments that were made by that comedian and brought to complete tears. My mother called me just very, very upset the other day. Surprisingly, we still have family members on the other side of our family who are Trump supporters.

When they heard the comment, and my father asked some of my cousins and all that, "What do you even think of that?" Their excuse is, "Oh, well, it's not Trump saying that." It's just unbelievable to me.

Tiffany Hansen: Thanks, Mary. Philip, I have a couple of questions here. One is that we don't tend to see a lot of movement after these explosive incidents with the former president and those in his orbit. We don't see a lot of movement among his most staunch supporters that Mary was talking about in her own family. Then also it gets at a question that has long plagued me, which is voters who vote against their own self-interest. If you could tackle both of those.

Philip Bump: Sure. I'll do so quickly. No, I think that you're right. I think that when we talk about, let's start with the self-interest point, it's hard from the outside to evaluate what's in someone's self-interest. It seems obvious to us where I'm not-

Tiffany Hansen: Good point.

Philip Bump: -someone of Puerto Rican decent but one of the things that I think is driving this election are macro international trends, which is that there was the pandemic. The pandemic faded. I wouldn't say it ended entirely, obviously, but it faded and we got back to some semblance of normal. Then inflation spiked because there had been the shocks to the system and inflation spiked everywhere. We see a lot of incumbents have extremely low approval ratings apart because inflation spiked everywhere. We see a lot of incumbent parties getting kicked out of power internationally as a result.

I think that that dynamic exists here and I think is under-recognized in terms of why some of these things that occur that seem very striking and shocking don't necessarily move the needle much. It's because there are these much broader macro trends that are playing a role here. To go to the point very specifically, it's just people value different things, and yes, it is absolutely the case that a lot of Trump supporters hold misguided and false beliefs about how the world works. That's absolutely true. I'll stand by that. I'm not saying that of everyone, but it's absolutely true.

You can't have a population that believes the 2020 election was illegitimate if they are not being misinformed or believe false things. Those two things cannot exist side by side. That said, there are things that are more important to some people. There are lots of people who do not like Donald Trump's rhetoric about immigrants, but who really feel as though he would do a better job in the economy. For them, that's their self-interest. Their self-interest is prices are high, and I think that Donald Trump's going to bring them down.

Now economists can come and have a debate about whether or not that's the case, and the inflationary effects of tariffs, and so on and so forth. That is a different question than I expect people who belong to a particular demographic group to vote in a particular way. You mentioned in my book earlier, one of the things I found as I researched the book is I looked at how the projections for what the population will look like in 2060 compared to state populations today.

The state that I found that looked the most like what America-- the Census Bureau thought the population would look like in 2060 a much more diverse population and a much older population, the state that looked the most like that was Florida. Florida is not this bastion of liberalism. It is a Republican state and it seems to be trending more Republican. It's a reminder that it is also not the case that demographic trends which lead to a more diverse population are themselves favorable to Democratic candidates.

Tiffany Hansen: Just to state the obvious here, we heard from Mary, Mary was very emotional. This brings up all kinds of emotions for people. We are six days out and this is hard for a lot of people.

Philip Bump: I don't think anyone would say that this isn't an incredibly consequential election. Every election cycle and I actually did a piece on this a couple of years ago looking at how in the past every four years, basically, you get someone writing this is the most important election of our lifetimes. That rhetoric is used by campaigns in part because they need to fundraise and get people engaged. This is an incredibly consequential election. The visions that have been articulated by the candidates are very dramatically opposed and differentiated in a way that isn't always the case and have very real potential negative outcomes for a lot of people who live in the United States.

I think that that leads to an increased tension and insecurity among people very naturally and understandably. This is one manifestation of that.

Tiffany Hansen: Philip, we do need to take a break here. I do want to hear from-- we have a Trump supporter on the phone with us. We'll get to that after our break. Also, listeners, we will be talking about Vice President Harris's rally last night in Washington, DC. We do have that on the docket of things to talk about, Philip. We are going to take a quick break. We are talking about the presidential election six days away. Voters in New York and New Jersey already early voting, but surprisingly many, many people still undecided, still just tuning in now to the campaign. We're going to talk with Philip about polls as well. Lots more to cover.

We'd love to hear your thoughts, so make sure you can text us, call us, 212-433-9692, and we'll get back to it with Philip here in just a minute. Stay with us. We'll be right back.

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It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Tiffany Hansen in for Bryan today, and we are talking with Philip Bump, a national columnist for The Washington Post about the election that is six days away. We've started here with the former president's rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday and the fallout from that. Philip, I said we were going to talk with a Trump supporter here, so let's just do that. Danny in Massapequa. Good morning, Danny.

Danny: Good morning. I'm the official Trump fan of the Michael Lehrer Show. I call up time to time just to give a reasonable opposing point of view. As I tell Brian, I'm going to be 60 years old. I raised four kids in Long Island. I was lieutenant in the police department. All my children are raised and have wonderful children and going on in life. This morning I woke up to find out that I was called a piece of garbage by the sitting president of the United States. I think a lot of people in this country have had enough. You're talking about white men, let's be honest, that's who he was talking about.

If he said that, like the comedian who should never have said that, it was a horrible joke. Why he was even there is the bigger question. I just viewed some of that guy's previous work. He's like Don Rickles, but very vulgar and stupid. You can say that now. You can be the president of the United States, and you can call people deplorable or garbage because you're talking about white people. As if my relatives who were second generation Italian didn't contribute, didn't work hard, didn't live the American dream, never broke the law. We're allowed to be spoken to in that manner.

We've had enough. This morning I ordered 300 gallons of oil. It cost me exactly $700 more than it did four years ago. That's just the first fill-up. I paid $50 for gas today when I usually paid 30. If you multiply these costs to a family that makes $120,000 a year, that's thousands upon thousands of take-home pay dollars. Yes, I am not as well off as I was four years ago. I see things that are going on in this country as a father that I disagree with. It was one comment. It wasn't comments about Puerto Rican people. The man who wrote the book said Trump's constantly talking about immigrants. No, he's talking about illegal immigrants and people who have come to the country illegally.

That is a major difference. I spent my career in law enforcement. If anyone has a problem or doesn't know what's going on in this country, I have two sons who work in communities that are overrun with these problems. The citizens who are paying the taxes are demanding, and those are people of color, by the way, are demanding action, that their schools are being overrun, the hospitals are being overrun. I can give anyone who wants [crosstalk]

Tiffany Hansen: Danny, hold on, I'm going to stop you there. I know you brought up a lot of points and we want to get to some of them. I want Philip to respond. Philip, first let's clarify a few things that Danny was talking about there. He was referring to the deplorables comment. That was Hillary Clinton, 2016, correct me if I'm wrong, something at a fundraiser, she was quoted saying a basket of deplorables, referring to the former president's supporters. Then the comment that President Biden made using the term garbage.

I mentioned that earlier in terms of how quickly he came out and posted on social media and how quickly the White House responded to that. Let's have listeners just hear exactly what the President said first before we talk about it.

President Biden: They're good, decent, honorable people. The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters. His demonization is unconscionable and it's un-American.

Tiffany Hansen: One could see where the comparison could come from. However, I think if you read between the lines there a little bit, I might assume that President Biden is talking about specifically the comedian. What's your interpretation here?

Philip Bump: I think that this is very interesting and telling. I think that the caller's response to that is very telling. Look, the president misspeaks. That's one of the reasons he's not the Democratic candidate anymore. Hillary Clinton's deplorable thing, she was talking about half of his supporters. There are all these nuances to it. The White House is saying that he was referring to Stinchcliffe, the comedian that his supporters, a supporter, apostrophe S. That sort of thing doesn't matter. What matters is the response that we just heard from Trump supporters, which is, I feel as though these elites are mocking me.

That's the thing, and specifically this white grievance that we just heard, that it's white people are allowed to be made fun of. This is perhaps the central element to Donald Trump's appeal and has been for nine years. Back in 2016, we did polling that looked at what was a better indicator of Donald Trump's support in a Republican primary. Was it this sense of white grievance, or was it the economic insecurity? It was white grievance. That was a bigger driver among Republicans of whether they're going to support Donald Trump. Donald Trump has leaned into this. He has leaned into this idea that white America particularly is under threat.

When we talk about-- the caller also said he's not talking about immigrants, he's talking about illegal immigrants. No, he's not. He said that the people who are in Springfield, Ohio, who are Haitian immigrants, who are here legally should be deported. They're here legally because Haiti is a mess. There are real problems in Haiti, which is why immigrants are coming to the United States and offered protection by the American government, but Donald Trump says they need to be deported. He always says, as the caller did, they are putting a strain on the local community, which is fair. That has been a complaint from the community, even predating all of this discussion.

The response, then, if you are someone who actually feels as though these are people who deserve to have a better life here in the United States is okay, then let's find them other places where they can live and reduce that strain, but that's not what Donald Trump says. He says these legal immigrants should be deported from the United States because his approach to this is punitive, that the United States is under threat, that white Americans in particular are under threat from these immigrants. He himself has said that immigrants are okay from countries that are predominantly white, like Scandinavian countries.

This is his presentation of the immigration issue. When we hear someone like the caller say, "Oh, why are they calling me garbage?" If this swings two votes across the country, I'd be stunned. What it does is it gives another peg for people who already feel aggrieved and who are responding to Donald Trump's heightening of that grievance, it gives them another chance to say, "Aha, see, I told you. The elites are out to get me. The elites are out to get us. That's why I have been and will continue to vote for Donald Trump."

Tiffany Hansen: Are they going to vote?

Philip Bump: that's the issue. This is what goes back to the question of turnout that we talked about before. Yes, the gentleman who just called, 100% absolutely is going to vote. I'm sure he'd be happy to call back and confirm that, yes, he's going to vote. One of the things that has flummoxed pollsters, honestly, in 2016 and 2020 is the extent to which Donald Trump has been able to get people who are loosely connected to the political system to come out and actually vote. That he has been able to get people who normally are like, "The elites are ruining America. I'm not even going to bother voting because it's all rigged."

He's managed to get them to vote anyway in a way that in 2016 and 2020 wasn't captured well by polling and may be the case again this year. It's hard to say because definitionally, these are people who are only loosely attached to the political system, but that's what Donald Trump has been good at. That's what has made him successful. I think that we just heard a representation of why that's the case.

Tiffany Hansen: Let's talk a little bit about gender here because we hear that the former president's base of support is among cisgender males largely and that that vote will be critical for him in the same way that women voters will be critical for the vice president. I'm just curious how we see that appeal to his male voter base of support actually turning into votes. We look at, for example, his appearance on Joe Rogan, which was largely not fact-checked. Appealing to young men who may or may not support the former president. If they swayed anyone to support Trump, did it even take that next step and convince them to then go out to the polls?

Philip Bump: You raise a good point that adds the nuance to what I was just saying, which is he also, this election in particular is trying to appeal to a group of people who are skeptical of the political system to actually come out and support him. This is a particular Hobby horse of mine, so if you'll indulge me for a second, but one of the things that makes the difference in close races is whether or not you have people in swing states who are going out and ensuring that voters actually go out and vote. Giving them the tools they need to do so, checking in with them, calling them, knocking on the door, saying, "You got to go vote, it's election day," et cetera, et cetera.

One of the things that was striking to me, both of the past two election cycles, I've been in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the weekend before the election, gauging that. Are the campaigns doing what they need to, to turn out these voters who might not otherwise vote? In 2016, Trump absolutely was and Clinton absolutely wasn't. In 2020, Trump absolutely wasn't and Biden absolutely was. Now, this is anecdotes, and we shouldn't read a lot into anecdotes but is the Trump campaign going to have an operation that follows up with that A, collects information from these voters, then B, follows up with them and encourages them, make sure they know where to vote?

One of the challenges from being someone who's only loosely attached to the political system is maybe you get the mailer, but you don't know where to vote and you don't know how to do it, and yada, yada, yada. That's one of the roles that a campaign can play. Okay, here's exactly what you do. Here's when you do it, and here's how you do it. Is the Trump campaign going to be doing that? I'm not confident that they will. One of the changes they made this year is really putting an emphasis on poll watching, having people sit there and make sure no illegal voters are voting, which I think people who pay a lot of attention to elections will say is a total waste of time because there just isn't fraud.

It just doesn't occur at the scale particularly that Donald Trump says. Instead, then they are letting outside groups like Turning Point USA do the actual turnout of voters. I just think that's potentially a recipe for disaster, particularly when you're so focused on a group of voters who don't vote anyway.

Tiffany Hansen: Philip, I said we would pivot here to Vice President Harris. So this seems like a good spot to do that. She spoke last night in Washington, DC. You tell us what the significance is first of where she was.

Philip Bump: She was speaking on the Ellipse outside of the White House and it was obviously a very pointed choice. That is where Donald Trump spoke on the morning of January 6th, 2021, before the ride at the Capitol. I actually just have a piece that's about to go up at The Washington Post, which looks at the contrast here. She was speaking on a warm DC evening, he was speaking on a cold January morning. She's a Black Democratic woman, he's a white Republican man. There are contrasts throughout this speech, but there was one consistency, and that consistency was both of the speeches were about Donald Trump.

Donald Trump's speech on January 6th, 2021, was about how the election was stolen and about how yada yada. That's the third time I've said yada, yada, yada.

[laughter]

Tiffany Hansen: List of grievances.

Philip Bump: I'd say it's WNYC.

Tiffany Hansen: A list of grievances.

Philip Bump: Right, exactly. We know what he said. Then he literally culminated that speech with, "We're going to march down Pennsylvania Avenue." Harris's speech, Donald and Trump were two of the words she said the most over the course of the speech, but it was focused on that contrast that essentially four years ago, Donald Trump said from this very place, here's what we're going to do and here's why we need to do it as a response to the 2020 election.

While there's been a lot of feedback from her supporters and from advisors and so on and so forth that she really needs to be focusing more on economy and issues like that, this was, I think, the culmination of, and I think probably an effective one, of the broader argument about the difference between herself and Donald Trump as presidents. She's come up with this line which I think is probably also fairly effective, which is that Donald Trump will come to the White House with an enemy's list where she'll come with a to-do list, which bridges that gap between the focus on Donald Trump's proto authoritarian tendencies and her own plans for what she wants to do should she become president.

Again, though, this is a game of inches at this point in time. Whether that inspires people to come out and vote, I guess we'll just have to see.

Tiffany Hansen: to that point, Philip, take a listen to what Harris actually said last night.

Harris: Unlike Donald Trump, I don't believe people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I'll give them a seat at the table.

[applause]

I pledge to you to approach my work with the joy and optimism that comes from making a difference in people's lives. I pledge to be a president for all Americans-

[cheering]

-and to always put country above party and self.

[cheering]

Tiffany Hansen: Philip, there's that word joy again. Does joy get us to the polls? That's a question mark. My other question for you is, is this really a closing argument? That's how the campaign built it, as here's Harris's closing argument. The lawyer comes in to make-- the prosecutor comes in to make her closing argument. Is that how you would characterize that?

Philip Bump: I think that both the MSG rally and that speech, the campaigns are using closing argument because they think it will attract more attention. They say, "This is it. You got to watch, everyone tune in. This is her closing argument," because they just want to make sure they get as many people as possible. I think that when we talk about Harris's appeal to Joy and those sorts of things, part of what she's doing is she is leveraging an evolved argument that Joe Biden used in 2020, which is, wouldn't it be nice to not have to think about the president?

That didn't work out very well for Biden because inflation spiked and gas prices spiked and so on, so forth, and so everyone was thinking about it and the withdrawal from Afghanistan. There were all these moments at which in general, obviously, you can never completely forget about the president because the president has a very important job. There were also these points at which Biden became very tied up in things that weren't very popular, which then led to a decline in his own popularity. It didn't really work out for him, but that's what Harris is responding to.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a president who's sitting in the White House and is optimistic and cheery and thoughtful and looking ahead? Which, of course, Trump supporters will say that's not her. She can't claim to being those things, but that's the presentation she's making, and it's very easy. At the very least, I think most Americans would agree that in a competition between Donald Trump and pretty much anyone, it's easy for anyone to be the more optimistic person.

Tiffany Hansen: Let's bring another of our listeners into the conversation, Philip. Let's go to Artie in Queens. Good morning, Artie.

Artie: Good morning, and thank you for taking my call, I guess, to follow the fellow who spoke a little earlier, I'm a Black male in my 60s, and some of it, what I saw, the way I took it was the whole thing was grievous. It was all about how we feel and how we've been treated. I also saw it as a bunch of guys who are around my age who pretty much would like to go back to the good old days when they were children sitting around watching the riflemen and gun smoke with mom and dad and never having to-- that's life when it was good. I guess that's what they mean when they say let's go make America great again.

The things I picked up on the comic was a comic that does the deus. He rose people. You get what you get. The thing that really got me was the comment that no one had mentioned, and that is when one of the guys turned around and made-- because it was all guys, got up and made the comment of Harris and her pimp handlers. I saw that, and I thought to myself, how in the hell do you think Melania, Nikki Haley, Ms. Harris herself, but every woman in this country who watched that, how do you think they took that? Because I know how I took it. Tucker Carlson with his daddy's coming home and daddy's gonna give you a spanking.

I'm thinking, in other words, you've seen every Playboy magazine, I guess I can think of throughout childhood on the way up. She called it, Nikki Haley a bromance. It was like the Women's Haters Club from the Little Rascals or something. It was like that. I looked at the whole thing, and I just thought, "Guys, this is your message, and between you and your sneakers for Black people," and I am Black, and I saw that whole thing as a Saturday Night Live sketch with the sneakers and Blacks are into me because of my mugshot. I'm like, "If that's all it took, we would have elected Sinatra and Bob Mitchum back in the '50s." It's just the whole thing is ridiculous.

Tiffany Hansen: Artie, we appreciate the comments. Thanks for calling in. Philip, I think what we're hearing Artie articulate there among other things, is that divide, again, between appealing and not appealing to women voters and men voters. That rally was not a rally that was geared toward, I would argue, female voters. Yes, no, maybe so?

Philip Bump: I think that there are a lot of women who support Donald Trump and see him in the way that he argues he is, which is that he's just brash and says stuff. Look, going back to the self-interest comment that we're making for, there are a lot of women that just simply agree with Donald Trump politically and may not like what he says and how he says it or may like what he says and how he says it and that. That's just how it is. Yes, I think you're right that the rally was very clearly not one that was trying to woo suburban women who have yet to make up their minds.

In part because Donald Trump's approach has always been to maximize turnout among his supporters rather than trying to woo moderates, but in part because this campaign is very heavily focused on men versus women when we look at how Donald Trump is approaching it. Part of that is because of the Dobbs decision, the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, and the saliency of abortion as an issue. Part of it is because he's running against a woman and he wants to, to the extent that he can accentuate sexism in the electorate so that he can potentially gain votes or have potential Harris supporters stay home.

I think part of it is just that he likes the idea of himself as this brash, alpha guy, and he exists in this increasingly insular communication space and media space where that's celebrated. You have people like Tucker Carlson who have this very bizarre, outdated, weird, reactionary view of gender that look, I'm just going to throw out that Tucker Carlson's mom left his family when he was very little. There may be some issues that he's working out in front of a microphone at a Trump rally. This has become a defining feature of this race, this men against women.

We're seeing a gender divide that is unlike ones we've seen in the past. One thing that's worth noting, for all the commentary, every time the New York Times does a poll, there's all this, "Oh, look at how the support for the Democratic candidate has eroded among people of color, Black voters, and Hispanic voters." White women are actually more supportive of Kamala Harris than they were of Joe Biden four years ago and make up a much larger percentage of the electorate. One of the reasons the race is close is that while there has been that erosion, according to polls, she has also gained because of this dynamic that we're discussing.

Tiffany Hansen: All right, Philip, before I let you go, I can't let you leave without asking you about your newspaper's decision not to endorse a presidential candidate. By all accounts, the paper has lost some 200,000 subscribers. Reporters have left. Just your thoughts, and then also, do these endorsements really matter?

Philip Bump: Sure. He says with a heavy sigh. Look, the people, I think, understand that there are two separate divisions at the paper, or there's the opinion side and there's the side that does the news reporting. I sit on the news reporting side, although I'm a columnist, which means I have a slightly different role than do other people. I'm not going to speak to the decision that was made there. I think that obviously, everyone on the news side wishes that people didn't feel as though this was something that was worth giving up their subscription for.

Do I think that endorsements really matter? No. Do I think that's fundamentally what the issue is here also? Also no. We have a duty as people who are journalists to do everything we can to inform people about what is happening in the world as fairly as we can. I'd like to think that I do that, and I know that my colleagues do it. If there are moments in which we lose the trust of readers, then there's very little we can do besides do our best to earn it back. At the end of the day, The Washington Post is an institution that has survived for a very long time, and I'm confident in it. My dog, apparently, in the background, is all also confident in it.

All we can do is press forward and be honest and say what's happening in the world and hope that that holds value for Americans.

Tiffany Hansen: The Washington Post, owned by Jeff Bezos. The Los Angeles Times, which is a paper that also declined in endorsement. Also, a paper owned by a billionaire. I'm just curious what you think this might say about what billionaires are having influence over in terms of what we read and what we don't read.

Philip Bump: Sure. Again, I apologize. I don't know what my dog is doing. He's just hollowing at the back

Tiffany Hansen: Oh, it's fine.

Philip Bump: I don't know if you can hear that.

Tiffany Hansen: A supporter of the show. We love it.

Philip Bump: That's it. He wants to weigh in. That's the real issue. Look, billionaires have an outsized influence over American society. Donald Trump's a billionaire. Elon Musk is a billionaire who's investing a lot of money in trying to make sure that Donald Trump gets elected. Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post. I'm not going to sit here and speak ill of him as a result but this is something that I think American society is still trying to grapple with. I think that one of the things that comes up and is reflected for all those people is it's really hard to understand the scale of a billion dollars.

When I was looking at Elon Musk's investments in the campaign, when we talk about him giving away $1 million a day potentially to voters to try and encourage people to cast a ballot or whatever the mechanism is that's at play here, he can do that for more than 250,0000 days. That's insane. I would be hard-pressed to save up enough money over my lifetime to give someone a million dollars, but he can just do it in a blink of an eye. If he gets fined or has to hire lawyers to defend that action, it's not at all a concern to him.

I think that we in general are bad at scale as human beings. Look, we evolved from little creatures that didn't need to do much more than count to 10, and now we're having to grapple with these numbers that are simply incomprehensible in a practical sense, and the influence that those numbers can have. I think this is something we're to be grappling with for years to come.

Tiffany Hansen: Philip Bump is a national columnist for The Washington Post and the author of the book, The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America. Philip, thanks for joining us. We sure do appreciate it.

Philip Bump: Of course. Thank you.

 

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