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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC, as our election coverage continues and everybody be patient. As predicted from the start, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania will likely determine the election and they are states that didn't even start counting absentee ballots until Election Day, and human beings have to do this by hand. Arizona is likely a Biden state now, and Georgia is also still very much in play. Biden also won a key congressional district in Nebraska that has an electoral votes, they split them up by congressional district in that state, and in Maine, the Maine one is too close to call.

Even if not Pennsylvania, it could go either way. Word one for me this morning is, Biden seems to have underperformed his polls and underperformed the most bullish expectations, but this is not 2016. It's not anything at this point, except what it is, which is a partial result. Gabe Debenedetti is with us, a national correspondent for New York Magazine. Good morning, Gabe, I hope you got some sleep. I think I saw about a five or six-hour gap in your Twitter feed, maybe you got a little nap in there?

Gabriel Debenedetti: That reflects more caution on Twitter than actual sleep, I have to say, but there was a little bit in there.

Brian: Where do you begin to assess where the presidential race is?

Gabriel: Well, at the top level here, the Biden campaign is obviously feeling a lot better this morning. I say obviously, it shouldn't necessarily be that obvious, but they feel better this morning than they did a few hours ago. Largely because as more votes have come in, he's leading in states that would get him to 270 electoral votes. As you said, this is not what people wanted a lot of these numbers to look like on the Democratic side, a lot of folks were hoping for a resounding victory early yesterday evening, but a number of Democrats I've talked to, didn't think that was really realistic.

They certainly started to feel that way after the numbers in Florida, which was a big disappointment for Joe Biden came in. All of that said, even a lot of Republicans who are commenting on this not with a lot of confidence, are essentially saying that these numbers remind them a lot of the 2018 midterms, which really should not be that much of a surprise. We often have analyzed this race as if 2018 midterms didn't happen, but in those midterms, Republicans went out to an early lead in a lot of states, especially across the upper Midwest. Then, as more numbers came in, across Democratic metro areas, Democrats over-performed.

It looks like that's happening in Michigan and Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, and that, obviously, would be enough for Biden to win the presidency on top of Arizona, where it looks like he's leading. We still don't know what's happening in Georgia. Even if North Carolina as we have, or as many have expected, does go to Trump though, that is also too close to call.

Brian: For weeks, just to emphasize your point, analysts were predicting what they call a red mirage, meaning the day of votes, the Election Day votes would be counted first, and show Trump ahead. Then, the larger number of votes, actually more votes that were mailed in, in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, would start to be counted, and likely take those states blue. Why is that taking so long, and what kind of a timeline are you looking at?

Gabriel: Well, in some states, particularly in the states in the upper Midwest, this was the plan all along, largely because local Republican legislators refused to change the laws, such that these large number of votes which were cast either absentee or by mail or early, because of the pandemic, in many cases, they didn't want the rules changed so that those roads could be counted before Election Day. In many of these states, the states only started counting these votes now. That said, Michigan has been fairly quick about a lot of this, relatively speaking, Wisconsin as well, we may get results in those states today, perhaps even this morning, though, I don't want to predict that.

Pennsylvania, though, is the one that the Trump campaign certainly is still waiting on, with bated breath. They think that that's really their best shot here, and it's always been fairly central to both campaigns' path, though the Biden team does not need it, they will quickly point out. Pennsylvania might last until Friday in their vote count, and obviously when you have the President trying to cast doubt on the legitimacy of a lot of these votes, it's entirely possible. Although he's doing this baselessly, we should point out, it's entirely possible that this is going to be the subject of quite a bit of legal wrangling, though we still don't know what the shape of that would be.

Brian: Right, and listeners, we will have a legal wrangling segment explicitly later in the show, and look at what is already and might be coming in court as the counting goes on, and challenges to the counting go on, or likely to go on. Another program note, we are expecting a news conference from the governor and secretary of state of Pennsylvania later this hour, we will take that if it's available to us, and that's probably going to be in about 25 minutes, we are told. We will hear what Governor Casey of Pennsylvania has to say.

We can take your questions for any of our guests, as we go along for our two hours this morning. First here is-- Tom Wolf. I'm sorry, Tom Wolf, the governor of Pennsylvania. Living in the past. We can take your calls with your questions about any of the results, or anything you want to say. 646-435-7280 right now for Gabe Debenedetti, national correspondent for New York Magazine, or you can tweet a question or a thought @BrianLehrer.

Let's talk about Sun Belt states where, there were the longest shots for Biden, but hopes were raised in the last week or so before the election. Florida and Texas stayed red. Then, we get to the other Sun Belt states of Georgia, still in play still being counted. Like we said, North Carolina, probably going Trump at this point, but not official and Arizona. Arizona is being called for Biden by the AP, but not by every news organization. If Biden does win there, it would be the first democratic win for president there, since Harry Truman in 1948. North Carolina and Georgia, are still being counted, as I said.

Nevada, a presumed blue state is too close to call. Last I saw this morning, a Sun Belt state or Western state if you prefer, that could potentially go for Trump. We'll get back to the big three Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, with the counting in progress. Gabe, we have to say first about what is known, that the Democrats underperformed their most optimistic scenarios. What happened in those terms?

Gabriel: Sure, there's no doubt about that. Even though the analysis that I offered a few minutes ago on the Democratic side seems sort of sunny, it is important that we note that in a lot of these states, they really just did not live up to these pie-in-the-sky projections that some folks had about an early call last night, that would have relied on Florida, Georgia, North Carolina going Biden's way. Even one of those would have made his path a lot clearer.

Now Georgia, it does seem actually might be very, very close. It has been getting a lot closer. Arizona, as you mentioned, has been called for Biden and just to offer a quick correction. Bill Clinton did win Arizona in 1996, but it has a very, very strong republican leaning in the past, and it's just been moving towards democrats over time. What happened in Florida, since that's the really big story here, because it's such a big electoral prize and because a lot of Biden folks thought that they really had a shot here, was that he underperformed quite remarkably in Miami-Dade County, which is obviously a huge population center.

Largely, it looks as if Trump over-performed with Latino voters there, especially Cuban American voters. Now, what happened last night was that a lot of people took that and started to-- A lot of Democrats started to get very nervous, assuming that those numbers with the South Florida Latino population would apply in places like Arizona, and places like Texas. The reality is that Cuban American voters are much more conservative traditionally than a lot of other Latino voters, and that analysis really did not carry over.

That said, Trump did over-perform as he has in the past with white voters as well, particularly non-college-degree white voters. That's really the tale of the tape here. One of the reasons that Democrats have been putting so much stock, not only in Arizona, but Georgia in Senate races as well. That also goes to North Carolina, looks certainly like the Republican Senator in North Carolina, Tom Tillis is going to hang on, which is sort of a surprise.

In Georgia, we may be heading to two run-offs in Senate races, but certainly one, and it may be possible that control of the Senate comes down to those run-offs, which won't happen until early January. The other piece of that, of course, is Arizona where a Democrat Mark Kelly did pick up a Senate seat from a Republican. While the Sun Belt is not looking as sunny as a lot of Democrats hoped early on, it is a long-term story for them, still clearly moving in their direction.

Brian: Right. We learn again, and The Takeaway was just doing a good segment on this for those of you were listening on AM 820 before this show, that Latinos are diverse, yes. Mexican Americans and Cuban Americans may have diverged more sharply than in the past with Arizona going for Biden, apparently, largely because of the growth in Mexican American populations and Cuban Americans staying so solidly for Trump in the state of Florida.

Let's linger on that Florida result for just another minute, Gabe. In Miami-Dade, as you say, Trump did very well. One stat that I've seen on multiple news organizations sites this morning that really jumps out is that Hillary Clinton won-- Now tell me if I'm getting this exactly right. Hillary Clinton won Miami-Dade by 30 points. Joe Biden won it in single digits, 7 points, 8 points, 9points. Do you have that?

Gabriel: I don't know if those that's exactly right, but that does track basically with what I was seeing last night and looking at this morning. I don't want to give an exact number, that's basically tracks, yes.

Brian: In that case, and that's one county in America, but in that case, not only did Joe Biden not do better enough than Hillary Clinton, he did much worse than Hillary Clinton.

Gabriel: Indeed. Now we saw the opposite in a lot of suburban areas all around the country. We can get to that later. In that one case, the reason that this is so relevant is that Florida of course has a massive electoral prize. It would have been extremely difficult for Donald Trump to really have a shot if he hadn't taken Florida, his adopted home. Again, it looks like according to the early results that we've seen or the early exit polls, which obviously have some questions about them, it looks like this is in large part, as we said before, because of the Cuban American vote.

Now, there are also two Democratic House seats in this area that flipped from Democratic to Republican, and that is a reverse of what happened in 2018. Republicans have a lot to cheer here. One of the big debates that Democrats have long head, especially after the 2018 mid-terms, was whether they should really be trying to compete in Florida and Ohio. A lot of Democrats said, "Well these are both still toss-up states. They're not red."

Again, now we have a case where Florida Republicans are looking very strong and the Democratic path for Florida is not entirely clear if they continue to lose ground among these Cuban American voters in Florida. What happened there is that Donald Trump and his Republican Party spent years trying to paint Democrats as socialists, as communists. Obviously, we should say, Joe Biden is not as socialist or communist, but this messaging really came through to people in the Cuban diaspora.

Brian: Georgia, two big counties in the Atlanta area are still coming in, the last I looked. Maybe you have some updated stats with Trump leading in the state by about 100,000 votes a little while ago, but the number of Atlanta area votes still out and the percentage that Biden is likely to win that area by, as those votes come in, both being very big, he could still win Georgia. How do you assess that?

Gabriel: That's exactly right. I think, in particular, we should look at DeKalb County in Atlanta, in and around Atlanta and Fulton County, which is more counted. There's still a lot out in DeKalb of votes that we're likely still to see. Biden is winning that. I'm looking at numbers here from 80% of estimated votes being reported, Biden was winning that by roughly 85 to 15 margin, which is pretty enormous and there's still a lot of votes to be counted. That is in and around the Atlanta area.

It's an area that, for example, Stacey Abrams, who ran for governor in Georgia in 2018 focused a lot of organizing effort on, they've been trying to register a lot of new voters there. Georgia is another traditionally, very Republican, very conservative state, but there's been a big push among Democrats to register a lot of Black voters there and to really get a new coalition together.

I'm not hearing all the confidence in the world from Democrats on Georgia this morning, but at the same time, a lot of them do feel somewhat good about it. This is something that we shouldn't really be surprised by it, we have to say because the 2018 race there was so close, but also we knew that Biden was feeling good about it because he dispatched president Obama to Atlanta on Monday the last day before voting and you don't send your best surrogate to a place where you don't think you have a real shot.

The Biden campaign would hasten to say this morning that they don't need Georgia on their side but of course there are two competitive Senate races there held by Republicans that the Democrats are trying to win as well. This one is really, really close. There's still some votes still to come in, roughly 8% of the expected votes, although we don't know the exact number yet. The Atlanta area is really going to be the story of Georgia, even as Trump did have very strong showings in a lot of the rural heavily white areas outside of Atlanta and any of the rest of the state.

Brian: Let's take a phone call. [unintelligible 00:15:35] in Chapel Hill. You're on WNYC. Hi, [unintelligible 00:15:39]. Thanks for calling in.

Caller 1: Hi. Yes. I had a question about the-- You mentioned the Latino and Black vote for Trump was fairly high in Florida, I understand why Cubans would vote for Trump and I also heard some African American voters talking about who were pro-life and that's why they were supporting Trump, but I'm still puzzled because he's so incredibly racist and his rhetoric is so racist. I just don't understand how he's been able to court the Black and Latino vote other than Cubans, thank you.

Brian: [unintelligible 00:16:21], thank you very much. Why don't we ask for some Black listeners who voted for Donald Trump to call in and tell us why? 646-435-7280, among all our callers you obviously can be in the mix. 646-435-7280. If anybody wants to personally answer [unintelligible 00:16:44] in Chapel Hills question 646-435-7280. Of course, anyone may continue to call as well. Again, I heard a vague number on, I'm losing track of what news organization, Gabe, but that Trump did worse this time with white men, but better this time with Black and Latino men, is that a known thing?

Gabriel: I'm not sure about the top-line, but that tracks roughly with some expectations and the numbers, particularly among Black and Latino men do seem to follow that pattern. We should point out here that there are two sides of this. With white men, Donald Trump lost a lot of grounds in the suburbs over the last few years particularly with white college-educated men but again, this is not in every case.

The other side of this story though, is that the Trump campaign has spent years specifically targeting Black and Latino voters with a very targeted "Economic. Jobs" message. In some cases, these are more socially conservative voters but, of course, they didn't think that they were going to win these voters. Their goal was always just to cut down Democratic margins. It worked in Florida and the Trump campaign certainly has a lot to celebrate on that front.

Brian: Let's talk about Wisconsin for a minute. They were waiting for the Green Bay area, same-day vote, Election Day votes until around seven o'clock this morning and when those came in suddenly Biden's overall numbers were looking a lot better, since that area was expected to go heavily for Biden and apparently it did, they were still waiting for an absentee vote count from Kenosha. Last I saw, it should be pro-Biden based on demographics. You tweeted that Wisconsin will have a winner without a majority of the votes, either way. Why would that be and what else can you tell us about Wisconsin?

Gabriel: Wisconsin is remarkably close. I think one of the big misses of the last year or two was, particularly in last months I guess we should say, is that the polling in Wisconsin was very wrong. It looks like this was supposed to be according to most good polling, polling we thought was good, a fairly solid, easy state for Joe Biden. It's looking very close. Now, Biden does feel confident about it largely due to margins in the cities, including Green Bay, but also in Milwaukee, Madison, and even how he's doing it in places like Kenosha, so there is that.

Trump's struggles in the suburbs are a real problem for him in areas like the counties around Milwaukee, which are famously bastions of far-right, well, for hard-right conservatism for a long time. That said, Wisconsin, which was obviously a state that Democrats thought a lot about after 2016, Hillary Clinton famously did not go there in the closing days of her campaign or at all in the general election, Democrats felt pretty good about it recently. I think they're feeling good about it again this morning, but they were expecting to win this one by more than a one or two percentage points. Again, it's very, very close. There are third-party candidates on the ballot, so that's why neither candidate is going to hit 50% but it's obviously nothing like we saw in 2016.

Brian: What happened with polling, Gabe? What's your first impression here on the morning after?

Gabriel: I think that this is going to take a long time to dissect. The polling was broadly off and Trump did much better than his polling in a lot of these states. Yet again, the error doesn't appear to have been as enormous in a lot of places. The national polling, we should point out it, does appear to be basically on track. It does look like Joe Biden is on track for a popular vote victory of five, six points. I don't know what the latest projections on that are. It's certainly a problem and the polling industry is going to have a lot of questions for itself over the next few months. I think that the public trust in polling, in particular, is a huge, huge question mark from here on out, if it wasn't already.

Brian: Let's talk to George in Miami. George, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in. Hi, there.

George: Hi, how are you?

Brian: Good.

George: Good. I just wanted to share my opinion regarding the Latino vote in Miami and in other places around the country. The issue that I'm seeing with the community here is that most of the Latinos are being lumped into voting against Trump because of the racism and brutality with police. When in essence the Latino vote is really divided into those that are [unintelligible 00:21:38] people, those that identify as white although they're Latinos, and the Venezuelan and Cuban community, which really, really voted for Trump heavily and still support him very, very deeply. Until the Democrats don't start targeting these groups of [unintelligible 00:21:55] people and Cubans and other groups, they're not really going to make any inroads into the Latino vote here.

Brian: George, thank you very much. I think that echoes a lot of what we've been saying and a lot of what was on The Takeaway just before the show. Absolutely the case. Raymond in the West Village or on WNYC. Hello, Raymond.

Raymond: Hi.

Brian: Hi, do you have a question?

Raymond: Yes, I just wondered why the guest believes that this socialist message worked against Joe Biden when it didn't seem to sway people away, Latinos away from Bernie Sanders in the presidential primary.

Brian: Gabe?

Gabriel: I think this is specifically a question about Cuban voters in Florida who were the target of those messages. [crosstalk]

Brian: and Venezuela. Actually, really-

Gabriel: And Venezuela as well.

Brian: I think, the previous caller really pre-answered this caller's question, right? It's a diverse community, set of communities. Cubans obviously have a certain relationship to socialism, so do Venezuelans who are in the United States. Even Puerto Rican's who consider themselves white more than they consider or equally to how they consider themselves Latino, as the caller was saying and as they were discussing on The Takeaway. All of those things come into play in terms of people's perception of socialism, but what about the Bernie factor? Tio Bernie, he did so well in the primaries with Latino voters in general.

Gabriel: In general, but not necessarily in Florida or in South Florida. I think a lot of Democrats were very concerned because of the preliminary numbers there, that they wouldn't be able to compete in Florida in the general election if Bernie Sanders was the nominee. Obviously, they did not compete very well with Joe Biden as the nominee.

The question about the broader analysis of the Latino vote is absolutely fair. It's certainly true that someone who is an immigrant from Columbia is going to have a very different view of a lot of these things as someone who is, like myself, the child of immigrants from Argentina or versus someone from Cuba. With the Cuban population in South Florida, which is a very dominant politically in some parts of South Florida because it's a very large, very concentrated community.

This has been for a lot of these folks, a really animating point in a way that it's not for a lot of other groups. The Trump campaign has been very, very, very focused on painting Biden specifically as a socialist, and certainly, they would have done the same with Bernie Sanders, and that was not the case when it came to people trying to target let's say Latino voters of Mexican descent in Arizona where Bernie Sanders has done decently in the past.

Brian: There are some 2 million mail-in votes to be counted in Pennsylvania. Last I looked, an hour or so ago, 2 million more in Michigan. I heard that as of around 6:00 AM, anyway, Philadelphia had only counted about a quarter of close to a million absentee ballots there. Again, it's a physical process with opening envelopes, removing and unfolding the ballots, putting them into scanners in states that use those, or recording the votes in some other ways. I'm not sure of Pennsylvania's particular system.

There are only so many human beings doing all this by hand. The absentee ballots as around the country, another thing that got polarized this year. Democrats tend to disproportionally to vote absentee Republicans tend to disproportionally to vote in-person, which could say a lot about the outcome, is already saying a lot about why Republicans will try to challenge in court as much absentee ballot counting as they can, but Gabe, what can you say about Pennsylvania?

Gabriel: The Biden campaign has been talking about Pennsylvania with great confidence for a while largely because of the massive lead that they think that they've built up with these absentee votes. It's funny that for all this conversation, we haven't really been talking about the one issue that is completely dominant to voters all over the place, which is this horrible pandemic that we've all been living through for months now. Places like Wisconsin, but also some parts of Pennsylvania, were hit extremely hard by it.

All that said, the Biden campaign believes, and the Trump campaign has not been totally clear on their belief here, but they believe that they're going to win Pennsylvania and that we're going to find out the results of it, not today, but tomorrow and that, by the way, that's beside the point because they think they're going to win 270 electoral votes potentially before then, but that said, there are over a million outstanding ballots in Pennsylvania and that's why the Biden campaign feels pretty good.

These are in places like Pittsburgh and Philadelphia where Biden has done remarkably well, but also places like Scranton, where he's from, where he's over-performed,4 where Hillary Clinton was four years ago. Because Democrats were so concerned about what would happen with these ballots over the last few weeks, especially as Trump has tried to sow doubt about this, there's been a remarkable amount of voter education on this. I think that there's a little bit less concern than you might think about how many ballots might've been spoiled, for example.

That said obviously if Trump does what he's threatening to do and try and turn this into a legal fight in Pennsylvania over which ballots count and which ballots don't, that is a whole different ball game. Of course, if it looks clear that Biden's going to get to 270 electoral votes based on counts in other states before then, it's not entirely clear what the point of such a lawsuit would be in the national level but again, I don't want to speculate too much on the Trump campaign's legal strategy, just because I don't want to pretend to have any insight into what they're thinking right now.

Brian: Speaking of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, our next guest in a few minutes will be Errin Haines from the news organization, The 19th. She wrote on that site about her exasperating experience voting in Philadelphia earlier this week and why she thinks it may be an example of a disenfranchisement of a lot of people in that city that may even have an impact on the outcome.

We'll see about that. Errin Haines coming up after a few more minutes with Gabe Gabriel Debenedetti, national correspondent for New York Magazine. Also, again, we are expecting the governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Wolf to hold a news conference momentarily if it's as scheduled and whenever that starts, we hope to take that. Gabe, remind everybody, since you just brought it up, of the path to 270 for either candidate without Pennsylvania. On the Biden side, if we assume, he wins, Michigan, wins Wisconsin, wins Arizona, that doesn't do it quite, does it?

Gabriel: He'll need in Nevada on his side as well. Nevada is a state that Democrats have been winning in recent election cycles and that no one thought was going to be quite this close. The Trump campaign is making the case that they think they're going to win Nevada. Biden's team still feels somewhat positive about it due to Clark County, which is where Las Vegas is and it's the big population center there.

Obviously, this is a very diverse state run by Democrats these days. Nevada, which has six electoral votes, would be enough if it was combined with Arizona, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Obviously, Democrats feeling good about Georgia, would just make some of these other states move because Georgia has 16 electoral votes and would really make life impossible or very, very difficult for President Trump. Now, if we're putting Pennsylvania side, Trump definitely needs to win North Carolina, which looks plausible, but his path without Georgia, say, is essentially nil or none. There's a reason that he and his team are trying to make the case that Wisconsin is currently close enough, that they might try and talk about a recount. They're going to want to make sure every last vote is counted in Wisconsin.

Again, as we were talking about earlier, most of the stuff that hasn't been counted yet in Wisconsin is in counties or in areas around some of these major cities that are looking pretty good for Democrats. I would watch Wisconsin today. It looks like we're going to get some sort of, if not call or final count there today, but that's certainly the one that will tell us a lot about the path to 270 and whether it's essentially impossible or wide open for one or both of the candidates.

Brian: Is there a 270 to 270 tie scenario. That's clear to you. If we really want to scramble people's brains, we can talk about a 270 to 270 tie. I know there's one that involves, I think, splitting those two congressional districts, the one in Nebraska-- Because two states, Nebraska and Maine actually split their electoral votes by congressional districts. I believe Biden has won the one in Nebraska that was considered a swing district. The one in Maine, last I saw early this morning, was too close to call. Is there a 270-270 scenario?

Gabriel: Yes, it would be 269 to 269.

Brian: Of course, it's 538, so if somebody gets to 270, they've won. Right. Of course, it's 269 to 269. Do you have it?

Gabriel: However, it seems because of, unless I'm missing something, which is impossible because, of course, I haven't slept, no one has, unless I'm missing something, it seems that by winning the district that contains Omaha in Nebraska, which Democrats have won sometimes, but infrequently, but Joe Biden won, it seems that that is off the table. That was going to be the one district that was going to make that possible if Trump won it. I think that that particular nightmare seems, at least as far as I can tell, to not be one that's in the gardens here.

Brian: It looks like they're getting ready to start that governor of Pennsylvania news conference. Let's see if we can squeeze in Steve in Manhattan who called us the other day. African American male, millennial, who said he was going to vote for Trump and wants to respond to the question that [unintelligible 00:32:33] from Chapel Hill was asking, which is why would a black man vote for Trump? Hi, Steve. You're on WNYC. Thanks for calling back and my apologies in advance, if we have to cut you off and go to the news conference,

Steve: It is not a problem. I'll try to be quick, brother Brian. I want to say just in general, the sisters in the Queens, they hold it down per usual and like, it's always-- I suppose to my mother, I supposed to my sisters and my aunt, and I got a bunch of flags. Just the general. I said, it's going to be a protest vote, but I wound up just writing in Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. I say all this to say though, like I said before early in the week, African Americans and Latinos and the people of color, we know Trump is racist and the sentiment and all that is true.

What it comes down to is one, a lot of people felt he's upset about Bernie Sanders situation. Two, they also feel, but he said it's nothing [unintelligible 00:33:32]. It's said behind closed doors between the Democratic Party as well. If you're a person of color, I'm going to let you in on a secret, well, people of color, and you speak to African Americans or a person who's Black, if you have experiences in this country with racism, it doesn't break down on the lines of, "Oh, it was a conservative who said something racist to me or they did something racist, or it wasn't liberal, or it wasn't progressive." It comes out to, "It'd be a white person."

If it was like a black person or a person of color in a room, and as other people of color, it comes down to the lines of like, "Ugh, white people, again. Ugh, Western world. Or ugh, society again, or like systematic racism." It doesn't break down along party lines. I'll let you guys in on another secret. It doesn't surprise most people of color. Trump is just out front, keeps open with it but if I heard the Pope, vicar of Christ, not Pope Francis because he's a Latino, but if I heard Benedict, if he was dropping the N-word around the Vatican, it wouldn't surprise me.

Brian: You're saying, and I got to go in a sec, Steve, but you're saying even as explicitly racist as Trump might come out, as Trump might be, and Trump might sound, it gets neutralized a little bit because there's an assumption and there's an experience with what people who are more politically liberal might believe anyway. They just don't say.

Steve: I'm saying for most people of color who live in America, the default position of Caucasians, just in general, not just all white people, but like bigotry or like raising them. If you found out the closest white friend, they said the N-word or did something racist. It wouldn't be surprising. You look at Ted Danson, Joey Beyhive, governor of Virginia with a black face, and he's a whole Democrat, it's never surprising anymore.

Brian: I hear you. Steve, I'm going to leave it there. Please keep calling us. Thank you very much. Here's, we're going to do, we don't know exactly when this news conference is going to start with the governor of Pennsylvania. They did just do a mic check. Presumably, it's going to be any minute. We're going to say goodbye to Gabe Debenedetti, national correspondent for New York Magazine.

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