In short
Podcast Summary: The Rest Is Politics: US - Episode 26: Is America Ready for Gun Reform?
Hosts
- Anthony Scaramucci: Former White House Director of Communications and Wall Street financier.
- Katty Kay: US special correspondent for BBC with nearly 30 years in US political reporting.
Episode Overview In this episode, Scaramucci and Kay tackle the pressing issue of gun reform in the aftermath of a school shooting in Georgia. They delve into the differences in gun legislation between the US and countries like Australia and the UK, discuss political dynamics regarding gender in current elections, and analyze the state of the race as the election draws closer.
Key Topics Discussed
- Current Events: Gun Violence
- Recent Shooting: A school shooting in Georgia results in multiple casualties, raising questions about gun control in the US.
- Statistics: This incident marks the 45th school shooting of the year, underscoring America's chronic gun violence issue.
- Comparison with Other Countries:
- Australia: Post-Port Arthur massacre reforms led to significant reductions in gun violence, including a successful gun buyback program.
- UK: Similar legislation followed the Dunblane school shooting, resulting in the banning of private handgun ownership.
- Call for Change: Both hosts reflect on public sentiment favoring gun reform and the apparent failure of the US government to enact meaningful legislation.
- Gender Divide in Politics
- Polling Data: A notable shift in voting patterns shows a significant gap between young men and women; young women favor Kamala Harris, while young men lean towards Donald Trump.
- Cultural Implications:
- Young men feel threatened by evolving gender roles and are drawn to Trump's traditional masculinity.
- Young women, motivated by a reaction to misogyny and a desire for reproductive rights, are increasingly liberal.
- Kamala Harris' Political Landscape
- Honeymoon Period Over?: Discussion on whether Kamala Harris has lost momentum and how her campaign strategy is evolving.
- Debate Prep: Concerns about her visibility and willingness to engage directly with the press. The importance of showcasing authenticity and confidence in debates is emphasized.
Key Concepts and Themes
- Gun Control as an American Issue: The episode reinforces the notion that gun violence is a uniquely American problem, exacerbated by cultural attitudes towards guns and the influence of lobbying groups like the NRA.
- Cultural Shifts in Gender Roles: The conversation highlights the shifting perceptions of masculinity and femininity in American society and how they influence political affiliations.
- Electoral Strategies: The importance of addressing economic issues and countering narratives in order to resonate with voters across demographics is a recurring theme.
Closing Thoughts Scaramucci and Kay predict a challenging electoral landscape where public opinion may not align with political action. They highlight the need for candidates like Harris to broaden their appeal and tackle issues that resonate with a wider audience, including young men feeling marginalized in the current political narrative.
Additional Information
- Live Show Announcement: The hosts announce their first live show on October 28 in New York and October 30 in Washington, D.C.
- Engagement: Listeners are encouraged to connect via social media and the podcast's website for more content.
Social Media
- Instagram: [@RestPoliticsUS](https://www.instagram.com/RestPoliticsUS)
- Twitter: [@RestPoliticsUS](https://twitter.com/RestPoliticsUS)
Conclusion
This episode of "The Rest Is Politics
US" provides a critical examination of gun reform and the evolving political landscape influenced by gender dynamics. The hosts' insights prompt listeners to consider the implications of these issues on America's future.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:06Hello and welcome to this edition of The Rest is Politics US with me Katty Kay and I'm Anthony Scaramucci. How are you, Caddy? I am good. I'm in New York City, but you are a very long way away. I am. I'm on the bottom of the planet. I'm in Sydney, Australia right now. I just got back from Newcastle, which is a coal mining industrial area. They did a conference up there and I spoke this evening. But I was in Auckland, New Zealand yesterday as I was making transit to Australia. I was on the security line and a woman leaned over to me. I thought she thought she knew me and she leaned over to me and said, where's Caddy Kay?
0:46What am I? Do I chop liver or do I not rate? And she was just letting me know that there is a goal hanger star system. And she was letting me know where I ranked in that star system. Okay. And so I was only in a minute in New Zealand, but it left a bad impression on me, Katty K. So you're never going back. Listen, can I just say - No, no, I'm teasing. I'm teasing, but I think you have huge fans. You have swaned off to Australia without me, and this is a no co-host left behind policy. Yeah, there you go. Well, there you go. You have huge fans down here. You travel alone at your own peril. There you go.
1:21And you have huge fans down here, and they wanted - Well, that's very exciting. To let me know that. So I just thought I would share that with you. It was the typical Kiwi Australian, putting me right in my place, the place that I deserve, Katty. Excellent. I'm going to keep that on record. And then every time I'm feeling a little low, I'm just going to replay it to myself, if you don't mind. I'll insert it into the episode every now and again. It was genuinely jet lagged, but I found it very humorous and very flattering to you. Okay. Flattering to you. Okay. Before we get going, and I'm going to dive into what we're going to talk about, we have some very exciting news, which is that tickets are on sale for our first ever, the Rest is Politics US live show.
2:00And ticket sales start from 10 a.m. Eastern on Friday, the 6th of September. Just head to therestispoliticsus.com, our brand new website, and you will find our ticket sales there. So we hope to see you all. Some of you have already contacted me on LinkedIn about whether we're doing a live show. We are. All the information is going to be there. It's October 28th in New York. Yes. And October 30th in DC, just so people have a sense for where we're going to be. Excellent. We'd love to see you and thank you for considering it. So in today's episode, we're going to kick off with Anthony in Australia and talk a little bit actually about gun control after the school shooting in Georgia on Wednesday and what the Australians have done to handle that.
2:42And we're going to look at the state of the race and how they're making their final debate prep and what I'm hearing and what Anthony's hearing from Democrats who it seems to me are getting rather nervous. Then after the break, we are going to dive into the gender divide that is growing in the voting blocks between young women and young men. There's now a 51 point difference between young women and young men over whether they vote for Harris or for Trump, which is kind of fascinating. It says a lot about America and where young men are in America right now. So there's a lot to talk about. But first, this grim story in Georgia.
3:16And I saw the news yesterday, Anthony, and actually a week or two ago, I'd been thinking, you know what, it's really strange. Since we started this podcast, there hasn't been a school shooting in America, which is a kind of depressing way to have to think about that. And of course, then I realized it had been the school summer holidays. And that's why we haven't had one. And here we have now on the outskirts of Atlanta, a school shooting that has left four people dead, committed by a 14-year-old student who took a semi-automatic weapon into a school and shot people in a classroom. And I think it is, I'm right in saying the 45th school shooting in America this year alone.
3:51And I always refer to this, and it's so depressing because we talk about this every time and nothing changes, but I always refer to this as America's exceptional problem because it's not an issue that occurs in other developed countries. And you have countries like Australia who have done a much better job than the United States have done of keeping their school children safe from guns. Well, I mean, a couple of reactions. First of all, I think on behalf of Cady and I and everybody here, our hearts go out to people. And it's painful to say that because how many times have you heard somebody say, oh, my hearts go out to you?
4:24But obviously - We heard Governor Kemp say it. Prayers and thoughts. No, I have children and I think about it all the time. One of my brothers-in-law is actually in gun safety, if you will, or school protection in Georgia. And there were a couple of things that happened that I think the state of Georgia has to examine. And so some of the things on the checklist is you do get some warning signs from these young people. And there were several warning signs of the child in question was actually investigated related to the potential threat that he offered up to the school. And then they said, okay, that threat was really not actionable, but it did turn out to be actionable.
5:06And again, I'm not calling or pointing fingers or playing Monday morning quarterback. I'm just saying that this is a huge problem. You and I both know the Port Arthur situation here where there was a mass shooting and that was obviously a big penal station as convicts were coming into Australia and Tasmania. And so there was a lot of symbolism there that there was this sort of mass shooting there. And John Howard, who I think both you and I are old enough to remember John Howard. He was a prime minister down here. He was from the Liberal Party. But as people here in Australia know, when you say liberal in Australia, it's part of their conservative movement.
5:45But tell us, Caddy, what he did. What was the incentive program that he created on the guns? And what were the ideas around reducing the semi-automatic volume of guns in his country. And of course, it's had this quantum effect on reducing the mass shootings. And before you say anything, I just want to mention in the United States, we currently are estimating over 400 million guns are in the US for 335 million people. But tell us a little bit about what Prime Minister Howard did in a coalition. It was a bipartisan attempt to clean this up and has been very successful here. So what Australia did after the 96 Tasmania shooting was that they effectively had a program to buy back guns from the street.
6:32They removed semi-automatic and pump action shotguns and rifles from civilian possession. They took them out of people's hands. It was part of one of the components of a gun law reform that was enacted at the time. But that was the major part of it. And they managed with a levy that was taken from income tax to get tens of thousands of gun owners to voluntarily, as well as that, surrender any additional non-prohibited firearms. In the end, I think it was close to a million, something like 700 ,000 guns were removed and destroyed from an adult population of about 12. So they were successful. There have not been repeated incidents, anything like the scale.
7:16I'm sure there have been one or two shootings in Australia since I don't know the numbers exactly, but nothing. Australia does not have America's problem because the parliament took action and the parties came together to take action to prevent this kind of violence. The same happened in the United Kingdom, 1996, the Dunblane school shooting, 16 children were killed, and the government very quickly, within the space of a couple of weeks, managed to pass a law that would ban private ownership of handguns. There are a few exceptions, but basically they banned private ownership of nearly all handguns.
7:53And again, there have not been school shootings in the United Kingdom. Gun death now accounts is the number one killer of children in the United States. It's overtaken car deaths. And the reason that it's the number one killer is that it's not regulated, whereas cars are regulated. We mandate that children have to have car seats and we mandate that they have to wear seatbelts as they get older. And children are not dying in car accidents in the way that they are. But for some reason, America thinks that it is acceptable, not the American public, because the American public is overwhelmingly in favor of gun reform and gun safety reform and background checks.
8:31But the structures, the scaffolding of the American system of government is somehow failing its people. And I covered the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012 when 26 and seven-year-olds died. And that was the last big push for real gun reform. And it was four Democratic senators who voted against Barack Obama's proposals for gun reform in that instance. So they were Democrats who were in swing states and they felt they couldn't get reelected if they voted for it. So there's blame on both sides on this, but I think it is just always worth reminding Americans that other countries have done something about this and America has chosen not to do something about this.
9:15But I want to get your reaction to this statement. And so again, I'm just, because I'm listening here in Australia to people, how relieved they are that they have this gun control. You and I both know that the gun control ideas when polled, 75 % of the people in America in a bipartisan way say they want it, but yet the Congress won't move on it. And my question to you, is this a lobbying issue? Are they receiving money from the gun lobby or do they not believe those polls? You're mentioning, as we both know, that in swing states, a Democrat will vote against gun control issues. And so what is it about guns that we're misunderstanding in the United States?
9:56The generous interpretation is that there is something cultural about the idea, going back to the constitution that you had the right to bear arms, to the founding fathers that they had the right to pull up a militia in case the government got authoritarian and they could be able to defend themselves. But that's kind of hooey. That was one bullet coming out of a musket. It was not semi-automatic weapons. Today, I think you're right, it's lobbying from the NRA now kind of in disgrace and its replacement, this SOFA organization, Save Our Firearms organization. And these organizations get an awful lot of money from the gun industry.
10:37And they use it not just to funnel money into campaigns, it's less about the money that they're putting into congressional campaigns, what the NRA has done with its rating system is that anyone running for election lives in fear. If you're running in a relatively conservative or rural district, a rural district in a liberal state, you're going to live in fear of having a bad rating from the NRA. And that proved more effective than any of the money that they could pump into those political campaigns. I also think that the country is just not ready for it. And so it's one of the third rails in American politics.
11:09So these shootings will persist. The schools are, by the way, trying their hardest. They do have a gun safety protocol. They do have people on staff. There was a community security personnel that subdued this gunman or gun boy, if you will. And of course, the boy is now in custody. The state of Georgia says he will be tried as an adult. He's 14 years of age. And I'm sure they're trying to do that to create more disincentives. But thank God there was somebody on staff in that school that was able to subdue the gunmen and that more people didn't die. But I will say this, and this is something true about all of our cultures, all of our countries.
11:52In Australia, there's more of this feeling, maybe because of the origination of Australia, there's more of a feeling about equity and people pulling together on an idea. In the United States, as you know, Caddy, from living in the United States, there's a rugged individualism in the United States that's been part of this culture for hundreds of years. And unfortunately, concomitant to that rugged individualism is gun ownership, at least the perception of it. So it's way more powerful than people like to admit. But that doesn't account for the fact that in 92 under Bill Clinton, 93 under Bill Clinton, America was able to pass an assault weapons ban with the blessing of the former President Ronald Reagan who wrote to Congress and said he thought this should get passed.
12:37And the tragedy of that ban, which actually did cut down mass shootings quite dramatically, was that it only lasted for 10 years and then it sunsetted. And now you have more mass shootings in America than you have days. I mean, it's out of control. And yet, there seems to be no ability to reflect what the American people say they want. And that's what's so frustrating here. It's four more families in Georgia who have gone through this on the first week of school. I know parents who send their kids back to school. You have young children still. My kids went through school drills where they had to practice hiding under the desk.
13:17Americans are sort of getting used to the idea that that's normal. It's not, and it doesn't have to be that way. But something needs to break the logjam where American public opinion, according to polls, unless the polls are totally wrong, want much more effective action on things like background checks and assault weapons. And yet the system isn't able to deliver it. Well, I guess the rhetorical question, which I don't think either of us had the answer to, is what calamity or what crisis? John Howard took a crisis in Australia, and he turned it into political policy that left Australia better off.
13:53And one would think that some of these things would trigger a bipartisan initiative, but none of them have. And I'm just wondering, what would, if none of these tragic shootings have what in fact would. If Sandy Hook in 2012 didn't do it and 26 and 7-year-olds were killed, as Barack Obama said, nothing will. Yeah, it went to the 10th anniversary of the commemoration of the deaths of those people. It was – and President Obama spoke of that. It's the worst story I've ever covered. I was there for a week and wanted to leave every minute. It was just awful. or the whole town felt like it had had this horrible, damp blanket of pain and grief smothered over it.
14:39And they were just little kids. And if America doesn't respond to that, then I guess we're just going to carry on saying thoughts and prayers. It's terrible. And I don't want to transition abruptly from something that tragic. No, it's a large trend, yeah. But there's an election coming up. Yep. And there's negotiations. By the way, there is a transition here because Kamala Harris spoke about this, but Kamala Harris in 2019 proposed what Australia did and now has had to walk away from that as a policy position because she knows that it's not viable in the United States. But it's interesting that she actually had looked at what Australia had done, I assume, and decided that she was going to try and float it back in 2019.
15:18She won't be floating at this time. I'm picking up quite a lot of nervousness, by the way, on the state of the race. I don't know what you're hearing, Anthony, But I'm getting Democrats kind of texting me. I had a long call yesterday with a strategist, and I can fill you in on that a bit more. But I'm hearing quite a lot of nervousness from some Democrats. I think what's at issue for the vice president's campaign is where is the campaign? Yes, she is going to rallies. Yes, she is speaking off prompter at rallies. But there's another element to the campaign. As you and I both know, there's a softer element and there's a confrontational element as well.
15:54So the soft element is just the meet and greets extemporaneously, going into diners, taking some photo ops, meeting the cook in the kitchen in the hotel before a speech. That's the soft stuff. But then there's the confrontation. And she's doing that well, right? She's good at that. She is good at that. She's very personable. But in addition to that, there's the confrontation that the American public wants to see. Whether people like it or not, they want you in a heated position. They want you in a hot seat. And they want you to subject yourself to questions. The American public has decided that if you can answer questions extemporaneously, you're showing a depth of knowledge, some level of wisdom, and some level of experience.
16:37And so if she doesn't start doing that, I think it's going to hurt her. It's not only going to hurt her with the right-wing media, it's already hurting her there. I mean, they're already chanting that. But I think it will hurt her. I think general public will say, hmm, can a race be won off a teleprompter? And can a race be won in the United States withholding press appearances? And so I don't know if that's the case. And it also creates a lot of murkiness around policy. So good opposition research people from the opposing party will start to make up your policies. If you're not out there plaintively explaining what those policies are.
17:17They'll make up some Armageddon policies that are not your policies, and they'll project them into the airspace. And, Katty, you know this better than me. We get a lie around the world. The lie is going to run from where you are in New York to me in Australia in five seconds before the truth can get out the door, even get a shoes on. So this is really bad for her, in my opinion. And she won't stand at the airplane. She won't stand on the tarmac and let a microphone come to her face and have some exemplary questions. She was asked, how is the Pate prep going? And she waved from the bottom of the stairs that it's going well or it's good, put a thumb up and walked up the steps.
18:01Now, they may know something you and I don't know. I've been at this for 30 years. And so I'm willing. I've been humbled by life. I've been humbled by markets. So I may be wrong on this, but maybe they think they can do this without that. Now, what I would say to you when I talk to their people - Do it without doing interviews, you mean? Yeah, they do it without doing interviews, and they can do it in this sort of isolated, in a box sort of a way. But when I talk to them, they seem very, very confident. They seem, we've got numbers, we've got momentum, internal polling is great. Nate Silver has her behind in Pennsylvania.
18:37We have her ahead in Pennsylvania. And I'm wondering if that's some Hillary Clinton-esque campaign arrogance. I don't know. But the same things were being said in the September period, right after Labor Day, about the Secretary's campaign, that she was well ahead and six points ahead there, five points ahead here, and she was going to win. And of course, Nate Silver had this sort of, I don't know if you remember that snake graph that he did, but he had this sort of thing where if he wins here and he wins there, that he wins over here, he wins. And that's exactly what happen on election night. So to me, I don't understand it and they won't sit for questions related to it, but I would be worried if I were them.
19:18This guy is formidable. You may not like him. He does things that are misogynistic. He does things that are absurd. He knows how to keep himself in the media. He did a town hall last night with Sean Hannity. It was a lot more of the blather that he comes up with, but the people that support him like it. They don't dislike it. And if you want to pretend that because you may dislike it, that they dislike it, don't project your feelings on them. They like it. And if he's out there and she's not, more of them will turn out than her supporters. So what I'm hearing and have heard this week from a strategist, a Democrat that I called and a donor that I called, is that there's a sense that her August surge, that extraordinary five weeks she had, has slowed and hasn't really been reflected in the polls as much as they had hoped it would be, that there would be a clear distinction now, and that she would be clearly ahead in all of the swing states.
20:15She hasn't become yet what the Trump campaign was fearing that she would become, which is this kind of unstoppable, I think I called it a couple of weeks ago, the transformational candidate. And the other thing they point to is the kind of anomaly to get what you're talking about is that Trump, Kamala Harris had a kind of almost perfect five weeks from her launch. And that was reflected to some extent in the amount of money she managed to raise, finishing with the convention. Meanwhile, Donald Trump, apart from his convention and of course there was the shooting, but he had a pretty bad few weeks over August.
20:49There was that conference with the black journalists, throwing insults that didn't stick. There was the kerfuffle around the Arlington Cemetery. And was he taking photographs for a campaign where he shouldn't have been? The crowds have been smaller at some of his events. Some of his speeches have rambled. He tries to call it the weave. He's got a new word for it, but let's face it, it's rambling. And he seems to have rejected. I love this idea that there's a weave. It's all part of a mega plan. And he's rejecting the advice of Wiles and Lassovita to try and stay on message. So he's not had a great few weeks.
21:23And yet he hasn't tanked in his polls. His numbers didn't crash. His floor has remained solid. And I think that's been a sort of aha moment for some of the Democrats who are thinking, wow, we thought the surge that we saw in enthusiasm and joy in the DNC and the kind of kumbaya was going to lead, inexorably lead to much better poll numbers. And now they are in a position where, you know, David Plouffe, who's been brought in, who ran the Obama campaign, we've mentioned him a few times as a senior advisor, has really been pushing hard the idea that they are the underdog. and I was texting with somebody who is potentially going to be in Kamala's cabinet if she wins the election and saying, you know, what is Plouffe doing?
22:02And he said he's just trying to motivate people and that they just don't want anyone to take their foot off the brake. But I'm hearing definitely quite a lot of concern that Nate, you're right, the Nate Silver projection that has Trump with a 53 % chance of winning the election, whereas his previous model had her winning the election has them very tight in Pennsylvania. I think all of that is making people anxious. So can I ask you a question? Okay, I want to put your strategist hat on. So you're getting similar. Love playing strategist. Yes. So you're getting similar information. I'm glad that no one ever paid me any money to do any kind of strategy for any campaign, by the way.
22:39But you have very good common sense. And since you are not a American partisan, you speak with lots of objectivity. I have sometimes tendency to look through the prism of what I want to have happen, as opposed to what is actually going to happen. So let me throw it to you for a second and say, what would be the strategy? What if I came to you and said, Katty Kay, I am not moving in the polls the way I thought, and I've raised a ton of money, and I'm going to go out there and try to build the Obama coalition. And by the way, I brought in Plouffe, and he put out on Twitter that Trump has had more presidential debates than anybody in the last five years in terms of presidential debates.
23:19And so he's had seven of them. I've had none of them. He's trying to manage expectations for me. Is that what he should be doing? And if it's not what he should be doing, what should he be doing to gin up my numbers? And what should he be doing to broaden my support? So I think the area where she has been the weakest has been on having an economic message that she is comfortable selling again and again and again. So, for example, when she campaigned with Joe Biden in Pittsburgh at a union event, she didn't mention the cost of living. And I would start calling it not inflation, but affordability, because people have been told time and again that inflation is coming down, but the price of goods is still unaffordable for them.
24:04So, she needs to find a way to talk about affordability and not miss a single opportunity to do so. The two issues where Donald Trump is still ahead in the polls are the two issues that most Americans say matter to them most. The first is the economy and the second is immigration. She can't afford to turn up at an event in Michigan or an event in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and not talk about those issues. And yet that's what she did this week. So she's got to put the economic, and she's, I think part of that is having an economic team, an economy team that she feels very comfortable with and that she trusts.
24:40She has Gene Sperling, who was in the Clinton administration, in the Obama administration, who has now been brought into her. Very solid guy, but not somebody she knows very well. He's fairly new to her operation. He's come in recently. It's not like on her national security side where she has Phil Gordon, who runs her national security, who she's known for a long time and trusts. And I think for Kamala Harris, perhaps for anybody running for president, having people around you who you trust makes an enormous amount of difference. and that trust level on the national security side, I think is to some extent reflected in the confidence with which she spoke about that at her DNC speech.
25:16She needs that on the economy side. She needs to have the same comfort. She's not somebody, she comes from a law enforcement background. She's not an economist, but she needs to be given the confidence to speak about economic issues in a way that really resonates with people for whom that is the number one issue. So, I think that is probably where I would start and I would say you do not ever do an event where you miss the opportunity to address affordability and immigration. Okay. So, so let me role play for a second. Okay. I am Vice President Harris and I'm calling into the rest of the US. Does that make me Donald Trump?
25:49No, no, no, definitely not. Definitely not. Although I would like to see you with the orange. I know. I would like to try that. Yes. I would like to see you with the orange war paint on. The whole thing. You have to, you have to dye your hair orange and then you got to go right, write down everything else orange. But I'm going to call in now and I'm going to say to you, listen, guys, don't worry. Let's face facts. I just became the presidential nominee 45, 46 days ago on the 21st of July. I was flipping pancakes and making bacon for my nieces. And I got the call from the president who said he's stepping out of the race.
Read the full transcript
26:24So just imagine what I now have to do. I have to build a presidential campaign operation. I have to be careful and make sure I'm paying tribute to the president who selected me to be vice president. She literally took, I took his whole platform and left his name in the platform when I listed it on the website and give me a little bit of time. I've gotten myself better organized now. I have the personnel in place. And for me, the campaign starts on September the 10th, which is the first debate. And I'm going to be holed up in Pittsburgh doing a week of debate prep, readying myself for all these different things.
27:01And I just will say this one last thing, and now I'm going to interrupt her because she's our guest. I would then say to her, well, just be careful. Don't Hillary Clinton eyes that debate. Do not be the policy wonk. Do not study the policy. The American people are looking for a verbal sparring match. This is almost like a UMA fight, but an oral one. And what they want is they want you to best Donald Trump. They want you to parry him. and they want you to explain to people that you're more confident and you're a safer pair of hands in him without getting too detailed into the policy. Secretary Clinton - They want to see that she can stand up to him.
27:38She can stand up to him because it'll give them confidence that you can stand up to Putin, give you confidence you can stand up to other people. Don't do the Hillary Clinton thing where let me list policy and go to page one of the policy book and give me 30 minutes. I'm going list every policy in three minute increments. If she does that, she's really going to get hurt by him. And I want her on offense, but I don't want her doing that. Because I think the prosecutor in her knows not to do that. You know, she's performed in court. We've seen her in this. Kamala Harris's best moment was during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings in the Senate where she played prosecutor.
28:15I mean, it's almost like watching a TV prosecutor in a drama show, and she's pretty good at it. So I think actually she has the ability to not get sucked down into policy details, avoid being pulled into his personal attacks against her, which I think he's also going to try and do, right? He's at the moment, somebody who's fairly close to Trump was texting me saying, yeah, he doesn't do classic debate prep, but what he's trying to do is get the theatrics right, that he's focusing on the theater of this, on the show of this and how to needle her. And I think she knows that and she's got to stay calm and focused in the light of those theatrics and then kind of find out ways, as you said last week, on how to needle him with words like old or small or whatever those words are.
29:01So I think - Yeah, but also be offensive on California. Describe California for this amazing economy that it actually is. Don't take the bait when he's calling you stupid. He's going to call you stupid. I know that's incendiary even to say it on our podcast, but he will do it. He's a misogynist. He put out an awful tweet about her and Secretary Clinton. And I don't want to get into the whole thing because it's just too misogynistic for me. Don't take the bait. What she said, the best part of her CNN interview, Caddy, and the most memorable part was same old playbook, next question. Now, if I was her media coach, if you had met me in 2010 and I was on television, whatever my statements were, were secondary to my ums and my okays.
29:51And so you would have heard me on television say, um, um, um, um, um, okay, okay, okay, okay. And I got that beaten out of me by a media coach in 2011. She has a nervous laugh. Trump calls it a cackle, okay, but you can hear it. And she said, same old playbook, let's go to the next question. And then she finishes the sentence with the nervous laugh. And if I was her media coach, I'd say, okay, we're working on this every day. Okay. We're going to get you in front of a camera, in front of a microphone, in front of a Zoom, get the microphone in your face, and we're going to work on eliminating the cackle, okay, or the laugh or whatever you want to call it.
30:34Now, people that are supporters are going to be mad at me, but I am telling you in this world, in presidential politics, for her, she is the more serious candidate. She said that Donald Trump was the unserious, non-serious candidate, so he can get away with more catties than she can. Because Trump is a character, a political character who's broken the mold and therefore the old rules, the traditional rules don't apply for him. She is a character, a political character in the traditional mold. And therefore, somehow the traditional rules still apply for her. And that may be grossly unfair. And we do have to remind people of some of the things that Donald Trump says when we talk about Kamala Harris being inconsistent, because he is also very inconsistent, but he somehow gets away with it.
31:20Talking of inconsistent, that was what's called a segue in the business. Inconsistency on the abortion issue from Mr. Trump during the course of this week, where he seems to have been at one point saying that he was in favor of a ballot measure to restore abortion access in Florida, which currently bans abortions after six weeks. He says he's going to be voting that we need more than six weeks. And then clearly some on the conservative right had got to him and said, that's not going to fly. And so he says he's going to vote against the amendment to enshrine abortion rights. Within the space of about a week, therefore, Donald Trump gives two totally different positions.
32:00I mean, almost opposing positions on one piece of legislation on the issue of abortion. And like you said, I mean, it's ironic that he gets away with that. And yet she is passed and passed on positions she held in 2019 compared to positions she held today. But what do you make of the fact that he's kind of jumping around on abortion at the moment, apart from the fact that he clearly realizes this is a problem for him electorally. He realizes it's a problem, but he's also figured out, and I've said this repetitively, and I want our listeners and viewers to watch this happen. He knows he can say contradictory things and people will hang on it.
32:38He knows that there's something about Americans where they want to hear something that they personally want to hear. I am going to balance the budget for the United States and end deficit spending in the first four years of my presidency. So there's a group of people that say, okay, that's probably not true, but I like hearing it. I like hearing the broad brush statement of it. Of course, he contributed$8 trillion to our deficit spending and it wasn't true. And so now he's out there testing that. He's saying, well, I did say we needed more time. But then I also said, so depending on who he's with, he knows he has a fluidity.
33:20There's a liquidity to his verbiage that has worked for him since he got in the race. And I'm talking about since 2016. He's able to say contradictory things. She gets pinned on them. Hillary Clinton gets pinned on them. If she switched her view on fracking four years ago, and as vice president, she's upheld that view, she's still criticized for it. But Trump switched his view. He was pro choice in the nineties. He became pro life to run. And maybe he's ambivalent about pro life. He's got the IVF thing in a tongue twist as well. Some of them are saying they're for it. Other people are saying they're against it.
34:04They don't really know where to go with it. And I don't understand why the Harris team is not running harder on that. Now, it could be that they need Joe Biden's Catholics. It could be that they've looked at the data and said, listen, we're going to get the people that are pro-choice, but we also have to run and get some of the Joe Biden Catholics that are actually devout Catholics. They believe in the conception creates the human being. This is Catholic dogma, Catholic theology. And maybe she doesn't want to say it. But this is the number one issue now. Just take the risk, though. My thing is throw the ball.
34:39Take the risk. You don't win these things playing defense. You win them on offense. Talk about the debate. He gets the Access Hollywood thing dropped on him. You and I did a four-part series, which our subscribers will get access to, about the 2016 events that took place and how he got to the presidency. But just go back. He's blasted with the Access Hollywood tape. He goes on offense. He goes and gets the three Clinton accusers. And he says, look at this hypocrisy. Okay. I had some locker room talk. She's an enabler of a sexual predator. You see what he did? So - Constant offense. Harris team, go on offense, take some risks.
35:21You have a likable candidate. Trust that the people are going to give her the benefit of the doubt. Yeah. I mean, Frank Luntz, who Rory and Alistair interviewed on The Rest is Politics, UK version has this framing at the moment where he's saying that if it's a character election, she wins. If it's a policy election, he wins. I wonder if that's a little simple. I think some people have mixed views and some people certainly love Donald Trump's character and are going to vote for him for that. But on the abortion thing, one last thing before we go to break and then get on to other things is that new this week, the New York Times-Siena poll has for women 45 and under, abortion is now their number one voting issue and that's a switch so she can afford to be aggressive on that issue you know i i have to interrupt you for a second and call you out on come on yes come on two weeks and i i didn't do it in the first few minutes it came late no but you are the teacher's pet okay so alistair i know you're listening and i know like the new zealand woman i know i know the new zealand women that interrupted me and asked me where Katty was.
36:27You too. We know where she is. She's here bragging about you, Alistair. Okay. But I just want to ask this question. Who retweets you more, Alistair, me or Katty Kay? Before we go to the break, Alistair, I want you to think about that. Anthony, you're sounding a little desperate, so we're going to take a break, have a big breath, and then we'll come back. Thank you. Please. Water, please. Pass the water.
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38:03Welcome back to The Rest is Politics US with me, Katty K. And me, Alistair Scaramucci. I just wanted to reference Alistair before Katty K did in this half. Alistair Scaramucci. Go ahead, Katty. What are we talking about? Go ahead. He's going to stoop that low. I wanted to talk about this story that was in the New York Times and some data that's been coming out that is really interesting on the growing split between young men and young women in their voting affiliation with more young women leaning towards Kamala Harris and more young men leaning towards Donald Trump. And what's interesting, I think, is that when Biden was in the race, men between the ages of 18 to 29 favored Donald Trump by an average of 11 points, while young women favored Joe Biden by 28 points.
38:54Then Kamala Harris gets into the race, becomes the nominee, and the split grows even bigger. Young men are now favoring Trump by 13 points. So that's two points more. He's actually got more of the favorability Trump because they have a woman candidate, whereas young women are favoring Kamala Harris by 38 points. That's a lot of numbers. Sorry, everybody. But the number to think about is that there is now a 51 point gap between young men and young women in their support for Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. And I think it gets to this very interesting New York Times piece, which dug into the kind of some of the reasons for that.
39:37And the men that were surveyed in this piece were not men who were anti-abortion rights or socially conservative or particularly misogynistic, what they talked about was a feeling, and I think it's quite common amongst Gen Z men, of feeling unsure of their place in the world, particularly on economic issues. We know that girls do better in school now. They get more degrees in America. They get more postgraduate degrees in America. They get more PhDs in America. Young women are starting to earn as much as, if not more than, young men. and all of that I think has left young men with a feeling of, well, what's my role?
40:18If my role is not to be the breadwinner, what is it? And then at the same time, they're getting hit from the left with all these phrases like toxic masculinity and the future is female, which makes them feel even worse about themselves. And they look at Donald Trump and they think there is somebody who is strong and gets what it is to be a man and doesn't like all the PC stuff and will let boys be boys. And they're drawn to some of that. And I think that this gender split could, I mean, this election, I feel could turn out to be a referendum on what gender roles are in America today, and who is more comfortable with their role as a young man or a young woman.
40:59You said something last week that I thought about a lot. And so I'm going to repeat what you said. and I want you to think about my reaction to it. You said that white males historically in our society had privilege and that because of the result that they were white males, they had more opportunity. Their profile, their sort of a blink profile, if you will, was okay. They're white males. And so therefore they're competent. They're going to get good jobs up against African-American women or women through levels of misogyny. One of the bestselling books last year was a book called Lessons in Chemistry.
41:35It was written by a brilliant author called Bonnie Garmus. It became the best book pick for Barnes & Noble here in the United States. And it was about the misogyny that took place in the 1950s and the discrimination. But what I thought about when you said all of that, I didn't know as a man in the 1980s when I was trying to get a job that I was benefiting. And I don't think white males today are being fairly treated because what's happening now is we're rebalancing. We're saying, well, your white male ancestry got more fairly treated than you, and so now we're going to undercut you. And somebody like Scott Galloway, the professor from NYU, will tell you that suicide rates are up, suicide ideation is up, depression is up for white males.
42:21And he would also tell you that if you walked onto a college campus, there are more women's advocacy groups, women for this, women for that, and there's very few for white males. Now, Galloway pointed out on television, Professor Galloway, this week that in the statements and policy initiatives from Harris, lots of groups are included, but not white males. They're conspicuously absent, yet they represent at least 25 % of the potential people that are going to go vote for her. So I'm wondering, and I'd like you to react to this, I'm wondering if we have overdone things. I'm wondering if we have to figure out a way to get the pendulum back to somewhere in the middle where people are at least treated fairly and equally and not one overly advantaged over the other, because these are individuals, Cady, these are human beings.
43:10And they just, they, you know, it's creating self-esteem issues, the policy redirect or the policy overcorrection, if you will. And again, I'm not saying it isn't justified and I'm not saying it isn't true, the statement that you made last week, but I'm just wondering if the answer is to go in the direction that we're going. I'm wondering if there's a better policy response and better narrative for Harris because she's not winning those voters and you just explain why. Yeah. And she's brought on Tim Walz to try and win those voters. Clearly he appeals directly to those voters. I wrote about this a lot in the book I put out last year that you were kind enough to have me on your show for, The Power Code, looking at what the role of men and women is and how power is shifting from men to women.
43:55I mean, the numbers do still support the idea that there is more struggle for women to get to the top. You know, only 12 % of CEOs are women, 20 % of senators are women, less than half of members of Congress are women. So at the top levels, women are still not represented in the numbers that men are represented. And I think a lot of women would point to that and say, we've still got work to do. There is still discrimination or systems in place that make it hard for us to get to the top. I'm also aware that almost half of men ages 18 to 29, so this Gen Z group, think that there is discrimination against men in American society.
44:32But I think Tim Walz actually, wittingly or unwittingly, echoes a lot of what I write about in my book, which is not that there needs to be discrimination against men. And actually, the best companies I know that have done big DEI efforts have also included efforts to include straight white men and how does it feel to be a straight white man and what can be done to help them. And when we pit men against women, it never really works. We tend to end up being the losers in those situations. So, I don't want to end up with more of a fight. But I think what Tim Walls is doing is presenting an alternative view of masculinity where you can be the football coach and you can be the governor of your state and you can be the army reserve officer, but you can also love your kids and show emotion towards your kids and be there for the boys and girls in your life.
45:25And I think that view of masculinity - What about hair products and self-tanning? Is that okay too for men or? Well, there are clearly a lot of men aged 18 to 29 who feel that orange hair and orange skin is the look that they would like to have. There's one Republican pollster, Christine Matthews, who's described the Trump's Vance ticket as the testosterone ticket, that they've just gone full on Trump Vance. Vance with his view of how life should have been in the 1950s somehow for men and women is an echo to that idea of men aren't allowed to be men anymore. Men used to be the breadwinners. Their grandfathers were the breadwinners.
46:06And now, damn it, their wives are anymore. And part of me has not a massive amount of sympathy for that because after centuries of having been, I think, and I think it'd be hard to argue that men and white men in particular had not had privilege from the virtue of their birth for centuries. There may be a little bit of over recalibration, but I would say that if I saw the number, if you said to me, you know, 70 % of world leaders are women and 60 % of CEOs are women and 80 % of members of Congress and senators are women, I'd say, okay, yeah, we've overcorrected, but it's not the case. And I realize that for individuals, that's hard, but there is, and I think the way to tackle this is not to think, well, women don't need more support to get into those positions, but it's to think, actually, we need to have a think about what manhood looks like and keep those, keep the sports playing, keep the football, keep the coach, keep the army reserve, but as well have a kind of nurture, an ability to care for and nurture members of your family, which actually would help everybody because if men were more involved in housework and in caregiving, of course, women could do better too.
47:13But I think it would enrich men's lives as well. And I think that's the kind of slightly subtle nuance thing that Tim Wolves represents. And we saw a lot of it with Doug Emhoff at the DNC. Doug Emhoff's speech was that role of a man who is supporting his wife, who's been a very successful lawyer, but stepped down to support his wife. Not an easy thing to do. I don't know that that changes the minds of 18 to 29-year-olds. Maybe they want what Vance is offering, a 1950s view of what it is to be a man. But I think it's a new view of what masculinity could look like. And if it was sold well, I think certainly appeals to women, which may account for why the female gap has grown so much.
47:49But I think it has the potential of appealing to some men too. Well, listen, I would say that Trump wins this demographic if we make it about these testosterone-like issues. And I think that no one's asked me this, but I'll say it here. If I landed from Mars and I witnessed the DNC, I would have said, okay, America is 70 % black and 80 % women. That's what I would have said. And I get it. I understand what you're doing. I understand the base that you're trying to go after. I understand the healing that has to take place and the need for overcorrection, but I don't want to leave people out. She's got to fortify that and maybe get Governor Walz out there or other surrogates out there to explain that it may be more macho to vote for her.
48:44Maybe she represents something that's actually more steely than Mr. Pushover, because when he's with language and says, well, you know, I believe Vladimir Putin. I don't believe our intelligence agents about what took place. Okay, well, come on. First of all, that's insulting to these workhorses in the government. And secondarily, it looks like you're kowtowing that doesn't describe you as animated with testosterone. So they can do better at this, but they're losing this right now. And whether they like it or not, 40 % of the American voting population is white male. It's not the majority anymore, but it's a very relevant voting bloc, and they've got to focus on it.
49:28I have another question for you, because the other thing that's happening here is that, and this is true not just in the United States, it's true in Europe as well. It's probably true where you are in Australia, I imagine. Young women are becoming more liberal and young men are becoming more conservative. We've looked at the kind of young men and why they might be feeling a little bit that they want to push back against some of the more kind of inclusion efforts that have focused on women and minorities. Why do you think young women are becoming more liberal? I think it has to do with the reproductive freedom.
49:58I also think it's a reaction to the misogyny. I think that one woman tonight, I was at a dinner, I was the guest speaker, and one woman looked over at me and said, when Donald Trump won, I'm an Australian citizen, but I said, oh, wow, there's just so much space for this, like, misogyny. And it's eight years since that electoral success for Mr. Trump. And he's posting misogynistic tweets about Vice President Harris and about Secretary Clinton. And then one of his supporters said to me, well, he didn't write that tweet. Okay. But he reposted it. So therefore, he's claiming authorship on his site by reposting it.
50:38It's now becoming something that he's sanctioning and sponsoring. And so to me, if I'm a woman that's concerned about my reproductive freedoms and I'm a woman that's concerned about my ascension in the world in terms of what my aspirations are, both professionally and domestically, I'm of course going to be more liberal. How could I not be more liberal? And if a man is feeling that he's being weakened by being neglected by the liberals. I don't know, does Bill Clinton in his heyday have less testosterone than Donald Trump? I mean, come on, give me a break. And so the answer is you've got to recognize that your party, the party that looks like the beautiful, colorful mosaic of America and reflects into the needs and interests of that mosaic is going to do better.
51:32Mr. Trump focuses on the white population more than any other. He tries to pretend that he does it, but that's what he does. And he thinks that's going to be his base that carries him to the presidency. Vice President Harris has to do something different. She needs that kaleidoscope of people. And a good portion of those people looking at the demographics are white men. And so bring Scott Galloway into your campaign for a day. Hear him out. Listen to some of his suggestions and incorporate it into your campaign and let people know that you're there to be their advocate. And I think it's something that you can see in the data, Katty.
52:09Their lack of doing that is being reflected in the data. Yeah. Look, they're going to need to win over. They must be loving the fact that so many young women are excited by her candidacy, but they can't keep losing young men at the rate that they are. Is she going to win the election? I hate this. I hate this question. I hate this question. How the hell do I know? I mean, if this is a normal election now, I'd say she's because, so the way she's expanded the map forces him to spend money in states he was not planning to spend money in, and he doesn't have a ton of money as much compared to, he's got a lot of money, but she has raised even more recently.
52:48So if it's a money advantage and a get out the vote advantage, then I think potentially she squeaked by by getting a couple of those. But I think it's a squeaker at this point. All right. So I'll make a prediction here before we close out the podcast. It's tight, but we have to give her credit for where she is in terms of where she came from. July 21st was a shocking day for her and her life and her family and her career. And it's now the first week in September. And think about what she's building and think about the coalition that she put together Think about how effective her convention was on such short notice.
53:27And I think in her mind, okay, the election starts on September 10th, and it will carry itself until November the 5th. And I believe that she's going to impress people and expand the map in a way that's going to surprise people. Very nice. And of course, we'll be doing a post-debate live stream. Thought I'd point that out, right, Katty? Next week, we've got the first Harris-Trump debate on September the 10th. and that's 1 a.m. in the UK. We'll be going live on YouTube immediately after. If I'm wearing a suit, you know that I'm at a funeral, somebody's funeral. If I'm wearing one of my t-shirts, it means it was probably just a neutral debate.
54:06But we'll let you know by what I'm deciding to wear after the debate. Yeah, and then it'll go up on our regular podcast feed when you wake up on Wednesday morning. So come and watch that. Just search The Rest is Politics US on YouTube. I'm not going to ask you to subscribe because you're all doing such an amazing job of subscribing on YouTube that I'm going to lay off the haranguing this week. So thank you to all of you who have subscribed. If you haven't and you feel like doing so, we'd love you to, but totally up to you. Thank you for listening to The Rest is Politics US. That is so British.
54:37That is so British, okay? An American would say, get over to YouTube right now and subscribe to my podcast. It's so British. Over the last few weeks, I've been channeling my inner wannabe Wall Street executive, and now I decided we needed a change of sales pitch. You're like an institutional salesman at one of the top five brokerage houses. But just get out there and subscribe to the thing. Come on, guys. Help us out. I'm Katty Kay. Thanks so much for listening. And I'm Anthony Scaramucci. We'll see you next week. Thanks again.
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