38. Has Harris pulled ahead?

0:06Welcome to The Rest is Politics US. I'm Katty Kay. And I'm Anthony Scaramucci. Caddy, how are you? You had a big week this week. You've spent more time with me this week than ever before, right? Is that it? Are you canceling me now? It's been great. We had a really good week. I'm not getting canceled off the podcast. I'm still okay. I'm still there. You know, I'm not texting Michael Lewis to say, please come back and take over. because we had, for those of you who weren't able to join us this week, Anthony and I had a live show in New York City, which was sold out at the Gramercy Theater on Monday night.

0:43And then we had another live show here in Washington, DC, my hometown, also sold out at the Turnaround Theater. It was great. I spoke to lots of people afterwards, Anthony, from the DC side, because several of my kind of friends and family came to that and they loved it. They thought it was a great show and that we should do it again. So once we get through this election and can get up for breath, let's think about what else we can do. Cause I thought that was great fun. So first of all, I had a great time. I enjoyed meeting your family and I thought it was a lot of fun to be in Washington. You did tell a thousand of your friends that I wasn't your first choice.

1:18It's okay though. I, you know, I'm feeling, I'm feeling a little bit better. Yes. I'm feeling a little bit better because you haven't, after your family met me, I didn't get thrown off the show. So I'm feeling a little bit better about that. But I want to go to something that is bothering me and I'd really like you to address it. Okay. We know a guy who is a letcher. Like I tell my daughter, a woman knows the difference between charming and creepy. So we know a guy that's a letcher. We know a guy that can abuse women. We know a guy that says ridiculous things about women. We know a guy that's calling for the execution of a former governmental official.

2:00And I guess what I'm wondering is, is the media in the United States covering that part of the story enough? Meaning, hello, ladies out there, okay, you know this guy. This guy has harmed people that are in your family or potentially harmed you. We know this type of a person? And what are we doing about it? And I would really like you to address it, if you don't mind, because I don't understand it. And maybe you could provide more context. In what you've just said, Anthony, there are about four breaking news storylines that have just come out in the last days of this campaign. And what we're going to do in this episode is talk about those, and then we'll take a quick break and we'll talk about how both of the campaigns are feeling and what their plans are for election day and after that.

2:48But to get to what you just mentioned and what you're referring to, you're referring to multiple different things that are happening at the moment. And having just spent the last few hours, I got up early this morning and was on Morning Joe this morning, and we were talking a lot about what Donald Trump said in an interview with Tucker Carlson on a stage last night. And they're talking about foreign policy. And he says about Liz Cheney, she's a radical war hawk. And then the conversation takes this bizarre turn and Mr. Trump says, let's put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, okay?

3:27Let's see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face. And it's just this incredibly graphic image that he uses of Liz Cheney in the sight of a gun, nine different guns trained at her. And it sounds like he's talking about putting her in front of an execution squad. I'm sure that the Trump campaign will say, oh, he was just saying, what would she feel like if she was sent into a war zone? But the way he phrased this, and it's interesting, if you look at the front page of the Drudge Report, so I do think the media is picking this up. The front page of the Drudge Report is Donald Trump threatens Liz Cheney with assassination.

4:05So it is being picked up. But what the Trump campaign is, they often do this thing where they say, oh, well, it was just a joke about that it's being taken out of context. The media is taking this out of context. But I've listened to the tape of that Tucker Carlson interview with Donald Trump, and it's really shocking. It's shocking to hear him say, and it's the graphic nature of what would it feel like to have these guns trained on her and be shot in the face. I mean, even the mention of the body parts. I think there is other sexist stuff that is going on at the end of this campaign. and let's kind of break each story down bit by bit because we can get to what Donald Trump said about protecting women the day before, then what Mark Cuban has said, the business leader who is a pro-Harris person about Donald Trump and how he doesn't hang out with smart women.

4:52But let's focus on this Liz Cheney one because I know that you've got thoughts about that and the legal implications of that. I think that is shocking. I don't know that the media can be faulted on this one for not paying attention because certainly the show that I was on was talking about it all the time. I think there is a question about whether the American voters and whether Trump supporters just sort of dismiss this as Trump being Trump in these final days and whether it makes any difference. I don't know. I honestly don't know if this breaks through and changes people's minds about Donald Trump, but what did you think about specifically about those Liz Cheney comments?

5:24I mean, one could argue that it could potentially have violated his parole agreement. How is that? He's out. Okay. So let me explain that to people from my legal background. He's out on bail. He's a convicted felon in the state of New York, but they said, okay, you're out on bail until you're sentencing, which is November the 26th, but you have to sign a parole agreement, which basically says you won't threaten the lives of anybody, okay? Among other things in the book, you won't break into a store, you won't commit a crime, you won't threaten somebody's life. And you can cut it any way you want.

5:55You know how they're saying about Joe Biden, he didn't say supporters, he said supporter with an apostrophe S. And you said earlier in the week, That's like Bill Clinton with the definition of is. You can cut it any way you want, but he said that he wants to assassinate or execute. He's calling for the execution of Liz Cheney. He's also said that he wants Mark Milley in the electric chair. I guess that's the point, isn't it? Just quickly to break in, it's not that this comes totally out of context. There have been other people that Trump has called for. Dr. Fauci should be jailed. General Milley should be executed.

6:32And so I guess that's why people are saying this is what he's saying, because this is not the first time in a way that Trump has said this. So there are two issues I just want to bring up. I'd love to get your reaction. You know, when he says that there's no foreign wars in my administration, I don't understand why the Harris team didn't come back with, well, there were internal wars during your administration. We had BLM protests. We had protests in Lafayette Park. We had riots on January 6th. and we had a potential civil war-like insurrection. So you're a guy that foments and promotes violence.

7:07You're now calling for the execution of a woman who's a former governmental official. But then the other thing I don't get is like, listen, we revered presidents in this country. Even when I was a kid, we were told to revere the president. And we learned about Washington did in Lincoln. I have sons. I would not want my sons to end up like Donald Trump. I have a daughter. I would not want my daughter to be married to Donald Trump or to have a relationship with Donald Trump. I would turn to my daughter and say, hey, that guy's nuts. He's going to hurt you. Could you please get away from him? And I guess you know this, Caddy, there's something wrong with him.

7:48He's talking about Megyn Kelly's menstrual cycle. He was grabbing them by the you know what, which I don't want to bring up on our podcast. Every woman is nasty. Vice President Harris has a low IQ. She's a dumb SOB. This is what he's saying. Is it not registering? Mark Cuban makes one comment and they're trying to generate all kinds of nonsense related to his comment. But then Mark Cuban does something that Donald Trump has never done. He apologizes for the comment. He walks back the comment. So what am I missing? Okay. Because you've written two bestselling books about the power of women. So please explain to me why the bell isn't ringing louder, or maybe it is.

8:33Maybe we're going to have a 25 % more than expected woman's turnout in the election, and we're going to roast the guy. I don't know, but tell me what it is. So I think, and to kind of spell out the Mark Cuban stuff, so Mark Cuban in an interview said, it's interesting that Donald Trump doesn't hang out with smart, intelligent women. The Trump campaign picked that up, saying that Mark Cuban, who is a business leader, has made a fortune and is backing the Harris campaign, was denigrating Donald Trump supporters. As you say, Mark Cuban walked back those comments. And then Donald Trump said, on a campaign stop that he was going to protect women, whether they like it or not.

9:16The Harris campaign then yesterday brought up Donald Trump's comments four separate times in four different campaign stops. Tim Walz brought it up once. Kamala Harris brought it up three times. It was very unusual for the Harris campaign in the early stages of her candidacy to respond to individual things that Donald Trump said. So I thought it was interesting that they have now gone into response mode. And we seem to be in a kind of final stages of the campaign where you've got one campaign says one thing, another campaign says the other, and they're kind of fighting at each other over the latest comments.

9:52What you're getting to is the sort of conundrum of Donald Trump, right? How has Donald Trump got such a pass for saying things that are so out of the normal bounds of American politics for so long. I mean, right from when he came down the escalator in 2015 and said that Mexico was sending criminals and rapists. And time and again, in his political career, Donald Trump has said things that no other politician would get away with saying. And particularly, you're right about women and whether it's the kinds of things that were said in Madison Square Garden, the kinds of things that he has said. You referenced Megyn Kelly and the debate back in 2016 and how he said she had blood coming out of her whatever.

10:39And there's a long history of Donald Trump saying this back to the Access Hollywood tape and seemingly getting away with saying it. And I guess the question is this time around, the combination of those things that he says about women, the laws that have been changed to take away access to abortion and reproductive rights to women, is that combination finally going to be too much for even a candidate like Donald Trump to be able to withstand? Because the early voting numbers do suggest that women are turning out in enormous numbers. You and I have both been speaking to the Harris campaign this week.

11:14They're feeling much better about where they are today than where they were two weeks ago because they're seeing women turning out. And it could be that actually all of these incidents of the kinds of things and Donald Trump's language, I think, in the closing days of this campaign, and whether it's because he's feeling afraid that he's going really hard base, and particularly on race and women, whether it's just too much. And I think we'll see that next week. And the Harris campaign seems to think that it is. And they seem to think that his language on women is breaking through with Republican women, and that they don't like what they're hearing.

11:49What do you think? Do you think it is breaking through? Every single media outlet in America, by the way, is covering that Liz Cheney story. I guess so. I guess so. You sound super optimistic. Yeah. No, I am optimistic because I got up 6 a.m. this morning and I had a call with one of the campaign people. This is someone that I work with on debate prep. and there's a change. There's definitely a vibe change. And what is the vibe change? It's related to gender and it's related to voter turnout and enthusiasm. So in their minds, based on their data, there is a gender gap and they are winning that gender gap.

12:34And to what you would have anticipated and what I would have anticipated, the women go out and vote. The 18 to 36-year-old men, they could be playing Fortnite instead of voting. They may miss the voting call. Okay. And so there's also an enthusiasm gap. And it is true that his enthusiasm is waning and hers is rising. And I have to ask this to you because I think this really hurt him. He wobbled into the garbage truck and you can't unsee that. He's trying to get in the car. Explain that, Anthony. Can you explain the whole garbage truck thing? Biden makes the comment that Trump supporters are garbage.

13:11He lands in Wisconsin. There's a gleaming white Trump Vance plastered, poster plastered signs on a garbage truck, a sanitation truck. Trump dons an orange and yellow vest, and he's now going to climb into the passenger side of the garbage truck. And he's got something wrong with his left leg, and he's 78 years old. and he's moving towards the truck. And Caddy, he literally almost has a career ending fall and a possible hip breaking fall. And he steadies himself on the truck and then he climbs wobbly into the truck. I thought he wasn't going to make it up there. Caddy, I'm an image oriented person.

13:56I'm a very visual person. I has a very bad image for him. Okay. Now I'm old enough to remember. You're not old enough to remember, but I am old enough to remember the Michael Dukakis fiasco. Do you remember the Michael Dukakis? Yes. Okay. I mean, he's riding around looking like a Muppet with a hat on, a helmet, and he's riding around in a tank and he looks literally like a buffoon. It is the most unpresidential thing that you could possibly see. And he was trying to show that he was strong, right? He was trying to protect strength up against Ronald Reagan. It wasn't going well. But anyway, I thought it was terrible.

14:31So we'll see. We'll see if this stuff breaks through. Okay. We're going to take a quick break, and then we'll come back and we'll talk a little bit more about where we see the state of the race and the kinds of things. Donald Trump's been putting out a few kind of red flags about cheating and the vote being rigged already before we've even got there. And we'll interpret that a little bit and what we think about it.

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16:05And welcome back to The Rest is Politics US. I'm Anthony Scaramucci. Yeah, and I'm Katty Kaye. Four days before the big election. D-Day coming up, Anthony. And this half, we're going to look a bit at how we both think the state of the race is and how the campaigns are feeling. What are you hearing? You know, I've seen a change. I sense a little bit of panic from the Trump team, a little bit. They were Joe Cacolac, super confident, going to win six out of the seven states. And also, like I tell you, Cady, I'm a markets person. And the barometric pressure reading on the market dropped in the last 36 hours, meaning certain Trump trades went down.

16:47DJT, his stupid stock, crypto markets went down. Some of the cyclicals went down. These are all Trump trades. And so something has happened in the last 48 hours. There's a vibe shift towards her. Now, I want her to appoint a Republican, and I want her to announce that she's going to put XYZ on the cabinet. She's not allowed to do that. But if Adam Kissinger, somebody like him, comes out and says, hey, I want to be Department of Homeland Security Secretary, or I want to be the Defense Secretary, it's a good sign. Yeah, Adam would be great for that because he has that military background. He served in Congress.

17:31He was on the January 6th committee. He was one of only two Republicans on the January the 6th committee, former congressman from Illinois. He would fit a security background, wouldn't he? He would fit a security position. Yes, he would. He would. And I like him a great deal and it would fulfill her promise. And it would also show that she knows how to operate in a big tent. She's going to have Republicans and Democrats. And I would just say to them, 72 hours ago, let's focus on how you're going to govern. Trump is attacking himself. you've made enough divergent narratives related to why you're better than him let's focus on how you're going to govern i think that would really help some of these moderate and indecided voters but can i just talk to you about one thing and get your reaction i think there's a trump mind virus you know how elon musk talks about the woke mind virus i think there's a trump mind virus and by the way not a good reflection on me i think i was infected by the trump mind virus and so what is the Trump mind virus.

18:29You're working for Donald Trump. He acts like a moron. And now you have to get out there on TV and you need to please him. So you say somewhat moronic things. And I'm going to give a very specific example. There's a gentleman here in New York. I didn't bring his name up on the last podcast because I like him. I have a good relationship with him, but I have to bring his name up because it's newsworthy now. His name is Howard Lutnick. He is the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, and he's the co-leader of the Donald Trump transition team. He went on Caitlin Collins' show, CNN, 9 p.m. show, and he proceeded to say that the vaccines don't work and that you need more data on the vaccines.

19:11Caitlin Collins was looking at him quizzically and said, what do you mean, like the smallpox and the polio vaccines and this? No, no, no. There needs to be more data, and RFK Jr. is a brilliant guy, and we need to get more data from RFK Jr. And I looked at that and I know Howard a long time. I guarantee you every one of those Cantor Fitzgerald people had to get vaccinated pursuant to New York City law, return to work. My guess is he and his family members have been vaccinated, but he's now infected with the Trump mind virus, where he's going to say ridiculous and absurd things that besmirch his reputation in order to sound pleasing to Donald Trump.

19:48By the way, in line with what happened at MSG, we're going to slaughter our opponents. That's Grant Cardone. Puerto Rico is a pile of garbage. That's Kill Tony. You've got everybody trying to out-Trump Trump to please Trump. And I'm just wondering, Caddy, what's your thought on that? I mean, it's repulsive to me, but by the way, I did it. So I got to hit myself. I mean, I'm done hitting myself over, but I did do it. And how do you get people to, hey, guys, knock it off. Knock it off. Yeah. I mean, I think it is what we're seeing in these last days, particularly of the campaign. I mean, even the kind of more straight down the road, Trump people that I have been speaking to for the last five or six years and have developed pretty good relationships with have been saying some pretty wacky stuff in the last few weeks.

20:42And maybe it's a sign, particularly in this final stretch, that Donald Trump is feeling more nervous about the election. I think that the way he is talking about the possibility of the vote being rigged and naming very specific places like Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and putting out true social posts about how the vote has been stolen and it's corrupt and there's fraud going on. The fact that he's doing that now, I spoke to somebody from the Harris campaign this morning, a senior official on the Harris campaign who said, that's a tell. He wouldn't be saying this stuff if he didn't think he was in trouble.

21:22And particularly the Harris campaign says that they can see from early returns on people who are talking to exit pollsters who have voted early, that Donald Trump is not getting enough young men out and he's not getting enough seniors out in the kinds of demographics he needs to win. Now, Trump's campaign has been all braced on the premise that, yes, okay, he's not going to do very well with women, but he's going to get out this kind of secret hidden army of people who have never voted before and don't vote in very big numbers, and that's men aged 18 to 39. fine. But the early voting numbers, unless all these guys are waiting to vote on election day, which maybe they are, but the early voting numbers, the Harris campaign certainly feels favor them.

22:08And what this Harris campaign person said to me is that he's now making up baseless claims of election fraud because he knows that he's looking weak, because he knows that his numbers aren't good. And if that's the case, then of course, that would be well. And I think what's interesting is that we're starting to get data now. You and I were speaking about a week or two ago and that this was vibes. And you described this as a vibe shift in the last 48 hours. I actually think it's a data shift and that they're able to base this now. And the Harris campaign has been so careful about sounding confident on television, right?

22:42They've wanted to be the underdog. They've wanted to say this is neck and neck. Hilary Clinton campaign experience. Is that right to say that or no? Yes. They got PTSD from 2016 and how Hillary Clinton's campaign sounded far too confident. And now they've wanted to be very careful, and they have. They've been very disciplined about being very careful in public. I mean, this is the phrase that Democrats are bedwetters. They've sounded like the bedwetters. Our buddy Alistair Campbell. And by the way, I'm getting props right now for bringing up Alistair because you are like the teacher's pet. Alistair, Alistair, Alistair.

23:14I know. I've been slacking a little bit the last few weeks. Alistair said something brilliant to me. He said that one of his buddies says the Republicans are fantastic at getting the Democrats to bed wet one week before the election. And they were all bed wetting like four days ago, right on cue. Start the bed wetting. Start the bed wetting. And now they've got the crisp new freshly ironed linen sheets out, which are stone cold dry. And they're feeling pretty happy about things. And they want people to know. If they're going on television saying this, they want people to know. Exactly. The brand of detergent was called fresh data.

23:48They washed their sheets in fresh data, and they're ready to go again. But we'll see. It's going to be a very, very close election. I mean, look, I think it's going to come down to the forces of we're not going back, which is the Harris campaign, against the forces of we've gone too far, which is the bro vote. Jennifer Lopez, who is still an icon in her 50s, God bless her. She's in incredible shape. She's a health, beauty, fitness, singer, actress. Business mogul. Business mogul. And she's Puerto Rican. So she's one of the most successful women in America, if not the world. She's out last night with the vice president.

24:29And she gave a very emotional and very impassioned speech about endorsing the vice president. And then she put the flag of Puerto Rico up against the flag of the US. and she's calling on her compatriots or fellow Americans that happen to be descendants of that beautiful island known as Puerto Rico to please vote for Harris. Is that effective? I think actually you've seen a couple of endorsements. I mean, the one endorsement I remember back in March, March or April, somebody on television saying the only endorsement that would really change the needle would be Bad Bunny, who is just a massive, of course, Puerto Rican star.

25:11And after the Madison Square Garden comments about Puerto Rico being an island of garbage, he came out and endorsed the Harris campaign. This is as big as Taylor Swift, if not bigger. So I think the combination of these stars coming out for her after those Puerto Rico comments, I think that makes a big difference. To my generation, Arnold was looked up to. This is the Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger. He came out with a very ringing, very impassioned endorsement of Harris, Vice President Harris? Does that matter? I mean, it was interesting. You and I have spoken about this before. I don't know that that matters as much.

25:47I don't think he moves young people as much. I mean, I think Nicky Jam rescinding his endorsement again after the Puerto Rico comments of Donald Trump probably has more impact and probably helps Kamala Harris more. And also we've known for a long time that Arnold Schwarzenegger was in the camp against Trump. I mean, kind of like whoever it was against Trump, because he and Donald Trump have such bad beef over The Apprentice and Donald Trump was so rude to him when he was co-hosting The Apprentice. So I don't know that he moves it, but all of this helps in these final days. I mean, I had a conversation this week with somebody who has been a lifelong Republican who hates Donald Trump and was not going to vote, a neighbor of mine in Washington.