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Podcast Episode Notes: The Rest Is Politics - Episode 312: Is America Ready for Gun Reform?
Episode Overview In this episode, hosts Katty Kay and Anthony Scaramucci delve into various pressing political issues in the U.S., including gun control, the evolving gender divide in politics, and the political landscape shaping up ahead of the upcoming elections.
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Key Discussions
Gun Control in the U.S.
- Recent Tragedy: Discussion starts with a school shooting in Georgia that resulted in four deaths. The shooter was a 14-year-old student using a semi-automatic weapon.
- Comparative Analysis:
- The U.S. has experienced 45 school shootings in a year, highlighting a stark contrast with other developed nations.
- Australia’s response to gun violence post-Port Arthur shooting (1996): A successful buyback program that removed hundreds of thousands of firearms.
- The U.K. also enacted strict gun laws after the Dunblane shooting, effectively eliminating school shootings since then.
Key Points on U.S. Gun Culture:
- The American public overwhelmingly supports gun reform, yet legislative measures remain stagnant due to political lobbying, particularly from organizations like the NRA.
- The discussion emphasizes a cultural attachment to guns in the U.S., linked to historical notions of individuality and self-defense.
- Kay and Scaramucci express frustration over the lack of political will to enact substantive reforms despite public support.
Gender Divide in Politics
- Polling Data: A significant gender gap has emerged, with young women favoring Kamala Harris by 38 points and young men leaning toward Donald Trump by 13 points, resulting in a 51-point disparity.
- Cultural Context: Young women are increasingly liberal, driven by concerns over reproductive rights and societal expectations.
- Men's Response: Young men, feeling unsure of their roles amid the shifting socio-political landscape, are gravitating toward Trump’s traditional masculinity, which they perceive as strength.
Kamala Harris's Campaign Strategy
- Current Performance: Discussion includes Harris’s campaign strategy and perceived nervousness within the Democratic party about her ability to maintain momentum leading up to the elections.
- Need for Engagement: Emphasis on the importance of Harris engaging directly with the public, facing questions, and maintaining a strong economic narrative.
- Critique of Campaign Approach: There's concern that not addressing key issues (like the economy) at events is detrimental to her campaign.
Trump's Political Maneuvering
- Abortion Position Change: Trump has shifted his stance on abortion-related issues, showcasing a lack of consistency that goes largely unnoticed in his support base.
- Character vs. Policy: The discussion touches on the contrasting perceptions between Harris’s character and Trump’s approach. There’s a belief that Trump's character can overshadow policy inconsistencies, which he leverages to maintain support.
Predictions and Strategies Moving Forward
- Harris’s Positioning: The hosts contemplate what strategies Harris needs to adopt to win over young men and effectively communicate her economic policies.
- Electoral Predictions: Kay speculates on Harris's chances in the upcoming election, suggesting that despite challenges, a strong campaign could surprise many.
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Conclusion This episode of The Rest Is Politics underscores the complexities of American gun culture, the evolving gender dynamics in political affiliations, and the strategic challenges Kamala Harris faces as she enters a critical phase of her campaign. The insights shared reflect both a deep frustration with current political stagnation and a cautious optimism for potential change as the election approaches.
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Additional Resources
- For more insights and exclusive content, consider joining The Rest Is Politics Plus for ad-free listening, newsletters, and early access to live shows.
- Follow the podcast on social media for updates and discussions on current affairs.
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End of Notes
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Thanks for listening to The Rest is Politics, sign up to The Rest is Politics plus to enjoy ad -free listening and receive a weekly newsletter. Join our members' chat room again early access to live show tickets. Just go to TheRest is Politics .com. That's TheRest is Politics .com.
0:19Hello and welcome to this edition of The Rest is Politics US with me, Katty Kay. And I'm here at the Dixgaramucci. How are you, Katty? 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 Katty Kay?
1:00What am I to my job liver? Do I go out and not rate? And she was just letting me know that there is a goal hangar store system. And she was letting me know where I rank in that store system, okay? And so I was only in a minute in New Zealand, but it left the bad impression on me, Katty Kay. So you would never go back. Listen, can I just say? I'm teasing, but I think you have you. You have sworn off to Australia without me. And this is a no co -host left behind policy. Yeah, there you go. Well, you have you travel alone at your own expert, your own parents. There you go. And you have huge fans down here and they wanted well, that's very exciting.
1:37Let me know that. So I just thought I would share that with you. It was 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. My fouls get all sort of inserted in the episode every now and again. It was truly jet lag, but I find it found a 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.
2:14And tickets sales start from 10 a .m. Eastern on Friday, the 6th of September just head to The Rest Is Politics US .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.
2:55And 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, it seems to me 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 and I woke, I saw the news yesterday and Anthony and actually a week or two ago, I'd been thinking, you know what, it's really strange since we started this podcast.
3:38There 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. And 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.
4:17And 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 Cadi and I and everybody here are hearts to go out to people. And it's painful to say that because how many times have you heard somebody say, oh my heart go out to you, but obviously I have. We heard Garmacans say, 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.
4:53And there were a couple of things that happen 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 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. And 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.
5:38And 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. But 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.
6:16And before you say anything, I just want to mention in the United States, we currently are estimating over 400 million guns. More guns than people. For 335 million people. But tell us a little bit about what prime minister Howard did in a coalition was a bipartisan attempt to clean this up and it's been very successful. So what Australia did after the 96 Tasmania shooting was that they effectively had a program to buy back guns from the street. They 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.
7:00But 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. They have not been repeated incidents anything like the scale. I'm sure there have been one or two shootings in Australia since I don't can't, 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.
7:45The 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. And 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.
8:23We 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. But the structures, the scaffolding of the American system of government is somehow failing its people. And I covered the Sandihook shooting in 2012 when 26 and 7 -year -olds died. And that was the last big push for real gun reform.
9:03And it was four democratic senators who voted against Barack Obama's proposals for gun reform in that instance. So as 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. But I want to get your reaction to this statement. And so again, I'm just, you know, because I'm listening here in Australia to people have a leave they are that they have this gun control.
9:39You and I both know that the gun control ideas when pulled 75 % of the people in America in a bipartisan way say they want it. But you have 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 now 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 were misunderstanding in the United States? The generous interpretation is that there is something cultural about the idea, you know, 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 you know, got authoritarian and they could be able to defend themselves.
10:24But that's kind of that was, you know, 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 they these organizations get an awful lot of money from the gun industry. And 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.
11:10And that proved more effectively any of the money that they could pump into those political campaigns. I also think that the country's just not ready for it. And so it's one of the third rails in American politics. So these shootings will persist. The schools are by the way trying their hardest. They do have gun safety protocol. They do have people on staff. There was a community security personnel that said, dude, this gunman or gun boy, if you will. And of course, the 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.
11:52But thank God there was somebody on staff in that school that was able to subdu the gunman 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 in Australia. There's more of this feeling maybe because of the origination of Australia. There's more 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 has 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.
12:29So 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. And 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 sunset it. 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.
13:11And that's what's so frustrating here. It's, you know, 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. Americans 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 there needs 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.
13:50And yet the system isn't able to deliver it. Well, I guess the rhetorical question, which I don't think either of us have 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. And 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. But if Sandy Hook in 2012 didn't do it, 26 and seven year olds were killed, as Barack Obama said, nothing will. Yeah, I went to the 10th anniversary of the commemoration of the deaths of those people.
14:34It was President Obama's fault. The first story I've ever covered. I was there for a week and wanted to leave every minute. It was just awful. You know, it was a whole town that felt like it had this horrible damp blanket of pain and grief smothered over it. And then we just, you know, little kids. And if that, 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. But yeah, but there's a there is an election coming up. Yeah. And there's negotiation. By the way, there is a there is a transition here because Kamala Harris spoke about this, but Kamala Harris in 2019 proposed what Australia did.
15:19And 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. She 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.
15:46All right. I think was that issue for the Vice President's campaign is where is the campaign? Yes, she is going to rallies. Yes, she is speaking off -promptu 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. So the soft element is just the meat and greets extemporaneously going into diners, taking some photo ops, meeting the cook in the kitchen in the hotel before speech. That's the soft stuff. But then there's a confrontation. She's doing that well, right? She's good at that. She is good at that.
16:24She'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. And 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.
17:01But I think a little hurt her. I think general public will say, can a race be won off a teleprompter and can a race be won in the United States with holding press appearances? And so I don't know if that's the case. And it also creates a lot of merciness 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, they'll make up some are McGueden policies that are not your policies and they'll project them into the airspace. And Kat, do you know this better than me? We get a lie around the world.
17:43The 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 choose on. So this is really bad for her, in my opinion.
17:59And let a microphone come to her face and have some experience questions. She was asked how is the paint prep going? And she waved from the bottom of the stairs. That is going well or it's good, put a thumb up and walked up the steps. Now 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 without doing interviews and they can do it in this sort of isolated in a box sort of a way.
18:39But when I talk to them, they seem very, very confident. They seem we've got numbers, we've got no momentum. Internal polling is great. Nate Silver has a behind in Pennsylvania. We 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. 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 or he wins there or that he wins over here, he wins.
19:21And that's exactly what happened on election. 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. I, this guy is formidable. You may not like him. He does things that are misogynistic. He does things that are absurd. He knows that to keep himself in the media. He did a town hall last night with Sean Hannity. It was a lot more of the bladder that he comes up with. But the people, 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.
19:59They 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 August surge, that extraordinary five week 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. She 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.
20:39And 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 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. There was that conference with the black journalists, the throwing insults that didn't stick. There was the caffuffle around the Arlington cemetery and was he taking photographs for the campaign where he shouldn't have been, the crowds have been smaller at some of his events, some of his speeches of ramble hold.
21:20He tries to call it the weave. He's got a new word for it, but let's face it, it's it's rambling. And he seems to have reached, I love this idea that there's a weave is going to be all part of a mega plan. And he's rejecting the advice of you know, Wiles and Lasavita to try and stay on message. So he's not had a great few weeks. And 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 a harm 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.
21:56And now they are in a position where you know, David Plough, 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 Plough doing? And he said he's just trying to motivate people. And that they just don't want anyone to take their foot off the break. 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.
22:37I 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 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 kind of way. But 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?
23:11What if I came to you and said, Caddy K, 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 Plough 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. And 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 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?
23:47So 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. So she needs to find a way to talk about a affordability and not miss a single opportunity to do so. She is not a threat. The two issues where Donald Trump is still ahead in the polls are the two issues that most Americans say matter to the most.
24:32The 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 that she an economy team that she feels very comfortable with and that she trusts. She has Jean Spurling who was in the Clinton administration in the Obama administration who has now been watching very solid guy but not somebody she knows very well. He's fairly new to her operation. He's come in recently.
25:06It'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 trust. 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. And she 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.
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25:45So 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 let me roleplay for a second. Okay, I am vice president Harris and I'm calling into the rest of our country. Does that make me Donald Trump? No, no, no, definitely not. Definitely not. Although I would like to see you with the orange. I know I would like to try that. I would like to see you with the orange war paint on. You have to have to dye your hair orange. You got to go right, right, right down everything else orange.
26:17But 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. So 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. He literally 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.
26:58I'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 hold up in Pittsburgh doing a week of debate prep, reading myself for all these different things. And 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.
27:37And 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 competent and you're a safer pair of hands in him without getting too detailed into the policy. And they want to see that she can stand up to him. She can stand up to him because it'll give them confidence that you can send up to Putin. Give your confidence. You 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 to list every policy in three minute increments.
28:08If she does that, she's really going to get hurt by him. And I don't think she will. But I don't want her doing that. Because I think the prosecutor and her nose not to do that. She's performed in court. We've seen her in the Kamala Harris' best moment was during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings in the Senate where she played prosecutor. I mean, it's like 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.
28:43Right. He's at the moment, somebody who's fairly close to Trump was texting me saying, 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 theatre of this, on the show of this and how to needle her. 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, you know, old or small or whatever those words are. So I think. Yeah. But but but also be offensive on California. Yeah. Ascribe California for this amazing economy that it actually is.
29:22Don'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, Cady, 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 alms and my okays.
30:05And so you would have heard me on television say, um, um, um, um, um, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. And I got that beaten out of me by a media coach in 2011. She has a nervous laugh. Uh, Trump calls it a cackel. 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, uh, get the microphone in your face. And we're going to work on eliminating the cackel.
30:44Okay, or the laugh or whatever you want to call it. Now, 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 Cady. Yeah, then 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 they're for somehow the traditional rules still apply for her.
31:21And 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. Talking of it, consistent, that was what's called a segue in the business. In consistency 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 six weeks and then clearly some on the conservative right had got to him and said that's not going to fly.
32:05And 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. I 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, you know, position she held in 2019 compared to position 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, electrically.
32:35He 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. He 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 eight trillion dollars to our deficit spending.
33:21And 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, wait, so it's a penny on who he's with. He knows he has a fluidity. There'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 their 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 90s.
34:04He became pro pro life to run. And maybe he's ambivalent about pro life. He certainly 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. They 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, now it could be that they need Joe Biden's Catholics. They could be that they've looked at the data and said, listen, we're going to get the people that approach choice. But we also have to run and get some of the Joe Biden Catholics that are actually devout Catholics.
34:38They believe in the conception creates the human being. This is Catholic dog, Catholic theology. And maybe she doesn't want to say it. But you know, this is the number one issue now. Just take the risk. Though my my thing is throw the ball. Yeah. Take the risk. You don't win these things playing defense. You win them on offense. You know, talk about the debate. Okay. He gets the access Hollywood thing dropped on. I'm you and I did a four -part series, which are subscribers will get access to about the 2016 event events that took place and how he got to the presidency. But just go back. He's blasted with the access Hollywood tape.
35:17He goes on offense. Yeah. 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. Yeah. Who did he did? So constant offense. Harris team go on offense. Take some risks. You 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 of his 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.
35:56I think some people have mixed views of and some people certainly love Donald Trump's character. And they're going to vote for him for that. But on the abortion thing, one last thing before we go to breaking, then get onto other things is that new this week, the New York Times, Ciena pole 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 have to interrupt you for a second. Yeah. That was good. That's right. Come on. Yes. Come on. I didn't do it in the first few minutes. It came late. No, it's going to just be nice.
36:31Okay. So Alistair, I know you're listening. And I know like the new single woman. Scaramate. I know I know the New Zealand women that interrupted me and asked me where Cady was. We know where she is. She's she's here bragging about you, Alistair. Okay. But just I just want to ask the question, who retweets you more, Alistair me or Cady 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, fast the water.
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38:17Welcome back to the Restist politics US with me, Katty Kay. And me, Alistair Scaremucci, I just wanted to reference Alistair before Katty Kay did in this F, Alistair Scaremucci. Go ahead, Katty. What are we talking about? Go ahead. And he's going to stoop that low. Yes. 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, then Kamala Harris gets into the race, becomes the nominee and the split grows even bigger.
39:13Young 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 if you, 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, and at this very interesting New York Times piece which dug into the kind of some of the reasons for that. And the men that were surveyed in this piece were not men who were anti -abortion rights or socially conservative or particularly misogynistic.
40:02What 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? If 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.
40:46And 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 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. You said something last week that they 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.
41:27And that because of the result of they were white males, they had more opportunity. Their profile, their sort of blink profile, if you will, was okay, their white males. And so therefore they're competent. They're going to get good jobs up against African American women or women. There were levels of misogyny. One of the best -selling books last year was a book called Lessons in Chemistry, was written by a brilliant author called Bonnie Garmus. It became the best book pick for Barnes and Noble here in the United States. And it was about the misogyny that took place in the 1950s and the discrimination.
42:01But 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 Gallow, the professor from NYU, will tell you that suicide rates are up, suicide ideation is up, depression is up for white males. And he would also tell you that if walked on to a college campus, there are more women's advocacy groups, women for this, women for that.
42:43And 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. And 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, Catti.
43:22These are human beings. And they just, they know, it's creating self -esteem issues. The policy redirect or the policy over correction, if you will. And again, I'm not saying it is unjustified. 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 Walls to try and win those voters. Clearly he appeals directly to those voters.
43:57I 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. I 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.
44:32There 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. But I think Tim Walls 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?
45:09And 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. And I think that you have a hair products and self tanning. Is that okay to you for men? 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.
45:55And what's there's one Republican pollster Christine Matthews who's described the Trump's vans ticket as the testosterone ticket. They've just gone you know, full on Trump vans, vans 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. They used to be their grandfathers with the breadwinners. And now damn it, you know, 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 would be hard to argue that men and white men in particular had not had privilege from the virtue of their birth for centuries.
46:36There may be a little bit of overrecalibration, but I would say that if I saw the number, if I, 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 overcracked it, 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 a 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, but I think it would enrich men's lives as well.
47:28And I think that's the kind of slightly subtle nuance thing that Tim Walls represents, and we saw a lot of it with Doug M. Hoff at the DNC, Doug M. Hoff'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 you know, Vance is offering a 1950s view of what it is to be a man, but I think it's a, it's a new view of what masculinity that 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, but I think it has the potential of appealing to some men too.
48:06Well, you know, 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 over correction, but I don't want to leave people out. You know, she's got to fortify that and maybe get governor waltz out there or other surrogates out there to explain that it may be more macho to vote for her.
48:57Maybe she represents something that's actually more stealing than Mr. Pushover, because when he's with Putin, he slumps his body language and says, well, you know, I believe, latter -reputin, I don't believe our intelligence agents about what took place, okay, well, come on. First of all, that's insulting to these workhorses and the government. And secondarily, it looks like your cowtowing that doesn't describe you was 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.
49:35It's not the majority anymore, but it's a very relevant voting bloc and they've got to focus on it. I 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.
50:07Why do you think young women are becoming more liberal? I think it has to do with a reproductive freedom. I also think it's a reaction to them as auntie -ning. 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 so much space for this like misogyny. It's eight years since that electoral success for Mr. Trump. He's posting misogynistic tweets about vice president Harris and about Secretary Clinton. One of his supporters was like, well, he didn't write that tweet, okay, but he reposted it.
50:46Therefore, he's claiming authorship on his site by reposting it. It's now becoming something that he's sanctioning and sponsoring. 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 can I not be more liberal? If a man is feeling that he's being weakened by being neglected by the liberals, I don't know, if this Bill Clinton and his heyday have less testosterone than Donald Trump, I mean, come on, give me a break.
51:27And 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. Mr. Trump focuses on the white population more than any other. He tries to pretend that he does 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 brings Scott Gallow away into your campaign for a day.
52:10Here I'm out, listen to some of this suggestions and incorporate it into your campaign and let people know that you're there to be their advocate. And I think I think it's something that you can see in the data, Cadi, some of these, they're lack of doing that is being reflected in the data. Yeah, look, they're going to need to win over. They can't. 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 do I know?
52:43That's very well. If you think that I should think. 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 compassion. He's got a lot of money, but she has raised even more recently. So if it's a money advantage and a get out the vote advantage, then then I think potentially she's she squeaks 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.
53:17It'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 and think about how effective her convention was on such short notice. And 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.
53:56Very nice. And of course, we'll be doing a post debate live stream. I 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 on my t -shirts, it means it was probably just a neutral debate. But we'll let you know by what I'm deciding the where 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.
54:33I'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 haranging 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. So British. That is so British, okay? An American would say get over to YouTube right now and subscribe to my podcast. You're over the last few weeks I've been channeling my inner one of the street executive. And now I decide to find, you know, we needed a change of sales.
55:07It's a institutional salesman at one of the top five brokerages, but just get out there and subscribe to the thing. Come on guys, help us out. I'm Kati K. Thanks so much for listening. And I'm Anthony Scaramucci. We'll see you next week. Thanks again.
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