335. 6am: Trump On The Brink

23:52And I think it looks from these exit polls as though actually, the economy has loomed larger an immigration or abortion or any of these other issues that are sexier and that we've been meeting. Well, they heard of the complete Trump. You said so, an immigration was the big thing and kept fit on that when his team told him to put them in the car. Let me tell you why. I mean, I pull well on the exit polls. Maybe those dominance corrected, those are higher. But Trump lives in a zero -some world. And so his met, there's winners and losers. His message to black men and Latino men that are in the country.

24:26you're here legally. I'm protecting you from the migrants that are trying to come in illegally, so you're part of my group. And that message resonated with those people. Even if they're not part of his group, Rory, they think that they're part of his group. And it resonated. But is there an element as well of people voting against the Democrats? So the point is, But I'm the kind of perception of that the Democrats are kind of permeated with with wokery and that they are too progressive that they only care. I mean, the Kamala Harris is not a great candidate to spell that kind of argument. Yeah, I'm not crazy about the word woke, but it's that we all know what we're talking about when we're talking about it and the more woke that the Democratic Party have got, the more they have lost ethnic minority voted.

25:12One of the... And I'm saying one in three voted for Trump. One of the things that I heard from somebody who's been out and about on the campaign paint rail is that on off under the radar, not sort of big public stuff, they've absolutely been hammering transgender. And I see you've just had elected your first transgender member of Convergones in Serum at Bride. Absolutely hammering it particularly with young black men who don't, no, I'm not going to speak for all of them, nobody can, but that they in particular have this feeling that the woke thing was a little bit out of control. So is that the sort of thing that you were saying earlier, the Democrats need to go away and think about?

25:52100%. And by the way, Elon Musk algorithmically made that a great center of attention on that big megaphone. But remember, the Democrats have had eight years to think about this. This is basically a replay of 2016. So all these super brands, I mean, Jake Sullivan, I remember, after 2016, totally shattered, went away, spent two years thinking, came up with a whole new foreign policy for the middle classes. Biden came in with the inflation reduction act, which was all supposed to be about blue collage arms, massive stimulus package, reshoring industry. He kept Trump's tariffs in place. I mean, if you were defending the Democrats, it's not as though Biden and his team didn't think that they hadn't spent the last eight years learning the lessons.

26:36And we're now talking as though this is somehow new. It's not new. It's a repeat, right? just on the way we think the campaigns heads are going to be, I mean, their mindset. So I was getting endlessly being sort of sent stuff that was suggesting things are looking good, things are great, so all looking fantastic. They're slightly fading away, not getting so many of those messages. So what will the Republican party and the team trump, how will they be thinking about this? And you know a lot of the Harris people as well, how how they feel in thinking right now. Do you think they agree with the dominant?

27:11There's no way through this. At this point, I do think that they think that. I think that they're probably making a decision on what tone shall have as it relates to the concession speech. There are house races that are still out there. They thought they were gonna flip the house. It now looks like it's 50 -50. As to whether or not they can flip the house. He has coattails in this election. Again, whether they like it or not, He's drawing some of these House members with him. None of the Democrats expected that, but the one thing that they made the mistake on which We have to accept he is a progetess and formidable Resilient and talented politician and the Democrats never really saw him like that They never really could give him all of that do you know, Stuart Stevens did, Rick Wilson did, they were trying to bang the drama, say Democrats wake up, this guy's incredibly talented.

28:10This is the point of front -lunch, but they never saw him like that, and they pulled them. I wonder whether something that bizarrely we ended up talking about for about three news days, the assassination attempt, that extremely moment, which is truly iconic in every way and which the tech boroughs love where he reflexively in that moment gets right back up and says, fight by fight. I don't think there's very few humans that could possibly have done that. And that speaks to that point of it seems emblematic of what he's done perhaps tonight. And yet we talked about it for sort of three days. Any of them in the world are you one leg down?

28:45I almost got every vote in their gowny. I disagree. There are very few humans who could do that. I think there are many humans who could do that. But I think what matters is that people like Elon Musk believe there are very few humans who can do that. I think most people who've been in the military would be able to do that instinctively without blinking. Probably 20 % of the population could do that. We shouldn't let Trump get away with the idea of he's like a .01 % superhero. That's the normal match that I think. That's his point about his political instinct. His instinct for showmanship is instinct for seizing a particular moment.

29:15I don't think you can dispute that. And I think even you've said to me before that even during this campaign, he has had his own people saying to him, don't do that, don't do that, don't do that. And he's always saying, I know better than you. And I'm doing it. And by the way, I looked at his movements in Pennsylvania. I know that state, my family's from that state. And I was like, wow, he is really figured out where these communities are. They're going to vote for him and he's sitting in those communities. Not necessarily in the Hobba Philadelphia. He's out in those farmlands. He's out in the coal mining industrial areas of state.

29:51And when I looked at her running around the state, it was a lot like Secretary Clinton. And I said before we broke, I did not like that concert. Again, that concert was a wasted time last night. It's so tragic, doesn't it? Because I do think to defend the Democrats, they did learn a lot of lessons from 2016, or they thought they had. And she did run a different campaign to Hillary Clinton. She was out on the ground much more. She didn't take the battleground states for granted, they saw what happened last time she put in, I think, over 20 appearances in each of those backgrounds, say, it's in a way that Hillary Clinton didn't.

30:25And she hasn't been rewarded for that. And I know we're about to get into psychology and results. I'd love us at some point to just get into the fundamental fact, the horrifying fact of what it actually will mean for America and the world, that this guy has just won again and won in this way. Just one thing about Pickermone, as you were saying, about Trump before we get into that. What Trump has done is phenomenal. So there's only one person in American history who lost the White House, spent four years in the wilderness, and then came back. And that's the president that most people have never heard of, Grover Cleveland in 1892.

30:59And most people in the 20th century assumed that if you lost after one term, as Jimmy Carter did, as George Bush senior did, that was it, you were done. And I think most of us, on this panel, in this room, in this building, in this city, thought after January the 6th 2021, the insurrection. That definitely was the end of Trump. But shouldn't it be? Well, if you look at the principles of American democracy, shouldn't it be the end? Well, there's nobody that stopped them. Like I said, McCarthy had a chance to do it. So to McConnell, McConnell's writing a book now about it, like, oh, I didn't really like him, but it's too late, Mitch, but here's the thing, I want to say to you guys, and a lot of people inside his campaign have said this to me, he could staff up with the McCarthy's of the world.

31:46He could staff up with, because he's a big name dropper, he likes big names. He could say, you know what, I'm 78 years old, I'm going to play golf in Florida. And I got my vengeance by winning. I'm shoving myself up the you know what, every single person on this panel and all the people around the world. But I'm gonna go play golf and hang out at this moment. or he could operate Project 2025 and try to create a dystopian America, but there'll be people in America that would fight him. He's not going to be able to get the military. If he calls up the military like he did and says, hey, I want you to do this or I want you to do that, those guys are trained and taking over to the country.

32:28I'm resigning. I can't do that. I'm sorry. You just be like I'm going to do that. I mentioned Project 2025 that. So I guess the question now is does he, as it were, a bit of a rerun, sort of do all the big stuff, meet Kim Jong -un, all the big showy stuff and go and play golf and leave it to these Project 2020 -25 guys? What do you think he'll be a different kind of president if he wins?

32:52I just might just to follow up on that. I mean, I'm worried that this is terribly bad for his ego and his narcissism. If everybody's told you you can't do something repeatedly and you do it, I think you get a slightly more arrogant version of Trump this time around than you have before and that's bad. What is impunity? Absolutely. Well, your tell is going to be she concedes and then he gives a speech. I don't know if he gives it tonight or he doesn't two o 'clock in the morning or tomorrow, but it'll be his speech. Now, who's writing that speech? The speech that was written in 2016 was a gracious speech.

33:32He also then did a 60 minutes interview and they said, well, you're going to lock up Hillary Clinton. He said, no, I was just talking like that. He never took any action against Hillary Clinton. But is there vengeance in his heart? Is there some level of indiciveness? And then who around him is going to allow him to do that? Because I believe that there's a Trump mine virus. And that mine virus is I need to out Trump Trump to impress Trump. And so I go to an MSG rally, Puerto Rico is an island of garbage. We're going to slaughter people. You say all of this stuff that you think is impressing Trump that you don't necessarily get away with, but he does.

34:08And then the question is does he have his people around him doing things that they think he wants them to do? But the project because of the way it works. The project 2025 plan is basically to sweep away the state, the swamp, call it whatever you will, and surround him with these people chosen by Musk, chosen by Peter Teal and the kind of other new oligarchs. And where does that leave the United States? Where does it leave the administration? Where does it leave the governance of the United States? Well, well, there's that one of those people that doesn't think they can manipulate Donald Trump.

34:44There's not one of those people, JD Vance, Elon Musk, Peter Teal. They're sitting there the same way Steve Bannon was. Steve Bannon got fired primarily because he went to the press and said, Trump is a hand puppet and guess who's the hand? That would be me. And the minute he did that, he got caught doing that, he got fired. And so these guys are going to underestimate Trump and they're going to try to manipulate him and they're going to try to get what they want. Elon's sitting there with all these government contracts saying, okay, great. I'm on my way to a trillion dollars. I'm in a race with my other billionaire friends.

35:18Jeff Bezos is like, woo, thank God I didn't bury myself with that endorsement for Kamala Harris. I'm glad I pulled it at the last minute. My blue origin contracts are okay. And they know that he is transparently transactional. They know that about him. Okay. Now the flip side of it, I think we have to talk about it. I hope you don't mind. Is the money? The money. Trump said, let's go. Shoot me the money and the money flew in a million dollar sweepstakes, money here, money there. $250 million came from the cryptocurrency lobbying community. We're not talking about Sherrod Brown. Your people don't know he is, but he's a very powerful person in the US.

36:02He's the Senate Banking Committee chairman, ousted by a card dealership salesperson in Ohio, who received $40 million from the crypto bros, who said, okay, shared brown, you don't like crypto, bye bye shared brown. Well, we're gonna have a quick break. We're in the process of getting hold of Dr. Samara Klaar, who's an elections expert, and we'll hopefully be talking about it. We're not getting a suicide psychiatrist on here. I'm just wondering, we're not making jokes about suicide psychiatrists. Sorry, I'm big of a... But anyway, we'll be back shortly. But in by the way, we had a few messages while we're off there that some of you doing these breaks, aren't seeing anything apart from some sort of whole different.

36:44That's to do with the way that I think that YouTube works. So don't worry about it. Go and get a cup of tea and we'll see you in a minute.

36:59This is an ad from BetterHelp. At the moment, we're getting advice from everywhere. You just have to go on TikTok. could be Alice's coal plunges, could be my attempts to meditate or the digital detox that I'm doing in Colombia. But of course, one of the things that we know is that it can be incredibly valuable to talk to another human being, somebody who's actually been trained as a therapist to work through these ideas, calmly objectively and professionally. And as the largest online therapy provider in the world, better help can provide access to mental health professionals with a very diverse variety of expertise.

37:35They've got over 5 ,000 therapists in the UK. They've helped more than 5 million people globally and you can join a session literally at the click of a button. Change therapists anytime. So obviously not about fixing you, but it's about hearing yourself clearly, maybe for the first time. So talk it out with better help. our listeners get 10 % off their first month at betterhelp .com slash rest politics. That's better help .com slash rest politics. Welcome back to the RESTIS Politics live from the World Trade Centre in New York. And I hope that we have with us Dr Samara Klaar. Do we? Yes. We do indeed.

38:17I'm here. I love it to see you. Now you are a political scientist, you're a professor at the University of Arizona, and you specialize in voter behavior and political psychology. So for a British audience in particular, that kind of is probably waking up this morning, absolutely reeling at the news that they're trying to digest. What do you make of the voter behavior and political psychology going on here now? Well, there was three big issues in Arizona across the country, and the primary issue that people were concerned about was the economy. And I think that what we're seeing is voters penalizing an incumbent administration, not distinguishing Harris from Biden and voting against an incumbent after inflation, increases in cost of living.

39:00That seemed to really outweigh, I was going to say Trump, but outweigh all the other considerations. Can I come in on the result? So Nate Kerniff in New York Times has just said, another hour has gone by, but the story is still the same. Trump is favored in each of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, we'll just have to wait longer to see whether maybe, just maybe, Harris will do better than expected in key democratic areas. I mean, it's looking increasingly difficult for, isn't it? Because more and more of the vote is being counted. Well, I think we look at how the polling was predicting this election would bear out.

39:36We knew that there were seven key states. We knew that Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina were long shots for Harris. and we knew that Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, and Michigan were really her most reasonable path to winning. We are still waiting on those three states. We're waiting on, I believe all of this Wednesday it's except for North Carolina. It doesn't look good for her. She didn't get any surprise wins. She hasn't been overperforming. She hasn't been overperforming me in the polls, but the results aren't in. We'll have to wait and see. I would, you know, I'm sure she's not thrilled.

40:07I'm sure the campaign is prepping a concession speech if necessary. But that's exactly right. We still don't know. And the truth is, I'm not sure which which districts we're waiting for in Pennsylvania. What I've seen in Arizona here is that Trump is currently up by 10 ,000 votes and I believe 700 ,000 votes still have to be counted. So we still do have a long night ahead. We've got a long few days ahead. I think is more likely. Harris campaign was helping for a much stronger night. It's not looking good. But that's I agree that the election hasn't and then call it the adventure. Professor, is this just for viewers listening, is that you just being super cautious as an academic and trying to be absolutely on the thing?

40:47Because New York Times is giving a 91 % chance of victory to Trump. I mean, it sounds as though they really think this is Trump's. Which would be a good chance than Harris right now. There's no doubt about it. But we're talking about incredibly close races. Biden won Arizona by 0 .36 % in 2020. 2020. So, listen, if you're asking if I'd rather be in the Trump campaign or the Harris campaign right now, I would say the Trump campaign is looking much stronger for Trump, but there is a reason this election hasn't been called. So we can start to speculate as to why Harris hasn't over -performed why she's actually under -performed relative to Biden in many areas.

41:25But to Nate Cohn's point, they're still waiting. Yeah, Georgia's been called for Trump by the BBC and NBC, not yet the New York Times. I think we were expecting that. When you talk about those tiny numbers, and we look back at the last couple of elections, and some of these states, you talk about literally micro gaps between the two candidates. But at what point do you kind of run out of row? When can we actually say, once you're up to 85%, 90 % counts, and she's not catching up, then that then starts to look like, this is all over. It's just very, very hard from looking at our perspective to see any way back right now.

42:06Well, I think that's fair. I mean, listen, Trump is up and it's looking good for him. It really depends on the state. When you're talking about in Arizona, if you're still waiting for votes from Maricopa County, which is a transforming swing state, then you really need to get down to the very last ballots before you know for sure. I'm not sure which districts they're waiting on in these other states. If they haven't called yet. It's because potentially they're waiting for cities or suburbs, areas where they're not sure if there's enough Harris votes to make up the difference. And at a certain point, yes, absolutely call it before 100 % of the ballots are in.

42:45It's just going to depend on each state's no where those missing ballots are coming from. Do you think people will say at the end of this if it turns out as we look at the moment, the polls got it wrong again or got it more right again? I mean, from my perspective, I think the polls actually are the winner of the night. I mean, the polls told us that this was going to be incredibly close in seven swing states. And it has been the polls typically had shown Trump ahead by one or two percentage points within each of those states. It looks like he's winning each of the swing states at this point by maybe up to three percentage points.

43:19I'm saying potentially three maybe. I'm not sure if he's going to be anywhere by four, but we're seeing these very, very, very small margins. He's up in Arizona now by about 0 .6%. And then Paul's were showing us what is bearing out, very, very, very close races in these very particular states. It is so going to be interesting if Trump takes the popular vote as well as the electoral college. That wasn't something that people seemed to anticipate, right? But he may be on top of it. Well, he lost the popular vote twice. So this will be his first time winning the popular vote. My understanding is a lot of that could be due to very strong performance in Florida, state that he was projected to win.

43:58In a lot of these states, Harris was not focusing her campaign on the states that she knew she would lose. She was really spending a lot of time in the background states. Trump overperformed, I think, in some of these red states. He got even more votes than anticipated, and that could push him over with a national popular vote. And what do you think this result, if it does pan out in the way it looks at the moment? What do you think that says about America? I think we're pretty stunned at the idea that somebody who is convicted felon, the rape, the misogyny, the racism, the lying, the chaos of the four years when he was president, an America which other democracies tend to follow the trends, what does this say about the future of democratic politics.

44:44Yeah, that's the question I get most often when I'm talking to people from outside in the United States, like how is this how is this possible? And we have two parties in the United States, two viable parties that stand for very different things. One tends to represent conservative policies and the other liberal policies. If you're a voter who values conservative policies, you essentially have two choices. You can vote for a party that disagrees with which you disagree on everything, or you can vote for a party that agrees with you on most policies, even if you don't like their leader. And that is ultimately what a lot of Republican voters do.

45:17When we talk to Republican voters, we ask them, many Republican voters are voting for the party, they're voting for the policies, they're not voting for Trump himself, because the other option is a party that doesn't line up with their issue preferences. Yes. Finally, for me, there were many people saying that Trump had sort of hit his ceiling, that he hadn't performed well since 2016 in 1820 and 22. And there were many people saying, everybody knew Donald Trump, his name recognition was universal, nobody was going to change their mind on Donald Trump. But it's possible that we're actually seeing as he wins the popular vote, that that theory isn't right, that he may actually have added votes in a rather unexpected way.

46:00Does that mean that he's made he been able to pull over people who didn't previously vote for him? And if so, what is it that's different about the Trump in 24 compared to the Trump in 2022 and 2020? Whereas of course for us we feel he's a worse candidate, but it feels like he may have moved people over to Watson. Sure, if we're comparing Trump in, let's say, 2024 to 2020, is a really entirely different context, especially when you take his opponent into consideration, it's going to be, you know, days, weeks, months, years, speculating as to what went wrong for the Harris campaign in this election.

46:34But in 2020, Trump was running against an experienced candidate who had been through a primary 2024 was a chaotic election to say the least, historically chaotic election. 2020 Trump had been overseeing COVID, the pandemic, people were deeply unhappy about what had been been going on for those previous years, 2024 that has largely been forgotten. There's new issues that have arisen largely the border crisis, the economy. So it is a different context. But you know what, I've got the same questions you do. I think these are questions we're going to be asking for several years to try to figure out how this has happened.

47:09To look back at the selection, you know, some of us have been joking that soon there's going to be history books that focus just on this year. There's been so much to analyze. Well, Professor Kais, we'd love to talk to you. I think our original plan, we're going to keep you on standby for several days as nothing became clear. It looks like it might be coming clear and more quickly than we thought. I'll give my pajamas. It's okay. We can stay all night. Okay, great. We'll speak to you again. Thank you very, very much for your time. My pleasure. Okay. Now, we've, can we, to the viewer to the listener, please do send in your own questions.

47:39Just go into the YouTube chat and put your questions in there or on social media, hashtag, trip live and we'll get through as many as we can. Let's do a few questions down and see what we are.

47:53Or not, as the case may be. There we go. I give them move. They move them on the screen. It was at the bottom earlier what we're doing the race of the White House. Is there any traction to the possibility of the Donald Trump? I think it's a few, Dominic. We'll try to change the law so you can carry on after this next term. I believe there is. But let's see. Is it legally possible? Is it constitutionally possible? So before the 1940s, there was a convention that you didn't do more than two terms because George Washington had only done two terms. Franklin D. Roosevelt did four terms. So after that, the Republican dominated Congress pushed through an amendment to the constitution which was ratified by the states, the 22nd Amendment, which said that it's two and then you're done.

48:39But there has been talk ever since of repealing that. Now, what Trump could well do is he could point to something that Bill Clinton talked about. I think back in 2000, Bill Clinton said, given how much longer people live now, how long political career is I mean, Joe Biden's had a great of 200 years, that you can serve conceivably non -consecutive terms. So you could do two, then have a break, then return. Now, for Donald Trump, that is a gift because he could say, I did one term, then I had a break, then they can do another. So why not take Bill Clinton at his word and then appeal the amendment and let me do another term.

49:17Which is the famous see the Russian system. So people, listen, we'll remember that Putin was limited to two terms. So he stepped down, put him in for Devon. Yeah. Mevdev then served and then he was able to come back. Exactly. So the procedure from a constitutional perspective, it's a lot like what happened with prohibition. They have to go back to the States and create another amendment to repeal the amendment. But I I guess what I'm wondering is there something he could do from a judicial maneuver, something he could do through the Supreme Court is there something that he could promulgate that gets him there.

49:51To a Supreme Court strike down the 22nd Amendment. I don't think so, but is there a force measure somewhere where he could say, hey, he will be talking about that. I would imagine within days. I think that's going to be his first movie, his first 100 days. He's going to be if he becomes president again. Old as president ever. So he'll be watching at the end of two terms. If you want 86? Yeah, well Biden is the oldest president of America. He's 78 about to be 79, but yeah, if he makes it to the fourth, you know, and good reason good health, there'll be 83, 84. Okay. But we will be talking about the 25th Amendment again, because he was rambling a lot.

50:27And I mean, he's not in his good health as he was. He doesn't come across this. Just back to your point, I would say that one thing that he was going to feel really involved in this is that clearly people don't be care about democratic norms in the same way that we wish that they did because the whole thing that should have disqualified him all this January the 6th or whatever it clearly just it does not have a lot of it. I mean I would have thought the the interruption just seems to be bigger than the permanent line but if people don't mind about it not enough people mind about it. But Marina can I just push back for a second they do care about it because they care about and the way that Elon Musk cares about it, because it was number two on the exit polls democracy.

51:09Well, in fact, I think we'll find our next question is about that very gentleman, Mr. Musk. So hello. Hello, my credit's the right words. Sarah and Darwin, how much credit should Elon Musk get for Trump if he wins winning the election arena? It would be really interesting to pick apart how his ground operation worked, because people kept saying, well, there's nobody there. people have said they've knocked on doors and the app has misregistered it and they haven't. He has put himself at the top of his own. I mean he bought, as we said, the right to be the main character on Twitter and he's put himself at the top of it every single day.

51:47And there is something, I mean obviously slightly compelling and mesmerising about the world's richest man like dancing around behind, I mean literally dancing around behind this guy. He drew a huge amount of attention and that thing that we were saying about people saying, or Trump's a good businessman. Look, also the richest man in the world is backing him. I think that makes a big difference in people's heads. I mean, obviously I spend far too much time down that weird rabbit hole, but it's very, very striking. When I attack Elon Musk or Trump, the two things are now connected and a lot of the people who come after me, they immediately come after me saying, this guy is much smarter than you.

52:25This guy made billions of dollars. He's the smartest man in the world. If he thinks Donald Trump's the right person, who the hell do you think you are to challenge him? So I do think there is particularly amongst a group of the young men that are attacking you on Twitter. Musk was a huge tick in the box and the fact that he's been prepared to appear again and again saying not just Trump is a man of integrity, but that he's gonna run a great country. And by the way, I'm gonna be in charge of Department of Government efficiency and I'm gonna sort it all out. What, why is Elon Musk operating the way he does?

52:56Does he have genuine political convictions? Does he like Trump? Is it about getting a slice of the state when Trump wins what's going on? Well, the most nefarious thing you can say is that they see him as a rub and a vessel that they can manipulate. And they have said he's probably, yeah, I can't be the president. He said this on Rogan, he said this in lots of interviews. I can't be the president, but I can influence the president. And he sees this guy as a vessel. Remember Trump said on Twitter that Elon Musk would have gotten on his knees in the Oval Office and done anything that I wanted. I don't know if you guys remember that tweet, but he did do that during the presidency.

53:35And he's done it to everybody. He crushes people, making Kelly. I think you guys know that he absolutely flattened Megan Kelly. And then she did the sick -of -antic thing, got up there, and gave the speech in support of him. He absolutely flattened Nikki Haley. She wrote an op -ed in the Wall Street Journal praising him. He flattened Elon Musk. And so he loves doing this sort of thing to people and he wants them to come back, groveling. You know, who called Trump for the first America's Hitler? Well, as of me, it was Vance. Okay. Now, Elon Musk has been a better running maid for Donald Trump than JD Vance.

54:15Interesting. Right. Let's take another question. This goes back to something you were saying earlier from Andy Start. But what's the best way for the dams to respond to this chromatic loss? Why were so many commentators so out of touch? I guess that would include us. Particularly, I mean, I think to be fair to a lot of commentators, many of them were saying it's 50 -50 within the much of our... I was massively out of touch. I mean, you know, my mayor, Cooper, if Trump is wrong. But you were just wrong. Yeah, I was wrong. Thank you. That's a nice way of putting it. But actually, to be fair to the commentators, when I came out strongly saying, I think and the Harris was going to win.

54:52I didn't have a lot of people with me. I had many, many people saying, wait a second, you're much too confident about this. The polls are suggesting it's 50, 50. I really, really would like to know the answer to the first question though, maybe throw it back to the panel. What the best way for the Dems to respond to the Stematic losses, I keep going back to this slightly boring point, which is, they've been there before. They were there in 2016, and they spent the last eight years doing everything that they thought were the right things. And remember, the inflation reduction act was a hell of a big thing.

55:20That's like a trillion dollar package. So, you know, my in -laws, for example, would say, Biden understood the problem, yep, of blue collar workers. He understood the damage that globalization had done, this point that Anthony keeps making, and that they implemented some very smart policies on chips, some manufacturing, on infrastructure, precisely to try to win back the blue collar voters. Just one thing, why were you so confident? It was your normal, you don't normally take those unbelievably stark, strong positions. But pretty much from Chicago, you were absolutely out of the church going to win.

55:54So number one, I think the Pony Company's models broken. Number two, I believe Trump was weaker than here was in 2016 because of the performance in 1820 and 22. Number three, the theories on how Trump was going to win depended a lot on young African American men voting for him and they had not turned out in 1820 or 22. And finally, I just saw the fundamentals of the incumbent, the fundamentals of what Biden had done pretty good. He hadn't done anything too bad, and she'd run an OK campaign. All other things being equal, I reckoned that if it was 50 -50 and I had to bet, I would definitely go with camera.

56:31Why did I bet on camera? I think the thing that helped me back was the fact that she ultimately is the incumbent and at the moment it's really hard for incumbents to win. So, there are campaigners reporting at the moment that we will not cure for tonight. She has not shown up at her watch party. I don't know if she's called to concede, and obviously just an after because nobody's called it yet. I just had a message from somebody in the campaign that Pennsylvania is not looking great. Okay, so what Hillary did was, it was Secretary Clinton did, but she called it about 130 in the morning. She did call at that point, President -elect Trump, to say that she conceded, but we weren't going to hear from her.

57:12So I don't know if she's going to do that or not, but it's a very similar, not enough now. Yeah, it's a very similar 2016, but here's the thing. You are either, you see him for what he is and you become a dissident and part of that resistance and you try to work on restoring the ideals around either that party or you work with the other party to make sure that the system stays in place or you sink authentically bend your knee to him.

57:44Okay. or thinking about things in a fearful way, I ain't doing that over my dead body. Okay, so I will be spending my time trying to explain to people what they're about to do because I understand their playbook. I know a lot of the people that are gonna be working with them and I know what they wanna do. They wanna fracture and systemically change the system. Okay, and you know, you guys are probably mad at me for saying this, but I'm gonna say it anyway. It's a democracy. We got white people running the country. Yes, we got a democracy. Wait a minute. There are brown and black people that could overwhelm us demographically.

58:23Yes, okay, you know what? We got to change the rules on that. We don't like that. And that's what they're going to do.