Nick Craig Subs for Pete (10-11-2024--Hour1)

[00:00:01] I'm Nick Craig, host of the Carolina Journal News Hour, which you can hear Monday through Friday, 5 to 6 a.m. right here on WBT, filling in for the great Pete Kaliner today on The Pete Kaliner Show, News Talk 1110. 99.3 WBT will be taking some of your phone calls as well at 704-570-1110. That's 704-570-1110.

[00:00:24] So I thought we'd start off the program today with an overall broad stroke of the election.

[00:00:33] I have Pete talked about polling yesterday, we'll cover that coming up a little bit later on this hour.

[00:00:38] But I thought it was important to kind of take a snapshot right now, 25 days out.

[00:00:43] And it's important to understand that we're talking about a snapshot.

[00:00:47] Because there's a lot of discussion about political polling, which we'll get into.

[00:00:51] But what a poll is, and at the election, every day it's a snapshot.

[00:00:55] And yes, things can happen one day and they bleed over for a couple of days.

[00:00:59] But it's always a snapshot.

[00:01:02] So where do we stand here right now, 25 days before the election?

[00:01:06] Early voting starts next Thursday, the 17th, here in North Carolina.

[00:01:11] The current status of the rate, in my opinion,

[00:01:14] is that the Kamala Harris camp is about to fumble the ball.

[00:01:19] Some might argue that the ball is already loose, right?

[00:01:22] We watched the football game last night.

[00:01:23] You go into the ground, the ball falls out before your elbow touches, before your knee touches.

[00:01:27] I think that's the process that we're in right now.

[00:01:30] But before we get into where things stand now,

[00:01:35] it's important to look back just a couple of months.

[00:01:38] Not super long.

[00:01:39] We don't have to go back two, three years.

[00:01:41] We just have to go back a couple of months to understand

[00:01:44] why things are the way that they are right now.

[00:01:47] So let's hop back in our time machine three, four months ago.

[00:01:50] Joe Biden, still the president and the nominee.

[00:01:55] What issues did Joe Biden have?

[00:01:58] Well, I'd be here for the next three hours going over all of them.

[00:02:01] What were the big issue, the biggest issue he was dealing with?

[00:02:05] He wasn't bringing any enthusiasm to the Democrat Party.

[00:02:10] He wasn't giving anybody a reason to vote for him.

[00:02:15] And that's why you saw the shakeup that you did.

[00:02:19] Joe Biden had hit his ceiling.

[00:02:22] And in some cases, depending on what polling you were looking at or

[00:02:25] what Democrat strategists you were listening to,

[00:02:28] he may have actually been losing some of the coalition that he had,

[00:02:32] which is insane when you're only getting 38, polling 38, 39%.

[00:02:39] But he was losing the enthusiasm battle.

[00:02:43] And whether you like it or not, I tend not to, but whether you like it or not,

[00:02:48] elections are not won based on policy.

[00:02:52] Because if they were this upcoming race in 25 days, wouldn't even be close.

[00:03:00] You wouldn't, I mean, it would be an electoral bloodbath in most of these states.

[00:03:07] If policies were what people were voting on, but they don't.

[00:03:11] It's all about enthusiasm.

[00:03:14] Which candidate or candidates are bringing enthusiasm to your party?

[00:03:21] Which candidates are motivating turnout?

[00:03:25] And that was the issue that Joe Biden was struggling with.

[00:03:30] That was the issue that Democrats couldn't get over.

[00:03:34] He was in the Oval Office for at that point, three years when this was all starting to shake up

[00:03:40] earlier this year, a couple months ago.

[00:03:43] Three years in the Oval Office and he had no contingent.

[00:03:46] He had no coalition of people that were rah-rah Joe Biden.

[00:03:50] And it makes sense.

[00:03:51] Whether it was him stumbling up a flight of stairs, falling down on stage,

[00:03:58] seemingly having no idea where he is, people coming and grabbing his arm, his shoulder and

[00:04:03] leading him off of stages.

[00:04:06] All of that combines to a candidate that people aren't excited about.

[00:04:12] They just weren't.

[00:04:14] Now, if you were a tried and true Democrat, you were voting for Joe Biden.

[00:04:20] Why?

[00:04:21] Well, because he's not Donald Trump and he mostly believes the things that you support.

[00:04:26] So we had those people, of course, locked down.

[00:04:30] The same way that any Republican nominee outside of, you know, regardless of whether it was Donald

[00:04:35] Trump or not, would have a contingent of individuals that vote for them no matter what, because they

[00:04:40] have similar enough or close enough policies that they agree with.

[00:04:46] The problem that you started seeing with Joe Biden is even that group of people started

[00:04:51] scratching their head and going, hmm, is this, this is really what we've got?

[00:04:57] This is who we're going to nominate and elect and have lead the country for another four years.

[00:05:05] And these, these are people that have not voted for a Democrat president and some of them maybe in

[00:05:09] their entire lifetime, they were starting to scratch their heads about Joe Biden.

[00:05:15] They were starting to wonder, do I go out and vote in November or in early October if I'm in a state

[00:05:22] with early voting or do I just, uh, I don't know, stay home?

[00:05:28] Do I just sit this one out?

[00:05:31] And that's what the internal polling showed.

[00:05:34] Joe Biden had hit his proverbial ceiling at a very low rate.

[00:05:41] Then you, of course, had the disastrous presidential debate.

[00:05:45] In which Joe Biden looked like he was on a Boeing rocket ship that may or may not be coming back to

[00:05:52] earth.

[00:05:53] The guy was completely out to lunch.

[00:05:56] You could see it in his eyes, you could see it in his face.

[00:05:58] Couldn't put a coherent thought, a statement together.

[00:06:02] And that was the straw that broke the camel's back.

[00:06:06] And even for a couple days after that, if you'll remember, it seems like it was a lifetime ago,

[00:06:10] but it was really only a couple months ago.

[00:06:13] I'm staying in the race.

[00:06:14] I'm staying in the race.

[00:06:16] Only to just days later, drop out.

[00:06:20] To finally there be so much pressure on him as a candidate.

[00:06:26] So much pressure being put on, I would argue that maybe not even him more his wife, Jill,

[00:06:31] who from multiple reports, the most exclusive was the Politico story that came out about three

[00:06:36] months ago, which indicated she, for all intents and purposes, was running the show.

[00:06:42] The pressure was just too much.

[00:06:45] They couldn't handle it.

[00:06:48] And for the individuals like the elite, we'll call them in the Democrat Party,

[00:06:54] for the most part, they're spot on.

[00:06:59] Joe Biden didn't have and doesn't have another four more years in it.

[00:07:04] The idea that if he stayed in the race, he would have any realistic chance to victory is just not

[00:07:10] practical.

[00:07:13] Again, I'll go back to my point that elections are one on enthusiasm.

[00:07:17] Elections are one on turnout.

[00:07:20] Not from the consistent blue voters, not from the consistent red voters.

[00:07:24] We know those people are going to show up no matter what.

[00:07:28] It's this large group of people in the middle, some right leaning, some left leaning.

[00:07:36] Which candidate or candidates do they show up for?

[00:07:40] And it was perfectly clear and obvious for anybody, even those that are not politically astute,

[00:07:46] those that have not spent their entire lives in politics, that Joe Biden didn't have it.

[00:07:53] So what was the end result?

[00:07:56] He was forced out of the race.

[00:07:59] From there, we'll get into where things stand.

[00:08:03] So we did a little history lesson.

[00:08:05] How did we get to this point right now?

[00:08:07] 25 days out from the election.

[00:08:09] We covered all the Joe Biden drama, everything associated with him.

[00:08:14] So he says, okay, I'm done.

[00:08:16] I'm not running for re-election.

[00:08:18] I'm done.

[00:08:18] Then, magically, the candidate that got no votes in the 2020 primary, Kamala Harris, is the heir apparent.

[00:08:27] She is the man, or in this case, the woman for the job.

[00:08:32] And immediately, she was able to shatter the ceiling that Joe Biden couldn't crack.

[00:08:39] Because she did bring some level of enthusiasm to Democrats that Joe Biden didn't.

[00:08:46] Now, from a policy standpoint, she's obviously, I would argue, much further left than Joe Biden.

[00:08:54] But she was new.

[00:08:55] She was different.

[00:08:57] She wasn't the senile old man that Joe Biden had not only been portrayed as, but showed the entire American public that's what he was.

[00:09:06] So, now she's the candidate.

[00:09:09] And things started to change.

[00:09:12] This 35 to 40 percent ceiling that Joe Biden was hitting in many swing states, that was now gone.

[00:09:19] And so, what did you see in the weeks after that announcement?

[00:09:24] You started seeing all of these battleground states, like North Carolina.

[00:09:30] Like Wisconsin.

[00:09:32] Like Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Georgia.

[00:09:35] All of these states started shifting.

[00:09:40] Halloween is coming up in a couple weeks.

[00:09:42] And I'm sure many of you remember as a child participating, or maybe as an adult participating in Halloween.

[00:09:49] Eat a little bit too much candy.

[00:09:50] It's late at night.

[00:09:51] What happens?

[00:09:53] You're bouncing off the wall to the chagrin of your parents.

[00:09:56] You're bouncing off the wall.

[00:09:58] You have what is known as a sugar high going on.

[00:10:01] You have consumed 19 Snickers bars and a bunch of those smarties and nerds.

[00:10:06] You're bouncing off the wall.

[00:10:08] Kamala Harris was on a sugar high.

[00:10:12] The Democrats were on a sugar high.

[00:10:16] She was new.

[00:10:18] She was different.

[00:10:19] She was something else compared to Joe Biden, who was arguably the worst possible candidate that the Democrats could have.

[00:10:27] Just brought really nothing to the table at all.

[00:10:30] So everything starts changing.

[00:10:33] Battleground states where President Trump is up 5%, 6% polling.

[00:10:37] Everything starts getting real narrow.

[00:10:39] Real close.

[00:10:41] And for a period of time, Kamala Harris is up in many of these swing states.

[00:10:48] I just went over the list.

[00:10:50] It was not necessarily a good scene.

[00:10:54] A good sign for Republicans.

[00:10:58] Just a couple of days after she was announced that she would be the VP, going from VP to now being the presidential nominee, the Democrat National Convention happened.

[00:11:11] Everybody coalesces, at least for the most part.

[00:11:15] So the sugar high was a prolonged effect.

[00:11:20] Something new.

[00:11:21] Something exciting.

[00:11:22] Something to get engaged on.

[00:11:27] And now here we are a couple of weeks past all of that.

[00:11:30] The debate took place between Trump and Harris.

[00:11:34] Had the VP debate last week.

[00:11:37] And if you look at polling today, and I for the most part agree with everything that Pete talked about yesterday in regards to polling.

[00:11:47] They're not gospel.

[00:11:49] It's not what's going to happen.

[00:11:50] It's a snapshot of what's going on.

[00:11:52] And more importantly, it's the trends, just like Pete was talking about yesterday afternoon.

[00:11:58] So what's happening right now?

[00:12:01] The sugar high has worn off.

[00:12:05] The quote unquote enthusiasm, the ceiling that was shattered when Kamala Harris was put in there, which, let me be clear, would have been the same with any other Democrat candidate.

[00:12:16] This is not something that is exclusive to Kamala Harris.

[00:12:20] If it was Gavin Newsom, if it was Gretchen Whitmer, if it was any other, anybody else besides Joe Biden, we would have had a similar result to this.

[00:12:31] There's something to get excited about.

[00:12:33] There's something new.

[00:12:34] Okay, great.

[00:12:35] We're back on board.

[00:12:36] We're back on board with the Democrat Party.

[00:12:37] Here's my little foam finger.

[00:12:39] Democrats are number one.

[00:12:42] But that only lasts for a small period of time.

[00:12:46] Can't capture lightning in a bottle.

[00:12:48] And I believe the Kamala Harris campaign, which is in many cases the Joe Biden campaign, thought that they could just roll with that.

[00:12:57] That this sugar high of her being new and her being different was going to cruise them straight through November.

[00:13:04] But for individuals that are actively involved in this political process, for individuals that have watched this go on time and time again, election after election after election, knew that it wasn't the case.

[00:13:20] And so while I'll admit things started getting a little uncomfortable there for a couple weeks, collar on my shirt starting to get a little tight.

[00:13:30] This race is really heating up.

[00:13:34] But now that's gone.

[00:13:36] And if you look at the trend lines over, I'll call it the last 14 days or so, she has completely flatlined.

[00:13:49] The enthusiasm, the Kamala support is for all intents and purposes gone.

[00:13:55] That has played its course.

[00:13:58] And so when you look at swing state polling, averages of swing state polling, not individual polls, but when you look at averages of polling in swing states, like the battlegrounds that we're talking about, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona.

[00:14:16] When you look at these states, Trump is going up and Kamala Harris is either flatlining or going down.

[00:14:24] And I suspect that that trend is going to continue.

[00:14:29] Why?

[00:14:31] Because what is she doing?

[00:14:35] She's constantly running away from cameras.

[00:14:39] She has no interest in actually articulating her policy, her platform, but in large part because she doesn't have any.

[00:14:48] She has no interest in discussing that with the American people because what they will find out and if she stands up on stage, talks about being middle class, about how we can't go backwards.

[00:15:00] We got to move forward and all these great promises that Democrats do every single election cycle.

[00:15:06] People just aren't buying it.

[00:15:08] They're tuning it out.

[00:15:10] They understand that she's been in the second highest ranking office in the United States for almost three and a half or at this point over three and a half years and has accomplished nothing.

[00:15:23] Whether it's the border, remember borders are Harris.

[00:15:28] Whether it be the economy, the federal response to the disaster in Western North Carolina, anything and everything that she could have some sort of impact on.

[00:15:40] She hasn't because I don't truly believe that she's a real leader.

[00:15:45] She might talk a good game if you're not super informed as to what's going on.

[00:15:51] Every once in a while on X or Twitter, I'll see a comment from her and I'm like, oh, it sounds pretty good.

[00:15:58] Unfortunately, it's not accurate.

[00:16:00] However, what she's saying is just pandering and gaslighting.

[00:16:04] It doesn't really articulate to anything tangible.

[00:16:07] And voters understand that they realize that 704-570-1110.

[00:16:15] That's 704-570-1110.

[00:16:17] As we continue looking at the current status of the presidential race here, 25 days ahead of election day.

[00:16:25] Early voting starts next Thursday, as I mentioned, here in North Carolina.

[00:16:29] So we documented Joe Biden.

[00:16:31] He wasn't turning people out.

[00:16:32] There was no enthusiasm, no wind behind his sails at all.

[00:16:35] All right, that's done.

[00:16:36] Then we talked about Kamala Harris and the sugar high that she was operating under.

[00:16:40] New candidate, DNC convention.

[00:16:42] Something to grasp onto if you're a moderate Democrat.

[00:16:47] You don't like Trump.

[00:16:48] You're looking for something to grasp.

[00:16:50] Kamala Harris brought that.

[00:16:52] And as I made the point, I think any Democrat would have brought that to the equation.

[00:16:56] It's not exclusive to Kamala Harris.

[00:16:59] So now we sit here this afternoon.

[00:17:02] And everything is starting to shift.

[00:17:05] Because that high has run out.

[00:17:07] The sugar's now out of your system.

[00:17:09] And everything is coming back to reality.

[00:17:12] And the reality is, many of you deal with this day in and day out.

[00:17:16] I know I do.

[00:17:18] We're just struggling.

[00:17:20] The economy is not great.

[00:17:23] Gas prices, while yes, they've moderated, it's still too expensive.

[00:17:28] Mortgage rates are still astronomical.

[00:17:32] And we're looking for some relief.

[00:17:35] It wasn't that long ago that things were very different.

[00:17:39] Very, very different.

[00:17:41] And so some of you might be asking and saying to yourself,

[00:17:44] Well, you're just saying this because you don't like Kamala.

[00:17:47] You're just saying this because you're a Trump guy.

[00:17:50] Okay, fine.

[00:17:51] Fine.

[00:17:51] I'll concede all of those points to you.

[00:17:54] This whole first hour of the show was sparked by a 50-second audio clip.

[00:18:00] You're familiar with the Young Turks?

[00:18:02] This is not a group that is friendly to Republicans or the right at all.

[00:18:08] Chank, you're a guy.

[00:18:10] I don't know how you pronounce his last name.

[00:18:11] He's the head guy over there.

[00:18:13] He's been doing it for 20 years.

[00:18:14] It's a very left-wing group, the Young Turks.

[00:18:18] He did a live stream earlier this week.

[00:18:21] And you're going to hear the audio start off kind of abruptly.

[00:18:24] It's not because I didn't edit it.

[00:18:25] This is literally how the live stream starts.

[00:18:27] It was streamed on YouTube.

[00:18:28] It's got over 325,000 views.

[00:18:33] And this is how he started a 25-minute live stream.

[00:18:37] Again, the Young Turks.

[00:18:40] Incredibly far left.

[00:18:41] This is how he started his live stream on Wednesday.

[00:18:45] Take a listen to this.

[00:18:46] Because new polls are out and it doesn't look good for Kamala Harris.

[00:18:51] I have not been this worried in a long time.

[00:18:55] So we don't have a lot of time left.

[00:18:57] We have less than a month left.

[00:18:58] And she's now losing in almost all the swing states.

[00:19:02] So I'm going to break down all the numbers for you guys.

[00:19:06] They don't look great.

[00:19:07] I'm going to give you what people in D.C. are saying, Democratic Party are saying, Republican pollsters, everyone across the board, how are the markets doing, et cetera.

[00:19:17] First, look, I'm telling you this not again to ha-ha or whatever.

[00:19:24] I'm telling you because the pundits are almost always wrong.

[00:19:29] They never come back and tell you, oh, yeah, we got it wrong, et cetera.

[00:19:33] They don't tell you oftentimes ahead of time.

[00:19:36] They do Monday morning quarterback.

[00:19:38] You know, all those different things that they do wrong.

[00:19:40] The reason I tell you guys stuff ahead of time is so you can see whether I'm right or not, so you can see whether you should trust our analysis.

[00:19:48] Okay, so we're going to trust the analysis of the Young Turks.

[00:19:51] He comes firing out of the gate.

[00:19:53] The video starts.

[00:19:54] It's a live stream.

[00:19:54] The video starts.

[00:19:55] He's already mid-sentence.

[00:19:58] And I haven't been this worried in a long time.

[00:20:02] All right, and then he goes into some soliloquy about he wrote about this a couple of days ago.

[00:20:06] The sky is falling.

[00:20:08] Trump's going to win.

[00:20:09] It's all over with.

[00:20:10] This is why I'm saying this.

[00:20:13] This is not just your average Trump voter's thought on what's going on.

[00:20:18] When the Young Turks are saying this, and I've got a clip that I'll get into hopefully in the next segment, if not later in the show.

[00:20:27] CNN last night, one of their chief political correspondents is just laying it out.

[00:20:35] When that's the conversation from the left, you know they're in trouble.

[00:20:41] And that's why I said this 50-second or 60-second clip sparked this entire first hour of the show.

[00:20:48] Panic is ensuing.

[00:20:50] And for good reason.

[00:20:52] And for good reason.

[00:20:53] If you were on that side of the political aisle, you had no enthusiasm Joe Biden for the last three years.

[00:21:00] You get the Kamala Harris substitute in, the backup quarterback off the bench.

[00:21:05] She throws a couple of good passes and then throws nine interceptions in a row.

[00:21:10] That's what's happening right now.

[00:21:12] And it's complete and total panic.

[00:21:17] Because we're out of runway.

[00:21:19] And when I say we are, I'm talking about just in general as a country up against a deadline.

[00:21:25] Election day is the deadline.

[00:21:28] Every hour that ticks by, the runway is shrinking.

[00:21:33] And the idea that Kamala Harris is going to pull some rabbit out of a hat and magically correct these trends that didn't just start yesterday.

[00:21:44] These polling trends did not, these aren't just a couple of polls that are showing this.

[00:21:50] This is, at this point, at least two weeks worth of polling averages that show Kamala Harris does not have enough gas in the tank to make it to November 5th.

[00:22:01] But I'll say this as a cautionary tale.

[00:22:04] Don't get complacent with it.

[00:22:07] This is not the election.

[00:22:09] The election is not 125 days before the election.

[00:22:11] It's won on election day.

[00:22:14] So all of this is not a rah-rah Kamala Harris is going to lose.

[00:22:18] That's not what I'm saying.

[00:22:18] There's a possibility she still wins.

[00:22:20] These swing states are close.

[00:22:23] But the panic is starting to ensue.

[00:22:26] And you're going to hear a lot of very interesting things over the next three and a half weeks from individuals that you wouldn't expect to be talking about things the way that they are.

[00:22:36] In this case, the Young Turks.

[00:22:38] In this CNN clip I'll have coming up for you in a little bit.

[00:22:41] Let's jump on over to our phone lines.

[00:22:43] Ray's hanging in on line one.

[00:22:44] Ray, thanks for calling the Pete Callender Show.

[00:22:45] What's going on?

[00:22:47] Hello, Nick.

[00:22:49] Enjoy listening to you.

[00:22:55] You said like in the first, you know, something new, the first couple weeks of her candidacy.

[00:23:02] I was just wondering if you had a pretty accurate portrayal of how this thing she talked about, like the Santa Claus ideas, you know what I'm talking about.

[00:23:13] Sure.

[00:23:14] How those, what kind of effect those did and could have on her campaign?

[00:23:21] How big of an effect do you think those had?

[00:23:23] Well, so it's interesting.

[00:23:25] And one of those, of course, is that $25,000 free money, free check from the federal government to buy a house.

[00:23:32] Right.

[00:23:33] Ray, I'll point back to student loan forgiveness.

[00:23:36] I mean, how many individuals between the ages of 20, let's call them 22, 23 and 30, mid 30 somethings year olds were convinced back in 2020 that if they got off the couch and voted for Joe Biden,

[00:23:50] that he would wave some magical wand and solve their student loan debt, would just magically erase it.

[00:23:57] Yet, and while he's continued to ignore what the Supreme Court has told him, that largely has not happened.

[00:24:04] Those debts still exist.

[00:24:06] That money is still owed.

[00:24:07] And people are really frustrated by that.

[00:24:09] They vote for a candidate because he says he's going to forgive their student loan debt, 50, $60,000 in debt.

[00:24:16] And he doesn't do it.

[00:24:17] And I would argue it's a very similar situation with this federal down payment assistance program that she's talking about.

[00:24:24] People hear it.

[00:24:25] It sounds good, Ray.

[00:24:26] But in practicality, it's not going to come to fruition.

[00:24:29] And I think voters realize that that's the case.

[00:24:32] They just saw it four years ago.

[00:24:34] So you think just the promise of it wouldn't sway them.

[00:24:39] They would see through the promise that wasn't going to come true.

[00:24:43] Is that what you're saying?

[00:24:44] I think for a vast majority of people, because they've seen the promises that Democrats have made over and over again.

[00:24:50] And let's be clear, Republicans are not admonished from this either.

[00:24:53] There's plenty of promises that Republicans make.

[00:24:55] Oh, we're going to cut spending.

[00:24:56] We're going to reduce the deficit.

[00:24:58] That doesn't happen at all either.

[00:25:00] People are very leery, rightfully so, of the federal government.

[00:25:04] They should be.

[00:25:05] They have good reason to be.

[00:25:07] And I think folks look at this $25,000 program.

[00:25:11] Now, if you're already somebody that's going out and voting for Kamala Harris, voting for a Democrat,

[00:25:16] this might be something that you try and tell your friends to convince them.

[00:25:20] I just don't think it works.

[00:25:22] I don't think it moves the needle, because even as uninformed as people are in the political process and how things work,

[00:25:31] they know that it doesn't pass the smell test, in my opinion.

[00:25:35] Right.

[00:25:37] Well, I appreciate the answer, Nick.

[00:25:39] And I appreciate the call, Ray.

[00:25:41] Thanks for calling in this afternoon.

[00:25:42] 704-570-1110 is our hotline if you want to jump in on the program this afternoon.

[00:25:50] And to Ray's point, all of this, all of it's gaslighting, folks.

[00:25:56] I mean, when you hear Kamala and her surrogates, I mean, look at yesterday with Barack Obama out there.

[00:26:04] Shaming individuals for not being on board with Kamala Harris.

[00:26:10] Shaming, in the case of what he was focusing on, young black men who aren't magically in love with Kamala Harris.

[00:26:18] News flash.

[00:26:20] They're struggling just like everybody else, regardless of their age, regardless of their racial background.

[00:26:26] We're all struggling.

[00:26:28] So when they hear these promises from the Democrats, people just don't believe it.

[00:26:35] They have a high level of skepticism, and for good reason.

[00:26:39] I've got another clip I want to play for you.

[00:26:42] This is Scott Jennings.

[00:26:44] He is over at CNN.

[00:26:46] He works for CNN.

[00:26:47] He's not some contributor or anything like that.

[00:26:49] He's one of their chief political correspondents on CNN.

[00:26:53] He was on there last night.

[00:26:55] They were talking about Barack Obama.

[00:26:58] By the way, another reason you can tell things are as bad as they are right now for the Democrats,

[00:27:02] they're pulling every stop out.

[00:27:04] Bill Clinton's now apparently going to be out and about and campaigning for Kamala.

[00:27:09] Barack Obama's on the trail.

[00:27:10] They're pulling every stop because things obviously aren't trending in their direction.

[00:27:16] So after everything with Obama yesterday, Vince was talking about it earlier.

[00:27:20] You probably heard some of the clips throughout the morning.

[00:27:23] This is a CNN journalist, somebody that works for the network.

[00:27:28] His paycheck is paid by CNN.

[00:27:30] Listen to how he describes the pandering that the Democrats are attempting to do and why it's not working.

[00:27:37] It's a fascinating clip.

[00:27:39] I mean, this is a political party that thinks gender is just a state of mind.

[00:27:41] And now all of a sudden, they're like, oh, my God, we have trouble with moderate biological males.

[00:27:45] I mean, who is surprised about this?

[00:27:47] I think Democratic Party elites like Obama and like others have been viciously attacking Donald Trump since 2016.

[00:27:55] And everything they've said about him is what they have always said about him.

[00:27:59] And I don't think it's particularly effective right now.

[00:28:02] I think their problem isn't attacking Trump.

[00:28:04] Their problem is finding reasons to give people to support Kamala Harris.

[00:28:08] The stop he made in this plea he's making to African-American men.

[00:28:12] I mean, he said today he insulted them.

[00:28:14] I mean, he first of all admits that they're not enthusiastic about her.

[00:28:17] He said you just aren't feeling the idea of having a woman as president and you're coming up with other alternatives and reasons for that.

[00:28:23] And I think one thing we've seen about Democrats over the years is that when they can't convince you to do something, they begin to insult you.

[00:28:29] Obama specifically, when he was having trouble with rural voters in Pennsylvania, go back all the way into his campaigns.

[00:28:35] He insulted them about their culture and values.

[00:28:38] I don't think it's helpful to insult a group of people who are already not enthusiastic about your campaign.

[00:28:44] But I think that's what he did today.

[00:28:45] And that's exactly what he did do.

[00:28:47] And, I mean, that analysis could not be any more spot on.

[00:28:50] He might as well have been on Fox News or Newsmax or something like that making those points.

[00:28:55] That's CNN's senior political commentator, Scott Jennings, last night on CNN.

[00:29:03] And that's exactly the problem.

[00:29:06] As I mentioned earlier, the sugar high is gone.

[00:29:09] Now people are back to reality.

[00:29:10] They're going to the grocery store and wondering, how am I supposed to do this?

[00:29:18] How am I supposed to put food on my family's table?

[00:29:22] Maybe they're starting their family and you're starting a family and you're looking at buying a house, God forbid.

[00:29:27] It's completely impractical for a vast majority of people right now.

[00:29:33] Maybe you commute a decent distance to work.

[00:29:36] And yes, gas prices, they have come down, sure.

[00:29:39] They're still way too high.

[00:29:41] All of these factors are building up.

[00:29:43] And they've been building up for years now.

[00:29:46] Nine and a half percent inflation just two short years ago.

[00:29:50] This stuff has a lingering impact.

[00:29:55] And so while that enthusiasm bump is there, and yes, Kamala's absolutely polling better than Joe Biden could have ever dreamed of, it's shrinking.

[00:30:05] One of the sites that's great for this is Real Clear Politics.

[00:30:08] They do a great job at taking all of these polls, which, again, you can't look at an individual poll and say this is the election outcome.

[00:30:16] But you can look at the averages like Pete was mentioning yesterday, and you can look at the trend.

[00:30:22] Trump now leads.

[00:30:23] Small margins, but let me say this.

[00:30:25] Trump now leads in six of seven battleground states.

[00:30:30] The state that he is not leading in as of polling right now is Wisconsin.

[00:30:36] And what's the margin in Wisconsin?

[00:30:38] It's plus 0.3, not 3%, plus 0.3 for Kamala Harris.

[00:30:47] If there's a couple more polls that come out of Wisconsin that have Trump even up one point, that polling average flips over to Trump.

[00:30:55] And he will be leading in seven of seven battleground states.

[00:31:00] And one of the cool things, which is why I love using Real Clear Politics, is they show it on a graph.

[00:31:05] So you can see graphically what these numbers have been doing.

[00:31:09] And you can absolutely see when Biden withdraws, the blue line slingshots.

[00:31:14] It goes sky high.

[00:31:16] And now it's moderating, it's leveling off, and in many of these swing states, it's going down.

[00:31:24] And so that's what the Democrats are contending with.

[00:31:29] That's what they're going to have to try and figure out over the next couple of weeks.