The First (And Perhaps Only) Harris / Trump Debate with Jon Stewart | The Weekly Show w/ Jon Stewart

I actually created IVF I will personally inseminate any woman with sperm that wants it that's how much I believe in [Music] IVF hey everybody Welcome to the weekly Show podcast with me John Stewart we are back we are back with Britney mmedic Lauren Walker our a wild producers we have been away for months for years I when we left I don't even know who was in the race it was it was Donald Trump versus Michael ducus and then things switched around now it's uh Donald Trump K Harris uh we've only been gone for for two weeks and now we come back to the earthshaking debate which will as ABC told us will change everything nothing is the same no it's raining dogs night is day nothing is the same our lives are changed forever uh I assume that you both watched with with baited breath I I found myself uh really nervous based on just how consequential the last one was where two minutes into it I was like oh he's gonna have to leave he's he's not going to be able to to run for president so I was happy to see it not necessarily be revelatory or answer a lot of questions but at least bring us back to a slightly more normal cycle even if that meant Donald Trump yelling about people eating pets yeah it's weird that that's normal like that's where the bar is I think we've gotten to this point where because there's so much coverage of everything there is an expectation that everything is the Super Bowl and I guess the debates are probably the closest thing that that you can have to that but I do think it might be nice to get back to the idea that these political campaigns are grinding it out convincing people that you've got policies that are going to positively impact their lives rather than a series of Gayla events that will change everything and do that because I think that drama feels very manufactured where did you where did you watch your debate Lauren oh just my house watch party or just wanted to focus watch party of one uh I ate a sandwich and I kind of like white knuckled it for 2 minutes because it seemed like the energy was nervous she was a little nervous yeah the handshake thing I was like I liked the handshake John what did you think I would have done broh hug I'm always I'm a big broh hug like if I were her I walk first of all I love I love the way she did it because it was very clear that that she had decided on a game plan and it's sort of to me me it Set uh it set the tone for this idea that she had a very clear idea of what she wanted to execute and he really was like what time's the debate like let me show up at 8 and whatever happens happen so I I like that it sort of set this idea that she was going to be intentional and purposeful throughout it but then he wouldn't look at her for the entire debate it was so weird I thought that was was super odd but I can't remember he did look at Biden a few times but I think that was more like is this dude all right I never felt like he had that relationship with like Hillary Clinton so you could say like well she's a strong uh smart woman so maybe he's intimidated by that but with Hillary Clinton like he followed her around like a looming Shadow I don't think he would have done that to kamla Harris I do think he's oddly kind of not sure what to do he's intimidated can't be normal yeah to do well that that that could be the title of his biography I can't be normal Donald Trump I really can't be normal I have a very difficult time being normal well uh we've got two uh reporters that are actually covering these campaigns that are going to give the Insight because we can all talk I I talk all the [ __ ] I want I very rarely know uh what's actually going on with any of those so uh our two guests today are reporters and we're going to get their thoughts on uh what the hell happen so so let me jump let me jump in on that and I'll see you guys on the other side all right everybody we are we are in post debate uh glow Ora enjoyment uh we are going to be joined by Ashley Parker senior National political correspondent for the Washington Post been cover elections won pollit surprises as a team covering elections we've got David Graham staff writer the Atlantic WR about Harris and Trump and following these things very closely guys thank you very much for for joining us David and Ashley of course yeah thanks for having us Le let's talk about the debate and and I feel sorry for uh the national political reporters the people that are following around because this may be the last event that we have it may now be just 10 weeks of following people around on a bus uh have you have you interviewed uh both candidates extemporaneously have you spent time with with Trump with with kamla Harris I have spent a tremendous amount of time with Donald Trump I started ashle I'm going to stop you right there I hear the exhaustion and the pain in your voice I see it in your your demeanor changed when I said have you spent time uh you said it in the way of someone that perhaps has been at the DMV for 30 to 35 years and uh there was there was a pain in your voice I could feel it um not gonna wait but I mean I I I I will just say I started covering this was when I worked for the New York Times but I started covering Donald Trump two days after Poor Sad kudin But ultimately sweet Jeb Bush dropped out and I had basically covered him in some capacity ever since imagine you start your presidential campaign with the high hopes of adding an exclamation point to your name that's how well you thought this what what what what punctual ation should we use here question mark period Jeb Bush put an exclamation point next to his name on the posters and two days after running into Trump he had to he had to leave uh why why was Donald Trump so successful in sort of steamrolling all of the Republicans back in those days I mean a couple of reasons one and this is why he's still fairly successful uh certain thing is I think shamelessness is his superpower um and he covering prev candidates right um we might do a I covered Mitt Romney you might do a fact check on Mitt Romney something he's saying and you say well actually Massachusetts wasn't always number one in job creation you know that that year it was tied with Texas or that other year it actually came in third and Mitt Romney would then change what he was saying on the stump not because he cared that the Washington Post had given him four pinocchios um though we think those noses matter solid solid rating system but because he believed he would pay a penalty with voters um for seeming dishonest and Trump sort of realized that there would be no penalty that with his base and his voters that if he just repeated something enough and confidently enough and forcefully enough and shamelessly enough that it could become a certain type of truth that I gotta tell you that's the confidence David I'll ask you you know that struck me after the debate now uh we watched it uh and and were thoroughly stunned by where the candidates were confident where they were unconfident but what was most surprising was Donald Trump immediately in the spin room confidently saying I don't think there's going to be another debate because I won this so I believe the phrase was tremendously I believe he he said he won it tremendously uh and and it was such a knockout that I he didn't think you know he said the only people that asked for rematches are the losers I've so clearly won it is that uh the process that he was going through sort of what Ashley was saying which is I'm Shameless I know I got my ass kicked I'm just going to run out there and go wow I'm awesome yeah I mean it's amazing you know even his closest allies were saying well you know he he had a hard time he was going against it was three on- one because of the moderators and you see Trump just being like no I won I had that um I think that is very much the kind of bravado and the willingness to say whatever he feels like he's got to say what about the Harris campaign what was your feeling of how their team was reacting to it they I mean I think they were already kind of floating uh and then to receive the Taylor Swift endorsement on top of that um I don't think their Spirits could have been a whole lot higher is that actually me what is the Taylor Swift endorsement act like I knew it was a nice piece of pop culture and I know that she obviously has very dedicated fans but is there any thought that there were Taylor Swift fans sort of in the ven diagram that were not you know that she was going to say you really should look at this KLA Harris character and her fans would be like I don't know I've been really leaning Trump on this one like is is that a meaningful thing I think maybe and I think the reason is um it turns people out it's not about persuasion it's about whether people will do it and so you know she puts in a link to voting registration website and the government said I think they'd gotten three or 400,000 hits on that site just from her Instagram post so you know enough of those votes in in swing States could make a difference not cuz she's going to persuade anyone but just because maybe if they were kind of on the fence out whether to vote or feeling Blas um that'll get him fired up I was struck during the debate by which subject uh areas the candidates were most confident in it was very clear during the abortion part of the debate that KLA Harris was feeling it on a visceral level was able to deliver I thought maybe her best moment maybe that in in Ukraine where she was she was confident she was purpose ful she was visceral in her uh response and I thought it put Trump back on his heels uh I thought Trump was most confident uh in the warning for people's pets uh Ashley in your mind what were the areas that you thought were most confident and least confident yeah so I think you're absolutely right on abortion it was interesting because the vice president her first kind of broad answer you could tell her voice was like a little shaky a little nervous and then abortion came up right afterward she 100% hit her stride and I feel like that sort of gave her the confidence um and sort of just the sense of grounding to proceed with that Vibe throughout the debate I mean the other thing where I thought she was very confident and in talking to her team this is something they practiced they rehearsed from that opening handshake right which they described as a to me as a power move um there wait that was that so so the handshake is everything choreograph like that you're going to walk out there and no matter what you're going to him and you're hitting him with a handshake yes they I mean their their goal was to make sure and this started before the debate their goal and it it was born out as successful was to make sure that as they put it that Trump was triggered by the time he walked on stage so that started with they released an ad featuring pres former president Obama talking about crowd size on the morning of the debate they they they with Obama right doing that hand motion they blanketed they blanketed Philadelphia where the debate was held with Billboards and ads designed to troll Trump right one had was a crowd siiz one that featured a full Philadelphia pretzel for Harris and then a piece just a mere piece of a Philadelphia pretzel that looked like a limp pretzel for Trump right um so the idea being as he's being driven in a van towards the venue he's going to look at that and go Lim pretzel wait what no yes I'm a full pretzel right like limp pretzel I have to abandon all self-discipline and control when I step on that debate stage so then and you could you could watch it from that again that opening handshake walking over getting in his space introducing herself pronouncing her name correctly um then there was she she literally was going up to him and trolling him with the pronunciation this is unbelievable I have to say coming off of the NFL's first weekend this is sounding so much like when you listen to football analysts talking about schematics and a game plan for their I mean it is we have a scripted first 15 plays uh you're going to go in there they have a weakness in the backfield I mean this is uh it really feels like a a football game plan and they had I mean I won't take you through all of them but you could watch that debate step by step they had these little Easter eggs things she would say and do that they had practiced and believed that Trump and they were almost is correct would be unable to resist wasting time digressing into that so A very subtle one that people might not have noticed was when she used you know there's a million analyses you can pull on but when she wanted to rebut his economic plan she did so by mentioning Wharton which is of course where Trump famously went and takes a lot of Pride and you saw him he kind of he kind of rears back and says well I went to the Wharton School and that's when she said the 19 Nobel uh prize economists uh including ones from Wharton and that and he couldn't help himself he couldn't help himself that was the first one that's very subtle for those of us who have been covering Trump since 2015 a more obvious one was when she invited people to watch his rallies and then right the crowd says people are leaving out of boredom that first he responded to that it was the first time he saw his his eyes went wide yes you saw the the eyebrows went off the eyes went wide he adopted that like 10,000 foot gaze scow and it's it was that thing that then led him Into the Now most viral digression about our nation's cats and dogs which by the way as a a pet owner as somebody myself uh I was watching with my dog and uh there was a lot of I could see a lot of fear that's actually been my favorite thing for them if you go on like a Tik Tok or an Instagram they're putting out these reels of Donald Trump saying that and it's just reaction shots of pets who are looking unbelievably frightened David you were kind of writing more about Trump during all this did they have a similar bellich like game plan as they walked in down to I mean everybody talks about his game planning as you know he's ready for anything did they do any of that right they say well you know he's been preparing for this his whole life and while the the Harris campaign was letting it know you know be known that she had spent all this time and talking about who was doing the prep and and how you know there was an aid dressed up like Trump in a boxy suit you know with a whole nine yards they went method had to go meth they totally went meth and they wanted people to know they were going method yeah sure Trump is blustering about oh I don't need to prep um and it was interesting to see you know you could hear his allies some of them saying oh he's going to be fine and then other people a little bit nervous about that and the moment that he started to get off track you know the moment we started hearing about the cats and dogs then you see the recriminations and you see people saying you know is it really too much to ask him to prepare uh and what we've seen from a decade of this is it is too much to ask him to prepare and if Jo Biden collapses on stage that works for him but if Joe Biden doesn't collapse on stage then he tends to kind of struggle I thought he he did have a good first I thought two and a half to three minutes I thought then as it you know his preparation for that early two and a half to three minutes I thought worked out very nicely but then you could see he started to get distracted and and things started to collapse and fall apart I want to talk about the people around them and and how that manifest for the candidates psyche and I want to start with Trump my sense of him is look a monarchy makes a lot of sense to him he runs the Trump organization he doesn't even run it's not a public company he doesn't have a board of directors it's Donald Trump when he hosted The Apprentice my favorite part of The Apprentice is after he mediated a dispute between meatloaf and Gary Bucy you know in the end and Bucy had to leave and Meatloaf was going to stay there was always two people next to him at the table there was always that last Koda of the end of The Apprentice and it was either you know ianka or that dude George or somebody else and he would go oh that was tough and they would go you made the right you made the good call Boss well done that was you couldn't have done anything else is that the vibe around him are there people there who tell him the truth or is he bathed in the kind of uh you are our little prince uh world that seems like has been following him his entire life yeah he gets a lot of that I mean there are people who try to tell him the truth and what happens is they tend to fall out of favor um they don't hang around long or as is the case with a lot of trump people they sort of cycle through um so they come back again but but they don't they don't stay long and I think you know what you're describing of his experience of the Trump organization has been born out in how he runs campaigns and it was how he was President too I mean you see him frustrated that he couldn't just do things unilaterally like he he had not watched The Schoolhouse Rock and he couldn't believe that he couldn't just do things with the power of the presidency right and and that's just his attitude is you know he knows best and um and he wants to do it his way is that in some ways comforting in that maybe his authoritarianism isn't malevolent it's born of spoiledness it's it's born of a more adolesent view based on being The Golden Child no I think you're right but I don't think it's you want to take some time David take your time with this you don't have to answer right away I think the result is the same unfortunately right it's so there is the the the anger is real the malevolence is real yeah oh boy that's for those of you who are on the podcast uh David is just nodding enthusiastically uh about that Ashley uh what what about the Harris campaign can she be told the truth is she surrounded you know how much of this I'm always struck by uh how insulated and isolated uh these politicians are so a couple things it's different uh from the Trump campaign first of all because she on the one hand she's cycled and churned through a tremendous amount of staff uh going back to her days in California to the Senate to the campaign to the vice presidency uh which is normally an indictment of someone's management style um but all of that staff and this is something she has done very deliberately is she has elevated and surrounded herself by women by people of color by women of color um so her staff just look like phys they look different than Trump's staff um and they bring different perspectives in life experiences so that's one thing the second is recently after she moved to the top of the ticket uh a small handful but a significant handful of sort of top people from Obama world and one from Clinton world came in right so David plus Obama world and Clinton World they sound like like closed down amusement parks where they uh oh they came in there was Obama world it was open up in Nashville for a while but then it closed down uh so so she brings on people who have run or have been involved in in other campaigns for for Democratic leaders yeah and not just that I mean the thing that's striking to me especially about the Obama people and she brought in Jennifer pal Mar um who was key in Hillary Clinton's unsuccessful campaign is these are people who have done two things successfully that she will likely need to do successfully to win and it's sort of the question of they recreate that magic one is they were able to harness Obama's sort of authentic excitement and enthusiasm in into actually like getting information from voters and mobilizing that to the polls that's something she'll need to do and the other thing is Obama and Clinton took a very different approach and got a very different electoral outcome but Obama sort of did not make race the center the historic nature of his candidacy the center piece of let that speak for itself yeah his his view is people would look at and understand he was a black guy right and so he didn't need to constantly talk about and he talked about race in a way that to many Americans felt inclusive and inspiring um and that's also something you're seeing kamla Harris doing with her historic candidacy David you is it in in your mind you know we talk about boy that was a a terrible night for Trump he's gonna have to do something does he have to do something it in some measure the day he came down the golden escalator and said I think most Mexicans are rap but like sometimes they send some good people from that moment on it it became somewhat clear uh this was an antibiotic resistant candidate the normal things that would take out uh a candidate have no idea oh the Access Hollywood tape and all those different things well that was 2016 he's been through more of this than anybody it doesn't seem as though these moments that would be disqualifying I mean any honestly in any any other political campaign in any other environment if you stood on the stage true or not and just shouted immigrants are eating dogs and people's pets they I mean Howard Dean was a little loud with a scream Michael dakus somewhat answered a question intemperately like they'd be done it doesn't seem to have any impact in any way shape or form on his political Fortune yeah I mean the amazing thing about him is just how um how consistent his support is he's always there in the mid 40% when he's winning when he's losing it just doesn't move no matter what he does and I don't think we've ever seen anyone like that in American politics who has such stable approval he he can't get above 50% and he can't fall below 40 um so it doesn't matter what he does in that sense but even within that stable approval it see you know now they talk about he's picking up uh more support in the black community or the his anic Community or but he's losing more support in women there are groups that move in and out but he is consistently uh Reckless and it seems to matter not I think one thing we're seeing this campaign from Democrats is a realization and it took a long time for them to get to this that there's not going to be like the moment or the Gaff that does in Trump I think there was always this hope like well you know he's going to do it this time and and they seem to have realized that just it's not a thing um he may lose or he may win that's my favorite thing about Democrats my favorite thing about Democrats was that he got indicted now we've got him like there's all these things that always there was always that moment where like as soon as that Mueller report comes out goodbye Donald Trump like there EV at each turn it it always seems like this is the conclusive moment look he's on tape saying I want Putin to win because I love him and just everybody's like oh that'll do it none of it does it right exactly what pressure does he feel what does he think he has to do I think he thinks he has to turn out the Bas he consistently does not do things that would look like Outreach and and he you know people make fun of his kind of silent majority rhetoric um as being out of touch and being like nixonian but that doesn't mean he doesn't believe it for all the things he will say that he doesn't believe I think he really think that if everyone votes he'll win why shouldn't he believe it he should believe it because they always underestimate him in polls and when the elections come out he always has uh you know that that silent base I wouldn't call them the majority but they're certainly they're certainly there I mean I think the reason he shouldn't believe it is in 2016 he won less of the vote than Hillary Clinton in 2018 when he made himself the center of their campaign Republicans uh did poorly in 2020 he lost in 22 when he made himself the cater of the campaign again Republicans did poorly so there's evidence for it but he still is really he believes it right what's fascinating I never understood right in addition to the belief that Donald Trump would win and become presidential there was also this belief that he could win and move to the center which seemed a little more legitimate because he had oh dear God how many times has Van Jones given you that Dewey eyed CNN I believe Donald Trump today has become the unifier for like there's always that moment where somebody's like he's really different now never but but what is fascinating is that he his base is immovable he is almost certainly never going to lose them and so there is this world where he could maybe bring them along a little bit but since covering him there's all these moments and so the second thing is Donald Trump the way to understand him or one way is he's always trying to win like the minute the hour the day the person directly in front of him like this is not like four-dimensional chess so people would never understand well why when he was talking to the dreamers did he say you guys are wonderful valedictorians of course you should stay in the country and then 10 minutes later when they brought in a group of sheriffs was he like the dreamers are just out in the outer awful let's round them up and send them back right like it makes no sense but he's always trying to win the people in front of him but when he is faced with those two things as we've seen on say abortion where he's been all over the map he will always always ultimately Retreat back to what his far right B wants he'll move to the middle the right-wing Echo chamber will freak out at him and he will ultimately come down on their side so let's talk about that is that a purposeful move you know is it the idea that he so understands how loyal uh his base is that he can stand up on a debate stage and say I actually created IVF I will personally inseminate any woman with sperm that wants it that's how much I believe in IVF I love it does he do that because he thinks I've delivered so well for my my base they'll never leave me I can say whatever I want no because then he freaks so this this even that's not strategic because then he freaks out right like he he said something on the Florida abortion rule he thought it should be longer than six weeks six weeks is too short right six weeks is too short then his base flipped out and then he came out and said well actually I I am going to that seems very reasonable I think it's interesting that you know look what has been the Trump or far-right cryptonite it would seem to me is the court system so anybody can say anything about anything on the radio or uh on Fox News other than you know the false claims about dominion and getting sued but it's very clear that when they talk about oh uh the fraudulent voting and there were so many illegal immigrants and then when they go to court they get thrown out because they have no proof and they have and they get laughed out I do think her style as a prosecutor KLA Harris in some ways embodies a little bit of that cryptonite and I thought in the debate she could even do more of it in the way I was I was struck that especially when talking about the economy when she talked about abortion she took that prosecutorial style when she talked about the economy she didn't Ashley is that because the they don't they lack the confidence in that narrative or they hadn't thought through that litigation yet I mean the economy is an incredibly tricky issue uh for the Biden Harris administration because there's an actual there's a lot of economic indicators right if you're like pointing to these tangible things you can argue that the economy has improved under their Administration uh versus former president Trump but the things that people actually feel right which they vote on which is like what are interest rates and can you afford to buy a new house or do your three kids still to share a bedroom and what is the I mean this sounds cliche but what is the cost of eggs and milk and when you're driving you know I had someone in the Biden Administration to say every single gas station um with the cost of gas is a billboard that hurts us when you're driving those things have not changed yet right because they're lagging well the the gas certainly I mean gas the Billboards for that has but but but sort of again like the vi The Vibes the the feel and the sense people feel that things felt better under Trump and so there's something incredibly insulting to voters who are stressed about money or stretched to get to the end of the month to hear Harris saying things are fantastic now so it's it's it's hard to prosecute that case this is a great place for us to to talk about a little bit because I think this talks to how you just described it Ashley sounds perfectly reasonable to me and I don't understand why a candidate feels that at least that beginning framing is something that they are not allowed to do you know uh that they're not allowed to say look the economy is incredibly complex I think we've made some strides in the right direction uh through the pandemic let me walk you through what some of those decisions were I know that if you're at home and it doesn't feel that way to you you know it the economy is very personal to people why can't that be the discussion instead of are you better off than you were uh uh four years ago and the first thing is I'm going to give everyone $6,000 for child care and you're like wait what just happen uh David why can't candidates and I thought this was uh a real issue during the pandemic with our Healthcare officials why can't they trust us enough to talk to us like human beings in in those areas where they feel like it's not completely black and white the people who they're talking to um they think are not the most sophisticated voters and I think they are probably right like undecided voters are not the people who are paying close attention they don't NE some of them may have really no views but a lot of them don't and so there's a certain amount of um they're pandering to the lowest common denominator and they feel like they can't um they can't get nuanced it's not that they're dumb or that the Harris campaign thinks they're dumb but they do understand that this is a group of Voters who is not particularly tuned into politics right they're not paying a ton of attention they have other things on their mind including the cost of groceries right like they're going to tune in at the very end of the election they're also and this is kind of fascinating one of the most skeptical groups of Voters I was talking to a democratic strategist who said when we do focus groups uh with swing voters and I say you know you know well what if I told you that Donald Trump appointed the three most conservative justices who helped overturn Roy weade would that change your view of him and the first thing out of these voters mouths is like well if that's true I'm gonna have to go home and Google it right so they're also dear God so so it's a it's a group of Voters who are very distrust of institutions of political parties of the media so that is all part of the discussion of how do we message to them how do we win them over when do we win them over when do we hit them with this message when do we just get them to trust that you know we're we're someone they should consider um that's that's absolutely all part of the discussion see this is the most fascinating thing I am so struck by you know every debate and all the things you know we all have kind of now a a boilerplate format that we go through there's the debate then we go to the the pundits and then immediately you go to and now we've got our own pollster and he's with a group of undecided voters and they do that and that always strick me as one of the most ridiculous exercises in nothingness that I have ever seen in my life well I listen to it how many of you now are for kamla Harris oh I whatever we just watched sure that's fine uh aren't we infusing that undecided group of Voters as an idea that uh they've been vetted for their indic decision whereas like half the time it's political operatives just standing there or the same person on the panel every four years uh you know there's a certain when when you put somebody on a news channel there's a sense that that has been vetted and when you really drill down into it it doesn't seem that way at all Ashley is there is there any value in those kinds of theatrical moments with the panels so I think there's tremendous value in focus groups is there value in those TV focus groups immediately after debates with undecided voters and like Also let's just pause like like what does it actually mean to be undecided in the year of Our Lord 2024 when your choices regardless of what you think like are so diametrically opposite that like like you're just truly like it it's sort of like a like an existential question of like how does this even happen um but but focus groups in general are incredibly valuable um and insightful and whenever anyone lets me sit in on one I always do so and like what is the difference between one that you've seen on TV and one that you've sat in on so often ones you know campaigns and these groups are running them for different things like they're not trying to find out who after this debate who are you going to vote for you know they're trying to find out like how do you feel about these issues for instance and what what might be a compelling message right so one thing I think of a democratic strategist I was not in this group but he told me he said they were talking to some voters and they said you know let's say kamla Harris comes to your town and you get to do an activity what you get to bring her and show her something in your town what would you show her oh it's like a bachelorette Hometown yes oh that's lovely so I'm gonna I'm gonna take them to meet my family and then we're going to go to the custard shop right but but this voter said I would bring her to work with me I would bring her to my first job and then I would bring her to my second job right we would take the three buses it takes to get from my first job to my second job because I want her to understand like how hard I am working and how I am still barely surviving so so that is kind of relevant and useful information of where voters are and and what they need from the candidates in their lives you know for me it's shocking that that's what it would take for a candidate to understand what people's working lives are like the idea that that would be revelatory speaks almost more to how insulated politicians are from the day-to-day lives of of their constituents I mean that's what I what I seem to have learned from my time in Washington is how unbelievably eccentric the culture of Washington is and how easily it sets up barriers between the people you represent and the culture of the town that you live in Washington runs on a completely different currency than the rest of of the world let me ask you both then having experienced these campaigns do you feel the disconnect that candidates have with the constituents or in the country and for your experiences what has struck you as the biggest disconnect between Washington in general and the country at large I'll start because I can double Advocate it um I in before Trump was even like a the word on people's tongues as a politician I did a road trip in like 2014 driving like the old rout 60 or 66 um out to Indianapolis is where I flew home and it was just talking to voters it was talking to like hundreds upon hundreds of Voters and the thing I picked up because again it's always good to talk to voters was the sense that like these people Democrats Republicans whoever were Furious right like you would go to these houses and they all had I was with the photographer who noticed this like visually it wasn't me they all had like bits of Americana right like flags and things like that um on house and a lot of houses that you know maybe needed like a new Cod were kind of crumbling right um and they what they were Furious was in what they said was look I did everything right right like I got a job I worked 9 to-5 I had a pension um I moved to this District to go to the right school I bought a house that my bank told me I could buy right that it would be irresponsible for me not to buy now look every single house on my block is foreclosed um and those clowns in New York and Washington who you know who ruined my 401k and now I can't retire um who burned you know who did all of this like there's no consequences for them and they were Furious and they didn't have the language but they wanted to like burn it all down and drain the swamp and that was something for instance that Don this was not a disconnect at all Donald Trump and again I don't think it was from doing a road trip and talking to hundreds of Voters but he viscerally instinctually understood that anger understood that frustration with the system but that's my point how is it that I mean after the 2008 financial crisis and everything that occurred how is it that Washington did not understand that and the problem with Trump is not necessarily what his diagnosis is it's what his prescription is look the idea that he figured out people were disconnected and angry and and all those things and they wanted to drain the swamp is one thing but he doesn't look like someone who wants to reform the system in a positive way to take the corruption out he wants the deed to the swamp signed over to him because he wants full and total uh you know monarchical uh control over everything so I think that's we're sort of talking about the same thing which is how the [ __ ] does Washington and politicians who are from these districts not understand that in their bones and and try and reform this system that's created this anger rather than just take it over I think one thing that struck me when I first moved to Washington was um how how actually most of the people in politics are totally normal um like when you're reading about them from afar they seem like they're special and then you get there and they're like oh these are just these are just ordinary jerks like they're as cool or as lame as everyone else and I I think part of the problem is as you elevate um you do get further removed from those things you have fewer opportunities to to be a normal person and to to be around normal people you're around the same people in politics and they start to rub off on each other and like I don't know how you saw that because if you're running the government you have to run the government like I need my Senators to um be paying attention to the legislation they're dealing with and also to like actually be in touch with real people I think that's a tough thing to do and I think the structures of government push against that um and I also think like the pandemic was a problem for that I think a lot of politicians just recently lost touch because they were not especially Democrats were not actually campaigning outside of zoom and I I think that has created disconnect and they're having to work hard to try to rebuild that and to like remember how to talk to to civilians ultimately I think that that these These are great points in getting out there and uh in your minds you know would more debates uh be be more helpful do you think uh for voters would would you like to see more I don't know that I would want to watch another one because I don't feel that I would learn anything particularly astonishing and it would be like watching in the way that people watch sometimes motor races which is like I just want to see somebody spin out and flip over you know and and have something unbelievably uh terrifying or exciting happening is there more to learn in your minds from that that we haven't seen already or would it be an exercise and spectacle why not both I I think they're important you can have it all yeah I I do think they're valuable and I think part of that is because the candidates both of them spend so little time in situations where they don't get to choose the questioner they don't get to pick a friendly person it's not a controlled environment and so whether they're taking questions from M and Lindsey Davis or taking questions from the other candidate it forces them to do something they don't do all the time and that provides us a better sense of like what their character is how they think on their feet what they actually believe and so I think that's worthwhile right Ashley what do you think yeah I mean our debates is helpful with getting more information than if say each candidate sat down with like a the subject matter expert at the Washington Post the Atlantic uh the Wall Street Journal no absolutely not but are those two candidates going to do that no absolutely not so to David's Point debates may be the best of like the not particularly great op to focus it right ashy as somebody who's you know had the the pleasure of moderating one of those uh is there a change that you would make in the formats I mean I think you know unfortunately moderating a debate is like hosting the Oscars there's really not much of an upside and uh you know I thought they did a a fine job as as most of the people that have done it have done a fine job uh is there a change that you would make in the format that you believe would make it uh more informational more revelatory uh more insightful it's a good question I mean I actually thought they I mean moderating in a debate right it's sort of like being a a kicker in football right like you're only remembered if you go wide you know wi right yeah so the best thing for debate moderators to be UNM you know you remember the debate you remember the moments not the moderators I mean I thought David Mir and Lindsey Davis did a fantastic job including it is it is incredibly difficult um as someone who has interviewed him to fact check Donald Trump in real time um and they in in certain key moments they were prepared and David Mir especially um in in some of those moments like with the cats and dogs would just he he had he he I mean he had the information at his disposal from a verified reliable source and he was so sort of calm which is not easy to do those situations yeah no absolutely uh do you think would it be possible to do you know sort of two candidates sitting in front of each other just talking is that something that we could even pull off in a modern political era can you imagine Donald Trump doing that personally I cannot imagine him uh doing anything where he is not the sole Arbiter of the rule book and the rules of engagement I mean it gets back to what we had said earlier I think his entire upbringing has been as the inheritor of the castle and that everything that's been done has been to his look his first Mentor outside of his father was Roy con like you don't do that when your methodology is collaboration and openness like you do that when you want to get away with [ __ ] as best you can and go scorched Earth on everybody else so I I just think that's his methodology but as a country it seems like we might be better served you know if if they could yeah I mean I Think It's tricky because the the reason that they um the reason that you see people Dem you know candidates demagoguing and bending the truth and doing whatever in these things is because the cameras are rolling and also they're valuable because the cameras are rolling and voters can see that if you could somehow get them to forget what was going on I think that would help but it it's a you know in the same way that cpan you you just blew my mind like so it's almost like schinger candidate like if we if we weren't watching this and we weren't filming it so how much has coverage do you think changed our politics like we all talk about sunlight is the best disinfectant and transparency but Hazard transparent like would these guys be much better if we weren't there I mean I think you can make a pretty convincing argument that C-SPAN helped break Congress because suddenly you could watch them doing it so yeah ah [ __ ] cpan I knew it those Pricks we've been all looking in the wrong direction to blame somebody it's c-span's fault for putting security cameras up yeah turn the camera around that sounds like a slate pitch to me David done C spans Paul uh well guys I know you've got another what is this 10 weeks of this what what do we got now somewhere around there who even knows yeah something you're you're you you guys aren't doing it like your prison where you're just checking off days as you go along you're just in it right now and that's just is what it is well also I'll just say I think people are skeptical that it necessarily ends on Election Day oh right I keep forgetting that that's yeah are you seeing the campaigns being as aggressive with the postelection strategizing and scheming and game planning as they are for the debates and such yeah absolutely and and again it's not just until the Electoral right it's like will if Donald Trump loses will he accept the results he's shown no indication what will his supporters do right like that's another open question oh yeah I mean you've got the legal War rooms but you also just have this sort of like contingency planning I I like to take a vacation after the election because I'm usually exhausted and I'm just like when is that is that yeah you can't even plan a trip December 1st is it January 7th is it January 21st I have no idea I know it's like when can I use my marot points well guys my advice to you would be only work Mondays because I I got to tell you it's been transformative uh thank you both uh very much for joining us and talking about that Ashley Parker senior National political correspondent for the Washington Post David Graham staff writer at the Atlantic uh guys thank you for uh uh giving a much clearer perspective having been involved in all this and really helping us understand sort of what's what's going on behind what C-SPAN is showing us I really do appreciate it thank you thank you I don't what they do the dayto day I could not do that I would lose my [ __ ] it already feels too much it's I I lost my [ __ ] just being in the conversation with them for an hour it's so claustrophobic yeah props to them I thought it was really interesting though they were like I don't know when to plan the Vaca like your whole life is consumed by sort of these endless campaigns and they're like oh yeah we used to know November 8th yeah I could get a Club Med and Turks and cake coost and decompressed for 5 days and now they're like could be January might have to then jump in and cover the Civil War like we don't even know what's gonna happen Topsy turby Topsy turby uh what else we got as we roll on now that we're back weekly show pod banging out the episodes every week what else we got well while we were gone we put out a call for our uh listeners to either give us some suggestions for what we should cover why they might be upset with you Etc so we have all that I'm going to start with someone had a really interesting uh new idea for how we should handle debates U which I think is cool they said if anything productive is going to get discussed we need two desks two pens one prompt five paragraphs dueling five paragraph essays if we ask that of our children to graduate high school it's fair to ask that of our elected reps boy what a nice idea you give them a prompt give them 45 minutes pencils down and then they have to read their essay and discuss it but can you imagine Trump doing that can you is there anything more exciting than watching people write oh actually this person went on and said we should do ASMR of the pen and paper you could cut that up on Tik Tok you know this is a person that clearly put in a lot of thought into this and in many ways should be called upon forget about the leg of Women Voters or the debate commission I think we should put uh whatever it is at Banana 12 you know he should be the or she should be the the producer of the next debate that's that's that's lovely um okay we have a good question and actually this is something that we've talked about but this person wants to know how do you talk to someone who believes conspiracy theories oh I I don't think you can I think it depends on how far gone they're gone but you know one of the things you realize about people who believe conspiracy theories is they're not because they always I'm just asking questions but when you ask questions uh if you're not willing to hear answers then you're clearly not just asking questions what you're trying to do is uh just so doubt the thing that always strikes me about conspiracy theories because I'm generally skeptical right and that's always the basis of a conspiracy theory the official story that you've been told is not the total story which I is an ethos I believe in that I believe that uh often times generally I don't believe it's through malevolence although I think at times it's through malevolence I think it's either through incompetence or that generally stories are not linear and there are facts that are inconvenient or don't quite fit in but the problem I have with conspiracies is they don't apply the same skepticism to the counternarrative and and it's very hard to permeate that and it's not to suggest that people shouldn't be skeptical or that they shouldn't challenge uh the official line and they shouldn't bew but what they should understand is very rarely do official lines have their [ __ ] together to the point that there won't be inconsistencies but those inconsistencies are different than a malevolent and surefooted interpretation that it was actually fully this other thing right that that's hard a new trend is that the conspiracy theory minded people don't necessarily have a counternarrative they just poke holes in in the narrative and say something else is is true yeah right right right you don't need to have like a full narrative anymore do you have friends that are conspiracy theorists in those areas and and what would those be yeah I mean that's why this question really stood out to me was like you know holidays and I I it's people I love people I'm very close with and and it also goes to like coffee's going to kill you right like the covid vaccine is the reason that you're getting skin cancer whatever like all these things are on Instagram and and I'm seeing it on the internet I mean we even saw in the debate like he was like I saw it on TV um so it becomes like a real problem where you're like I love these people but I just can't you know how do we find that balance between questioning whether or not like a CO vacine can cause uh you know bad effects yeah and every time a football player gets injured it's because of that like there's there's got to be a space for for skepticism it's such an important part of discourse but it can't fall into that maybe that's it maybe saying to them you know I appreciate your skepticism on that I feel I have questions about what you're saying I yeah there's C I have a certain maybe that's a way to diffuse it I have no [ __ ] idea yep that's a tough one I know yeah let me know when you figure it out Thanksgiving is coming I got to figure it out quickly yeah you've got to get this done do you have room for one more John one more bring it all right bring it people want to know what is the toughest interview you've ever done and why I gotta tell you uh Harry Reid was a tough one because Harry Reid was the the Senate Majority Leader uh senator from Nevada yeah uh passed away but had a really interesting life and had written a book about it uh was raised in a literal dirt floor Shack in you know the desert and you know really the kind of poverty that you know is is dust bowly and so he he brings on he comes on to sit down and I'm sitting with him and I start to you know you were raised on a dirt floor and and to come from that to go and he really did not seem familiar with the story and it was one it wasn't a tough interview and that it was combative it was more wildering oh I think it was about three minutes in I was like have you read this book because it's it's fascinating it's Fiction it's it's your story you should really look at it because it's remarkable but it was just one of those like look man these guys are they're running around all day they're busy they're up on a book tour and I think he just was in like a brain fart era but for me I had been invested in reading the whole thing and I'm parsing it with him and he really was like where was is that now Nevada he was giving you nothing we have to find his Ghost Rider nothing yeah uh but those those are the tough ones and then there's always a compatibl ones the ones I hate the most are there'll be people that write the books that are like liberals skull [ __ ] uh children and then you're like why would you say that and they go well I don't think we're that far apart liberals and conservatives I think we're you know it's they take an incredibly strong position for their reactionary audience uh in the book and then you bring them on and they're like ah people are just people and if we all just I'd like to get back to that feeling on September 12th when we were all one nation and you're like well then maybe you shouldn't write that uh Liberals are a uh an enemy column within the United States that are trying to destroy it from within yeah so those are also those are the ones that also can give you problems sounds fun yeah it's fun uh but it's all good and we've had another uh lovely pod we are back now our break is over as always I want to thank uh lead producer Lauren Walker producer Britney mic video editor uh and engineer Rob veto who I want to tell the audience survived an earthquake during the recording of This podcast Rob are you still there are you alive hanging in there we're hanging in there rob you survived a 5.1 earthquake while we were talking and didn't lose Internet yeah I don't want to give any uh too much credit there but uh I do apprciate you're probably right but you are you are safe and you continue to operate uh in the genius manner that you always do and and we appreciate it oh thank you Rob's always killing it thank you he's always Killing It audio editor and engineer Nicole Boyce researcher and Associate producer Jillian SP and as always executive producers Chris McShane and and Katie gray what are the socials Britney we are weekly Showp on Twitter weekly Show podcast on Instagram threads Tik Tok and the weekly show with John Stewart on YouTube uh and if any of you are listening to this or seeing this right now that means that there was no follow-up giant earthquake and that Rob was able to get this thing together enough to send it out over the airwaves thank you guys very much and we shall see you again next week the weekly show with John Stewart is a Comedy Central Podcast it's produced by Paramount audio and bus Boy Productions [Music]