Hey there. Before we get to today’s show, I have some exciting news. We’ve been nominated for two anthem awards for our two short films, American problems, trans solutions and artistic legacies, black trans fems in the arts, both are up for awards this year, and we need your help today, October 31 is the last day to vote, so make sure you follow the link in the episode description to learn how you can cast your vote, and make sure, of course, that you have a plan to get to the actual polls before on election day. To find out more information for trans voters, check out, transform the vote.org Hey, fam, it’s me. Amara, welcome to the translash podcast, a show where we tell trans stories to save trans lives. Well, today is Halloween. We’re in the middle of spooky season, and for so many people out there, the election itself is spooky. So today, I wanted to have a conversation with someone who’s been reporting on all the ways that trans people have been at the forefront of this campaign in a relaxed way, with the hope of perhaps speaking directly to what your fears are and perhaps even putting them at ease. So today, I’m excited to be joined by freelance journalist and contributing writer for them, Samantha Riedl, who shares what she’s keeping her eye on in these final days,

nothing has animated the base that they’re going for quite like hating on trans people.

And with that, let’s try out, as always, with some trans joy. You. As we count down the days until November 5, we want to celebrate the trans people who are working every day to strengthen our democracy and help make trans voices heard in politics. Ari Faber is a non profit leader running to represent Ohio Senate District 30 as the Outreach Director for United campus ministry in Athens, Ohio, Ari works to provide free meals and help people apply for housing assistance and Medicaid. And as a candidate, he’s built his progressive platform on addressing systemic issues around food, access, housing and the opioid epidemic in the state. Here’s Ari to tell us more.

I was graced to experience a lot of transphobia and things, but for the most part, like people have been great. They’ve been really warm and welcoming. People have been really respectful. I have had some transgender teenagers and parents of trans kids reach out to me on social media and thank me for running and like they are part of why I’m doing this is the representation giving the trans kids some hope in some really difficult moments recently in Ohio, definitely want to encourage the trans youth out there that like there are people that love them and care about them and are fighting for them every step of the way, no matter how bleak things can seem sometimes that they have people in they call

Me Ra Faber, you are trans joy. I’m really excited to be joined by freelance movement journalist and contributing writer for them. Samantha Riedel from state senate campaigns to the Trump fans ticket, Samantha has been covering anti trans rhetoric and campaign strategies from across the country this election season, but she isn’t just providing critical political coverage. You can also find her writing about film, TV and other moments of queer culture on them.us. Her brilliant work has been featured on vice The Huffington Post polygon bitch magazine and the 2019 anthology, burn it down women writing about anger. Samantha, thank you so much for joining me. Thank

you so much for having me. Amara, it’s great to be here.

Yeah, I think I should say again, you’ve been on before. What’s on your mind as we are going into the election just literally days away, with respect to so many of the issues that you have covered and written about, fluently and at great volume that are facing trans people, I. Say,

first and foremost, I’m very tired. I can’t imagine how tired you are. It’s been such a wild election year. From the point we were last year to today, there has been so much that has completely altered the way that we’re approaching electoral politics, and it feels like we have that sort of conversation every year. These days, it seems like this is a a really accelerating time for a lot of different issues that impact so many different demographics and communities of people. That’s, I think what has struck me a lot is seeing a lot of this like collapse, I guess, in terms of, you know, the things that, especially the Republicans have been coming out with about immigrant communities and the things that they say about trans people. I’m we’re seeing so much of that just collapse into a big congealed, weird mess of eliminationist, exterminationist, fascist rhetoric in a way that even a couple of years ago, I think we would have seen separate attacks, different lines of thinking. You know, the traditionally, the way that issues are trotted out is very like these sorts of issues apply to this type of people, these groups of people, and yes, there’s overlap, but you know, we’re going to talk about these broad demographics in a in a certain electoral calculus, and with things like Trump coming up and making, quote, unquote transgender surgeries on illegal immigrants in prison into the sort of the consolidated closing argument almost even a few weeks removed. I think we’ve, we’ve seen a sense that, you know, Republicans are really all in on this agenda that they’ve been pushing for years and years, and we’re seeing the the rest of the political class try desperately to figure out what the actual answer is to the rise of a fascist sympathy in the electorate. I

think that’s exactly right, and it’s why I wrote in a Newsweek op ed that the choice for trans people is existential. I don’t think that it is. That’s not hyperbole, and it’s become more so each year. I mean, you know, in Trump’s most recent rally, spent a lot of time on immigrants, but had to get in the trans licks in there. And said, you know, we have to get the transgender insanity the hell out of here. Yeah, it’s literally a quote, right? Doing a lot of things at once with that setting us up to be a part of the purge that we know that he wants. And says, laying the basis for doing so the fact that we are crazy or insane, right, allowing us to possibly be classified as such and therefore ruled without rights. Because we know that in this country, the way that you know, disability rights are in such a sham that if you are proclaimed in a different mental state, then literally, civil rights laws don’t apply to you in the same way. And saying that they have to get the hell out of here, right? Like that. There’s a necessity for violence, right, or some kind of physical removal, and I have to say that I was really shaken by it, and after a year where I shouldn’t be because of everything that’s happened, but it even for a person who is steeped in this world, it was a whole new level for me. Like it was, I was like, Oh, wow, they are. They’re all the way there, as you said, in terms of the annihilationist and fascistic rhetoric that they are putting forth.

Yeah, I think for me, it was, I had one of those moments when I was going through and reading the different policy arguments laid out in Project 2025, and I saw that the Heritage Foundation was really finally like making the explicit statement that trans identities are pornography and pornography should be banned in the United States of America, and like that is so much of the the GOP agenda since Reagan wrapped up into a little tiny bow that like there is the the seed of morally manned. Dating transsexuality out of existence. Sheila Jeffries, I think, put it and but it is such a gleeful, I would say, way to embrace these sorts of ideas that you know well we just need to, as you said, purge all of the undesirable elements out of society, and that nothing has animated the base that they’re going for quite like hating on trans people. There’s obviously so many different kinds of people that they really, love to hate on you certainly saw Republicans bet on xenophobia and anti immigration rhetoric for decades before this obviously, like this is that is, like, absolutely a bread and butter issue in conservative us. But I think when it comes to the trans conversation. I guess they really struck on a number of arguments that were very emotionally compelling for people in their base who are some of the least likely people to know a trans person or to have any passing familiarity with trans people, just in culture, it’s such a potent combination of factors that they can really lay into the fear mongering into because there aren’t even with immigrant issues, you’re much more likely, as a person in a southern state, Texas, Georgia, Alabama, you’re much more likely to casually have an experience with a person who is an immigrant from another country, and maybe have that sort of thought of like, maybe I should really look into more of this. There has to be something that I’m missing here, because I know this person. They’re not coming over and trying to kill people and etc, and all of the propagandistic rhetoric. But there is such a dearth of that opportunity when it comes to trans communities and the overlap thereof in all of these other communities that the GOP has already spent so much energy fear mongering for unfortunately, back in 2017 when we were really hearing stuff like the people at the Family Research Council and all of these groups explicitly talking about using trans issues as a as a wedge into to really drive into progressivism, unfortunately, they deployed that very well, and we are seeing a culmination of that in this election season. And as you said, it is even for those of us who make monitoring this stuff our job, that we do this pretty much every day. It’s eerie. It is chilling to see just how fully like engaged they are on this sort of rhetoric.

Yeah. I mean, in Project 2025, trans issues are in on page one, you know, yeah, literally page one and going into page two. So I think that, you know, it’s, it’s there in terms of the policy focus, and it’s pretty much, you know, their campaign boils down to immigrants and trans people. That’s essentially the argument, right? And this dramatic otherization that you can do with both. And I think that one of the things that I just keep telling people when they say, Oh, is this trans stuff really gonna work. You know, it hasn’t. Didn’t work in Herschel Walker’s race, for example. But, you know, Herschel Walker was down four points. You know, you’re not gonna get four to six points just off of trans stuff. In the closing days of a campaign,

Herschel Walker had a lot of stuff going on. He had a lot of issues. And

this was clear that it was also clear that it was a Hail Mary, like it hadn’t been an arm he had. Didn’t make an argument to the last minute so voters didn’t see it as credible. What’s different is that Trump has made this a part of his argument since his announcement, like it was in his why he’s running for president. And so it has a different like cohesion as a part of the argument for the campaign. But they know who they’re trying to get right, and they know they’re voters and they’re not just gonna drop $60 million in ads for no reason. Right? Like they’re not an incompetent campaign. They might be a frightening campaign. They might be a campaign who has a different strategy, but they’re not totally incompetent. And so, you know, and the whole point of trans issues is not to win over large amounts of voters. It’s designed to win over small numbers of voters in very close elections. And so thinking from their perspective, right, they’ve deployed this issue in exactly the right way at the right time for them, I think,

yeah, I think that’s right, and I think especially. Really, you see that in the particular rollout of these ads, they are very targeted in swing states and specifically targeting particular demographics of people that at least they believe based on whatever internal polling that they have. Yeah, that are that are weak on trans issues, or soft, rather, can be pushed on trans issues. Yeah, we saw this in previous election cycles. They were trying it again, trying to win over black cis men, trying to win over Latino voters. Right with these kinds of arguments that are sort of tailored to appeal to a more conservative subset of the of the overall demographic that, again, gets into the well, they haven’t been catered enough to by the Democratic Party. So let’s see if we can snap them up. And I think that sort of electoral calculus is something that at the very least in the public facing rhetoric from the Democratic opposition and their surrogates, we haven’t seen as much of a lot of the focus from the Harris walls campaign is on getting everybody out to vote. Every single vote counts in as many places as possible, right? And that’s sort of true. Rhetorically, it’s important for them to underscore, because the message is, this is the election, capital T, capital E, like this is your chance to fight for democracy. And leaving the truth of that aside, it is still true that we live in the electoral college math world, where actually only a subset of votes are going to make the difference. I’ve already voted in Massachusetts. I can guarantee I nothing that no decision that I made was going to push my state in any particular direction, but we’re seeing a willingness to try and make inroads on the Democratic coalition as the Democrats are trying to broaden that coalition and make an even bigger tent. So yeah, we’re seeing definitely a tale of two campaigns. That’s

right, that’s exactly, that’s exactly right, yeah. And the fascinating thing is that you you really won’t know if it pays off until whoever is declared the winner is declared the winner. And we don’t know how long that’s going to take. Yeah, when you’re out in the country talking to trans people, are they where we are, that is to say, just exhausted by these attacks in a way that you’ve not seen before. I mean, I think that people, but I talked to, are outside, even of the states where these ads are targeted, are feeling the impact of them emotionally right, and are feeling the impact of the conversation on their lives and are feeling less safe. Because I think that you know you could isolate the anti trans laws by state and say, well, that’s not my state, but now that you know your identity has become a large part of the campaign, and especially the closing argument of the Trump campaign. I don’t know it feels different. What are you picking up?

I should point out, a lot of my work does rely on local reporting from all around the US. I am based in Massachusetts, and I don’t myself, personally, I don’t get the opportunity to go out and travel around and talk to a whole lot of people in my day to day, but I will say in the conversations that I have with people who do live all around the country, I have heard a lot of fear, yeah, as you said, you know it It’s one thing to talk about the specific impacts of the legislation that has happened, and the concerns that seeing a particular ad airing in your state would give you, but there is a difference in for a number of reasons. For one thing, these ads are, yes, airing state by state, but also in highly visible markets that air nationally, on the the in the World Series, the the MLB playoffs, right NFL games, college football games. You know, the reach of the Kamala is for they them. Campaign has been much broader than the market by market ads that we’ve seen previously in this cycle and in previous cycles. But I think, I think also, what we can’t emphasize enough is that you. The impact of all of this rhetoric has much broader consequences than just the immediate fallout of a politician or a candidate saying one thing and stirring up some of their base right? I felt this very strongly right after the 2016 election, I was just approaching a full year being out as trans, and that was really the time when I could actually, like, internalize what it meant to be part of a hated group of people. I thought that I had really understood what transphobia was, what it felt like, and I thought that that was like something that I already understood. And then it kind of came crashing into me, and it only increased over the next few years, and I’m seeing a lot of that from trans people across the country that that are posting about what’s going on in their families, just what they’re seeing from their elected officials, from elected officials in other areas, there is a big sense that the best case scenario here is that nothing changes in November and when we’ve just been through multiple record breaking years for trans legislation and all of the attendant consequences of that, that alone feels really bad. So then if the alternative to that is outright, you know, witch hunting, trans hunting, transvestigating fascism that is bent on eliminating every demographic that is is deemed unacceptable in a great America. Then you know it is. It’s really, really easy to feel scared and hopeless, and I think that is you, even when you try your best not to be I think that’s where a lot of trans people are emotionally,

yeah, but it reminds me, you know, like black people and have had a long history of this in the US, and have often approached it elections like this, as you know what they call defensive voting, right? That like we know that we’re not going to get the optimal, but we know that we at a minimum, we have to do something defensive in order to create space for us to have a chance in the future, right? I think that like that is a, you know, that is a that’s a framework for resistance, right? That’s been a framework for resistance in the US, right? This idea that you vote defensively, and that that is actually a strategy for navigating a country that’s hostile to you, you know, which, which, I think is a useful frame, especially for people who may be voting for the first time. For sure, a lot of people were lifted and buoyed by the naming of Tim walls as the vice presidential nominee because of a lot of the things that he’s done on trans issues in Minnesota, been very full throated even in the campaign, has given kind of the clearest answer over the last couple of weeks about the importance of trans people. Are you surprised that he’s hasn’t been deployed more to make this argument? Because I think that he says it in a way where everybody understands it like he is from rural Wisconsin and knows how to talk that way. And so even when he talks about trans issues, he talks about it in that way, you know, like and it’s not, you know, othering, and not easily to take a sound bite from what he says and to demagogue it like he’s actually quite good on it. Are you surprised that he hasn’t been deployed more by the campaign to even talk about it in that kind of generic, you know, broad church way

I am, and I’m really glad that you that you named that it has been such an interesting couple of months for the Democratic campaign after they actually got the message and Biden withdrew, Harris stepped up. Harris had her dark Brandon meme moment, where she’s going viral for all of these Charlie XCX brat means, and getting more goodwill in an electoral sense than pretty much ever. And then bringing on waltz, who purely by dint of being a little bit more progressive than Josh Shapiro, already a huge surprise to a lot of people. We start looking into Waltz’s history, a lot of things to be encouraged by in there, as you mentioned, and again, as you said, he’s so rhetorically strong on meeting and putting. Pushing back on what the Republicans have made the conversations into his deployment of weird and all of the attendant stuff, even in the past week or so when he straight out called Elon Musk a dipshit, it is honestly so I think his bringing him onto the ticket was a big part of why a lot of people were saying this feels like a different Democratic Party. This feels like a Democratic Party that is here to say, actually, no, let’s win an election and let’s stand on issues that our voters want, right and then we have not heard a whole lot on that. It seemed like very quickly after that, they just wanted to back away from all of those things that were getting more Democrats and even people on the left who will still like, hold their nose and go in and pull that lever. You have a lot of this good will and the political capital, but it has not been there in the closing weeks of the campaign as much and certainly not in the specific realm of talking about trans issues. And I think the Democratic strategists were talking to the New York Times about this when Trump started unveiling the kamalas for they them ads and calling them a killer. I think there is a sense in the party. And I don’t know, obviously, who among their strategists is giving them this impression or telling them this outright, but it does seem like there’s a big idea that trans issues are simply radioactive. That’s right, and they have to be precariously precise in figuring out how to talk about us in any way, lest it completely lose them the election. And that is just not true, and that is the big takeaway that I think that they could and should be taking from these national polls, like everything that I said about the electoral math still stands. But what you can take away from the national polls, I think, is that a lot of the Democratic base and people that could be in that big tent coalition are people who are wanting them to step up and take more of an active role in saying, hey, you know all of this incredibly transphobic propaganda that you’re peddling. It’s getting people hurt. It’s causing Ted Cruz to transvestigate minors in Oregon, for some reason. What’s the matter with you? Why are you inciting violence against children? Why are you doing any of this? This is macabre, it’s obscene, and there is an unwillingness to take it to the mat, to that degree, because I think the Democrats want to bring themselves as the party of maturity here, because they’re presenting as we are going to protect democracy, and by democracy, we also mean the attendant civility that has been stripped away from you, the sense that politics are something that can be set aside for the general collective benefit of being able to have a nice Thanksgiving, you know, so, and I think that that’s like, it’s such a it’s, It’s a very limiting way of approaching, in particular this election, I think there was a real mood where if Democrats wanted to stand up and say, Actually, we are the party of common sense, trans rights, and we are backing these things, we are going to stand by our interpretation of Title Nine, and in the coming years, we are going to double down and we are going to get the Equality Act passed with trans protections in it. I think that’s an incredibly strong statement to make in 2024 that gets people who are ambivalent about Democrats because they are trying to present this huge, big tent and bring in the cheneys and everything, I think that would have potentially been a stronger and maybe even savvier political move. I don’t have all of the polling data. A I am one reporter up here in Western Massachusetts, noted queer Bastion, but I am very surprised that with the momentum that the Harris walls campaign had with him in September, that they did not seize on this kind of obvious thread of having walls go out and really give them the business, like we know you can,

yeah, I think that, you know, the campaign is just incredibly cautious. I think that’s the thing that strikes me. It’s just a cautious campaign. It is in a lot of ways, and it’s very cautious, like how cautious they were about ruling her out to outlets, how, you know they just, you know they they prefer to be one step behind or a little behind rather than ahead, like they don’t want to get ahead of themselves, and maybe that’s a part of the contrast with Trump. But I also just think that they, whoever’s running that campaign, is just naturally cautious, and that’s just the way that they’ve approached it. And I think that that explains a whole lot about a lot of things, right? Yeah.

I mean, listen, I’m a I’m a Mets fan. I know from come from behind the victories, but as this year’s National League pennant proved, you can’t always come from behind. Sometimes you got to get those early inning runs in,

right, right, right. Or I’m a Liberty fan. Sometimes you have sometimes you just grind it out again. Congratulations. By the way, thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, I think that you know who knows? We’ll we’ll see whether or not the strategy pays off, but they’re just a cautious lot. As we wrap, I’m going to ask you two questions. One is, what are you as a reporter, looking for, looking at on election night, and what’s your expectation? And then, how are you as Samantha, as a trans person, what are you also looking at, and how are you preparing yourself for whatever is gonna transpire either way. I

mean, think about that. Actually. That’s a great question. How am I showing up for myself in this election season?

Yeah, I mean, I don’t. I don’t know how.

I think one way that I’m trying to prepare myself, personally and professionally, is simply in accepting ahead of time the likelihood that, as I think you mentioned before in the pod, we will not know immediately on Tuesday night is going to be the next president. There are a lot of different counties and different areas that are likely not going to be reporting until Wednesday. So I think that a big part of this is setting expectations and remaining as calm as possible, and not everything that we have just talked about notwithstanding, it is really important to, I think, for all of us to remember that again, for the best case scenario, in a lot of ways, is going to end up being that everything is going to stay about The same. A big part of that is going to be the ways in which we continue to show up for each other in our communities. And yes, I am going to be that person who comes on a week, less than a week before the election, and says, We need to remember that we’re still organizing locally, but I think that is a really important thing to keep in mind. I think that we get very keyed into the election as the one, not the ultimate harbinger of what is to come, but certainly a big reason that things will definitely go one way. Things will definitely go another way. I think that it is really important, especially right now, to remind ourselves that we keep each other safe. We are the best purveyors of safety in our own communities when we show up. And it is so hard to do that in 2024 yet we’re we are still dealing with an ongoing pandemic, it is hard to show up for each other in person. Is hard to show up for each other online in the ways that we all need, and it’s hard to build community when that infrastructure doesn’t already exist or is decaying, but it is one of the you. Most Important things to avoid that sense of doom and despair and hopelessness that we were talking about before. I think as easy as it is to feel that and as understandable as it is to feel that, it is even more important to not be consumed by it, and not completely give in to despair, and that that is, honestly what I fear a little bit, maybe a little bit more so than some of the attendant policies that are being threatened, is that folks in our community are going to accept some of this as inevitable, and it’s when we accept things as inevitabilities that they are. So I think that the biggest thing that if you’re a trans person like me who’s sitting at home on a Tuesday night come election night, and you’re feeling terrified as the best thing that you can do is to not let yourself be alum, and to find the ways in which you’re able to show up for your community. Ask your community to show up for you, and by making sure that bond is strengthened and that we have these lines of communication that can act as bulwarks against the kind of exterminationism that is being proposed on the right, those are the networks that are going to be more important than ever, no matter who wins, no matter who wins, that that is going to be the the the project that brings us closer to liberation, and that’s what I think we have to remember, to keep in mind, even when it’s hard, Even when things are really scary and it feels like there’s no way out. Yeah, I

think that’s right. Don’t be alone, form a community and think about what you will need, and also be patient. You know, you can’t freak out, because I think that the count could go anywhere from, you know, the night of to what’s more likely is at least a week, maybe longer, with, you know, challenges and all the rest of it. So I think that we just have to strap ourselves in and, as you say, form community, take care of each other, connect with each other and form a sense of safety. Well, Samantha, thank you so much for joining us, and you know you continue to be safe and take care of yourself too. You too. Amara,

thank you so much for having me. It’s always a pleasure to talk to you. Thank

you. Thank you so much. That was journalist Samantha Riedl, thank you so much for joining me on the translash podcast. Now listen all the way through to the end of the show for something extra. If you liked what you heard, please go to Apple podcast to rate and review us. You can listen to translash wherever you get your podcast. Check us out on the web@translash.org to sign up for our weekly newsletter. Follow us on Tiktok X and Instagram at translash media, like us on Facebook and tell your friends the translash podcast is produced by translash Media. The translash team includes Oliver ash Kline and Arby Calloway. Xander Adams is our senior sound engineer and a contributing producer. The music you heard was composed by bendraghi and also courtesy of zzk records. The translash podcast is made possible by the support of foundations and listeners like you. What am I looking forward to? Well, the possibility of going to the New York Halloween parade is going to be 80 degrees that day in New York City. And when else on Halloween am I going to be able to experience 80 degrees in New York and be outside and see the legendary thriller dance. So I’m thinking about that, but wrestling with my costume, I don’t know if I can get it together like I want to, because I just decided to do it, you know, in not enough time. So we’ll see if I can pull it off by tonight. But if not, I’m still gonna go, maybe I’ll just get a mask, like one of those, like 1970s costume masks, and go as Wonder Woman or something, and keep it pushing. I’m also looking forward to the election and to go into whatever the next phase is, because it’s time like we’ve been in this, wherever we are for a year now at least, and whatever we’re going into, it’s just time for us to move to the next phase. So I’m kind of looking forward to that, even though the outcome is uncertain and there’s a lot of trepidation about what’s to come. You know, as the saying goes, the only way forward is through. Oh.

Hey all. Hey, before we get to today’s show, I wanted to share some exciting news with you, and to ask for your help translash specifically, two translash films have been nominated for two anthem awards, specifically American problems, trans solutions and artistic legacies, black trans femmes in the arts. So I am going to ask for your help by ensuring that we can take home some statues by, you guessed it, voting specifically by going to celebrate dot anthem awards.com/public, voting hashtag to catch your vote. Or you can just choose the easier route, which is to go to our show notes and follow that link. Thanks for your help and your votes in advance. Hey, fam, it’s me. Amara, welcome to the translash podcast, a show where we tell trans stories to save trans lives. Well, we’re less than two weeks out from election day, and the election is about as tight as almost any and living memory. So that’s why I wanted to turn to someone who actually knows who they’re talking about, who’s been tracking so many of the twists and turns in this election season in order to help sort through all of the confusing news and contradictory news out there. And that person is politico political reporter Eugene Daniels. Now we had Eugene back on in February to talk about the presidential primaries, and since then, he’s been covering every step of the way of Vice President Harris’s ascension from vice presidential nominee to now presidential nominee. And so there are a few better people than Eugene to help us sort through it all.

And something that Vice President Harris has told her team behind closed doors is she has been most worried about losing to the couch, meaning that people don’t actually come out and vote in places that they really, really need them to.

But before we get

to this informative conversation, I want to remind each of you to get your flu vaccine and your COVID Booster. As you know, there’s been a resurgence in COVID, and we’re about to head into holiday season. Specifically, Thanksgiving is about a month away, and we know that you want to take care of your family, friends and loved ones. Also, as of September, you can go order another round of free COVID tests by going to COVID tests.gov so let’s do what we can to keep each other safe. And just a heads up, I am on the road this week, not in the studio, so you may hear a slight differential in audio quality, and that’s why. And with that, let’s start out as always, with some trans joy. You as we count down the days until November 5, we want to celebrate the trans people who are working every day to strengthen our democracy and help make trans voices heard in politics, Rachel booth first ran for the New Hampshire House of Representatives back in 2016 when she lost by only 500 votes. But that didn’t stop her this past spring, Rachel was elected to her town’s governing body, where she’s been proudly serving her community and sharing her story as a 72 year old Vietnam veteran, she’s also a retired computer scientist and second degree black belt, watch out, and the author of three self published books, here’s Rachel to tell us more about why she’s running again to become a State Representative.

I want to run to help the transgender community, mostly because of the way that they’re treating transgender kids. I was one of those transgender children back in 1956 I used to sit outside of the house in the summer in Ohio and wait for the first star to come out, so that I would wish on the first star to make everybody know that I was a girl, because nobody seemed to know that. And I don’t want that for other kids. I don’t want that for the kids today. They have help, they have support groups. They have everything they need, but if they can’t get it, they’re in the same boat that I was in. But I guarantee you I get elected. That’s one of the first things I’m going to do, is start turning around these laws.

Rachel booth, you and your black belt are trans joy. You. I’m excited to be talking again with White House correspondent and co author of Politico’s playbook, Eugene Daniels. Eugene has been covering everything from the midterms to the Democratic presidential primary at politico Since 2018 he is also part of the playbook team, which is essential reading for anyone wanting to keep up with the latest developments in DC as an out black gay man, Eugene has been breaking all kinds of molds in the political world before politico, Eugene covered the 2016 primary and general election as a political reporter at newsy. He is currently the president of the White House Correspondents Association. You can also catch him on MSNBC as a political analyst and the Morning Joe contributor Eugene. Thank you so much for joining me.

Happy to be back. I’m happy to be back,

so I’m super excited to talk to you, because you’ve been, you know, over the last four weeks, you’ve broken among the some of the most important news stories in in politics and on this campaign. First off, what do you believe is the actual state of the race? You know, we know that the public line is at its tide. We know that, you know, it’s starting to look like it’s trending Trump’s way because of a bunch of junk polls. But, I mean, that’s everybody knows that. What I am wondering, though, is, as a person whose job it is to talk to the campaigns all the time, what are you hearing from the campaigns about where it actually is? Because that tells us more about where the race is, not what the campaign is saying publicly, but what what you’re hearing is the actual state of the race from their two perspectives? Yeah. I mean,

both of them are nervous, right? Like they are looking at the polls, but they also have the internal polls, so we don’t get our eyes on too much where they are seeing, kind of what we’re seeing publicly, right, which is a good thing for the polling industry, right? They’ve had a rough few years, so things are kind of looking just as close. The Harris campaign is feeling really good about women and their support there, and the Trump side is feeling really good, and their support with men of all races and of all ages, right? And so this is, you know, what we could see is probably the starkest gender divide that we’ve ever seen in history, maybe, or at least in a very long time, with how men and women are voting, and that’s across the board. You know, the Harris team feels good about the kind of core constituencies for Democrats, black voters, Latino voters, young voters also, but they know that they have some real concerns about black men, Latino men, and young men, right? So even in the places where they feel strong, there’s some little, little issues. But their hope, it seems, is to make sure to build that up on the on the women’s side, right? White women in the suburbs. Is a big group that they’re looking at that is more interested in Democrats this time around, especially compared to 2016 and 2020 because of abortion and reproductive rights and access, and also, a lot of white women in the suburbs are kind of over Donald Trump, right? That is how they have felt for a long time. They’ve been running away from from Republicans because of Donald Trump for years, and this feels, it feels like for the Harris campaign, this may come to a head. Folks may have seen and have a lot of opinions on how the Harris campaign has gone after kind of like the middle of the road, maybe even right leaning or Republican conservative voters, people like Liz Cheney and Dick Cheney who who would have thought that that a Democrat will be touting the support of the Cheney’s on the road and doing events with them, multiple events at this point, and so they’re working on creating a coalition that is kind of unlike anything we’ve ever seen, building on what Biden and Obama did, and kind of adding in their own little sprinkles, you know, because of Trump, you know, the Trump folks are kind of doubling, tripling and quadrupling down on a lot of the policies and a lot of the people that have already voted for him, right? I think they seemingly are hoping to juice the same groups, right? Because there’s always been this talk of what his ceiling is. And so the question is, can you push that ceiling up by juicing up the same people who probably are predisposed to voting for you? And some of these voters are low propensity voters, so that means voters who haven’t voted before, and so they are going after a lot of those voters. The problem with low propensity voters for both the Harris and the Trump campaign is that their low propensity for a reason, they aren’t likely to get out and vote. So you have to add a lot more resources to doing that right if you want you know a 19 year old black guy to vote for you in this state, and they one haven’t voted before and maybe probably weren’t interested anyway, you may have to actually go to their house on election day, knock on it, but like, Hey, we got a bus for you. We’re just picking up everybody along the way, right? So it adds a resource issue into it as well. But both campaigns feel stressed with. That’s the two weeks left to go. Yeah,

it’s really interesting to me, because on the outside, right, when you look at the campaigns, that Harris looks more like what a traditional campaign tries to do at the end, which is, you know, you’re trying to expand your go beyond your your base, you go beyond your supporters, and you reach to people. You reach outward. That’s normally what happens, kind of in the closing week seven campaign. And the Trump campaign is doing the opposite, right? They are not trying to sort of scoop in the people that they’re from the other side, but they really are doubling down on, kind of their core constituency and that, I mean, those are the A Tale of Two, two campaign strategies, essentially one which is kind of 50 plus one and another who, as you say, are trying to shift the numbers by juicing up from the bottom among that juicing up that they’re trying to do, as you alluded to, though, is amongst black men. You kind of have written a lot and broken a lot of stories around this. And I’m wondering, Is that real? What I mean by that is they, as you say, that you know a part of this are going for younger black men, younger Latino men, those that group has an inconsistent, let’s say, and then, in some respects, if they’re 19, a non existent record of actually showing up to vote. And so is what’s being captured, sentiment or actual voters? Yeah,

yeah. It’s hard to know, right? Because polls are the place that voters feel most powerful until they vote right, they’re able to say, I’m pissed off about this, right? You go to them, and if it’s even if it’s a horse race, race and poll, they’re also asking about policy issues, right? So it’s a place where voters can say, like, this economy sucks, and I blame Joe Biden or Kamala Harris for it, right? That’s something that you can do in a poll. Otherwise you’re you know, you can go on Facebook and Twitter, but you want the powerful people, quote, unquote, to see it. And that’s why it’s really helpful for reporters. Reporters is we can look at them and say, This is where voters are going. I don’t always look at the numbers in the horse race. To me, it’s like, what’s underlying there? And if are they issues that have had saliency for a while? Are these issues that we have proof that voters actually vote on and actually come out? How much does it impact their daily lives? Because then you’re more likely to want to do something about it. And so there’s that. But I do think there’s something there. I think the reach outreach from the Trump folks does feel real, right? They’re actually doing it right. Republicans have always said, you know, we’re doing outreach. And, you know, especially after 2012 after the you know, Romney lost, they talked about, you know, we have to get more black and brown voters to be on our side. And then Trump came in and actually realized you can run with more white people, right? So what they are trying to do now is actually go to those voters that seemingly right, at first blush, would be interested in voting for Democrats, but who feel like Democrats have left them behind. And so it’s unclear how successful the Trump folks may be right. He in 2020, got more votes from the black community than Republicans had in a very long time. It’s possible that that might happen again. He’s not going to win black voters. If he does, that will be a remaking of this country that we will ever see, that we have ever seen, and I will eat crow. If that’s the case, he’s probably going to lose by huge margin. But in a race like this, small cuts are really important, right? And it’s not just getting them to vote for you. Some of it’s getting them not to vote at all, right? And something that Vice President Harris has told her team behind closed doors is she has been most worried about losing to the couch, meaning that people don’t actually come out and vote in places that they really, really need them to. If you feel like Democrats haven’t paid a lot of attention to you for years, and then Trump says, Hey, we love you, like, come on over here. Here’s these, you know, go shoes and we got, you know, we’re, we’re talking about these issues that maybe you care about. You may not go vote for Trump, but you might be like, You know what? Whatever. Democrats didn’t get my vote. So what? They just stay home. So that’s probably more the issue that Democrats are running into. And if you talk to the Harris campaign, if you don’t and other Democrats there, some of them are honest that they have left the black men behind in many ways, right one and not dealing with policy issues that overwhelmingly impact black men, right? More than any other group, and when they do, they don’t talk about it in that way. They talk about it in this kind of wholesome we have every voters back way. And so the Harris campaign last week came out with this, you know, this black men agenda, essentially, that had some stuff that was old, but had some stuff that was new, right? It was talking about $20,000 forgivable loans for entrepreneurs, right? All entrepreneurs, but specifically talking about black men starting kind of this healthcare agenda that looks at issues that disproportionately impact black men, right, things that hit us more than usual than other voters. And so it’s also about like the marketing. PR of it like you can’t be scared to tell voters, hey, we know this thing impacts you, and we’re gonna talk to you about it. And so I think what you’re going to see with black men is one they’re being treated like a persuadable group, more so than they ever have before. The same thing with Latino men that you actually have to go out and get their vote. You have to get them to vote for you have to convince them. But I also will say black men vote more in line with black women than any other ethnicity. Right? The gender gap between black men and black women and their voting and how they’re probably going to vote this year is so much smaller than any other group, white, Latino, it doesn’t matter. So there’s that. And I’ve talked to a lot of black men who also feel like black men are being scapegoated. That Charlamagne, the God you know, who talks the Harris campaign a lot, and obviously has a big platform in the black community, spoke to me last week for this story, and what he said was, the concern that he has is that people are looking at less black men support in polls and saying, Well, if she loses because of black men, he said, Democrats did not go out there and shame white women in 2016 and 2020 like black men voted for a woman in 2016 so the idea that they wouldn’t vote for Harris just because she’s a woman, in His eyes, is bunk. And Democrats need to be careful about how they talk to black men, because even the the good vibes and the good nature that they’ve gotten with them over the last few months may go away if you’re talking down to them as well, like no one likes that.

Yeah, I think that that’s right. I’ve always wondered why they haven’t used Raphael Warnock Moore as a surrogate. Why do you think that we don’t hear more from Senator Raphael Warnock as a surrogate, who, alongside Cory Bucha, is one of the two black men in the Senate, but who, because of his authenticity, of his story around growing up poor and in a single household, like, I think resonates going to Morehouse, like a lot of those things would resonate with black men, and why? Why isn’t he deployed more as a surrogate?

That’s a really good question. I’m not sure. I think, you know, he’s done some things right? He’s done a lot of TV and has worked as, like, a real surrogate, not, you know, some people say they’re a surrogate, but they’re not actually one. He’s like, an official surrogate on the um and Harris is going to Georgia this week with Obama. I assume we’ll see Raphael Warnock there in some way, shape or form. But I think you’re right, like it is possibly a missed opportunity, especially in the state of Georgia. I think he’s been on the road in Georgia, maybe not with Harris all the time. It’s not even just that his story is good. He’s a black preacher. He like preaches in the place that Martin Luther King preached right, like, like, there’s not a more connection to like black southern voters and like a black preacher in the south. And so there’s, you know, there’s always a question of who and how they end up using some of these folks. Warnock is one that you would want to see more. I’ve heard people say they want to see some of these governors out on the road even more. I think we’re about to see, we’re like, two weeks out, I think we’re going to see this kind of, like full court press and with your top surrogates, the people that you really like, the people that you have maybe have a relationship with, as the principal that you feel actually may could turn votes sometimes you hold them off until the end. Right? Like you’re seeing that with both Michelle and Barack Obama, where they’re coming in, kind of what would feel like this is like the 11th hour, but like they’re going to North Carolina and Georgia with Harris, where they are trying to juice up the vote in in in early voting, right to get more voters to vote now, just case it rains or whatever on, on that actual Tuesday, other the lines are too long go in some of these states, like Georgia, where we, you know, they have changed some law, so like water and lines and all of that, I think that’s it’s more likely that they’re waiting to deploy him kind of in the in This last stage and that and that really key state of Georgia. Yeah, I

could see him doing well in North Carolina and Detroit. You know, he put, put, you can put him there, and he’ll do just fine. You know, reflecting back a little bit more about this strategy is that a lot of these people that they’re trying to get right now are literally last minute voters, right in the fight between the couch and the and the ballot box, those are last minute voters, and so they’re not going to be paying attention, literally, until the last week, right? That last two or 3% that you’re trying to get, because everybody else is already locked in. They’re not locked in. And so I think it makes sense to hold kind of that, you know, the your juice to the end. Yeah, it’s

interesting, because in 2016 one of the reasons that Trump won was because of those last voters, right? People changing their mind and the last bit of the campaign. 2020 was an aberration for so many different reasons, right? Because of COVID. But we had such a kind of strange campaign in the general election because of it. But like this is. That’s probably pretty analogous, which is like, you’re, if you’re the Harris campaign or the Trump campaign, you’re looking at the polls and you’re looking at what you have internally in focus groups as who’s changing their mind right now, and how do we juice those borders in different areas?

Yeah, yeah, exactly on this issue of like, these, these, what we’re talking about, a lot of our conversations about these small movements in people, I am wondering what you are hearing about the deluge of anti trans ads that they are running. You know, the $60 million drop that really has become a part of Trump’s closing argument around why he should be president. And for me, one of the things that I think that is missed. Actually, I’ve spoken to a lot of reporters about this in the last week, is, you know, they say, well, the campaign is telling me that this doesn’t really move voters, and that they you know, this is in the not in the focus groups or whatever. And I said, well, the fascinating thing is that the way that the Republican Party understands this issue with respect to votes is that it’s actually not designed to be a majority vote getter. It’s designed to be a marginal vote getter. They’re trying to get one or two votes literally per precinct out of this issue, right, which ironically was, you know, Donald Trump’s margin over Hillary Clinton and Michigan last time like you’re it’s designed to move small numbers of voters on this issue, particularly in this case, some of those Nikki Haley voters for whom this frame around protecting kids and all the rest of it would be really important. And so I’m wondering what you are hearing from the campaigns about their strategy around this, and on the Trump side and then the Harris side, kind of this reticence to even answer these ads with kind of some sort of public positioning, which seems strange to me. I mean, modern campaigns know that you don’t let attacks go unanswered. You know, for, at a minimum, a new cycle, but there’s not really been a coherent answer from them yet. So what are you hearing?

I think what you laid out on the on the Trump side is like that. It isn’t key to in their eyes, their last message, but there’s only so much money, there’s only so much time, so whatever you’re kind of giving in that three weeks. That kind of tells a lot of people where your priorities are, right? And on the Democratic side, I think there’s always a reticence to, in their eyes, kind of get into, like, some of these cultural issues, right? Like you haven’t heard them do much of that right, other than to say Donald Trump is a danger to your way of life. And their eyes, Donald Trump is a danger to the freedom you have to marry who you want to marry, they will say, do what you want with with your body, if you are someone who can get pregnant and have children or need an abortion. And the same thing with trans issues. I think, you know, Governor Walz is probably the one who’s talked about it the most. You know, he started, he worked with this kind of Gay Straight Alliance when he was a high school coach, which is, you know, abnormal. I think I played football all the way to college. I don’t think any of my coaches if, maybe, if we would have asked them, they would have got there eventually. But like, you know, I don’t know how into the idea of a gay straight alliance, they would have been. I was in the closet, so I also wasn’t into the idea of it, but I was like gay straight alliance. No, no, I’m straight. I’m over here.

Exactly what I need with that,

yeah, what I need to be over there for. But you know, it does tell you that there continues to be a swath or people believe that there’s a swath of voters that this appeals to, right? And it is about like one or two or four people in precincts, but it’s also just like the fear of the other right. This is not new right. Trans people have been used by Republicans for years as trying to scare people, right? As a political Boogie person, and that has happened for years. I think this increase, you know, because you and I have seen it this entire time. But the money behind it is new, right? For a lot of people, trans people, non binary, people, continue to be a group, and groups that people don’t feel like they’re around them, right? So you can’t really do it with gay and lesbian people, right? Because a lot of people feel like the country went through that, right? We did same sex marriage. The people watched Willie grace or whatever, you know what? I mean, they saw ships creek or whatever. And so, like, we’ve kind of moved in some ways, right? There are still a lot of things happening, but people feel like largely, we’ve moved so less. Voters in polling have an issue with same sex marriage or people or gay people, because they’ve seen more, and you’ve just continued to see less trans and non binary folks in culture, right? And that’s where cultural and politics work, work hand in hand, which is like, if people aren’t seen, then when, if somebody comes and tells you, you know, I’m trying to remember what the exact wording that Donald Trump used in a speech, but little Bobby goes out of the house and then comes back and had gender reassignment surgery. That’s right, if you’re a parent, and that’s like, the first time you’ve heard that, you’re like, No Bobby, like, you know, like the idea that he’s gonna. That that’s going to happen is shocking, right? But that’s people who haven’t been informed. Like, that’s not how it works, right? Like, so it’s fear mongering in kind of its purest form in in American politics, right? And you know, when you’re talking about the percentage of trans people in the country versus the dangers facing trans people, those numbers are so like the exact opposite, right? High danger, low percentage in the country and low percentage of kids who want to hormonally transition or socially transition. Those numbers are low. But if you’re able to scare people into thinking that the schools, Democrats, other queer people, are going to tell your force your kid to change their gender. If you’ve never thought that this is not something someone can change, right? This isn’t a choice for people, right? The same thing as, like, I didn’t choose to be gay people don’t choose to be trans, people don’t choose to be non binary, right? You’re able to convince those voters, even if they, if you talk to them, they may, they may say, I don’t hate them. I just don’t understand it, right? And because Democrats are kind of leaving that space, because they’re trying to stay out of the cultural issues, it’s possible those one or two votes may actually, like make a difference in a lot of these places.

Yeah. I mean, it’s such a so interesting. This entire campaign is a giant experiment, and two different ways of campaign, so we know, in so many different ways, and we’re just gonna see how

changing a candidate with just a few months left to

go like kind of being like mainstream media, you know, to the back, you know, podcast to the front. You know, they’re just a lot of ways in which this is, it’s unconventional. You know, we have Donald Trump talking about former pro golfers, you know, genitalia. So, I mean, it’s just like, you know, there’s a lot going on. And so when you told me off camera that you retired, I understand, like, I was like, how are you doing? You’re like, I’m tired. I was like, I understand why. Let’s fast forward to the prediction that’s implied by some of the answers that you’ve given, which is that it’s got to be a close race. We’re not going to go to bed on november 5 and know who’s president, right? We’re going to be much more somewhere between either what happened in 2020 or maybe even 2000 like, we don’t really know it could, literally could come down to one county in one state, you know, and it’s a, it’s, it’s a knife fight. How are the campaigns preparing for that possibility? And the reason why I asked that is I was talking to a person who is very active in voter mobilization in Georgia, has done a lot to mobilize black voters in that state. And I said to the said to them, I said, you know, how are you feeling about the race? And they said, Well, you know, I’m actually feeling pretty good when I’m out on the trail, but I keep in the back of my mind, the fact that this is from this person’s perspective, I don’t think that Trump is trying to win. I think that, you know, he’s trying to get it close enough to steal it right, which is embedded in that idea, the idea that we’ll have a contested space after the election, where the election will be decided by maneuvers outside of the ballot box. What? How are the campaigns, from what you’re hearing, preparing for this kind of interregnum of the unknown?

Yeah. I mean, this person should be worried. We saw what happened in 2020 right? If they’re like, if Donald Trump does not win the election, whether that announcement happens on Tuesday or Saturday, he’s going to say that he won, right? It is like, it is like, that’s just how he has always worked, right, even going back to 2016 when he lost the Iowa caucuses to Ted Cruz, he said he won, and Ted Cruz stole it, right? No evidence of that. Even when he won in 2016 he said that 3 million voters in California had voted illegally, and those were fake votes. He won the election, and was still saying that. And we saw what happened in 2020 That’s right. I think the thing that when you talk to election experts, is that their concern is that the folks in 2020 who were doing the stop, the steal, they were kind of like amateurs, and now you have lots of lawyers. They’re looking at how they’re operating before the election. One of the things that happens in elections, there’s a lot of lawsuits beforehand. We’ve seen more now than we ever have before. So there’s lots of lawsuits beforehand. There will be lots of lawsuits after. During it will continue, but the ones before, what that shows you is that folks are also looking to kind of create a landscape for a different lawsuit after the election. So one of the things that happened in 2020, for Trump and Republicans was that you’d go to they would say, like, these people shouldn’t be allowed to vote, and the court would say you should have said something. Before they did it right, and so, like they are now, some of that contesting is happening earlier. In order to in the eyes of these election experts, when you have to go back after the election to contest certain areas or locations or whatever, it will be easier to do. So I think that Harris wins, Donald Trump will do all of the things that we’ve seen him do. He just recently said that, like, again, it will be fair if he wins. That is how he views this. That is how he thinks about this. That’s how his team does, or that’s how he does. And some of the people close to him who, even when they’re trying to convince him, like, maybe not, like, you know, he’s a very powerful figure. And so you look at all of the people who resigned that worked for him after 2020 what he was doing in 2020 after January 6, after 2020 democratic lawyers, like lawyers who are big in democratic politics, knew that they were going to have to up this. And so they spent years kind of getting in each other’s heads and talking and creating groups to talk about these kinds of things. And so when it became the Biden campaign, and then now the Harris campaign, there was always these, already, these huge groups around the country in different states, especially these suing states, where Democrats can call on them to go right? So they have their team that’s run by Dean Remus, who used to be counseled in the White House during the Biden years, worked in the Obama administration. It’s been around a long time, she’s heading it up. And you have all these other big wigs that are working within Mark Elias, who people, a lot of people know, would handle recounts if there are recounts. And so you have your big wigs. But then at in every single state, the Harris campaign also has different types of litigators, like hundreds, and their estimation, hundreds of lawyers and legal people, right paralegals or whomever, who are working on this issue, and their hope in either suing or being a part of lawsuits before the election is to take on the misinformation and the disinformation head on to say, you know, we won in court that can’t that lie can’t possibly be true, right? I don’t know how well that worked was in a lot of places. I think folks should really watch Georgia. You have this election board who is very Trump friendly. This is maybe a pretty nonpartisan way to put it that folks are watching, and they are at have been at times at odds with the Republican governor Secretary of State, who, last year, in 2020 Donald Trump, asked them to find 11,000 plus votes for him so he could win the state. They chose not to. They did what they what law says they should do. They follow the law. Those people are probably going to do it again. But that election board, that’s where the concern is. And the election officials said they aren’t terrified of, like the election being overturned and like all of that happening, but they are worried about the gumming up of the works. They feel like there’s a lot of different layers of protection, but, you know, we have a date. We have dates. There are dates that are federally required for folks to for the electors to meet in December and say, like, this is the we’re all good to go. This is who won the election. And so, you know, if someone gums up the works in Georgia all the way up until that point, what happens when there’s no electors, right? What does the country do? And we haven’t had to deal with that before, and so I think they’re most worried about it being a more professional run operation than it was in 2020

Yeah, I think that’s right. I think it’s clear that one of the preparations is that if it doesn’t go the way that they want, is chaos, and that chaos is the strategy here,

and and Trump may win, he may not have to do any of this, right? He just, it’s unlikely that Democrats, I mean, there may be lawsuits, but some Democrats don’t seem like they will be trying to overturn the will of the American voters. But so, so it is a very one sided concern that folks have and should have.

Yeah, I mean, they’ve that was, that’s been part of their promise in order to get the Nikki Haley voter and some of the other Republicans, is that we’re standing up for democracy, and so whoever wins, we’re going to back so they kind of have to follow through on that promise. And couldn’t build an infrastructure that could be reported on by people like you, because it would undermine the brand of what they were doing in terms of getting these voters. So they’re kind of hamstrung, right? They couldn’t really do it, and they wanted to reach those voters. Well, I think everything that you’re pointing to is that it’s going to be a close race. Every vote is going to count. Literally every vote is going to count. And so everyone needs to get out and vote. And also, we shouldn’t be surprised if we wake up on November 6 and don’t know who the president is.

It’s like, that is very likely Pennsylvania doesn’t even come until day of and there are a lot of votes in Pennsylvania, that’s probably the most important swing state. So, like, it is very unlikely that people wake up on Wednesday and we have a president on

that. One last question before you go, I thought that I was going to wrap and then you mentioned. Another state, but I think that’ll be important for everyone listening. Is how things are unfolding in Michigan, with regards to specifically Arab Americans. You know, I have heard rumblings, and I don’t know if this is just, you know, part of the psychological operation campaign that all campaigns do at the end, but you know that suddenly the Harris people are nervous about Michigan, right? That’s one of the things that that is in kind of the the underground whispering campaign. And it’s not that hard to see this kind of, this combination of Arab American voters being skittish about the Democratic Party, plus, if there’s any of this weakness amongst black men that you’re talking about, I mean, it’s not implausible to see that happening, which is maybe why you know this, this whispering campaign around Michigan is gaining traction in these closing days. What are you hearing the campaign say about the role of Gaza and its impact on the race, specifically a place like Michigan, and when I say the campaign, I mean the Harris campaign,

yeah, I mean, I bow in Union voters, also as a place in Michigan that you know, the campaign is concerned about, that’s right? The way that they’ve put it, to me, is the way they have put they put it when they were the Biden campaign, is they feel like this is a subset of a subset of a subset of voters who this is their number one issue, right? And so it goes beyond Arab Americans, right, young black voters who see themselves and what’s happening to Palestinians and harking it back to the civil rights movement or apartheid Africa, right? Like they those kinds of things move them. I think they’ve been doing meetings with the with some of these folks who have been outspoken, right, hoping to, I guess, convince them that things could be different. And if you talk to people who’ve had who’ve worked for vice presidents, who are running for president, what they would tell you is that, like, you have to figure out a way to, like, wink a nod at things maybe different in different policy areas, while still being able to, you know, while still talking in the way that the White House is talking. And the guy that you have to go the next day and meet in the Oval Office with is talking about the issue still being loyal. You’re still being loyal, right? Which is one of the reasons why she is not he backed her so quickly after he stepped down. Was her, was her loyalty over the years. And so I think that the there is a there is a world in which folks feel like Harris would be different. Part of that is just who she is. She is in the past, talked differently than Donald then, then, well, Donald Trump, but also then that Joe Biden has about what’s happening to the Palestinians, and then saying, Who did it right? But at the same time, she hasn’t talked about any policy differences, and that’s what voters hear, right? And so while she’s kind of teetering on this, just like making sure she doesn’t, you know, say the wrong thing, I mean, we’re two weeks out, Harris is unlikely to change the way she’s talking about any of the issues at this point, I think her team feels like they’ve been winking and nodding to certain things. And after she met with Netanyahu, for example, she talked about protesters in a way that that Joe Biden had talked about them before. And people take that and listen to that. But there are a lot of people who whose families are in Palestine, whose families have died in power, like families wiped out, right? People who live here in this country are Palestinian American and whose family members have been wiped out. I don’t know how you convince those people to vote for you, right? When you are not, you know you’re not saying an arms embargo, or you’re not, you know, even when you’re kind of saying, quote, unquote, all the right things about, you know, the people dying, that it’s terrible, that it needs to be stopped, but you’re still sending bombs. So what people are having an issue with, as everyone knows, is, like, what Harris is saying, and then what the administration is doing. If she came out and said, like, if I was president, it would be a rap, like, I wouldn’t be handling it like that. I think she deals with a lot of issues in the White House, but some of these folks might feel better about voting for her, and that is something that her campaign has kind of tussled with and struggled with for months and months now, which is like, how do we do this? I think they are concerned about it. I think they’re probably more concerned about union voters, I would say Michigan and Wisconsin, for some Republicans, and for Trump campaign officials, they feel better about those than Pennsylvania, right? And so it’s like it is, and the reasons why are not always clear. There’s some polling that suggests that maybe there are things that are happening, but it wasn’t just it’s not just Gaza, right? It’s also what’s happening in Lebanon. So if you’re in Michigan, there’s also a lot of Lebanese people, you know, right? And so now it’s a, now it’s a two fold issue. And you know, none of us know how it’s, how it’s gonna shape up, and how, what people actually do when they go into the voting booth, right? Do they actually vote for Joe Stein? Do they actually not vote? Do they fill in their. Everything except president. Or do they look at the you know, the two sides and say, you know, and hope for the best, right, that something will change after January 20, 2025, if they vote X for for Harris or for Trump? And I think there are a lot of people who think they know, but we don’t. We have no idea. So much of this is is someone like AOC, for example, has said, like, she doesn’t know how to and Mehdi Hassan even, like, they don’t know how to tell someone your entire family died, but still vote for Harris, right? Like, it’s just like you don’t like it is, it is nearly impossible to be able to do something like that. So the campaign is, is definitely hitting a wall. And of course, she could counter the President that she’s with, right? He ain’t gonna be president january 20, right at 1159, that job’s a wrap. So she could do that right there. They’re choosing not to. And I think sometimes that’s your answer as well. Yeah.

Well, as we said, this entire race is is jump ball. There’s so many things that make it extremely different, which is probably why it’s so close, because there’s so many countervailing forces at work and approaches and so all that means is that besides everyone voting, everyone listening, needs to subscribe to the playbook that yeah, give me pay to your Yes, yes, yes, directly into your mailbox from Eugene’s to yours, where you can keep up with all of Eugene’s incredible reporting in the aftermath of the election, because it ain’t going to be over on november 5. Sad for you. I feel sorry for you, friend. I mean, I know that you feel sorry for

my husband. I signed up for my husband. We did? I did marry someone, right? I do have a husband still, yeah,

wow. Big vacation coming at the in February.

Yes, hopefully, hopefully, yeah. Fingers crossed.

Thank you so much Eugene for taking time out from the campaign trail, which is wearing you down, but not wearing you out to come and talk to us. So glad to have you back on and thank you so much for everything that you do and how you show up. Thank

you so much. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me

again. You’re welcome.

That was Eugene Daniels, who is an excellent political reporter at Politico. Thank you so much for joining me on the translash podcast. Now listen all the way through to the end of the show for something extra. If you like what you heard, please go to Apple podcast to rate and review us. You can listen to translash wherever you get your podcast. Check us out on the web@translash.org to sign up for our weekly newsletter. Follow us on Tiktok X and Instagram at translash media, like us on Facebook and tell your friends and please do go review us on Apple podcasts. We really need those. The translash podcast is produced by translash Media. The translash team includes Oliver ash Klein and aubre Calloway. Xander Adams is our senior sound engineer and a contributing producer. The music you heard was composed by bind Draghi and also courtesy of ZK records. The Trans sash podcast is made possible by the support of foundations and listeners like you. Well, I’m looking forward to continuing to bask in the glow of the New York Liberty win over the Minnesota links for the WNBA finals as champions the ticker tape parade for that was earlier today, the liberty are the first Brooklyn franchise to bring home finals championship since the 1950s And it was the first ticker tape parade since 2012 so that’s how big a deal this was. It was just a thrill to be able to see such an amazing group of women pull it out, and for it to be my home team is is even more so. And there’s more things coming, like a trip to the White House. So there’s going to be lots of fun. New York Liberty champion stuff to get me through over the next couple of weeks.