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The issue when I say that is to mute the mic or not mute the mic, you know, when one person is talking, the previously agreed upon terms where one of them was that the mics would be closed or not open to the person who's not speaking. The Harris campaign wanted to change that. They wanted the mics open. I think they believed that it would show the real Donald Trump, and that Donald Trump would say something that would get him into trouble speaking to Kamala Harris when he's not supposed to be speaking. Donald Trump's campaign is saying, listen, we agreed upon those terms initially with the president Joe Biden, we expect those rules to stay into place. So we'll see what happens. There's some talk that maybe they agreed upon the mics being closed, but I don't know, we need to check into that. So we're going to break it down with Bill crystals here you see up there on your screen. He is the founding director of defending democracy together in the editor at large of for the bulwark. I love the bulwark, by the way, Bill. And he writes very brilliant morning news that are called morning shots. I love the newsletter, but I love the bulwark. You've got great people over there. By the way, thanks for asking me to join. That's sarcasm. How are you? Haven't we asked? Haven't you been out with Tim Miller? Haven't you? Haven't you? I have been on with Tim Miller. Yeah. And two thin skinned about that. No, I'm great. And Sarah as well. And Sarah too. Yeah, I'm great. That's right. I'm fine. How are you? I'm doing great. You survived Chicago. I survived Chicago. I'm a little scratchy. You know, I'm worried that it may have been a COVID spreader. Are you hearing that? I mean, I wasn't there. I was at the beach for the week with the family and previously scheduled. And so I've heard other people say that they suspect that. But I think maybe people suspect that of any larger event these days. Yeah. Yeah. And it would not be surprising. So Bill, let me ask you about this. I want to roll this because we have some breaking news that we've got to talk about a lot. We're going to talk about the convention. We're going to talk about the debates in my situation, but there is some news as coming in just as we're speaking now. Let's roll this. Fox News alert. All right, some news just into us right now with a special counsel, Jack Smith has returned what they're calling a superseding indictment against Donald Trump in that DC case. It doesn't mean it's more. It just means it's more focused, I guess, just spent on on all of that right now. Sir. Yeah. Hi, Neil. It is exactly a little bit more focused, in fact, the indictment itself about 10 pages shorter than the original indictment from last year. So the same four core, the same four core charges are included on this indictment. The reason that Donald Trump was reindicted, if you will, is because the Supreme Court came back somewhat in his favor on July 1st of this year, telling Jack Smith, a special counsel, essentially in layman's terms, you need to go back and rethink about your case before district judge, Tanya Chutkin. This was supposed to go to trial on March 4th, but it was delayed because of the Supreme Court. So while all of these four core charges stay here relating to Donald Trump, the man and the candidate, some of the officials like Jeffrey Clark, the former DOJ official, have been taken out, and this is a much more focused indictment. I also want to point out, Neil, that this is dealing with a new grand jury. So this grand jury did not hear anything about the other indictment from last August 1st of 2023. They only heard the facts in this case. Okay. We got it. We got it. Okay. So Bill, let's talk about that. They call it a super seeding indictment. And the reporter there stated it, I think fairly well. This one is more focused. And I think it takes out a gets rid of some of the things that hung them up with their last indictment. Am I correct on that? Yeah. I think the Supreme Court's immunity decision, which was very notorious. I think you can say, extending this extraordinary amount of immunity to Trump also seemed to immunize some of the conversations he would have had with government officials. And Trump and Smith had cited some of those in the first indictment. And I think it's a matter of just caution, just so they couldn't challenge them later a year from now to three years from now, whatever if Trump's ever convicted or anything. He took that out to make it sort of consistent with the Supreme Court, but was betting we're backwards to be consistent with that Supreme Court decision. And I think it's Smith's trying to show that he believes he has a case. It hasn't been fatally damaged by the court. And he thinks it's important that it go to trial as he's not going to trial before election day. But I think Smith really wants to make a point about the rule of law and that he, he can't control the schedule. He can't stop the Supreme Court from taking its time to resolve appeals. But he's going to bring this case, which he thinks is, you know, a legitimate and just case to bring. Well, when you say, if it even goes to court, that is shocking to me, Bill. Well if Trump becomes ever held to be held to account for anything, I mean, no, well, we don't know a lot will depend on whether he wins or loses. If he wins, probably not. If he loses, maybe, maybe not. I mean, I do think it's a good lesson for all of us. The courts were a guardrail for democracy in 2020, and they really were, I think, in terms of tossing out all these fake challenges and being pretty stiff, including the Trump appointed judges in not letting Trump use the court system to excessively delay or muddy the waters. They still, just the appeals caused some delay in mudding of the waters, but the courts were, it was helpful that 60, it was at 60 different cases all gotten thrown out. But there are now many more Trump appointees on the court settled in. And it turns out that these guardrails aren't quite as strong as you might have hoped, depending on what the challenges are. In the court, when Trump literally tries to overturn an election after November 3rd, after election day, it's not yet to be pretty far gone to start sustaining that kind of stuff in the court. But this kind of stuff, which he's done on this, which his lawyers have argued in this case and on the case in Florida, on the documents, you know, you can be a pro-Trump judge and find a lot more, I don't know what's the right word, kind of, colorable excuses, you know, to find ways of letting Trump off the hook. And I think it's a good lesson that, you know, we all thought, I mean, many of us thought the courts will hold him accountable for January 6th, and then what the document stuff came out. I think you and I discussed this in real time on, you know, on your show. I mean, that seemed like a cut in black and white, cut and dried case. And here we are, September, almost September of 2024. And not only has he, there have even been trials, there have even been hearings that are publicly almost that have fought any of the evidence to light. So he has played the system effectively, I've got to say. Listen, I've been, I think I've been gone a year and a half, maybe more from cable news. And we talked about it even years before that. Jesus. Jesus. Okay. Well, let's talk about this latest controversy. I want to play some sound. It's from me on MSNBC last night, breaking down why I think Trump is suddenly so skittish about this debate. Here it is. Let me just start by asking you about this sort of back and forth. I mean, I strongly feel that the Harris team pushing to unmute Trump's mics is smart. What do you think? I think it's smart as well. By the way, thank you for inviting me on, Jen. I really appreciate it. I think it is really smart. You know how they say sunlight is the best disinfectant. I wish I had something witty to say about audio as well. But I think we should hear exactly what Donald Trump is saying and how he is treating a woman on stage as she is speaking, because he is perplexed now. I think he's found himself in a situation that he's not used to finding himself in. And that is answering to a very smart woman. And in this particular case, he is answering to a black woman. I think that he's on his heels now. He doesn't know how to respond to her. He was hoping that he would be going up against the president Joe Biden. And now he's going up against this black woman, and she's found all this popularity. She's closing the polls, tightening the polls. And he doesn't know what to do. He's losing his mind. And I think the Harris campaign knows on that stage, he is prone to, you know, have a fit and say something that'll get him in trouble. Bill Crystal, what do you make of my analysis? Brilliant. Really? Perceptive. No, I actually agree with it. Therefore, it was brilliant and correct. You know what's funny, just to back a second though, it was the Biden campaign that insisted on the muting of the mics, right? That was there. They thought it was, I don't know why they didn't want Trump to interrupt Biden. I'd take it. It ended up helping, I mean, Biden had bigger problems to debate than this, but it ended up helping Trump. And I remember saying at the time, I thought this was crazy. This is going to help Trump. He gets to speak for 90 seconds. You can't expect the moderators to really interrupt him. It's hard to do that. You've been there. Why don't they ever, why don't they ever listen to us, Bill? I would say. I know. So the moderator candidate. Why are they? He just come on, after 90 seconds, then after 90 seconds, the other candidate or the moderator might say, well, wait a second, wait, you said this 45 seconds ago, but you know, that's a lifetime television, right? I mean, it's already gone by. He's already made his point. So the notion that it was going to help Biden is supposed to Trump, but that was always crazy. I think the Harris campaign has correctly decided that we, it's partly about his, as you very well explained, his inability to restrain himself in being rude, to say the least, to Vice President Harris. But I think it's also about they want her to be able to say, wait a, you know, not for every live is that would be interrupting every eight seconds. But occasionally, he's like, wait, wait, wait a second. That is false. And I find she can't really, then the moderator will say, you know, Vice President Harris let, let, let, former President Trump finish. But nonetheless, you get a kind of moment there where you stop the lying. I think they want her to be able to do that. They want to show that she's strong enough to do that because, you know, one of the implicit issues in a campaign like this, for someone who doesn't have, I was just Vice President, but she hasn't really, you know, she hasn't been President the way Trump has. And she's a woman, to be honest, is going to be kind of, is she tough enough, right? Can she be commander in chief? And one way you show that is by said, it's a little, it's not really prove anything about dealing with foreign leaders, but it'd be, you know, punching Trump in the nose, I think will be an important part of this debate for Harris. But not every time, not, she shouldn't, she spent most of the time about her own record, her own agenda, but occasionally showing the toughness to do that. And that might mean interrupting him. So I think they both for, to show Trump up, but also to give Harris an opportunity, they'd like to have the, the possibility to at least interrupt occasionally, you know. What does a win mean for her? What does she have to do to win? Does she simply have to stand there on the stage and get through it? Does she have to deliver a knockout blow? You know, I, I'm not sure or probably sort of in between, I'd say, I mean, a lot more when some of the polling gets come from the convention comes out. I don't think the bomb, the bounce is going to be quite as high as people think. She'll be ahead. I would suspect going into the debate. I think she'll be ahead three points, not eight points, which means she really needs to do well. I think it would be a mistake to be too cautious actually. I think she really needs to be pretty aggressive, but in two, mostly about herself. I mean, I think the convention was a huge success for five weeks so far has been a big success. A lot of the public still doesn't really know her that well, though. You know, they might have seen some clips. They might have seen the convention speech. So I think this is the time when she needs to mostly think about how she's presenting herself, her, her agenda, her bio, her agenda to the public. And then 25% of the time also showing she's tough enough to stand up to Trump. I don't think she even needs to make the case against Trump. That's all out there. I don't believe it at all, but there's nothing new to be said about that. She needs to think a lot about, and her team needs to think a lot about how she comes off in this debate. And that's mostly the positive message about her, but I think part of it is showing that she's tough enough basically to take on Trump. I've been going to the Bill Crystal School of Analysis because I agree with everything you said. I want you to hold that thought when you talked about the public not knowing her. But what is a win for the former president of Trump? You know, just that she gets flustered, that she doesn't look able to answer him, that he just hammers. If he could be disciplined enough and just say over and over, you said the border was in good shape. It's 2021. Do you still think that? You think there was no problem here in the last few years. What about this Minnesota bail fund or whatever it is that you asked people to get money to when it bailed out? A couple of people who committed pretty terrible crimes. I mean, do you feel any remorse about that? What about Afghanistan? How come you've never spoken to the families? I mean, if he could be disciplined enough to just be relentlessly go after a, I don't know how effective the attacks would be, I don't know how fair they would be, most of them wouldn't be very fair, but she could then get a little, the question is could she handle those? I mean, look, she could handle them. I think she's experienced political figure, she should have rebuttals, and then I think she'd be fine. But what if she gets a little rattled? What if she doesn't answer one or two of them? Loses are trying to talk. Yeah, I mean, that would be, I think, if she, so I think it's, if I were the Trump team, that's what I'd be working on, not Trump's not going to be a gentleman, he's not going to pull his punches. I don't think defending his own record again, I don't think that makes much sense. People know all about Trump, but making it seem that she's not quite struck, Biden was pretty strong in 2020 against Trump, right? When Trump went after him, you know, and he kind of pushed back pretty hard. I think that that would be the key for the dynamic of Trump and Harris, that, in that respect, I think could be pretty important. The debate's important. I mean, it's usually they don't matter much, but it's usually the races are kind of settled in by Labor Day. And then the debates come, and people already kind of know what they think. They like the incumbent president. They don't like the incumbent president. They've seen both candidates through long, very long primary campaigns, right? This is so unusual that the debate really matters a lot as the convention mattered much more than— As a VP pick, I think, is better than— Yeah, those three things. I think the former Clinton political director said—I usually say in speeches that three things the media—there are three things the media will focus on that don't actually matter much. VP pick convention debates, because campaigns—it's already settled, you know what I mean? When those things happen. And this is the opposite. All three of them really matter in this campaign. Yeah, which is, you know, unusual. And I think the VP pick, as we said, that matters, I think it matters a lot more than it did before. So speaking of the Bill Crystal School of Political Analysis, one more piece from my—I want to play through my appearance last night on MSNBC, because I said something that some folks seem to be a bit surprised about. Jen Psaki was asking me about my interactions with voters throughout—I took a road trip to the DNC. I did the Eastern States, you know, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, etc., etc., New Jersey. And you know, I confess to her that there were actually a great number of folks who were either largely or entirely unfamiliar with the vice president, as you just stated similarly. Watch this. Is there anything—what did they think about Harris? Did they have anything to say about her? They did have—listen, it depends on where you are. We went to a number of different battleground states in Pennsylvania, Ohio. We were in Michigan, Indiana, on our way, obviously, Illinois, on our way to Chicago. And it sort of depended on where you were. Pennsylvania—well, I shouldn't say Pennsylvania, I shouldn't say Philadelphia—was a bit more liberal, and the answers to the questions about her and him were quite different. But for the most part in Pittsburgh or in the Jersey Shore and Atlantic City, in Ohio, especially, many people did not know who she was, right? They weren't familiar with her, so I think she has to reintroduce herself to the public. But for him, I think that they thought that he's better for the economy and that, again, that he gave them—that he brought money into the community or that he was on Black people's side. What do you think? I bet you got a little reaction to that at the end. I agree with you. Look, the data shows this one reason Biden was behind is that it was very clear in these polls beginning in late 2023 that people thought the economy would be better under Trump than it was under Biden. Whether that thought is correct, whether the data support that, whether they have a rosy view of the past, whatever, but that was one reason Biden's sound just like me. I said last night that people romanticized the past. No, one reason I was very strongly in favor of Biden not running again was I think that's a very hard thing to overcome. If you have the most recent ex-president against the current incumbent president, people have seen those both in their own heads in real time, right? And if people think the ex-president was better for them than the current president, how do you turn that around exactly? It's not a matter of rhetoric, right? That's what they think. They live through it. They may be—so I think Harris is much better as a candidate for change in that respect. It's not my—what I did versus what you did, it's what Trump did, which is problematic and he's never had majority support versus what I can do and will do, and then that's a very different dynamic in the race, that's why it's changed so much. But I also very much agree that people didn't know her. Sarah Longwell found this in focus groups. You were on with her on her focus group show once, I remember. And people would just say, "I don't really never seen her for more than 20 seconds." And of course, when you think about it, they never have. She never gave a speech to the nation after what the vice presidential debate in October, I guess, of 2020, not only a speech to the nation. She was almost never even on a TV program that had national reach, right? You know, she was—did what vice presidents do, but yeah, so people saw tiny snippets of her. They got the impression that she wasn't a very powerful vice president, that the Biden team didn't include her much in some things. They had one or two snippets of her laughing awkwardly or the opposite. They liked her because she seemed human and interesting as a person. But I think the degree to which she had to reintroduce herself, her team understood that. That was the point of those last four, five weeks. And the Trump team, I think, blew a bit of a chance to define her negatively. I really expected them to come out of the blocks the moment she was announced and say, "San Francisco, liberal, soft on crime, failed borders are here, the three things you need to know about her. Here's tens of millions of dollars of ads saying this. Here's Trump saying it every day." And they didn't, actually. The Trump said a million different things. He said she wasn't really black, you know. And they totally messed up. I've got—I do think this was an important moment though in the campaign. I'm not sure it would have worked the attack lines they had, but you can imagine coherent attack lines that might work. And they just never really developed any of them. Harris' team did an excellent job of reintroducing her with—and she did an excellent job with the convention. I don't know if you were struck by this. I thought the first part of her speech, the bio part, was very deftly done, very skillful. She didn't—you know, those parts are usually kind of awkward, right? I did this. I did that. It was so important towards boring sort of talking about her mother, talking about the whole—putting it all on the prism, almost, of her experience with her family, her mom, an American immigrant story, an American worked your way up story. It was really very effectively done, I thought. You're right. And so I was—so the concern, I think, for—not really the concern, I thought the issue would be for both sides is that he didn't have a long period to sort of, you know, tarnish her, right, to come up with a narrative about her. But also, she did not have a long—she doesn't have a long period to have for people to get to know her. So I thought, at the convention, she did a very good job of tackling that—the best that she could, right, because time would take care of a lot of that, but—and she doesn't have time to be able to do that. So I want to talk, Shifrin, talk about something that I talked about with Tim Miller on the Bullwork Podcast. The two of you discussed how—and what you talked about—two of you discussed a quote, some of the people best suited to make the case against Trump are the jilted cabinet members and others who work with him during—doing the right thing is never the wrong thing. Talk to me about that. What do you mean by that? Yeah, I mean, Tim wrote this excellent piece, and he and I talked about it a lot, and you talked with him about it some—I mean, the—I mean, Kinsinger did a very good job speaking on Thursday night, I thought, Lieutenant Governor, former Lieutenant Governor of Georgia, Jeff Duncan on— I thought Jeff Duncan was the best. I loved his speech by the way. Yeah, Wednesday night. But you could have had—there are plenty of people from the vice president of Pence on down who say they won't vote for Trump again or suggested that, at least Pence has said it. Some of them won't be for Harris, so they'll be saying you can't sit it out, which isn't nothing incidentally, and it's worth probably posing more. But a lot of them are open to speaking—maybe eventually will endorse Harris, and I—but they haven't come forward quite as much as they should have, in my opinion. It is a choice of the two of them. They've seen Trump up close. They have a certain credibility. I mean, if you may not like some of these national security advisers and cabinet members and stuff, but they can say—they don't have to go into detail. They don't have to repeat confidential conversations in the Oval Office. They just have to say, "I saw him close up for one year or four years in the Oval Office." I'm not going to get into details, I'm just going to tell you this. My judgment—if you care about my judgment, is he should not be president of the United States again. Period. Mark Esper, the former defense secretary, should say that. Jim Mattis should say it. McMaster should say it. John Kelly should say it. They don't all have to say it at the convention, but they should say it sooner rather than later. I think Tim is distressed, and I him too, some degree that more of them haven't stepped up and they'll cave an occasional interview and you get the impression they don't like Trump much, and he was erratic, and he was this, but they don't just flat out say he should not be president again. Who was on it? Madison McMaster. One of them was on with Anderson on CNN. Yeah, McMaster, just the other day, I think. The other day, saying he was making the case, correct, did he make it adamantly? He makes the case about how undisciplined and foolish Trump was in some ways, but they don't quite bite the bullet, and I think it would help if some voters out there, especially military times, people who respect that, and McMaster deserves respect, and say, you know what, this guy, he's a conservative, he doesn't agree with Harris on a lot of things, but he said not just that I don't really, that Trump screwed up, but that we need to vote for Harris, I think it would move some voters. Yeah. Very smart. I was thinking the same thing. I kept thinking, you know, when I was watching the RNC, and there were no former Republican presidents. Yeah. That's right. And I said, well, if they really, that was a statement, but if they really want to make a statement, they would have spoken, or at least shown up to the Democrats. Why hasn't George Bush said something? One interview with whoever he wants, right? He doesn't have to say it 20 times. He doesn't have to make a big deal of innocence, he has to do one interview with a respectable journalist on television and just say, you know what, I've been a Republican obviously all my life, my father was president, my other president, and I voted for Kamala Harris. It would have a big effect, I think. And I think he is probably going to vote for Kamala Harris, incidentally. So why not say it? But you know what, Bill, these days you don't even have to do that, what you have to do is like get in front of a thing on your ranch or whatever and say, hi, everyone, this is George W. Good point. I am sitting here at whatever, and I believe in democracy, and for the democracy, I think you should support Kamala Harris. That's all you have to do, right? And then everyone, he doesn't have to say anything. It's done. Yeah, that's a good point. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. So I know that you guys make the case day in and day out for, you know, for whether or not, you make the case for Kamala Harris. But there are folks in the audience who might have some Republican relatives, Bill, or they may have some conservative friends. What are the best arguments that they can come up with in order to sway them? Help us out here, because I have some. Yeah. I mean, there are some substantive, let me get their issues, I think. I think actually foreign policy is very important, one for a lot of these Republicans, where they basically agree with the Biden-Harris administration, and they don't agree with where Trump advanced would lead the country in terms of international politics, Ukraine, NATO, our alliances. And I think that could be pretty important for people to understand that the president really matters on foreign policy. Domestic policy, Congress will stop some of the tax schemes, you know, they can check other things. So I think that's important. But honestly, what we found, what Sarah Longwell and I have found over the last few years, is one of the most effective things is just saying, "Hey, Mike Pence, Trump's own vice president, John Kelly, his own chief of staff, solid, solid conservatives." Obviously, John Bolton, national security advisor, they can't vote for Trump. Doesn't that tell you? That tells you something. You know, that's not their natural inclination. I think that's why again, if they would just come, make it not just me and Sarah Longwell telling them this, but these people on camera telling them this, I think that really could have an effect. Yeah. Bill, anything else you didn't get to say, because I know I have you for maybe 30 seconds, but you guys are doing such a great job. Do you have any advice for us? Do you think she can win? I know it's, look, what is it, 70 days now? That's what? 15 years in a campaign? 10 weeks. Isn't that crazy? It's a 15-week campaign. The whole thing. We're one-third of the way through. It's really astonishing. We are. But that's still a long time and a little. It is. That debate will be very big. I think she can win. Oh, just real quick. I have a better question. You said you don't think the bounce will be that big and why not and what effect do you think that'll happen? What does that say? I think it's so polarized that she may end up, she may go plus four or five, but she won't be way, way ahead, which makes the debate very big. I think, yeah, she needs to, hopefully she'll do well, her campaign has been very impressive so far. The rest of us need to, she needs to focus on herself, though. You and I, this is very much what you were saying. She still needs to introduce herself. She's introduced herself well, but it's like, okay, we're now introduced. Now she needs to further introduce herself and let people be comfortable with her as they will refer for president. Which means people on the outside did to remind people why Donald Trump should not be president again. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it, sir. Thank you. Come back early and often. All right. I'm glad you liked my political analysis. I did like it. That was good. Thanks, Don. It was, it was fun. Thank you, Bill, Crystal. You're the best. I really appreciate it. So that was the great Bill Crystal joining us there. Listen, the man is smart. He's a, I don't know if he's a former Republican or a solo Republican, but he's definitely not for Donald Trump. And I think he's, he and the folks at the bulwark have made very strong statements. The folks over at the bulwark, most of them, as you see up there, I have the. You guys in the chat behind me up on the screen are definitely not for a Donald Trump. They're for democracy. They're not necessarily for Kamala Harris. So they, they are in this case, but they're pro democracy more than anything. So I am thrilled to continue this conversation with my next guest. Lauren, Lauren Brinzel is here, Lauren, let me explain what they do. Lauren is a campaign director for yes on four Floridians protecting freedom. Lauren, what does that mean? Yes, on four Floridians protecting freedom. Welcome to the program. Explain yourself. Please. Hello. Hi. Thank you for having me. Yes, on four is Florida's campaign to end Florida's extreme abortion ban. We have a ban in place here that occurs before many women even realize they're pregnant with no real exemptions for rape, incest or health of the mother. And so a yes vote on this initiative means that we get to end that ban and restore access to reproductive health care to women in the state of Florida. Yeah. So just to give you a little context, a little bit more, Florida's yes on four activists are looking to follow the path of pro choice organizers in Ohio, who last year successfully put an amendment to its state constitution, defending abortion rights on the ballot, which passed by the way, in recent years, Florida has severely restricted abortion in 2022. Governor Ron DeSantis, a candidate for the Republican nomination for president, signed into legislation that legislation that banned abortion after 15 weeks in 2023, Mr. DeSantis went a step further and signed legislation banning abortion at six. Fall is here. And if you want to sleep in the coziest bed imaginable, you have to start with Boland Branches best selling 100% organic cotton sheets. You'll spend every night wrapped in buttery, breathable softness and feel your sheets get even softer with every wash. Discover the difference with Boland Branches 30 night guarantee plus for a limited time get 20% off and free shipping on your first set of sheets at bullandbranch.com with code span. Exclusions apply sea site for details weeks. So Lauren, give us the latest on your work. How is it working? What's going on? We know that this extreme abortion ban is incredibly unpopular here. It's a matter of making sure that Floridians know about it. Unfortunately, many people don't learn that there's a ban in place in Florida until they try to access care. So all of our efforts right now are focused on making sure that all voters know that they have the opportunity to end this ban in November. And to make sure that they know what the stakes are, we see our opposition spreading misinformation and disinformation all the time about the purpose of this initiative. And we know that this is the only way that we can protect access to care here in Florida and get politicians out of our exam rooms. Yeah. Lauren, am I pronouncing your name correctly? Is it Brinzel or Brinzel? It's Brinzel. You got it. Good. Good. Good. How big of an issue will abortion do you believe be in this upcoming presidential election? Because it happened, you know, the overturning of Dobbs or Roe v. Wade. That happened a while ago. People thought that it was, you know, oh, it happened so long ago that it wouldn't play highly in the election. Do you disagree? How highly is it going to play? I think that this is an incredibly important issue. It has been two years since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, but we still haven't seen this issue rectified in any way that's been meaningful for patients in the Midwest or the southeast outside of these ballot initiatives. For us, this is the one shot that Floridians have in order to ensure that we have any state protections for access to abortion care. And I think that that's relevant for a ton of states. There are 11 states on the ballot this cycle with pro-reproductive health care measures. Florida is just one of them. I want to place something from the convention. And this is a assault survivor, Adele Duvall speaking about her experience watches. I was raped by my stepfather after years of sexual abuse. At age 12, I took my first pregnancy test. And it was positive. That was the first time I was ever told you have options. I can't imagine not having a choice. But today, that's the reality for many women and girls across the country because of Donald Trump's abortion bans. He calls it a beautiful thing. What is so beautiful about a child having to carry her parents' child? There are other survivors out there who have no options. And I want you to know that we see you. We hear you. Kamala Harris will sign a national law to restore the right to an abortion. She will fight for every woman and every girl, even those who are not fighting for her. I'm curious, Lauren, what's your reaction to that? It is another reminder that these bans cause harm far beyond what politicians imagine they would cause. We see harrowing stories every single day from people who have been denied access to care and we see people like Hadley, who had they been denied access to care, it would have fundamentally and negatively shifted the course of their life. I also know that we have to do everything we can at every layer of our government to protect this access to care. When I hear about federal strategies, I'm excited to have an entire Congress and Senate and executive office that is pro-reproductive health care, but the reality are these solutions are not trickling down to places like this in West. We need state-based protections in order to ensure that citizens in our own states have access to care. >> Lauren, I want to get some -- do I have it here? I just thought about it. Well, let's see. Let me see. Lauren, hold on one second. I want to read. I want to read. Don't go anywhere. >> Lauren, I'm going to read you something and this is from my book. I just thought about it when I heard that from Hadley and if you got -- my new book is called "I Once Was Lost." It comes out on September 10th and that's not selling it, but I just think it's important to read. I was speaking to a friend about this same issue in the book, and I write about it. Let's see what she says. Okay. So I have this friend and I'll call her Fiona, okay, Lauren, and that's not her name, but she asked me to use that name for the book, and she was telling me about Ronald Reagan back in the day. You remember the silent screen where it came with that movie? She was apparently an embryo or fetus in the womb and it was screaming because it was in pain for an abortion and it turned out to be a lie that they put it together. And so she said -- this was in the 1980s and Fiona says in the late 1980s, Fiona and her husband were happily expecting their second child. She was well into her second trimester when things took a tragic turn. We couldn't afford an ultrasound, so we didn't know anything was wrong until my water broke and I went into labor. They said the fetus had developed in a way that was incompatible with life. And I was like, what does that even mean? And then she goes on to say, basically the organs were growing outside its body. My husband was crying. I was in a lot of pain and scared shitless at risk of sepsis and no one was helping me. They said I couldn't have food or water because I might need emergency surgery and they couldn't give me anything for pain because it might slow down the labor and they couldn't give me anything to speed up the labor because that would be a late-term abortion which was illegal. I had to wait for the fetal heartbeat to stop. After three days, I was just begging, help me, please, you have to make it stop. And the nurse said, instead of begging for an abortion, you should be praying for a miracle. And then she offered to pray with me. I guess that was her way of trying to help maybe or maybe that was just a way to feel better about herself. She had to suffer for days because they couldn't do nothing for her. They couldn't speed it up. They couldn't slow it down. They couldn't do anything. And she was at risk of dying. This was back in the day before abortions were legal. Are we going back to a time like that? We've gone back to a time like that. We're already there and we've been there. So we have women in Florida like Deborah Dobert who was forced to give birth to a child who died within her arms 94 minutes after being born. Doctors knew that that child would not survive outside of the loom but because of Florida's abortion ban, she was forced to give birth knowing full well that that would be her experience. We've seen women like Anya Cook who lost half of the blood in her body before she was able to obtain medical care because physicians were too afraid to treat her because of Florida's abortion ban. We are already in this place and if we continue to have these abortion bans on the book, especially in states as large as Florida, we're the third largest state in the nation. We're only going to see an increase in devastation as these bans go on and on as the cumulative health impacts continue to grow. Providers are leaving the state of Florida right now. They don't want to practice medicine in a state where they're not able to give their patients access to quality health care. We are seeing patients be turned away from miscarriage management and we're going to continue to see patient health centers close over the course of the upcoming years if we don't end this extreme ban. Donald Trump was actually pressed by reporters over the weekend to make clear exactly what he intends to do about IVF and contraception should he win back the White House. Here's his response. I'd like you to post about women's reproductive rights this morning as it stands on abortion. Yeah, very strong on women's reproductive rights. The IVF very strong, I mean we're leaders in it and I think people are seeing that and the votes are being taken and that's what they've wanted for years. For 52 years they've wanted votes to be taken by the states and they wanted the Roe v. Wade to be brought into the states and it's really happening, it's really happening. What did you make of that? I think that this is an incredibly tough issue for Republicans. They know that there is a large portion of their base that doesn't support bans on abortion. You believe that? I believe that there are a large number of Republicans who support access to reproductive healthcare and I think it's creating a space where politicians don't know how to rectify that reality. This isn't partisan. Do you think Republican women will actually go into the voting booth and maybe change or I don't know. I'm just saying I think that there may be a lot of conservative Republican women who may go into the voting booth and vote a different wave than their husbands or even some of their friends might think. I think that one of the things for us in the state of Florida, we have a 60% threshold here. We've been running this campaign every single day knowing that we need to get NPA support. We need to get Democratic support and we need to get Republican support. We know that the base is there for us. We need a large chunk of pro-choice Republicans to vote yes on this issue and we know they're going to because time and time again we're being shown that abortion bans are popular. It doesn't matter if you're a Republican, Democrat or an independent. These aren't popular policies and that's why we're seeing politicians who are running for office fail to know how to talk about the concept of abortion. I want to play this is something that's absolutely brilliant. I think it's brilliant but it's a terrifying ad on abortion. It's from the Lincoln Project and on today's post Roe v. Wade America. Watch this. Driver's license, registration. There you go sir. How's your day going? That's your daughter? Sure is. Abigail right? How do you know? Where are you about eight weeks pregnant? See you've been spotting recently. You've had any cramps or nausea? That's personal. You've been taking your prenatal vitamins? Excuse me? Are you ticketing me for something? Where you heading Abigail? Go see my older sister Natalie. Well that's strange because this says here in Natalie is at a concert in Dallas and your navigation is set to a women's health clinic in one of those abortion states. We have the right to travel. Not anymore. Step out of the car. Please officer. What have you out now? You sir are under arrest for crossing state lines to obtain an abortion for a minor under your care. And you young lady, you're under arrest for evading motherhood. Look Lauren that's not hyperbolic, that's not hyperbole, that's an actual reality. They're asking people you know if you can turn folks in and you can get for aiding and abetting you can be arrested and prosecuted. The only thing that was traumatic was the music but everything else could actually happen in that ad. I mean I think we should start calling them anti-abortion and start calling them anti-women. It is a terrifying reality that we're living in. I was thinking the same thing as I was watching that video, it seems like it would be hyperbolic but we know that there are laws in place like travel bans from accessing state care in access states. We know that unfortunately sensitive information about women's health data is being shared. All of this is real and this is the moment that we have to push back as hard as possible this election cycle and these attacks and our reproductive freedoms. What's your advice to folks and I'm sure it's going to be get involved and vote because it's not just you have to, I think what people fail to remember every time it's not just who's going to be sitting in the Oval Office but it's about the choices being made, the Supreme Court and obviously laws on the books are you know Roe v. Wade being overturned. It's about much more than who sits in the Oval Office. Yeah, people need to get involved and they need to vote this election cycle for reproductive health care specifically. It's also really important to know and I'm not being facetious here what your laws are locally and how if someone you love in your life needed to access an abortion you would support them. So there are places like abortion funds and Planned Parenthood where people can find information about how to access care in their community and everybody should be looking that up not just people who can get pregnant but anybody who loves somebody who can need an abortion to be accessing that information. And then also everybody needs to vote an election day and do more than that. You need to be making calls. You need to be knocking on doors. You need to be sending letters. You need to be having conversations with everyone in your life because there's too much at stake for us to lose this election. We have to take every single chance we can get between now and November 5th to make sure we see the outcomes we want to see. As you're out there speaking to people because you're doing the real work, the real footwork, are you finding Republican women sort of receptive to this? Yeah, people really don't like abortion bans and they really don't like them when they don't have any health exceptions. They don't like them when they occur before most people even realize they're pregnant. People are tired by and large of politicians being involved in that issue. I really believe that to be true. What about men? Men too. Maybe a little bit less so than the women is vocally about it. I think that a lot of the women that I've talked to or Republican women are women who were alive before Roe v. Wade was a law of the land and they've seen what it looks like in their youth and they're seeing it again now and they're offended by that. I don't doubt that there are a ton of men who support also, but I think that women in their stories are particularly loud on this issue. I'm looking at some of the folks in the chat. George M. says Canada has total legal abortion rights for women nationwide. Michelle says, yes, this is terrifying. John Young's I think believes if abortion plays high, Harris will win Florida on this issue in a landslide. Do you believe that's true? Do you think that this issue is one that will can push Kamala Harris into a landslide? I don't have a satisfying answer on that because my goal really is I come from the world of patient health care and don't come from the political world, I started my career 10 years ago in a call center at a Planned Parenthood talking to patients about funding for care, about OB/GYN appointments, and about abortion. And so for me, the thing that I'm focused on this cycle is winning this election, winning it with 60% in a red leaning state and trying to put to bed the issue of abortion because if we can do that at a 60% threshold here in the state of Florida, when everybody is under counting us, then we can show that abortion isn't an issue to be messed with by any politician any longer. Yeah. Lauren, you were fantastic. Anything else you want to say before I let you go? Yeah, I always, I really do come from the patient care background and I always want to ground in this. Florida used to be the number two provider of care in the nation until our six-week ban went into effect. And if you think about that magnitude of patient visits being lost and you spread that across the entirety of the southeast, there are now only two states in the entire southern region that have access to care post six weeks. We are in a very dangerous situation here and it is only a matter of time until a woman dies because of these abortion bans. This is the moment that we have to affect the change that we need in this region. And so I have to ask everybody who's watching to go to floridiansprotectingfreedom.com. We have volunteer opportunities both in the state of Florida, but also if you live outside of the state, we have virtual phone banks. We have tech spangs. We have postcarding opportunities and you can learn how to get involved with the campaign and support because this is a shot we have to protect women in the south. Lauren, Brenzel, thank you. Best of luck. We hope that you come back and we wish you much success. Okay. Thank you. Take care. Thank you. Thank you. We'll see you. So hi, everybody. I didn't get a chance to speak with you yesterday. And even my mom was like, why didn't you end the show abruptly? I ended up abruptly because I had to get to MSNBC and Jen Psaki. Jen was gracious enough to invite me on her program to talk about all the issues she saw, the content that I did during the convention, our road trip halfway across America, kind of almost halfway across America through Eastern states and the battleground states, speaking to voters. Many people, many of you said that the content scared you because you did, you were surprised to see so many people of color saying that they were going to support Donald Trump. Let me tell you, so that content was not, we did not curate it. We did not just put people on, you know, to create a certain narrative. We just went up to people we randomly, we asked them the same questions and we put on what they said, okay? So anyway, so we, wait, someone said, did you, I kicked you guys to the curb, did you say that? I did not Jennifer Lynn. I didn't kick you to the curb Jennifer Lynn. So anyway, so I've been out and I have a scratchy throat. You can probably tell. And I've been fighting a cold, hopefully it doesn't turn into, you know what, as the second gentleman would call it, the Rona. It's so funny, a couple of years ago, right? It was either during COVID or right, you know, right after the quarantine. We ran, I'm, so the second gentleman is Doug M. Hall. Tim and I were in Washington and we were taking a walk in the morning and sitting at a coffee shop, was this man and he goes, Don, Tim, Don, hey, Don Lemon, I was like, yeah. And then he goes, hey, it's Doug, him off the second gentleman, like, oh, shoot, hi. And I said, how are you? And he goes, yeah, I'm out by myself having coffee and there was secret service around him, but they were being very subtle about it. We didn't even see them. And he said, yeah, Kamala has the Rona. And we laugh because he's so real, he's such a dude. We love him. Anyway, he's great. And anyways, I enjoyed doing this content. It was really, really, really tough work. The people at the convention were so kind to me. The women who invited me there because they wanted my voice to be heard were amazing. The co-chair of the chairwoman of the event, Mignon Moore, Donna Brazil. Also some of my folks in Chicago who are notable people who had influence in the convention and in the city, Melanie Spankooper also invited me to come in. And it was great. I had great access. But I really want you guys, I'm going to start now talking about this because it's important that you buy this book and not just because Don Lemon wants you to buy the book. I want you to be informed for the election. I want you to buy it for people because as I was just reading about a woman's right, about women's reproductive rights, we talk about that in the book. We talk about my childhood and growing up in a church and believing that I was an abomination because of what the church taught me. And also even now with evangelicals in their teaching, they're teaching now, which makes people like me and women and people who are part of marginalized communities, women who may want reproductive rights or who may be pro-choice feel as if we are doing something wrong or that is against God or what have you. We talk about all of those things. We talk about common sense and sacrifice. I talk about, it's interesting that the Democrats did exactly what I talked about, about one nation under God, about retaking, about people who are not crazy, right-wing, MAGA people owning the flag and owning patriotism because the flag and patriotism is for everyone. This country is for everyone. So chapter seven talks about, I should read, I should do certain chapters so that you can understand why this book is so important. But I talk about taking the flag back, it's a one nation under God is what I call it here. And I talk about, I'll just read a little bit, this is at my school. So every morning, what we did, I said, the morning ritual at St. Francis Xavier was directed by a nun with a bullhorn who stepped out and ordered us to fall in line, which we did as fast as our mosquito, bitten legs could carry us. Whatever playground hijinks we were involved in, that was over. The nuns were not messing around, we stood outside the door, boys in one line, girls in another, arms straight forward, fingertips touching, the shoulders of the person in front of you to measure as orderly distance between, an orderly distance between. We had to put out our hands on the shoulder of the person before in front of us. We marched inside and stood beside our desks for announcements and morning prayers. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed are thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death, amen. No calling response here, just an orderly recitation of words that became so deeply etched in me, I suspect the memory will echo with the final electrical impulses, impulse of my brain. While the Lord's prayer covered all the bases, this one was geared for the moment when you meet God face to face. We weren't so much taught this prayer as we were hardwired with it. And then I go on to say we remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance, speaking it with no less reverence, I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Sometimes kids forgot themselves and said amen at the end because it felt like a prayer. God was in there only this was a prayer for America or to America or because of America. Insert your own preposition. It probably applies. The main thing was you had to focus your eyes on the flag and not look away until we spoke those final words, bringing that final phrase home with all the gravitas it deserves with liberty and justice for all. So it's interesting that I wrote this book. I finished it about six months ago or maybe a little bit longer and then I had to go back and add the stuff in about what happened to me with X and Yvonne Musk and all that stuff. So that came later. But I talk about taking the flag back, taking back patriotism and then all of a sudden the Democrats did the same thing at their convention. Great minds. Great minds. This book is so relevant to what's going on and I would hope that you pick it up before the election. It's called, I once was lost, my search for God in America, New York Times best-selling author. This is the fire, number one best-selling author. And then on the back, you will see all of these people who I love in my life who wrote things, who wrote forwards for Kara Swisher and Sonny Hostin, Clive Davis, Anna Navarro, Lee Daniels. They all wrote very nice things. So go out and go get pre-order the book, order it for your friends and whatever and the book tour, I'm going to put my book tour schedule up online so you'll know about that, okay? So let's see what you guys have to say today. I will purchase the book. Will you be having a book signing in New Orleans? Yes, I will try to make my way to New Orleans. But get the book and if I make my way to New Orleans, I promise you I will sign it. And if I ever get to whoever, whatever town that you're in, I will sign the book for you. And if I can't sign your book, I'll sign a bookplate for you and send it to you so that you can put it in the book if you buy it. I promise you I will do that. Beth H says, "I am a Piscopalian and put my son in Catholic high school and Lutheran elementary school was ready for college." Yes, it taught me discipline. Norman Sowert says, "Boo, CNN," I'm not sure why Norman, you're saying that. Your book tour come to Toronto, Canada, Glenis Fitzpatrick said, "I don't think so at this point, but if there's enough of a demand, I will. I have done my last book tour. I did stuff in Canada, but it was virtual and we actually had really good sales in Canada. I actually love Canada. I used to go to the, what is it, the T-Tiff, which is Toronto International Film Festival every year. I thank you fiercely independent for supporting independent media. I really appreciate that. I was strapped by nuns. I was too, as a child, Norman Wilson says. I was strapped as well, and also we had the ruler and the pointer, and what we had to do was, when we were getting the ruler and the pointer, we had to, they bent our hands back like this so they could get us good, and if they didn't do that, they got us on the butt. What about Cleveland? I was in these places. If there's enough of demand, I will drive through America, actually I'm actually considering doing another tour going across America. Let me know if you guys would like to do this. Learn your book, Don, says Sheila Wilson. Thank you, Sheila. Don Lemon, for press secretary, says Norman, Norman Sowards. That would be great. I would love to be press secretary. I'm not sure they would be interested in me. I may have too much of a big mouth, but who knows? Eric C says, "Hi, Don. Will you be in South Florida for your book tour?" Yes. I have a Florida, I think, a Miami date on the book tour, so look that up. We will probably put it online for you. Come to Columbus, Ohio, says Pamela Carter. Listen, I can come to you guys, or I can do a virtual event for you guys, or I can send you a book plate, all of those things. Guys, I love you. I'm so happy that you are still with us for this experience, for the lemon nation. By the way, I met so many people at the convention who came up to me and they said, "Hey, I'm a lemon head. I'm part of the lemon nation. I was so pleasantly surprised and so moved by it." There are lots of folks out there like us. Lots of like-minded lemon heads and members of the lemon nation. Thank you guys. I will see you tomorrow. Make sure you check out our content on social media. That way you can find out wherever I am. Make sure you go to my Instagram. I think it's, I forget what the page is called. It's like a for you. It's a personal page that you can go. I think it's a for you page on Instagram and I give you personal updates and things that you don't get necessarily on the rest of my social media. I've been a little bit ill, so I haven't engaged as much as I should, but I promise you I will. Our TikTok is on fire, everyone. If you have not joined us on TikTok, you are missing out. Our Instagram is on fire, Facebook as well, X2, X is- there's a lot of haters on there. It is what it is, which is the reason I wanted to join it is to have a voice there, wanted to rejoin in at least. Okay, so thank you guys for joining. I'll see you tomorrow, if not sooner, if something happens. So, lemonheads, lemonation, have a fantastic evening. Send me what you want to know, questions, make sure you hit the thumbs up. If you have questions about the book, when you get it and you read it, we'll have like, we'll do like a book club and we'll answer questions, we'll read, you will do some reading online, et cetera. So go in pre-order please and make us proud for the bestsellers list, okay? Have a great evening. Talk to you later. Bye-bye. [BLANK_AUDIO]
