The BradCast w/ Brad Friedman
'BradCast' 9/11/2024 (Special coverage of the Harris-Trump Presidential Debate, with Heather Digby Parton of Salon, 'Driftglass' of 'Pro Left Podcast')
On today's 'BradCast': Special coverage of last night's first (and possibly only) presidential debate showdown in Philadelphia, in which there was one clear winner and one very clear loser. Post-debate flash polls found that viewers felt Vice President Kamala Harris dominated and outperformed Donald Trump from the beginning. Salon opinion columnist HEATHER DIGBY PARTON and 'DRIFTGLASS' of the 'Professional Left Podcast' offer analysis, context, history, and hilarity about the debate and what impact it could have going forward, with less than two months to go before the critical November 5, 2024 presidential election.
- Broadcast on:
- 11 Sep 2024
- Audio Format:
- other
I have a plan to give start-up businesses $50,000 tax deduction. I have a plan $6,000 for young families for the first year of your child's life. I have a plan offering a help with down payment of $25,000 down payment assistance for first time homebuyers. In Springfield, they're eating the dogs. From Pacifica Radio in Los Angeles, this is the Bradcast that's heard on KPFK 90.7 FM L.A., also in California, in Red Bluffin' Redding, on KFOI and Round Mountains, KKRN, up in Oregon on the Central Coast, on KYAQ, cottage groves, KSO and Eugene's, KEPW. Landchester, Pennsylvania's W. News, Maui, Hawaii's, K.A.K.U., in Columbus, Ohio, on W.G.R.N., Palinville, New York, on W.L.P.P. and Rochester, New York's, WRFZ. Down in New Orleans on W.H.I.V. be careful down there in New Orleans. Hurricane headed your way, Gallop, New Mexico's K.N.I.Z., Concord, New Hampshire's W.N.H.N., Fayetteville, Arkansas's, K.P.S.Q. in Seattle on KODX, Richmond, Virginia's, WRWK, Fairmont, West Virginia's, W.E.F.R., Jamesville, Wisconsin's W.A.D.R. in Minneapolis, St. Paul's, AM950K, T.N.F. We also stream coast-to-coast and around the globe every day on the Internet, so the Progressive Voices channel, Metruse Radio, Radio for Humans, the wholesandler.com, Radio Free Brooklyn, No Lies Radio, D. Tour Talk, and most of your favorite podcast sites, Blanketing Planet Earth. I'm Brad Friedman, your friendly investigative blogger, journalist, troublemaker, muckraker and all-around swell fellow, says me from bradblog.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. All right, very quickly, before we get to our guests and our special post-debate coverage today, no great surprises or problems for voters that I was able to find, at least so far during Tuesday's final, congressional, and statewide primary elections of the season, which were held in Rhode Island, Delaware, and New Hampshire this week. There was a problem discovered during early voting in Delaware, where more than 750 Democratic voters had problems voting when they were told that they were ineligible to do so because their registration was apparently missing a party affiliation, even though they had registered as Democrats. The state's Department of Motor Vehicles described the problem as a "clerical error." An error in the very blue state seems to be tied to their recent move to automatic voter registration there, and officials vow to fix the problem for the state's next primary elections, where primaries are open only to partisan registered voters. Hopefully, none of that will cause a problem, however, for voters in this November's general elections in the state, but, once again, Desi Doyan, hi. As we have been telling people all season long, check your registrations. Check them now. Make sure you are registered as you think you are. And please, please, please tell everyone you know to also check their registration too, especially young voters who are just now getting acquainted with how all this stuff works. If any noteworthy new problems come to light in either Rhode Island, Delaware or New Hampshire, including with tallies in the coming days, we will, of course, let you know. But otherwise, that concludes the 2024 primary election season. We hope you enjoyed it, and thank you for participating if you did. And all of that, of course, comes not a moment too soon with Tuesday night's huge events in the presidential election, as you know, by now, Taylor Swift has endorsed Kamala Harris for president. Also in other news, Kamala Harris and the Republican former president turned convicted criminal Donald Trump held a debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, which from my vantage point looked much more like a murder than a debate. Maybe that's just me. We'll find out what our guests think momentarily. As AP reported on Tuesday night, Kamala Harris pressed a forceful case against Donald Trump in their first and perhaps only debate before the presidential election, repeatedly goading him and he repeatedly took the bait that she threw out for him in an event that showcased their starkly different visions for the country on abortion, immigration, and American democracy. Now by different visions, I think AP means that, well, she has one. He's just kind of making it up as he goes along, though perhaps this line from the debate best sums up all of his various campaign positions in just one fine turn of phrase. She wants to do transgender operations or illegal aliens that are in prison. I think that includes just about everything that makes up the Trump campaign this year in one single four second line. Thank you very much, sir. The Democratic vice president for her part provoked Trump with reminders about his 2020 election loss that he still denies, delivered derisive assides at his false claims on all manner of things, and sought to underscore the Republican former president's role in the Supreme Court overturning the national right to abortion two years ago, which on Tuesday Trump falsely claimed yet again that everybody, Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals alike, all somehow wanted them to do. In over 20 states, there are Trump abortion bans, which make it criminal for a doctor or nurse to provide health care in one state, it provides prison for life, no exception even for rape and incest. A survivor of a crime of violation to their body does not have the right to make a decision about what happens to their body next. That is immoral. And one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree. The government and Donald Trump certainly should not be telling a woman what to do with her body. You want to talk about this is what people wanted, pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term, suffering from a miscarriage, being denied care in an emergency room because the health care providers are afraid they might go to jail, and she's bleeding out in a car in the parking lot. She didn't want that. Her husband didn't want that. A 12 or 13 year old survivor of incest, being forced to carry a pregnancy to term, they don't want that. And I pledge to you, when Congress passes a bill, to put back in place the protections of Roe v. Wade as president of the United States, I will proudly sign it into law. If Donald Trump were to be reelected, he will sign a national abortion ban. Donald Trump's response for his part to such brutal attacks from Harris did not go well. And finally, in one of these debates, included an actual fat check from one of the journalist moderators. They have abortion in the ninth month, execution after birth. It's an execution, no longer abortion because the baby is born, 52 years they've been trying to get Roe v. Wade into the states, and through the genius and heart and strength of six Supreme Court justices, we were able to do that. And now states are voting on it. Every legal scholar, every Democrat, every Republican, liberal, conservative, they all wanted this issue to be brought back to the states where the people could vote. Each individual state is voting. It's the vote of the people now. It's not tied up in the federal government. There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it's born. Madam Vice President, I want to give you. Thank you, Lindsey Davis. There was at least half a dozen lies in those remarks alone. But at least ABC's Lindsey Davis tried to lie fact check, at least one of them and a happy turn of events after some eight years of debate moderators simply failing or refusing to do so with Donald Trump. He tried throughout the night to deride Harris as extreme, but he seemed to miss the mark, time and time again, and basically resorted back to claims about bands of marauding immigrant murderers, terrorizing pretty much every town and city in the entire nation. And yes, apparently eating our pets or something. When ABC News hosts David Muir attempted to fact check the former Republican president on that point in real time, well, that did not go well for Trump either. In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the cats, they're eating, they're eating the pets of the people that live there. I just want to clarify here, you've rigged up Springfield, Ohio, and ABC News did reach out to the city manager there. He told us there had been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community. I've seen people on television. Let me just say here, this is the people on television saying my dog was taken. So you're going to hear a comment in the background saying unbelievable. But anyway, he saw it on television. I'm guessing Fox News. So that sounds legit. As AP reports it, Trump attempted throughout the night to launch into the sort of freewheeling personal attacks and digressions from which his advisors and supporters have tried to steer him away, but that didn't work. And if they did that, he did not listen to them. Less than two months from election day, as vote by mail ballots are already being sent out, the debate on Tuesday offered what AP described as the clearest look yet at a presidential race that has been repeatedly upended. And I would agree, Harris offered what I saw as perhaps the best debate performance I have ever seen in any debate. And Trump's disaster was frankly only topped by Joe Biden's in late June. That led him to drop out of the race. AP reported that Harris's performance by nearly every measure seemed the opposite of Biden's in June with sharp focused answers designed to showcase the contrast between her and Trump with the vice president using her body language and facial expressions to confront Trump and express that she found his answers ridiculous, amusing, or both. Harris appeared intent on casting herself as a relief for voters seeking a break from Trump's acerbic politics, a contrast highlighted as Trump appeared to be set on his back foot by her needling. In one moment, Harris turned to Trump and said that as vice president, she had spoken to foreign leaders who quote are laughing at Donald Trump. And she said she had spoken to military leaders quote, and they say you're a disgrace. She charged people were bored at his rallies and walking out early in droves that foreign autocrats love him because they know they can manipulate him, play him for a chump by appealing to his vanity with gifts and kind words. Because I believe the Harris campaign catfished Trump into fighting for microphones to be muted when the other candidate was speaking, Trump by and large had to stand there and quietly take it for two minutes at a time. While Harris gave her answers to questions from Muir and Davis, only to see Trump then launch into another incoherent rant when it was finally his turn to speak. That said, I think the debate was just about over before it began when both candidates walked on the stage, Harris walked over to shake hands with Donald Trump, who clearly had not intended to shake hands with her. And since it was the first time the two had ever met in person, she helpfully pronounced her name correctly. Did she say correct? Did she get it right? She did pronounce her own name correctly. Yes. And frankly, after that, I do not think that Trump ever recovered between rants about dangerous immigrants eating house pets, he he notably failed to answer despite repeated attempts from the moderators to have him do so if he would veto a national abortion ban or who he sided with in Russia's war on our ally, Ukraine. He repeatedly sided with autocrats like Putin and Hungary's Viktor Orban and cited TV coverage by right wing Fox News entertainment hosts like Laura Ingram, Sean Hannity and Jesse waters when he was pushed for evidence to support any number of his ubiquitous lies throughout the 90 minute debate. There was a lot of ground covered in that debate. None of it, it seems, was good for the former president in what was the first one that I remember watching for years, I got to say, perhaps the only one that I've watched for years that I actually did not want to see it end. But maybe I'm a glutton and that's just me. We've got our round table special coverage band back together again to see how the others feel about it. Joining us now, you know him. You love him. Our two long time old school blogger friends drift glass is the longtime liberal blogger who now hosts his his weekly professional left podcast with his wife, Fran, otherwise known as blue gal from what they lovingly describe as fly over country Illinois. And of course, Heather Digby part and best known as Digby. She's the award winning columnist for salon and proprietor of her much beloved long running hullabaloo blog. Welcome back to both of you guys. Good to be here. Good to have you. Now as usual, we're starting broadly and we'll get into more specifics and actual issues where we can find them as we go. But to be honest, Heather, I was I was a bit trepidacious about going into that debate on Tuesday knowing that Trump has been really in every debate that he has been in a very good debater. I had to sort of put that word into quotes because he doesn't actually debate. He dominates, but he did not seem to dominate on Tuesday night. As I saw it, I actually thought he was dominated by Kamala Harris. Your broad thoughts on on Tuesday's debate. Well, there's no doubt about it. He was dominated in the debate last night and and I kind of disagree with you. I don't think he's a particularly great debate or even though he you know, he's kind of because he's a television guy. He knows how to you know, grab the attention of everyone with the crazy stuff that he says. But I don't know when you look back at the at the consensus after all the debates that he's done, the only one that he really dominated and and was you know, was widely believed that he had won was the one with Joe Biden. And I think we can all agree that he didn't really dominate is just a Joe Biden, you know, failed so badly. It was so disastrous that he seemed to by default sort of dominate the debate. But now setting that aside, yeah, I was trepidacious too. I mean, after the last one, you know, who wouldn't be and this the stakes are so high and the polls are so close and you know, I didn't know we haven't seen Harris debates and she debated Mike Pence, which I thought she did quite well, by the way. I mean, I thought that was a good debate and I thought she she, you know, won that debate back in 2020. But that's really about it. I mean, there were those those primary that she'd done that were, you know, but those aren't the same, right, because there's all those people and you get one or two chances to say anything because she dropped out pretty early in the process. So I didn't know what to think. But boy, was I thrilled. I mean, this is, you know, I'm feeling the Kamala joy. Let's just put it that way. I mean, I am feeling it thrills up the leg as Chris Matthews would say back in the day. This was a really, really great debate for for those of us who care about the future of this country because she absolutely decimated and it was beautiful. Drift glass, as noted, I thought it was all over with the handshake, but but your broad thoughts overall and maybe you can settle the dispute between Digby and I is Trump a master debater or not, no, he's a rodeo clown, and he knows how to behave like a rodeo clown and jump up and down and have him puff and make himself big like a puffer fish and yell and call people names and that's what he's good at. That isn't a debate, but debates, you know, haven't been debates for a very long time. Right. Right. I think I think she rolled in there prepped to be a prosecutor of a person who is morally and legally unfit to hold any office in this country and she prosecuted her case brilliantly. She sat down with her staff. I guarantee you went through all the keywords like like the Winter Soldier, all the keywords that will trigger this lunatic into making dumb mistakes because we know we can be provoked and she just went in there like a matador and poked him and poked him and poked him to catch your voice nice and even every time he didn't just take the bait, he swallowed the hook and yeah, it was over in the first five minutes. You knew where this is going. I thought her opening remarks were a little tentative, but that's not surprising. You know, she's on the world stage and she's doing this thing, but once she kicked in her groove, I mean, it wasn't bad, it was just a little more tentative. Once she got in her groove, it was like, oh, she's just hitting him at will and he can't go anywhere and he can't extend himself and he doesn't know what to do except do the garbage he does at his rally and throw out, you know, word salad nonsense. And it didn't work. It did. There was no audience to play to. There was no studio audience. Now, you know, for me, I wouldn't feel comfortable hiring this guy, honestly, you know, to run Wendy's on the corner, but, you know, obviously about half of America seems to feel differently, but American presidential elections, maybe elections for all offices now, but definitely presidential elections, they seem like they're no longer about policies if they ever were. So, you know, they're about like ability, they're about domination. And that seems to come into play in these in these debates. Am I wrong about that? And if that's the case, who was the most likable and dominant on that stage on Wednesday night? Because that seems like it should tell us who's gonna win the election. Well, you're looking at two different audiences. I mean, if you're looking at the people who were watching on Newsmax, then Donald Trump did a great job because he stood up there and told them all the lies they want to hear. And he said Russia, Russia, Russia, and he said they're eating the pets and he behaved like the lunatic bully that they admire for some freakish reason. For any other sentient creature on earth watching this, she kicked the crap out of him. I kept kicking the crap out of him. And I was half out of my seat going, this is what we should have been seeing all along. Where was the person? Because all she was doing was telling the truth. All she was doing was telling him facts to his face and calling him what no one in a circle will ever call him, which is a disgrace and a criminal and creepy and old. Yeah. And he just doesn't know how to deal with that. He is maybe once upon a time he did, but he is so far gone that he doesn't know how to handle people telling him blunt, unpleasant things about himself to his face and it freaked them out. Heather, I think that the Harris campaign buffalode Trump, at least the Trump campaign in their insistence that the mics be left open. They, they really wanted the mics to be left open or so they said, I think she did not want them left open. I think she tricked them into agreeing to mute them and then, you know, just murdered him every time that his mic was muted, because he couldn't respond, you know, with stuff that actually killed him. He's weak. World leaders laugh at him. Our military leaders call you a disgrace, et cetera. Do you think that was on, I mean, do you think they actually catfished him there? Absolutely. I was, I was saying that even at the time, I'm going, you got to be kidding me. Of course, she's doing that. And it also stopped him from being able to claim that the problem was that the mics were muted, since he was the one who ended up, you know, insisting that the mics be muted. And she was, oh, no, we wouldn't have to even, I thought it was brilliant. And it made perfect sense that, that, that they would do that. I mean, that was one of the reasons, I think, that she was able to get out, you know, what she was able to get out because he was not able to talk over her, which had been a big part of his, his debate performance in the past. And, and I think that they did understand that this was going to be good. And so she was, she was prepared. I have no, I don't know who it was specifically that prepped her. I read some stories about it, but I don't remember if it was anybody we know, or anybody, you know, that, that wouldn't, you know, be interesting to know about. But I do know that Donald Trump was prepped by, I believe it was Tulsi Gabbard, Matt Gates, and Laura Loomer. Yeah. Well, he had a really top flight team there, which I think showed in his performance that he was really, really well prepared by the best of the best, because you know, he only hires the best. Yeah, well, he's told us that he had actually, he had, I guess, sort of to his credit, he had said he wanted the mics, he would be fine with the mics on. It was his team who said, no, no, no, we want to turn them off, you know, please don't throw me in the Breyer patch. I mean, they really, anyway, drift class, who was Tuesday's debate for? You know, who were each of the candidates trying to reach undecided voters? Are they actually trying to flip supporters of the other candidates at this point? Well, I honestly think that what we saw was in Donald Trump, what would you and I, and as he and I think we saw was the same Donald Trump, we have been talking about writing about for nine years, this crazy racist lunatic, shouting nonsense that we've been jumping up and down collecting, screaming, "Why isn't anyone reporting this? Why isn't anyone talking about this?" And this was the guy that was being reintroduced to the country, because all of the things we've been begging the media to report on get killed by the, you know, Peter Baker Maggie Haberman filter. It never makes it out into the country. It never makes it out to the public. So it's just, well, he has some policies here and she has some policies there and it's a fierce debate. This was the first time that I think a lot of people got an unfiltered look at what Donald Trump is like right now. And that was the point, I think, of the debate. It's there are undecided voters and there are disinterested voters and there's people who were even told by their local media and by the national media, which really not much difference the policy on both sides, which is all BS. And I think that was the strategy of the Harris campaign, which was let the people who haven't decided yet or don't know or kind of just tuning in see what a complete freak this guy is. And who was he trying to reach in that case? Jesus, I don't know. He was just, he was reaching himself. He was talking to himself. He has a bag of old tricks. Everything is the best in the greatest and the most marvelous that's ever been or the worst in history in World War II, Russia, Russia. And that's all he knows that I do is this hamster wheel in his head with nine ad libs and five bumper stickers that worked at his rally. And so when she came after his rallies, that's when you knew, oh, this is going to get ugly. This is going very, very bad because she went, she did what I forget who said, hang a lantern on it, go after a strong point. The only thing is good at his rally, call his rallies boring. And you called him old and silly. And the people are tired of his nonsense. And watch him. She found his launch codes. Well, let's play one of those launch codes. Just to for Pete, if there's anyone out there who didn't watch that debate on Tuesday night or just wants to relive it. Here's, here's just one piece of that. I'm going to invite you to attend one of Donald Trump's rallies because it's a really interesting thing to watch. You will see during the course of his rallies, he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. He will talk about windmills, cause, cancer. And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom. And I will tell you, the one thing you will not hear him talk about is you. You will not hear him talk about your needs, your dreams and your need and your desires. And I'll tell you, I believe you deserve a president who actually puts you first. And I pledge to you that I will. People don't go to her rallies. There's no reason to go. And the people that do go, she's busing him in and paying them to be there and then showing them in a different light. So she can't talk about that. People don't leave my rallies. As a matter of fact, they do and we've got video footage of it that said, you know, exhaustion, they leave out of exhaustion and boredom, sick burns certainly. But Heather, you know, I think that line about that you will never hear him talking about you only about himself. I think that landed about as effectively as I think it possibly could for many of those so-called undecideds out there, if they actually exist. Well, according to the, you know, the oracle of Delphi, also known as the New York Times Santa Paul, over the weekend, there are about, what they found was that 28% of respondents, I guess it was likely voters, or yeah, likely voters, needed to hear more from her. And only 9% needed to hear more about Donald Trump. She just was an unknown quantity to about 30% of the people there. So to that extent, I think, you know, it probably helps her, you know, the debate was there to help her. But I got to tell you that 9% what they saw was pretty astonishing. And that kind of thing of her sort of, you know, revealing him the thin-skinnedness about him, you know, his inability to kind of roll with the punches or ignore something that, you know, was clearly bait for him to take. And he just ran with it as drift last year. You know, he took the bait and the hook. He just went all for it. He took the fishing pole. I mean, he took the whole damn thing. And so I think, I think that, you know, there are undecided voters out there. There are some that were just, they had not been reminded of who he was. And then I think that there really were some who didn't quite know what to make of her. I mean, there's been a lot of propaganda about her over the last few years. And I think that seeing her in this capacity, I mean, one of the things that I just keep saying about her and thinking about her, that it's just so surprising to me, is that when she walked onto the stage, as you said, I think she put him back on his heels with that handshake. She just strode over there, stuck her hand out. Kamala Eres. Let's have a good debate. I mean, it was, whoa, okay. And he looked shaken. I mean, he didn't know what to do, but she looks like a president. And last, we saw it at the convention when she gave her speech, she came out there and she looked and sounded like a president. And last night, she did as well, more than ever before. And considering the fact that she's a woman, and that she's a black woman, I can't tell you how shocked I am, that that just seems so natural to me. And when I see her, I am not sitting there going, Oh, no, you know, thank you, which I often have done with women candidates. And by the way, a really short woman. And she did not come across as short. No, nothing nothing against the short women. I'm just saying, we'll say she's fatigued. She's black, she's woman, she's short, she's got all of these things that are, well, if I get normal, all of these things that would normally, according to the oracle of Delphi or whatever, you know, go against someone like that coming across as presidential, but she did. She did not look shorter than him on on Tuesday night at that debate. I will spare you the questions about since we're all pretty old here. Any questions about Taylor Swift, though I should note, I have been to a Taylor Swift concert. I hated it, but, and I know that's not going to help me if I decided to run, you know, with, with a Swiftie vote. Well, you got a teenage girl, so no one's really surprised about that. But a drift glass before we get to a break. Based on your Twitter feed this week, I noticed that you were less than impressed, shall we say, by the other big endorsement that Harris recently received from Dick Cheney. Did I read your Twitter feed correctly on that? Well, yeah, you did because, you know, Dick Cheney's opinion is so important to us progressives. And he was a lot of real estate. That's all I'm going to say. Dick Cheney, Dick Cheney is a monster. And all I could think of is if you ever wanted to mobilize a hundred thousand maggots who were going to stay home because they're creeped out by Trump or they've got something else to do or they're drunk. Everyone that mobilized a hundred thousand maggots to get out of their arm chairs go vote, show them show progressives as buddying up with Dick Cheney. So you do you think what you're saying is that she loses more votes with that endorsement than she gains? I think she handled it just right. She thanked them. She said thank you. And she said they value their country and she moved on. I think any more than that gives the right than excuse to say because I don't know if you know this but the Republican base hates George Bush and really hates Dick Cheney. They act like they do. They act like they do. But do they? Do they really? Well, all I can say is that Donald Trump during a debate said, you know, the Iraq war was George Bush's fault. And there's this Dan brother right there. You really want that guy in the White House and the base loved him for it because they wanted to be absolved their responsibility for for Bush. And and the worst thing you can do is not just bring Cheney out of his crypt but stack him up and say, you know, the party, the party of George Soros and Bernie Sanders is now the party at Dick Cheney. See, there is a deep state. There is a deep state and they really are all in this together. And so you know what, if he wants to come out and vote, he was the same thing. That's fine. I think she handled it just right. But you know, the worst thing you can do as far as getting people on your own side, just freak, just angry with you and getting people on the right going CCC conspiracy is to roll out Dick Cheney. I'd love to roll them out. All right, let's take a quick break here. And we will come back with drift class and Digby and Desi on our special coverage of the probably, I guess, one and only presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, at least until the 2028 election year. I'm Brad Friedman. You're listening to the broadcast. Don't touch that dial. What the public hears on the public airwaves matters. At the broadcast, we do our best to bring you accurate news and analysis on the issues that actually matter. And we do it all independently without corporate or political influence. But we can't do it without you now more than ever. Please help us stay on your public airwaves by going to Bradblog.com/donate to help keep us going. That's Bradblog.com/donate. And thanks. I was at the Capitol on January 6th. And on that day, the President of the United States incited a violent mob to attack our nation's Capitol. To desecrate our nation's Capitol on that day, 140 law enforcement officers were injured. And some died. The former President has been indicted and impeached for exactly that reason. Remember Charlottesville, where there was a mob of people carrying tiki torches spewing anti-Semitic hate. And what did the President then at the time say? There were fine people on each side. When it came to the Proud Boys on militia, the former President said, "Stand back and stand by." So for everyone watching who remembers what January 6th was, I say, "We don't have to go back. Let's not go back. We're not going back. It's time to turn the page." And if that was a bridge too far for you, well, there is a place in our campaign for you. Welcome back. It's the Bradcast, Brad Friedman from Bradblog.com. Special coverage of the first and perhaps last debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump on Tuesday night in Philadelphia. Speaking with our special panel, Heather, Dick B. Parton, Driftglass, and of course, as always, Desi. Driftglass, since it's another presidential debate, apparently we get to talk about the topic of healthcare again briefly. That only takes place during presidential debate. Trump was asked about his apparently 60 or so failed attempts to kill Obamacare while he was President. And his years of promises to replace it with something better. And cheaper? Here's a little bit of that. You have long vowed to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Nine years after you first started running, do you have a plan? And can you tell us what it is? Obamacare was lousy healthcare. And we're going to replace it. But Democrats, they wouldn't vote to change it. If they would have done that, we would have had a much better plan than Obamacare. But the Democrats came up, they wouldn't vote for it. I had a choice to make when I was President. Do I save it and make it as good as it can be? Or do I let it rot? And I saved it. So just a yes or no, you still do not have a plan? I have concepts of a plan. I'm not president right now. And you'll be hearing about it in the not too distant future. Driftglass, he has concepts of a plan nine years on. And by the way, he saved Obamacare. He saved Obamacare? Yeah, no. My wife and I are both on the exchange. We have a son with the special needs who's doing very well. All of that was dependent on the Affordable Care Act. And we think the Barack Obama for that, we watched the debate very carefully. We were my wife is in tears. Every time the Republican Party tried to kill it, which was 61 times. Barack Obama, you might remember, went to the Republican retreat in Baltimore and took questions from them for an hour and a half. No notes and answered them all. He said, you can modify this bill any way you want. You just have to meet certain basic criteria. And they had screw it. And they've been trying to destroy it ever since Barack Obama proposed it. Donald Trump is instrumental. He ran on getting rid of it. He's been lying about his plan for nine years. And I'm glad they caught him in it because, no, we didn't say the Affordable Care Act. The Affordable Care Act transcended him and got passed him thanks to John McCain, who who found Trump disparaged endlessly and hated because he stood his way up getting rid of it. We watched the Republican Party in the Rose Garden have a beer bust and celebrate what they thought was the end of my family's insurance. And we will never forgive them for that ever. I did sort of have my own sort of revelation on Tuesday night watching all of this, Heather, with these subsequent remarks on the same issue by Donald Trump, regarding, of course, as Bill notes, the very popular Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare. We can do much better than Obamacare, much less money. But she won't improve private insurance for people, private medical insurance. She wants everybody to be on government insurance where you wait six months for an operation. So those comments, Digby, about private insurance in the conversation about affordable, the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, Obamacare is built on private insurance. It gives billions of dollars to private insurers. That was one of the things that progressives, many of them used to hate about it. It occurs to me, is this possible that Donald Trump doesn't actually know what Obamacare is, how it works? Is it even possible that he doesn't know that at this point? Of course it's possible. In fact, I'm assuming that that is the case. And I thought I had exactly the same thought when I heard that, which I'm going, Oh, he really doesn't know how it works. And he doesn't know how anything works. I mean, let's face back, he doesn't know what a tariff is. And that is his signature issue. And he still does not understand how they work. And I truly have concluded that it's not that he's doing this for a factor that he has some, you know, it's some strategic sort of sort of plan of his. He really doesn't get it. And he can't learn anything. The man was president for four years. And he never learned how Obamacare works, despite the fact that this was being debated day in and day out. I mean, the first part of his his administration, this was all they talked about. This was their big thing. You know, they did they had that celebration in the house. And then we sat there through the entire debate in the Senate until finally, in the middle of the night, John McCain, and give credit where credit is due cones in Murkowski to came over and voted to, you know, not to repeal it. Right. And throughout that time, he never had a plan. He said to, you know, remember, it was two weeks were coming out with the plan. It was just like the infrastructure bill that he was supposed to introduce. Yeah. And he would always say, it's going to be so much better. It's going to be so much cheaper. And he even said at one point, it's going to be so easy. It's so easy. You won't believe how easy this is going to be. And the best they ever came up with when this didn't come from him, this came from the, you know, the grotesque dystopian monsters in the Congress, in the Republican Congress, who came up with the idea of, you know, they were going to going to allow people to buy bad insurance instead of making it so that they weren't, weren't allowed to do it. That that was what they came up with. I mean, that private insurance, yeah, private insurance. Yes. So no, he absolutely does not understand it. And thinks I believe in his head that Obamacare is probably is Medicaid. I think that's probably what he thinks it is and doesn't understand that it's a private insurance. Yeah, I think he thinks it's government insurance. Yeah. And you know, and he also on this, this terrorist thing that he clearly has never bothered to even learn or hasn't stuck in his head has been completely wrong. During his first term, his tariffs against China actually helped to decimate the US agriculture industry. Farmers required a $60 billion bailout during that time. So the fact that he still doesn't grasp that is just really dangerous for everybody. Oh, and he also doesn't understand how NATO works still. Yeah, that they're not paying in where you pay dudes. Not how it works. It's never hard to have glass. Here's one for you. You know, I fancy myself pretty good. Trump translator, Trump whisper, whatever you want to call it in that I can generally understand what what he's talking about during his rambles. Even though, you know, so many, well, I do, I just sort of understand what and I often explain them to Desi. Oh, what he's saying is this and this. I man's playing them. Trump's playing them. But but here's one that I really can't, since we were talking about the rallies before, here's one I really can't explain. Hoping drift glass can save me here. This whole Hannibal Lecter thing. I think it's just because he finds that joke so funny. Oh, he'd really like to have you for dinner. I think he finds that so funny. But surely there must be something else to it. Am I please help me? Is there anything else to it? There is nothing else to it. He is. He thinks it's funny. That's it. It's not. It might be have something to do with eating people. It might have something to do with pets. That's just, you know, it's one of those things that he just got his brain got stuck on, you know, and windmill's caused cancer and batteries will kill you and sharks will bite you and they just get stuck in his mushy brain and he can't stop saying it. And great. Keep talking, man. You know, that he got five extra minutes at the debate. I thought give him 10. Watch him. He himself is delightful. I mean, yeah, never interrupt your enemy when they're making a mistake. And he didn't even bring up Hannibal Lecter once. Yes. Go ahead. Aren't they saying that that? I mean, I've heard a bunch of people say that they think that he has made the mistake of he's confusing asylum seekers with insane assilons. And that's what the Hannibal Lecter thing is all about. Now, I don't actually think that's that's the case. I think it's more like what you said, Brad, that he just thinks this is funny. I've never been able to quite make the connection that people are making on how they, you know, how they see that. I can see why someone would say that that oh, he's confused because he's that dumb. But in this case, I'm not convinced that that's what he actually thinks. But honestly, he should stop saying it because everybody is kind of scratching their heads, including his own people going, you know, kind of Ixnay on the Hannibal Lecter lay, you know, not really working for you, but he just keeps doing it. So, you know, I think he loves it. He enjoys it. Let me see if Desi can do some Trump translation for us here. It was actually, believe it or not, during Trump's answer to a question about Kamala Harris's change of position four years ago on fracking when Trump responded with that clip that I played earlier about sex change operations for undocumented prisoners or something. She wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison. So that was part of his answer regarding fracking or something. But Desi, Trump seemed to concede that while the Biden Harris administration did allow and even expanded fracking in critical battleground states like Pennsylvania there, making America pretty much completely energy independent, Trump, he said he would have done it even more so. If she won the election, fracking in Pennsylvania will end on day one. I would have been five times, four times, five times higher. But if she won the election the day after that election, they'll go back to destroying our country and oil will be dead, fossil fuel will be dead. We'll go back to windmills and we'll go back to solar where they need a whole desert to get some energy to come out of. Do you ever see a solar plant? By the way, I'm a big fan of solar. But they take 400, 500 acres of desert soil. These are not good things for the environment, so we're out of time. Thank you. We're out of time, sir. We're moving on. This is an Arby's. Des, that sort of reminded me of the maximalist comments that he's that he also made about Israel that, you know, if Kamala Harris is elected, Israel won't exist any more in two years, much like if she's elected, there will be no more oil. But can you sort of unpack what his ranking was? Oh, and everything is going to lead to World War III. I'm not sure if you're clear on that. So absolutely no, it is not possible for Trump to increase fracking or even oil production in general, four to five times more than it already is. The US is already at maximum production capacity now. And you know, he's also previously pledged that he's going to cut energy prices in half, but he can't do that because that's not how global oil markets work. And because that would mean oil prices dropping down to like 20 or $30 a barrel from where they are now, which is around $70 a barrel. And the US oil industry domestically requires at least $60 a barrel to break even so cutting it in half will decimate the US oil industry. Now you can question about the strategy, the wisdom of the strategy of the Biden-Harris administration and continuing to make sure that the US is the number one top producer of oil. But that strategy appears to be mitigating energy prices running into an election in which Saudi Arabia and Russia have made clear that they would very much like to raise oil prices so that consumers are harmed right before the election. And also the thing about the solar plants taking 400. I mean, clearly he was just making up stuff right then. It is not like that. No utility scale solar footprint is nowhere near that size. And it is important to remember that the footprint of renewable energy is vastly, vastly smaller than coal mining alone. I mean, just look at the mountaintop removal damage of coal mining in West Virginia to see that. And by the way, he likes to, he didn't come up in the debate, but he likes to say that windmills kill so many birds. Yeah, that's also the fact of is that buildings kill more birds than windmills. And so do house cats. And and he's and this is true, but he's a builder of buildings. So he's responsible for killing more house cats than than windmills. Also, climate change, I got very short shrift, I should note, with one single incredibly general question at the very end of the debate, where she said, quote, what would you do to fight climate change and vice president Harris, we'll start with you one minute for each. So that would be one minute at the very end of the debate for the most existential issue of our lifetime. So despite the fact that, you know, last week's extreme heat out West and continuing wildfires today, a new hurricane making landfall in Louisiana as we go to air. I guess we get to ignore climate change as well for the moment does. So that's that for you until the next green news report. Guys, right after the debate, Harris's campaign tweeted something like that was fun. Let's do it again, saying they'd love to have a second debate. And when Tim Walz or VP candidate was asked about it, he said he was in favor. He said he did want to speak for Harris, but he'd love to see her do that to him every day. But I don't think she needs to debate him again or that she should. So before we get out, we'll run around the table here. Should she does, does she really even want to or is that another, you know, domination move by the campaign expecting therefore Trump will decline since she's claiming to be so anxious to do it again, drift glass? It's like season two of the bear. I want to see season three so bad. I want to see this happening on my TV screen once a week. I want to see her just beating the crap out of the sky like a rented mule once a week. And that'll be fine with me right up until and after the election, beat him up into January, beat him up into February. That's a great thing. But I don't think she needs to. I think she's established exactly who the president who's presidential and who's a lunatic. But I think she did frame it. She has framed every year. She correctly, as far as prosecuting the case goes, I am willing to debate you, you coward. What do you say? And the best he's going to have is all I have a concept of a debate, I'm sure. Digby, want to get in on that? Yeah, I think, I think she did it, you know, it was another bait for him. It was another piece of bait and his response sort of gives away the game. He says, Oh, well, I won the debate. And so, you know, this is her trying to, trying to get me to debate again so she can beat me, you know, and none of that rings true. I mean, even his even his cult followers have to go, Okay, you know, I guess so. And so I don't really, you know, I don't think he wants to do it for obvious reasons, but he may have to. I mean, I think Harris is prepared to do it. And I think she will do it. And obviously, I think she knows what she's doing. We'll just have to wait and see how the polls come out. I think that will, I think that will do it. I don't think she needs to personally. But I think that they did this just, you know, I mean, it was part of their whole domination, kind of strategy there. And because they did it right after the debate, they came out and said, let's do this again. You know, and I got it at the time, but I don't think she needs to at all. I mean, I think this is enough. There've been two debates. One took out Joe Biden. This one she, you know, one hands down, but it's possible that we'll end up having another one. I wouldn't be surprised. Let's just put it that way. Good point. I wouldn't be surprised either if they agree to a second debate, but I don't think she needs to. I mean, Trump, you know, it would not do him any good as we all pretty much know. I mean, he didn't just have a bad night. He had a normal night. This is what he is like. And it is good for viewers to see that, for voters to see that. And clearly, Harris has done a really good job, I think, in appealing to normal people and saying, Hey, we can get back to normal stuff now. I think she should. Exactly. Yeah, go ahead. Oh, I was just going to say that what we're seeing that I just saw a thing from ad impacting that the ratings were something like 78 million people. That's a lot of people. And if that's the case, then, you know, she really doesn't need to do it. She made her point and she can she can move on. And you know, she she's got a lot of work to do. I mean, this is that she's got to be barnstorming the country in these in these swing states. So, you know, I don't know that she needs to do it, but take the win and walk away. But if she sticks with her, you know, the microphone strategy, yeah, bait him into not accepting a debate. It was really it worked last time. But, you know, be careful. These are risky games you're playing here. The, of course, the the polls going into the pre election polls going into Tuesday night showed that the race was pretty much absolutely tied very quickly. Yes or no. Do you believe that is true? And will that change after Tuesday's debate? Digby. I do not believe it's true. I think she is leading, although by much smaller than common sense would, you know, indicate that she should be. And I think the debate may actually change things a bit for her. I think she may have a bump out of it. Drifty. What did we said? Yeah, I was gonna say the same thing. Smartly done. All of you. Thanks, guys. Really appreciate you joining us today. If there's not a another president candidate, I do a presidential debate. I do believe there's a vice presidential debate coming up. So you'll probably be hearing from us soon enough, sooner than you like. Heather Digby Parton is the much beloved longtime blogger and columnist known as Digby. You can find her work at salon.com and digby's blog.net as well as on the site still known as Twitter at digby 56. You can find drift glass on the Twitters as well. Over there, he is Mr. Underscore Electric Co. Otherwise, you can check out his blog at driftglass.blogspot.com. And of course, his weekly podcast, at least weekly, that you could download at pro left pod.com, a delight to speak to both of you guys as ever. I look forward to doing it again soon. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Okay, by the way, the vice presidential debate will be on October 1st. That's a Tuesday on CBS and Tim walls versus J.D. Vance. Get your popcorn. So yeah, so if you enjoyed Tuesday night's debate, presidential debate, well, I don't want to raise hopes too much for anybody. But what could end up happening after October 1 when walls versus Vance, we might be looking at a double murder after the Trump affair yesterday in the event. But we'll see. But you know, don't raise anyone's hopes, but it should be entertaining. Until then, thanks again to Heather and Drifty, and of course, to our producer, Desi Doyne for staying up all night and pulling those clips. Thanks so much, Des Ray. If you missed any portion of today's show, want to listen again, want to share it with someone you love or hate, you can do so anytime for free at Brad blog.com. Everything we do here is made possible only by listeners like you. And I'm serious, not like NPR. I'm who gets all their money from the oil companies. I'm serious. We get all our support from you at Bradblog.com. Hit a donate button or go straight to Bradblog.com/donate. You can also drop me email if you like. I'm bradcast@bradblog.com. On the Facebooks, Mastodons, and sites still known as Twitter. I am the brad blog. She is Green News Report. Yep. Until we see you next time, we'll see you there. I'm Brad Friedman. Good luck, world. She wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison. [Music] You're listening to the Bradcast. We are 100% listener supported thanks to listeners like you, who stop by Bradblog.com/donate.