After the break, we hear more

from Lauren about some of the surprising conversations she had with workers at the Ford plant. We'll be right back. So Lauren, let's get into what these voters who work at this plant are thinking. Tell me about some of the people that you spoke with and about their decision on who they are planning to support in this election.

Sure. So I spoke to Misty Robinette. Misty is 55. She's white and was a lifelong Democrat. She even campaigned for Obama, but she is now sort of this really diehard Trump supporter. She campaigned for Obama, but

is now a Trump supporter. Interesting.

She owns more than 20 Trump shirts, Trump sweatshirts. She has a pair of socks with Trump's hair on them that you can comb. That's amazing. She, you know, she says she started making a lot more money under Trump and that the economy was doing a lot better. And she never really questioned her decision to vote Democrat. But her son, who is in his 20s, told her mom, you really need to look into this Trump guy and actually do your own research. So

me and my son got in a heated argument one day, and he's like, you know what, Mom? You sound really ignorant. You need to go educate yourself on him. And then just the more I was looking at him, the more I realized, like, wow, this guy is like really done

good for us. And she ended up spending a few weeks looking into Trump and then has been on a Trump supporter ever since. And

when was that? Like, when did she have that turn of saying, oh, I think Trump is who I'm going to vote for?

Yeah, so she voted for Democrats forever. She voted Democrat in 2016, and then in 2020 she voted for Trump, and she plans to do so again. She really respects Trump's sort of business acumen. I mean, she's a single mom. She doesn't have a college degree. She says she's worked endlessly her whole life. And I think she admires like Trump's business record and his whole lifelong career in business that was outside of politics. You

know what? He didn't do bad for me four years ago when he was in office. And

if anything, that

was the most money I made since being at Ford in that time was when he was in office. I mean, come on. I have no education. You know what I mean? I mean, I did some college, but, you know, to make that kind of money with no college education, that's not bad. Now, don't get me wrong. I busted my ass to make that money, but I still made that money. And it was because of President Trump. I

think it's a sentiment you hear a lot from people that they were doing better under Trump. And at least, like, I know that the people I spoke to, they consume a lot of media that sort of projects the image that they were doing better under Trump, that inflation has really been Biden's fault and hurt people. So I can see that that sentiment is not just coming from her. It's coming from other autoworkers as well. Yeah, I found what

she said really interesting because I feel like we've heard that from obviously not just auto workers, but like people from around the country who kind of talk with a sense of nostalgia of like what it was basically before COVID, like thinking back to 2018 and 2019. last time my life felt good or felt, you know, where I, like, felt confident in the direction my life was going and that they somehow connect that with Trump, even if it's not, like, actually reflective of specific policies that Trump actually put in place. I feel like I see, like, a connection there. Yeah,

I think the truth is complicated. Like, during the first two years of the Trump administration, manufacturing was really booming. Then it fell off and jobs were lost in the recession. As far as I can tell, wage growth adjusted for inflation was stronger under Trump than Biden. So it makes sense like that people were making a little bit more. But, you know, the Biden administration has also created a lot of jobs in manufacturing. And, you know, the economy has been very strong for workers as well. So then what about the people who

have decided that they are supporting Vice President Kamala Harris? Tell me about some of those voters.

Yeah. So I spoke to a number of people who said they were supporting Kamala Harris. One guy who was driving away from his shift said, you know, I'm voting for sanity. I spoke with Tiffany Simmons, the third generation UAW member, who is African-American. She grew up in a union household. I am actually a third generation Ford Motor Company employee. My father still works with me. Wow. He's been at Ford Motor Company since 1987. Wow. Tiffany and I met at Ford's Garage, which is a restaurant devoted to Ford Automobile memorabilia in Dearborn, Michigan. From what I remember, the food is really good here. Looks very good. She says that, you know, it was just always a given that you vote for Democrats because Democrats are more friendly to labor. She told me that she doesn't hate Donald Trump, but she's not a fan and she's not planning to vote for him because a lot of the promises he made to workers, she feels like he did not follow through on them. So one in particular, Trump promised to save a General Motors auto plant in Lordstown, Ohio, which sort of helped him win the state of Ohio in 2016, but that promise fell through. I remember when he promised all these nice, shiny new things to people, and he didn't come through. That's one that a lot of people point to. He also recently, in 2023, during the UAW strike, came to Michigan to speak to auto workers, but he attended a non-union auto plant, which she also felt like was a very anti-labor move. And

it was close to us. That's the thing. Like, you could have easily swung by and pretended to kiss babies and shake hands. But the fact that we're walking the picket line and rain sleeping, by then it was getting freezing out. It's raining every night.

That was horrible in my eyes like that was a true show of colors like you literally came to ground zero of where the auto strike is happening and you chose to go to a plant that doesn't even have a union unlike misty she really didn't like the fact that he's a businessman she doesn't think that sort of makes him fit to help working people or the average American. If you've got a billionaire telling you the keys to success, because he's a billionaire, of course you're going to believe he's a part of it. With me, I don't even have enough money to be in the same room with him. So I can't believe anything he tells me.

So she clearly doesn't like Trump. What does she think about Harris? Is she actually, like, excited about Harris? Or is Harris to her just, like, the one option that isn't Trump? No,

I think she's very excited about Harris. She is a Howard graduate, like Harris, Howard University in Washington, D.C. She has a young daughter. She's very excited about the prospect of the first black woman president. And, you know, I don't think she thinks that Harris is perfect. I think she thinks that a lot of the attacks on Harris are for things that she doesn't have control over. Like she hasn't been the president yet, but everything that Biden has done is not her fault, according to her. So I think she's very excited about her, but, you know, also doesn't think that any politician is perfect. So I understand that it

was in July that the UAW endorsed Harris. What was What's the reaction when that happened? For

a lot of people, it was a given the UAW has always endorsed Democrats. No one was surprised by the endorsement. In fact, they had kind of wielded their endorsement as leverage compared to other unions. A lot of unions immediately came out and endorsed Biden way earlier than historically in the campaign cycle. the And the UAW did not do that and kind of use their leverage to get Biden to come walk a picket line. He became the first sitting president to ever walk a picket line. And so it wasn't a surprise. And then when Biden dropped out of the race in July and most unions, including the UAW, immediately rushed to endorse Harris, that wasn't a surprise either. But I would say that a lot of UAW members who support Trump were mad. They felt betrayed and they felt like Trump clearly is the better candidate for American workers. And so the president of the UAW lost some trust from them in that.

Yeah, I imagine for someone like Misty, who likes Trump so much that she has, you know, Trump socks where you can comb the hair, that that must have been a really disappointing moment for her or made her feel like this union doesn't actually represent her.

Yeah, I think she was disappointed, but not surprised. She thinks that there's no thought that went into that, that it's just sort of a given, an automatic endorsement that, you know, wasn't necessarily earned. So

we heard from Misty and we heard from Tiffany and got a sense of the people who are solidly pro-Trump or pro-Harris. But what

about the undecideds? these were their two options. They were trying to, you know, figure out who's the lesser of the two evils or thought that their vote really didn't make a difference because, you know, things are always the same for them no matter whether a Democrat or Republican is in office. I got lunch with one undecided voter. His name is Andrew Hudson. He's 48 years old. He's Black, and he's also a third-generation autoworker. And he said for the first time ever after voting Democrat his whole life, he was also undecided just a few weeks out from the election. His media consumption has shifted over the past four years, and he's started listening to Joe Rogan and Fox News, Megyn Kelly, but also listens to a fair amount of liberal media to this day. And he said he really admires former President Trump because of his leadership style, especially on the international stage. But he says he also knows that he can be full of crap. He also felt like, you know, he wanted to like Vice President Harris, but says he doesn't get a sense, a clear sense of where she stands on key issues like the economy and inflation. He said that she's constantly spinning word salad and just wants her to take a stronger stance on policy issues. I don't think neither one of them are bad people.

Yeah, I know Trump say his extreme stuff and everything like that. You know, they're just two politicians that's trying

to run. So you think they're okay options? Yeah, I just think it's a lot of mud being slung all over the place. He said he's also done some research on Jill Stein and, you know, likes some of her policies as well. And of course, Jill Stein the Green Party candidate. She said she would pass a $25-hour minimum wage and expand and defend workers' rights to unionize. But in a state like Michigan, where the margins are so thin, there are concerns that Stein, our third-party candidate, could be the reason for Harris losing in November in Michigan. You would vote for a third party? Oh, yeah. I would definitely vote for a third party. Why is that? Because it's hard to decide between the others two or you like her? I want

to hear what Dr. Jill Stein was talking about. And when I heard her do, everything sounds good. Hmm. And the fact that his union endorsed Harris, did that have any effect on his thinking? I think he

doesn't really care how the union endorsed and generally wanted this election to make up his decision independently of, you know, his family or his union or his employer. So he has just been consuming tons of media during his shifts, especially on the production line, and says that by consuming so much media, he's actually felt even more confused than before he started, especially because he's getting his news from left, right, and center media outlets. Yeah. Yeah.