Reflections on Political Turmoil and Podcast Production

SERIES 3 EPISODE 6: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: There's no other word for it.

Collapsed.

Trump's poll numbers have collapsed.

Poll numbers collapse all the time – relatively speaking; measured across the arc of American political history. If they had had them in 1864, ABE LINCOLN’S poll numbers would have collapsed. But I do not think that any other presidential candidate’s poll numbers have collapsed, this late, this fast, after this much of a twin honeymoon of a convention and a failed assassination attempt.

Ipsos Polling: Harris by FIVE, 42-37, last surveys taken Wednesday. In the July 23rd Ipsos poll it was Harris by three, 37-34. Ipsos Repeat Polling (same respondents as last poll) of the Big Seven Swing States: Harris by TWO, 50 to 48… that’s Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The LAST Ipsos poll of the SAME voters in these states, also concluded July 23rd it was Trump by THREE.

MARQUETTE LAW SCHOOL also released its national results very early Thursday Morning and among likely voters it’s Harris 50 Trump 42 – Harris by EIGHT. Everybody has their own criteria for “likely voters” so if you drop to just registered voters it’s still Harris by SIX. Most intriguing: among independent voters where Marquette has her head by 60 to 40. TWENTY points among Independents.

What we are seeing as of THIS moment is exactly why this unprecedented move: changing horses not mid-stream but mid-tightrope was attempted. To get these results. And nobody, NOBODY, expected them this fast. NOBODY. Which leads me into the second thing I mentioned previously and I mentioned it on Wednesday July 24th and before I mentioned it I took a deep breath and asked myself do you really want to mention this already but I did and I repeat it: I have been thinking since no later than (hours after President Biden dropped out) that there will come a point, this year, this election, maybe this MONTH, where we will all be saying “Can you believe we came THIS CLOSE to not making Vice President Harris the nominee?” I’m not building the Joe Saved Democracy Again statues quite yet. But I am beginning to think of maybe what they kinda could LOOK like.

AND IS ANYBODY GOING TO DO OR WRITE ANYTHING about Trump's Health Crisis?

His “news conference” was, objectively, twice as bad, FOUR times as bad, as the President’s performance at the debate. Throughout, it bordered on – and often crossed the line INTO – fugue state. 

And this got no headlines. 

Trump always SOUNDS like he doesn’t know where he was. This time he also LOOKED like he didn’t know where he was. Can’t convey that on a podcast: when a question came from the right side of the room he looked frightened as if he had just discovered there WAS a right side of the room. He looked lost. More shockingly, perhaps, he looked pale.

The New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, Axios, ABC, NBC and CBS had NO front page stories about the demented nature of his performance yesterday. Within an hour of its conclusion. Each hid behind his vague commitment to debates. Axios, incredibly, LED with “Vice President Harris still hasn’t given an interview or taken questions from voters since she became a presidential candidate…”

B-Block (24:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: A former mediocre football player named Marcellus Wiley claims Democrats are trying to bribe celebrities like him to support them (like him?) Trump makes up a story about Biden trying to seize back the nomination; his social media whore Dan Scavino posts 'I hear Biden is trying to seize back the nomination.' Elon Musk posts a fake London newspaper headline claiming there are going to be internment camps for conservatives (I WISH). Dear UK: what is the point of HAVING a Tower of London if you're not gonna use it?

C-Block (34:50) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: The most amount of action in the smallest amount of space in any Thurber story. His impeccable tale of one hour of confusion in his childhood home: "The Night The Bed Fell."

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