Transcript
Zain
0:04
This is The Strategist, episode 584. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, what's up? It's the end of
Carter
0:11
of the world as we know it. It's the end of the world as we know it. Surprisingly, I feel fine. That's
Zain
0:19
That's a great song. I actually would prefer it to be plagiarized into Hindi for a Bollywood movie. I
Carter
0:24
I think we should totally
Zain
0:25
totally do that. We should do that. Has
Carter
0:26
Has that already been done? It
Carter
0:28
has. It has been done. I mean,
Zain
0:28
I don't understand what you were saying, but I mean, if it wasn't Hindi, I would.
Zain
0:32
This is good. We're Friday morning quarterbacking,
Corey
0:34
quarterbacking, Corey. Friday morning rolling.
Zain
0:38
Literally two people got that reference. They're both in this room.
Zain
0:42
Let's get into it. We're here for a very specific, special, Carter may even say, emergency purpose. Emergency podcast. Our first segment, everything sucks, I can totally fix it, believe me. Yeah. Was that good? Was that what encapsulated 75 minutes? I was
Corey
0:58
was going to say, how did you do it in one sentence? It took
Zain
1:00
took him an hour and change. So let's just start here. The Donald Trump speech last night, filled with law and order, economic populism, the system is rigged. Carter, you're rolling your eyes. So let's just start here. What did you, while watching it, because you watched the full thing, which is actually a surprise. It's a shock for
Zain
1:17
What were you feeling? What was going through your mind as you saw Donald Trump through this 75-minute escapade? Heather
Carter
1:26
Heather and I are watching. we're watching downstairs and and uh i'm getting more and more agitated she shuts down she can't watch the whole thing because it's just ridiculous and she starts asking me questions and i'm so angry by about the 40 minute mark that everything that she's asking me is like shut the fuck off don't talk to me and i'm like literally i've never been so angry watching a television production of any type why
Zain
1:51
why was that like i just want to make sure people understand saying what was the
Carter
1:57
because the the values that i have the values that i've been raised with the buttons that he was pushing create an opposite yeah an intended reaction is
Zain
2:06
is it fair to say you weren't the audience for that it
Carter
2:08
it is totally fair to say that but the worst part is knowing that there is an audience for what he is talking about yeah
Carter
2:14
and that's the part that drives you absolutely bonkers while watching it yeah
Corey
2:19
yeah that was more my feel so i woke up up this morning and i and i felt anxious like you know when you were a kid and you had a test and i'm like why why do i feel this way and i'm like oh that's right because i watched that fucking speech last night and and laurie my wife was watching it too and she also didn't make it all the way through she went to bed and said wake me up when trump's no longer a thing um it
Corey
2:39
it was it was that kind of speech zane it's like you listen to it and part of what makes you so frustrated with in my opinion is he he
Corey
2:47
is putting it together and delivering it pretty pretty adeptly and you know some americans are going to like it the
Carter
2:54
the yelling was i mean his delivery wasn't as
Carter
2:56
as good as it could have been my fear would uh after you know you read the speech and then i glanced at the speech saw segments and i went okay interesting um
Carter
3:05
um i didn't think that it would be that bad his his delivery i think that he has a capacity to be a better order but he was yelling
Carter
3:14
yelling the entire speech yeah so some of the impact that could have been there was taken was scrubbed off how about we go here for a second
Zain
3:21
second before we get into the specifics you guys have both done debate prep you guys have both done speech prep for our audience who's listening can you give them an idea as to what goes in broadly speaking to preparing a candidate to give a in this case a milestone speech or a very important speech cardinal start with you first well
Carter
3:38
well the first First thing you start with is the actual capacity to speak, right? So you oftentimes –
Zain
3:43
– Which is not a given.
Carter
3:44
No, no. In fact, almost entirely, every candidate I've ever worked with, we spend time on speech. Even Nahat Denshi, who's the guru of speaking. Grand order, yeah, in this country. He can talk all the time. You still work with him on speech techniques, bad habits that they have, and you try and eliminate them for the big speech. None of that appears to have been done for Trump. The second thing you work on is the actual content of the speech, the flow and the story that's going to be constructed. And I'd say that this is – I haven't listened to every speech that Trump has done, but I think this is probably the best constructed speech that he's done. It had a flow to it. There was a storyline that you could follow. There was a punchline
Carter
4:27
Yeah, there was something to walk away from with a memorable takeaway and
Carter
4:35
lots of applause. lines in fact he milked every every modest applause line was milked uh but walking away
Zain
4:41
away from the stage twirling i don't know what it
Carter
4:43
it was it was like you
Carter
4:45
you know drop the mic but you come back that's not dropping the mic uh it's forgetting the mic
Carter
4:52
know i mean his preening was one of the things that was making me absolutely nuts but uh that
Carter
4:59
that part the actual writing of the speech and And then staying on speech, one of the things I said yesterday on our CBC segment was, don't worry, he'll go off script. Yes.
Carter
5:07
He went off script after the first paragraph. At the start. I was convinced
Corey
5:13
convinced that I'm like, oh, well, he's just not going to read this speech at all. Carter's going to be right. Damn it. Damn
Carter
5:17
Damn it. And then it turns out, of course, Corey was right, which frustrated me to no end. He stayed on script. He delivered the speech. He had very few ad libs. I could even see the media. They were prepared for ad libs, too. Yeah.
Zain
5:29
Yeah. So the script was leaked. I think that's
Zain
5:31
ultimately where we know what he was going to say versus what he did say. Corey, yeah, to ask you the same question I did to Carter. Speech prep, any big takeaways that you go into it with or what do you kind of prepare your candidate for? Well,
Corey
5:45
Well, there's a lot that goes into it. Some of it is just base comfort with the text. There is kind of that overall ability to speak, Stephen talked about, that you need to develop with them. uh the speech there's this old adage about speeches where you write three right you write your first draft your second draft and then your third you make up on the stage as you see your audience and uh you can almost always tell when they're doing drop-ins and ad-libs if
Corey
6:13
if i mean their tone changes their cadence changes it becomes pretty obvious i don't think we needed the leaked speech to know when donald
Corey
6:20
donald trump was going off speech because he spoke a bit differently and and with different different cadence um you
Corey
6:28
you really want to make sure that they have a certain base level of comfort more than anything else in my opinion and and that's why i think those bad habits you were talking about steven they didn't they weren't going to try to first of all yeah how do you get donald trump to change you don't
Carter
6:41
don't get donald trump second
Corey
6:42
second of all you don't try to change somebody the day before the biggest speech of their life so they just said oh he's going to be him and he's going to do it and i'm sure he practiced it and ran through it many times He sounded pretty natural through the scripted parts relative to how he could have come off, I think. And besides that, you know, if you're looking at how they actually train, you're often going to record it. You're going to play it back. You're going to make them watch themselves. You're always your harshest self-critic, and you're going to see these tics that nobody else is going to see, but you're going to clean them up as a result.
Zain
7:14
talk for a second about the strategy that he and his team of speechwriters in his campaign implemented in terms of selecting their audience for their speech. And what I mean broadly by that is that this was a speech about law and order, about immigration, about a broken system. A lot of the material was probably for people in that convention hall. Did they select their audience for their speech correctly, knowing that Donald Trump's winning coalition is not simply and only going to be the Republican convention hall that was there last night?
Carter
7:44
Well, I mean, they very clearly articulated who their speech was going to be for. And it was for white America, middle class white America who feel that their incomes have dropped over the last 20 years. There's lots of those people. Do you think that was a mistake?
Carter
7:59
I would have broadened. I mean, you would have broadened. I would have broadened. But I want to run a campaign that doesn't look anything like Trump's campaign.
Zain
8:07
I get it. But
Carter
8:08
But I would have broadened it out because the same thing is for me when you talk about uniting the right or you talk about kind of the right-wing Canadians or these
Carter
8:19
these small ideas that get hung up. I always want to go and grab the center. I'm always interested in that. This campaign has no interest in the center. But
Zain
8:28
But it's a math game at the end of the day, is it not? where he needs a coalition that's broader than the base he was appealing to last night to get the 270 electoral votes.
Corey
8:37
votes. Yeah, sure, Zane, but how do you get to four? One plus three, two plus two, 1.5 plus 2.5? There's a lot of ways to get the electoral votes he needs. The question
Zain
8:46
question is, was this a
Corey
8:48
a lost opportunity with his convention speech? I mean, it was not a lost opportunity. All of the metrics coming out of it suggest he did very well and that likely Americans are looking at him far more positively today than they were yesterday. today uh the opportunity lost i think was on the democrats side because they set donald trump up for an absolute home run of a speech by lowering expectations to the level they did about his convention as the week went on they just jumped way too hard way too fast on the speaker gaffes on night one you know it's not a big shock that ted cruz a man who was branded a liar who donald trump's insulted his wife and accused his father of being an assassin it's not a shock he didn't endorse him and frankly i'm not sure how many people i think differently about donald trump because ted cruz didn't endorse him i mean it was embarrassing but it was it was just theater and everybody tuned in last night expecting a total shit show of a speech and he gave them the opposite he gave them a well-crafted speech delivered well and was this a missed opportunity absolutely not he said exactly what he needed to say to get the coalition he's going after carter
Zain
9:52
carter i'm gonna i didn't get to ask you the missed opportunity question i'd like to get Get your thoughts on that. Was this a missed opportunity for Donald Trump?
Carter
10:00
I want to disagree with Corey. I want to argue that Corey's incorrect. I want to say that Corey is under
Carter
10:08
under-evaluating the American public, but I
Carter
10:14
can't. I'm so frustrated by this because expectations game is super important. We've played this game before where if you're if you have a candidate that's going to suck, you just tell the world that they're going to suck. And then when they suck plus 10 percent, they look pretty good. So Trump, sure,
Carter
10:33
sure, he shouted his speech. Sure, he you know, but he didn't. He was he was one note all the way through. He read the speech. That's all he needed to do. He got the applause lines that he needed to get, even if he milked them, even if he kind of forced certain applause lines. He actually had a moment where he actually came across as a statesman. The crowd started to chant, lock her up, lock her up in regards to Hillary and law and order. And he said, let's just beat her in November. And
Carter
11:01
And all the media was like, oh, my goodness, look how statesman-like he's been. Because the bar was so low. The bar was ridiculously low. We play this game all the time. This is this isn't a new new strategy. But, you
Carter
11:15
you know, everybody was saying what a disaster of a convention it was. And it was a disaster of a convention. But now today, all we're talking about is
Carter
11:24
is that speech. And I think that the proof is in the pudding, because now the
Carter
11:28
the reaction from the Democrats will have to be stronger. Corey,
Zain
11:31
Corey, let's take a quick detour on Ivanka Trump. Right. Introducing her father was a lot broader. Like if we're using that term in terms of her audience. Right. She mentioned, you know, I I'm not a Democrat. I'm not a Republican. She considered herself a millennial. She used these terms that that went beyond that room. Right. What was number one? How do you think she did? Number two, do you think she was an extension of her father? Do you think she's going to be forgotten as part of this this package that was made for Thursday night? No,
Corey
11:58
No, I don't think she's just a prop piece for the convention. She was the person who introduced Donald Trump, as she mentioned, when he first announced he was running for president. By all accounts, her husband is, you know, essentially conciliary to Donald Trump and the one whispering in his ear all of the campaign tactics up to and including the firing of Corey Lewandowski, who, as a Corey, I have to stand with him. It's a thing we do. Just naturally. um the the speech was clearly crafted towards in my opinion her speech i'm talking now was crafted towards the bernie sanders supporting the prototypical sanders supporter independent not um not
Corey
12:37
not at all interested in uh in joining a particular party or having a party label generally being much younger than possible at or being much younger than the american average and And
Corey
12:50
that's who she was talking to. I don't know how many people would have thought otherwise. The other thing that she said, you
Carter
12:58
you know, the thing that bugged me about her is that she was completely off message with the second speech.
Carter
13:03
Right. So the second the first speech comes in and she's all sunshine and rose. You mean
Carter
13:09
Her speech was great. I mean, all the liberals in the room. Right. Like, oh, my. I mean, I was watching her and watching Twitter at the same time and thinking, oh,
Carter
13:18
oh, man, this is pretty good. like what is she setting us up for right and then immediately so up you know sunshine and roses you know so and then in comes like a foil to that the exact opposite right the exact opposite and speaking patterns
Carter
13:32
patterns the ability you know like she
Carter
13:36
she just you would have liked to see more connective tissue
Zain
13:37
tissue between the two like a more connective
Carter
13:39
connective thread i don't actually i would have liked to have seen like
Carter
13:42
like i think that she could have been uh more like i thought she was like and other Other people have said this, too, that she was a liberal, and Donald Trump comes in as a crazy-ass conservative. Well, so what
Corey
13:52
what do you really expect her to do? I mean, she's not going to be firing brimstone. That's not who she is. They used her to broaden the appeal. You know, his kids have been using this entire convention as proof points that he's not a total asshole, right? They've gone up. They've been articulating. They've said nice things. And you say, like, well, he raised them. I guess there's something to that guy. And she also gave those humanizing stories, you know. Now, one of the things that his wife failed to do was give any specifics, but she told stories about him clipping newspaper articles about people who he felt had been wronged and then tracking them down and getting his staff to and then doing whatever he could to help their situation just on these like one off vignette basis. And that was powerful stuff. That's the kind of story you're going to hear repeated around the water cooler when somebody says, yeah, he's a real asshole. Somebody else would say, yeah, but did you hear he does X? Yeah. And that is powerful, powerful stuff. And,
Zain
14:45
And, you know, I want to build on that because we're taking this detour on Ivanka Trump. I want to take a further detour on what set that up, which was about a four minute video, Corey. I don't know if you guys both watched the John
Zain
14:55
video, which I thought was actually quite well done and explaining probably the best I'd seen up until Ivanka explaining the human side of Donald Trump, his charity, his giving back to community. I mean, what did you make of that as an introduction? And more specifically, what's the purpose of a video introduction in that convention hall? Who is that audience for? Well, that's not for the convention hall.
Corey
15:18
hall. That's for everybody at
Corey
15:18
at home. And you're right. It was very well done. It showed him tackling all of these different issues. They really pushed that he did them much more efficiently than government, took over projects, revitalized
Corey
15:29
revitalized communities, built skylines. I think that New Yorkers, they played a lot on his New York roots. roots new yorkers have massive unfavorable ratings of donald trump like above 70 percent so it is something that i think we should all contextualize and i imagine the clinton campaign will attempt to contextualize it over the next bit but it was very well constructed and um and
Corey
15:54
and to steven's point about it being so different in tone it's
Corey
15:58
it's quite clear to me what they were trying to do was talk What set him up, not as like a guy who was unhinged, but a guy who was mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. He's lived his life as a decent developer trying to do the right thing, raising kids, making sure that he can get things done for his fellow man. And you know what? America is in such dire straits now, such dire straits. He has no choice but to enter this political realm, accept the nomination, and take the fight to the Democrats. Carter, was that a good strategy in the setup?
Carter
16:27
You know what? But, I mean, if that had been the setup for the presidency, when he started running, it would have been a very, very strong setup. The problem is trying to change your narrative from an egotistical billionaire who just thinks that he's the best. And, again, that
Carter
16:40
that was a theme throughout this speech. I am the only one who understands the process. I'm the only one who can fix it. He barely has an understanding of the electoral system, let alone the whole process of politics. His kids
Corey
16:53
kids weren't even registered to vote.
Carter
16:55
I mean, come on. This is ridiculous. But his egotistical
Carter
16:59
egotistical side is so powerful.
Carter
17:05
Humanizing him would have been very strong if we'd seen it for the last six months. To Corey's point, when he said earlier that it's very difficult to change him into a different person by training him at the last minute. It's very difficult to change the overall narrative of this campaign just through the convention. if they'd begun a story arc on sunday maybe
Carter
17:26
maybe even two sundays ago and they were trying to get the humanization of donald trump and it culminated on thursday today
Zain
17:33
today oh yesterday last night right
Carter
17:35
right then maybe i think it would have worked but by instance by introducing it as a video and a speech yes
Carter
17:42
that is now going to be run over by a different truck because there will be a channel changing move today they're already you know hillary is already alluding to the fact that the vp pics coming shortly yeah
Carter
17:51
that changes the channel will
Carter
17:53
will we be able to remember the nuances of the video the nuances of avon of uh ivanka
Zain
18:00
you can't say anyone in his family i
Carter
18:01
i can't remember their names they're very confusing to me mel trump they're all blonde smiley people except for donald jr i got donald jr down um but this is this is very challenging for me to try and figure figure out how
Carter
18:15
how they expect this channel change to actually stick well
Corey
18:19
well the thing is not everybody sees this as a channel change for a lot of americans it's turning on the tv for the first time as much as we've been so engaged and as much as it feels like everybody's been talking about this forever that's that's fox news that's the cable news channel i
Carter
18:34
i hate when you use my stuff against this
Corey
18:35
this was the first time yeah right less engaged they're getting a little more engaged now Now, this was the first time a lot of Americans were really interested in this, and they had heard chatter in the background, which, again, going back to one of my main points and concerns here, because I am deeply concerned by the notion of a Donald Trump presidency,
Corey
18:54
everybody has heard these murmurs about what a shit show he's been. And here we are, and he gives this speech, and he has this humanizing ahead of time, and an entirely different picture of Donald Trump was painted than I think is one that is accurate or one that we've seen in the past year. but that might be the one that sticks. Well,
Zain
19:11
Well, so Corey, you mentioned that point last night on television, and another one that you mentioned, which I thought was quite interesting, which I think is worth discussing now, is the concept of Donald Trump being a very, very good spokesperson for the cause. Do you feel like the only thing getting in front of him with being a great spokesperson for this cause is his ego and him wanting to do this himself? Because at this point, should he position himself as a spokesperson person for this law and order cause and then maybe leave the second part of that statement which is me me me me me out of it i
Zain
19:42
don't know if you're ever going to get him you
Carter
19:43
you can't change this particular that's a tick that you just can't get past
Corey
19:47
past i mean the guy has been me me me since the 70s right he was more me than people were in the 80s the me generation i mean it's
Zain
19:55
it's just there's no getting past suppose he was multiple was that would that be the strategy though would like to make him a spokesperson i don't think
Corey
20:00
think so i think if anything what he's doing so democrats Democrats and detractors of Trump like to call him a hypocrite because he uses offshore, you know, resources to build his products and call him a hypocrite because he's this billionaire talking about how the billionaires have it easy. Well, in fact, what it is, is a situation where he's playing against type and he's like, believe me, guys, I know you think the system's fucking you. Yeah, it is because I used to fuck you. Yeah. And and that
Corey
20:30
that is that is more his brand than anything. The whole, like, I am deeply bothered by injustice tack is an interesting one. I think it could actually pay some dividends for him. The question for me is not whether or not there is a version of Trump that can win.
Corey
20:47
We saw that last night. If you see that Donald Trump until November, I'll say it right now, he's going to win this election.
Corey
20:52
The question is whether or not he can maintain that persona, that character, until November. Carter, any thoughts on what Corey just said?
Carter
21:01
him saying that donald trump can win is one of those things that makes me want to punch him in the head right
Carter
21:07
right because when when he said months ago that donald trump could win the nomination i looked at him and said don't even think that right don't even because don't put the thought into the into the universe because no one was thinking it and and so really this whole thing is cory's fault and this he could he would invent a donald trump there
Carter
21:26
there is a there is a two uh two A two-candidate system where
Carter
21:30
he is up against a woman who is incredibly unpopular.
Carter
21:34
And don't play me the Bernie Sanders could have done better thing because he obviously couldn't because he lost. So
Carter
21:43
we have an election this time where it is who is the least popular candidate. Now, I'm interested in it because some of this is, you know, it's got some parallels to some Canadian elections, right? We have our NAFTA election again. Brian Mulroney versus John Turner, we're talking about NAFTA. This is going to happen with Hillary being pro-NAFTA and Trump being so strongly opposed to NAFTA yesterday. Now, the difference is that it's occurring after the fact. And we are so looking for a reason why my life sucks. Why does my life suck? Well, it couldn't be anything I've done. It's got to be NAFTA or it's got to be President Obama or it's got to be immigrants or it's got to be Muslims. We're willing to find enemies in things that aren't enemies. And so I'm concerned that the narratives of evil will win out over the narratives of good, which, you know, to Corey's point, if he's able to cast himself in this role and be reasonable,
Carter
22:47
reasonable, there's a lot of people who want to find evil in the world. OK,
Zain
22:52
OK, so let's let's go back here, because I think you guys both made this point that that last night for many people across across the United States was the introduction to Donald Trump. And with that being said, what
Zain
23:05
what did you guys feel of some of the maybe the nonverbal, maybe the more elemental natures of the speech, the staging, the length of the speech? If this if you were crafting an introduction first time that the American audience were to see this guy, what did you make of some of the guts that came with the speech? cory i'll let you go first and we'll go from there well
Corey
23:23
well when you talk about the set itself with those jagged shards coming up the side and whatnot i felt like it looked like a set designer on star trek was trying to convey that the alien race we were seeing was fascist right
Corey
23:35
right i mean i didn't like the set design it was very jagged it was very cold it was very hard but it was very much in line with his notion of the message we are law and order and like the fake american flags behind it were a little too cartoony looking i don't know why they didn't use real like images of real american flags but uh you know what when they pulled back and it got out of focus because everyone's focused on trump it wasn't the most horrible visual ever the stagecraft was fine the stagecraft has been fine hold
Carter
24:02
all week did you think that when pence walked out at the end of the speech when uh the families came out that that was fine because what i remember that's
Zain
24:10
that's part of it that unity shot i
Carter
24:11
i remember 2008 right barack obama has just been elected and and outlocks michelle and the kids and you know we i had an emotional reaction it was so well staged the staging of that the way that they walked hand in hand up and down the the thrust stage uh that was spectacular this one left me cold i mean he went and looked for pence pence didn't come to him he went you know his family was all kind of like trying to figure out what they they clearly didn't rehearse it and
Carter
24:43
and those moments matter because those are staging moments where you see and you can build emotional attachment it was a 75 minute speech
Corey
24:50
speech i think everybody
Carter
24:51
everybody instantly got up and
Corey
24:53
and went to the no
Carter
24:53
no one was left but but that brings us back to the second point it was a 75 minute speech length
Zain
24:58
length is something i want to discuss that
Carter
25:00
that reminded me joe clark uh i worked for joe clark and he he
Carter
25:05
did a golf tournament for joe clark so everybody goes out and they golf 18 holes and of course it's It's a golf tournament. It takes five and a half hours to do.
Carter
25:12
And they come in and they're starving. So Joe Clark gets up and does a 40-minute speech, right? And by the end of the 40 minutes, the people were so hungry that they were prepared to kill the man to get to the food. Okay? That's where we were. And that's, to me, where we were about minute 65. The world was ready to lynch him just to get him off the stage. Now, that could have just been my Twitter feed, my personal experience. But I do think I would have loved to have seen the ratings as we went through the full 75 minutes, how many people started, how many people finished, because I think he lost people just from the duration of the speech alone. Well,
Corey
25:52
Well, he absolutely did. I'm not sure how many votes he lost because of the duration. I think there's kind of this built in prejudice that political speeches are long and boring. And so when one is, nobody docks you points. Yeah.
Carter
26:05
Yeah. I mean, no one goes, oh, you did the only long and boring speech in the history of mankind. That's right.
Carter
26:10
They're all like that. As
Zain
26:12
As strategists, suppose you were working with Donald Trump on this. You know that his—here's
Zain
26:17
his—here's what I want to say. You have this speech on mute, and you're watching this guy and his facial expressions and his body language. Oh, my God. And it's super weird. And I did this last night because I kind of fell asleep during some of it. and I'm listening to some of this and I'm just watching him just step back from the podium, make swivels around, go back. Maybe his chin's a little too high. The whole concept of Donald Trump's body language is unique. How do you deal with this if this is your introduction? I want to actually root it to that because this is your introduction to the American public of him. How
Corey
26:48
How do you deal with that? Well, look, for starters, he's an old man. He's in his 70s. I think that people are going to cut him a bit of slack on his body language. to finish the thought that I had earlier the stagecraft was very good the problem they had was more with the content and the speeches and the speakers themselves and it was a pretty mixed bag to be charitable and one of the most mixed of those bag was Donald Trump and his body language was was not the body language of somebody who looked normal but it was the body language of somebody who was eminently comfortable up there so I gave him full marks on like just his total comfort with that sort of milieu you um
Corey
27:27
really did you know a lot of the donald trump like the tiny fingers like uh the the teeth like almost looking like he's hissing through his teeth uh a lot of those things that he's just never going to to get away with but those are the kind of things that are only a problem once you start becoming self-conscious with them in my experience
Corey
27:44
those things never come off as bad to the casual viewer as they do the critical view carter's
Zain
27:48
carter's cory being way too charitable
Carter
27:51
his body language and the way that he spoke his facial expressions were comic to me
Carter
27:56
me he was you know he was did they ruin the quality of the speech in your mind well
Zain
28:00
well no the well but you put the three together the
Zain
28:03
shouting the body language
Carter
28:03
language and the facial expressions yeah i mean but you gotta keep in mind that the speech was going to be ruined for me regardless there was no way i was liking this speech i mean there's just no way well
Zain
28:13
well objectively you said it was well constructed i'm wondering if that took away from the solid construction
Carter
28:17
construction the shouting the body body language, and the facial expressions destroy him for me. He is a demagogue. He is someone who, you know, if you look at, I mean, there's just no way you can do this without going back to, you know, to Hitler, right? And I don't mean Hitler in the gas the Jews kind of way. I mean, Hitler, the guy who's standing in front of us in front of the Germans and doing a speech that the the germans are responding to right we always think of hitler as this character right this trump is a character he is standing in front of them giving a speech that is designed not to sway anybody on an issue yes of intellectual capacity it is designed to swing you on an issue of emotion and he's
Carter
29:03
he's doing it because people like
Carter
29:05
like i mean well let's just you're
Corey
29:08
one who broke godwin's law here we've already lost so i'm just i'm sorry i
Carter
29:11
i apologize i don't want to do that because
Corey
29:13
because you're 100 right i often wonder what people think of when they think of mussolini and hitler i think they think of charlie chaplin and the dictator yeah absolutely right the reality is the guy was giving speeches that were really based on raw emotion based on fear and ultimately seemed relatively reasonable in many cases it was like look we just can't put up with this anymore the time for being politically correct is over we've got to deal with this and we've got to get germany back on its feet i mean make germany great again could have been adolf hitler's slogan if sloganeering had hit that level america
Carter
29:44
america first was the the slogan around the nazis in america yeah
Carter
29:49
you're right why we shouldn't join the war is to put you know why we wouldn't stop the nazis in europe is because we have to put america first right this is this isn't this isn't some sort of abstract concept well this is reality
Corey
30:02
reality and look you can use you can use words that fascists use without being a fascist okay but i mean i there could not be more flags on the field here and i will tell you this none
Corey
30:13
none of none of history's worst people have ever come to power by saying i'm
Corey
30:18
i'm the worst piece of shit ever and i'm going to do terrible things
Corey
30:21
they always package it in very reasonable sounding arguments that play on your base emotions and if you don't think that's what's going on with donald trump i
Corey
30:29
i got a bridge well
Carter
30:30
well and they they base it on external fear right
Carter
30:32
right so So even when you look at what's happening in Turkey right now. Yeah. So Turkey, legitimate external threat. There was an attempted coup, right? But it's the reaction to the coup that you have to be afraid of. Because the reaction to the coup is everybody's being rounded up. So it's not the 6,000 military that grabbed arms and started. It's the teachers, the university professors. It's the civil servants. Those people are all being thrown under the bus because those are the intellectual classes that ultimately pose a threat. Yeah. And Donald Trump used the same language, the
Carter
31:06
the exact same language as Erdogan.
Corey
31:10
Yeah, well, he's in some great company, isn't he?
Zain
31:13
Yeah, I mean, your guys' concept of the external threat is true, right? And I think he's clearly defined what that is, Islamic terrorism, Muslims generally. Yeah, I believe it's
Corey
31:22
it's you. Don't forget, also Mexicans.
Zain
31:24
Also Mexicans. Don't make it all about using. Well, listen, I'm making it about me because this is the last time I can go to the U.S., probably. Yeah,
Carter
31:30
Yeah, this is why we have to go to Cleveland. Or, just Cleveland. This is why we have to go to Chicago. This is why we have to run away from Cleveland. Cleveland, little Freudian thing. But this is why we have to go to Chicago on August the 4th. Carter,
Zain
31:42
Carter, are you doing a totally organic plug for our sponsor right
Carter
31:44
right here? A totally organic plug for campaigns and elections, campaign tech in Chicago. This is the last time you can see Zane Velgey in the United States.
Carter
31:54
You know, so get down there. You make it sound like I'm a circus
Zain
31:56
circus and there's like a little box just to see. People
Carter
31:59
People don't know you the way we know you. There is a circus element to you that people need to get to know. And listen,
Carter
32:06
listen, I mean, I'm going to go down now because I want to meet the Republicans. I want to meet the Republicans that are standing beside Trump and saying, this is entirely reasonable. I want to meet that guy. I thought you wanted to meet Republicans
Zain
32:17
Republicans meet me. I thought that's what you wanted to do.
Carter
32:19
I mean, listen, there are going to be Republicans are down there are going to be who are going to be going. I cannot believe they're holding their heads in their hands. And you see that. I mean, you see John Weaver, who is the campaign manager to Kasich, losing his frickin mind. You're seeing governors, you're seeing, you know, all kinds of people who in states that Trump needs to win, who are sitting on their hands. So there are lots of reasonable Republicans who are going to stand in the way of Trump. But
Carter
32:46
But there are even more Republicans who are saying he's our best hope. He's
Carter
32:50
He's our best chance. And that is I'm going to go to Chicago. I'm going to meet these people. I'm going to find out what makes them tick. The smile on your face is massive
Carter
33:01
We pretend that we're all the same all the time. We pretend that we have the same values and we have the same thought processes and the same issues. We're not. And learning about other people's value sets, how they make decisions, that's how elections are won and lost.
Zain
33:18
CampaignTechChicago.com, August 4th in Chicago. Promo code STRATEGIST. Join us. It's going to be a good time. I'm actually super pumped. And I know it's a smile on Stephen's face is I don't think you were this happy when you saw the birth of your children. I know. I think this is probably a happy, really gross. You have not had kids. No
Carter
33:35
No one's happy. There's everywhere.
Zain
33:37
everywhere. You mentioned this off the top. And I wanted to get to it. The Ivanka Trump connection to the Bernie Sanders type supporter. Donald Trump also made an explicit pitch to Bernie Sanders supporters on the notion of trade. And I want to discuss this a little bit. it. He said, we're going to win over the Bernie Sanders supporters. Millions of Democrats are going to join us in our march. And because their main issue is our main issue trade, what did you make of that strategy?
Corey
34:04
I was a good one insofar as there is a group of people still trying to decide whether or not they can support Hillary Clinton. But I just don't think it's going to be enough. I think Bernie Sanders himself was pretty rapid in his response, effectively saying who is this guy is he kidding himself this is just but one issue among many and donald trump is the friend of no working man let's be clear but his approach uh was sound you want to make sure that you're trying to pick up the people if only to put your opponent on the defensive so think about it in these terms as well zane it's not so much that donald trump wants the bernie sanders supporters it's that donald trump wants hillary clinton to have to fight for them and move further left it was a zero cost way for him to kind of force her to do additional things to try to appease them very
Zain
34:51
very good point carter what did you think of trump's appeal to explicit appeal to bernie sanders supporters he
Carter
34:57
he did it on one issue which was trade but i i don't know how he does it on on all the issues that matter to the bernie sanders supporter do
Zain
35:04
do you think he does do it on all the issues would you advise him
Carter
35:06
him he did it on one but if you're sitting there let's say you're an undecided bernie sanders so you're bernie sanders voter and you're undecided about who you want to support because you can't support that criminal Hillary and you're not sure about this Trump guy. So you're watching this thing and then you're watching all of the not even subtle racist moments. You're not, you know, there's the components of America first. How do you get that taste out of your mouth and go, yeah, he's the guy who's going to stop NAFTA, right? And it's not like he said, we're going to eliminate trade deals. He said, we're going to do trade deals, but we're going to make sure that they're in our interest. And I'm like, well, yeah,
Carter
35:43
So we're Canada. What are we going to do? We're going to just say, oh, you guys, we'll just throw NAFTA out. Why don't we sit down and we'll negotiate with you and we'll come up with something even better. Corey,
Zain
35:52
Corey, you're the closest thing to a Sanders supporter around this table. If you were on the receiving end of a Donald Trump message, what would you like to hear? What would the strategy of crafting the Donald Trump appeal be? And maybe the second question is, who in the Donald Trump camp would you like to kind of reach out to you? Well,
Corey
36:08
Well, as much as trade was part of his message, I think the bigger part of his message is that Washington is broken. We can't fix it with an insider. And I think that is probably more likely to resonate with Bernie Sanders supporters. Unfortunately, it was wrapped in so many things that are just going to turn off Bernie Sanders supporters. If I was looking, if I, I just, I think that the question is just something I'm never going to be able to answer because I'm never going to be a Donald Trump supporter. Sure. And you're not going to be able to give me a grab bag of things to make me a Donald Trump supporter. because on a fundamental level, what he's pitching, I believe, is hateful and wrong. So, no, there's going to be no number of baubles. Now, if you are a Bernie Sanders supporter who doesn't see him as hateful...
Corey
36:51
That sliver probably exists. Yeah, I just don't know, Zane. I think that the Bernie Sanders supporter that he's making the appeal to,
Corey
36:59
he clearly made the appeal through his daughter to the millennial Bernie Sanders supporter, But I think the more likely one is the blue collar Sanders supporter in the Midwest in a swing state like Ohio or Pennsylvania, perhaps, who has lost their job and is frustrated about trade. Carter,
Zain
37:13
Carter, same intellectual exercise for you, right? You're in the Trump camp. You are trying to get these Bernie Sanders supporters. What's your positioning? Is trade the only thing you have? How do you segment this audience and who do you try to get on the Sanders side to join your cause?
Carter
37:29
You know, I actually don't think that you're going to get anybody. But I do like Corey's strategy of trying to make Clinton go left. I don't think it's going to work because I think Clinton's team is going to say, who
Carter
37:41
who else are going to vote for? Right. So this stuff that this stuff that we reacted, we are the liberals in the United in the United States. Right. As you know, I mean, people may even say that we're the liberals in Canada. I don't think that I'm a liberal in Canada, but, you
Carter
37:57
you know, whatever. small l liberal i
Carter
37:58
think i'm the center but the center here is like the far left there and i don't think that people are going to on the far left are going to be swayed by this i think you're going to see massive uprisings of people who say we cannot allow this to happen on the left because the other things are so important so i think it's a failed ploy to try and move it is you think yeah to try and move against cory
Zain
38:19
cory close us out on that question the
Corey
38:21
the the thing that you need to do if you're really after bernie sanders supporters is that that rhetoric that language i was using about him being an existential threat you need to just seem like yeah i'm an okay guy i'm not the guy everybody's been saying and i think that was an also a big part of his pitch and that's where you're going to continue to hear this story about i'm just in this because i'm really frustrated if i don't say the political things it's because i'm not a politician we just need to fix america the answers are easy the politicians are too corrupt to do it i'm not corrupt i'm a billionaire who's funding it myself let's just take this country back from this elite elite class that has established themselves over us.
Zain
38:57
A moment of punditry from you guys. So does last night in your mind, the Donald Trump speech, the Ivanka Trump introduction, the video, the culmination of that primetime hour, does last night make up for the dysfunctional mess that was the first three nights of the convention? For you, Carter?
Carter
39:12
It certainly changed the channel. No one's going to remember the plagiarism. No one's going to be talking about Ted Cruz's non-endorsement. This is going to be
Carter
39:22
This is Trump's show And Trump's taking us down it So
Zain
39:25
So he was successful in that regard in your opinion I
Carter
39:27
think so There will
Carter
39:28
will be people who still say it was a shit show But those people were never going to vote for Trump anyways Corey
Zain
39:34
Corey what do you think of last night Did it make up for the first three Well
Corey
39:38
Well I just don't think the first three days Were as bad as you're implying they were They were fine They were fine Every convention has their moments And next week there will be moments in the Democratic convention where we're just gonna go oh lord you know that's just painful um but the reality is they seem worse when it's not your team or when it's a guy like donald trump who's having those moments i'll give you
Zain
39:58
you that sure look
Corey
39:59
look it was a very good speech for him i think it's going to be a huge fundraising night for him i won't be surprised if sometime today we're recording this at 8 30 in the morning on a friday they announced that they've had their best 24 hours of online fundraising or something of that they may even hold out to try to return
Corey
40:16
return the channel back to them after the hillary clinton an announcement but it was very good and this is what people are going to remember about the convention in fact all of that other stuff because the speech was just it was adequate and it hit the points that it needed to do um he's
Corey
40:32
he's able to now retroactively say look the media always had this narrative they were always going to play this but let's be real there were no violent protests there were no big
Corey
40:41
big moments of total catastrophe in the convention there was a gaffe with two lines in a speech and there was a guy who i hate and who hates me not endorsing me what is the big fucking deal okay
Zain
40:54
so i like that we will close on two questions of strategy let's start with strategy for donald trump this morning forward he knows that hillary clinton will talk hillary next he knows that hillary clinton is going to announce her vice presidential pick sometime i believe did you say today carter is that the plan yeah okay so
Zain
41:11
so sometime today donald trump how does he take Take the momentum of what many people thought was a very positive speech last night and extend it. He canceled a rally in Akron, Ohio today, unfortunately. But like what I would assume for his campaign. But what does he need to do strategically, Carter, to extend the life cycle of Thursday night? Well,
Carter
41:32
Well, this is where you get into a really bizarre, bizarre state of the world with Donald Trump. Right. So normally, Corey and I would look at the map and I've pulled up real clear politics. politics and they've got a map of all the swing states and you'd say, okay, well, how do we go from, uh, 164 that are in Trump's camp solidly or leaning, you know, right. How do we get from 164 electoral votes to 270? And we would go through and we would say, okay, we're going to need, uh, Pennsylvania. We're going to need Ohio. Uh, we're going to need Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Florida. So let's, let's begin our, our stump tour right away in those areas. So he chose Ohio
Carter
42:12
Ohio to start. Right. We're going to go straight into Ohio and we're going to figure out how to get those 16 electoral votes. That's 16 percent of what I need to get in order to win this this election, except he seems to be fixated on California. California has 55 electoral votes. It would be a significant swing. I mean, if it was to move, if
Carter
42:32
if it was to move, it would be a devastating blow to Hillary Clinton. and it's never going to move. So I think that you have this, the strategy that should be implemented is get thyself to Ohio and Pennsylvania and figure out how to get those two swing states to move. They seem to be relatively straightforward to get them to move Florida, depending on which polls you look at, also something that can be moved. In fact, Florida might be the easiest move. Florida and Nevada might be the two easiest moves he's got.
Carter
43:03
So why wouldn't he be on a plane to Florida and Nevada, right?
Carter
43:06
right? Go to Nevada, talk about something, do a Trump moment. But I don't know what
Carter
43:14
what his strategy is when you cancel your— In reality,
Zain
43:16
reality, you mean, yeah. I don't
Carter
43:17
don't know what his strategy is when you cancel your Ohio
Carter
43:20
Ohio appearance the next day. I just don't understand that. Corey,
Zain
43:24
Corey, what does Trump need to do? Whether it's electoral math that Carter's eloquently laid out to us, What does he need to do this morning forward to ensure the life cycle of last night lives on for him?
Corey
43:34
Well, there's the speech, and then there's the speech deconstruction and analysis, and he needs to win that as well. The instant analysis from people was, hey, no content, no content. Now, pretty soon after that, polls were coming out that showed that this speech was a runaway. I saw one poll. Maybe there's been others since. But CNN had a poll, overall reaction to Trump's speech, 57% of speech watchers said very positive. 18% said somewhat positive, 24
Corey
44:01
24% said negative. Now, I'm going to contextualize that a bit. Please do. I spent a bit of time trying to find equivalent numbers for Obama's speech. And Obama's acceptance speech had numbers of 53% very positive. So this speech actually seemed to exceed that bar, at least in the comparable poll I
Corey
44:17
Two things I want to mention about that before Carter jumps all over it. No,
Carter
44:20
No, I'm not. I'm going to add additional.
Corey
44:21
additional. Oh, good. Yeah.
Corey
44:23
One is that Donald Trump has incredibly high unfavorables. Yes. For him to have a speech that is deemed successful or what would be a success for him should be a much lower number. Yeah.
Corey
44:36
But in fact, this is a very high number. Objectively. Objectively high. Right. And then the other thing is that that really
Corey
44:44
really kind of just reinforces the idea that now he's got an opportunity to win the the spin. spin right he can go out and he can be like americans loved it what are you talking about and if he can win that round as well we're going to retroactively remember this is a very big moment for the trump cap
Corey
45:00
cap carter you wanted to add in politico
Carter
45:02
politico right so politico has did a republican caucus they did a survey everybody responded to it anonymously um trump
Carter
45:09
trump nailed it is the headline trump nailed it yeah right so you've got 15 55.6 percent who are more confident about the the Republicans' chances in the fall, no impact was only 25%, and lowered was 20%. There are some Republicans who didn't get the speech, but the vast majority of Republicans at the very least seem to think that this is the way moving forward. And they talked, the Republicans are saying this is the defining moment of the convention. There is no Cruz moment. I mean, the Cruz supporters are still there, But
Carter
45:46
But I think they're all going to slide over. I think that Ted Cruz may have ended his political career.
Zain
45:52
Interesting. Okay, Corey, I want to actually, you mentioned something, and I need to go here for a second. You said he also needs to win the analysis and the deconstruction of the speech. Now, one of the other narratives that's coming out is the obvious fact-checking of the speech. And
Zain
46:03
And for Donald Trump, that isn't playing so hot this morning when people are fact-checking it. However, in the room, it seemed to go quite well. It was facts that felt right. I think I saw that on Facebook, right? People were reacting to facts that felt right. How big of a deal do you think it's going to be in terms of the fact check for Donald Trump's speech in terms of the analysis and deconstruction? Oh,
Corey
46:22
Oh, not at all. I think that when people are criticizing the fact checking, by
Corey
46:27
by the standards of a Donald Trump speech, he actually did pretty well. And they're sort of cherry-picking the facts in a 75-minute speech. That they want to check. Well,
Corey
46:34
always. But I'll say this. You could argue that some of the statistics are misleading. He's talking about government fiscal years instead of calendar years. the stats aren't in extrapolating i'm talking about the crime statistics on major cities versus
Zain
46:46
versus the country at large right
Corey
46:47
right exactly uh or you know if the time frames use so yeah you pick from 2000 to now because that makes it look like a dip but if you pick from the start of obama to now it's not a dip or you pick a broader horizon it's you know all of these things are true but all of these things are parsing uh there were very
Corey
47:03
very few out and out lies like just outrageous statements that are They're not defensible in any way, shape or form. And on that front, I think that people should be very careful, because if you send one of your friends to one of those fact checking statements or sites, you're going to see he said this about America's income. True. He said this about America and its position in Benghazi. True. He said this about Iran.
Corey
47:30
Questionable, right? I mean, you don't actually see a lot of out and out falsehoods when you look at the fact checking sites on his speech. And you're going to force people to see the reality that he presented. Now, he
Corey
47:40
he has picked his facts very artfully, but he hasn't done the classic Donald Trump absolute outrageous lie like they were cheering in New Jersey when the World Trade Center fell.
Carter
47:52
Right. I mean, so his facts were believable.
Zain
47:56
Right. And I think
Zain
47:57
that's it. Right. And
Carter
47:58
And so who cares if they're true? His version
Zain
48:00
version of the facts
Carter
48:00
facts were believable. I want to believe those facts, so I will believe those facts. And his
Carter
48:05
his audience was buying right into it. I mean, and even more damaging was the way that he linked certain facts. Right.
Carter
48:11
For me, that was the piece that was,
Zain
48:13
you know, kind of the worst is that he would. The connectivity between.
Carter
48:16
So you talk about, you know, more murders and more attacks. And then you talk about illegal immigrants. And so you're essentially attacking. Correlation causation
Carter
48:25
Well, he doesn't he doesn't have to say in the illegal immigrants who are doing this. But simultaneously they arrive.
Carter
48:31
Look at this. you know homicides last year increased by 17 percent uh 2 000 people have been killed in chicago which i thought was fascinating because he said by shootings but no one talks about guns right um guns aren't responsible uh and then he ties it right to illegal immigrant families and and you're kind of like holy when i saw that i was just like man that's just
Carter
48:55
it's so wrong right
Carter
48:57
right so it's not about the fact all of the facts that he listed there were
Carter
49:05
but the connection is
Carter
49:07
is entirely wrong right
Carter
49:09
entirely wrong and but that won't matter because the facts were right and the and people it supports a conclusion people some people want to have as being true okay
Zain
49:18
okay so let's let's end the emergency podcast on hillary clinton and her strategy so last episode we talked broadly about what hillary should do if for example donald trump's speech was a dumpster fire she may let you know its own media cycle go but we're We're hearing now she's announcing her VP pick or letting it leak today. Corey, good idea, bad idea if you're in the Hillary Clinton camp today.
Corey
49:38
I mean, just sound strategy, just good tactics. Of course you want to change the channel when your opponent has a good day. I think she has to be careful that this day is not fully rolled out. You know, those polls about how people reacted will come. She wants to make sure she doesn't make her big announcement just to have it trampled on. I think fundraising is the most obvious thing Trump may pull out after the fact on that. that so so she has to be aware of that i think you have to be mindful and at least set up some defenses and and and soften the ground maybe even start saying things all morning like i'm sure he'll have a great fundraising day so it just seems like less of a story when it happens uh but this is just what you have to do and now she's got her chance now we've gone through the republican convention and it was four days you
Corey
50:21
you know i think about donald trump and hillary clinton and it's been observed by many people and it's not a new observation that these are the two least likable
Corey
50:29
likable candidates ever right you have number one and number two on the unfavorables running against each other in 2016 and maybe that's just a function of our times and we all hate politicians the only people they could beat would be each other
Corey
50:41
well yeah and or maybe not i i think there's a good case to be made that they are particularly unlikable even in an era of cynicism but
Corey
50:48
but i yet i still kind of agree with what ivanka said when she was introducing her father in that introduction which is that donald trump is
Corey
50:56
is somebody who's been in the public eye for decades yet is still not very well known i think people know the showman donald trump they remember his cameo in home alone but they haven't really been introduced to the politician donald trump they
Corey
51:09
they know the showman donald trump they know the politician hillary clinton and she is what she is and she's going to be what she's going to be but donald trump can still surprise as a politician to the vast majority of americans and so i think there's a risk to hillary clinton here she's going into her convention and she's going to be the person we all know she is right she's been operating in politics for decades she's been secretary of state she's been senator she's been first lady
Corey
51:33
she's got a tough challenge next week she has to change the channel she has to present a better version of america she needs to she needs to rebut let's build a wall with give me your tired your poor your huddled masses yearning to breathe free and she needs to do it better than she has Has ever done it before. And
Carter
51:49
And she has the opportunity of doing an eight-day strategy, right? Like starting today, carrying it right through to next Saturday, right? So you've got a four-day convention. But she can put together a strategy that will have more bounce than she's
Carter
52:03
she's going to be fine. Is
Zain
52:04
Is her biggest hurdle the predictability that Corey mentions in the sense that people know what they're going to expect in a sense that she needs to go above and beyond that?
Carter
52:12
Well, I think that she's got a—I mean, when you get to the expectation game, her expectation level is higher.
Carter
52:17
People know that she's a trained professional politician. This is what she does. They also know that Bill Clinton, love
Carter
52:24
love him or loathe him, was the best in the game at this. His speeches, his ability to craft, stagecraft, her husband was the best there was.
Zain
52:35
And you think the Republicans are going to actively raise the bar on her this next week, Corey? I would
Corey
52:40
would if I was them. I think I would be saying things like, listen, we know the Democrats have an awful lot of resourcing, the elite are behind them, Hollywood's behind them, all of these code words for Jews are behind them, and they are going to put on a hell of a convention. But don't be fooled. This is the glitz and glamour that has tricked us for decades, and it's time to take America back.
Zain
53:01
mean, I'm really looking
Corey
53:02
looking forward to it. You tell me you'll never
Zain
53:03
never be a Donald Trump supporter, are you sure?
Corey
53:04
sure? Never. Absolutely not. So, it
Zain
53:06
it seemed like a good speech you were just making there.
Zain
53:11
Carter, you're designing this eight day strategy. I want to get into this just a little bit more before we close off. Right. Any any highlights for you? Anything you'd want to mention that that that our audience may not expect or they or they should be attuned to if they do see it? Like, how do you phrase this eight days? She's ending with a rally on Friday in Philadelphia. She's doing a big one similar to how Trump was supposed to do one today at the end of his convention. But what is your eight days look like? like?
Carter
53:38
Well, I mean, every tough
Zain
53:39
tough question. I know. No,
Carter
53:40
No, but it's an easy answer. The headlines you want.
Carter
53:43
Right. So one of the things that I will say to a client is what is the headline you want?
Carter
53:47
Reverse engineer from that. So what headline do you want the next day or that day? I mean, today it used to be tomorrow. What headline do you want now? It's when you're done speaking. What
Carter
53:56
What headline do you want?
Zain
53:57
want? Yeah. The next 30 minutes.
Carter
53:58
minutes. Yeah. So what are the what is the headline that you want to have? And I suspect that the Hillary Clinton camp know the headlines that they want today they know the headline they want tomorrow they know the headline they want sunday and so when we talk about that well-crafted narrative when we come to record the strategists whenever you decide that you are willing to make the time for us yeah um not
Carter
54:17
not denying it i'm
Zain
54:18
i'm happy about yeah
Carter
54:19
yeah when you decide that you're willing to make the time and we record the strategist next week we will be talking about how either
Carter
54:24
either the headlines were wrong they didn't get what they were looking for or they got exactly what they were looking for my money is
Carter
54:30
is on they're going to to get exactly what they're looking for the question is will it be enough right
Zain
54:35
right cory anything to add on this final word on on the hillary clinton strategy as it leads to to this weekend and next week hillary
Corey
54:42
hillary don't fuck up there's way too much riding on this and the democrats have to bring their a-game in a way that they have not shown me they can bring yet they have as i've said to you guys many times fallen into this trap of looking at donald trump as a caricature and And assuming that all Americans think of him as this bloated asshole the way they do, and they need to move past that, and they need to make the danger of him clear in a very, like, tip-of-the-spear way, they can't do this laundry list of complaints about Donald Trump, half of which play into his image as an outsider who's a truth-teller. They need to be very, very good, because
Corey
55:19
because there's way too much riding on
Zain
55:20
on them. There is a lot at stake. Okay, we'll leave it there. A wrap on our emergency episode of The Strategist. That's a wrap on episode 584 of The Strategist My name is Zayn Velji With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan And we'll see you next time