Biden's election debate horror show – plus the global events voters care about most 01:05:59

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Hello and welcome to American Friction, the weekly US politics podcast out every Friday from the makers of Oh God, What Now?, The Bunker and Papercuts. I'm Jacob Jarvis. And I'm Chris Jones. And we're joined, as we are every week, by Nikki McCann-Ramirez from Rolling Stone magazine. Hello, Nikki. A very somber morning for you both. Christ. Nikki, well, we're going to liven you up a little bit because it's later in the day for us. So we're really awake. I've had plenty of coffees.

We're going to keep it pacey and get straight into this debate. I was very naive and thought that Biden might be really good in the debate. And I said, he's good at this sort of thing. Last time we spoke on the podcast.

That's not really how it's gone, has it? You stayed up and watched it. You stayed up late because it wasn't actually that late because you're in America. Time's different. Crazy. What do you make of it when you're watching it? How did you feel watching it? And how do you feel afterwards? Now you've had a little bit of time to process. Well, I think it's clear that the Joe Biden who debated Trump four years ago was not the Joe Biden that was on stage last night. I think...

There was exactly one thing that Biden needed to accomplish at Thursday night's debate. And that was, I feel like it's been said, it's the general consensus reassuring the American public that he is young and spry and mentally agile and capable of going toe to toe with Donald Trump. And that absolutely did not happen. Yeah.

The Democratic Party and, you know, sort of the back end donor political advisor, big brain liberal world is in a spiral. They were in a spiral last night. I'm assuming the four hours of sleep I got did not change that. But following last night's performance, there are

really intense conversations the likes my 28-year-old brain cannot remember happening ever in a presidential campaign regarding whether or not Biden should actually be the nominee come November. On the attack lines then, really, to be honest, from what I saw of it, it felt almost like there wasn't really that much of a need for attack lines from Trump.

because he does have a fantastically malleable face and he will pull these sort of facial expressions where

You just think, okay, that's saying a lot. And he would just let Biden say something. And there was that line where he went to him, yeah, I didn't really understand what he said in that sentence. And I don't think he did either by the end of it. So we spoke to Reid Gallen about this. And Reid Gallen suggested, Reid Gallen from the Lincoln Project was saying that what Biden would need to do is just kind of let Trump get himself worked out and then just kind of needle him, just give him a little jab and go, yeah, this and let it go.

Is that kind of what Trump did to Biden? That he just was like, I'm just going to give you the time to speak because you will do my work for me because you are you're just really bad at this. Yeah. I mean, Jake, you said by the end of the debate, but that line was about 20 minutes into it.

Yeah.

His voice sounded incredibly hoarse. I saw a couple, you know, sources are telling me that Joe Biden has a cold. But by that point, it was too little too late. Like the damage had been done. His physical presence on the stage, I think more than any other major public appearance Biden has done over the course of his presidency, seemed like that of a really old man who was struggling to be there. Yeah.

And, you know, over the course of, you know, the nearly two hour debate, there were certain points where Biden did manage to land a rhetorical punch, did give decent answers. But the majority of the time, it felt like whenever he was required to recall a statistic,

or meld together multiple thoughts. He was tripping over himself. He was sort of trailing off at the end of sentences. He would sometimes just end sentences with a little garbled mass of words.

But then would just allow Trump to kind of swoop in and be like, yeah, like for like the you did beat Medicare answer, for example, where he was trying to say something about how they like they had really improved Medicare, the scope of Medicare. But then what ended up coming out was we beat Medicare and Trump just kind of seized on that soundbite. And this is not to say that Trump didn't.

gave some stellar, coherent presidential performance that subverted all the expectations we had going in

Trump was his usual self. I think as we've talked about before on this podcast, he was the version of Trump that shows up to campaign rallies, the version of Trump that delivers lengthy, rambling, sometimes incoherent answers that just look charismatic. And because he says them loudly and with conviction, they come off as a little more believable. And I just think Biden wasn't really even in the arena. Yeah.

I almost get the feeling that Biden was so super prepped for it that he was anxious for it. But he does this strange thing where he uses what should be quite a good device where he'll go, look, the fact is, the deal is, this is what you need to know. But that works if then you say what the fact is and you say what the deal is. But he'd be like, the fact is...

Fuck, I don't know the facts anymore. There's this tweet going around, which I feel like it's gone a little bit viral. I know what's happening on the internet.

But someone said, it's like, you know, Biden said, look, the fact is we can't, we don't look. Here's the deal. And this is no fooling. And then Trump would just go, there are 10 billion Guatemalans attacking the Lincoln Memorial right now. And it's like, yeah, Trump's saying something that's a total lie or whatever. He didn't actually say that. But you know what I mean? Trump is saying these like incredibly inflammatory things, but he's saying it with such conviction and it's,

It's hard to then be watching on when Biden was just saying nothing with any variety of conviction. I know, Chris, you're interested in dominance politics. You spoke around that for the bunker. It felt... That is what kind of seemed to come off here for me. Trump isn't amazing at giving really good answers, but he was just... He was so dominant. And Biden kept trying to pull it back and it just...

You've got to fight non-reality with facts, but then if you don't have any of the facts at your disposal, you're totally fucked. It was exactly what dominance politics is about. You can go on to any...

news site right now and there's a list of lies that Trump told throughout the debate. But that doesn't matter. Trump said what people wanted to hear, but also at the same time, he was entertaining. He was accidentally funny, as we've said many times. That is his character and he's going to get away with it. That's pretty much just a fact. It

those statements will cut through and there won't be any repercussions for that. A really clear example to me was there was this little bit that's been doing the rounds where they were talking about golf.

And that basically started out with Biden trying to do a really convoluted insult to Trump. Essentially, he was trying to call Trump overweight because he was talking about how in the White House there were discrepancies around Trump's weight and his height and how that fit into his BMI. You might recall that Trump did appear to get an inch taller in order to keep his weight in a sort of lower BMI category from his doctor.

But he just made the insult in such a way that you were kind of, I was like, yeah, yeah, I get where you're going, but I need a lot of knowledge here. And then he was like, and then my golf, I got my golf handicap down from eight to six. But Trump then just in like 10 seconds said,

just ripped him apart by he did this, his face went elastic and he did this kind of Joker smirk thing and was like, and then he said, that's the biggest lie ever. That's such a lie. And then he goes, I've seen you swing. And then he goes, let's stop acting like children. And it happened so quickly. And Biden was kind of like, he was still on the first insult trying to get it in there. And if you're going to stoop to their level,

If you're going to be a complete arsehole and do stuff like, I don't care if Trump is overweight or not, I don't think that really matters in terms of his ability to be president. There's a lot of other things that do matter. But if you're going to go to the level of making an insult like that, you've got to land it, don't you?

Yeah, I was amazed that Biden took the bait when Trump brought up golf because Trump was the first person to bring it up. He was talking about how he'd won tournaments and to win tournaments, you had to be smart and be able to drive the ball really far.

The only thing Biden needed to say there is that Trump spent nearly a year of his presidency, according to online sleuths who've done the math, golfing instead of being in service of the American people, instead of diving into this weird dick measuring competition about who can golf better. And then I want to also circle back briefly to this notion of Trump just getting away with all of these falsehoods. I think...

Besides the performance of the candidates, there was a very serious failure of moderation here by CNN. I think there were a series of instances where not only was Trump like outright lying in pretty much every question he responded to, there was also a slew of questions from Jake Tapper and Dana Bash that Trump completely ignored.

just did not deign to answer them. There was a question about fentanyl. There was a question about childcare. There was a question where he had to be asked three times if he would accept the results of the election before he gave a really convoluted sort of like indirect answer. He completely avoided answering a question about whether or not he would support an independent Palestinian state. And throughout the majority of the debate,

Dana Bash and Jake Tapper, instead of redirecting the conversation, fact-checking for the public, forcing an answer, would just kind of be like, oh, let's move along to the next topic. Toward the end, they started trying to remind Trump like, hey, the question we asked you was actually X, Y, Z. But I think the majority of viewers...

who tuned into the debate within the first 30 minutes were like, oh my God, like me who had to watch it because it's my job and I have to write about it and I have to talk about it with you guys. 10 minutes in, every cell in my body was just like screaming at me to turn off the TV. It was painful to watch. So I expect that there's a large slew of the American public who didn't make it past the first hour, who were just like,

Joe Biden clearly can't handle it. Trump is clearly just spewing bullshit. Like, I have better things to do with my Thursday night. Just to add to that point as well, I think it's important to note that it wasn't just Trump getting away with

statements that weren't true. One that I picked, I'm sure there were many, but one that I picked up straight away was when Biden said that they'd reduced insulin down to $15, which just isn't the case anywhere. I think the lowest it is is a 30-day supply for $35, and that's only for certain people within Medicare still. Lots of Americans still pay

extortionate amounts compared to everyone else in the world for insulin, literally just to be alive. So there were examples from both candidates where just the statements they were making were just far from the truth. Yeah, my concern is that CNN has become too scared of

And maybe a lot of the media has become too scared of this concern that if you push Trump too hard, he'll turn that into a conspiracy theory and say that you're unfairly against him. And to be honest, that's going to happen no matter what. So fucking hold him to a decent standard. It just it's really depressing of this kind of journalistic philosophy.

fear that, oh no, if we push him too hard and we seem to go easy on Biden, then QAnon will get involved and then Trump will turn around and say, oh, CNN, he hates you anyway. He's never going to like you. He's never going to respect you and neither are his supporters anyway. So do the job for the people who do respect you, like people who are watching it and actually want CNN to do a job.

Like, do it for them. I don't know why you're pandering to this audience of people that aren't watching you and don't care about you anyway. It's just very depressing, this sort of 4D chess, to have to worry about just...

People who don't accept reality. Like, who fucking cares about the way they're going to react? Chris, on the way people have reacted to it then, quickly, I fear this is going to be a question that's going to depress both me and Nikki. And Nikki already sounds like she's got, like, no energy left at this point. I'm deceased. Nikki's, like, going transparent on screen in front of us. Some sort of comedy ghost. But the snap polling, I assume...

look great for Biden in any way, shape or form? No, it doesn't. The results show from that CNN snap poll that debate watchers say Trump performed better than Biden at 67% to 30%. Prior to that debate, though, those same voters said that they thought Trump would perform better 55% to 45%. But if we look actually back

Back four years, I guess, to 2020, FiveThirtyEight put some stats out to say that in 2020, the first debate, people thought that Biden took that 60% to 28%. And then the second debate was 53% to Biden and Trump 50%.

So there's been this massive switch that we can see in the numbers and the polls that have come from this debate. And it clearly shows that Biden's got worse in his debating. Yeah, exactly. I know we've often spoken about Biden's age and there'd been maybe some unfairness and there's accusations of ageism around it and stuff like that. But that is such a stark thing that goes back to what Nikki said, that this Biden now is not the Biden of the year.

that won the election last time out. And those numbers just do seem to indicate a decline because I didn't see Trump doing anything different. I don't think Trump performed better than he did the last time out. He just did the exact same thing. And so Biden, you would hope...

would be better prepared for that, if anything. Realistically, if he's consistently performing, his numbers should be above what they were last time because he's just got to go and do the same again. But this time you know a little bit more about this fucking guy who's also a really bad communicator in a lot of ways. And you've had way more time to prepare. It just, yeah, it's a really stark moment. Nicky, I know there's this kind of, there's a lot of takes which seem to be

And a lot of these places, a lot of these media outlets that have gone, hey, we shouldn't speak about Biden's age. Now I've been like, actually, the Dems should be ashamed of themselves for not sorting this out and they should be embarrassed. And now they really need to. And I kind of was looking at a lot of this and thinking, I feel like all of these outlets for a long time have been, hey, the public had just been really nasty to this guy who's doing his best and he's not too old. And then now suddenly they've gone,

The fucking DNC, like they've not done the right thing. They've not behaved correctly. We've spoken before about basically, you know, if you are a sitting president and you want to run, you get to run. Do you see anything changing? Is there any mechanics? Like to me, it would appear the only thing that would possibly be able to happen would be if Biden truly accepts it himself.

that I shouldn't be doing this and kind of coronates a successor in some way. And there's maybe enough time to like make that transition over. But I still feel like that would be disastrous. It's already looks disastrous, but that would be even more just, then the Republican party can go, they thought he should be president. They thought he should be president right up until June. And now they're saying not. And now they think that this random person who's parachuted should be in, but they want this person to run off of Biden's record and,

but they don't want Biden to run off it. They're in a really bind, aren't they? Is this just kind of mega brain takes from people who want to say something that seems interesting now? And again, is it kind of away from reality that Biden isn't going to be replaced? Or do you think there's some percentage of chance it could happen? I think there's a chance. And I agree with you in the sense that I don't think the party is going to be able to force Biden

Biden to step down unless they straight up, I don't know, manage to pull off a delegate coup at the nomination convention, which seems incredibly difficult. But the fact that these discussions are being had, not just behind the scenes, out in the open, CNN and MSNBC last night, watching them after the debate, it felt like they were holding a funeral. I'd never seen anything like it.

You had people like Claire McCaskill, who is a campaign surrogate, on live televised news talking about how the Democratic Party needed to do some real intense self-reflection and have some really hard conversations and figure out if this is the guy that's going to be able to pull it off in November. And I think, like you said, Jake, they're in a bind.

Even if Biden, let's say hypothetically, Biden hears all this criticism and decides, OK, I need to step down. We need to pick a successor. We are five months away from the election. Less. Does the party even have the runway?

The like physically the amount of time needed to not only select a new candidate, but mobilize a national campaign apparatus around that candidate, build up that candidate's profile to a point where voters are not only supportive of the idea, but enthusiastic enough to get their asses off the couch and actually go vote for.

versus saying, oh, they picked a new candidate. I don't know this guy. Let me just sit this one out. Yeah. I think the reality is that as much as the Democratic Party is now publicly being forced to have that holy shit, this is really bad moment.

they might just logistically be locked in. We've had something somewhat similar in the UK at the minute with the Keir Starmer running for Labour and he keeps being asked about his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn who was quite unpopular.

But Keir Starmer supported him throughout his run because he was a member of the Labour Party and he wanted Labour to win. The thing is, though, that would happen surely to any successor as well, that it would be, go, OK, so you think you should replace this guy. But then why were you supporting this guy for so long? There's a lot to talk about. I'm sure we'll get into this more in other weeks. But yeah, a quick one for listeners before we move on. Just a chance to tell you about some of...

our plans, Podmasters plans for the UK election night, if you're interested. So our sister podcast, Oh God, What Now?, will be live streaming on YouTube all night on Thursday, July 4th, as the results come in. I'll be there alongside a team of our best panellists from across the entire Podmasters universe to bring you all the drama as it happens. All you need to do now is head on over to the Oh God, What Now? YouTube page and subscribe. There's a link in the show notes.

It'll be a night to remember, and we really hope to see plenty of you there. So now we're going to switch back to our usual programming. Earlier this week, Chris and Nikki spoke with Nahal Toosi, Senior Foreign Affairs Correspondent for Politico, about key foreign policy issues and how Biden and Trump's positions could impact their chances in the election.

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President Biden's handling of the war in Gaza has divided Americans, and numerous polls show that. Support for a ceasefire right now is growing. That, along with the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine and the perceived threat of China, means foreign policy has made its way into the top issues impacting how people might vote in November's presidential election. Joining us now to talk about all this is Politico senior foreign affairs correspondent Nahal Toosi.

She's worked all over the world from places such as Pakistan and Afghanistan. And she writes primarily about U.S. politics when it comes to foreign policy and national security. Hi, Nahal. Hey, thanks for having me. It's great to have you on now. Let's dive straight in with something quite in the news right now. And let's start with the war in Gaza.

The latest being the plan being put forward for a permanent ceasefire. We've outlined it briefly on this podcast, or I've tried to anyway. But could you tell us what's in it and where we are kind of right now in those negotiations? Right. So Hamas and Israel via interlocutors, including the US and Qatar and others, are still working out the details. And our understanding is that they're

they're down to a number of specific paragraphs. And so there is some hope that this can come together. It's one of those situations though, where it's like everything has to come together or nothing comes together. Right. And the plan overall is, you know, three phases. The first one is a temporary ceasefire with some hostage releases.

Then the idea is to go to the second phase for a more permanent ceasefire and more hostage releases. And then the third phase would be basically trying to reconstruct Gaza. My sense of things is that I think there is a good shot, but you never know that they'll get the first phase.

But I don't think either side really believes the second phase will ever happen. And I think that's because Israel has no intention of letting Hamas stay in any sort of power in Gaza. And Hamas has no intention of being vanquished in Gaza. And so the notion that there'll be this permanent ceasefire

is unlikely, in my opinion, to happen. You recently wrote an article that was headlined, US to Hezbollah, don't count on us to stop an Israeli attack. In October, Biden also said American leadership is what holds the world together. So how fair is it, therefore, to assume that

Perhaps the US doesn't have the influence in the Middle East that it thinks it has, or that many of us would hope. Well, the US message to Hezbollah is don't count on us to be able to hold Israel back, correct? But this is a messaging trick, essentially. What they're trying to convince Hezbollah is that, look, at the end of the day, we can't control Israel, and therefore you should be the ones to back down. This is an attempt to get both sides to...

to back down and not go to war, to have some sort of a truce between Hezbollah and Israel along the Israeli-Lebanese border. Now, bottom line is, could the U.S. stop Israel if it wanted to from going to war with Lebanon? If it took some crazy drastic measures, it could. But in a realistic world, could it? Actually, probably not. If Israel wants to do something, it will.

And we've seen that, whether it's from responding to Iran when Iran attacked Israel after Israel first attacked Iran. It was the whole thing to going out and carrying some sort of an operation in Rafah. But the U.S. can influence how Israel goes about this.

But the point with the communication with Hezbollah was simply don't think that we're going to be a break on them. Not that we won't try, but don't think that we ultimately can be a break on Israel. And so the idea is, therefore, Hezbollah, you need to back off. I think you kind of nailed the concern a lot of Americans have there. Israel has kind of been seen as like a client state of the United States where the United States ultimately has the final say on things. And as you're saying, I don't think that's necessarily true anymore. I'm curious, though,

There's clearly been an active protest movement challenging Biden's policy toward Israel in the context of this war. I think it's clear at this point that Netanyahu's own grip on the Israeli government is tenuous. And not to flatten this down to a pure political calculus, but...

But I think a lot of people are asking themselves why Biden is continuing down this path of acquiescence toward Netanyahu's government when it's clearly hurting Biden domestically ahead of the election, when it's clearly not producing the desired results. So I'm curious how you see it from like an internal perspective, someone who's like really tuned in to all these conversations and all these negotiations. Look, this is very interesting because it does really matter. And usually in campaigns and politics, it's

especially on the national level. Believe it or not, foreign policy isn't usually the big or decisive issue. But we have a situation where the race is so close that it's going to come down to a handful of swing states. And in some of these states, in Michigan in particular, there's a large Arab-American population, and they are deeply traumatized and affected by this war, and they're really unhappy with Biden. But Biden also has to factor a number of other things in the politics, right? If he...

decides not to back Israel, that's such a sign to America's allies all over the world that, hey, the U.S. isn't going to be there for you. That's devastating. And other people within the Democratic coalition could be angry at Biden because of that. There's, of course, I mean, Jewish Americans, for instance, vote in large numbers for Democrats. Many of them could walk away from voting for Biden

If he does something like that. So he has to balance a number of interests on this particular thing. And bottom line is Biden does care a lot about the state of Israel and its survival. He always has. It is a deeply personal thing. He sees an Israel that's not just made up of Benjamin Netanyahu. He thinks about the people there. He thinks about the fact that it's this country that's surrounded by a lot of other countries that don't like it.

And he understands the history of this. I mean, let's not forget, again, Israel didn't launch this war. Hamas did. And so he has to factor all of these things in. And it's interesting when I talk to diplomats from other countries, they point these things out. And they do say that they do believe that if the U.S. were to abandon Israel, that other countries around Israel would feel emboldened to attack it and that they're worried about that.

And speaking of widespread diplomatic concern, tens of thousands of people have died in Gaza. The region has been rendered largely unlivable. Netanyahu is facing an ICC arrest warrant in the coming days. You've written about concerns within the White House and the State Department that this war may have irreparably damaged that sort of international Western consensus on Israel.

Let's say that we do manage to eke out a ceasefire. What comes after that? Yeah, I mean, a lot of it comes down to this idea of what happens in the day after for Gaza, right?

The Israelis, you know, are they going to try to occupy Gaza? Are they going to allow Arab countries and others to kind of go in and demilitarize and govern the place for a while? What's going to happen to the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority? These are all unknowns. And it's unfortunate because you really kind of

are not giving people hope about the future if they're Palestinian. And when you don't give them a future beyond the rubble that their houses are right now. And so how Israel approaches this is really, really important because they are really the most consequential actor in a lot of ways. Now, the U.S. and others have really been urging the Israelis to come up with a plan, a long-term plan that they say should lead to a Palestinian state.

But the Israelis are really in a state of trauma right now. They don't want a Palestinian state. They, you know, are still reliving the horrors of October 7th every day. And they have a leader in Netanyahu who you can argue that it is in his interest, his political survival interest and his desire not to go to prison on corruption charges to let this war continue because it will help stay in power.

Israeli politics are very interesting. And one thing I've learned to my surprise was it's actually not that easy to kick your prime minister out of office. Like I thought it was a lot easier than it is, but it turns out it's actually pretty hard. Switching gears slightly, let's talk a bit about a different war that the U.S. is involved in by proxy, a war that I think has been handled fundamentally very differently by the Biden administration, and that's Ukraine. Ukraine.

Obviously, there's been a lot of debate within the U.S. Congress about how much funding should Ukraine be getting with the GOP being very against continued funding to Ukraine's military efforts.

The Biden administration has been pretty much invariably loyal in its support of Ukraine. And they, of course, tout that they're there defending freedoms and the principles of democracy. But I'm curious if your view, there's a bigger geopolitical motivation here that we can lay out for the audience. When it comes to Ukraine, I mean, the administration sees it as, you know, potentially just the start of a world war, essentially, if if

US and Europe do not stop Russia and Ukraine because they believe that Vladimir Putin's appetite for power and territory is insatiable and that he won't stop with Ukraine. And also I should just throw in the word nuclear because Russia has a lot of nuclear weapons. And if there is a situation where Russia attacks a NATO country, the US is going to be obliged to come to that country's aid, which means we're more likely going to be drawn directly into a war with Russia.

So this is why they see this as, in some ways, the bigger threat to the global order. And as this challenge to the U.S.-led Western order grows, if we don't check it, the Chinese could ultimately be the ones who really triumph because they could just...

see this massive mess that Russia and the others get themselves into. And they could walk away, you know, ultimately and build what the Chinese Communist Party wants, which is a Sinocentric world order in which

they and their party and their state have all the rights. Yeah, we'll get on to China in a little bit, but just sticking with Ukraine for a second. If you kind of look at some of the polling and some of the numbers, which I do sometimes because I'm a bit of a nerd. For example, few research suggests that Americans are still generally pretty positive about how the US has handled the war in Ukraine. But then if you then switch and look at how some within the GOP see how the war is,

has been handled and funding for it. For example, Marjorie Taylor Greene. We mention her a lot on this podcast. We probably shouldn't, but we do. But they would suggest that Biden's foreign policy is putting America in greater danger because it's worsening relations with Russia. Do you think there's any weight to that argument at all? You know, it's been really interesting to see the Republican Party, or at least parts of it, evolve into a pro-Russian party.

Party. This is very strange. It's the party of Ronald Reagan. It's like, what is going on, guys? Moscow Marge, I think they called Marjorie's head a group at one point. I mean, look, I think part of this is just the strength of partisanship in this country, the polarization. And so this idea in some corners of these political warriors that they have to oppose whatever the other side stands for. They call it Biden's war, right? As opposed to thinking of it as...

a war that Russia is waging on another sovereign state. There's also the fact that in parts of the GOP, they often just listen to conservative press that often just lifts Russian talking points. And some of this has been inspired by President Trump's fascination with President Putin and his

kind of friendliness toward Russia. And so this kind of following the Trump train toward pro-Kremlinism. And so the conservative media go for that. And so the far right in the Republican Party go for that as well. And it causes fissures within the Republican Party. It's worth remembering, though, that most Republican lawmakers at the end of the day did support the Ukraine aid and don't

want Russia to win. But it really does say something about how deep the polarization has become in the United States, that this has become something that is not universally backed by both parties supporting Ukraine.

Yeah, I worked in DC for a little bit. I remember when Zelensky paid his first visit to the house and it was kind of greeted with great positivity from both sides. So it's really interesting to see how that has changed in a way where parts of the GOP

have really rallied against the AIDS now and vehemently against it. But you mentioned Trump there. And I think a lot of people, I mean, this is a question that everyone asks is, what happens to foreign policy, specifically the war in Ukraine, if Trump wins the election? I know it's speculative, but realistically, what happens? What does change?

He ends the war in 48 hours. Yeah, look, things are going to very much change. It's been fascinating to see President Trump's supporters lately make all sorts of promises like, oh, don't worry, it's not going to be that bad. It's not what he's saying. He's going to revert to like Reaganism and he's not going to abandon Ukraine. I mean, they're saying all of these things, but the reality is that Trump

is mercurial and capricious. And there are a few things he's very consistent on. Like he he'll probably definitely crack down on immigration and he'll probably almost certainly engage in a bigger trade war with China and other countries. But on a lot of policies, like it just kind of comes down to that day or that moment and the last person he talked to and what he feels about

You know, even the Israelis, like during his first term, Trump was completely pro-Israel, like to a degree I've never seen before. But he's now upset with Benjamin Netanyahu because of some political stuff. And so even the Israelis don't know if he's going to stand with them. Like, you know, they tell me privately, like, what if he just throws us under the bus?

So everyone is kind of preparing for the worst case scenario for their own countries. And they're just thinking that even if Trump doesn't win, the fact that there's these like deep divisions in the United States indicates that U.S. foreign policy is not reliable. It is not something they can count on. So they're going to hedge their bets. They're going to make friendships with other major powers. They're going to not completely cut off ties with the Kremlin. They're going to be nicer to Beijing. They're going to do these things because...

They just don't think that they can count on the United States. So a Trump victory is,

Yeah, I mean, if you're a foreign diplomat, I wrote about this in a piece that ran yesterday, you just basically are preparing for the worst case scenario in terms of dramatic policy changes to the things that you have to deal with. And just the one thing a foreign diplomat told me was, they said, this time, we will not be surprised that there are surprises. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of what it comes down to. Just moving on. We mentioned China earlier, and we said we'd come to it.

That's a relationship that's on hot coals, isn't it? How much of an issue is this still for actual American people? It gets mentioned all the time in politics and Trump brings it up all the time. And it seems like there's this massive competition between Biden and Xi Jinping. What is the relationship like between Biden and China compared to what it was like when Trump was in charge? What's it like now? It's more stable.

than it was under Trump. But that doesn't mean it's great or that it's good. - Yeah. - The Biden administration has spent a lot of time just trying to get the Chinese to talk.

to do these basic things like have meetings and allow trips and these things that you think from the kind of outside, oh my gosh, it seems so minor. Why aren't they tackling the bigger issues? But I had someone explain something to me recently, which was really interesting. I mean, they were saying, you cannot underestimate how important it is domestically for Chinese leader Xi Jinping to save face. And so...

part of the reason that the U.S. does what it does and approaches China the way it does is because we can actually do a lot of things like put tariffs on China, for instance, or do other things that are kind of a slap in the face to China. And they will deal with that better than if we do something that threatens Xi's image and is against diplomatic protocol. It's kind of the

weird to say you would think that that would be the less important thing, but it's actually very, very important. It's more important than people realize. Now, I think with Trump, the thing that's confusing is we know he's probably going to hike up tariffs and sanctions on China because of trade. I mean, that's the trade piece of it. He just believes China is absolutely eating our lunch. And there's a lot of folks who would agree with him on that on both sides. But he personally seems to like to appeal to Xi Jinping and curry favor with him. And

The question then is, like, how can he strike the balance of punishing China and being nice to Xi? Is he going to do it in a way similar to what Biden and others have tried to do? And can he get away with it? It's a very strange relationship. And I think it's one that I think both sides are still trying to figure out their footing on. And we're talking at the end of the day about, honestly, like,

older men who have been in power or close to power for a long time and are kind of set in their ways. I don't know where the newer thinking is going to come from, but it could be pretty rocky in the next decade. And just to wrap things up, do you have a sense of how important foreign policy is going to be to everyday Americans when they go to the ballot box in November? I think that it's going to be more important than many past elections.

And this is kind of a surprise. Again, usually Americans don't really make this a big issue. They're much more interested in the economy and things like that. And I think that'll still be the case. But I think foreign affairs are going to be a bigger deal this time around than many of us had expected. One is because of the Ukraine element and kind of especially the fear mongering on the right side.

about Ukraine and the money and, you know, Russia and things like that. But I think, again, for a lot of the swing states and places where there are certain younger populations, cities, for instance, or Arab American populations, things like that, the war in Gaza really has disappointed a great deal in Biden and that that's a fraying of his coalition. So, look, this race is ultimately going to come down to a handful of states and it

And it's going to be very, very close. So I'm certainly not going to make a prediction. So I hope that's not your next question. We're not in the prediction business. I think everybody pretty much got out of that like back in 2016, right? We were like, done with that. We've all been burned. We've all been burned.

Yeah, no, I think you're right. In a race that is so close right now, foreign policy or anything could just be that thing that tips the balance. Thanks so much for your time. We've really enjoyed having you. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate this.

It's time for a quick bit of polling in our weekly foray into the minds of the American voter. Chris, you've got a little bit of research about how people feel after Trump's conviction, don't you? Because we've spoken in the past about people have been polled about how they might feel if it happened, but we're now getting to see how people are feeling since it's happened.

Yes, that's right. This is from the New York Times and Siena College. And I thought this was interesting. It's headlined, Republicans rally behind Trump after conviction. Okay. And that's exactly what this really shows. It put the question to more than 1,200 registered voters. And that was, did Donald Trump's conviction make you more or less likely to support him? Now, you can probably guess what the response was from Democratic respondents. Less. Less.

Exactly like that, yeah. Yes, nailed it. But for Republicans who took part, they said, well, 20% of respondents were more likely to vote for Trump because of it, and 74% said that it made no difference. Okay. Which is, I guess, kind of what we've been hearing in some polls that have come out after the conviction, but this is a pretty important one and a pretty big one. Do you want to know what else the polling shows? Of course. Huh.

Independence. Nice. I didn't actually look at that. I didn't. Sorry. The polling does show, though, that only 72% of voters who said that they cast a ballot for Mr. Biden four years ago say they approve of the job he is doing as president. Okay. And there was also the question, if the 2024 presidential election were held today, who would you vote for if the candidate were Trump or Biden?

And 48% said that they would vote for Trump. 42% said that they'd vote for Biden. Okay. So that also seems to show Trump really kind of leading the polls at the moment. It's very depressing, isn't it? Oh, isn't it just? That you could possibly... I don't know, if Rishi Sunak was like a fan...

felon or I don't know what a felony is in British terms. Criminal. Well, no, but it's different, isn't it? Because felon's like a big bad crime. It's not like a little bad crime. Big bad crime. Is the Queen's justice still a thing there? King's justice? Yeah, you're like a Casey or whatever if you're a judge and stuff. Hey, we ask you about America. You don't ask us about Britain. I wasn't here to teach people about that. I don't know myself. But yeah, I just think if that happens to Rishi Sunak, I'd like to think I'd have an appeal.

Yeah, well... It just feels very strange, and it might change how I feel. Talking of opinion polls, you've seen some polling, haven't you? I do. So I've seen a little bit of polling because I thought, hey, why not? And basically, this is from Pew Research, but I just thought it was quite interesting that it is talking about how much trust people have in the federal government. And you'll both be pleased to know that since last year, it's gone up a little bit. But...

It's gone up from 16% of people said they trusted the government just about always or most of the time, and it's now gone up to 23% say that. So about a fifth of people think they trust the government to do the right thing all the time, which I just think is...

it's quite startlingly low. That basically, most people do not think that most of the time the government is acting within their interest. And then Americans are also, they're divided in their views on the country's ability to solve important problems. So about 52% of Americans say that the country can't solve many of its important problems, while 47% said

that Americans can always find a way to do so. But the fact that it's a slim majority, but most Americans don't feel like the country has the ability to even fix things, and they don't trust the government to generally do the right thing. Just, yeah, it feels like a lot to me. 17% of people asked said...

That they don't think that the government ever does the right thing. The government in Washington never does the right thing. Never. 17% of people think that. Honestly, I get it. Yeah, I can see why people feel dejected, but we try and understand why people might fall into the trappings of someone like Donald Trump. And I just thought this was quite an interesting thing to indicate to you.

how people are maybe going to lean towards untrustworthy candidates if they don't trust anyone in Washington anyway. I mean, Nikki, what do you think of that? I mean, you're an American now and you speak to real life Americans all the time. Do you feel like there is kind of a lack of trust, a massive lack of trust, I guess, in the government right now? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. One thousand percent. I feel like.

It's not something new. I don't think it's something that necessarily started with Trump. I think it's something that has been going on for at least like two decades, pretty much since I can remember this idea that, you know, the government isn't working for the people. It's working for corporations and private interests and that the American electoral system is so broken that, you

What voters actually want doesn't necessarily matter anymore. We talk a lot on this podcast about how Republican infighting in Congress is no longer about actual policy or about governance. It's just about screwing over the other side. We talked about it when we discussed immigration and the efforts to block immigration reform that had been proposed by Biden. We've talked about it in the context of Ukraine. I think...

The way American elections take place in this country, the amount of money that's poured into them, the way candidates are selected and how they act once they actually get into office leads a lot of people to feel that their vote doesn't necessarily matter, that they're not actually being represented by a politician in Congress and that the people who they vote for aren't working for them. And I think

The House of Representatives right now is the best example of that. It is a body that was created with the idea of being the most representative body in Congress when it comes to the political makeup of the United States. You know,

It's it's a body that's based off like the population of each state. You each district has a certain amount of people in it. And it's supposed to show like, OK, what are these people in this area want? Yeah, it is completely ineffective. It is stagnated, incapable of passing laws or reaching bipartisan consensus. If you think back over the last decade.

like two years, what this Congress has achieved, the answer is basically nothing. And voters see that. And I don't think it's a surprise that they feel like they can't trust the lawmakers or that their government doesn't work for them. It's interesting as well when you look at this, how it breaks down. There are differences between Republicans and Democrats. And Republicans are

are quite starkly less likely to think that the government does the right thing. So about 11% of Republican-leaning voters said that they think the government will do the right thing always or most of the time. And about 35% of Democrats or Democrat-leaning people said that. So it's not quite symmetrical, but clearly across the political spectrum entirely.

people do have, they've got trust issues when it comes to Washington politics. Well, yeah. And I think that also speaks to a split in the core philosophies of each party. Republicans are historically the party of like individual liberties and small governance and they operate

theoretically, because they really like making intrusive laws these days. But they theoretically operated under this idea that the government should stay out of your fucking business, whereas Democrats and liberals were always seen as more the party and voters that had faith in American institutions, the power of democracy, the inherent goodness of popular legislation. That also isn't happening. So it makes sense that it's a bipartisan issue. Yeah.

So now as we come to the end of American Friction, we all like to ask a lot of questions. We're all quite nosy. But actually, right now, we've got a question from a listener. Not a question from me. Yeah, so here is a question that I definitely didn't write. And I genuinely, sincerely didn't. This is from listener Louis Naylor. Thank you very much for listening in, mate.

The question is, hi, I've been really enjoying the podcast. And it says that. I didn't write that. Swing states are obviously important, but do they mean that all of the other states are irrelevant in the election and do candidates bother campaigning in the non-swing states? Nikki, take it away. Are they basically completely ignored, the swing states? Does anyone bother to campaign there whatsoever or does it come down to six places people go to?

Yes and no. So as we talked about in the episode where we kind of did a little brief rundown about the Electoral College, a candidate needs 270 votes to win the American election, 270 electoral votes specifically, because millions and millions of people vote in an American election. Fundamentally,

Each party has states that they know they're going to win in the general. Things like how California typically goes blue. New York goes blue. Alabama invariably goes red. That's a solid state that like either the Democrats or the Republicans know they're going to win. That'll make up the majority of those 270 votes. So they still need them.

But where the math gets tricky is those states that a candidate might win by a couple of percentage points. And they're referred to sometimes as purple states. It'll flip flop. That is the presidential election. But obviously, in a general election, you also have the race to control the Senate and the race to control the House.

So a campaign will typically dedicate most of its energy toward convincing voters in swing states. That's where you're going to put in the majority of your funding. You're going to spend a ton of your time campaigning there. But also, if you win the presidency and you lose...

the House and the Senate, you're a lame duck. You're not going to be able to pass anything. So what candidates will do is in districts where there are really competitive House races, for example, where, you know, maybe that seat right now is held by a Democrat, but there is a Republican challenger who's doing really well. The president might win that state. Let's say this hypothetical seat is in California.

Biden might win California, but then if this House member loses their seat and that seat becomes Republican, that's a loss for them in the House. And that makes it easier for, say, Republicans to control the House of Representatives.

So candidates might go and campaign in specific districts that are vulnerable within safe states, or they might send surrogates for their campaigns, people who are high up to go support a candidate and make sure that the presence of the presidential candidate is in that district.

They might do the same thing for Senate candidates. This year, the Senate is a toss-up. We don't know if Democrats are going to keep it or if it's going to flip Republican. So, you know, Biden might campaign for senators who are in vulnerable seats or who are facing, like, really tough electoral challenges. But when it comes to the argument of, like,

what states do I need to campaign in to win the presidency? They're going to focus on swing states. It is a problem in the inherent structure of the American electoral system that swing states carry so much weight. A lot of people in this country joke that if you like live in California or New York, like your vote doesn't matter because you know which state is going to go. Like I live in D.C. I don't have a representative in Congress, but D.C.,

always goes blue. It's a bunch of like weird freaks who are too into the government. So we always go blue, but we have like one electoral vote. So we don't really matter that much in the grand scheme of things. And that I think frustrates a lot of people. Like as we're talking about, like the frustrations voters have with their government is this idea that I vote, I get out there, I do all the things and then my vote ends up not mattering. I don't have the power to swing an election. So-

It's not that swing states are the only states that candidates campaign in. It's that those are the states they're going to focus on because at the end of the day, the American election is a math problem. It's one big math problem. Well, looking at – so I've looked up a piece I wrote a little while back on the Newsweek which talked about how undecided voters in swing states went in 2016. And you're right, sort of –

people who hadn't made their minds up, it appeared, ended to break for Trump in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Florida, and Michigan. All those places where undecided voters decided to go over there. So it really does show the importance there. Another interesting thing I've seen here in terms of the money spent that you'd mentioned, there's a piece from a website, Y, it was spelled with two Ys, that's why I pronounced it really strangely, which is funded by PBS and NPR.

But there's been $72.1 million spent on ads. This was last month, so it's probably slightly more than that at this point. But then almost 70% of that spend was in seven key states, but Pennsylvania, $21.2 million had been spent there. So that meant that almost $3 out of every $10 spent on advertising across the presidential campaign has been spent in one state.

So, you're saying the physical side of things, as you say, they might go elsewhere, but on the advertising side, it seems completely like it's just the swing states get all of it. Yeah. And just to add to that as well, I think there are so many issues in this election that have reared their head that are new. For example, Gaza, which we spoke to Nahal about, and she mentioned about Michigan having such a massive Arab population, and that could sway things. That is a swing state.

But I was looking at the Arab American Institute and a lot of people who come from an Arab background live in states that aren't swing states. So it seems almost as if there's this open goal for candidates to campaign over things such as Gaza in places that aren't swing states to potentially win over people's votes. So it'll be really interesting to see kind of what happens with all of that.

Lewis, I hope that that has answered your question. We answered it in quite a long way. I would say now the answer is, yeah, kind of. The answer is yes, but no. So yeah, it may be perhaps not the most clear-cut answer that you may have liked, but I hope an insightful one. Because the system is fucked. Yeah, exactly. The system is rigged, as is this podcast.

And on that note, that brings us to the end of another episode of American Friction. Nikki, thank you so much, mate. Always a pleasure. Christopher, thank you.

Yeah, you got there. You're very welcome. And I guess thanks to you, Jacob, as well. That's okay. Oh, I called you Jacob. It was weird. And an even bigger thanks to you listeners if you want more from us. We're out with a new episode every Friday early afternoon if you're in the UK and in the morning if you're stateside. You can also follow us on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok. Our name on each platform is at American Frick because American Friction wasn't available. And if you've got a question that you'd like us to answer on the podcast...

Send it to American Friction at podmasters.co.uk and we'll do our very best to answer it on an episode soon. You've been listening to American Friction. See you next week. American Friction was written and presented by Chris Jones, Jacob Jarvis and Nicky McCann-Ramirez. Audio production was by me, Simon Williams. The group editor was Andrew Harrison and the executive producer was Martin Boitosch. Artwork was by James Parrott and music was by Orange Factory Music. American Friction is a Podmasters production.

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