00:00 David Plotz June 15th, 2016, the trying to find someone who was not assaulted by Donald Trump edition. 00:04 I am David Plotz of Atlas Obscura. 00:07 John Dickerson of Face the Nation has finally loosed his shackles. 00:12 I'm glad to see that you have loosed your shackles, John. 00:14 You're free to love once more. 00:15 Hello, John. 00:16 Emily Bazelon Let's all loose our shackles. 00:18 Why not? 00:19 John Dickerson I am unshackled. 00:20 David Plotz That's Emily Bazelon of the New York Times Magazine. 00:22 She's unshackled. 00:23 She's unshackled from modernity. 00:25 So she's now just wearing period costume as she's always wanted to. 00:30 On this week's GabFest, oh, my God, a day feels like a year these days. 00:34 That's so true. 00:37 First, the turmoil in the Republican Party, Paul Ryan disassociating, Donald Trump disrupting the Republican Party. 00:44 But as that story unfolds, look, there are four new women alleging sexual assault by Donald Trump. 00:51 Oh, no, five. 00:51 Hold on. 00:52 There's four more of them. 00:53 Wait, now there's another one. 00:55 Yesterday, on Wednesday, there appeared to have been 10 very credible allegations of sexual assault by Donald Trump by tons of different women in tons of different circumstances. 01:07 Oh, my God. 01:08 By the time we're done taping today, who knows what could have happened? 01:12 Then, after we've exhausted that, we will talk about the revelations in the WikiLeaks Clinton documents, the excerpts from her Goldman speeches. 01:19 They're backs and forth with reporters. 01:21 Is this the October surprise we've been waiting for or is there something else coming? 01:25 And then we'll talk about whether it is ethical not to vote in this election and whether it's ethical to vote for a third party when you know that there's a villainous candidate to be defeated on the other side. 01:38 Plus, we'll have cocktail chatter and slate. 01:40 Plus, how do you talk to your children about this presidential election? 01:46 John Dickerson has some lessons for us. 01:50 We have some good news. 01:51 The bad news is our Boston show is sold out. 01:53 The good news is we have a live show in New York just after Thanksgiving, Wednesday, November 30th. 01:59 Not just any live show, my friends. 02:01 It is our annual conundrum show. 02:03 We're going to do it at the Bell House in Brooklyn on Wednesday, November 30th at 7.30 p.m. 02:09 The tickets are at slate.com slash live. 02:11 This is the show where we go deep on some nonpolitical topics like would you rather be a dragon or own a dragon? 02:18 How serious of a crime would your mother or father have to commit before you turned him or her in? 02:22 We'll ask Ivanka Trump that. 02:25 Would you kill baby Hitler? 02:26 Other great questions that you are going to ask us and that we're going to collect from you over the next few weeks, but we'll also take questions live. 02:33 And there's going to be a pre-show cocktail hour for a limited number of fans. 02:38 If you purchase that package, you can get a complimentary drink with us. 02:41 And that costs a little bit extra, obviously. 02:43 And Slate Plus members, you get a 30% off with the discount code 11PGBK, 11PGBK. 02:51 So come join us in Brooklyn for Conundrum Show, November 30th, slate.com slash live for tickets. 02:59 Have you guys thought up any conundrums yet? 03:01 John Dickerson I put one in the campus. 03:03 Emily Bazelon John's a conundrum factory. 03:05 John Dickerson Yeah. 03:06 I'm constantly beset by conundrums. 03:08 What came up? 03:09 I think it was, I got it from Reddit. 03:11 I think it was something like if you could, 03:13 Emily Bazelon If you could be five again, knowing what you know now, what would you do differently? 03:18 David Plotz Yeah, that would be dark if you were five knowing what you know now. 03:21 That would be so dark. 03:24 Anyway, every day this presidential election gets more and more horrifying. 03:29 On Wednesday evening came news of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 new allegations of sexual assault against Donald Trump covering 30 years of 03:39 So these add on to earlier claims of sexual assault by him, including very credible legal claims, as well as other claims that he peeped on naked contestants in one of his pageants. 03:52 It's just it is shocking. 03:54 The most shocking one to me. 03:56 I don't know if you guys saw this. 03:57 It's impossible to keep up with the People magazine reporter. 04:00 who is there interviewing Trump and Melania for a puff piece about their first anniversary. 04:06 And Melania goes off to get changed. 04:10 And Trump corners, oh, takes the reporter and says, I want to show you a special room in the house and puts her up against the wall and kisses her. 04:17 And then the butler comes in and says, while she's trying to fend him off, the butler comes in and says, Melania is ready. 04:21 And then Trump goes back just to his, his exurious repellent self. 04:27 It is, 04:27 Emily Bazelon You have to remember that Melania was heavily pregnant in that story. 04:30 And actually, the wives being pregnant seems to line up with a number of these allegations. 04:37 David Plotz Well, this is just the latest horror in a very bizarre week that began, I suppose you could say it began with the grab the pussy video from last week. 04:49 We talked about that in our post-debate gab fest on Monday morning. 04:53 You can listen to that. 04:54 There, followed by the hideous debate on Sunday night, followed by then Paul Ryan, the House Speaker, renouncing campaigning for Trump without, however, unendorsing him, followed by Trump starting to or the Trump campaign starting to compare Bill Clinton to Bill Cosby. 05:10 We are not even talking about Trump admitting that he didn't pay federal income taxes or the time that he said he would have Hillary Clinton jailed. 05:19 It is it's become ugly at a level that I don't think any of us imagine it could be. 05:25 Oh, God, Emily, I don't even have a question. 05:27 I'm just saying, oh, God, you. 05:29 Emily Bazelon that's all well i also just want to add to the mix trump's attacks on republicans he's been on twitter and his rallies just laying into ryan and john mccain and um any republicans he feels like aren't totally supporting him and it's all this idea that the only thing he's guilty of is salty language as he put it the other night ripping into john mccain and how dare they not be standing with him and this obviously presents a huge dilemma for the republican party 05:57 Something like John can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think something like two thirds of Republicans are supporting Trump. 06:03 And so for candidates who are in close elections or just thinking about their futures, this question of how to handle this incredibly tricky political presence who has support from their base, but is increasingly viewed as toxic by the rest of the country. 06:21 It's really seems like a moment of truth for them. 06:27 John Dickerson It's hard to know where to take hold of this giant hairball. 06:32 Trump usually starts with the butt. 06:34 That's where he grabs. 06:36 But yeah, let's – 06:38 Let's see if we can just for a moment stay away from the ugliest part of this and just – yeah, if you're a Republican right now – and we should get into – because I think it would be interesting the moral choice that people are making because people made a version of this choice with Bill Clinton when they knew about what he did. 06:59 Now, the interesting question, of course, is what they knew when he was a candidate and what they knew. 07:04 David Plotz No, in 96 when he was running, none of the worst stuff was out. 07:08 John Dickerson Right. 07:08 So there's 92 also. 07:10 So 96, obviously, the Monica Lewinsky stuff wasn't out. 07:12 But then anyway, let's not get let's not get totally sidetracked because one of the things that these lawmakers that there are those that are craven and just want their team to win. 07:21 There are those that are chicken and know in their heart what they believe, but are worried that if they come out against Trump, they will be punished by their supporters. 07:31 Emily Bazelon Anyway, I think those who are pragmatists, right? 07:34 I mean, you can make a pragmatic case for supporting Trump. 07:36 John Dickerson Well, that's – yeah, I guess that's your right and that's the third case and that's the one that seems like the Clinton case because it seems like in Clinton's case, you wouldn't have had a huge backlash if you came out against him. 07:47 I mean did Joe Lieberman face a huge backlash? 07:49 He did maybe for other reasons. 07:50 But anyway, here's the thing. 07:52 If I'm a Republican and I'm sticking with Donald Trump and this is the case and this is what Paul Ryan was evaluating when he had this kind of – 08:00 deep guttural revulsion at the – as it was explained to me to the video. 08:06 Now, he's got a special tricky problem, which is that he's not just his own person, but he's also the Speaker of the House. 08:15 So when he does something, it creates issues for all the members in the House conference. 08:19 What pressures that puts on them. 08:21 But the fact is, if you stick with Donald Trump, I mean, you're locked in. 08:25 I think there's no getting out from under this in the future. 08:27 And, you know, for good or ill, maybe all these stories get totally blown over and you stood and you stood with this good man, as Mike Pence calls him, and you against the, you know, media and against the elites who are all manufacturing these stories against Donald Trump. 08:43 And you were the moral person by standing by him. 08:46 The other choice is that you were the moral person who always saw it this way. 08:51 And despite the punishment of your party and the social media hell and the chance you might lose your office, you acted on principle rather than party loyalty. 09:01 Many months ago, Romney gave a speech about how it's a time for choosing. 09:04 I mean, it's really people are making sort of career decisions. 09:07 David Plotz Do you think that the credible evidence that he does not merely say despicable things about women? 09:13 He is also a serial sexual molester. 09:16 Do you think those allegations have any impact on the race? 09:20 Do these actually change? 09:22 Because there's no tape of these assaults. 09:24 Even though there are now 10 claims from 10 different women, there's no tape. 09:28 I think come on. 09:30 John Dickerson His challenge was to build his coalition. 09:32 He's got his 35, 38 percent. 09:34 His challenge was to make that to 45 percent. 09:36 The problem there was reluctant Republicans, women, college educated Republicans, men and women. 09:42 He was already having that problem before the tape. 09:44 Then there was the tape. 09:46 Now there are 10 simultaneous allegations that confirm and match exactly what he was talking about on the tape. 09:52 It seems to me unlikely that those people who were skittish before, skittish about the tape would be unskittish now. 10:00 And also, by the way, we talked about this after the debate, but this is – there's a more important point here, which is that Donald Trump – 10:07 Peter Robinson. 10:30 David Plotz The Republican Party has had it all wrong. 10:33 Someone I was reading this week speculates that they believe their voters to be actually conservative, ideological, low tax, low regulation, low government voters. 10:44 But in fact, if you start to dig in, the majority of Republican voters are actually angry voters. 10:50 upset, bitter, white nationalists driven by who are in different ideology and are interested in authoritarianism and a kind of return to some imagined past that never existed. 11:04 Emily Bazelon I find that portrait to be reductionist in a way that just seems like it can't be right to me. 11:10 It's so demonizing of millions of people. 11:14 I feel like, you know, the reality of any electorate, and you could say this about the left, too, is that they're sure there are strands of anger and, you know, misinformation and violence. 11:25 reaching for some sense of security that might lead you down a scary path if you went too far. 11:32 But then there's also a lot of anxiety and struggle and feeling like people are not doing as well as they wish they would or as their parents did or that their children won't have the lives that they want for their children. 11:47 We were emailing about David Leonhardt's column in The Times this week, which is the first, I think, of many columns he's playing to write about exactly the 11:55 This sense of dislocation in the American public. 11:58 And it's not just a Republican or a Trump supporter phenomenon. 12:02 There are obviously plenty of people, you know, poor and working class who are liberals who also feel like things are not going so well for them and that the growing inequality in the country is hurting them. 12:14 So I just feel really reluctant. 12:17 Right. 12:17 because trump is such a brutal ugly phenomenon right now and i will confess it's hard for me to quite grasp how you can look beyond that and support him for reasons that seem more legitimate but i feel like that's obscuring and kind of blackening or darkening i should say um darkening this picture that is really like much more in shades of gray 12:40 David Plotz Can I add to that, which is that I think we make a mistake when we attribute to these – when we say that these Trump supporters are this particular way and he's brought it out of them. 12:53 The thing that is so horrible about Donald Trump is that he makes people – that his presence and the way he acts makes people behave in ways that they themselves actually probably don't feel. 13:04 He makes people worse than they are. 13:06 that's a disgusting way to be. 13:09 He makes people feel more angry and more violent and more vicious and more prejudiced and more hateful than they actually would feel had another politician approached them in a different way. 13:19 And I think what the Republican Party's job is going to be in the next couple of years is to try to sort of separate the genuine legitimate despair and misery that people are feeling from the hatefulness and try to kind of 13:35 speak to the misery, but in the way that Paul Ryan does speak to the misery. 13:39 The problem is that heightened emotion is easier than non-heightened emotion. 13:44 It's easier to create that. 13:45 Emily Bazelon Yeah, for sure. 13:46 He's appealing to people's worst selves. 13:49 And then there's this weird irony to go back to all the allegations. 13:51 David Plotz It's not just that he's appealing to those worst selves. 13:54 He's making their worst selves worse. 13:56 He is actually extracting. 13:58 He's boiling it down so people become worse. 14:02 It's quintessence of awfulness that he creates in people. 14:06 Emily Bazelon I was struck this week. 14:08 Yeah, go ahead. 14:09 David Plotz No, go ahead. 14:09 Be struck. 14:10 Emily Bazelon I was struck this week by a couple of ads Trump put out that are so fear mongering. 14:16 I mean, they are so the opposite of Reagan's morning in America. 14:19 It's. 14:20 such a tone of melancholy and disaster. 14:24 I mean, that was the word he kept using over and over again. 14:26 And it is how it's the picture of America he's reflecting back at us. 14:32 And yeah, that's the whole game, right? 14:35 John Dickerson And this started, this does break from a tradition, certainly in a tradition that's been successful, because even if you look at Richard Nixon, who people talked about the echoes of the law and order revolution, 14:47 pitch that Nixon was making in 1968. 14:49 His 1968 convention speech had some lift in it, had some talk about better days. 14:54 He clearly felt that it was important to pitch to people the idea that things would get better and to paint that for people and to – 15:03 embrace that part of what he was trying to do. 15:06 Trump, I mean, literally has the slogan, make America great again. 15:09 And that's the extent of his optimism. 15:11 It really is a pitch, which makes it closer to Wallace. 15:15 It's a pitch where the target is resentment, but also to heighten those to keep, which is what Wallace used to do in the course of speech, remind people of all the reasons they should be angry. 15:25 So this is the governing challenge. 15:27 Let's imagine that Donald Trump 15:30 We're to get elected and there are two challenges to his ability to actually fix any of the things he said he wants to fix. 15:36 First is that he doesn't seem to – if the debates are a measurement, he doesn't seem to really want to wrestle when the time comes with the compulsory – 15:45 Parts of the job, the compulsory things you would need to do. 15:48 He bragged about saying once he needed to, he could get up to speed on any issue in a couple of days and be better versed on it and smarter than the experts who had devoted their lives to it. 15:58 There's no evidence that that's the case. 16:00 So there's just the forget all this other stuff. 16:03 There is just the pure nuts and bolts of solving a problem that he's shown no aptitude in the times it's been tested in the course of the campaign for solving those problems. 16:11 But the second thing is this scorched earth strategy he's got at the moment, which is essentially to react to challenges to his character. 16:19 by trying to drive down the vote in the Democratic Party by raising all of Bill Clinton's issues with his character. 16:26 Bill Clinton has many issues with his character. 16:29 Donald Trump wants to bring them up from now until the voting stops as a way to depress turnout from the Democrats in the hopes that the remaining Democratic base is smaller than the remaining Donald Trump base. 16:41 That is a reaction to something that happened to Donald Trump not because the Clinton team launched it but because he's in a bind. 16:48 So that reaction to challenge is a test. 16:52 Imagine that in the White House. 16:53 Something bad happens. 16:54 If the response is not to meet it head on but is to divert and to create more chaos, that's A, going to be – 17:04 An unsettling thing. 17:06 And B is going to distract even further from actually dealing with the problems that he's being brought in to deal with. 17:14 David Plotz John, what do Hillary and House Democrats have to do to actually take the House? 17:19 Is it within the realm of possibility? 17:21 John Dickerson I don't think it's within the realm of – there are about 30 seats that are in play. 17:25 If they won every one of those seats, they could take back the House. 17:29 I don't think they're going to win because there is some separation that's taking place in the electorate. 17:35 We certainly see it in the Senate. 17:37 Rob Portman is doing very well in Ohio. 17:39 Donald Trump isn't doing so well in Ohio. 17:41 And we see it also perhaps in – well, in Florida, Marco Rubio has not distanced himself from – Marco Rubio is in the camp. 17:49 By the way, there are I think anywhere from 11 to 20 distinct camps of Republicans in their degrees of separation from Donald Trump. 17:58 David Plotz I wanted to see that. 17:59 John Dickerson Rob Portman is is in the I'm not voting for him. 18:02 I'm going to write in, you know, someone else. 18:04 I think he might have said Mike Pence. 18:06 Marco Rubio is still on the Trump train, but Rubio still may. 18:10 Emily Bazelon My favorite is Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania, who says that he may not tell voters one way or the other until after Election Day. 18:18 That is awesome. 18:20 What a jerk. 18:21 John Dickerson The members who are most angry at Paul Ryan for saying that he won't defend Donald Trump and won't campaign or help him are the ones who are all in safe districts and with – and being – and part of what Ryan has done, by the way, is allow those people in districts with lots of Trump voters to beat up on him as a way to solidify their support in their district. 18:42 And this is what a speaker sometimes has to do. 18:44 David Plotz Oh, so this is – so a lot of the anger at Ryan is theatrical anger. 18:48 John Dickerson Well, whether that was Orion's intent, it is the... 18:52 Yes. 18:53 I mean there's a lot of theatrical anger. 18:54 You want to be the person who was on the conference call screaming at Paul Ryan for abandoning Donald Trump. 18:59 And then if you're a person in a district where it's more touch and go, Paul Ryan in doing what he did gave you some cover to do what you need to do by making it seem like there's a larger space. 19:10 It's more sanctioned by right-thinking Republicans. 19:14 And presumably if you were in that kind of district, you've got more people who listen to Paul Ryan. 19:18 David Plotz So – 19:19 Even if many, many worse things come out about Trump, in your view, the election is sort of pretty sad. 19:27 It's Hillary wins the election. 19:29 But I guess the Senate is, you know, sort of could go break either way. 19:33 And then the House remains Republican. 19:35 John Dickerson So there's not a lot of dynamic left to run in the race. 20:05 Good shape is is remember, in addition to the fact she's ahead by, you know, six to nine ish in the average of national polls. 20:15 She also has. 20:17 a superior ground game and the electoral advantage of more democratic states. 20:22 I mean, Donald Trump has to win basically Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Iowa, Nevada. 20:27 He has to win lots and lots of states, which means if he's got a problem, he doesn't just have to solve it. 20:32 He has to solve it in very specific states, which have different dynamics. 20:36 Iowa being a white, highly non-college educated voting population is very different than North Carolina, which is highly college educated. 20:43 And Pennsylvania, where he was putting a lot of his chips, a couple of polls have come out that show Clinton up by six, Clinton by eight, up by nine. 20:51 David Plotz So aren't you surprised, Emily, how little impact on polling there's been that actually it's gone from a Hillary, you know, three, four to Hillary six, seven? 21:02 Emily Bazelon No, because it's such a partisan country and because Gary Johnson and Jill Stein are still pulling enough support. 21:08 And I wonder if those people at the very end are going to break for one candidate or the other. 21:14 David Plotz Do either of you think there's some highly outrageous other thing that can drop or brown Trump that would shift the dynamic of the election? 21:22 You mean make it worse? 21:25 Make it worse for him. 21:28 There are things that could make it worse for Hillary. 21:29 There aren't really things that could make it better for Trump. 21:31 Emily Bazelon Well, don't you think it will be more of a trickle? 21:33 I mean, we brought up Bill Cosby at the beginning of the show because Trump is trying to pin Bill Cosby on Bill Clinton. 21:39 But I feel like this dynamic now is Trump's version of Bill Cosby, where each of these women has a story to tell that is – 21:48 offensive and a problem for Trump. 21:50 But if it was just one person, it would be hard to come and tell your story. 21:56 You don't have evidence of traditional sexual assault. 22:00 We're talking about things sometimes from a long time ago. 22:02 And Trump is a man of a lot of power and incredible vindictiveness. 22:06 And so it's scary to come forward. 22:09 But once there is a trickle, there could be a stream. 22:11 I mean, 10 is already the beginning of a stream. 22:15 And you wonder what will happen if 22:18 Some of the people around Trump who signed nondisclosure agreements find that they want to come forward or just if more women feel like it's their duty to tell these stories because they see the number of women who already have done so. 22:32 And that, you know, every day Trump has to deal with those allegations is a day when he's not like getting back on his feet. 22:40 John Dickerson Here's another thing some Republican brought up to me, which is there are those people who are defecting in the middle of a campaign and making a potentially or presumably somewhat dangerous choice within the Republican Party. 22:52 There are a lot of people who would defect but are too scared because they think it would hurt them politically. 22:58 Imagine this Republican brought to me about what it's going to be like to try and staff a Trump administration. 23:04 That is an elective choice. 23:05 You're not already a member of office who has to worry about your voters. 23:09 You're a person who has to choose to go into the Trump administration. 23:12 That's a group of people who have to choose to sign up for this highly unpredictable, potentially chaotic – 23:20 Who is going to – I mean people – there have already been huge defections from the foreign policy community. 23:26 I mean it's – there's almost no one left from the traditional republican foreign policy and some people would say, hey, that's great. 23:31 They got us – they're responsible for all these bad things perhaps. 23:34 But at some point, you need bodies and this sense of chaos, leaving aside the moral component of it, is one that's going to make it really hard for them to staff a White House with people who are really talented and at the top of their game. 23:51 David Plotz I think we can pretty much agree that the Trump White House is not going to be staffed with people who are really talented and at the top of their game. 23:58 That has a dead certainty, even if he is elected.