best it's ever been.

That's right.

And so he's been Secretary of War during this period where he's emphasized, you know, performance over, you know...

Over identity politics and running the military.

I don't know if he's responsible or not, but certainly under his command, the military, you know, in terms of what it did in Iran in a very short period of time, what it did in Venezuela, what it's been doing in terms of targeting things.

Again, it has the respect of the American people.

And so it's really just politics to try to tear this all down.

Now what?

Either you're with us, or we're going to take you out.

Yep, well, that is sort of the way it is.

You know, it's been that way for a while and I think it's unfortunate.

And look, it's one thing when it's over legislation and you've got some big objective to change something, but when you're just trying to disrupt the system and in effect almost giving aid and comfort to the Iranians who are just kind of You know, really, they can't believe their luck that they're getting so much support, you know, in America for her, for their for their cause.

It's just unbelievable.

And so so I think because of all that, it's really quite good that those Democrats stayed home.

I think it was a smart decision on their part.

Now what?

Our military's the best it's ever been.

That's right.

And so he's been Secretary of War during this period where he's emphasized, you know, performance over, you know... over identity politics and running the military.

I don't know if he's responsible or not, but certainly under his command, the military, you know, in terms of what it did in Iran in a very short period of time, what it did in Venezuela, what it's been doing in terms of targeting things.

Again, it has the respect of the American people.

And so it's, It's really, you know, it's really just politics to try to tear this all down.

But again, I don't know why everybody wants to give so much aid and comfort to Iran.

Now what?

Now, there's a huge, huge gap then before you get to DeSantis and Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump Jr., but the fact that J.D. Vance is not the out-and-out frontrunner right now says an awful lot, does it not?

Well, that poll is really at variance with all the other polls I've seen.

The other polls I've seen flip them around.

Now, maybe there's a transformative change after the election.

I'd have to see a few more polls.

I think there's no question that there's a big constituency for both Vance and for Rubio.

But remember, as I always like to say, at this point, becoming president is a low-probability profession.

Does that not say to anybody, now it may not matter for the primaries, but for the general election, you put states in play, either Democrat or Republican, by being like Bill Clinton, the centrist?

He's aligned with the most hideous organizations, including organizations that have harmed Americans Why is the Democrat Party entertaining this? And why are they campaigning for them? Why would Barack Obama go to Michigan and campaign for a guy like this? Is power that important?

Well, apparently, yes, is the answer to your question.

I mean, look, I found it disappointing.

I was out when he was campaigning with Hazan Piker.

I mean, whether or not, whatever you think about Israel, somebody who says that America deserved 9-11, that's it for me, okay? America did not deserve 9-11.

It was the single most tragic event in recent history, perpetrated by a bunch of fanatics.

And how anybody could even remotely say that and campaign with somebody who would say that, well, you didn't have to get to the rest of the stuff for me.

What is that all about?

What makes this, what for you was the tell-all?

Well, first of all, this was a national trend.

not a local trend.

And what is it we know about the country and what the voters were feeling? 60% of the voters felt that it's a bad economy.

50% said that they believe their personal economy was getting worse.

And about 60% thought the economy was shrinking.

Now, the truth is the economy has record growth.

Do you?

So I think that people are feeling that as well as the gas and the food.

Yeah, no, look, the Democrats are winning this messaging.

As you said, could the Republicans, I've been sorry, I think the Republicans come back and say, look, wages have actually been increasing, that gas prices were this high under a lot of Biden and And Obama, I think they come back and say, hey, we had no tax on tips.

We have no tax on Social Security.

We put more money in people's pockets.

But you're right, there isn't a clear agenda that they're enunciating for how they would deal with affordability.

I think that the argument is, look, that when the Iran war is over, what's really driving some inflation now, which is far lower than it was, will be gone.

Last word.

Well,

look, the Israel election is probably more critical than the U.S. election.

And I say that because people want to make a huge deal of these midterms.

And maybe the Republicans will hold on to stuff.

Maybe they'll lose some stuff.

Every midterm so far has been that the party in power winds up with somewhat less power afterward.

But with the veto, the only thing that the Senate makes a difference on judicial appointments, other than that, that's the only thing that's actually at stake.

Well, it

Thank you again.

Okay, great.

Got another national poll here fresh out of the field.

October 24th to 26th, 2700 registered voters.

So we've got a pretty sizable sample we can take a look at next.

All right.

This, I think, actually is probably the most important slide and question.

right

What, if anything, you think that means?

Well, look, I think it means that.

People now get so much information and interest in even the midterms that I think we're going to see a higher turnout.

Normally, if you go back, about 150 million people vote in the presidential and 112 million have voted in midterms.

Maybe more people now are going to get interested in this midterm and we're going to have a higher turnout.

The real question is, what is the breakdown of those voters? Typically now the Democrats have been voting early and getting an edge out of that because not everybody shows to the polls.

If Republicans are turning out early, that would be a good sign.

I know we may not get final results, but do you think he's going to win? I don't know if you'd seen any polls on Netanyahu or not, Mark Penn.

So I think that people are feeling that as well as the gas and the food.

Yeah, no, look, the Democrats are winning this messaging.

As you said, could the Republicans, I've been sorry, I think the Republicans come back and say, look, wages have actually been increasing, that gas prices were this high under a lot of Biden and And Obama, I think they come back and say, hey, we had no tax on tips.

We have no tax on Social Security.

We put more money in people's pockets.

But you're right.

There isn't a clear agenda that they're enunciating for how they would deal with affordability.

Check it out.

It's a 4% issue, so it's all apparently about the economy, correct?

Well, it's about the economy overwhelmingly.

I think there's some concern about immigration.

There's concern about healthcare.

There's a little concern about crime.

But Iran and the, uh, uh, the Iran conflict is way down on the list.

That is not the deciding factor for except a minimal 2% or 3% of, of the electorate, 4%, you know, in, in, in this poll.

That should be a focus, correct?

So if they wanna make believe Talarico is John Fetterman, but Hassan Piker made it clear he's, he's his guy, which is a far-left zealot.

Well, look, uh, I, I have been really pretty clear on this Hassan Piker thing.

He, he, he is 100% anti-American.

He, you know, he, his comments that, that America is a dog-ass company, country and that it deserved 9/11, that he would choose Hamas o- over Israel any day of the week.

They are so outrageous and out of any values that, that frankly either party should stand for, that I believe every Democratic or Republican candidate should completely disavow him.

Because until we disavow this kind of complete, you know, anti-Americanism that would really fundamentally against our values, how is our politics go- gonna advance at all? And in terms of whether or not Democrats are kind of hiding their agenda after the primary, well, you know, that's, the voters are gonna have to judge on that.

There is a pretty good history.

But do you ever see something like that, like a Democrat would sign off on a work requirement when it comes to, uh, when it came to welfare?

you

know, continues to be really on the wrong track, significantly so, by 35 to 56%.

So now we used to be an optimistic country it used to be the default we're on the right track the default is that America is on the wrong track, as you can see.

With the exception of a couple of months it's been on the wrong track almost always and then went up when trump got elected and it's sort of been trending downward ever since next.

Then we take a look at the economy.

Is the economy on the right track? Well, the economy is the country, at least in terms of the way many people look at it.

And so it's 57% wrong track.

tariffs.

risks on marketing, or should they be taking more?

I don't view it as risks.

I think companies have to look at a wide range of how they're going to market, what the right mediums are, how they say something significant about what their products.

And I always tell them, don't shy away from pointing out the flaws of the competition.

Maybe it's my political background, where politics has gotten too negative.

Oftentimes, commercial marketing is too positive because a lot of the competitors are flawed.

they're getting away with a bad product.

How do you get anything done in this environment?

And so my question to you is, what is it? Are the Republicans not messaging well? Is it the media is very partisan? What is it?

Well, look, it's always hard to break through a positive economic message.

I had this back when I was working with President Clinton and I said to the president, hey, these economic numbers are really pretty good.

But he said, well, we don't want to seem out of touch.

So we want to be sympathetic.

We did turn around those numbers.

I think that the interesting thing is growth is high.

So it's all apparently about the economy.

I mean, that's a guy, if I'm campaigning for office, I'm sure I'd want him on the campaign trail with me, wouldn't I?

Well, that, that's what I find so unbelievable these days.

It's like, someone like that, n- no one of any party should get within 100 feet under any circumstances.

I mean, I, I don't...

You know, the whole thing's so stupid, and he talks about his broadband in France, which is absurd.

I mean, [laughs] but, but he hates America.

He, he's...

I think that all bets are off in terms of predictions, but maybe you have a different take.

The other one would be if they find a way to open up both those straits, just dropping, seeing gas drop might give people a sense of what could happen if you keep the same person behind the wheel.

Well, I tend to have a slightly counterintuitive view on the Iran conflict in that I believe that the stronger the president seems, the more actually he brings more voters out to support America versus Iran.

Interesting.

We're in a kind of fuzzy-wuzzy negotiation, halfway measure, higher energy prices, but we're not really winning or losing.

The more I think that really it's not an issue that works as strongly for a leader when the leader is leading the country in a clear and definite direction and people realize, you know what, we've got to go with America.

Can she?

Well, it all depends whether or not when you're running a campaign, are you trying to get swing voters or are you just trying to turn out your base? It seems to me that everybody in this election is really operating more to turn out their base.

And so could she be helpful with the Democratic base? She's pretty popular with Democrats.

Just start by telling everybody about the poll, how big it is, how you poll, and then we'll dive right in.

Sure.

Look, this is the monthly poll we've done for actually going on eight years now.

It's the Harvard-Harris-Capps poll.

And it's a pretty thorough poll on the issues that confront the country.

And I'm going to kind of go through it.

I'm not going to go through all the questions because that would take probably another 20 minutes, but give you an overview of what public opinion is.

Next.

If you can get your camera on, we'll get underway.

I keep saying start my video.

Here we go.

uh it is not letting me start the video

okay mark can you see the screen we can go ahead and start with the off camera we'll put up the slides

uh uh yeah if you see if i see the screen if you put up the slide

We're just gonna lie like Abigail Spanberger lied in Virginia and, and come up with her real agenda once she's elected." Um, I just don't know what date they'll take it down, 'cause I think this is creating an enormous headache for the Democratic Party in a m- in an election year, historically, where the party out of power, you know, should gain significant amount of seats in the House and pick up a lot of seats in the Senate.

Well, I would be surprised if they take it down.

I think quite the, quite the opposite.

I think they become emboldened.

Uh, they have more members.

Social media has, has enabled...

You know, there are a couple of, uh, big issues here.

Are you, are you, are you saying, like, people like me, that I'm a loser 'cause I don't have much to do [laughs] on my Labor Day week? I take a few days off.

Wouldn't that be the better way to go?

Well, of course, that would be the better way to go.

That's not, that's not [laughs] exactly what we're seeing.

The 2028, the, you know, the 2028 presidential primary is going to be the make or break primary for the party.

Is the left really...

Remember, Bernie Sanders probably would've been the nominee if Biden wasn't put up as sort of a Trojan horse nominee.

So is AOC or somebody like her going to be the nominee out of this party, and it's...

What are you hearing from them? Are you hearing concern? Are you hearing that we need to mobilize and fight this?

... uh, away we go.

Great.

And, and I think actually, what you really wanna focus on is, you know that it's a 50/50 country, more or less, and so you wanna focus on why is that, and what do the questions tease out about what is the debate going on in people's minds? Because remember that the swing voters whom you think of will actually think a lot of things that are contradictory in nature, and how they resolve that contradiction is how they come to vote.

And so with that in mind, and I've, I've done a few interesting questions here too this month on socialism, which I find, I find somewhat amusing actually.

But most importantly, if you dive into the poll, the first q- there's, it's actually the second question, which is, uh, but probably the single most important question is, "Do you think the economy is on the right track or the wrong track?" And as you can see, people think it's on the wrong track.

Now, a lot of people th- you know, was it on the wrong track before, um, Iran, after Iran? Yeah, it was on the wrong track here through the entire administration.

And the last time it was on the right track was, like, for a couple of days in the Biden administration [chuckles] and most of the first Trump administration, until the pandemic hit.

If M- if Mother Teresa married Donald Trump, and she was Mother Teresa Trump, she, her approval rating couldn't break 60.

Yeah, I mean, I, it's, I'm, it's pretty unfathomable

... right? I mean, it should have been enough.

Look, we all know what was going on here.

Somehow they got this idea that you take completely unqualified people who have never done anything in their lives, espouse socialist propaganda, and somehow those are going to be the candidates that defeat someone who...

By the way, you know, Senator Collins, of all the different senators to try to attack, you know, in this fashion, has always shown that she represents Maine, has always been willing to look at both sides, vote against her own party.

She's a model of kind of what, uh, what you would think a senator from, from a state like Maine would be.

And then to, uh, to try to f- try to prop up a candidate who was obviously unqualified.

If he does win, how does he do in a general election against, you know, somebody very conventional like Mike Rogers?

They

cannot have it as a big tent.

There is not support across America for abolishing prisons, open borders.

Now the DSA has just supported basically getting rid of the Constitution and replacing it with just the House of Representatives that would pick the president.

Right.

And so there isn't a lot of support for that.

But the Democratic Party has been welcoming them in and they've been growing in support little by little.

It's not actually an American problem, wouldn't you say?