You know, welcome to this special edition of the Hot Dish. I'm Joel Highcamp.
And I'm Heidi Heikemp. Today we're going to talk about last night's
presidential debate. With us today to join us in this
conversation is former congressman, senator,
ambassador. In other words, he's a little bit of everything. Joe Donnelly,
thanks for being with us today. Ambassador, how you been? Thank
you. Good. How about you? He can't keep a job. That's
exactly right. That's what I tell people. It's wonderful to
be back home. Or he's so good at it, they keep promoting him. How's
that? He's not going to give
you a job or pay you any money, so you don't need that.
You know, to be honest with you, working at the Vatican, I never
really thought I had a shot. I'm not going to lie to you. Well, on
my last, on my next to last day, I asked the number two at the
Vatican, they said, I've been here two and a half years. Like, when
my final time comes, is this going to count
to help me move along into the upper regions? And
he looked at me very seriously and goes, no, no, I don't think
so.
I was like, well, that was a waste of two and a half years.
Well, Heidi, I know you got some things to say about the debate last night.
Well, I mean, I think the Republicans are shocked. They're shocked because
guess who showed up last night? Donald Trump. I mean,
people are like, oh, could you? People who are analyzing how I behave,
that's exactly who he is. I mean, they're mad because their guy
showed up and he was who he was and he did not look happy
to be there. And I, you know me, Joel, I always think that
you turn off the sound and watch the expressions, and
joyful always wins over crabby. And that guy was one crabby
guy last night. And that he said really absurd
things like, you know, people eating cats and dogs, and
he went off on a tirade about crowd sizes, and he took
every, every bit of chum she threw in the water. He
gobbled up. And, you know, I think, I
think it's just who he is because, you know, in debate prep, they
just told him, don't do it. Don't do it. Ambassador, I'm going to take you
up on your offer to call you Joe. Okay. We've all known each other.
I'd love that. So, Joe, when you
watched, what did you think? I thought that the
rest of the country could finally see the Donald Trump
that Heidi and I have known for years just what Heidi was
saying, that this is the guy we dealt with in meetings. This
is the guy we dealt with on a regular basis in the
legislature. And so what was
so incredible was the plan.
Kamala had to bring it out. And
truly, what you just said, like, if she was going fishing, she filled up the
boat. It was a
reflection. That's who Donald Trump is. And, like, the things he
said actually did not surprise me because we've seen
them before. She definitely caught her limit.
I would argue that if the game wardens stopped by, she was over
limit. That's a whole other issue.
Both you guys know, I refereed college and high school football for a
lot of years. And in high school football in North Dakota, we have a thing
called the mercy rule, where if a team gets ahead by
35 points in the second half, that's it. We're done playing ball. And
I kept thinking, vice president Harris, that's
enough. I mean, quit pilot on. They're going to start feeling
sorry for the guy. But it was that bad, Joel. I mean, it really was
that bad. And what was amazing, too, was
we've been watching this performance for
nine years now. And so the first thing he does,
he knows he didn't do very well, I think. And he runs out
into the spin room and starts talking about all these polls he
has that shows he had 90% was for him and 10%
for Harris. And it's like, you know,
it never ends. It reminds me of the early days of our country, the folks
who were the guy who was selling the fake
medicine all across the west, it was always the
same kind of thing. Whatever you heard is different the next
hour or the next day. And when they talked
about Vice President Harris saying that
her position had changed a little bit on this one issue, I thought
about how his positions have changed on every issue. He talks
about love for the police, and then in the debate,
he talks about the January 6 insurrectionist
that he was a part of getting this whole
thing going. And we saw a policeman who died the next
few days because of the attacks. And it's like, who are you? Are you the
guy who says he loves police or the guy who helps incite
an attack against the police? And so this
is. This is just who he is. It's chaos. Heidi, you've been all
over national media. I mean, they've been calling on you for. For
your opinion big time. What are you hearing from some of the. Some of the
people you're on with? You know, I. They basically have
pivoted because we were all really honest when Joe
Biden turned in a bad performance, at least I was. I mean, you know,
we just kind of said, this is bad, and we need to rethink
this. Their reaction is, yeah, it was bad, but
who cares? It's not gonna change numbers. It's not gonna,
you know, have any impact. And so they immediately, the smart ones
that I've been on, Republicans immediately
pivoted to the so what? Because they didn't want
to defend what got said. They didn't want to defend the
performance. They knew that he had lost. And then
immediately it's the so what? And, and that's a legitimate
question, and I would be interested. Joel, you
were on the radio this morning. What was, what was the people's
response? You know, just people calling you. We played a lot of sound
cuts, and that wasn't hard to do because he gave us a lot of sound
cuts and he gave she, you know,
Kamala gave us a lot of sound cuts as well. But, I mean, here was
their reaction. I had some people call in that were going to vote for Donald
Trump that said we're not. I had some people that called in that
said, I really had doubts of whether or not she's up to this. I'm
not doubting that anymore. I had people call in and say,
look, this was three on one. ABC piled on that. It
shouldn't have been that way. Then I was ready with the sound of,
hey, you lied. They're not eating dogs in Springfield, Ohio.
You know they're not. And it was abs job, ABC's
job, to call bullshit on that. And so, you know,
it went that way. You know, I was broadcasting
from a farm show, and I ended up with
people outside my studio window just taking it
in. I mean, Joe, these people are starting to
get it. I'm not saying it's going to move the numbers. I'm just
saying they know what's going on. Yeah, I was just going
to follow up to what you were saying, joel, by saying people
know who he is now. They know.
They've seen this act for so long, and there's been so
many excuses for it, but they know.
They know who he is, what he stands
for, and are
just besides themselves that this is the Republicans choice
for president. Well, a question for you, Heidi.
Last time you mentioned Joe Biden, and I called for
Biden to get out of the race after the last performance. I called for
both of them. I said 80 year old men shouldn't be running this country
had about 20 calls into the show from 80 year old men who agreed with,
you know, but, you know, I, we
were honest about Joe Biden. I mean, we were. But the
way he acted last night, you know,
you guys know him. But I think it was at a whole different
level. I think that he looked old, he
sounded older, he sounded confused.
I mean, I'm not saying that he was as bad as Biden was, but he
sure wasn't too far behind. Heidi. Yeah, it was interesting because she's
never met him. And Joe and I have spent a lot of time, when we
were in the Senate, we spent a lot of time with him. And he was
usually on kind of a charm offensive until he knew he couldn't move us and
then he was done with us. You're dismissed. Get out. Then he threw
us in the wood chipper. But he
knew how to be charming. He knew how to and sit across the desk and
make small talk and, you know, and, and I
just think, just like, I think Biden came on the stage, didn't feel
well, was not, you know, I mean, was cloudy and
fuzzy about what he thought. Donald Trump came to that
stage last night angry. He was told, there's going to
be a split screen. Do not overreact to what she says. So the
beginning, he was pretty contained until she
kept turning the knife and he took the bait.
And the more that happened, the more he
kind of lost the
attention and the ability to present
a presidential kind of visual.
But I want to defend ABC, and for full
disclosure, I have a contract with ABC. I know these folks really well. They're
really good journalists. They are not biased. But I
think that they made a decision that things were going to get said
that were not correct. They let a lot of stuff go
by. Let's just point that out. And then only hit the most
egregious kinds of misstatements. But my point is,
every fact checker out there, including the ones for Fox, have
fact checked the former president and said there
just isn't even a comparison between the fibbing and
the prevarication. That's a nice way of saying lying
between Trump and Harris. I mean, Harris may have been
vague, but she was purposeful in her vagueness and
didn't get herself in trouble on fact checking. I
actually thought during the debate, it showed
that he talked for about five minutes more than the vice president did.
And I thought that ABC actually gave him, like,
opportunities that were not supposed to be part of it,
where he just kind of broke in and said, I got to talk about this,
and they let him. And so I thought it was
done in an extraordinarily fair way by ABC. I thought
actually they were very serious, very focused. They did a good
job. But to your point, Joel, the thought that kept
striking me, watching that last night, Washington, boy, he looks
old and tired. And
yesterday, it was like
someone who has a record player with a 45,
and it just keeps playing the song
over and over and over, and
everybody's looking going, I'm
done with this now. I can't do this anymore.
Yeah, he's always shot about
105 when he says he golfs around an 80 something.
And I'd be willing to bet now he's golfing about a 120. I mean,
he's looking old. But, guys, I've been making
this argument to Heidi, and I'm really curious what you think about it, Joe,
that he gauges everything by
crowd size, because of the apprentice, because of ratings, and
he didn't like getting fired. And when she told him he got fired last
night, it hit him. He knows what Barack Obama did to
him at that convention, and he knows the jokes that followed
it. And so when she brought that up, his
crowd, the fact that the crowds leave, they get bored.
I don't think you could have planned for or done
anything, Joe, that would hurt him more than what that did.
That's his whole ego wrapped up in one, in one
bow, is, I'm always the best.
I'm always the biggest. I'm always the loudest. I'm always
the most visible. And she, in
such a smart way, said, you know, you're so boring. People
just walked out. It's like, that's as bad as it
gets, that you were putting people to sleep.
And then I did laugh one time, Heidi, I actually didn't laugh. My
wife laughed when he said, they told me if
I got 73 million, I won. And Jill looked at
me and she said, they told you if you got 1.1 million, you were
going to win? Oh, yeah. No, I mean, you know,
we, Claire and you and I all got our vote to reelect
number. We hit our numbers and exceeded our number. We all get our numbers. Guess
what? We didn't win, and we're not telling people that we did. Right.
The important thing, I think, for her is
she now needs to capitalize on this. She needs to do some more
interviews. She needs to be and not have Tim
walls with her. I love Tim, but, you know, she needs to
now occupy the media space, and,
you know, she will not win this by playing
defense. And she played offense really well last night.
She's got to keep that up. This is a hard
battle to the end that's going to be very close. And
I think, you know what I've always thought about
the swing states and how important they are. But
Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania have always been in a
different section for me in that
if you win those, you win. And if we can get
some of the others, that is extraordinarily phenomenal.
But if you don't get the core, you're probably not going to
wind up winning. And I think in Wisconsin and Michigan,
we've gotten to be in a little bit better shape.
And I think this may be coming down to Pennsylvania.
And that's why they were talking about
800,000 people of polish descent in Pennsylvania last
night. That's why they were talking fracking so much. And why there was such
a, such a tussle back and forth is because they
know how that goes is probably going to determine
who's in the office. I'm curious what you both as people who
served with her and who know her much better than, than
what our listening audience does. And so I'm curious
about this. Everybody thought last night that they were afraid
she would be intimidated by Donald Trump. Clearly she wasn't. Okay,
that was my last thought. That never has been
anything. No, no, no. I'm talking about you, you folks that know
her. But I'm talking about the general public. I think that the general public
going into that debate thought she's got to be tough enough
to take him on. And, and I think he tried
to intimidate her, too, and it didn't work. And, and I think
it started, it all started with the, the kind of,
you know what, when he, she walked over and introduced
herself and actually said her name, way you pronounce
it, you know, I, I think he was on his
heels right away, you guys. Well, can I make this point?
I've known Kamala longer than Joe has because she was an attorney
general in California. And so I knew her back
when she was a state official. She literally has been in
courtrooms with Cartel. She's been in courtrooms with people,
with mobsters and organized crime, and she's been with some of
the worst, you know, kind of characters who will look at
you, try and intimidate you, try and get you to back off as a
prosecutor. She's not going to be afraid of, of an
80 year old guy. She was never going to be intimidated by Donald Trump.
Speaker one. Okay, then let me ask you this, Joe, because I agree with both
of you. We learned that last night. But the poll
numbers did not move even when Joe Biden had a
very, very bad performance. You didn't see the poll numbers move
that much in the Biden heads up against head
to head with Trump. And so we didn't see that
convention balance the way people thought how great the democratic convention
was. Well, this matter,
Joe. I think the reset came before
the convention, and so
it's close a couple of points either way, Joel. I think it stays that
way. And I think that's why the
knocking on the doors, the phone calls, the organization, the data analytics, all
of that is so absolutely critical because
it could come down to one county. And that's why
he is sowing the seeds, has been sowing the seeds for
four years now, trying to gain an edge.
When this starts, you're going to see
almost unlimited efforts to try and denigrate the
vote, discredit the vote, all of those things. I think we're in for a rough
ride. I got another question for both of you.
I'm going to put you in a position where you now are Kamala
Harris's campaign manager. You said Heidi earlier,
don't do everything with Tim walls. Get out there, speak to the
public. If you could tell her, Heidi,
one thing, just one thing, to win this race, what would it
be? I think that it would be stay focused
on the issues that swing voters. By that, I mean
suburban women and women who care about choice, stay on those,
but, but also understand that they care about economic issues.
Hone heard economic arguments much more
carefully, and I would say just,
just continue to do what you're doing in terms of
looking like you're having fun and looking youthful and
so, but you can't do that by doing
set events. I mean, call the talk
radio in Pennsylvania. Call
talk radio. Let people ask you a question
about fracking. How did you change your mind? What caused you to change your mind?
She proved last night that she can take all incoming and so just
go do it. And I think that the media hype
about. Oh, she does. She's all programmed and doesn't want to take all this. She
could dispel that in a week by doing a lot of
unscheduled, unplanned kinds of media events. But
I tell you, here at one country, we believe the world vote
matters. That's why we do the work that we do. We think that
the Democratic Party needs to do better in rural America. She could
be out there not just relying on Tim Wells, but out there speaking to rural
voters, especially if you had her here. Yeah. Can I just make this
point? Well, that was more than one thing, Heidi. I just want to point out,
I'm the moderator of the debate. Ok.
But I want to, I want to ask Joe, because Joe had a
demographic that was a little different than ours with a
lot of small manufacturers, supply chain manufacturers, you
know. You know, even though agriculture is huge in
Indiana, rural America includes a lot of
union workers in Indiana. Joel, how does she get
the union workers that you were so successful with?
How does she get them to take. A second look by showing
up at all of their events, you know, in the swing
states and talking to them about how pro union
she and the president have been, that they worked to
protect the pensions, that they worked to make sure
that with the legislation that was passed, there's
an incredible amount of work for everybody. Heidi, all the union
workers are working right now. The pensions are protected. The
salaries are tremendous. They're in probably the best
shape they've been in their lives. And so
they just, look, if there's a steelworkers meeting in
Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Tim Walz ought to be there.
If there's an ironworkers meeting
in Pittsburgh, Kamala needs to be
there. I'll never, ever forget, one of the greatest
lessons was that Secretary
Clinton was never in Wisconsin
and lost by 10,000 votes that year. And I
thought, you know, you really have to stick to your knitting.
And if you have a spare moment, great. But until you
do, you've got to be where you're meeting the voters who are going to make
the decision, and those union workers. She can be at foreign progress
shows just like you talked about, walking around answering questions from
people. And she can answer any question from anybody.
And so what I think is just what you were
saying, Joel. She needs to talk about
jobs, education. She
needs to talk about women's issues. She's going to have to talk about the
border and talk about how Trump killed the bill and that
border crossings are at their lowest now than they've been in an
incredibly long amount of time, that they care
about the border, that, you know, what I always used to say is, I said,
look, I am a compassionate person, but there
are laws in place from the United States and the laws are to be
obeyed. That's not complicated. So
I'm at that farm show, you two today, and there was
a gentleman, and I'm guessing he's over 70, like a typical
farmer now in one country country. He's also probably rich at this
point. Too. He's not doing badlandhouse, but he's walking
around with a Harris walls t shirt. Wow.
And. And, guys, they would have done that a couple of years
ago. You just didn't do that. Yeah. Even if
they supported the democratic ticket, they were not telling their neighbors they
did. Exactly. And this is the one thing that people. And
we've been talking a lot about that this on the podcast, because
a lot of our listeners, they aren't. They aren't driving
the county roads, Joel and Joe. They
aren't out there looking, and they don't have the comparison.
Right. So I knew Hillary was in trouble. When I saw what was
happening in western Minnesota and western. And
western Pennsylvania, I knew she was in trouble. Places where you would
never have seen a republican sign were flying the flags
then in 20, same kind of like, in fact, we had
pop up merch stores in small rural communities selling
Trump merch. Joel, have you seen one of those? Have you seen a lot
of. No. I mean. And I'm sure you aren't seeing it in rural
Indiana the same way. Yeah. And you're not seeing the
signs over in lake country. You know, we've got an area, Joe,
over here that's kind of the high end. You know, that they all go from
North Dakota to Minnesota and have pretty high end lake homes. Yeah, there's.
There's no signs. I took my harley and wrote it over there. Just poked
around to see nothing. I've got a really weird question for both
of you, too, though, by the way. Just. Just. I think they want some
peace, and they want some stability. They're
insanity. They're worn out. They're worn out. I'm curious what you
two think, because my producer is 27 years
old. She is of a whole different generation than I
am. She was so excited about Taylor
Swift supporting the Kamala Harris,
and she pulled up the data for me. How many shares?
What's happening? I'm gonna throw it to you first, Joe. I
mean, how big of a deal is that endorsement? I think it's a
monstrous deal. I know my niece.
My niece, when she got tickets to the concert,
broke down in tears, and I was thinking. All I was
thinking was, I'm probably gonna have to drive her. You know,
I was rooting against the tickets for that reason. But,
I mean, this is a big part of who they are,
and this is someone who they relate to,
who they look up to, and it's a big deal.
Heidi, you know, I was with a young woman last
night. I did ABC radio, and she works there. And
she came running at me to let me know that. Cause she had gotten the
tweet first that Taylor, or the Instagram first that Taylor
Swift had endorsed or had said she's gonna vote for
Kamala Harris and encouraged her people to register. And she
started telling me, I mean, she said she was an african, young african
american woman. She said, I am a swifty.
I can't tell you how big this is, how big this is. And
the thing is that enthusiasm, if she
gets it registered, and then from that registration, you get people voting,
that's probably a 70% to 75% voting
block for Kamala. And
if they show up in those swing states,
assume she's got a. I. The young woman told me it's like
something like multimillion dollar followers,
million followers. Millions and millions and millions. Almost
40 million. I mean, it was like a huge number. And you think if you
just motivate 10% of them in those swing states to show
up and vote, and they vote the way young people are voting
now, just take the demographics and understand it. This
is. This could swing the election. And I think
she has to continue to stay on this. This can't be just a
one tweak deal. But I think what you'll
see is just what you're talking about, Heidi. The biggest
difference, I think, might be people who probably weren't going to
vote, but now will. Yep,
that's a great point. And that's what Abby said. That's what my
producer said. She goes, there was a lot of people, she said, especially
when it was Biden against Trump, that just simply weren't going to vote.
They weren't excited. They felt left out. And she said,
now there are going to be a lot of people that register to vote
and vote. You got that look, hide. They can't see it on the radio. But
I just have to laugh because Trump's reaction was, well, I have misses
Mahomes. Number one. They probably didn't even know her first
name, Brittany. And I'm like,
hunter, you might not have her husband
either. He's got Tommy Dorsey in the big jazz
band. Hey, you guys, I've got one for you. So
at this farm show, Lee Greenwood
is performing. And I came home from the democratic convention. I
said, well, if you want to see the difference between the two, we
had pink, we had the chicks, and they had Lee
Greenwood. And so my. My FM crew at the
radio station, Joe, got a poster sign from Lee
Greenwood, and they put it on my desk with a note that said, we
know you're a big fan. I thought you were
going to tell me it said something else on there from where you.
I know we're running out of time. I just have to ask you this, and
you're not going to like it. Who wins this thing, Heidi, if you
ran it today, who wins? Um. If you run it today, I think she
wins. But I am. But this is going to be razor thin. And my
big concern and, you know, been doing a lot of work on election security,
trying to prepare for what could happen if Trump decides he's going to
stir the pot again. You know, think of 15,
1600 people in jail because he told them the
big lie that he had had one and that it was their job as
patriots to defend him. He admits it was not
sarcastic. He admits he lost. He will not. And
now, now that he's been called out on that, he will not go
quietly into the night. And so I think she wins. But
I think we have to be prepared to protect democracy against
another attempt to steal an election
speaker one. Joe, I think it comes down to Pennsylvania. If
it was today, I think she wins by maybe a point or two.
But what Heidi was saying, if somebody tells you who they are, believe
them, and he intends,
he would rather shut
down the government, have the capital go up,
than give this up, because remember,
he's also facing criminal charges. I was saying the stakes are even
higher, Joe. The stakes are even higher. And this is not going
to be an easy road we have ahead, but we all have to stay strong.
Yeah. And, and I will tell you this from my perspective
as a radio talk show host, I'm not going to lie. I
want her to win. I'm going to vote for Kamala. But as a talk show
host, losing Donald Trump in the public eye, my ratings are going
down. You guys. You know, I want to
thank you so much for joining us today, Joe. We appreciate your thoughts,
and we're going to do this more with you whether you like it or not.
We got your cell phone. And I want to thank all those listeners out there
for their support and their interest. Get out and vote. Talk to
your friends. Knock on doors, make phone calls. This is going to be a little
bit of everything. And, you know, I want you to learn about what we're doing
at one country by going to
onecountryproject.com. thank you,
too. I got to see this one. Heidi, next time you. Okay.
Okay. All right. Thanks, you guys. Thanks for listening on one
country.
Last topic of.