 
Welcome back to Planet America. I'm John
Barron. And I'm Chaz Liciardello. The conventions are
over election day is barely two months
away
is Joe Biden actually blowing this? We're
gonna be talking to Biden's long-time
advisor Selinda Lake and I boldly
predict she will disagree. And I'll
explain how the electoral college works
and
how it helps Trump. I'm gonna be looking
at the president's outreach to black
voters - does his record match his
rhetoric?
First to Wisconsin. President Trump
travelled to the swing state earlier
today, a week after a 17 year old youth shot
and killed two people in the town of
Kenosha.
Black Lives Matter demonstrations
triggered by the police shooting of
Jacob Blake two days earlier
were accompanied by counter protests and
riots as stores were looted and businesses
burned.
Teenager Kyle Rittenhouse armed himself
to defend local businesses
and allegedly received encouragement
from local police.
Later he shot two protesters, Joseph
Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber.
It was all filmed. Rittenhouse has been
charged with offenses including two
counts of first degree murder.
The teen's attorneys say Kyle had no
choice but to fire
multiple rounds towards his immediate
attackers
but on Friday the Kenosha police chief
said the shootings never should have
happened.
We've had two people lose their lives
senselessly
while peacefully protesting. Kyle
Rittenhouse had previously attended a
Trump rally, the president telling
reporters yesterday
it looked like self-defense to him.
He was trying to get away from them I guess
it looks like
and he fell and then they very violently
attacked him
and it was something that we're looking
at right now and it's under
investigation but
uh I guess he was in
very big trouble. He would have been he
probably would have been killed but
it's under it's under investigation.
Yeah, and Rittenhouse's lawyer is making
similar arguments John.
He's saying that Rittenhouse didn't
appoint himself deputy sheriff he was
just answering a call for help from a
local business owner.
His lawyer also said in Rittenhouse's
first shooting that there was
another gunshot that caused Rittenhouse
to turn around
and see the fellow he was about to shoot
reaching for his rifle,
and the video does kind of back that up.
Warning - I'm about to show you the New
York Times' very blurry distant
version of the first shooting and note
the separate first gunshot.
will that make any difference to Rittenhouse's defense?
I don't know. I guess we'll see.
Law and order has emerged as a major theme in
President Trump's re-election campaign
and after arriving in Kenosha today over
the objections of state and local
officials
President Trump refused to condemn the
right-wing militias taking to the
streets
I think a lot of people are looking at
what's happening to these democrat-run
cities and they're disgusted.
They see what's going on and they can't
believe this is taking place in our
country. I can't believe it either.
Trump's presidential rival Joe Biden was in
another key battleground state,
Pennsylvania yesterday.
Speaking in Pittsburgh Biden condemned
the rioters and accused trump of encouraging the violence.
Fires are burning and we have a
president who fans the flames
rather than fighting the flames, but
we must not burn. We have to build.
This president long ago forfeited any
moral leadership in this country.
He can't stop the violence because for
years he's fomented it
Another man was shot and killed in
Portland, Oregon on the weekend. 39 year
old Aaron J Danielson was reportedly wearing the
insignia of a far-right organization
Patriot Prayer at the time of his death.
The shooting came after a series of
escalating street clashes.
Some in the pro-Trump caravan veered off
the planned route
going into the city's downtown core,
where startling confrontations with
counter protesters unfolded.
A Trump flag is burned as insults and
items are hurled at the vehicles.
Trump supporters shot
paintballs from an open truck bed
and fire pepper spray.
The evening turned deadly when a man
standing in front of this parking garage
was shot.
Not much is known publicly about what
led to this moment
but the victim has been linked to a
pro-Trump group.
But as for who's behind all of these
groups Chaz, speaking to Fox News
yesterday President Trump said
Black Lives Matter is a Marxist
organisation starting a revolution
controlling Joe Biden and he was a bit
mysterious as to who he thinks behind them.
Look at what's going on and Biden well
Biden is,
I don't even like to mention Biden
because he's not controlling anything.
Who do you think is pulling Biden's
strings. Is it former Obama officials?
People that you've never heard of. People
that are in the dark shadows.
People that ...
What does that mean? That
sounds like conspiracy theory. "Dark
shadows".
People that you haven't heard of. They're
people that are
on the streets, they're people that are
controlling the streets.
We had somebody get on a plane from a
certain city this weekend
and in the plane it was almost
completely loaded with
with thugs wearing these dark uniforms,
black uniforms with gear and this and
that. They're on a plane.
I'll tell you sometime but
it's under investigation right now.
Whaaaat? A bit of a gift to Sarah Cooper there Chaz, that was
pretty weird.
I suspect Trump might be confusing a viral email from
June there with something that's
actually happening.
Anyway, this is an interesting tactic
Trump is taking here though.
Remember exactly four years ago he was
saying this.
Crime and violence that today afflicts
our nation
will soon, and I mean very soon, come to
an end. [applause]
Then at his inauguration he said this.
This american carnage stops right here
and stops right now.
And yet, four years later when there's
more violence out there, he's still
saying that he can stop it. Well then
stop it Mr President like you say you can.
Of course he can't stop it. This is a
local issue,
not really something a President has
control over. He was being opportunistic
in 2016 and he's still
being opportunistic now, and he's not the
only one. Republican activist Charlie Kirk
somehow concluded that democrats in
Wisconsin are now directly
responsible for the two deaths from the
Rittenhouse shootings
and the only solution to this massive
terrorism
is to vote Trump. Huh? Mind you the
democrats have been pretty opportunistic
as well,
blaming Trump for riots caused by police
shootings.
All of this chaos is happening on his
watch. This is
very much characteristic living in
Donald Trump's America and I think we're
going to see more and more of it
as long as he's in charge.
So were the Michael Brown riots Obama's fault then?
Regardless, I think what Trump might be
thinking of with this tactic
is this Marquette poll which found
net approval of Black Lives Matter in
Wisconsin
dropping from plus 25 in june to dead
even
three weeks ago, and amongst white
Wisconsinites it dropped from
plus 21 to -6%,
even though amongst non-white
Wisconsinites it stayed steady at plus
58%.
I think Trump might like the look of
those white Wisconsin numbers,
except according to Gallup's august
numbers 35%
of people say coronavirus is the most
important issue of the election compared
to only four percent who say crime and
violence is,
so the issue isn't resonating as much as
Trump would like,
and most importantly, at least so far,
people are preferring
Biden to solve the problem. 37%
said they'd feel safer if Biden was
elected a month ago,
and now after the conventions it's 39 %
The needle hasn't moved and neither is
the needle moved for Trump
except his numbers are worse. A month ago
only 31%
said Trump being re-elected would make
them feel safer and now
it's 32%, so this is a bit of a reach for
Trump John.
Yeah it sure is. Last week's
Republican national convention
ended with a bang.
Donald Trump's name spelled out over the
Washington monument at the conclusion of
his renomination speech
given on the south lawn of the White
House where he spelled out his line of
attack.
Biden is a trojan horse for socialism. If
Joe Biden doesn't have the strength
to stand up to wild-eyed
Marxists like Bernie Sanders and his
fellow radicals, and there are many,
there are many many, we see them all the
time it's incredible actually,
then how is he ever going to stand up
for you. He's not.
And this was Joe Biden's answer
to that socialist Trojan
horse claim in Pittsburgh yesterday.
You know me.
You know my heart, you know my story, my
family story.
Ask yourself - do i look like a radical
socialist with a soft spot for rioters? Really?
There may have been a modest convention
bounce in the polls for President Trump.
Last Monday as the convention was
getting underway Trump trailed Biden by
7.8 points in the average of national
polls. A week later
that had closed to 6.2 points and there
has been a similar closing of the gap
in the top battleground states. Biden's
lead of 4.3
at the start of the convention fortnight
down this week to just
2.7%.
One more interesting element at the convention though
John, Trump mentioned Joe Biden 41
times in his speech whereas the previous
most mentions of an opponent's name in
the president's acceptance speech was
eight by Bush one in 1992 and the next
most mentioned
was two and Trump might have gotten the
results he was looking for with all
those attacks.
According to Survey Monkey amongst
independents who don't lean towards
either party
Biden dropped from a net approval of -5
to -18 in one week.
Mind you, Trump also slid a little from a
net approval of -35
to -37, and one more interesting
post-convention poll. Hill Harris X
reckons
Trump's total approval amongst black
voters increased from
15% up to 24%.
Still not very high but his conventions
appeals to black voters may not have
fallen on deaf ears.
All right, with President Trump closing
the gap with Joe Biden in a number of
these polls
a certain amount of hand-wringing has
returned to some democratic circles this
week.
Despite historically low approval
ratings could it be
that Donald Trump is getting set to
spring another shock
election victory? Celinda Lake is one of
the most revered pollsters and
strategists in democratic politics. She's
worked with Vice President Joe Biden for
many years. She's with us
from Washington DC, Celinda Lake welcome
back to Planet America.
Thanks for having me it's great to join
you.
We're looking at these national
and battleground state polls and seeing
a certain tightening of the race
in the last month or so. Is that your
perception also or are you looking at
other indicators to get a sense as to
where this race is up to?
Well I think we thought the race was always a tight race and so it's really we're in
a very polarised country,
it depends a lot on what the turnout
model is, we're down to
about nine battleground states, so it's
really where we thought it would be all
the way along.
A tight race where Joe Biden still
has a lead
and where Donald Trump has a net
negative job performance so
that's not a place that you want to be
in if you're trying to get reelected.
So Celinda are you telling me you're
not getting a teensy little bit
nervous about the tightening of the
polls?
Well I'm not getting a teensy bit
nervous because I was plenty nervous for
a year and a half,
so I'm in my zen mode. I'm in the
steady state of being nervous.
Celinda there has been a certain
consistency
in the polls, certainly the national
head-to-head polls over more than 18
months now.
Joe Biden three to nine points in front
of Donald Trump, Trump never getting
above
around 45%. Biden never getting below kind of 47%.
Is that a good indication as to - there is a fundamental dynamic here
that almost exists separate to
the daily issues or the news cycle?
yes, and the vote for Donald Trump highly
highly correlated with his job
performance so
actually more than his vote, I watch his
job performance and that's really been
stuck. It dropped down a little bit but it's
been stuck basically 45-46 and that's
what drives that number.
You also have the underlying
partisanship and this country is about
three four points democratic and so
you know it depends a lot on turnout.
A lot of this is going to come out to
whose votes get cast and whose votes get counted.
Celinda, Trafalgar Polling is still out there
doing their thing insisting that there's
a shy Trumper vote out there that's
going to power Trump to victory.
Why do you think there isn't a shy
Trumper vote out there waiting to be mobilised?
Well I actually think there is a shy
Trump vote and we measure it and you
still have
Joe Biden ahead with the shy Trump
vote. The Trafalgar pollsters are weighting
their data very very heavily and they're not just -
we do a measurement of whether or not
there is a shy Trump vote by
state but they are weighting their data
for quote-unquote social
desirability. That is a completely
unproven methodology,
a very arbitrary reading and so
I not all posters on the democratic side
agree. I happen to be one of the ones who
believes
there is often a secret Trump vote and
we
calculate that
Celinda as well as trying to deepen his existing base
President Trump has in the last week or
two been
trying to reach out to african americans,
suburban college-educated women in
particular it seems from some of his
messaging at the RNC.
How successful do you think that will be?
So what he's trying to do
is discourage african-american voters
from turning out to vote
and I think that's not going to be very
successful but you're absolutely right
that he's trying to do that. He's also trying to reach out to latinx
voters and I don't think that's going to
be very successful,
and he's trying to reach out to suburban
women voters and I think that's actually
backfiring. Suburban women, particularly as as their
kids are going back to school,
really really upset that their families
are in this situation, that COVID wasn't
handled better,
and that they have no good choices in
terms of the chaos that's facing their
families, and we're actually picking up votes
among suburban women.
So I think what you're going to see is
you're going to see a gender gap which
is the difference between
male and female voting on steroids in
this election
as suburban voters totally reject
the president's approach, his lack of
a plan, his lack of listening to experts,
and his policies that put their families at risk.
So from a tactical point of view, in
terms of reaching suburban voters etc,
do you think he's making the right play
with a law & order campaign or do you
think that's actually a poor tactical choice?
I think it's a desperate tactical choice
and I think it's about all he's got left
but I think this combination of dog
whistle politics and using violence as a
tactic, as a strategy,
is abhorrent, immoral and I think it will
backfire.
Celinda Lake always appreciate your
insights. Thank you once again.
Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.
Donald Trump won the presidency of the
United States with almost
3 million fewer votes than his rival
Hillary Clinton.
You may be wondering how is that
possible? Was it Russia? The FBI?
A lizard posing as Julian Assange? In
fact the answer is
the electoral college.
America has some pretty weird colleges.
At Trump University we teach success.
That's what it's all about, success.
Like the now-defunct Trump University,
the electoral college is not a real
university or college
and, like Trump University, it does not
award grades, credits, or degrees although
twice
in the past 20 years it has awarded the
presidency to the loser of the popular vote.
I've just received a call
from Secretary Clinton.
In 2016 the founder of Trump University won the
presidency with
just under 63 million votes, while
Hillary Clinton
lost the presidency with nearly 66
million, a losing margin of
plus 2.8 million. In the electoral
college however Trump won 304 votes to
Clinton's 227.
Hillary Clinton has called Donald Trump to concede the race.
It's not the first time that's happened
either. 20 years ago Al Gore won
half a million votes more than George W
Bush but lost in the electoral college
and lost the presidency.
I accept the finality of this outcome
which will be ratified next Monday in
the electoral college.
Twice in the 19th century the winner of
the popular vote lost the electoral
college. In 1876 democrat Sam Tilden led by a
quarter of a million votes but
republican rutherford hayes won the
electoral college.
In 1888 democratic president Grover
Cleveland attracted over
90 000 more votes than Republican
Benjamin Harrison, but
Harrison won the electoral college.
So what is this electoral college thing anyway?
The founders of the United States had
just turfed out an English king
and they didn't want to create another
monarchy. They thought long and hard
about how to limit the power of their
new head of state.
First, the title. Forget king or emperor, it
would be
president, so named because they were to
preside over the constitution, and
approve or veto the will of congress but
done with
balanced powers. Having that president
directly elected by the people posed a
problem. Would that give them too much power?
A popular mandate exceeding that of the
house and the senate.
Then again they couldn't be beholden to
Congress either so instead
they settled on an indirect election by
an electoral college.
Think of the Electoral College
as being like a council or a parliament
that sits once every four years with
only one job -
electing the president and vice
president of the United States,
and here's how it works.
Each state gets
as many electors in the electoral
college as it has members of congress
house
and senate, plus three from Washington DC, currently adding up to 538, meaning you
need 270 for a majority. Sounds fairly
democratic - the house seats are
distributed roughly proportionate to
population but the senate is different. Every state
gets two senators
whether it's Wyoming with a population
of under 600 000
or California with 39 million more
people. That's your first clue about how the
electoral college doesn't always reflect
the popular vote.
48 states are winner-takes-all. Maine and
Nebraska split theirs up, but if we
look at three of the biggest states,
California, Texas and Pennsylvania,
you'll see how Republicans have an
advantage - at least for now.
California, that's the big one. 55
electoral votes going to Hillary Clinton.
That was expected.
She wins it, the biggest democratic prize
of the night.
In 2016 democrat Hillary Clinton won
California's 55 electoral votes
by a mile. Over 4 million votes, almost
doubling Trump's vote.
We projected Donald Trump will carry a
huge prize - Texas, with all of its 38 electoral votes.
A big win for Donald Trump in the state of Texas.
Democrats had hoped
but not it's not going to happen for
them this time around.
In Texas it was closer. Trump won with a
margin of over 800 000
claiming all 38 electoral votes.
Some big news here, Megan, huge news
actually. The AP now projecting that
Donald Trump has won the state of
Pennsylvania
And Pennsylvania was closer still.
Trump's margin of 44,000
gave him another 20 electoral votes.
Add that all up and Hillary Clinton got
more than 15 and a half
million votes and 55 electoral votes.
Trump got just over 12 million votes and
58
in the electoral college.
And count the votes of the electors ...
Like the two senator rule, the electoral
college is designed to protect the
interests of smaller states,
and if we go back to Wyoming and
California, while Wyoming
only gets three electoral votes that's
equal to one for every
192 000 people, while California's 55
electoral votes
represent 718 000 citizens.
Above all it's about how to become
successful.
So the electoral college can look a bit
dodgy,
although, unlike Trump University, it hasn't had to pay people back for ripping them off
just yet.
That's what it's all about.
Oh and don't be surprised if this year's election also ends up in the courts.
Now we mentioned earlier that Trump was
hoping to win more of the black vote.
He put it this way in his convention speech,
... and I say very modestly that I have done
more for the african-american community
than any president since
Abraham Lincoln.
Very modestly he says.
OK, that's a bit much but does Trump
have a genuine case to make that he's
been good for the black community?
To the wall!
Big, beautiful wall.
The Republican convention touted a
number of ways this administration has
helped black people, so let's start with
... the first new major effort to tackle
poverty in a generation, opportunity zones.
Opportunity zones involve investors being given a capital
gains tax cut for returns on investments
in areas
the government defines as economically
distressed.
The longer you invest the bigger your
tax cut.
Now  94% of capital gains go to people with
incomes over a hundred thousand dollars
so that tax cut
is going to rich people, but if the rich
people are investing in poor areas
that's a win-win right? Maybe?
There's certainly investment happening. $10 billion before the COVID-19
crisis, but the vast majority of that investment
appears to be in real estate. Some of it
luxury real estate,
not local businesses and the reason for
that is if your entire incentive
structure is
capital gains tax cuts, investors are
going to focus on capital gains and most useful
projects have a return of only
three to seven percent not the 12 to 16
percent the market is looking for.
Furthermore there are some affluent
areas within some of these poor census
tracts,
in fact nearly 200 of the 8 800
opportunity zones are not even
considered low income
so there's some loopholes there and
most investors freely admit their
projects would have proceeded even
without the opportunity zones.
Look I'm not trying to knock the program.
It has done some good but
at this stage it's a bit eh.
Could definitely do with some tweaking.
Next ...
Historically black colleges and universities. I saved HBCUs.
We saved them.
No, no you didn't.
They were going out and we saved them.
Why don't we run that phrase through the
Trump translation machine
We get, yeah, so is that claim true? Well in Trump's first two fiscal
years HBCUs received about $1.6 billion
which when you adjust that number for
inflation
is almost exactly what they received
under Obama's first two fiscal years
but then at the end of 2019 congress
passed, and Trump signed,  the future act
which guaranteed $85 million a
year allocated to fund science, tech and
maths programs at HBCUs,
and on top of that Betsy DeVos granted
total forgiveness of Hurricane Katrina
relief loans
to four HBCUs that were worth more than
$300 million.
One of those university presidents was
keen to point out that Obama
could have done that and he didn't.
Finally the CARES act this year added
another $450 million of funding
for
HBCUs, so the Trump administration has
done reasonably well in this area
or to put that in Trump-ese ...
he single-handedly turned HBCUs from
pathetic garbage to the super-duper
strongest organisations in the history
of the universe.
Wow! Next!
He signed the first step act into law. It was real justice reform.
In just the first year of the first step
act over 2 000 federal prisoners had
their sentences reduced by about
six years on average and 91 percent of
those prisoners were black. There were also 107 extra
compassionate releases,
and it increased good behaviour credits
by seven days per year,
which led to 3 100 further federal
prisoners being freed
almost immediately, although about 800 of
those 3 000 prisons were
freed to be deported by ICE and 55%
of the remaining prisoners were white.
Nevertheless
the first step act improved the lives of
thousands of
prisoners. He'd be doing even better if the
prisons receive the extra $300 million
they need to implement all its required programs as opposed to the $23 million
they just received instead but something's better than
nothing OK?
Finally there is this claim.
The President also built the most
inclusive economy ever with record low
unemployment for african-americans.
OK now i'm going to ignore COVID
because it's basically screwed up
Trump's whole record. There are now
fewer black employed americans than
there were when he took over, so
everything I'm about to say
only goes up to February this year OK?
Right, Trump in his first three years and
one month
oversaw 1.3 million jobs being created
for black people that is a
7.1% increase. Great, but in Obama's second term in the equivalent
period he oversaw 1.75
million jobs being created for black
people which is a 10.9% increase.
Now I say second term because the
beginning of Obama's first term was all recession. I'm being fair to
Obama like I am being to Trump, but if you think I'm
cherry picking, why don't we look at Obama's final
three years and one month directly
before
Trump. That is 2.1 million new jobs for
black people
or a 13% increase. Much better than Trump did
straight after. In terms of reducing
unemployment Trump saw 278,000
black people come off the unemployment rolls a reduction of 1.7
points on the black unemployment rate
compared to a much better result under
Obama, between a four and five point reduction
in the black unemployment rate in his
second term.
While we're at it let's compare to Bill
Clinton as well.
Either of his terms. Both terms under Clinton had the same number
of jobs being created for black people
as Trump had, but with
a much smaller population. So that was
actually a 10%
increase - better than Trump, and he also
saw more black people coming off the
unemployment rolls as well, even though he had a smaller
population. In other words, even if we ignore the
fact that presidents don't create
jobs and we ignore what COVID's done to
Trump's record, he still has not done as much for black
employment than either of his two
preceding democratic presidents
but this is still not a bad record.
Until COVID.
Equally it's true that opportunity zones are, at best, a work in progress, funding for HBCUs and
criminal justice reform were both
spearheaded by congress
rather than the administration, but if
you run all this
back through the translating machine
Not bad.
It's not exactly LBJ's civil rights reforms,
but it's OK. Is it enough to vote for?
We'll see.
Big beautiful wall!
Finally this week an update on the
coronavirus pandemic and
some good news! It looks like the virus
is not as deadly as the mainstream media
first made it out to be!
And that comes from an impeccable source, the twitter account of businessman
Herman Cain who, I kid you not, died after being
hospitalised with coronavirus
in June, nine days after he attended a
Trump rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma and Chaz it's not just
Herman Cain's Cane Gang that is putting
this idea about this week. President
Trump has been retweeting the same claim that
only six percent of deaths attributed to
COVID are actually COVID deaths,
and he's not just taking dead Herman
Cain's word for it either. It's a Twitter
account called @littlemel
who also promotes QAnon conspiracy
theories and takes a particular interest
in not just Trump but Ukraine
and German politics, exactly like a
Russian bot might do. Trump's retweet of @littlemel has been
taken down for a breach of rules by Twitter.
Yeah, look it's related to this article here
John
"Shock report: this week CDC
quietly updated their COVID-19 numbers"
and here's a screen cap from the CDC
it's based on
for six percent of deaths COVID-19 was
the only cause mentioned
on the death certificate. So that's the
big conspiracy.
94 percent of deaths have co-morbidities
like diabetes or asthma
which we already knew and by the way
it's not some new
quiet revelation from the CDC. This was
their webpage
on May the 30th. It was there then but I
think this story does
sum up this era well John, because that
website
Gateway Pundit, it's run by a guy called
Jim Hoft and if you google the phrase
"dumbest man on the internet" you'll find
seven of the top 10 results are about
him and he's now a genuine information
source for the President of the United
States.
A toast!
Out of context: at the conventions
It's senior wars as Joe Biden fails the maths test Trump set for him.
too much anger too much fear too much division
while Trump has his own senior moment
What's the name of that building?
and tries to cover for it unconvincingly
Many things have a different name now.
Meanwhile Kamala let's slip that she doesn't know
how to spell the word virus
This virus it has no "i"s.
and reveals her fervent hope to one day join the circus
... and there's another woman
whose name isn't known, whose story
isn't shared, another woman
whose shoulders I stand on.
While Trump unveils his plan to keep Kamala away from the White House.
America will land the first woman on the moon.
That was Out of Context: at the conventions.
And that's it for another trip to Planet
America. We'll see you back here at the
same time next week. And you can join us
for a fireside chat on ABC News on
Friday night. our guest will be the BBC's 
man in America Nick Bryant. Good night.
you
