OK, let's get into audience questions for
the week, starting with what do you think
would be Trump's most likely October surprises
to try to win the election?
So before we get into this, there's a concern
there is the idea is common that October surprises
don't really work.
I'm not so sure about that.
If you look at James Combs decision to do
a second Hillary Clinton press briefing at
the very tail end of the 2016 election, I
mean, there were so many factors that affected
that election, but it's hard to say that that
had no impact.
When you look at George W. Bush's bin Laden
speech and announcements of right before the
2004 election in which he was narrowly reelected,
arguably with a small victory in the state
of Ohio, although there were some allegations
of foul play there in Ohio, I don't know that
we can write off an October surprise.
Now, that being said, when more people vote
by mail early, it does diminish the possible
impact of an October surprise, changing the
outcome of any state, for example, or of the
total election because there are fewer people
left to vote.
Right.
The more a 50 percent vote before October
15 and it's not going to happen.
But imagine then what happens between October
15 and the election can only possibly impact
half of the electorate and instead of the
entire thing.
Now, all of that being put aside, I still
think that an announcement about a vaccine
from Donald Trump sometime in October is going
to be the the move, so to speak.
And I've already said if indeed a vaccine
is approved in October and let's not you know,
there are people who write to me and they
say if if there is a vaccine approved in October,
I would be worried.
It's not really safe.
That's not really my concern.
I don't think Trump is going to announce a
vaccine that's not actually been approved.
I think Trump's going to try to take credit
for that vaccine announcement when it will
have nothing whatever to do with him.
It could be a vaccine developed in the UK,
for example, the Oxford bat vaccine, which
is being discussed.
It could be a vaccine that has been around
or in development for some time for poultry
coronavirus, which has now been modified,
which could be the one that doesn't seem like
it.
But the point is, none of it would have anything
to do with Donald Trump.
And yet.
He will announce it as if it is his accomplishment.
And I fear I used the term Monday.
Some people liked it.
I fear that because of the portion of the
audience that's intellectually compromised,
I fear it could actually swing a little bit
of the vote.
So that's my top.
If you say, what would you bet on if you had
to bet on what the October surprise would
be, it would be Trump trying to take credit
for a vaccine or some kind of really effective
treatment, for example, if one is found.
Beyond that, you know, there's the the old
faithful ideas of some kind of conflict.
This is kind of chaos.
PR usually it's a foreign conflict that's
used to justify reelecting the president.
We have not changing horses midstream with
Trump.
He seems to think that it's generating chaos
within American cities.
That is going to be good for him.
And whether he would scale that up in October,
we don't know whether it actually helps him
is not really clear.
I think it's certainly possible that it activates
some of his key constituents.
But we are going to have to wait on that now.
Again, it could.
I mentioned earlier that there's going to
be more of mail in voting absentee ballots
than there typically are, and that could reduce
the power of a possible October surprise.
The other side of it is that messing with
the voting itself could be the October surprise.
It wouldn't necessarily be done in public,
although hopefully we would figure it out.
The trouble with Trump lying all the time
is that.
No one believes you eventually.
And thus there could be the possibility that
Trump comes up with some new Obama gate or
Trump makes a claim about a virus treatment
or whatever.
And nobody will care because nobody will believe
it, or at least not enough people will miracle
cure.
You know who?
Who knows what it could be.
The real surprise would be him figuring out
a way to secretly mess with the election that
we don't detect.
And the surprise is everybody thinks there's
no surprise when in reality he's finding new
and novel ways to mess with the election.
That's what I'm most scared of.
Followed by just taking credit for a vaccine
and some people actually giving him credit
for it.
