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The Chris Wallace Show

Democratic Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris Goes on Media Blitz After Campaign Appears to Stall; New Revelations about Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump's Ongoing Relationship with Vladimir Putin Released in New Bob Woodward Book; J.D. Vance Continues to Criticize Women for Not Having Children; Donald Trump Criticized for Spreading Disinformation about Government Recovery Efforts in Wake of Hurricanes Helene and Milton; Mega Millions Lottery Increasing Price of Tickets; New Rubber Handbag Fashionable; Artificial Intelligence Pioneers Awarded Nobel Prizes. Aired 10-11a ET.

Aired October 12, 2024 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:00:31]

CHRIS WALLACE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello again, and welcome. It's time to break down the big stories with some smart people.

Today, we're asking, as Kamala Harris goes on a media blitz from late- night TV to podcasts, will it work to change the slowing momentum of her campaign.

Then bothersome bromance, the new details about Donald Trump's relationship with Vladimir Putin even the Kremlin isn't denying.

And the dot, dot, dot today. Why Gen Z is pushing boomers to change their texting habits.

The panel is here and ready to go. So sit back, relax, and let's talk about it.

Up first, with new polls showing the race is tighter than ever and her momentum seeming to slow. Kamala Harris is on a media blitz, responding to months of criticism for not doing interviews by sitting down with everyone from "60 Minutes" to Howard Stern.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN COLBERT, LATE NIGHT TALK SHOW HOST: Would you like to have a beer with me so I can tell people what that's like?

(CHEERING)

WALLACE: Kamala Harris on a media offensive, taking her campaign to a wide range of platforms.

KAMALA HARRIS, (D) VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is an election that is about strength versus weakness. WALLACE: Reaching out to diverse groups of voters, like Latinos in a Univision town hall.

HARRIS: I will bring back that border security bill and I will sign it into law.

WALLACE: And female voters who listened to one of our top podcasts for women.

HARRIS: This is not the 1950s anymore. Families come in all kinds of shapes and forms.

WALLACE: But when facing tough questions, Harris lacked detailed answers.

MATTHEW WHITAKER, FORMER ACTING ATTORNEY GENERAL: Was it a mistake to loosen the immigration policies as much as you did?

HARRIS: It's a long-standing problem.

WALLACE: And when the questions got easier, one answer got her in trouble.

SUNNY HOSTIN, "THE VIEW" CO-HOST: Would you have done something differently than President Biden during the past four years?

HARRIS: There is not a thing that comes to mind.

WALLACE: The Trump team pouched, posting it on social media and playing it at rallies.

HARRIS: There is not a thing that comes to mind.

WALLACE: The Harris blitz coming just as new polls show her narrowly trailing in two of the three blue wall states she almost certainly needs to win.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

WALLACE: Here with me today, podcaster, journalist, and author Kara Swisher, conservative pollster and "New York Times" opinion writer Kristen Soltis Anderson, "New York Times" journalist and "The Interview" podcast host Lulu Garcia-Navarro, and editor of "The Dispatch" and columnist at "The L.A. Times" Jonah Goldberg. Welcome back, everyone.

Kristen, when you look at that poll, those polls, and different ones have different numbers, but in that poll, narrowly trailing in Michigan and Wisconsin, is the Harris campaign stalling?

KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, FOUNDING PARTNER, ECHELON INSIGHTS: I think it is stalling. I think that a lot of the initial enthusiasm that came out of the Democratic convention and her nomination and the unification of the party behind her has begun to wear off and we've moved into the part of the campaign where it's no longer about exciting your side, unifying your party. Folks who are really engaged in politics have already decided. So I think on paper her media blitz this week, deciding to go out and reach all of these voters who are maybe less connected to politics seems smart on paper. But I think the execution really left something lacking. I'm not sure that she out in these engagements did what she would have needed to do to really excited and enthused people who may not have already liked her.

WALLACE: All right, we're going to get to the media blitz in a moment, but let's talk about the state of the campaign, because the Harris campaign is clearly worried about her standing with young black man, and they're sending Barack Obama out these final three plus weeks to try to reach them. Here he is in Pittsburgh.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: You're coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses. I'm speaking to men directly. Part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren't feeling the idea of having a woman as president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Lulu, Harris is leading among black men and Latino men, but not nearly by the same margins that Biden enjoyed in 2020.

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, "NEW YORK TIMES" JOURNALIST AND PODCAST HOST: That is dad Obama right there. It's him sort of adopting that tone of scolding and saying, hey, men, why aren't you actually backing women? I don't know that that was the best tactic, I'll be honest with you. It's not -- it's not really persuading people.

[10:05:00]

At the end of the day, she has a problem with men. There is a huge gender gap, though, in this election. This is as it's been dubbed, the gender election. And I think if I were Kamala Harris, I'd rather have women than men. The kinds of men that Donald Trump has are irregular voters. They're low propensity voters. The kinds of people that come Harris has are enthusiastic voters, black women, suburban women. These are the older women. These are the people that turn out. And so in this kind of divided election among gender lines, I think you'd rather have one than the other.

WALLACE: Wait, but let me just ask Kristen. Do you agree with that, or do you --

ANDERSON: I think that Donald Trump has a lot of men who are pretty regular voters, too. I mean, he does very well amongst, say, senior citizen men who are a known group that turns out to vote and high numbers. But it is also true that Donald Trump is not doing as well among, say, senior citizen women. So I do think that Donald Trump has brought a lot of people into the process who in past elections might not have voted, and they certainly don't turn out midterms. They only turn out for him. I think the gender gap is going to be high. And what's ironic is the gender gap will be high at the same time that I think the racial and age gaps in this election might actually be smaller. WALLACE: Kara?

KARA SWISHER, PODCAST HOST, "PIVOT" AND "ON": Interesting. Well, I think she's got to keep doing it. I think not enough repetition is everyone does know Donald Trump, and he fills up every space that he can, whether it's with toxic stuff or loud or meandering. It doesn't really matter. He just fills up all this space. And so she has to do more and more. I think that she's going on Charlamagne tha God is critically important. That was a great -- that's a great booking for her. And he has a base of real fans. I think she should go on Joe Rogan. I think she should go on FOX News. I think she should go to every local station and just make herself so inevitable where she makes mistakes, and it's OK to make mistakes. But the fewer she does, the more mistakes seem glaring.

WALLACE: Jonah, Jonah, I want to bring you in and talk about whether those media blitz this past week has helped or hurt. For instance, Harris went on "60 Minutes," Trump ducked it. But when she was asked tough questions by Bill Whitaker, the sense I got, and we played a clip here, was that Harris basically gave boilerplate.

JONAH GOLDBERG, "THE DISPATCH": Yes, that's the mystery to me here. We've all talked about plenty of times how, smartly if cynically, she's shed a lot of her 2020 positions to reach to the center. She picked Tim Walz as a maybe a mistake and played to reach to the center. She has abandoned some of the positions in all sorts of ways. If you have that level of mercenary commitment to winning the presidency, memorize some answers. Like the idea that she doesn't have a boilerplate, thoughtful answer about what she would do differently than Joe Biden -- and I can think of a dozen different ways she could answer it which wouldn't be insulting to Joe Biden, it's just weird to me to look like she hasn't really given any thought or nothing comes to mind.

SWISHER: She didn't expect it there. That's why.

GOLDBERG: But she should expect it. If she's going on a media blitz, she should just have it like memorized. She was so prepared for that debate.

SWISHER: Yes.

GOLDBERG: She should be equally prepared for a bunch of interviews. And there are 20 likely questions that she's going to get asked. She may only get 10 in one interview versus another, but she knows where they aren't. And she's good enough of a politician to --

WALLACE: Let me just -- I want to dig down on this exchange because it really was stunning. And the Trump campaign has turned it into an ad.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The chaotic and deadly U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan stunned Americans and the world and cost the lives of 13 U.S. soldiers. SUNNY HOSTIN, "THE VIEW" CO-HOST: Would you have done something

differently?

KAMALA HARRIS, (D) VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There is not a thing that comes to mind.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: More than 13,000 illegal immigrants convicted of murder.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Kristen, I agree with Jonah. I am shocked she didn't have a better to answer to what, whatever the venue, was a pretty predictable question. Should Harris distance herself from Joe Biden?

ANDERSON: I think she needs to be the candidate who is going to be change and something fresh and new. And she has signaled that she wants to be that person. And the fact that her answer was not polished on this question is mind-boggling to me, because it would have been easy for her to answer. As you both noted, she could have easily said, look, Joe Biden picked to me. I don't feel like trashing him again. Too much negativity in politics. But I will tell you, I've proposed a number of things that are new, that are different, that are things we haven't done in the last four years but I would do differently in the next four years.

SWISHER: She's cautious by nature.

ATTIAH: It's easy enough to say that.

SWISHER: The problem is she's cautious by nature in general, people who have known her for a long time. And when she does step out, people really like it. She's very likable at the same time. And so people like when she does it. But typically, she's probably thinking, maybe I got this. I don't want to risk it. And Trump, on the other hand, was maybe I got this. Let's see what terrible thing I can do to mess it up, kind of thing.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: The other thing I will say is it's one of the absolute canons of any press tour that you think about how you're going to make news. You think about what you're going to say that is going to pull the cameras in your way, pull the news cycle in your way. And I don't understand why she's not doing more of that. You see this over and over again. Donald Trump is continuing to dominate the airwaves, to dominate the conversation in a way that she is not.

[10:10:7]

WALLACE: But Lulu, I mean, on a more practical level, the country is not happy with where things stand. Right track, wrong track, by a wide margin, people think the country is on the wrong track. Wouldn't she have found something without trashing Joe Biden to set herself apart and say she's different, and here's our life will be different and better under her?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Can I just say, this narrative is a little bit disingenuous to me, because the fact is that I understand that people are upset. But we're coming off of a pandemic. We're coming off of a very difficult time. But 179 countries had inflation. America is now actually improving quite a bit. We are seeing the economy really being fueled. And that is why we're seeing Donald Trump really going into immigration now, because the economic argument isn't an argument that he is --

WALLACE: He's leading by 10 points on the economic argument, which is the top issue. And whether it's legitimate or not --

GARCIA-NAVARRO: It was a lot more before. That gap has narrowed. And the point is that she cannot start trashing Joe Biden.

WALLACE: I don't think she has to trash him. She just asked to make people feel life will be better under President Harris.

Donald Trump spent part of his week on defense, denying new reporting about secret calls with Vladimir Putin after he left office. And that's just part of the story.

Then storm of lies. Why do Trump and other Republicans continued to mislead voters about hurricane relief?

And later, power of the purse -- we'll show you the rubber handbag that's becoming a multimillion dollar success story.

So is it in your closet?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:16:35]

WALLACE: Stunning revelations this week about Donald Trump's relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In Bob Woodward's new book, "War," he reports Trump stayed in touch with Putin after leaving office. According to a Trump aide, Trump has called the Russian leader maybe as many as seven times. And at the height of the pandemic, Woodward reports Trump secretly sent Putin a bunch of Abbott point of care COVID test machines for his personal use, which the Kremlin confirms. Trump flatly denies Woodward's reporting.

This comes on the heels of a Trump interview with conservative host Hugh Hewitt that was laced with lies.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: How about allowing people to come to an open border, 13,000 of which were murderers, many of them murdered far more than one person. And they're now happily living in the United States. Now a murderer, I believe this, it's in their genes. And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: A CNN factcheck found at least 11 false claims in that interview, most about foreign policy. For instance, those 13,000 murderers entering the U.S. didn't happen just under Joe Biden. That number covers administrations including Trump's over the past 40 plus years.

Lulu, is Trump's, we'll start with this, post-presidential relationship with Vladimir Putin worrisome?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And also, those, that number of 13,000, many of them are in prison. They're just not in DHS custody.

Yes. I mean, I think, first of all, this is a recurring theme of Trump's sort of political existence, this relationship that he has with Russia. Over and over and over again we hear more and more disturbing stories about his connection to Vladimir Putin. This is not just a golfing buddy. This is a man who has invaded a sovereign country, who is actually an enemy of the United States, who Donald Trump is having this relationship with. While a sitting president is actually sending weapons to fight Russia, while a sitting president is actually making sure that they're sanctions. So, I think this undermines the policy of the United States.

WALLACE: We should note, Trump was holding on to top secret documents when he reportedly talked with Putin. And remember back in 2019, Trump accused former Secretary of State John Kerry of violating the Logan Act for talking with Iran as a private citizen. Jonah, does it bother you that Trump was reportedly talking to Putin in private while he was publicly taking Russia's side against Ukraine.

GOLDBERG: Yes. It worries me less about the man-crush that he has on Putin, per say, though I agree he's got a troubling man crush Putin, than more with the fact that he just simply likes dictators. He talks about strongmen, men of will. He talks about Xi. He talks about Kim Jong-un in ways that do not reflect a sober appreciation of the American political tradition, I think is a nice diplomatic way of saying it. And --

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Do you believe he's anti-democratic? Because the thing that keeps on coming up over and over again, not only with January 6th, but beyond that, when he has these man-crushes, as you put it with these dictators is that the reason that he is so enamored of them is because he'd like to be like them.

[10:20:10]

I mean, that is something that has come out in the political commentary.

GOLDBERG: I think like all populists demagogues, he loves democracy when it gets his back, and he doesn't care about it when it doesn't, right. And he likes the idea that he's hugely popular. That's why he keeps thanking, saying he won California and things like that. I just think it gets to his state of mind as a potential commander-in-chief.

WALLACE: Then there was Trump's interview with Hugh Hewitt, where CNN factchecker Daniel Dale says he told, Trump told, repeated lies about foreign affairs. In the middle of a campaign, Kristen, do Trump's falsehoods about foreign affairs, about the world stage, matter? ANDERSON: I think it depends on the scale of what we're talking about

here. So I went through and I read this Daniel Dale fact check, and some of them were just egregious, right. Things that Donald Trump said that have no connection to reality. And others things were things like Donald Trump wildly inflates the numbers of billions of dollars of equipment we left behind in Afghanistan. Trump got the number very wrong, but we did leave $7 billion worth of stuff in Afghanistan. Or things like he'll say, oh, I got rid of ISIS in a week. Well, he didn't get rid of ISIS in a week. But when he was president, they did get rid of ISIS. So I think that's the issue, is that the a lot of times people will scold Donald Trump and very justifiably for saying things that are wrong. But underlying it is a level -- is a true principle in some cases that voters think, yes, we did screw up in Afghanistan.

WALLACE: So Kara, let me press on this. At this point, are Trump's falsehoods basically priced into how people --

SWISHER: Absolutely.

WALLACE: So does he pay any price for just blatantly misleading people?

WALLACE: No, no. And I was talking about this with my wife today, the word "baked in" is always -- everything is baked in with him, but not with Kamala Harris, which I think is really interesting. We're used to his lying, which says more about us than it says about him. He has done this his whole life.

I just interviewed Susanne Craig. He's been lying about his taxes, about everything he does. I think more troubling is this continued discussion about genes and things like that. And, you know, people tend to compare it to Hitler. Many of our presidents have done that, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, they had these points of view.

GOLDBERG: Woodrow Wilson.

SWISHER: Woodrow Wilson, of course. But they're all dead and in another era. To have a modern president continuing to use the genes argument is disturbing to me.

WALLACE: All right, now we're going to break some news because, Lulu, you conducted an interview this week with Trump's running mate, J.D. Vance, that's going to run this weekend at "The New York Times." What's the headline?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: We talked about many things, but the thing that I want to focus on is his comments about women, because of course, as we've talked, this as a gender election. And you'll be unsurprised to hear that J.D. Vance doubled down on some provocative thoughts about women who don't have children. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GARCIA-NAVARRO: So women who don't have children because they're worried about climate change, that's sociopathic? SEN. J.D. VANCE, (R) VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think that is a

bizarre way of thinking about the future, not to have kids because of concerns over climate change. I think the more bizarre thing is our leadership who encourages young women, and frankly, young men, to think about it that way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: I have to say, I mean, he's doubled down on bashing women, and now he is also going after the people who are concerned about climate change.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yes. He managed to unify those two groups, climate change people and women who might not want to have children into a package. This is something he clearly believes. I pressed him on this because his favorables with women are very low. His favorables generally are quite low. And he really doubled down on this idea that it is important for women in this country to be parents, to have children. He considers it, I think, a moral duty. And we talked about many other things, including immigration. It's a very robust discussion.

WALLACE: Jonah, what do you make of J.D. Vance and his comments here and his effect on the GOP ticket?

GOLDBERG: Well, since I'm in the Reihan Salam chair, I will get his back a little bit on this. I agree with him that, whether you're a man or a woman, the idea of not having kids because of climate change is silly and weird and bizarre. And I think it's a -- it's not a very compelling reason. And it's actually not the reason why most people aren't having kids anywhere in the world. That's just a made-up thing.

That said, it is also bizarre for the vice president who has got a gender gap problem to be second guessing why any women don't want to have kids one way or the other. It's just a weird reinforce that narrative. It just strikes me as tone-deaf.

SWISHER: Creepy is the word we like to use.

WALLACE: Or weird.

People in Florida not only dealt with a deadly hurricane, they also saw an onslaught of misinformation. Is there any way to stop it?

Then, it's not what you say, but how you say it.

[10:25:00]

The so-called boomer trend in texting that's got Gen Z all upset.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: Cleanup crews are working around the clock to help hundreds of thousands of people across several states deal with the devastation from hurricanes Milton and Helene. But for the federal agency in charge of disaster response, that work has been complicated by a barrage of misinformation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[10:30:08]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We really have just got to stop this rhetoric.

WALLACE: FEMA's director issuing a warning against lies spread about the agency, many of them amplified by former President Trump.

DONALD TRUMP, (R) U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: They have no funds, they have no workers.

You know where they gave the money? To illegal immigrants coming in, many of whom are killers.

WALLACE: That false claim made just hours before hurricane Milton slammed into Florida, posing a direct threat to those impacted by the storm.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I worry that they won't register for assistance with us and get access to the critical resources that they are eligible for.

WALLACE: Then there's this lie about aid for storm victims from Trump's running mate.

SEN. J.D. VANCE, (R) VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The Harris administration has given billions of dollars to foreign countries. Now, they swoop in and they promised $750 to American citizens who have lost everything.

WALLACE: As these made-up claims tend to do, it went viral.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And $750 won't even cover two nights at this hotel.

WALLACE: In fact, that $750, is just an initial payment to deal with immediate expenses before offering long-term relief. Now, the White House is pushing back, joining Reddit and launching websites to counter the misinformation.

KAMALA HARRIS, (D) VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We all know it's dangerous, and the gamesmanship has to stop.

WALLACE: President Biden sending a direct message to his predecessor.

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Former President Trump, get a life, man. Help these people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Jonah is it, and I use this word advisedly, dangerous for Trump and Vance to keep bashing FEMA and its response?

GOLDBERG: Of course it is. I mean, they're talking about death threats to FEMA operatives, and it's at a time when we have people incredibly vulnerable and when actually Americans and local officials, including lots of Republicans who say this is all bogus stuff, are working around the clock to save lives and help people, it's appalling.

And look, I think the way the media and lots of people talked about hurricane Katrina under George Bush was outrageous, but a lot of that was just sort of groupthink stuff where people got carried away. This is people will deliberately lying for political gain, and it's indefensible.

WALLACE: These lies have real consequences for real people. Some hurricane victims are not seeking assistance. And check out this headline. After claims that government controls the weather, meteorologists get death threats as hurricane conspiracy theories thrive. Lulu, what's the impact when victims don't trust the government workers who are trying to help them?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: The impact is that they're in an even worse position than they were already. As Jonah said, these are people who are vulnerable. They've often lost everything. And if they can't trust the people who are trying to help them, then they're in an even worse position than before. This is really serious misinformation that is being spread from the highest levels of the political operation here.

SWISHER: It's disinformation. It's not misinformation.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yes, it's disinformation, you're right.

WALLACE: Kara, is the White House, we talked about there on Reddit and they're setting up various websites, is the White House doing enough to counter this, to use your word, disinformation?

SWISHER: Well, they shouldn't have to. That's the thing. They're wasting precious time dealing with lies that --

WALLACE: Are they doing enough?

SWISHER: Well, they're trying their best, but it's very hard to push back on disinformation, especially when people are caught up in conspiracy theories. And even though everyone laughs at Marjorie Taylor Greene's they control the weather, it's sort of like the Jewish space lasers kind of thing, it's very hard to push back on these lies because they spread and people don't have as much information. And then you have a platform like X, which is allowing it to run rampant because he's trying --

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And the big problem -- just, I'm sorry. The big problem briefly is when politicians do it. We have seen study after study that shows that when political leaders lie, that spreads much more quickly and it's believed much more quickly.

WALLACE: Kristen, how effective can the White House be in trying to counter this disinformation when Trump and other Republican officials are saying, you can't trust the White House? ANDERSON: I mean, good for them for trying, but I think if you are

the kind of person who is following one of these conspiracy theorists on social media and is buying this, Joe Biden is not the messenger who is going to persuade you that actually FEMA is here to help.

And so what I have been very glad to see is a lot of Republican governors of these states, Republican state legislators, local officials saying, hey, Mr. Trump, this has to stop. It's going to have to come from with inside the movement in order --

SWISHER: It shouldn't have to happen at all. That's really the thing. It's a waste of time at a critical moment.

WALLACE: The Harris campaign is running an ad hitting Trump for his response to these disasters back when he was president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I remember one time after a wildfire in California, he wouldn't send relief because it was a Democratic state.

[10:35:01]

So we went as far as looking up how many votes he got in those impacted areas to show him, these are people who voted for you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: But Lulu, I mean, to kind of continue the conversation from the last segment, is there any price anymore in politics for lying? Is Trump going to be hurt politically in this campaign for the fact that he is spreading this disinformation about the government response to these hurricanes?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: We'll see you in November, but my gut instinct is no. I think at this point, unfortunately, in this country, lying has become political currency.

GOLDBERG: I do think there's one point worth making. We talked before about the low-propensity and irregular voters. Trump is not trying to get -- win over a lot of persuadables. He's trying to convince people who have already decided they like him over Harris to vote at all, right. The choice for them is to stay home or vote for Trump. And turning up the gain on this crazy stuff makes it more likely that those people, and there are a lot more of them than persuadable people in the middle, will actually turn out on Election Day.

WALLACE: And to ask the question I asked Lulu, do you think he pays any price? I mean, the degree -- I mean, yes, I understand there are different echo chambers, and we all get our news from different sources. But to the degree that the word gets out there when he talks about $750, that is not the total aid, when he talks about FEMA's response, he's misrepresenting it, does he pay any price?

GOLDBERG: I kind of agree with Lulu. The only way we'll know is after Election Day to see if the people who were outraged by it outnumber that people who were activated by it.

WALLACE: As our public opinion expert, why doesn't it have an impact? Why is it that people are going to take this information out on some level, whether they believe or not, be told it's not true about something really -- we're not, again, we're not talking about some abstract. We're talking about whether the government is really here to help you, as the line goes.

ANDERSON: So I'm actually disagreeing with Lulu and Jonah a little bit on this. And I'm someone who sat in the seat for month after month after month, and every time Donald Trump does something that's out there, I'm usually the one that's saying no, I don't really think it's going to matter. The reason why this could be different is that disaster relief isn't the kind of thing that can break through to the kind of person that doesn't pay attention to any other political news. They're not watching rallies or any of that. And so if something was going to actually cause him to pay a price, maybe this would be it.

WALLACE: You know what's not a lie? Your chance to become an instant millionaire just got more expensive. We'll explain.

Plus, tote trend, the not so fancy handbag you can wash in the sink that's now all the rage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:42:25]

WALLACE: Once again, it's time to get our group's yea or nay on some big talkers. Up first, the chance to get rich quick is going to cost you more. That's because the popular multi-state lottery, Mega Millions, is raising its ticket price more than double from two bucks to five. Lottery officials say the hike starts next April, and it'll come with a quote, new and improved game, which they say has bigger jackpots and better odds of winning, although they won't describe how. Kristen, are you yea or nay on paying more for a Mega Millions ticket?

ANDERSON: I am a nay. I am a professional who works in the world of statistics. I cannot in good conscience say yay to playing the lottery. And I say this as somebody who, look, if we all went to Vegas tomorrow, would I put $20 in a slot machine, knowing I was going to lose it? I get the idea of doing it for entertainment, but I think lotteries can at times really affect people who are lower-income. They don't have the money to spend. It can be damaging. Statistically, I can't accept it.

WALLACE: And the price, $2 or $5, it's still a bad bet?

ANDERSON: It's even worse.

WALLACE: Kara, forgive me, but you're not as statistics minded --

SWISHER: I buy them all the time. I love it.

(LAUGHTER)

WALLACE: I rest my case.

SWISHER: It's entertainment to me. And I agree, it does affect other people. But I don't know. It seems relatively harmless. I know, and when I when my Mega Millions, you cannot come on my yacht now.

ANDERSON: There's no judgment.

WALLACE: I've got to say, every time I bet on one of these things, I get one of them, I absolutely believe I am going to win $1 million. I mean, I discuss it with wife. Where is that money going?

SWISHER: We do it the same. We always have a little thing where we all dream about what we'll do with our millions.

WALLACE: We're idiots.

Next, the big bright boxy tote that started a new fashion trend. We're talking about the so-called Bogg Bag, which has become a hot item because of its size and durability. The rubber purse made of a similar material to Crocs shoes, is lightweight and can be cleaned in the sink. Critics, I don't know why, say it lacks style, but that's not slowing sales which have jumped from three $3.6 million in 2019 to a projected $100 million this year. And if you're wondering, prices ranged from $70 to $90. Lulu, as our fashionista, are you buying a Boggs Bag?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: No. It's too expensive. They're ugly, and I don't like them there.

SWISHER: There you have it.

WALLACE: Kristen.

(LAUGHTER)

WALLACE: One of the one of the things that I love about this bag is that you can buy it everywhere. Literally, you can buy it everywhere from Bloomingdales to Bass Pro Shops. You can't hate something like that. Where are you on the Bogg Bag?

[10:45:04]

ANDERSON: So I was really expecting to hate it based on the description. I'm not really a Crocs person, although Kara has converted me a little bit for sure. The price tag is a little bit much for what it is. But as someone who currently has like three broken crayons at a couple of crushed cheerios in my relatively nice work tote right now, maybe I actually should just get one of these.

WALLACE: Finally, the texting debate dividing generations. A new report this week calls on boomers to stop using ellipses in their texts. You know, the dot, dot, dot between thoughts. Gen Z-ers say the three periods or passive aggressive, and we should all hit enter and start a new line for every thought and every sentence. Boomers say ellipses make perfect sense, and here's why according to an etymologist on TikTok. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The same with early SMS texting, you were charged by the message. So it was simply more efficient to separate ideas within a single text. And boomers got used to that. However, with the rise of unlimited texting it became even more efficient to separate different thoughts with different messages, so that became the new grammatical standard online.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Which is why I don't watch TikTok. Jonah, are you yea or nay on using ellipses?

GOLDBERG: I love ellipses. I use them all the time. I think these Gen Z snowflakes need to get over themselves just because they feel triggered about something. In fact, when I see a text about to come, my phone generates three little dots, which is the exact symbol that they were freaking out about. Get over yourselves.

WALLACE: Kara, as our online expert, new lines or ellipses?

SWISHER: I don't use punctuation at all.

(LAUGHTER)

WALLACE: Actually, I received your texts, nothing.

SWISHER: It's type, type, type. That's it. That's it. I don't care.

WALLACE: The answer is, you're all wrong. Dash, dash, that is the way to do it.

The panel is back with their takes on hot stories or what will be in the news before it's news. That's right after this break.

You don't use any punctuation. It's just barely literate.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:51:40]

WALLACE: It's time for our panel's special takes on what's happening or predictions of what we should be looking out for. Kara, hit me with your best shot.

SWISHER: So we talk a lot about A.I., and this week A.I. got a lot of Nobel Prizes. Two major figures in A.I., one is Demis Hassabis, I want to pronounce his name correct, from Deep Mind and Geoffrey Hinton, who worked for a number of companies but is considered the father, the godfather of A.I. Both have very different visions of the future. Hinton is very frightened of what's coming and Hassabis is leaning into the positivity. So really interesting that A.I. really scored this this year in the Nobel Prizes.

WALLACE: Kristen, you're focused on a way that the Harris campaign, we talked about their media blitz, tried to reach out to video gamers this week?

ANDERSON: Yes. So in addition to Harris going on podcasts and on and so forth, Tim Walz, I saw he was going to be on a World of Warcraft Twitch stream. And I was very excited about this. I've been playing World for Warcraft for 10 years. I thought, what's his class? Is he a mage? Is he a paladin?

It turns out he was not actually playing World of Warcraft, but a Twitch streamer was livestreaming the rally and providing commentary. It makes me think on election night, if not on this network, maybe I'll be at home playing World of Warcraft and yammering about the election. It could be fun.

WALLACE: Whatever this game is, you play it?

SWISHER: Whatever this game is. Oh, no. Oh, no, Chris.

(LAUGHTER)

WALLACE: I never heard of it.

SWISHER: Oh, no.

WALLACE: Lulu, you have some cleaning up to do for your best shot about Mexico's new president from last week. Let's take a look at what you said last week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GARCIA-NAVARRO: We have the first female president in North America, and it ain't in Canada and it ain't here yet, but it is in Mexico. Mexico has actually beaten us all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: So what's the problem?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Well, Canadians I am here to apologize to you. I'm very sorry that I did not realize that in 1993 for five months, Kim Campbell was prime minister of your country. And indeed, Canada has beaten us all. I should have known that, ay, but I didn't, and I'm sorry. And you let me know in sometimes not very kind ways online. And for that, I will now say that you are not actually as nice as people say you.

WALLACE: I was going to say, quickly, what's the meanest tweet you got?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: You're such an American you always think that you're first.

WALLACE: OK.

GOLDBERG: Well, I'll defend Lulu here. You said president, they had a prime minister. Those are different things.

WALLACE: Jonah, bring us home.

GOLDBERG: So anyway, Tim Walz floated the idea and then immediately pulled it back that we should get rid of the Electoral College. This is this time-honored thing on the left to say that it's undemocratic and it's terrible. I disagree with them on that. I think it's good. But if you actually want to fix the problems that they think it generates with being undemocratic, which will come back roaring if Donald Trump wins the Electoral College and not popular vote, is you can expand the House of Representatives so that you have a better Democratic distribution of electoral votes. Or you could just go the way that Maine and Nebraska do it, where they divide up their electoral votes based on congressional district. There are lots of remedies to fix the problem without doing the insanely hard thing of amending the Constitution.

WALLACE: And is any of that going to happen?

GOLDBERG: You could do the stuff I'm recommending by legislation. Congress could just pass a law to expand the Congress tomorrow.

WALLACE: Before we go, my new book, yes, here it is, "Countdown 1960, The Behind the Scenes Story of the 312 Days that Changed Americas Politics Forever" hit the shelves this week.

[10:55:10]

It's the inside account of the fascinating race between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon, featuring the mob and mistresses, which shares more than you might think with this current campaign. The 1960 election may really have been stolen, and the loser had to decide whether to contest the peaceful transfer of power. You can buy it online or find it in your bookstores right now.

SWISHER: And who did you talk to this week about it?

WALLACE: You.

SWISHER: That's correct.

WALLACE: That's correct.

SWISHER: It was a very spicy discussion.

WALLACE: Thank you all for being here. I'm signing books right after the show. Thank you for spending part of your day with us, and we'll see you right back here next week.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)