Return to Transcripts main page

Smerconish

More Than 20 Million Mail-In Ballots Cast; Israel Strikes Iran In Retaliation For Oct. 1 Attack; Trump Goes On Rogan, As Harris Rallies With Beyonce. Trump Goes On Rogan, As Harris Rallies With Beyonce; The Washington Post Will No Longer Endorse Presidential Candidates. Aired 9-10a

Aired October 26, 2024 - 09:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:00:19]

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN ANCHOR: Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. I'm Michael Smerconish in Philadelphia.

The Postmaster General will join me in just a moment, because we are 10 days away and the U.S. mail is where the action is. More than 34 million early votes have already been cast nationwide. More than 20 million of those votes were sent by U.S. mail. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found roughly one in five Americans plan to use a mail-in ballot. The battleground state of Georgia, seeing record breaking turnout in early voting.

Within that number, more than 150,000 mail ballots have been received. In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which may determine the outcome of the presidential race, they've accepted more than 1.2 million mail- in ballots. With the race so close in Pennsylvania, both parties, both sides, preparing to grind it out in court over every last vote. Republicans said on Friday they plan on appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court a decision from Pennsylvania's highest state court that allows voters to cast a provisional ballot if their mail ballots were tossed out because they were improperly sealed or mislabeled. It's unclear how many ballots the dispute could affect as not every county notifies voters ahead of Election Day that their mail ballots have been disqualified.

Six out of the seven battleground states will accept mail ballots if they're received on or before Election Day. Nevada will also accept mail ballots up to four days after the election if they're postmarked on or before November 5. Similar to 2020, we may not know the projected winner on election night. Poll workers in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania barred from opening and processing mail-in ballots until Election Day. That could cause delay. With only 10 days to go, you can count former President Barack Obama as among the 19 million Americans and counting who have voted early.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, 44TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Hey, everybody. I am back in my hometown of Chicago, and I just filled out my ballot to vote. And it's time for me to go drop it off in the mail. So, filled out my ballot. I'm now putting it in this trusty mailbox, but I got to make sure that it goes in there.

It is now successfully in the mailbox. I trust the U.S. Postal Service to get this done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMERCONISH: Last month, nearly three dozen top election officials nationwide raised their concerns with the U.S. Postal Service about timely delivery of election materials. Good opportunity to check in with the United States Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy.

Mr. Postmaster General, thank you for being here. Big picture it for me, what does your performance dashboard say about the 2024 election mail as of now?

LOUIS DEJOY, U.S. POSTMASTER GENERAL: Well, Michael, thank you for having me. Just in general, first off, it's an exciting time to be at the United States Postal Service and work. All the employees working at the United States Postal Service as we undergo a major transformation for the future.

Nothing's more important right now than this year's election. We have so far received about 64 million ballots in, you know, tender to us, and we're in process of coming back from the voters. We are very much dialed down on processes across 31,000 facilities. We have a good communication system between ourselves, our OIG, the election officials, secretaries of state. We're seeing 99 percent on time performance across the nation where we have issues, which are incidental issues throughout, we're on them.

The communication feeds right up through the whole organization, right out to the election officials. And I'm pretty excited about where we are, and we have -- we're coming into the final stretch right now. And as I said when I spoke to you before, we're going to have, you know, good performance, not perfect, but world class performance with regard to our transaction ability.

SMERCONISH: I think that some viewers might be surprised about the precision with which you can track the data. I'm going to put on the screen a part of your testimony before Congress a couple of months ago where you spoke of fiscal year 2024 as it then existed where you were delivering on time at 94.29 percent of the time, with 96.71 percent delivered within a day of our standard on average and this relates to election mail on average, you at the time, it is being delivered in just 1.3 days. How are you able to be so certain? What's the tracking process? Can you give me the short version?

[09:05:09]

DEJOY: Yes. So, mail that we have, you know, IBM -- we have codes. We have bar codes on our system. We have clearance processes throughout the operation. And over the last four years, a lot of new technology has been employed, both by us and by our election officials to follow the ballots, you know, follow the ballots through the system.

We have -- and we -- as we get closer to the election now, we have extraordinary measures that will bring those scores up, that will make this, you know, process faster. But we have an overwhelming amount of tracking and tracing ability from pieces of mail. Imaging, we have images of ballots. When I get a call from an election official or Secretary of State about a problem with a particular mail piece, we're able to go into our data and look and get photographs, images that were taken as it moved through the process of those particular pieces, as long as we can get, you know, get the identity, the time, the date, the location that it in fact, happened. It's pretty amazing.

SMERCONISH: In 2020 in the midst of the pandemic, the Postal Service was really challenged. Here's more of your testimony before Congress. We'll put it up on the screen. You said, "Despite dealing with the considerable disruptions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the postal service delivered at least 135 million ballots to or from voters in the general election. We delivered 99.9 percent of ballots from voters to election officials within seven days, we delivered 97.9 percent of such ballots within three days. Overall, on average, we delivered a ballot to voters in 2.1 days. Most importantly, on average, we delivered ballots from voters to election officials in just 1.6 days. Do you anticipate higher or lower mail traffic in comparison to the pandemic the presidential race of 2020?

DEJOY: Now the presidential race of 2020 I believe we had about 135 million ballots coming through the system. I think we'll be approaching 70 million this year. I want you to know it's about 0.11 percent of our mail. We handle 400 million --

SMERCONISH: That's it?

DEJOY: -- pieces a day.

SMERCONISH: So, let's talk about some specific areas of the nation that are the focal point of this election. My home state of Pennsylvania, you know, Mr. Postmaster General, a lot of the pundits, the experts, the number crunchers, they say Pennsylvania could determine the outcome. Can you speak to me about anything you're seeing in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania that we should know about?

DEJOY: Well, I think you know, I'm seeing up -- I see our performance scores in Pennsylvania, and they're in the height -- they're not approaching that 99 percent. We do have incidents and we have good communication with the election officers. I want -- you know there's eight -- about 8000 election officers around the country, that election boards around the country that had different rules and different procedures and different types of mail pieces. So we're all in -- and different rules for when a vote gets tendered and counted and so on. So we're in great communication with them.

Where we have incidents with, immediately we jump on it, whether it's something that we did, whether it's something with regard to the mail piece, whether it's something regard to the tender. And we're resolving these problems very, very quickly. And they're minor. They're minor issues in the overall scope of what's going on in Pennsylvania.

SMERCONISH: How about in the south? Helene and Milton. Ravaged areas of the South Florida hit hard. Asheville, North Carolina, really wrecked.

DEJOY: Yes.

SMERCONISH: What are you seeing in terms of the aftermath of the storm and how it impacts the delivery of mail information?

DEJOY: Yes. Well, first of all --

SMERCONISH: Election information.

DEJOY: -- both of those are, you know, hurricanes, and my heart goes out to all those people that were affected by it. I will tell you, there is -- we are second to none in our response to disasters. We're the first sign of normalcy that comes into these communities. In hurricane Milton, the day before the hurricane, we had 9.2 million delivery points that were going to potentially be affected. And we knew we have an unbelievable controlled shutdown of all our operations and so -- and people and so forth.

We wake up the next morning we figured out that there was 4.2 million addresses affected. And then each day, we start to whittle this down to right now, there's about 200 delivery points in Florida that are affected, and the way we whittle it down is by actually trying to go to each of these delivery points and see that we can, in fact, get there.

In North Carolina, it's a little bit of a different story. First of all, it's harder to track because of. How it moved through the nation, but we had several million exposed, and it was -- we stayed at a couple 100,000 for over a week. We lost 20 post office. But we're down to about 3,000 delivery points.

[09:10:13]

But we're setting up -- we're going to shelters to help people that are displaced from their homes, redeliver their mail, take their address changes there. We've opened mobile post offices. Our car, our people, their houses are impacted, and our people still go out and try and, you know, serve the American public. It's quite phenomenal.

SMERCONISH: I mentioned the state election officials who, in September, had written a letter, and among other things, I'll put this up on the screen, they raised concerns that they had. They said, "In nearly every state, however, local election officials are receiving timely postmark ballots well after Election Day and well outside the three to five business days USPS claims as the first class delivery standard." Comments made not pertaining to what's going on today in this cycle, but respond to the concerns that were raised, have you -- I guess this is the question, have you addressed all of the concerns that were raised in that communication to you back in September?

DEJOY: Well, first of all, I want -- you know, I recognize, and I believe you do, also the intensity and the stress that are put on election officials throughout, you know, throughout the nation, and we spend a lot of time throughout the year, commute -- you know, communicating with them and trying to make sure that the mail pieces in the process and everybody understands the -- what they're trying to do and how it fits into the mail -- into the mail system. I have spoken to the members of those -- of the leaders of that, those two organizations, and we have spoken to Secretaries of State directly, myself and my team. I have over 150 people communicating with these officers around the country.

Ninty-nine point five percent, 99.6 percent across the whole -- across the whole nation does -- you know, we are not perfect, but we are world class in terms of, you know, this, this whole delivery process. And what we have done is amped up our communication and these are incidents, and everyone can have an incident, and we need to look at what the specifics, we get on the specifics, and we've worked through everyone. I've opened my -- I've allowed myself to, you know, gave out my number for people to call to have an issue, and we've been working these things down. And I think we are -- well, I'm pretty positive about the performance in the service that we're doing.

SMERCONISH: Here's what I'm taking away. This is what I'm taking away. These are not your words. Stuff is going to happen, because stuff always happens, but it's a pretty damn good record thus far of where things stand. Yes or no, is that fair?

DEJOY: Yes, absolutely. Yes. I'm very confident.

SMERCONISH: OK. Let's -- you know the drill here. I get a lot of social media reaction during the course of the program. I'd rather see it before you leave me. Catherine (ph) put up on the screen what some of the reaction is for the Postmaster General.

Would you send money in the mail? OK, that's kind of a ridiculous question. Why are we even asking that? Give me another one, another social media reaction, please. Until Trump's loss in 2020 mail-in ballots have traditionally been secure and reliable.

After his loss and without sufficient evidence to prove fraud, mail-in voting was vilified. Why? Because Democrats most often use it and Republicans don't. It should be easy to vote. You want a piece of that, Mr. Postmaster General?

DEJOY: Well, all I would say is we have -- we conduct a business process that is also a public service. And our operations, we collect and deliver mail. We don't deal with policy. We don't deal in a lot of rhetoric. We try not to incite the public in any other way than to be confident in terms of what we what we do.

And you know the rest of it, what goes on there. We're very much focused on improving our service, and both, you know, in terms of our public service, the American people, which includes other things besides just, you know, election mail, and also growing our revenue, reducing our cost and so on.

SMERCONISH: Final question, is there a common misconception? Is there an urban legend that you hear time and again under this umbrella of election mail that you want to address, something that you came here to say today, that I've not given you the opportunity to say?

DEJOY: Well, I would say -- I would say this, that as I said, you know, they -- we have 640,000 people across 31,000 facilities that work very, very, very, very hard to deliver for the American people throughout the year. Especially when it comes times to disasters, national disasters and election time, our people dive on ballots when they see him and we conduct extraordinary measures in the last days. In this coming week, it is the toughest week for the Postal Service, tougher than even our peak season, because of the exactness that we try and get at every single mail -- every single ballot, trying to get it delivered.

[09:15:24]

Having said -- and we go through that, and we do a good job, irregardless of when it gets tendered, irregardless of the type of mail -- the precision in the mail piece, irregardless of the size, we're going to get to that 99.5 percent something, 99.6 percent, you know, performance level.

SMERCONISH: OK.

DEJOY: At the end of that, just pieces.

SMERCONISH: Ninety-nine point five percent or 99.6. Appreciate your being here and hope that things continue to run smoothly for the next 10 days. Thank you.

DEJOY: Thank you, sir.

SMERCONISH: Up ahead, we're following the breaking news out of Iran after Israel launched a series of retaliatory air strikes. Plus, former President Trump sat down with the popular podcast host Joe Rogan. Will his appeal to young men be enough to win?

And for the first time in decades, "The Washington Post" is choosing to not endorse a presidential candidate. I'll speak to former executive editor of the paper Marty Baron. He received over 1.4 million views of a tweet in response.

I want to know what you think. Go to my website at smerconish.com, answer today's poll question, do you agree with "The Washington Post" decision to forgo endorsing a presidential candidate, citing independence and respect for readers' judgment? Don't forget to sign up for the free daily newsletter while you're there. Scott Stantis just drew this for us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:21:09] SMERCONISH: Israel carried out a major and highly anticipated series of air strikes against Iran in retaliation for their attack on Israel earlier this month. Video from Tehran shows missiles being intercepted by anti-aircraft fire early Saturday morning. Joining me now is CNN Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Matthew Chance.

Matthew, what is the latest from Jerusalem?

He is not hearing us yet. We'll try and circle back.

Joining me now is David Axelrod, a CNN Senior Political commentator, former senior adviser to President Obama. Mark McKinnon, former adviser to President George W. Bush and the late Senator John McCain. He's also the author, Mark is, of a new Vanity Fair piece called, "Men in Red. Why More and More Young Male Voters are being MAGA-fied?

David, let's begin with that breaking news from Iran. What are the political stakes and impact here in the U.S. for our election?

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, I think there are impacts of it. I believe that one of the things that stalled out Kamala Harris' very steady progress from the time she got in the race to 10 days after her good debate performance were some of the events in the Middle East, you know, implicating both the administration's policies there, but -- and bringing it back to the fore and the whole commander in chief function. So, I think that if this is the end, and this is -- there's calm after this that would be better for her. If things erupt there, I suspect it could be disruptive in what is a very, very close race.

SMERCONISH: Mark McKinnon, you agree with David's assessment?

MARK MCKINNON, FORMER ADVISER TO GEORGE W. BUSH & JOHN MCCAIN: Hundred percent. I mean, what people are looking for right now is some sort of sense of stability in the administration, and if there's a sense of instability or concern about things breaking on a foreign policy front, sure. I mean, this is, as David said, this is the kind of elections can be won completely the margins that anything in the final days could impact the outcome.

AXELROD: And Mark, let me just add one --

SMERCONISH: So, we all see the numbers.

AXELROD: Michael --

SMERCONISH: Yes, go ahead, David.

AXELROD: Michael, let me just add one thing, one of the states that is essential to Kamala Harris is the state of Michigan, and that state has a disproportionately high number of Arab American voters around the city of Detroit, both Palestinian and Lebanese voters. It also has a sizable Jewish population. This has created problems for her. So the less this is in the news, the better for her.

SMERCONISH: It is a margin of error election as we are 10 days out. "New York Times"/Siena College typical say it's 48-48 but I know that many of us study the internals. I'm putting on the screen right now the answer to a question. Regardless of how you might vote, do you trust Kamala Harris or Donald Trump to do a better job on each of the following issues? Trump wins on the economy. Trump wins on immigration.

Harris wins on abortion and on democracy. Mark McKinnon, who's got the stronger issues? Get beyond the top line number and tell me who has the issues that will drive voters to the polls.

MCKINNON: Well, that's a great frame there, Michael, because it shows that there are -- among the important issues, they're kind of split evenly, and you can make a case either way. But the data that got my attention in the last 24 hours was the Bloomberg poll that showed that Harris has actually either closed or surpassed the gap on every economic issue with Trump in the battleground states, and that's the key. It's not a national observation, this is a battleground observation. And if she has closed the gap on the economic issues, and that she does well on democracy and reproductive rights, then that could be games that match.

SMERCONISH: David, give me another -- from the internals, something that David Axelrod says now that's significant.

[09:25:05]

AXELROD: I think that this has always been a -- look, let's back up. There's the right track number. The number of Americans who say that the country is on the right track is 28 percent, President Biden's ratings are quite low. Historically, that would doom the governing party.

This is a dead even race. Why? Because there are real concerns about Donald Trump and Donald Trump's character and honesty and motivation. That continues to be true in all these polls. You know, when you look at honesty and integrity and a series of measures, people have concerns.

I thought the most significant line in her town hall meeting on CNN the other day was when she said, the difference between us is he's going to bring an enemy's list to the Oval Office and I'm going to bring a to do list, and on that to do list is going to be the concerns of people. And I think that is fundamental in this race. A different Republican might be running away with this race, given the atmospherics, but it is close because of questions people have about Donald Trump. And I think that he is exacerbating that for himself in the final days by getting crazier and crazier.

SMERCONISH: It's a pretty interesting split screen on this Saturday morning before the election winds down. I refer to Joe Rogan and Donald Trump, Beyonce and Kamala Harris. Here is the former president with Joe Rogan. It was just released last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE ROGAN, HOST, "JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE": One of the beautiful things about you is that you free ball, like you get out, and you do these huge events, and you're just talking, and you're making -- we've highlighted you on the show many times where you did this Biden impression where he's walking around, doesn't know what he's doing. Funny. It's stand up. It's funny stuff.

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL NOMINIEE: Yes.

ROGAN: But it's like you and you're making fun of Elon one time, you're doing an Elon impression, it's great. You have like, comedic instincts, like when you said to Hillary, you'd be in jail. Like, that's great timing.

TRUMP: Yes.

ROGAN: But it's like that kind of stuff was unheard of as a politician. Like, no one had done that. And I think --

TRUMP: You know, it's funny, you need at least the attitude of a comedian when you're doing this business.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMERCONISH: Mark McKinnon, when I listened to an hour of it this morning, early, already, 7 million others had done likewise, or at least had started it. That is a pitch for the 80 million who did not come out but were eligible in the 2020 cycle, right? I mean, we're down now to the narrow casting. McKinnon, what do you think the impact is of going on Joe Rogan's program?

MCKINNON: Well, I think this is really interesting, Michael, because in 2020, one out of 10 voters was Gen Z, this election, one out of six. So this could be up to 40 million voters, up to 20 percent of the electorate. And so, focusing -- this could be determinative. And so, you know, I think instinctively people say all younger voters are usually progressive liberal just because of their age, and they haven't aged up. And, you know, thought about taxes and turn more conservatives, as people often do as they age.

So, that would you think that'd be particularly true on college campuses. And so I've been hearing that Charlie Kirk, who is the tip of the spear for Donald Trump among young conservatives, have been doing these campus rallies. So I went and saw one in Athens Georgia, and it blew my mind, Michael, I mean, it was a sea of young men in red hats. I couldn't even get through the crowd because there were so many people. It was just packed.

And so, I -- listen, I think that this could be something that's under the radar, right? So, the Gen Z vote could determine the outcome. And Charlie Kirk, very smartly and honest and candidly says, listen, all we're trying to do among young voters is lose by less. And if you're going on Joe Rogan and speaking to that audience, you could do exactly that.

SMERCONISH: Well, it's a pitch for a particular type of masculinity.

AXELROD: Yes. SMERCONISH: Hold the second cut, please.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: She was defund the police. She was all these transgender operations. You know, if you wanted a sex change and you were in detention and you demanded a sex change, they would give you a sex change.

ROGAN: Well, the wildest one is this idea of giving free sex change to illegal immigrants.

TRUMP: That's right, in detention.

ROGAN: That is the wildest, right?

TRUMP: But she was --

ROGAN: Is that the biggest problem you have?

TRUMP: Yes.

ROGAN: You just walked here for Guatemala, you need to become a girl.

TRUMP: That's it. But she was in favor of it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMERCONISH: David Axelrod assess what you just heard.

AXELROD: Well, look, first of all, I think the facts are off. But beyond that, it speaks to this whole issue of trans -- prisoner transition surgery and so on is dominating their media right now, and it has for several weeks. They think this is a winning issue. And you know, and it's not just about the issue itself. It's about painting her outside the mainstream, painting a caricature of her as a liberal who wants to spend tax money on crazy things. And it has been -- you know, they're really leaning into it.

But as to the larger question, and why go on Joe Rogan, there is a -- as you point out, a particular target. They spend a lot of time talking about mixed martial arts and -- I mean, the whole Trump campaign is suffused with this kind of patina of -- a certain kind of masculinity, as you say. And these younger men voters, male voters, are a huge target. So, the Rogan thing made sense.

This whole day, yesterday, was a microcosm of the race. They were both in the state of Texas. She was talking to a large arena filled with people, with Beyonce, on the issue of abortion rights which is a great --

SMERCONISH: Roll that tape, Catherine. Roll some of that -- roll some of that tape while David is speaking. David, I want people to see what it looked like while you paint the picture of Beyonce with Kamala Harris. Go ahead. AXELROD: Yes. Look, I think, this issue of reproductive rights is a huge motivational issue. And obviously to women in particular, but not exclusively to women, they believe this is going to be a big mover of vote. And she is particularly passionate and emphatic and utterly authentic when she talks about this issue. And you could hear that last night.

But the fact that the two of them were in the state of Texas doing the things they were doing in many ways tells you exactly what this race is and what their targets are in the final weeks of the -- in the final 10 days of this campaign.

SMERCONISH: Well said. You know, I appreciate both of you. I only wish we had more time. Thank you for that.

Here's some social media reaction that has come in during the course of the program. What do we have, Catherine?

Casey is running ads praising Trump and running away from Harris to save his Senate seat speaks volume.

It's not just Casey, right? It's not only Pennsylvania. It's also in Wisconsin. And it's also in Michigan. Tammy Baldwin and Slotkin is the third of them.

Is that pragmatic and smart? Or is that foolish and disloyal? I personally don't think that Casey would be linking himself in the way that he has to Trump because I've seen that ad in Pennsylvania, unless he has seen some internal data which tells him he needs to do so.

Still to come, more of your social media reaction to this program. And later, the "New York Post" declares its endorsement for former President Donald Trump joining the ranks of other major problem publications who have selected their 2024 choice. But the "L.A. Times" and the "Washington Post" say they are not taking a stand. Should they?

I want to know what you think. Go to my Web site at Smerconish.com, answer today's poll question. Do you agree with "The Washington Post's" decision to forego endorsing a presidential candidate, citing independence and respect for readers' judgment?

Don't forget, sign up for my newsletter when you're there. Jack Ohman drew for us this week.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:37:46]

SMERCONISH: You can find me on all the major social media platforms. Please follow me. This just came in.

With these early numbers, never mind the polls, I would rather be Trump.

Paolo, I go back and forth. People push me. I say, first of all, I -- it's not that I'm uninformed. I have the most informed opinion. I spend too much time studying the data. I don't know who's going to win.

If you'd asked me two weeks ago, I would've said, I'd rather be her, politically speaking. And more recently, I'd rather be him, politically speaking. But who knows, it's all a margin of error kind of stuff. It's time to go vote, all right?

Still to come, not now, not ever, not now, not ever. "The Washington Post" says it will not be making any endorsements for a presidential candidate for the first time since 1976. Former executive editor of "The Post," journalist Marty Baron joins me next to discuss.

Make sure you're voting. This is today's poll question at Smerconish.com. Do you agree with "The Washington Post's" decision to forego endorsing a presidential candidate? They say they're citing their independence and their respect for readers' judgment.

Subscribe to my newsletter when you're there. Rob Rogers drew for us this week.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:43:24]

SMERCONISH: The "Washington Post" says it will not be endorsing a candidate for president this year nor in any future presidential race. "The Post's" chief executive, Will Lewis, told its newsroom on Friday, quote, "We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates."

"Washington Post's" editor-at-large, Robert Kagan, resigned from the paper as a result of the non-endorsement. "The Post" reported the decision not to endorse was made by the paper's owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

It will be the first time since Jimmy Carter's 1976 election that the paper won't be selecting a candidate. In a "Washington Post" op-ed, Lewis expanded on the decision writing, we recognize that this will be read in a range of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility. That is inevitable. We don't see it that way. We see it as consistent with our values that "The Post" has always stood for and what we hope for in a leader, character and courage in service to the American ethic, veneration for the rule of law, and respect for human freedom in all its aspects. We also see it as a statement in support of our readers' ability to make up their own minds on this, the most consequential of American decisions, whom to vote for as the next president.

The decision comes shortly after the owner of the "L.A. Times" stopped the newspaper from publishing its proposed endorsement of Kamala Harris. In reaction, the head of its editorial board, along with two writers, resigned in protest.

Other major papers have already released their 2024 endorsements. Just Friday, "The New York Post" declared its support for Donald Trump. Editorial boards at "The New York Times" and "Philadelphia Inquirer" have published support for Vice President Harris.

[09:45:05]

"The Washington Post" left this final message for readers, quote, "Most of all, our job as the newspaper of the capital city of the most important country in the world is to be independent."

I want to bring in Marty Baron. He's the former "Washington Post" executive editor. He's the author of "Collision of Power, Trump, Bezos, and the Washington Post." In reaction to the news on X, he wrote this, quote, "This is cowardice, a moment of darkness that will leave democracy as its casualty. Donald Trump will see this as an invitation to further intimidate owner Bezos and others. Disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage."

Marty, great to see you again. What say should an owner have in setting editorial policy?

MARTY BARON, FORMER EXECUTIVE EDITOR, THE WASHINGTON POST: Well, he can decide the editorial policy whatever he wants it to be, of course. That's the prerogative of any owner. And evidently, he had his say in this instance and decided not to -- not to endorse only 11 days before the election.

SMERCONISH: Is your beef the timing then? If the decision has been made six months, a year ago, we're going to sit this out and in the future we're not going to endorse, would you feel differently or would you still see it as spinelessness?

BARON: Sure. If a decision has been made three years ago, two years ago, maybe a year ago, rather than just before the election when it looks like it's quite possible that Donald Trump would be elected, a person who has threatened to seek vengeance against his perceived political enemies, who has threatened Jeff Bezos continually ever since he launched his own campaign for the presidency, his first campaign for the presidency in 2015, yes, that would be different.

But to sort of declare a moment of high principle only 11 days before the election that's just highly suspect. And it's just not to be believed that this was a matter of principle at this point.

SMERCONISH: OK. So, what's really going on here?

BARON: Well, you know, I can't get into the heads of Jeff Bezos and the publisher of "The Post." But look, the fact is, is that Trump has threatened Bezos continually.

He resisted that pressure when I was the executive editor there and I was very proud of that. I was very grateful for his independence, for his willingness to stand up to the pressure from Donald Trump in 2015, 2016, in the years thereafter, and ever since up until now.

But look, the fact is, is that Bezos has other commercial interests, as we know. He obviously founded Amazon, has a huge -- big stake in Amazon. He has a space company called Blue Origin.

Trump has threatened to pursue his political enemies. And he rewards his friends and he punishes his perceived political enemies. And I think there's no other explanation for what's happening right now.

SMERCONISH: I read, in part, the statement from Will Lewis. I'm going to put a portion of it back up on the screen just to remind people of one thing that he said. And I want to ask Marty Baron if there's some truth in this.

We also see it as a statement in support of our readers' ability to make up their own minds. You would say what to that?

BARON: Yes. I would say it's laughable. I mean, the reality is that they have endorsed in a Senate race. They have endorsed in a House race in Virginia, the Senate race in Maryland. They have expressed opinions on all sorts of other big issues.

If they think that it's up to -- if readers can make up their own minds, for sure. Of course, readers can make up their own minds. But why are they endorsing in other instances, expressing opinions in other instances? Maybe they should just decide not to run editorials at all, which is entirely an option. And some news organizations have decided not to do that.

If their philosophy is readers can make up their own minds on the big issues that they face in this democracy then don't run any editorials. But the fact is they only decided not to run an editorial in this one instance, 11 days before the election.

SMERCONISH: Michael Jordan wants to sell sneakers to Republicans as well. Is this, in spite of what you said in terms of what is behind it, a wise business decision for "The Post"?

BARON: Well, I don't think it's a wise business decision. I mean, the fact is there are a lot of people canceling their subscriptions which is troubling because -- look, I mean the news coverage is very good at "The Post." I am very proud of the work that my former colleagues are doing at "The Post."

They've been doing it independently. They've been holding Trump accountable. They've been reporting independently on Kamala Harris as well. They've been reporting independently on all sorts of candidates and on issues. And I am grateful for that.

But look, there a lot of readers who are deeply disappointed in this decision, have seen it as a sign of weakness on the part of the ownership of "The Post," and have decided they don't wish to support that.

[09:50:10]

And then showing their disgust with this decision, they have decided to cancel their subscriptions. That's going to hurt a lot of good -- a lot of good reporters and other journalists at "The Post." And that's deeply concerning because they need to continue with their mission of independent journalism. But in the short run, as a business decision, it's a very bad one. And I think it's a bad one in the long run as well.

SMERCONISH: Marty Baron, thank you for your perspective.

BARON: Thank you.

SMERCONISH: I was thinking as Marty was saying that many are abandoning "The Post" and canceling their subscriptions -- yes. But will they give up Amazon? That will be the real tell.

You've still got time to vote on today's poll question at Smerconish.com. I want to know what you think now. Do you agree with "The Washington Post's" decision to forego endorsing a presidential candidate? They cited independence and respect for readers' judgment as the rationale. Marty Baron gave you a flip side of that analysis.

Be sure to sign up for my free and worthy daily newsletter. While you knew that somebody who draws for my daily newsletter was going to have to address the Arnold Palmer episode, and here it was from Steve Breen.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:55:56]

SMERCONISH: So, there's the result so far, 36,000 and change. Do you agree with "The Washington Post"? Sixty-eight percent say no. Thirty- two percent say yes.

I think you're answering it in particular to this campaign and not to the abstract of, do you really want them endorsing in presidential races generally? Hey, when we're together next Saturday, it will be the Saturday before the election. I'll see you then.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)