--:-- [Upbeat music fades out, and the hosts, John Bickley and Georgia Howe, introduce the show]
--:-- John Bickley: Welcome to Morning Wire, I'm John Bickley.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And I'm Georgia Howe. It's Friday, November 1st, and we're just days away from the election.
--:-- John Bickley: That's right, Georgia. The final stretch is here, and both candidates are crisscrossing the nation to make their final case to voters.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And we're here to break it all down for you. Let's start with the latest from the campaign trail.
--:-- [Music transitions to a softer background]
--:-- John Bickley: While the Harris campaign is betting on women for the win, some data suggests backlash against the trans agenda may turn some of the female vote to Trump.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's right, John. And I see on social media people saying they're voting for Kamala Harris because she's a woman.
--:-- John Bickley: Well, guess what? I am voting for Donald J. Trump because I am a woman.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And the Harris campaign is accused of manipulating social media platforms to boost her popularity and promote false claims.
--:-- [Music transitions back to the upbeat theme]
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned, we have the news you need to know.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Hey, guys. Producer Brandon here.
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--:-- [Music transitions to a softer background]
--:-- John Bickley: With just days until the election, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are crisscrossing the nation to make their final case to voters.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Here with more on the candidates' closing strategies is Daily Wire deputy managing editor Tim Rice.
--:-- Tim Rice: Hey, John, so what's the ground game looking like in these last days of the campaign?
--:-- John Bickley: Well, Tim, unsurprisingly, both candidates are focusing on the handful of key swing states that are likely to decide the election.
--:-- Tim Rice: As Politico reported, between now and Tuesday, fewer than 10 states are going to get to lay their eyes on VP Harris or former President Trump.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Both campaigns are especially focused on the so-called Blue Wall of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, the last of which Biden carried by just 21,000 votes in 2020.
--:-- Tim Rice: And not only are Trump and Harris traveling to the same states, they're actually hosting a number of competing events.
--:-- John Bickley: On Tuesday night, both candidates held events in Wisconsin.
--:-- Tim Rice: Trump spoke in Green Bay with Packers legend Brett Favre, who offered a full-throated endorsement of the former president.
--:-- Georgia Howe: People are losing hope in the American dream. And our kids face the prospect of World War III.
--:-- Tim Rice: Really, we've already had President Trump once. We've already seen Kamala in action. We can compare and we know which is better.
--:-- John Bickley: Meanwhile, Harris appeared at a get-out-the-vote youth rally in Madison, where she was heckled by protesters calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
--:-- Tim Rice: Harris responded with one of her characteristic lines.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Hey, you know what? Listen we all want the war in Gaza to end and get the hostages out as soon as possible.
--:-- Tim Rice: And I will do everything in my power to make it heard and known.
--:-- John Bickley: And everyone has a right to be heard, but right now I am speaking.
--:-- Tim Rice: Just yesterday, both Trump and Harris made stops in Nevada, which has recently emerged as a hotbed of election lawsuits.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And the dueling rallies are set to continue.
--:-- Tim Rice: Today, Trump and Harris are both set to appear in Milwaukee, a clear sign that Wisconsin is becoming a major concern for both campaigns in these final few days.
--:-- John Bickley: The campaigns have spent a combined $65 million in Wisconsin since July.
--:-- Tim Rice: Yeah, let's talk about money. What's the spending look like now?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Yeah, based solely on the money, it seems like both campaigns' priority is Pennsylvania, where Trump and Harris have spent a combined $538 million on TV ads alone.
--:-- Tim Rice: But things really get interesting when you consider states where one candidate is radically outspending the other.
--:-- John Bickley: For instance, the Harris campaign has spent $69 million on ads in Michigan since July, more than twice as much as the Trump campaign.
--:-- Tim Rice: That cash dash is likely a reflection of Team Harris's panic that they're losing support among Arab and Muslim voters, usually Democratic stalwarts, over Harris's handling of the war in Gaza.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Just this week, a new poll found that Trump has a slight lead over Harris among Arab American voters.
--:-- Tim Rice: On the flip side, the Harris campaign has reportedly canceled somewhere between $1.7 and $2.7 million in reserved ad buys in North Carolina, leading many to speculate that Harris is giving up on the Tar Heel state.
--:-- John Bickley: It's a curious move considering the fact that Trump only leads Harris by a point in North Carolina.
--:-- Tim Rice: One other curious thing to note, Trump took a notable break from swing state barnstorming yesterday to visit New Mexico, a solidly blue state where he said he hopes to bolster his popularity among Latinos.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, we certainly are looking at an eventful couple of days ahead of us.
--:-- Tim Rice: Tim, thanks for reporting.
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for having me.
--:-- [Music transitions to a softer background]
--:-- Georgia Howe: With everything going on in America these days, turning off your mind at night can feel impossible.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: And without that groggy feeling in the morning, too.
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--:-- [Music transitions to a softer background]
--:-- Georgia Howe: Republicans are tackling the transgender agenda head on this election, drawing on parents' concerns about men and women's sports, sex change procedures for children, and sexual content in schools.
--:-- John Bickley: The high interest in this topic is prompting some to warn this could be the 2024 sleeper issue.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Here to discuss is Daily Wire senior reporter Mary Margaret Olihan.
--:-- Mary Margaret Olihan: So Mary Margaret, how did this become such a focal point for the GOP?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Hey, Georgia, I spent the last month talking to people in Trump's circles about that very question.
--:-- Mary Margaret Olihan: What I learned is that some key events of the last four years convinced Trump that this is a culture war he needs to be at the front of.
--:-- John Bickley: Those watershed events include several major stories that the Daily Wire broke, the Loudoun County sexual assault of a young girl by a skirt-wearing boy, the grassroots uprising of parents against ideology in schools, and the emergence of fighters like Riley Gaines.
--:-- Mary Margaret Olihan: Now, Trump himself has said that no one would have known what he was talking about if he discussed gender ideology at a campaign rally during his first presidential run.
--:-- Georgia Howe: He's right. People weren't really talking about these issues then, and I'm told that back around 2020, some in the GOP were afraid to touch this stuff, fearing they'd be seen as anti-gay.
--:-- Mary Margaret Olihan: But during the pandemic, parents got a good look into the classroom and they understood the radical content being pushed on their kids. They were furious and they took their stories to conservative organizations and conservative press like the Daily Wire.
--:-- John Bickley: Education reporting exploded and the next thing you knew everyone was talking about this topic, including Republicans and Trump.
--:-- Mary Margaret Olihan: So what are Republicans saying about this topic, and is their messaging on transgender issues landing with voters?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Absolutely. In the campaign's final stretch, Trump has zeroed in on the left's embrace of transgenderism, and he's pouring millions into television ads that highlight Harris's promotion of far-left policies, like taxpayer-funded trans surgeries for illegal immigrants.
--:-- Mary Margaret Olihan: According to Democratic testing results reviewed by the New York Times, that ad is not only the Trump campaign's most played ad, it's also their most effective ad.
--:-- John Bickley: Kamala supports taxpayer-funded sex changes for prisoners. Surgery. For prisoners. For prisoners. Every transgender inmate in the prison system would have access.
--:-- Mary Margaret Olihan: Kamala's for they-them. President Trump is for you.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And it's resonating with a lot of people.
--:-- Mary Margaret Olihan: Here's a clip of popular radio show host Charlamagne Tha God reacting to the messaging with his team.
--:-- Georgia Howe: I don't know if it was the backdrop of football, but when you hear the narrator say Kamala supports taxpayer-funded sex changes for prisoners, that one line, I was like, hell no, I don't want my taxpayer dollars going to that.
--:-- Mary Margaret Olihan: I definitely see that. That ad was effective.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, how is this messaging playing out with women specifically?
--:-- Mary Margaret Olihan: So that's a really interesting question. Of course, we already know that 69% of Americans want athletes competing on teams that conform with their gender.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And the Wall Street Journal has leaned into this polling and dubbed the topic the 2024 sleeper issue.
--:-- Mary Margaret Olihan: But I'm also being told that this issue is really resonating with women. I talked to pollster Brent Buchanan, founder of Signal, and he told me that pushing back on trans ideology is a, quote, very effective message at moving female voters.
--:-- John Bickley: Buchanan filled me in on some internal polling in a competitive congressional district. where he said that the number one issue by far that moved women over 55 was trans sports.
--:-- Mary Margaret Olihan: He also said that when you look at women under 55 in that district, it's the second most effective issue with only tax messages ahead of it.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So we're now just about four days out from the election. What's the status of the trans messaging right now?
--:-- Mary Margaret Olihan: Well, Trump is campaigning on a pretty strong platform when it comes to trans issues. Over and over again, he's saying men don't belong in women's sports.
--:-- John Bickley: He says we shouldn't be pushing kids through irreversible trans surgeries or procedures, and he's suggesting he might use federal legislation to stop that.
--:-- Mary Margaret Olihan: He also promises to cut funding for any schools pushing inappropriate content or radical ideology in the classroom.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And I think most significantly, Trump really emphasizes that all of this is just crazy. That's his key line.
--:-- Mary Margaret Olihan: Now, Kamala's team would argue that this is just fear-mongering, but the Trump campaign is betting that Americans are going to choose a party that stands with parents and against transgender ideology.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, it'll be interesting to see how this pans out.
--:-- Mary Margaret Olihan: Mary Margaret, thanks for reporting.
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for having me.
--:-- [Music transitions to a softer background]
--:-- Georgia Howe: While the New York Times and Washington Post push for the censorship of conservatives over supposed election misinformation, the Harris campaign is allegedly manipulating numerous internet platforms and possibly breaking the rules to artificially boost her popularity and evade fact checks on false content.
--:-- John Bickley: Here to discuss is Daily Wire reporter Amanda Presta Jacomo Hamid.
--:-- Amanda Presta: So the Harris team is accused of manipulating numerous social media platforms, but most recently we've learned about the campaign's alleged coordinated efforts on Reddit and X.
--:-- Georgia Howe: What's going on here?
--:-- Amanda Presta: Yeah, I'll start with Reddit, one of the most popular websites in the world. An investigation by the Federalist has uncovered what appears to be a vast astroturfing operation run on Discord to artificially boost pro-Harris and anti-Trump content, both by paid staffers and volunteers.
--:-- John Bickley: Harris staffers allegedly direct which posts to promote where and with what language.
--:-- Amanda Presta: For example, they appear to boost abortion content to subreddits with women or target swing voters with content relevant to their state.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The apparent goal is to make Harris appear more popular than she is and promote content that helps Harris, even if it's not true.
--:-- Amanda Presta: For example, they'll direct the boosting of Project 2025 content and tie that to Trump, even though Trump is not at all connected to the plan.
--:-- John Bickley: And this has all been extremely effective, though it does appear to routinely run afoul of Reddit rules.
--:-- Amanda Presta: In the matter of 15 days, they were able to publish thousands of posts, again, all directed by Harris staffers.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That content has received more than 5.7 million upvotes and over 400,000 comments.
--:-- Amanda Presta: It was also uncovered that 126 of the top 1,000 posts on the very popular politics subreddit in just the past month were allegedly published by Harris campaign volunteers.
--:-- John Bickley: That's a huge deal considering how influential Reddit is on politics.
--:-- Amanda Presta: In fact, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman in 2018 said that he was confident that Reddit could, quote, sway elections.
--:-- Georgia Howe: All right, so that's what's going on on Reddit, allegedly. What's the campaign being accused of on X?
--:-- Amanda Presta: Well, on X, another hugely influential platform for politics, Harris staffers are directing similar activity from volunteers.
--:-- John Bickley: One goal there is to block community notes that are unfavorable to Harris.
--:-- Amanda Presta: A community note is basically a fact check on X. They appear under misleading or outright false posts.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Under Elon Musk's leadership, contributors can add a community note, which is then voted on by users to determine if it appears under content or not.
--:-- Amanda Presta: So when Harris campaign staffers direct volunteers to dislike an unfavorable community note, it won't appear.
--:-- John Bickley: This seems to be why pro-Harris accounts have been able to spread falsehoods without fact checks attached to them.
--:-- Georgia Howe: This is a big problem too.
--:-- Amanda Presta: I mean, even CNN, an outlet extremely hostile to Trump, has reported on the routine false info spewed from Kamala HQ, for example.
--:-- John Bickley: That goes for other pro-Harris accounts, too, that appear to be working for the Biden-Harris administration.
--:-- Amanda Presta: Google is also playing a role here.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Aside from the company's documented bias against Trump, it's also permitting the Harris campaign to engage in some pretty shady activity.
--:-- Amanda Presta: Over the summer, a report from Axios, another left-leaning organization, they exposed that the Harris camp was changing headlines and sub-headlines of mainstream articles to appear more favorable to Harris.
--:-- John Bickley: So let's say you're doing a Google search related to healthcare. You might get a link to an NPR story that's being sponsored by the Harris team.
--:-- Amanda Presta: The campaign, though, has edited that headline and sub-headline. So it might now read, and this is a real example, Harris will lower healthcare costs.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So you think you're reading a preview of an NPR story, but you're actually reading content from the Harris camp.
--:-- Amanda Presta: Exactly.
--:-- John Bickley: And to be clear, this is not something the Trump campaign is engaging in.
--:-- Georgia Howe: At the least, this is really misleading stuff from a campaign and party that's consistently promoting the censorship of dissent under this guise of supposed deception or misinformation.
--:-- Amanda Presta: Right. We're seeing that even more now with The New York Times and Washington Post's recent reporting targeting conservative voices.
--:-- Georgia Howe: What sort of responses have we seen from all of this, from the Harris campaign or the social media sites?
--:-- Amanda Presta: Well, we don't have a direct response from the Harris camp.
--:-- John Bickley: But on Wednesday, the account that broke this story, Reddit Lies, that was banned from the campaign run Discord server that's organizing all of this.
--:-- Amanda Presta: So it seems they're aware this has been exposed.
--:-- Georgia Howe: We've also seen a reaction from Elon Musk.
--:-- Amanda Presta: He announced earlier this week that he's opened an investigation into the Harris campaign's antics.
--:-- John Bickley: So we'll see what Musk does here.
--:-- Amanda Presta: Amanda, thanks for recording.
--:-- Georgia Howe: You're welcome. Thanks for waking up with us.
--:-- John Bickley: We'll be back this afternoon with more news you need to know.
