KHALID: "What does Harris bring to the ticket and specifically, what about her credentials, her Northern California and California credentials? What do they bring to the ticket in a race that has been filled with historic firsts?"
LOBIANCO: "This one might be the most important. Think about the stretch that we've faced in 2024 1st former president convicted 34 times over of felonies regarding a 2016 election interference, Supreme Court, massive expansion of presidential powers of recently an assassination attempt on the former President Donald Trump, the debate performance for President Joe Biden, which precipitated all this. And if you look at the sweep of the race really ever since last year, one of the things that's been really notable about this has been how much big events have not moved voters' opinions of those two men. Which says so much so that we developed a new terminology for this cycle called double haters, people that didn't want Trump or Biden. But that all that context in there.
"And now you introduce somebody new and now Kamala Harris, of course, Vice President is not new to us, not new to political junkies, not new to reporters, certainly not new to California and the Bay Area, but to the nation writ large and she's younger in 20 years than Trump and also has the potential here. If she locks this in as it looks like it is likely at the moment if she locks this in has the potential to also elevate another fresh face in democratic politics nationwide. And what you've heard repeatedly from voters,, throughout this cycle, a big reason why they're not engaged, why they were looking for a third party alternatives is they want something new. This moment is probably the best thing that Democrats could have done tactically.
I think it's important to note here that [Biden] announced that he was leaving the race after the Republican party ticket was set. So, they can't change their ticket now. But the Democrats can, is that enough to move things significantly, maybe, maybe not. But in this environment, that is the type of thing which becomes a wild card in the, in the remaining days of the race. Lastly, President Trump was here about two weeks ago for a major fundraiser and a lot of the tech entrepreneurs have given their support to former president Trump.
KHALID: How pivotal is that money going to be in that race?
LOBIANCO: "And they've really kind of become more like tech oligarchs here in terms of their power. If you look in a historical comparison of the the robber barons of a of a century ago, Peter feel with his significant money but also influence in how the industry is shaped ideologically. I would urge folks if they haven't already go look up this concept of neo-monarchism. This is the belief that democracy has already failed and it's time for a king. And then I would also say with regards to (Elon) Musk himself more than the money, it's his ability to control one of the most powerful media outlets that the nation has ever seen X dot com. It used to be known as Twitter. It still has an outsized influence, not the same way that in 2016 and throughout the Trump presidency, but it's a massive unregulated unchecked media platform.
It's, you look at that, you know, whether he's doing it himself or he hires people to do it. The algorithm have changed distinctly as a result of that. And he is thrown in specifically with conservative Republicans and nationalist populists. To me, those are not real people. I mean, I don't know anyone who lives on there anymore. It's just journalists and politicians and Russian bots, it still has the ability to shape the media narrative. So, I'd be paying close attention to how Elon works at the algorithms in Trump's favor."
