Funding for To The Contrary provided by The E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, The Park Foundation and the Charles A. Frueauff Foundation Coming up on To the Contrary, The new Trump-Vance GOP presidential ticket hits the campaign trail.

Its goals downplaying staunch opposition to abortion and birth control and soft pedaling its vehemently anti-immigration stance.

How are women, men and the underserved reacting?

Then while the GOP appears unite united Democrats are deeply divided over their candidate, President Biden, and whether he can win reelection.

(MUSIC) Hello, I'm Bonnie Erbe Welcome to To the Contrary, discussion of news and social trends from diverse perspectives.

Up first, the post-convention high.

This week's GOP convention was considered a success despite sending a myriad of messages that contradict the version of Trump Americans have come to know, He toned down the party platform's anti-abortion rhetoric, including deleting a federal ban on abortion that has stood for 40 years.

That as the party tries to nullify what has become a winning issue for Democrats.

Former President Trump appeared more moderate and calming than the hater he has been accused of being.

His running mate., Ohio Senator J.D.

Vance is a former Trump critic.

Vance is said to have privately compared Trump to Hitler and publicly called him an idiot.

The team is also soft pedaling the arch conservative Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, written specifically for a second Trump term to move the country far to the right.

It consolidates power in the executive branch and tears down the wall between church and state.

Joining us today, feminist activist Erin Matson, The Daily Beast Hollywood reporter Keli Goff.

The Independent Women's Foundation, Inez Stegman and Brittany Martinez, who served as leadership aide to former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Thank you all and welcome, Inez.

Okay.

Coming out of the convention, did former President Trump succeed in moderating his image, which seemed to be important to him to do?

I think so.

And I think it highlights some of the things that legitimately are and always have been moderate about Trump's policy, actually.

I mean, in many of the battles I remember the primary battles in 2016 and many of the concerns were from the right that Trump was not going to be aligned with conservatives on certain things.

I think his first term put a lot of that to rest for conservative conservatives, very happy with his first term.

But he's always been a, you know, New York real estate developer kind of guy from Queens.

So there's always been a certain amount of tension within the Republican Party about Donald Trump.

So now I think he's fully in charge of the party.

It's very clear in this convention that he's fully in charge of the party.

And some of those more moderate positions are coming through, especially with the selection actually, of J.D.

Vance, who I would say is adding the ism to Trump ism.

Right.

Vision for the Republican Party.

That is definitely different than the Republican Party of the 2000s On foreign policy, on trade, on immigration, and on a number of key sort of Trump esque issues.

Erin Matson, And your thought, what what about the two men?

Do you?

How do you see them getting along now?

I mean, most people, if somebody had called me, compared me privately to Hitler and then called me an idiot, I can't see inviting that person to be my business partner.

And the same thing.

I mean, Trump has said some bad things about J.D.

Vance.

is this a change in American politics that politicians are allowed to insult each other personally and pretty seriously and then decide they're best friends and they're going to run together?

Well, Bonnie it's pretty easy to pair up with anyone if you have no moral compass.

And I say that very deliberately because, you know, We've seen that Trump follows any way the wind blows and he has been so hateful to so many groups of Americans during his service.

And with J.D.

Vance as well.

I mean, he appears to be trying to ride the path to power on Trump.

We've seen this happen before repeatedly, that folks who try to ride on Trump's coattails always get spit up, chewed out, and they're worse off than they were before.

Right.

And and yet this is different.

Why?

Because.

Because he thinks.

Because Trump thinks Vance can can help him win.

Well, this is a really interesting thing that's happening.

And I think, you know, in fairness, we see it happening on both sides where family members are having an enormous role in what happens for public outcomes.

And in this case it was Don Jr who was advocating for Vance to be the pick constantly and consistently.

And so I think that's probably the real reason why he's there, because Donald Trump doesn't seem to listen much to anyone except his family in some select instances.

I think another piece is that Vance, you know, he wanted someone younger.

I think that was deliberately part of it, to draw a contrast.

Except, you know, it's interesting.

You mentioned his family.

What about his daughter Ivanka, who was so big in the first administration, and her husband, Jared Kushner?

Are they not family members anymore?

It's a great question.

They've been they appear to be hiding out in an underground bunker somewhere trying to ride out the storm.

You know, the last administration didn't treat them too kindly and in terms of their their quest that they do have, they clearly do want to be in power.

So I wouldn't be surprised if they come back.

But they for now, they say that they're trying to exercise their right to be private citizens.

Well, it's interesting because I do want to point out that this isn't exactly entirely new.

Right.

I mean, the first President Bush was actually one of the most devoted defenders of reproductive rights until he was offered the vice presidency by Ronald Reagan.

Right.

I was actually told while making my film, reversing Roe, that his nickname had been Congressman Rubbers because he he and his family... Oh, yeah, definitely.

I'm old enough to remember him as as Congressman Rubbers.

Right.

Because he was so devoted to the issue of reproductive rights until he was offered the vice presidency and then eventually became president.

And then let's not forget that our current vice president insinuated that the current president is racist, which I don't even think she believes.

But it was, as she said, politics.

Right.

So there's a history of this.

What I would say is stood out for me, though, at this convention in particular is Ivanka notwithstanding, I was surprised at how much this kind of became.

You know, we've had the war on women in previous elections.

This felt like the convention of women, where the the women really stole the show.

It was Donald Trump's granddaughter, Kai, discussing someone that a lot of us see as kind of, you know, the sexual predator in chief as grandpa in chief.

It was Usha Vance, a woman of color, saying, you know, having a starring role and and really humanizing and softening the party, particularly for women like her.

I was actually fascinated, surprised.

And I will say, Bonnie, impressed.

I think that the Democrats are going to have a tougher battle on their hands for some of these female swing voters They did what they needed to do, which is soften the image of the party .

Only believers or nonbelievers?

Let me Brittany, let me jump to you.

Brittany, welcome to the panel.

We are thrilled to have you here.

And we should tell the audience you worked for the former House speaker.

You are a Republican, not a supporter of President Trump.

Are Latinas like yourself Republican Latinas buying this vision that was sold at the convention?

The first thing that came to mind was, I don't buy it literally.

You know, as you asked me that question.

And just think about, you know, we're not going to agree with anyone 100% of the time.

We would be naive to think that.

But when you're talking about being moderate, when you're talking about unity and bringing folks together, look at some of the folks who were on the stage.

We have Charlie Kirk, we have MTG, we have Matt Gaetz, and all of those folks have been extremely problematic within the Republican Party.

And though I appreciate having a big tent, I don't think we need folks like that in the tent.

We need to be bringing folks in who don't have those sorts of value systems.

I mean, even think about J.D.

Vances wife, right?

The extreme right wing MAGA, part of the party.

They're already having racist remarks towards her and they're saying they're concerned about because she is a daughter of immigrants, that she will then soften his stance on immigration.

And but she was born here.

And more that more than that, she would soften his supposed position, I guess, to keep the nation as white as possible.

But, you know, if we're talking about unity, we're talking about being moderate.

I just don't see that coming out of the convention.

And I'll say I was on the ground and some of the folks I kind of heard just walking around talking about, you know, the people that they were listening to.

And when they were talking about Vance as the chosen VP nominee, they were like kind of irritated, scoffing, rolling your eyes.

So we'll see what happens.

But I'm not buying it totally.

I want to jump to immigration, which we just raised here.

You have two men on the ticket, both of whom won Married to the Dogger, a brown skinned daughter of immigrants, the other married to a white European immigrant.

Our Eastern European immigrant herself.

What how is that going to affect their positions on immigration and what they do about the border?

I don't think that there's as much of a contradiction as being portrayed in this panel.

I think that there are plenty of Americans of all racial backgrounds who see the problems both with mass illegal immigration and with with the complete lawlessness on the border and generally with our immigration policy of the last 30 years.

Most Americans who are concerned about immigration, and that is consistently number one or number two right behind the economy and inflation for voters there.

They're not looking at it through this racial lens that I'm hearing here.

They're looking at it as a problem that they're confronting every day when they look at rising crime rates in cities that are connected in part non whole to the migrant crisis that's increasing.

It's interesting, though, Bonnie, because I'm a native of Texas and a Texas native.

And, you know, Hillary Clinton won Latino voters in Texas along the border.

Joe Biden lost them.

So so I think that Inez is on to something here where it's not so much race specific as policy specific, an impact this specific.

But I'd also be remiss if I didn't throw out the quote that I know a lot of people say privately, liberals hate their neighbors but love everyone else.

Conservatives love their neighbors and hate everyone else.

Right?

And so meaning there are plenty of of conservative social conservatives who do really great work helping migrants through their churches and all that kind of thing.

They just don't want to see crime in their neighborhood.

And by the way, because you also mentioned crime and immigration and I just saw yet another survey this week showing that immigrants are no more criminally active than native born Americans.

Depends on where you are Bonnie Depends where you are.

because that's not true and certainly Its not true for the whole country.

And you're talking not so those surveys have serious methodological problems, two of them.

One, of course, that the political point that people are making is that when you have crime, especially violent crime, from people who are breaking the law to be in the country to begin with, that's crime that shouldn't be in the United States, period.

Right.

So then there's the point about relative crime levels.

And part of the issue is actually, you know, rightly so, we deport like a lot of of illegal immigrants who are arrested and then going to go on trial.

A lot of them accept a deal to self like to leave the country.

So when you're looking most of those surveys are based on looking at, for example, who actually ends up in our jails and a large percentage of the people who are not legally in the country don't end up in our jails.

They end up deported.

And so there's there's a methodological problem with those surveys.

They've done a lot of coverage about what's happening in Queens, for instance, which has been bearing the brunt of of migrants coming who are coming to this country for the first time.

And there are specific pockets of Queens that have had skyrocketing violent crimes from specific pockets of migrants who are already involved in crime in their homeland.

So I want to be very clear.

What I'm not saying is that immigrants just generally commit crime because that's absurd.

But we do need to have a conversation about certain pockets in certain communities.

And the reason I think the liberal conservative distinction here is important is I think it's fascinating that the wealthiest zip codes in Manhattan, Manhattan I live in Manhattan are not bearing the brunt of this right.

So you have people who are saying, I'm very pro-immigrant.

I just don't want them in my neighborhood.

Let's send them to the poorer parts of Queens and let them deal with it.

So thats what I meant.

Which is kind of a physical another one of these NIMBYs and impossibilities.

I mean, if you don't want them near you, you don't want them essentially.

But again, and I'm not saying I'm not pro or anti-immigration, I have I actually, you know, I think immigrants are great Americans.

I'm a proud daughter of of Russian immigrants, Russian and Polish immigrants.

So what do we think, if anything, these guys are going to do?

Your thoughts, Erin, on immigration?

Is Trump going to do what he did last time?

Yeah, Bonnie, I'm glad you bring up that question because Donald Trump, even in this campaign cycle, in the last debate, made horrific comments about immigrants.

He's called immigrants animals and he uses dehumanizing language.

So we can expect more extremely punitive policy to come from him on immigration.

And I think also abortion as well.

We can we can count on this administration and to go after abortion again, this is the same man who bragged about overturning Roe and all the chaos that it brought for it and his selection of J.D.

Vance cemented and makes very clear that this GOP no, no matter that they're trying to put more women on stage at this convention, is very deeply, rabidly anti-woman and anti-abortion.

All right.

So and you are then the start of our round robin to close out on this topic, which is how women what women are taking away from the GOP convention and how many what percentage of undecided women Republicans who are not for Trump were persuaded by this convention to consider or seriously vote for the Republican ticket?

Your thoughts, Inez, On one.

Republicans who are not for Trump is a very, very small group of the country.

A poll this week from Pew Research Center said 84% of Republicans said they would vote for Trump if the election were held today.

Now that's lower.

That's way lower actually by 6 to 8 percentage points than the number of Republicans who actually voted for him in 2016.

So I took that saying.

I'm just saying consistently there might be one poll.

I mean, there's there's a lot of, you know, polling over time and consistently.

So I'm not saying there isn't one outlier result.

We've seen a lot of outlier results on any number of topics.

Right.

Including Joe Biden.

But and his chances but but overall, consistently, there's a relatively small number of Republicans in poll after poll after poll that I think the average is somewhere note 94, 95% approval rating among Republicans.

So but I do think independent saw a much bigger and obviously these are voters that are not tied to a particular party.

They're not consistent Republican voters.

And we've seen a few things, a one that with independents, the economy and immigration, again, tend to pop up as their two most important issues.

And then specifically, he's clearly making the pitch on toning down some of the things that because we know that that a lot of independents, they might they actually liked many of Donald Trump's policies under the first term.

But these are the mean tweets.

People right.

There are the people who are disturbed by the way that the former president presents themselves and speak .

Were about out of time on this topic and I want to get Brittany in here.

You started out by saying women, you weren't buying it.

Are Republican women buying it?

Are women generally buying it?

Are people of color buying it that the remake of himself during this convention?

It's easy to say that, oh, I've had this epiphany in my life is different.

It's only been a few days.

I think the proof is in the pudding.

We'll see how he continues on this campaign trail if he decides to continue bringing in the message of unity.

But I mean, I think that already from some of the speakers that we saw this week, they didn't totally get the message here.

And so I think that we'll see over the next couple of weeks how that all comes about.

But Donald Trump's worst enemy is oftentimes himself.

And I think that he was very disciplined since Joe Biden and he had his debate and he was pretty quiet for like ten days.

Right.

And people were like, wow, this is a new reserved person.

And of course, obviously this has happened since then.

So, you know, maybe he'll be taking advice from staff and toning it down.

But Donald Trump doesn't like to tone it down.

So we'll see.

We shall see.

Thank you for that.

And from the right to the left, as Republicans coalesced around their candidates for president and vice president, the Democrats continue their infighting about whether President Biden could beat that team.

More Democratic lawmakers are calling on President Biden to step aside and end his bid for reelection.

They fear a bloodbath where the Republicans control the White House and both houses of Congress.

Biden says he would reevaluate whether to stay in the race if a doctor told him directly that he had a medical condition that made it necessary.

Erin,Is President Biden going to be the nominee or are the Democrats who are or at least we used to say, were so good at eating their young good, Drum him out.

President Biden is going to make his own decision about what he's going to do.

And I want to be very clear before I say the next thing that I will with enthusiasm, clarity and honor, vote for President Biden, however, should he choose to continue.

However, I think that the ultimate act of leadership that he could provide this time is to step aside and I believe that that is something that a number of Democratic leaders are calling for privately.

Increasingly, numbers are doing so publicly.

The sad fact is that it does seem that he has changed.

He's been an outstanding president.

But I think it would be the ultimate act of leadership to make way for someone else.

You don't think it's the ultimate act of leadership he's been accused of being a weak leader is to stand there and say, you're not driving me out.

This is mine.

I'm keeping it.

I as he has said in the past, I have more to do.

I didn't finish what I need to get done.

Certainly, if he leaves office, Ukraine can probably kiss goodbye.

U.S. aid from the United States and there that will allow Putin to recapture one of the former Soviet satellites and then he'll keep going after all of them until he has all of them, and then possibly Europe.

That's exactly what we're talking about.

In his case, he's talking about I in the case of everyone else, we're talking about Biden.

We should be talking about America right now.

And I think that, you know, after that performance of the debate, it was horrifying to see.

It is clear that that we would be better served having someone else at the top of the ticket.

And I you know, I'm so grateful for all he has done.

And it's clear that, you know, in subsequent interviews, he's done wonderful things.

However, the fact remains that two thirds of Democrats have said in a poll that they think it would be better if he made way for someone else to lead the.

How do you asked me this question a month ago, I would have said he's staying in that, you know, if he were to drop out four months from Election Day.

I mean, that all but certainly guarantees a Trump victory, which obviously is something that Democrats want to avoid.

After the debate, I still thought, you know, he's going to stay and people will get over it.

And it'll be the next news cycle.

But that's not what's happened.

And I think that over the last few weeks, it's actually just gotten worse because a coalition has been built of these supporters who are Democrats saying, we love Biden, but you know what?

It might be time for new leadership.

Even Nancy Pelosi, who is notorious for keeping a lock on things and only letting things out, that she wants to be let out, had a conversation where she was said that she thinks that Biden needs to step down, and so I I want to point out too supposedly Adam Schff who's from your home state of California, who's running for the Senate, He is supposedly former Speaker Pelosi's public mouthpiece to go to Biden and say it again and again and again.

But George Clooney is former is supposedly I've seen it reported he is the mouthpiece for the Obamas.

So the Obamas, to whom Biden was so loyal for eight years, just stayed in the shadows.

A heartbeat away was nothing but cheerleading for the for the Obamas.

Now, apparently they are saying, okay, Joe, it's time to go.

But I think it's because of the elephant in the room, which we're kind of avoiding.

The only reason Joe Biden has not stepped aside is because he and a lot of Democrats don't believe that the country would elect a black Asian woman as president, and particularly one who for whatever reason, then, like I said, I've written about this for The Daily Beast is seen as as polarizing as Kamala Harris.

I actually think there are black women and Asian women who come across just a different way.

There's a very specific reason that she rubs a lot of people the wrong way.

And it's not just the laughter.

There is something I've had private conversations with people that she doesn't read as warm and fuzzy.

Neither did Hillary Clinton.

Now, that didn't bother some of us.

It does bother some people, including some women.

What I will lastly say, though, Bonnie, is you were framing this as an either or does Trump when these new voters after the convention or do Democrats win them?

I actually think the biggest danger and the most likely outcome of the upcoming election is a lot of people are going to stay home.

If there are a lot of people who are going to stay home, does that mean a Trump victory?

Because at least at this moment in time and we are in a with Whiplash series of major events in American history like I have never witnessed before?

Yeah, so it could change completely.

But the energized side right now is Trump is the Trump dance ticket.

Right now it's looking like Democrats are more dissatisfied with their ticket than Republicans or even independents who are leaning Republican.

But it adds to your point, the current ticket.

And I think, again, that's the second elephant, baby elephant in the room that we don't actually know what the Democratic ticket is going to look like, because I don't think it's going to continue looking like it is at the moment I agree with you.

And I actually agree with Brittany.

Until now, I definitely thought Biden was going to stay in the last few days, I really have felt like even his own the strength of his own statements that he's staying in are softening, which makes me think maybe he will choose to step aside.

Look, I don't think this is actually new.

The debate was just, you know, the final sort of proof of something that anyone with eyeballs has seen for a long time, which is that this is not the same person with the same cognitive capabilities, even as two years ago, let alone, you know, four or five or six years ago.

And closing out with you again.

Brittany, your thoughts when it when it comes to despair, if Democrats are despaired, but they also realize that if they don't get out there and vote for somebody on the Democratic ticket, that could mean four years of mass deportations, of authoritarian rule, of degradation, of civil rights, degradation of all kinds of rights, abortion rights for women.

Do you think they will stay home?

It's going to come down to are you so dissatisfied with the ticket or do you hate Trump more?

And I think it's going to be a battle of those emotions and those feelings because, you know, back in 2020, Right.

I think it was a lot of Republican and Democrats not necessarily loving the choices, but disliking the other party.

There was a lot of division back that, if you remember, the riots and the protests in 2020.

So I think that's what it is.

Do you hate Trump more than you're annoyed with your Democrat ticket?

Very interesting analysis and thank you all this was an extremely enlightening show.

That's it for this edition.

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