• Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign kicked off a weeks-long reproductive freedom bus tour this week, with a 50-stop route that runs through some of the biggest swing states in the upcoming election. It’s an issue that plays to Harris’ strengths — and former President Donald Trump’s biggest weaknesses. While Trump loves to take credit for appointing the Supreme Court justices that ultimately helped overturn Roe v. Wade, he’s spent the years since trying to moderate his stance on abortion and reproductive healthcare, angering members of his socially conservative base in the process. Shefali Luthra, who covers reproductive care for The 19th, explains how Trump’s muddled stance has angered both sides of the abortion debate.
• In Arizona, Republican Vice Presidential Candidate J.D. Vance got an icy reaction when he told a crowd Thursday, “It’s very simple, we lost Arizona” in 2020. Election denialism has become a feature of the Republican Party since Trump became its leader, trickling down through the ranks of many state GOP parties, including Arizona’s. Jane Coaston, former politics reporter for Vox, a contributor to The New York Times opinion section — and WAD’s newest host — examines how Arizona politics went from the party of John McCain to the epicenter of election denialism.
• And in headlines: Georgia police arrested and charged the father of the suspect in Wednesday’s fatal shooting at Apalachee High School, Trump pleaded not guilty to the revised criminal charges in his election interference case, and President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to nine charges related to federal tax evasion and fraud.

• Check out Shefali’s reporting – https://19thnews.org/author/shefali-luthra/
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TRANSCRIPT

Tre’vell Anderson: It’s Friday, September 6th. I’m Tre’vell Anderson.

Priyanka Aribindi: And I’m Priyanka Aribindi and this is What a Day the show where we’re trying to have a normal reaction to the news that the FBI has raided the homes of not one, not two, but three of the top aides to New York City Mayor Eric Adams. 

Tre’vell Anderson: He said he was bringing swagger back to New York City. And I guess that means different things to different people. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Ugh. I’ve never heard a good headline about this man. And today that did not change. 

Tre’vell Anderson: On today’s show, the father of the Apalachee school shooter has been arrested and charged. Plus, today, early voting is scheduled to start in North Carolina. And former presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr is still on the ballot. 

Priyanka Aribindi: But first, this week, Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign kicked off a weeks long reproductive freedom bus tour. The tour is meant to highlight a major issue in this election, one that the Harris campaign hopes will motivate voters, especially suburban women, to turn out for them. The bus tour is scheduled to make 50 stops on a route all throughout battleground states in the coming weeks, and in a brilliant bit of trolling, it kicked off in what is essentially former President Donald Trump’s backyard, West Palm Beach, Florida. 

Tre’vell Anderson: And while Florida hasn’t been a swing state for a while now, Democrats hope they can put it back in play this year. That’s because it’s one of ten states where reproductive rights will be directly on the ballot this November. In Florida, there’s a ballot initiative to amend the state constitution to protect the right to an abortion up to fetal viability, the same right that existed under Roe versus Wade. If it passes, it would also overturn the state’s existing law that bans abortions after six weeks before most people even know they’re pregnant. 

Priyanka Aribindi: And that Florida measure is also a great example of how difficult this issue has become for Trump and his campaign. Trump says that he’s going to vote against it, but that was after he said this to NBC just last week. 

[clip of Donald Trump] Well, I think the six week is too short. Uh. It has to be more time. And so that’s and I’ve told them that I want more weeks. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Trump also announced last week that if elected, he would make the government or insurance cover the costs for in vitro fertilization treatments. Sure sounds a lot like Obamacare to me, but whatever. Trump did not offer any specifics as to how he’d make it happen, of course, but it’s ostensibly an effort to woo moderate voters who’ve been turned off by the extreme stances Republicans across the country have taken since the Supreme Court’s conservative majority overturned Roe two years ago. Something Trump also wants to take credit for. But in trying to moderate his stance on abortion to appeal to the center, he’s also angering the socially conservative voters who very much oppose abortion and IVF and who got him elected in 2016. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Yes, Trump is in one of his classic wants to have his cake and eat it too situations. I just personally want to see the cake tumble to the floor. That might just be me, but it would make me happy. The result for Trump is a very muddled message that has angered all sides of the abortion debate. And to dig deeper into this. I spoke earlier with Shefali Luthra. She covers reproductive health for the 19th and is the author of the book Undue Burden: Life and Death Decisions in Post-Roe America. Here’s our conversation. Trump helped deliver the anti-abortion movement its single biggest goal for decades, overturning Roe v Wade. But two years later now, where do things stand? 

Shefali Luthra: This is a really complicated moment for Trump, the Republican Party and the anti-abortion movement as a whole. And what we’re seeing here is the party really wrestling with the fact that what they have wrought is very unpopular. You can even look at states where abortion is banned. People don’t approve of abortion bans. People don’t approve of Roe being overturned. They don’t even approve of Trump’s preferred approach to leaving abortion to the states. They want Roe v Wade codified. They want a federal abortion rights protection. And Trump has sort of realized this, and the anti-abortion movement. I mean a lot of them know that he was never a true believer, necessarily, but he was a very reliable ally to the cause. He was the first sitting president to speak to the March for Life. And now here he is, kind of waffling a bit more, going back and forth about how much he’ll prioritize this issue, not wanting to commit to anything, not committing to a national ban, being a little bit cagey on something like the Comstock Act, which is the linchpin of their anti-abortion strategy, the 1873 law that would be used to essentially ban abortion nationwide, and the fact that Trump has been so unwilling to commit to this, a lot of folks in the movement may see as a real red flag. They are deeply concerned that this is not the ally, the candidate, the president that they thought they had. And you’re seeing a schism start to form where there are some activists in the space who say Trump is the best chance we’ve got. He is the guy who will be more likely to listen to us. His advisers are more likely to listen to us. And you see others who are saying, well, should we really be going door to door for someone who doesn’t have us at the center of the movement anymore, the way he used to? And it’s a source of a real tension and real schism. 

Priyanka Aribindi: And just to the extent that Trump really outlines a policy position on anything, what is his campaign stance on reproductive health and abortion during this election cycle? 

Shefali Luthra: Excellent question. Um. Trump said after the DNC that he will be great for women’s reproductive rights. Um. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Huh. 

Shefali Luthra: We don’t know what that means or how he would do it. He has said he wants to make IVF free for everyone covered by insurance for everyone, even though that is very unlikely to happen. That would require–

Priyanka Aribindi: Right. 

Shefali Luthra: –Congress to pass. That is in conflict with the fetal personhood ideology the Republican Party endorsed at its own convention. So very all over the place, but where he has been somewhat consistent, at least as of late, is saying, I want to leave it up to the States. I don’t want to pass a federal abortion ban yet. Which in some ways wasn’t really going to happen because they weren’t going to have the votes to do that to begin with. I mean, they could not get the ACA overturned, let alone get a national abortion ban. And so right now, I think what we can say is Trump’s policy, still trickier to say because he is so unpredictable on this. He is so frankly agnostic, personally on abortion. But at least right now he appears to be showing some awareness that there is a real political downside to banning abortion nationwide. 

Priyanka Aribindi: One of the best examples of Trump’s back and forth on the issue just happened in Florida, in his home state last week, he both criticized the state’s relatively new law that bans abortions after six weeks. But he also said that he would vote no on a ballot measure that would enshrine abortion protections in the state’s constitution. How has that sort of played out with anti-abortion Republicans so far? 

Shefali Luthra: What that has shown to me, and frankly, to folks in the anti-abortion movement, is that they still have a lot of influence over what Trump says and does. Trump came out and said the six week abortion ban in Florida is too tough. It’s two punitive. He has said that before because he has seen the polls that show that a six week ban in Florida is very unpopular. But he never said even in that interview that he would be voting for this ballot measure that would protect abortion up until fetal viability in Florida, essentially giving Florida its own statewide version of Roe v Wade. But his comments really freaked out anti-abortion activists who called him, and they spoke to him, and they essentially got him to backtrack the next day so that he said, I still oppose this six week ban, but I think this Florida ballot measure is too extreme, so I won’t support it. But Trump is leaning on this talking point of trying to characterize Democrats as extreme, because he knows that the Republican Party is suffering from a real trust deficit with voters on this issue, and that abortion is becoming much more salient, much more relevant for voters, especially young women voters. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Definitely. You’re leading right into my next question. Abortion, as we know, helped minimize Democratic losses in the 2022 midterms, despite all the other signs pointing to a Republican wave. Measures that protect access to abortion have passed every single time they’ve been on a state ballot, even in these really conservative states. So, as we know, most Americans support abortion access. But, you know, while the more extreme people might be upset by Trump’s turn here, could this actually end up helping him with Republican voters? And is he just saying this to try and win the election? 

Shefali Luthra: It’s very clear that the Trump effort to rewrite his policy on abortion is trying to sort of staunch the bleeding, to lose as few voters as possible for exactly that reason, because you do see that voters are coming out in favor of abortion. And one thing that I think is really important about those ballot measures, it is it’s not just Democrats who are voting for abortion rights. You can look at the results from Kansas, from Kentucky, from Ohio, and you saw a lot of Republican voters crossing over to vote in favor of abortion rights. Now, obviously, that’s easier to do when abortion is isolated on the ballot. And we don’t know if given the choice between Trump and Harris, they would say abortion is still more important to me than everything else, that I would, in fact vote for an abortion rights candidate versus one who is not. But what we’re seeing with Trump is he doesn’t want to take any chances, because the more abortion supporting voters he can pull toward him, the better his odds are in what’s a very close race now. 

Priyanka Aribindi: So could we actually kind of see big chunks of the Republican Party abandon Trump ahead of the election over this? I mean, it seems like he’s trying to have it both ways here, but it’s not likely that these most extreme people would vote for Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump is still the president who helped overturn Roe. What do you think will happen there? 

Shefali Luthra: It’s a great question. Because you’re absolutely right. The abortion opponents out there are not going to come out and vote for Kamala Harris. There are some question, would they stay home? I’m pretty skeptical of that, because when you look at rank and file evangelical voters, who are often the ones who support abortion bans. They love Trump. They are going to come out and vote for him. The real question is those swingier voters who don’t approve of Trump on abortion, who might be willing to either not vote or reconsider voting for Harris, and whether they will join that coalition to join Trump. But I would be very, very surprised if Trump starts cratering among abortion opponents when he has handed them one of the most important policy victories of their lifetimes. 

Priyanka Aribindi: That was my conversation with Shefali Luthra. She covers reproductive health for the 19th and is the author of the book Undue Burden: Life and Death Decisions in Post-Roe America. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Thanks for that, Priyanka. In other news, during a campaign stop in Arizona on Thursday, Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance told an audience that 10,000 votes stood between Donald Trump and victory in Arizona in 2020. But the crowd didn’t want to hear it, yelling at Vance that the election was, quote unquote, “stolen.” 

[clip of J.D. Vance] Look, we lost Arizona 10,000 votes, was the difference between Arizona going for Donald Trump and 10,000 going for Joe Biden. Yeah, there were a lot of problems. 

Tre’vell Anderson: The Arizona GOP has been taken over by election deniers, and that’s given Democrats new life in the Grand Canyon state. Jane Coaston is a former politics reporter for Vox and New York Times opinion contributor. She’s been speaking to reporters and state legislators about the presidential race, the Arizona GOP, and what ballot issues are most critical for Arizonans this November. I started by asking her how conservative politics in Arizona have changed over the last 30 years. 

Jane Coaston: There’s been a massive shift in Arizona politics. I spoke with Lorena Austin, who is a member of the Arizona State Legislature. They are the first non-binary member of the Arizona State Legislature. And they said, look, generational change is happening. The state is becoming more diverse, more purple. You’re also seeing that the Republican Party is becoming more extremist. It’s kind of locked in a purity cycle. Only election denialists and crazy people win the primary, and then they lose. And then they yell about how they actually won because the election was stolen from them, and they just keep doubling down and doubling down and doubling down. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Now was there anything that Lorena told you that surprised you? 

Jane Coaston: Something that was really cool to me to hear was just how much they have been able to stand up for LGBTQ folks in Arizona. They ran for office because they wanted to do something for their community. They saw everything that had happened since 2016 and 2020 and they won. The GOP didn’t even canvass their district. They didn’t even think they had a chance, and they won. Our conversation really gave me an idea that there’s a lot to look forward to for Arizona politics, especially for Democrats. I think that that was something that surprised me. I think I’d got into the conversation a little worried about Arizona and where it’s going, and I came out of that conversation feeling, you know, still worried, but good worried? That’s a word. Yeah. Good worried. Go with that. 

Tre’vell Anderson: So how would you say we kind of got to this point where the Arizona GOP is so absurd that now Democrats have a fighting chance? 

Jane Coaston: So I spoke with a reporter on the ground in Arizona, and she told me, look, if you think about extremism in Arizona, that’s not necessarily new. People may have heard of uh former Maricopa County Sheriff, Joe Arpaio. Extremism is kind of baked in to a certain swath of the Arizona conservatism, but there was a little bit more of a balance because you had the McCain family. You had sort of this like old school style republicanism. No wonder they were able to keep control of the state for such a long time. Republicans have had control of Arizona State Legislature since 1966. This reporter was telling me that, like Arizona gets this reputation, that it’s just full of extremists, but it’s just this endless spiral where you have the people who are willing to say, look, Trump lost the state in 2020. They get shouted down during the primary. I mean, J.D. Vance said something about how, you know, we lost by a couple of votes in 2020. And the audience shouted back at him, saying it wasn’t lost, it was stolen. And that has given Democrats a chance because most people are not attracted to that message. Democrats are now in control of three of the most important statewide positions, including, you know, having a Senate seat, having the governor’s office. And I think that because Democrats are offering, hey, we’re going to talk about issues that are important to Arizonans. We’re going to talk about things that are real and true. It really is a case of the Arizona Republican Party just shooting itself in the foot, over and over again. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Last question for you. What are some of the major ballot issues that Arizonans especially will be deciding on this fall? 

Jane Coaston: So there are a couple of big ones. Currently, Republicans only have a one seat majority in each chamber, which means that Arizona is the state most likely to flip its legislature this year. If Democrats win in November, that means that there’d be a 50/50 tie in each state chamber. And with the governor being a Democrat, that would essentially give Democrats a trifecta. And there are massive issues taking place right now in Arizona. First and foremost is the abortion ban, the abortion ban, that is, from 1864. The ballot issue to overturn that is prop 139. You have prop 137, which, if it passed, would give lifetime appointments to judges, which was a really bad idea. And you have prop 314, really harsh crackdown on immigrants that won’t do anything to keep the border safe. And so the people I’ve spoken to have talked about how those are the three big issues. But basically, if if Democrats show out this November, Arizona can become a Democratic trifecta. 

Tre’vell Anderson: That’s Jane Coaston, former Vox senior politics reporter and New York Times opinion contributor. Jane is also your new host of What a Day. More from her on Monday. 

Priyanka Aribindi: We’ll get to some headlines in just a moment, but if you like our show, please make sure to subscribe and share it with your friends. We’ll be right back after some ads. [music break]

[AD BREAK]

Priyanka Aribindi:  Let’s get to some headlines. 

[sung] Headlines. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Georgia police announced on Thursday that they have arrested and charged the father of the suspect in Wednesday’s fatal shooting at Appalachee High School, outside of Atlanta. Colin Gray was charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children. His son, a 14 year old student at the school, is accused of killing two students and two teachers with an AR style rifle. Nine others were hospitalized with injuries. Police say that they plan to try the teenage suspect as an adult. The shooter’s father was questioned by law enforcement officials more than a year ago, after the local FBI field office received a tip about his son making online threats about a school shooting. Citing anonymous sources, CNN reported on Thursday that the father told investigators he bought the gun used in the shooting in December as a holiday present for his son, just months after he had been interviewed by police about those threats. You heard all of that correctly, after this man had been interviewed by the FBI about threats that his son had been making online, he went out and for Christmas, bought this kid an automatic rifle. It is baffling. Stunning. Disgusting. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Mmm mm mm. Former President Donald Trump pleaded not guilty to criminal charges on Thursday in a revised federal indictment for his election interference case. Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan said a potential trial will not start before Election Day, but a new indictment means new evidence in the case could be made public just weeks before Election day. Chutkan released a new schedule on Thursday after proceedings were previously tied up in the Supreme Court over Trump’s claim that he was immune from being charged for actions he took as president. The new schedule gives prosecutors a deadline of September 26th for their opening brief, and the defense team will have until October 17th to respond. The briefs are expected to lay out the evidence against Trump and could contain potentially explosive new information about the prosecution’s case. After the briefing, the court will decide if and when a trial will take place. But either way, the timing tees up some potentially big drama in October. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Great. Just what we need. Nothing important happening in November. Nope. Not at all. On Thursday, Hunter Biden pled guilty to nine charges related to federal tax evasion and fraud. He is set to be sentenced on December 16th. Jury selection for his tax evasion trial was scheduled to begin on Thursday before the last minute guilty plea was announced. Biden will not receive a reduced sentence as a result of pleading guilty, and he now faces up to 17 years in prison, although he is still unlikely to receive the maximum sentence. Earlier this year, the president’s son was convicted on three federal gun charges. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said once again on Thursday that President Joe Biden will not pardon his son or commute his sentences. 

Tre’vell Anderson: A North Carolina judge has denied a request from failed presidential candidate and guy who won’t stop doing weird things with dead animals, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be removed from the state’s presidential ballot. The state’s first absentee ballots were scheduled to go out on Friday, but that process could be delayed as RFK Jr’s lawyers appeal the judge’s decision. His lawyers are arguing that their client completed the process to have his name removed, and that keeping him on the ballot is a violation of his free speech rights. According to a North Carolina state elections official, they have already printed almost three million ballots, so removing RFK Jr’s name would be a costly change. After dropping out of the presidential race last month, RFK Jr endorsed former President Donald Trump and out of fears of cutting into Trump’s support, his campaign successfully removed his name from ballots in swing states including Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. But so far, they’ve been unable to do so in Michigan and Wisconsin, as well as North Carolina. 

Priyanka Aribindi: And in sports news, the US open women’s semifinals are taking place as we record this episode. Two American women made the semis, Emma Navarro and Jessica Pegula. Though Navarro will not advance. TBD about Pegula. We have our fingers crossed and the match is on in the background of our recording. The women’s final will take place Saturday at 4 p.m. eastern. One of the men’s semifinals on Friday will feature a head to head match between two Americans. Taylor Fritz and Frances Tiafoe will battle it out for a spot in the finals. Should be a really exciting match and this means that regardless of who wins here, there will be an American man in the U.S. open finals. This will be the first American in the men’s final since Andy Roddick back in 2006, almost 20 years ago. What an exciting week for American tennis. Shout out to my little cousin Zori for getting me into this. I’m so in. I’m so invested. [laugh] The Paralympic Games are also still underway in Paris. U.S. Paralympian Jeremy Campbell from Texas won his fifth gold in the discus with a throw of over 200ft. He previously won in Tokyo, London, and the Beijing Games. What a dominant athlete. And U.S. women’s national soccer team star Alex Morgan announced her retirement yesterday, along with her second pregnancy. The Olympic gold medalist and two time World Cup winner is ranked fifth in U.S. women’s national soccer history, with 124 goals and 224 appearances. She will play her last game on Sunday. What a round up of American sports we got going on. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Listen, so much going on in sportslandia. I wasn’t aware Priyanka. 

Priyanka Aribindi: I was aware of like 50% of this. But listen, the sports are enough to make me make some patriotism surge into my body. I feel moved by what I’m seeing on the television. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Listen. We got to take what we can get at this point. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Exactly. And those are the headlines. 

[AD BREAK] 

Tre’vell Anderson: That is all for today. If you liked the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, keep RFK junior on the ballot and away from all mammals and tell your friends to listen. 

Priyanka Aribindi: And if you are into reading and not just the USA Paralympic team’s daily medal counter like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter, check it out and subscribe at crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Priyanka Aribindi.

Tre’vell Anderson: I’m Tre’vell Anderson. 

[spoken together] And Mayor Adams, spare us your swagger. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Just a little too much. 

Tre’vell Anderson: We don’t want it. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Turn your swag off, please. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Hop up off the bed. Turn your swag off. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Exactly. Mm hmm that’s how I remember it going. [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Bill Lancz. Our associate producer is Raven Yamamoto. We had production help today from Michell Eloy, Ethan Oberman, Greg Walters, and Julia Claire. Our showrunner is Erica Morrison, and our executive producer is Adriene Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka.