Middle Huggers

This week, Senator Claire McCaskill is joined by Michael Steele, former RNC Chair and co-host of MSNBC’s “The Weekend“, to analyze both candidates’ final stretch strategies, as millions of Americans on both sides of the aisle cast their votes early. Then, Illinois Congresswoman and registered nurse Lauren Underwood explains why-- beyond the Dobbs decision-- senior care, prescription drug prices, maternal care and healthcare affordability are all on the ballot. And before they wrap up, Claire and Michael spotlight the Republican voters who can’t stomach Trump but may be tepid on supporting Harris. Where are they? And will they show up?

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Note: This is a rough transcript. Please excuse any typos.

Claire McCaskill: Hello, and welcome to “How to Win 2024.” Ay-yay-yay, it’s close. It’s Thursday morning, October 24. I’m Claire McCaskill. And I’m here with my guest co-pilot once again today, MSNBC’s own Michael Steele. He’s the former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland, the former Republican National Committee Chair, and now, importantly, and if you haven’t watched this, get your lazy butt out of bed on Saturday morning and watch “The Weekend” with Alicia Menendez and Symone Sanders Townsend. The three of them are great together. It’s a great program. And I’m tickled to have you here with me today, Michael.

Michael Steele: My Senator, it is great to have you in the house as well. I’m so happy to be with you. Thank you for the invite. As always, we have a good time when we’re on together. We represent a particular kind of yin and yang. I love it. Good to see you, Claire.

Claire McCaskill: We are both accused of being middle huggers.

Michael Steele: I know.

Claire McCaskill: Right? My party always got kind of angry with me for being such a damn middle hugger. And from one middle hugger to another —

Michael Steele: There you go. Respect.

Claire McCaskill: We may come from different parties, but we hang out in the same territory.

Michael Steele: That’s it. That’s exactly right.

Claire McCaskill: So it’s 12 days, and it’s a nail-biter.

Michael Steele: Yeah.

Claire McCaskill: Even though polls are bouncing around a little. But frankly, they’re pretty stable. This race has been stable for weeks and weeks and weeks. It has been a margin of error race, both nationally and in every swing state, for the last eight weeks, which is frankly astounding, because usually you see more valleys and peaks when you get closer to the election. We need to talk about the closing pitches and the strategies that are being used as millions of Americans are voting every day by mail or in person. In fact, as of right now, we’ve had almost 27 million people have already voted.

Michael Steele: And you know, just on a quick thing on what you’re saying about the polling, it’s so important to note. And I want people to actually just kind of calm the hell down about polling right now, because the pollings are not reflective necessarily, if at all, about how, Claire, you know this, both of us as candidates on ballots, of how voters are going to vote, particularly given that what Republicans have been doing over the last couple of weeks is a little bit of salting of those polls by pushing up these heavily slanted polls towards Trump to get them integrated into the national averages, which pulls the vice president’s polling average down.

So folks, the polls will be what the polls are. The only thing that really matters is that you vote. And you know, it sets up for us, I think, also other conversations around how issues are impacting how people are going to vote as well. And we’re going to be speaking in a bit with Representative Lauren Underwood of Illinois to talk about the importance of health care rights in this election, how that’s being received and absorbed by voters, and what Harris is offering to enhance health care options from birth to elder care.

Claire McCaskill: And before we wrap today, Michael, I are going to spotlight what he is, a normie. He’s a normal Republican who cares about traditional Republican values, the Republican voters are out there who can’t stand Trump. The question is, what are they going to do? We’re going to talk about that in the last segment today.

But first, if we were in the room, what would we be telling these campaigns they should be doing? Trump is fully engaged in pumping up his base and keeping anger at a fever pitch and grievance at White Hot and not spending much time at all worrying about bringing new folks into the fold. Meanwhile, Harris is trying to hug the center more. Let’s compare some of the closing strategies. What do you think of what they’re both doing right now, Michael?

Michael Steele: Look, I think the vice president has- you know, I just don’t understand what people don’t get. If you were thrown into the ring that she’s been thrown into and told, okay, you’re going to run for the presidency of the United States, and you’re going to do it in 100 days, and your opponent’s been up for 400 days, and you can’t make a mistake, you’re going to have everyone clamoring at you and bitching about this and that and wanting to sit down, and why aren’t you taking hard questions and all this stuff.

She has run the most disciplined campaign I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot, in which her messaging has been tight, her focus on voters has been tight. She’s avoided the traps and the distractions. And what is amazing to me is that the press especially and the political class do not give her credit for doing what she’s been able to do in 100 days. And I just am overwhelmed by that fact.

So at this point, what I’m telling her is, continue to do you, boo. You have a connection with voters. Work that connection. And to that point, it was announced, I believe, this morning or late last night that she’s going to make her final closing argument on the ellipse of the Capitol, the very spot where Donald Trump fomented and sent the insurrectionists to Capitol Hill. And I love that. That is the perfect closing framing, because from that spot, she can do oh, so many things. Remind folks about January 6th, how they felt about that moment, how they watched it unfold, but also contextualize her policies, how her administration will be different, how when she looks at that Capitol, she sees the American people not grievous, not strife and anger. And I think that that’s going to be an important framing for her.

For Donald Trump, the problem is a simple one. There are two campaigns within the one that are fighting with each other. There’s the one that Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles wants to run and have been trying to run, where they get him to go after Harris on the border and the economy, since everyone seems to think for some reason that Donald Trump’s economy is better than Joe Biden’s. And then there’s the one that Donald Trump wants to run, which is what we see play out, where he stands on the stage and says, the hell, I don’t want to answer more questions. Let’s just listen to music and I’ll dance for 39 minutes.

Claire McCaskill: Which, by the way, his ass can’t dance.

Michael Steele: Right, he can’t dance. He cannot dance. And it looks like he’s beating something. I’ve never seen anything like it. But for what it’s worth, the American people, or at least 48% of the American people, like that crap. And you know what? I’m not at the point at this stage where I’m not coddling stupid anymore. If that’s what you want, that’s the America you want, fine. You get it. And when he comes after you because he will, what you going to do? Because Claire and I, we’re going to be locked up somewhere. So we can’t help you.

So get it right on the front end. Trust me, I have policy differences with both the Biden administration and with some of the things that the vice president would propose. But you know what? I want an America in which my voice can be heard. I don’t want to have to kowtow and kiss someone’s behind because they consider themselves to be dear leader.

When Donald Trump says, I want generals like Hitler. Claire, where are we? Where are we that Americans look and hear that and they go, yeah. Yeah, we need generals like Hitler.

Claire McCaskill: Yeah, well, in Fox News, how about that genius? He goes, well, no, he just wanted German generals because they get things done. He may not have known they were Nazis. I’m like, what?

Michael Steele: He’s 78-years-old, for God’s sake. He lived- he was born during World War II. What the hell? He told me he may not have known. Jesse Waters needs to shut the hell up because you’re just dumb stupid. It’s just crazy to me that these people are out here spreading this crap. But here’s the worst part, that there are people who are actually sitting there going, yeah, okay, more please. Serve me more of that.

Claire McCaskill: Yeah, they want some rationalization for what they’re doing.

So I thought what she’s doing in terms of contrast is really smart. I thought one phrase she used in the CNN town hall last night, which was, I thought, really good, when she said, he has a list of enemies, I have a to-do list.

Michael Steele: Yeah.

Claire McCaskill: That kind of wraps it up.

Or I was thinking the other day, I’d like to hear her say, I’m looking at you, and he’s looking in a mirror.

Michael Steele: Yeah.

Claire McCaskill: Because that really sums up the difference between these two leaders. One is looking after the folks that she’s there to work for. The other is trying to — and by the way, what is going on with Trump? Is he exhausted, really? Or is he just losing it?

Michael Steele: Yeah, he’s 78-years-old. He’s a 78-year-old man with health problems. He’s morbidly obese. That’s the official definition of his weight, folks. He doesn’t weigh 215 pounds, all right? So let’s disabuse ourselves of that notion. I weigh 265, and he’s bigger than my ass. So come on, all right? Just stop it. So he’s got health issues, which is why he doesn’t release his medical records. He never has. It’s like his financial records. There’s something wrong in those documents, and he doesn’t want us to know.

But yeah, that’s part of it. There are cognitive issues with him. I’m not trying to be a doctor on this. I’m just listening to the man slur his words. I’m listening to the man not complete a sentence, period. Just incomprehensible in what he’s saying.

But you said it, Claire. You said it. People make excuses. And for the last six, seven years, people have come to realize that this is not where we should be as a country. But how do I get myself out of this? I don’t want to have egg on my face. I don’t want to be shown that I was a fool, that I was punked. But you know, at some point, you just got to own up. On the streets, as I learned growing up, some days you just got to own up. Yeah, you got me. You got me. And I’m hoping this November 5th that people really come to that moment of clarity where they go, I totally get it. We cannot sustain this.

Claire McCaskill: So there’s a fight on for the bro brothers. Trump’s going on Rogan. I think Kamala Harris is making an effort in that regard. If you were in the room, what would your advice be to the Harris campaign on the utilization of Elon Musk? And how should they be handling that? Should they ignore it? Should they address it?

Michael Steele: Elon Musk, in my view, is every Bond villain rolled into one. And I think we need to treat him as such, personally. So if I’m her, yes, I think she does. And she should do Joe Rogan. I think she should have a natural conversation with him. I think she will find that Joe Rogan and she may align on more things than not, and that bro community as well. So go in and just be yourself.

I think in terms of what we see happening with Elon Musk, I think they should call it out. I think they should make people aware that what he’s promoting is not healthy for the country. It just isn’t, particularly given what we see Elon Musk doing every day, flouting the rules as he’s trying now to buy votes. It’s illegal to pay people to register to vote. It is illegal.

Claire McCaskill: Yeah, I think it’s really interesting, the money giveaway. I got to tell you, I think if I were advising the Harris campaign on this, I would maybe let lie the money giveaway, because I think what it says about them is more helpful to them than harmful to them. Because I think most Americans see the richest man in the world jumping around on stage, as Tim Walz says, looking like a dipshit, and writing checks to people to try to get them — I mean, whatever the technical legalities of it, it appears to an average person he’s giving away money to try to get Donald Trump elected.

It’s like Daddy Warbucks. He’s given a million dollars to people. And I think for people that they need in their column, the damage is being done by Elon Musk.

Michael Steele: Got you.

Claire McCaskill: I think people see it as, we don’t need billionaires writing million-dollar checks to elect a president. That’s not going to help me and my family. And on top of that, it’s a dangerous situation, because he’s a major government contractor. And he needs things from the government. His profit that he announced yesterday for Tesla, you know how that happened? Government credits. Government freaking credits. So it’s just a really complicated thing. And what worries me a little bit is the Department of Justice sending a letter saying it might be illegal.

Well, if they don’t know, who does? You know, how does that help anything? I mean, like, who do we call? If the Justice Department doesn’t know, I mean, that was the most — that’s just bullshit. I mean, that’s nuts. So-

Michael Steele: That’s like a prosecutor say, yeah, you shot someone. That might have been a crime, you know?

Claire McCaskill: I’m not sure. Let me call my law professor and see if I can have a consultation there. If it’s illegal in Pennsylvania, local prosecutors should be speaking up. Local attorney general should be speaking up. DOJ needs to keep their big nose out of it. All that does is feed into their argument that he’s somehow a victim of selective persecution by the Department of Justice.

So-

Michael Steele: Now, I will, Madam Senator, I will withdraw my point and cede to yours about the Elon Musk, because that actually is, I think, more clarifying strategy than the one I propose. I think that’s right. I think that’s smart, politically.

Claire McCaskill: And women, women don’t like this asshole. Women, I’m just telling you, they don’t like him. I don’t care how freaking rich he is.

So, all right, let’s pause here. When we’re back, Congresswoman Lauren Underwood of Illinois’ 14th Congressional District joins us to talk about the importance of health care choice in this election. Back with her in a moment.

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Claire McCaskill: Welcome back. My co-host and MSNBC colleague, the one and only Michael Steele is still with me. Michael, we’ve been talking a lot about the contrast in the choice facing voters. And one policy area stands out, but frankly, hasn’t gotten the kind of focus in this election that it has in the past. And that’s health care.

The choice between Harris and Trump is pretty stark. When we talk about reproductive freedom, but it’s also stark on other subjects, like senior care, maternal health care, prescription drug costs, overall health care affordability, and obviously, the ACA and the health care marketplace that so many millions of Americans are now enjoying.

I frankly think one of the reasons health care hasn’t been a big topic for the Republicans is they figured out to quit talking about the ACA and Obamacare because it’s become so damn popular that all it does is get them in more trouble. But we’ve got a guest today that’s going to help us talk about this stuff.

Michael Steele: Yeah, no, I think you’re spot on, Claire, with that. And I think the reality of it is health care is as much a kitchen table issue as, oh, how much does groceries cost? How much does gas cost? It is one of those costs, if you will, that families have to live with every day. It definitely directly affects people’s lives. And so we’re very fortunate to have someone who can help us give a sense of the contrast in the discussion around health care in this election, none other than Congresswoman Lauren Underwood. She serves Illinois’ 14th congressional district and is the first woman, the first person of color, and the first millennial to represent her community in Congress. I mean, to talk about the trifecta, let’s throw down all over the place. Representative Underwood is also a registered nurse and co-founder and co-chair of the Black Maternal Health Caucus. It is a real pleasure to welcome the Congresswoman.

Rep. Lauren Underwood: Thank you so much for having me this morning.

Claire McCaskill: Yeah, welcome, Congresswoman. She’s been on my radar for a while. And I think she’s going to be around for a long time.

So let’s start with the Black Maternal Health Caucus. I know this is something that you have worked closely with Vice President Kamala Harris on. I know this is something that she made a priority, the first time it’s ever been made a priority at the White House.

Talk to us about this caucus, why you started it, what work you’ve done, and what you see are the most important things on your to-do list in this area.

Rep. Lauren Underwood: Well, Claire, thank you so much. I first became aware of our nation’s maternal health crisis when I was in nursing school. And it was presented to me really almost in passing like, Black women are more likely to die, as if that was just a fact and then we could just all move past that, as if there was something wrong with Black women and they’re just more likely to die of pregnancy-related complications. And that never sat right with me. And in 2017, as I was wrapping up my service in the Obama administration, a good friend of mine, Dr. Shalon Irving, was preparing to give birth to her first child, a beautiful baby girl named Soleil.

A couple of weeks after delivering her daughter, she died due to complications related to her pregnancy. And I went to her funeral. Shalon was a lieutenant commander in the United States Public Health Service Commission Corps. So the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was at her funeral and spoke. And the director stood up and said, I don’t know how this could happen. And I was just stunned, because of course we know how this happens. It’s been happening for decades in this country. And we know that 80% of the deaths are preventable.

And so when I made the decision to run for Congress, I knew that this was going to be an issue that I wanted to work on. So I teamed up with Congresswoman Alma Adams of North Carolina. We started the caucus, thinking it was just going to be the two of us. But because it’s Congress, as you know, we give ourselves names, called it the Black Maternal Health Caucus, and quickly convened experts from around the country. They came in over the course of three hours in the summer of 2019, giving us feedback of solutions that we should implement in the Congress. And so we put those solutions into a bill called the Momnibus. And then-senator, now-Vice President Kamala Harris, was our Senate sponsor of the bill.

And so this legislation is designed to comprehensively address every clinical and non-clinical factor contributing to preventable maternal death in this country, and the disparities that we see where Black moms, or Native American moms, or people living in rural areas are more likely to die.

Michael Steele: That bill is an interesting piece of legislation because it sets out a very important, I think, somewhat startling fact, particularly as it relates to the story of your dear friend, that 80% of America’s maternal deaths can be prevented. So this is not something that is chronic. In other words, it’s so persistent across ethnicities, and cultures, and groups that it’s very difficult to address. A lot of what can be done will prevent the death of women during pregnancy and post-pregnancy.

Rep. Lauren Underwood: That’s right. And so this is not cancer. We’re not investing in a moonshot. This is a phenomenon with specific causes and specific contributing factors that when we have the political courage to address those issues, we are able to end preventable maternal death in this country. And so with the Vice President’s leadership in the White House, we’ve been able to see 46 states, plus the District of Columbia, expand Medicaid to a full year postpartum. We know that Medicaid is paying for over half of births in the United States. But for Black moms, they’re paying for about two-thirds.

And so if we had to only do one thing, this would certainly be a high-impact way of ending maternal death. However, we know that this is not a phenomenon limited to low-income mothers. It’s addressing everyone. We’ve heard superstars like Beyonce, and Serena Williams, and the GOAT, Allyson Felix, the track star, right? These people talking about their experiences with severe complications almost leading to death. And we know that when we address interventions like growing and diversifying the workforce, when we address interventions like tackling social determinants of health, like housing and transportation and nutrition, when we’re tackling things like the climate crisis, where we see extreme heat and air pollution leading to maternal and infant death, we’re able to save lives. And so that’s what we’re investing in in the Momnibus.

Claire McCaskill: So I think with the Dobbs decision and the fall of Roe v. Wade, it feels like a lot of women, especially younger women, are waking up to the reality of not having the protection of Roe v. Wade. It feels like to me, and I’ve got daughters that are in their 30s, and I think there is some shock that has gripped a lot of younger women about how far these bans have gone and how they have really jeopardized women’s health, especially women who are having complicated pregnancies, women who have abnormalities, their fetus has abnormalities that make their life not sustainable, women who are bleeding out in bathrooms, in parking garages. This is something that I think a lot of young women hadn’t given much thought to before this. Tell me from your perspective, because you are much closer to that generation, certainly, than I am, do you think the Dobbs decision will be enough to finally get more young people to vote this time?

Rep. Lauren Underwood: Oh, Claire, I’m 38 years old, and the Dobbs decision has been a catastrophic failure of policymaking for women my age, my friends. We are all touched by this horrific Supreme Court decision. I was with Vice President Harris the day the Dobbs decision came out. She came to my district, to Plainfield, Illinois. And in that moment, I think we both knew that this would be worse than we ever imagined.

But in terms of being a catalyst for people to go and vote, I think certainly what the Dobbs decision has done, as it’s been something that clarifies in the minds of young voters, does this person stand with us? Are they going to advance policies that affirm our freedom, that affirm our rights, that affirm our ability to have healthcare and make important decisions for our future or does this leader want to control? Do they seek to restrict? Do they seek to deny my humanity? And I think that the contrast is so clear in the minds of that voter that it’s been a clarifying point, even for people who would have never listed access to safe legal abortion as a top concern when they would vote in an election prior to Dobbs.

But the cascading effects throughout our society have been so significant. I think at least millennial women, we all know someone, we all know someone who has been harmed by the reach of these partial and total abortion bans. We all know someone who has had a challenging pregnancy, who’s had to really take a beat and think about what this means, even while traveling while pregnant. You know, it takes places like Florida and Texas off the table, you know, for a lot of us. And I think it’s just become really scary.

Michael Steele: I want to drill a little bit more on that point. I think Claire asks an important question as we’re sitting less than, you know, 13, 12 days out from a presidential election and polling out today showing, A, Donald Trump with a lead, but more importantly that, you know, the thing he’s leading on is driving a lot of this is the economic question. And I know the vice president has been trying to effectively weave together narratives around economy and healthcare and abortion. That they’re all linked together. In the cohort that you represent and certainly others out there who are impacted by Dobbs, is that going to be enough to motivate and energize and draw?

Because one part of my brain says this is going to be a sleeper, that what you just said is going to manifest in an overwhelming show at the ballot box, right? Because I think at the end of the day, a lot of women, particularly like, you know, Claire said, she has daughters in their thirties, right? Those women are not just looking at themselves, they’re looking at their daughters and their granddaughters down the road and saying, oh, hell no, we are not doing this.

How do you see the energy at the ballot box around this issue? I know it’s personal to a lot of people, but how does it translate when you know that the guy that is the opposite of the vice president wins, and I’m just going to put it on the mic right now so there’s no confusion later on, he will sign a national abortion ban in force.

Rep. Lauren Underwood: Absolutely, absolutely.

Michael Steele: He absolutely will. Don’t believe the lie, folks, that he’s not. It’s already baked into Project 2025, it’s baked into the Republicans that I talked to on Capitol Hill and around the country. They are ready for it. So how does Dobbs then motivate that political energy?

Rep. Lauren Underwood: So I think it’s really important to remember that the average American is not like you and I, Michael, it’s not like you and I, Claire, they’re not partisan people, right? And they don’t wake up and know what team they stand on and root hard for that team, right? I’m a Democrat and I go hard for the team blue and I vote blue all the way down the ballot, right?

The average American is not looking at our country through that kind of partisan lens. And they really have rejected the way that our politics has really been so divisive where people are being forced to pick sides. And so for a long time, people have the single issue voter that would be either pro-choice or pro-life has been an increasingly smaller slice of the electorate, not necessarily large.

What Dobbs has done, in my opinion, is it has really awakened this issue of reproductive freedom where now we have more people motivated to vote because they are concerned with this issue. And we see the proof in the ballot referenda that have been popping up in states around the country where in every state where this question appears on the ballot, it wins by overwhelming margins, not just 50, 51, 52%, but we’re talking about into the 60s, right? In some places into the 70% support. And I think that that is the difference.

If we’re expecting the electorate to all of a sudden start to ID as Democrats because of the Dobbs decision, I think that that would be an inaccurate read on the circumstances. But I do think that the electorate very much clearly understands that when we talk about shared values of which freedom is a core American value, that the Democratic Party is standing firmly on the side of bodily autonomy, personal freedom, reproductive freedom, and making sure that people have the healthcare that they need.

As it intersects with the economy, I think that once again, we’re not seeing the electorate view this issue through a partisan lens, right? People are looking for solutions that will lower costs for them. So for some people it’s housing, for some people it’s groceries, for some people it is healthcare. And the actions that we’ve taken to lower the cost of healthcare coverage, to lower the cost of prescription drugs, this plan that the vice president rolled out to support caregivers and caregiving is transformative to talk about lowering costs and make sure that we’re supporting working and middle-class families.

That’s not necessarily a partisan conversation. It’s much more common sense kitchen table and accessible for people who might have rejected partisan politics of the past.

Claire McCaskill: Yeah, and I don’t think people realize a couple of things, Congresswoman. I don’t think people realize that not only would helping caregivers through Medicare help those families and their costs, it would help the United States of America and its costs. If a family is faced with, okay, we’re going to either put our loved one in assisted living or a memory care unit, or we can keep them at home if we have a little bit of help.

In the long run, helping them keep that loved one at home is going to save the federal government and the Medicaid program billions of dollars, billions of dollars. And the other thing that I think is unfortunate on timing, I’d love you to talk a little bit about the progress that’s been made on prescription drugs. I got my little flyer, I’m old enough, I get my little flyer about my prescription drug coverage next year.

Rep. Lauren Underwood: Yes.

Claire McCaskill: I took the time to look at it, most people probably won’t, where it says that my out-of-pocket is now limited to $2,000 a year after my deductible on prescription drugs. This is a big damn deal. People are talking about inflation and, you know, prices haven’t come down quickly enough, they’re not moving the right direction as quickly as I’d like them to. And meanwhile, they’re going to start enjoying a huge savings next year, and I’m not sure that America even knows it.

Michael Steele: Yeah.

Rep. Lauren Underwood: That’s right. So open enrollment for Medicare has just started over the last several days, and so many seniors around the country will begin receiving these notices from their Part D prescription drug plans. And it says something simple, you now will benefit from a $2,000 out-of-pocket cap on the total cost of your prescription drugs every year, which means if you have cancer and you take a high-cost oral chemotherapy pill, or maybe you have another chronic illness and the cost of your medication has been astronomical, you will know with confidence and you can plan your budget, right? We talked about people with fixed incomes, can plan your budget to be able to afford your life-saving medication.

And if those seniors take action right now, they have the opportunity to do their prescription drug payments in monthly installments to make it truly more affordable for them throughout the course of the next year.

However, those seniors will have to take action. And so I’m so glad that you mentioned, Claire, getting that notice in the mail, reading that notice and being prepared to respond because that’s what we need, people to do all across the country. But it’s the same legislation that offered $35 insulin, it’s the same legislation that offered free vaccines for seniors like the shingles vaccine. It’s the same legislation that allows Medicare to negotiate prescription drug costs that now this new out-of-pocket cap on the price of prescription drugs will now go into effect in January.

It’s transformative for seniors in this country and we want to extend those savings to all Americans. And that’s why we need a Democratic majority in the House and a Democratic majority in the Senate and why we need to elect Kamala Harris.

Michael Steele: Well, I can’t argue with that.

Claire McCaskill: Yeah, and Michael, I got to just say, when I got that notice, I thought, you know, the difference between the Biden administration and the Trump administration is if that notice had gone out under Trump, he would have figured out a way to put his name all over it.

Michael Steele: Yeah, he would, yeah.

Claire McCaskill: You know, he would have figured out a way to sign Donald J. Trump on it. He would have had them spend the money to send an extra letter to everyone. Be sure you notice that I’m saving you this money. And it breaks my heart a little bit because there will be a lot of folks in America that will be complaining about their costs, not realizing that thousands of dollars have been saved for them by none other than President Biden and Vice President Harris.

Michael Steele: Yeah.

Rep. Lauren Underwood: But one of the things about the prescription drug savings is that we don’t actually have to explain it to the American people. The single most popular thing that we’ve done is the $35 insulin for seniors. Single most popular. And that’s across demographics. And so I do think that the American people are hungry for these common sense, accessible solutions to lowering their key expenses and costs. And we just have to continue talking about them.

Michael Steele: So just final point on that, to the point you both made, but especially to Claire, if Donald Trump wins, I guarantee you, a year from now he will be taking credit for the $35 insulin. He’ll be taking credit for the $2,000 cap. He will rebrand the successes of the Biden administration that are popular with people, because at that point, folks will probably just beginning to realize how all of these things are coming together for them. And that’s the unfortunate part of all of this is that people don’t recognize in the moment that this administration has been consequential in their lives in ways that they will come to appreciate, unfortunately, if Trump is president.

Claire McCaskill: Yeah, he might be too busy trying to put us in jail, Michael.

Michael Steele: It’s just true. There is that.

Claire McCaskill: He might be sitting in the damn National Guard after our asses. We are the enemy within, my friend. We are the enemy within.

Michael Steele: Yeah, this is what I’ve been told, yes.

Claire McCaskill: Before we go, Lauren, talk a little bit about healthcare workers, hospital care workers, the challenges they’re facing right now. And what are you doing from your end?

I know you and Jeanne Shaheen have had a bill that helps with some of the costs for folks, but does anything in that bill touch on the workers?

Rep. Lauren Underwood: So we do know that we have workforce shortages in these key places like home health, AIDS, nursing assistants. We have a nursing shortage in different regions across the country, and we are going to have to tackle this issue in the Congress. The bill that I’m working with Senator Shaheen on is the bill to make the tax credits that lower healthcare premium prices permanent. And so we’re going to have a big tax reform fight in 2025. We need to make sure that we’re putting working and middle-class families first in our tax policy. And I look forward to getting this legislation across the finish line as part of that effort.

Claire McCaskill: Yeah, are there any ideas out there about how to incentivize? I noticed the nurses got a raise somewhere. I just noticed in the periphery of my news feeds that there was a strike and they got more money. Is there anything that the government can be doing to encourage more nurses to get into the field? I know that it’s particularly a problem in nursing homes right now. There is a huge shortage and frankly, they need to be paid a lot more money than they’re getting paid right now in those nursing homes.

Rep. Lauren Underwood: Absolutely. I have legislation, the Future Advancement of Academic Nursing Act, which would help to increase the number of clinical training slots to support our schools of nursing so that they can have more capacity to admit more students. The challenges with the nursing profession are not a lack of interest. So many people want to become nurses, but our infrastructure to train and deploy nurses has been really limited, very much constricted. And we need to make key investments at the federal level to prioritize this essential healthcare workforce, our healthcare heroes.

Claire McCaskill: Yeah, they are. And by the way, there’s only one group that I wanted every single time to endorse me because everybody loves them some nurses.

Rep. Lauren Underwood: That’s right.

Claire McCaskill: Nurses way more than the doctors. And you know that having been a nurse and understanding what nurses do in our lives. So we’re glad you are where you are though right now.

Rep. Lauren Underwood: Thank you.

Claire McCaskill: You’re tending to the health of our nation and we think that’s terrific. And we are really honored to have had you today and we really appreciate your time.

Rep. Lauren Underwood: Thank you so much.

Claire McCaskill: Okay, after the break, Mike and I are going to take a serious look at what I like to call the normies, Republicans who reject Trump and whether they’ll show up for Harris. Back with that in a moment.

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Claire McCaskill: Welcome back. I can’t think of a better co-host to talk through this next segment than my MSNBC colleague, Michael Steele. Michael, you have worn many hats in your political life to include leading the entire Republican party as Chairman of the Republican National Committee. And now you’re among the legions of principled Republicans that don’t accept Donald Trump. Don’t accept him as your party’s standard bearer. You don’t accept him as a leader. So where are the rest of the normies? You are a normie. You believe in free trade. You believe in smaller government. You believe in low taxes. You believe in low regulation. You believe in a lot of stuff that frankly you and I disagree on. Where are the rest of the people that believe in the things you believe in but have watched their party be hijacked by somebody who frankly, you know, doesn’t even believe in strong foreign policy?

Michael Steele: You know, Claire, that’s been a vexing and very troubling question to answer over the last nine years, because you’ve watched and certainly I’ve experienced directly with a lot of these folks, just the abject failure to respond. I mean, just to stand up and go, time out, that’s not who we are. No, we’re not going to put kids in cages. Absolutely not. We’re not going to put in place a Muslim ban. We’re not going to do these things that harm the very delicate balance in the geopolitical relationships between the US and NATO and our allies. We’re not going to embrace Putin and the old Soviet Union. And we’re damn sure don’t want a dictator to be president of the United States.

And yet you don’t see individuals standing up to speak out. And then when they do, they wind up as we saw with Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, the party turned on them and tries to kick them out. And so now having someone like Liz Cheney at the forefront with her dad, I’m sure the phone calls you got when Liz said, not only am I endorsing the vice president, but so is my dad. I know my job was like, huh, what? And it says so much about this moment, which makes the sort of tirade that we heard from Lindsey Graham recently, just laughable when you stop and think about why someone like Dick Cheney would embrace Kamala Harris as opposed to buying the crazy crap that’s coming out of Donald Trump.

Claire McCaskill: Yeah, Lindsey was full of it on “Meet the Press.” Let’s listen to what he said.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

Lindsey Graham: That’s right. To every Republican supporting her, what the hell are you doing? You’re supporting the most radical nominee in the history of American politics.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

Claire McCaskill: So calling her radical is ironic considering who this guy’s supporting. And frankly, I got to believe that if John McCain were still alive, John McCain would be with Mitt Romney and he would be with Jeff Flake and he would be with you and many others. I mean, and Lindsey trying to stay relevant and important, he really has kind of sold his soul.

Michael Steele: Oh, he did. And asking this question, what the hell’s wrong with you? She’s the most liberal person in the history of the world. Yeah, so what? So what? Yes, she is. But you know what she’s not? She’s not someone who wants to be a dictator. She’s not someone who’s kissing Putin’s ass. She’s not someone who’s out here trying to separate us and lying on communities, especially communities of color, saying that they eat cats and dogs. She’s not out here waxing poetically about a man’s junk at a rally. She’s not out here showing that she is wholly incompetent not only to be president, but to be anywhere near political power.

And so the reality for me and a lot of folks like me is, yes, Kamala Harris is a liberal. So what? I want to be in an America where we can have that debate over her policies and the positions she’s take. And you know what? She’s going to listen. She’s already said that I want to put a Republican in my cabinet. Donald, are you putting one, a Democrat in yours? If you could find one crazy enough.

Claire McCaskill: Don’t forget, he’s got that really strong experience. Tulsi Gabbard.

Michael Steele: I was just about to go.

Claire McCaskill: She’s ready. She’s ready. And don’t forget, he’s got that really normal and we all are a little rolling our eyes at what’s going on in that brain with the worm, RFK Jr. He’s got some steady freddies there to jump into his cabinet. But who do you think might join a Harris cabinet? Just for fun for a minute. Who would you think of that would be good to be members of her cabinet from the Republican party?

Michael Steele: I mean, I think you look at someone like a Jeff Flake. You look at a Liz Cheney potentially, but certainly if not Liz, someone like an Adam Kinzinger would be a good fit. I mean, Denver Riggleman, former Congressman who served on the January 6th committee. There are any number of Republicans. I’m not going to do this whole casting around conservative versus not. Republicans of whatever stripe they happen to be, I think would be a nice fit in her administration, depending on what position.

You may take a foreign policy Republican and put them in the state department. You may take a business Republican and put them at commerce or inside the US Trade Commission. So there are any number of places Republicans can serve and I think serve well, as we’ve seen in the past where Democrats and Republicans have invited the opposite party to their table. Good things have happened. And they’re not just in the administration per se as a cabinet official. There may be ambassadorial appointments that she can make with Republicans as well.

So the fact that she’s open to that conversation at this hour in our nation’s history, given how rife we are with polarization, I think is an important step I hope people pay attention to and not get caught in the trap that Donald Trump is setting in thinking that his absolute control over generals will allow him to be the strong man in a way that infringes on their rights. That’s not the America we want. What we want is an America where the leadership of the country recognizes that there’s a table that Claire McCaskill and Michael Steele can sit at, have a rousing, rip-roaring debate about healthcare or other policy issues and not have their asses hauled off to jail for having that debate.

Claire McCaskill: Right, so I think Bob Corker would be great as ambassador to the United Nations.

Michael Steele: Interesting, yeah.

Claire McCaskill: Bob Corker, really smart guy and was somebody who wasn’t afraid to say out loud what everybody was seeing in Donald Trump when he first became president. And he was Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He’s got a really good background in foreign affairs. He also would be good at commerce. He was really instrumental in the car bailout stuff, was really active in all of that when we were trying to save the automobile manufacturing sector during the Obama administration. So I’m putting his name in the mix.

I wanted to also talk to you just a little bit, Michael, about early voting and Republicans. I think people are looking, everyone’s so nervous. They’re looking at these early voting numbers.

Michael Steele: Yes, they are.

Claire McCaskill: And they’re freaking out because Republicans are voting in larger numbers in the early voting. I saw one statistic that showed that 42% of the early votes on the Republican side are people who voted on the same day last time. And only 12% of the Democrats are people who voted same day last time. So what’s happening here is despite Trump’s mixed messaging on early voting, Republicans are early voting this time like they never have before, which means a couple of things that people need to think about before they panic about these early voting numbers. It just means that the Republicans are cannibalizing the advantage they had in 2020 on election day.

Michael Steele: Yes.

Claire McCaskill: We may not have the margins coming out of early vote we had in 2020, but they’re not going to have the margins coming out on election day they had in 2020. So this is nothing to panic about. And it is interesting to see how Republicans are now all of a sudden who said any kind of voting that wasn’t standing in a gym and holding your hand and being counted on camera was fraudulent, are now all going, “Oh, let’s hop on the early voting train.” What do you think’s going on there?

Michael Steele: Well, I think that’s exactly right on a number of fronts. The most important takeaway for me in addition to what you just said about the cannibalization of the same day vote by voting early is also don’t panic just when you see those numbers, because trust me, a lot of those Republicans are Republicans like the ones we were just talking about. That’s who’s really kind of voting early. The MAGA folks still aren’t buying the whole vote early thing because Donald Trump has not given permission to vote early.

Now he’s kind of trying to do some backflip swimming on that, but from what I’ve been seeing in the number reports, they’re still skeptical of that. A percentage of them are voting. So don’t assume that every Republican vote that you see coming out early is a Republican vote for Trump because they’re not. And so you’ve got to be mindful of the fact that during the primary, 20% of Donald Trump’s base did not vote for him. They voted for Nikki Haley or someone else.

Those voters are not suddenly going to go, “Oh, okay, well now I’m going to vote for Donald Trump in the general election.” That’s just not how that narrative plays out. So I think you’re spot on there.

And finally, I think the fact of the matter is, what you’re seeing is an effort by the Republican National Committee and state party operations to turn out some of that early vote in their various states because they know how harmful it is to have their base just wait until election day, when on election day in Wisconsin, it may be snowing. Or in Michigan, it may be a blizzard, and that’s going to impact the turnout model. So get that vote out as early as you can.

But keep in mind, all of that vote is not MAGA. It may be turning out early, but it’s not all MAGA. And also keep in mind what they’re not also counting, Claire, is the percentage of independent voters who are now voting early. And you know more than likely that is not a solid vote for Trump, if at all.

So I think the panic needs to come down. If you have not voted yet, get your behind to a poll either early, mail-in ballot or same day. But participate. I think, Claire, for Democrats and independents and Republicans like myself, we have to overwhelm the ballot box with our vote because the more we are in this game, the harder it is to make up the lie about fraud and rigged systems because it’s easy to say, oh, the system was rigged when the margin to win is 22,000 votes in your state and 30,000 votes in that state’s. It’s harder when it’s 100,000, 200,000 votes in those battleground states. So overwhelm the ballot, folks.

Claire McCaskill: Yeah, vote early. And I think your point about independence is really important to underline. More and more people are not declaring a party. For the first time, more people in America say they’re independent than say they are either a Republican or a Democrat.

And I got to tell you, I know there’s some disaffection with folks that used to call themselves Democrats and they now call themselves independents. That’s there. But I’m willing to bet there’s even more that were Republican that no longer are comfortable calling themselves Republican because of the antics and the crimes and the behavior and the January 6th and the felony convictions, all of that stuff. I just, my gut tells me, and you would be in a position to know that better than I would, that there’s just a whole bunch of people that used to say they were Republican that are now saying, no, I’m done, I’m an independent.

Michael Steele: Oh, absolutely. And everything you just described plus more has weighed these voters down and they’re looking to lift that burden. And the only way they can really begin to do that is at the ballot box by voting Kamala Harris into office because whether or not they agree with her policies, they just want to wake up on a morning and not have Donald Trump be a part of their conversation.

Claire McCaskill: They’re tired of the chaos. So she says, turn the page.

Michael Steele: Turn the page.

Claire McCaskill: So vote early. And when you’re done voting early, then it’s your job to find 10 other people to vote early.

So that’s our missive to you as we close out today. It’s always fun to have Michael Steele because he and I have the same kind of sense of humor and neither one of us take ourselves too seriously, which is the way you get through life.

Michael Steele: Can I just real quick get your thoughts? D-Hop coming to Kansas City.

Claire McCaskill: I’m so excited.

Michael Steele: I thought about you when that trade went down.

Claire McCaskill: We’re all singing. Let’s go to the hop-o baby. Let’s go to the hop-o baby. We are doing some jitterbug out here in Missouri.

Michael Steele: Shout out to Kansas City.

Claire McCaskill: There you go. Thanks for joining us for today’s installment. And a big thanks to my co-host today, Michael Steele, former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland and former chair of the RNC. Thanks, Michael. And we’ll see you the week after the election. I think we’re going to have a round table discussion with you and Symone and Alicia, and we will do a cleanup on aisle five and put this thing to bed.

Michael Steele: I’ll bring the bourbon.

Claire McCaskill: Yeah, several bottles, please.

Michael Steele: Several bottles.

Claire McCaskill: Remember to subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts for ad-free listening and bonus content, like the premium only re-release of our series, “Kamala Next In Line.”

This show is produced by Vicki Vergolina. Janmaris Perez is our associate producer. Katie Lau is our audio engineer. Our head of audio production is Bryson Barnes. Aisha Turner is the executive producer for MSNBC Audio, and Rebecca Kutler is the senior vice president for content strategy at MSNBC.

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