Selena Zito joins us now. Selena, the President of the United States, I don't know if we have the soundbite, do we have the soundbite of the President of the United States talking about his reaction to this ticket? Well, he came out and he said he was stunned. He was surprised. And he's happy about this election. Should he be?
Yeah, absolutely. If you want to draw contrast to your positions and your worldview and where you want to take the country, and you contrast that with the Harris-Waltz ticket, it is, you know, it should make him happy. Joe Shapiro has governed moderately. I would say in his heart he is a liberal, but I would not call him a far left progressive. He has a great approval rating in my home state. It's at 68, 64 percent. And he would have been, at least on paper, formidable to run against because, believe it or not, there are Trump-Shapiro voters in my state, in the most important counties like Erie.
Waltz is a completely different story. While he was a member of Congress and he served in the district that was center-right, he had won that seat in 2006 from a Republican. It's a Republican seat. And so when he was in Congress, he had to sort of govern or legislate as a center-right Democrat.
However, that's when he was one of 400. As someone who was running an entire state, he has shed that premise and has governed as what he is in his heart, and that is far left. And that's important because David Plouffe was on record.
He was on another network. He's going to be a special consultant over these 90 days. You know, he helped get Obama elected.
Here's what he said. People are going to vote on Harrison Trump. Let's not mistake that. But a VP can go to many places, can almost double your coverage. I think Tim Walz is going to be super effective in places like western Pennsylvania, central Pennsylvania, western Wisconsin, rural Georgia, the northern part of Nevada. Places where he can speak about his values, his biography, and what he accomplished. And of course, if J.D.
Vance decides to debate, you know, Donald Trump right now is in the mode of ducking debates, I look forward to that debate. So do you think that, you know Pennsylvania, western Pennsylvania, can he be a benefit? Okay, I live in western Pennsylvania. And you know, it's always a little bit insulting to people who live in places and place is a very deeply part of their identity. And someone who is part of the elite who doesn't live in western Pennsylvania, who thinks just because someone talks of a midwestern accent, he's going to be accepted as one of our own. And that's always very insulting. That was sort of the game plan with Tim Kaine. That didn't work very well. And voters are much more intelligent than I think elites give them credit for.
They think because someone talks like you, you're going to like them. Well, you might like them, but it doesn't mean you're going to vote for them. Right. Listen to this tact that Governor Walz is really proud of.
Cut three. I just have to say it. You know it. You feel it. These guys are creepy.
And yes, just weird as hell. That's what you see. That's what you see.
So you know what's out there. So say it with me. We aren't going back.
We aren't going back. So why is it weird and creepy? What are you, nine? And by the way, what is normal? Is he normal?
Do we have to act more like Tim Walz to be normal? Why did they embrace it? Why do they think it's working? Well, the fact is it's not working.
It's working about as much as basketball deplorable to work. I mean, why do you think insulting people is a great way to win them over? Right. It is always astounding to me. It's no different than calling them bitter and clinging to their gun and their Bibles. There's always this sense of otherness for people who live in the middle of the country. And I think it took a while for people to wise up to the tactic.
But I think 2016 proved there was little tolerance left for it. And and I think the weird tactic, I mean, Democrats forever and a day have been sort of touting this counterculture that was supposed to be acceptable in the middle of the country. And it's not allowed to be referred to as weird.
However, they can call people in the middle of the country. And by the way, they're not just calling Trump or Vance weird when they call them weird. They're calling all y'all weird. That's that's the whole. Yeah, that's the understanding. Yeah. These guys are weird, really.
Seventy million people voted for him. Aren't you afraid of insulting them? Guess not. We want to be unifier.
I want for everyone. Yeah. Except for the people that think that don't think Donald Trump is weird. And by the way, Donald Trump is Donald Trump. He's been the public guy for 60 years. We don't need Tim Walz to tell us who he is. We want to know who Tim Walz is. So, Selena, what's going to be the strategy if they don't do many interviews and there's only 90 days left and there was no primaries?
If you're Trump, what's the strategy? Have you talked to their camp? So this is a base. When they pick walls, they were telling us this is a base election. If it was not a base election, they would have not held their first rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
They would have held it in Erie, Pennsylvania. They are telling you in the middle of the country, well, we picked, you know, Coach Walz to appeal to you. We're not really coming.
You don't matter. Philadelphia matters. And that has been sort of the challenge for Democrats. Pittsburgh and Philadelphia will always have a large turnout.
However, those turnouts have a ceiling. And what matters is the counties like Cambria, Erie, Northampton, Missouri, those 500 votes, 600 votes in each of those counties are going to be the ones that make this race up, not what happens in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Does she run better than he does, even though he's from Pennsylvania, meaning Biden? I haven't said anything about what she stands for, what she previously stood for, and what my profession had been knocking her for is not only being left of the principal, meaning being left of Biden, who at least could exercise previous working class chops.
She has not presented her. I mean, she's from San Francisco. Like, you go to Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
What do you have common in terms of those policies and the policies on the economy that they care about? And I'll tell you, if you think that California values would never work in Pennsylvania, and I don't, why would you bring the same values that are in Minnesota, that are in California, and then ask that guy to go sell Pennsylvania because he is from a rural background? He said he worked on the farm as a kid in Nebraska.
I assume it's real. I think it's great that he served in the military and the National Guard. But reportedly, some of his guys are on television saying it was time to go to Iraq. He wouldn't go. He resigned and they felt that his guys felt abandoned. That's something he might want to address because there's a lot of military guys, men and women out there that probably don't take kindly to that.
But I appreciate his service. So it's kind of weird because he talks like he's a Midwesterner. Like you said, his record is not as governor.
So I think, I just don't know if they, I know they talked about personal chemistry, but in terms of policy, he does not help. But you have to understand their worldview and you have to understand who works on their campaign. The people that work on the campaign and the principles worldview is not center left, but it is far left. And they are surrounded by people who share their worldview. And what would be better for them is if they had had someone in their campaign who went to a state college and came from, you know, Michigan.
But everything they're orchestrating is coming from a bubble. And while that is great in the super zip codes that they live, right, where our cultural curators operate, meaning corporations, institution, government, politics. That is not where the most important voters who will decide this election in Erie County, they do not share that worldview. So I don't understand why, I don't understand the pick in terms of logic. However, I do understand the pick in that they're telling you this is who we are, this is how we're going to govern. Pittsburgh based.
Isn't that simple? Pittsburgh based reporter Selena Zito who writes for the Washington Examiner. He has a column right now in the Free Press.
But Selena, tell me what Governor Shapiro would have done. So I think that Governor Shapiro, he, I mean, I have covered Josh for 20 plus years. He is a nimble political athlete. He is a moderate. He has governed moderately. And he wisely knows where to show up. When he announced he was running for governor, he announced it in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
He didn't announce it in Philadelphia. And so he understood that and he would be able to be suitable to maybe just enough voters that it was safe to vote for Harris. The downside of Shapiro doing this is that he would not he would not drag her to the middle. He would drag as she would drag him to the left.
And that would have been problematic for Shapiro going forward in his future to run for president on his own. Yeah. Selena, thanks so much. Appreciated you.
You have a lot of action with you. And lastly, McCormick is still trailing three or four points to Casey. Is there a plan in place with the McCormick team to close that gap that you're convinced might be effective? Yeah, I think that they have slowly but effectively chipped away at Casey's.
I mean, I think Casey started out with an 11 point lead when this started out. I think with this race, it he he understood the mission. And the mission was to get voters to know him, get voters to hear him show up everywhere.
He's been to all 67 counties, I think at this point almost twice. That kind of retail politics really, really matters in this state. And on policy, he he has wisely tied Casey to Biden and Harris, but he has also wisely tied himself to Trump. And, you know, in an election cycle, like, you know, I mean, the problem for Casey and my state is he has been in office for three terms. That's the first of all, that's never happened, would never have a U.S. senator to run for a fourth term. And he doesn't have any sort of legislative chops that he can point to and say, I got this done.
And he's also like emotionally and geographically tied to Biden and voters who are already leaving him in droves. So interesting because McCormick on paper really is impressive from this Treasury to the West Point background to going over to war, the coming back being a self-made millionaire and being an athlete growing up in Pennsylvania wrestling. His parents, I think, were at Lehigh. Was it where they I'm not sure what college they were actually running. One was president of Pennsylvania College where he basically grew up on campus. So there's there's so much about his story that's great.
If a Republican can win there, you think it would be a guy like Dave McCormick. Exactly. Yeah. Thanks so much, Selena Zito. Appreciate it. You too.
