Charlamagne Tha God Takes Anderson Cooper and CNN to the Woodshed

When my kid had cancer a few years ago, there were days I’d spend hours poring over statistics. What were his chances of survival if he went into remission after the first round of chemo? What were his odds if he was underweight? What was the likelihood of survival if he made it past 100 days post-transplant? I knew none of these stats actually mattered—a 70 percent survival rate could still mean my kid might be in that 30 percent. But I clung to the numbers as a way to claim control over a situation where I had none.

And here I am again, caught in the same spiral with polls leading up to next month’s election. I’m grasping for that one glimmer of hope in some legitimate poll to finally quiet my mind. But after reading poll after poll, it boils down to this: it’s a tie. I don’t understand why, and it’s agonizingly frustrating, but it’s a tie.

It’ll all come down to turnout. I try to find comfort in the fact that Democrats have a stronger ground game—whatever that means—that Harris still has triple Trump’s cash reserves, that Barack Obama is firing up Kamala Harris’ base, and that Trump is ticking off that same base. And you know what else I find oddly reassuring? I keep reading these polls’ cross-tabs, and while Harris is somehow losing Gen X (come on, Gen X!), she’s got a slight but steady edge with Boomers. Not all Boomers are swimming in Fox News fever swamps! Maybe they’re less about protecting some imagined identity and more about safeguarding the future.

Beyoncé’s at a Kamala rally tonight, Eminem showed up with Obama recently, and last night Tyler Perry spoke at a rally, hitting us with that line I know too well—“being poor is expensive”—then launched into a story about a quilt that might surprise you. But damn.

I’m not a big Stephen A. Smith fan (and am genuinely shocked he’s not a Trump voter), but his pushback against Hannity on Trump’s cognitive decline was satisfying.

And here’s Charlamagne tha God, challenging Anderson Cooper for talking about Trump on Rogan’s podcast instead of addressing the danger Trump poses to democracy.

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This is the conversation every anchor on every network should be having until Election Day. I said this yesterday on Threads, but I’m not sure voters are taking Trump’s threats to use the military against his opponents seriously. Someone needs to ask: who does he actually plan to arrest? Barack Obama? Kamala Harris? Oprah Winfrey? John Kelly? If he’ll target Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi—and he’s already said he will—then who’s next? AOC? Bruce Springsteen? Will he go after journalists? Maggie Haberman? Jake Tapper? Rachel Maddow? A lot of people here don’t like Maggie Haberman. Do you think she should go to prison?

Ask him! Who’s the “enemy within”? Let’s put names and faces to this. Trump has praised Erdoan, whose government jails more journalists than anywhere else. That’s the blueprint Trump wants. He and his running mate Musk claim to be for free speech—but only if they agree with that speech. When journalists speak out against the government in Turkey, they call it disinformation, and then they prosecute journalists under disinformation laws. That’s what Trump wants.

We’re not just voting for a candidate, y’all. We’re choosing the direction of democracy itself. Whether it remains a place where we can speak up, report the truth, and challenge authority without fear. Whether the courts protect our rights or become instruments of punishment for speaking out. Countless Republicans right now are saying that Trump doesn’t mean it when he says he wants to arrest the “enemy within.” Ask him if he means it. And what are those same Republicans going to say when Trump starts throwing journalists in prison? That he doesn’t mean that, either?

Also, I will at least leave you with some good news to cling to for the next 7 minutes: Philippe J. Fournier, who appears to be the Nate Silver/Cohn of Canada, gives Kamala Harris a 53 percent chance of winning, taking Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Also, the Washington Post polls — which rank as the second most reputable — also have Harris up by two points in each of the blue wall states. NYTimes/Sienna — the top pollster in the nation — has her leading in all three states, as well. So, if you guys are reading what I’m reading and freaking out because that’s what Democrats do, she doesn’t need Nevada.