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Running until the final general election results come in, courted and verified, the Deadline ElectionLine podcast spotlights the 2024 campaign and the often blurred lines between politics and entertainment in modern America. Hosted by Deadline political editor Ted Johnson and executive editor Dominic Patten, the podcast features commentary and interviews with top lawmakers and entertainment figures. Now in the home stretch of the almost last 30 days, follow all the campaign news on the ElectionLine hub on Deadline.
“I think that the election of 1960 takes all the events of 2020, and, frankly, of 2024, and sets them on their head,” says Chris Wallace of comparisons between JFK vs then Vice President Richard Nixon then and current Vice President Kamala Harris vs. Donald Trump now.
The CNN host joined Deadline’s ElectionLine podcast today to look at White House bids past and present, and discuss his upcoming book Countdown 1960.
Coming out on October 8, the third read in newsman Wallace’s Countdown franchise, 1960 goes deep into the first presidential campaign of the modern era with its game changing debate, primaries, candidates, potential vote challenge and some secret honor.
“Richard Nixon, of all people who will you know, is not generally seen as a hero, I think in this election, actually, kind of was,” Wallace says – as you can hear above.
“Despite pressure from inside his party, he decided to do the right thing, not for himself, but for the country, and not to contest Kennedy’s victory,” the Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace host notes. “Now compare that to 2020, when there’s no evidence of any fraud, or any fraud of any substantial amount that would have affected the election, and Trump, from election night on, keeps saying that it is a fraud, that it is stolen. And here we are, four years later, in a razor edge election, continuing to talk about, if he loses, it will be because it was stolen.”
“So, it seems to me, it could not be more relevant the election of 1960 to what to the events 64 years later.”
Also, on today’s podcast, there are just over four weeks until the election – which means, right now we are at the start of the period feared for what is called the “October surprise.”
We may have seen the first such surprise this week, with the release of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s unsealed brief outlining his election conspiracy case against Donald Trump. However, in a fractured media environment where so much of the public is siloed to hear only what they want to hear, these news events may not have the campaign shattering impact that they once did.
I mean, does anyone even remember the VP debate?
Speaking of remembering, 25-years ago, Dick premiered in theaters. The irreverent satire, starring Kirsten Dunst, Michelle Williams, Will Ferrell, a little known Ryan Reynolds and an amazing Dan Hedaya as Richard Nixon was a fictionalized comic take on Watergate. Dick writer and director Andrew Fleming talks to Ted and Dominic about the struggle to get the movie made, the very different take on the scandal that brought down a president — and why such a project may not work as real-life politics has gotten crazier and crazier.
Stick with ElectionLine all the way through the madness of this year’s race to Election Day. Subscribe to the Deadline ElectionLine podcast on Spotify, Apple Music, iHeart and all podcast platforms.
