24 days and counting, time to crunch the numbers. i'm michael smerconish in philadelphia. poll after poll shows democratic presidential candidate joe biden with a commanding lead over president trump, both nationally and in key states. and after days of often paralleled chaos surrounding the white house there's a feeling that this thing is getting away from the president. as peggy noonan wrote for "the wall street journal," quote, this is also a week that journalists and policecos in washington began wondering about something they never expected to be thinking about this year. they're wondering if november 3rd won't be a win for joe biden, but a blowout.

a landslide in a polarized country that doesn't produce landslides anymore. okay. but let's collect our collective breath for a moment and go back four years. initially, many were predict sh defeat, the national polls got it right. at the end of the cycle the clear politics average had clinton winning the popular vote by 3.2 percentage points and she did win the popular vote by 2.1 percentage points but in this moment of 2016, these polls from october had clinton up by the following marking margins. nbc/"wall street journal" by 14. fox by 7. cnn by 6, pew by 7. those same polls today show biden up by the following margins, nbc/"wall street journal" by 14. same as in 2016. fox by 10. cnn by 16. pew by 10.

even rasmussen research which many regard as right-leaning showed clinton ahead by 4 in 2016. now, they have biden up nationally by 12 percentage points. but many democrats are still traumatized. with the polling missteps in 2016 which overlooked the strength of trump's support in battleground states. so, let's compare what the state polls said in 2016 and what they're saying now. hillary clinton lost wisconsin by less than 1 percentage point. but a marquette university law school poll had clinton up by 7 percentage points in october of 2016. that same marquette poll now shows joe biden with only a five-minute lead. at this same point in 2016, reuters/ipsos had the wisconsin race too close to call. 2020 reuters/ipsos has biden by 6 in wisconsin.

hillary clinton lost pennsylvania by less than one percentage point. but "the new york times" sienna poll had clinton up by seven in 2016. that same poll right now has biden up by seven. also in pennsylvania, a quinnipiac poll had clinton up by five percentage points in late october of 2016. today, that same poll shows biden up by a much wider margin of 13 percentage points. monmouth at this point gave clinton a ten-point lead in the commonwealth. monmouth currently has biden up by 12 in pennsylvania. let's take a look at michigan another state that hillary clinton lost by less than one percent. at this exact week in 2016, clinton led by 11 percentage points according to an epic mra poll. we don't have that poll this year but the most recent nbc news/marist survey of the state

says it's biden by eight. emerson has michigan trump by seven. now michigan winning with biden by ten. and florida, clinton lost the electoral votes by one percentage point. october 17, 2016. a quinnipiac poll in florida had clinton edging trump by four points. currently, quinnipiac says it's biden by 11. and other states play an important role in the big picture. trump won the state of iowa by about nine percentage points in 2016. the october quinnipiac survey of iowa had clinton and trump in a virtual tie. 2020, quinnipiac has biden leading by five. clinton edged out trump in minnesota by about one percentage point. survey usa had clinton with a ten-point lead in minnesota. now, they say it's biden by seven. and finally, missouri, trump walloped clinton there by 18

points. the real clear politics polling average in 2016 had trump up by 18.5, pretty much spot-on. now, the missouri rcp average has trump winning by seven. here's the bottom line, both the national and state polls are telling a similar story. one of joe biden holding a comfortable lead with just about three weeks until the final day of voting. there's not a single poll that i can point to either nationally or in a battleground state that reads differently. if there were, i'd show it to you. and, yes, that sounds a lot like 2016. but the margins by which biden leads trump are in some instances larger than by which clinton led trump four years ago. still, it all comes down to turnout. i want to know what you think. go to my web at smerconish.com this hour and answer this survey question. do you trust the trump versus

biden polls? after the 2016 election, pollsters conducted an autopsy to figure out what the heck went wrong. so, did they do enough to avoid a 2016 repeat, especially gimp the uncertainty that voter turnout plays during a pandemic. joining me to discuss it courtney kennedy, the corrector of research at pew and research of the 2016 autopsy done by the american association for public opinion research. courtney, thanks so much for being here. why the disconnect in 2016, between the accuracy of the actual surveys and those done in the battleground states? >> hi, michael. well, the truth of the matter is that natural polls tend to be done by pollsters with longer track records, more resources, more money to do good polling. where state polls on average are done by your local tv station, or your local newspaper. they have a lot less money. and often, they hire firms that

don't have the resources or maybe the experiences to get all of the details right. and that's right, the committee i served on found a lot of factors that contributed to those state errors. some of them were in the pollsters' control, and others were not. >> i did a deep dive and so, too, did my terrific crew of all of the data to try and figure out where are we today as compared to 2016. in looking at florida, and i'll put this on the screen, just by way of illustration, the real clear politics averages for florida, i saw something that jumped off the page. one survey that was in the field, the 1st through 5th of october said it's biden by 11. another said, and they had were in the field at the same time, i'm talking quinnipiac and "usa today" suffolk said, no, it's a tie. wow, a disparity. a tie versus 11 points and there's a lot of that against state polling.

i guess my question is how comfortable do you feel about 2020 prognostication as compared to 2016? >> well, look, there's reason to be optimistic, and there's still plenty of reason to be cautious. it is encouraging that a number of state-level pollsters have fixed some things that went wrong in 2016. and we have seen some pollsters, reliable national pollsters answer the call that we need higher quality polling down at the state level. we see that in states like arizona and michigan. the number of polls this year is double or more than what we have the at this point in 2016. so that's all to the good, but we are still in the midst of a pandemic. polls will always have a margin of error with them. and it's always just a snapshot in time how voters are feeling right now. >> my sirius xm radio listeners love to talk of a hidden trump vote. in 2016, was there a hidden

trump vote, or is it better explained by late deciders? >> i would say late deciders. so, with the trump vote, there's one thing that's real and that is that trump exceeded expectations in turning out voters, especially rural voters, voters who had voted rarely, if ever, before he came along. and that definitely threw pollsters, because pollsters were looking back at the prior election, 2012, what were the turnout patterns there. and trump up-ended that, to his credit, right? he does succeed there. there's another notion of trump voters that maybe they're taking polls but they're not being honest. mare they're saying they're voting for a third party, or they're not being honest about their support for trump. the shy trump hypothesis. and that had been proven over the last years there's been a lot of testing about that little evidence that's a major concern.

>> courtney, something that seems to fly in the face of all of the data i've shown is recent data from gallup. kathryn, can you put that on the screen? the age old better off question. when asked if they're better off. there it is. 56% said that they're better off, and this is amidst a pandemic. how can that be squared with donald trump losing decisively to joe biden. >> sometimes, we see when people answer a question like that, trump supporters know that trump's their president. and so they're inclined to give answers that are favorable, that say, you know what, i like how things are going. so, they might not take that question literally. but they might instead just be kind of giving it an endorsement of the fact that trump is their president. and they really like that. so, i think that could probably be part of it. that would explain, you know, the 40%. it's hard to see how you get up

to, you know, the north of 50% on that, though. i agree, that's a little on humbly sounding. >> finally, pew was just in the field, the thing that differentiates pew from other data, your sample size is 10,000. give me one takeaway you that want people to know. >> sure. so biden supporters are not necessarily enthusiastic about their candidate. the support level is not as strong as how much they love the top of the ticket as they are on the trump side. but they're just as committed to vote for biden. so, we see different levels of enthusiasm. but basically the exact same level of commitment to vote for the candidate. >> that was excellent. thank you so much for being here. >> thank you, mike. >> what are your thoughts? tweet me @smerconish. i'll read throughout the program. this comes from twitter.

smerconish, at this time four years ago, wasn't there a much greater percentage of likely voters undecided. it's hard to find any now. mary, i think i'll answer that intuitively and not with data. i think that's true. and something else that i think is significant is that libertarians and green party advocates won't like me saying this, but i think the reality, there's not the enthusiasm in this cycle that there was last time for gary johnson and bill weld or jill stein. and therefore therefore, when you're donald trump and struggling to get to 50.1 with the benefit of third party candidates it makes the task easier. he really doesn't have the strength of a third party ticket to assist him in that regard which i think is a big factor. go to my website @smerconish and answer the question, do you trust the trump versus biden polls? up ahead, the president bailed on this week's debate

because it would have been held virtually. but he did a two-hour virtual rally on rush limbaugh's radio program. what does that say about the synergy about top radio and his political rise? and in the early 1990s, journalists scoffed with the incoming economy. what does that journalist think about the economy today? plus, you'll love this, plato, and jerry garcia -- the founderss have something in common. they all did psychedelics. my body is truly powerful. i have the power to lower my a1c.

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we just 24 days until the final day of voting president donald trump trails joe biden in almost all the polls. yet, this week he with brew from the scheduled town hall debate unhappy with the commission's decision to hold it virtually because of covid concerns. instead, he appeared on friday on rush limbaugh's radio program, rush limbaugh who awarded the freedom award. his guest was equally complementary. >> why i can talk to you, rush, the great rush, and you are the great one. and i'm honored to know you, but i can talk to you and i can spell out all of the dishonesty and everything else. and millions of people are listening right now. >> they are. >> your all-time biggest audience. >> to me, it marked things coming full circle.

let me explain. donald trump first flirted by running for president on the eve of the 1988 cycle. he traveled to new hampshire for an event. it was october 22nd, 1987 at joken's restaurant in portsmith. and there he blows. that didn't happen, contemporary to what he said at the time i don't think he would have won if he tried in 1988. or '92, or '96, or the year 2000. 2004, 2008 or 2012. and yes, he told us he was thinking about running in each of those cycles. but by 2016, the timing was right. the political landscape had shifted largely because of the rise of a partisan media. that began with rush limbaugh's syndication in 1988. at the time there was no place

for conservatives to get their news and entertainment. and rush limbaugh filled that void. over the ensuing three decades the media landscape changed and ultimately donald trump would be the beneficiary. by 2016, republican primary voters, the most devoted of talk radio listeners and fox news viewers they were preconditioned. they were primed. they were ready to nominate a candidate who mirrored their favorite media personality. entertaining, politically incorrect. a champion of outsiders. and donald trump seized the mantle and capitalized upon the distrust in the mainstream media. as harvard professor thomas patterson has written he was a road show of a talk show. joining me is brian rosenthal

who wrote the book on this called talk radio's america. how an industry took over a political party. and just wrote a review, headlined, trump debated like a conservative talk radio host. and that's why he failed. hey, let's talk about what you wrote about the debate. why did what he did yesterday with rush work, but what he did on the debate stage not work? >> it's all about the audience, michael. when talk radio hosts get out of the audience that's tuned in looking for their daily schtick, it ends up blog up wing up in t faces. because the broader public don't want caustic nicknames. they don't want somebody verbally rolling their eyes or screaming at people, or cutting them off. whereas, the person tuning in, they want that. they want to hear their values stuck up for. they want to hear someone

fighting for them. and trump gives them in abundance. >> in other words, what donald trump, what president trump did with limbaugh yesterday, i heard a great deal of it. it was very engaging. at parts, it was very entertaining. but when he tries to be that version of donald trump on a debate stage, it doesn't work. by the way, he has the ability to rein that persona in, and we see it when he delivers state of the union addresses. >> absolutely. he will do state of the union addresses. he did his acceptance speech. he's reading off the teleprompter, you know, there might be a little ad-libbing here and there, it's mostly a traditional political speech. he unders that broader audience expects that from him. that's what he should have done on the debate stage. instead, he told limbaugh yesterday, well, i had to, joe was lying. i had to cut him off. i should have just let him go because he's insane, he's losing it. this is the kind of thing that

the limbaugh audience is looking for. and it is engaging. you didn't know what he was going to say. he went on for two hours without a commercial yesterday. he's got nicknames. he's playing this person, that person. but when you do that for that broader audience, they're looking for something more serious and sober and substantive. and he just didn't give them that. >> you know, it was interesting to me the comments that he made, actually, kathryn, i'm going to switch the list of the audio. i'm going to the fox cut first. here's something that he said yesterday about fox news that i think you'll find interesting. roll the tape. >> you have such an incredible audience so i can tell them about fox being a big obstacle. it's a problem. fox say problem. when roger ailes ran fox, i mean, roger had a very strong point of view that's totally gone. i think it's influenced by paul ryan. he's on the board. i can't believe it. here's a guy who failed as speaker. >> when i heard president trump

bashing fox news yesterday on limbaugh's massive platform, i couldn't help but think if in 24 days this doesn't go his way, is this the next chapter for donald trump? >> i think so, you know. he's got all of the tools to hold the audience that he needs engaged. and we shouldn't forget, michael, that to have a great talk show, you need like 4%, 5% of the market. and you get a huge audience that would please any host. but to win an election, you need 50% plus one. or 270 electoral votes. you need a much broader audience. and some people listening to that were nodding their heads on the air saying, yes, fox is the problem. they're not complementary enough. it's only the good guys in prime time. but the broader audience, that sounds like a crazy conspiracy theory. >> brian seltzer's news source yesterday had a stunning take on

pew research. i'm going to read you this. a new report from pew found that 90% of republicans who only listened to fox news or talk radio as major sources of political news said that the country has controlled the outbreak as well as it could. fox loyalists were also more luckily to feel that the pandemic has been overblown. as of early september, among republicans with only fox news and/or talk radio as major news sources, 78% say the coronavirus has been made a bigger deal than it is really is. the bottom line the more you listen to fox exclusively, the more you think this whole covid-19 has been blown out of provide portion. your final thought? >> that's absolutely true. and those numbers went down precipitously if you consider other sources. and limbaugh and trump, they're

peeking to that audience who only listen to fox and talk radio and want exactly what trup is giving them. but that doesn't get him to the majority of the electorate. and, frankly, michael, he would be better off coming on this show than the blitz he's done on conservative media because i don't think he reached a single undecided voter. >> i said on twitter yesterday, mr. president, you'd be better off reaching my independent audience than the votes you already had. because, frankly, you need that people who watch or listen to my show. anyway. thank you for being here, your book i believe is terrific. >> my pleasure, michael. >> let's see what you're saying via my smerconish facebook and twitter pages. this from facebook, i think, no one is listing to rush unless they're already voting for trump. david, that's true, but rush limbaugh has completely supplanted the role that used to

be played by the republican party. therefore, i totally get it, it was politically wise for trump to go on with rush. it was a go-tv, get out effort. as i said to brian rosenthal, you're not going to win new converts but you're going to enthusiasm those who need to get out on election day. go to my website, some smerconish.com. do you trust the trump or biden polls? up ahead, according to the federal reserve, listen to this, 59 americans, 59, own more wealth than the poorest half of the country. my next guest earned the wrath of economists when in the early 1990s he said this was going to happen. and did the founders of western civilization do psychedelics? a provocative new book says yes,

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back if the early '90s, two pulitzer prize winning winners went to number one on "the new york times" best-seller list with the book called "america went what wrong." the analysis of patterns among working class people, vanishing jobs, fading health care was relevant and at times controversial. economists disagreed when they warned of growing income in equality. in fact, new federal reserve data shows that just 59 americans own more wealth than the poorest half of the country. one early adherent to their work was then presidential candidate bill clinton who waved their book on the campaign trail when

discussing the economy. one of the key takeaways of the book that macro economic information like unemployment numbers often don't tell the full story of what's going on at the bottom of the economic ladder. 24 years later, another presidential candidate donald trump rode some of their criticism of free tray to victory. what do the authors thing now? they published "america: what went wrong? the crisis deepens." and jim steele joins me now. jim, you warned of a two-class society and you got blowback from economists that said, no, this is just created obstruction. what is it that you saw that they didn't? >> one of the things we saw, michael, was that tax policies enacted in the '80s were creating income inequality. some of the economists said we were alarmists.

there's a funny story. our young daughter read one of our criticisms and somebody called us kasandras. and our daughter looked at us and said, dad, wasn't kasandra right? what we saw that tax policies, deregulation efforts, all of these things were driving down the income of the middle class americans and working people. what we didn't foresee was the extent of how bad this would become over the next few years. and that's what's so shocking about that statistic you that read from the fed today, that 59 families control half the income. absolutely shocking but not surprising. we've had these policies for 40 years with a couple of exceptions that favor the elite. >> when i think of the book, i always think of vice grip. what's the short version of vice grip and what was the bigger

lesson? >> vice grip was a little company in nebraska where a gentleman had invented this tool that almost every household has. and he had working people there in nebraska in the surrounding countryside that produced a good product. they shipped it all around the world. then one day a big conglomerate bought it. closed the plant and shipped the work to china, where in the beginning, the work was very inferior. the point being here were people who had done all the right things. they had even taken extra training, provided jobs for families, there were benefits for people. suddenly that was out the window. and that was the story of the early industry in the '80s and '90s and still goes on and so revolution today because all of the forces are still with us and growing more intense. >> well, free trade wasn't working for vice grip. and someone who would ride a

message like that to victory was donald trump. right? >> he did. and trump, i think, correctly realized some of the flaws in free trade. however, the way he has gone about this policy which has been this sort of blanket condemnation of china is not working. what he should have done, he should have linked arms with the europeans. he should have linked arms with other asians. because what china is doing, it's doing to everybody. a lot of their practices are indeed very interesting. not just to the american industry but industries all over the world. but you can't go it alone on something like this. you need to be part of that larger world family. i think if he had done that there might have been some changes. the trade policy with china has been an abysmal failure. ask the farmers in the midwest and companies who conget certain flies now, certain equipment, there's been a lot of bluster on that. foxconn is the great chinese

company out of taiwan that makes a lot of apple products in mainland china. they were going to put a plant in china. there was a big news release about that. go to that and the last news release, it's basically empty. >> jim, you do have to say they've been picking our pocket for decades including on intellectual property. >> yeah. >> and finally at last there's been blowback to that. i have to ask you, because i'm limited on time, the most important question of all. is it too late? >> no, it's not too late. we've had other times in this country where we've come together to help people when they're in trouble, whether it was the pure food and struggle act. tax issues, security issues. look at medicare in the '60s. where would we be in this country today if we didn't have medicare in terms of older people? social security. all of those things were reflected bitterly when people thought that government shouldn't have a role in it. that shows you we can do it

again. we just have to have the will to do it. the majority of people want it, so far, they've been blocked in congress. if that changes i can see a much brighter future for america. >> bartlett and steele, ahead of their time. thank you for being here. >> always great to be with you. >> i want to make sure you're answering the survey question at smerconish.com. do you trust the trump versus biden polls? still to come was the original eucharist a psychedelic? a provocative new book says yes, and the author is here to explain. in fact, tremfya® was proven superior to humira® in providing significantly clearer skin. serious allergic reactions may occur. tremfya® may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms or if you had a vaccine or plan to. tremfya®. uncover clearer skin that can last.

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it's been called the best kept secret in history. to the ancient greeks use drugs to find god? was the original eucharist a psychedelic? the answer would have enormous implications for the history of christianity and also the future of medicine. brian muraresku has been on a

12-year journey to find answers and his indiana jones journey took him to greece, the catacombs of the vatican. the new book is called "the immortality key: the secret history of the religion with no name." brian, i love the joe rogan interview, unfortunately, we don't have three hours. what was the eleusis and what went on. >> i refer to the eleusis as the greco world. in antiquity went to athens and rome and had this drink that called themselves divine like plato and cicero.

>> and does science support the findings of your book? >> believe it or not, it was hard to find it, this is not my theory. i basically followed a hypothesis from 1978 that claimed the ancient greeks using drugs to find god and it was largely scorned by the academy community because there was no scientific data to prove it. so, i spent years and year going through these archniobotny journals of spiked wine being hallucinogenic. and i did find evidence that it was either unaware or unreported by the academic community. >> so if the original uceuchari was a psychedelic does that mean that catholics have been getting

a placebo for years? >> well, i wouldn't say that, i cite a pupil that said something like 69% of american catholics do not believe in transsubstantiation. for those that don't know the doctrine of the bread and wine the eucharist literally becomes the blood and body of jesus in the mass. there was proof to prove that by going into this, we're now unearthing evidence, actual evidence, for wine that was spiked with all kinds of plants and herbs and toxins. >> well, if christianity then was borne of psychedelic experience, are you saying it was all created out of holy cloth? >> no, i don't think, i think at the roots of christianity, which i thought paleo-christianity,

the most exciting of the faith was to the ancient greeks the idea of spiked wine wasn't that uncommon. there was a wine god dionysus, the god of fear and ecstasy and rapture. and to drink the wine of dionysus was to drink the blood of god. for them, for early christians, i argue that it would not have been unthinkable for them to associate the wine of dionysus with the wine of jesus in what was largely a pagan practice. >> i have to ask you the "caddyshack" question, do you do drugs, danny? >> i do not. and i've never tried psychedelics. and i think part of the reason i'm talking to you is that i don't do psychedelics even though joe rogan was having a good time at that at my expense. listen, to me it was very important that i approached this

topic as objectively as possible. of course, i'm interested in the experience, but i'm more experienced in creating these conversations at the highest levels of academia with regulatory authorities in the u.s. and elsewhere. and with religious institutions. because of the data that i unearthed, i think this is a topic that is right for a very sober discussion at a very large level. >> and may i just say, first of all, the book is tremendous. but it's not only a fascinating story on the history of christianity, but also there are amazing therapeutic values if what you've assembled is correct. on a different day, we'll talk about that. thank you, brian. i really appreciate it. >> thank you. let's check in on your tweets and facebook comments. this comes from twitter i think. what do we have? smerconish, speaking of psychedelics, the past four years with trump has felt like a bad acid test in the middle of a

grateful dead drums and space solo? so, listen with no disrespect to mickey and phil -- bill krietsman and nicki hart, drums and space is when i run for the final beer of the night. still to come, the best and worst tweets and facebook. do you trust the trump versus biden polls? don't give them that chance. just calling to confirm your medicare number. do you have your card available? for example, if the caller says they're from medicare, watch out. it's probably a scam. don't give out your card number. and always check your claims statements for errors. report fraudulent charges to 1-800-medicare. guard your card. learn more at medicare.gov/fraud.

how will we do it, at a time we've been asked that before.

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responded to the survey question this hour at smerconish.com. do you trust the trump versus biden polls? survey says -- interesting, 23,000 votes and let's call it 60/40. can we round? 60/40 say no. so with 24 days to go, people are saying this thing is not over. from social media, what do we have? hello, social media. i think you forgot the impact of the comey letter in october of '16 and the vote for johnson and also the green party. those factors flip the vote in my opinion. well, i didn't forget any of it. in fact, i cited johnson and weld earlier in the program. you're right, that three-day experience with anthony winer's

laptop at the end was a curveball. look how many curveballs we've had in the last two weeks. does anybody remember jeffrey goldberg's piece in "the atlantic"? does anyone remember the new york tax story about $750 being paid in federal income? it's like a fire hose of information and it's very hard to keep up. and who knows what is to come in the next 24 days. what else from social media? smerconish, new polls suggest the majority of americans feel better off than they were four years ago. where is the disconnect with trump's polling numbers? nathan, that was precisely a question that i put to my guests. 56% gal up recently, 56% told gallup, and look how this compares -- no, that's not what i want, guys. i want the gallup survey that shows, are you better off. we don't have it. all right, 56% said recently that they think they are better

off than they were four years ago, and when you track that number, it's pretty astounding, because it doesn't match where the president stands. what else from social media? i watch fox news, but also listen to smerconish every saturday. i'm a decided voter. trump landslide victory 2020. i won't comment on your prediction. i'll only say that i like the fact that you are mixing up your news diet, because more than anything else, what people need to do, especially in the final 24 days, is get out of their bubble and change the channel. mix up where you're getting all the information. my take-away from the polling data is that there are a lot of similarities to where we were four years ago. the margins that biden has exceed those of hillary, but if we learned anything, it was that this final sequence of events yet to unfold is going to determine the outcome and we really don't know what that will be. i'll see you next week.

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2,000 people have been invited to the white house today and, right after that, president trump is off on an aggressive return to the campaign trail. >> a first look at the new campaign ad for joe biden that just launched this hour, and it features a call for unity from cindy mccain. >> plus the flooding and power outages and widespread damage tropical storm delta hammers the gulf coast with heavy rains and punishing winds. good to be with you this morning. i'm victor blackwell. >> and i'm christi paul. >> late last night president trump gave an upd