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Smerconish

Pennsylvania Voters Could Tip The Presidential Election; Will Climate Disaster Transform The South? Iran Scrambles For Diplomacy As Israel Plans Retaliation; U.S. Pushes For Restraint Amid Growing Middle East Tensions. Aired 9-10a ET

Aired October 12, 2024 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[09:00:22]

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN ANCHOR: Dark and stormy. I'm Michael Smerconish in Philadelphia.

So, who are we? Are we still the nation of boundless optimism and enormous opportunity? Are we the exceptional and indispensable beacon for the world, or are we and our fellow Americans, angry, depressed, pessimistic, fearful? Are we beaten down by inflation and the presence of millions of migrants who poured across our southern border? These two visions of America, one bright, one dark, are increasingly the proxies for the two candidates, Vice President Kamala Harris, former President Donald Trump.

You might think that voters would gravitate toward the glass half full. After all, it worked for Ronald Reagan in 1984. The uplifting Morning in America commercial still a benchmark against which others are judged. Barack Obama, he embraced the brand of hope. Bill Clinton, literally the man from Hope, Hope, Arkansas that is called Vice President Harris, a president of joy in his speech at the DNC. And then there was Oprah.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OPRAH WINFREY, HOST, "THE OPRAH WINFREY SHOW": And let us choose joy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMERCONISH: After Oprah got a roar from that same crowd by singing joy, I saw an analysis suggesting that psychologists thought it was excellent advice. But Donald Trump has other ideas, searching for select voters, he keeps getting darker. As noted in USA Today, "While Trump has engaged in rough rhetoric since entering politics in 2015, particularly against migrants, he appears to be ratcheting it up in the final weeks of his third general election campaign. In Trump's comments, political opponents have gone from incompetent to mentally impaired, migrants are murderers with bad genes, and World War III is right around the corner."

Just last night, Trump visited Aurora, Colorado, a Denver suburb. The GOP, by the way, has not won Colorado in a presidential election since 2004 and nobody thinks that Colorado is in play this year, but Trump was there to say that Aurora had been invaded and conquered by migrants. The city's conservative Republican mayor said those claims were exaggerated.

I used to think that Trump's most divisive words were unscripted, that he was going rogue, that he was causing conniptions among his seasoned staff. After all, if the race is coming down to my neighbors in the Philly burbs, because as go the burbs of Philly, go Pennsylvania and the nation, that would appear to be a losing strategy and message. You're not going to win. The moms in Doylestown, Bryn Mawr and Westchester with fear, which engenders division. But now I realize they're not the intended audience.

Trump knows he can't win them. Everything is baked in at this point. This is not a campaign interested in persuasion. Instead, it's all about motivation, and those that he's seeking to motivate are individuals who might not otherwise get out to vote.

Jonah Goldberg explained it beautifully recently in the LA Times. He said this, "It's like the difference between a film buff who will definitely go to the movies this weekend but isn't sure what to see, and somebody who is interested in one movie but isn't sure it's worth the effort to go to the theater. Why not just wait for it to show up on Netflix? It turns out that there are a lot more wait for Netflix voters than there are indecisive film buff voters."

How many are there? Well, remember, 1/3 of eligible voters, about 80 million people sat out the 2020, election. Goldberg said that Trump's apocalyptic rhetoric might turn off my neighbors, but could move irregular voters to go to the polls. Differences on issues like the border, abortion, even the economy might not motivate them, but the survival of the country that might be the ticket. Viewed in this light, Trump's outlandish statement about eating cats and dogs in Ohio, or Elon Musk's recent tweet to his 200 million followers, they begin to make political sense. Musk wrote, realize if Trump is not elected, this will be the last election. Far from being a threat to democracy, he's the only way to save it.

Every time Trump says something that causes you to say, I guess he just lost more votes. Remember, the polls show that the race is neck and neck in spite of all that he has said. It's no longer about the undecided, it's about motivating those who will otherwise stay home. Kamala Harris has not closed the deal. And in the last seven days, the betting market predicted Trump has gained nine cents or nine percentage points, which brings me to today's poll question at smerconish.com go and vote, which is a more potent election emotion, hope or fear?

[09:05:13]

We're just 23 days away from election night. It might all come down to Pennsylvania. Harris holds a narrow edge over Trump in P.A. according to a brand new poll from the Philadelphia Inquirer, "New York Times" and Siena College just came out this morning, Harris at 50 among likely voters to Trump's 47 in a matchup. It's the second recent high quality poll to show Harris slightly ahead in the state. A new Quinnipiac poll shows Harris leading Trump by three. A new Wall Street Journal poll shows that it's Trump by one.

It's close, and neither candidate has a clear advantage.

Election analyst Nate Silver predicts Pennsylvania likely to be the tipping point for the entire election. It's why this headline on the front page of "The New York Times," The Battle for Pennsylvania, which could tip the election, ran this week. What makes the state so important? For one, it's politically diverse. Democrats dominate the two largest cities, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. But spread out in between are rural territories favoring Republican candidates, and over time, the state's suburbs have become uniquely purple.

Joining me now are two Pennsylvanians who know a lot about what it takes to win this state. Pennsylvania attorney and former Democratic congressman, Conor Lamb, he represented the state's 17th district. He became a rising Democratic star in 2018 when he was one of few Democrats to flip a Trump district in a competitive swing state. His congressional win said to be used as a blueprint for President Biden's 2020 race. And Charlie Dent, he's the senior advisor at our Republican legacy, a former Republican congressman. Dent represented the 15th District of Pennsylvania for seven terms. His district included key political areas like Lehigh and Northampton County. Some local analysts say Bellwether counties like Northampton and Erie are likely to predict the 2024, winner.

Great to have both of you here. Conor, let me begin with you. Brand new poll out today says that it's Harris by three maybe four in Pennsylvania. When you go to the internals, I'll put this on the screen and I'll read it aloud. Show what's going on, Catherine (ph). Can we put that up?

When you ask about the economy, the edge is Donald Trump's, 54-43, that has grown since last month. And yet, when you ask who helped the working class, it's Harris with an edge, 51-47. I want to ask you, Conor Lamb, about those working class voters who traditionally, you know, their fathers, their mothers, supported Democratic candidates, but Trump has been able to make inroads. What do you see going on?

CONOR LAMB, (D) FORMER P.A. CONGRESSMAN: Well, he's making inroads with a lot of different groups. You know, the story of his success with the white working class like out here in western Pennsylvania is now several years old. And, you know, I've just been concerned that we haven't seen the Democrats necessarily focus on taking back those voters in Beaver County in Washington and Westmoreland County as much as I would like. The scary trend from 2020 is that Trump started making inroads as well with Latino working class voters and black working class voters in Philadelphia, and he's clearly trying to expand on that this time, whereas Harris seems to be making gains continually with college educated voters in our state. So, you know, she has held her own, poll after poll shows her even or ahead in Pennsylvania.

And so she's clearly holding what we have. But what we need to do in the last three weeks is expand the playing field a little bit. She's going to Erie this week, which is full of working class voters. And I'm really looking forward to hear what she says there as her final pitch.

SMERCONISH: Charlie Dent, it's interesting to me that Trump has the edge on the economy, and the economy is regarded as the most significant issue to Pennsylvanians, probably in the nation as well. And yet she's ahead, he's not ahead, which tells me that there's a hesitancy, there's that reluctant Trump voter, there are people he can't close either. What do you see?

CHARLIE DENT, (R) FORMER P.A. CONGRESSMAN: Well, I think part of Trump's problem, he's got this low ceiling, largely because of his own conduct. It's the way he conducts himself. So even if people might agree with him on some policy, there's something that's holding them back. And of course, we shouldn't underestimate the potency of the Dobbs, of the abortion issue post Dobbs, we have not had a presidential election post Dobbs, and this is the first one. A lot of, particularly women voters, are motivated by that issue.

So right now, the way I see this, Pennsylvania is a dead heat. And Michael, your home county of Bucks County, is one to watch. We want to see, you know, because Harris is going to win that county. Is she going to win it by as much as Biden did? That's a big question.

And of course, the Bellwether County, Northampton County, where you went to school at Lehigh University, that county, I don't make a lot of predictions, but I will say this, whichever candidate wins Northampton County is going to win Pennsylvania and probably the presidency. You could probably make the same case about Erie County. That's what I see happening right now, but it is really, really tight. And you know, we talk a little bit about -- Conor mentioned Hispanic voters. It's true, Republicans are doing a bit better with Hispanic voters.

[09:10:10]

But in Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley, we have very significant Hispanic population. They tend to be Puerto Rican and Dominican more heavily, and they're not as Republican oriented as, say, the Cubans and Venezuelans or even the South Texas Mexican Americans for a variety of reasons, but they're moving a little bit as well. So I'm going to keep an eye on the Hispanic vote a little bit in Lehigh Valley and elsewhere in Pennsylvania.

SMERCONISH: Conor, what do you make of my thesis? Go ahead and pick it apart if you don't agree with it, which is to say he knows he's tapped out, he knows that he has a high floor, low ceiling, and the play now is not to persuade anybody, it's to try and pull out some couch potatoes who before him, but are not inclined to vote.

LAMB: Yes, I think it's -- I think it's mostly correct. But the other effect that you see, I think, is he's just muddied all the waters totally so that even normal voters have kind of become pessimistic about whoever the next president is and whatever they're going to do. I was talking to a guy that runs a barber shop yesterday and he did -- he voted Trump '16, Biden '20, and he's trying to figure out what to do this time. And he was telling me he's 60-40 Trump. And it was all premised on the fact that he doesn't think either of them, they're going to get anything done, but he's like, look, I know what I'm getting with Trump.

Like, I know where inflation was back then. I know what I paid in taxes and what I earned in my shop, and then I can compare that to Biden, when I kind of did worse, and so I'm leaning back toward Trump. But the interesting thing about that to me was Trump hasn't really closed the deal with him either. So while Trump's running around talking about cats and dogs like he's leaving this guy open for us to pick off if Harris runs her campaign right in the last three weeks.

SMERCONISH: Charlie Dent, why hasn't she closed it out? If he has had such a rocky seven or so weeks and so many controversial statements and so many faux pas, at least as reported by the media, then why isn't Harris further ahead?

DENT: Well, Trump is a known entity throughout the country and in Pennsylvania, but I suspect because people just don't know Kamala Harris as well. And if we're going to focus on Pennsylvania a little bit, I think that she has -- you know, she doesn't have a strong history in the state. She obviously -- you know, she's not from here, and she, you know, she had a misstep on fracking when she ran for president the first time, came out against that big issue, particularly in Western Pennsylvania. And I think that, you know, she's had to better define herself, and she is still defining herself and making some adjustments. So I think she still has a bit of growth potential left.

You know, obviously, we're running out of time, but this has been a very abbreviated campaign, and so people are still trying to get to know her. So, she has the growth potential. Trump ceiling is where it is about 47 percent maybe 48 percent. You know, she can probably do a little bit better, but that remains to be seen at this point.

SMERCONISH: Conor Lamb, I feel like the three of us could pull out John King's big map of Pennsylvania, and we could agree on how to color code each of the Commonwealth 67 counties, right? We know what's going to happen in each of them. It's all a function of margin. And I want to ask you specifically about Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and whether you think she's going to get the vote she needs there to offset what's going to happen in central Pennsylvania?

LAMB: I'm very concerned about that, and I'm glad you asked it, because if you just look at the color coded map, it doesn't tell you, you know, are we winning Philadelphia, 95-five, and is the absolute number of votes as high as it needs to be, which it hasn't. So like your viewers might not know, in 2022 we got more Democratic votes out of Allegheny County, where I live, out here in western Pennsylvania, than we got out of Philadelphia for the first time in history, even though Philly has like 400,000 more people. And so all I can say is, in the last two to four years, I've been asking everyone smart that I know in Philadelphia, have you got a handle on this problem, and are we fixing it? And I have not heard a convincing answer to that question yet. So I don't know what it's going to be that allows us to turn that around and get more turnout on that side of the state. I will say in Allegheny County here, which includes Pittsburgh, you know, we've been increasing our vote share every time. So I think we're -- we have a handle on it out here. It's a little smaller, a little easier to manage, but Philadelphia is an issue for us.

SMERCONISH: Charlie Dent a PSA, if we might, for the rest of the country, because we don't begin the pre canvassing process of our ballots until Election Day itself. This could be one of these situations where there's a red mirage and blue wave, meaning, at night, it looks one way, and by morning it looks completely different. Would you say something about our ballot tabulation process and how everybody just needs to kind of keep their powder dry?

DENT: Yes, our election process is very good in Pennsylvania, but because the legislature has been unable to pass a law to allow the processing of these mail-in votes before Election Day, I think voters should expect a little bit of a delay in the actual tabulation. It might not be four or five days like 2020 but it could be an extra day or two. So I would not panic, but you could have that red mirage.

[09:15:14]

And by the way, I just tell everybody, Michael, watch the Philadelphia suburbs. It's true what Conor said, that in Philadelphia -- you know, actually Donald Trump performed better in 2020 in Philadelphia than he did in 2016, that was the only county in Pennsylvania he did a little better. It's those collar counties where you're from, you know, Bucks, Montgomery, Chester, Delaware. Let's see what the margin is coming out of there. That's probably going to determine the election.

Biden won it by 285,000 votes, and Hillary won it by 185,000, that's 100,000 vote differential. That's going to be the difference, I suspect, again, in the 2024 election. So keep a close eye on Bucks County, especially.

SMERCONISH: Conor lamb, Charlie Dent, I really appreciate both of you. Thank you so much for being here.

LAMB: Thank you.

DENT: Thank you.

SMERCONISH: I want to know what everybody thinks at home. Go to my website at smerconish.com, vote on today's poll question, which is a more potent election emotion, is it hope or is it fear? Hit me up on social media. I'll read some responses throughout the course of the program. What do we have, Catherine?

From the world of Twitter, X, fear is the most powerful persuasion tool. That's why Democrats call Trump a threat to democracy, even though it's completely imaginary.

Well, Timothy, kind of saying to me, hey, Michael, very interesting observation. So here I am talking about how the message coming out of the DNC was all one of joy and the Oprah singing joy, et cetera, et cetera. His observation is, yes, but they call Trump a threat to democracy so they're playing the same card, but not to the extent that he is. I just -- I wanted to get off my chest, and I think that I did at the beginning of the program today, that there's a method to this. This is not just him going rogue.

This is not just him like, you know, taking the script and ripping it up. No, no, no, no. It's much more calibrated than that, as I think I explained.

Up ahead, how much of an influence does climate risk have on where you choose to live? Would you relocate from the south to the Midwest? What the data is now telling us about where Americans are choosing to live in the face of extreme weather.

And be sure to sign up for my smerconish.com daily newsletter when you're voting on the poll question. Steve Breen drew this for us this week.

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[09:21:48]

SMERCONISH: Hurricane Milton slammed into Florida leaving a devastating path of destruction in its wake with winds topping 140 miles per hour, it caused catastrophic damage. Early estimates place property damage in the billions. Communities in the Tampa Bay area now grappling with water shutoffs, power outages, entire neighborhoods still under water.

The costs of these storms keep rising, with early assessments for Helene, pointing to a staggering 47.5 billion in property damage, up to 30 billion in uninsured flood losses. In fact, new home buyers can now view climate risk data on platforms like Zillow, highlighting how crucial this issue has become for everyone, whether fleeing storms or planning their next move. But these aren't just isolated events. As we witness more frequent and intense hurricanes like Milton and Helene, the larger story emerges about how Americans are adjusting to a world where climate disasters are becoming the new normal. In fact, an article in "The New York Times" this week explored the unsettling trends of climate driven migration, predicting that millions of Americans may soon relocate, not just from flood prone coastal areas, but from regions hit hardest by extreme heat and storms and sea level rise. It's already happening.

According to research from First Street, over 3.2 million people have moved out of vulnerable areas like Miami and Galveston, and 7.5 million people are expected to leave current and emerging climate abandonment areas over the next 30 years. For a deeper dive into how these climate crises are transforming our landscapes and our lives, let me turn to the man behind many of these findings, Jeremy Porter, the head of Climate Implications Research at First Street.

Jeremy, thank you so much for being here. So are we at a point now where, if you're looking for a home, you say, well, how are the schools? What's the crime rate like? How are the taxes? And, oh, by the way, how much extreme weather am I going to face? DR. JEREMY PORTER, HEAD OF CLIMATE IMPLICATIONS RESEARCH, FIRST STREET: Yes, well, first, thanks for having me on. But I want to say that we are at that point. I think we're at the critical inflection point where, for decades, we've been seeing increases in the frequency and severity of weather disasters and climate events. One of the biggest problems around that exposure, though, is we haven't seen awareness increase around, you know, where, where these climate events likely to occur? How are people going to be impacted?

And I think as you start to see data like ours on Zillow, on Realtor, on Redfin, all of a sudden, people at a critical point when they're buying a home, have access to an additional data point around climate so they have the information around the school quality, as you mentioned, the walkability, but now you can also start to understand what's my risk today from climate and how is that going to change it to the future. Remember, these are generally 30 year mortgages, and people are thinking about that into the future. So understanding climate risk and how that's changing is paramount to make it a smart decision.

SMERCONISH: Where do you already see this? I referenced Miami, I referenced Galveston, but where in the data do you see the impact of migration tied to extreme weather based on climate change already taking place?

PORTER: Yes, we saw this. We ran a national study. It's really interesting, because the national narrative has been that people are flocking to risk. And in a lot of ways for, you know, over the last half century, we've seen this kind of rust belt to Sun Belt Movement at a macro level, regional migration, where we see a lot of exposure to climate risk, wildfires in California, hurricanes in Texas, hurricanes in Florida.

[09:25:22]

But what we saw in our study was that if you drill down and you started to look at a more hyper local level, and you started to understand, you know, within cities and for context, about 85 percent of all residential moves every year or more are local as opposed to cross state lines. If you look at those moves, people are taking that information and they're making smart climate decisions. It's in the historic record for the last 20 years in the census that people are responding to climate, they're leaving places that have climate risk and they're moving to places that don't have climate risk.

I think one of the really, really interesting points about this is, I think we're just at the tip of the iceberg. A big driver of this it was not only the persistent exposure to climate risk, but we're also seeing the insurance industry start to play a big role in that. And as housing prices increase, for instance, Florida, the national average is about $2,500 a year for insurance. In Florida, it's about $11,000 and people are responding to that. There's a survey that came out that said that about 12 percent of Floridians are planning to move within the next year out of the state because of climate risk. So we are seeing --

SMERCONISH: Jeremy --

PORTER: -- hyper local already.

SMERCONISH: -- something occurs to me based on your data. Take our final 60 seconds and address the political ramification of this. Because if you're telling me that the rust belt to the south pattern is going to stop or be reversed, and then we take a census every 10 years, and we draw congressional boundary lines, this could have profound impact on the Electoral College, among other things. Talk to me about that.

PORTER: Absolutely. I think as people start to disperse, we're likely to see people leave some of the traditional areas in the south that people have been moving to. It's already starting to happen where within the next decade, we'll likely see people leaving a lot of these climate risky areas, moving to areas that are potentially less risky, a lot of those in the Midwest, a lot of those in the northern part of the country. And we're already seeing that in historic trends where the movement from north to south has essentially gone flat. Now we're not seeing those dramatic trends anymore.

We'll probably see more purple areas versus the blue and red that we see today.

SMERCONISH: OK, purple is good. Purple is good. Jeremy, thank you so much. Appreciate your analysis. Thank you, sir.

Here's some social media reaction that has come in during the course of the program. What do we have, Catherine? From the world of X, Michael, in January when it's 17 degrees in Philly and you step in brown slush, what makes you think it's going to be brown slush? It'll be white slush. You'll be thinking of Florida. Call me for a great condo on the beach in paradise.

I agree that there's like some cognitive dissonance going on. A caller of mine said this week on radio, hey, but 97 percent of the time, it's beautiful and it's warm and it's fun. At some point. And I think Jeremy made reference to this in a smart way, the insurance markets aren't going to stand for it. They're just not going to underwrite any longer. And I'm thinking in the future, don't know if I'll live to see because it may take a few decades to play out, but this could have a profound impact.

One last thing, somebody else called my Sirius XM radio program this week, and they introduced me to the term half backers. I'd never heard it. A half backer is a person who leaves like Michigan or Wisconsin or Philly and Pennsylvania, and they moved to Florida, and it's like this extreme weather, this is nuts, we got to get out of here. They don't go all the way back, they go back to North Carolina. Only we just saw in Asheville and surrounding areas what that can be like as well.

Great issue. I want to remind you, hit my website at smerconish.com, answer today's poll question, which is more potent as an election emotion, is it hope or is it fear?

Still to come, your social media reaction by commentary and U.S. diplomacy now in high gear. Can America diffuse tensions between Israel and Iran before it's too late? I'll speak with retired Admiral James Stavridis, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, about a path to diplomacy. Please make sure you're signing up for my newsletter when you're voting on the poll question at smerconish.com.

Scott Stantis drew this for us this week. Another cartoon drawn exclusively for us this week, Steve Breen.

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[09:34:11]

SMERCONISH: Hey, we love your social media reaction. And you can find me in all the usual places. So, you know, reach out. Let me know what you're thinking.

Kelly Ann -- both parties are using fear. If you're a D, the world will become Handmaid's Tale. And if you're an R and vote Harris, the United States will become a Commie red Bolshevik State.

I agree with you that both are playing the card, but there's not parity. There's not parity between the two. It's -- you know, this is not -- going dark. I'll say it this way. I think I can sum it up in a soundbite. Going dark on the part of Trump is not going rogue. It is a calibrated strategy and it might work by reaching people who are not, otherwise, inclined to vote realizing that for everybody else it's already baked in.

That Pennsylvania poll that I told you about at the outset of the program today and -- I love talking about my own home state, but also because it's the most important state, "Philadelphia Inquirer" three or four-point race.

[09:35:09]

It also says, how many do you think are undecided who are intending to vote? What percentage, just ask yourselves, do you think are intending to vote but are undecided? You think it's 10 percent, five percent? Three percent, only three percent.

More social media reaction. What else do we have?

It should be hope. But we've proven that fear of the sociological "other" is powerful.

Look, Bob, fear is a -- is a very potent weapon and that's what I'm asking in the poll question. You know, is it hope or is it fear that's more of a motivator? Fear was used in 2008 against President Obama. You know, fear of the other. It was unsuccessful in that effort.

And of course, he ran as -- you know, you can picture the iconic image on a banner of hope in that campaign. So, in that instance, hope overtook fear is what I would argue.

More social media reaction. What else has come in? I could do the whole show on this. Hurricane frequency is not increasing. Hurricane intensity is not increasing.

I don't believe that's true. I do not believe that to be true. And anybody -- the entire climate crisis narrative, hyperbolic fearmongering (EXPLETIVE DELETED).

I don't believe that. Sir, madam, do you have a window? Do you have a window? I mean, my God. You'd have to have your head literally in the sand to ignore the rise of extreme weather in our lifetime.

And I'm not conflating just weather with climate change, but I am putting together in a causation frame of reference, climate change and extreme weather. And it's now -- I mean, just look how many are suffering in the country today. Sooner or later, the insurance markets, I think, are going to be the ones to say, we're no longer going to underwrite this risk. We're not going to permit you unless you want to assume all the risk to live in these areas.

And like many of the others, I engaged in the cognitive dissonance of realizing this to be a problem and then wondering when I can next get to Florida. Sooner or later, it's going to catch up. And when it does, the political impact of this is going to be significant. Because today states that are -- that are based on, you know, conservative red states are going to change blue and vice versa, in some circumstances.

All right, more to come on the program as the world awaits Israel's response to Iran's most recent missile attack, what role will the U.S. play as the world watches? I've got the right person to weigh in. Retired Admiral James Stavridis joins us in just a moment.

Don't forget to vote on the poll question at Smerconish.com today. Which is a more potent election emotion? Is it hope? Is it fear?

Sign-up for the free daily newsletter while you're there. You will get exclusive editorial cartoons sketched by some of the greats, including Jack Ohman.

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[09:42:24]

SMERCONISH: On this day of Yom Kippur, Iran scrambling to engage in urgent diplomacy, all to avert an Israeli response after its missile attack earlier this month. Iran fears Israel will target its nuclear sites and oil facilities, prompting the U.S. to press Israel for a proportional response.

U.S.-Israel relations, they become strained as Israel has increasingly disregarded U.S. calls for restraint. Like its recent unilateral assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. With Iran's proxy. Hezbollah weakened the U.S. Gulf allies like the UAE, calling for American intervention.

The region teeters on the edge of escalation. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have warned they will not allow Israel to use their airspace, amplifying concerns over a potential regional war that could spike global oil prices.

To discuss this urgent threat, retired U.S. Navy Admiral James Stavridis. He spent more than 30 years in the Navy, rising to become the supreme allied commander of NATO.

He has just authored a great novel. It is called "The Restless Wave," hit the shelves. It's a captivating read that follows a young naval officer as he faces the bloody first years of World War II.

Admiral, great to have you here. What will be the U.S. role, if and when Israel responds to Iran?

ADMIRAL JAMES STAVRIDIS (RET.), FORMER SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER OF NATO: First point, I think, Iran has awoken and smelled the T in the Middle East, which is to say they're realizing the reach, and the power, and the authority of Israel. The unbroken string of success over the last couple of months by Israel against the terrorists, Hamas and Hezbollah, quite striking, that's penetrated. And as a result, Iran is pedaling furiously to try and restrain Israel. This gets us to the U.S. role.

I think the U.S. will try and ensure Israel doesn't strike major civilian targets, doesn't strike the nuclear sites, doesn't strike the energy. So, first role for the U.S. is discussions about what to do. And then secondly, where I think you're going with a question, Michael, we almost certainly will be providing intelligence, cyber security, overwatch.

Our aircraft carriers will be in the region as backup. But I think in the end this strike is going to be conducted by Israel for Israelis.

SMERCONISH: But does Israel run the risk of diminished U.S. support if the reports are true that President Biden has cautioned Prime Minister Netanyahu not to go after oil fields, not to go after a nuclear capability or the burgeoning nuclear capability on the part of Iran?

[09:45:07]

If Israel does that, nonetheless, does Israel run the risk of, at least, reduced U.S. support?

STAVRIDIS: I think, perhaps for a period of time but here I differentiate between tactical -- what you're referring to as a tactical series of disagreements between the Biden administration and the Netanyahu administration. The strategic relationship between Israel and the United States is rock solid. And it's not going to be knocked to skew regardless of who the next president of the United States is, and regardless of what Israel does in its retaliatory strike.

SMERCONISH: I have World War II on the brain because of "The Restless Wave," your brand-new book. Sneak attacks were a part of that war. I don't know that this is a sneak attack because we all anticipate what Israel is about to do. Put it in some historical framework.

STAVRIDIS: Well, let's start with the recent words of the Israeli minister of defense, Yoav Gallant. He said the strike will be precise, lethal, and surprising. So, even when you know a strike is coming it can occur in a way that surprises you.

I kind of think it could include cyber, perhaps another targeted killing. And to put it in a historical context, we're in the 1930s with building sense of serious conflict, particularly in the Middle East.

You and I have discussed the chances of this blowing up into a significant wider regional war that involves the United States. I think it's about one in four, which is uncomfortably high. And again, as I think of World War II and as we explore in the novel, "The Restless Wave," events can have their way with sovereign states.

SMERCONISH: You didn't ask me to blurb the novel, but I wrote one anyway. Can you put up on the screen what I wrote for Admiral Stavridis' book?

I said, Stavridis combines his love of history, respective the sea and pride in the Navy in this fast-paced drama about a young officer thrust into World War II while trying to temper his own flaws and fulfill his leadership potential.

Maybe you'll do that on the paperback reprint. Am I right that there are Dante's Inferno clues planted throughout the book? And what are you trying to say in that?

STAVRIDIS: World War II was an inferno in that greatest generation that we think of as heroic in unbeatable, and incredible, and they were all those things. They were also young, scared, and flawed.

And so, the book explores, as does Dante's Inferno, the passage of a young unformed person through the circles of hell, the battles of the Pacific and World War II. And let's hope by the end of the series, he emerges on the other side like Dante did.

SMERCONISH: I don't want to put you in a bad position, but I'm sure you've been watching the program and you know the poll question. Could we put it up on the screen, Catherine? Today's poll question at Smerconish.com, which is a more potent election emotion, hope, or fear?

Do you care to cast the ballot publicly?

STAVRIDIS: I'm on team hope. And you know me, Michael. I'm a short guy. Like five feet five inches tall. So, I love to quote short guys. So, I'll wrap up by quoting Napoleon, one of the great leaders in history.

And Napoleon said, a leader is a dealer in hope. A leader is a dealer in hope. I'm on team hope.

SMERCONISH: Admiral, congratulations on "The Restless Wave." Thank you for being here.

STAVRIDIS: Thank you, my friend. SMERCONISH: OK. He just voted. Time for all of you. Go to Smerconish.com, cast your ballot. You know what the poll question is.

Subscribe to the newsletter while you're there. You'll get exclusive editorial cartoons like this from Rob Rogers.

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[09:53:48]

SMERCONISH: So, there's the vote. So far, 59 percent. Wow, 32,000. I bet some of you are bombed at that idea, right? Which is a more potent election emotion, hope, or fear? Fear is at 59 percent.

I am told by Catherine, my producer, that there was just a growth for the hope vote based on Admiral Stavridis publicly weighing in on what he thought. So, maybe it's going to change. It's in a state of flux. Make sure you're voting at Smerconish.com.

Here is some of the social media reaction that has come in during the course of the program. What do we have?

Fear. Both sides use it. Let's not pretend that they don't. I acknowledge that. But the rhetoric coming from the right is almost off the charts at this point.

Shannon, I agree with you. You know, the former president in Aurora last night, which I said at the outset of the program, the comment in the debate about eating cats and dogs, there's nothing he's unwilling to say double negative. He'll say anything relative to the final stretch of this campaign because so forceful is he now on the fear emotion.

More social media reaction. What else has come in?

I believe fear is on both sides. With Trump, it's obvious. With Kamala Harris it's the fear of losing our rights, women's rights. That's very motivating.

[09:55:00]

And so too it's fear of democracy. Remember, early on when President Biden was still the Democratic candidate, the play -- I remember the speech that he came to Philadelphia to deliver at Independence Hall, you know, bathed in red, a very fear invoking speech. And then so said that reporting it wasn't moving the needle. And they backed off the whole democracy is at risk and decided to focus on other factors. And of course, then he got out of the race.

One more that I think I've got time for it. Let's see it. What do we have?

It's becoming clear that these weather phenomena are intensifying in strength. Yes, you think? Storm of the century scenarios are happening regularly. This reality should impact where we want to plant our flag. I totally agree. Anybody with a window, I think, knows what's going on. And no, I'm not conflating weather with extreme weather and climate change. See you next week.

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