A Potential October Surprise Looms Over 2024 Election

Hey welcome to Crossroads. Folks it is October and an election season that carries other implications because hey we're getting ready for the big October surprise and people are warning about it. Hillary Clinton's warning about it. A lot of Republican media are warning about it. Now look the nature of something like this is it's not predictable. We don't really know what it's going to be but actually there are some stories developing right now that could have that effect as it is. Now I want to start off with some of what's going on. I want to start with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton because she raised the possibility of this during a recent interview on PBS. Watch this. I anticipate that you know something will happen in October as it always does. It starts online often on the dark web. It migrates. It's picked up by the pro-Trump media. It's then reported on by everybody else which makes sure it has about a hundred percent coverage and people believe it. So I don't know what it's going to be but it will be something and we'll have to work very very hard to make sure that it is exposed as the lie that it is. Now based on what Hillary Clinton is saying right she's suggesting there could be some kind of disinformation that's released and she's suggesting this is something that would more impact the Democrats. She doesn't warn about this on the Republican side and you know this has a lot of implications with it because in terms of candidates there's not a whole lot of people, there's not a lot that people could say more about Trump at this point. They've already accused him of just about everything you can possibly imagine. He's been accused of almost every crime. He's been criticized. He's been attacked. He's been blamed of foreign collusion. I mean there's not much more they could say about Trump that people have not already heard. I think the next degree would be an attempted assassination. They've done that twice already. That said though they are working on one more thing that we know of. There's a chance that special counsel Jack Smith could actually come out and release new information on January 6th. Now Forbes said this is that special counsel Jack Smith's office filed a new brief and former president Donald Trump's federal election case on Thursday that's expected to include new evidence about the ex-president's efforts to overturn the 2020 election but it still isn't public yet as of Friday morning as redactions have to be approved before the document can be released. And so given that right the January 6th narrative is one of the bigger ones. It's pushed against Trump for the elections although it's not clear how much it's going to affect things. I'd assume by now most people have heard about it. If you're reading a lot of the Democrat media you probably think that Trump tried overturning the elections. If you read a lot of the Republican media you might think it's the other way around. It's one of those issues that at least as far as I've seen doesn't necessarily isn't at this point going to probably change the way people vote. People already have their ideas about it and they pretty much already have that nailed down. Now if the special counsel does release the information though I think the real impact of it's not going to be so much the information itself. It's going to be that news outlets will have fodder for new coverage and so the real effect of again special counsel Jack Smith releasing that publicly will be that all the news outlets are going to be covering it non-stop. And again you know think mid-October after the review process is done Jack Smith will release this just in time to impact the elections the way that it's looking. Of course that is if it actually gets released. Now on the Trump side the other big possibility right now the big problem I think Trump might face is that they could do things to target his running mate J.D. Vance. You know again with Trump they basically said everything they can say about him. J.D. Vance is a different story right. Now charges were just unsealed against the Iranian hackers who breached the Trump campaign. Basically here's the story Iranian hackers breached the Trump campaign. They stole a dossier that was prepared by the Trump team looking into J.D. Vance when they were kind of vetting the you know future vice president per se. And of course has the information and the possible concerns they might run into with J.D. Vance. Now the Iranian hackers again they're now being charged innocent till proven guilty but they're being accused of stealing that and then leaking it to journalists. They leaked it to people at Politico, they leaked it to people in New York Times, Washington Post and that alleged dossier the one that the Iranian hackers stole has now been released by an independent journalist. The individual is Ken Klippenstein and he formerly worked at the Intercept, The Nation and also the progressive Young Turks show. Again he has now released that document publicly. We'll see what actually happens with it. We haven't yet seen a lot of the media cover it or at least not cover the document itself but they could. Now Newsweek says this they said so far basically you know most of the coverage on this isn't really fully coming out. What they do show though is that basically on X after Ken Klippenstein published this a lot of media are criticizing X and Republican kind of leaning news outlets of treating this in a similar way to what we saw for example with the Hunter Biden files. But look with the vice president debates now coming up it is possible we could see some of the information from that document. It's a 271 page dossier on Vance and again allegedly stolen in the Iranian breach. We could see the information that from that very likely show up in some news narratives. Now a lot of the media is talking about Vance and the dossier kind of again is in a similar light to the Hunter Biden laptop. Now remember what happened with the Hunter Biden laptop. Basically Hunter Biden, this is the story right, took his computer to a computer repair store, left it there. Again because of the contract he signed with the computer repair shop that computer became the property of the store and then the individual who ran that store made it public. You might remember during the 2020 elections that information from that was going to also impact the elections. Basically what happened was you know New York Post for example got banned on Twitter, they were getting attacked, any media that covered it was getting attacked and then you had all these different intel officials come out and claim that it was Russian disinformation. Now that turned out to not be the case. It turned out it was not Russian disinformation. It was legitimate and they kind of illegitimately kind of silenced the whole thing. But the way that this new one is being framed is while the Hunter Biden laptop was deemed Russian disinformation, this one is being deemed not disinformation but something stolen by Iranian hackers right. An actual foreign breach of the election. In other words this is basically what they actually accused the Trump team of doing back in 2020. Only it's actually what it is right. We still need to see what happens with this. Again the allegation and there are criminal charges now claiming this was stolen by Iranian hackers. We don't really know if that's going to be nailed in stone until after again the court comes to the trials come to an end and they officially determine whether or not it was stolen by Iranian hackers. But again until then you have media that are basically treating it the same way as the Hunter Biden dossier except on the other side of the aisle. And a lot of them have voiced they believe it's fair game. So we will probably see again for the October surprise, you will probably see a lot of media pulling information from that. Allegedly a lot of the information is public anyways and so again they're just taking these narratives and making new stories out of them. They might not even cite the dossier for example. And at the same time too if Jack Smith releases the January 6th information you're going to be watching a news kind of feeding frenzy attacking Trump and attacking Vance using those two things. Again one of them through a special counsel, one of them through Iranian hackers. Now again we'll see what happens with this. We haven't really seen much happen yet but it could. Now on the other side of the aisle right we're talking about the October surprise, the challenge that President Kamala Harris or Vice President Kamala Harris faces is that you know she came into the election pretty late. Again originally it was Trump against Biden. Biden stepped back, Kamala came forward and you know Trump had mentioned this during some of the political debates that you know he was preparing all of his talking points going after Biden right. Normally with political parties when you're having elections they have to do opposition research to find their talking points and things to attack. When you just switch somebody out you have to go back and redo all of that. And so given that we assume now that they've done their research on Kamala and Trump is probably going to have his talking points going after her, as will many different news outlets that are on the other side of the aisle. Now look given that Democrats are the incumbent party though there's also the real possibility of national and global events. Because how the Biden administration responds to let's say wars now taking place, to the disasters now taking place, that will reflect on Kamala given that she's the vice president. Now look some people are suggesting the looming strike of port workers could actually work as the October surprise. That's something that could possibly shut down the economy to a big extent. I'll be talking more about this after we come back from a quick break. Experts agree one of the best ways to protect against financial uncertainty is to diversify your portfolio. Learn how physical gold and silver can secure your retirement funds from today's economic challenges with a gold IRA from American Hartford Gold. You can safeguard your wealth with no penalties or taxes when you transfer your current qualifying retirement accounts. Call now and our precious metals specialists will send you a free information kit, no cost or obligation. American Hartford Gold, a trusted industry leader with an A plus from the Better Business Bureau, has a five-star rating from thousands of happy clients. 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But there are some stories right now developing that could actually change the way a lot of people cast their votes. Now I discussed some of the issues that the Trump team is facing, some of the kind of threats in the wing for them. On the other side though, right, we don't really know what they're going to have on Kamala yet. We know Trump's team is probably working on some opposition research. Trump has even suggested so much during some of the debates where he said they prepared for Biden, then they switched out with Kamala, and they're kind of catching up with it. But the looming port strike could actually be big. This could actually really impact the country. I mean it'll probably make our lives a little more difficult to be honest, but that could actually change the way a lot of people vote. The Washington Post said this, it says the longshoremen at ports from New England to Texas are set to strike early Tuesday tomorrow in the first walkout of its kind in almost half a century. Freezing commercial shipping on a massive scale and disrupting the national economy weeks before the presidential election. The timing of this politically, at least for the Democrats, could not be worse. They're the incumbent party, their policies and their reaction to this will reflect on them in the elections. Now it notes here that a strike like this would be the biggest disruption to the flow of goods in and out of the country since the height of the pandemic. Even a short-lived work stoppage would snarl shipping and create havoc in supply chains for weeks. You might remember, again we saw this during the lockdowns during the pandemic. We saw that when they shut down the ports it had a butterfly effect. That if China for example shut down shipping it affected the ports here. If China shut down shipping it affected the entire world. If the U.S. shuts down shipping it will affect the entire world as well, probably even more so. Now notes that cargo ranging from cars to electronics from food to furniture would be stuck on ships offshore. Each day a strike lasts could cost the U.S. economy up to 1 billion dollars according to analysts. It notes that beginning five weeks before the election a strike could also inject new uncertainty into the presidential campaign, fearful of the impact business groups and congressional Republicans have lined up to press the White House to invoke emergency powers to seek to block a strike. Although so far President Joe Biden's administration has not shown a willingness to intervene. Biden doesn't seem like he's going to do anything about it. Again it's debatable over how much power the president should actually exert over again you know unions and so on. It's kind of a gray area with a lot of these things. Now given this situation if these longshoremen actually do shut down shipping this will have a ripple effect because even if you do it for one day what happens? Well that one day delay creates a backlog right? It creates kind of a build-up where everything gets held back a little bit and again we've covered before things like for example shipping on trains and shipping by trucks and so on. Once you create that disruption it takes a while for it to go back to normal. Even if they do it for one day the ripple effect of that will very likely last right into the elections. Let alone if they lock it down for like a week or two weeks or maybe even longer this could have a huge impact on the supply chain. Again you know it's estimated it could cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars by the end of it and that could actually really riddle out some of the economic benefits they're talking about right now which you know for the most part if you look at the stock exchanges they're doing pretty well. If you look at individual Americans financially they're not doing as well. For example credit card debt is through the roof, there's record numbers of Americans you know basically being reliant on the government, you have a lot of people losing hope, a lot of people just kind of checking out. The average American financially is having issues right and we look at of course the job numbers they were lying about employment rates. The average American is not doing so hot. Stock markets are doing well, the big corporations are doing well, the average person not so much and if you start impacting of course things at that level the shipping level that impacts the stock market and the ripple effect of that will also affect the individuals. So that could be really damaging politically especially for the Democrats because again how they respond to it in any issue in the country reflects on the incumbent administration, they're the incumbent administration and Kamala is the vice president. Now meaning she can't separate herself from again being kind of a focus with that. There's also something else happening right now, there's the devastation being caused by hurricane Helen. Now you actually haven't seen a lot of news on this unfortunately, I think it actually needs a lot more coverage. In Florida, in Tennessee, in the Carolinas and other parts of the U.S. it is an absolute disaster. Really it looks like I mean a disaster zone but it looks just devastated. You have houses being washed away, you have people dying, you have electric vehicles exploding because of salt water damage. You know electric vehicles you can get the batteries wet typically with like fresh water, salt water will damage them potentially in such a they can explode and so there's warnings going out. The devastation of this is horrible. Voters are now going to be watching on how the candidates respond to it. Now again Trump is not president right now, if he responds to it he can give a statement and say hey why are they not doing anything right. For him he's not the president and so there's less kind of focus on him because of that. But they will be watching how the Biden administration responds and that again will reflect on Kamala Harris, she's the vice president. Now we can look at other incidents like this, we can look for example at the you know the chemical spill in New Palestine for example, we can look for example at the fires in Maui, we know on previous disasters in the United States the response from the top wasn't as strong or was delayed by months and what happens when you do that? Well a lot of Americans say hey you know I'm suffering, I don't have food, I don't have a home, I need help. If the government doesn't respond to that in the same degree that they're helping people coming into the country illegally with mass illegal immigration, you know free houses, free food, free cars, everything else, they handed them on a silver platter, people are going to say why are you treating non-citizens this way but you're treating Americans like this? That is probably going to be the narrative with this unless the response from the government is huge. The problem is though this has affected multiple states, the problem is the disaster from this is actually really serious. To respond to that in such a way where you can prepare things and give people a place to stay and fix things up, even with a strong government response, it'd be very hard to match that and so this very likely will impact them. Now according to AP, the death toll from Hurricane Helen has risen to 91 people as of this morning. More than 2 million homeowners and other utility customers were still without power as of last night. Now it says this quote, it says North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper predicted the toll would rise as rescuers and other emergency workers reached areas isolated by collapsed roads, failing infrastructure, and widespread flooding. The damage here, now look, the way disasters work, you really can't go in and start fixing things or even fully rescuing people until after the initial kind of disaster and then there's the residual disaster, you know, things are flooded and so on. They're not going to be able to start rebuilding from this probably at least until after the elections. You might have some rebuilding, some of it may be taking place like in November, but between now and then anything short of a very large government response will impact the elections. Now the damage from that I think has already been done, right? It's already a disaster, it already happened, we're now waiting to see how Trump responds and how Kamala responds. Although again, given that the Democrats are the incumbents, the focus is going to be on the government response and because they are the incumbents, how they respond to it will reflect in the campaign. This is going to be one of the bigger things impacting the way people vote. Now look, one of the key narratives from Trump is that this represents the interests of American citizens, right? Trump's whole political narrative is basically the people of America. They call him a nationalist because of this. He wants to say America first, care about Americans first, right? And Americans, he says, you know, they're facing issues, they're facing, you know, other things like mass illegal immigration, other countries getting our tax dollars. There's kind of a difference in narratives, right? If you compare the way Trump is talking to voters versus the way that Kamala is talking to voters, what is it? Well, on the Democrat side, the narrative is, well, we need to care about all the people of the world, for the most part, right? They say that we have to let in millions and millions of people through amnesty and so on, because, you know, it's our responsibility to help them. They're saying that we have to give money to all these different countries to back their wars and so on. Fine, right? That's one of the big narratives. For a lot of Americans, though, and especially the ones Trump's talking to, he's telling them your interests come first. And a lot of people on that side say, well, you know, maybe you shouldn't let in millions of illegal immigrants until you maybe end homelessness in America, until the American people are secured and can live decent lives. Maybe focus on us first, and once we get our house in order, then start helping people. These are the two different narratives. The challenge now, because of this disaster, is that the American people are suffering. The American people are losing their homes. You have infrastructure on a massive level just decimated. The rebuilding from that is going to take years. It's not going to be something they can fix in a couple months. And so the cameras, the focus, the national attention is going to be on that, and that is going to be used as a way to demonstrate, do they care about the American people, or do they care about somebody else? And that is going to impact the way people cast their votes, because, again, that directly ties into the political narratives. Now, in other news, Melania Trump is criticizing the, quote, toxic atmosphere among political and media narratives, and she's saying these things are fueling the assassination attempts against Donald Trump. Now, she made these comments during an interview with Fox News last week. Watch this. Is it really shocking that all this egregious violence goes against my husband? Especially that we hear the leaders from the opposition party and mainstream media branding him as a threat to democracy, calling him vile names. They are only fueling a toxic atmosphere and giving power to all of these people that they want to do harm to him. This needs to stop. This needs to stop. The country needs to unite. Now, you just heard what Melania said. There are some people saying that those remarks are dangerous. CNN anchor Christine Amanpour wrote on X that Mrs. Trump is mistaken. Political violence is not the fault of mainstream media, and I wish she would take back this false and dangerous accusation. Now, look, this ties into the debate around the cause of the recent assassination attempts. The reason they're framing that as dangerous is because of kind of a broader narrative. Trump was saying that these attempts on his life are being caused by the narratives against him, right? If you look at the media coverage on Trump, going back to like 2015, before the 2016 elections, they have framed him as the worst possible thing to ever happen, right? They frame him as a Nazi and Hitler. They frame him as a threat against democracy. You have them saying they're a threat to the Republican itself, right? Not just him, but even the people who vote for him. Individuals who hear this, many of them are reasonable people, but some of them aren't. And if you have an unhinged individual who believes that, hey, you know, baby Hitler is here, what do you do to baby Hitler? Well, what do you think, right? When you have an individual who thinks there's somebody coming in who's going to destroy our country, who's going to institute maybe, again, for the same thing Hitler did, when they think Hitler, what do they think? They think genocide, they think crimes against humanity, they think wars. What do you do to stop that person? Now, that is why those narratives are being deemed dangerous, at least on the other side, right? They're saying that basically this constant barrage of almost totally negative news coverage is what is causing people to react in the ways that they are. Now, on the political narrative front, right? Trump is saying that they're doing that to them. The other side, the Democrats are saying, well, you do the same thing to us, you know? And they're right to an extent. They're right to an extent. Trump frames them in pretty negative ways as well. And both of them frame the other as kind of the factor that will end the American Republic, right? Both sides kind of believe the other side is going to destroy America. Now, that being said, the Trump side is saying, yeah, we criticize you, but you don't see Republicans trying to assassinate anybody. There were some arguments with that they'd bring up January 6th and so on, right? They have their own narratives. But generally, this is kind of where the country is at. Now, in my personal opinion, I think that after Trump, again, the first assassination attempt, what did you hear? Very briefly, something took place in this country. Biden came out and started talking about the need for unity. Trump came out and started talking about the need for unity. Briefly, we had a very brief debate in this country about national unity, that maybe we shouldn't beat each other's throats all the time. We had a very short discussion on that, and then it came to a rapid end. I think the unfortunate reality is that the way our political system works is that every four years, half the country attacks the other half of the country, and we battle it out, and then kind of the dust settles. And we have relative peace yet again under the new president. One side says, hey, patriotism. The other side opposes them. And then we repeat this every four years. I think that the tensions in this country have reached a very serious level. I personally think that maybe we do need some national unity. And I think really that we can't have a nation if we're divided like this. After 9-11, we all used to say, hey, united we stand. But I think maybe we forgot the other part of it, which is what's the saying? A house divided cannot stand. And I think that if America doesn't start talking about unity, we do risk losing the republic. In my opinion, that's the real risk we face. I believe there is a threat to the republic, but it's division, personally. That being said, though, Melania is coming out and calling for it again. She's talking about it. And again, very briefly, we saw both sides calling for it. Maybe after the dust settles for the election, we'll see that come out again. Now look, in other news, there were some pretty shocking data points from ICE, Immigration Enforcement. And it's pretty serious, right? They're talking about their non-detained docket. And what it's showing is the numbers of illegal immigrants coming into the United States who are convicted criminals. I'll be talking more about this only on EpicTV.com. So if you're watching on YouTube, Facebook, XRumble, come and join us on EpicTV. The link to that is in the description below. And not only will you get access to the rest of my show, and also live Q&A, which we'll get into in a minute, but also the many other great shows we have, our special reports, and our documentaries on issues that matter. So click the link below, come and join us in EpicTV.com. And before we jump, let me show you a quick trailer for my new documentary, The Final War, a few years now. But it exposes something happening right now as we speak, which is the Chinese Communist Party's 100-year plan to defeat America. Watch. The greatest threat facing the United States is the CCP. 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