Breaking News from Pod Save America - Republicans Are Weaponizing Hasan Piker

Episode Date: August 10, 2026

Dan Pfeiffer is joined by Sam Stein, managing editor of The Bulwark, to break down ads for Mike Rogers, Abdul El-Sayed, and Francesca Hong. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The goal is to make him seem extreme in a very Islamophobic and racist way. This is like a legitimately good ad. The grandma steals the show. She's so good in this. Welcome to Political Reactions. Joining me today is the bulwark Sam sign. Sam, how are you? I'm good, buddy.

How are you? Good. We got a bunch of ads to watch. It's been a very long week. We're recording this on a Friday after the Michigan primary. I'm sure, like me, you stayed up too late and woke up too early on that night. Literally, I had to do way too early the next morning. Oh, I'll look at you with your...

3.45 a.m. I was struggling. Hey, Dan, I was a little bit worried about recording at this time. It's Friday, 1 p.m. Because the ballroom decision came out two hours ago. I know your big White House ballroom guy and they stayed the construction of it. So if you want to take a beat and, you know, do this later. Yeah, it's going to be hard for me. So I've been envisioning my first, my first state dinner in the ballroom one day under this Democratic president. Okay. Let's get to, let's get to business here. I want to start with, as I mentioned, recording this a few days after Abdul Osayyid became the Democratic nominee in Michigan. Here is his Republican opponents, Mike Rogers' first ad. You're not here to disavow people's views.

America deserved 9-11, dude. Fuck it. I'm saying it. I was in college. I took a terrorism class. You know, there needs to be unrest in the streets for as long as there's arrest in our lives. I'm not here to disavow people's movies. You know, I am in support of abolishing ICE.

Because we're going to go in there. We're going to eat the f***. Kill those motherfuckers and murder those motherfuckers. motherfuckers in the street. Let the street soak in their fucking red capitalist bloods, dude. The people to listen to Hassan are engaging in faith. They want a way forward into our politics. If you were on the El-Said campaign or someone who wanted Mike Rogers to lose, how worried would this Edmake you? Not that worried, honestly. I mean, it's like basically what you would expect. in fact, I probably thought it could have gone in a different direction.

Because it barely featured L.S.E. It's like a bunch of characters who you may not know. Almost no one knows who they are. Almost no one. Maybe Mamm Dottie. Maybe Mom Dottie. Maybe Mom Dottie. If you know who Asan Piker is, you're voting for L.Said anyway.

It got me thinking a little bit. Maybe you have the historical knowledge to answer this. Has there been like an effective campaign run? by just going after a candidate's associations. I mean, obviously, Jeremiah Wright is like, comes to mind, but like Obama won, right? So I'm really, I was struggling to think of like a case where someone got really harmed in a way that cost them the election because of the people they associated with. Yeah, I've, I've thought about that as well because for Obama, it was Jeremiah Wright, but also Bill Ayers, one of the Weatherman bombers. And that was a big push from Sarah Palin in the end.

of that campaign, that did not really work with voters. When there's an association, it usually is association as a consequence of a policy decision. The most successful one is obviously Willie Horton and Michael de Caucus. That's different than just you pout around with the person or you were a surrogate on your campaign. I mean, this ad presumes a lot of knowledge of who Asan Piker is because then it says they don't really identify him. And then at the end, you have this hard to hear a quote from Abdul saying something complimentary about Hassan right after Hassan talks about the blood of capitalist in the street, which is not a

helpful quote, I would say, generally. But what makes you say that? But it does where like the goal is to make him seem extreme, an extreme in a very Islamophobic and racist way. And this is a mediocre execution of that strategy. Yeah. I mean, what I was saying is maybe it's coming, but like the more effective version of the strategies to actually have El Saeed saying this stuff, as opposed to just sort of insinuating that

he has the opinions of the people who have endorsed him, none of whom they will know. But yeah, and also it was just like a franticness to the ad where it just jumps around. You have a few F bombs. It doesn't really say anything about El Saeed other than he says, like you mentioned, that he welcomes Hassan Piker to the political discourse. So, you know, as far as like, and I'm not saying scary tactic ads don't work because they do obviously. But I didn't think this one actually delivered much of a punch.

It seemed kind of forgettable. It just was jumping around. There's a bunch of random people. If I were doing it, I guess I would have focused maybe just on one as opposed to five. And then been like this guy, El Saeed apologizes for Hassan Piker and then just go into the sizzle reel. Yeah. I mean, and even that out of mouth, sure, would be effective. There's another version of this ad that is, I can't remember what's from the, which Republican superpack it's from.

but it has, it basically shows these people and then has that, there's a quote of Abdul saying, I'm dangerous, which is about dangerous to the system and the billionaires and all of that, but using that over and over again, that's a more effective version of this. This strategy they're going to use, which I think this ad is a poor execution of it, is an interesting test of whether that this sort of post-9-11 scare politics still works in America. Yeah, how does it work? Are they, so they're going to run this ad and they're going to see audience reaction to it, And they're going to ask them, does this make you more or less likely to vote for LCED?

And then is that it? And then we'll figure out if that actually is sticky? Well, they've probably, it's, they probably tested it beforehand. They probably tested it beforehand. And ad testing, there's a lot of debate in Democratic circles about the effectiveness of ad testing because you're watching ads in isolation. Right. And so if you know, you're seeing, because you see the ad and you react to it, but you're not, that's not a real-world simulation of what people are actually seeing because you're not,

you know, if you're actually seeing this on the news, you're also going to see a pro-abdul ad afterwards or you're consuming content in social media or conversations that can be countered to the ad. So, you know, also open question to whether this is a media play and they're actually going to put money behind it, which is very much the use of Assan suggests it might be. You think so? It's too long. It felt like too long for me for that, right?

Like if you're going to do this online, you'd want a little bit of like a 15 second clip. Well, yes, if you were actually putting money behind it. But if you want to get it, do an ad so the people like us will talk about it and they'll put it on cable news or local news, then it has to look as much. I mean, it's all a fake game that's been going on for decades, but you just say it's an ad. You give it to the press. The press runs $6 behind it. Six figures behind this one. Yes, six.

Yes. How many how many decimal points you go out. If you like this video and you like Pod Save America, I promise you, you'll love message box, which is my substack newsletter where I break down what's happening in politics, give you real analysis based on years of experience and data about what's happening in the midterms, and actually help you understand where you can have the greatest impact, what campaigns matter, where to give money, how you can volunteer. If you want to sign up and I hope you do, the link is in the description.

If you sign up now, you can get 20% off for a year. There's a conversation about how Abdul responds to this stuff. To initiate that conversation, let's look at an ad that he ran in the primary. Where did Abdul else? Say it had come from. Here! Where are his grandparents? He helped raise him.

He became a doctor. He always wanted to help people. He got all those kids' glasses. Eliminated medical debt. He buys us groceries every week. He knows what things cost. Now he's running around with Bernie Sanders trying to change politics. We love him, and so will you.

Too much. I'm Abdul Al-Salad, and I proved the heck out of this message. Language. I died when I saw that. I mean, look, the grandma steals the show. She's so good in this. She has a future in acting. I thought it was honestly, and I know, I know people come back, oh, you know, bulwark in the podcast.

This is like a legitimately good ad. It stuck with me. The grandma is a new character who actually, you're like, this person's funny. I will remember that ad. Like, I will remember that ad. And obviously the point here is to humanize him and to, like, make fun of in Pokemon, of the idea that this is some scary nefarious figure. I really like, maybe it's me, but I really like the use of humor as a way, as a sort of a vehicle for dispensing with the attack

ads and sort of preempting them. And I think, you know, I guess it let's be just frank about it. You look at the grand page, like, wait a second, they do not look scary or Muslim. They, you know, and so, and so it does, it does sort of use a humorous poking fun of Republicans' way to get around what an obvious attack line will be. I guess the only critique, but this was done for the primary. If they wanted to recycle this ad or repurpose it, you got to get rid of Bernie. No offense to the Bernie people. No offense to the Bernie people.

Yeah, try to protect your mentions now. Yeah, I 100% agree. I think this is a great ad. The whole point is to sand down the edges to make him seem less scary. You know, Abdul's natural tendency when attacked is to punch back. And he can be very aggressive in doing that. and he's like, tell Mike Rogers to keep his name out of my mouth. And like, I think people in the primary really like that pugnaciousness about him,

and they're looking for Democrats who fight. But sometimes, as you say, the best way is humor. And it's to take a step back and not punch really hard. And I think this is a great ad. Obama, we did a lot of ads about Obama's grandparents in a race. There are a lot of very similar dynamics between what Abdul's going through, what Obama went through, how this primary match was similar to 2008 in its dynamics in a lot of ways.

But I think it's a great ad. I think it's as he thinks about how to respond to it, like you, the way to, they're trying to make him scary and not from Michigan and unrelated to an extreme. And the way to respond to that is sometimes to just like take a step back, show the human side of yourself, be funny, be calm, be human. And this ad does a great job of that. You know, I hadn't really thought about the parallels between Obama and I'll see

to you mentioned it. And obviously they're radically different in serious ways. But it is true. Like down to the gender dynamics with the opponent, right? It's like in the polling miss, right? In New Hampshire, obviously, it was different from Obama lost in 08. And so he snuck it out. But there is that element of it.

It's a really interesting analogy. When in the last debate, when Haley Stevens said, you know, he's a celebrity. He's a podcast. He wants to be famous. It really could have been straight out of a debate in Ohio in 2008 between Hillary and Obama. Unbelievable. All you missed, all we were missing is Mark Penn insinuating that L.C. did cocaine. And it would have been absolutely perfect analogy.

What a deep cut for almost no one watching this one now. All right. Pod Save America Breaking News is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. With everyday interactions becoming increasingly impersonal. Someone going just one extra step can be huge. Like when my doctor takes the time to call me with test. results instead of sending them electronically. They came back positive for gay.

It makes me feel like a human being again. If you're hiring, great candidates can also go the extra step and tell you why they're interested in your job on ZipRecruiter as a way to stand out from others in the pool. And ZipRecruiter has a new feature showing you the most interested qualified candidates first, so you can meet the right people faster. ZipRecruiter's powerful matching technology finds qualified candidates quickly. Candidates can tell you in their own words why they're interested in your job. So try ZipRecruiter and meet great candidates who will go there.

the extra step for your job. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter, get a quality candidate within the first day. Try it for free today at ZipRecruiter.com slash crooked. That zip recruiter. That zip recruiter, meet your match on ZipRecruiter. Let's pivot to Wisconsin, where the gubernatorial primary is happening tomorrow night. This race has become quite contention. It's got a lot of attention.

Talk about old tweets and positions and whether a DSA candidate can actually win. Francesco Hong is leading this race, presuming the polls are. correct. Let's take a look at, let's take a look at one of our ads. It's so stressful to get by these days and I know a lot about stress. I work in restaurants. I started in this kitchen 15 years ago and you might recognize what's across the street. A lot of people in that building don't get why it's so hard to get by right now. I'm state representative Francesca Hong. I'm a service worker, community organizer, and a mom. Five years ago, my community sent me

to the capital. The system is rigged. I'm running for governor to fix it. For years, we've been told that doing better is impossible. Well, let me tell you, that's bullshit. All we need to do is fight together. We can fully fund our public schools and have universal childcare. We can guarantee paid leave and have cheaper health care. We can fix a rigged system that puts oligarchs over workers and small businesses. We can do better. I'm friends. Francesca Hong, and I'm running for governor because I know that together we make better possible. So as I mentioned, Hong is leading in the polls. She got a pretty sizability. There's a poll out today that has her up 22 points. So even if the polls were as incorrect as they were in Michigan, she had still win by double digits.

She has been on a media tour recently. She was on Pots Save America earlier this week. And CNN, other places, responding to a bunch of tweets she had. in 2020 about canceling Thanksgiving, about defunding the police, about white supremacy, a whole bunch of things. And I think if you watched those interviews she did, you might wonder sort of why she was leading the race by so much. But I think if you see this ad, it kind of makes sense. What do you think? Oh, you like the ad? Well, I think the ad shows why her message resonates and why people would go to her. Because if you just, she's not great in, you know, in contentious one-on-one interviews.

But there is real charisma and a message of hope here that I think helps explain why she's getting in this poll out today, 44% of Wisconsin Democrats. So we'll have a disagreement on this one. You're obviously right because she's doing great for the primary, right? So like clearly proof is in the pudding, which she may or may not make at her restaurant. I thought the ad was very frantic.

It made me unsettled. it jumped around a lot. I get the idea and maybe this ad was made because it was more biographical and she's trying to introduce yourself to folks. And so this was sort of one of those early ads where you're like, hey, this is who I am. This is my story. I actually am across from the state capital and this way I believe in. But to me, it left me like a little bit on edge. There's a lot of cuts.

That's an aesthetic critique. a sort of another critique I had was that the first 80% of it was just her. And like, then it kind of did this weird jump cut. And then there's people at the restaurant, but it's still just her. And the message was definitely hopeful. And it was like, let's grassroots energy. Let's, you know, stick it to the man. And I get it.

But I felt like the ad didn't actually convey that. It didn't actually feature her with a lot of people or galvanizing a movement. It was just her walking through her restaurant. So to me, it was a little bit jarring. most. Yeah, I don't know that I disagree with the editing critique. Okay. It's also, it's two minutes long, so we cut it down to a minute here.

So we might have contributed mildly to the jumping around in this. But yeah, I think there's, you could, I think you can definitely critique the editing. What I'm focused on, I'm going to think the two things that I think help explain why her message is working is one, it's her bio. Yeah. People are looking for outsiders looking for people who seem normal. the fact that she is a chef, highlighting that she's a chef. I think people in Madison, where she was elected, very much knew her as a chef and someone

who worked in a restaurant like that. I think that's powerful currency in today's politics. And I do, like people, I do believe, and I think this is going to matter about it in 2028, that people want hope. They want the idea that there is something better than what we're doing right now. Now, it's kind of an interesting message in Wisconsin, which has had two terms of a Democratic governor. But Tony Evers is he's not unpopular, but he's not super popular.

And he has dealt with a Republican legislatures the whole time. So he is, he's making small progress on a lot of things when people want big progress. And now you could actually get a Democratic legislature in Wisconsin this time around where you would have a chance to do bigger things. But there is something for candidates who are saying there is something better than what we have and I'm going to go try to get it. Well, let me revise my point then because you, you jarred something in my mind, which is the frame of the ad is there is a political class. right outside my door, and I'm here hustling trying to just put food on people's tables. That's a very powerful frame. And it does get around the sort of problem of, wait, aren't Democrats in charge in the state?

Like, isn't there a Democratic governor? They're not in charge. There's a Democrat governor. And her message is, in fact, it's more, you know, it's a system problem. And I'm outside the system and I'm barging right through it. And I get that. And there is symbolism to that. And I think her being in that restaurant.

the statehouse being right across the street is actually kind of poignant. This is something we've seen in several of these Democratic primaries were either more progressive or DSA candidates have beat incumbents or establishment candidates. I always go back to this clip from a debate in the Colorado one race between Diana to get M. L. L. Lockeiros. And to get, it's about health care. And to get it's like, well, you know, Dan, you need to get a life, man. How do you remember this clip from this random ass race?

Because this is my job. I take it seriously. I try to prepare for the people. And in the clip to get so like, well, she's kind of speaking in the language of what is probable in terms of health care. And Kuros is talking in the language of what should be possible. And about Medicare for all and how we can do this. And you can say it, you know, people can push back and say, well, you're promising all these things. You have no path to actually do that.

or they are not achievable. But that's not particularly a Democratic primary and people feel the way they do. People want to believe that there's something bigger. Was it fair to promise them that if you can't deliver it? No, but maybe, maybe not. Yeah, it's funny you mention that because when I was watching this ad,

the end that I thought of, weirdly enough, as sort of the platonic ideal of like a hopeful messaging, progressive ad was the Bernie Sanders America ad. And I was thinking about it with respect and contrasting it to this ad because if you go back and you look at that ad, there's almost very little Bernie in it. It's just shots of people in different settings and coming together and all this sort of we are a movement. We are together. The big, you know, the numbers can matter more than the money or whatever. And that's, I guess, why I didn't like the hog ad because it was or was critical.

it is because it starts so much just on her. And literally the cooks have their backs turned to the camera. And she's just walking through. And it doesn't feel like a movement. It feels like, hey, this is me. Here's what I stand for. Now, again, this could be biographical trying to choose yourself to voters. But that's the...

You raise a good point, which I think is... And I always sort of, like, have this game on the show that candidates run lots of ads. And so we, like, take one ad in isolation. And if you're, if you're like a good media consultant, you look at the entire... menu of what's on the air at one time because all those photos are seeing all those things. But beyond that, she doesn't have a lot of ads on the air. In fact, most of the ads in support of her are being run by Republican Super PACs right now. Didn't she say she wasn't like doing TV advertising or something like that? Yeah, I think she spent $300,000 on advertising, which I think

is mostly digital. And the Republicans have spent $3 million. Could be trouble. It's not great. It's not great through how you don't ever want to be the candidates Republicans want. Sometimes they could be wrong. But I do, to your. point and we can end here is I think the when you have if you're making it make really big promises about the things you can achieve it has to be in the context of building a movement Bernie did that Obama did that you know a lot of the campaigns that like really resonate do that and she like she does have a lot of grassroots support in showing that in the ad I think is powerful because it also there

there is a wisdom of the crowds effect that people like I always go see with her I want to I want to be part of it too so if it's when it's just the person this is a mistake Trump always made was it was always Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. And he, like, in 2024, he would, it's kind of like faint at language of a bigger movement, but, and he had big rallies, which helped. But if it's like I alone can fix it, that's less effective than we together can fix it. And yet he's our president. Twice.

Yeah, there you go. It's a fucked up system we have. Sam Stein, great to talk with you. And we'll see you again soon. Hey, man.