Breaking News from Pod Save America - The Most INSANE Midterm Ads We’ve Seen So Far

Episode Date: October 12, 2026

Tim Miller of The Bulwark joins Dan Pfeiffer to break down the most unhinged ads of the midterms so far. CHECK OUT THESE DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: ZIP RECRUITER - http://ziprecruiter.com/CROOKED Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We brought him home to go to prison. This don't even know what the upside of that is politically. Nobody has a lower view of Republican voters than Republican ad consultants. Welcome to Political Experts React where we break down political ads in media, explain what the people behind them are trying to accomplish and decide whether or not they did a good job. I'm Dan Pfeiffer, former communications director for Barack Obama and co-hosts of Pots of America. Joining me today is Tim Miller of the Bullwork. Tim, welcome to the show.

Hey, man. Good to be back. Good to have you, buddy. All right, we got a bunch of ads to look at this week. I want to start with the latest ad that from far as I can tell, you and I paid for run by our federal government on multiple college football games this past weekend. Let's take a look. Last night on the order of the president of the United States and in support of a request

from the Department of Justice, the United States military conducted an apprehension mission in Caracas, Venezuela to bring to justice to indicted persons. Nicholas and Cecilia Maduro. Nicholas Maduro had his chance until he didn't. He effed around and he found out. This was one of the most stunning, effective and powerful displays of American military might and competence in American history. Like, I don't understand yet how they haven't figured this out. And now if you don't know, now you know.

Because this is the way it's going to play out. And I think people need to understand that this is not a present that just talks and just letters and press conferences. And, you know, if he says he's serious about something, he means it. Don't play games. Don't play games with his president's in office because it's not going to turn out well. Now, this is one of a series of ads that the U.S. federal government has run. They look a lot like campaign ads. Trump did declare he was going to pay for the ads going forward.

This ad came out, as far as I can tell. After he said that, it still says paid forward by the U.S. government. What do you think the intent of this ad is from a political perspective? Well, six figures has been put on that, paid by us since he said he was going to do it. I think the intent is to make Donald Trump happy and to make the principles feel cool. You know, you've got Marco quoting Biggie there,

for example, in the video, and you have Pete Higgs out trying to be tough. I think Donald Trump wants, in some ways he is so aberrant from all the other politicians we've ever worked for and ever known. but in this way it's so similar. I mean, how many bosses did you have

over the years that were like, if people just knew more about the good things I was doing, then my numbers would be better. This is just a little bit of that, like where I think he wants, you know, they've shaken down a lot of people for money in corrupt ways, borderline, you know,

potentially illegal ways in various ways, but they've got a ton of money in their MAGA accounts, but now this one's being paid for by the U.S. government, so they're shaking us down. And I think just Trump wants people, to pat him on the back. He wants credit for what he feels like has gone well. And I just,

that's just not how it works. Yeah, this ad, I think of this ad a couple ways. It is, you and I both know candidates like this who are obsessed with yard signs. And so it's the field, you know,

every campaign says yard signs, I'll vote. So with the field team does, is they just put up yard signs in heavy demand in the candidate's neighborhood and on the way from the office to the neighborhood. So they think.

On the drive home. Yes, they always see the yard sides. There's a little bit like that, which is why these ads run. on Fox News a lot. This has to be like a Trump directed ad because even if you were like Chris Lasseveter, James Blair, whoever else when they're not in, you know, working for pro-Putin parties in

Europe. And you were thinking like, okay, we're going to break all the laws. We can use federal government dollars to run ads that help electoral Republican candidates. I just think the abduction of Nicholas Maduro would be so low on the list. Yeah. And this never even says why he was like. presumes his knowledge about Venezuela and Maduro. It'd be one thing if they were like, you know,

we're keeping all these drugs off the street, we're keeping cartels out. It just says this one guy who you may or may not know who is, who you have to recognize the beginning of the ad, fucked around the United States and we took them, we brought him home to go to prison. I just don't even know what the upside of that is politically. Yeah.

I can imagine a world where I would understand what the point of this is, which is kind of like machismo, chest thumping, we're awesome, the Dems are whims or wimps. Right. I just think at a different world where things were going better. You can imagine this ad in 2018. The economy's going well. Like Trump's trying to alpha dog. And it's like, look, and you know, you know this other stuff we've been doing. But also, like, our fucking badass military just went into Venezuela and took out a commie. Like, I don't know. Would that really move votes? Probably not. Would that be like the top ad choice?

Like, you can understand. But in this environment, it's crazy. You know, Sarah just did a focus group, a bullet focus group of the other government-paid ad in Florida of Trump voters. The group of people that voted for Trump but are disapproving of him now. And the responses were like, people were disgusted talking about it. And I like this one from Eddie in particular. He said he's grabbing the best chapters from communist countries to apply here. So everybody's distracted by this shit. And he can do whatever he wants.

And like, that's what that is. It's kind of, it's like a Cardio type ad. trying to be like, you can trust the strong man. And I just, I don't think that is working right now. And it works less well when you're losing a different war that everyone hates and raise everyone's gas prices. Great point. Great point. It's like, look, we, this is another thing you weren't really worried about that we went and did?

Well, the other thing, you know, we also fucked up massively in Iran and you're all paying for it. So it's, yeah. All right. I don't have anything to add to that. Yeah, that's, I think that gets us there. 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,

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go to ziprecruiter.com slash cricket to post your job for free. Again, that ziprecruiter.com slash crooked. Oh, and if you forget where to go, don't worry, you'll hear another zip recruiter ad soon enough. All right, now I want to look at two ads in the surprisingly competitive South Carolina Senate race. Annie Andrews isn't shy about her support for medical interventions like purity blockers, hormones, and surgeries for minors. Annie Andrews supports males competing against female athletes. Annie Andrews calls abortion health care and fights to keep it unrestricted. She's got my vote.

Annie Andrews is for they then. Not for our values. Not for South Carolina. And then we got that we're going to play the Andrews response to right now. Politics can get pretty ugly. And when it does, you deserve to hear the truth. My career as a pediatrician has always been about taking care of kids. And I've got three of my own.

So I want you to hear me loud and call. I don't support biological men playing women's sports. And I don't support and haven't ever performed gender surgery for minors. I'm Dr. Annie Andrews and I approve this message because Darlene Graham lying about me won't do a thing to help you. We're seeing all across the country Republicans run maybe more subtle, but not that much more subtle versions of this ad attacking Democrats on trans issues. It's a really big issue in Ohio and Texas. So I want to get your sense of A, whether you think those attacks have currency in this selection, and what do you think of Andrews' response to them? Yeah.

Well, the first thing I'm going to say about the Darling Graham side of this is nobody has a lower view of Republican voters than Republican consultants and politicians. Like the idea that it's just such a clownish. And even the South Carolina, even the accent doesn't sound like a South Carolina accent. It's like this person. It sounds like a Yankee pretending to do with Southern accent. It's AI generated. It's the day I can't even figure that out. And so it's just like, I mean, it's extremely kind of insulting to even whatever,

Southern evangelicals who have good faith have concerns about this. It's not even coming from that place. I think it has currency in a place like South Carolina because at this point, the undecided voters are like three-time Trump voters. I looked at the South Carolina won the Nancy LeCore race at some of the internals. And I think she was, she's a Democrat. This is Nancy Mesa district. She was up by two or three points.

And, you know, the undecided voters were, it was like, it was crazy. It was like 91% Trump vote among the remaining undecideds. And so basically what the Republicans are trying to do here is try to find anything that will just keep their core voters from, from, from. from either staying home or flipping in some cases. And so I think that's why you see them going to these core cultural issues. And I do think this is a place where ads can still work, which is basically trying to tamp down any sort of flow of persuasion, you know, from kind of reminding people like why they're Republicans in the first place a little bit.

So I think that's kind of what's happening. I think that that is, you know, only going to be successful in the most red places. You can see it not working in Texas. I think it's tough in kind of places where the economy is going bad. And it is, and this is at this point kind of a cliche take, but it's true, which is that the Trump they-them ad, like the second part of the ad was more important than the first, which was the Trump is for you part. Right? Like the commonwealth for they-them on their own would not have been as compelling.

And they don't have the second part of that in their ads now. So that's my take on the first one. And I don't know, the Annie Andrews ad is blunt enough. Is it compelling to people who are three-time Trump voters that she's trying to win over? I'm not sure. My honest answer to that is I'm really not sure. Yeah, it's interesting. So let's start with the attack act.

Like I said, this is a comical version of that. There are better versions of it. You see them in Ohio a lot. They've really been hammering Sherrod on this. And but, you know, and I think you're right that they're doing everything they can to make it so. unpalatable for these Republicans to actually vote for a Democrat and remind them why they would not want to do that. I think it's going to be more successful at keeping these people from voting for Democrats and from getting to stay home. Because the reasons why they are going to stay home have nothing to do with any of these other issues.

And this is where I think they've like you're exactly right about what why the day them had worked. But the other thing that they don't really understand is the other reason that they've done worked was because the argument is common was focus on all this other stuff other than the thing you cared about. And what they're doing is focusing on all their ads are focusing all the stuff that you don't care about and say the thing you actually care about, which is the economy, cost of living. And so they're at risk of that everywhere. I think, you know, there's lots of debates within the party about how you respond to these ads and like what language you should use. But I think the one thing like to give Annie Andrews credit for here is she did it direct the camera herself. And she's very compelling as a candidate. And she's very compelling to camera. And so if

you're going to do it, I think it's more effective her in her doctor's coat, talking about being a mom, two kids. And it makes it harder when you see her saying that to think that she would do all these things that would endanger children. In Ohio, we looked at some of these ads with Alex Wagner on the show a few weeks ago. Sherrod Brown has been running just some more traditional ad responding that just rebuts the facts of them and then pivots to the economy. I can understand why Sherrod Brown is not taking this on directly. But I think Annie Andrews in her persona. is right to just, like, if you're going to win this race, you've got to go for it, and you've got to put yourself out there and take some risks, and I think that's the way to do it.

Yeah, she's a doctor, and it's South Carolina. I don't think she has any choice but to do it. I think the question is, you know, if you're an average person in Spartanburg that's unhappy about the Iran War and Epstein files and the economy, but you voted for Trump three times and Lindsay Graham a couple times, and you think Darlane's kind of stupid, does that do it? do anything for you? I'm not sure. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know, I just think that she still is a little bit, she's not Roy Cooper. You know what I mean? I don't know. There's something

about this and like now we're just figure skating, judging and not talking about the merits of the very, you know, complicated issue. But like, I don't know, Roy Cooper with a Southern draw, you can imagine people looking at that and being like, he doesn't seem like the type of guy that does care about this. It's easier to be a man doing this. It's easier to be a man. It's easier to be a man. And a southern man with a southern accent is always going to navigate these issues better. It's why they worked less well on Biden, although he didn't have a southern accent, but an old white man is going to do better on these cultural issues than a black woman in 2024. But I think it's, you know, the thing that you point on is just like really interesting about all of these races. It really is.

It's true in Texas, too, that about nine and ten of the undecided voters are Trump voters, the voter for Trump multiple times. And the question is, do they vote for Democrats? which probably not. Do they vote at all? Or do they vote for a third party candidate? Which is an option in a lot of these races, which lowers the wind number below 50. It makes it a lot easier for some of these Democrats to get there.

Yeah, for sure. So, I don't know. Look, this is a Senate seat. You know? I mean, you're there a long time. It's worth taking a swing, I think, to not. It gets a silly thing to lose over, like, you know, like, honestly. And because they're just so much, like, the importance,

of like what could get done. And if it's such a wave year that, and I know we're about to talk about Kansas, that like that Adam Hamilton and Andy Andrews win, and the Democrats end up with whatever that would be, 55, 56 Senate seats, like that has very meaningful results, you know, on, God, so many issues. You know, there's this big debate in the party about, like, where and how they spend money. And it's kind of a fake debate because there's not one person who controls the money

who decides like where it goes to the Senate race and house races, but there's this idea of like what House race. seats do you invest in because there's a bunch of them that we could win this year and very likely just hand back two years later. Although when we did this 2006, we actually kept them and added to it 2008. So there's always a possibility of two consecutive waves, but you're renting them. But if you can invest in a Senate seat, even if it's for one term like it was with Doug Jones or if you know, if you have Annie Andrews and Roger Marshall, those people will be senators if and when the next Democratic president comes in in 2020. Right. Right. Like it's fundamentally changed.

changes the odds of having a government trifecta in the next election. So it's like that's, I mean, that's why I gave money to them. That's why I hope other people give money to them. It's like, these are venture bets that are worth making because the upside is so high. I agree. That's why we're happy. I think, well, I might be breaking news right now. We're not having any answers at our live event in Columbia for the bill work coming out.

Oh, that's, this is a great place to break news. I love it. Perfect. All right. Let's do our last ad, which is a new ad from the Senate Majority Pack in the Kansas Senate. It was one of the worst child abuse scandals in history. Dozens of young girls sexually trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein,

drugged, molested, and raped, and Roger Marshall helped cover it up. Marshall voted to keep the Epstein files sealed, ignoring pleas from victims, and saying releasing the information was, quote, not of much interest to me. Roger Marshall used his office to protect pedophiles. He doesn't belong in the Senate. when Senate is responsible for the content of this ad. The Senate Majority Pack has done a number of Epstein-related ads in states.

Do you think that's an effective message? Do you think that's a good ad? I'm very curious about this approach. I think going back to what you're just saying about kind of pushing people off to maybe a third party or something, you know, I do think, again, you're talking to Trump voters. and is there a way to get some category of them to look at Roger Marshall and be like, no, like, I'm not, you know, I mean, I'm not going to vote for this guy who went along with the Iran War, was part of the Epstein cover-up. I think that that is worth a try in that race. I don't have the media mix in front of me. The Kansas race, I mean, in part, again, just because profile and what we're talking about and sexism of the elector and all that, but, like,

Adam Hamilton, that's not only a man, but a pastor, megachurch pastor, I do, part of me in Kansas just once, like, as much of him sounding normal and Christian as possible. You know what I mean? And so, like, I don't, and I'm sure the campaign is doing that. And a lot of times there's this breakdown where, like, the campaign side's doing the positive and the super PACs doing the negative. But I do, you know, I don't want money wasted because, you know, I don't want anyone out there who is just a regular Methodist Republican in Wichita,

like not knowing Adam Hamilton fully by the end of this. Like that's, I guess, the one, like, little caution I have on this. But I don't hate the Epstein idea, particularly thinking about who are the types of people that you're trying to push off. It's probably MAGA-ish Trump voters. Yeah, I guess I think you've hit on what is the argument for it, which is there are some number of Republicans who, one of their, the reasons they're just in the same way of Trump

is that he broke his promise on the Epstein files. Now you're tying Marshall to that, increasing the likelihood they stay home. I mean, there are a lot, you know, there are a lot of Republicans who they all have very large oppo files, a lot of really bad votes. But Marshall is particularly an easy, like there's plenty of really, really negative things you can do to Marshall, like the, you know, arresting women who have $50 medical debts is, you know, is one thing that's out there. Theoretically, the Senate, majority PAC could do, they could do positives.

Like, they absolutely could. Like, that is possible. there was plenty of footage out there to use. There are ways for the campaign to put footage online that the Senate majority pack could use. And when you look at the Times poll, it actually shows that if Hamilton's name ID went up, he would be doing better in the poll because he's actually, there's a disproportionate number of the undecided who favor the Democrats on the generic ballot. Yep. So like this race is different because Roger Marshall's this generic Republican, no one really knows other than what they've learned in the last few weeks.

And it's late developed. You know, I mean, there's just so many ads. Like by this point in Iowa, you know, the type of president's going to vote in a midterm, maybe be different if it was presidential. The type of president's voting in midterm, like, knows who Josh Turk is, knows what Abdul-Sai has, knows who Sherryl-L-Sai-Od as, knows who Sherryrd Brown, is still the senator. Like, Adam Hale, like, that was a late primary in a state that doesn't have a ton of advertising, and he's got this great profile.

So I would like to maximize that as much as possible. There is a libertarian in that Kansas race? And so, again, is there something to be said for, can you put? push, you know, can you cleave some of the kind of more mega populist, Kansas, Republicans who aren't going to vote for whatever, a woke pastor off to the libertarian by hammering Epstein in Iran? I assume the data shows that or else. Yeah, there's obviously data that, because they ran a sort of a cookie cutter version of

this ad against Susan Collins in Maine. Yeah. I think it's a little harder to convince people like Susan Collins is a, you know, is in the Epstein files, basically. But they are, like, these are very smart people who are very data-driven. So they obviously, there is some, you know, maybe that maybe in the dividing of the electorate, one of their tasks is sort of nag suppression or to like convince bag of voters to stay home. And this could be the way of doing it.

But it's like a very interesting approach because Epstein has fallen kind of out of the political conversation that we're in every day over the last year or so. Yeah, right. Hustadt's different in Ohio. Like, I mean, Huston took money from Les Wexner. Epstein had a house in Ohio. You know what I mean? I do think there are different degrees where it makes more sense some places than others.

But the fact that they're spending money in Kansas tickles me. I mean, A, just because that's such a great sign for the midterms. But B, I mean, Hamilton is like the most bulwurkey Democrat candidate that we've had in a long time. So I'm just praying for him. I love Adam Hamilton.

I interviewed him. He might get me back to church for him if he wins. He's great. He's one of those people you, interview and then you hear from all these people who know him who tell you he really is awesome in real life and the room for him and so I'm excited I'm excited about him yeah same all right Tim Miller thanks for doing this doing Fifer sounds good a couple weeks out good luck all right three weeks to go stay sane all right we'll see you brother