Breaking News from Pod Save America - Whoa, This Republican Ad Was Super RACIST

Episode Date: October 26, 2026

Dan Pfeiffer and Jon Lovett break down the GOP's desperate closing midterm ads, from a weird football ad to Mike Rogers' racist attack on Abdul El-Sayed, plus James Talarico going after Ken Paxton. SUBSCRIBE to our channel 👉 ‪@podsaveamerica‬ CHECK OUT OUR SPONSOR: ZIP RECRUITER - http://ziprecruiter.com/CROOKED DAN'S NEWSLETTER: http://crooked.com/yeswedan Join this channel to get access to perks like ad-free episodes and exclusive videos:    / @podsaveamerica   Head to CrookedCon.com for tickets, lineup announcements, and more! http://crookedcon.com/ For a transcript of an episode of Pod Save America, please email [e-mail]. Subscribe to our channel! https://www.youtube.com/crookedmedia?... Photos courtesy of AP Photo Archive Crooked believes that we need a better conversation about politics, culture, and the world around us—one that doesn’t just focus on what’s broken, but what we can do to fix it. At a time when it’s increasingly easy to feel cynical or hopeless, former Obama staffers Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vietor have created a place where people can have sane conversations that inform, entertain, and inspire action. In 2017 they started Crooked with Pod Save America—a no-bullshit conversation about politics. Since then, we continue to add shows, voices, and opportunities for activism, because it’s up to all of us to do our part to build a better world. That’s it. End of mission. Learn more about Crooked at http://www.crooked.com Follow the pod on Twitter   / podsaveamerica   Follow Crooked on Facebook   / crookedmedia   Follow Crooked on Instagram   / crookedmedia   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. The Republican Party and the Democratic Party just lit close to it. $11 billion on fire. When I see a person standing in front of 3D letters, I'm excited. Welcome to Political Exports React, where we break down political ads in media, explain what the people behind them are trying to accomplish. Decide whether or not they did a good job.

I'm Dan Pfeiffer, former Communications Director of Barack Obama and co-hosts of Pots of America. Joining me today is the one and only, John Lovett. John Lovett, welcome to Political Experts React. Thanks for having me, Dan. First time ever. First time you've ever acknowledged that I'm a political expert. It's in quotes. Yeah, for sure.

Yes. All right, we've got a bunch of different ads. at we're recording this with a little over a week to go until the election. The first that we're going to look at is a ad run by national Republicans during a football game this past weekend. Nicole is a normal guy. He loves a tailgate, and he kind of hates politics. He was ready to skip voting this year. But he remembered Democrats are crazier than his ex. They care more about their pronouns than his paycheck and push record high inflation and benefits for illegals. But with Republicans, he's making more. Companies are adding American jobs and the border is closed. Michael won't

quit on his team or his country. It's that simple. Vote Republican. What do you think of this ad? So it feels a little bit like they're trying to play the hits, you know? It's like they're hoping to get the band back together. It's been a long time since they've had a charting single and they're just sort of kind of out there just sort of like trying their best to see if they can drum up some enthusiasm around this old argument. The other part about it that's strange is it's like it's aimed at two different people. Like in the beginning, it's like you're a normal guy. Normal guys aren't MAGA Republicans. They're not diehard. It says in it, right? You don't like politics. But then by the time you get to the ad, it refers to being on a team. But you just tried to help this

person see themselves as not being on a team. So I think it's all a bit confused. Yeah, it's very poorly done. Like there's this concept that is like really sort of all the rage with political consultants now about social pressure. And so the idea here is you're trying to put social pressure on people by identifying them as this part of this group and then encouraging them to do it. Future Forward, the Democratic Superpack is not running an ad that tells people that their voting history is public to sort of encourage them to let everyone know that if you don't vote, they won't find out who you vote for, but they will find out whether you vote.

I think the problem with this ad in doing it is, like they clearly have a bunch of polling and focus groups. It's the same stuff we see that shows that the young men who maybe didn't vote before 2024 or maybe had voted for Biden in 2020 who came over to Trump have abandoned the party. So now we're trying to get them back. But they make two mistakes. You hit on the vetting the most important one, which is you call them a part of the team. And they've never considered them as part of any team, right?

They are free agents in this case. And then this is the problem with all Republican ads in the cycle is they feel this pressure to appease Trump in the ad by saying you're making more money, almost no one is making more money, which is, you know, inflation has exceeded wage growth. And so, and border is closed. And so the person you're trying to get to someone who's actually pretty unhappy about how things are going, but you're trying to convince them that Democrats are so bad. But then when you tell them they should be happy about how things are going, you kind of lose them. Yes. And it can't acknowledge what people actually feel about Trump and MAGA, which is outside of the diehards, people don't like it.

They might, their identity might allow for the possibility of what the ad begins with, which is I don't really like politics. I don't like Trump. I don't like Democrats. Everybody's kind of crazy. But yeah, like I'm an independent thinker. And I voted for the Republicans last time because I was really unhappy with what the Democrats have been offering. But I certainly don't want to be to feel as though having voted for Trump makes me like Trump or that people in my life. My girlfriend, my girlfriend who replaced this X is going to be mad at me because like I don't want her to think.

I think the way these mean people do. I don't like them. So yeah. And the other part of it too is, you know, Vance was on the stump doing. kind of this, you know, any birthing people here or do you call yourself mothers? And it just feels old. It feels like it's from a couple years ago. It's shadowboxing a group of people that were annoying Republicans and independents on the internet in 2019 and 2020 that just aren't as pervasive. Yeah, it's just, it feels so like that, that sort of like anti-woke stuff had more

purchase when gas prices were not $4. Yeah. Right. And just that even the ad acknowledges that There's just a lot of people they need that are just thinking about not voting. They're just desperate to figure out how to get these people that they got in 2024 to come back around. But I don't think this is it. No, I don't go there. All right. In the final stretch, campaigns go heavily negative. So we're going to look at two negative ads that are dominating key Senate races.

Let's start with an ad from Mike Rogers in Michigan. I served as an Army officer, an FBI special agent, and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. I know a threat to America when I see one. Abdul al-Sayed is funded by people who finance Hamas. His family has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Abdul publicly supported these terrorists, and they publicly supported his primary win. Those are the facts. Abdul-Sayed's radical ideology is a threat to our national security.

I'm Mike Rogers, and I approve this message. Do you think this kind of attack can work in a state like Michigan? I think it is working. The question is how much it's working, right? Like if this is this is what they're closing with. It is building off of whatever tens of millions of dollars at Apex spent on against Abdul in the primary. There is a subset of Democratic voters.

They are hoping to bring over to Mike Rogers or to not vote at all. They are trying to drum up Republicans who might be disinclined to vote based on what we're just talking about to show up for Mike Rogers. Abdul underperforms compared to the generic ballot compared to how some other Senate candidates are doing. And so you have to assume that this is playing some role, that this is worth up some number of points. And they're hoping that it can be enough to make up for the difference in the overall environment

and still be effective even as Abdul does his best to bat it down however he can. So I don't know. It feels very Bush 2002. to, and it all just feels old. Mike Rogers is an old school, kind of Bush-style Republican, trying to do this kind of Bush-style national security ad. I hope it's not as effective as it used to be. It's interesting that Rogers puts himself in the ad.

The typical way you do this ad is you just do a 47-over. There are a bunch of ads from Super PACs, some from A-PAC, and the primary that basically made the same case. Roger is standing there credentialing himself and then delivering the attack. That does tell me one thing, at least, is that the polls. are correct that Rogers is behind because you wouldn't do that if it was a tide raise or if you were ahead, you would not. Because he has a favorability gap with Abdul, despite all these attacks, Abdul, the net

favorability is higher than Rogers. When your net favorability is low, you generally don't want to be the one accusing your opponent of being supported by Hamas. But I think it is, this is their probably best attack that they have. Yeah. I'm not sure it will work. One thing Abdul has done very well is that he dominates on the economic message in the time Sienna poll from a few weeks ago.

He has a huge advantage on cost of living and economic issues and obviously health care over Mike Rogers. So your best bet is to persuade people that he is too extreme to other to win and hope you can peel off enough Democrats, independents, or, you know, this is also a Republican turnout play. Like, I don't think they have a lot of levers to pull to Jack turnout up against James Tellerico or Josh Turrick or even Sherrod Brown or like an Adam Hamilton in Kansas. But Abdul is the kind of candidate that Fox News has been demonizing for 30 years. And so I guess that's the hope here is that this will get some Republicans who are staying home to come out because of this. Yeah, I also do wonder if the most important part of the ad is Mike Rogers just defining himself on these national security grounds on this sort of kind of law enforcement grounds. Because this is the kind of ad. A Republican could have run if John McCain were president, Mitt Romney were president of Marco Rubio,

We're president just as a signal to either some independence, anti-Trump moderates, that he's not one of those Republicans. At the same time, it's just worth saying. It's such a dishonest ad. It's so despicable. It's so extreme, right? Like, if you're, Abdul has been campaigning across Michigan for a year. He is, he is up with ads, including ads that are about his. own biography. His campaign in the general started with an ad in which he's with his grandparents

who are as wholesome and white as it gets very clearly intentional. So if you're a voter in Michigan, you're not seeing this in a vacuum. You've been exposed to a ton of Abdul both on his own terms and with his own message and responding to this crap, right? And I have to assume for a lot of people this sort of, you know, Abdul is a terrorist, whatever the details they're kind of hanging beneath it, sounds so extreme at this point. And I have to assume whoever's buying it has already bought it and whoever isn't probably isn't. Yeah, I think that's an important point, which is, I think Abdul has responded to these things very smartly over the course of this campaign. Like in the course of a debate, he will explain that this was something his mother was involved

in long before he was born, all these one and a half, eight one and a half years old or whatever it was, nothing to do with him, pushes back on the facts. But on a day-to-day on the campaign in his ads, he is showing, not telling. Yeah. In response to So his closing statement at the debate on Wednesday night was all about how much he loves America, about how his story, very Obama-asked, his story is only possible in America, how much he respects the Constitution, what it means to have a document protects, you know, the right, how you, not just the right to pray, but who you pray to. And all of this, like, he is, if you get to see Abdul and you are not inherently anti-Mussel or

inherently racist, it's hard to square the person you see on a day-to-day basis, either in his ads or on the campaign trail with what you're seeing in this ad. And while I have you, I want to make a pitch for the message box, my substack newsletter. It's the best way to get serious analysis of the midterm space on the data and my way too long experience working in politics. And when the election happens, I will help you understand what happened, why it happened, and what it means for 20. 28. Special pre-election discount for viewers of this show. Go to the link in description to get 20% off for a year.

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you'll hear another zip recruiter ad soon enough. The next ad we're going to look at is from James Tellerico. Yet another negative ad from James Slerico against Ken Paxton. Ken Paxton says, I don't have his experience. And he's right. I've never been indicted for fraud. I've never been reported to the FBI for bribery. I've never been impeached by my own party.

And I've never given a sweetheart deal to a pedophile. I have a different kind of experience. I've worked with both parties to cap the cost of insulin and pass the largest property tax cut in Texas history. I'm James Tolariko and I approve this message because we need a different kind of experience in Washington. I originally called this a negative ad. It's actually technically a contrast ad because it's negative and positive. What do you think? First of all, I just want to say it may get played out soon.

I am a sucker for giant 3D letters in the world. I when I see a person standing in front of 3D letters, I'm excited. It works for me. It works for me in a movie. It works for me in this ad. It's exciting to see the letters. Why do you think that is? I don't know.

I just love it. I just think it looks cool. He looks cool in the ad. I like that it's one take. It's not hard to make a case against Ken Paxton. He's made this argument on the stunt many, many times. It's clearly meant to answer some lingering concerns that people might have if they're either a Republican or independent to give James Telerico a vote. He's just letting people know he cut

taxes, which is for a lot of people, the proof point they need for a national politician that they can get the vote. I love this for a couple of reasons. One, there's a real house style for James Tlerico ads. It's a lot of him walking towards the camera with like a blurred out background in a black shirt with two pockets on the front. Like that is his look. But what is smart about it is, I know you have an aesthetic attraction to these 3D letters. The reason why it's important to politicalize is because people are on their phones or the TV is muted. And so you want them to see the ad and not have to have the sound on or be paying close attention to get the message. So if you're in Texas, you're turning on the television,

you're already seeing basically as many ads as has been possible to air in a race. This will go down in history as one of the most expensive. Senate races in history. Who is susceptible to this ad at this point? You know, like, this argument feels one. So is it just about making it salient for people in the home stretch? That's the question I have for like if you're not just what are you thinking about as you're deciding whether to run an ad like this right now?

I think it is a fair question to ask after election whether the Republican Party and the Democratic Party just lit close to $11 billion on fire in these. of four percent of voters in seven states basically. And there's probably been, like in Texas,

for example, it is so expensive to run an ad of your Super PAC that it is now cheaper to buy an ad on national TV during a Texas-oriented

sporting event in the hopes that some of that 4% or whatever it is undecided voters happen to be watching that football game at that time,

which is insane. I think to the extent putting aside the existential question of whether TV ads make any sense at all, The more important part of this ad is the second half, not the first half.

The case has been made against Ken Paxton. So now you're just looking to contrast it with Teller Rico. People who are, they really don't want to vote for Paxton. And maybe they're not going to vote at all or they're going to vote for Ted Brown, the libertarian who's getting about 3% of the vote right now in polls. But a vote for someone who stays home or leaves the Senate blank, that's a net gain of one vote for Tellerico. They vote for Brown. That's a net gain of one for Tellerico.

They vote for Teller Rico. It's a neck game of two. So you're trying to get that last group people across the finish line. Can one ad make a difference at the stage? Of course not. But I think that's the strategic underpinning of an ad like this. Yeah, you have the money. You don't have time.

Yeah. You don't have the luxury of debating whether or not it could work. And you have no debates. And you can even stay on the stage with each other. So you might as well run an ad like that. Yeah. It's, you know, going back to where we started with that ad, there is something about, there's something that Democrats are, I think, have to try to make.

make up for with ads, which is, and clearly Republicans have a similar problem. In 2024, and there was this idea of like a vibe shift and that basically that for a lot of people outside of like hyper-engaged political world, there was a little bit of a get in, we're voting for Trump, you know? Like we're all just going to go and we're going to vote for Trump. That's what we're doing. We're not getting behind these Democrats. Joe Biden was. too old. We don't trust them. Everyone's saying Donald Trump is this terrible threat, but obviously that's ridiculous. Things are bad on the border. Things are bad in the country. We just got to do this. And it's going to be fun. It's going to be crazy. We're going to take,

the people that annoy us are going to pay and whatever. They can't generate that same feeling on their side now for very good reason. I think a lot of people have felt like they don't want to be, they don't want to certainly be gung-ho about administration that's doing the immigration, crack down the Iran war has lost them a lot of people. Epstein has lost them a lot of people. The inflation has lost them a lot of people. But there is a dog that's not barking on the Democratic side, which is we really do not have a culture among the kind of opinion makers and like big voices, even outside of politics and comedy that are all saying like get in everybody. We're voting for Democrats. And actually would much rather spend their time arguing about politics than even

in the last two weeks doing the kind of like vibe shift that would be, I think, a little bit helpful right here in the home stretch. Because given how bad things are, given where the polls are, you really think there would be a layer on top of that of everybody talking about, whatever our differences, whatever our views of Democrats not being perfect, our annoyance with Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, like get in everybody. We're voting for the Democrats. But we just don't have that.

Yeah, it's their candidates have tried to create it on their own in two ways. Tellerica was trying to have like sort of a Beto-esque cultural moment. He was at Austin City Limits, the big musical festival. He was introduced by Casey Musgraves. It was about as good endorsements you can get in certain country music circles. And we felt that, by the way, in Texas, we were there. And you do actually feel that he's done something specific in Texas where everyone's kind of looking around and saying, like, are we doing this?

Yeah. You know? And then the other way people are doing it is they are running ads that are Trump voters who are. supporting Democrats this time. Assoff has a great ad that Tommy and I looked at a few weeks ago that is a truck driver who's filling up his truck and it's like, you know, a gazillion dollars in diesel and he's voted for Trump three times. He's going to vote for Ossoff now. Abdul has one with someone who voted for Mike Rogers 10 times who's voting for Abdul. There were a couple of these in Maine.

There's a bunch of these in Maine for people who voted for Susan Collins, like trying to create this permission structure. But there's not a cultural moment like there was where all of a sudden you have like Theo Vaughn and Charlamine the God and Joe Rogan and his other people. But I think that's partially because it's a midterm. Yeah, that could be. And so it hasn't broken through in the same way. But we're going to have, like, there's a very real danger here that after this election and the opinions of the Democratic Party have improved greatly among the midterm electorate, that too many people in the party will see even the best case scenario as more of a validation of us and a rejection of them. And we have to, I think that would be a mistake. Yeah. John Lovett.

Thanks for doing this. What a blast. Great to have you on political. Thanks for having me. What a dream.