Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 8/4/22: Abortion Vote, Primary Results, Taiwan Tension, CNN Struggles, Biden Re-election, Barstool Conservatism, & More!

Episode Date: August 4, 2022

Krystal and Saagar talk about the Kansas abortion referendum, pro-life movement response, GOP primaries, Arizona results, Missouri results, Pelosi's Taiwan trip, CNN struggling, primary against Biden, Barstool conservatism, and Michigan primary results!To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/Tickets: https://www.ticketmaster.com/event/0E005CD6DBFF6D47 Daniel Marans: https://www.huffpost.com/author/daniel-marans  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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in American history. So what are you waiting for? Go to BreakingPoints.com to help us out. Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Lots of very interesting primary results to dig into. We had that big Kansas abortion referendum. We had some big primaries, especially on the Republican side,

but also some interesting results on the Democratic side. So we'll get into all of that and what it means. Also, as you know, Pelosi with her big trip to Taiwan. What has the fallout been from that and what is going to happen next? We also have some new financial numbers from CNN. It looks like they are going to have less than a billion dollars in profit for the first time in quite a long time. So the new president saying like, oh, we don't care about the ratings, but when those financial numbers hit,

maybe changing his tune. We also have Dan Marans on the show. Been a while since we talked to Dan, but fantastic reporter. He was on the ground in Michigan looking at the elections there. Before we jump into our first story. Live show.

Yeah. Live show. Let's go ahead and put it up there on the screen. Atlanta, September 16th, 7.30 p.m. Eastern time. We're going ahead and put it up there on the screen. Atlanta, September 16th, 7.30 p.m. Eastern Time. We're going to be there. We're going to have friends. We're going to have a great show

for everybody who is involved. We're really excited. We're putting the plans and all that stuff together and the way that we film it, Crystal. We've got some interesting camera setups, which I've been involved with recently.

So this is going to be fun for everybody involved. Yes, we will also release it later on at the date. But if you're going to be there, there's going to be great energy. We're going to have a lot of discussion and we're going to be fun for everybody involved. Yes, we will also release it later on at the date. But if you're going to be there, there's going to be great energy. We're going to have a lot of discussion and we're going to have some special surprises for the people who do show up. So I think you guys will all enjoy it. There's a link down there in the description. By the way, we've had now

requests to buy mass amounts of tickets, so there are actually not going to be that many tickets left. So go ahead and nab yours while you still can. And we're really looking forward to it. The link is down in the description. But let's get to the show. Yes, indeed. So we wanted to start with a big Kansas abortion referendum. So as a reminder, there was a ballot initiative that Kansas voters went to vote on on Tuesday, which would have changed the Kansas Constitution to allow lawmakers in that state to ban abortion in whatever way they want to do. There had been a Supreme

Court decision previously, I think it was in 2019 or 2018 in Kansas, that said this line in the Kansas Constitution guarantees the right to abortion access. So that has limited what the Republican-dominated, they have a supermajority, Republican-dominated legislature has been able to do in that state. So a vote yes on that ballot initiative was the pro-life or anti-abortion position. Vote no, meaning let's leave the Constitution as it is, was the pro-choice position for the vote. And obviously, Kansas is a pretty red state. And not only that, but most of the other action on Tuesday was all on the Republican side. So there were all kinds of candidates and Chris Kobach back at it and all these things on the Republican side for people to vote on. Democratic

side, listen, in Kansas, there's not a whole lot of action going on there. So it seemed like the landscape was kind of tilted in Republicans' favor. They actually pushed to have this ballot initiative on the ballot on this primary day, anticipating that there would be much, much higher Republican turnout. Well, surprise, very different result than what people expected. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. So the pro-choice position, the no position, was resoundingly successful. This AP article says Kansas voters resoundingly protect their access to abortion, with most of the vote counted, they were prevailing by roughly 20 percentage points with, and this was the really crazy part, the turnout was insane. Turnout was approaching what's typical for a fall election for governor. It's also interesting to dig into, and Sager's going to have a little bit more of this in his monologue, the way that both sides campaigned.

The pro-choice side really framed this as an issue of sort of individual liberty and freedom. They didn't say the word abortion one time. The yes side of it, the anti-choice side, they really framed this. They didn't want to talk about abortion really either. They wanted to say this is abortion neutral. They really tried to hide the ball about what legislators might do if this amendment did ultimately pass. And ultimately, it was extremely energizing for the pro-choice side. And I don't even want to say the Democratic side, because there was very clearly some crossover vote here of Republicans who voted with the pro-choice position here. Let's go ahead and put Steve Kornacki's tweet up on the screen that gets at just how crazy this turnout was. With just about all votes counted, turnout for the Kansas

primary stands at 910,000 votes. So for comparison, back in 2018, which was a hotly contested primary, they had about half, 473,000 votes in that primary versus 910,000 this time around. Pretty comparable, not that far off, honestly, from the presidential election vote totals. Go ahead and put this next piece up on the screen. Nate Cohn says that Democrats were about 50% likelier to vote earlier than Republicans. He was tweeting this while the results were still coming in, yielding a nearly even partisan split among early voters in a state where Republicans outnumber Democrats by nearly two to one. So he says, no surprise that no is off to a quick start, but there actually ended up not being that big of a difference between the early vote and the day of voting. And let's put this

last Kornacki tweet up on the screen, and then we can talk about all of this. In the first test of the post-Roe atmosphere, Kansas rejects 59 to 41 percent, a constitutional amendment declaring abortion not a protected right. In the last decade, it's very interesting, when Roe was still in place, virtually identical amendments went four for four. So they took the opposite position. In Tennessee, 53-47, so relatively close. Alabama, the anti-choice or pro-life position, won very easily, 59-41. West Virginia, very narrow, 52-48. Louisiana won very easily, 61-39. So it's the first type of amendment like this in a red state to fail.

And obviously the difference now is that Roe has been overturned, and the Supreme Court has totally upended the landscape here. Oh, yeah, it's absolutely remarkable. And actually, you sent this this morning, which actually I think is even more interesting, which is that we don't have the chart made. But the data just came out that shows that the percent of new registrants in the state who were women in the state of Kansas, the moving seven-day average, had a massive increase in the post-Dobbs era. Basically, it was flat. Everything was between the 50th and the 55th percentile for months and months and months in the lead up to the election.

And then as soon as Dobbs went ahead and came out, it jumped from the 55th percentile all the way up until almost 70%. So there's a massive jump right in the week, weeks after the Dobbs decision, the overturning of Roe versus Wade. So it was not only a ton of women who were activated by this, but look, here's the basic truth. About a third of the people who came out, just if you look at the data to vote in the Republican primary, also voted no on this amendment, which just so you guys know, tracks almost exactly with the vote share of people who are Republican and who identify

as pro-choice. I've said this ad nauseum. At least one third of the people who voted for Donald Trump, at least, possibly even more, are pro-choice. Now, that showed you that Trump activated a much bigger and broader coalition because his stuff was more about political correctness. I'm going to be talking a ton about this in my monologue. This just does show you that the old social conservatism really does not have even close to a popular mandate, even amongst its actual voters that it claims in order to speak on behalf of. So this is a remarkable vote. And I think there's a hell of a lot of cope on the Republican side. There is no spinning this. It's not Pennsylvania. It's not Florida. Donald Trump won by less percent

in Kansas than this abortion referendum won. A pro-choice position is more popular than Trump in the state of Kansas, which is a 15 percentage point Republican state. Now, look, would this type of stuff pass in Utah? Yeah, maybe Utah, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, maybe again. But if we're talking about you need our plus 30 advantage in order to put this on the ballot or actually win this at a ballot level in your state. Look, it's a catastrophe when you consider the national implications. Again, and you and I have been talking a lot about this, but there does seem to be a activation of Democratic voters, which has not showed up in polls, which has not showed up anywhere else, but is showing up in the two data points that we can now point to. The special election that we saw previously, which was, I think, the Republicans only won

by three points when they'd won by 17 points previously. And now this Kansas referendum. At the end of the day, votes are always going to be better than polls. So as we found out in 2016 and 2020, the polls were off, and it's very possible that the polls are off this time. I am not saying that the Republicans still won't lose the House or that they may not take the Senate. Just that this has, as we predicted, thrown a massive wrench into the predictability of it, as shown by voter registrant data and now by this massive turnout that did not exist before. There's just no question in my mind on a national level that this is going to hurt the Republican Party. Yeah. I mean, listen, let's keep in mind, it's very different when you have just this very specific question directly about abortion versus weighing the whole basket of issues and how do I

feel about the economy and what do I feel about Joe Biden, all of those things. So it's not like a one-to-one correlation. But as you said, we already had this other special election where Democrats dramatically outperformed what the polling said. Now you have another very significant polling miss because there wasn't a lot of public polling in this referendum. But all the expectations were that this thing was going to be close. Now, I remembered I really had no idea how this was going to ultimately turn out, because I did think the Republican strategy of putting on the ballot when they had all their primaries would be difficult to overcome. There was huge amounts of money spent on both sides of the thing.

We'll get into a little bit of the Republican cope on the money side in just a minute. But remember, Kansas also, Kansas isn't just any old red state. They have a deep history of institutional pro-life, you know, even sort of radical movements. I mean, this is the state where Dr. Tiller, you know, who I remember was so controversial and so demonized for performing late-term abortions. This is the state that he was in and where he was murdered. This is also the state where they had anti-abortion Summer of Mercy protests back in 1991, according to the AP, that inspired abortion opponents to take over the Kansas Republican Party, make the legislature more conservative. So this is kind of a bedrock state in terms of the pro-life movement. And to see it

go so hard against their position here is really quite incredible. It reminded me something I'd forgotten about. Back in 2011, Mississippi voters voted on a personhood amendment, which is another sort of extreme abortion, anti-abortion position. And they also rejected it handily. So listen, the American public is really pretty mixed on choice. They have a pretty complicated, pretty nuanced view. There aren't a lot of absolutists on, you know, that are all the way to the right or all the way to the left on the issue. So when you are in the position, as Republicans are now, of really pushing the extremes or really pushing the fringes, you are going to be on a step with the public, even in a place like Kansas. So listen, overall,

you know, I did my monologue earlier this week on how the landscape has shifted a bit towards Democrats. I think that's true. I think the outcomes for November are a lot murkier than they were before this decision came down. I think this seems very much to be, even as voters may not list it as their number one issue, that doesn't mean it's not a very motivating issue for them. And I think specifically in certain races where you have, you know, really clear, there are a couple more states that are going to have ballot initiatives in the fall, where you have governors that are going to be in a position to make some extreme changes here, where there's a really clear connect. I think you're going to see some significant shifts here, and especially because Republicans have nominated a lot of candidates that are kind of out on a limb on this issue.

If I'm a Democratic gubernatorial candidate, this is all I'm talking about ahead of the fall. This is a green light, I think, to Gretchen Whitmer, which is go all out. This is going to be the case. Same for Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania. If you're running in any sort of battleground state, this is clear evidence that this will not only motivate donors, but it will actually motivate your own voters. And if you can get more females to register, disproportionately, they're going to go ahead and vote for Democrats. That's going to help on the down ballot as well. So I think there's a lot of lessons here to be learned for the Democratic Party. And I'm going

to be talking also about messaging. Messaging here is very important. Joe Biden, this was very noteworthy to me, did not use the word abortion one time whenever he celebrated this decision. Not once. He just talked about pro-choice and freedom. Freedom was one of those things which was emphasized strongly by the Kansas position, by the Kansas organization, which drove the vote out here. So how you talk about it and, you know, try to capture the nuance and really just making sure that it's like a pushback against extreme, basically tail conditions where you're like, hey, do you really want a 10-year-old case here in Kansas? Do you want a 10-year-old to be raped and be forced to carry a baby term here in the state of Kansas? But 90-something percent of people are like, absolutely not.

It's horrible. Right? You know, 90 percent. So if you can capture that spirit, that ethos and push, not even push back, but don't even acknowledge any of this Lena Dunham type stuff, then you are golden from a political point of view. And it really does put Republicans on the back foot. I have noticed I have not seen one national GOP politician reckon with these results yet. Not one. And also, if you're Donald Trump, you bet your ass he's watching this very, very close.

Yes. For how this is going to work. Very true. All right. Well, let's talk about some of the Republican cope here because it has been something to watch. So Molly Hemingway, kind of in real time as these results were coming out, was asked on Fox News about why this happened in the state of Kansas. Let's take a listen to what she had to say. That Kansas referendum is very interesting.

I do think that pro-lifers should understand that so much money was spent by hardcore abortion supporters to make sure that that amendment failed. It also was a pretty, there was a lot that was packaged there. And I think that usually pro-life initiatives do much better when they're incremental. And so it's a reminder also that as Roe v. Wade was overturned and abortion law and policy is returned to the states where people get to weigh in. There is a lot of work to be done for people who want to protect women and children from the scourge of abortion or people who want to make sure that it is enshrined in law. So there's a lot more to be done there and we'll see a lot more in the years to come.

So a couple of things that are interesting there. First of all, remember when Roe was overturned, a lot of the Republican talking points were this is great. Leave it to the states. Voters can decide. And you're like, all right, voters decided. How do you feel about it now? So that's number one. But the piece that's really so funny is the hand wringing about the big money that was spent. And there was a massive flood of money, but it was on both sides of this amendment. And in fact, I looked it up. The money was actually pretty even. Not to mention, I mean, Molly Hemingway of the Federalists. I very much doubt she's ever sort of had these concerns about big money in politics before. That's not true. I'll give her some credit. She is very against like anti-big tech. Look, I respect Molly. She's a very pro-life person. But I think that a lot of these people, and actually she's being very honest here, which is the truth, is that the pro-life movement has been a legalistic movement. It has not been a popular movement. It has not been one targeted to voters really whatsoever.

I'm talking also about this in my monologue. Ben Dominick himself, he was founder of the Federalist. He's also a pro-lifer. He's married to Meghan McCain. He also admitted this. He's like, look, for the last 40 years, the pro-life project has been in the courts. So we talk about originalism, you know, all this. He's like, look, for the last 40 years, the pro-life project has been in the courts. So we talk about originalism, you know, all this. We have not grappled with the actual popular movement at a ballot level in 40 years, which is a problem. Well, I mean, because the

strategy has been, there's been a record, not just on abortion, but on a lot of libertarian positions in addition to social conservative positions and understanding that the public is not actually with us. So we're going to have to come up with a strategy that circumvents the public. So yeah, we'll use the courts to get our way. Very smart strategy. I mean, it worked for them. It took a long time, but it worked for them to ultimately get what they wanted. But the talking point about, oh, and we want it to go to the state, we want the voters to have their say, well, they don't really mean that because ultimately, you're right. They have not banked on actually persuading voters. They've banked on using some of the anti-democratic institutions within our so-called democracy to get their way.

So when you actually have a ballot initiative like this, doesn't go that way. You have a GOP strategist in Kansas, let's put this next piece up on the screen, who says that this is a big deal. Quoting in an interview for the Wall Street Journal, there were no major contested Democratic primaries to drive turnout and the amendment still failed resoundingly. If Republicans think the issue of abortion is not on the minds of voters, tonight's results should put them on notice. So very, you know, very dire assessment there, especially because, as we were pointing out, no major contested Democratic primaries. So this was all about driving turnout for this to vote against this one amendment. We have some more cope from anti-abortion activist Lila Rose. She says pro aborts poured millions into a massive disinformation campaign in Kansas. Pro abort media pulled heavily

for them. Another piece that came out of this, just to rebut what she's saying there again, we already pointed out the money was roughly equal on both sides. The anti-abortion side, the pro-life side, was actually caught somebody in that movement sending out texts that were lying to voters about which way to vote to be on the pro-choice side. So there was reporting on this. People were getting text messages saying, vote yes to protect your right to choice. So if anything, the disinformation that was at least caught and recognized was very much on the side that Lila Rose is on. But my favorite here was Matt Schlapp. This is so funny. So go ahead and put this piece up. So he's responding to an article in Insider that says a losing anti-abortion referendum in

Kansas cranked up voter turnout by a staggering amount, flagging a massive new problem for Republicans. Kind of hard to deny that analysis. But he says this is a false analysis kansas is a strongly pro-life state oh really that does not want to take timid states as vtb was vtb the acronym for the um anti-choice side of this ironically the pro-choice crowd in kansas should have embraced vtb as it is the best case scenario for them so his argument here is like actually this failed because it didn't go far enough. That's what Kansas voters are rejecting. Yeah, I think this is another one, which is really annoying me, which is that everybody is saying, well, it was worded weirdly.

And I think that at the end of the day, because of the actually, frankly, because of the amount of money and because of the amount of media attention, pretty much everybody knew what voting no yet and what voting yes meant. They, yes, I actually went ahead and read the actual ballot initiative and it was long. It's like Kansas, freedom, blah, blah. It's a little bit hard to decipher, but I think most people had signs in their yards. It was like vote no, vote yes. And they understood exactly what it meant. The weird wording was designed by the pro-life side. I mean, this wasn't some like, you know, pro-choice, like they're trying to snow the voter. The wording was specifically created actually, I think, to be confusing to voters on the pro-life side. So they would be silly to complain about that. Let me go and read

it for everybody. Yeah. It's because Kansas values both women and children, the constitution of the state of Kansas does not require government funding of abortion, does not create or secure a right to abortion. To the extent permitted by the constitution of the United States, the people through their elected state representative, state senators may pass laws regarding abortion, including but not limited to laws that account for circumstances of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest or circumstances of necessity to save the life of the mother. So it's a little bit hard to be like, well, wait, what does exactly does that mean? And the reason why they framed it almost as like a pro-democratic side is because by voting no, you're actually voting to preserve

a state Supreme Court decision, which is codified by the Supreme Court, which is really fascinating because you're like, well, it's democratic, but also the democracy voted to uphold a court decision, not to actually uphold a law. Very strange, which some people were pointing to. And it's also a little bit counterintuitive because Roe versus Wade originally was a Supreme Court decision, and then it was also overturned by a Supreme Court decision. To the extent that you're voting on anything, you're voting on how a court ruled, which is a little strange. It's worth noting, too, that I think six out of seven of the justices that voted—this is per Daniel O'Shaughnessy and was writing about this in Bolt— that voted in favor of this interpretation of the Kansas Constitution are on the ballot this fall. So that may be the next

target is, all right, this whole popular thing, you know, going to the voters didn't work out. Let's try to get some different justices in there so we can get the court to go our way the next time around. So that could be the next target. The other thing that's interesting here is, you know, I think suburban women, they were very motivated to vote against Trump. So there was a seeming shift, you know, of white suburban women into the Democratic Party. There seemed to be some shift away from the Democratic Party because of economic concerns and also because some of the COVID lockdown and school policy and that sort of stuff, those cultural issues, when the focus was on them, benefited the Republican Party more among this demographic

group. And as you were pointing out before, this demographic in this ballot initiative has swung massively back to the Democratic side and was very energized to swing back to the Democratic side. So, you know, if the Republicans have a poorer than expected performance in the fall, I think that will be the group that would be the, you know, would be the surprise and would be the shift from where they were, let's say, when Glenn Youngkin was ultimately running for governor. Listen, again, I want to say, I think that this election is still broadly going to be about the economy. Every headwind is in the Democratic, you know, is going against the Democrats. History is against them.

Joe Biden's approval rating is at historic lows. Eighty percent of the country says they're on the wrong track. So Democrats shouldn't get too far ahead of themselves here. But when you combine these little indicators with the fact that the Republicans have nominated some very poor candidates in some very key states, I think you have a more complex midterm picture than people would have anticipated a couple months ago. Yeah, that's just the best way to do it. Don't be triumphalist on any sense of this. It's one vote. It is Kansas. It's not the rest of the country.

You can extrapolate to a very limited extent, and we're going to find out in the fall. This is why I love elections, man. I love actually seeing how people vote. It just shuts up everybody, including myself and many other people. You know, it's a lot of fun in order to see how people actually behave. Yeah, you never know. You truly never know. I love America. All right, let's go ahead and go to the GOP side of this. It's very interesting. Some major results. We're going to start in the state of Arizona. So let's, or sorry, with impeachment, let's go and put this up there on the screen. It's actually very interesting. So in terms of the 10 people in the House of Representatives who did vote to impeach Donald Trump, you can see that two of those people did actually, well, so Herrera

Butler is a little bit weird because it's a top two primary, but two out of the 10 have effectively survived to a point where they may get elected. But the rest of them, well, they basically fell to GOP voters and to a pretty intense campaign by President Trump, who said, look, I am going to target every single one of these people. There was one other that did survive. Let's go and put this up there on the screen, who was Nancy Mace. But the rest of them are now in those top two primaries and face a pretty stiff reelection issue, especially Peter Meyer, who we've talked a lot here on the show about. Because Peter Meyer was one of those people who his seat was already in a relatively Democratic district. It was a toss up, lean toss up rated by the Cook Political Report. But after he went ahead and lost his primary crystal, what has happened is they've almost made it certainly a Democratic victory. And I think it's fascinating because on that one side, you are seeing, as we said, are there

limited instances in which non-Trump-backed candidates prevail? Yes, that is absolutely true. Did Brad Raffensperger and Brian Kemp prevail in their primaries? Yes. Does that mean that Trump does not still have the vast majority of the power in the GOP primary at his disposal? No, it does not mean that at all. As we are seeing, eight out of 10 are gone ahead and lost. I do want to clarify on Herrera-Butler because it is a little confusing.

The person who beat her in this top two, what they call like a jungle primary, where's everybody, it's Republicans, Democrats, everybody was actually a Democrat. Yes. So in the fall, this is a Republican seat, very much expected that a Republican is going to hold it. So when you don't have all these other Republican challengers on the ballot, the expectation is very much that she will prevail, that new house will prevail. And then there was one other one who voted for impeachment who also made it through their primary. So. So, yeah, you probably have three out of the 10. Still not a great record. Many of them retired, few of them lost in their primaries. And you can see that there is still a huge price to pay for crossing Trump. And I think that that is the main major point. And also in terms of open primaries, the Trump

power just cannot be overstated. Let's put this up there with Arizona, because this is just so stark, which is that in Michigan, in Arizona, pretty much Trump won across the board. So Blake Masters, he was in a very crowded primary. We should forget he was running against well-established Arizona politicians. He used to work for Peter Thiel. He got the Trump endorsement and he won resoundingly in that primary in the state of Arizona. Also, while yes, I know that there is some problem right now with the Carrie Lake vote totals in Arizona, it does look like she's going to go ahead and pull that off. So we have Carrie

Lake. She's got 46% of the vote. Her top competitor, Corrine Robson, this is in the Republican primary there, has 44%. We're still waiting on a lot of votes coming out of Maricopa County. And so it could swing the other way. It's certainly possible, and we're going to get to how exactly she's talking about it. But at the very least, she had a very, very strong showing. And same in the Secretary of State race. That is one which we had talked a lot here on the show and why it mattered. And, well, like why did it matter? The reason why is because this is the guy who said, A, he would not concede if he needed to.

He would concede if he lost because he would allege election misinformation or whatever. Also, on record saying that he believed that the 2020 election was stolen in the state of Arizona, he is going to be the Secretary of State candidate, Chris. This is going to be the person in charge, if he wins, administering elections. So it is a great test case at the state level of Arizona. Do Arizona voters buy in to stop the steal enough to affirmatively elect and put somebody in place at the state level to run their elections who believes that the previous election was stolen. So this is like as close to a stop the steal referendum as it gets. With Blake Masters, it's a little bit up in the air. It's very complicated.

I mean, Masters, not that well known in Arizona. Obviously, he's got money behind him. Not being well known, though, isn't necessarily a bad thing. He doesn't have a voting record to defend. And Mark Kelly, though, is pretty popular in the state. He really keeps his mouth shut. So he's like a Biden supporter. But, you know, he spends a lot of time back there. As you said, he also has very sympathetic backstory. He was an astronaut hero, all of that. So, yeah, husband of Gabby Giffords, which, you know, a lot of people still remember in the state of Arizona. So there is it's a confounding variable and certainly will be a tough race. But there is no question that him prevailing in that primary, it is almost

certainly because of Donald Trump. Well, let's talk specifically about Michigan, because this race with between Meyer and Gibbs, Meyer, again, was the one who is a Republican incumbent who voted for Donald Trump to be impeached after the events of January 6th. And the expectation was that this race was not even going to be particularly close, that Gibbs, the pro-Trump, the Trump-endorsed candidate, the basically stop-the-steal candidate, that he would romp in this primary. This is also one where Democrats got very involved. I think it was $435,000 that Democrats poured into this race on behalf of the conspiracy theorist, the type of candidate that they claim is destroying democracy and the end of the world and it's existential. And then they weighed into this race and propped this guy up. The end

result, it ended up being quite close. So the last result I saw was 52-48 Gibbs. So if Democrats hadn't spent that money, there's a pretty good chance that Meyer might have pulled it off. So it's not just the power of Trump. It's also the Democrats decided that they wanted to go up against Gibbs, that they would rather take the risk of putting another nut job into Congress. But they think that they have a better job, a better chance of beating this guy in the fall, which is probably correct. They probably do have a better chance, but I wouldn't like 100 percent count on it. Right. But they poured tons of money into this primary against, I mean, it's just incredibly hypocritical against all of their stated values about what the stakes are of the election for democracy. Adam Kinzinger, of course, who is another Republican who has voted for Trump's impeachment, he is very upset about what Democrats did in this race and is not being shy about it.

Let's listen to what he had to say. In the races, Peter Meyer lost his primary. What's your reaction? Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, if Peter's opponent wins and goes on to November and wins, the Democrats own that. Congratulations. I mean, here's the thing. Don't keep coming to me asking where are all the good Republicans that defend democracy and then take your donors money and spend half a million dollars promoting one of the worst election deniers that's out there. I mean, you know, the DCCC needs to be ashamed of themselves. Thankfully, some members of Congress, Democrats have spoken out and said they're disgusted. I

respect it. I have a little bit amusing because it's like, hey, Kissinger, they were never going to love you in the first place, which you could see from Carville and from Pelosi. I do want to say, though, I don't know if it's right to blame the Democrats cash. You know, at the end of the day, Republican voters just like Donald Trump and they rejected Peter Meyer for trying to impeach him. So these people have agency like it's not just millions of dollars that convince them to vote otherwise. Some people, that's all they care about. And to me, that's the more interesting data point, which is, yeah, sure, the Democrats, hypocrites, it's more about, you know, them being hypocrites.

At the end of the day, Republican voters care so much about Trump that if you cross him on any of these issues that they deem important, they'll go ahead and kick you out of office. Isn't that, frankly, the more interesting data point? Yeah, for sure. But it is disgusting, the Democrats. Oh, sure. I don't disagree. I mean, listen, they're not wrong that they've got a better chance at this seat now.

Not only do they not have—it's always harder to run against an incumbent. That's number one. Number two, Gibbs is just, you know, he's not as well-known. He's further out on a limb in terms of where his views and his positions are. But, you know, if this ends up being a wave election, which it certainly could be, even with the Roe decision, then Democrats may have had a key played a key role in getting this guy into office. Yeah. Let's go ahead and move on to some of the more specifics about Arizona, because there was a lot that went on in that state. Let's go ahead and put this next tear sheet up on the screen. So Trump endorsed Masters and Fincham both win the Arizona GOP nods for key races.

Go ahead to see one here so we can see that tear sheet. State lawmaker in 2020 election denier Mark Fincham has won the Republican nomination for secretary of state of Arizona. This is I'm reading from Politico. He pushes him closer to being the state's chief election officer during the 2024 presidential vote. I'm sure that'll go fine. While venture capitalist Blake Masters will represent the party in the state's key Senate race in the fall. These are the Trump-backed candidates. Masters had a lot of Peter Thiel money behind him as well. But originally, this was a very closely contested Senate primary, hotly fought. And he ended up winning by quite a margin with Trump's help here. And one of the things they point out in this article, Sagar, which is interesting, is Fincham is far from the only secretary of state in key swing states that has won the GOP nod who is, you know, stop the steal, conspiracy that says they wouldn't have certified the last election, who stands ready, America First Secretary of State coalition to secure the

nomination in a key battleground. The coalition's founder, Jim Marchant, is the Republican nominee in Nevada. Christina Caramo is the party's pick in Michigan, another kind of significant state. And in Pennsylvania, where the governor picks the state's chief election official coalition member, Doug Mastriano, is the GOP candidate. So in these, I mean, Georgia is one of the only states where they've basically failed to get their person in there in terms of the key swing states that really decided the last election. So how are voters going to look at this? Are they going to, you know, evaluate these people and be concerned about how they might, what they might do in the next election based on what their comments are about what happened in the last one? This is legitimately disturbing and troubling that these people have gotten the

GOP nod. It didn't come close either. You know, we got 41% of the vote and the next closest was 24% of the vote. I do find it interesting at the state level, which is, look, Biden barely won. However, Biden's favorability in the state is a disaster. He's down by almost 20 points. At the same time, the Democratic candidate for Secretary of State, Adrian Fontes, they are going to make all of this about stop this. They're like, listen, we are just going to run fair elections, which is not a bad case. Well, I mean, for Secretary of State, that's your whole job. Also, you can bet that this is going to have way more money behind this race than in any other secretary of state race. You know, most people don't give a shit about secretary of state ever. But now that there is an explicit plan by many Republicans in order to be in place, should they need to in 2024?

Well, now you can bet that a lot of people are going to pay attention, both voters and donors. I found the polls put out by the pro-Trump pollster Fabrizio, who worked for the Trump campaign in 2020 and whose polls were quite accurate, to be clear. Let's put this up there on the screen. He put out now a poll from the Save America PAC that actually shows Blake Masters, this is what I was alluding to earlier, beginning the general election, five points behind Senator Mark Kelly, but showing Biden's numbers in the state under 40%. So they see some efforts in order to go against Mark Kelly by highlighting voting record. I don't think that stuff matters at all. I mean, voting record, to the extent that it does, they'll be like, he voted 98% or what, you know, some fake statistic with Joe Biden. But it's going to come down to Biden, and it is going to come down to also, Arizonans have to make a much more explicit choice on whether they

affirmatively buy in to stop the steal than many other states, almost like a Pennsylvania. That's true. We should also remember, you know, Blake Masters, this is a guy who did an ad where he said, I think Trump won at the very beginning. He opens with it. I think Trump won. And he goes, well, if you don't, it's okay. You know, you have to admit the big tech, whatever. All right. So nobody, just because big tech has money does not mean that the election was stolen. All right. But he is trying to have his cake and eat it too. Talk about like corrupt forces, but explicitly say, I think Trump won, which let's be honest, the only reason Trump endorsed him is because he's willing to say those things. And also because Peter Thiel wanted him to. When you combine those two factors, Masters

is going to have to run a campaign where Mark Kelly, if there is a debate, will affirmatively ask him over and over again, like, do you actually think the election was stolen? So this is where the stop this deal could absolutely come to hurt Republicans at a statewide level, because we know that Arizona did vote for Joe Biden. The only problem is Joe Biden is not popular in Arizona, so he could be his own worst enemy. The vulnerability for Mark Kelly is very clear. It's a bad year for Democrats. The president's unpopular, inflation, all of the things that we know about. He personally has his own profile in the state. I do think that that's a huge advantage for him because what Republicans will want to do is to nationalize the race. He'll want to make it specific to his profile and to Arizona. And because voters already have these positive associations with him, that will help him very much to be able to do it. But yeah, the vulnerability is the obvious national trends. However, Blake Masters

has not done himself any favors by not only his positions on Stop the Steal, but he has some positions on economics, which are also very out of step, as you pointed out, wanting to privatize Social Security. He also on other social cultural issues, he says he only wants to vote for judges who will overturn the Supreme Court ruling on access to contraception. So he and he has extreme views on abortion as well. And we've seen how that clearly is a very motivating factor. I mean, Arizona, the suburbs are king in Arizona. So the fact that he has these, you know, really fringe views on abortion to wanting not just a state ban in Arizona, but going to the Senate and pushing for a federal abortion ban. You know, that could really that could end up being an issue for him as well.

So while, yes, their polling is saying, hey, maybe Mark Kelly has this vulnerability if we time to Biden. Blake Masters also has a lot of vulnerabilities here as well. And I said this last show, but this is really how it seems to me. When you look at the like, the more you sort of zoom out and look at the overall landscape, the more you're like, oh, these Republicans are going to just clean up. It's going to be a wave. It's going to be historic for them. And then the more that you zoom into these individual races, the more you go, I'm not sure about this one. And, well, the polling isn't quite where you'd expect it to be on that one. And, geez, are our voters in that state, are suburban voters really going to go for some of these positions and some of the ground that they've staked out?

So we shall see. year is that that House Speaker Rusty Bowers, who was running in a Republican primary for a state Senate seat who had testified at the January 6th commission, he lost. So that's another Trump victory here. And then let's talk about the Arizona governor race, because this one is still too close to call. I guess there's still, which is kind of ironic that, you know, the Carrie Lake, like Stop the Steal people are counting on the late votes to come in to secure her victory. But anyway, we'll put that aside. Go ahead and put C3 up on the screen here. So Carrie Lake versus Karen Taylor Robson.

Arizona GOP primary too close to call. I believe it still is too close to call this morning. Notably, Arizona actually has a lot of mail-in votes. So something else that the secretary of state nominee for the Republican side has said that he wants to basically get rid of. But, you know, what was interesting is that she while she was still trailing in terms of the official count, came out and pulled a bootage and gave the victory speech and said this. We won. We already know the final results are in and also included some

language in there of basically like, even if the results change down the, even if it goes against us down the road, we know that we won. So very much ready to declare victory, whether she actually won or not. Yeah. MAGA's freaking out about Maricopa County. Let's put this up there on the screen. Zach Patrizio pointed out that they're calling it Sharpie Gate 2.0, alleging that Sharpie Penn's bleeding through the ballots in Arizona when they were voting for Carrie Lake. Look, it is true. Maricopa County is taking way too long in order to count votes. But that doesn't mean that people are rigging votes, people. I just the conspiratorial mind has completely taken over the GOP.

Like the evidence of incompetence is instead spun as evidence of like nefariousness. It's just anytime it doesn't go the way they want it to go, then they instantly are like fraud, whether or not there is any evidence of fraud. And, you know, listen, elections have been stolen in the past. I'm not saying that bad things can't ever happen in an election, but you have some proof. You can't just invent Sharpie gate out of nowhere. Yeah, exactly. And that's the problem is immediately it's like, oh, shenanigans are happening. It's like you can't just make these claims. It's outrageous in order to do so. And by the way, you think that's not going to come back to bite you should there ever be a close election in the

state? So setting ourselves up for a mess once again, but that's really what these people do, Crystal. Yes. Okay. So moving on from Arizona, let's talk about Missouri. So you will recall that you had a hotly contested primary on the Republican side for Senate. And you had three real contenders here, Eric Schmidt, Trudy Bush, or not, sorry, that's on the Democrat side. Vicki Hartzler. Hartzler. I always get those two mixed up for some reason. Vicki Hartzler and Eric Greitens, the former disgraced governor. I won't go into all the details. Accused wife beater, all that stuff.

So Trump was apparently very, very torn about whether to endorse Eric Schmidt or Greitens in this Senate primary. And so he ultimately puts out and we've got a little bit of reporting I'll get into in a minute about how we came to this decision. But he ultimately puts out a message saying, I endorse Eric. And of course, Eric Greitens and Eric Schmidt, they share Eric. Anyway, you get it. So Eric won. Eric Schmidt ended up winning. So the not disgraced former governor, the other Eric, ends up winning. And, you know, Democrats had hoped that if Greitens had won that maybe they'd have an outside shot in this race. But with Schmidt,

you know, Missouri is a very Republican state. So with any sort of standard issue Republican. And he's already won statewide office. Yeah, exactly. He's attorney general. So very much expected now that he will be able to prevail. But the details about how Trump came to this decision that have come out are also really quite fascinating. Let's go and put this up on the screen. So we've got two. Oh, this is Eric Schmidt and Trudy Bush Valentine. OK, go on to the next one. Inside the secret year long campaign to torpedo Eric Greitens attempted comeback. And also inside the wild Bedminster lobbying spree that led to Trump's double Missouri endorsement. So the first one, you know, Greitens was up in the poll and sort of establishment Republicans were really freaking out about this because they did see him as

vulnerable. I mean, they remember very well what happened with Todd Akin in the state of Missouri. This is a state that, you know, you do have ticket splitters. You have people who just would look at this and say, you know what, I'm a Republican typically, but this is just too far for me to go. And so there were there was a PAC that was organized with a lot of big money from especially in state to take down Greitens and to put a bunch of ads up on the airwaves talking about the allegations against him. And man, when they put that those ads up, he just sank like a rock in the polls. And so this ended up not even being really close. The Trump part is really interesting to those dogger because, you know, he had put out this message on truth saying that he was going to endorse in the Missouri race. Well, apparently when he said that, he still

hadn't decided who he was going to endorse. So when he was doing that terrible live golf thing at his golf course, he was soliciting opinions about what he should do. It sort of seemed like his heart really wanted to go with Gritens, but he was, and Kimberly Guilfoyle was on Gritens' side pushing hard. But there were a lot of other voices that are saying, you know, this guy could really jeopardize the seat and this is a problem. So ultimately he just he couldn't decide. So somebody floated this crazy off ramp of just endorse Eric. And, you know, then they both get the benefit of it and then you can claim victory either way. And that's what he went with. And the really funny thing to me was that not only did he do that, but he literally called both the candidates

and told them that he was endorsing them without mentioning that he was also endorsing the other Eric. So I'm sure they both were like, oh my God, I'm going to win. This is amazing, whatever. And then the endorsement comes out and they realize like, oh, this isn't quite what I anticipated it to be. Yeah. I think what's really hilarious to me is both the double Eric endorsement, but also that it's so shameless that Eric Greitens will never leak again and be like, yeah, he lied to me. He has to kiss Trump's ass for the rest of his life because who knows? Maybe he'll get appointed. I'm sure he'll get appointed by something if Trump does win the presidency again. And he got a lot of MAGA people still love him because

he was on the ground in Arizona for their fake audits. He was, you know, it went all in on Stop the Steal. He kissed Steve Bannon's ass hard. I mean, you don't even need to run. All he needs to do is get appointed to like one office or whatever. And he's quote unquote back. So he's an extraordinary narcissist. It actually is like shocking in order to see somebody like him exist on the political stage. And Missouri does just confirm, though, that voters still can see through some of your stuff. Like, look at Eric Schmidt. He won 45 percent of the vote. Eric Gratton's 18.9 percent. So he got beat by Vicky Hartzler. Wow. He only won a couple of counties. Yeah, he only won three counties in the entire state. It's like a sea of red for Eric Schmidt. So Schmidt, I think, is going to clean up.

On the Democratic side, Lucas Kuntz actually didn't prevail. Yeah, it was fairly close. Lost by like six points. Yeah, there was a self-funder on the other side. And so ended up Trudy Bush Valentine. She's heir to the Anheuser-Busch heiress. I can see why that's important in the state of Missouri. I guess. I don't know.

Anyway, Democrats have a real problem with being obsessed with these like billionaire self funders. So she ends up winning. Ultimately, you know, since Greitens didn't prevail on the Republican side, really wasn't going to matter. Yeah, I think on the Democratic side. I think Lucas, you know, my opinion is Lucas was running a really strong campaign, really trying out a sort of populist left platform and leaning into that. It would have been very interesting to see how he fared against Greitens. But ultimately, you don't have Lucas Coons and you don't have Eric Greitens. So now this race is wholly uninteresting by and large. So yeah, put that up from Kyle Kondik. That's what he makes the call.

Yes, exactly. This is a safe our seat now. There's really just not a lot going on. So anyway, that's how the primaries shook out. It was a very interesting night for America. In sum, I would say what? Trump's strength in the GOP is still extraordinary. The impeachment clearly is going against most voters. But on the abortion side, some potential harbingers of things to come. And speaking of that, let's go ahead and speak about Taiwan. So obviously, Speaker Pelosi landed in Taiwan. She was there for a little over 24 hours. She met with the president. She made some appearances and more, and then she quickly departed. But the fallout from her visit is only now beginning, actually today. So there's a lot of eyes on what's happening.

First, let's start, though, with her op-ed. The moment she landed, she published an op-ed in The Washington Post. Let's put this up there on the screen. And what she talks about here is not only the passage of the Taiwan's Relations Act, but I thought that the way that she phrased it really bears some scrutiny, which is this, quote, we take this trip at a time when the world faces a choice between autocracy and democracy. As Russia wages its premeditated illegal war against Ukraine, killing thousands of innocents, even children, it is essential, America and our allies make clear, that we never give in to autocrats. Now, there's a really weird theory behind this, which is that you have to go to Taiwan to show Ukraine that you're willing to stand up against Putin, and you have to defend Ukraine against Putin in order to show Ukraine that you're willing to stand up against Putin. And you have to defend Ukraine against Putin in order to show the Taiwanese that you'll back them against China. And you're like,

well, hold on a second. Which one is it? And why this bothers me is that, look, the idea that we're going to support every democracy in the world is ridiculous. That's just not going to happen. States trade with other states and engage with them based upon their national interests. It has been like that since the beginning of time. You could make a very hard power, non-democratic case to talk about Taiwan and to talk about Ukraine, frankly, but that's not the case that they make here. It's all wrapped up in this like highfalutin language around democracy and autocracy, which then leads me to be like, well, okay, well, why did we just okay $3 billion by the Biden administration to the Saudi Arabian government? Because we did. That actually happened yesterday, just so people are aware. And you're like, oh, well, actually, it's not

democracy. Where's our high-minded ideals then? Yeah, there's no high-minded ideals, right? Then we're talking about hard power. We're talking about oil. So it's like sometimes we're OK with hard power, and sometimes we're not OK with hard power. The op-ed itself was just classic kind of neoliberal brain. Right. Well, that was actually my biggest takeaway from it. I mean, ultimately, I read through it. She doesn't really make that much of a case for her trip, to be honest with you. It's just like reviewing our relationship with Taiwan, and here's why it's important. But she says by traveling, the closest she comes to making a direct case is she says, by traveling to Taiwan, we honor our commitment to democracy,

reaffirming that the freedoms of Taiwan and all democracies must be respected. That doesn't mean anything. I mean, it's just like meaningless buzzwords. And I think that's, I mean, that's the real thing of why, like if, if you could really make a case of what difference this makes and how this is right and going right now, why now is the time to go and what it means and where it's going to lead us. But they don't do that. I mean, everybody who's in there's a bunch of Republicans, mostly, who really affirmatively supported Pelosi's trip. It's all just wrapped up in these meaningless buzzwords about standing up to autocrats and standing with democracy or whatever. Listen, as I said before, you know, if you believe that what we need to do is show China how tough we are, we're not going to back down.

OK, well, you can make an argument by flooding Ukraine with weapons. Certainly things have not gone for Russia the way they thought they would go in Ukraine. You were able to get the, you know, herd the cats of Europe and basically more or less have a sort of united strategy, although there are some cracks in fissures there as well. OK, so you did that. That was the hawkish case for what we've done in Ukraine. We've also done what I think is very intelligent in investing in our own chips, domestic manufacturing. That's the very beginning of these type of strategy vis-a-vis China that I think makes a lot of sense. That just makes us a lot less dependent on both China and Taiwan. But right now, while we are in this place of vulnerability, wrapped up in the stupid proxy war with Russia, that now's the time?

It just makes no sense. And that's a really important point to underscore. So, like, look, if you care about Taiwan, if you want it to be able to defend itself, you want to kind of turn it into what's called like a porcupine, right, which is making it very, very difficult for it to attack because a seaborne attack is very likely. Well, actually, we're spending the bulk of our javelin reserves to Ukraine. So if China invaded Taiwan tomorrow, we actually would not have enough javelin missiles. Why? Because we don't have enough semiconductors in order to put into those javelin missiles. So if you do care,

Ukraine is frankly detracting away from a lot of that case. You can make that if you want, but I'm just telling you that that's what the actual case is. Now, bipartisanship, all bipartisanship on display here. Let's go ahead and put this up there. 25 senators, including Mitch McConnell, put out a letter backing Pelosi's trip to Taiwan and actually attacking President Biden for saying that she shouldn't go. I mean, look, Republicans can attack President Biden. That's fine. What bothers me most about the Pelosi trip is she is such a narcissist that she thinks she's going to take American foreign policy into her own hands, not listen to the elected president of the United States who is in charge of foreign policy, who's like, hey, I don't want you to go. And then also don't listen

when the U.S. military is like, just so you know, this could be a real problem. And then lo and behold, immediately after she landed, that is when the rhetoric from China, not only rhetoric, but now action is beginning to ramp up. Let's put this up there. So the Chinese ambassador said on CNN, quote, the speaker's visit is a major event upgrading the substantive relations between the U.S. and Taiwan and sends a wrong signal to the Taiwan independence separatist forces. He adds that China will make its opposition known to all levels of the United States government. Furthermore, as I showed you before, the Global Times commentators, let's go ahead and put this up there, they are touting that the People's Liberation Army says that they will conduct live fire exercises in the six regions surrounding the Taiwan island. He is billing it as a, quote, situation that surpasses the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis.

This is not just a demonstration, an actual exercise to liberate Taiwan. Pelosi's visit is bound to speed up China's unification. This is from the most hawkish element of the CCP's global media arm and is directly messaged to us in English so that we can understand. But finally, just this morning, actually, we're getting the news that the Japanese defense forces say that five missiles have been launched by China during military drills near Taiwan that

fell into the Japanese exclusive economic zone. Now, this is exactly why conflict in this region is soil us, almost certainly give us treaty obligations. And so now the Japanese are dealing with Chinese missiles. This is like their greatest fear, being fired into not only the Japanese exclusive economic zone, but also in six areas that are surrounding Taiwan in very contested water. So now the question is, what are we going to do? Because what the Chinese did is they said, we're going to be conducting live fire drills in these regions, basically saying, don't come here. No aircraft and no ships. Are we going to abide by that? Are the Taiwanese going to abide by that?

Are the Japanese going to abide by that? Are the South Koreans going to abide by that? And actually, this morning, extraordinary news, Crystal. The South Korean president refused to meet with Nancy Pelosi. Whoa. And she's in the country. He said scheduling conflicts. Now listen, South Korea, it's a small country. You could fly across it in like three hours, the entire thing. So there ain't no scheduling conflict. We're just going to stop you from meeting with the Speaker of the House. Clearly, he is not happy that whatever,

he is not happy with her trip, doesn't want to meet with her, doesn't want to be seen with her, possibly has domestic political considerations. But also, the South Koreans have a hell of a lot of trade with China, and they have been on the back end of Chinese economic warfare in the past. These live fire drills, we don't yet know what the US military response is going to be. Are we going to respect the Chinese lines and the live fire drills? That's a major question. Last time that there was a problem in the Taiwan Straits, we actually ran an entire naval group through the region as a massive display of U.S. military force. That was in the 1990s. Is that going to happen again? And then what is their

response going to be? So now we have a multifaceted issue that we have to respond to solely of the making of Nancy Pelosi's narcissism. And for those who are like, listen, we can't let the Chinese dictate where our politicians go, I don't disagree with you. But that also doesn't mean that we should not be wise in our decision. Calculated and strategic. Exactly. Like, listen, and actually, this was the best take I heard so far, which is, Nancy, go in December. You know why? Because that's after Xi gets his third term. And you go over there. It actually makes more sense because then you won't be speaker in January. So it's like a farewell tour. You can

do your little, you know, like, I'm here. I support democracy. Why now? It's like these things are conscious choices on behalf of the U.S. government and people are trying to turn it into a principle. On the principle, I don't disagree. But my point is she should never have put she has put us in a terrible position. Well, not to mention, did the American people vote for Nancy Pelosi to run? No, they didn't. They voted for Joe Biden. They voted for Joe Biden. And listen, sometimes that's been OK and sometimes it's been terrible, but at least there was a say from the public about who they wanted to be in charge of these things. So I continue to be skeptical that, I continue to not be a hundred percent sure that she really did this

totally with the White House saying, absolutely not. Biden did not call her directly, but let's take it face value that this was her freelancing and just doing whatever the hell she wanted to do. It is so incredibly insane, so anti-democratic. And, you know, these war games that China is running that almost completely encircle the island of Taiwan. This is essentially like a mock invasion. So it's extraordinarily ominous and troubling if you are Taiwanese. And they also are set to impose economic sanctions against Taiwan. Now, they say that they made up some reason why they're doing this, but they've announced a suspension on the import of certain fruits and seafood products from the island. Chinese customs in a separate statement, they pegged the suspensions to hygiene concerns. But this is apparently not the first time that they have used the weapon of

economics and trade in order to punish Taiwan for things that they were not happy about. So the biggest costs immediately that will be borne are the Taiwanese people directly. And what I worry about the most is unintended miscalculation. So a lot of people forget this because it happened right before 9-11. But there was this incident on, I think it's called Hainan Island, where a U.S. military spy plane was flying and actually collided midair with a Chinese jet. That aircraft, the spy aircraft, was then forced to be downed on, it was a Chinese territory called Hainan Island. This ignited a global crisis because we had our airmen, spy aircraft airmen, stranded in China. And the Bush administration had to go and get them. It ignited serious issues. The Chinese were like, you're encroaching on our airspace. They accused us of downing their aircraft And we had to like send some people over there. It was a high stakes diplomatic gamble. Basically, 9-11 happened, so everybody forgot about it. But look, I mean, it's been 20 years. How would that play right now? I mean, we had these issues. And this only increases the likelihood of exactly something like that. And apparently, I'm not the only one thinking this. David Sanger, who is like the dean of the Washington foreign policy press in the New

York Times, writes specifically that the administration is incredibly worried exactly about some sort of military incursion that leads to airspace midair conflict, which is not only this, but also missiles. You know, look, missiles, whenever they're fired, part of the issue that we were always so terrified with the North Koreans is they wouldn't tell anybody that something was happening. It could hit a 737, and actually it came close one time. So there's all sorts of unintended consequences, especially when you're shooting over Japanese island and landing in economic zones. I mean, there are ships and global shipping containers. There are people all over these places. And when you start to play with real guns, you know, it can raise the stakes significantly. And what they say is that right now, inside the

Pentagon, there is an incredible amount of worry about how to respond to this military exercise. They don't know what to do. They also don't know what the next step is from there. So the amount of uncertainty that Nancy Pelosi has injected into the global strategic environment is just immense. And I want to emphasize again, Ukraine, look, yes, Americans have paid hundreds of billions of dollars with Ukraine. It is nothing compared to what even, let's say, a one-week shutdown of the Taiwan Straits would look like. Forget about it. The U.S. economy, there are no more phones. There are no more television.

There's no consumer electronics. There's no more fridges if TSMC goes down tomorrow. Beyond that, gas, the amount of oil, of hard commodities that ship between China and the United States, not to mention Chinese industry. A lot of people did not notice this. And I have very mixed feelings. One of the largest EV battery manufacturers in the world, a Chinese company, was about to open a plant here in the US. And now they're like, well, we're not going to do it because of the Taiwanese. And I'm like, well, it's not a terrible thing because you don't really want the Chinese EV battery manufacturer. But it just tells you,

look, they have a lot of investment. They have a lot of power that they can play. And that was really the tip of the iceberg, too. So beyond their own control of our economy, a one-week, two-week shutdown, even a couple of days, the amount of chaos it would inject into the global economy is just very, very difficult to actually convey. And it is worth saying that the politicians who led us to that place deserve a lot of blame for putting us in that state of fragility and state of precarity, which I think is extraordinarily important not to lose sight of. There is one other piece from a legislative perspective that I just saw this morning. So the White House is also lobbying Democrats against a legislative bid to deepen Taiwan ties. This proposal, which is being sponsored by Bob

Menendez, who's a Democrat, and Lindsey Graham, who, of course, is a Republican, would designate Taiwan as a major non-NATO ally and could further inflame tensions with China. And the White House is very concerned about this as well. It would also provide Taiwan with $4.5 billion in additional security aid and support its participation in international organizations. But in some ways, the designation, that sort of official designation as a major non-NATO ally is the most significant part. So the White House is trying to slow that down as well so that they don't further escalate an already tense situation with China. Yeah, I just everybody eyes on Taiwan, on the U.S. military response.

Josh Rogin, who actually was supporter of the trip, but I actually think he had quite a good column, which is that the fallout from the Pelosi visit, it starts now. It's really today. August 4th is the first day of the live fire drills. Those are now going to continue over the next couple of days. Next question is, what's the U.S. military do? So now we're going to have to have a response, the Pacific Command and all of that, where our ships, aircraft carriers, they're going to be stationed. Then the Chinese are going to do something about it. So this is a months-long

problem. And I also feel for the people in Taiwan. Like you just said, economic sanctions being placed there on the Taiwanese. China has a tremendous amount of leverage over the Taiwanese economy. We have also prevailed on China not to arm Russia and directly support with military aid Russia. And that has been successful. I mean, China has tacitly supported Russia in a lot of ways, but hasn't sort of directly gotten involved in that conflict. That's another chip they hold in all of this. Great point. And also the Russians did actually support the Chinese and said that the U.S. should not meddle in Taiwan, and they called it internal sovereignty.

Obviously, they have an incentive to look at the world that way. But, you know, alliance between the two was one of the nightmares of the Cold War in the 1950s. So lots of stuff that's going on there. Indeed. All right, CNN, best for last. You guys know I have to cover this story. There is good news in the world. There is great news in the world.

And a lot to say, actually. Let's put this up there on the screen. Profits slump at CNN as ratings plummet. The network is on pace to drop below $1 billion in profit for the first time in years. Now, why does this matter? Number one, it does show you, and I've tried to emphasize this, CNN is still very, very, very profitable. They are still, yes, they're below a billion, but they're going to make $975 million in profit,

or sorry, $956 million in profit. The reason, though, is that for a long time, the vast majority of CNN's profits did not rely on ratings or advertising. They relied on the cable bundle and subscription fees. That is what keeps all three of these cable channels afloat. If they had to rely purely on advertising, they're dead tomorrow. And what this shows you, though, is that the really like three-legged stool of their revenue, one of those is beginning to significantly weaken and crack, which is the ratings. They point to the fact that CNN's audience is down 25%, even more so than MSNBC and other benchmarks. And the biggest problem for them, really, is just how bad the viewership is. So to give you guys an idea, in the prime time network,

the prime time slot, the average in the quarter prime time is 639,000 people. That is less than some, that's actually less than some off days of breaking points. Now I'm not claiming that we're making a billion dollars in profit. It'd be nice if we were. But I'm just giving you a perspective of how few people are watching this in primetime, which is the place where, look, even MSNBC is drawing 2 million. You know, Tucker's drawing like 4 million in this time slot. Well, and most of those people don't matter

for advertising revenue because they're outside of the key demo. So now we're talking like 50,000. Yeah. In terms of cable news, I know a lot of times they report the total numbers, but the only thing that actually matters is the key demo, which is if they're getting 600K overall, they're probably getting like maybe 150 in the demo. So it's pretty pathetic. Oh, it's not just pathetic, but it also does show you that the network is under tremendous amount of pressure because they just blew some $300 million on CNN Plus, which they had to fold. But remember this too, in the economic environment of right now, profit is king because they need the excess cash for their major holding company,

which is now Discovery. And they point to this, that Discovery for the time being is like, hey, look, CNN, we want it to just be news. We want it to be facts. And we're OK if the profits go down. Name me the CEO of a public company that actually is OK with its profits going down. This is what you've always predicted, which is they'll say it, they'll stick to it for six months. And then when the money becomes clear, they're going right back to the BS that made them float in the first place. Because they'll see the most deranged person is the one that gets the highest rating. Exactly. And they won't be able to resist. That's the way it goes. I did think it was interesting. So the

new guy in charge there, Chris Licht, he says CNN would generate revenue by pitching advertisers on the network's, quote, pristine brand, LOL. Not just sheer audience size, according to a recording of his remarks obtained by The New York Times. So, I mean, there is a strategy there that, like, for example, Morning Joe has never been, and this is CNBC's strategy, small audience but very wealthy. High value. And so it's high value. For Morning Joe, it's small audience, but they're very influential. So it's like, you know, a cachet and again, very profitable, very valuable, high value audience. So, I mean, there is a potential strategy there.

But CNN is meant to be for like the broad masses that has always been the sort of positioning of it. So if you're going to go in this more niche direction, it's just hard to see exactly how you carve out that lane. Morning Joe obviously does it by being like the clubby insider place where members of Congress come on, they're watching it in the Senate gym or whatever. You've got CNBC or Bloomberg, they pull it off by catering to Wall Street and money. And so I don't know what CNN's version of that value proposition. I don't know what that really looks like. The failure of CNN Plus was a problem not just because of the massive hundreds of millions of dollars that they blew on it, but because that was their strategy for the future. Like they knew that this was coming.

All these cable news prior to Trump, they all knew that they had a real problem, that they had this aging demographic. They had all these cord cutters. There's all this competition out there. People, young people are not, they don't have cable. They're not watching cable. Like they all knew that this day of reckoning was coming. And so CNN plus was Zucker's big bid to, all right, this is the future. You know, they really sold it that way. They said when it launched that this was the most historic day in CNN history since the launch of the network. That's truly how they envisioned this.

So when that fell on its face and the plug is pulled immediately, that really leaves them with no long-term strategy to speak of of how they're going to change this model to make sense for the future. It's also a good pro tip, which as they mentioned, look, we all have power in this. The more of us that cut the cord and the less of us that have cable, the less money that the cable companies are going to pay CNN and Fox and MSNBC. The number one, also if you hate ESPN, the number one way to stick it to mainstream media is to actually not have cable in the first place. Having the Internet and giving more leverage to bargainers who want exclusive streaming rights and more.

Like, for example, I am rooting hard for YouTube or for some other streamer to buy NFL rights. I don't watch the NFL. You know why? Because I know that NFL and live sports is the only reason tens of millions of Americans still have the cable bundle today. If we can destroy the cable bundle, they're done. All they care about is their customers. If they know that their customers just want more high-speed internet, they're not going to pay CNN out of the kindness of their hearts, Comcast, or they offloaded NBC and all this other stuff, or trying to for a reason, because they're not profitable businesses outside of this very, very, very archaic model from the 1980s.

So this is the last area of real disruption, the last place that the internet can destroy them. And CNN is watching what it means for the world to increasingly move to online content. They've proven that they cannot compete whatsoever in an actual digital environment. And overall, this is just great news because it does show me the market worked. It takes too long sometime, but it can work and it can take these people out. Listen, I cheer for their failure because they're terrible for the country. Yeah, they really are. I mean, they really are terrible. CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, they are terrible for the country. I support a just transition for the workers. I think they should be trained to code or other industries.

I have a friend who works. He's a good guy. I hope he lands on it. Yeah, I mean, yes, there are plenty of good people who are just trying to make their way in the world who work at these places. As I said, I support a just transition for them, but they need

to be moved out of an industry that is destroying the country. Yeah. Until we can figure out what the hell is going on. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, quite extraordinary is happening right now. So multiple standard issue establishment Democrats are either refusing to say whether they're going to back Biden in 2024 or outright rejecting him. The rush to separate from Biden started with Joe Manchin, who has repeatedly refused to say if he would be behind the current president. Would you support Joe Biden if he's on the ticket in 2024 as the Democratic president seeking re-election? Let me make it very, very clear. This is the most, one of the most important pieces of legislation in my lifetime that we've ever done to have energy security, to fight inflation, to help our geopolitical allies around the

world. And you've worked with the Democratic White House on it. And that's exactly, and I'm working with it. I'm very appreciative. They are. But for me to bring the politics into it, oh, this is a Democrat bill. Oh, this is an anti-Republican bill. This is not. I'm not talking about the 2022 election and 2024. I have no control over those elections. I mean, it's Joe Manchin and he loves to pretend he's not really a Democrat. So it's not that crazy, right? Well, he is not even close

to alone. So two Minnesota Democrats are facing tough reelects and they are calling for a new generation of leaders in the Democratic Party, specifically with regards to Joe Biden. Congressman Dean Phillips went so far as to say that Biden should not run. Angie Craig, a corporatist from the Minneapolis suburbs, said Biden could make up his own mind about whether to run, but that she agreed with Phillips on the need for new leaders. But wait, there's more. In a real stunner, two senior Democratic representatives

who are very close to leadership also refused to back Biden. So Jerry Nadler and Carolyn Maloney, right now they are facing off in an incumbent versus incumbent primary in Manhattan thanks to redistricting. And in a recent debate, neither one would say that they are behind the president. Nadler refused and Maloney said that she did not believe that he was running. Folks, this is truly wild, and I actually am shocked by it. To reiterate, you now have mainstream, centrist-type and liberal Democrats, from swing districts to solid blue districts, blatantly rejecting Biden. It is jaw-dropping. And it should be viewed in light of a growing pile of data demonstrating that rank-and-file

Democrats, they also want to move on from Biden. The fact that some slice of establishment elites are saying they agree demonstrates there is a real opening here for a candidate to be able to assemble a broad coalition and actually defeat Biden in the 2024 primary. Because if you dig into the data of who among the rank and file is ready to ditch Biden, the numbers are actually really consistent across about every dynamic. So young people are the most ready, but race, class, gender, and ideology don't actually appear to be significant factors. If you had a campaign that could properly thread the needle, you could have a really interesting horseshoe of moderates

who feel Biden is unelectable and unimpressive with progressives who have always had a very sharp critique. Here are some of my early thoughts and how you could manage to pull that off. So first off, you'd have to lead with a message about electability. Just as in 2020, the top selling point for the establishment-friendly portions of the dumb base will be about who can beat Donald Trump. That case has never been easier to make. Right now, Biden's approval ratings are at historic lows. 80% of the country says we're on the wrong track. We tried the standard issue democratic approach several times, and it just hasn't worked out that well. Hillary, of course, lost outright.

Biden barely scraped by thanks to a gigantic assist from Trump in his outrageously bad handling of COVID and his political malpractice in discouraging his own voters from voting by mail. Just think about it. If the Trump campaign had literally just leaned in to vote by mail instead of disenfranchising a portion of their own voter pool, Trump would probably be in the White House right now.

Very hard to see how a Biden who is as banged up, unpopular, and uncertain as he is right now defeats Trump or any other Republican. This case needs to be spelled out directly, and we'll find a receptive audience, as it's exactly the reason why these mainstream Dems like Maloney and Nadler are running as far away from Biden as possible right now. And the tone of critique should be more in sorrow than in anger. Many Democrats among the rank and file, they're not furious with or disgusted by Biden.

They feel like, OK, you got Trump out. Time to step aside. The tone on the case against Biden should be more bless his heart than guns blazing. And the campaign making the case needs to demonstrate operational competence, as Obama did in 2008, to prove that they are actually up to the task of governing. Not just some pie in the sky utopian dreamers looking to gather a handful of protest votes. OK, so there's that piece. Next up, the platform that could appeal to a broad swath of the Democratic Party uniting disparate corners. It might seem like a real head scratcher, but it's actually pretty obvious.

The model is Bernie 2016. He won the white working class and he won young lefties. And he did it by running a universalist campaign focused relentlessly on core economic issues without ignoring or dismissing civil rights. This model was also proven out by extensive research that was conducted by YouGov and the Center for Working Class Politics in partnership with Jacobin Magazine. Their analysis of message testing in key swing states found that an ideologically diverse, cross-class, and racially diverse coalition could be won over by a populist economic message that did not surrender issues of social justice, but avoided what they

describe as, quote, highly specialized identity-focused language. So verbally indict the elites who more than deserve it, rail against the millionaires and billionaires as Bernie did, foreground a universalist platform on things like healthcare, wages, unions, housing, education. Be relentless on the monopolists and the economic royalist and swear off niche activist language like it's the plague. Listen, some section of activist lefties might grouse, but that will only give you more cred with the moderates and with the independents. And ultimately, who are the lefties going to vote for? Vote for the father of modern mass incarceration, Joe Biden? If you're skeptical that the moderate Biden base can be won over, just remember, Biden and Bernie voters had far more overlap than Bernie and Warren voters because Biden and Bernie

both share mainstream working class language and a messaging approach, beer track versus wine track. So as the moderate and the lefty portions of the Democratic base begin to revolt, it's not at all hard to imagine a campaign platform and approach that could unite them. It's anti-woke plus economic populism. And that also tends to scramble people's political circuits a bit because of how silly the press is in talking about political ideologies. So the campaign won't code as moderate or as leftist because it doesn't quite fit the mold of what these people expect. Now, the final piece is kind of the most hard to define, but it's also, in my opinion, the most crucial and the biggest single failing of the Biden administration. A successful primary campaign against Biden will

inspire. It will overcome the malaise, the gloom, the nihilism, the sense that nothing is possible and no change will ever come. It will swear off some of the snark and cynicism that has taken over political discourse for earnest optimism, even at the risk of a little bit of candidate personal vulnerability and also inevitable accusations of being a little bit cringe. It will remind Americans of how we came together in the past to recover from a Great Depression, to win a world war and create a prosperous middle class. It will have a story to tell about what that looks like today. And that story will have at its center the heroism of ordinary Americans acting in solidarity instead of the trust the experts model of anti-populist elitism that is far too common today. In other words, the campaign will have

at its core a belief in the ability of Americans to actually be active participants in a real democracy. Inspiration is the area where Biden has failed the hardest. Even his victories are piecemeal. They're haphazard. They're disconnected from any story or larger vision. It's not that the economy has turned to recession. It's that there's no plan to deal with it. It's not that the world is transitioning and chaotic. It's that we've got no idea how we're going to adapt and prepare ourselves. It's not that America's on the wrong track. It's that we've lost all confidence that we will ever get it back on the right track or even what that would look like. The country needs to be enlisted in a national project that will put Americans back as the

heroes of our own national story instead of desperately searching around for some white knight or authoritarian strongman to save us. That is the only way. So look, this man, Joe Biden, he is eminently beatable. You can look at his terrible poll numbers. You can look at 75% of dumb saying they want someone else, the growing abandonment even by elites, and you just can't conclude anything else. But the coalition has to be broad. It can't just be confined to the roughly 30% of self-identified party progressives. And it has to offer something more than just beating Donald Trump.

Because as we've seen, just getting Trump out of the White House has turned out to be a very hollow success indeed that guarantees absolutely nothing for a better future. I was stunned when I saw Carolyn Maloney and Jerry Nadler, like, Carolyn Maloney's like, I don't think he's going to run. And Nadler's like, just won't say anything at all. That is. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at breakingpoints.com. Oh, Saugers, I'm next. Yeah, what are you looking at? Okay. It's been a tough year for me. I was wrong about inflation, Russia, Dr. Oz, probably a lot more than my critics will catalog.

As you all know, I'll happily eat crow should the time come. So it's time to do something to make myself feel better. And one of my absolute favorite things to do, according to people in my life, say the magic words, I told you so. We've spent a lot of time today talking about the results of the Kansas abortion referendum. After the Dobbs decision, a lot of pro-life people in Washington talked a really big game. Their theory of the case was this. Yes, the repeal of Roe v. Wade is unpopular. But voters in Texas never revolted against a six-week ban earlier in the year.

The economy is terrible. Inflation is rampant. Biden can barely speak. In general, their theory was that yes, while people said they don't agree with Roe on paper, it wouldn't really matter because it was not at the top of their preference. You could understand how they got there. It is a viable political opinion to hold. But it was also now clear that was cope to a massive degree. As I would often say in reply, a Texas six-week ban is not the same as casting the abortion question to national politics in one fell swoop for the first time in 40 years and the attendant media attention. Nor does a six-week ban come even close to some of the rhetoric of the top Republicans in the country,

including the former Vice President Mike Pence, who called for an outright ban on abortion minutes after the decision. Nor does it capture the political energy galvanized by Clarence Thomas, his concurrence on Roe versus Wade, that called into question the decisions on gay marriage and contraception. As I tried to emphasize, a national repeal is simply different. I was laughed at, called a number of names. Reality has a pleasant way, though, of hitting people in the face. And that is what occurred in Kansas. As we've already spelled out, the results are stunning. Kansas voters, at a margin of 58% for keeping abortion in the state versus 41%, voted overwhelmingly to protect a state Supreme Court decision, which said that Kansas citizens had a right to an abortion. It is a fascinating result

in its own right. More so is the fact that there is literally no way to spin this. As we have said, there was no major democratic race on the ballot. This is not a purple state in any sense of the word. Trump won Kansas by a smaller margin, his abortion referendum, and he beat Biden there by 15 points. This is about as red as it gets. Furthermore, Kansas just set the record for the number of voters who came out in an off year, and not even on the day of the actual election, there were just primaries going on. So the facts are clear as day. Repealing Roe was an insanely popular move, even in a deep red state, where voters affirmatively chose to come out and keep abortion available in their state. This vindicates the political theory I have put forward as the winning path forward for Republicans,

which, yes, I know the name is cringe, but most of you will be familiar with at this point. Barstool conservatism. Again, for those who have not yet heard me or others describe this thesis, here it is. Cultural wars of today are winning grounds for the center-right position. That cultural war has little today with abortion, gay marriage, or guns. Instead, it is a battle over political correctness, gender ideology, especially pushed on children, critical race theory, insane academic nomenclature for Hispanics, you get the ideal. In a nutshell, wokeism, a political orientation against being woke and protecting a quasi-libertarian ideal that people should just be left alone to do what they please. That's what tracks onto this.

You can see how this worked out with the right coalescing around anti-vax mandates and increasingly becoming aligned with the free speech movement on a national level. A national civic social libertarianism was increasingly becoming its organizing principle. And that is exactly what was so responsible for much of the political gain. Florida, in South Texas, with Hispanic voters, with millions who joined the Trump coalition in 2020, as a screw you to people who wanted to govern their lives. That is how you explain how Dave Portnoy and Elon Musk became Republicans after the year of 2020. But it was turned upside down when Roe versus Wade was repealed and put especially on the spotlight when Barstool founder Dave Portnoy, who has become a political bellwether in his own right,

declared he would vote for Democrats based upon the decision. Many true conservatives said, good riddance, Dave, you're not a real Republican anyways. But perhaps they may want to rethink that position. Given the fact that there were competitive GOP primaries in Kansas, initial data out of the state indicates tens of thousands of Republicans

both voted for stop the steal candidates and cast their vote to keep a right to have an abortion. Now tell me, if you only listen to the pundits in Washington who say that you can't be a Republican and not be pro-life, how would you square that? What I love about this is it vindicates that people are not automatons. If they care about something and it goes against their party, they'll still vote for it. That is exactly what they did. In fact, the reasons that they did so only further vindicate the Barstool conservative thesis. Conservative pundit Ben Dominick actually writes in The

Spectator that the pro-choice left won with Republican voters in Kansas specifically because they embraced the language of freedom with the group who was pushing to preserve abortion, billing itself as, quote, Kansas for constitutional freedom. Just look at how the group messaged to voters in one of its major ad campaigns across the state. This confusing constitutional amendment is a slippery slope for Kansas. It gives government more power over your privacy and your personal medical decisions. Don't let politicians take away your freedom. Send a message. Vote no. As Ben himself, who is pro-life, writes, quote, The pro-abortion left, having set back by the Dobbs decision, was going to have to adopt a new playbook in red states.

Their success in red Kansas means a softer, gentler, anti-mandate, pro-freedom approach to abortion will be deployed in the upcoming ballots in states like Kentucky and Michigan. Anti-mandate, pro-freedom approach to abortion will be deployed in the upcoming ballots in states like Kentucky and Michigan. Anti-mandate, pro-freedom. Why would those words resonate after two massive national fights over vaccines and guns? Republicans were clearly on that side. Again, it underscores my point. Social libertarianism, not social conservatism, is the organizing principle of the emerging GOP coalition. It's more about, hey, don't tell me how to speak. Don't push your BS onto my kids. Don't take away my guns and do whatever you please in the privacy of your house. But don't try to govern what happens in mine.

That is a reversal of the religious right, who in the mid-2000s, it underscores strongly the path to winning is simple. Whichever side is seen to be protecting you from the crazy people who want to run your life, that side will win. For a time in American politics, that was the left. But the resurgent religious right will learn the hard way why they originally lost on the national stage in the first place. The right can learn this lesson and still win, or they can pretend it didn't happen and continue to defend the idea that a 10-year-old rape victim needing to carry a baby to term. We all know what they will choose to do, and so they will offset their chance to actually win popular vote election for at least the next several years. Now, I have personally resigned myself to the yo-yo of

American politics, despite how bad it is for the country, because at least I get to say the words, I told you so. So it's fun, Crystal. I mean, you know, a lot of people eating crow, a lot of real pro-lifers out there with their mouths shut, crying about money, even though there's plenty of money on their side. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. All right, guys, we've got an old friend who has been far too long with our audience. We have missed Dan Marans. He is senior reporter for HuffPost and has been on the ground in Michigan doing some fantastic reporting there. Great to see you, Dan. What's up, man? Great to be here. So you dug in particular

into this incumbent versus incumbent race. Let's go ahead and put your tear sheet up on the screen. This was Haley Stevens in Michigan versus Congressman Andy Levin. And Levin was backed by Bernie Sanders. He was sort of the more lefty in the race. Haley Stevens, the more sort of moderate or corporatist, had a lot of establishment backing behind her. But one of the more lefty in the race, Haley Stevens, the more sort of moderate or corporatist, had a lot of establishment backing behind her. But one of the things that happened here that we've seen routinely is that AIPAC money came in very strongly for Stevens and ultimately helped her over the finish line, although it was a healthy margin. So I'm not sure, honestly, that she needed their help. But what's particularly extraordinary about this is that Andy Levin himself is not only

Jewish, but was sponsor of two state solution bill. And, you know, so for them to go all in to defeat a progressive Jewish Democrat was really quite an extraordinary thing to watch. Yeah, the drama of this was kind of literary, and that's why I think it became the theme of so much national coverage. To zoom out, obviously we've seen AIPAC, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, really escalate its involvement in elections this cycle, specifically in Democratic primaries. And their goal, of course, is to beat back the kind of squad candidates that have made solidarity with Palestinians a core component of the progressive agenda in a way that it hadn't been in the past. So we've seen them spend already

as of now about $26 million launching their first super PAC. People didn't always realize that AIPAC didn't have a super PAC. And then them taking on really not just the Jewish guy in Andy Levin, but sort of a member of Detroit area Jewish royalty. His father, Sandy Levin, was for, I think, 30 or 40 years a congressman for the Detroit suburbs, a big labor guy, ended up, I think, being chair of the Ways and Means Committee toward the end of his career. And then, of course, his uncle was Carl Levin, a senator from Michigan, I think the longest serving senator from Michigan ever. And so you have this guy who's sort of a fourth generation Detroit area resident. But what I found in talking to these AIPAC folks was especially including Jewish activists in these Detroit suburbs in his district, and the Detroit Jewish community is really centered in the upper

middle class suburbs of Oakland County communities like Bloomfield Hills, was that specifically because Andy Levin is Jewish, they saw him as a bigger threat. Because Andy Levin saying, I'm Jewish, I'm a Zionist, I've spent time in Israel, but I identify as a progressive Zionist. And I think that the United States should exercise its power as Israel's ally to show some tough love, do things like restrict how USAID can be used to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. They felt that that sent a signal to non-Jews that you can take these critical stances toward Israel and not be branded anti-Semitic. And so ironically, I think that they saw him as a particular threat. Oh, that's very interesting. So, okay, break down the results, obviously lost by how much, was the money the sole determining factor? I mean, she can't have run only on this. So what

else was she beating back against him? Right. So it's very interesting. Anytime one of these outcomes occurs, you have AIPAC and other allied organizations basically saying, look, this is a sign that Democratic voters want a sort of pro-Israel and a conditions-free pro-Israel candidate. But in fact, of course, none of their advertisements focus on those things because it's only to a very small number of voters. When we look at the margin, the margin ended up being something like 19 or 20 points. Some of the votes were coming in at the very last moment. So I think it's obvious that this outcome was overdetermined. There were a multitude of different factors, and there are certainly many people, particularly in Stephen's corner, who feel that

she would have won regardless. But if we do look at the money factor, she raised $2 million more than him as of mid-July directly through her campaign. And the super PAC gap, not just pro-Israel groups, but also Emily's List, ended up outspending Andy Levin's super PAC, something like five or six to one. So the money was a factor. One thing I did look at in my reporting is that overall, this is a middle class and upper middle class district. It's something like 60% college educated. There are some working class suburbs. There's the city of Pontiac. She also did a very, very good job reaching out to black voters in places like Pontiac, featuring Barack Obama in her TV ads. The way one local Democrat put it to me is that this is an Obama Democrat kind of district, rather than a Bernie Sanders or an Elizabeth Warren one. And in conversations with voters,

many of whom, frankly, are in some of those towns and communities, fiscally conservative and quote unquote socially liberal, that's a good fit. Oakland County, I mean, as far back as 2016, major parts of this county were electing Republicans to Congress. These are kind of, this is kind of a Romney Republican, Obama Democrat, Hillary Biden Democrat sort of district. Now there are communities there,

about 20 to 30 percent of the district and perhaps a larger share of the primary electorate that Levin had previously represented. His name still goes far. And of course, there are going to be progressives anywhere. But I do think that that was a big factor. So were there specific issue positions, either economic or cultural issue positions outside of Israel that Stevens was criticizing Levin for that really seemed to land with voters. Like what what were the dividing lines in this race? What was the debate largely focused on? It's a good question. I think that Levin was more interested in prosecuting a policy contrast case. He pointed out that she received corporate PAC money.

He had decided to renounce that this cycle, though he hadn't in the past. He tried to seize on the fact that she had these efforts within the Labor and Education Committee to undermine $15 minimum wage legislation, in general kind of casting her as a more business-friendly candidate, and then also going after the AIPAC money

by noting that AIPAC has endorsed Republicans who objected to the certification of the 2020 election, and that AIPAC's Super PAC received million-dollar checks from two different Republican mega-donors, Bernie Marcus and Paul Singer. But ultimately, I think that she was able to muddy the waters enough. I think that a lot of Democratic voters look at the big picture. She could say about the minimum wage, well, I ended up voting for it on the floor. I have 100% voting score from the AFL-CIO. She focused her resources on three television ads, one where she was appearing on the shop floor of a manufacturing plant, talking about how she was chief of staff for Obama's auto industry bailout rescue task force.

Of course, that was important. She had video of Obama praising her. And she also spoke about abortion rights, speaking to that issue as a woman. And I think, you know, big picture, you look at them, this is not somebody who is on the conservative fringe of the party either. This is not Henry Cuellar, where you can point to anti-abortion votes, you can point to anti-labor votes that are really glaring and obvious. And so I think he was left kind of appealing to certain differences that a hardcore politics addict or progressive activist might be attuned to, but that were harder to translate to the broader public. Very interesting. And then lastly, you also followed this race between,

on the Republican side, Peter Meyer and Gibbs, who's now won the Republican nomination. Although, I mean, the race was fairly narrow. So we talked about this earlier in the show, but just to refresh everybody's memory, Meyer is a Republican incumbent. He's one of the few who voted for Trump's impeachment following January 6th. And Democrats decided this was one of the races they decided to wade into on behalf of his far right opponent, who ends up now being victorious. Could you just talk about what you found in that race as well? Yeah, it's very interesting. You mentioned the narrowness of the margin. I actually wasn't expecting that. I was sort of expecting Gibbs, the Trump-backed challenger, to walk away from it because he had released sort of internal polling data that suggests that and there weren't a lot of other figures available about that race. say that Peter Meyer outspent him vastly on the airwaves and the Chamber of Commerce went to bat for him, the Americans for Prosperity. There were a lot of outside groups that were spending on his

behalf. Peter Meyer, this is a guy who voted for impeachment and that he never seemed to be able to shake that. There were also a few other votes that his challenger, John Gibbs, could point to. He voted for the Democratic or the bipartisan gun control mental health bill. He ultimately voted to approve codified same-sex marriage. And there are a handful of other positions he's talked about sending marijuana legalization back to the states. Also, there's just another sort of intangible, je ne sais quoi factor, if you will, which is that Peter Meyer is a really thoughtful, nuanced, even cerebral guy, and he's not a red meat guy. I mean, in his TV ads, he tried to dabble in that a little bit. He said he was unafraid to take on Biden over the Afghanistan withdrawal, that he went to

Afghanistan, that the ACLU sued him for being unwilling to host a drag show of people with Down syndrome. That's an interesting case from 2019. But he just doesn't come off sort of like a – he doesn't exude the sort of, I think, righteous anger that maybe some folks on the grassroots right-wing base generally want. This is a district where – of course, Michigan is a state where it opened primary state. He may have benefited from some Democrats and independents crossing over for him toward the end there. But ultimately, obviously, Democrats, this is due to redistricting, this is a Biden plus nine district. They like where they're at with Hillary Skuldin, also a Dutch American with their nominee, which is sort of ethnically an important group over there in West Michigan. And she's an immigration attorney

and kind of actually kind of moderate on immigration, though she quit the Trump DOJ over their policies. They like where they're at. Obviously, that's why they backed Gibbs. But in a wave year like this, I think even Biden plus nine districts are not safe. So it should be interesting to watch. That's a fair point. Yep. Really going to be interesting. Thanks for your analysis, Dan. Great to see you, Dan. Great to be here. Absolutely. Thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate it. It was a jam-packed show. It was a fun show to do. I love it whenever there's a lot of stuff, especially when people

vote. It's just the best. Yeah, the election results are always fun to wade through. I love election results. Okay, thank you guys. Buy your live show tickets if possible. If not, premium members, thank you all so much. We're negotiating some stuff right now, which I think you guys are going to be really excited about. And as Crystal reiterated,

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