Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 8/6/26: Trump Rages Over Iran Shortages, Trump Attacks El-Sayed, Jon Stewart Vs Fetterman

Episode Date: August 6, 2026

Ryan and Saagar discuss Trump rages over weapons shortage, Trump attacks Abdul El Sayed, Jon Stewart Vs Fetterman on Israel. Murtaza Hussain: https://x.com/MazMHussain    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com    Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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The Dream of the 90s is alive in podcast form. We're launching Podlandia, A.O. rewatch, our brand new podcast where we revisit every episode of Portlandia together, breaking down sketches, going deep on our iconic characters, and pulling back the curtain on how it all got made. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Chrysell, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more.

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Hey, what's up, y'all? It's your girl, Sam J. And we're the host of everyone watches women's sports. It's a new podcast from Together in IHeart Women's Sports. We're breaking down the biggest headlines. Naomi Osaka, show it out. Shout out to you, Naomi. The viral moments. I've been obsessed with Kashan Rock's boxing journey.

She looks good. Her combos are swift. And the stories everyone's talking about across women's sports. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to everyone watches women's sports on the IHeart Radio app. Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election.

and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com. Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. Have an amazing show for everybody today. There he is, bro show. People live for the pound. Ryan Grimm is here. He's been working, what, triple time? I don't even know. Well, I took last week off, so we got to make up for it. But people have been getting nonstop Ryan. I'm here for it. I'm absolutely here for it. Thank you to everybody who is watching the show right now. Man, oh my God, this is such a difficult job because now I have to do this difficult transition. So we're going to start with Iran. President Trump is absolutely freaking out after revelations. about munitions, stockpiles, saying that leakers should be prosecuted, but not denying the leaks themselves.

After apparently freaking out on Pete Hegseth at Camp David at that critical meeting in which they decided ultimately not to go forward with a major attack. So we are also, Ryan's going to give us an update on what's happening in Michigan already. The GOP is ramping up their messaging APAC saying they're going to spend tens of millions of dollars against Abdul L. Syed. You're also, Ryan, there's a lot of stuff going on with the Democrats. A very interesting interview here between John Stewart and John Fetterman, the two Johns, they have a great face off. He really exposed Fetterman. I'm amazed at Fetterman even agreed to do this, honestly.

I have no idea why he did so. Burrito Gate, if you are not online as we are, there is a great war in the conservative movement right now over affordability and whether it's real or not. And Ben Shapiro, as you can, of course, always rely on him for, says that if you're paying $20, for a burrito, you should be independently wealthy and basically denying that food and groceries are more expensive and to the extent they are more expensive, it's Biden's fault. And if you're complaining about it, all you want is you're just a surrender monkey on Iran. There's also a crazy story Ryan and I are really into that it says UFOs, but basically the story is, is that in Roswell,

New Mexico, the United States government shot a laser into the sky and caused a civilian Medevac plane to crash into the side of a mountain. There's a lot of questions around that, Ryan, especially—we downed one of our own civilian airline. We downed one of our own. They're claiming that it was in cartel drone operations. I'm not buying it. I think there's only one reason that you're shooting experimental lasers into the sky in Roswell, New Mexico. Just me, but I will give you all of the details. Tucker Carlson potentially deciding to launch a new third party. He gave a manifesto last night, 10 things that Americans should all agree on that a new party should be running on. And that's after some comments by Joe Kent on TYT.

And then finally, Mortaza Hussein drop site. Ryan's colleague will be joining us. I'll let you set this one up. And is really mole inside the UN? Is that it? Yes. Maz obtained a set of emails showing that when the Israelis were able to place one of their folks inside the UN as a staffer, that person then began leaking all kinds of sensitive information directly to Israel.

He's now the head of UNICEF in Washington. Okay. All right, yeah. So we got an Israeli spy here in Washington. What else is new? It was 11. All right. So before we get to all of that, we do, of course, have our free trial going on.

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There's a lot of suspense. Will they finally eat the veggies? Will the pesto survive the first bite? Will the lunchbox come home empty, half full, or come home at all? And will you finish episode 8 before you're done slicing the cucumbers? Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Craved Netflix and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit.

Visit bell.za for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y'all? It's your girl, Sam J. And we're the host of everyone watches women's sports, a new podcast from Together and I Heart Women's Sports.

Because let's be real. Women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. So Kelsey Finler, she became the first female solo roer to go from California to Hawaii. My first thought is, like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what do we eat? The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments to take over your entire timeline. And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week.

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Listen to everyone watches women's sports. on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. All right, we're going to go ahead and start with what's happening now with the Iran situation. Let's start with A6, major story that broke late last night from the Washington Post. They say Trump and Hegset clashed at Camp David over Iran missile depletion concerns. But the actual details of this are pretty interesting. So what they detail is that at this major Camp David summit, where Trump is, and his entire cabinet assembled to decide whether to attack Iran.

Behind the scenes, Trump apparently confronted Pete Hegseth over the actual missile depletion numbers. So here's what they say. On the sidelines of his cabinet meeting, Trump vented at Hegsett that he thought the munitions issue, quote, had been fixed, according to both persons familiar with the conversation. The shortages, particularly in long-range guided missiles and air defense interceptors, were part of the reason that Trump pulled back from launching his. His additional massive strikes against Iran, Trump said on Monday that he had ordered and subsequently

called off the biggest attack since World War II. So this comes on the heels of what Crystal and Emily talked about yesterday, where we have seen an 80 percent, 80 percent depletion of that, which is insane. I haven't even gotten to comment on that. I mean, Ryan, you and I both know the implications. Like, Thad, first of all, was already running low because of operations to defend Israel, but to further deplete it down by 80% and only have a few hundred fad missiles left, you can forget about Taiwan? We're now in the territory of like, can we defend, you know,

Japan or South Korea against North Korea? I'm not so sure. I mean, Taiwan is a pipe dream at this probably always was, but now in particular, forget about it. I'm saying in terms of the Patriot missiles and other things. Go ahead. And it's a window into two things. One is Hegset's character. Yes. So Heg Seth gets pushed on this question by Trump. What does he immediately do? Right. Blames his deputy. You blame your subordinate. This was Stephen Feinberg. It's his fault. Stephen Feinberg, how dare you have unleashed our entire stockpile of weapons on Iran and not told the president about it? Mr. President, I'm going to get right on that. The other window is it is into Trump's decision-making around reaching these ceasefires because to me it shows that part of his

thinking has actually been what J.D. Vance kind of alluded to that we're going to reach a deal. We're going to pause and we're going to arm back up. Right. And then we're going to come again. But the problem for them, as you and I both know, is that these things take years. Right. You know, you've expended. So let's say already the official number was that we've expended 50% of the Tomahawk inventory. It's probably more than that at this point because that's still a few months old to the official number. So now that means you're took 60, 70%. It's like, well, you're only going to get like 60 new ones. I'm talking about hundreds that have been used just in the in the next year. This is, according to the factory itself, it publishes all of this.

You can literally go on Congress's website and you can know exactly how many new thads and how many new tomahawks that we're going to get. By the way, not only does it take, you know, forever to get new ones. I think that the official number of new ones coming online is 12, and we have fired several hundred. So you can do the math. Right. So we also cost several million dollars a pop in case you're wondering. So by 2036. Right. By roughly around 2036, we back to where we're we were before the war, and to get back to where we were before midnight hammer, that would take another few years. Yeah, again, just to show you out.

To look out of Iran. We all are. 242, your day is coming. And just to show, you know, Trump, one of the reasons that you know you've hit a nerve here, let's put A7 up on the screen, is Trump late last night after the Washington Post story is published, says that the U.S. has, quote, massive amount of munitions, especially of certain types. Additionally, large amounts are being manufactured and shipped to the U.S. as needed.

as they ship to the U.S., they're already in the U.S., just so you already know. Defense companies are building the largest number of plants and factories in our country's history. The leakers of these treasonous statements are being hunted down. Long-term jail sentences will be sought. So the leaks aren't true, but the leakers also need to be locked up. Now, this is the latest line that we've seen from Trump and a lot of the neon cons. We have plenty of munitions, but also we're rapidly building factories that will produce the munitions that we already have. Yeah, look, even just to explain, you know, because even in this, there are some truths and some lies.

So when he says massive amounts of munitions, especially of certain types, what he means is that of certain types are the types that we don't want to use. You want to know why we don't want to use them? Because if we did, we'd have to fly manned pilots over Iran. Guess what? We don't want them to get shot down. So we're not doing that. Because our aircraft carriers, destroyers, and others have been all moved away. Our bases have all been lit up.

The bases have been lit up, and so it takes a long time to fly there from wherever, you know, Diego Garcia, wherever you happen to be launching from, in some cases, even from, you know, like Barksdale here in the United States, 36-hour journey to go bomb Iran, probably $50,000 per flight hour just to operate the entire plane. So that's the level of caution that they've had to come to after all those pilots got shot down, or we've had all those accidents that happened during the 39-day war. So these claims of air supremacy that Heggseth was making? Total nonsense. False.

Right. So you put these two things together, and now a lot of it is all making sense, is reality is beginning to set it, not just on Iran, but probably for the entire world. You know, and you can see in Ukraine. What just happened yesterday? Keeved, massive ballistic missile barrage, just absolutely pummeling. Defenseless. The city.

Ukraine is begging for more interceptors. Sorry, blew it all already, you know? And so there you can see. The consequences already. Ukraine's got its handout. We got nothing left to give you. Nothing that's not strapped down, you know, somewhere on a ship that we forgot about in the middle of Asia. And so let's start then with A1, guys, let's put it up here on the screen.

Iran is now saying that they have reached this agreement with Oman on the Hormuz shipping route. So I know, again, that they detailed some of this yesterday. But basically, the agreement has nothing to do with the United States. It's between Iran and Oman. The agreement basically basically. comes down to this. Iran says everything coming into the straight comes through our route. Everything coming out of the straight comes through your route. But this is purely in agreement between me and you because we are the two territories that have actual sovereign claims over these waters.

Obviously, this is a total change from how things were previously, when everything could just move through without paying anything. And it doesn't just come down to having to pay a toll. It comes down to their strategic control at a baseline military level to say at any time, at any time in place of our choosing, we can decide to cut traffic off in the straight and on. And in particular, again, as I understand it, they say traffic entering the street to make sure that they have that bottleneck, to make sure that they can't exit without their, with exit heavily laden these VLCC tankers without their own Iranian permission. So it basically gives them a veto. power. It also means that they can charge tolls based on which country of origin that it's going

to or in which country that the ship is flagged. There are already preliminary reports. Russia and China, allies of Iran are not going to have to pay some of the tolls. This is just being worked out now currently. But if you're a Western cargo, Saudi cargo, UAE, yeah, you're going to have to pay up. But the way that this works into their long-term strategy is that, yes, right now, you're starting with having to pay a fee because your, you know, allies, with the great Satan, but let's talk. Right. Sit down.

Like what, like, get rid of the base? Maybe you don't have to pay. What do you think is fair? So you can see already how they're going to use this to their long term strategic advantage. They said, and there was this moment where Trump was like, okay, I'm going to reimburse these ship companies whose ships were hit by Iranian missiles with our frozen Iranian funds. And Trump's like, ha, got it. You know, got you Iranians.

And Iranians like, okay, cool, you do that. any country that accepts our stolen funds cannot go through the straight for no fee at all. So the ships are like, you know what? It's more important to us to be able to go through there than to get this compensation from this fund. Further to this, why it also matters. Let's put the next one up on the screen is that the Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson, he gave a long interview yesterday with state media. What he said is that Iran was actually closed, not only just agreement with Iran over Hormuz, but he says this will not even. immediately open the strait. Because, remember, the U.S. naval blockade remains intact. Quote, for that to happen, the U.S. must de-escalate from its current hostile position. When asked if a full return to the MOU would be required, he implies that the answer is yes,

but still leaves it somewhat open as to what exactly Iran would need from the U.S. to open the straight. So the arrangement with Oman would be temporary, it would be lasting two to four months. It would involve roots running through Iranian and Omani Territory Waters. He mentions fees but leaves the matter ambiguous, suggesting it would be settled in future discussions. And so this still is very important to say. They're not going to charge the tolls immediately. For now, what they're saying is, you use my route to come in and to go out of the straight. Anything that goes out of those routes, that's going to get fired upon as they just did yesterday.

Emily and Crystal covered that. In the immediate term, though, the United States is not party to this. period, about these routes. If they want traffic to resume through the straight, they must then lift the blockade and abide by the MOU, right? So those three things all need to happen just to return to where we were before the memorandum of understanding was ultimately intact. Now, is Trump going to agree to this?

There's a lot of leagues. Barack Ravid could come as soon as Wednesday. Oh, it's Thursday. So it hasn't come yet. And look, it would be a grand humiliation of America. Basically, these two countries reached a deal, and we, because of our own interest in getting oil prices down, just have to say something like, okay, I guess we accept. And to say that and to accept that, this de facto Iranian control of the state, with the Iranian regime intact, with no nuclear deal reached, with hundreds of billions of dollars having to be released to them and given to them, and then the future ability to have control of the straight and to charge tolls. I mean, you cannot deny how much more, how much stronger it will be as a result of that. But then, of course, Ryan and all. I'll let you definitely take the lead on this, A4, and even the sniff of any potential talks between the United States and Iran, any sniff of a potential deal, this headline, you can count on

it. Israel strikes southern Lebanon, killing one, and injuring 11. So what's going on here? And on top of that, right, so they're desperately trying to, that's how you know that there is some movement towards some type of agreement that would be, you know, because Israel is acting more and more maniacally. Yesterday, a reporter who's known for fabricating things on behalf of like Nanyahu or the security establishment in Israel reported on Channel 14 that the Iranians had claimed they have a bomb. Yeah. Like literally, like this, like they just straight up said, based on Iranian news reports,

we here, I think it was Channel 14, can report to you that Iran is claiming that they have the bomb. People are like, oh, that seems like rather big news. Yeah, that's massive news. Let's trace that back to these Iranian news sources that you say exist. And it's like it doesn't exist. Just completely fabricated out of whole cloth. So now they're trying to push the idea, not that Israel's, not that Iran is two weeks away from breaking out to a nuclear weapon. They already did it.

Like how they snuck underneath the mountain and made a bomb, is anybody's guess. But so that's how nervous they are that this is coming to some sort of. of resolution on terms that are going to be devastating to their regional position. Right. That they're just completely fabricating claims of Iran actually having a nuclear weapon. But it seems like that didn't even, like it made the rounds in Israeli media, but it did not, it did not break out. But you know that that type of BS will eventually make its way to the Hugh Hewitts, the

marketans, and all the other people here. They'll call Trump. United States, they'll call Trump. Israeli media is reporting. And Trump's going to be like, what? Yeah. Right. It's like, really, but maybe, you know, maybe. Because how humiliating would that be to Trump? Mm-hmm. He obliterated their programs. Yeah, of course. Good point. And of course, you know, even inside of Lebanon, many of these, a lot of these, you know, conflict has been popped off all because of Israeli occupation of Lebanon. I feel like that's always completely belied in all these talks. There are some new talks that are supposed to be happening, I think, today, between. the two countries, but it still does not include Hezbollah, which shows the absolute uncertainty surrounding all of this. So look, that's where things are as of today. We know a couple of things. The munitions, and we knew this going in, is that eventually they would have, the rubber had to meet the

road. Reality had to set in. I think that in the beginning, Trump, it seems, as you said, it gives us some insight. Maybe he genuinely did believe Heg sets BS. We have plenty of munitions. And now, with these intelligence reports that are coming in front of his desk, you're like, oh my God, 80% of that is gone. So we can't replace everything that we had in South Korea. It's going to take X number of years. You can claim all this factory stuff all you want. This also, you know, it doesn't even lead to any questioning within the defense industrial base either, because building a factory doesn't mean anything. I've covered that story here on the show. I'm sure you saw it. We built a factory four years ago, it gave $500 million and said, hey, please build some new

artillery and in 2026 they're like oh we we can't do it because we bought the wrong machine you're like what sorry you bought the wrong machine with with all the money that we gave you and in four the entire time the united states was in world war two that period of time you were not able to build a single shell and now you get to spend another 224 million uh it's like yeah okay uh and you know who's right the check another naval story which i love just just to show you trump has a new there's this new ship that trump wants to name after himself trump class destroyer it's going to cost X. What's, what comes out yesterday? Actually, sir, it's going to cost 50% more than the original. And it was already exorbitantly expensive. 50% more. Oh, okay. And then, oh, and then they'll revise that

another 50 in a few years. And then in a few years from that, another few hundred. And you'll actually get five ships, even though you ordered 25, because you have X number of dollars that you're going to spend. Welcome to America. And this is where your 1.5 trillion is going. And sir, one caveat, If there's a conflict, it can't go anywhere near the conflict. And if there's a conflict, it actually won't work because every round. This is a real story. I remember writing this story. There is it currently a ship.

I forget exactly which one it is, which has this brand new naval gun. It's supposed to a world-class gun. Awesome. Only problem, every bullet costs a million dollars. So there's no bullets on the ship. I'm saying bullet. There's no rounds that are on the ship because they cost a million dollars a round. and we can't afford the rounds.

So we have this beautiful gun, but you got no bullets to put in the gun. That's America. And this is what it's been like for 25 years. It's like the greatest money laundering project in history. Property values in Northern Virginia, though. Property values in Northern Virginia. In McLean, Virginia, there are mansions that are going up everywhere.

So, yeah, that's, it's working. It is working for somebody. That's where things stand with Iran. Now, let's get to Michigan. Eating well shouldn't be complicated. But somehow it turns into recipes, prep, cleanup, and half your Sunday gone. Factors solves all that.

These are fresh, ready-to-eat meals designed by dietitians, delivered to your door and ready in just minutes. No prep, no cleanup, no excuses. And it's not just about convenience. You're getting real food, balanced nutrition, and zero artificial stuff. Meals that help you stay on track for all of your goals without the grind of doing it all yourself.

Grilled chicken, roasted veggies, steak plates, postables. They taste like something you get in a restaurant, but they come out of your microwave in two minutes flat. If time costs or effort have been holding you back from eating better, Factor just took those off the table. Right now, get 11 free meals and free shipping. Hurry, this offer won't last long.

Go to FactorMeals.C.A and use code power. That's 11 free meals and free shipping, but only with the code power at factormeals.ca. Factor, Canada's number one ready-to-eat meal delivery service. Behind every night spent making the kids' lunches, There is a lot of suspense. Will they finally eat the veggies? Will the pesto survive the first bite?

Will the lunchbox come home empty, half full, or come home at all? And will you finish episode 8 before you're done slicing the cucumbers? Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Craved Netflix and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.com for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers.

Hey, what's up y'all? It's your girl, Sam J. And we're the host of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together and I Heart Women's Sports. Because let's be real. Women's Sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. So Kelsey Finler, she became the first female solo rower to go from California to Hawaii. My first thought is, like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what are we eating? The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments that take over your entire timeline. And the conversations that start during the game and somehow, keep going all week. Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports.

Naomi Osaka, showing out, she beat Sabalinka. Shout out to you, Naomi. You get the palm, Naomi. You get the palm for that. Because we're not just interested in what happened. We're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to everyone watches women's sports on the Iheart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. President Donald J. Trump weighing in on the Michigan Senate results. Let's put up his truth social here. Donald Trump, great news for the Republican Party. El-Syad, a communist loser who hates Jews and Israel, is the projected winner in his race with the Socialists, who

presumably is Haley Stevens in reference there. As usual, the polls were way off on this one. She was not expected to do nearly as well as she did. Now the Democrats' crazy policies will only get worse. So President Trump, very, very, very excited to see El-Sahed. J.D. Vance, also weighing in this role B-2 here. We don't want the next administration, whoever, you know, God forbid, you're going to have President El-Sahed in three years. We don't want him to undo all the incredible work that we've been doing

when we've been taking out the fraudsters and saving the American people money. This White House saying that they've taken out fraudsters, while also being the most corrupt administration in the history of American presidencies is quite rich. But we can get back to that in a moment. A-PAC, too, not missing a beat. So A-PAC spent at least $32 million that we know of in this primary backing Haley-Stevens attacking Abdul Al-Sahed. They failed. They now say, and we put up B-3, that they're coming in hard for Mike Rogers.

And the New York Times is also reporting that there are major... ongoing discussions with leading Jewish Democrats in the state of Michigan to organize with A-PAC to put in, God only knows how much money is going to be unloaded between August and November. This has resulted in a bunch of I Told You So's from kind of the Democratic left flank saying, like, we told you that A-PAC was not on the up and up here and really cared about Haley Stevens. But I don't think Haley Stevens or anybody else ever believed that. The best that she could probably hope for if she had won was that they would mostly just stay out of the race rather than they certainly weren't going to continue supporting. Right.

Because then they win either way. They don't care. Yeah. I mean, can you talk a little bit about this New York Times story? I mean, it's pretty crazy in terms of what they're weighing in. We're talking about a organization that already spent, what was it, $32 million just directly, them, in addition to many of their own proxies. but to come in for Rogers like this, it looks like it might be unprecedented

in terms of the amount of money that will eventually be spent against El Siyahe. Yeah, the Times is reporting they're talking about tens of millions of dollars to boost Mike Rogers. And I think they, what they see, people are like, they already tried this and they lost.

I don't think that's right. Like, there's still an avenue for them. And in particular, it's in the fact that Stevens won Detroit by not a ton, but one Detroit. And we've talked about this a bunch. There is some real, there's some real tension,

racial tension and religious tension in Michigan. And it's between, it's kind of the growing Arab American population, the long existing black population, and some of the rural white population. Like these are real tensions. APEC has for many decades been,

been cultivating allies in Detroit. Right. Among kind of the leading black establishment. And so right now they're going to test whether or not the alliances that they've built there are enough to overcome that establishment's hostility to Trump and what it would cost to kind of come in and get 50,000 votes for Mike Rogers in Detroit. Like, what do we need to do to turn out some senior senators, some churches? Now, that voting population is so loyal to Democrats.

It's going to be difficult. That's a tough sell. That is a hard sell. But maybe they don't come out to vote. Or they stay home. Exactly. Because if they stay home, Rogers, okay, great. But if they stay home, fine.

And also, if you have endless money, just try it. Well, what's interesting, and I saw this happen as well, most of the APAC money, you correct me if I'm wrong, had nothing to do with Israel in this race. Zero. It had all about to do with Obama, El Saya, he insulted women. He's a podcast, bro. Even in terms of like he's too radical,

they didn't even really go with that. It was not economic. It was almost all cultural. It was sexist. He called Michelle Obama's program ineffective. Right, which is true, empirically. I mean, he was a lot more obese. He was very polite about it, too.

Empirically true, you know. What was it called, let's move or something? something like that? It seems so antiquated now. But it's, maha, it's basically proto-maha. It was proto-Maha. It's just people didn't want her to be the one telling them that. I do think, you know, we didn't spend enough time on this Trump thing. A communist loser who hates Jews in Israel, that's all he's got.

That, to me, really showed, man, they've lost the juice. Like, they just don't have the attacks that they used to. The communist socialist thing, yeah, he always knew that was going to happen. There's nothing about defund the police. There's not talking about being radical. there's nothing about, I mean, there's really nothing that he had except for Jews and Israel. It might sound strange, but it's like disappointing to actually see the initial attack just purely be about Israel as if Trump himself and the people around him are they so ensconced at a bubble

that they think that this is an effective attack, you know, to try and link these two things together. But if this is all they've got, it's going to be a very uphill battle for them. I mean, Trump, his own advisors, I know them, you do too, Ryan. what did they very effectively do to win the state of michigan kamala's gonna right comma's a genocide supporter we're a different way it's a gamble what do you have to lose they suppress the vote by trying to get green party votes in uh where was it in deerborn and elsewhere trump eeks out a win a slotkin's still able to win but trump very narrowly is able

to beat Biden or to beat comla almost entirely i think because of what happened with god like i genuinely he would be doing that if haley stevens won and they Exactly. They would be doing that if Haley Stevens had won. And, you know, I think back to our coverage at the DNC, and it ends up being so dramatic that entire showdown where they don't allow a Palestinian speaker. If they had just done that, I could be wrong. But they've just done that and done like a little bit more in terms of throwing some meat about like, yeah, we're going to get a ceasefire. We're going to treat things a little bit differently. I think she could have won Michigan. I really do. And I'm not talking about Pennsylvania. I'm not, I'm definitely not talking about Wisconsin or, you know, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia. any of those, but Michigan very specifically, which Trump barely wins by 10,000 votes in 2016, not that many votes. You know, he loses in 2020, doesn't win by, you know, a percent or so.

I actually think if you had just had rough turnout and normal numbers amongst Democrats, he loses Michigan in 2024, as evidenced by the fact that Slotkin is able to win. So in this case, yeah, exactly. And so when I look then at what's happening now with Trump just embracing this Jews and Israel attack, I'm like, they've lost the sauce completely.

They have nothing there. This also connects to burrito gate where they also have nothing to say about inflation and about affordability. I think cooked beyond the board. But I don't want to underestimate A-PAC shenanigans because it is genuinely shocking in the polling miss. I know you guys can talk a lot about this. But the fact that the guy's only going to win by a percent or so, that's a big, that's a problem. I think for DSA. No, let's not overstayed.

It's still one. Right. So it's like the win is away. And we'll get to some interesting parts of that in a second. Oh, by the way, the uncommitted leaders were making the same point that you did. The man who, the activists who led the uncommitted charge and led that sit-in, Abbas Halawi, was just elected to the state Senate to represent Dearborn. I remember him. He was a very interesting guy.

He's a very cool guy. So we put up before, so Mike Rogers, we can see what his line of attack. is going to be here. So they had spent months working on all of this months, if not years. So we went through the process, and then we went through the pictures, and do you think that's Osama bin Laden or not? Remember, they weren't clear at that time. You know, you look at it and you go, okay, his gate is the same.

I mean, it was pretty detailed discussions about every aspect of it because he had a pattern that he would go out walking about the same time every day in this yard because he was cooped up too. Remember, the whole world was looking. for it. Get a call like two days later. Only thing he said, we got him. It's all he said on the phone. We got him. And I knew exactly what he was talking about. It was an incredible feeling. So that's the video that he posted. Along with it, he tweeted, and we can put this up too, he said, I spent my life hunting terrorists. I never in a million years thought I'd hear the words

America deserved 9-11. But here we are. Michigan, we've got a state to save. So he's clever wording there never did i in a passive way he's kind of implying that abd al-sayad said it said it was has a son tiger but whatever um so so he is going to lean all the way into it's it's me the terrorist hunter against abdul el-sayad yeah it's very lore luma do have you seen what happened recently in michigan did you guys talk about this yesterday the amir hussein uh situation oh yeah amazing i mean this is bonkers and and look this is where i don't want to underestimate rogers is ability because not ability, but in terms of at least with the GOP, where because everybody who is still a self-ident Republican at this point is a Fox News boomer, like through and through, their

Lumer-pilled, they're not Tucker Pippet. Like they are fully on board the Randy Fine, Laura Lumer, Islamophobia, right? And so you had this guy, Amir, I think his name is Amir Hussein, who was the Trump-indorced candidate in a district who literally lost to a guy who had dropped out of the race. because his, I mean, there does not seem to be another explanation. His name was like Tom Smith or something. Yeah, his name is like Thomas or something like that. And he's now the nominee. And even though he dropped out of the race, he won more votes. He wrote a handwritten note to the FEC, saying, I filed my thing late.

Right. I'm actually withdrawing. Apologies for filing late. I don't want to be in this racing more. Just a handwritten note to the FEC. In June, like a long time ago. But his name was still in the ballot. Yeah. And his name was on the ballot. And he won the nominee, even though Trump endorsed this guy. He was like, I think he's, he was like a black Muslim and converted Christian, something like that. But like my point is just that his name being Islamic, it seems to have what killed him on the ballot.

You got a bunch of, you know, elder white boomers in the state of Michigan who are mainlining this like Fox News stuff all day long. All those young people and, you know, potential Arabs for Trump, Hamatrack, remember the mayor, endorsed Trump. That shit's all gone now, right? So this is all who's left within the GOP base. So I'm not going to say that this won't work in terms of potentially getting the base people out to vote. However, as I just said, the Hammettrak mayor, I remember endorsing Trump, that was a big deal. The Dearborn people who were sitting it out and going green, that was a big deal as well. A lot of the younger people, you had some younger black people also that voted for Trump.

This stuff is not going to land whatsoever. But what I do think that shows is that this will be enough to draw the money in to create this A-PAC, you know, Republican Jewish coalition type money into the race where Rogers basically has an unlimited budget. But ultimately, this guy's a weak candidate. And this is just empirically. I mean, we know that in the strongest time of all to be able to win in Michigan, Donald Trump, who wins the state, you lose by 19,000 votes to Alyssa Slotkin, who, look, I think we know what we think about Slotkin here on the show. And so Alyssa Slotkin is able to be, for some reason in a bad year in a bad year for a democrat and so then you're running now against

el-sayed in maybe not a wave year as evidenced by his showing ultimately in the primary he's got his own problems for sure uh in terms of the coalition but ultimately would you rather have a d next to your name or would you rather have an r running in the same mexican and one effect that going this racist could possibly have is putting like a lot of centrist demonstraised Democrats who are kind of uncomfortable with Abdul al-Assad and don't like him and are Matt and are angry about the way that the primary unfolded, you polarize them. Okay, are you really going to go with the guy who's calling the Democrat a terrorist? Right. And that, for many Democrats, that's too much.

And see. No, we're working in 05. Right. Not going to work today. Apparently, there's an apocryphal story. I didn't even know this, that Al-Saiad gave a speech in 07 that Bill Clinton attended. I think it's true. No, no, I know about this part, where Clinton said that that young.

man has a future in politics and he said, I have 11 letters in my name, implying that because he's Muslim, he could never run for office. Kind of a great story, actually. Dan reported that. Yeah, he reported that. So I was like, wow, I had no idea that this was apparently presage. But so, yeah, I think, so Al-Syad was not wrong in 07. But it's not 07.

And Mike Rogers keeps calling him Abdul-Rachman. Really? Is that his middle name? No, that's his full first name. Oh, Abdul-Rachman. I think it's Abdul-Rakman-Moh-Hu-Rahman. I think it's Abdul-Rachman-Mohmah, al-Syed. So that's what Mike Rogers keeps using.

Yes. The one time I went to Egypt, we met a whole bunch of kids, and we're like, what's your name? They're like 11 kids. There were 10 Mohammeds. So let's put up B5, which is how Al-Said is launching kind of his framing of who he is. When we launched this campaign, the political establishment never imagined that we could win. They said we couldn't build a movement of Michiganders united by all that we share instead of divided by all that we don't. They were wrong. Everywhere I go, I hear the same thing. It shouldn't be this hard. People are working harder and falling further behind. Politicians like Mike Rogers, they want us to fight it. Convinced that we have more to fear from each other than the people wringing the system against us.

But our campaign has never been about Democrats or Republicans. It's about people who believe our tax dollars should be invested here, not in endless war. Health care should be for all. The government should work for us. The power belongs to the people. This land was made for you and me. So pretty much literally draping himself in the American flag. But with a lefty, this land is your land,

I think you're going to see a lot of his messaging being the kind of thing that we'll be talking about Tucker Carlson's 10-point plan for America. That'll kind of resonate with those types of both conservatives and liberals who are saying, you know, we need to focus on Michigan. We need to focus on the United States. He has said that, you know, he's going to hand. hammer Mike Rogers for, you know, caring first and foremost about Israel, which will be, which he will, a case he'll be able to make because of the tens of millions of dollars.

Extremely poignant. He's coming in from APEC. And he's also going to highlight the fact that Mike Rogers voted when he was in the house to allow the DEA to increase the amount of opioids in, in, in, there was this scandal that Washington Post broke it open, if you remember. I'm trying to remember. It's been a while. So he took this vote.

He said he's basically, I'm going to tie him to fentanyl. And Mike Rogers does have some very bad votes, as do a lot of members of the House at that time, where this bizarre situation where the DA was like asking for more opioids to be allowed to flood into rural areas. It's a very, very weird situation. And he said he's going to hit him for that. and hit him for gas. He's going to hit him on gas prices, Israel and fentanyl, basically. Well, I think what...

And the fact that he sold out and moved to Florida after leaving the house. Oh, he did? Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's pretty bad. He said, he keeps saying, I'm going to send you back to Florida. I feel like in Michigan, that's pretty bad. Well, you know, what I find fascinating about the Roger, about the Abdul thing, Abdul, and this is, I've always thought that one of my, you know,

one of the primary, you know, things that really turned people off around a lot of the DSA left was it didn't feel American. A lot of it was like worship, it was like third world is, or it was like worship of like a Nordic system. Cancel Thanksgiving. If you have, cancel Thanksgiving, Francesca Hong, who Bernie, by the way, says he won't endorse. Love him for that. He's got the best instincts. Sorry.

But what Abdul is doing here is he calls himself America first. He's standing in front of an American flag. He's basically connecting his own campaign to the values of the founding of the nation. This is very unique in democratic politics. Have not really seen a Democrat try to do this. Biden, obviously, he's of a bygone age, but of a more modern politician, it reminds me of Obama, 08,

or Bernie 16, remember the America ad, which was very popular. It's one of the reasons why I won in Michigan, of course. And then Clinton, you know, one of the more successful politicians of his day. This type of connection of, like, the social politics to actual, like, the founding, like we're American, we're doing policies

that prioritize our citizens over other. This is very, very potent, I think. which is going to be very difficult for the Rogers and the APAC crowd to be able to come against him. I do think, though, what we saw, and we're going to talk about this in a bit, clearly there was a weakness enough for El Cyan. And we can't just blame money because it's not enough, you know, to just say, oh, he threw all this money against him. There was enough to get, I mean, what, three quarters of a million people who call themselves Democrats to come, or voted in a Democratic primary to show you, to come to vote ultimately against him. And I do think that that's going to have

to examine, that's going to have to create some soul searching for the way that he ran his campaign, even though I did think he ran a very good campaign. The question is how many of those are guaranteed Mike Rogers voters who just happened to vote in the Democratic primary? And that's something that data analysts, I think we'll know more in the next couple of days as people really sift through the numbers. But let's put up B6 just to do a little, you know, preliminary review of this. Patrick Ruffini is a, you know, well-respected conservative polling analyst. He writes, controlling for 2024, the results kind of suggest Stevens was buoyed by crossover Republican votes, especially in Metro Detroit, where primary composition swung 30 points towards Democrats. What he means there is that in 2024, compared to 2026, in 26, you had 30% higher composition of Democrats versus Republicans voting.

And he's saying, the implication there is that you do not magically all of a sudden. sudden have that many more Democrats, that the only logical explanation, and there were, I think, less than 200,000 people, fewer than 200,000 people voted in 24 in the Wayne County primary. It might be over 300,000 by the time we're done counting. 50% increase. His point here is that a lot of those are because there was also a massive collapse in Republican turnout, which means that because there were not competitive races on the ballot for Republicans when they showed up to vote, they were like, let me have the, let me have the Democratic ballot. I want to vote in that one because it matters. And now the way that Washington people think, like, oh, then they're going

to vote for El-Sayat or something just to screw with the Republicans, but that's not how normal people really think. Right. These Republicans are like, between El-Sahed and Haley-Stevens, I'm scared of El-Sai. El-Saheat, yes. He's a social, Socialist Islamist takeover. So I'm going to vote for Haley Stevens. And then hopefully Mike Rogers beats Haley Stevens. But, you know, we've survived Alyssa Slotkin and Gary Peters.

Yeah. We can survive Haley Stevens. They're like, we live under Whitmer. It's probably the type of voter who's like, I don't love Whitmer, but she's all right. They're not deeply afraid of her. They don't like her, but they're not deeply afraid of her. They're like afraid of El Ceyat.

Yes. And so the same thing appears to have happened numerically. in some of the rural areas also, where either you had some explosion in support for Haley Stevens that just broke out in places where she never campaigned but did run television ads, and then a collapse in Republican support

or Republican voting, or those two things are related. People showed up, and instead of voting in the Republican primary, they voted in the Democratic primary. And so that would suggest that on some level, the polling miss comes about because they didn't factor in Republicans who were going to jump over into the Democratic primary because also Al-Side's going to wind up with substantially more votes than Alyssa Slotkin. And think about this, Slotkin won like 73% of the Democratic primary vote, this guy, Hill Harper,

yet only about 700,000 votes. So he's going to wind up exceeding that total while only getting roughly 50%. Right. So then where did those people come from? It's a good point. It is a good point. I mean, it's a little wonky. It's a wave year.

There's a lot of highly engaged people. We could have Republicans in there. But I do think your ultimate point is really important, which is a lot of these Republicans are not thinking rationally per se. Like in terms of like, oh, well, let's vote for Stevens because she'll be easier to beat. They're just afraid. And so they're probably going to come out and vote for Rogers anyway. We'll see, obviously, how that all works out.

But ultimately, I mean, we'll talk about this now in our next block. So why don't we just get to it about that breakdown in the coalition and where the warning signs do remain. Not even just for El-Saiad, but for, I mean, the reason why this race, to me, is so fascinating. It's not just that, it's obviously Abdul wins, huge, right? But it does show, you know, the big difference in running a DSA candidate in New York City versus Michigan. And, like, the fractures. A lot more cushion in New York City. Yeah, there's a lot more cushion in New York City than what it looks like and where the problems are and what a potential future presidential run, you know, could eventually spell out in terms of your general issues, I think, for that.

And are also big warning signs for Republicans as well. Okay, let's get to that. Eating well shouldn't be complicated, but somehow it turns into recipes, prep, cleanup, and half your Sunday gone. Factor solves all that. These are fresh, ready-to-eat meals designed by dietitians, delivered to-earned. your door and ready in just minutes. No prep, no cleanup, no excuses. And it's not just about convenience. You're getting real food, balanced nutrition, and zero artificial stuff. Meals that help you stay on track for all of your goals without the grind of doing it all yourself. Grilled chicken, roasted veggies, steak plates, postables. They taste like something you'd get in a restaurant, but they come out of your microwave in two minutes flat. If time, cost, or effort

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Visit bell.com for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up y'all? It's your girl, Sam J. And we're the host of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together and I-Heart Women's Sports. Because let's be real. Women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. So Kelsey Finler, she became the first female solo rower to go from California to Hawaii. My first thought is like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what are we eating?

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You get the palm for that. Because we're not just interested in what happened. We're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to everyone watches women's sports. On the IHeart Radio app. Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. So much of what Senator John Federman does is against his better judgment among those things

was going on the John Stewart show. And here's why. So for you, you could agree with them 90%. but Israel is the red line. Absolutely. Israel for me. Like I can't ever turn my back to Israel after where it's at. So, and I mean no disrespect on this, but that is not our country. You're saying that these candidates may have great ideas for our economy.

They may want to do the exact same thing you want to do in terms of getting money out of politics. They may want to increase the social safety net. They may want to change the balance of power from capital back to late. but if they don't agree with you on Israel, you don't want them in your party. Well, I don't know who you're referencing to specifically. No, I'm referencing what you just said. So in other words, Syed or AOC or Bernie Sanders, I assume you agree with a lot of what they say economically.

And what I'm saying is like if you are a DSA member, if you are a member of a specific political party run under your own banner. Mamdani in New York is DSA, but there are things in the DSA platform that he disagrees with. And I'm assuming there's probably things in the Democratic platform that you might disagree with, but you don't disavow the entire thing. You're literally saying it's all, we can all have discussions except when it comes to Israel, which is not America. It seems like a weird line to draw.

Well, so then, well, I don't think that's weird. I think what history demonstrates is, is that when people or government or people turn their back to the Jewish community, things end really badly. And it's a dangerous. Jewish community and Israel are not the same thing, brother man. And so, Sager, I think one of the problems here is that Federman has, well, one, he had a stroke and has difficulty with kind of auditory processing. And so oftentimes you're like, wait, I don't think you really understood the question. I think that's cope. I think he was like this before the stroke.

You think so? As an original fetterman hater. So the other problem is that he spends all his time getting glazed on Fox News. Right. Or Bill Maher or on Twitter where he, and getting gassed up in whatever group chats he's in with these like pro-Israel folks. And he cannot articulate in a reasonable way what his actual policy is, which because it will, because it's not reasonable. He straight up says to John Stewart,

and before that clip, it's even clearer, if I agree with my party on everything, except for Israel, I will leave the party. Like that's the line he's drawing. Which means that it's his most important issue. Yeah. As in I could disagree with you on child care.

I could disagree with you on X number of domestic. But if you depart on Israel, that's my red line. I mean, he said it himself. He said, it's a red line. I mean, I do think it's crazy. There's a lot of reasons to wonder as to how exactly one got here. You know, we can leave the psychoanalysis to other people. But I do think at a baseline point, you know, that you're pointing out his inability to articulate it well just is the problem with the entire pro-Israel position at this point, which is basically if you disagree with us, you hate Jews.

I mean, I get it constantly whenever I find my own Israel critics out in the white. they're like, why do you hate Jews so much? I'm like, first of all, how fucking dare you? You know, second of all, it's one of those where why do you conflate Israel with the Jewish people in America. And he just does it in such a straightforward way there. It's just a straightforward way. It's just constant.

And it's like, it's one of those things where no matter how much you genuflect about like, I don't have a problem with Jews. I have, you know, what did Syed say? He said, you know, I'm going to look out for my, for Jewish citizens the way I would look out for my own daughters. You know, even that I see the pro-Israel community would be like, oh, well, you know,

Muslims rape girl. I'm like, oh my God. Like, what is wrong with you? You know, it's like nothing is enough because the conflation, I think, is the last thing that they have to protect, you know, any criticism of Israel, which we don't care if it's a Jew. I would, we would say all the same things no matter what kind of state that it is. But that's the ultimate problem. They need that special protection kind of, you know, halo around them to protect themselves from any criticism, which John very expertly points, John Stewart points out, but Fetterman, he can can't process it at all. Like it has to come back to that over and over and over again. Yeah. And one of the people, the types of people gassing up is Van Jones. Van Jones has been on a bit of a spiral.

Let's roll. This is some of his response to Abdul Al-Saiad's win. People are looking at people and they're saying, you've been telling us the same thing for a long time and our lives are not eating better. We got Donald Trump twice. There's also an innovation gap. Why can you spend $60 million? and get whoop like this. Because the old model was you get the donors to get the consultants to buy a bunch of ads and you win. That's how you get attention. This movement says, I don't need donors, ads,

I don't need consultants. I'm going right to the people with TikTok and grassroots and they've disintermediated the entire donor class, disintermediated the entire consultant class, and this is a revolution. And so this is going to happen again and again. The Democratic Party is now blockbuster, these kids are Netflix. Look, I mean, look at these numbers. If you are an Arab kid in America

right now, if you're a Muslim kid in America right now, and you're looking at this, this is one of the biggest nights of your life. This is Barack Obama. This is Hillary Clinton. So, you know, whenever there's a first, you have real hopes and you have real fears. There's real fears in some Jewish homes tonight. But this is a big deal. And I think no Muslim has gotten this far in American politics, he should speak to that and not any of the divisions in our party. I mean, to be a healing force and put those kids first. And to the extent, even in that patronizing, you know, way, trying to praise, he's like, there's still real fear in Jewish homes tonight. I'm like, come on, man. Yeah, and to the extent that there's any truth to that statement, that there's real

genuine fear in some Jewish homes about Abdul al-Sai, I feel like a deep sense of pity. I agree. If that's true. Like, you really, in the United States, should not be afraid of Abdul al-Sayyad, no matter who you are. There's nobody in the United States that you want to disagree with him about his tax policy? I'll take it even further. He shouldn't be afraid, period. Like, you have equal protection under the law. We don't have a huge anti-Semitism problem in this country, no matter what, you know, you want to say, Europe is far time, you know, 10 times more actually anti-Semitic has been for years. There's no historical basis of like mask anti-Semitism in the United States. Most of, you know, most of.

anti-semitism in the U.S. did not come from the lower classes. It all came from the elites who were upset about Jews competing for their spots at Harvard. I mean, it's just, it's preposterous ultimately. People are upset about Israel. Okay, that's true. Yeah, if you go through the Anti-Defamation League's list of like thousands of anti-Semitic events over the last year, almost all of them are Israel-related. All, we played many of them. Emily did a great job, I remember, of going through and just finding the random ones, every single one. And then, you know, crystals made this point many times, and I do think it's true, to the extent that there is rising. And not again, I don't think there's mass anti-Semitism, but to the extent that there's, quote, rising anti-Semitism, it is because of people who are constantly telling them, if you conflate criticism of Israel with Jews, then some people are going to be like, okay, fine, you know, fine.

They're going to go in that direction. That's obviously an abhorrent in a bad direction. But that's ultimately where that's going to go, if that's what you're going to perpetuate in mass culture, like what Van Jones and all of that are saying. And I know this is where, like with Jones, I do think it's important to bring it back to what you were saying earlier. Because I've always been mystified by this. Like the Congressional Black Caucus, super pro-Israel. Like there's this very strange alliance between these old school black Democrats, especially people like Jim Clyburn, the Congressional Black Caucus. Even on the Republican side, people like the anti-Semitism czar or whatever in the Trump administration is Leo Terrell.

Like one of those classic Fox News black talking hands. and he is the one who's most virulently pro-Israel. And there seems to have been some like bargain-struck back, you know, a long time ago, I guess, between like you guys pro-Israel and we'll back you on, you know, certain things. I don't know. It could be a woke industrial complex, the 80, something, you know, like that. But there's that alliance. I think it might be a problem in Michigan, you know.

Not with younger voters. Again, not with younger voters. But, you know, the numbers speak for themselves in Detroit and it elsewhere. And the irony is that APEC and its allies very much exploit the legacy of Jewish civil rights, Jewish activist participation in the civil rights movement in order to say, remember, like, we were there for you, you've got to be here for us now, and then enormous amounts of money and funding for trips to Israel. And the irony just real quickly in that conflation there is that kind of post-World War II,

you probably know this history, within the Jewish community, post-Holocast, there were those who said never again means never again for anyone and we need to put our bodies on the line to create a world of social justice so that nobody was like 1990s liberalism but also 1960s yeah that's true 1950s and 60s the uh the the the top allies of martin luther king and others were Jewish activists and some of them were killed in the south you know fighting for voting rights. And the argument was their fight is our fight. There's no world in which if other people aren't safe that we're safe. Then there was a separate wing which said, no, we need to establish the state of Israel and never again means never again for us. And these were

often in conflict. These ideas were clashing with each other. And so, So now the group that said, no, no, no, we shouldn't participate in the civil rights movement. We should just go ahead and build a fortress in Israel. They are using the valor that came from Jewish participation in the civil rights movement to say, you have to support us over here now. It's like, no, you guys were in different wings, and you guys did not like each other. But you were in real conflict with each other. But APEC, there's also a real financial gap. And Jamal Bowman has talked a lot about this, like that a lot of the black churches,

there's, like, A-PAC will come in and take people to Israel and support a playground, support, like, they're there, supporting that community. It's very religious, too. A lot of black, a lot of black people are very, you know, religious as well. So there's the tie-in with evangelical Christianity. Oh, absolutely. We shouldn't dispel that either. Yeah, I mean, it is kind of fascinating. But that's where the breakdown in the future comes.

from. And let's put C3 up here on the screen. This is kind of interesting. I actually, I'll just say at the top, I disagree with the way that they frame it. They say, we're seeing a class divide in Michigan Senate results. But actually, what we're watching is that Haley Stevens is doing better in places with lower average incomes and where fewer voters have college degrees. As I have said on the show now for years, the number one predictor of how you're going to vote is whether you have a bachelor's degree or not. And as they point out, El Sayed is winning 58.4% of the vote in counties where at least 30% of adults have a bachelor's degree. On the flip side, Stevens is winning 51.4% of the vote in counties where less than 30% are college educated. El Siyadh, similarly leading Stevens in counties with higher median income so far while Stevens leads in lower income counties.

But, and this is where I always find the breakdown, is people try to point to it at income-based. That's foolish. as we have seen many times, like with the Republicans, you are more likely to have like a horseshoe voter who's a Republican, as in somebody who is quite poor, but working class white, or somebody who is like a black business owner but makes like $300,000 a year, small business plumber, somebody like that, without a college degree. Those two people are, you know, socially in a different class than somebody who makes $60,000 and is like downwardly mobile, but has a bachelor's degree in college education.

But the reason why I thought that this was interesting, and again, just to connect it to the Federman stuff and even Israel to a certain extent, I have found, especially here with like what Van Jones and all of that is saying, is that this has become a major battle for information. And, you know, Richard Henania has written about this. And I do think it's a very astute observation is that Democrats read and Republicans watch TV. If you just look at the base, like, the fact is it's like Democrats, people who vote Democratic. especially the more, they are much more likely to engage with the news, to read the New York Times, even it even comes down to like reading books, whereas a Republican mean voter is much more likely to be watching and consuming television. And so the breakdown in those two things, and this is really where the Israel stuff comes in, is if you're getting all of your news on Israel, let's say in particular, from TV, we know what's on TV. The most moderate criticism

of Israel on MSNBC is like shocking, right? That's where they would even press El-Syad. That's where that reporter, she's pressing El-Sai I don't know. You against ethno states? She's like, why are you against ethno states? You know, I was like, what the fuck? I'm watching MSNBC right now. But then, you know, if you were reading Times or any of these, you know, whatever, I'm not some huge fan in the New York Times. You're reading DropSite, anything. Your

information on environment, Israel's totally different. And that's where you can pick up, I think, some of the nuance and the other things. That's where the class breakdown comes down to. But it also comes down to DSA. And this is why, you know, even saying class is kind of stupid, because to me it's all about social class. It has nothing to do really with earnings. When you really look at it, the DSA base appears to be people who are well-educated, but more downwardly mobile, who I have a lot of sympathy with. They have a shitloaded debt.

They're, you know, we're promised a dream, and they're not, that dream isn't working out. That seems to be where things are, whereas people without the college degree are much more likely, especially in state like Michigan, where probably disproportionate, I have a lot more people who are, you know, elderly and black, those people are going to be much more trusting of the party establishment. So this is where the DSA fracture is going to run into a wall with some of these primaries, where, you know, El-Sai had only being able to win by a percent or so, that's a problem. Like I remember before the election, what we were saying, Chris was pointing out, is what would really be a sea change if some of these elder black people voted for El-Syad,

like if they were to abandon the party establishment. And we didn't see a lot of that. We still saw a significant part of some of these more traditional Democrats kind of trusting. the party establishment. So that's the big line, I think, right now, which is interesting. Yeah, and it's also, it's a structural component of American politics

that the lower, like, without a college degree is more likely to tend towards the party establishment. That's right. That's where we've been. No single campaign, no matter how well run, how class-focused. Mom, Donnie, I think,

was the first to put a huge dent in that. Right. But even him. You know, Cuomo, look, he didn't win, but he got a decent number of votes. He got a lot of those elder black community, but more traditional. Same system. Exactly what we saw where, you know, if you're a college educated in Manhattan or in New York, you're much more likely to vote Mamdani.

If you're not, you're much more likely to vote Cuomo. And this is where the breakdown in policy, and this is where the DSA people I see are starting to adopt sometimes the old language, a lot of the Democrats, like the What's the Matter with Kansas, where, you know, and what's the matter? I think it might be back here somewhere. It used to be back behind our shelves for Thomas Franks, where, you know, his entire thesis of his books, basically like, why do all of these people vote against their own economic interests?

I'm like, well, if they don't see it that way, you know, they rank their own interests differently. They look at it culturally. It's not a sci-op that they're being, they're not being controlled to toll that way. Oh, there's some of that. But, you know, you should give people some agency. They decide how they vote. Yes, but also, like the reason APEC spent $30 million telling people that

Obama basically endorsed Haley Stevens, which was not true, which was not true, is because if you tell people that, it works. They're not just burning money. That's true. So it is structural. Al-Sai was pushing against it. Momdani's efforts are pushing against it. It'll be very interesting to see four years, you know, when Mamdani runs for re-election,

if his class-first focus, working class focus, can actually tilt that and he can win over the working class as much as he's winning over the college educated class. But working against that is $30 million of telling people that Obama is with Haley Stevens. You're like, oh, okay, then I'm with Haley Stevens. No, you're absolutely right. And I think this is where the breakdown is we are going to continue to see this in politics. The Republican Party is the party generally right now of downwardly mobile cultural. Like you could just see that empirically. It's the party of like rich, upper middle, richer, more conservative white people who have been Republicans their whole lives as a traditional base of the GOP. But also Trump won, I think for the first time ever, was so the first Republicans ever win households who are making less than $100,000.

Some of that was an economic message. A lot, actually, when it comes to inflation, we'll talk about burrito gate in a second. But I think a huge part of it. And the data bears this out. A lot of it was immigration and a lot of it was cultural issues as well. that seems to be where things continue to trend, although that's up for grabs in terms of the $100,000 coalition or so. The big question mark for the Democrats is not just can you win in the midterms, can you carry that when the stakes are high nationally? And this is where the Francesca Hong

Thanksgiving thing comes into play. You can think it's dumb all you want. You can think, why would anyone care about that in the age where groceries are up 43% year over year? But how much electoral evidence you need to say. A lot of people care about that, actually, because I have no trust with you whatsoever. And Hassan Pike said it, well, he's like, I love Fran, but the answer here is, no, I don't think we should cancel Thanksgiving. And more importantly, people can't afford Thanksgiving dinner. That's the Mom Donnie pivot.

Yeah. And she didn't do that. And the other thing you see from Mom Donnie, which I think is very intelligent, is, you know, you occasionally see some transgender visibilities, whatever, okay? which is, you know, to me, nauseating. But the thing which you see more is, here's all these new trash cans. Here is how we're doing it. And I'm like, yeah, I mean, look, there's no denying.

Like, this works. And this is somebody who is trying to create a way where you look past, let's say, if you're culturally conservative. And you just say, look, at the end of the day, it doesn't smell anymore. And I'm getting my trash picked up and cars are going to tote. I like that. And I think it's a matter of emphasis. I think most people are cool with Transvisibility Day.

If that's not the only thing that you seem to be running on, I think the problem people had with Democrats is they were like, that's all you care about. Right, that's correct. But if Mom Dani is like, no, no, I'm picking up the trash, I'm fixing the potholes, I'm going to get these grocery stores going, they're going to give you cheaper grass, and we're going to do a little. Yeah, the grocery store thing is still strange.

We'll get to that way. Eventually, we'll do a segment about it. Hey, Portlandia fans. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen here. The Dream of the 90s is alive in podcast form. We're launching Podlandia, AEO rewatch, our brand new podcast where we revisit every episode of Portlandia together, breaking down sketches, going deep on our iconic characters, and pulling back the curtain on how it all got made. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life.

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