Pod Save America - Is the Progressive Takeover Real?

Episode Date: August 9, 2026

MS NOW's Chris Hayes joins Alex Wagner to talk about what Democrats should take away from the progressive movement's big primary win in Michigan and how the party's reaction may predict what's ahead in the 2028 presidential election. They debate whether Abdul El-Sayed should continue to campaign with leftist Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, discuss how AIPAC's media strategy is backfiring with voters and how ideals of masculinity continue to influence our politics.Hate listening to ads? Become a Friends of the Pod subscriber for ad-free episodes of Pod Save America, Pod Save the World, Lovett or Leave It, Runaway Country, Offline with Jon Favreau, and more—plus exclusive content, including bonus episodes of Pod Save America. Subscribe now at crooked.com/friends, on Apple Podcasts, or through the Pod Save America YouTube channel.To watch this episode with subtitles, click here and turn on closed captions (CC).You can request a transcript by emailing [e-mail]. Include the podcast name, episode title, and air date. Please allow 48 hours for delivery.

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There's no safe like SimplySave. Welcome to Podsave America. I'm Alex Wagner. On today's show, MSNows, Chris Hayes, stopped by to talk about recent progressive wins. how Democrats find their path to victory in 2026 and beyond, and who is winning the war for American attention. Chris and I dug into candidate strategies as the midterms draw ever closer, as well as how the Democratic Party can rally around its new Senate candidate in Michigan,

Abdul al-Sayed. We also talk 2028 and how these midterms this November might influence the party in the wild ride ahead. It was a great conversation, and we're going to get to it in just a minute. But first, a little housekeeping. If you have not gotten tickets for CrookedCon yet, what are you doing? Here's another reason why you should. At Crooked, we believe the answer to right-wing authoritarianism is a big, welcoming, fun, pro-democracy movement. So we have invited some of the biggest, funniest voices online to all-day CrookedCon.

At CrookedCon, you will have the chance to meet creators and new media personalities who make sense of the news with humor and hot takes. They'll be popping around the Washington Convention Center hosting happy hours, Q&As, and Wings. workshops for attendees. They will also be, of course, making content because what happens at CrookedCon ends up online for every political nerd to see. Check out which creators are joining us so far at CrookedCon.com and grab your tickets today. Post-Hase. See ya in D.C. Here's my conversation with MS Now's Chris Hayes. Joining me now in a tank top for those of you who are not watching on YouTube, you should be. Please hit subscribe while you're at it. Is the one at, oh my, look at It's gun season. What does it say? Suns out, guns out, guns out. Suns out guns out.

Suns out guns out is the great Chris Hayes. Buddy, it's always great to see it, especially in the summer. It's pure August right now, so I'm not even... It's giving real... It's also recording this on a Friday in August. We sure are. So, you know, if you didn't think he was wearing a hot pink tank top and a gold chain, drinking Celsius, like there's no Sunday...

Got my tublo Chico. Mm-hmm. Okay, I was hoping it was Celsius. That would have just been a little bit more. on brand. There's a show tonight and that's a hard rule. Got it. There's a hard rule one has had to enforce. Learn the hard way. Yeah. I was really excited when we had a big primary on Tuesday and we thought who can help us unpack what the fuck happens now? Who is wise, but also just ballsy enough to say what they really think. And Chris Hayes, you're up. I won. You won. Let's start

with kind of where we sit, as you say on Friday, after the Michigan primary, ahead of the Wisconsin primary, are progressives having a moment yes or no? Yeah. I mean, I think it's a huge, you know, one of the weird things that happened in elections is we interpret the results against the benchmark of polls as opposed to the benchmark of like fundamentals. So like, you know, I remember 2020 people, that was a disappointing election night for Democrats in 2020. because it was all much closer than the polls had predicted. Sarah Gideon was going to beat Susan Collins and she lost by 12 points. And, you know, there's a bunch of races like that. So, but you got to take a step back and say, what happened here was that the polling was wrong, right? The polling was a miss.

So just look at the results. And the fact the matter is you had a unabashed, progressive candidate who has run statewide in primaries before and lost by 20 points. He ran against Gresham Whitner, win a narrow victory over a candidate who I think is not a great candidate as like politicians go, not a great can. But it did have the backing of the state party essentially behind her, both the incumbent center, Gary Peters and the incumbent Governor Whitmer. You had $60 million in outside spending on her side against Abdul al-Sayed. and he emerged victorious in a swing state in which, look, there's a theory of the case here, why a progressive outspoken progressive candidate can win a statewide swing state race. They have a theory of the case.

And I think it's actually a relatively persuasive one. But it's also, like, there's reason to be worried about it. And just, like, there is. I mean, there just is. And despite all that, he did emerge victorious. And I just think there's no universe in which he would have emerged victorious two, four, six years ago. Like something is obviously happening among, and let's be clear here, the Democratic primary electorate, which is a different electorate than the general electorate, right? And a different electorate than the presidential general electorate.

We're talking about concentric circles. But yes, it was a huge win for progressives, for sure. At the risk of sounding like I'm glazing, this first time I used that term, Abdul also I had. I do think there's really something to be set. Like the redefinition of what electable means is changing. And the issues that he's talking about, it's the first time I've seen a glimmer of an authentic answer to what it means to be a populist and to be on the left

and take rightfully the mantle of economic populism and like really appeal to working class voters in an authentically progressive way that's like really, steals it from MAGA convincingly. Like, I felt like he was very, like, you know, Abdul Sala, I say it, we'll talk about Israel in the second, but just on the economic issues, on health care, on jobs. Like, he was relentless on beating this drum in a way that felt utterly authentic and very much in line with what Democrats maybe should have been talking about for decades,

for years now, if not a decade. Yeah, and I think that points to what the theory of the case for the progressive left is about how to win cross-pressure, it's swinging. state elections, right? Is that people are pissed off the status quo. They don't like foreign wars and money going abroad. Again, these are like the cross-pressured voters you can win. They're pissed off with the economic status quo.

Things are too expensive. And they are enraged at the billionaires and the corporations and the tech lords that want to put data centers in their backyards. And that this is a cluster of issues that are both squarely on the kind of progressive populist wheelhouse and also can win people who aren't just down the line progressive. Right. And if you focus, that's the theory here. And they, I mean, again, it's going to get tested. Oh, it sure is. It sure is. Both, and not just in Michigan. I mean, I think also it's, this is, we're talking, these are precursors to national debates that we're going to be having for the next two years. And what happens here is going to have a huge impact on those national base, particularly the presidential primary about who and what is electable. So when you hear, when we talk about Abdul al-Sayed and to some degree when we talk about like Zora and Mamdani,

how do you square that with Abigail Spanberger and Mikey Cheryl and Corey Bush being beaten in Missouri by Wesley Bell who was backed by APAC in the state? And Marie Glusencamp Perez, who handily wins her primary and is one of the most centrist, moderate Democrats in the House. Like, how do you just kind of say, I mean, all politics is local? And if that's the case, then what is that portend for the national reckoning that's afoot come next year? Yeah, I think one is, yes, I mean, it's sort of a boring and deflating thing to say all politics is local, but that is a big part of it. Like, we're talking about very different constituencies and very different places with different electorates and different issue profiles. That's one. Two, none of this stuff is linear, right?

So it's like in the, it's like the stock market goes up and it goes down. It goes up and it goes down over a 30 year period. It's gone up, right? So it's like, if you sort of take a step back, it's like, is the progressive left growing in strength inside the Democratic. party in the aggregate over the last 10 years? Yes. Like pretty clearly yes, right? Like, since 2016, I think the answer is since the Bernie primary, you know, defeat, I think the answer is very clearly yes. Now, in individual cases, that doesn't mean like they're winning everything and no, there's a lot of variation. The last thing I would say here about Abdul al-Saiyad and Mamdani,

and I, this was true of Platner two before he dropped out. So think about what are the gates that you go to go through to become a candidate through the traditional, what people call it establishment, let's say traditional channels, right? It's like constituency relationships, relationships with mentors and other elected officials, endorsements from local groups, right, being good at navigating the politics of the coalition, right? These are all things that you have to be good at. being a really, really great communicator is nice to have, but not necessary to ascend up the ranks in the traditional politics. So like Troy Jackson.

Right. Yes, exactly. Who got pretty high in Maine politics. Or even Abigail Spanberger is a perfectly good communicator, but she's not like. Electric. Electric, right? If you are not going that route and you are going to have success. you have to be a really dazzling communicator.

So you've got a different set of features that are being selected for. So the reason that you get Platner lighting up Maine on fire and the reason the Mamdani is able to win that primary coming out of nowhere. And the reason I think Abdul-Sayed ends up winning a very hard-fought split vote win is that they're just extremely gifted communicators. Yeah. Now, that's not all that matters in politics because another thing that happens through the, gate checking that happens through the normal ascent in politics. Is some vetting?

Is some like, is this person got some stuff in their past that's going to blow up? Yeah. And we saw like a rocket ascendancy via tremendous charisma and political talent in Grand Platner completely blowing up, right? So, but I think that distills down a little bit. When you point to Mamdani and Abdul's, I said, it's both and, right? The ideological ferment has to be. there, but you have to be really good to capture it.

Because they, well, okay, so where does that leave you on, we're saying this, you're going to be hearing this episode on the eve of the Wisconsin primary where Francesca Hong, who is not a dazzling communicator. No. And who Bernie Sanders, who's been kind of like a mini kingmaker in this primary season, has not endorsed. On Pod Save America with my colleague John Favre did not specifically endorse her. Do you have a theory of the case on that?

Is that because there's a sense that she's going to lose? and she's not actually one of the future stars of the party, of the left of the party? There's a few things going on. One is the sort of, there has been a sort of comedy of errors among the sort of establishment or the Democratic Party that has led to this moment in terms of Mandela Barnes drops out, Sarah Rodriguez, who was going to be, who was kind of the sort of consensus pick, but had an enormous kind of basically her finance director, did a whole bunch of stuff she shouldn't have. it's unclear like the extent of it, but she drops out.

So one is just like one of these kind of, you know, a kind of car crash that happens that you're sort of around for. The other thing is, yes, there is a desire for there is the primary base, the primary voting Democratic base is to the left of both the median voter and the median like Democratic politician in a lot of cases. Hong is taking advantage of that. The other thing that's really important here is no one in that primary has gone up with TV ads but for the Republican Super PAC that spent $5 million boosting home. This is part of the thing that people have not talked about, but is a big part of the story there. No one else is spending. The state party in Wisconsin has a lot of money, partly because of how good a job Ben Wickler has done through the years. They won't spend until the general.

They're not spending the primary. The primary candidates haven't spending. There has been $5 million about dollars of outside money spent to boost home. by Republican interests because they think she's, she's beatable. And the last thing I'll say here, what you see in Sanders not endorsing Hong and even Hassan Piker wrapping her on the knuckles for her Thanksgiving answer is that everyone actually understands that there's a penalty for ideological extremism. And that's good.

That's a sign of health. But people kind of pretend not to. It's like, we all get that there is kind of a bell curve. of political views, and you don't want to be too far from the center, and everyone gets that, and everyone loves a winner. No one wants to be associated with a loser. So this sort of ascendant movement doesn't want to feel like Hong disproves their theory if and when she loses because I don't think they think she's, yes, exactly.

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See what stands out and see if BetterHelp is right for you. Visit BetterHelp.com slash PSA. That's BetterHELP.com slash PSA. I bet I know where you sit on this. But like Rahm Emanuel, who's probably running from president in 2028, is very worried about the DSA, the Democratic Socialist of America, and writes in a Wall Street. journal op-ed this week, when the DSA attempts to turn safe democratic states and districts,

a darker shade of blue, Democratic candidates in swing districts are put at a distinct disadvantage. Should 2020-8ers just shut the fuck up about the DSA for right now? Like, what is the answer there? How would you like to see them grapple with this dynamic? Well, part of the thing I would say is that I think there's a, like, there is a kernel of truth to it, but also are you helping by putting more attention on it? That's what I'm saying. If the whole point is that.

And also, if you're wrong, you've alienated a crucial part of the base that you're going to actually need to try and win over. This is a real, and this is a real paradox, I think, of what we might call like this term that got used as popularism, right? Which is a broad term that Democrats had to sort of move back to the center, align themselves with the, with views that had majority support. And there's a certain weak version of that argument that's almost tautologically true. Like, like, yeah. When you run for office, you want to be nearish the center of the voters that you're appealing to. Now, the question of like, what is the center and what's the issue space and what's salient and how you get it as a whole complicated thing? It's harder than it looks.

But one of the things that we saw happen with the Labor Party in the UK, which tested this theory, they came into office and they're like, we're going to engage in a bunch of high salience, high profile fights with the left flank of our party, which meant we're going to put immigration and trans-issuers. issues in the paper all the time. There are worst issues. We know that from the polling. But we're going to pick a bunch of high-profile fights, so everyone's constantly talking about it all the time. And guess what? It didn't work.

No. Because why would you want to talk about the things, even if you're trying to get to the center on it, you end up raising the salient. So it's like, if Ron thinks that Josh Turrick is being hurt at the margin by Darius Shevallier winning her primary in Washington Heights, which is not a crazy idea. Why does writing about that in the Wall Street Journal help it? She already won. She won.

In the Wall Street Journal, no. At this point, how are you helping him by being like, boy, these people are really a problem and they're going to be a problem for the Josh Chirks of the world? Right. Just talk about something else. That's not helping Josh Turek. Right. And nor is it dissuading people in the DSA from mounting.

like making their case. Right, because the other thing is she won that election. Right. The voters are the voters. Now, can I argue against myself for a second, too? Sure. I mean, that's why we thought you would do both of these things. This is why we only need one booking today.

Because I do think there's a little bit of this. I want to say to my friends on the progressive left, let's all just concede the fundamental idea that a primary electorate can select a candidate who is poorly. optimized for a general election. Yes, which we've seen for literally many, many years now under Donald Trump. Of course. So it's like the idea of like, well, who's electable now? We just won the primary.

It's like, no, no, no, that's a different electorate. That doesn't mean anything. Like, and I, again, I think most people thinking more sophisticated fashion, clearly the folks in Michigan do, like, like we said earlier, I'll say it has a theory of the case. But I do think there's a little bit of this like, the way I think about it is in order to get to the NBA, a basketball player has to have a completely delusional sense of their own ability or they won't make it. That is an adaptive quality in the player, but the scouts can't have that

and the other people have to be clear-eyed. To win as a candidate, to be Zora and Mamdani, you have to have a kind of delusion of your own ability, but everyone else should be pretty clear-eyed that, like, yeah, there's a trade-off about where you are on the ideological spectrum, that that, and it is possible that you engineer a very motivated, disproportionately highly educated Democratic primary electorate that selects for candidates who are too ideologically extreme to win generals. This is just obviously a true thing. Right.

So just because you're winning the primary doesn't mean the TLDR is, primaries aren't generals. Yeah, Blake Master won the primary. You know what I mean? Exactly. I was going to say. Mark Robinson won the primary down North Carolina. Christine Emma Woodch O'Donnell.

I wonder, I'm always like galled by this and I kind of wonder where you sit because Donald Trump's making hay as are every single Republican in the party about the fact that Democratic Socialists are in the vanguard and they're all commies and they're going to be coming for your money and your children should they win in 2026 and 28. At the same time that Donald Trump is like nationalizing private enterprise and has these like federally run gas stations up and down that you're, He's practicing socialism. And like, I'm not going to, like, maybe it's time for the federal government to, like, gas subsidies. I mean, there's a case to be made for a lot of this intervention. And I'm not saying we should be nationalizing private enterprise. But should Democrats point out the sort of socialist tendencies of this administration as hypocrisy?

Or is it just too fraught to be aligning yourself in any way with the most questionable parts of the Trump agenda? Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, it's a really important intellectual. point, which is that I have never seen a president in my lifetime who was more antagonistic to free markets to the fundamental sort of like. He's like gas is too high. Chevron and Exxon are making too much profit. He does, he truly does not believe in free markets.

And he truly is illiberal on that sense in the old classical, like, sense of the word. Like, remember, Adam Smith's Wells of Nations is written as a polemic against what? Terrorists and mercantilism. Right. Like, Donald Trump is fundamentally authoritarian, illiberal, and believes in a personalist-controlled economy in which he makes all the choices and also believes, like, as a fund, as one of his core ideological commitments, bizarrely, along with like women and people of color inferior, is that like tariffs are how everything works.

Like, truly believes to his heart, like in his, like, the deepest part of him. So he's a mess ideologically. He is totally hostile to free markets. One of the things you've seen that's interesting in actually in the polling is that if you ask people about socialism and capitalism, socialism is gaining over capitalism. But people like the notion of free markets. And they also increasingly like the notion of free trade, including people who consider themselves the most sympathetic DSA, which is fascinating. I don't think the hypocrisy thing matters as much as just being like everything's expensive and he doesn't care about you. He's corrupt.

No, I'm serious. It's like there's no point in making an ideal thing. argument against this guy? I just mean as a rejoinder to like they're all commies and socialist. It's like, well, actually, you're the fucking socialist. But then that's sort of painting Donald Trump with a socialist brush, which is a turn off to every. It's like a boner killer for everybody.

That's right. He's something totally different. You know what I mean? Like he's in his own category. He's like a pre-adamsmith monarch. Okay. Well, then that settles that. No more mention of Donald Trump's socialist policies.

I do, we have to get to the thing that is actually like that not the, it's not the third rail. I don't know. It's like, it is. It is the thing that I think this week has taught us and maybe this season is teaching us, which is Israel. And I want to get it something that Ryan Broderick over at Garbage Day, right? It's the Democratic-26 Democratic Civil War is a rat's nest of different schisms. It's young versus old, labor versus capital, maybe.

Progressivism versus the status quo, populism versus elitism. Perhaps more than anything, though, it is a conflict between the Democrats that are willing to accept money from pro-Israel organizations and those who aren't. Is that fair, Chris? I think it's been one of the biggest fissures, and I do think that there's something about, there's a few things. One is that I think APEC has made, and they don't care what I think, an enormous tactical error. I know, I agree. Just in service of their goals, yes. In service of their goals.

And here's the argument I'm going to make. They have relied on a strategy of attempting to trick voters as opposed to making their case. So what they have done in all these cases, and it happened in Michigan, and the New York Times ran an analysis of this, is they have spent enormous amounts of money. Some of the most expensive primaries in history are all APEC primaries. Jamal Bowman, you know, before that, the Cory Bush one was very expensive. The Cory Bush, wellesley, one this time was, they spent $5 million in a relatively small, you know, house race. They spent 30 here. There's another 30 that we still don't know what it was because we don't have the disclosures yet.

So like, maybe it was that maybe not? And in all the cases, the vast majority of the ads they ran were not about Israel. They were attempts to paint the person that they were attacking as often insufficiently loyal to the Democratic Party. Yeah. That's not what they actually believe. And it's not the case they're trying to make to the public. I think it is both toxic for the discourse. and also self-defeating to spend tons of money in the attempt to essentially trick the voters.

I think it would have been better to spend the money being like, we think Israel's a good ally, what Hamas did was horrible. They're defending themselves or whatever you want to say. Right, right. Here's why Iron Dome is important. And in fact, having Iron Dome leads to less Israeli fatalities, which also does lead to better outcomes in the region. whatever argument we want to make, they're not making that argument.

And there is something insidious about the combination of all of this money where you're trying to trick the voters and then when people call the money out, you're like, that's out of line. That's anti-symic. It's like, there's this old expression I love which is like throwing rocks and hiding hands.

It is a lot of throwing rocks and hiding hands from me back at this point. And I sort of feel like, look, it's a free country and you've got a view. And that view is shared. There's a lot of Democrats that share that view. There's a lot of particularly Jewish Democrats in my life who share that view, who are, you know, defensive of the state of Israel and they think it's under siege and under threat and

they don't like the direction the Democratic Party is going on it. You have to make that argument and have the argument on its terms and not attempt to use the catastrophic Citizens United's decision to pour a ton of money into races, in the hopes of tricking voters into electing a person allied with you, but not on the terms of the thing you actually agree in. And I think that has been an absolutely poisonous, toxic. And it's not, I want to be clear, it's not just them. Crypto's been doing the same thing.

AI is doing the same thing. This idea that you're going to come in in primaries with this agenda and try to get voters to vote for your candidate, not by making an argument that crypto is good or AI shouldn't be regulated, but rather that like that person is not, didn't vote for Kamala Harris or whatever you think is going to get the primary voter, I just think it's a really toxic way of doing politics that's been incredibly destructive. It really pushes the debate off into completely different territory.

Well, and it also ends up, it has ended up connecting in the minds of people, the Israel law, the Israel interests, and big money. Yes. And big dark money, which is not a connection that you want to create. No, it's not a good connection for Israel. What you want to say is like, look, there's actually a lot of people in the Democratic Party who agree with us. Like, we're representing them. And again, that's fine.

Like, I have different views than APEC does on the conduct of the war in Gaza and a bunch of other stuff. But it's true that there's a lot of Democrats who agree with them, right? Totally. You've got to make the case. You've got to make the case. Yes, no one's making that case. And instead APEC is aligned with like nefarious outside spending and, you know, trickery effectively. And so I guess.

So the inversion of that is Abdul al-Sayyad, you know, to great effect, talked about all the APAC money that was flooding his race. They overwhelmingly supported Haley Stevens. A-PAC is now considering pouring millions of dollars into the general election race between Mike Rogers and Abdul al-Sayed. Do you think that for a general election campaigning against APEC's outside spending is a useful tool for Abdul-El-Syed? Or like, where is the benefit? Really interesting. Who gets the upper hand? I think it probably is actually.

And again, I want to express some sympathy with the critique that there is something Ugi about the like constant invocation of the dark. Yes. The manipulative dark Jewish money. Yeah, totally. There is a latent anti-Semitism or explicit. People getting uncomfortable with that, I don't think is crazy. The problem is that it is a fact of the matter. And the other thing is if you're going to have $60 million or $30 million dropped on your head,

the only thing that you could do is call it out. So it's like... Do you think it meaningfully, do you think El-Sai had's ability to use Apex's sort of weaponization against him is more useful to him in the general than the money that might. Mike Rogers could actually get from APEC? Well, I think because there's going to be an enormous amount of money dropped on his head in that race, that's going to be across the board. It's not like AAC will be a small fraction of it because it's going to be a ton of that Senate majority pack stuff. Like the, you know, I think calling out that is actually very useful.

Like, just as a general thing. And in the general, most of the money won't be, you know, by and large is going to be outside money from corporate interests that have all given money to don't. Trump or to Mitch McConnell's pack or whatever. And in that case, I think just taking the same line, which is like, these people want to, like, jack up your oil prices and they want to put data centers in your backyard and they want to close down your hospitals so they can get tax cuts. And they're spending $150, $200 million to beat me. And I think that's, you know, you use the same line there because, again, what else can you do other than, you know, he's probably going to be outspent from the outside in this race? Because Republicans are going to put, you know, a lot of money into that race. Well, it could be the rate.

I mean, that in Maine, God forbid, you are a television viewer in either one of those states in the coming months. Pod Save America is brought you by Blinds.com. There's a version of your home you haven't lived in yet where the light behaves, where the rooms feel finished, where you sleep until you decide to wake up. Blinds.com has spent 30 years making it easy to find the perfect fit. With over 25 million windows covered and 50,000 firestar reviews, you can feel confident you're in good hands. Whether you want to go full DIY, bring in license and vetted pros to handle the measure and install, or land somewhere in between you're always in control. They make it simple to choose the level of support that works best for you with flexibility every step of the way.

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and they're great. And right now, blinds.com is giving our listeners an exclusive $50 off when you spend $500 or more. Just use code Crooked at Checkout. out limited time offer rules and restrictions apply cblinds.com for details. I want to ask about the flip side of all this, which is let's talk about it, Hassan Piker. This is what Hassan Piker had to say after Abdul al-Said won Michigan and people began talking about what he needed to do next. Here's that clip.

Like everyone being like Abdul has a fuck ton of work to do mending bridges. Here's the fucking take nuke for you, okay? you are all unbelievably Islamophobic pieces of shit you literally called the dude a fucking terrorist for months on end and like called him a sexist misogynist terrorist bad candidate

doesn't fake doctor when he has like two fucking degrees and now you're gonna sit there and be like well you know you've really got to come to me now like what are you talking about do you want to fucking win or not lock the fuck in okay lock the fucking And I do worry that there are some out there who, in an effort to make sure that they, that this narrative that a progressive can win in a state like Michigan doesn't take root will literally either subtly or, you know, not so secretively endorse Mike Rogers. Okay. It is some deep paranoia that people, Democrats, so in, so threatened by the rise of Democratic socialists and, and hardcore progressives on the left wing.

would support Mike Rogers over Abdul al-Sayad. We can unpack that in a second, but just more broadly, like, what the fuck should happen here with Hassan Piker? Like, what should Democrats do? I mean, is this the case where it's like, don't talk about it? Should Abdul Al-Said continue to campaign with him? We're going to get to, like, his reach in a second. But just as a specific political actor, like, should other Democrats be talking about him?

I was on deadline White House with Nicole Wallace, and she wanted to ask Mallory McMorrow about Hassan Piker, and I was just like, this just is not good for anybody on, like, what should happen here, Chris? I don't really know. I mean, one level, like, I think there's a little irony in like every, the whole discourse being like the left needs of Joe Rogan and then like getting the closest thing to it and being like, not like that, not like that. No, no, no.

Not anyone who says incendiary things. It's like, do you ever watch Joe Rogan's show and says, he says crazy stuff all the time? Like, it's like, and I do think, I mean, the difference in this case, you know, the difference in this case. I think there's a difference between going on someone's show and campaigning with them hugely, right? So like, I think you can go on lots of people shows. I've been on a Bill Maher show. Bill Maher says all sorts of things. I know. I know. Not only do I disagree with these, some things I really like find. Oh, yeah. Pretty, pretty wrong. And more of, and more, more often with greater frequency. Yeah. So, but I'll, you know, again, it's a free, like, it's a free

country. So the big question is campaigning with. I don't think it makes a ton of sense in a general election, frankly, to campaign with a son biker. I think you also can't control what a 35-year-old streamer is going to say. I also think that he is learning the lesson that, like, with great power comes great responsibility. And like, no, seriously, I mean, it's one thing, it's one thing to be, like, look, this is a dude who streams like seven days a week for years. Do you know the amount of words he said? Like, you're going to say some stuff. And part of the, part of the genre of what he's doing is saying stuff. I'm reminded a lot of

Marcos Militza Sineka who was, who played a somewhat similar role a generation ago. Yeah. Daily Kos. And was, would say pretty like, you know,

provocative things and would curse and be like, F these people. And there was also an attempt to sort of tie him. I also sort of feel like, I don't know how much the Gilt by Association works in the era of Donald Trump? Like, the man had dinner with Nick Fuentes.

Yeah. Like, not even for any purpose other than, like, let's break bread. I just think, let's hang out. Let's hang. Let's, I want to hear what you were. What are you trying to get his can help on a campaign? What are you thinking about these days, Nick? I'm interested in your point of view, Nick.

So I do think there's a little bit of like the associational politics have, have lost a little bit of their sting. But the other thing is like if Hassan Piker wants to contribute to the success of the movement, like he's probably going to have to watch what he says a lot more. And like that that's not that fun for him. And I get that like he's been in a different lane. But one of the things that all of us, I think, with public platforms start to learn is that like your words have consequences. Yeah. And it doesn't mean that you like say things you don't believe.

It doesn't mean you don't say things you do believe, but it does mean that, like, how you select your words and the way that you communicate really does matter. And I think that's going to be true across the board. The other thing I'll just say on the substance of what he was saying was the Democratic Party's not dumb. They need him to win so they could have power. Like, they're all going to, they've all consolidated behind him. They're not so anti-DSA that they would literally seed control of the Senate. They want to control the United States Senate.

Believe me. Like, very badly. believe him they truly do want that um so so probably not has so the other thing i'll say too in the same way that i said it's like a little bit of buy the ticket take the ride where it's like apak spent that money and the cost of that is that you're going to get called out yeah like abdul al-sayad made a choice to campaign with hassan piker i think it probably helped in the in the primary and the cost of that is people are going to criticize that and you got to like that's buy the ticket to take the ride you and you got to come up with the way that you're going to talk about it. I thought that, I thought the two best

response to this was Debbie, did you see Debbie Dingell talking to Greta Van Sauster? Yes. Where she's just like, he's a way to reach a lot of young people who we have a hard time reaching and he looks good when he works out. This is the Debbie Dingle take and I was like, you know what? This is a person who is a conduit to reach people who are outside the system that I want to reach and that's, and that's important to me. And that doesn't mean that I agree with everything. He says, nor does me the end of the sentence I think are really gross and wrong. Right. You do not have to endorse, in turn, the values of every person that interviews you.

That's right. Or endorses you or even the works. You know what I mean? And I also thought that the AOC's response to the TMZ reporter, I can't believe I just said that sentence, who said the aOC's response to the TMZ reporter who is like, aren't you worried about like, it's not just socialist and there's going to be communists? And she's like, I'm not the belief police. People can believe whatever they want to believe. I believe what I believe. I'm going to try to do what I'm going to do. Like, and I do think that, like, that's another way of, of sort of threading the needle here. I think it's also just, I mean, I think what I'm hearing in your response is it's like about frankness. It's about honesty. It's about not apologizing, but also not glossing over the, the rougher parts. And don't get defensive. The other thing, though, too, is, and this is the thing Mondani is good about is like, you got a pivot to what you want the election to be about. Yeah. And right now there's like both the both the sort of mainstream media and the right wing media are like, this is an election about what Hassan Piker said about 9-11 seven years ago. By the way, can I just say this? Ron Johnson, the sitting senator from Wisconsin, is a fully avowed 9-11 truther.

And somehow this is like not a story. I'm going to do. I think I'm going to do it either day or soon because I got a whole thing about this. It's the craziest thing. He has gone to conferences. he has said basically he thinks building seven was a controlled demon like the full like jet fuel doesn't melt steel like all the stuff that you and i 20 years ago were hearing from like kooky people outside like anti-war rally like and i mean certainly legit like straight down the line

like and people have been run out of public life they have been hounded van jones had to leave his job in the white house because he signed something that was like very tangentially related to 9-11 truth about we need an investigation, yada, yada. And Ron Johnson's like sitting center just being like, yeah, we, I think probably, I don't know, but looks like it might have been an inside job. It's like, and, and they want to like have these crazy 9-11 discussions. Anyway, it just, I can't get over that. A good note, good note.

Just, I mean, as a reminder, the depravity and delusion on the right far outweighs literally anything. Ron Johnson's a 9-11 truth or someone talked to him about that. Like Mike Rogers was talking about this. I'm like, go call up. up Braun Johnson and get his takes on 9-11? Totally. What do you think about that?

Speaking of alternative facts, no, not alternative facts, but alternative ecos, we were talking about Hassan Piker largely because of his sphere of influence. And there is a real kind of gut check happening inside Democratic politics right now about what kind of media matters, what kind of messaging is resonant. Ryan Broder, who I quoted before from Garbage Day, is like lays out the two axes as he sees them, One is the institutional access, which includes cable news, podcasts hosted by former Obama and Biden Bros. So we are guilty as charged. The New York Times, Axios, Politico, the Washington Post, blah, blah, blah, the related substacks and X accounts with those folks.

And then new media, which is left to streamers like Hassar, YouTube essayists, he calls them, dark, woke podcasters, Ryan Grimmin and DropSite News, Blue Sky Users, short from reform video content from the DSA, random shit posters. You are an expert in the attention economy. Where do you see, like, if you're mapping out your 2028 presidential campaign or even your next three months in your midterm election campaign, like, who matters? Where is the, like, what is most relevant in terms of, you know, speaking to the voter? I do think one frustration that I had that I expressed in one of the chapters in The Sirens Call, my book about the attention economy that that had a chapter of politics and that I said a lot

when I was doing the book tour when it came out is the risk aversion of Democratic political class, consultant class around interviews had to go away. Like Haley Stevens, she never came and got her interview. Thank you very much. Well, she was a good example, right? She was a great example. Like repeated entreaties, begging, what can we make work? Nothing.

Nothing can ever work. Go talk to people. I think that is actually a big thing. You got to go talk to people. And I think actually that's, it actually connects to one of the things we're seeing in the Democratic primary electorate, which is that people want good talkers. Because they felt like they didn't get them. And like Joe Biden, who in his prime was a great, I mean, a truly. Fidel Castro level talker, right?

I mean, the man, the man could talk. Truly the gift of gab. That was not the case of the Joe Biden. That was, you know, in the White House. Basement, well, or Basement Joe, the campaigner. And like Kamala Harris is, I would say, a perfectly proficient communicators of politician, but she is not a particularly great one.

I would go one step further. I think she's remarkably risk-averse and that she wants very, very controlled environments. And that's not politics. That's just not politics. Very risk-averse and very wary in extemporaneous settings. And so I think there is a desire. Dave Weigel has made this point.

I think I even, I sort of thought of this, but he's kind of articulated of like, we want a really good talker. And it's like Barack Obama was great talker. Really good of talking. And again, talking is not. I talk for a living. So I rate it. I sort of both.

rate it highly and I also look for it because I you know literally this phrase good talkers I think that we use in our booking meetings in our booking in our APM show on MS now and it's like is good talker correlated with like Donald Trump I hate to say it in his own weird way is a good talker less so now but I mean I went to so many Trump rallies and that guy could just do a routine for an hour and a half like and loved it so does it mean that the person is like going to be good at the job No, unfortunately, those two things don't have a great correlation. But it's also the case that, and so the reason this all relates back to your question about where you go is, I think you've got to be willing to go everywhere. And I think you've got to get your reps in and you've got to be good at talking.

And I think you've got to be good at talking. I mean, this is one of the things that got to, you know, Vance, Vance goes everywhere. Yeah, he went everywhere. He does. He's getting his reps in. He liked, and he likes to mix it up with thoughts. He goes on the view. He goes, like, all of that, I think, is actually really important.

And again, the other thing about volume is, the more of it there is, the less people obsess over a single gaffe. Like, you just go do another interview. He was, like, remember when he said the dumb thing about, you know, cat ladies? Like, and that was, you know. He's still talking about the cat ladies in the cat ladies defense. And that hurt him, for sure. That hurt him. But also it kind of ended up.

being swallowed by the sheer volume. I mean, Trump is the sheer volume of shit that's coming out of his mouth. Well, true. But I also think that like that's kind of partly the way it works.

So I do think that I don't know like how you rank but the other thing I would say is I talked to someone the other day he said of an electorate that you're dealing with. The sort of operative rule of fun these days is about 50%

you can reach through TV and 50% are just like completely off. TV. And that to me is like the fundamental structural thing that people have to reckon with. And part of what I wrote about in my book is that in the kind of TV dominant era that sort of starts really in the 60s and sort of extends, I think, all the way through for like the next 40 or 50 years of American politics. It's like you raise money and the money is used to buy TV ads. And that is most of what a campaign is. Raising money, running the ads. And when you're down to only 50% of the electorate's being reached that, way. You still got to do that part. Like, we saw this, actually, I think, with the Stevens race. I mean, I think part of the reason those numbers, there's a bunch of reasons that her numbers in rural areas were not as bad as they should have been. Well, no, they were, they were higher than anticipated partly because that was the place that was getting TV. Yeah. Like, no, people were doing,

those are the people that are watching TV too. I mean, both. Both. You're not, you're not doing a lot of, there's not like a bunch of local press there. You're not doing a bunch of events there. And so it's like, there's huge swast of your electorate that like the way they're going to learn about this race is like they're watching TV and they're getting those ads. So you can't give up on that, but you got to have a theory of the case of the other 50%. I'm going to interpret what you're saying slightly differently because what I'm hearing is, and I would probably put it more like 60, 40, like 40% of the people are getting it on TV just because if you look at those numbers, which I'm, I'm sure you don't actually in order to survive your day. Like the demographic numbers are, it's just an increasingly

old audience. Yeah, yeah. Right. But that social media and shit posting and shit posters and those accounts are now equally as important as broadcast television. And that is actually a sea change from even like eight years ago or four years ago. And that it actually really does matter. And that doing more media is in some ways less impactful, but also is a little bit of

insurance policy against the mistakes that you're inevitably going to make. by doing long-form interviews, which is, I think, the real essential fear. It's not that I'm going to do an interview that doesn't matter. It's like, oh, I'm going to fucking, how do I fill an hour and a half with Alex Cooper without having to talk about whatever, Willie Brown? I don't fucking know. You know, some thing that's like uncomfortable for me. Yes.

Yeah. But also learning how to talk about uncomfortable things is kind of an important skill. Well, and if anybody's shown you, I mean, if there's one lesson for Democrats to take away from the Trump years, it's like, you can do some crazy shit. And as long as you are authentic about it, and I'm not saying anybody should try and model Donald Trump's fucking behavior. No, but it's like how many bad interviews that that guy give that were like these, I mean, the moment where, you know, Heilman and Alpern asking for his favorite passage in the Bible. All of them. Kim telling Chris Matthews that you got to punish the woman on abort.

I mean, you know, there's a million. And they don't even like, those aren't even at my fingertips in terms of his worst moments. Like, there's so many. No, I'm reaching back to the archives. Of course, like, I like people that weren't captured, like, which was the original. Or I don't really care about American's financial situations. That wasn't a podcast interview. But anyway, that's just him fucking talking.

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Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com slash crooked. That's it. There's no. catch. Up front payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for 12 months, plan required $15 per month equivalent taxes and fees extra initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. Includes up to 20 gigabyte hotspot capable device required availability. Speed and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com. All right, I have two more for you. One is, you know, we began this conversation talking about expectation setting and how if you're trying to understand where the sort of zeitgeist is at in terms of democratic politics, like maybe leave the polling out of it because polling storts expectations and therefore also

results. You know, Nate Silver, the great statistician, was talking about the polling that led up to primary day in Michigan that showed Abdul Al-Sayed with like a very, very healthy lead. He, of course, goes on to win by like a point. And I think everybody had flashbacks to the Anne Seltzer poll, which was off in 2024 by a whopping six. points and had showed Kamala Harris winning the state. Abdul is now saying he's going to beat Mike Rogers by seven points. His campaign has a history of releasing internal polling. All of this seems like highly suss.

Maybe something you don't want to do. If you're, you know, as someone who follows all this stuff closely, should everybody just shut the fuck up about polling? Should we stop looking at polling numbers entirely? Like, what do we do about polling? Well, I think that primary. I think primary polling is always hard, and particularly Michigan, where people don't register for a party. We've seen a bunch of these cases.

Both the Obama-Clinton one was a surprise, and then the Bernie Hillary one was a big surprise. So there's been a real history of specifically Michigan Democratic primary polling misses. So I think there's partly that. again, I think it's like the thing about polling is it's best in just the general aggregate as like a directional point. Is it though? I mean, like 16 points. Abdul was up by 17 point. It's not wasn't good for his support.

Like, just what is the utility of it? That's a lot off. Yeah. I mean, I think when, right, when something's off by that much, there's no utility. But I don't think that's usually the standard. miss, you know? I mean, like, even like if you look at what the, you know, what was the 2024 presidential, like a close race decided by a few points in either direction? Yeah, right. Fine. It was. Like, I mean, you know what I mean? Like, part of the problem is,

here's my general thing about polling. And this doesn't really respond to Michigan. This is more about broader stuff from presidential polling. In a country as polarized as ours, it, we want a level of specificity that it can't deliver. Because in, our country a point or two matters a ton in in front line swing races in in the state senate in in the in the statewide senate races a point or two is probably determinative polling's not going to be great at telling you right a point so like my general takeaway is that like the paxton tautor rico race right now is close in anyone's race my general takeaway of the polling that we've seen is that michigan's going to be close very close you know that main is going to be really close. Nothing more than that. So, so like, ignore the numbers,

take the vibe. Like, what's the generalized vibe of this? Yes. And like, yes. Now, again, if it's off by 13,

there's nothing you can do with it. But it is rare. That is a pretty rare polling this. Okay, fine. So whoever commissioned that poll does not need to leave their job like the poor and Seltzer.

Let me just say that. There were multiple internals they released, which I think was like a weird sciop that I think blew back and was really. Yeah, not a good. But there were also public independent polls, including Emerson, which is a highly rated pollster that had that double digits. And I still haven't seen the like full autopsy of what went wrong there. The Seltzer one is that she just completely modeled the elect. Here's a big problem too. Something that pollsters have been dealing with since

2016 is that the kinds of people who are highly involved and highly educated are the most likely to respond to polls and those people are also the most liberal. And this is a fact about the world that every pollster has been trying to model and methodologically get their way out of. But there's a fact about the world that wasn't true in the past. It was not true in the past that your likelihood to respond to a poll correlated with your ideology in any way. It is increasingly the case it is.

And so now you have to model your way out of that. And that leads to a lot of modeling assumptions. that introduce a lot of uncertainty. That was very judicious, that assessment, Chris. Now we're going to return to the man who sits before me in a gold chain and a pink tank top for this last one, which is we're sitting at this moment. I feel like so much of this season of Democratic politics has been defined by the questions around masculinity and power.

Right? There's Platner. Yep. There's Swalwell in California, gubernatorial race. obviously main Senate race. Max Miller is currently in a House race, what refuses to drop out despite like very serious allegations of abuse and otherwise. Representative Chuck Edwards is out with some ridiculous reporting about what he's been doing. We went to Brown University, which we're prone to bring up all the time.

And I think I sound like a Brown graduate when I start talking about the essence of sort of like the fall of the patriarchy, defining the kind of chaos in the political landscape. But I do think it has a lot to do with why we have. had Barack Obama and then Donald Trump and then Donald Trump again and this sort of crisis of how to be a man. And like Donald Trump has come up with one modality of masculinity, which is real fucking vile, if you ask me, but is intoxicating to both men and women, especially if they're white. And Democrats have had a really hard time figuring out like what is manhood look like coming from the left. And like you see these attempts at finding new models, whether it's Hassan Piker or,

I guess to some degree Gavin Newsom or Graham Platner. And like it hasn't really, they haven't found the shoe that fits, I don't think. Yeah. And I'm not saying that Gavin Newson's chances aren't significant. But like, do you have a theory about how the Democrats should begin to try and answer? Like, what is our, what is the rejoinder to like the vile masculinity of the right? Because that's going to be, I think, essential in figuring out who should lead the party or be part of the leadership of the party in the coming years. I don't have a good answer to that.

but it's something that I puzzle over a lot. I do think Abdullah-Sayed is kind of interesting because he is... He has been charged with being a misogynist, though, in talking the way that he did about Haley... Oh, he rolls his eyes in his pink tank top. Well... Well, but I think that there are women that don't agree with you, even on the left, that, like, the way he talked about Haley Stevens

was misogynistic and, you know, some of his attitudes... Listen, I'm just a vessel for... Yes, I mean, I think that charge... I guess what I would say is, I think it's probably useful to separate out charges that happen in the context of a heated primary. Yeah. With broader things about the person's like lifestyle. You know what I mean?

Sure. This is a different thing than like Platner, you know, like. Oh, yes. I'm just saying that like there's just different categories of what people say against each other when they're running against each other in a primary. There was a lot of allegations that Barack Obama was being sexist towards Hillary Clinton or Hillary Clinton. And I don't think it was true to Sarah Palin. I don't really think it was true to Harley Clinton. Some people maybe felt that it was.

But I think those exist in a different space than people that are testing to your character who have been with you outside the campaign. You know, the whole, like, he can bench 315, but he's also like a doctor. And he also seems like a person who, you know, I don't know you said the interview he did with his mother that I thought was really interesting, who was an engineer, came here from Egypt, was often the only woman in a room, sort of talking to her about what that felt like, which I thought was interesting. And also, I think, speaks to them recognizing they have some work to do on that front.

The way that I solve for this is the same way that I think about how to think about patriotism and how to talk about patriotism from a center-left progressive standpoint, which is like my version, I think Barack Obama is the best example of this. But I also felt this way about the World War II Museum in New Orleans, which is a great museum, if anyone ever goes, which is a sort of like progressive pluralistic patron. It isn't. Like, we are a great country because we are this place that is built out of all these different people from all these different experiences. And we've screwed it up a million different ways and a million times. But we have also kept trying to figure out how to make all these people together work.

And I think that the version of masculinity is to be a man is to be a person who is strong in a sort of inner and deep sense and who like and can bench 350. And looks out for people and does the right thing. and people can look towards and depend on. And to me, it's like in the same way that, like, you take this Venn diagram of some of the attributes that we learn in our civic culture about America with the attributes that we as progressives cherish. And you're like, that's the thing I'm going for.

I think you take the aspects of masculinity that I do think have a root in the culture, which is, like, strength, or leadership or dependability or, you know, looking out for people, even protecting people, that, like, that you cultivate those in a broader sense, of like looking out for people, looking out for people that are being bullied or being marginalized, like being the one that stands up for them.

That to me is like the vision of what, of where you kind of find the sweet spot to this answer. And I don't know how you communicate that, but that's the way my own conception of it is. I think one of the things that Democrats could really do is kind of wrap their arms around like someone who's loving, like, and has shown themselves capable of great love. whether for children or their mother or their spouse or their partner, because that's something that Trump doesn't have at all. And that is, I think, really aspirational, especially to see if we're talking about a guy, like men being comfortable showing the fact that they can be lovers. And I don't mean that in like a sexy way.

No, no. But it's a real important reminder that like that's what most people are looking for in life is to be loved and to feel loved and to belong. And Trump's found the inverse of that, like he's found unity through hate. And like love and affection is always in season. Sometimes it might come arrive at your doorstep and a hot pink tank top and a gold chain. Kate Shaw. Sometimes not.

You are one of my favorite people on the planet. We have known each other for 30 fucking years. I know. It's wild. And every conversation is better than the last. Oh, that's sweet. That was really fun. I'm so glad we did it. You're the best Chris Hayes.

Everybody watch Chris Hayes on MS Now. Always listen to his podcast. Why is this happening? And consume all books he writes because they're really good. Working on the next one. I'm very excited about this next one. My favorite project ever. Of course you are.

Oh, my Jesus. Okay, well, thank you for doing this in between writing drafts. And thanks to everybody for listening. Pods of America is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Ferris, Saffiris. with Reed Churlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroote, Ben Hethcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Carol Pellevieve, David Tolls, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single.

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