Tangle - Suspension of the rules. - Isaac, Kmele and Ari share their election hot takes, a focus group discussion on Abdul El-Sayed, and much more.

Episode Date: October 8, 2026

On today's episode of Suspension of the rules, Isaac, Ari and Kmele share their election hot takes that are happening in the next few of weeks. We talk about some friends of the show that have been making some questionable statements that maybe need to be reeled in a bit. Then a discussion about a very curious Abdul El-Sayed focus group. Last, but not least, a short and sweet grievance section. A good one!Our latest YouTube video.A year after President Donald Trump deployed the National Guard to Washington, D.C., Assistant Producer Aidan Gorman visits the capital to ask: Have these troops made our capital safer? The answer isn’t straightforward. You can check out our latest YouTube video here.Ad-free podcasts are here!Get 20% off your first year of ad-free episodes, exclusive interviews, and deep dives with Tangle’s podcast membership!Election season is here.As we gear up for election season, we need your support. Our team is now 13 people strong, and we’re preparing for the biggest few months of the year.You’re already supporting us as a Tangle member (thank you), but you can still drop a donation, follow us on Instagram, subscribe to our YouTube channel, or simply forward this email to friends and family and tell them to sign up.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast hosted by: Isaac Saul and audio engineered and edited by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Jon Lall and Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Audrey Moorehead, and Carina Pacheco. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Coming up, I make the guys share their election hot takes for what's coming in the next four weeks. We talk about some friends of the show who are kind of whaling out a little bit, maybe need to be reeled in, and then a very curious focus group in Michigan on Senator Abdul al-Sayed. It's going to be a great show. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Suspension of the Rules podcast. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, joined by TangleM. managing editor Ari Weitzman and our editor at large, Camille Foster. Gentlemen, we've got a jam-pack show today.

Probably not going to touch the story of the week, which I think is inarguably now, this Cornell 7 sexual assault case that we discussed at length last week. Except I will just say if you are apparent reading details of the Cornell 7 case to your four-year-old child on TikTok or Instagram. Please seek help. You're not doing well. Is that a thing? It's a big-time thing.

This is what happens when you miss the pre-production, Camille. Yeah, this is what happens. I think I'm glad I missed the pre-production. It's a dark, dark world out there. I don't tell anybody out of parent their kids. But I do. Don't do that. Don't do that.

Yeah, they don't need to know. Wow. Some people are too young. It's very weird. It's at the intersection. of like a virtue signal and then this just really odd delusion that they have control over some event that they really have no control. It's like an attempt to get some sort to rest some sort of control back by trying to influence your child in a way that's not going to work or I don't

know. It's really, it's dark man. It's weird stuff. I've been seeing a lot of stuff on social media, it's making me really uncomfortable. I understand the desire, though, I want to say. I mean, I think we're probably on the same page about not posting videos of yourself explaining about rape cases to your four-year-old onto TikTok for clout. But I understand the idea that this is the way I could theorize this thought process working that makes sense to me. There is a failure here of character in these people.

people aren't taught to like rape or assault so somewhere they want to arrive. So if I parent well, I can prevent that and I can start early and I can provide a model for other people to see so that they can do the same. That's the way I see this happening, though I don't think that you're going to be able to have a lasting impact on your four-year-old by describing something that happened in a state far away where it's people that might as well be fictional to the child. I think that's something that probably doesn't. I'm going rogue.

Sorry, production team. I'm burning the house down. Something really, really bad happened. What happened to our family? Too much. Nope. To you. Something really, really happened in another state a couple days ago.

There was a very sad thing. Nobody died? No, nobody died. What happened was that seven boys took a girl into a room. A bunch of boys took a girl into a room and they trapped her and they hurt her. for a long time. And there were 57 other boys that knew what was happening, and they did nothing.

They did nothing. They let it happen. It's not scary. They let seven of their friends hurt another girl. They sent a text to their friends. And they said, hey, we have a girl that's trapped. Do you want to come hurt her too? I actually can't watch the whole thing.

This is like a three-minute video. And there's like a lot of these. They're, they're, they're like, it is a, it is like a influencer thing. You know, on social media. Like, you need to talk to your children about the Cornell 7 boys. Ari, a moment ago you said it's, it's, you are unlikely to have a lasting impact on your child by talking to them about this. And I know what, how you meant it. But I think they may have a lasting impact on their children by talking to them about this.

you know what I'm reminded of. I can recall watching a video and maybe this is just a sort of modern a modern proclivity, but I can remember watching a video of parents talking to their children about the likelihood that the police might murder them in the event of a police interaction

on accounts of their race. And the children who were being talked to were certainly as young as like four and five, but up to 12 and 13. And what was more shocking to me about that was, you know, you had to drive to a studio. There was an entire production team there, and they're watching you have this conversation with your child.

And it's a montage of these children being shocked by this, taking it on board, essentially restating this now received truth back to their parents, and in many instances crying, like weeping, openly about the prospect that they might be murdered. And I'm thinking about that, not only because it involves young people, but because the facts that this, the things that this mother was just describing in that video, these are disputed facts. It isn't entirely clear what happened there, but it doesn't matter. What's really important is to bring them on board with this particular

set of ideas and apparently just terrify the hell out of them. I mean, I think, I think, I think the thing that like makes me the most enraged about it is it is just a clear ploy to get views and that too. It is like a social media that you are just trying to get likes. There's something that's like so performative and gross and then you're like involving your kid. Yeah, the other thing that's very in right now are these parenting influencers like people like this on Instagram and TikTok talking about the need

to tell your kids to ask for consent when they're like hugging other children on the playground, like three, four, five, six year old kids. I'm like, this is not, this is not the way to handle this. Like this, there is a lot of stuff that we got to fix about our culture to address the broad details to what happened to Cornell 7 stuff. But like, we don't need to tell a three-year-old kid that he needs to ask consent before like running up to his friend.

friend on the playground and giving them a hug. I just, I'm sorry, I don't think that is the solution. But it's a very weird timeline we're living in. Anyway, I threw us off track immediately. I couldn't help it. I'm sorry, it was just top of mind for me. I always got to resist the pile on, and I'm having a hard time. So maybe we move on and we can not have to try to convoying my way into defending it for five minutes.

If you want to see or listen to our coverage of some of the Cornell 7 stuff, We had a podcast come out on Wednesday morning with a take from our editor, Kina Pacheco, who I thought did a really nice job navigating a very, very, very ugly, difficult story. And of course, on last week's episode, we spent a whole segment talking about it. So I'll point you in that direction if you're interested for more commentary. But we have a mission today to start our show. And I have given the two of you a task a little bit of homework before we came into today. which is bring me your election hot takes.

We are now one month away from the November midterms. I'm not sure if you've heard, but it'll be an important election. They always are frequently in the last 10 or 15 years. Every election, both the midterms and presidential election, have been framed in existential terms. This one is no different. It is whether Democrats can rein in the authoritarian leadership of Donald Trump. and if you're listening to Donald Trump,

it's about whether you're going to allow Democrats to stop him from unleashing the most prosperous era in American history. Needless to say, you're all about to be inundated with a lot of campaign material, which is the topic of another video I have coming out this week on the scary, scary ads that they're all about to send to you.

But we're coming down on the wire now. The polls don't look very good for Republicans. were seeing competitive races and places that we did not think Democrats were going to be competitive, states like Iowa and Texas. And there's a little bit of a weird scramble happening on the Republican side. Some people are running away from Trump, some people are running toward Trump. These leaks coming out of campaigns like Ken Paxton's about, you know, worries that the Iran war is dragging him down and that he, you know, Trump and Trump's RNC,

speeches actually hurt him. And, you know, it's a very odd, peculiar run-up to the midterms that is not like anything I really remember recently. I think there's just a lot of people who don't know what side to get on. And so I'm very curious to hear what you guys have come up with having spent a little time thinking about what this election might look like. So I'm going to go last because I've got tons of takes. and I suspect one or two of them might get stolen

in the process of us going through these. But maybe I'll start with you, Ari. I'm interested to hear your 2026 election take to kick us off. Let me start with a question first, just so I can gauge the relative level of heat I have to bring here. Do either of you think that Democrats are not going to win both chambers in the midterms? Do you think Republicans are going to hold the Senate or the House? I think Republicans are going to hold the Senate.

What do you think, Camille? I'm inclined to think that Republicans might hold the Senate. Oh, hedger, hedgeer, okay. What a douchy way to answer that question, huh? Oh, anything could happen. No, I'm saying there's a possibility. Excuse me, it's my time. You're fired, Camille.

We'll see you later, man. I'll just, I'll say then that I have like an iceberg level of takes here that's like top level just below the surface and wave beneath the surface. Top level, I think Dems are going to control both houses, both chambers of Congress after the elections. Just beneath the surface, though, I will say that I don't think the path that they're going to take to get there is the mainstream one based on the polling averages, which would have you believe they're winning. or leaning to win 47 to 49 of the states, depending on the polls you're looking at. And then the most likely, based on polls and averages for them to take to get to the 50th is Texas. And then they pick up one of Ohio or Maine, and then they get to their majority. I think they probably somehow win Ohio or Maine, probably Ohio.

I think Maine's going to be a little harder for them. But I don't think they're going to win Texas. And I think the majority is going to look weird because I think it's going to include Nebraska. I think they're going to pick up an independent seat in that election and somehow have a very tenuous majority that can give them deliver on some things and not deliver on others. And that's going to make for some weird coalitions. And then beneath the surface, based on what I'm saying that I think those weird coalitions are going to be,

I think when we get to January, we're going to see a couple things happen. One, the state of polling is going to be basically, like we could be writing the obituary of it by the time we get to January 2027. I think we're going to see some states miss wildly, some that are kind of right. Pollsters are going to say the same thing that they said two years ago when I wrote a piece about how to read the polls, which is the polling was actually quite accurate. It was. We promise it was. The thing that we missed is we couldn't determine who's going to show up. We're good at polling the electorate. We're not good at determining who the electorate. We're not good at determining who the electorate. it is, which is fair, but also that's your job. So it's going to be a thing where some people are going to show up in some cases and some states where they're salience and others, there won't

in other states. And I expect Texas is going to stay red because it's a red state, whereas Michigan and Midwestern states where affordability is the main concern, they're going to win the Democrats will. And pollsters are going to have a hard time covering to that. We're probably going to have junk and fake polls like we did during special elections. And then when we get to January and that new Congress is going to get sworn in, I'm thinking we do not see a wave of impeachments. Just because of the way that these coalitions are going to work, I think with Federman,

so opposed to the Democrats and foreign policy, Hegseth might not be getting impeached, especially with the votes in the Senate. And that's the person who's kind of the most in the line of fire. That's not a pun that I meant to make. So sorry. But that's what I think. I think we're going to see strange.

coalitions, bad polls, Democrats with a majority in the Senate, but a strange majority then includes an independent or two. I just, I have to know, I mean, mapping this out. This is the exercise I've been doing thinking about who's going to win. Start with New Hampshire. I'm showing a map here for our podcast listeners, you know, of Republicans with control of 46. Let's call it, Republicans, if you give New Hampshire out of the gate to Democrats. Republicans with control of 46 Senate seats, Democrats with control of 45, which leaves a handful of seats up for grabs. Say Democrats take Michigan, Democrats take Ohio even with Sherrod Brown. North Carolina seems like they have locked up.

Georgia seems like they have locked up. You get to 49. Then you need Maine. Iowa, Kansas, Texas, Alaska, at least two of those to get to 51. I mean, maybe you get Maine, maybe you get Iowa. It feels really, Kansas, no way, in my opinion. I agree. Alaska, maybe, maybe. I mean, that's a really weird situation there with like the open rank choice voting, and there's a lot of Republican candidates in it.

The double Dan Sullivan's, yeah. Yeah, the double Dan Sullivan's. But it just gets really sticky for me. So I like, I mean, I like your take because I can see a world where, you know, maybe Democrats don't win in Ohio, but they do win an Iowa or something. And then it gets really weird. Like, it seems like... I really think people are overlooking this Nebraska race.

I think this is the most interesting one. one that's being just below the surface? Yeah. Yeah, say more, I guess. Maybe. Can you highlight it? Just bring it up so we can look at the candidates. It's not on CNN's map.

That's crazy. So running in Nebraska is an independent for the Democratic side. And he's running against an incumbent or a Republican, Senator Pete Brickens, who is not super... popular in the state right now. But Nebraska's reliably read. The Independent is named Dan Osborne. And I haven't been, I will say,

we're trying to recover all of these things with like a similar level of depth. So I haven't gone all the way in on Nebraska. But the level of depth that I've seen, I think the polls are about, I mean, they're not that far behind. They're not far behind what we're seeing. going to Nebraska to campaign.

They're clearly worried about it. And I think Dan Osborne is sending a good message. And it just, something about the race in Nebraska just feels a little different to me in a way that I'm having a hard time articulating, but we'll see if I'm wrong or not. I like it.

Isaac, you think that the trip to Nebraska is because they are scared, or is this not the president? I mean, they announced the plans to go visit all of these fairly, what were conventionally safe Red States. I mean, the trip to Texas was planned before Texas, Texas was in the kind of jeopardy that it is in now. I think he finds himself in a situation where they were not intending

for this to be him coming to save the day. It was supposed to be him going in to these safe districts, these safe states, doing these events, having these big wins later on and say, see, everywhere I went, we won. And now the story looks a little more complicated. I think Trump as, you know, a leader of the Republican Party has typically been a total workhorse and somebody who is just willing to answer the call. He loves the crowd. He loves campaigning. He loves doing the events. I think in the last couple of years, we've just seen him pick his spots more.

He enjoys being at Mar-a-Lago. You know, it's winter White House time. We're headed into the fall, cold season in D.C. I just don't think he's hitting the road unless he's really getting urged to do that. So, yeah, to me, him going spending time in Alabama and Nebraska is not a good sign for Republicans. And maybe he just wants to go bask in it and be with his supporters. And it's not like that'd be a novel thing. But I don't know.

a lot of stuff on his plate. It seems like an odd deployment if you feel good about those races or you're confident about them. And we know for sure that Republicans are not feeling good in places like North Carolina where they're pulling funds. So they pull the money, yeah. Yeah. So yeah, all right, Ari, good take. I like it. Camille, you're in the box. Let's hear it. Well, it's a good thing we suspended the rules because Ari's take was multi-part. And that's fine. There's multiple hot takes in there, and one of which tramples on one that I was thinking about, specifically related to polling. Last night I did hit with CNN, and we were talking to Scott Jennings and some other folks,

and the conservative take there was, I mean, obviously the polls are wrong. Everything is fine. We're going to be fine. They're not talking to the right people. I think that's an interesting take. I described that as a hot take. But I would go further and say the trend line in the polling is probably what we ought to pay attention to. are real questions about whether the right kind of people are getting asked, what's going on here.

But what is undeniable is that Republicans are in trouble across the boards in these polls, and the trend line has not been good. And it has ticked down exactly where you would anticipate it ticking down with respect to the conflict in Iran and various other pieces of bad news that the administration had to navigate. But there's a second dimension to this. And now I'm going to sort of steal a little bit from Ari and that I'm also thinking about money. and the fact that we are approaching yet another record-breaking campaign spending midterm. In fact, I just would say record-breaking election cycle, it seems they just kind of pile on top of each other.

And at the moment, Republicans have a pretty substantial advantage in the money-raising, and it seems that they're willing to deploy cash in lots and lots of places like Texas. What I find really interesting is the fact that there isn't more talk about campaign finance reform. these days. And perhaps it's because people recognize that money and politics, it's important, but it may not matter nearly as much as one suspects. I mean, it hasn't decided the most recent elections. Democrats have managed to outspend in the presidential races and still not win against Donald Trump. And here, I think Republicans are going to seriously dump money into a lot of races and end up losing quite embarrassingly in places where they ought to a one. And I don't know

that that's going to make anyone recalibrate. their perspective on this issue. But it certainly seems to have tamped down a lot of the concern around it. Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, I definitely think that among a lot of the people that I talk to, pollsters, people who are, you know, forecasting elections,

it seems to me like the general consensus is becoming money in politics makes a difference on the margins, but there is not really anything you can do to overcome just deeply unpopular politics or deeply on popular 10 years. So it's like Donald Trump could spend as much money

as spend as much of our money as he wants to on campaign heads that are running across national TV. Public service announcements. Yeah, excuse me, public service announcements about the non-war that we're in. And they will never convince 90-plus percent of Americans or whatever that things are cheap or that, you know, cost of living issues are being addressed.

Because it's like people just feel it. So, you know, it's an interesting point. I mean, I still do believe that getting money out of political campaigns or money out of politics, broadly speaking, I mean, it's one of those slogans that requires a lot of unpacking is like an issue that's worth discussing and dissecting and talking about. But I think with the landscape that we live in now, you know, that a TikToker can pull as many views in three hours as CNN gets in a week, it matters a lot less how much money you spend

on a 30 second ad spot during the Super Bowl than it used to, you know. I just think like they, you're swimming upstream against the truth in a lot of ways, which is a good thing, in my opinion. I mean, it's a good thing. But it definitely changes the way those calculations are made. All right. I got to jump in with mine to wrap us up. So I don't want to cheat.

I don't want this to feel like cheating, but my take is like a little bit forward-looking past this election, but I did that too. I did a lot. It's all right. I believe that this midterm election is going to be the thing

that propels AOC into 2028 presidential. Wow. I see the dots. Connect them. Wow. That's my election take for the midterms. I think, I think, I think that Democrats are going to win in Michigan. I think Abdul al-Assad's going to win.

I think they're going to win in Maine with Troy Jackson, despite the fact that Graham Platner got forced off the ballot. Troy Jackson is a pretty working class, progressive, populist, left-type guy. I think they are not going to control the Senate, so they won't get the majority, which is going to make the House of Representatives the battleground where Democrats control things and grind things to a halt,

which is this huge, massive opening for AOC to be the star of that show of fighting the Trump administration and standing up to the Trump administration. And like, Hakeem Jeffries is Hakeem Jeffries, but like he doesn't have the aura, right? He's not Nancy Pelosi.

He's not going to dominate the news as the face of the Trump opposition. And I think AOC is going to come out post-election empowered as a member of the Democratic-controlled chamber. She's going to have all the money. She's the best fundraiser. She'll be riding the wave of

Mamdani in New York City, Abdul al-Sayed in Michigan, Troy Jackson and Maine. There is going to be this kind of like Bernie-esque progressive left socialist type cohort that is winning.

And winning in now a place like Michigan. Like, pretty simple. Abdul al-Sayed wins in Michigan. AOC can win in Michigan. I think that is, I think that is a fair leap to make. And if AOC can win in Michigan,

she can win in Pennsylvania. And if she can win Michigan in Pennsylvania, she can win a presidential race. So to me, the stars are going to align for her in the wake of the 2026 election. And we will go, we will enter an environment

where it becomes less about, is she going to run for New York Senate and more about how her 2028 prospects have changed? And I think they're going to change in a really positive way for her. So that's my 26 midterm hot take, is that it is like an 85 mile per hour fastball over the play for AOC is what I think the results are going to look like, basically. Do you think that these midterms have more to do with the, serious level of interest in the Democratic Socialist movement in progressive politics,

or with a deep dissatisfaction with the President of the United States and the trajectory of the country more broadly. Because if it's the latter, it seems to me that it's probably less likely that your hot take is correct. I think it's the latter. And I think you're right that it's less likely, my take is correct in the sense that it's less likely AOC wins a 2028 presidential election. But I don't think that's going to be the lesson that the Democratic Party learns from this race. And it's definitely not going to be the lesson AOC learns from the race. I mean, I think she's going to look around and say, this is an opportunity. The Republican Party's vulnerable. Populist left politics are ascendant.

Adul al-Assad winning in Michigan was probably unthinkable 10 years ago. I mean, I don't think anybody would expect a candidate like him to go win in a swing state like that. And he seems like he's pretty well in control right now. So, I mean, he's like taunting Trump inviting him to come speak in Michigan. And, you know, I mean, it's like playing with his food a little bit now. Maybe they're all overconfident and over his elbow. and maybe he won't win, but my suspicion is he will. And yeah, I just think she will command the room a bit.

And she'll benefit from the fact that, like, she's not the radical anymore. She's not the far lefty anymore. There are people flanking her to the left. And I think that matters a great deal for her presidential prospects. Not only that, but I think the formula can even be simpler, which is imagine a world where Democrats win the midterms. If they gridlock the Senate, if they win the Senate or not, they have the House,

so they'll good luck Congress. In that situation, Trump's going to have a harder time dominating the messaging, not that he still won't, but that he'll have a harder time, which means there'll be a messaging gap for Democrats to fill, and who is the Democrats best messenger? And that's AOC. I think she's the best communicator at large, especially, especially if Democrats win the Senate, they're going to be looking around saying,

we've been running on anti-Trump initiatives. So even under your read, Camille, that Democrats, if they do win, they do so on a wave of anti-Trump sentiment, even if that happens, I think that supports the idea of an AOC as a Democratic frontrunner 2008. Because it means we've gotten here on anti-Trump messaging. We just won both chambers. What is our message now to the electorate for the next two years, now that we've made Trump a lame doc for two years? We need to find what we're going to say. AOC's been saying affordability already.

she's not as far left as many of the candidates that are going to win, like Isaac said, and she's really good at talking these working class bona fide values. And I think that's something that's going to capitalize on to get her all the way through the primaries if she does choose to run. So I see it. I like it. All right. Hot take segments on the 2026 election.

I appreciate you guys thinking on this one. We're going to take a quick break when we come back, Friends of the Tangle podcast while and out. That's the segment. It should be interesting. We'll be right back after this quick break. All right. Welcome back to Suspension of the Rules.

It's been an interesting week for Friends of the Show, Suspension of the Rules, Friends of the Tangle, the Tangle family of Camille's. I have never gotten more emails in like a seven-day span. about people I have interviewed or sort of hosted in this space with demands for me to speak on their behalf.

And understandably so, just a brief roundup. Anna Casparian, who joined us in Irvine, California for a tango live event. I have a lengthy one-on-one interview with her. Consider a friend of the show, nice gal, smart, adds a ton to the political punditry space, in my opinion. I know some folks here might disagree. Ari Frank Anna

Anna did a false flag thing on the fly Dubai Israel story The plane hijacking Didn't love that I will confess

openly I emailed her sent her a note tried to change her mind asked her to rein it in maybe a little

bit if she would consider my feedback haven't heard back Michael Tracy also have hosted him on the show interviewed him we had him on to talk about the Epstein stuff.

He's been like a big skeptic of a lot of the kind of, he calls it like mania around sexual assault rape allegations, both involving Epstein. He shared the identity of the Jane Doe in the Cornell 7 case. He actually, I think, tweeted out her name. I missed it. I just saw him admitting to doing it and then deleting it and then said basically that he wished no harm upon her.

I tweeted at him, publicly saying, dude, like, what the fuck, basically? This is not good stuff. Why are you doing this? He had sort of had his family. He was getting harassed.

His family was getting harassed. And I said to him, like, the thing you are experiencing right now is the reason why people like her try and say anonymous because, like, the internet is an ugly place and you basically fed her to the wolves and then said you didn't intend any harm to her,

you know, whatever. He retweeted, me replying to him and typed up some lengthy defense and then I took it to DMs with him and I've not heard back from my DM to him having her back from Anna either unfortunately and then

Megan Kelly this week I'd call her a friend of the show by proxy of Camille who goes on her podcast a lot and I actually you know I have spoken to her producer many times

him and I follow each other on X We DM, we've debated a few issues here and there. I was once invited on the show briefly, and then nothing really came of it. Megan Kelly this week on the Cornell 7, Jane Doe. No one will even consider the possibility that this woman made a decision

to get it on with four men total, not seven, and enjoyed it because I'm just going to be honest, she's not the most attractive gal. She's extremely beefy in her arms and her legs. She has a whole video online talking about her cancals, and she possibly enjoyed being admired. This is how women make these mistakes. Admired wanted some women even foolishly loved by these guys at Cornell.

But this is probably a first for her. She's probably thrilled to be so admired because she clearly didn't grow up the incredibly beautiful one. Not great stuff. This is like a come get your friend whose man is this moment for Tangle this week. And yeah, I have heard your emails. I've received your inquiries. I've seen your comments about, you know, how do we feel?

And I thought it was worth talking about and broaching with you guys. How do we feel about this? I mean, my general posture and position on this stuff is like interviewing somebody platforming, I hate that word, you know, Michael Tracy, Megan Kelly, Anna Casparing, these people have bigger followings than I do. They are shows are more listened to. Their stuff's more red. They have more followers on Twitter.

or whatever, they are, or at least as big as us. Like, I don't, I think it's important to engage people like this who are clearly shaping public opinion, even if there are narrow issues where I really strongly disagree with them. You know, like Michael Tracy and I share some politics and I really don't like some of the stuff he does. Megan Kelly and I share some politics, but I really don't like some of the stuff she does.

Same with Anna Casparian. So should I just never talk to these people? how do I, what are we supposed to do? Do I have to apologize on their behalf? I don't think so. I didn't make Michael Tracy the person that he is. I don't know why he's on this crusade constantly against female accusers and cases like this. I think there's a chance that some of that stuff is rooted in like a genuine kind of altruistic view that a lot of men are being wrongfully accused of X, Y, or Z.

I think there's also a good chance that there's like some really dark personal stuff there. that makes him, like, violently skeptical of any woman who says that she was sexually assaulted or raped. Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. But, like, are we responsible for that? I don't know. And, like, some of this stuff is really pointed. And I've been thinking about this week.

And so I thought, we should just talk about this on the show. Because I've gotten a lot of emails, you know, on Anna Casperian and Michael especially, just stuff like, do you regret having them on? How do you feel? you know, don't you feel responsible for platforming these people, like these anti-Semites or these rape deniers or whatever. And I'm like, my honest answer is I don't feel responsible for what they're doing now. I think I have to talk to people. I think I should probably be talking to people that are even more fringe or, you know,

like offensive in some ways because they're the people who are like outside of even this group other people that really need dialogue. But I'm curious to hear from you guys, what you think. I'm going to make a really narrow point here because I'm sure Camilla has more to say about this. I think when it comes to the value of having somebody like Michael Tracy on, just to use him as an example for anyone who says something that's offensive that the broad, like over 60% of our readership will disagree with,

usually the percentage is higher. the value of having him on is if there's something that's like the Cornell case, something where somebody's coming forward and making an accusation of assault or rape. The value for me is I want to hear the best argument against that so I can gauge for myself how valid I think one of the stories or any of the sides of the stories are here. I can pretty reliably anticipate what Michael Tracy's bias and argument is going to be. He's going to try to examine the evidence with a scrutinous eye,

and he's going to try to say, maybe things aren't as they appear and give reasons to doubt accusations that are being made. And then if I'm looking at the whole board, I can say if that's sort of representative of the best argument, it's either convincing or not. And it's really good to be able to have that piece so you can get all of the information.

And the reason why we have people like this on is so we can get the whole board, and get a sense of all of the information, because if you're somebody who disagrees with Microtracy all the time, there's no value to you to hear three other people agreeing with the thought you already have. The value is you see one person kind of agreeing with you, another giving an angle that's a little scant than somebody who you can sharpen that argument against. And maybe there'll be holes in it.

And maybe you're going to be wrong and you have to adapt and adjust. That's usually the case. And then maybe you're going to find the argument that you believed already was right because this counter isn't as convincing. So I think we have these people on so they can challenge us. And when they're challenging us, that's them doing the thing we want them to do. There's so many dimensions to this.

I mean, in the first instance, if I interview someone on Monday, and by Friday, they're saying something unrelated to what we discussed on Monday that is beyond the pale, that I reject completely and disagree with, the idea that I am. somehow responsible for what they've said on Friday, that I'm culpable for it, that I need to explain it,

that I need to explain why I spoke to them on Monday. It's somewhat absurd. And I find that dimension of the kind of outrage that often accompanies inviting certain people on your podcasts or into your room, quote-unquote, platforming them. I find this just completely indefensible and very difficult to wrap my head around. I think there's something dangerous about adopting that kind of perspective.

I think it walls off our minds and our horizons and makes it more difficult for us to understand one another. It encourages this kind of bad faith attribution of motives. And I don't want to participate in that at all. But building off of what Ari said a moment ago and what you said as well, Isaac, these are prominent people in the political culture, in our cultural milieu, to speak about the mainstream, I think at this point, is almost, it's difficult to understand what that even is.

Are we talking about CNN? Are we talking about MSNBC? Or we're talking about the New York Times? The reality is that there are so many different points out there in the media landscape where people have the attention of hundreds of thousands of people. They're listening to their YouTube, they're watching their YouTube shows,

they're reading their newsletters, and it would be irresponsible for a publication like Tangle not to try and understand what is happening in those various places, not to try and understand the perspective of the audiences that are following them. And I think you're right, Isaac. I think the obligation that we have here is to try and understand as broad kind of cross-section of the relevant political landscape as we possibly can.

And that does mean, interacting with people who are doing looks maxing on occasion. And it does mean talking to Nick Fuentes, and it does mean talking to people who represent the kind of bleeding edge of the Democratic Socialist movement, who may indeed have very serious sympathies with some more sinister characters. All of those things are part of our politics. And I think it would be naive.

and frankly pretty dangerous to ignore those things or to presume that anyone who seeks to try and understand is somehow willing to sort of promote, is promoting. Seeking to understand is not promoting. Seeking to understand is a first step to perhaps addressing what might be a kind of metastasizing awfulness

that's growing in our politics that needs to be meaningfully addressed. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I think something that occurred to me as this unfolded, you know, especially with Michael and Anna, because I don't have quite the connection to MK that you do, Camille, having never really met her or gone on her show or whatever. You know, I don't have like a direct line to her. But I was actually grateful that I saw what Michael was doing. I saw what Anna was doing. and I was able to respond to an email thread

that I had with Anna. That was her thanking me for having her at the Irvine event in California and how much fun she had and how amazing the taggle the community was. Being able to press reply on that email and write to her and say, I'm sorry that I haven't messaged you about all the things you say on a daily basis. I agree with and I'm writing now when I'm upset about something you did, but I have to say something here. like this is this stuff's kind of crazy um i'm grateful that i tweet at michael who's getting bombard i mean

he's getting bombarded right now and i'm somebody that he feels like it's necessary to reply to because we follow each other we have a relationship he's been on the show you know it's so i'm i'm happy about that part that that there's like the line of communications there um but i you know if i were to steal man the argument against myself, or us, I should say. You know, we had Michael Tracy on in the context of him being really skeptical of all these accusers who came out against Epstein and saying that the whole thing was kind of this overblown mania and whatever. And the thing he's doing now is directly tied to that. It's sort of like undermining and doxing an accuser who's saying that she was raped or sexually

assaulted by a bunch of men. He's doing the exact same thing that we brought him on the show to kind of do or talk about, you know, Anna Casparian, the central allegation against her is that she's an anti-Semite. That is the most critical thing people say about her, that like her views against Israel have regularly veered into anti-Semitism. Suggesting or claiming that an attempted terrorist attack against a plane full of Israelis was some plot carried out by Israel. maybe not explicitly anti-Semitic. We'll get into this in our next segment, I guess. But it is a version of anti-Semitism for sure. The thing that she's doing now is like a version of the kind of stuff she was criticized for

before we interviewed her, invited her on to be a guest. So I get why it's like they're just the same people that you brought on and talked to before. But yeah, I have a really hard time moving off the position. that I am not the person who gets to decide what views are in and out of bounds. In my job here at Tangle, we are leaning into ideological diversity, and these are like hugely popular political commentators. And if I disagree with their views, I should engage them on that. I have opportunities to do that now because I've created a space where I'm saying,

like, you're welcome here to spouse and share your views. and the cards will fall where they fall with our audience or whoever else. And yeah, it's just really hard for me to let go of that that's a good thing, you know? And isn't it fair to say that someone like Michael, someone like like, like, um, uh, uh,

uh, like someone like Michael, someone like Anna. Um, like someone like Anna. That the things that they, the thing that they do, like you, you're just describing Michael as kind of doing the same. thing with Epstein as he's doing with the current case with Cornell. The thing that he's doing, though, I would characterize it as being willing to say an unpopular thing about a delicate situation where there might be plenty of people who agree with

him, but who are unwilling to say so publicly because of the delicacy. And the reality is that once you develop a reputation for being that sort of person, and if it is factual that this sort of dynamic exists, there are going to be plenty of circumstances that you'll be able to essentially raise that same sort of, make those same sort of observations in. And lots of people who are looking to you to offer those sorts of observations. And the reality is that Ebe can be right and have a decent hit rate making those kinds of observations in that context.

I'm inclined to agree with him on the Epstein thing. I think there are serious questions about what took place in the Cornell circumstance. In fact, I think it's the sort of situation where I'm not confident we will ever really know what transpired there. But is, you know, I think all that's right. I would say

the thing about the way he's saying the delicate thing that people are maybe scared to say is he does seem to relish it a bit. I mean, he's enjoying himself in a way that I think, at least on the Cornell 7 stuff,

that I'm like a little bit, is making me feel, little bit icky. And I really strongly disagreed with the decision to name the woman. I actually agree with the fundamental premise that he was trying to put forward, interesting enough. I mean, to your point, that it's unfair that the boys, the men have been identified and the girl, the woman has not. There is like an imbalance there in the justiceism. I got in a huge argument my wife about this who was, you know, public defender, defense attorney. You know, I'm like, I don't understand why we have a system where she can remain a Jane Doan level accusations against

these people and that their names became public. And like, there's a power in making that accusation that like it doesn't sit quite right with me. And how are we seen abused? It doesn't work that way in other countries too for what it's worth. There's a lot more privacy rules and different democracies. And in this case, I guess it's interesting to say the Cornell student newspaper are the ones that unmasked the quote-unquote Cornell 7. They were available in judicial system that did it. In court documents, but they certainly publicized it, yeah. It's a very, it seems, something about it feels icky, and I

agree with Michael about that, but I, but I'm like, the reason that it feels like that the men were identified is the same reason why you shouldn't identify the woman. It's like, it is not, it's not good for anything to add additional public scrutiny to these people. But yeah, he did it anyway. All right, all right, any, any closing thoughts for us before we move on here? say that I think I disagree with you a bit on whether or not we know enough about the salient aspects of the Cornell case to come to some opinions about some of the more salient aspects of it. The group messages are what I have in mind here. I don't want to open that door completely,

but I will say that I think you probably get willing to say things that are over the line or borderline when you recognize you have a shtick or you fill a niche and then you want to try to dial that niche up to 11. It affects us when we do some things about trying to hear, like trying to find a nuanced middle path. Like it is a bias that I know Isaac and I and our editorial discussions have discussed a lot when we're writing takes or opinions or editing them is are we just finding the third path because it's the third path and we're splitting a difference. It's a bias we have to resist constantly. Everybody has their niche in the in the news media, if you're not like one of the major players.

And if you aren't careful, you can find that niche that you're filling, urging you to say some more extreme things because your audience is compelling you to do it and you have a myopic understanding of the world. But I'll say, based on the way our model works and I'll reiterate, it's good for us to have those voices on because it gives us a fuller understanding of what that world is. Well, Anna Kasparian, I think, you know, pretty decidedly on the left, Michael Tracy, no idea what his politics are anymore. Megan Kelly on the right.

At least we have some ideological diversity here. Come get your man's. Please, Tangle, universe. My message, all three of you is, fuck chill, please. I'm tired of getting emails about it. So everybody stop doing this horrible stuff. All right, we're going to take one last break.

And when we come back, we're going to talk about an Abdul Al-Sayed focus group and open up a larger can of worms right after that. We'll be right back. We'll be right back after this quick break. All right, welcome back to suspension of the rules. We've got one last story we want to tackle today, which is this focus group with some Michigan voters on the topic of Abdul al-Said

and also just generally what's going to happen in this upcoming election. I'm just going to play this segment for our audience, and then we'll talk a little bit about it. Choosing between two fundamental principles of yourself, and you've got to pick one. You can't not vote. You got to pick one. Which one to you pick?

Who's ox is bored, I guess the best way it's put. If Al-Sai did not have the Israel, I'm sorry. I have a transgender daughter who is 30, and I'm Jewish, and Israel is incredibly important to me, but a vote from Mike Rogers is a vote for my kid being oppressed. Correct. And her rights being taken away. It's like Sophie's choice.

But honestly, I love some of the things he's talked about. I think it's a little idealistic and a little extreme, and I'm a little concerned. But I, you know, my big block is I just comes down to this whole thing with Israel. And I do worry about everything. I have daughters. I cannot do that. On one hand, I'm like, okay, well, the choice is clear. But then all of a sudden it's like, I can't vote for Abdul because once again, he's going against something that's innately mean.

The way I feel today, I just won't pick either. I just, I mean, I'll go and vote because I think it's so important. You're committed Democrats. All of you. You want to vote for the Democratic candidate, but you just can't. They're tie in our hands. What could he, yes, and like what could he do, if anything, to get you over the edge? But it doesn't sound like there's really anything.

The damage has already been done. I would love for him to make a definitive statement. Like, just say. I would like everyone to know I support Israel. You know, I support the Jewish people. You know, their right to exist without hatred. Right. Do you believe it?

Would you believe that? I don't know. How could we? Do you think that this could be a break for you and your support with the Democratic Party? It would be if the Republican Party wasn't where it is right now. Right. I think this election, if it's not far away from the ballot, you'd probably have the highest percentage of straight-ticket Democratic votes in this state. Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. I couldn't wait. The Democrats are just at the, they're propping at the, at the gums to vote anything anti-Trump. My daughter goes to University of Detroit Mercy. She's in her second year of law school, and she has to hide being Jewish. And it's a hard thing to say when October 7th came, horrible for her, lots of tears. I may go to Mike Rogers. Sorry, guys.

Just interestingly, I'll throw this out there. This is a 30-second clip. This is from a focus group of Michigan Trump voters, which came out shortly after this clip, strikes me as an interesting balance to it. And who has decided who they're going to put for in the Senate race? One person puts their hand up here. How many of you are going to?

to vote for my progress. Five voters. So how many of you are going to vote? Five Trump voters saying that they're going to vote for Abdul Al-Said in Michigan on the other second. Some interesting times we're living in. Maybe some, to your point, are some bizarre and unexpected alignments coming up in this election. But yeah, I want to talk a little bit about the first clip.

I mean, it's really interesting. You know, I'm obviously watching that clip. through the lens of being an American Jew and a Zionist who's obviously been wrestling a lot with my own views of Israel over the last few years. But I have like a, I frankly have a hard time sort of empathizing with that, some of the stuff that those voters are talking about.

I mean, I, Abdul al-Said, Zoroam Dhani, these kinds of characters there are things about their policies that I don't like or that like scare me off or whatever. But to the degree that they're, you know, they represent a legitimate, tangible threat to something like the state of Israel, I have a harder time buying or something like Jews. I have a harder time buying.

And I can't imagine if I were a democratic voter either sitting this election out with this administration in place in Michigan or punching about for Mike Rogers singularly over an issue like Israel anti-Semitism. It's, I mean, I don't know because I'm not, you know, at this point I'm an independent voter, but I, yeah, it is a, it's a remarkable clip. And it seems like Al-Sahed has some real work to do, I guess, going forward. So, I don't know, Ari thoughts. Yeah, there's something.

There's something. And I'm having a hard time really getting in it to focus. I see something kind of blurry, and the more that I try to get my eyes to focus on it, I'm starting to see a little bit of a shape. I'm going to start by comparing this to the moment in like 2017 when the alt-right was ascended, and we saw people in Charlottesville marching with explicit Nazi propaganda, and people were sharing outright replacement theory level anti-Semitism. online and we had shootings in the U.S., the synagogue shooting, which claimed the most lives of any

shooting against American Jews in history. And this is a very, very different moment. I don't see explicit threats from the left when I look at the way that I'm thinking, like candidates like Zora and Mamdani, sorry, he's the mayor, so politicians like Mamdani and Abdulaziyahed, I do not see. anti-Semites. And I do think there's a little bit of like Islamophobia at play when you see somebody with their name and say, I'm worried about anti-Semitism. I think that's out there. But I also have this antenna that's going off that's telling me something's happening a bit on the left. And it tripped for me when we were covering the Israeli plane attack story in the news recently. Our colleague and friend

Will Kayback and Isaac Wood editors on our team put together research for the summaries that we're going to put from across the spectrum left right, what have you, when we cover any news I entangle. And the summaries that they found we had, we're featuring Middle Eastern writers that day. So we had about 10, 15 from the Middle Eastern writers, about 15 from the right, and they found two editorials from the left. And that was something that I was like, I'm going to, I'm going to remember this because the silence about this needed to be explained in some way. The explanation that I come up with, and this is my little theory here about the thing that I think these voters are picking up on, it's not necessarily about the candidates themselves, but it's about the portion

of the electorate that they're speaking to and trying to keep, which is somewhat permissive about rhetoric that is threatening to Jews. And this is my argument and take for it. And my attempt to try to bring this in a focus. Step one, it's a very left-leaning liberal worldview to say, if there is a conflict between the powerful and the less powerful, you support the less powerful. Just in general, that's a principle. It's a good principle. It's not always the best principle. We can see that with Hamas, which is a terrorist organization, that governs Gaza, and they do so very poorly. And they, I think, are the biggest enemy, one of the, certainly one of the largest enemies of the Palestinian people in the way that they

represent Ghazans, but they get conflated, they're the less powerful. So people on the left tend to not argue about them or oppose them as strongly as they oppose Israel because they have more power. It's part one of the theory. Part two

is I think there's conflations that happen between Hamas and Palestine, but also between American Jews and Zionists or the Israeli movement. And I think when those things happen, part three happens, which is the left sees any concern about anti-Semitism as a Zionist dog whistle. I've actually seen that online several times of saying take Mbemdani's his initiative against anti-Semitism

that he's announced in New York. His supporters are upset by that, some of them, not all of them, because they see it as bending to the Zionist worldview. I can also say I've coached college Ultimate Frisbee for many years. And in the last several years, I've had parents of Jewish kids that have talked about how scared they are about the scenes on campus, which some of it's real, some of it's not, but that fear is present. It hasn't been countered to their satisfaction. And I can even say one of the kids that I coach, his sister had to finish school remotely because she felt so unsafe with the anti-Semitism that was latent at her campus. These are things that are real that affect people, and I don't think the left does a good enough job to talk about them.

So the things that these voters are picking up on, I think is going to be present through and past this election. And I'm still not 100% sure that I see anything present in these candidates that makes me uncomfortable with them. But I understand what's happening to a degree, though the shape still kind of feels a little fuzzy to me. I don't know. I have some confusion. I have some clarity, but mostly I have a little bit of an antenna blinking. Yeah, I mean, first of all, I'm just filing for later. Ari is a silence is violence subscriber. Sir.

Sir. Got feathers in my cap. I'm for silence as consent. Jesus. Oh, yeah. There's an Usher's T-shirt. It's on Usher's T-shirt. Yeah.

Usher is great. I think Usher might be out. Yeah. Thank you for taking the heat off me in this moment, Camer. No, I, it's interesting. I mean, I will say anecdotally, my experience has been, I have encountered an experience much more anti-Semitism since October 7 than I ever experienced before it.

Most of that has just been online, right? I can think of a few instances. I imagine, like, anonymous posts, that sort of thing. It's kind of the way the alt-right started to before it wasn't. Sure, yeah. And sometimes, like, DMs, you know, or emails. or whatever. Some of it has been in actual social situations

where it's just sort of, you know, there's just kind of this, like a punchline or whatever that's just like the fucking Jews, you know? And that kind of stuff just comes up where like people really broad brushing, especially in New York City, Orthodox Jews and like the Hasidic-Radi community and like what a cancer they are.

and da-da-da-da-da. Like, I've heard some of that stuff in ways where I'm like, oh, whoa, you feel like super comfortable saying that, which is not great. So I get that. And it is, it's a really hard, I've personally gone back and forth a ton

on this question of, you know, when anti-Semitism fears into anti-Zionism. Because if you define Zionism as Jews have a rel, a right to their own state, which I think is basically the textbook definition, which is why I still call myself a Zionist despite writing a lot about,

despite my very harsh criticism of the Zionist movement as like a political movement, it's like I believe that Israel should exist. I don't love the form it exists in today, but I think Jews have a right to their own state. You know, then you believe in Jewish self-determination. And if you're anti-Zionist, then like you're kind of by proxy,

anti-Jewish self-determination. And if you don't think a ethnic religious group should be able to have self-determination, then like it seems like you might have something against that ethnic or religious group. I think that's like a fairly good argument. The really big complicating factor is just there are a lot of Jews who are anti-Zionists

and there are a lot of super religious Jews who think that, you know, we can't take the land of Israel back via force. And there's all this nuance and rich history there. And I think there's like a really good argument

from a lot of Jews who look at our experiences of people being persecuted for millennia and say we should never allow more persecution of this kind to be put onto other people in the name of our own safety or security. And all of that makes them really

antagonistic towards Israel as a state. A lot of those arguments are really resonant for me. So, yeah, I'm increasingly unsure about where to draw the line. But I will say, to your point, Ari, I agree with these voters that anti-Semitism is worse now than at any other point I've experienced in my life. I think it's borne out by a lot of data, which is often tough because it's like self-reported. But the best I can do is just go off some of my.

anecdotal experience as a Jew living out here in the world that it's like it feels really different to me than it did 10 years ago. And that part I definitely don't love. I mean, it's, and it's one of the things that I like worried about with what happened in Gaza, what's happening in Gaza and the West Bank. And Israel's actions is like, Israel becoming a pariah is upstream of Jews becoming a pariah, and that scares me. And that, you know, I don't want that to sound like victim blaming, but it is something that, you know, I think is, there's a pretty one-to-one relationship there. There's a lot of attention on Jews and Israel right now because of the conduct of the Israeli government,

and that's kind of unavoidable. Yeah, tough, man. It's really tough. I think I'll add that there's also a definition of Zionism that says it has to exist at the exclusion of the Palestinian state, which I don't think is necessarily the definition, but I think that that has some salience too, which is part of why people oppose it. But I'm sorry, I didn't mean to step on you, Camille. No, no.

I mean, there's just so much of this that I want to explore further. I'm thinking about just personally, as you were talking there, Isaac, you opened by saying you were going to talk about this through the lens of someone who is Jewish, who is a Zionist. I find that interested and would want to explore that. But just as you were closing there, the notion of rights within a polity suggests the kind of obligation on someone's part.

The notion of rights in this kind of global context, a right of a collection of people, an assemblage of people, to have a particular state for themselves. I have some difficulty with it, just philosophically. I've had a lot of difficulty with it. I think it's so, it's really worth unpacking that further,

but I want to stick to this specific point about Michigan, the discomfort, and what I think is just an undeniable fact. And it's something that I've really been shocked to see happening, I think within the past two years or so, and really the last, since October 7th, certainly,

but there's something more pronounced than the last two to three years, both with the resurgent anti-Semitism, but also the action racial profiling that's taken place specifically in the context of immigration enforcement like around the country. It is a thing that is happening.

And it's frustrating to see all of these currents coming to bear. But it's also, Ari, you mentioned the alt-right earlier. I think that Richard Spencer in the alt-right back in, say, 2016, 2017,

there was almost a kind of desperation on the part of the media to make that a story. I don't know that that manifestation of kind of bigoted views, which did have some sort of, it did have some purchase in our polity, but not nearly in the way that these kind of bigoted, bigoted ideas actually have purchased today. I was always of the opinion, and I think there was strong evidence to confirm it,

that for the most part, mainstream conservatives rejected those ideas, that there was not really a meaningful constituency there to support it. I still think it's the case that most people reject these ideas, but they have clearly gained ground. but I don't know if I can draw a straight line from the alt-right to where we find ourselves now. And I think that there's something about that that has been really challenging for me to kind of wrap my head around, to fully understand, and that I think just demands a great deal more exploration.

And I know we're kind of short on time, so I won't get into the electoral implications. but I do think it's interesting, Isaac, that your hot take about AOC and about the possibility that the Dems win Michigan, these tensions are something that will almost certainly have implications

for a forecast like that. Yeah. I want to just very simply just talk about what I think is the salient difference between the alt-rate moment in 2017 and this anti-Semitism is on the left thing that's current. And the right.

Yeah. But yeah. And say that I think I would probably, like I can talk about it two-dimensionally in a way that I think may be helpful, where the alt-right I would put, you know, if the X-axis is 1 to 10, number of people in the electorate who subscribe to these views,

I'd put it probably under a 1, like very far to that edge of the spectrum. And then on the danger spectrum from like 1 to 10, likelihood to act on it at like an 8. And it happened. Like, people were killed. So is that worse than what we have now, where I put the popularity of these views? And these views is doing a lot of work.

It's hiding a lot of ambiguity here. And if I were to define it simply, I would say the main problem that I have is the lack of focus or willingness to accept the idea that lots of people in Muslim majority countries are antagonistic to the idea that Jews, not just Israel, but Jews have a right to exist, which is a very, it's not, I'm not saying it's the most common worldview among Muslims. I'm not saying that. But it is at least common enough that it shapes the ideologies of groups that have guns. That is a thing.

And it happened in this Israeli plain hijacking story. Oh, it's an Omani plane or Emirati plain, but still. I think the lack of willingness to live with that reality is what I'm, that, that is kind of central in this nebula to me that's a little hard to define. And the dangerousness of that view in America, I think it's like at a one or a two. Like it doesn't actually cause me concern to my bodily harm that people aren't going, aren't willing to accept or look at this stark reality. but I do think it's like a five on the popularity scale. I think a lot of people are willing to look past that

and talk about the countries that want to kill Israelis and Jews as if that's not really a thing we need to focus on. The thing we have to focus on is Israel, not whether or not Hamas wants to murder every Jewish person in the world. Yeah, I actually think I agree with that, you know, at first blush.

I have to think about it harder, but I think I agree with that, scale for me as well, that it doesn't make me feel less safe here. The only thing that I would, the only caveat I guess I'd throw out there is like, the anti-Israel sentiment is so strong. Well, two things. One, like, we are not appearing Jews, right? Like, I mean, I wear a Yamika when I go to services for Shabbat on Friday or Saturday.

walk through my town like that. But on the day-to-day, I don't, and I'm not wearing Sisi, and I don't have a beard or... And I'm not even religious, so... Yeah. Yeah. And so, like,

there are Jews who are having a very different experience walk around the world where they're identifiably Jewish. That's one caveat. And the second one is, I would say, there is a lot of stuff, maybe a higher volume of incidents of, like, anti-Israel protests

featuring focus and attacks on Jews, where it's like... somebody's walking down a street and they're surrounded and being berated by a bunch of people like waving Palestinian flags in their face, whatever. And like, yeah, that's not as bad as somebody driving a car through a crowd of people at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. But I think it's happening at a higher frequency. So yeah, I don't know.

It's like the threat is not quite as great. I agree with that, I think. Like I think there was more explicit calls for violence and they will not replace us and whatever when the alt-right was not. not as popular as this is, but I still do think there's physical intimidation and harassment that's becoming more and more regular. And we have had incidents like what happened in Colorado

where, you know, a group of Jews mourning, the hostages get lit on fire. Like, that is a thing that happened. That's true. Yeah. All right, we've got a wrap. I know we've been here for well over an hour here, and I'm getting the, like, a stand-up comic

like with the blinking red light in the back, that it's time to get it done. So I appreciate it. We'll have to pick this combo up maybe next week and also for sure after this election. I mean, it's going to be really interesting to look back at how a lot of these voters who say they're on the fence actually break.

But before we get out of here, we have to do our grievances section since we had a fake grievances last week where we offered gratitude inside, which I think was appropriate, felt good. But this week we get back to a complaint. So, John, you can play the music. The airing of grievances.

Between you and me, I think your country is placing a lot of importance on shoe removal. All right. Gentlemen, I have a challenge for you since we're well over time here on our show for this week's grievance, which is, and I think this will be fun, actually. I want you to deliver your grievance in one sentence, and you don't get to add any context. You don't get to explicate it. You just get one sentence for what your grievance is this week, and we all get to imagine the rest of it. And I'll volunteer myself as tribute to go first to set the tone. My grievance is very straightforward, and it won't take a lot of imagination to explicate it.

I am aggrieved that there is no nightquil for children under the age of two years old, period. I don't know how that doesn't exist. Is that a parenthetical after the period? Yeah, parenthetical. Yeah, we've gone to the moon. We have AI, whatever. We have a rabies vaccine for dogs, but not great. Yeah.

I think I get it. I think I could do this. Okay. I bought a great new house in a neighborhood I love. And I have... It's bad already. You're doing the wrong. That's just the sentence.

It's a sentence. It's a sentence. And I've got an amazing new home office in it. All saying good things still. You've said nothing but good things so far. But I hate the prospect of having to decorate it. Okay, so that's not that complicated of a sentence. I thought I was going to have to diagram this out. I was just mad that classic Camille grievance.

That was a proback right there. You said four things. The first three things were all great news for him. I had to establish the privilege and then establish why it is so stupid. Camille's most toxic trait is that he

habitually expresses gratitude for these in his life. It's so douchy. I hate it. All right. All right. All right. You're up.

Well done, Camille, I guess. Just down the street from my house, there is an under-the-table, off-the-grid bakery that is excellent and not advertised. And I only felt

out about it recently. Okay. There is a semicolon in there maybe, or colon in there, but I think that was one sentence. Nice. Very well done. All right, good job. We just saved ourselves 10 or 15 minutes. Now maybe John and McKelley won't be mad at me when we wrap the show up.

All right, gentlemen. It wasn't an hour, but it was damn good. I appreciate the time. It's going to be close. They're going to cut a lot of stuff you said. We're going to be good. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. especially Camille's Usher T-shirt comment. It's a real thing. Yeah, I know. All right, bye. Later. Our executive editor and founder is me, Isaac Saul, and our executive producer is John Lull.

Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by managing editor Ari Weitzman with senior editor Will Kback and associate editor's Hardry Moorhead, Bailey Saul. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website at reetangle.com.