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Speaker 3: Welcome to Applied Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
Speaker 5: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
Speaker 3: So we were going to record a.
Speaker 1: Reaction to Tuesday's election results last night, but the Michigan
Speaker 1: Senate race was much closer than all the polling suggested.
Speaker 1: So here we are today bringing you a bonus pod,
Speaker 1: complete with an interview with Bernie Sanders, which you'll hear
Speaker 1: in a bit. But first, the headline, Abdul l Saied
Speaker 1: is now the Democratic nominee for the US Senate race
Speaker 1: in Michigan, with more than ninety five percent of the vote.
Speaker 1: In he defeated Haley Stevens by one point forty eight
Speaker 1: point five percent to forty seven point five percent, and
Speaker 1: we'll face former Republican Congressman current Florida homeowner Mike Rodgers.
Speaker 3: On one hand, Poles.
Speaker 1: Had Abdul ahead of Haley by anywhere between ten to
Speaker 1: nineteen points, and his team's confidence heading into Tuesday certainly
Speaker 1: matched that margin. On the other, we have a very
Speaker 1: progressive Muslim candidate who took on the entire Democratic establishment
Speaker 1: in DC and Michigan was outspent eleven to one by
Speaker 1: sixty million dollars in outside spending, duding a thirty two
Speaker 1: million dollar APAC spend that's more than any group has
Speaker 1: spent in any Democratic primary this cycle, and Abdul still won.
Speaker 1: Hailey Stevens very graciously conceded, and Mallory McMorrow, who had
Speaker 1: also been in the race, actually introduced Abdul at his
Speaker 1: victory event Wednesday morning, where he previewed his argument against
Speaker 1: Mike Rogers.
Speaker 6: Mike Rodgers is a guy who will do anything Blue
Speaker 6: Cross Blue Shield wants him to.
Speaker 3: Do, including raise your rates.
Speaker 6: Mike Rodgers is a guy who introduced legislation to increase
Speaker 6: the flow of opioids. He did that while I was
Speaker 6: in high school. Mike Rodgers is a guy who's politics
Speaker 6: and vision and perspective are old. Mike Rogers is a
Speaker 6: guy who has never shot away from a corporation he
Speaker 6: could do a favor for. Mike Rodgers is a guy who,
Speaker 6: believe it or not, went back to Florida so he
Speaker 6: can lick every single boot Donald Trump owns to beg
Speaker 6: for his endorsement.
Speaker 5: I'm so sorry.
Speaker 6: If you want a senator who's gonna lick some boots, fine,
Speaker 6: go vote for Mike Rogers. But if you want a
Speaker 6: senator who's gonna stand up to Donald Trump, then you've
Speaker 6: got your option right here. Michiganers are sick and tired
Speaker 6: of BS politics coming in to divide us when there's
Speaker 6: so much more we can unite to actually guarantee if
Speaker 6: we're willing to come together around it. So if all
Speaker 6: Mike Rogers got is that his name is Abdul and
Speaker 6: my name is Mike, You're gonna be surprised how many
Speaker 6: people will be like, yeah, but that's the Abdul who
Speaker 6: wants to bring down the price of my groceries. And
Speaker 6: gas and stop us sending money abroad and make sure
Speaker 6: that I got healthcare.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I like that.
Speaker 6: Abdul over your Mike from Florida.
Speaker 1: All Right, we'll get We'll get to that message in
Speaker 1: a bit, but let's start with the closer than expected results.
Speaker 3: What do you make of that? And what happened with
Speaker 3: the polling?
Speaker 5: What happened with the polling? That's a great question and
Speaker 5: a very hard one to answer because we don't have
Speaker 5: exit polls in this race, so it's hard to measure
Speaker 5: what the posters expect in terms of primary composition to
Speaker 5: what actually happened. But I will say that Michigan is
Speaker 5: a very hard state to poll. It always has been. Uh,
Speaker 5: it doesn't have a in state polster that is incredibly
Speaker 5: well regarded, and it doesn't and in the most well
Speaker 5: regarded one, the epic poll which came out a few
Speaker 5: weeks ago that had it was evens up ten. So
Speaker 5: no one seems to know what No one really knew
Speaker 5: what this elector was going to look like. Best guess
Speaker 5: is it people oversampled highly engaged, college educated voters who
Speaker 5: overwhelming voted for Abdul. Hence the margin undersampled Taylor was, yeah, Untail,
Speaker 5: We've seen it happen nationally. We now have it happening
Speaker 5: in democratic politics. And I was talking about this on
Speaker 5: Polar Coaster that's was just coming out on Thursday. Was
Speaker 5: Everyone's to check out. But it's actually the opposite polling
Speaker 5: error that happened in the twenty five Gubern Tour Racist
Speaker 5: where they understampled highly engagements.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean it's they were, Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 5: So it's all very confusing. Let's put all the polling
Speaker 5: stuff aside, because the polling stuff only really matters here
Speaker 5: in one regard, which is it has everyone and messed
Speaker 5: with everyone's expectations. If the polls had been tied or
Speaker 5: had shown Hailey Stevens up a few points going into election,
Speaker 5: Daing and Abdul one by one, this would be the
Speaker 5: shot heard around the world. It would be, as you
Speaker 5: point out, with this incredible victory of a Muslim man
Speaker 5: named Abdul Elsai in beating the entire democratic machine, beating APEX,
Speaker 5: beating Chuck Schumer, beating Greshaan Whitmer and winning, and it
Speaker 5: would be this incredible victory. But because our expectation was
Speaker 5: he was win by a lot, and that expectation was
Speaker 5: magnified by the fact that the first counties that came
Speaker 5: in showed him dramatically outperforming what people expected his margins
Speaker 5: to be. The expectation has got messed up, and so
Speaker 5: the reason this race probably ended up playing out the
Speaker 5: way it was always going to play out. What ended
Speaker 5: up happening here is that Abdul had the typical coalition
Speaker 5: of a very progressive candidate in Michigan and nationally, which
Speaker 5: is a lot of young voters and a lot of
Speaker 5: college educated voters, and struggled with the rest of the
Speaker 5: coalition and Hailey Stevens maximized the rest of it, and
Speaker 5: you ended up with a very very close race.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Someone pointed out that Hillary Schulten, who's represents a western
Speaker 1: Michigan district, was a big Hailey Stephens supporter Abdul on
Speaker 1: her district, but Hailey Stephens won Rashida Talib's district. They're like,
Speaker 1: what's going on there. It's like, well, Hillary Schulten's district
Speaker 1: is a suburban district, heavily white, college educated and lefty
Speaker 1: progressive candidates do well with those voters, and Rashida Talib's
Speaker 1: district is much more diverse black voters especially, and that's
Speaker 1: how you know, more moderate Democratic candidates tend to do
Speaker 1: well in those places. I think in a place like Michigan. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you have combining college educated white voters, Arab American voters,
Speaker 1: Muslim voters, which there's obviously a bigger portion in Michigan
Speaker 1: than any other state, and younger voters, and all the
Speaker 1: colleges are in Michigan, that's probably that's the I would
Speaker 1: guess that's the coalition that Abdul assembled to get him
Speaker 1: over the top.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's right, that's exactly right, and that you can't
Speaker 5: understate the importance of the Muslim population, particularly in Dearborn,
Speaker 5: which Abdul won essentially eighty two.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and that makes you just to your point on
Speaker 5: college educated voters voting for Abdul, is that Hailey Stevens
Speaker 5: only won her own district by four points.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's something I'd love for someone to do some
Speaker 1: analysis of, because there's no like you said, there's no
Speaker 1: exemplese just some like county by county analysis, because Hailey
Speaker 1: Stevens did really well in a lot of rural counties,
Speaker 1: smaller towns, medium sized towns, which is not unexpected.
Speaker 3: But then like.
Speaker 1: Abdul did well in some northern rural counties and other places,
Speaker 1: So you know, we were sort of overgeneralizing just based
Speaker 1: on certain counties here and there. But I'd love to
Speaker 1: see a more detailed analysis. Let's just talk about APAC
Speaker 1: for a second. Do you think in the end, APAC
Speaker 1: spending was a net positive or negative for Haley Stevens, because,
Speaker 1: like I went into the race when you know, the
Speaker 1: expectations were that Abdul win by a lot, saying that
Speaker 1: it is clearly a negative because not only did they
Speaker 1: not help her win the race, but also they provided
Speaker 1: maybe the most effective argument for her opponent. Now you
Speaker 1: could argue it the other way now that it was
Speaker 1: only a one point race, But I don't know, what
Speaker 1: do you think.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a somewhat complicated argument because being associated with APAC,
Speaker 5: being the APAC candidate was bad for Haley Stevens. APAC
Speaker 5: has a negative thirty seven percent favorability rating among Democrats
Speaker 5: in Michigan. It also made her the candidate of big
Speaker 5: money in politics because the APAC ads were so ubiquitous.
Speaker 5: APAC spent north of thirty million dollars in this race,
Speaker 5: and so in that sense, it definitely what hurt her
Speaker 5: and made her an establishment candidate in an anti establishment environment. However,
Speaker 5: Hilly Stevens was not a great fundraiser, you know, according
Speaker 5: to ad impact data, of the sixty million dollars it
Speaker 5: was spent on her behalf, ninety seven percent of the
Speaker 5: ads were paid for by someone other than Hilly stephens campaign.
Speaker 5: So absent that financial support, it's hard to see how
Speaker 5: she is this competitive. Conversely, a candidate who did not
Speaker 5: have that I think net negative impromoter of being the
Speaker 5: apack establishment candidate might have fared better than Stevens did
Speaker 5: in a one on one race with Ebdel.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was trying to, like doing a thought experiment
Speaker 1: because I think other Democrats who were more pro Israel
Speaker 1: have to contend with this at some point, which is
Speaker 1: what if Hayes Stevens had said, No, I don't want
Speaker 1: I don't want APAX endorsement. I don't want the outside spending.
Speaker 1: My views on Israel are what they are. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to change those use but I just don't think
Speaker 1: this outside money is worth it. We shouldn't have outside
Speaker 1: money in politics, and I don't want a packs endorsement
Speaker 1: because I disagree with you know, the net and Yahoo regime,
Speaker 1: whatever it may be. Whatever she could say without completely
Speaker 1: flip flopping, which is, you know, well.
Speaker 5: I think she could have. I mean, her best move
Speaker 5: would have been a completely flop flop or at least
Speaker 5: have a more nuanced position to put her on aid
Speaker 5: Israel with conditions. Perhaps that put her more in the
Speaker 5: mainstream of the current Democratic Party, but the cost of
Speaker 5: that would be thirty million dollars of APEC money. But
Speaker 5: she also got north of ten million dollars in spending
Speaker 5: by another super pack that was essentially I think a
Speaker 5: vessel for DSCC donors and people and the establisher in
Speaker 5: the Schumer world who wanted Hayley Stevens, similar to the
Speaker 5: spending that happened on Josh Chirk's behalf in Iowa.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was thinking about that because I listened to
Speaker 1: Sarah Longwell's focus group podcast with Jonathan Cone, who knows
Speaker 1: Michigan really well, and they talked to Michigan Democrats, and
Speaker 1: I was surprised by I mean, first of all, you know,
Speaker 1: it's always good to listen to voters, because the way
Speaker 1: they viewed this primary was so different than the national
Speaker 1: discourse and what you see online, like a lot of
Speaker 1: those Democrats like they liked both Stevens and Abdul and
Speaker 1: to the extent that there were negative things that about
Speaker 1: Haley Stevens. So many of these voters brought up a
Speaker 1: pack and outside spending and money in politics, and it's just,
Speaker 1: you know, it really broke through not only her ads
Speaker 1: that you know, Apak ran on her behalf, but the
Speaker 1: idea that she was a candidate that was taking all
Speaker 1: this outside money.
Speaker 5: And one of the polls that came out from I
Speaker 5: can't rememb which one it was that was not the
Speaker 5: Emerson poll, but one of the poles in the final
Speaker 5: stretch did a word cloud. Now this is obviously overly
Speaker 5: pro abdual polls, so take the with a grain of salt.
Speaker 5: Many rands assault, but they did a word cloud of
Speaker 5: things associated with La Stevens and APAC is like giant
Speaker 5: in the middle of that, and money and like money
Speaker 5: I think is the other very big word in that
Speaker 5: word cloud. So it definitely impacted her candidacy. It's just
Speaker 5: it's very it's just very hard to say how she
Speaker 5: could she have raised the money absent all is support
Speaker 5: from APAC enough to compete with Abdul, who's an excellent
Speaker 5: grassroots fundraiser. Could she have Was there a way in
Speaker 5: which Schumer at all could have funneled more money to
Speaker 5: her through a non APAC vehicle open question? But I
Speaker 5: think you generally, I cannot see based on these results,
Speaker 5: a twenty twenty eight candidate accepting, soliciting, accepting, or courting
Speaker 5: APAC to either endorse them or run ads on their behalf.
Speaker 5: And if you are a more pro Israel candidate in
Speaker 5: twenty twenty eight on the scale, you know, like on
Speaker 5: whatever the scale is for twenty twenty eight candidates and
Speaker 5: APAC starts running the United Democracy Project whatever it's called
Speaker 5: her one of their shadow pass were to be f
Speaker 5: you have to like to hold a press convers in
Speaker 5: front of APAC demanding they take it down.
Speaker 7: It'll hurt you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, okay, that's that was my thought too. But
Speaker 1: wanting to see what you thought.
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Speaker 1: of the thoughts in the primary race and results before
Speaker 1: we turn to the general. I mean there's been a
Speaker 1: lot of just this morning. You know, Abdul has a
Speaker 1: lot of work to do, and the whole Democratic Party
Speaker 1: does to sort of bridge the divides from this pretty
Speaker 1: bruising primary. I think they were off to a really
Speaker 1: good start. Hailey Stevens graciously conceded, had a nice post,
Speaker 1: and Mallory McMorrow he introduced Abdul, and Abdul was saying
Speaker 1: all the right things. So everyone seems to be saying
Speaker 1: all the right things this morning as of Wednesday morning,
Speaker 1: which is great. But how big of a challenge do
Speaker 1: you think it will be? For Abdul to unite the
Speaker 1: rest of the party.
Speaker 5: It does not appear like it's going to be a
Speaker 5: challenge to unite the political establishment nationally and in Michigan.
Speaker 5: Everyone seems to understand the urgency of the task. I've really,
Speaker 5: you know, I've been pretty critical of how Abdul has
Speaker 5: talked about his opponents in this race, especially when it
Speaker 5: appeared and he certainly believed he was winning. It was
Speaker 5: not always the most gracious, but he did the exact
Speaker 5: right thing here. I think his tone was right both
Speaker 5: last night when he went on and spoke to voters
Speaker 5: before we knew the results, and then this morning he
Speaker 5: responded to Hailey Stevens' tweet supporting Abdul in a very
Speaker 5: gracious way. Gretcha whit Murray immediately endorsed Abdul this morning.
Speaker 5: The Senate Majority Pack, which has been rooting pretty extensively
Speaker 5: I imagine as a Chuck Shuamer vehicle for Hailey Stevens
Speaker 5: to win, and had a video out this morning supporting Abdul.
Speaker 5: So I think that part is going exactly as planned.
Speaker 5: This is the conversation you've been to the general is
Speaker 5: it's just can the voters in the coalitions come together.
Speaker 5: I think the activists, even the people who have been
Speaker 5: the biggest people fighting against Abdul on Twitter, national democratic
Speaker 5: activist types. This morning we're like, Abdul's are nominee. Go
Speaker 5: support Abdul. Here's how you give to Abdul. I was
Speaker 5: an Alan mcmorro supporter throughout this race. I donated to
Speaker 5: Abdul this morning. Encourage everyone my newsletter to do. But
Speaker 5: I think people are doing the right thing here. But
Speaker 5: can you get the voters who just heard sixty millions
Speaker 5: dollars of arguments against Abdul to come and support him?
Speaker 5: And that is the general the challenge in the general election.
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's get to the general. Earlier we heard
Speaker 1: a preview of Abdul's general election message against Mike Rogers.
Speaker 1: Here's the first ad from the Republican Senate Committee.
Speaker 9: Du Rman Mohammad al Sai, yet the most radical Senate
Speaker 9: candidate in America Elsa Yeah, pledged support for the leader
Speaker 9: of the Muslim Brotherhood, a designated foreign terrorist group. He
Speaker 9: wants to hike taxes on Michigan waitresses, delivery drivers, and seniors,
Speaker 9: on social security, going to sex offender, and a murderer
Speaker 9: to demand the mass release of dangerous prisoners, and when
Speaker 9: his ally claimed America deserved nine eleven, America refused to disavow.
Speaker 7: I'm not here to disavow. Too radical, too dangerous, wrong
Speaker 7: for Michigan.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the general.
Speaker 7: Thoughts.
Speaker 5: I was kicking the teeth this morning. I'll tell you that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I like that they combined.
Speaker 1: I liked I really liked the mix of dangerous, scary
Speaker 1: Muslim extremist with an hill raised taxes.
Speaker 5: It's not as dumb as it sounds.
Speaker 1: No, I know, but it's just like it's it's known
Speaker 1: as dumb as it sounds. And I will say Democrats
Speaker 1: do the exact same thing. But it is the the
Speaker 1: consultant polster ad maker brain, which is like, this is
Speaker 1: test unpopular, this test unpopular. Let's jam them together. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if they're jammed together in a in a
Speaker 1: pilling way or not.
Speaker 5: I think this is we can I don't know if
Speaker 5: you want to talk about Abdul's argument about Mike Rogers
Speaker 5: first and then get to this, but sure, I think
Speaker 5: this ad is better than a lot of people online think,
Speaker 5: and I think the combining of it actually makes sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Why do you think that.
Speaker 5: Because when you say that someone wants to like raise
Speaker 5: taxes on seniors, that is a very hard thing for
Speaker 5: anyone to imagine. So you have to prove that they
Speaker 5: are so radical that they'd be willing to do that.
Speaker 5: And by all the other stuff leads to the idea
Speaker 5: that he is someone so radical that he would do that.
Speaker 5: And so I do think they like this is the argument,
Speaker 5: is this incredible radical that he will do these other
Speaker 5: things that affect you Because a f person who cares
Speaker 5: about affordability, if they believe if twenty twenty, for example,
Speaker 5: if they believe that Abdul I mean, they're good, they're
Speaker 5: gonna discount a lot of this stuf because the political lub.
Speaker 5: But they think that he's a little too extreme, maybe
Speaker 5: says some things in the past, but they think he's
Speaker 5: actually going to lower his cost Donald Trump's election proves
Speaker 5: people will tolerate a lot for someone who will lower
Speaker 5: their costs. You have to make them believe that he
Speaker 5: will not lower your costs, and the way to do
Speaker 5: that is to make them seem so radical he's going
Speaker 5: to do that. It's not the best version of that yet,
Speaker 5: but I understand the argument.
Speaker 3: I think you got to pick one.
Speaker 1: I think if you are like if I was going
Speaker 1: to try to persuade people that he was going to
Speaker 1: he's too extreme and he's so extreme that he would
Speaker 1: raise seniors taxes, you would say, he wants to spend
Speaker 1: this amount of here are all his plans, he wants
Speaker 1: to spend this amount of money, he needs this much taxes.
Speaker 3: He loves government controlled healthcare.
Speaker 1: Like I would go all like, if he's going to
Speaker 1: be a socialist who's going to raise your taxes, you
Speaker 1: got to make him left on that, which I'm sure
Speaker 1: that that will be coming, and then they'll of course
Speaker 1: have another track that is the scary Muslim uh extremist.
Speaker 5: I guess the way with thinking about this ad is
Speaker 5: it is a preview of and a signal two donors
Speaker 5: of what the larger argument will be. This will, all
Speaker 5: over the course a campaign manifest itself in some ads
Speaker 5: that are only about Hassan Piker and things he has
Speaker 5: said in the past, darkening his skin, using his full name,
Speaker 5: and there will be ads about affordability. My argument would
Speaker 5: just be is those things are more connected than I
Speaker 5: think a lot of Democrats naturally assume we are our
Speaker 5: ad making is very siloed, and there is an economic
Speaker 5: argument and there's a radical argument, and I think in
Speaker 5: voters' minds, you were softening the ground for the economic
Speaker 5: argument by showing someone to be extreme, and the candidate
Speaker 5: who is viewed as more as less extreme tends to
Speaker 5: win elections in these last few elections, and Donald Trump
Speaker 5: being seen as less extreme than Kamala Harris was a
Speaker 5: real warning side that he was going to win that race.
Speaker 1: Well, so then let's talk about Abdullah versus Mike Rodgers,
Speaker 1: because I do not think personally he's going to be
Speaker 1: able to make voters believe that Mike Rogers is extreme.
Speaker 1: But it sounded like from his opening message there and
Speaker 1: what he's been saying about Mike Rogers, that he is
Speaker 1: going to try to convince voters that it's not about
Speaker 1: who's the more extreme candidate, but who's fighting for you
Speaker 1: and who's corrupt, and that he's going to make Mike
Speaker 1: Rogers the more corrupt candidate.
Speaker 5: Yes, I think his argument there too was also his
Speaker 5: let's just unload the full clip and see what sticks,
Speaker 5: because there is a there's a combination of he's corrupt,
Speaker 5: there's a combination of he's pro data center. There's a
Speaker 5: combination that he is pro corporation, and then there is
Speaker 5: he is a bootlecker for Trump. I think all of
Speaker 5: those individually are good arguments, and I think that they
Speaker 5: can go together. Yeah, we can discuss the whether that's
Speaker 5: the well he's doing that in the right way or not.
Speaker 5: But you know, I think, look, this is a state
Speaker 5: that is a fifty to fifty state in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 5: It's a plus six and a half to eight point
Speaker 5: democratic state this time around, depending on exactly how the
Speaker 5: the generic ballot looks, and Donald Trump's people rating is
Speaker 5: under forty and some poles in Michigan. So it's like,
Speaker 5: sometimes we overcomplicate the fucking simple around here. A vote
Speaker 5: for Mike Rodgers, to vote for Donald Trump and Donald
Speaker 5: Trump to control the Senate, you know, is the and
Speaker 5: underneath that is a vote for higher costs for you,
Speaker 5: a vote for more powerful corporations, vote for tax cuts
Speaker 5: for billionaires, all of that as part of it. But
Speaker 5: that I don't think convincing people that Mike Rogers himself
Speaker 5: is corrupt is going to be the argument this is
Speaker 5: necessarily going to play.
Speaker 1: I think this is what he's contending with and this
Speaker 1: is a Mike Rodgers specific problem. Is Mike Rodgers has
Speaker 1: been representing Michigan for a long time, or he's been
Speaker 1: in Michigan politics for a long time. I think that
Speaker 1: a lot of voters, to the extent that they know
Speaker 1: who Mike Rodgers is, probably remember him as a more
Speaker 1: moderate Republican for who might who. There's plenty of clips
Speaker 1: of him speaking out against Donald Trump, and I think
Speaker 1: Abdul has to make people realize before he just says
Speaker 1: that Mike Rodgers is going to be a vote for
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, that Mike Rodgers has changed, because otherwise I
Speaker 1: don't think you can go right to Mike Rodgers, like
Speaker 1: I know everyone wants to do. And we talked about
Speaker 1: this in the main Senate race too. Everyone wants to
Speaker 1: just do like nationalize the race, make it about the Senate,
Speaker 1: make it about control of the Senate.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I agree with that to an extent, except when you
Speaker 1: have candidates like the Susan Collins, like Mike Rodgers, who
Speaker 1: the voters in that state know and think of as
Speaker 1: more moderate and more willing to buck Trump than your
Speaker 1: typical Republican. And I think in those instances you've got
Speaker 1: to do some work on their character to persuade people
Speaker 1: that something has changed about them. That they have either
Speaker 1: like they've been there too long, they've become corrupt, they
Speaker 1: only care about themselves and their money. They're now willing
Speaker 1: to do whatever Trump says just so they can keep
Speaker 1: their jobs and keep their money and all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. Like you still have to have Trump be
Speaker 1: part of it, but you have to do some work
Speaker 1: on the person's character.
Speaker 5: This Mic writers things interesting because I have, as I
Speaker 5: have been arguing for a long time that this is
Speaker 5: a very hard race because Mike Rodgers is not a
Speaker 5: maga in the eyes of voters, right, a maga buffoon
Speaker 5: like a doctor Oz or herschel Walker or some of
Speaker 5: these other the candidates the Democrats benefitm in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 5: There's also no evidence that he is Susan Collins. He
Speaker 5: underperformed Trump in twenty twenty two. I'm sorry, he underperformed
Speaker 5: Trump in twenty twenty four, twenty four, and I think
Speaker 5: that is just he did not if he were a
Speaker 5: candidate who was seen as you know more. I think,
Speaker 5: let me put it this way. We all know the
Speaker 5: people in Mike Rodgers district know Mike Rodgers. He was
Speaker 5: there for eighteen years.
Speaker 7: I think.
Speaker 5: We know Mike Rodgers because we watched CNN in the
Speaker 5: twenty tens and he was always on and he was
Speaker 5: a very prominent Trump's skeptical voice in the twenty sixteen world.
Speaker 5: I don't know. It's unclear to me how many Michigan
Speaker 5: voters know that you absolutely have to do work on
Speaker 5: his character for sure, to make to make people understand
Speaker 5: why the attacks work. But Susan Collins is a very
Speaker 5: unique proposition in a way in which Mike Rogers is
Speaker 5: more like running against a NEU a Republican.
Speaker 3: I guess also it's.
Speaker 1: Tying Mike Rodgers to Donald Trump in the same story,
Speaker 1: which is, if we were to talk about Donald Trump
Speaker 1: right now, we'd say, you know, in his second term,
Speaker 1: he's fucking out to lunch, corrupt, only cares about himself.
Speaker 1: It's a smashing grab. He's made everything more expensive while
Speaker 1: he got rich. And you know they've in the primary.
Speaker 1: The Michigan Democratic Party has a website like price hike
Speaker 1: mike dot com, and they have some great Mike Rogers
Speaker 1: quotes in there. He talks about coffee prices. He goes, oh,
Speaker 1: my gosh, coffee went up, you know, horror like being sarcastic.
Speaker 1: And on tariffs, he said, well, the shoe's gonna pinch
Speaker 1: every once in a while. On gas, he said, we're
Speaker 1: gonna be fine. We got plenty of oil on a
Speaker 1: fifty dollars annual physical. He said, that's probably okay, right,
Speaker 1: and then he said, he said, anyone if voters who
Speaker 1: blamed Trump for high prices are nuts, like, those are
Speaker 1: the kind of I think those are the kind of
Speaker 1: quotes that both link what you're talking about, which is like,
Speaker 1: he's just like Trump, but also the guy's way out
Speaker 1: of time and he moved to floor and has no
Speaker 1: idea what people in Michigan are going through.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I agree.
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Speaker 5: Though I did seventeen hundred words on no Sleep.
Speaker 7: Look.
Speaker 5: Abdul's win is incredibly impressive when you put in the
Speaker 5: context everything he was up against, But it is when
Speaker 5: you look at the coalition that he won with. It
Speaker 5: is a coalition that does not vode great for the
Speaker 5: general election. He overperformed with youth, he overperformed with college
Speaker 5: educated voters. He underperformed in rural areas. He underperformed most
Speaker 5: rule areas on all of them, but he underperformed with
Speaker 5: working class voters, and he really got his clock clean
Speaker 5: with black voters and the electorate. You can survive in
Speaker 5: a primary like that because in Michigan, because it's almost
Speaker 5: fifty to fifty college educated and non college educated voters
Speaker 5: in a typical primary like we don't have a lot
Speaker 5: of data on it, but I went back and looked
Speaker 5: at the twenty twenty primary between Biden and Bernie because
Speaker 5: they had exempulse from that, and it was fifty three
Speaker 5: non college forty seven college educated in primary, and probably
Speaker 5: in a midterm it's closer to fifty to fifty or
Speaker 5: or a majority college educated in a general election. If
Speaker 5: you look at twenty twenty four exit poll data, it's
Speaker 5: more than sixty percent non college educated. It is significantly older.
Speaker 5: The number of percentage of voters over sixty five, I think,
Speaker 5: goes up nine points. And so all the voters that
Speaker 5: Abdul struggled most with are disproportionately a larger portion in
Speaker 5: the electorate in twenty twenty in the in the general election,
Speaker 5: and I think we you know he once again this
Speaker 5: is another progressive candidate running on a working class agenda
Speaker 5: who did not win working class voters, and you can't.
Speaker 5: There's no other way to win Michigan, right, So I think,
Speaker 5: like I wrote a bunch of things for Abdul to do.
Speaker 5: I'll just give you a couple of them here. The
Speaker 5: first one was unify and sort of a you know,
Speaker 5: win with grace, and he has done that thus far.
Speaker 5: That think that's going in the right direction. The second
Speaker 5: thing was he had to really think about how to
Speaker 5: not just do better with black voters, but to make
Speaker 5: increase turnout with black voters for him, you know. And
Speaker 5: you can argue that millions and millions of dollars of
Speaker 5: ads that mislegally suggested that Barack Obama had Endorsedhilly Stevens
Speaker 5: contributed to this, and I'm sure it did. But also, historically,
Speaker 5: candidates with Abdul's profile of sort of this progressive candidate
Speaker 5: do poorly with black voters, and so he's got work
Speaker 5: to do there. I hope he calls Barack Obama today, yeah,
Speaker 5: and starts to think about how he could be helpful
Speaker 5: and and other Michigan Democrats, others who can help him
Speaker 5: in that community. He can be validates in that community.
Speaker 5: He's got to be. I think the lesson here is
Speaker 5: he needs to think really hard about how to make
Speaker 5: himself more broadly appealing. I think his campaign was I
Speaker 5: found so much of it inspiring and exciting and like
Speaker 5: from a communications the messing in perspective, it was really
Speaker 5: full in a lot of ways. But I really there
Speaker 5: the vibes you got was a really like my way
Speaker 5: or the highway. You're with us, who you're against us?
Speaker 5: But and he now has to go out and persuade
Speaker 5: a lot of people, some of them have voted for
Speaker 5: Haley Stevens, some of them who are just middle of
Speaker 5: the road independent voters who have not thought about politics
Speaker 5: once since twenty twenty four to support him. Many of
Speaker 5: those people are going to disagree with him on Medicare
Speaker 5: for all, on some of the things he's said in
Speaker 5: the past. They're going to disagree with him on Israel.
Speaker 5: There's real work to do with Jewish Democrats in Michigan.
Speaker 5: And you have to you have to be willing to
Speaker 5: seem like you are open to listening, opening to understanding,
Speaker 5: opening to a greedy disagree and open a compromise. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and you and if you look at the way that
Speaker 5: his primary his primary campaign was entirely centered around and
Speaker 5: this was a effective strategy because he won maximizing his
Speaker 5: base rallies with Bernie. Many of the final ads had
Speaker 5: AOC in them. She's a very very popular Democrat and
Speaker 5: they worked. But he did very little to try to
Speaker 5: show himself to be different than the caricature of himself
Speaker 5: as this like sort of prototypical leftist candidate. You didn't
Speaker 5: see he was either unable to get or did not
Speaker 5: seek out endorsements. They would be counterintuitive a moderate Democrat
Speaker 5: who endorsed them, a business leader who would endorse him,
Speaker 5: a former Republican or something like that, or putting the
Speaker 5: like he talks all the time. And I know this
Speaker 5: happens of these triple Trump voters who are gonna who
Speaker 5: supported a duel in this primary because Michigan's open primary.
Speaker 5: Why aren't those people in ads?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Right, You're gonna have to do some things that have
Speaker 5: a much more broadly appealing There's more that reaches that
Speaker 5: you have to actively reach out to people to not
Speaker 5: agree with you. And the last thing is like you
Speaker 5: really we really have to think hard about you know,
Speaker 5: he had a very economically centered message, money in your pockets.
Speaker 5: What is it that did not work with that with
Speaker 5: working class and Democrats, let alone working class independence or
Speaker 5: working class solution Trump voters? Is it that it wasn't
Speaker 5: specific enough? Is it that people because of the way
Speaker 5: the race played out, people thought that wasn't his top priority,
Speaker 5: and maybe it was they thought his top priority was
Speaker 5: money in the politics or eight to Israel.
Speaker 1: I think this this whole conversation about working class voters
Speaker 1: in the Democratic primary has sort of like gotten out
Speaker 1: of hand because like this we taught we did this
Speaker 1: with the Platinir thing in Maine as well, like just
Speaker 1: a few like Democrats have been doing poorly with working
Speaker 1: class voters for a long time, as you know. And
Speaker 1: that is true of moderate Democratic candidates, it's true of
Speaker 1: liberal Democratic candidates, it's true progressive Democratic candidates, like we
Speaker 1: have been losing working class voters to the Republicans under
Speaker 1: Donald Trump especially that is he has accelerated it. And
Speaker 1: it used to be just white voters, and now under
Speaker 1: Trump it was Latino voters and some black men as well.
Speaker 3: Right, So it is a party wide problem.
Speaker 1: The left says, if you just like you know, press
Speaker 1: the economically populist button hard enough. They soundly, you're going
Speaker 1: to win over the working class voters. That has not
Speaker 1: There's there's not a lot of evidence that that is true.
Speaker 1: The establishment and center left democrats are like, well, the
Speaker 1: left can't do this, and they're not. They say that
Speaker 1: they're economically populous, but they can't get the working class voters.
Speaker 1: But it's like, you know what, the establishment candidates aren't
Speaker 1: really doing that much. There's not a lot of evidence
Speaker 1: that the establishment candidates are doing that much better with
Speaker 1: the working class voters that you would actually need to
Speaker 1: win in a close state. Yes, in a primary, Hailey
Speaker 1: Stevens coalition is going to look more working class than
Speaker 1: a duels, But like the in a general election, it's
Speaker 1: not like there is any Democrat you can point to
Speaker 1: in the last fifteen fucking years who's really made in
Speaker 1: roads to the to the working class in a way
Speaker 1: that would that would solve this problem. Which leads me
Speaker 1: to believe, which is one thing you could take from
Speaker 1: this is it is not just about talking up affordability
Speaker 1: or the right affordability message or the right economic message,
Speaker 1: Like there are cultural social concerns that the working class
Speaker 1: have which is why they have moved away from the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party. That I think we all have to contend
Speaker 1: with here because it's like, why is Jared Golden winning
Speaker 1: them in Maine two? And is like as moderate as
Speaker 1: they come on a host of issues, but it is
Speaker 1: not some like economically populist hero I he we.
Speaker 5: Don't have to get into the Golden neck because and gee,
Speaker 5: I agree with your I agree with your point here.
Speaker 5: I think if you were trying to win this race
Speaker 5: and you just lost in working class voters in a
Speaker 5: Democratic primary and the core of your message was pro
Speaker 5: working class, is worth taking a step back and trying
Speaker 5: to figure out what you need to do to at
Speaker 5: least perform better than Kamala Harris did with those voters
Speaker 5: in Michigan so you can win.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I guess one way to think about it is we
Speaker 1: went through this in O eight, right, Like we were
Speaker 1: in a primary with Hillary that lasted forty five years,
Speaker 1: and every single state she won working class voters and
Speaker 1: we did not.
Speaker 5: And the reason she went working class with white voters.
Speaker 5: That's one giant difference here is the reason why Obama
Speaker 5: wins and Bernie and Bill Bradley and all these other
Speaker 5: Reuss can't lose. It's because Obama could win college educated
Speaker 5: voters and black voters at high numbers.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 5: The rest of these voters are not doing that.
Speaker 1: But what we heard incessantly is broak around has been
Speaker 1: talking about the working class. It's policies are geared for
Speaker 1: the working class, but it's just not working. It's just
Speaker 1: not working. Why isn't it working? And then you know
Speaker 1: he was he still maintained that message through the general
Speaker 1: and one. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton was like the hero of
Speaker 1: working class voters in two thousand and eight, and then
Speaker 1: she runs for president again in twenty sixteen and gets
Speaker 1: her clock clean with working class voters.
Speaker 5: Well, like, these things are always suffer from small sample sizes.
Speaker 5: But the example for Abdul is Obama, which is we
Speaker 5: worked really hard to get those voters, and we did
Speaker 5: it in a lot of ways that were counter to
Speaker 5: what a tip of a typical progressive democrat would do
Speaker 5: based on the playbook. We spent a lot of time
Speaker 5: talking about the deficit and making sure people's taxpayer money
Speaker 5: was spent. Now we're gonna have the guy from Dave.
Speaker 5: He was going to go through the budget line by line,
Speaker 5: where you know Obama was very spent a lot of
Speaker 5: time reaching out to voters who disagreed with him on abortion.
Speaker 3: This is what I'm getting at, That's what I was
Speaker 3: getting at, Bay Yes.
Speaker 5: And I think there's a way in which Israel plays
Speaker 5: into this was I'll get to in a sec and there. Look,
Speaker 5: you cannot be just. I don't not want to overlook
Speaker 5: the fact then, both in Obama's case in Abdull's case,
Speaker 5: race plays a role here of course, right the fact
Speaker 5: that he is that Obama is a black man and
Speaker 5: Abdul is a Muslim American certainly plays a role. And
Speaker 5: that then puts a higher burden on you in the
Speaker 5: general election, because life is not fucking fair to do
Speaker 5: some things that show because of the ad we just
Speaker 5: saw that show that you can relate to these voters culturally,
Speaker 5: that you're different than the caricature, and you're going to
Speaker 5: have to find some ways that are to use the
Speaker 5: favorite term of some of our moderate friends, that is
Speaker 5: heterodox or counterintuitive. And the reason I want to bring
Speaker 5: Israel up here because some people will argue that he
Speaker 5: needs to moderate on Israel and aid to Israel in
Speaker 5: particular to win, and he has done this and if
Speaker 5: you actually really listen to what Abdul says, and when
Speaker 5: he gets asked questions, he is very good at talking
Speaker 5: about about reaching out to Jewish Americans who disagree with him. Right, So,
Speaker 5: but he has work to do there, obviously, you know.
Speaker 5: And all the money spent against him does not, you know,
Speaker 5: is why he has a little bit of this deficit,
Speaker 5: and some of his supporters, his most promised supporters, a
Speaker 5: why has a bit of this dep sit But independent
Speaker 5: voters in Michigan nationally agree with Abdul on aids Israel.
Speaker 5: Independents are basically some very similar Democrats on this issue.
Speaker 7: The issue that was.
Speaker 5: Once you moved to the general election, and once you
Speaker 5: move downscale economically, the salience of the issue goes down.
Speaker 5: And so I can imagine that if you're a working
Speaker 5: class voter and you have just paid attention to this
Speaker 5: race and you hear what Abdul's talking about, do you
Speaker 5: hear what's breat Not just what he says. You should
Speaker 5: not listen to his full speech, but what's breaking through
Speaker 5: in media coverage or social media conversation even in some
Speaker 5: mail pieces is a pack in Israel and that that
Speaker 5: and that these voters who agree with them duel but
Speaker 5: think it is let but care much, but affordability is
Speaker 5: a much higher topic for them, can believe that in
Speaker 5: his mind is priority wise, that aid to Israel in
Speaker 5: that basket of issues is higher on his list and affordability,
Speaker 5: and that hurts you with voters. And it's one of
Speaker 5: the things reasons Democrats have suffered with these voters is
Speaker 5: you know, you saw this in the Deciding to Win
Speaker 5: report that Simon Basilon did last year or whenever that
Speaker 5: was because time was no meaning, And what voters think
Speaker 5: Democrats' top priorities are is often not the economy, even
Speaker 5: when it actually is.
Speaker 1: I think there's a pretty easy way to square this circle.
Speaker 1: And I could see him moving towards this dual towards
Speaker 1: this day, which is just people are tired of their
Speaker 1: money going over seas to be spent on stupid wars,
Speaker 1: like like Israel's part of this, but like we're at
Speaker 1: war with the run right now. That is a fucking
Speaker 1: disaster that Donald Trump is responsible for and Mike Rogers
Speaker 1: is supporting. And Mike Rogers just told Semaphore the other day, Oh,
Speaker 1: when I go around, no one talks about Iran and
Speaker 1: the war blah blah blah. But by linking affordability concerns
Speaker 1: to meanwhile, you've got Republicans and if you put Mike
Speaker 1: Rodgers in the Senate, they're just going to keep sending
Speaker 1: all your money overseas to fight stupid wars and to like,
Speaker 1: you know, when it should be here in Michigan helping
Speaker 1: you afford things.
Speaker 3: Like I think that's a good message.
Speaker 5: Yeah, first, that was one I want. I meant to
Speaker 5: bring that brother, is that that pivot was notable in
Speaker 5: his remarks. And it's gonna be interesting when you get
Speaker 5: asked how it feels about at Ukraine in this situation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that is true.
Speaker 1: Well we're not providing much anymore, so there's unfortunately there.
Speaker 3: But yeah, no, that is well.
Speaker 1: And he's also been because I saw him on a
Speaker 1: MS now and someone was like, well, you talk about
Speaker 1: Israel all the time, Well do you not like do
Speaker 1: you not like Egypt or other Ethno nationalist governments.
Speaker 3: He's like, no, no, I don't. I would not give
Speaker 3: aid to them either.
Speaker 5: He basically said, okay, yeah, he doesn't believe in unconditional
Speaker 5: aid to any country, right, which is a very good
Speaker 5: and wise and I imagined quite popular position.
Speaker 1: Yes, right, Okay, we should just talk about Michigan Senate
Speaker 1: was not the only a notable primary last night before
Speaker 1: we go. In Michigan's seventh House district, which is a
Speaker 1: top target for Dems to flip, the lefty candidate Will Lawrence,
Speaker 1: who's the Sunrise Movement co founder, beat two more moderate
Speaker 1: Democrats who split the vote. In Michigan's thirteenth House district,
Speaker 1: DSA candidate Donovan McKinney has defeated incumbent Democrat Shreithanadar by
Speaker 1: three points. In Kansas, the more progressive state Senator Cindy
Speaker 1: Holscher beat Democratic Governor Laura Kelly's pick to succeed her
Speaker 1: state Senator Ethan Corson. But over in Missouri, incumbent House
Speaker 1: Democrat Wesley Bell crushed Corey Bush, who was trying to
Speaker 1: win her old seatback, by fifty nine to thirty seven.
Speaker 1: We got a moderate Senate Democratic candidate in Kansas, Adam Hamilton,
Speaker 1: who's primary victory there moves the race from solid R
Speaker 1: to likely R. And elsewhere in Washington, Andy, I know
Speaker 1: it's something. And elsewhere in Washington and Virginia, incumbent moderate
Speaker 1: established Democrats all won their races, despite some of them
Speaker 1: facing challenges from the left. Anything else I missed and
Speaker 1: any any takes on the rest of the primaries from
Speaker 1: last night.
Speaker 5: No, I mean this continues a trend we've seen with
Speaker 5: a handful of exceptions here and there of progressive anti
Speaker 5: establishment candidates winning in races. It's you can overstate these things.
Speaker 5: Lawrence won a three way race, so it would be
Speaker 5: interesting what would happen if he had had one on
Speaker 5: one with either of the two moderates. Maybe he still
Speaker 5: would have won then too, But the anti Lawrence vote
Speaker 5: was much larger than Lawrence vote in the shreithon Adar race.
Speaker 5: He is a particularly unpopular Democrat, but still impressive because
Speaker 5: incombans don't get knocked off that much. Then you have
Speaker 5: the Wesley Bell Corey Bush one, which is the example
Speaker 5: of this. He would was very was supported heavily by
Speaker 5: apak Leslie Bell was the APAX supported his victory against
Speaker 5: Corey Bush last time. There's a lot of baggage from
Speaker 5: why Corey Bush lost the first time, scandal stuff there
Speaker 5: that affected it. And I think Bell apparently, I guess
Speaker 5: in the eyes of his consision has been an effective
Speaker 5: legislator in this time. But if you want to like
Speaker 5: what happened last night is I think consistent with the
Speaker 5: theme we've seen all primary season, which is in races
Speaker 5: with the right candidates in the right situations, progressive anti
Speaker 5: establishment candidates have the advantage in the primary against the
Speaker 5: more traditional candidate you would expect to win.
Speaker 1: I do think your point about Michigan seventh where if
Speaker 1: there had only been one candidate pacing Willia Lawrence instead
Speaker 1: of two, they very well he will very well could
Speaker 1: have lost. And I think for you know, moderate Democrats
Speaker 1: who are worried about this or worried about you know,
Speaker 1: this sort of this progressive wave, like if you don't
Speaker 1: want a DSA candidate to win, like figure out one candidate.
Speaker 3: To take on that person.
Speaker 5: I mean, this is this is really hard because you know,
Speaker 5: I look at that and I'm like, well, most people
Speaker 5: people could be wrong, but the general believe this is
Speaker 5: Michigan sevens isstions that Trump won by one point. It's
Speaker 5: Alyssa slock Intol district. Democrats should win it this time around.
Speaker 5: Most of the people whose job it is to try
Speaker 5: to win the House believe pretty strongly that either Bridget
Speaker 5: Brank or Matt Masden would be favorites in that race.
Speaker 5: This it is a toss up at best with Lawrence.
Speaker 5: Whether that's corrector fair, I don't know. But so in
Speaker 5: one sense, you're like, well, why can't these people in
Speaker 5: Washington figure this shit out and get one person on
Speaker 5: the race. So to say, we're like, hey, d SEC,
Speaker 5: stop endorsing in these primaries. Uh, you know, why are
Speaker 5: you endorsing Haley Stevens and Janet Mills and all these
Speaker 5: other people and just let the voters decide. But I
Speaker 5: think there are some lessons here, like if the not
Speaker 5: the people Washington, but if the folks who really are
Speaker 5: focused on electing more moderates or more electable or more
Speaker 5: heteroics Democrats, whatever you else you want, do have to
Speaker 5: get their shit together. And I think what happened in
Speaker 5: Michigan seven and what happened in Michigan Senate where most
Speaker 5: there was a strong argument that Abdul was less electable
Speaker 5: than Haley Stevens. That's sort of a moot point right now,
Speaker 5: but is that there aren't a lot of people in
Speaker 5: the Democratic Party with the authority in the experience and
Speaker 5: the trust to tell Democratic primary voters how to think,
Speaker 5: or even to tell candidates which one of them should
Speaker 5: get out, and you end up in situations like these
Speaker 5: where the candidate who in a normal election year might
Speaker 5: not have won, will win this year because the establishment
Speaker 5: doesn't have the credibility to tell voters they're not If
Speaker 5: they can say who's more electable, the votes an't gonna believe.
Speaker 1: Them, Like, this is a conversation we'll be having for
Speaker 1: like the next year two years, so we don't have
Speaker 1: to do it all now.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I think it's less like I don't.
Speaker 1: I think the ability of some democratic establishment to like
Speaker 1: move pieces on a chess board to get the right
Speaker 1: people that they want in races is like not the
Speaker 1: best strategy, But I do think it argues for compelling
Speaker 1: candidates who break out from the crowd, who are also
Speaker 1: not like like, they don't have to be DSA candidates,
Speaker 1: but they can at least have like there's plenty of
Speaker 1: I think mainstream Democrats and tough races who I would
Speaker 1: say the left is probably fine with. John Ostoff is
Speaker 1: an example, right, Like John Ostoff has taken some votes
Speaker 1: that are you know, pretty moderate votes or things that
Speaker 1: left lefties might be upset about, but like people are
Speaker 1: generally fine with him because he is a compelling candidate.
Speaker 1: And now we're look, you know, you look in Wisconsin
Speaker 1: right now, it's gone on right like in the governor's race,
Speaker 1: and they had a lieutenant governor who had to drop
Speaker 1: out because of scandal. Mendelo Barnes also drops out, partially
Speaker 1: because of scandal, partly because he didn't break through. We
Speaker 1: got David Crowley, who you're going to be talking to
Speaker 1: on Thursday show, who last minute got Ever's endorsement, and
Speaker 1: now they're trying. It's just like you got to have
Speaker 1: You got to run candidates who can really break through
Speaker 1: and at least say, have a message and have an
Speaker 1: agenda that people who would normally vote for some of
Speaker 1: these DSA progressive candidates would still find appealing.
Speaker 5: The model here in the example is Josh Turk, who
Speaker 5: was a more moderate candidate believed to be more electable,
Speaker 5: was supported by Schumer World and benef did benefit from
Speaker 5: ten million dollars in superback spending for that, but was
Speaker 5: able to in all the other you know, Schumer's endorsement
Speaker 5: three racist his candidate has lost or dropped out in
Speaker 5: two of the three Turks. The exception Turk is a
Speaker 5: very compelling candidate who, even though he had establishment support,
Speaker 5: does not read like an establishment candidate. Yeah, and now,
Speaker 5: obviously he is a very unique bio, very unique profile.
Speaker 5: But the way for moderates to win is to find
Speaker 5: candidates who do not appear to be just like establishment toties.
Speaker 1: Right the huved and Diego in Arizona in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: this is another example of that.
Speaker 3: Right, So it was a luck and honestly, so yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: Different profile, but you know, but we're also in a
Speaker 5: different world now where everyone is going to almost everyone
Speaker 5: is going to face a primary. And if you think
Speaker 5: there are a lot of primaries in twenty twenty six,
Speaker 5: oh wait til twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 3: Fun stuff.
Speaker 1: Okay, when we come back, I talk to Senator Bernie Sanders.
Speaker 10: Hey, Dan Taburski Here, I'm a podcast host, a journalist,
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Speaker 10: own manifesto. Well, it's a manifesto about manifestos, my search
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Speaker 10: place with the warriors, the vision, the regular folks with
Speaker 10: just the right amount of crazy. I compare notes with radicals, secessionists,
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Speaker 10: their guts out, all trying to turn their anger into
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Speaker 3: Senator Sanders, Welcome back to pid Fave America.
Speaker 7: Great to be with you.
Speaker 1: I saw that you described Abdul's primary win as the
Speaker 1: most extraordinary victory you can think of in modern American politics.
Speaker 3: What makes you think that?
Speaker 7: I'll tell you why, and you tell me what do
Speaker 7: you think? Here is a guy who took on the
Speaker 7: entire democratic establishment in Michigan, okay, took on the entire
Speaker 7: national democratic establishment, okay, and then took on seventy million
Speaker 7: dollars of super pac and outside funding, about thirty million
Speaker 7: of it coming from APAC. Now, help me out here,
Speaker 7: you know something about these things. Have you ever heard
Speaker 7: of a candidate in a major race getting outspent nine
Speaker 7: to one, taken on the entire establishment and winning.
Speaker 1: Not in a primary like that. Now he's going to
Speaker 1: win the general though. That's then then it would really
Speaker 1: be Then it would really be extraordinary.
Speaker 7: All right, but all on, I'm saying you asked me,
Speaker 7: I cannot recall somebody having done that. So it was
Speaker 7: an extraordinary victory. And in addition, in Michigan last night
Speaker 7: we won two congressional races. As you know, Donovan McKinney
Speaker 7: beat an incumbent in Detroit, will be the next congressman.
Speaker 7: Will Lawrence won and Lansing a strong victory. I think
Speaker 7: he stands a good chance to win in November as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it ended up being a really close race of dual,
Speaker 1: won by a but a point. What does the close
Speaker 1: finish tell you about where Democratic voters are right now?
Speaker 1: Especially you know the seven hundred and twenty thousand or
Speaker 1: so who voted for Hailey Stevens.
Speaker 7: Well John I would it certainly was the close story.
Speaker 7: So I was up to three o'clock or four o'clock
Speaker 7: in the morning, so if I fall asleep, they'll take
Speaker 7: it first. But you have to understand that seventy million
Speaker 7: dollars was spent against this guy. So I want to
Speaker 7: rephrase the question and say, if it was a fair
Speaker 7: fight financially and there was no spending difference, how many
Speaker 7: points would he won by? Ten twenty points? Maybe I
Speaker 7: don't know, but all in all, I think it was
Speaker 7: an extraordinary victory. I think the message right now, and
Speaker 7: I think Haley Stevens was very gracious in a concession speech,
Speaker 7: and she was exactly right. We understand that we have
Speaker 7: the most dangerous president in the modern history, not in
Speaker 7: the modern in the history of the United States, and
Speaker 7: we have got to elect Democrats, a democratic control of
Speaker 7: the Senate and the House, and we've all got I
Speaker 7: work together to make that happen. And I think I
Speaker 7: would suspect that the overwhelming majority of the people who
Speaker 7: voted for Helly Stevens understand that.
Speaker 1: So looking at the map, Abdul dominated in college towns,
Speaker 1: highly educated areas. He didn't do as well in sort
Speaker 1: of the working class city and blue collar suburbs. And
Speaker 1: this has been a pattern with more progressive candidates and
Speaker 1: Democratic primaries, with I think your presidential races being the
Speaker 1: notable exception that I can think of.
Speaker 3: Why do you think more.
Speaker 1: Economically populoist candidates aren't doing as well with working class
Speaker 1: voters than more moderate establishment candidates.
Speaker 7: I think, And again, let's remember that what last night
Speaker 7: was a pattern is consistent with what we have seen
Speaker 7: all over this country, by the way, in the last year,
Speaker 7: from Mombani's victory in New York City, the maylots Kiros's
Speaker 7: victory and Color and a lot in between. Progressives are winning, John,
Speaker 7: and we're winning for a lot of reasons. We're often winning,
Speaker 7: as was the case last night with a huge turnout.
Speaker 7: I think, correct me if I'm wrong. That was a
Speaker 7: record breaking turnout Michigan democratic process.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 7: That didn't happened by accident. It happened because, among other things,
Speaker 7: Abdul was able to bring out a lot of young
Speaker 7: people who previously did not get involved in the political process,
Speaker 7: and a lot of people are kind of given up
Speaker 7: on politics. But I have absolute confidence that Abdul's message
Speaker 7: of economic justice of demanding the billionaires pay their fair
Speaker 7: share of taxes. And I'll tell you something else. This
Speaker 7: guy's a doctor and I desperately need him in the
Speaker 7: US Senate to help me and others move toward a
Speaker 7: Medicare for all single payer program. I think it's going
Speaker 7: to resonate all over Michigan, whether you are Democrat, Republican,
Speaker 7: or independent.
Speaker 1: Do you think it's harder to reach working class voters
Speaker 1: with that message? Do you think that they just they
Speaker 1: you know, people are busy and they're not paying his
Speaker 1: close attention to politics, Like what do you?
Speaker 3: What do you? How do you think about that?
Speaker 7: And you got, you know, you got the internet phenomenon
Speaker 7: and algorithms where people see what they want to see
Speaker 7: and what they have seen yesterday. So it's hard to
Speaker 7: break through that. But what has excited me about Abdulla's campaign,
Speaker 7: and again Manani did it in New York, others have
Speaker 7: done it, is he has he put thousands and thousands
Speaker 7: of people out on the street. And one of the
Speaker 7: differences drawn between our campaigns and establishment democratic campaigns. They
Speaker 7: always have more money than we do. They hire great consultants,
Speaker 7: they do with thirty second ads. We put people out
Speaker 7: on the street knocking on doors, and I think in
Speaker 7: Abdul's case in Michigan, we're going to have to have
Speaker 7: thousands and thousands of people knocking on doors explaining to
Speaker 7: Republicans do you really think it's a good idea? Do
Speaker 7: you have tax breaks the billionaires and back on healthcare
Speaker 7: and education, et cetera, et cetera. So it's an enormous
Speaker 7: amount of work to be done. It's going to be
Speaker 7: done in a grassroots way. I think we win.
Speaker 1: So as you look to the fall, what is you know,
Speaker 1: if Duel is probably going to face even more money
Speaker 1: than he did in the primary, it's obviously a tougher electorate.
Speaker 1: What's one thing he has to do and he his
Speaker 1: campaign has to do that they haven't done yet.
Speaker 7: I think we still have more work to be done
Speaker 7: within the African American community, maybe the women's community. But
Speaker 7: there are great leaders in the state of Michigan and
Speaker 7: all over this country who I think will help us
Speaker 7: make that happen.
Speaker 1: So you you've endorsed a lot of progressive candidates like
Speaker 1: Abdul the cycle, you mentioned a few others who won
Speaker 1: last night. There are also a lot of progressive candidates
Speaker 1: DSA candidates running who you haven't endorsed. How do you
Speaker 1: decide which progressive candidates get your endorsement and which don't.
Speaker 7: Well, you know, we're not, you know, some kind of
Speaker 7: huge machine here, so we have to be kind of
Speaker 7: have to pick and choose. One of the things that
Speaker 7: people don't know is that we have also endorsed dozens
Speaker 7: and dozens and dozens what we call down ballot candidates.
Speaker 7: People are running for school board, city council, state legislature,
Speaker 7: mayor in small towns. And that, in a sense becomes,
Speaker 7: if you like the Farm Club, the future leaders of America,
Speaker 7: some great people in legislature right now that we've helped
Speaker 7: get elect and we have trained. By the way, we
Speaker 7: have programs that say, hey, you want to run for office,
Speaker 7: this is how you send that a press release, this
Speaker 7: is how you do social media, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 7: But we have, you know, limited limited resources. So what
Speaker 7: we do is, hey, what do you stand for? What
Speaker 7: do you stand for? If you are a moderate liberal
Speaker 7: type Democrat, that's great, there are other people who support you,
Speaker 7: that's not us. Do you support medicare for which is
Speaker 7: moral less for us? I think if you would ask
Speaker 7: me if there's one litmus tests, probably Medicare for all
Speaker 7: would be it? Or do you support a tax on billionaires?
Speaker 7: Are you prepared to take on the oligous? What is
Speaker 7: your view about the extremist government in Israel? So you
Speaker 7: need that information, but that's not enough. Then you have
Speaker 7: to say, look you can I have seen this, I've
Speaker 7: experienced this. People have really they're really smart. They have
Speaker 7: great answers to everything. They can't run a campaign, you know,
Speaker 7: it's not easy putting together a campaign. And Abdul did it,
Speaker 7: by the way, not everybody can do it. So you
Speaker 7: got to say, all right, what's the nature of your campaign.
Speaker 7: How many volunteers do you have? Well, we don't have any.
Speaker 7: You're raising any money? No, we're not. Okay, Well it's nice,
Speaker 7: have a nice day. You're a great guy, but we're
Speaker 7: not going to support you. So those are some of
Speaker 7: the things that we look at.
Speaker 1: I noticed them. You haven't yet endorsed in the Wisconsin
Speaker 1: governor's race. What's your thinking there? And might you endorse sir?
Speaker 7: I don't think so. I met Francesca a couple of
Speaker 7: years ago I was in Wisconsin, and seems very very nice,
Speaker 7: But again, this is a race I just am not
Speaker 7: that familiar with. We have not gotten involved in many
Speaker 7: governor's races. I think we did one in Maine with
Speaker 7: Troy Jackson. You know, obviously, my major concern right now
Speaker 7: is seeing that we have a Senate and a House
Speaker 7: that is going to stand up to Trump. That's really
Speaker 7: where my focus is. So as of now, we have
Speaker 7: not been involved in that race.
Speaker 1: So your brand of progressive politics has always been focused
Speaker 1: on the material needs of working class people, and I
Speaker 1: would say that to the extent that you've broken from
Speaker 1: Democratic Party policy, it's usually around economic issues, healthcare, etc.
Speaker 1: There are some DSA candidates today, you know, including some
Speaker 1: who've won their primaries this cycle, who've also talked about
Speaker 1: abolishing prisons, defunding or even abolishing the police, abolishing borders.
Speaker 1: You've never been for any of that. Are you worried
Speaker 1: that taking those positions, which are unpopular with most voters
Speaker 1: and even most Democrats, sort of hurt the movement that
Speaker 1: you've worked really hard to build.
Speaker 7: Well, you know, look, people have different views and what
Speaker 7: you know as well as I do that the right
Speaker 7: wing that's their job, right, they will take what one
Speaker 7: person said and put you know, eighty billion dollars of
Speaker 7: TV ads on it and make it claim every Democrats
Speaker 7: supports that. I'm no serious person that I know who
Speaker 7: is running for office believes in quote unquote defunding the police.
Speaker 7: I was a mayor for eight years. I work very
Speaker 7: closely with cops. They have a very difficult job. Do
Speaker 7: we need police reform? Do we need to get rid
Speaker 7: of racism within police departments? Absolutely? Are their jobs that
Speaker 7: other people can be doing in terms of mental health,
Speaker 7: drug addiction and outfalls on a cops shoulders. Yeah, I
Speaker 7: think we should look at that. But nobody I know,
Speaker 7: you know, believes in defunding the police. In terms of
Speaker 7: doing away with prisons. I hope the day comes. I
Speaker 7: hope the day comes when we don't leave the world
Speaker 7: and the number of people who are incos story that
Speaker 7: speaks very poorly of Alice society. But does that mean
Speaker 7: that there should not be dangerous people who should be
Speaker 7: behind bars? Of course, everybody agrees. Without open waters, no,
Speaker 7: we all, most of us believe and comprehensive immigration reform
Speaker 7: not opening up all the waters. But a lot of
Speaker 7: this stuff, as you well know, is what the right
Speaker 7: wing plays on and multiplies on Fox, you know, ten
Speaker 7: times a day and through their heads. But most of
Speaker 7: the serious candidates that I know and support do not
Speaker 7: support those things. You have.
Speaker 1: You've made a really compelling case that the party Democratic
Speaker 1: Party can't just be anti Trump, that we have to
Speaker 1: be for something. On the other hand, you never want
Speaker 1: to promise voters things that you can't actually get done.
Speaker 1: And I think about this just in terms of the
Speaker 1: next two years in this cycle, right, So a bunch
Speaker 1: of Democrats, when say everything goes well and we take Congress,
Speaker 1: Trump's still president for two years, what do you think
Speaker 1: Democratic candidates running today can realistically promise voters in terms
Speaker 1: of a Democratic Congress the ex.
Speaker 7: John, I would look at that's a good question that
Speaker 7: you've raised. I would look at it a little bit differently.
Speaker 7: I would not start off by saying Donald Trump is president.
Speaker 7: You know, he probably veto any serious and good piece
Speaker 7: of legislature, therefore we can't bring it up. That's not
Speaker 7: the way I look at it, all right. I look
Speaker 7: at it from the position of and let me be
Speaker 7: very clear, you may agree with me, you may not.
Speaker 7: I think the system is horrifically broken in many ways.
Speaker 7: We're on a titanic right now every place you look,
Speaker 7: whether it's healthcare, whether it's transportation, whether it's education, whether
Speaker 7: it's a corrupt campaign finance system, whether it is oligochy
Speaker 7: and massive income and wealth inequality, whether it is climate change.
Speaker 7: I mean, I can go on and on. It's scary stuff.
Speaker 7: I mean, we'll live it in really crazy times. And
Speaker 7: then on top of that, you've got Donald Trump as president,
Speaker 7: who does everything you know, does the wrong things every
Speaker 7: every single day. Well, I think the first thing you do, Johanna,
Speaker 7: what my politics is about is to be honest with people.
Speaker 7: Is that don't stop. What can you do? What are
Speaker 7: the problems facing? Are you all right? You're worried that
Speaker 7: your kids can't afford to go to college. With the
Speaker 7: richest country on earth, what should we do? The God
Speaker 7: determined that public education ends the twelfth grade? Can we
Speaker 7: make public colleges and university stuition free? Do you think
Speaker 7: that zero four is important for a kid's development? Of
Speaker 7: course you do. Should we have universal and free childcare
Speaker 7: so that all families can enjoy? Yeah? You can, Oh, Bernie,
Speaker 7: that's a great idea. How are you going to pay
Speaker 7: for it? Well? Okay, that's another issue. Maybe we demand
Speaker 7: that large corporations and the wealthiest people stop paying their
Speaker 7: fair share of taxes. Maybe we don't spend one point
Speaker 7: one trillion on the military. But this is what I believe, John,
Speaker 7: and it really is at the heart of my politics.
Speaker 7: You've got to deal with where people are at. They
Speaker 7: are hurting, they are giving up on democracy in many
Speaker 7: cases because we don't see government do anything for them.
Speaker 7: So what my strategy would be to answer your question is,
Speaker 7: if I had the power, and I have some power,
Speaker 7: I will say to with them becauts. You gain control
Speaker 7: of the House, you gain control of the Senate, tell
Speaker 7: you what you're going to do in the first two
Speaker 7: three four months. You're going to pass Medicare for all,
Speaker 7: and if mister Trump wants to veto it, let them.
Speaker 7: And we're going to explain to the American people why
Speaker 7: he veted it. And we're going to lower up prescription
Speaker 7: drug costs to the price that other countries around the
Speaker 7: world are paying. He's going to veto that. Fine, We're
Speaker 7: going to raise the minimum wage, We're going to raise
Speaker 7: taxes on billionaires. Let mister Trump say no. And when
Speaker 7: he says though, we have transformed politics because the next
Speaker 7: time round will win a landslide victory. That's my view of.
Speaker 3: Politics looking ahead to twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've been so outspoken on AI, and it's
Speaker 1: clearly going to be a huge issue, not just in
Speaker 1: this election, but again in twenty twenty eight when we
Speaker 1: actually have a presidential race. What do you hope to
Speaker 1: hear from Democratic candidates in the Democratic Party in terms
Speaker 1: of how we handle artificial intelligence?
Speaker 7: John, They are easy answers and they're hard ones. And
Speaker 7: I got to tell you, of all of the issues
Speaker 7: out there, this one. You know, how you know why
Speaker 7: you can't sleep at night? This is one of them. Now,
Speaker 7: maybe I'm crazy and it may well be. Look I yeah,
Speaker 7: First of all, we started with the assumption is nobody
Speaker 7: knows what's going to happen, right right? You don't, I don't,
Speaker 7: nobody does. Elon Musk doesn't know. Nobody knows. Here's my nightmare.
Speaker 7: This is what I worry about. You're looking what I
Speaker 7: think we can agree on as the most transformational technology
Speaker 7: in the history of humanity. Okay, it's going to make
Speaker 7: the Industrial Revolution seem like a piece of cake. This
Speaker 7: stuff is moving quickly, in every aspect of our society.
Speaker 7: How many millions of jobs will be lost? I don't
Speaker 7: know what happens to the workers euro A fifty year
Speaker 7: old truck driver and now you've got to drive list vehicle,
Speaker 7: taking your job. What happens to you? You're a key
Speaker 7: graduating college, there's no entry level job. What happens to you.
Speaker 7: You're a lawyer, you know, firm no longer need you.
Speaker 7: What happens to you? So economically, I worry about it.
Speaker 7: I worry about it also, And I say all these things,
Speaker 7: And the reason I am fighting these fights is I
Speaker 7: don't have all the answers. But somebody got to start
Speaker 7: this discussion and talk about it. All right, democracy, All right,
Speaker 7: Tomorrow there will probably be some kind of deep fake
Speaker 7: of me on your program saying how much I'd love
Speaker 7: Donald Trump and what a great job he is, right, yeah, right,
Speaker 7: all right? So has that happened to you?
Speaker 3: Not yet, I'm waiting for it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it'll happen, all right. So you're at a moment
Speaker 7: where people look at the internet. We don't know truth
Speaker 7: from fiction, right, you really don't. You've seen those deep fakes, right?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 7: All right? So if a day before the elections, and
Speaker 7: you saw what happened this guy Thomas Massey, where it
Speaker 7: was alleged they had a video of him walking into
Speaker 7: a hotel room with two young congresswomen. Right, Cole, Why
Speaker 7: did older people in Kentucky believe it? Some did? All right?
Speaker 7: How do you deal with that and protect democracy? How?
Speaker 7: And what worries me very much? Reading scores for our
Speaker 7: kids is in decline. You know that, writing capabilities, cognitive capabilities.
Speaker 7: Kids are addicted to screens. How do you deal with that?
Speaker 7: Recently we've seen instances of AI escaping human control. I
Speaker 7: talked to a Nobel Prize winner who thinks that as
Speaker 7: AI become smarter than human beings, we could face an
Speaker 7: existential threat. All right, these are huge issues. We need
Speaker 7: to have a We need to slow it down. That's
Speaker 7: the first thing we need to do. Mister Musk cannot
Speaker 7: run the world and his friends, So that's what I
Speaker 7: worry about same.
Speaker 1: It's one of the things that can SEPs me up
Speaker 1: at night, for sure. And especially having two young boys
Speaker 1: who are going through the education system, you want to
Speaker 1: make sure they are trained for actual jobs that are
Speaker 1: going to exist out there and not just looking at
Speaker 1: their screens. Senator Sanders. Thank you as always for joining
Speaker 1: Pod Save America. I really appreciate the time.
Speaker 7: Well, thank you John t Up the great work.
Speaker 3: Thanks you too. Take care. That's our show for today.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Bernie for coming on and Dan and I
Speaker 1: will be back with a new show on your Feet
Speaker 1: on Friday.
Speaker 5: Hi everyone.
Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a cricket media production. Our show
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