9 days to midterms: Trump attacks on El-Sayed, Obama's rally RETURN — MS NOW Highlights

[0:00] We are nine days out from Election Day, and you know, even with all of his erratic tendencies, [0:08] I think most of Donald Trump's shtick can be boiled down to one simple tactic, [0:12] and that is weaponizing fear. And nowhere is that more apparent than in his approach to elections [0:18] and immigration. According to the President of the United States, mail-in ballots lead to fraud, [0:25] non-citizens are all over the voter rolls, our election systems are vulnerable to foreign [0:30] meddling, and a new one this week, if Democrats prevail in the midterms, our country will be [0:35] destroyed and, quote, burn like France. His rhetoric on immigrants? You know the lines. Trump is not [0:44] known for his creativity. They are murderers, and they are gang members, and they are job stealers, [0:48] blah, blah, blah, blah. That is his decades-old playbook. But here is what's new. With the midterms [0:54] approaching, Donald Trump's political standing is in trouble. This week, his approval ratings hit a [0:58] new low. National polls show Democrats with a big lead, and Republicans face enormous pressure [1:04] to maintain control of Congress. So in a last-ditch effort to keep control, MAGA is aggressively [1:11] merging Donald Trump's favorite fear-mongering targets, election security and immigration, [1:15] immigrants, into the ultimate boogeyman. So now the message is elections aren't safe because [1:20] immigrants are committing voter fraud. That is BS. It's absurd. It is unsupported. And Donald Trump has [1:29] been stoking this flame for a very long time now. Earlier this year, he launched this insane [1:35] pressure and lobbying campaign for the Save America Act, his voter suppression bill. In March, [1:41] he signed an executive order ordering citizenship verification for federal elections. And then in [1:45] July, the president dropped a major bombshell during a primetime address. Do you remember this? [1:51] According to the DHS review, state voter rolls and public records, they identified approximately [2:01] 278,000 non-citizens who are registered to vote in federal elections. Since Democrat states refuse to [2:10] share their voter files, the real number is actually much higher than that. What a shock. Months later, [2:18] we still have got no proof of that sweeping claim. But the fear has been properly incited. The groundwork [2:27] has been laid. Now comes phase two, implementation. And the unlikely agency at the center of it all is the [2:34] Department of Homeland Security. And I say unlikely because historically, the Department of Homeland [2:39] Security's role in elections is pretty limited. The agency helped states with technical issues [2:45] through CISA, like monitoring cyber attacks, detecting vulnerabilities, protecting election [2:50] infrastructure. And that is a role that has evolved over time. Back in 2017, President Obama's DHS [2:57] made a formal designation of election systems as critical infrastructure. That meant that there were [3:03] additional federal protections after Russian interference in the 2016 election. But even [3:08] then, even then, DHS was clear about the limits of its role in elections. Here's how Daniel Ragsdale, [3:16] the deputy director of ICE under President Obama, put it to a statement in Congress. [3:23] Quote, cyber experts at DHS are available to assist state and local election officials in securing their [3:29] systems, just as we do for businesses and other entities across the spectrum of the private and public [3:34] sectors. It's important to emphasize that DHS's assistance is strictly voluntary and for support [3:41] only. And DHS's assistance does not entail regulation, binding directives, and it is not offered to [3:48] supersede state and local control over the process. That's the key. Support, not control. Easy enough. [3:58] A decade later, that distinction has gotten pretty damn blurry. Let me tell you how. First, DHS is on [4:05] a desperate pursuit of voter rolls, to be able to cross-check the list that the states keep [4:11] against their internal DHS databases. DOJ has sued 30 states and Washington, D.C. for this [4:17] highly, highly sensitive information. But you know who doesn't buy it? The courts. Most of these lawsuits [4:24] have been dismissed. And just this month, there was a federal judge who refuted the bigger, the broader [4:30] policy of checking state voter rolls against federal immigration databases. The next avenue is [4:37] investigations. According to The New Yorker, hundreds of department officials have been assigned to search [4:43] for unlawful voters. So that includes agents from Homeland Security Investigations, aka HSI. They normally go [4:53] after sex traffickers. And personnel as well from the Fraud Division of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration [5:00] Services. They have been, quote, routinely contacting county boards of election to request [5:05] voter files. There was a June report from HSI. It described efforts to identify organizations that [5:11] it deems, quote, predatory in nature, particularly those suspected of illegal alien registration and [5:17] voter encouragement. This report even mentioned the possible use of undercover agents. And that has [5:24] all come to a head right here, right here in California, where HSI purportedly found [5:29] more than 20,000, quote, likely noncitizens that received mail-in ballots, according to the Trump [5:37] administration. And just this last Friday, the DOJ demanded some local officials set aside [5:42] and verify those ballots of those people in just 48 hours. And somehow, somehow between all of these [5:50] insane investigations, the Department of Homeland Security has also found time to run its own [5:56] experiments, like entering people's personally identifiable information into state voter registration [6:02] websites, like effectively posing as the voters themselves without them knowing or without their [6:07] consent. That's according to a whistleblower report, by the way, from September. DHS has denied [6:13] wrongdoing on that. They say these practices are commonplace law enforcement. And as ProPublica has [6:19] reported, DHS political appointees separately asked CISA to secretly obtain a voting machine and then hack [6:26] it. That experiment didn't happen because staff pushed back. And finally, this week, we found out [6:32] that DHS, DHS has an unprecedented role in our elections that it's showing up right on your doorstep. [6:40] It is literally showing right up on your doorstep. A CBS investigation found that armed DHS agents have [6:46] been doing this, quote, knocking on doors in several states to ask residents about their immigration status [6:53] and to inquire if they have registered to vote or cast votes in past elections. [6:58] They're going door to door. Late Wednesday, a federal judge very quickly restricted agents from [7:05] carrying out these field operations in nine states. They wrote that the efforts likely violated the [7:10] Voting Rights Act. And that last bit is really what is key here. The tactics from DHS, the threats, [7:18] the investigations, all of that stuff, it's all a distraction. It's meant to freak you out. It is [7:24] meant to spread fear and stop people from turning out to the polls. They want all of us to feel how I can only [7:31] imagine this woman did. You're looking at an HSI operation in Kansas City, four agents surrounding [7:38] a woman on her doorstep as she holds a kid's hand. And HSI posted this with the caption, [7:46] American elections are for Americans. The truth is, there is no threat. All available evidence tells us [7:57] that non-citizen voting is extremely rare and it is inconsequential. And even the administration's [8:04] own metrics prove this. A New York Times review of federal court records shows that since 2025, [8:11] the Trump administration has charged, let me make sure I get this right, 131 people, 131, not 131,000, [8:21] 131 people with illegally registering or voting as a non-citizen. What a joke. Do you know who [8:29] actually bears the consequences? Immigrant communities. Americans whose neighborhoods have [8:33] been terrorized by DHS for years, certainly in the last two years, but for decades before that. [8:40] And because of Donald Trump's mixed messaging, I understand why so many people fear that ICE could [8:46] show up to the polls. In recent days, the DHS secretary, Mark Wayne Mullen, has said over and [8:53] over there's no plan to deploy ICE to the polls. But election officials and neighbors and activists [8:57] and people who care about this stuff are preparing anyway. Why wouldn't they? Thousands of people across [9:02] the country are training to be election observers, to stand as lookout for possible interference for [9:07] ICE presence. And according to The Guardian, the ACLU has seen a massive surge in volunteers signing up [9:12] to be what they call democracy defenders. You know how many? Nearly 68,000 new volunteers since June. [9:21] People are coming together to defend our constitutional rights. Somebody who knows something about that [9:26] is Lindsey Teslowski, the co-founder and CEO of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center. Good to see you. [9:32] Good to see you too. Thank you for being here. You have dealt with DHS for so many years in your role [9:38] as an immigration attorney, but now they're doing all of this. I just wonder, we talked a little bit [9:44] about this out at the No Kings protests, but how you sort of see the landscape of these agents that [9:48] were once assigned with a particular task and are now mixing this election suppression, voter [9:55] interference with immigration enforcement as well? Well, I think it shouldn't come as a surprise to [9:59] any of us. ICE is now the largest law enforcement agency in the entire country. They have been given [10:05] almost $270 billion since the beginning of this administration. And so it's not a surprise that [10:13] Stephen Miller and Donald Trump would want to tap into that to intimidate voters before an election. [10:18] And we're seeing that with these knocking on people's doors, inquiring about immigration status, [10:24] these, you know, token prosecutions of people. As you said, the numbers are so low. Just this week, [10:31] two weeks before an election, we saw 28 people, legal permanent residents here in the United States [10:37] who allegedly registered to vote, some as Republicans, and in some cases may have voted. [10:44] In many cases where we've seen this, it's often done by accident. People don't understand that they're [10:49] registering. Yet they pull them out in front of everybody. And as you said, I just want to [10:52] reemphasize the person who was like the poster child of the raids in LA was a Republican. [10:57] Right. And many times they're elderly, legal, permanent residents. They've lived in the United [11:01] States for a long time. Everyone agrees that it is important to have integrity in our elections. [11:06] But creating this fake issue of non-citizens voting, I mean, 28 people indicted in the state [11:14] of California, which has nearly 39 million people living inside it. It's something where they're [11:21] trying to create a boogeyman for voters. They're trying to make people afraid that our elections [11:27] don't have integrity. But more important, they're trying to scare immigrant communities, [11:31] naturalized citizens from going to the polls and voting. [11:34] What concerns you most about the way DHS is using its agents when they're using them in this way? [11:41] Well, I think one of the challenges that we see is there's been a huge drop in the number of people [11:45] who are naturalizing generally, which is directly related to the elections, because we've seen more [11:51] than a 70 percent drop in those applications actually moving forward. And when you see that, [11:57] it means that fewer people can vote. Then on top of that, you have agents going out into the community, [12:03] intimidating people. The people going out in these prosecutions are meant to scare people from [12:10] voting. And so, you know, when we think about agents potentially being at the polls, that's [12:16] something we are preparing for, because we know that if agents, whether they're HSI, National Guard, [12:23] any type of federal law enforcement is at the poll, it is meant to make sure that Californians and people [12:28] across the country don't go vote. It's meant to make people afraid that they will be questioned, [12:33] whether they are U.S. citizens or not, about their legal status. It makes people scared to actually [12:40] show up. And that's probably because the Trump administration is looking at the polling that we [12:45] are all seeing and their internal polling to see that they need to be afraid of what Americans are [12:51] going to do because they are fed up, not just at the way that ICE is being used to persecute American [12:58] citizens and immigrant communities. The terrorizing is one thing, but also just because of policies that [13:04] are extremely unpopular. I want to play a clip of Mark Wayne Mullen because he has repeatedly said that [13:09] there is no plan to deploy ICE at polling stations. This is a CNN clip. Let's watch this from last [13:15] month. Can you promise federal agents you oversee at DHS will not be summoned to polling places when [13:23] there's no legitimate active emergency? This is so ridiculous. I've been asked this question so many [13:29] times. I actually disappointed that you even brought this up because I think you and I have even talked [13:34] about this already. I gave my answer at the hearing. I gave my answer here. I gave my answer on Jake [13:38] Tapper. I gave my answer wherever I go and get asked the question. That hasn't changed. We won't [13:42] be at the polling place unless there's a threat for us to be there. It's just out of control because [13:48] the president continues to play around with the idea that they're going to do this so they can [13:53] gaslight us all they want. But everything that they're doing is indicating that this is the whole [13:58] this is the whole game. And I want to read also what a federal judge said that restricted DHS from [14:02] knocking on doors Wednesday. They criticize the process of of how just of how they're going about this, [14:07] in particular, identifying noncitizens. This is a quote. Even under the best conditions, [14:11] there's a high likelihood of error in review because there is no federal database containing [14:15] citizenship status of U.S. residents. So whether or not they do any of this stuff, the power of an [14:22] armed federal agent showing up to your doorstep or to your potentially showing up to your polling place [14:26] carries what kind of power, even if you've done nothing wrong? [14:30] Well, if any of us had an armed federal agent come to the door of our home, it is clear that [14:37] is meant to intimidate and it's meant to intimidate people into being too afraid to go out to vote to [14:44] defend this democracy. And when I think of Secretary Mullen in so many instances and his predecessors [14:51] before him have been lacked truth in their statements to the public. And I do not believe for one second [14:58] that they will not use the force of the Department of Homeland Security to intimidate voters, whether [15:03] that is agents at the poll or it is what we've seen over the last two weeks here in Los Angeles. [15:09] We have seen a huge uptick in the number of street arrests. Prior to that, we were seeing very high [15:15] numbers of people detained by ICE, but not in the flashy way that we are seeing now. And that includes [15:21] in Long Beach last week, a U.S. citizen whose arm was broken during his arrest and he was faced down [15:27] in a gutter being handcuffed. That type of flashy Bovino style arrests happening in our community now, [15:36] two weeks before an election, have the effect of making people afraid to go to the polls. And on our [15:43] end, we will have attorneys on call every single hour that polls are open from yesterday when they first [15:50] open for early voting here in Los Angeles until this election is over, because we know that it is [15:56] up to all of us, all of the volunteers that you talked about, to come out and protect our elections [16:02] and make sure that people feel the confidence that they are going to be protected if they exercise their [16:08] right to vote. Nobody knows the lies of this Department of Homeland Security more than you. You were on the [16:14] front lines of the family separation crisis, which is where we met. They said they weren't separating kids. [16:18] You saw it up close. And that type of lying has continued to this very day. Lindsay Toslowski, [16:23] the CEO and co-founder of Immigrant Defenders Law Center. And how, I guess, unfortunately for you, [16:28] you've got to be an election observer as well. Thank you for being here. [16:32] Thanks for having me. [16:34] We're joined now at the table by Dana Milbank, columnist for The Washington Sun, [16:38] and Scott McFarlane, chief Washington correspondent for Midas Touch and host of Scott McFarlane Reports. [16:43] Thank you both for coming back to the weekend. The difference between those two, right? [16:51] It is, it couldn't be more different. It's like Beyonce singing and me. Like it is like [16:56] completely opposite. [16:57] Trust us, that would be the opposite. [16:58] It is true. [16:59] That's so painful for you to say. [17:01] No, I'm okay. I have other skill sets. [17:02] I, Dana, when you watch that, especially back to back, you see why Republicans are so nervous. [17:12] You see why folks in the House are so nervous. You see why they're worried about losing. Because [17:17] President Trump is literally going back to the same thing he always goes back to, right? [17:22] There's a little bit of xenophobia, a little bit of racism in there, some bullying. [17:27] But he's literally, yeah, he's literally quoting himself from what he said and denied saying. [17:31] And by the way, misquoting, it was, at the time, it was shithole. [17:37] Right, exactly. [17:38] I can't believe we're actually having this. [17:39] Because our former colleague, Josh Dossie, broke that story and it's seared in my brain. [17:45] And that's the president of the United States. I guess talk about the difference between those [17:48] two and how they are so emblematic of where we are as a country and where this midterm is. [17:52] And with President Trump, it's like nothing has changed. Like it's the same darn thing we were [17:58] hearing a decade ago. At least Obama has been able to come up with some new material. I love the idea [18:04] that he's saying Trump turned the White House into a place where Sodom. We got the sound. [18:10] Won't give away the Cheesecake Factory. Well, I kind of gave away the Cheesecake Factory. [18:14] And then, so what does Trump do? He comes in and says, he was playing to an empty house [18:20] when we all saw otherwise. You know, the schtick worked until it didn't. And that [18:27] didn't started, you know, within the last year or so. Nobody's buying what he's selling now. [18:33] Nobody's buying $5,000 checks. Nobody's buying, oh, you're getting, we're going to give you a new [18:39] sowdy plant down in Georgia. So it's just the same old thing. And I think the Ramaswamy [18:46] ad this week just brought it out that there's just a level of ugliness that people are, I [18:51] think, I think disgusted with it. Well, you know, it is, he is giving fat Elvis at the, [18:56] at the, at the tail end. I'm talking about President Trump. Since Dana, you brought up [19:01] what is President Obama and his Cheesecake Factory line. Folks, here it is. I don't know if you've [19:25] noticed, but he is very focused on home renovation. He should be on HGTV. Guy is building a ballroom [19:37] that is bigger than the White House. Paved over the Rose Garden. Paved it over. Put a helicopter [19:45] pad on the side lawn. And then there is just gold everywhere. What's, what's up with the gold? [19:53] I mean, he's got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory. [20:04] It's so good. That is so good. I mean, President Obama has great comedic timing. That's a very funny [20:13] line. The poor people at Cheesecake Factory's PR department and marketing department tomorrow [20:17] are going to have a field day. But the key question here is the president, President Obama is on the [20:25] campaign trail, Ohio, Michigan. He's in the, in Democratic Party. He is seen as the closer, [20:32] clearly extremely popular still, but particularly in Michigan, do you think he's going to help push [20:40] Abdul El-Sayed over, over the finish line, especially given Eugene's excellent package [20:47] yesterday? We're talking to black voters in Michigan and there's a lot of antipathy towards [20:54] him. And then Eugene showing him and, and El-Sayed looking a little shook. He's going to need [21:02] exceptional turnout in the city of Detroit to win a statewide race. So far, they're getting that. [21:06] The first day of early voting was yesterday in Detroit, higher than it's ever been. The absentee [21:13] ballots in Detroit, significantly higher than they were in previous years, including previous [21:17] midterms. So off to a good start there. President Obama is only going to help. There's not just a [21:22] Senate race though in Michigan. There are three Republican held U.S. House seats. Democrats think [21:28] they can flip. They're going to need to flip a couple of them if they pursue the majority in the [21:32] House. And don't let that get lost in the fact that Abdul El-Sayed does kind of suck up a lot of [21:38] the attention. His race does, but there's more there. There's a gubernatorial race. President [21:42] Obama needs to be there. But I'll tell you, since we're talking about Fat Elvis and Beyonce- [21:46] And Justin Benson will be here later this hour. Go ahead, Fat Elvis. [21:50] Justin Benson has nothing to do with Fat Elvis, but since we're talking about Fat Elvis and Beyonce, [21:56] do we, do we, do we, do we remember who at the table remembers music on cassette? Who had music [22:01] on cassette? Thank you. All of us. Brady Spears was my first one. Do you remember you had to fix it [22:06] with a pen? Yeah, or a pencil. Doesn't it feel like these Trump rallies of him trying to fix the [22:11] broken cassette with a pen? And it's not going to, it's not going to fix anything. Right. All the [22:16] tape is, it's all so mangled. It's so tangled. There's nothing to be done with that. And these rallies, [22:22] I think the Trump rallies continue until morale improves. And I'm not sure I'm seeing any difference [22:27] in the, in the, in the tenor and tone of these rallies or the content that's going to change the [22:31] morale or fix the cassette. But he is making stranger noises at each rally. Right. Right. [22:36] There's that. Well, actually, speaking of his noises, let's listen to him in Georgia on Saturday. [22:45] You know, Iran had 159 ships. Now they're all at the bottom of the sea. And while oil prices are [22:51] temporarily high and will be falling dramatically in a short period of time, as soon as that war's [22:57] over, if Republicans win the House of Representatives in the Senate, I am going to give all adult [23:03] citizens in the United States, man and wife separately, in other words, double $5,000. [23:10] I mean, Dana, that, I think that proves what Scott just said, that he's sort of scrounging at the [23:22] barrel of the bottom, trying to pump out one liners. And I think maybe potentially had listened to [23:28] Obama and maybe a little bit envious of Obama's ability to dish this out. But is there anything [23:38] he could do between now and next Tuesday to try to at least whip up a little bit more excitement? [23:45] I think what he could do for the Democrats is double the number of rallies he's been having, [23:50] because it definitely seems like it's backfiring. And I think with the increasing intensity of rallies, [23:57] I mean, you can almost see the deterioration in real time. Like I made references to these strange [24:02] noises that keep coming out of his mouth. You know, I don't think there's been a rally in the [24:07] last two weeks where he hasn't talked about a man's butt or just these good looking guys. [24:12] This guy's good looking. This guy's not. So it is strange. And it feels like, I mean, [24:17] you know, we can't know what's going on inside of his head. And I don't really want to know. But [24:21] it definitely seems even in the last several weeks since he's been taking this grueling pace, [24:26] you see some deterioration. Okay, can you know where I'm going? I know where you're going. [24:31] What about his mental acuity? Why are we not get just the last month alone? He has said and done [24:40] things that if President Biden had even done like a fingernails worth, there'd be books and calls for [24:49] the 25th Amendment. And yet this guy gets to go around saying all sorts of horrible, mean, [24:57] racist things. In addition to saying lots of things that are wrong, incorrect, that are also lies. And [25:04] there's no national conversation about our 80 year old president losing his school. [25:09] You know why I think there's a lot of reasons, but I think one of the reasons is because it has [25:15] always been who he is. And I think like if President Biden had done any of those things that you talked [25:20] about, the reason there would have been a national conversation because it would have been out of [25:23] step with how we view him. Right. And so when you think about it, Scott, like everything that we're [25:28] seeing from Donald Trump and everything that we will see from Donald Trump, because he's not [25:32] changing, no matter how much like Republican Republicans say he might. But he's not changing, [25:37] but he's becoming disinhibited. You know, like we started using this show with a very bad word. [25:43] And that's the difference. The first time around, he said it in a private meeting and then denied it. [25:47] Now he says it in the Oval Office with the cameras running and he says that it rallies. So that's the [25:52] change. You're totally right. On the rope line this week, it was noticeable how disinhibited he has [25:58] become and what a short fuse he's developed and the fluency and the comfortability with [26:04] spouting falsehoods. I mean, I he I was there when Karen Travers and Caitlin Collins asked him [26:10] about Amy Acton. He very quickly, more quickly than usual, went to your dumb low IQ. Both of you [26:17] are fake news. Then I asked him if he regretted the Iran war. He immediately sort of spit fired that he [26:25] had saved that. No, he didn't regret it. He had saved the world from nuclear weapons. We know that [26:29] not to be true. But at this point, the consistency with what he's he's said and repeated these [26:36] falsehoods, he's convinced himself that that is the reality. Does it seem like the misogyny [26:41] is worsening towards the reporters in the group? No, I just think that the women ask far harder [26:47] questions than the men. The White House press corps is, I think, at this point, majority women. Yeah. And [26:53] the women are the ones, especially this week, that are all asking him the Amy Acton question. [26:57] I mean, I was only there two two days. I didn't see all. There were a lot of gaggle encounters when [27:04] he was departing to go to these rallies where he was asked about it repeatedly. But yeah, between [27:09] Monica Alba, Karen Travers, Caitlin Collins, those were the only people who were asking about Amy [27:14] Acton. He's not asked that. I think the Trump fatigue, which Democrats are banking on, includes a [27:20] fatigue with the meanness, the courtness, coarseness and the misogyny. And look at Vivek [27:24] Ramaswamy doubling down on those tendencies in his campaign, which gives Amy Acton an open door [27:31] to win. Yeah. Vivek Ramaswamy doubling down. The vice president of the United States from Ohio [27:38] doubling down. You better watch out if he runs in 28. What's going to happen to him via ads? [27:44] And then the president of the United States doubling, tripling. I mean, walking moral void is what I [27:52] will continue to call him. And joining me now on the assignment desk is Molly Jong Fast, host of the [27:59] Fast Politics podcast and an MS Now political analyst. Dean Obidala, host of The Dean Obidala [28:04] Show. Eamon Mohadeen, MS Now analyst and Jonathan Geyer, program director for the Institute for Global [28:10] Affairs. It's good to have all of you guys with me this afternoon. Eamon, I'm going to start with you [28:15] because you know the state of Michigan well and you you know these attacks well, too. [28:20] Yeah, I mean, there's so much to unpack there. Right. And I think in some ways it's a sign of [28:24] the desperation of the Republican Party. But I think at the same time, it is a sign of where [28:28] the Republican Party has come. And the way that I view it is that I think as we approach the [28:33] midterm elections, it's all about who you can energize in your base. And one of the things that [28:37] I am increasingly convinced of is that the base that people like Vivek Ramaswamy in Ohio is trying to [28:42] bring out, the type of voters that J.D. Vance wants to bring out, the type of voters that Mike [28:47] Rogers wants to bring out, are a type of bigoted voters who are animated and motivated by a fear [28:53] of Muslims and certainly by Islamophobia. So I think this is very par for the course because they have [28:58] nothing else to talk about of substance. They can't run on policy. And so when you can't run on [29:02] policy, you kind of gin up your base and you fearmonger and try to get them to vote with this kind [29:08] of visceral reaction. There have been clips throughout this week that we've seen on our network and others [29:12] where Americans are standing at the pump, putting gas in their cars, paying five, six dollars a [29:19] gallon. Aware that they're suffering. Aware that they are suffering because the president of the United [29:23] States dragged them into a war that has basically driven the cost of everything in their lives up, [29:28] not just because of the war, but the tariffs and the Medicaid cuts and the tariff wars, all of that [29:35] making their life much more difficult. And yet, despite all of that, they are standing there at the [29:40] pump telling our correspondent, Alex Tabat, that they would rather vote for Mike Rogers than to [29:46] have a Muslim in the Senate because, as one lady said, they're afraid that he could go into the [29:50] Senate and blow the Senate up. That kind of vile, disgusting language has no place in American [29:55] politics, but it is precisely the type of politics that people like Mike Rogers and the Republican [30:00] Party want to animate in American voters. Yeah. And shout out to Alex Tabat for doing that assignment [30:05] with Grace. I don't know that most people know this, but he's half Lebanese, and I can't imagine getting [30:10] through an assignment in a week being spoken to like that time and time again. I want you guys [30:14] to watch a clip of Mike Rogers on Meet the Press, pressed on all of this. He has denied and denounced [30:23] the Muslim Brotherhood and denied any ties to them. For context, I just want to, what you're talking, [30:28] hold on, what you're talking about. No, he did not, Kristen. He did in an interview with me, [30:32] in an interview with me, he said he had no ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. He won't answer a local [30:38] newspaper. No, I don't buy that. Let's talk about the 2012 letter. You're giving him a pass on [30:41] something. He should be held accountable. Okay, let's. So, Dean, he's just lying there. But one [30:48] of the interesting things about this whole dynamic is that members of Congress have actually [30:53] historically had more touch points with the Muslim Brotherhood than anyone has been able to try to [30:58] establish for El-Sayed or his family. Certainly. And today, Mike Rogers is campaigning with a man who [31:04] waged a terrorist attack on our Capitol. Donald Trump waged the January 6th terrorist attack. [31:08] Donald Trump pardoned the January 6th terrorist. Donald Trump wanted to pay the terrorist. He [31:12] pardoned people who beat a police officer. He pardoned people who convicted of seditious [31:16] conspiracy. January 6th was an act of domestic terrorism. I will continue to talk about it. I [31:21] don't care if the media won't. Why are they asking Mike Rogers, why are you campaigning with a man [31:25] who waged a terrorist attack on our Capitol to remain in office despite losing? Or a man who attempted a [31:30] coup? That's okay. The double standard in watching this is outrageous to me. Muslim Brotherhood [31:35] claim is fabricated. We know it's BS. They're having a post article in 2011. People should read it. I just [31:41] wrote about it. It's no support of Muslim Brotherhood. It's about the people in the street during the [31:44] Arab Spring. But again, media, if you're talking about if you're talking to Mike Rogers, they say, why are you [31:49] campaigning with a man who incited the January 6th terrorist attack? And that's based on the January [31:53] 6th report. Without Trump, it doesn't happen. He's campaigning with a terrorist today. He should be [31:59] called out for it. Molly, what's interesting about the point Dean is making there is in another part [32:03] of the conversation on Meet the Press, while Welker is pushing Rogers, she asks him, are you a MAGA [32:08] Republican? That's just what I want to know. Basically, did you identify as MAGA Republican? [32:12] And he wouldn't answer that question. Well, first, he pretended he couldn't hear her, [32:16] which was amazing. He's a vote for you, a vote for Donald Trump. [32:20] Right. My earpiece is not working now. Those things always seem to happen [32:24] right when the candidate doesn't want to answer the question. It was incredible. And then he kept [32:29] sort of hemming and hawing. But the problem for him, and this is a problem for a lot of Republican [32:33] candidates at this moment, is that Donald Trump, this is not one of these administrations where they [32:38] give you daylight to run against an unpopular president. This is not like Obama or Bush. This is [32:44] like the party of Trump. So now Trump is campaigning with Mike Rogers right now. And you have to [32:51] wonder, like, this is an unpopular president to which we have like no historical precedent. [32:56] I wonder if Donald Trump doesn't make a comment about his ass, if he's going to feel really upset [32:59] or offended by it. That is, you know, Donald Trump has a whole thing where he talks about how [33:04] talking about the candidates, but that's what I mean. That's why I'm like, Mike Rogers is probably [33:08] like going to feel really bad. Yeah. At this point, he's talked about so many that if you are not [33:13] brought up, I think you would be left wondering, like, yeah. All right. Back to something more [33:17] serious, though. This the Republicans in Congress have given up any ability to run a check on Trump. [33:24] So why are you voting for them if they're not going to do anything? The other thing that we keep [33:29] consistently hearing on the trail right now are just these constant attacks on Somali Americans, [33:34] of course, in the wake of everything that's going on with Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. Jonathan, [33:38] I want you to take a listen to this. But they like they think they're in Somalia, [33:45] where they don't have pants to wear. They come here, they go and BMWs and Mercedes and [33:52] they like that. Somalia, they love Mercedes. They come in, they have nothing. And they're [33:57] the number one buyers of Mercedes Benz and BMWs in the state of Minnesota. The whole thing [34:03] is crazy. You know, one of the things about the whole thing that's just so crazy to me is [34:09] for anyone who's covered or tried to track extremism or white supremacist groups online, [34:14] what he just said there is indistinguishable from something you would find on like 4chan. [34:19] No. And the attacks on Representative Omar are just outrageous and they belay any kind of [34:23] democratic rule of law that we as voters have come to expect. But look, I'm from Michigan. I'm from [34:29] these communities. I've seen the fights playing out over decades. And, you know, the thing that I'm [34:33] interested in is the Jewish community. You know, only one percent of voters. But Rogers is peeling off a [34:39] whole lot of them. The concerns about Gaza more broadly in the United States are felt a little [34:44] different in the Jewish community. There was a big terror attack last year. People are scared. [34:50] And so what we do know is 70 percent of Democrats tend to vote. Pardon me. 70 percent of Jews tend to [34:55] vote Democrat. And are some going to be peeled off? Is the singling out AIPAC, maybe good politics [35:01] nationwide, but doesn't really work in Detroit? That's really what I'm watching on this race. [35:05] As a Jew, I totally disagree. And I think that this is this problem where Netanyahu's government [35:11] has made Zionism equivalent with anti-Semitism and said, if you're anti-Zionist, you're an anti-Semite. [35:19] And that means that hurts the diaspora. That hurts, you know, Jews who don't want anything to do with [35:25] what's happening right now. And that's a lot of Jews. Oh, yeah. And I think, you know, Abdel Syed has [35:30] gotten very good on his messaging late in this campaign. But early on, he had some missteps [35:34] that really turned off this community. I know really well. I mean, we know 40 percent of [35:39] Americans want to cut off aid to Israel outright. That's according to polling my organization, [35:43] IGA, has done. So Israel is not popular. The Iran war couldn't be less popular. But it's still a [35:50] complicated dance here in this very diverse state. Can I ask you, though, and I ask this as, [35:54] you know, obviously I'm a black woman. So something that I personally believe is that when people are, [36:01] you know, engaging in any kind of bigotry against another group, I believe that people who are [36:06] comfortable doing that kind of stuff, they probably have no respect for me, even if they're not talking [36:09] about black people. If I see someone engaging in anti-Semitism, Islamophobic rhetoric, I do not [36:15] feel that you are someone who I could feel safe to be in a coalition with you. Why would I believe you [36:19] care about my humanity? Do you get the sense from the research you've done, the people that you talk [36:23] to, the community that you come from, that they hear this kind of rhetoric and believe that [36:29] that's a person who would defend them? Like if you hear the right using language about Muslims and [36:34] believe that that's going to keep you safe as a Jewish person or of any other faith or background [36:39] in Michigan? This is the fundamental question, Antoni. I mean, I think we need a coalition of [36:43] underrepresented groups, minorities to stand up for rule of law and democracy across the U.S. But [36:49] when the rubber hits the road, Israel is a really complicated issue for the Jewish community and [36:54] the American populace writ large is moving. But the Jewish community, parts of it are moving [36:59] a little more slowly. And this is going to be the task for John Ossoff, Jews who can speak [37:03] directly to these communities. And, you know, there is Islamophobia here. It disgusts me. I think it's [37:08] very cool that Abdel has Arabic flyers. I mean, 25 years after 9-11 to have a Muslim Arab, probably, [37:16] you know, a core part of his identity. This is incredible and it's great for America. But when it comes to [37:21] this race, I mean, it's on a knife's edge. [37:23] Joining us now, Congresswoman Haley Stevens of Michigan, who was narrowly defeated in Michigan [37:30] Senate primary by Abdul El-Sayed, and David Drucker, Bloomberg opinion columnist, contributing [37:35] writer for The Dispatch, and an MSNOW contributor. Thank you both very much for being here. [37:40] Congresswoman Stevens, before we went on air, mere seconds before we went on air, you said, [37:45] I've got things to say. What you got to say? [37:50] You know, Eugene was trying to get me to spill the tea before we went live. [37:54] And look, we're talking about the changing coalitions in Michigan, but I want to just [37:59] jump back to what we just saw with the president in Ohio and him in Michigan yesterday. These [38:06] are Obama states, right? These are states that he won multiple times. You know, the last time [38:13] Ohio had a Democratic governor, you know, he was president. And so I loved hearing him say [38:18] change is in the air. I love what Jocelyn Benson is doing. She hasn't slept on her race an inch, [38:24] and she's the hardest worker. But I think in terms of some of the coalitions that are going on in [38:29] Michigan, and I know it's a juicy race. It's a toss up Senate race, you know, and, you know, [38:37] I've kind of parked the car into the garage because I'm not on the ballot here, but I'm out there, [38:42] right? I'm campaigning with Jocelyn. I'll just say this, you know, there are ways that our [38:48] Republican nominee is campaigning. He was a, you know, many term member of Congress, and he's out [38:55] there trying to glad hand, trying to shake hands. You know, you've got Abdul, he's doing these big [39:01] rallies, and it's competitive. You know, Debbie Dingell admitted that it is a competitive race. [39:07] You know, just this, just yesterday with early vote, Detroit, highest voter turnout for an early [39:13] vote day ever. So look, there's one thing we know in Michigan, people like to vote. We're politically [39:20] exercised. We're getting out there. But so much is on the line, right? [39:26] You, when you started, and you talked about President Obama coming, you said you love what [39:31] Jocelyn Benson's doing. You've been on the road with Jocelyn Benson. What you said about Abdul El-Syad is [39:36] that he has big rallies. So I'm trying to get a sense of, I don't think you've been on the road [39:44] with him. Are you going to go out on the road with him? And what do you think about the way, [39:52] how close it is and what that tells you? Well, look, I think Jocelyn shared this. You know, [39:56] she is somebody who's campaigned, you know, for years. She's a dear friend of mine. She just had a [40:01] handful of really close friends on the bus. She was like, do you want to join? I said, absolutely. [40:05] I was actually touring the Obama Center earlier this week. So I just high-tailed it from the [40:09] wavy city, met Jocelyn in Grand Rapids, you know, Hillary's Colton country and all this and that. [40:16] And, you know, look, I will do what the Democratic ticket is asking of me. Absolutely. My specialty is [40:23] these house races. Christina Hines, who is on tap for flipping Michigan's 10th district. It's an open [40:31] seat. She's called me up. She's had me out there. And so, no, I'm a longtime Democrat cheering for [40:38] the Dems. You know, I got no motivation, you know, other than to see us win to lower cost. [40:45] Sure. Were there differences between me and Abdul that were aired out during the primary? You know, [40:50] absolutely. You know, a, hey, shake hands, you know, unity brunch. It's not a blank check, [40:55] but we want to see all our candidates out there talking about how they're going to do [41:02] affordability. So. I'm going to be a little obnoxious now. Yeah. I'm getting looks in the [41:07] voice. I'm going to ask David about you in front of you. You will have a chance to address [41:16] after he answers, but you might not technically be on the ballot, but you are living rent-free in [41:22] both of these candidates' heads right now. Because what is going to be the deciding factor [41:26] for who wins is who can attract the Haley-Stevens coalition. Do you think, David, that Abdul [41:31] al-Sayed has done enough to bring in black and Jewish voters? Well, he clearly hasn't done [41:38] anything to bring in Jewish voters, right? If you're a Jewish voter and you're concerned about [41:44] voting for Abdul al-Sayed, and look, I've talked to him when I was on the trail out there following you [41:48] and him around. And I asked about his positions on Israel and foreign policy generally. Um, and then [41:55] watching him in the months since he won the nomination, he's done zero and he has no interest [42:00] in doing anything. So if you're. But he has said that it's like, that, that, that it's, that anti-Semitism [42:07] is a score that he has said that on our show. Yeah. It's completely insufficient. And it's a total [42:12] canard because for so many Jews, if we're talking about this question, the idea that you would [42:19] question Israel's right to exist or not just say, yes, they should exist, but we're an ally and we [42:25] don't always agree and we can have differences and we should, we should adjust our policy. That is one [42:32] thing that by the way, most Jews who are Democrats believe particularly now, because most Jewish Democrats [42:40] and those are most Jews have not liked Benjamin Netanyahu for the past decade, but that's not the [42:47] argument he's making. The argument he's making is about Israel generally, and it's not an argument [42:54] he makes about other countries. And so to answer your question, of course, he's not done enough [43:00] because he's not done anything. Now, the issue with black voters, I think is just more endemic [43:04] historically to suspicions between ethnic groups that I don't think is necessarily his fault. [43:11] And looking at Mike, Mike Rogers, you know, is out there campaigning in Detroit. He can't deny it. [43:18] Now, Detroit is very familiar with another guy with light eyes named Mike, who was their mayor for 12 [43:25] years. And you got to remember outside of the political class, there's some muscle memory there. [43:31] And so that's that grassroots type of campaigning has worried me. You know, I look, I was proud to earn [43:37] an overwhelming amount of the black vote in Michigan and win Detroit, you know, and how you campaign in [43:45] Detroit. It's based on neighborhoods. I do have a question, though, about the Islamophobia that we're [43:49] seeing also in this race. Right. So for I think we're going to we were going to talk about other [43:53] things, but it seems like we're staying on Michigan. Like there has been a lot of Islamophobia [43:57] within it. Right. You have the president of the United States constantly reminding people that his name [44:01] is Mohammed. You have you have members of Congress and members of the Senate. I think it was Ted Cruz [44:06] that's called him a jihadist. You have voters saying that he's going to be a terrorist. [44:12] There's the question. They're saying that he's a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is not true. [44:17] How do you think like why have we not seen a more fulsome conversation on defense about the [44:23] Islamophobia in the race? Yeah, look, and this is his first big statewide race. And identity is [44:29] absolutely at play. There are some still deep pain and deep divisions. You know, you saw Abdul say [44:35] just the other day, hey, I'm a proud American. I love this country. He's got a fighting spirit. This [44:41] stuff is hard to take. And it was a darn shame that in the first debate it ended up being about these [44:48] foreign issues. You know, I didn't run my primary campaign on foreign policy. I ran it saying this is [44:54] a Michigan moment and Michigan's getting screwed by this administration. And that's asking him about [45:00] Israel and the Middle East. Right. Exactly. He's getting all the questions. Exactly. I'm not knocking [45:04] per se, but, you know, it was like, oh, my gosh, Iran is our enemy. OK, by the way, we got serious [45:11] problems in Saudi Arabia, you know, and they're out there. But what's moving people to the polls [45:16] right now? It's the fact that a president has been out of touch with our state. He started to [45:22] trade war with Canada. I also think it's important to understand a couple of things here. One, [45:28] Abdul El-Sayed is one of the better candidates generally I've seen in terms of political skill [45:32] on the stump. He engages with reporters, even if you're asking very tough questions. And you know [45:39] what he believes and why he believes in it. He doesn't deviate. And there are some benefits to that. [45:44] I think politically, when I talk to some of my Republican and Democratic sources, [45:49] the issue is that there are certain ways in which you could soften to try and reassure certain voting [45:56] groups. And one thing that he has done in Michigan that we're not seeing in other states because of [46:02] the unique nature of his candidacy is that Republican voters, I will defer to you on this, [46:06] but Republican voters, I am told, are energized in Michigan in a way that they are not energized anywhere [46:12] else in the country because there's a very tangible reason for them to go out and vote. [46:18] There's a lot of Islamophobia in it as well. [46:20] Can we, in the little bit of time that we have left, broaden the aperture a bit. [46:25] Just a little bit. [46:26] Just a little bit. [46:27] Wait, can I ask a very quick yes, no question, and then you can do that? [46:30] Because you were nodding your head when he was saying, [46:33] Abdul has done nothing to reach out to Jewish voters. [46:35] Oh, you caught that too? [46:36] Are you disappointed with the way he has campaigned since the primary with Jewish voters? [46:42] I mean, do you think it has been sufficient? [46:45] I think the Jewish community is split. [46:47] I think there is deep pain. [46:49] I think it was unfortunate that the first debate ended up as a conversation about Iran [46:53] and not about the health care conspiracies that RFK Jr. is putting into place, [46:58] the fact that Mike Rogers is going to be a rubber stamp. [47:01] There's always more to do. [47:02] It's a community that's in pain. [47:04] I was proud to stand with them. [47:05] I will always stand with them. [47:06] It's like a no. [47:07] You don't think he's done enough. [47:09] So reclaiming my time to widen the aperture in the 90 seconds that we have left, [47:14] let's put up the New York Times-Siena poll about which party do you trust to do a better job, [47:19] Congressman, you were talking about. [47:21] Let's put it up so people can see what they're talking about. [47:25] So as you see there on the screen, Democrats have an advantage over Republicans on every issue [47:30] on this board. [47:31] Health care, cost of living, gas prices, foreign wars, the economy, immigration, corruption, [47:35] even AI. [47:38] This clearly shows that Democrats have an advantage around the country on these issues. [47:43] And yet the conversation around the table, David, is that Democrats have an advantage [47:49] around the country on these issues, except maybe the Democratic nominee for Senate. [47:55] And he's underperforming Jocelyn Benson. [47:58] I mean, I think that explains it, right? [48:00] In a lot of states, you will see- [48:02] Well, she says it's because we just interviewed her in the last hour. [48:04] She says it's because she's been in several statewide offices for years now, and people [48:09] know who she is, and that explains it. [48:11] Listen, Donald Trump is extremely unpopular in Michigan. [48:15] I would suspect that these numbers translate in Michigan, at least to some degree. [48:19] Correct me if you think I'm wrong. [48:21] And so I think it's just the nature of the two candidates. [48:24] I think Abdul El-Sayed's slogan is a great political slogan for this cycle, but the conversation [48:33] around his campaign versus other Democratic campaigns has become something wholly different. [48:40] No, and it's undeniable. [48:41] Look, I was violently shouted down off my party stage being called the Zionist pig, right? [48:46] I mean, there are broader issues here tied to where certain communities are experiencing [48:53] ongoing pain, you know, what you've mentioned, which, look, it's a kicker to see a whole [48:58] campaign turn into this, you know, identity conversation when there is so much on the line. [49:05] I know we only have a few minutes left. [49:07] We have no minutes left. [49:07] I wanted to pivot to one thing that's caught my attention that has nothing to do with Michigan, [49:12] but is another state that begins with M, Scott Colom in Mississippi. [49:16] Oh, yes. [49:16] Oh, that is Angela Osso Brooks. [49:19] Put him on the map. [49:20] I have been watching Mississippi. [49:22] Yes. [49:22] He's the great senator for Maryland. [49:24] He is going to become a senator. [49:27] Brandon Presley, mark my words, when he ran for governor in 23, we had a Whitmer staffer, [49:32] Ron Owens, go down there and work for Presley. [49:35] Three points he came from being the Democratic governor. [49:38] Scott Colom is going to win. [49:39] All right. [49:40] Pick another protein. [49:43] Political ads are everywhere this midterm cycle, and the money behind them is astonishing. [49:49] $10 billion total so far spent this cycle. [49:52] That's according to Ad Impact. [49:53] They also project a record $11.6 billion in overall spend, surpassing the 2024 presidential election. [50:00] In just two weeks of this last stretch, campaigns nationwide spent over a billion dollars. [50:06] That's according to The New York Times. [50:07] But through this sea of ads, no one, nowhere, has let the basement, you know, let the bar fall down to the basement, is what I meant to say there. [50:15] Quite like Vivek Ramaswamy in the state of Ohio, where Vivek dropped a spot that you have no doubt seen by now, featuring his opponent's estranged mother accusing Amy Acton of being a liar. [50:28] Ramaswamy is doubling down, though, saying he'll spend another $4 million airing it. [50:33] But nowhere is the money itself more noticeable than in the Texas Senate race. [50:36] Elon Musk putting hundreds of millions of dollars to help elect Republican Ken Paxton and others around the country. [50:43] The Democrat in that race, James Tallarico, put things succinctly. [50:46] Ken Paxton is funded by one dude. [50:53] Elon Musk wants our land. [50:55] He wants our water. [50:59] He wants our tax dollars. [51:01] He wants his very own personal United States senator. [51:05] He is trying to buy Texas. [51:07] Back with me to break down the good, the bad and the ugly is the assignment desk. [51:14] Molly, what do you make of the insane amount of money being spent on all this, more than a presidential cycle? [51:20] Well, first of all, I just we have no regulation for political ads. [51:25] So we have A.I. ads of people doing things they did not do with people they do not know. [51:30] And I think if we're if Democrats ever take power back, that should be like job one. [51:35] You can't make fake videos of people about things that didn't happen. [51:38] And there needs to be some kind of accountability there. [51:41] I just want to add, though, on the Amy Acton ad, the ad that Vivek ran on her, [51:46] that they actually found Amy's mother living in a car. [51:51] She's 82 with cats. [51:53] So she's a homeless octogenarian who's clearly not 100 percent right, who had been on the lam with her husband, [52:01] who was accused of these sex crimes against Amy when she was a child. [52:06] OK, so like just think about it's even more like the the full story is even worse than the ad. [52:12] Yeah. Right. Like what did they offer this homeless octogenarian who lives in her car with her cats to make a video about her estranged daughter who she hasn't talked to in 48 years? [52:24] Yeah, that is the question. [52:27] Molly, are there any ads that stood out to you as actually good? [52:30] Pick another protein. Do we have it? [52:33] We do have it. I don't know if we can play it, but I think we can pull up some of it on the screen. [52:37] But describe, set the scene for me. This is Mississippi, right? [52:39] This is Mississippi. This is a Senate race that it's, I think, a very long shot. [52:44] But Mississippi is a majority minority state where black voters outnumber white voters, but they're not enfranchised. [52:52] There's been a lot of Jim Crow era policies. [52:55] And this candidate, Scott Colum, is a great candidate. [52:58] He is really just charming and funny. [53:01] He's running against a Republican, Cindy Hyde Smith, who is really not ready for prime time. [53:06] There's pictures of her in a Confederate outfit. That's the picture she became most famous for. [53:13] And she said during an interview, she said, well, you know, there are a lot of proteins. [53:17] So pick another protein if beef is too expensive. [53:19] And we hear a lot from voters that beef is really expensive and people are really hurting and they can't like have beef. [53:26] And she's like, well, just pick another protein. And the ad is just a great ad because it is. [53:33] One of the interesting things about this cycle is that because of how much damage Trump has done down the ballot to other Republicans, [53:40] Eamon, you see like these people who've never had to defend their seat before really, really struggling. [53:45] Like this is their first time doing prime time, you know, like having to actually answer some basic questions or like come up with a message. [53:51] And a lot of them are flopping. [53:53] A lot of them are flopping. Also, I think, look, you know, we have a we have a money problem in our politics, [53:56] as you just demonstrated with with that graphic that you had on the screen there. [53:59] I mean, we talk a lot about the military industrial complex. We have an election industrial complex. [54:03] I think there's a lot of money that comes out every couple of years that we're on a two year cycle. [54:06] Every two years we are spending billions of dollars. Right. [54:09] But I thought one of the more powerful ads that also emerged the second, I don't know if we have it. [54:12] It's the one that was just dropped by Abdel Saeed in Michigan, where it's a couple that is shopping in a supermarket and they want to buy stuff. [54:18] And I think the wife looks over and says, like, no, but we don't have money for that. [54:21] We have to send that money over to Israel to bomb more people in Gaza. [54:25] And I thought that was a very powerful ad. And I got I don't want to say it's an Abdel Saeed ad because I don't know if the campaign anything to do with it. [54:30] I mean, I thought it was a little too on the nose. Yeah. Yeah. [54:32] I was going to say, I don't know if he did it, but I just it's obviously encouraging people to vote for him. [54:36] But I think the issue here is that a lot of the Republicans are in this problem of having to distance themselves from Donald Trump, [54:44] but also need Donald Trump for the money and the fundraising, because at the end of the day, that's what Donald Trump was always about. [54:49] He can kind of get you money and bring money and he has the money to spend on the candidates. [54:53] And what he does is demand loyalty in return for that. [54:56] And so what you get is exactly what you were talking about earlier in the show. [54:59] You get Mike Rogers, who on one hand says we shouldn't be at war with Canada. [55:03] So he's undermining the tariff war. He's saying we should end the war in Iran, undermining Trump's policy there. [55:09] And yet at the same time, he won't come out and say that Donald Trump is a bad president or that I distance myself from his policies or a vote for me is not a vote for Donald Trump. [55:17] The the the bigger concern right now is that you have these Republicans in states that normally and should have easily been super safe read places in Florida, Kansas. [55:27] And they now don't even want to be seen with Donald Trump. [55:30] So that tells you everything about what is happening within the Republican Party in the final stretch of this election. [55:35] On Abdul, I know that you flagged for my team that one of the ads that you liked was an Abdul El-Sayed ad where he describes the meaning of his name. [55:42] I don't think we have time to play it. But why do you think that that ad matters? [55:46] Because they're attacking for being Muslim and he leans into it and is proudly embracing and say, I am Muslim. [55:51] My name Abdul means servant. And he said, I pray every day in this ad. [55:54] And there's also images of, you know, a Jewish symbol of faith and a Christian symbol of faith. [55:58] And his whole thing, you just saw it there. The whole thing is about I'm a person of faith and we need more people of faith. [56:03] So it's the idea of believe in me. But he's not running away from his faith, the target they're going at. [56:07] He's embracing it. So I love it. It's like jujitsu. He's using it. [56:11] And it's also makes me proud as a Muslim to see a man who is proud of his faith. [56:15] And I've had to do it for about eight years. So to see this, I was like, I love it. It was moving. I found it emotional. [56:20] Hey, it's Rachel. I am so glad to see you at the end of that clip, because this is where I get to tell you about a new way to watch all our clips and all of our shows and everything on MSNOW on your phone or your tablet or your laptop. [56:33] You can watch things live or recorded. Plus, you can ask me and all the other hosts and reporters questions in our weekly live chats. [56:41] You can go to MS.NOW slash membership or just click below. Thanks. [56:47] Thanks.