Midterm Political Ads: The Assignment Desk breaks down the good, the bad, and the UGLY

[0:00] Political ads are everywhere this midterm cycle, and the money behind them is astonishing. [0:05] $10 billion total so far spent this cycle. That's according to Ad Impact. [0:10] They also project a record $11.6 billion in overall spend, surpassing the 2024 presidential election. [0:16] In just two weeks of this last stretch, campaigns nationwide spent over $1 billion. [0:21] That's according to The New York Times. [0:23] But through this sea of ads, no one, nowhere, has let the basement, you know, [0:28] let the bar fall down to the basement, is what I meant to say there. [0:31] Quite like Vivek Ramaswamy in the state of Ohio, where Vivek dropped a spot that you have no doubt seen by now, [0:39] featuring his opponent's estranged mother accusing Amy Acton of being a liar. [0:44] Ramaswamy is doubling down, though, saying he'll spend another $4 million airing it. [0:49] But nowhere is the money itself more noticeable than in the Texas Senate race. [0:52] Elon Musk putting hundreds of millions of dollars to help elect Republican Ken Paxton and others around the country. [0:59] The Democrat in that race, James Tallarico, put things succinctly. [1:04] Ken Paxton is funded by one dude. [1:09] Elon Musk wants our land. [1:12] He wants our water. [1:14] He wants our tax dollars. [1:17] He wants his very own personal United States senator. [1:20] He is trying to buy Texas. [1:23] Back with me to break down the good, the bad and the ugly is the assignment desk. [1:30] Molly, what do you make of the insane amount of money being spent on all this, more than a presidential cycle? [1:36] Well, first of all, I just we have no regulation for political ads. [1:40] So we have AI ads of people doing things they did not do with people they do not know. [1:46] And I think if we're if Democrats ever take power back, that should be like job one. [1:50] You can't make fake videos of people about things that didn't happen. [1:54] And there needs to be some kind of accountability there. [1:57] I just want to add, though, on the Amy Acton ad, the ad that Vivek ran on her, that they actually found Amy's mother living in a car. [2:07] She's 82 with cats. [2:09] So she's a homeless octogenarian who's clearly not 100 percent right, who had been on the lam with her husband, who was accused of these sex crimes against Amy when she was a child. [2:22] OK, so, like, just think about it's even more like the the full story is even worse than the ad. [2:27] Yeah. Right. [2:28] 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? [2:40] Yeah, that is the question. [2:42] Molly, are there any ads that stood out to you as actually good? [2:46] Pick another protein. [2:47] Do we have it? [2:48] We do have it. [2:50] I don't know if we can play it, but I think we can pull up some of it on the screen. [2:53] But describe set the scene for me. [2:54] This is Mississippi, right? [2:55] This is Mississippi. [2:55] This is a Senate race that it's, I think, a very long shot. [3:00] But Mississippi is a majority minority state where black voters outnumber white voters, but they're not enfranchised. [3:07] There's been a lot of Jim Crow era policies. [3:11] And this candidate, Scott Colum, is a great candidate. [3:14] He is really just charming and funny. [3:17] He's running against a Republican, Cindy Hyde Smith, who is really not ready for prime time. [3:22] There's pictures of her in a Confederate outfit. [3:24] That's the picture she became most famous for. [3:28] And she said during an interview, she said, well, you know, there are a lot of proteins. [3:33] So pick another protein if beef is too expensive. [3:35] And we hear a lot from voters that beef is really expensive and people are really hurting and they can't like have beef. [3:42] And she's like, well, just pick another protein. [3:44] And the ad is just a great ad because it is one of the interesting things about this cycle is that because of how much damage Trump has done down the ballot to other Republicans. [3:55] And when you see like these people who've never had to defend their seat before, really, really struggling, 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. [4:07] And a lot of them are flopping. [4:09] A lot of them are flopping. [4:09] Also, I think, look, you know, we have a we have a money problem in our politics, as you just demonstrated with with that graphic that you had on the screen there. [4:15] I mean, we talk a lot about the military industrial complex. [4:17] We have an election industrial complex. [4:19] I think there's a lot of money that comes out every couple of years that we're on a two year cycle. [4:22] Every two years we are spending billions of dollars. [4:24] Right. But I thought one of the more powerful ads that also emerged the second. [4:27] I don't know if we have it. [4:28] 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. [4:34] And I think the wife looks over and says, like, no, but we don't have money for that. [4:37] We have to send that money over to Israel to bomb more people in Gaza. [4:41] And I thought that was a very powerful ad. [4:42] 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. [4:46] I mean, I thought it was a little too on the nose. [4:47] Yeah, yeah. 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. [4:52] 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, [5:00] 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. [5:05] He can kind of get you money and bring money and he has the money to spend on the candidates. [5:09] And what he does is demand loyalty in return for that. [5:12] And so what you get is exactly what you were talking about earlier in the show. [5:15] You get Mike Rogers, who on one hand says we shouldn't be at war with Canada. [5:19] So he's undermining the tariff war. [5:21] He's saying we should end the war in Iran, undermining Trump's policy there. [5:25] 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. [5:33] 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. [5:43] And they now don't even want to be seen with Donald Trump. [5:46] So that tells you everything about what is happening within the Republican Party in the final stretch of this election. [5:50] 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. [5:58] I don't think we have time to play it. But why do you think that that ad matters? [6:02] Because they're attacking for being Muslim and he leans into it and is proudly embracing and say, I am Muslim. [6:06] My name Abdul means servant. And he said, I pray every day in this ad. [6:09] And there's also images of, you know, a Jewish symbol of faith and a Christian symbol of faith. [6:14] And this 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. [6:19] So it's the idea of believe in me. But he's not running away from his faith, the target they're going at. [6:23] He's embracing it. So I love it. It's like jujitsu. He's using it. [6:27] And it's also makes me proud as a Muslim to see a man who is proud of his faith. [6:31] And I've had to do it for about eight years. So to see this, I was like, I love it was moving. [6:35] I found it emotional. Hey, it's Rachel. I am so glad to see you at the end of that clip, [6:39] because this is where I get to tell you about a new way to watch all our clips and all of our shows [6:44] and everything on MSNOW on your phone or your tablet or your laptop. You can watch things live [6:50] or recorded. Plus, you can ask me and all the other hosts and reporters questions in our weekly [6:55] live chats. You can go to ms.now slash membership or just click below. Thanks.