Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 10/26/26: Lula Defeats Bolsonaro, Mehdi Hasan Exposes AIPAC, Early Vote Omen For GOP

Transcript

10/26/26: Lula Defeats Bolsonaro, Mehdi Hasan Exposes AIPAC, Early Vote Omen For GOP · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Had a busy day?
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: Don't have time to listen to the show?
• 0:03
  Speaker 3: Catch up on Breaking Points with our free daily newsletter.
• 0:05
  Speaker 3: You'll get our breakdown of every daily story. And lots
• 0:08
  Speaker 3: of links in your inbox every day.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: So head over to BreakingPoints.com. You can sign up for
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: the newsletter at the top for free today. All right,
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: heading down to Brazil now.
• 0:22
  Speaker 4: Flavio Bolsonaro, after the first round election, had something like
• 0:26
  Speaker 4: a 90-plus percent chance to win elections.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Last night's election.
• 0:30
  Speaker 4: Instead, you're looking at the winner right there, Lula da Silva,
• 0:35
  Speaker 4: with a comeback of absolutely historic proportions, winning a narrow
• 0:41
  Speaker 4: victory over Bolsonaro. The Brazilian stock market has lost something
• 0:48
  Speaker 4: like 20 to 30.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Percent, maybe a quarter of its value.
• 0:52
  Speaker 4: The market had absolutely surged after Bolsonaro's won the first
• 0:58
  Speaker 4: round elections and looked like he was going to become
• 1:02
  Speaker 4: Brazil's new president.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: But the right there, extremely shocked.
• 1:08
  Speaker 4: Disappointed, and selling off as many assets as they can
• 1:12
  Speaker 4: watching Lula's victory. Joining us to talk about this will
• 1:16
  Speaker 4: be Juan David Rojas, who was down in Brazil over
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: the past couple of weeks covering the election.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Juan, thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: me on, guys. So there were some rumors in.
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: The last couple of days that polls were showing an
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: extraordinarily tightened race. It seems like there are pockets of
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: voters who didn't turn out in the first round, who
• 1:42
  Speaker 4: did turn out for Lula this time, when I guess
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: they kind of realized, oh, wait a second, Flavio Bolsonaro
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: might actually win this. And not as many of the
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: minor parties who lost, supporters, went to Bolsonaro as they thought.
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: Did you see any of this coming? What do you
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: think happened between the first round and this final round
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: that shift these results so dramatically?
• 2:11
  Speaker 5: This is a truly shocking victory. I thought that Lulu
• 2:15
  Speaker 5: would lose. And in fairness, the polls were sort of
• 2:18
  Speaker 5: wrong in both directions. They were wrong in the first
• 2:21
  Speaker 5: round in that they didn't expect Bolsonaro to win in
• 2:24
  Speaker 5: the first round. He got the most votes. They thought
• 2:26
  Speaker 5: that Lula would get the most votes. And then in
• 2:28
  Speaker 5: the runoff, a lot of them were 50-50, but many
• 2:31
  Speaker 5: still had Flavio Bolsonaro slightly ahead. What I think happened
• 2:37
  Speaker 5: in the first round, for instance, is that a lot
• 2:39
  Speaker 5: of the support for third candidates dropped off and went
• 2:43
  Speaker 5: to Flavio Bolsonaro, evidently at the last minute. And in
• 2:47
  Speaker 5: the second round, wow. The PT really went into overdrive.
• 2:51
  Speaker 5: I saw this in every city I went to. I
• 2:53
  Speaker 5: went to five Brazilian cities and you just saw PT
• 2:56
  Speaker 5: people handing out flyers everywhere, holding rallies. Lula went around
• 3:02
  Speaker 5: the country, which really was incredible. He's 80 years old
• 3:05
  Speaker 5: and is still extremely sharp mentally. He arrived like running
• 3:09
  Speaker 5: to this demonstration of like 300,000 people in Sao Paulo.
• 3:15
  Speaker 5: And Andres Anonis has been really credited as a federal
• 3:19
  Speaker 5: deputy for the PT, put together this social media following,
• 3:25
  Speaker 5: like this WhatsApp group, which was over the course of
• 3:28
  Speaker 5: just the first and second rounds, gained like 10 million followers, 7%
• 3:33
  Speaker 5: of the electorate.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: It was really, really crazy.
• 3:36
  Speaker 5: So this is historic in every way. No Brazilian president
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: had ever won a runoff after losing in the first round.
• 3:45
  Speaker 5: And of course, Lula is elected to a historic fourth term. Now,
• 3:50
  Speaker 5: at the same time, this is also, I hate to
• 3:54
  Speaker 5: rain on everyone's parade, but this is really a pyrrhic
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: victory because Bolsonaro made huge gains in Congress. They won
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: something like half of all seats that were up for
• 4:04
  Speaker 5: grabs in the Senate. They nearly controlled the Senate. So
• 4:07
  Speaker 5: this is going to be really tough in Lula's next term.
• 4:11
  Speaker 6: Let's put this map Up on the screen, guys, this
• 4:14
  Speaker 6: should be D3. We can see the shift towards Lula
• 4:18
  Speaker 6: from the initial election to the runoff. And the red
• 4:23
  Speaker 6: arrows that you see here, it's a little backwards from
• 4:25
  Speaker 6: what we're used to in the U.S., but the red
• 4:27
  Speaker 6: shifts are towards Lula. And you can see in the
• 4:30
  Speaker 6: vast majority of the country, there was a shift towards Lula.
• 4:34
  Speaker 6: Let's also put the polymarket image up on the screen here.
• 4:37
  Speaker 6: We had a major gambling app fail. They really thought,
• 4:43
  Speaker 6: you can see at the peak, they really thought that
• 4:45
  Speaker 6: Flavio was going to win going into this. And then
• 4:48
  Speaker 6: as the results came in, it just drops off a
• 4:50
  Speaker 6: cliff and totally flips Flavio. So, you know, no real insider,
• 4:56
  Speaker 6: no real sort of like intuition or instinct that went
• 4:59
  Speaker 6: against the polls here. And one of the things that
• 5:01
  Speaker 6: I did see, Juan, is that one of the pollsters
• 5:03
  Speaker 6: came out and said basically like, look, we were so
• 5:05
  Speaker 6: worried about underestimating Flavio and the Bolsonaro movement this time
• 5:10
  Speaker 6: that we put our film too much on the scales
• 5:12
  Speaker 6: in the other direction and we missed what was going
• 5:14
  Speaker 6: on here.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Very, very possible.
• 5:17
  Speaker 5: Yeah, like I said, I mean, the amount of support
• 5:20
  Speaker 5: I saw for Lula on the streets was insane. And,
• 5:25
  Speaker 5: you know, in the past, like support on the street
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: wasn't necessarily correlated to vote totals, but dude, like, over
• 5:32
  Speaker 5: the weekend, there was a rally in Sao Paulo that
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: had supposedly half a million people. It was apparently the
• 5:37
  Speaker 5: largest demonstration in the country's history, potentially. Lula, really, if
• 5:44
  Speaker 5: you look at the data, what he managed to do
• 5:46
  Speaker 5: was drive out people who abstained in the first round.
• 5:48
  Speaker 5: Abstention in the first round actually was the highest in history,
• 5:51
  Speaker 5: something like 22%. And that dropped off significantly in the
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: second round, I think by a few points. So, it's
• 6:01
  Speaker 5: really stunning. I saw that potentially even some of Flavio
• 6:06
  Speaker 5: Bolsonaro's voters in the first round evidently ended up abstaining
• 6:14
  Speaker 5: in the second round. So it's truly shocking. Really, I'm
• 6:18
  Speaker 5: going to be honest, Lula has had a lot of
• 6:20
  Speaker 5: failings in this term. By far, this has been his
• 6:22
  Speaker 5: most disappointing of his three terms so far. But the
• 6:26
  Speaker 5: thing is, on the other hand, like He was literally
• 6:28
  Speaker 5: running against a bunch of guys, an entire family, who
• 6:32
  Speaker 5: lobbied to accidentally and intentionally tariff and sanction their own country. So,
• 6:38
  Speaker 5: I mean, it's really an indictment on Bolsonaro.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: Now, Flavio is saying that he doesn't respect these results,
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: that he's crying foul.
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: What do you suspect? There's also been some reports that
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: he might just leave. But given the fact that they
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: did so well in Congress.
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: What do you expect his future is? Because on the
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: one hand, he's feeling quite vulnerable. On the other hand,
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: he's complaining that the results were not fair. On the
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: other hand, his movement is, at the lower level, surging.
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: And what irregularities is he referring to, and where do
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: you see this going?
• 7:15
  Speaker 5: Yeah, there were irregularities. I don't think that they affected
• 7:18
  Speaker 5: the result. What happened yesterday was.
• 7:22
  Speaker 5: In a handful of cities with mayors controlled by Bolsonaro allies,
• 7:29
  Speaker 5: they were screwing around with transportation to polling stations and
• 7:33
  Speaker 5: PT areas. And there's been back and forth over this.
• 7:37
  Speaker 5: But anyway, Lula complained and requested an extension to voting.
• 7:43
  Speaker 5: And there was also inclement weather in the south of
• 7:45
  Speaker 5: the country where Bolsonaro is really strong. So both candidates
• 7:48
  Speaker 5: actually ended up requesting an extension. But once polls had
• 7:52
  Speaker 5: already closed, a single justice, Cristiano Zanin, who was Lula's
• 7:58
  Speaker 5: personal lawyer, issued a monochromatic decision. Brazil has this ridiculous
• 8:04
  Speaker 5: judiciary where single justices can make these extremely consequential decisions.
• 8:10
  Speaker 5: He ruled that voting would be extended by two hours.
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: But the problem was a lot of the voting machines
• 8:15
  Speaker 5: had already been turned off. And once they're turned off,
• 8:17
  Speaker 5: you can't turn them back on. So apparently a lot
• 8:19
  Speaker 5: of people who might have been able to vote, still
• 8:22
  Speaker 5: weren't able to vote. In fairness, I saw something that
• 8:25
  Speaker 5: apparently the amount of people that were able to vote
• 8:27
  Speaker 5: after 5 p.m. once polls closed or were supposed to
• 8:30
  Speaker 5: close was still pretty minimal, only like 30,000, something like that.
• 8:35
  Speaker 5: So I don't think you can really dispute the results
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: from what I've seen, at least. But, you know, that
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: was definitely irregular. I mean, that had never happened in
• 8:45
  Speaker 5: Brazil's history.
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
• 9:06
  Speaker 6: A lot of Latin America has shifted to the right
• 9:09
  Speaker 6: with the Trump regime really helping that that movement towards
• 9:14
  Speaker 6: the right along. So what will this mean globally and
• 9:17
  Speaker 6: for relations with the U.S.
• 9:19
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, I haven't seen anyone else pick up
• 9:23
  Speaker 5: on this, but actually, Trump. if you look at him,
• 9:27
  Speaker 5: he did not issue a formal endorsement of Flavio Bolsonaro. Like,
• 9:31
  Speaker 5: you know, he typically does his, like, truth endorsements. Now, obviously,
• 9:34
  Speaker 5: you know, it's implied that he has his back. I mean,
• 9:36
  Speaker 5: Flavio Bolsonaro literally went to the White House, oh, and,
• 9:39
  Speaker 5: you know, got, like, a terror designation for, like, Brazilian
• 9:42
  Speaker 5: drug gangs, whatever. But I think they might have omitted
• 9:46
  Speaker 5: a formal endorsement because they thought it would probably help Lula.
• 9:50
  Speaker 5: I mean, every time the terrorists before... There were two
• 9:53
  Speaker 5: rounds of tariffs this year and last year that extremely
• 9:56
  Speaker 5: helped Lula in the polls when he was down, actually.
• 10:00
  Speaker 5: And in Latin America, I mean, this is the first
• 10:03
  Speaker 5: left-wing party to win re-election since Morena in Mexico in 2024.
• 10:08
  Speaker 5: Every other election has been lost by left-of-center parties. So,
• 10:16
  Speaker 5: and here's where I say, look, this is really important
• 10:18
  Speaker 5: not to, like, it's really important to get the right
• 10:23
  Speaker 5: lessons from this result. What I would say is that
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: because Bolsonaro did so well in the Congress, there were
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: some serious questions about the legitimacy of Brazil's Supreme Court.
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: There was this Epstein-like scandal implicating a bunch of people,
• 10:36
  Speaker 5: including people in Lula's government and also Flavio Bolsonaro. And actually,
• 10:40
  Speaker 5: the justice that convicted Jair Bolsonaro, Flavio Bolsonaro's dad, took
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: millions of dollars from this evangelical.
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: Banker, and a lot of the rest of the Supreme Court,
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: they were trying to protect themselves. This really energized Bolsonaroismo,
• 10:59
  Speaker 5: and it's why they came out to vote so massively
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: in the Congress. So both Lula and Flavio promised to
• 11:07
  Speaker 5: reform the Supreme Court. I think he's going to have
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: to make good on that decision. Otherwise, seriously, I would
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: not rule out impeachment proceedings at some point during this term.
• 11:19
  Speaker 7: Juan?
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: Really appreciate your analysis. Thanks so much for being here. Thanks, guys.
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: We are pleased to be joined today by Mehdi Hassan,
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: a friend of the show, the founder of Zateo, to
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: talk about his new documentary, Nightflower, Inside APAC's Fight for Influence.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: Mehdi, thank you so much for being here.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Thanks for having me, guys.
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: And so actually, this was a bit of a punk.
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: We said we would have you come on and talk
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: about the APAC documentary. We actually have Matthew Iglesias and
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: Neera Tanden standing by here who want another shot.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: Round two, ding-a-ding-ding.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: They want another shot at the interview. No, but this
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: is a tremendous new documentary. Let's start with a little
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: bit of it. We can roll this clip here.
• 12:06
  Speaker 8: What is it that you fear about speaking out?
• 12:09
  Speaker 9: I'm afraid of some form of retaliation from AIPAC.
• 12:14
  Speaker 7: I decided to speak out because I'm disappointed something has
• 12:19
  Speaker 7: to change.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: You may know AIPAC as being one of the biggest
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: and most recognizable donors to many of the members of
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: Congress in your state. A former director of AIPAC said,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: the lobby is like a night flower. It thrives in
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: the darkness and shrivels in the daylight. This is great, man.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: AIPAC and what it's supporting is very unpopular right now.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: And that is the moment where sunlight shines on the
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: night flower.
• 12:46
  Speaker 8: Do you feel like AIPAC operates as a foreign agent
• 12:48
  Speaker 8: for Israel?
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: Maddie, there's another interesting moment I wanted to roll before
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: we go into the conversation, actually. If we could just
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: go ahead and put up E3, too.
• 13:04
  Speaker 8: I imagine there must be times, though, when you were
• 13:07
  Speaker 8: preparing to lobby on the Hill that you would talk
• 13:10
  Speaker 8: with Israeli officials and coordinate messaging and plan, no?
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Well, I.
• 13:20
  Speaker 10: Don't want to go into that. to talk to somebody
• 13:23
  Speaker 10: who does not coordinate. There were people who had some...
• 13:32
  Speaker 10: Just drop it. I have no direct information.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: Not sure what you're getting at?
• 13:42
  Speaker 10: I have no direct knowledge of anybody coordinating with anybody
• 13:47
  Speaker 10: outside with any other government.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: But suspicions or something or?
• 13:58
  Speaker 10: I don't know.
• 13:59
  Speaker 8: Can you just kind of explain what you're... Not on camera.
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: Many what I particularly liked about this film was that
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: it sort of doubles as a window into American politics
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: from the 1980s up until today and how it's evolved
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: and also Israeli politics and the U.S.-Israel relationship as it
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: has evolved over kind of together, co-evolved, I would say.
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: What struck you the most about the history as you
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: were looking back at it?
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so Dion Nissenbaum, the Pulitzer Prize-winning former Wall Street
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Journal Middle East reporter who made this film, When he
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: started working on this film, AIPAC wasn't as central to
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: our politics as it's become in recent months. I guess
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: timing has been great for us in terms of this
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: film coming out in the past week and all eyes
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: being on AIPAC, especially post-Michigan primary and pre the general.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: But what's interesting is, excuse me, there's been a lot
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: of coverage of AIPAC, its role in financing Democratic primaries.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: its role in spending a record amount of money in
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Michigan and St. Abdul El-Sayed, the role of Republican billionaires
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: in funding AIPAC. But there hasn't been as much coverage
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: in terms of AIPAC's role itself in our political system
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: and whether it should even have to register as a
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: foreign agent. And that is the focus of this film.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: the FARA Act, the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: lobbies that are coordinating with foreign governments to register as
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: foreign agents so we don't have secret foreign government interference
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: in American politics. And this is a debate that's been
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: going back, as we point out in the film, to
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: the 1960s. This has been going back to Robert Kennedy,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: the good RFK, not the one we currently have, who
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: actually suggested the precursor organization to AIPAC should register as
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: a foreign agent. So did Senator William Fulbright and many
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: others over the years, and it never has. And this
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: debate is now back, and this film lays out quite
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: a lot of evidence for why a DOJ, maybe run
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: by the Democrats, not by the Republicans, clearly, should actually
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: investigate whether AIPAC is acting as a foreign lobby. And
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: we speak to whistleblowers, we speak to former officials like
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Douglas Bloomfield, you just saw there, who was a chief lobbyist,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: legislative director for AIPAC for nearly a decade in the 80s.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: And they all seem like they want to say something
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: about Israeli government coordination. We interviewed Keith Weitzman, who says
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: on camera, yeah, I passed on classified information that the
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Pentagon gave me to the Israeli embassy in D.C.
• 16:19
  Speaker 6: So, Mehdi, what AIPAC's defenders will say, and some of
• 16:21
  Speaker 6: them do say in your documentary, is this is not
• 16:25
  Speaker 6: an organization representing a foreign government. This is a group
• 16:28
  Speaker 6: of Americans who believe that it is good for America
• 16:32
  Speaker 6: when you have a strong U.S.-Israeli relationship.
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: And you say to them what?
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: So it is the main argument that this is an
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: American group. Stop trying to bracket us with Israel. And
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: that's a fair argument. But what's interesting in this film
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: is you have someone like Sam Lauter, who Dion speaks to,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: who is from DMFI, Democratic Majority of Israel, a pro-Israel group.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Let's just be very clear. He calls himself an AIPAC
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: prince in the film. His mother was one of the co-founders,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: one of the big drivers of AIPAC when it was founded.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: And even he says, while he says, look, I don't
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: think it's a foreign lobby, I don't think it's a
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: foreign agent, but even he says, I do have to
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: remind AIPAC, and he's distanced himself from AIPAC because it's
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: so uncritically pro-Netanyahu, he says, I do have to remind
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: my friends at AIPAC that the A in AIPAC stands
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: for American. So even former supporters of AIPAC are saying, guys,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: where is your loyalty right now? Remember that you are
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: an American group, not just uncritically pushing an Israeli agenda.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: We interview a former DOJ lawyer. in the film, who's
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: an expert on FARA violations. And he makes the point, look,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: you don't have to be perpetually funded by Israel or
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: controlled by Israel to register. You just have to have
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: even one instance of coordination that forces you to register.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: And it's interesting that in this town in D.C., where
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: we are, Crystal, The Republicans, they want to have Code Pink,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: the far-left anti-war group, register under FARA for alleged ties
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: to a Chinese Communist Party. They want to have Al Jazeera,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: where I do a show. They've been trying to get
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: them registered as a foreign agent. For a while, the
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: bar is very low when it comes to groups the
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: Republican Party does not like. But when it comes to AIPAC,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: the bar is raised high. It's see no evil, hear
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: no evil. Even though, as we say in the film,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: we have a former whistleblower who says, he says AIPAC
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: AIPAC is acting as a foreign agent in spirit, if
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: not the letter of the law. So there is enough
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: here for Democrats, if they ever take back Congress, if
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: they ever take back the White House and the Justice Department,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: to actually investigate. But the problem, of course, is people
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: like Hakeem Jeffries, the future speaker for a Democratic House,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: take a lot of money from AIPAC.
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: What also struck me about this film is the extent
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: to which AIPAC is energized to go after Jewish politicians,
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: but not because incidentally they are Jewish, but precisely because
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: they are Jewish. You get into, now, you know, there
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: was the famous case of Andy Levin, the synagogue president,
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: and you also get into- Haley Stevens, in fact, too. Yeah,
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: some of these Chicago races. Right, exactly, running against Haley Stevens.
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: Some Chicago races where Daniel Biss was running against an
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: AIPAC-backed candidate.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: There was also a pro-Israel, Support like APAC guy.
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: Who'd gone to every APAC convention for like decades that
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: they drove into the ground. Talk a little bit about
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: Daniel Biss opening up about his meetings with with APAC
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: and how that race unfolded, because that was that's pretty,
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: pretty extraordinary example.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so this Chicago primary earlier this year had, I
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: think it's Laura Fine was the APAC-backed Democratic candidate. There
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: was Daniel Bist, the mayor of Evanston, who's a liberal Zionist.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, he's not some anti-Zionist Israel hater. He's a
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: liberal Zionist Jewish-American politician whose mother is Israeli and whose
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: grandparents are Holocaust survivors, right? This is not some flaming
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: anti-Semite or a person you can smear as an anti-Semite,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: but he'd been critical of Israel's war in Gaza. He'd
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: been critical of the Netanyahu government and AIPAC decided to
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: spend against him. And yes, they forced out Bruce Lee
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: on a conservative, an Orthodox Jewish member of the community,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: a conservative Democrat, pro-Israel Democrat. And actually, Ryan, you'll enjoy this.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: He came to our premiere that we did in Chicago
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: last week for Nightflower, and he got cheered by the audience.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: He had nothing but praise for Kat Abu-Ghazala, who is
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: a Palestinian-American also in that race who AIPAC spent against.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: And it was interesting that this is the destructiveness of
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: AIPAC right now, that they're willing to take down even
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: liberal Zionists who don't tow the Netanyahu line. far-right Zionist line.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: They did it to Tom Malinowski in New Jersey and
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: ended up with an even more anti-Israel congressional candidate on
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: the Democratic side. So a lot of these interventions by
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: AIPAC are backfiring severely for them. But look, Daniel Biss
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: has what I think is the line of the film.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: He tells Dion in the film, and I want to
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: read out to you, he says, AIPAC basically performs anti-Semitic
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: tropes and then criticizes the people who just described the
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: thing that just happened for allegedly being anti-Semitic. It's really disingenuous.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: It's really dangerous. You're inviting them to dabble with real anti-Semitism.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Because in his race, AIPAC didn't just spend against him.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: They spent against him via groups that had names like
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: elect women and progressives or whatever. Like AIPAC does not
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: do this openly. It's super PAC, United Democracy Project, hides
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: behind other organizations, shell front groups, which then wrap up
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: and you see it is really United Democracy Project. So
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: these people are operating behind the scenes in the shadows
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: with these kind of fake front groups, which is why
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: we call the film Nightflower, which comes from the quote,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: from the APAC official, former APAC official, the late Steve Rosen,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: who said, the lobby is like a night flower. It
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: withers in the sunlight. It blossoms in the dark. And
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: that is what they're doing. And that's what Daniel Biss,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: of all people, calls out.
• 21:32
  Speaker 6: So it seems like APAC, and to your point, they've
• 21:35
  Speaker 6: been less upfront about when they put money into races
• 21:39
  Speaker 6: because they've become so incredibly toxic.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: Let's put E4 up on the screen.
• 21:43
  Speaker 6: Of course, both you and Ryan over at DropSight have
• 21:46
  Speaker 6: done extraordinary reporting about this dark money flowing in from APAC.
• 21:50
  Speaker 6: The Lever has a new comprehensive report tracking all of
• 21:54
  Speaker 6: these other groups with these, you know, like Democratic women
• 21:57
  Speaker 6: and all these other names that sound, oh, progressive, they
• 21:59
  Speaker 6: sound good, completely obfuscating who is actually behind this. Let's
• 22:04
  Speaker 6: also put E2 up on the screen because this is
• 22:07
  Speaker 6: another really quite shocking shift for AIPAC. They say they
• 22:11
  Speaker 6: are not going to directly endorse candidates because, again, it
• 22:15
  Speaker 6: has become such a toxic organization. mostly on the left,
• 22:20
  Speaker 6: but also a growing sentiment on the right as well,
• 22:22
  Speaker 6: where it's at least complicating for candidates. So do you
• 22:25
  Speaker 6: think that we're entering a new era here with AIPAC?
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Certainly in reputational terms, AIPAC's taken a massive hit. You
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: even had Mike Rogers, Crystal, telling AIPAC at the start
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: of the general campaign that he was doing against Abdul Hussein, like,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: don't publicly spend for me. He was still doing fundraisers
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: with them in California, but like, don't put your name
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: on anything in Michigan, because he knew how toxic the
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: brand has become. I would point out we should be
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: careful about the bait and switch. AIPAC is saying we
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: won't directly give money to candidates. My understanding is they
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: only give three or four million directly. Maybe I've got
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: the number lower or slightly higher than the exact number,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: but through their super PAC, they give tens of millions,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: maybe a hundred million, in this race, the United Democracy Project.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: And that super PAC is a new development. in AIPAC's
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: approach to politics. Traditionally, they never had a super PAC.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: They helped bundle money for congressional candidates, but didn't directly give.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: So when they say we're not going to directly give,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: they're really going back to what they did before, but
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: they're leaving the super PAC intact. And the super PAC
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: still operates in the shadows behind these front groups and
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: running ads against, you know, they ran ads against Cori
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: Bush and Jamal Bowman successfully in 2024 and helped defeat
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: those guys in very expensive primaries. But they defeated them
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: by saying, oh, they don't back Joe Biden. They don't
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: support the bipartisan infrastructure bill. They didn't run ads saying
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: they hate Israel.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: What I love about this documentary too, is that you
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: got Dion to do it. A tremendous, uh, investigative reporter, um,
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: who really puts his, those investigative skills to work and,
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: and kind of sifting through what, uh, you know, what
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: APAC has been doing for the last, um, several, several decades.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: And I really did.
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: Appreciate, uh, this is, this is quote, because it has
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: been our experience here at breaking points and over at
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: dropside too. We covered these Chicago races and you start
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: looking at it. You're like, wait a minute, elect Chicago women.
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: This is a, pack that didn't exist like two days ago.
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: And now it's spending hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars.
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: Like that's not how organizations work. You know, they usually launch,
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: they have a gala, they raise, they do fundraisers. Like
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: it's not easy to wake up and all of a
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: sudden have several million dollars. And so then you start
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: connecting the dots and By saying, oh, the treasurer here
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: has also been a treasurer for an APAC PAC. The
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: ad buyer they're using has worked with APAC before. Oh,
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: this nonprofit that they're using, this is connected to APAC.
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: And so you do that reporting and say that all
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: of the evidence is that APAC is working behind the
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: scenes to spend money here. And immediately APAC will say,
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: you're just engaging in anti-Semitic tropes.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: Like how dare you do that?
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: It's like, no, I'm describing the precise behavior of this
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: organization at this precise moment.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: And they don't have to behave in that way, right?
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: If you want to spend $ 100 million under Citizens United,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: you legally can. I don't like it, but legally nothing's
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: stopping you from doing it. But come out and say, hey,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: we're spending $ 100 million because we love Israel and we
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: want these candidates to love Israel and we want them
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: to support Israel. The fact that you're not doing that
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: tells us, number one, you know what a toxic issue
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Israel is in Democratic Party politics and with the American
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: public right now. And number two, you're behaving in this deceptive,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: secretive way. And again, as Daniel Biss puts it, promoting
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: these anti-Semitic tropes, performing anti-Semitic anti-Semitic tropes by hiding in
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: the shadows and not being transparent about your lobbying efforts.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: People say to me, why do you pick on AIPAC?
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: What about the other lobby groups? I'm against all of
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: these lobby groups. But it's interesting that AIPAC behaves in
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: this way. And I think Bernie Sanders has said it best,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: that the Democratic Party can't overturn Citizens United overnight, obviously.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: It requires a constitutional amendment with the current Supreme Court.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: But what it could do is come up with rules
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: that disincentivize, basically prevent candidates in Democratic primaries from taking
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: AIPAC money. And it's a point I made to Neera Tanden,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: you mentioned Neera Tanden, when I interviewed her for my
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: Al Jazeera English show head to head recently at Georgetown.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: And she agreed in principle that none of these, you know,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: none of these groups should be involved in primaries, although
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: she wouldn't say AIPAC shouldn't be allowed in. She kept
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: saying all groups, you know, all lives matter because she can't,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: you know, give People, a clip of her saying she's
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: anti-APAC for whatever reason you and I can speculate. But
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: even in principle, even she accepted this argument that we
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: need to push now that at the very minimum in
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Democratic primaries going forward, including the presidential primary in 2028,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: there need to be rules that prevent a Republican funded
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: group that may or may not be coordinating with a
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: foreign government from spending on Democratic Party primary candidates.
• 26:26
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I pushed Representative Adam Smith on the same thing,
• 26:29
  Speaker 6: and he was just in denial that that was even
• 26:31
  Speaker 6: a possibility. It's like, well, it's the Democratic Party. They
• 26:34
  Speaker 6: can set their own rules for their primary, and he
• 26:36
  Speaker 6: just was adamant that that was not even theoretically possible.
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: I do want to move on.
• 26:41
  Speaker 6: To AIPAC's perhaps top target in the entire nation, Abdullah Syed,
• 26:45
  Speaker 6: running for Michigan Senate. But before we do, Mehdi, just
• 26:48
  Speaker 6: tell people where they can find the complete documentary so
• 26:51
  Speaker 6: they can watch this extraordinary work.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much. It is a Zatea produced film.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Please do become a subscriber. You can watch the film
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: at InsideAPAC.com. Excellent.
• 27:00
  Speaker 6: And it really is great and gets into the history
• 27:02
  Speaker 6: and does a deep dive. And, you know, I think
• 27:04
  Speaker 6: you'd be hard pressed to come away from it and
• 27:06
  Speaker 6: not feel that they are just doing Israel's bidding. And
• 27:09
  Speaker 6: there are some key turning points in there, in particular
• 27:11
  Speaker 6: with regard to the Obama administration, the JCPOA.
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: Let's go ahead and.
• 27:18
  Speaker 6: Turn to Michigan, where you have this marquee race between
• 27:22
  Speaker 6: neocon Mike Rogers and Abdul El-Sayed, who successfully faced down
• 27:27
  Speaker 6: tens of millions of dollars in his primary against Haley Stevens.
• 27:32
  Speaker 6: Haley Stevens was on one of the Sunday shows this weekend,
• 27:35
  Speaker 6: and she was asked specifically if she still backs and
• 27:39
  Speaker 6: supports Abdul El-Sayed, and she refused to forthrightly support him.
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: Let's take a listen to that.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: You're still fully behind, Abdul El-Sayed?
• 27:47
  Speaker 11: Look, I'm on the Democratic ticket. I can't say that
• 27:51
  Speaker 11: I agree with everything that's gone on. I wish that
• 27:54
  Speaker 11: first debate had been more about that rubber stamp for
• 27:57
  Speaker 11: Trump because we got a lot of chaos in Michigan.
• 28:00
  Speaker 11: I don't want to debate who's the enemy of the
• 28:03
  Speaker 11: United States. It's very clear that Iran is. I didn't
• 28:06
  Speaker 11: run my campaign on foreign policy issues, but that was
• 28:09
  Speaker 11: litigated in my primary. I'm not looking to be front
• 28:12
  Speaker 11: and center right now. I'm looking to be on the
• 28:14
  Speaker 11: team to support you know, my next governor, Jocelyn Benson,
• 28:18
  Speaker 11: and frankly, these great Democrats who are working their tails off,
• 28:22
  Speaker 11: who are going to make Hakeem Jeffries the first Black
• 28:24
  Speaker 11: Speaker of the House.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: You didn't mention Abdul Hussein in that last answer.
• 28:29
  Speaker 11: Well, look, I would just say you had asked me
• 28:31
  Speaker 11: if I'm still on the team. I'm on the team.
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: Your thoughts, Matty?
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: That's so painful to rewatch. I watched that yesterday. You're
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: making me watch it again on a Monday. Torturous. I'm furious, actually,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: watching that clip. And just thinking about how giddy and
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: happy Dana Bashworth here was saying, you didn't mention Abdullah Saeed.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: We'll park Dana for a moment there. On Hayley Stevens,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: furious about the answer for multiple reasons, number one, She
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: endorsed Abdul El-Sayed already. She came out and said, I
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: endorse him. I, at the time, was one of many people.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you did, Christopher. I came out
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: on Twitter and said, good job, Haley Stevens. This is
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: really good that she's doing this, uniting the party to
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: stop Mike Rogers, the Trump MAGA candidate. So what is
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: the point of now disowning or walking back your own
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: endorsement in this way with less than 10 days to go?
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: I don't understand it. Number two. To do it on
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: the day when Barack Obama is in Michigan campaigning for
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: Abdul El-Sayed is just ridiculous. If Barack Obama can go
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: out and endorse Abdul El-Sayed, Hayley Stevens can endorse Abdul El-Sayed.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: Number three, to not say his name, right? She went out,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: you noticed that twice she spoke, twice she would not
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: say his name. She said Jocelyn Benson's name, Dana Bash
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: mentioned again, she will not mention it name. I find
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: that odious. I find it disgusting at a time when
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump is using the worst racist Islamophobic rhetoric against
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: Abdul Al-Sayed for a Democrat in Michigan who lost the
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: race against him, who's apparently a proud Michigander, proud Democrat, anti-racist,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: Why is she not saying his name? Why is she
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: not defending him from Donald Trump's racism, saying, oh, I
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: just call him Muhammad because I'm the president. He's a jihadist.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: He should go through a metal detector, Trump said this weekend,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: if he enters Congress. Not a word of defense from
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: Haley Stevens. The same people who go on and on
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: about anti-Semitism and bigotry, Islamophobia just normalized from them. They
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: don't give a damn. So I was furious watching that
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: clip on so many levels. And by the way, I'm
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: most furious because of the hypocrisy. If Abdul El-Sayed had
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: lost to Haley Stevens, and turned up on CNN less
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: than 10 days before the general had been asked that
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: question and had refused to say her name, number one,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: Democrats would have gone nuts saying he's a traitor, this
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: is what the left does, they're helping Trump and Maga,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: and they would have accused him of whatever it is. Oh,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: he's against her because she's for Israel, etc., etc. So
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: I just find the whole thing so odious, so hypocritical.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: And by the way, dangerous for Democrats. I don't know.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: I hate to be the I told you so guy.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: But in 2028, when a bunch of leftists decide to
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: sit down because it's Gavin Newsom or Pete Buttigieg on
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: the ticket and they say, well, you guys didn't support
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, they'll be right to point that out.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: And Democrats will regret dropping their vote blue no matter who,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: except when it's Abdul El-Sayed or a leftist they don't
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: like in Michigan. I just find the whole thing nauseating, hypocritical, infuriating, racist.
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: And, you know, I was also struck by the difference
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: between how some people like Haley Stevens, Neera Tanden, and
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: other Democrats are treating this primary and others, some of
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: the never Trumpers, like Tim Miller over at the Bulwark,
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: for instance. Once the primary was over, like he has
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: been agitating, saying we're all in. In fact, he recently
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: had some new reporting on Mike Rogers that is very interesting.
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: I don't know if you saw this, but last week
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: or so, Mike Rogers threatened to sue Dropsite because we
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: had reported that his second wife took over basically or
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: launched the American branch of this British security contractor and
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: immediately started getting hundreds of millions and then more than
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: a billion dollars in contracts.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: We had reported that He took seven trips to Iraq,
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: or he says that he took seven trips to Iraq
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: in the 2000s while she was over there as the
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: spokesperson for Paul Bremer.
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: I had kind of suspected that they may have met
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: at that point. Turns out Tim Miller reports they already
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: knew each other. And this is an important detail. So
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: let's roll F2 here.
• 32:29
  Speaker 12: Christy, then now Rogers. Christy Clemons, she was the finance
• 32:32
  Speaker 12: director for his congressional campaign in 2000. She had been
• 32:36
  Speaker 12: a lifelong staffer in Lansing, working for the state legislature,
• 32:41
  Speaker 12: that kind of person. She's married to her college sweetheart
• 32:44
  Speaker 12: at the time, Chad.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: Mike is married to his first wife.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: This is 2000.
• 32:47
  Speaker 12: Then Mike gets elected to Congress. She gets a job
• 32:50
  Speaker 12: in D.C. Not working for Mike, though. And then she
• 32:53
  Speaker 12: gets a job in Iraq working for Paul Bremer. It's
• 32:56
  Speaker 12: a pretty good job to get for somebody who had
• 32:59
  Speaker 12: been a lifelong staffer in Lansing. I think a lot
• 33:02
  Speaker 12: of national security people probably wanted that job, working for
• 33:04
  Speaker 12: Paul Bremer. Then Mike goes on seven codels to Iraq
• 33:08
  Speaker 12: in only a few years. That's kind of a lot.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 33:10
  Speaker 12: You were doing a lot of codels. Seven in a
• 33:11
  Speaker 12: couple years.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: Not that many.
• 33:13
  Speaker 12: Feels like a lot. Then in 2006, she comes back
• 33:16
  Speaker 12: to D.C. and starts doing defense contracting lobbying. It's kind
• 33:19
  Speaker 12: of surprised people, her level of success in that. 2007,
• 33:24
  Speaker 12: Mike divorces his wife.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 33:28
  Speaker 12: Then they get married. During that time, he rises to
• 33:30
  Speaker 12: the head of the House Intel Committee. She stays as
• 33:33
  Speaker 12: a Defense contract lobbyist. She keeps getting more contracts. She
• 33:38
  Speaker 12: ends a massive $ 10 billion deal a few months after
• 33:41
  Speaker 12: he takes over the committee. That's just something that just happened.
• 33:43
  Speaker 12: Seems like maybe on one of the contracts she worked on,
• 33:45
  Speaker 12: there's some dispute about this in the story, but people
• 33:47
  Speaker 12: can read it for themselves, was doing security in Benghazi.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: I don't know how that turned out.
• 33:53
  Speaker 12: Dropsite News has all the specifics. You can see then
• 33:56
  Speaker 12: also on his financial reports, you know, the chart going up.
• 34:00
  Speaker 12: And a lot of that money was his new wife
• 34:02
  Speaker 12: who was doing the contracting. Anyway, I don't know exactly
• 34:05
  Speaker 12: what was happening between the year 2000 and 2007 when
• 34:08
  Speaker 12: he divorces his wife. I don't know exactly anything about
• 34:12
  Speaker 12: whether he had roles in her just shockingly successful career
• 34:17
  Speaker 12: getting money for defense contracting.
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: So it turns out that Christy Clemons, who later became
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: his second wife, was his finance chair for his 2000 campaign.
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: So he knew her before she went to Iraq. Meanwhile,
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: Rodgers and Christy Rodgers deny any wrongdoing. I want to
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: say that. But meanwhile, Rodgers has made Abdul El-Sayed's family
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: a huge part of this election. How do you assess Rodgers'
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: effort to say he's going to sue us over this
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: compared to the way that he talks about Abdul El-Sayed?
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: So, well, first of all, the kind of the free
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: speech warriors in the Republican Party, Donald Trump, Elon Musk,
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: Mike Rogers, they love free speech until they see a
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: lawsuit they can file, a spurious defamation lawsuit they can
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: file against media or political critics. And I'm sure DropSight
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: will stand its ground and stand by its reporting. And
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: I suspect if he loses, he may just go away quietly.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: We'll see. It's interesting that he's doing this, you know,
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: so close to the election, making all this noise. But
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: it's interesting. Look, he claims he didn't do anything wrong.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: Abdul El-Sayed says he's got nothing to do with the
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: Muslim Brotherhood. He doesn't know about his mother's alleged ties
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: to the Muslim Brotherhood. But bringing family in again is
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: the hypocrisy. I said this recently on social media, Ryan, like, OK,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: you want to ask questions about Abdul El-Sayed's mother. That's fine.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: Do we get to talk about Donald Trump's father, who
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: was allegedly arrested in the 1920s at a violent KKK rally?
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: He's only ever been asked about it once, back in 2015,
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: when he launched his campaign by the Washington Post. In
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: the last decade, I've never seen a single reporter ask
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump or a single interviewer, let's talk about your dad.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Was he a member of the Ku Klux Klan? Never
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: asked that question to Donald Trump in the last decade. So,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: you know, if you want to go after family members,
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: let's just be consistent. As for Mike Rogers and the
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: actual claims in your article, I just find it fascinating
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: that the mainstream media just decided to give this veteran Republican,
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: former chair of the House Intel Committee, guy who's running,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: by the way, for the Senate a second time. He
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: lost to Alyssa Slotkin in 2024. This is his second
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: attempt at trying to get the Senate seat. Where's all
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: the coverage? And by the way, just props to Senator
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: Alyssa Slotkin, who's been an outspoken campaigner for Abdul El-Sayed,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: hasn't behaved as awfully as Hayley Stevens. I just want
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: to give a shout out to a centrist who understands
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: what's at stake. But Mike Rogers has just had a pass.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: For example, it was a Detroit local paper, Ryan, that
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: pointed out that Mike Rogers voted to send money to
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: the Mohammed Morsi Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt. It was
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: Mike Rogers who told Reuters in 2012 that there are
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: moderate Muslim Brotherhood members that we can work with. Can
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: you imagine if there was a quote from Abdul El-Sayed
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: saying that on the record? And yet it required a
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: Detroit paper to do that story. And then Kristen Welker
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: did it on Meet the Press yesterday, less than 10
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: days out from the election. Why wasn't he asked this
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: question a long time ago? Rodgers had a complete pass
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: from mainstream media, while the mainstream media obsesses over Hassan
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: Paika and everything Abdul El-Sayed's ever done in his life,
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: going back to captain of the high school football team
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: or whatever it was. That's been examined. So I just
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: find the complete pass for this Republican just so odious.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: And I'm glad you mentioned Tim Miller and the Bulwark
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: because some of the never Trumpers, not all of them,
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: but some of the never Trump Republicans do understand what's
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: at stake. I don't have to agree with them on
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: foreign policy or health care or whatever it is. But
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: one thing I've always respected about some of the Never
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: Trump Republicans, again, I say some, is that they understand
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: that what's at stake in a way that many centrist
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: Democrats do not, even some on the left do not.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: And I think that's important. That's why Tim Miller was
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: upset with Neera Tanden when she came on his show,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: that she was obsessing over Hasan Piker at a time
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: when Mike Rogers was getting a free pass. And I
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: think it's interesting that Neera Tanden, whose best pals with
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: Hayley Stevens, as she told me on my show, has
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: not said a word since yesterday. I can check her
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: Twitter again. I know she tweets every seven seconds. but
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: I'll check after this show. She hasn't said a word
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: at the time of this taping about Hayley Stevens not
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: endorsing Abdul El-Sayed. She kept telling me, I'm totally on board.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: I want Abdul El-Sayed to win. We've got to lock
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: in for Abdul El-Sayed. Why isn't she calling out Hayley Stevens,
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: her friend, for not getting behind Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan?
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: Why is Tim Miller more pro-Abdul El-Sayed than Hayley Stevens,
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: or apparently near a tandem?
• 38:15
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 38:16
  Speaker 6: Haley Stevens and Jasmine Crockett both need to get it
• 38:18
  Speaker 6: together with this mess. I did want to ask you, though,
• 38:23
  Speaker 6: Trump was in Michigan for a rally with Mike Rogers
• 38:27
  Speaker 6: over the weekend.
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: A Klan rally. Yeah, exactly.
• 38:30
  Speaker 6: And some great photos there of the two of them
• 38:32
  Speaker 6: just embracing, happy as could be. But when Mike Rogers
• 38:34
  Speaker 6: was asked— whether he considers himself a MAGA Republican and
• 38:38
  Speaker 6: whether he will be a reliable vote for Donald Trump.
• 38:42
  Speaker 6: He struggled with these answers.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: Let's let's go ahead and take a look at that. F3.
• 38:47
  Speaker 9: Congressman, we're almost out of time. So let me just
• 38:49
  Speaker 9: ask you big picture. Do you consider yourself to be
• 38:53
  Speaker 9: a MAGA Republican?
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: Listen, I'm going to tell you this is.
• 38:59
  Speaker 7: I get you guys on the national press, but this
• 39:01
  Speaker 7: is a little bit disgusting to me.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: You know what you don't cover?
• 39:04
  Speaker 7: The chairman of the Democrat Party just came out and
• 39:08
  Speaker 7: said he cannot, the former chairman, sorry, he cannot vote
• 39:12
  Speaker 7: for Abdul.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: Can you answer my question?
• 39:14
  Speaker 7: All you want to do is talk about something else
• 39:15
  Speaker 7: on the ground.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: Are you a MAGA Republican? I've already answered the question, Kristen.
• 39:19
  Speaker 9: That's just what I want to know. Do you consider
• 39:21
  Speaker 9: yourself to be a MAGA Republican?
• 39:23
  Speaker 7: Kristen, I'm gonna go right back through this. There is
• 39:26
  Speaker 7: a reason we have support from people in Detroit.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: And Flint.
• 39:30
  Speaker 9: I know that President Trump is going to be out
• 39:32
  Speaker 9: in Michigan campaigning with you a little bit later on today.
• 39:35
  Speaker 9: Let me ask you, Congressman, is a vote for you
• 39:38
  Speaker 9: a vote for the Trump agenda?
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: I'm apologizing.
• 39:45
  Speaker 7: I'm having some difficulty in my earpiece, but is a
• 39:49
  Speaker 7: vote for you? I'm not sure.
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you what a vote for me is. It's
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: a great day for the state of Michigan.
• 39:55
  Speaker 10: Amazing.
• 39:56
  Speaker 6: Very convenient earpiece issues there for Mike Rogers.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, he's practicing to be a Republican member of
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: Congress who always, have you seen this Trump tweet? I
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: haven't seen the tweet. Do you hear what he said?
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: I didn't hear it. Mike Johnson's classic response to every
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: question is, I don't know what you're talking about. I
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: haven't seen the tweet. I haven't seen the press. So
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: he's just practicing for that role he'll have to play
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: once he gets to the Senate. It is shameless cowardice. Again,
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: this is all happening very late in the race. These interviews,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: these questions should have been put to Mike Rogers weeks,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: months ago. He's had a complete pass on the mainstream media,
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: which is what annoys me when some of us say,
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: why are you talking so much about Hassan Baika? It's
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: not that Hassan Baika hasn't said controversial issues. It's not
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: that Hassan Baika should be immune from criticism. It was
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: the disproportionate attention paid to a Twitch streamer from California.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: rather than the veteran chair of the House Intel Committee
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: who lied about seeing bin Laden's body in person when
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: he was killed and all sorts of other nonsense that
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: he said over the years and his role with Big
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: Pharma and allegedly helping the opioid crisis, as Abdel El-Sayed
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: has accused him of. None of that has had the
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: coverage and he's had a complete pass. And that's what
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: frustrates me. When I have these arguments with people like
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: Matt Iglesias and Neera Tanden say, well, look how good
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: Roy Cooper and Mary Peltola are doing. It's like, well,
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: they haven't had these kind of races with the mainstream
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: media on one side, with the president of the United
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: States just completely attacking Abdul El-Sayed in the most vicious,
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: racist terms. I mean, all we talk about in D.C.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: and in our media It's about antisemitism on the left,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: antisemitism in the Democratic Party. Find me one Democrat, one
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: mainstream Democrat, left, center, wherever, who speaks about Jews in
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: the way Donald Trump speaks about Muslims. It just isn't
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: any kind of comparison. There's never been any kind of comparison.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: Nobody would ever dare talk about Josh Shapiro or JB
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Pritzker or John Ossoff. in the way that Donald Trump
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: has spoken about Abdul El-Sayed. He's a jihadist. He's a
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: member of the Muslim Brotherhood. He needs a metal detector
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: if he comes to Congress. I call him Muhammad. In fact,
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: I call all Muslims Muhammad because that's what most of
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: them are called. I'll call him whatever I want. This
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: kind of disgusting stuff. Don't even get me started on
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: the Somali racism. that's just been given a pass is insane.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: I just, even by Donald Trump standards, we are at
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: full on KKK neo-Nazi levels of racism, which is why
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: the Michigan race is so important, because if they win
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: with this racist campaign, they will just escalate it in
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: the run up to 2028. Yeah, absolutely.
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: And we have, we have a few numbers that we
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: can talk about real quickly, but we can put up
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: F5 here. I think the hope among Abdul Alsaid supporters
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: who see this incredible amount of racism coming their way,
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: you know, I've heard from, you know, people with access
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: to internal polling, that all of the fear-mongering has, you know,
• 42:27
  Speaker 4: has affected the unfavorables of El-Sayed. But there's also a
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: huge kind of national blue wave underway, and you're starting
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: to see that express itself in Michigan, where in counties
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: carried by Kamala Harris, they're at about two-thirds of their
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: 2024 pace so far, whereas in in counties carried by
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: Trump in 2024, they're at about 45% of their pace.
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: So more Democrats are coming to the polls, according to
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: the early vote in Michigan, so far than Republicans. That
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: might be enough to kind of carry El-Sayed over this
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: kind of wave of racism that's being pushed his way. Mehdi,
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: have you been tracking any of the early vote? What's
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: your sense as we get down to the wire of
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: this very consequential race, as we talked in the last
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: segment about the role APAC has played. This could be
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: a Waterloo for APAC or could be a huge victory
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: if they're able to come back and put Mike Rogers
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: over the top.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, they spent tens of millions in the primary,
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: tens of millions in the general. Look, I don't trust
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: any polls anymore. There's just been too much misinformation, disinformation, mistakes.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: We saw the nonsense with this fake polling company Wedgwood Polls.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: We saw the mistakes in the Francesca Hong primary. We've
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: seen Republicans constantly being kind of understated by polls over
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: the last decade, especially in the Trump era. I suspect
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: it'll either be a very, very close race or not
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: close at all. I don't think there'll be a middle ground.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: I think the polls will be kind of completely off
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: or it's gonna be super tight nail-butter. Of course, Alyssa
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: Slotkin beat Mike Rogers by half a percentage point in 2024.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: That was in a year that was bad for the Democrats.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: The Matthew Iglesias of this world keep telling me that
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: he shouldn't win by half a percentage point because there's
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: this national blue wave. And I keep saying, well, don't forget,
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: He's running in a very sui generis race where the
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: president is attacking him day after day. His own former
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: party chair won't endorse him. His own former rival won't
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: endorse him. And, you know, this is a very, very
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: unique Michigan race. A win's a win. If he wins,
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: it's going to be historic. The Republicans know it's going
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: to be historic. There'll be some centrist Democrats who will
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: do a, well, versus the generic ballot. And nobody cares
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: at that point. Good luck with that argument. Everyone knows
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: it will be a historic, insane win and that he
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: will be a very valuable member of the Democratic caucus
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: in the Senate. But it is going to come down
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: to the wire. And those numbers, I mean, put the
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: numbers to one side. Just talking to people on the
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: ground in Michigan who were there this weekend and knocking
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: on doors and have been living there. I mean, the
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: ads that Mike Rogers is spending, yes, of course they're
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: going to drive down favorables. You can't get through a
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: football game in Michigan on TV without an insane number
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: of anti-Abdul ads. And they're not ads about Abdul's support
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: for Medicare for All, I can assure you. They're ads
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: about his radical jihadist connections and his mother's Al-Qaeda links
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: and Muslim Brotherhood and all the usual bullshit. And this
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: stuff works. I mean, look, we're an independent media. I
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: used to work for MSNBC. We understand corporate media is
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: in decline, but it still has a lot of power.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: The airwaves still have a lot of power. Look at
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: what's happened in the UK. Non-stop, several weeks of negative
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: coverage of anti-Zionist Jewish leader of the Green Party, Zach Polanski.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: His numbers are down. People think that the Green Party
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: is now anti-Semitic. It's led by the only Jewish party leader.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: When the mainstream media gets together as a group and
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: goes for someone, they still have the power to change reality,
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: change perceptions, change views. Let's not understate that in any way. Yeah.
• 45:53
  Speaker 6: And it would be one thing, you know, in terms
• 45:55
  Speaker 6: of this discourse about who's electable and who's not electable.
• 45:58
  Speaker 6: It'd be one thing if they were attacking him on
• 46:00
  Speaker 6: his issue positions, if they were demonstrating that, oh, Medicare
• 46:03
  Speaker 6: for all just won't sell with a general election audience.
• 46:06
  Speaker 6: But that's not what they're doing at all. Their entire
• 46:08
  Speaker 6: campaign is just racist hate.
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: And he's got a weird name. That's the whole thing.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: What does unelectable even mean? This is the discussions I've
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: been having recently with the Neerajs and Matthews of this world.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: I just had an argument online with Liz Smith, who
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: was obviously working with Mallory McMorrow, a Democratic consultant, about, oh, well,
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: he's not electable. Well, this is the problem with electability
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: versus Roy Cooper. Does anyone really seriously believe that Roy Cooper,
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: for example, is of the caliber of Abdul El-Sayed? No, genuinely,
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: if you arrived from Mars... and you saw these two
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: people on the stump campaigning. No one disputes Abdul El-Sayed
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: as a great public speaker. No one disputes his charisma.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: Bill Clinton told him to run for public office when
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: he was at college giving a commencement address. His policy positions,
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: as you say, are super popular. In fact, in Michigan,
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: Medicare for All is insanely popular and has been helping
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: his numbers. The focus groups show that he's getting more
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: Trump voters from 24 other Democratic candidates in swing states.
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: What does it mean to say he's not electable? On paper,
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: he's got everything. He's got public speaking, he's got charisma,
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: he's a local boy, he was captain of the football team,
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: he's got popular policy position. So really what you're saying
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: then is he's unelectable because as you say, the different
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: name and the Muslim background and he went against Israel.
• 47:18
  Speaker 6: Yep, and because Democrats joined up with Republicans. making common
• 47:24
  Speaker 6: cause on exactly that ugly smear campaign and a campaign
• 47:29
  Speaker 6: too based on ethnic division in.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: The state of Michigan. Crystal, there's a great line in
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: the Matthew Iglesias interview. I know a lot of bits
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: have gone viral, but one line that hasn't been spotted
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: is he says, well, Roy Cooper, he says, Abdul is
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: a divisive candidate. And I say, well, what does it
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: mean to be divisive? How is he dividing people? He's
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: not divisive. People are being divisive about him. in bringing
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: up things about him. And he says, well, Roy Cooper's
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: not divisive in that way because Roy Cooper doesn't take
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: positions that make people spend against him, which I thought
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: was a rather revealing admission. Basically, if you don't want
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: to be spent against by dark money groups, don't go
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: against special interests. which is an interesting message.
• 48:02
  Speaker 6: Yeah, well, I mean, you have to hand it to
• 48:04
  Speaker 6: Matt Iglesias. He's very consistent on that point. Also made
• 48:07
  Speaker 6: some extraordinary, yeah, extraordinary points about how we should have
• 48:10
  Speaker 6: just allowed the ICE rampage to happen. We should have
• 48:13
  Speaker 6: let ICE just murder people in the streets and not
• 48:15
  Speaker 6: said anything about it because it was, in his mind,
• 48:18
  Speaker 6: not electorally advantageous, even though that did not even be true.
• 48:21
  Speaker 7: Yes.
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: Mehdi, always great to have you, my friend.
• 48:24
  Speaker 6: Thank you so much for your time and your analysis.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much, guys. Appreciate it.
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: All right, that'll do it for us today.
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: Again, if you want to help us fix this studio,
• 48:34
  Speaker 4: go to breakingpoints.com, do the one-month free trial, but don't
• 48:37
  Speaker 4: cancel when the month is over, and we will try
• 48:39
  Speaker 4: to produce the kind of stuff that makes you want
• 48:42
  Speaker 4: to keep going. Crystal, thanks for struggling through the sickness.
• 48:46
  Speaker 4: Hope you're feeling better tomorrow morning.
• 48:48
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I feel like the voice is getting stronger, so
• 48:50
  Speaker 6: I should be— I feel fine. It just still sounds like crap.
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: You know how it is.
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the only way out is through.
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: That's right.