Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 8/25/26: Abdul Unleashes On Jesse Watters, Hasan Piker Controversy, Darline Graham Flailing, Jamie Belsito MA Candidate
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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- 0:33Speaker 4: It's been an eventful couple of days in the Michigan
- 0:36Speaker 4: Senate race. A blow up around Hassan Piker at abdul
- 0:40Speaker 4: outside at Mike Rodgers. Also, Abduhl side appeared on Fox
- 0:44Speaker 4: News with Jesse Waters.
- 0:45Speaker 1: Let's roll a little bit of that so to question.
- 0:47Speaker 5: So again, like Jesse, you have not asked me one
- 0:50Speaker 5: time about the issues that people actually care about in Michigan.
- 0:53Speaker 5: You don't want to talk about gas prices, you don't
- 0:55Speaker 5: want talk about groceries, you don't want to talk about healthcare.
- 0:57Speaker 5: You don't want to talk about the stupid trade war.
- 0:58Speaker 5: That's about the spect an interview talking about the war
- 1:01Speaker 5: that's destroying that that that is destroying our own military.
- 1:05Speaker 5: You don't seem to want to talk about any of
- 1:07Speaker 5: those things. You want to bring up all this cultural
- 1:08Speaker 5: war that you know I'm not here.
- 1:11Speaker 6: We talked about the war.
- 1:12Speaker 7: We talk about the gas prices in the Green New Deal. Okay,
- 1:16Speaker 7: if you want to do an interview up every time
- 1:18Speaker 7: you can do the interview.
- 1:19Speaker 1: You're doing the greatest jesse.
- 1:21Speaker 5: Like I mean, this is like you could play this
- 1:22Speaker 5: game if you want, but like you could keep doing
- 1:24Speaker 5: the greatest hits if you want. You told me we're
- 1:26Speaker 5: going to come out for a conversation, and when we
- 1:27Speaker 5: have conversations, I think that's it's okay to also ask questions.
- 1:30Speaker 5: I just want to understand what you're getting out here.
- 1:32Speaker 5: I'm getting whether you think men should play the US
- 1:35Speaker 5: lator In Michigan, it's a big interest in getting money
- 1:37Speaker 5: out of politics, putting money in your pocket and passing medicare.
- 1:41Speaker 7: For all, your care about what sports kids play, and
- 1:44Speaker 7: you phil it's a big issues because like you guys
- 1:49Speaker 7: on that issue, last deserve to hear about.
- 1:52Speaker 1: All right, so you want to answer that question, what
- 1:54Speaker 1: is you?
- 1:55Speaker 6: You want to answer the question what is you? Go ahead, Jesse?
- 1:57Speaker 1: What is you?
- 1:58Speaker 6: Should men, women get sports? You have daughters?
- 2:02Speaker 1: Right?
- 2:03Speaker 5: I think that. Look, I played sports my whole life.
- 2:06Speaker 5: Sports are an important part of my life. I'm grateful
- 2:08Speaker 5: for the opportunity to play sports. And at the end
- 2:10Speaker 5: of the day, the decision of who gets to play
- 2:12Speaker 5: what sports ought to be decided by the people who
- 2:14Speaker 5: govern sports.
- 2:15Speaker 1: I'm running for us, saidate. Jesse is insane.
- 2:17Speaker 5: I'm out here trying to take on like the healthcare
- 2:19Speaker 5: crisis and big pharma, and you're asking me about who
- 2:22Speaker 5: gets to play what sports?
- 2:25Speaker 7: If you've been following the news recently, a let me
- 2:28Speaker 7: ask you about the politics.
- 2:29Speaker 6: We'll get to your race. Race right now.
- 2:31Speaker 5: Please be serious, like I'm here with you. I want
- 2:33Speaker 5: to talk have a conversation about the issues that matter.
- 2:35Speaker 1: Let's do it.
- 2:36Speaker 5: Let's talk about the things that people are actually talking about.
- 2:39Speaker 1: Okay, Now, what did you think of that back and forth?
- 2:42Speaker 6: Well, there's more, right, there is, So.
- 2:44Speaker 1: You want to do the next one first.
- 2:46Speaker 8: I think the next one would be helpful because I
- 2:48Speaker 8: would say I think they're good at something similar.
- 2:51Speaker 1: Same debate goes a little deeper.
- 2:56Speaker 7: It so you think it's okay, aversity, you think that's okay.
- 3:03Speaker 5: I mean, do you so, do you really want to
- 3:05Speaker 5: have this conversation?
- 3:05Speaker 6: Are you circumcised?
- 3:07Speaker 3: Yeah?
- 3:08Speaker 5: Yeah, but I mean that's personal question. Okay, doctor, you
- 3:12Speaker 5: probably should want to move on.
- 3:13Speaker 1: You probably should want to move on.
- 3:15Speaker 6: A circumcision is different than castration. I think it's it's
- 3:18Speaker 6: a problem.
- 3:19Speaker 5: It's a problem that you think that you get to
- 3:22Speaker 5: decide what happens.
- 3:24Speaker 8: That's where it became a disaster for Abdell's sad.
- 3:27Speaker 4: I yes, I did not think that that was a
- 3:29Speaker 4: good talking point. I don't know whether that was a
- 3:31Speaker 4: talking point or not. I don't know if he came
- 3:33Speaker 4: up without on the spot.
- 3:34Speaker 6: I feel like he came up with on the spot.
- 3:37Speaker 1: Let's hope, because that's bad.
- 3:39Speaker 8: Yeah, but that's why I wanted to play both those
- 3:41Speaker 8: because I think what he was going with Jesse Waters
- 3:46Speaker 8: is probably I think if you are a progressive candidate,
- 3:52Speaker 8: populous left, but have is some ten years of I
- 3:57Speaker 8: should say ten years of some baggage on cultural issues.
- 4:00Speaker 8: If you're in a swing state like Michigan, meaning you're
- 4:05Speaker 8: going for this minority of voters, for swing voters who
- 4:09Speaker 8: want to hear mostly about economic issues right now and
- 4:12Speaker 8: a tough economic climate, then actually saying that the right
- 4:18Speaker 8: is distracting by obsessing over cultural issues is politically a
- 4:22Speaker 8: decent line. I do think that that same group of
- 4:26Speaker 8: voters wants to hear.
- 4:29Speaker 6: Something that you believe. They want to believe that you.
- 4:33Speaker 8: Believe what you're saying on this issue, and if you
- 4:35Speaker 8: can't pass that litmus test, which I think is where
- 4:38Speaker 8: abdela set is struggling in the interview, It's like, does
- 4:41Speaker 8: he really believe that castration and circumcision are the same thing?
- 4:45Speaker 6: No? But was it a clever way to make Jesse
- 4:48Speaker 6: Waters laugh.
- 4:49Speaker 8: In the interview and just kind of get out of
- 4:51Speaker 8: a tough spot. Perhaps, But it's now going to be
- 4:55Speaker 8: on TikTok everywhere, Instagram everywhere, and it looks like a
- 4:58Speaker 8: really unseerious response to a question that you should be
- 5:00Speaker 8: able to have a pretty basic answer to.
- 5:03Speaker 6: And so I get the distraction line.
- 5:05Speaker 8: I think there's some political haf to to it in
- 5:08Speaker 8: a bad economic situation, which obviously we are in right now,
- 5:12Speaker 8: because of their own more, I don't think it works
- 5:14Speaker 8: if you can't also combine it with a common sense
- 5:18Speaker 8: answer to a question like that.
- 5:20Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's right because it ends up so
- 5:24Speaker 4: I think it is true that they are trying to
- 5:28Speaker 4: use culture work to distract from this other stuff, and
- 5:32Speaker 4: it is good to point that out.
- 5:34Speaker 1: But if you just keep saying that.
- 5:37Speaker 4: It starts to look like you're using exactly economy to
- 5:40Speaker 4: distract from your unwillingness to just give a quick answer
- 5:45Speaker 4: to the question and move on. And I don't Yeah,
- 5:48Speaker 4: you don't have to dwell on for fifteen minutes, right,
- 5:50Speaker 4: but just a quick answer. And I thought on the
- 5:52Speaker 4: sports question, they're getting closer to a good answer, which
- 5:56Speaker 4: was I'm running for uscent. It's ridiculous that I even
- 5:59Speaker 4: have to have a position on this. It should be
- 6:00Speaker 4: up to the sports the commissions, like the various commissions
- 6:05Speaker 4: that regulate this stuff. I think what you could start
- 6:08Speaker 4: with is to say everyone agrees that sports needs to
- 6:13Speaker 4: be fair.
- 6:13Speaker 1: Neil deGrasse Tyson. I thought I had a fairly good answer.
- 6:16Speaker 4: I don't know if you saw this recently where he
- 6:17Speaker 4: said he was a college wrestler and he was like
- 6:21Speaker 4: and when he was a high school wrestler, he was like,
- 6:22Speaker 4: I think it was college, and he said, I wrestled
- 6:24Speaker 4: in one hundred and ninety pound category because it wasn't
- 6:27Speaker 4: fair if I wrestled against one hundred and twenty pound
- 6:30Speaker 4: person or a two hundred and forty pounds person.
- 6:34Speaker 1: And so we have long understood the idea.
- 6:38Speaker 4: He even talked about in rowing, they've got heavy rowers
- 6:42Speaker 4: and light rowers because it's unfair. He's like, So for
- 6:46Speaker 4: a long time, in sports, we have decided that because
- 6:49Speaker 4: of biological differences between different athletes, we have created different
- 6:54Speaker 4: categories to make sure that there's fair competition. And as
- 6:58Speaker 4: we are transitioning into this new world, we can't deny
- 7:01Speaker 4: that we're entering a new world. What we have to
- 7:04Speaker 4: do is continue to update the way that we're creating
- 7:09Speaker 4: fair categories of people. So and then what that looks
- 7:14Speaker 4: like can be left up to people who are experts
- 7:16Speaker 4: in this. But you can say I agree with you
- 7:19Speaker 4: that there is some unfairness in the way that we're
- 7:22Speaker 4: applying the old way to the new world.
- 7:24Speaker 8: You can just have on average, boys have physical advantages
- 7:27Speaker 8: over girls in sports, and that can put girls in danger.
- 7:29Speaker 8: And so I trust this to be worked out at
- 7:32Speaker 8: the state, local level.
- 7:33Speaker 4: But fundamentally I agree with that point. I'm now working
- 7:37Speaker 4: out on the state right.
- 7:38Speaker 8: Because what people have seen is as soon as a
- 7:42Speaker 8: candidate who's maybe a left populace and Zora Mum Donnie
- 7:45Speaker 8: has handled this very very well, he's.
- 7:47Speaker 6: Not running on the federal level.
- 7:48Speaker 8: And it was the Obama administration that issued that dear
- 7:51Speaker 8: colleague letter that said you have to read gender identity
- 7:54Speaker 8: into Title nine when it says no discrimination on the
- 7:56Speaker 8: basis of sex. That is what federalized this right away,
- 7:59Speaker 8: which is where it does make it hard for the
- 8:00Speaker 8: left to point the finger at the right and say, well,
- 8:03Speaker 8: you're I mean, I think it was Charlottene the God
- 8:06Speaker 8: who accused inns Canter Freedom of disrupting women's basketball.
- 8:10Speaker 6: He literally disrupted.
- 8:10Speaker 8: Women's basketball, but women's basketball was disrupted in high schools
- 8:14Speaker 8: around the country by the Obama administration and by the
- 8:17Speaker 8: left that said you now have to regender identity into this,
- 8:19Speaker 8: which means there will be some boys, not many, but
- 8:23Speaker 8: there will be some boys on local levels that are
- 8:25Speaker 8: going to play basketball. And we have seen problems with that.
- 8:28Speaker 8: Many people around the country have seen problems with that.
- 8:31Speaker 8: And if you can't have an answer that sounds like
- 8:34Speaker 8: you believe it. I would have been so interested to
- 8:37Speaker 8: see how Graham Platnter handled this because it's been a
- 8:39Speaker 8: big issue in Maine with Janet Mills finding the Trump
- 8:42Speaker 8: administration on it. I think Platner is a true believer
- 8:45Speaker 8: in gender ideology, like.
- 8:48Speaker 6: Sort of Judith Butler level.
- 8:50Speaker 8: Genders on a spectrum and there's interchangeability.
- 8:53Speaker 6: I think he's a true believer in that. And that's fine.
- 8:56Speaker 8: I totally disagree with that most of the country disagrees
- 8:58Speaker 8: with it. I think he really believes it. Those are
- 9:00Speaker 8: the cases where I think it's interesting because if you
- 9:03Speaker 8: say what you really believe, I think you get away
- 9:06Speaker 8: with it better than trying to like groping to say
- 9:10Speaker 8: are you circumcised?
- 9:11Speaker 6: Because that looks like.
- 9:12Speaker 8: You're avoiding saying what you believe, which is on average,
- 9:17Speaker 8: like he's ad it's a football player, he knows, he knows.
- 9:21Speaker 1: Right, And also on circumcision, what are we doing?
- 9:26Speaker 6: It was kind of funny.
- 9:27Speaker 4: It was I thought, like overall, Abdul crushed it. But
- 9:32Speaker 4: the but a couple and but the and the problem though,
- 9:37Speaker 4: is that those couple of moments are gonna probably get
- 9:40Speaker 4: circulated for a very long time among voters who the
- 9:45Speaker 4: exact ones that he was trying to reach by going
- 9:48Speaker 4: on Fox. Yes, like, he went on Fox for a
- 9:50Speaker 4: reason because he thinks, and he started out beautifully. He's like, Jesse,
- 9:55Speaker 4: thanks for having me on. You and I both agree
- 9:57Speaker 4: that Mike Rodgers is totally beta. Jesse's like, I didn't
- 10:01Speaker 4: agree with that.
- 10:02Speaker 1: Yes, you did.
- 10:02Speaker 6: You laugh. That's pretty good.
- 10:04Speaker 4: So they basically began by shoving Mike Rodgers into a locker,
- 10:09Speaker 4: and so he's trying then well to win over the
- 10:13Speaker 4: people who are like, yeah, Mike Rogers is kind of
- 10:16Speaker 4: beta Florida lobbyists sellout, and so the people probably those
- 10:21Speaker 4: people were with him when he's he's hammering it on
- 10:24Speaker 4: the billionaires, where Jesse's like, I want to you know,
- 10:27Speaker 4: I want to profit from the fruits of my labor,
- 10:30Speaker 4: and abdulahl side said, buddy.
- 10:32Speaker 1: Like, billionaires don't labor.
- 10:34Speaker 4: They make money because their money makes money, and you
- 10:38Speaker 4: tax a tiny bit of that money, they're still making
- 10:40Speaker 4: lots of money. I want to, you know, basically tack
- 10:43Speaker 4: wealth not work. You know, He's to rob Gary's economics,
- 10:47Speaker 4: and I'm sure a bunch of people watching, they were like, yeah,
- 10:49Speaker 4: of course, like billionaires don't labor, like bosses don't labor,
- 10:54Speaker 4: that's not how they make their money. And then he
- 10:58Speaker 4: gives those couple of clips where those very same people
- 11:00Speaker 4: are going to be like just another liberal, Right, We're
- 11:04Speaker 4: going to be disappointed.
- 11:05Speaker 8: By them, right, And again, I think this is an
- 11:08Speaker 8: economic election, there's no question about it, Like, way more
- 11:11Speaker 8: votes will be decided by the economy than they will
- 11:13Speaker 8: be on this issue. But when we're talking about twenty
- 11:16Speaker 8: twenty eight and what can come in the future, and
- 11:18Speaker 8: also have some close elections where you do need to
- 11:21Speaker 8: convince like suburban moms in Michigan who care about this,
- 11:26Speaker 8: dad's in Michigan who care about this. And see, it
- 11:28Speaker 8: hasn't visited every community, but it has visited many communities.
- 11:32Speaker 8: And you've talked to track athletes who because a couple
- 11:36Speaker 8: of people in the state are competing in the opposite
- 11:39Speaker 8: sex category, it does create problems for then dozens of
- 11:43Speaker 8: girls because just if you have one boy in the
- 11:47Speaker 8: league that can that's outrunning the girls, that does affect
- 11:51Speaker 8: all of the other girls down in the tournaments and
- 11:53Speaker 8: those sorts of things. So anyway, all this is to
- 11:55Speaker 8: say economy is the major issue, but it's still a
- 11:58Speaker 8: hurdle for Abdowel, sayed other Democrats to overcome, and they
- 12:01Speaker 8: have not quite nailed the messaging on it.
- 12:04Speaker 4: Yeah, and it is good for Democrats, I think, to
- 12:06Speaker 4: have to go out and test this stuff. Like I'm
- 12:08Speaker 4: I'm glad true that he's out there trying to test
- 12:11Speaker 4: these these messages, these talking points or whatever they are,
- 12:14Speaker 4: because I think your point is the right one in
- 12:16Speaker 4: the beginning, that people want you to sound like you
- 12:22Speaker 4: believe what you're saying.
- 12:23Speaker 1: Yes, exactly like, and if they think.
- 12:26Speaker 4: You're lying about this, then they're not going to believe
- 12:29Speaker 4: you on your other stuff.
- 12:30Speaker 8: That's that's you put it better than I did. I
- 12:32Speaker 8: think that's exactly right.
- 12:34Speaker 4: And of course, and they don't think that he thinks
- 12:36Speaker 4: castration and circumcision are the same thing, exactly nobody thinks that, right.
- 12:41Speaker 1: It looks probably not a doctor.
- 12:42Speaker 6: It was a little too cute by half.
- 12:43Speaker 4: Yeah, No, hopefully maybe it's cute enough that people are like, ah,
- 12:47Speaker 4: he's just joking.
- 12:48Speaker 6: We'll see.
- 12:50Speaker 8: But he's also facing this another round of a Hassan
- 12:54Speaker 8: Piker controversy. Yeah, with this, I tried to figure out
- 12:57Speaker 8: what was going on with this.
- 12:58Speaker 4: So let's let's get into this a little bit. So
- 13:02Speaker 4: let's start with D three. Actually, so this is Mike
- 13:06Speaker 4: Rogers jumping on a deceptively edited clip that was circulating.
- 13:12Speaker 4: So Mike Rogers says more calls for violence coming out
- 13:15Speaker 4: of the Elsayed campaign. Here is his running mate Hassan
- 13:19Speaker 4: Piker saying that if American Jews support Israel, they will
- 13:23Speaker 4: be violently targeted because of it. This is all in
- 13:27Speaker 4: reaction to Michigan Democratic congressional candidate Jeremy Moss, who happens
- 13:31Speaker 4: to be Jewish, saying he is unsure if he will
- 13:34Speaker 4: be able to support Abdul for these very reasons, absolutely disgusting.
- 13:38Speaker 4: If Abdul Alsaiad had any courage at all, he would
- 13:42Speaker 4: call this out and disavow Hassan Piker once.
- 13:45Speaker 1: And for all.
- 13:46Speaker 4: We're waiting Abdul and let's play a little bit of
- 13:50Speaker 4: what he said. But he said a version of what
- 13:54Speaker 4: everybody basically agrees, which is, well, not everybody, not apac
- 13:59Speaker 4: But his argument is it is it is unfair, ridiculous
- 14:06Speaker 4: and dangerous to conflate all of Judaism with Zionism in
- 14:12Speaker 4: the state of Israel. To lump together all Jews and
- 14:17Speaker 4: blame them for the actions of Israel is wrong, and
- 14:20Speaker 4: so people should stop conflating and dangerous those two things.
- 14:24Speaker 1: That's what he was saying.
- 14:25Speaker 4: They edited it in such a way that suggested that
- 14:29Speaker 4: violence or something would be justified against Jews for their
- 14:35Speaker 4: support of Israel, which is the complete opposite of what
- 14:38Speaker 4: he was saying, And so he.
- 14:40Speaker 6: Was sort of predicting that would be right.
- 14:43Speaker 4: He's saying what he's saying, what you're doing by linking
- 14:46Speaker 4: Judaism to Zionism is furthering anti Semitism. So let's play
- 14:52Speaker 4: a little bit of what was going around this is
- 14:54Speaker 4: D two.
- 14:55Speaker 9: I mean, look, the anti Zionist Jews in my community,
- 15:00Speaker 9: you have a.
- 15:01Speaker 1: Very tough job ahead of you.
- 15:03Speaker 9: Or you have to go back to your communities and
- 15:07Speaker 9: try to get your elderly relatives to understand that this
- 15:13Speaker 9: connection between Israel and Zionism that is expressed over and
- 15:17Speaker 9: over again through a lot of these Jewish institutions, okay,
- 15:22Speaker 9: is teaching people the idea that Jews are monolithic, and
- 15:25Speaker 9: this is a dangerous It is a very because look,
- 15:29Speaker 9: it's a very dangerous mode of propaganda and you want
- 15:34Speaker 9: to know why, because people don't fuck with Israel any longer.
- 15:40Speaker 9: And if Jews in America keep putting this idea out
- 15:45Speaker 9: there that they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone's
- 15:49Speaker 9: going to come around and take action not against the
- 15:53Speaker 9: state of Israel, minds you, but against American Jews, Okay,
- 15:59Speaker 9: teaching people the wrong lesson.
- 16:02Speaker 4: So in the fuller context, is pretty clear that he's
- 16:05Speaker 4: making a very standard point. Mike Rogers near a Tanna
- 16:10Speaker 4: and a bunch of others, you know, began circulating it,
- 16:13Speaker 4: and I can maybe put it in the in the
- 16:15Speaker 4: link to the show a more deceptively mashed together, multiple
- 16:20Speaker 4: different clips pulled together to make it kind of a
- 16:23Speaker 4: much harsher like where he's justifying the thing.
- 16:27Speaker 1: So then al said comes out.
- 16:30Speaker 4: And this is where I think he made a pretty
- 16:33Speaker 4: pretty huge mistake, because they're now jumping on him. Alside
- 16:37Speaker 4: comes out and you can put up d one, he says,
- 16:41Speaker 4: he writes my statement on a Sanpiker's comments regarding Jeremy Moss.
- 16:46Speaker 4: He says, I believe all Americans deserve the right to
- 16:49Speaker 4: advocate for what they believe without fear of violence. This
- 16:51Speaker 4: is particularly true for communities that have been intimidated for
- 16:55Speaker 4: their beliefs in the past. My commitment to Jewish safety
- 16:58Speaker 4: it is the same as my commitment to the safety
- 16:59Speaker 4: of my own daughter's. Anti Semitism is a scourge and
- 17:02Speaker 4: we need to address it in all of its forms,
- 17:04Speaker 4: and I stand against any rhetoric that puts the community
- 17:07Speaker 4: at risk. But I want to be crystal clear, nobody
- 17:08Speaker 4: speaks for this campaign besides me and my campaign spokespeople.
- 17:12Speaker 4: And while politicians and pundits try to make this race
- 17:15Speaker 4: about a twitch streamer, we're going to be talking about gas, groceries,
- 17:19Speaker 4: good schools, and healthcare because that's because that's what Michi
- 17:23Speaker 4: Gander's keep asking about. It's why I'm fighting to get
- 17:25Speaker 4: money out of politics, money in your pocket, and Medicare
- 17:28Speaker 4: for all. Don Piker responded to that by saying he
- 17:32Speaker 4: thinks the entire statement was well said. He objected to
- 17:36Speaker 4: the part at the top that says my statement on
- 17:38Speaker 4: Hassan Piker's comments regarding to Jeremy Moss because it bought
- 17:42Speaker 4: into this frame that he actually had said something that
- 17:46Speaker 4: he had not said, when a smarter response from outside
- 17:51Speaker 4: would have been to say that was twisted and deceptively edited.
- 17:55Speaker 1: And also he's not on my campaign.
- 17:56Speaker 4: Why are you asking me about every little thing that
- 17:59Speaker 4: this guy who talks for ten hours a day says?
- 18:01Speaker 1: Yeah, now you're a.
- 18:02Speaker 4: Tandon And the people who have been spending months trying
- 18:07Speaker 4: to bring Abdul al Sayah down have said, see, we
- 18:11Speaker 4: told you. He's now distanced himself from a som piker.
- 18:15Speaker 4: He never should have associated with Sam Piker. Anybody who
- 18:18Speaker 4: associates with som Piker needs to be rooted out of
- 18:20Speaker 4: our politics. Taking it as a victory, why did it work,
- 18:27Speaker 4: I don't know. Months of bullying.
- 18:31Speaker 1: I'm surprised by it, honestly, people, you know the mobs
- 18:33Speaker 1: are the mobs are intimidating. You whip up enough of
- 18:35Speaker 1: a mob. I don't know. It's a it's a good question.
- 18:40Speaker 8: Because he was shameless about his affiliation with Hassan heading
- 18:44Speaker 8: into the primary, Like they were at that pool party
- 18:46Speaker 8: together right before the primary on the election day. Yeah right,
- 18:50Speaker 8: and so in the general election. I mean, but the
- 18:52Speaker 8: point is he was doing the kind of bold colors,
- 18:55Speaker 8: not pale pastels. It's the run Reagan line of how
- 18:58Speaker 8: like if you actually lean into what you moraally believe
- 19:01Speaker 8: it's often politically better for you because people believe that
- 19:04Speaker 8: you say that you believe what you say you believe
- 19:07Speaker 8: to kind of bring this full circle, and so to
- 19:10Speaker 8: then look wishy washy on Hassan, I don't know that
- 19:13Speaker 8: that's actually even politically helpful.
- 19:14Speaker 6: It seems like his instincts were better than.
- 19:17Speaker 8: That, which is to say, I'm standing by something that
- 19:19Speaker 8: I believe in, and your attendance bullying is.
- 19:21Speaker 6: Not going to work.
- 19:22Speaker 1: Right.
- 19:23Speaker 4: I think you're very much correct, because she's now just
- 19:26Speaker 4: rubbing it in everywhere and everyone else is jumping on
- 19:30Speaker 4: it too.
- 19:30Speaker 1: We can put up D five.
- 19:31Speaker 4: This is Hakeem Jeffries, who bells blood in the water,
- 19:35Speaker 4: the malicious claim, This is Rakiem Jeffries, the malicious claim
- 19:38Speaker 4: that American Jews are inviting violence against themselves is dangerous
- 19:41Speaker 4: and anti Semitic.
- 19:43Speaker 1: There is zero justification for threats.
- 19:45Speaker 4: Against the safety of our Jewish brothers and sisters and
- 19:47Speaker 4: a moment of rising hate. We will fight the cancer
- 19:49Speaker 4: of anti Semitism with a fierce urgency of now like
- 19:54Speaker 4: he did not make a threat against our Jewish brothers
- 19:58Speaker 4: and sisters.
- 20:00Speaker 1: He did not do that.
- 20:02Speaker 4: He just simply did not do that like it is
- 20:04Speaker 4: a manufactured and fake thing. But by issuing this statement,
- 20:11Speaker 4: Abdul kind of opened the door for yes, his enemies
- 20:17Speaker 4: to come in and.
- 20:19Speaker 6: For candidates around the country too. It's not going to happen.
- 20:21Speaker 4: And what they don't, what the left just never seems
- 20:24Speaker 4: to understand, is that people like Jefferies, people like Nerotanan,
- 20:32Speaker 4: it is not obvious that they want Abduel Alsida to
- 20:34Speaker 4: win like that. You should not take for granted that
- 20:36Speaker 4: they want him to win. Everything they're doing suggests that
- 20:40Speaker 4: they do not want him to win. If populist candidates
- 20:45Speaker 4: can win in states like Maine and Michigan and Michigan
- 20:50Speaker 4: seven where Will Lawrence is running, or Randy Vegas in
- 20:55Speaker 4: California or elsewhere, if those populist candids can win, the
- 20:59Speaker 4: entire mode mode of politics that Keim Jefferson near Atanam
- 21:03Speaker 4: represents is rejected. They would rather lose those races to
- 21:08Speaker 4: the Republican than lose their position in the party. It's
- 21:13Speaker 4: the iron law of institutions, as it's known. And so
- 21:18Speaker 4: stop thinking that if you just capitulate a little bit
- 21:22Speaker 4: to them that they will then get.
- 21:24Speaker 1: On your team. They're not.
- 21:26Speaker 4: They're not the only thing that can keep them on
- 21:28Speaker 4: the team is shame, because it's too embarrassing to be
- 21:34Speaker 4: publicly oppositional to your party.
- 21:39Speaker 6: Well, just to your point about opening the door up.
- 21:42Speaker 8: This morning's political playbook so read by pretty much every
- 21:46Speaker 8: Beltway insider. The headline is literally, how do you solve
- 21:49Speaker 8: a problem like Piker?
- 21:51Speaker 1: That's the headline by winning? There's no political there is
- 21:55Speaker 1: no Piker problem that you see, and you solve it
- 21:57Speaker 1: by winning.
- 21:58Speaker 4: Yeah, well by losing and trying to cut like cut
- 22:04Speaker 4: an entire portion of your coalition out.
- 22:08Speaker 6: Again, it's to me, it's like they solve it by
- 22:10Speaker 6: losing in the last.
- 22:12Speaker 4: To their mind, if if they can say, look left
- 22:16Speaker 4: one primaries in Michigan and Maine and we lost to them,
- 22:21Speaker 4: that solves the problem of Piker by losing two Republicans,
- 22:26Speaker 4: Like that's their goal.
- 22:27Speaker 6: It's like in the.
- 22:28Speaker 8: Last couple of weeks, establishment Democrats have decided to make
- 22:33Speaker 8: end Republicans. Obviously, maybe it's happening because Republicans have moved
- 22:36Speaker 8: into general election season and a lot of these races,
- 22:39Speaker 8: and they know that they can try to make a
- 22:42Speaker 8: boogeyman out of Hassan Piker. But it's like the last
- 22:45Speaker 8: two weeks establishment Democrats, It's like they are the ones
- 22:48Speaker 8: who just discovered like the Dave Matthews band, and now
- 22:51Speaker 8: they're talking constantly about like, man.
- 22:53Speaker 6: This guy Dave Matthew is. It's like they just discovered
- 22:56Speaker 6: their new favorite.
- 22:57Speaker 1: And me the other day me to give Dave another
- 23:01Speaker 1: shot the d do that. I said, I was a
- 23:04Speaker 1: trash Dave. Apparently on the.
- 23:06Speaker 6: Show you trash Dave Matthews.
- 23:08Speaker 1: That's fine, I said, fine, man, you do it?
- 23:12Speaker 10: Sure?
- 23:12Speaker 11: Why not?
- 23:13Speaker 7: Like?
- 23:13Speaker 1: Why not?
- 23:15Speaker 4: Meanwhile, who is Mike Rogers who put up this this
- 23:19Speaker 4: final on this is D four. So Mike Rogers, I
- 23:22Speaker 4: don't know if we covered this, if you guys covered this.
- 23:24Speaker 4: Last week, Rogers APAC said after they lost, after Paley
- 23:29Speaker 4: Stevens lost, that they were going to spend tens of
- 23:30Speaker 4: millions of dollars against al Saia backing Mike Rogers in
- 23:34Speaker 4: general election. Uh Now, Mike Rodgers has told them he
- 23:39Speaker 4: doesn't want them doing that publicly because they're too toxic
- 23:43Speaker 4: and Abdula side is going to use apex support of him.
- 23:47Speaker 4: So he proposed a bunch of schemes that are illegal
- 23:52Speaker 4: to vary varying degrees. One of them was, how about
- 23:56Speaker 4: I just hire all of your super pac staffers onto
- 23:59Speaker 4: my campaign and you just give me all the money,
- 24:02Speaker 4: which if it comes from the super pac, like that's
- 24:04Speaker 4: illegal if they just which is how would kind of
- 24:11Speaker 4: have to go like you cannot coordinate like that? You're
- 24:14Speaker 4: not allowed to do that. He's like, what if you
- 24:16Speaker 4: just have a whole bunch of fundraisers for me instead?
- 24:18Speaker 4: And so right now as we speak, he's out in
- 24:21Speaker 4: Los Angeles doing, according to New York Times, three straight
- 24:24Speaker 4: major mega donor APAC fundraisers, so that the money comes
- 24:28Speaker 4: directly to his campaign, so that when reporters like me say,
- 24:34Speaker 4: you know, he's supported by a pack, No, he's not that.
- 24:38Speaker 1: What are you talking about?
- 24:39Speaker 6: Well, but see this is interesting. He's running away from
- 24:41Speaker 6: a pack for a general election.
- 24:43Speaker 1: While running to Los Angeles to raise money from APAC.
- 24:46Speaker 8: Of course, but it's a very telling moment, after all
- 24:50Speaker 8: of your years of reporting that a general election establishment
- 24:53Speaker 8: Republican candidate like Mike Rogers is actively trying to distance
- 24:57Speaker 8: himself from APAC via these schemes obviously varing juries of ridiculousness.
- 25:01Speaker 8: But in the meantime, establishment Democrats still think that Abdulah
- 25:05Speaker 8: say Ed needs to sprint away from Hassan Piker as
- 25:09Speaker 8: my rogers are sprinting away from APEC. Right, it's a
- 25:12Speaker 8: pretty strange situation. Yeah, he's also running away from data centers.
- 25:15Speaker 8: He just said he supports a one year moratorium on
- 25:18Speaker 8: data centers wild times.
- 25:20Speaker 4: So yes, the problem of San piker is is really
- 25:24Speaker 4: actually a problem for Republicans if the Democratic establishment was
- 25:29Speaker 4: interested in forming a coalition with the left to beat Republicans.
- 25:33Speaker 6: But obviously they are not in Republican voters.
- 25:36Speaker 8: I mean, the people who turn out in midterms are
- 25:38Speaker 8: not tend to be higher propensity, which means they're older
- 25:41Speaker 8: Republican voters who are on one pretty particular side of
- 25:45Speaker 8: the Israel policy debate.
- 25:47Speaker 4: All right, so let's move to South Carolina, where Trump
- 25:51Speaker 4: is weighing in hard behind Lindsey Graham's sister.
- 25:58Speaker 8: The South Carolina Senate runoff featuring Lindsay Graham's sister, Darlene Graham.
- 26:02Speaker 8: Senator Darlene Graham is tonight, and Donald Trump has put
- 26:06Speaker 8: in everything, I mean not literally everything, but for Trump,
- 26:10Speaker 8: by Trump's standards, everything this cycle. At least, let's actually
- 26:12Speaker 8: start here with e four, Trump has put more than
- 26:16Speaker 8: eight hundred thousand dollars from his own pack into backing
- 26:19Speaker 8: Darlene Graham, who he's also of course endorsed over Ralph
- 26:23Speaker 8: Norman Stein as a much Trumpier candidate by the way,
- 26:26Speaker 8: Trump and Norman have gone back and forth over the years.
- 26:28Speaker 8: But he's a populist Republican and Darlene Graham is well,
- 26:32Speaker 8: we don't quite know. It's unclear how much Darlene Graham
- 26:36Speaker 8: knows what her political identity is actually because she struggled
- 26:40Speaker 8: so badly. And this question about foreign policy, actually a
- 26:43Speaker 8: couple of questions about foreign policy have been going massively
- 26:46Speaker 8: viral in maga circles, actually just generally in political circles
- 26:49Speaker 8: because it hurts. It hurts to hear these It's just
- 26:52Speaker 8: so painful and uncomfortable. Let's take a list an E one.
- 26:55Speaker 11: Our Taiwan and the South China see national security issues
- 26:59Speaker 11: for the UNI States.
- 27:00Speaker 6: And if so, lie or.
- 27:02Speaker 11: How I'm just going to be honest here. I'm not
- 27:06Speaker 11: on national security that I'm not that informed on national security,
- 27:10Speaker 11: so but I do support the military. My brother was
- 27:15Speaker 11: in the Air Force for thirty three years, so I
- 27:19Speaker 11: will do everything I can to support the military. My
- 27:23Speaker 11: dad was in the army. I'm not a polished politician
- 27:26Speaker 11: up here. I'm not a national Security is not my thing,
- 27:30Speaker 11: not my area of expertise.
- 27:32Speaker 6: But I do support the military.
- 27:34Speaker 11: I tripped up on one question last night regarding Taiwan.
- 27:38Speaker 11: But you know, I've said many times I'm not a politician,
- 27:42Speaker 11: certainly not a career politician. I don't speak politician, you know,
- 27:46Speaker 11: I was just honest. Of course, Taiwan is our friend,
- 27:50Speaker 11: but I think people in South Carolina are more worried
- 27:53Speaker 11: about making ends meet. They're concerned about boys and girls sports.
- 27:58Speaker 8: All right, So, my friend, we were Notice actually just
- 28:00Speaker 8: reported in the last hour that now top Republicans are
- 28:03Speaker 8: indeed expecting Darlene Graham to lose this that is despite
- 28:07Speaker 8: the endorsement of the President of the United States, almost
- 28:09Speaker 8: a million dollars from the President of United States's pack
- 28:12Speaker 8: and this fascinating scheme happening under the surface Ryan by lobbyists,
- 28:18Speaker 8: solar lobbyists.
- 28:19Speaker 1: Too, that they think Darlene is going to lose.
- 28:21Speaker 8: They think Darling's going to lose. That's the latest headline
- 28:24Speaker 8: in Notice on the campaign. I can actually, yeah, the
- 28:26Speaker 8: headline is literally Republicans expect Darlene Graham to lose the
- 28:30Speaker 8: South Carolina run off Tuesday.
- 28:32Speaker 6: It's today.
- 28:33Speaker 1: Oh, it's today.
- 28:34Speaker 6: Yeah, it's today.
- 28:34Speaker 1: It's today.
- 28:37Speaker 8: So not like a grave for Darlene Graham, but she
- 28:39Speaker 8: does have this huge boost from solo lobbyists who detest
- 28:44Speaker 8: Ralph Norman. Now a lot of lobbyists want Darlene Graham
- 28:47Speaker 8: to win. I can read a couple of quotes I
- 28:50Speaker 8: got from sources recently. One says this is the best possible,
- 28:53Speaker 8: a best of all possible outcomes for the swamp. A
- 28:55Speaker 8: blank Saint slate senator with no convictions or clue to
- 28:58Speaker 8: what's happening, and a staff with that it's long K
- 29:01Speaker 8: Street connections. It's corporate lobbyist dream scenario, which might also
- 29:05Speaker 8: be why Donald Trump decided to dump eight hundred thousand
- 29:07Speaker 8: dollars into the race. Another source said, the South Carolina
- 29:10Speaker 8: primary is DC money interest for someone who has never
- 29:12Speaker 8: played the DC game, well, that would be Ralph Norman.
- 29:14Speaker 8: Darlene Graham win keeps the money flowing to a cadre
- 29:17Speaker 8: of consultants, lobbyists, and special interests. It's no wonder they
- 29:20Speaker 8: are spending heavily for her. She did have a K
- 29:22Speaker 8: Street fundraiser right after advancing.
- 29:24Speaker 6: To the runoff. Again, no surprise.
- 29:26Speaker 8: What is a bit more surprising is the scheme from
- 29:29Speaker 8: clean energy lobbyists to get Northam Ralph Northam out of
- 29:36Speaker 8: the I keep saying Northam because of virgin Ralph Norman.
- 29:39Speaker 8: Yeah I just did that might have but anyway, trying
- 29:41Speaker 8: to get him to be Oguls or chip Royd.
- 29:46Speaker 6: This is really really interesting.
- 29:48Speaker 8: We can put this any political Politico E and E
- 29:51Speaker 8: headline up on the screen. This is E two solar
- 29:54Speaker 8: company executives and supporters spending one million dollars to defeat
- 29:58Speaker 8: hard right Republican Ralph Norman in his campaign for Senate.
- 30:01Speaker 8: Could see their work backfire. Politico just reported in the
- 30:05Speaker 8: last few days the invest In Tomorrow Coalition, that's a
- 30:08Speaker 8: pack backed by the clean energy industry, which is itself
- 30:12Speaker 8: Their biggest donor is a crypto guy. Kind of interesting,
- 30:15Speaker 8: announced last week it was going to campaign against Norman.
- 30:17Speaker 6: This is after their the pack spent big.
- 30:20Speaker 8: They report to unseat Andy Ogles in Tennessee this month.
- 30:24Speaker 8: So they spent two million dollars to get Ogles out
- 30:27Speaker 8: of office. They spent big to get Chip roy who
- 30:30Speaker 8: also lost his primary and they're taking a page from
- 30:33Speaker 8: the APAC book and not running any ads on clean energy,
- 30:37Speaker 8: but just quietly exacting their revenge on Republicans who fought
- 30:43Speaker 8: hard to undo the Biden clean energy grants.
- 30:48Speaker 6: And money with the One Big Beautiful Bill.
- 30:51Speaker 8: And interestingly, they've now put a bunch of money behind
- 30:55Speaker 8: Darlene Graham, essentially a million dollars into this run off
- 31:00Speaker 8: on behalf of Darlen Graham's the only other candidate in
- 31:02Speaker 8: the race, to make sure that Ralph Norman doesn't make it.
- 31:07Speaker 4: And it's personal for them Norman back in. But Norman
- 31:11Speaker 4: had previously been the co chair of the Congressional Solar Caucus,
- 31:16Speaker 4: like he was a champion of solar, and then he
- 31:19Speaker 4: flipped on it, and now he's a huge opponent of it.
- 31:24Speaker 4: And so I think if he had just been a
- 31:26Speaker 4: kind of bog standard opponent who was always against solar,
- 31:30Speaker 4: they probably just leave him alone. But because of that betrayal,
- 31:38Speaker 4: they wanted to set a you know, make an example
- 31:43Speaker 4: of him. And also I think to your point Darley
- 31:46Speaker 4: and Graham, is they believe Malleable.
- 31:50Speaker 6: A blank slate with her brother's staff. That is deeply
- 31:53Speaker 6: tied to k.
- 31:53Speaker 4: Street, right, and but that's interesting that it's that they
- 32:00Speaker 4: might they might fall short on this one. But yeah,
- 32:03Speaker 4: the Tom Tom Matsy is the let's put this on
- 32:06Speaker 4: the screen. So Tom matzew start he was got you know,
- 32:09Speaker 4: basically got to start at the a fl CIO. Then
- 32:12Speaker 4: he was a top operative for move On, which is
- 32:16Speaker 4: when I met him twenty So that's twenty years ago,
- 32:18Speaker 4: you know this guy.
- 32:19Speaker 6: Yeah, he's been around DC, yes.
- 32:22Speaker 4: And then in but he left politics early twenty tens
- 32:26Speaker 4: to launch a clean energy company. And the clean energy
- 32:32Speaker 4: company was a huge success. So what's unusual about Tom
- 32:37Speaker 4: is that most most people in the progressive world don't
- 32:42Speaker 4: know anything about business, like to be a little blunt
- 32:45Speaker 4: about it.
- 32:45Speaker 6: It's like the opposite of the conservative donor world. All
- 32:48Speaker 6: they care about his business.
- 32:49Speaker 1: Right Yeah.
- 32:49Speaker 4: Whereas he is a very successful businessman and he understands,
- 32:54Speaker 4: you know, how business operates, he's also a ruthless political
- 32:58Speaker 4: operative and so you know he yeah, he took the
- 33:02Speaker 4: took a page out of the super Pac in particular
- 33:05Speaker 4: a Pac playbook to go because when they went in
- 33:08Speaker 4: and ran ads in the Ogles Race, the chip Roy Race,
- 33:12Speaker 4: they weren't just like a PAC never mentions Israel. They
- 33:15Speaker 4: were not saying, you know, vote for this person because
- 33:17Speaker 4: they're good for solar or bad for solar. They were saying, like,
- 33:20Speaker 4: these are the you know, they're basically just cutting typical
- 33:24Speaker 4: thirty second attack ads.
- 33:27Speaker 1: What I would expect that.
- 33:28Speaker 4: They'll start doing is taking the A PACK plan one
- 33:31Speaker 4: step further, which is now a PAC very often completely
- 33:35Speaker 4: disguises that it's even them. So it's one thing if
- 33:40Speaker 4: your ad doesn't mention Israel, but at the bottom it
- 33:43Speaker 4: says paid for by United Democracy Project, because then you
- 33:46Speaker 4: can google that and find out that United Democracy Project
- 33:49Speaker 4: is APAC super PAC. What they've what they've started doing
- 33:53Speaker 4: now is they'll say paid for by elect Chicago Women.
- 33:58Speaker 1: And if you google Election Chicago Women, it like just
- 34:02Speaker 1: formed a week ago.
- 34:03Speaker 4: You're like, well, where's this money coming from, and you
- 34:05Speaker 4: don't find out until after the election that it was
- 34:07Speaker 4: a PAC money. And so I would expect if, if
- 34:12Speaker 4: if it starts to become a liability that it's solar
- 34:15Speaker 4: money that's playing in these races, that they'll just do
- 34:18Speaker 4: the APAC thing and call it elect South Carolina Women
- 34:25Speaker 4: or elect Lindsay Graham's sister.
- 34:28Speaker 8: So this group that MATSI is running, the Investment Tomorrow coalition,
- 34:33Speaker 8: the biggest donor is a man named Chris Larson. So
- 34:37Speaker 8: six million of the six point eight million dollars this
- 34:39Speaker 8: pack has are from Chris Larsen. Chris Larsen, fascinatingly, is
- 34:43Speaker 8: right now being protested. His home is being protested by
- 34:46Speaker 8: Sunrise activists because of his support of Flock and his
- 34:49Speaker 8: financial ties to Flock.
- 34:51Speaker 6: He is a crypto. I think he's a billionaire.
- 34:54Speaker 1: He's a ripple.
- 34:55Speaker 8: Yeah, yep, yeah, and so's he's a massive crypto billionaire.
- 35:01Speaker 8: And he's plucking off I mean, just on paper, he's
- 35:04Speaker 8: he's just picking off people who pissed him off. He's
- 35:08Speaker 8: using literally his millions of dollars to just say by
- 35:11Speaker 8: Andy Ogles, by Chip Roy, by Ralph Norman.
- 35:15Speaker 6: We'll see if that actually happens, but it's really like
- 35:18Speaker 6: on paper, it's.
- 35:19Speaker 8: The exact type of like Apex style behavior that should
- 35:23Speaker 8: have not just the left, but absolutely everybody up in
- 35:25Speaker 8: arms like it is just a disgusting oligarch behavior. And
- 35:28Speaker 8: it is so interesting in this case that he's doing
- 35:31Speaker 8: it for presumably clean energy. The purposes of clean energy
- 35:35Speaker 8: kind of crony clean energy type behavior. But he's currently
- 35:39Speaker 8: being protested by Sunrise Verus the board of Flock.
- 35:43Speaker 6: It's a crazy, right story.
- 35:44Speaker 1: It's so funny, like they they do so little climate
- 35:48Speaker 1: stuff anymore.
- 35:50Speaker 6: The sun is rising over all of the issues.
- 35:53Speaker 1: Like, yeah, flock sucks, but what a sun rise after that?
- 35:58Speaker 1: It's very yeah, yeah, that's just.
- 36:02Speaker 4: Kind of become a vehicle for whatever young people are
- 36:07Speaker 4: upset about at the moment, which is fine.
- 36:09Speaker 8: And Larsen's invested in surveillance technologies and so it's you know,
- 36:14Speaker 8: you'd see why they're targeting him. But it's funny that
- 36:18Speaker 8: he's this clean energy guy who's literally trying to pick
- 36:21Speaker 8: people out of Congress and make sure that they don't
- 36:23Speaker 8: get elected because they didn't support the clean energy subsidies.
- 36:27Speaker 6: Like it's just this is a truly fascinating DC story, right.
- 36:30Speaker 1: And the other thing I would say is.
- 36:35Speaker 4: Most of the donors, the major donors to APAX super
- 36:38Speaker 4: Pac are Republicans, and one of the things that has
- 36:41Speaker 4: been so frustrating on the Democratic side has been to
- 36:44Speaker 4: watch Republicans intervening in democratic primaries.
- 36:49Speaker 1: So I guess I would say, how do you. How
- 36:51Speaker 1: do you like it?
- 36:52Speaker 6: How she's on the other foot? Now, crazy?
- 36:55Speaker 1: It sucks? Done it?
- 36:56Speaker 6: Yeah?
- 36:57Speaker 1: Kind of like to just do your primary talk about
- 37:00Speaker 1: actual talking about the issues that are relevant to your
- 37:03Speaker 1: primary voters.
- 37:04Speaker 8: With that distortion from people who are claiming to talk
- 37:06Speaker 8: about the issues relevant two primary voters, you're talking about something. Yeah,
- 37:11Speaker 8: all right, Ray, Well, speaking of all this, we have
- 37:13Speaker 8: a candidate to get to.
- 37:15Speaker 6: Let's pivot.
- 37:18Speaker 4: I've seen a lot of weird financial shenanigans in my
- 37:20Speaker 4: political reporting career, but a move pulled off by a
- 37:23Speaker 4: Democratic candidate in Massachusetts sixth congressional district is a brand
- 37:27Speaker 4: new one to me. The candidate is Tramwin and she's
- 37:30Speaker 4: running in an open race to replace Seth Moulton, who
- 37:33Speaker 4: is running for Senate against Ed Markey on Tuesday. She's
- 37:36Speaker 4: presenting herself as the progressive in the race, or at
- 37:39Speaker 4: least one of the progressives, and she even got the
- 37:42Speaker 4: recent endorsement of Squad member Ayana Presley. She's getting new
- 37:45Speaker 4: traction in the race thanks to spending from two super packs.
- 37:49Speaker 4: Following the money to both leads to some interesting places.
- 37:52Speaker 4: One of them is called Pro Choice Majority Action and
- 37:55Speaker 4: it's primarily funded by a separate pack called Elect Democratic
- 37:59Speaker 4: Women Action Fund, and both have served this cycle as
- 38:02Speaker 4: vehicles to hide money from APAX superPAC, which is called
- 38:06Speaker 4: United Democracy Project. Indeed, APAC so far has given EDW
- 38:11Speaker 4: Action Fund more than two million dollars of the seven
- 38:14Speaker 4: million dollars total it has raised. So I asked Lenny Young,
- 38:17Speaker 4: a representative of EDW and Pro Choice Majority, whether this
- 38:21Speaker 4: particular money had come from a PAC, and he said
- 38:24Speaker 4: that it didn't, but he declined to say where it
- 38:26Speaker 4: did come from. So far, they've dropped four hundred and
- 38:30Speaker 4: fifty thousand dollars in the past week, with much more
- 38:33Speaker 4: expected in the final days. The other superpack is called
- 38:37Speaker 4: the Save America Fund. The largest donor to Save America,
- 38:42Speaker 4: bizarrely is the Committee to Elect tram Win. So that
- 38:46Speaker 4: money came in on October twenty first, twenty twenty five,
- 38:50Speaker 4: and it came from wins state level political action committee.
- 38:54Speaker 4: Now bear in mind that it is illegal to use
- 38:56Speaker 4: money you raised for a state race on your federal
- 39:00Speaker 4: because the laws are different around how you can raise it.
- 39:05Speaker 4: Two days after sending that money to the federal superpack,
- 39:08Speaker 4: she launched her race for federal office. Now in the
- 39:13Speaker 4: last two weeks of the campaign. The superpack she funded
- 39:17Speaker 4: is all of a sudden, spending big to elect her
- 39:20Speaker 4: to federal office. The Superpack works with Democratic Megalor Mark Elias,
- 39:26Speaker 4: so presumably he blessed this roundabout way of dodging federal
- 39:30Speaker 4: campaign finance laws, but it's quite aggressive at best, if
- 39:34Speaker 4: not illegal at worst. Now, back in twenty twenty four, meanwhile,
- 39:38Speaker 4: Save America Fund worked directly with the super Pac Democratic
- 39:41Speaker 4: Majority for Israel, but there's no evidence they've done so
- 39:45Speaker 4: this cycle. So joining us to talk about all of
- 39:48Speaker 4: this is former state Representative Jamie Belcido, who is also
- 39:53Speaker 4: running in this race and also kind of running in
- 39:56Speaker 4: the progressive lane.
- 39:57Speaker 1: Jamie, thank you so much for being here. We really
- 39:59Speaker 1: pre shadeed.
- 40:01Speaker 10: Thank you very much for speaking with me today about
- 40:04Speaker 10: this race and very very important, very important race that
- 40:10Speaker 10: we have here in the sixth.
- 40:12Speaker 4: Yeah, and the state representative when you know, also I
- 40:17Speaker 4: don't know if she's still in the legislature. I believe
- 40:19Speaker 4: she is, and she's and she's endorsed by the kind
- 40:22Speaker 4: of moderate to conservative House House speaker there, which is
- 40:28Speaker 4: you know, to me, kind of cuts against the progressive
- 40:32Speaker 4: lane that she's that she's trying to run in. But
- 40:35Speaker 4: I wanted to get your perspective on this race. Like,
- 40:38Speaker 4: so when you when you first jumped into the race,
- 40:42Speaker 4: what what did you understand about kind of the layout
- 40:46Speaker 4: of where the various kind of super packs were going
- 40:48Speaker 4: to fall?
- 40:49Speaker 10: Sure, and I have you know, I have run for
- 40:52Speaker 10: this race before, and I I right out the gate
- 40:56Speaker 10: said people's pledge, no outside money, an APAC would not
- 40:59Speaker 10: touch me with the ten foot poll. I am a
- 41:03Speaker 10: working mother of two. I'm a proud product of this district.
- 41:06Speaker 10: I'm bringing almost thirty years of experience to this race.
- 41:10Speaker 8: Ryan.
- 41:11Speaker 10: I have been an elected town moderator, an elected state representative.
- 41:15Speaker 10: I've flipped a district to Democrat that hadn't been held
- 41:18Speaker 10: by a Democrat since eighteen fifty eight. And I'm the
- 41:21Speaker 10: only Arab American woman ever elected to our state legislature.
- 41:25Speaker 10: I'm also the founder of a national maternal health nonprofit
- 41:30Speaker 10: that has been focused on reducing maternal mortality across our country.
- 41:35Speaker 10: And I've been working with Congress for the past ten
- 41:37Speaker 10: years to gather over one hundred and twenty five million
- 41:40Speaker 10: new dollars in federal funding. Working with Congress to make
- 41:44Speaker 10: sure that we're taking care of moms and babies. And
- 41:47Speaker 10: when it comes to this race, I can say this,
- 41:51Speaker 10: the Democratic Party has broke figuratively and literally, and they've
- 41:55Speaker 10: allowed special interests like the ones flooding into this race
- 41:58Speaker 10: right now to dictate our policy. And I'm running for
- 42:01Speaker 10: Medicare for all and and these endless wars. I called
- 42:05Speaker 10: out the genocide as a sitting state rep Uh and
- 42:09Speaker 10: was told point blank by the Democratic Party, You'll never
- 42:13Speaker 10: be able to run for office again. And and here
- 42:15Speaker 10: we are with APAC money trying to come in and
- 42:18Speaker 10: buy this race.
- 42:19Speaker 4: So as I understand it, the because of the maternal
- 42:22Speaker 4: health nonprofit that you were running, You've worked with some
- 42:25Speaker 4: members of Congress in the past. Tell me about some
- 42:28Speaker 4: of the conversations that you had before getting into the
- 42:33Speaker 4: race with these.
- 42:33Speaker 1: With these members of Congress.
- 42:34Speaker 4: And I think this is pretty pretty edifying to people
- 42:37Speaker 4: about how this stuff works.
- 42:39Speaker 10: So I have great relationships on on the hell by
- 42:42Speaker 10: way of the work that my nonprofit has done.
- 42:45Speaker 6: In this space.
- 42:47Speaker 10: And I was brought in to you know, the room
- 42:51Speaker 10: where it happened, so to speak, and was told to,
- 42:55Speaker 10: you know, tow the party line, and that is not
- 42:59Speaker 10: something that this race that I'm running to represent the
- 43:01Speaker 10: people of the best district in the country where I
- 43:04Speaker 10: am from where I'm running to make sure that we
- 43:11Speaker 10: are not taking all the a PAC money, all of
- 43:15Speaker 10: the AI money, all of the cryptocurrency money. I mean,
- 43:20Speaker 10: that was the directive to me, and I said, no,
- 43:23Speaker 10: thank you. That's not who who I'm planning on representing
- 43:27Speaker 10: in the halls of Congress. I'm planning on representing folks
- 43:30Speaker 10: who can't put food on the table, who are worried
- 43:32Speaker 10: about their utility bills skyrocketing out of control, who confoind
- 43:37Speaker 10: a place to live.
- 43:39Speaker 4: At the beginning of this segment, I mentioned this super
- 43:41Speaker 4: pac both Pro Choice Majority Action and EDW Action fund EDW.
- 43:46Speaker 10: Yeah.
- 43:46Speaker 4: Yeah, Did they mention any of those super PACs in
- 43:49Speaker 4: relation to APAC or AI when you were in Washington.
- 43:54Speaker 10: The specificities are on the packs themselves.
- 43:57Speaker 6: No.
- 43:57Speaker 10: I mean, even as just a a as a citizen,
- 44:00Speaker 10: when I hear Pro Choice Majority Action, it doesn't correlate
- 44:04Speaker 10: to me that that's an APEC shell right or the
- 44:07Speaker 10: United Democracy Project. But you're seeing that these that these
- 44:14Speaker 10: shell I don't know what we want to call them.
- 44:17Speaker 10: To be very frank, with you, you know, our funding
- 44:21Speaker 10: mailers in putting people up on TV right now. And
- 44:24Speaker 10: the focus was the focus, in the energy of that
- 44:27Speaker 10: conversation was take all the money because the end goal
- 44:30Speaker 10: is to get a woman in this position. And that
- 44:35Speaker 10: did not sit well with me because this is again
- 44:39Speaker 10: I spoke earlier why the Democratic Party has been influenced
- 44:44Speaker 10: by special interests and people are not being represented. And
- 44:48Speaker 10: I told them that I would not take the money.
- 44:50Speaker 10: And then they've gone ahead to endorse the representative from
- 44:54Speaker 10: andover Drumwain.
- 44:55Speaker 4: So they said, take all the money, take the APEC
- 44:58Speaker 4: money because the important thing is that a woman win
- 45:01Speaker 4: this race.
- 45:03Speaker 1: Now.
- 45:03Speaker 4: Representative Lois Frankel is the one who chairs the cd
- 45:07Speaker 4: W uh pack and you know has has been has
- 45:12Speaker 4: been reported to have being moving a PAC money around.
- 45:15Speaker 1: Did you did you meet with her?
- 45:16Speaker 5: Is that?
- 45:17Speaker 10: And and I met with Yes, it was Frank yes,
- 45:21Speaker 10: and Ryan, I'll be you know, I'll be transparent and
- 45:23Speaker 10: saying I was unaware of her position within the organization.
- 45:28Speaker 10: Ed w to me sounded nice. So elect democratic women, right,
- 45:32Speaker 10: of course, that's who I'm going to meet with. I'm
- 45:34Speaker 10: a formally you know, elected Democratic woman.
- 45:37Speaker 1: So it did not.
- 45:39Speaker 10: It did not indicatively say to me that there was
- 45:42Speaker 10: anything that I should be concerned with, but one it
- 45:46Speaker 10: was conveyed to me that it was time to lean
- 45:49Speaker 10: in and take all the money.
- 45:50Speaker 6: Uh.
- 45:51Speaker 10: But you know again, the last time I checked, I
- 45:53Speaker 10: am a woman, But I guess not taking the A
- 45:55Speaker 10: PAC money disqualifies me as a.
- 45:57Speaker 6: Candidate elect certain kinds of Democratic women.
- 46:02Speaker 10: There you go. Yeah, the disclaimer was not as transparent,
- 46:05Speaker 10: but that's where it is right now.
- 46:07Speaker 8: Yeah, could you just since you're you know, in this
- 46:11Speaker 8: race right now, explain to us a bit about how
- 46:13Speaker 8: consequential this money and support is. Like, say you were
- 46:17Speaker 8: taking any Impact money and AI money. What does that
- 46:20Speaker 8: mean for a candidate running in a district like this.
- 46:24Speaker 10: Well, I'll tell you this. You know, we are on
- 46:26Speaker 10: the doors. We've knocked fifty thousand doors. We have four
- 46:29Speaker 10: hundred volunteers across this district. It's thirty nine towns in cities,
- 46:33Speaker 10: right And the prohibitive part of this is getting on TV,
- 46:39Speaker 10: is putting out those mailers, is being on the streaming.
- 46:43Speaker 10: And so if you aren't able to pay to play,
- 46:47Speaker 10: for lack of a better term, it becomes somewhat prohibitive,
- 46:52Speaker 10: although I do have to stay for us. We have
- 46:54Speaker 10: the largest grassroots campaign. We are meeting people where they are.
- 46:58Speaker 10: We are in the communities, and I'm from here, you know,
- 47:01Speaker 10: like I'm a known entity in this in the district
- 47:04Speaker 10: that I'm running. But whether it be trime Win or
- 47:07Speaker 10: own candidates, the money that's flooding in from special interests
- 47:12Speaker 10: is what's allowing people to be put on the streaming
- 47:15Speaker 10: channels and on on the TV channels. But I go
- 47:19Speaker 10: back to the fact that this district here up the
- 47:22Speaker 10: north Shore has a strong what I call a no
- 47:25Speaker 10: BS detector, and I don't think people realize the bill
- 47:31Speaker 10: of goods that they're being fed under the guise of
- 47:34Speaker 10: yet pro choice majority or you know, the United Democracy Project.
- 47:39Speaker 10: And it's on purpose. It's on purpose. That's that's the
- 47:43Speaker 10: part that that is so hard against a PAC won't
- 47:46Speaker 10: touch me with the ten foot poll. But they have
- 47:48Speaker 10: figured out a way to go around it so that
- 47:51Speaker 10: people don't look at a mailer or or a commercial
- 47:55Speaker 10: and go, oh geez, you know, that's the that's the
- 47:57Speaker 10: thing we're talking about these days. We don't want to
- 48:00Speaker 10: support that.
- 48:01Speaker 4: So tram Win about a week ago, I said at
- 48:04Speaker 4: a forum and then also then she tweeted out she said,
- 48:07Speaker 4: as someone who fled in authoritarian regime because she fled
- 48:11Speaker 4: Vietnam at the age of five, I know the devastating
- 48:14Speaker 4: human cost of violence and displacement. The genocide and Gaza
- 48:17Speaker 4: must come to an end. It's time to stop writing
- 48:20Speaker 4: blank checks for forever wars. So what's your sense so
- 48:23Speaker 4: where you know, what's your reaction to that, and what's
- 48:27Speaker 4: your sense of why a pack that has been significantly
- 48:31Speaker 4: funded by APAK would be okay getting behind somebody who
- 48:34Speaker 4: says the genocide in Gaza must come to an end.
- 48:37Speaker 10: So I've been very transparent and again Ryan on this,
- 48:40Speaker 10: you know I have family that still resides in Syria,
- 48:45Speaker 10: as an Arab American woman, as a mother of two,
- 48:48Speaker 10: as somebody who has their own nonprofit and taking care
- 48:51Speaker 10: of mothers and babies. We've been watching a live stream
- 48:54Speaker 10: genocide on Instagram for years now. And let us be frank.
- 48:58Speaker 10: This has been an ongoing issue for over seventy years,
- 49:02Speaker 10: and I have been incredibly outspoken, to the point where
- 49:06Speaker 10: I've received death threats. I was put into the local
- 49:10Speaker 10: Jewish newspapers as the anti Semite next door, and people
- 49:16Speaker 10: have decided to use this issue as politically expeditious to
- 49:23Speaker 10: signal to folks, Oh, I'm a progressive, but up until recently,
- 49:28Speaker 10: even during our candidate's forums, the reprimandover did not believe
- 49:34Speaker 10: that there was a genocide.
- 49:36Speaker 6: Secondly, is Israel committing genocide? Okay, we have a split there.
- 49:43Speaker 10: And that's insulting because it's been part of our foreign policy,
- 49:49Speaker 10: our US tax dollars going to fund a foreign military
- 49:55Speaker 10: to murder and kill people. And that this is the
- 49:59Speaker 10: reality of where I've always stood and why I'm receiving
- 50:04Speaker 10: the pushback that I'm receiving right now because they do
- 50:07Speaker 10: not want someone like me in Congress.
- 50:10Speaker 4: And last question, so the races on Tuesday, what are
- 50:13Speaker 4: you finding to be the major fault lines in an
- 50:17Speaker 4: open democratic primary like this, How are people trying to
- 50:21Speaker 4: differentiate in themselves?
- 50:22Speaker 1: And what are voters kind of demanding at this moment.
- 50:26Speaker 10: It's you know, this is all about money, right When
- 50:30Speaker 10: we continue to allow special interest to dictate how people
- 50:36Speaker 10: know who's running what our policies for the United States
- 50:40Speaker 10: are going to be, we will never have medicare for all,
- 50:43Speaker 10: We will have forever wars, we will continue to ingratiate
- 50:47Speaker 10: our military with the state of Israel, we will never
- 50:51Speaker 10: have clear representation of the people, by the people for
- 50:55Speaker 10: the people in this district. It will end up turning
- 50:58Speaker 10: into data centers and people continuing asking why can't I
- 51:04Speaker 10: afford my food bills? Well, because our money is going
- 51:08Speaker 10: towards for profit health care or making sure that the
- 51:13Speaker 10: government is giving ice gloves that can electric electric shock people.
- 51:18Speaker 10: It's all of the moneies, it's all the special interest
- 51:20Speaker 10: monies that continue to run not just the GOP and
- 51:24Speaker 10: the Trump administration, but the Democratic Establishment Party. I am
- 51:29Speaker 10: a Democrat. I am running to take care of my
- 51:32Speaker 10: district because when I was a congressional intern for Joe
- 51:35Speaker 10: Moagley thirty years ago in South Boston, here's what you want.
- 51:38Speaker 10: You take care of the people in your district. You
- 51:40Speaker 10: make sure there's food on the table, a roof over
- 51:42Speaker 10: their head, and you try to help them get a job.
- 51:45Speaker 10: And I have thirty years of fighting for the regular people,
- 51:48Speaker 10: and people are looking for someone like me to represent them.
- 51:52Speaker 10: And without the money, we are just meeting people where
- 51:55Speaker 10: they're at and that I will continue to do until Tuesday.
- 51:58Speaker 10: But we need to let the American public. Note that
- 52:01Speaker 10: whether it's Matt Little or melt Kierros or Will Lawrence,
- 52:07Speaker 10: these packs will continue to try to influence what the
- 52:11Speaker 10: American people should be voting, who they should be voting for,
- 52:16Speaker 10: and what decisions are being made on their behalf.
- 52:20Speaker 4: Well, Jamie Beltito, candidate for Matthew's sixth Congressional District, Thanks
- 52:23Speaker 4: for taking some time. The election is this coming Tuesday,
- 52:26Speaker 4: a week from today. Thank you so much for joining us.
- 52:29Speaker 10: Thank you.
- 52:30Speaker 6: That was a really interesting interview. Ryan, pinkwashing you call
- 52:33Speaker 6: it pink washing.
- 52:34Speaker 4: Yeah, this so elect democratic women was launched in twenty eighteen,
- 52:38Speaker 4: you know, after the Women's March and at the height
- 52:40Speaker 4: of anti Trump, and now it's just flush with APAC
- 52:44Speaker 4: money and very interesting to hear that Lois Frankel privately
- 52:49Speaker 4: is saying that this is it's the same thing.
- 52:52Speaker 6: There was some teeth, that was some tea, It was
- 52:54Speaker 6: some strong teeth. Yeah, good stuff.
- 52:57Speaker 4: Well, I'm going to call Aana Presley too get or
- 53:00Speaker 4: comment on because this is this is not how I
- 53:04Speaker 4: think people expect democratic primary politics to unfold.
- 53:07Speaker 1: On the progressive side.
- 53:10Speaker 6: I would imagine it's not that's dirty.
- 53:12Speaker 8: Yeah, well you're gonna be in with Sager tomorrow right
- 53:16Speaker 8: Bro Show, and then uh soccer Thursday.
- 53:18Speaker 1: Too, or Crystal Thursday, no soccer or you. I don't know, we'll.
- 53:22Speaker 6: Figure it out.
- 53:23Speaker 8: We'd like to do planning on the air, just me,
- 53:26Speaker 8: we'll do a live well. Breakingpoints dot Com full subscription,
- 53:29Speaker 8: free month trial is still going. Head on over there
- 53:32Speaker 8: if you're interested. Otherwise, Ryan and Soccer will see it
- 53:34Speaker 8: back here tomorrow morning.
- 53:35Speaker 6: Have a great one everyone,