10/8/26: Trump Lashes Out At Abdul, Trump Ominous Election Surprise, Trump Ambassador Caught Begging For Money

This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. How to sell your car. First, go to CarMax.com, then. Wow, this offer's great. But is this just an estimate? Nope, it's worth real money. Oh, I like that. Hold on, is my phone gonna ring off the hook with sales calls now? Not at all. You have a week to think on it, pressure free. Okay, but then I have to drop it off? Or you can just schedule an at-home pickup. That is kind of amazing. Get a real offer today at CarMax.com. Offers are good for seven days. At-home pickup not available in all locations. Distance restrictions and a fee may apply. I turned off news altogether. I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything. It's the rage bait. It feels like it's trying to divide people. We got clear facts. Maybe we can calm down a little. NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the facts. Let's move forward. From. From there. NBC News. Reporting for America. This is Matt Rogers from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. We've been talking about Kewpie Mayo for a minute now. And wow, so many of you already love this stuff. And if you're thinking, wait, what is Kewpie? Do you not have the internet? It's the OG Japanese mayonnaise. The one with the red cap. What makes it different? Egg yolks. Kewpie is made with egg yolks. Egg yolks only. Giving it this rich umami flavor that elevates everything. Chefs use it. Restaurants use it. Where chefs work, of course. Food and flavor lovers use it. You haven't tried it yet? Well, find the red cap and see what everyone's talking about, why don't ya? Kewpie. The original Japanese mayonnaise. Kewpie. So one of the biggest marquee races this cycle is, of course, Mike Rogers versus Abdullah Syed for the Senate seat in the state of Michigan. And Mike Rogers and the Republicans, really grasping at whatever they possibly can. As I was saying before, they think they have a chance to split some Jewish voters off from the Democratic coalition. So you've got a new ad here from the, quote, Republican Jewish Coalition Victory Fund talking to some purported Jewish Democrats who are saying they can't vote for Abdullah Syed. And then we've got that clip together with a focus group of some voters echoing some of these concerns about Abdullah Syed's position on Israel. Let's take a listen. The Temple Israel, the Temple Israel attack was a day we will never forget. My grandson attends Temple Israel preschool and I will never forgive Al-Syed for excusing the terrorists who caused this terrible incident. Right after the attack, Abdullah Syed said, hurt people, hurt people. And he is giving permission for another person to do it again. He demonizes Israel. It's the Jews' fault. I am a lifelong Democrat and I will not vote for Al-Syed. My daughter goes, to University of Detroit Mercy. She's in her second year of law school and she has to hide being Jewish. And it's a hard thing to say when October 7th came. Horrible for her. Lots of tears. I may go to Mike Rogers. So, look, I'm just going to say to this lady, I'm sorry I don't believe you that your daughter at law school has to hide being Jewish. I'm sorry, I don't believe you. I see no evidence of that among our nation. prestigious universities and law schools that that is in fact reality and not your own or your daughter's delusion or fantasy. With regard to the ad here, I think there will be some number of Jewish voters in Michigan who have decided that Israel is their number one issue, that they are completely committed to that country over literally anything else and who will split off and vote for Republicans. But what we have seen in terms of the polling is that it continues to be the case that a majority of Jewish voters are voting for Democrats. And even Zoran in New York City, who, you know, his opponents made his anti-Zionism a major issue in his campaign, did quite well with Jewish voters at the end of the day. So, you know, I think there is something for them to work with here. I don't doubt that that is the case or some voters who may just stay home. But, you know, you have a lot of other factors at play here as well. And it's really worth it. It's really worth keeping in mind that many, many, many Jewish voters are disgusted with the Netanyahu government, are disgusted with the status quo with regard to Israel and, you know, would like to see a change in policy. And many who, by the way, have led the way in the anti-Zionist protest movements as well that we've seen and we've covered. Yeah, I will just going to reiterate your point. I joked, I said, if anything, other people may have to hide that they're not Jewish at law school. I mean, it's just like, come on, you know, you were really supposed to believe that you have to hide your Jewish identity at a law school. By the way, I looked it up. It's a private Catholic school. So maybe that's part of the problem. It's that it's a Catholic university and an institution. Again, not by my admission, by yours. You're the person who brought this into the discourse. You know what, Sagar? I think it's, I think people, it's again, this conflation of Zionism and Jewishness. I think being a Zionist is very unpopular among young people. Very, very unpopular. And for good reason, because at this point you look at this and you're, oh, so you support a genocide. So you're cool with the mass slaughter of children and women and innocent men and civilians and totally destroying Gaza and turning it to rubble. Yes, I think actually you should be ashamed of that identity, not your Jewishness, your support for those atrocities. So to the extent, so I think what is likely going on here is a conflation of that political view and the idea that, you know, and support for genocide with a Jewish identity when those things should and obviously are completely separate. That is such a good point that I hadn't put together. Now it actually is starting to click. It's like you have the Israel flag up in your dorm room or something and you're posting on Instagram. I'm like, yeah, well, you know, that cuts both ways in terms of politics. So yeah, maybe you do have to, quote, hide that if that's part of what you call your Jewishness. I am fascinated actually more by the idea that, you know, this Trump voter panel, that focus group that ran on MSNBC. Obviously, it's just a focus group. It was on MSNBC, but it is nonetheless interesting. They are verified voters who voted for Donald Trump. And here's what they had to say about the Michigan election. Show of hands, who has decided who they're going to vote for in the Senate race? How many of you are going to vote for Mike Rogers? How many of you are going to vote for Abdul El-Sayed? And how firm do you think you are in your choice to stick to that? I'm about 90 percent. If I don't vote for him, I'm not voting. Right. That's how I would be, too. I wouldn't vote for Mike Rogers. Oof. Turns out that Tucker was speaking for more people than they thought whenever he told me he wouldn't vote for Mike Rogers at gunpoint. It does seem to be a little bit of a populist message that's coming out. This isn't just about me. This isn't just this focus group. There's some polling that backs up that Abdul is doing disproportionately well with Trump voters, better than sort of the more standard mainstream Democrats are. So, you know, he may be losing some potentially with previous Jewish Democrats, but he seems to have more crossover appeal. And it does make a sort of like vibes-based sense, you know? If you really thought Trump was going to be the guy to focus on prices and focus on, you know, on not getting into wars, well, who's carrying that message this time? It's Abdul. And if you like Trump just because of the sense that he was kind of like a renegade outside of the system, well, Abdul much more captures that than certainly Mike Rogers does, who is like the ultimate creature of the system and has been for literally decades and also supported the Iran war that he's now trying to run away from for literally decades. So there is a sort of logic there. At the same time, you know, there's something really strange going on because, you know, we're seeing on these polls of Kansas and Iowa and Ohio and Texas, these red states that are fleeing Republicans and where Democrats are way outperforming what, you know, what they did last time around and doing way, way better than Kamala Harris was able to by double digits in some of these states. And yet then you see a Michigan and a Maine, you know, states that you would think if it's a landslide year for Democrats, they should be running away with it. And they're not running away. So, you know, it could be a polling miss. It could be different demographics. One thing Nate Cohn is pointing to is a bunch of those red states, including Alaska also that I just name checked. Those are all places that voted against Trump in the 2016 primary. So they're the kind of places that have more of that sort of like standard issue, traditional Bush conservative type of Republicans. So maybe there's some hangover from that, but I don't know. It's I'm not quite sure what to make of it at the moment. And I don't want to make too much of it at this point either because we're just talking about polls and not actual election results. Right. That's an important point. And, you know, one thing, though, is that with the expectation, let's say let's calling it tight in Michigan. What's the RCP average in Michigan? It's like four or five. I mean, we remember Democrats always winning Michigan, but it's not like they were blowing. It wasn't like a Texas level blowout. 2012 Obama won it 54 to 44. I need to look at the 2008. I'm pretty sure. I mean, it's not like That was going to be a little bit more. of a blowout so that where he won at 57 to 40 so it actually did shrink by some seven points just in that four-year period makes sense considering what happened with the economy and then that's what shifted to the literal tie effectively that happened in 2016 and then similar in 2024 so i i kind of disagree a little bit like i feel like if abdul held to where he's currently polling is and won by five or six that is a statement i mean what slotkin barely wins the state by point one or something like that so it is an overperformance relative to where things are partisanship is still locked in i mean i just don't really think politics anymore is these blowouts especially in a remotely competitive state i just don't see like that's going to happen you know these eight ten points or margins with demographic shifts and dynamism and terms of how your economy shifts in certain directions on top of how different votes themselves swing around that just seems to be the general likelihood of where things are so yeah i'm just looking at abdul i'm like i feel like he's running a race where it's kind of his to lose uh basically at this point and mike rogers is behaving that way he is behaving as the loser in this race yeah no i think um at the end of the day he'll prevail it's just interesting to me that the swing in like a state like kansas is yeah 14 points according to the polling and in michigan it's a few points so uh part of what could be going on there is also different economic situations because kansas iowa these are states that have been really hard hit by both the tariffs and the iran war you look at alaska the gas prices in alaska are utterly insane although i also feel like michigan and maine are two states that have been hit hard economically as well heating oil in maine has skyrocketed like hundreds of percent from what it was last year um tariffs and impact maine and michigan because they're close to canada more than in the trade war with canada more than other states you know the auto industry has been hurt by the trade war launched by trump so um you know there could be like i said it could be different demographic groups like in texas because latinos have fled trump so aggressively that could be part of what's going on there in any case we'll see how this all shakes out ultimately before we go too far down this road since these are theoretical results and there could be a big polling miss in some of these red states that could be the actual explanation of what's going on here is that there are some indications they're having trouble talking to rural republicans and so in states where you have a lot of rural republicans that could be creating a significant polling miss um in any case we had another report of c4 up on the screen um alleging that abdul sayed is first of all says he's certain he's going to win the michigan senate race so he's feeling confident um and i think with some justification although you never want to count your chickens before it's hatched but the the nugget in here that got the most attention is he reportedly called hassan piker and warned him his rhetoric was costing el sayed votes asking him to stop according to two people el sayed told about the conversation hassan piker did not respond to a request for comment no idea if this is true but um it's true crystal neither denying it it's true no i could see it i could see him you know being like you know what this is really not helpful but i don't i'd rather not have to answer five more of these questions um so i'm going to turn it over to hassan piker who's going to be our host for tonight's episode of news cycles of do you condemn x and y and z that hassan piker said yeah uh i am completely actually on hassan piker's side on this one and i guess they can clip that and i mean i did press hassan about this i said look do you want to be a campaign operative or do you want to be a streamer and that's fine i think he is a streamer and that's basically what he confirmed to me and so to abdul i think this is actually you want to have your cake and you want to eat it too is as by his own admission i went around and i went around and i went around and i went around and i went around with hassan piker because i want access to his audience and i want a bunch of young people to fundraise and to vote for me i don't think there's anything wrong with that uh by doing that but then you're just gonna have to eat the news cycle even if it's super annoying you don't get to call someone and say hey you need to cut it out because you're costing me votes that cake was baked when you did the campaign you could it's fine to even distance yourself from hassan which he did i think twice uh on the campaign trail ahead of what happened so honestly i think it's a kind of a bitch move uh by abdul el sayed and if hassan does it then he's basically acting as a complete like lackey of abdul el sayed so this is what happens like if you want to campaign with the streamer then i'm not going to say you're responsible necessarily for what they said but this is a natural endpoint for this type of uh discourse for all to play out and i think it's actually completely inappropriate on the campaign's side to say i get to control what you say you need to cut it out you're going to cost me votes he could say that publicly and hassan can choose to do what he wants but to communicate it behind like this i don't know kind of frankly ridiculous uh on his part to say that he has some sort of level of control i if i got a call like that from a candidate i would say go fuck yourself you know no matter because it's like the implication that you know you're going to tell me what to say because of how it's supposedly affecting you i think is preposterous it's like if you got invited and you accept an invitation then that's in the face which abdul again knew what he was doing and wrote it well for the democratic primary it's like sorry man then either you shouldn't have done it or you can distance yourself from it publicly i don't know that's my personal opinion i'm curious what you think well of course we know canada's do this sort of thing all the time like you know and trying to like good right trying to control like what the interview questions are going to be and all these sorts of things so i think abdul is within his rights to say hey this isn't helping me and hassan is within his right to say hey brother i just think it's a ridiculous you asked for my help here i am you can't now get to control uh the way that i'm saying myself and articulate my views right i'm like dude he went to the campaign event you by your own admission it helped and now you're like whoa whoa whoa i'm like well what do you want me to do i'm like it's your problem not necessarily so i think it's um yeah i really think ridiculous move and yes as you said it's people do it all the time apparently fox news um trump lit up fox news morning for their abdul el sayed interview being like why did you do this and why is jesse waters out here praising abdul side so i'm not going to say this stuff doesn't happen and in fact that's part of the problem with cable news media i would assume that's why people enjoy independent media is because they're not usually susceptible to phone calls like this so anyway that's just my saga most of independent media is the vast majority of independent media is you know taking meetings with netanyahu and whatever but we'll put that that conversation aside for another day but there's another uh interesting development here which is that uh obama is going to come to michigan and campaign alongside abdul um we could put c5 up on the screen this is you know this is pretty significant because we know that abdul did not do well with black voters in michigan during the primary um it was a source of weakness for him they voted more for hayley stevens um obama continues to be the most popular actually most popular politician in the country um across the board but among democrats he continues to be a rear veered figure and especially among black democrats so i think this is um i think this is a big deal for him because it does seem to it does seem that there is still some reticence you need you know black voters not only to vote for you but to be excited enthusiastic come out to vote for you and i'm not in no means trying to paint the group as a monolith either but um msnbc did do a focus group talk to some black voters in the state who felt they were being taken for granted so i'm not in no means trying to paint the group as a so it does seem like abdul does have some work um still to do there let's go ahead and take a listen to that there's some missed opportunities for him to help us know who he is help us understand him we don't know him and i think he's taking advantage we as black people are democratic and he thinks we're gonna vote for him anyway and i'm like no sir i'm like uncommitted down on that and move on if you're going to congress to represent me i need you to talk about what's so i think the hope is there that obama will help to you know energize a constituency that's very important and very important in michigan where there's a specific uh you know fairly large black demographic especially in the city of detroit certainly i just look for me this i'm uncommitted rhetoric do i see the whole near tandon brigade and other people coming out who are going to say you're going to cost them the election you're going to do this and that there's no criticism it's just it drives me insane because this is the same type of identitarian politics bullshit it's like what does that even mean mean to say uh he doesn't speak you know with us or any of that i don't look again my personal opinion i think it's crazy it's basically uh accusing him of not what is it because he didn't take some certain meeting which was some report uh i believe that was we don't have that element but ryan had been talking about it there was some leader in the community who alleged that abdul el-sayyed had not you know met with them i do wonder how much of this is the fact that he's not part of the michigan establishment democratic party which i'm assuming is largely tied into much of the traditional democratic black establishment in the city of detroit and some of this could be hangover from the hayley stevens kind of bitter primary election that happened i guess that would be entirely natural i don't know if we picked uh out that element the obama story is actually very funny um because abdul himself had did an entire profile and story saying don't call me the next obama and had himself said that obama's presidency didn't change anything and that he wasn't a particularly good president um but hey you know bygones be bygones whenever you need votes and you're appearing before this very popular, uh, or you, you need Obama to come in and do something for you. I guess you could see it two ways, Abdul, both obviously being a bit hypocritical by, uh, by praising it. And then also Obama, uh, having to come in and basically say, Hey, I'll campaign with somebody who said I wasn't even a particularly good president. So that is coalitional politics. I think at its finest. Absolutely. Uh, same thing I would say about, you know, Kamala Harris coming to campaign with him. There was like a whole thing about this on the left, which in a sense, I understand. But the thing is like, do you want him to win or not? You know? And it's not like he changed any of his views in order to have Kamala Harris come or have Obama come. He's still pushing the exact same agenda that he has been pushing. He is still just as outspoken on Israel, Palestine. So if you have people coming to you, I don't know why in there, you know, people have a lot of. Um, sway with important demographics in the state. I don't know why you would turn that down if you're interested in actually having power and winning, which is something that some factions of the left do not seem to be particularly interested in. Um, let me go ahead and put C4B up on the screen here. I think this just shows Trump very concerned about this race trying to weigh in. We already talked about how they're sending the antisemitism task force first stop into Michigan. Um, here he has this, you know, screed on true social calling Abdul Muhammad El-Sayed saying he's. Terrible candidate. Um, his opponent is Mike Rogers is quote an extremely good one. Muhammad again, Abdul goes back to the days of the Jihad. What? He is a radical extremist terrorist sympathizer and no different from his best friend, America hating Hassan Piker. How's France doing? This is so disconnected. Muhammad's values are not exactly those of Michiganders or those of our great United States of America. He is wrong for Michigan, wrong for America vote for Mike Rogers. He has my complete and total endorsement. We'll never, never, never, never, never, never, never, let you down. Mr. Mike Rogers, neocon himself. I thought, uh, those taxpayer ads I helped pay for said that Trump was going to vanquish the, uh, pro war deep state from DC, but here he is welcoming them in with open arms. And of course the primary attack here on Abdul is just basically Islamophobia. Like that's pretty much what this comes down to calling him Muhammad saying he goes back to the days of Jihad, that he's a terrorist sympathizer, all this kind of bullshit. That's apparently the best they can do here. Right. Uh, here's Mike Rogers. As I said earlier, who was acting like he's losing, having to break from Trump multiple times. Now here he is on Canada and how the tariffs need to end. Let's take a listen. Drinking a Labatt and watching the red wings, man, it just doesn't get any more Michigan than that. And here in Michigan, we know that Canada is not our enemy. We need to end this tariff war. Now as Michigan Senator, I'll bring both parties together to lower your prices. That's job number one. And Abdul, he wants to hit Michigan. Michigan families with a $3,000 tax increase, the biggest in history. I'm Mike Rogers. And I approve this message because I'll actually put dollars back in your pocket. Doesn't get any more Michigan than that. Mike Rogers says, uh, most importantly, obviously. Yeah. Does he actually, so what is it? He owns houses in Florida. Is that the story? He moved to Florida after like he lost the last time he moved to Florida. And now he's, I guess, theoretically lives back in Michigan. But yeah, I mean, I can't blame the guy weather wise. Uh, but if you want to, if you want to be the Senator for Michigan, I could certainly, it's just very, very, very funny. Uh, but big story, obviously Mike Rogers displaying the same behavior on the Iran war and Canada as some of those other Republicans and some of these battleground States, Iowa, uh, as well, who are having to directly break from the president and Trump always gets asked about it. So Mike Rogers, Ken Paxton, Ashley Henson, all of those people, all of those people, all of those people are going to be having to break pretty significantly from Trump, uh, on these issues, either privately or publicly the ad, which has real money behind it. It's not a surprise. It shows that Rogers sees this as a real problem. Otherwise he wouldn't take the hit of having to do these reputational problems with Trump himself, who is not happy about it and was asked about it yesterday in the Oval Office. And he's like, I don't even know what Mike is talking about. Something like that to that effect. And I think we have underestimated how important the tariffs and the trade war have been in some of these races. Because, you know, that's the thing he's really talking about here. And, um, you know, K file, who also had the Abdul about Obama clips had the Mike Rogers on the trade war originally, where he was touting it and talking it up and saying it, we thought it was gonna be great for the auto industry, et cetera. And now he's saying must end immediately. We've got to stop doing this. So, um, you know, I think in a lot of these States, it's had some specific local impacts that have really weighed on people. And you remember soccer before the Iran war broke out tariffs was the number one hit on the ballroom. People hated the combination of the two. And there is new, um, new, there are new numbers out that show if we didn't have the trade war prices would have actually gone down. So they have significantly contributed to inflation. I think people hate it. And it really broke their view of Trump as this genius businessman who was going to be great for the economy. Well, I think what it did is it increased inflation, obviously, but it also has not been paired with anything. From an industrialization point of view. And so at this point in Michigan, it's been what, 18 months, something like that since Trump became president. So you would assume you would see factory coming up, or if you work at one of these places, if you're UAW or something that you could be able to announce some sort of job increase. And instead you haven't had that. And you've had across the board price inflation, and you've had the diesel price. So it just makes sense. These are the two things that are going to drag, uh, Mike Rogers down. Yeah. I don't know. I'm curious about the dynamics of the race. And especially when some of the numbers come through, uh, we talked about black voters, Obama obviously needed, that was one big weak spot for Abdul on primary night. I guess some of the focus group voters are not wrong that part of the assumption there was that they are going, you know, to eventually come home to the democratic party on election night. If they don't, that would actually cost Abdul big time. Perhaps he could make it up with some of these other small swing voters or independent voters. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm interested to see how it all comes out. Whether it'll be a razor thin or, you know, five, six points, uh, this, there's a big difference between those two, regardless if a win is a win just in terms of the electoral dynamics for 2020, uh, 2028. God, I can't believe I'm already saying that 2028. Oh, it's coming. It's a day after election day, midterms it's on. It starts. Let's get to election. It's the rage bait. We got clear facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC news reporting for America. This is Jacob Goldstein from what's your problem. Running a business is hard enough. 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One of his rallies that was a little eyebrow raising in that regard, where he says he has some big surprises coming up with regard to Russ vote specifically. He was the author or the, I guess the guy who sort of led the writing of project 2025. He's the OMB director. He's someone who's very, he's a kind of the architect of Trump 2.0 in a lot of really significant ways. Let's go and take a listen to what Trump has said here. Director of the office of management and budget, Russ vote, who is fantastic. He's done a job. We have some big surprises coming up in another few weeks, right? Russ, he's going to be one of the very important people in the history of our country. In my opinion, he's got some great things happening. Big surprises going to be one of the most important people in the history of the country. I don't know. You never want to know what Trump, he could just be like bullshitting. It could be some like new, you know, Trump merch that he's going to be marketing to the public or a new that's going to spy on all of us or something like that. But give us a call. Given who Russ Vogt is and just the framing of that in the next couple of weeks, which is exactly when the election was, people were kind of like, hmm, not sure about that one. Yeah, I'm not really sure either. You will note that he does say something like this basically every single day, including about the most mundane members of his administration. If you are as unlucky as I am and you occasionally have to watch these Oval Office meetings, he'll pull up some idiot like Dr. Oz and be like, one of the most important people in our administration has got a big announcement that is coming up. So, yeah, I don't know. I did see a lot of people pick it up as a potential some election thing, although OMB does not have any authority over – I mean, it's the budgeting agency, obviously. What they are able to do is – I mean, I guess they can divert funding. It's possible also. He was talking about some of these midterm ads because Russ is kind of one of those magicians behind the scenes. He's going to say, oh, we can use this money to do this for X, Y, and Z. That's basically all I've got from any of this. Yeah, so let's go ahead and put the next piece up on the screen. This is some other unsettling news that, again, it's like not sure what this means, but don't think that I like it. The Trump administration is being sued over plans to send election monitors to voting sites. The NAACP has filed a lawsuit. The lawsuit after the head of DOJ's Civil Rights Division says she hopes to send election monitors to polls. So they have this whole plan to send what they describe as a historic number of election monitors to polling stations during next month's midterm elections. You know, there's a concern here that people could be potentially intimidated. I think that's the idea. You know, there's been floated before a concept of a national emergency could be declared. I'm talking about this is coming not from lefties but from some tribunals. Some of Trump's allies. The national emergency could be declared and you could have National Guard at the polling places or ICE agents at the polling places. So there's a suit being filed right now over these election monitors. Let's go ahead and put D3 up on the screen that kind of goes along with it. At the same time, they're rejecting international election monitors for the first time in over two decades. The Trump administration declined to invite election observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. To witness the midterms, meaning observers from the regional security group won't be at U.S. election for the first time in more than two decades. Their absence comes as Democrats and election integrity experts have raised concerns about potential election meddling after the Department of Justice announced plans to send their own monitors. So, again, if this was anything approaching a normal administration, to be honest with you, I didn't even know that election observers from Europe came to witness our elections. Did you know that? I'm like sort of just learning that. I was going to say I literally did not have a clue. And so that's why I was like, oh, oh, I was like, you didn't even know that that was a thing that we even do. To be honest, I have every time I've gone to vote, I have never seen an election monitor and I don't really understand what they do at all. To the extent that I do and am familiar with election monitoring or challenge systems and all of that is from Florida, the 2000 hanging Chad. Brooks Brothers riot situation and then the book Means of Ascent. But that was about a Democratic primary. So that is basically all I know about election monitors. I had basically I didn't even really know that people from Europe even came here and stood and looked or that we did the same thing. So I don't know. Yeah, but what we do know is they've staffed the election divisions within the administration with a bunch of stop the steal cranks. Trump seems to know the midterms are not going to go well with him for him. We know that last time. He lost an election in 2020. Obviously, he tried to steal the election and there was the whole shambolic fake elector slates and then January 6th insurrection attack on the Capitol. And so he certainly is not one to just accept results that he thinks is bad for him. Now, what you might say on the other side is, OK, but this is not him on the ballot. This is midterm elections and maybe he doesn't really care that much whether Republicans are in charge. I don't think that that analysis is correct. I believe that he is concerned he could actually lose some control. Of the Republican caucus and would be humiliated if he loses states like Texas, if he loses states like Alaska, like Kansas, places that are supposed to be deep red. And now Democrats are threatening to outright emerge victorious. So you have the possibility of, you know, some actual breakage in the Republican Party as they look beyond Trump. If there is this massive electoral rank reckoning, you also have, of course, the prospect of tons of investigations into the corrupt and potentially corrupt. And potentially criminal behavior of the, you know, Trump family and close associates throughout the administration and people who are even outside of the administration and this general concern about what the legacy will look like if he faces this absolute shellacking. So I think he does probably care deeply about these midterms. And he's certainly acting, even though he rhetorically will pretend like he doesn't care. He's certainly acting like he does care. Let's go and put D4 up on the screen. We also have. These details, again, speaking to some of the concerns that people have about ICE and the potential involvement of ICE, which, of course, has this massive budget. And they recruited a bunch of new ICE agents using that funding who have been vetted effectively for loyalty to the president and his agenda. We now are learning that they that agency has reviewed tens of millions of voter records looking for non-citizen voters. This is part and parcel with Trump. Trump's plan that was announced in that executive order to force states to send in their voter rolls so that they could have some say over who got to vote and who didn't. So we're now learning specifically that it was ICE that's gone through tens of millions of these voter records. So this is all concerning. And then the other piece that's concerning that we talked to Professor Pape about is Sagar. He's not so much worried about what happens on Election Day. He's worried about what happens after. And this makes sense. Because this was the Trump playbook last time around. Right. Leading up to the elections, there was some, you know, moderate like like here we had the redistricting and we've had these voter rolls things and, you know, that sort of behavior. But the problem really came after Election Day when he just refused to accept the results. And I think there is very much a possibility that we face something similar again, the midterms version of that, where he just refuses to accept the results, perhaps declare some sort of a national emergency. He uses this. This information he's gathering from the voter rolls to claim that there were millions of undocumented immigrants who voted in the elections or something of that nature. That could be very much what we're building towards. It's possible. You know, I do wonder, though, there has been limited amounts of pushback. So have you seen, for example, let's let's think about a couple of things. Remember the weaponization fund that was immediately struck down because people in the Senate, et cetera, were like, no, we're not going to do that. These taxpayer funded ads. I don't know if you saw our show yesterday. The ones. They were on the NFL. He's like, I'm going to pay for them now via my PAC. These are all the behavior of someone who is worried about congressional investigation, impeachment and potential prosecution that all broke both from within the Republican caucus, but also were of a unified Democratic caucus. So one of the reasons why January 6th was able to even be a thing in the first place was because of the razor thin margin of the loss in 2020. Like we're talking. We're talking about 100,000 votes in three different states. If you were to try to pull that in a literal blowout, I don't know. I'm curious for what you think. Don't you think it would just be dramatically different? Like one of the only reasons why you could have contested that was because you could argue about some marginal whatever Fulton County for some. I forget the margin in Georgia is very, very small that Biden wins it in 2020. Well, it's going to be pretty different if you have the. Same thing happened where you have, you know, Abdul by seven, Tallarico by three, four. Like when we're talking about millions of votes, not tens of thousands. We're not talking about Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania. We are talking about like 10 different states. And Trump himself is not there on the ballot. And what he went 61 for 61 in the court ultimately. So I don't know. That's just the way I'm looking at it is that if they were to follow the Jan 6 playbook, it would seem to me that it would almost certainly invite even more of what you're talking about. Breakage, et cetera. And I mean, I'm not saying he's going to accept the results of the election officially. I never would say that. Yeah. Especially what's happened after 2020. I think he'll bitch and moan about alleged fraud, et cetera. And then January 20th or whatever inauguration day will come and all of those Democrats will be seated in the Senate. But you're not wrong. We can look at this and be like, I mean, he literally tried to do it before and he's got some of the same cranks. We're working for him in the government. So I really don't know. I actually think that the biggest danger for a lot of them was people don't appreciate how much, especially casual observers, which is what I mean, if you've ever met a real stop the stealer, they're not the brightest bulbs. They are able to be convinced of a lot of stuff. So I'll remind you, you know, remember how the Republicans redistricted many of those state, those districts across the country. I was looking at data yesterday that they're only currently a projected lock in like five out of 20 of them. And nine of them, they have had to spend $100 million to make them competitive. Let's say they go 15 and 20. You and I. would look at that and go, yeah, we warned you about this at the time. We were like, hey, you're making a plus 10 district into our plus five. And in a wave year, you're going to lose. But a low IQ person would look at that and be like, wait, obviously it's rigged because it was supposed to be, you know, redistricted for the Republicans. So these I'm working through the that's my of the. Yeah, that's see, that's my concern is. So last time the model was it was so close that they were able to call into question, oh, something weird happened in Detroit. Oh, something weird happened in Fulton County. Oh, what happened in Phoenix and Arizona? This time, the argument could could be if it is that level of Democratic blowout where they're winning Iowa and Kansas or whatever, the argument could be, oh, you really think Democrats won Kansas? Are you stupid? You think they won Texas? They never win Texas. They always think they're going to win Texas. The results must be rigged because there's no way. The Democrats could win in all of these states. So, you know, he's he has a number of scripts that he could work with here. I'm less I guess I'm less comforted by that line of argumentation. What I'm more comforted by is that last time when Trump was, you know, when Trump lost in 2020, he still had his core base of supporters completely locked in and they loved him and they thought that he was the second coming. Truly like. The cult was in full swing. They were all about it. They believe every word that he said. They felt it was existential that he be president for another four years, et cetera. Now, you still have some of those. It's not nearly as many. Now, the Republican base still overwhelmingly, if you ask him, they still overwhelmingly support him. No doubt about it. But the number who say that they strongly approve of him has gone down a lot. The number that says that they are primarily Republicans and not Trump supporters, that has flipped. It used to be that the vast majority of Republicans who voted for Trump, they saw themselves as Trump supporters, first Republican, second. That has flipped. Even in a completely authoritarian country, which ours is not, you still have to deal with the will of the people at some level. And Trump, because he is so deeply unpopular, I don't know that he can move people this time the way that he did last time, where truly most Republicans thought it was rigged and bought the bullshit. They did. They still do, by the way, the vast majority of them. Now, I think, you know, there's the bloom is off the rose. There's enough dissatisfaction that Republicans themselves feel that they could look at these results and be like, you know what? He probably did lose because this is not going great. So that's the thing that I'm hopeful about. But but even in that situation, he could still cause a lot of chaos and tumult and, you know, a lot of problems in the country, even if he's not going to win. So I think that's the thing that I'm hopeful about. Well, the circumstances. Yeah. But even in that situation, he could still cause a lot of chaos and tumult and, you know, a lot of problems in the country, even if he's not going to win. Ultimately, people do not accept his nonsense. No question. I will say I, you know, I talked about it also at the time. You know, people know I'm a frequent critic of Black Lives Matter. I think it was a lot of it was like socially induced psychosis. I mean, January 6th falls in the same bucket. And if I talk back and think back to the literal insanity of lockdown and the social problems and lack of institutional trust that were in the air at the time, it is a very different moment. Right. In American society, where we're in a time where we're in a time where we're in a time where people are not poised to literally want to come to the streets and do something crazy. Like, I think they're literally like kind of two sides of the same coin. And I would look at it very differently, where, as you just said, people, the bloomers off the rose, the lack of complete buy in to where he is. And a lot of the societal angst has I mean, you know, crime and murder is dramatically down from where it was in 2020. There's a lot of reasons for that. Nobody understands it. Social tension, I would say, is not even close, you know, to where things were at that time. So there are a lot of structural reasons for why I don't think we'll necessarily go back to where we were at that time period, both at the Republican level, but also just like a general societal one. For if you think back to January of 2021, we're like right around the time period that I believe that's like right after the Pfizer vaccine gets approved. There's a lot of all this institutional distrust already with lockdowns, etc. We're few months only from the riots and social tension. So it's just it's just fundamentally very different time. And that is true. This could be Pollyannish from my perspective. But I remember I was in Washington. Actually, I came to the studio on the morning of January 6. I remember being recognized by some proud boys on my scooter ride in and I was like, Oh, that's weird. And so I saw many of the same people, afterwards, for them, it was basically like a social gathering, right, where everybody had been locked down and came for some sort of major political MAGA rally here in Washington. I just don't see the same level of enthusiasm today, even at his own campaign rallies right now, let alone something like that, especially at the wake of what happened with January 6. Just my observation, generally, like what the conditions would have to look like. Yeah, like that. Well, the other thing that I'll say and not to spin on too many wild scenarios here, but the other thing that's different is our information ecosystem has been further destabilized by the advent of very credible AI deep fakes. True. And so that is a new tool that and Trump frickin loves his AI slop. And he's got all of the tech oligarchs who are behind well, almost all of the tech oligarchs who are adamantly behind him. So he has a sort of new weapon in his information warfare arsenal. That shouldn't be, you know, shouldn't be understated or ignored either. So in any case, we just want to keep our eye on some of these developments as we approach election day and not just cover the horse race, but also some of the concerns about what may go down so that people are prepared and understand what the you know, the plans are and what we can see from, you know, that's going on behind the scenes. Agreed. Let's get to Kimberly. It's the rage bait. We got clear facts. Running a business is hard, hard enough. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, fully integrated, easy to use and built to grow with your business. Why not you? That's odoo.com. It's 2026. We upgraded our phones, our cars, even our coffee. So why are we still acting like pleasure is negotiable? At Pink Cherry, it's not. They've got hundreds of toys that actually deliver. And whether you know exactly what you like or you're still figuring it out, there is a wide range to explore. If you'd rather skip the guesswork, their mystery boxes make it easy. 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The TLDR of it is that he had sold a family business and it, and he had taken some personal deductions. The IRS didn't agree. What you're all about to see are multiple conversations between her and him in which she requests him to wire her $100,000 directly to her American Express account. Let's go and put the signal screenshots up here on the screen. So you can see here, this message was sent July 3rd, I think, yeah, 2025, where she says, you could just send it here. It won't show up anywhere. If you wire money to American Express, all that will, that's all that will show. Please. He, to his credit, did not pay the $100,000, not because he was above it, but because he said that it would cause a problem in his marriage if he did so. Later, we learn that he had at one point offered her $1 million to help land an former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. show. And she even went to the lengths to try and to connect him to Tucker. Tucker at one point told the journal, quote, I have never heard of this guy. And he doesn't keep up with Guilfoyle and said direct, quote, a million dollars for a podcast appearance. Isn't she the ambassador to Greece? This is completely nuts. Let's look at some more of the statements that she put out. She tells him, Eric, I really wish you would stop papering all these things. It's really dangerous and not helpful to you or me. While you could simply just call me on signal. Let's go to the next one. It is unbelievable when we have a private arrangement with you that you would now see see a producer talking about money. That's because this guy had the gall to tell her podcast producer about their private arrangement. Here what we have my personal favorite. What a nightmare. You'll literally cost me my ambassadorship. Stop writing. He also clearly, by the way, this guy is the source of all of these leaks, not because he's upset about the corruption, but because he didn't get what he paid for, which is what he actually put in writing, saying, what did he say? He said, I'm not a schmuck. I think directly after he said, I have paid you $300,000 over the years. As of this memo, I have not received one favor. I am not naive or a sucker. I need results. My personal most corrupt behavior that happened here. Crystal was around this whole tax situation like I was talking about. She actually sent a congratulatory letter to Billy Long, who was at one point nominated to be the IRS commissioner and had stapled the concerns of this guy who had been paying her or at least allegedly behind the scenes to the letter and was like, this guy is a good friend of me and of Don Jr. And we would love to see something like that happen. I mean, that is clear cut. The guy's like, I've paid you 300 grand. And she did go to great lengths to use her influence to get the IRS commissioner to look into his particular case. I mean, this is beyond insane in terms of I've paid you the stop putting this stuff in writing, knowing that it's wrong. By the way, she disputes the authenticity of the messages. So, OK, didn't provide any detail. No, I mean, it's beyond crazy. It's beyond crazy. This is more corrupt, open and shut like this is this is at a point where, you know, the Department of Justice and a future administration will be looking at this one. I'll just say that it's also like so pathetic and tawdry, too. I mean, basically what was happening here is she was up for this ambassadorship, which was given to her by Trump as a consolation prize because, you know, her Don Jr. breaks up with her and he tells his dad, basically, like, you got to do something with this woman. Trump reportedly said something like, you know, I got to take care of Kimberly for I got to get rid of I got to get her out of here. It was something like that that he said about her. So it gives her this ambassadorship that, you know, she's clearly unqualified for. And we'll get to the way she's also like abusing that office to benefit some dude for some reason. Who knows? I guess he's the one paying for her lifestyle now. But she's got these confirmation hearings. And as part of that, you have to do a financial. Disclosure. And she doesn't want to be seen with this hundred thousand dollars that she owes to American Express. Keep in mind, I mean, this woman was a Fox host for years, making tons of money. You know, she's married to Don Jr. and, you know, or engaged to Don Jr. They had this multimillion dollar house together like she's a podcast host and this MAGA celebrity. Where is all the money going? She lives this lifestyle, I guess, that she just can't afford. So she's constantly talking to people about how broke she is. She's talking to people about how broke she is. She's talking to how much, how she needs money. She's starting all of these humiliating ventures, like a perfume line called Flor de Maga, a vodka line called Polished Rice for some reason. Like all of the med spa, all these sort of like embarrassing failed ventures, none of which are working out for her. She's using Mar-a-Lago as a place to pitch potential investors. And by the way, pissing off Trump. So anyway, coming back to the confirmation hearings, she needs this $100,000 in debt. Paid off, begs this dude to, she says, honey, please, you know, I need this. Just send it here. There'll be no trace of it. And then she's also getting pissed at him because he keeps talking to her openly about it. He decides not to do it. I guess somebody paid the $100,000 American Express bill. We still don't know where that ultimately came from. But, you know, you can see just this portrait of someone who is desperate, who's been given this ambassadorship anyway as a favor by the Trump. And then it's just immediately using whatever influence and position she has to, you know, to solve her own cash needs or attempt to solve her own cash needs. Really pathetic, sick, corrupt, desperate sort of behavior here from her. And between this piece and the other piece, there were so many details. I was just cracking up at Sagar. Oh, yeah. She has decorated, I think, the ambassador's residence in, like, black and white portraits of her son. I mean, I don't even know what that is. I don't even know what that is. She takes this stylist with her everywhere she goes. It's all really bizarre. Very bizarre person here. Stylist should be fired, if you ask me. My personal. Oh, yeah. Let's take a listen to Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, while he's in Greece with Kimberly Guilfoyle responding to the story. Let's take a listen. Yeah, guys, let me tell you something, okay? You guys are going to ask me this. You're going to ask me again in Portugal. I know the game, okay? The game is someone gives information to a newspaper or a media outlet. The media outlet reports it. You immediately turn to me and say, I need you to respond to our reporting. That's not the way this process works. Like, our job is not to respond every time someone decides to give the media something without any advance warning, without having any chance to look at it and see what's in there. That's not the way. That's not. That's not the way you run an organization. And that's not a serious way to conduct the policy of our country. So I'm not going to comment on a story that literally posted a few hours ago. I get the game, okay? I've been in this for a long time. Actually, sir, your administration was given significant amount of chance to comment. You didn't say anything, and neither did the White House, because you both know that this is a disaster, and that's why you have to come up with this ridiculous answer. You're happy to comment on literally anything else, and they know it looks bad. I mean, he's not going to fire her. I don't think he ultimately will in terms of Trump, but boy, this is, you know, it's open and shut. Honey, go ahead and wire this hundred grand over to me. Also, what kind of person has $100,000 in American Express credit card debt when you've been making millions of dollars over at Fox? What are you even doing? You know, fire the stylist. It's crazy. Yeah, she's got, you know, she's got a boat loan, and she's got to have the designer clothes and all this sort of stuff. I mean, you can very easily imagine where all the money, is ultimately going to. I have to feel like, you know, Trump obviously doesn't care about corruption. Like, he's the most corrupt man on a planet. His entire foreign policy is centered around the business deals of his family and the Kushners and the Witcoffs, et cetera. But the dollar amount here is so embarrassing. And then the other thing, to your point, you know, if she had just delivered on even one of the things she was promising this dude, we wouldn't know any of this was ultimately going on. But she's also really completely incompetent even at her influence. Petaling, so she wasn't even able to deliver some basic favors in the most favored trading administration in American history. Let's put the next one up on the screen. This broke previously, but also gives you a window into there's, this raises a lot of questions that it doesn't fully answer. But effectively, you've got this Greek businessman who Kimberly Guilfoyle has been, you know, bringing with her everywhere. He's so, sort of, you know, glued to her side that a lot of the foreign leaders and diplomats that she was dealing with thought he was one of her aides. He's not, but she's been funneling all of this business for this theoretical, like, gas deal towards this company, even though, you know, he really has no expertise in the space and other companies are being locked down and being able to compete for the work. So, of course, that raises the question, okay, well, what's going on here? Why are you favoring this one particular, what is he doing for you? What are you getting out of this arrangement? And when you couple it with this other reporting about how she was, you know, doing this failed favor trading with this other Kentucky businessman, it's not hard to imagine what is going on here, that he's funding her lifestyle or paid off her American Express bill or whatever. Something is going on there, because otherwise, why would you favor this one particular dude over every other American company that could potentially bid for the company? Yeah, it's extremely bleak, but nonetheless, it is a absolutely insane story. All right, I think, anything else we want to go through, Crystal? I think that'll do it for today. All right, great show. It's great to have you back, and we will see you all on Monday. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. year. A famous recording artist stands accused of kidnapping and murder. Emma Yatzey Coronaldi stars and Morris Chestnut and Joseph Sikora return alongside new faces, including Darrell Tank-Babbs and Megan Good. From executive producers Kerry Washington, Larry Wilmore, and Ramla Muhammad-Hunter, Reasonable Doubt is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply. Why not you? That's odoo.com. Use ChatGPT to answer questions. Others use it to get real work done. With ChatGPT Work, you bring the goal, plus real inputs like briefs, notes, files, feedback, data, and project plans. It can help turn them into an analysis, tracker, deck outline, prototype, or workflow you can review and keep shaping. 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