Bonus: Abdul El-Sayed Wins in Michigan feat. Bernie Sanders

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So we were going to record a reaction to Tuesday's election results last night, but the Michigan Senate race was much closer than all the polling suggested. So here we are today, bringing you a bonus pod complete with an interview with Bernie Sanders, which you'll hear in a bit. But first, the headline. Evduel El Sayed is now the Democratic nominee for the US Senate race in Michigan. With more than 95% of the vote in, he defeated Hailey Stevens by 1.48.5% to 47.5% and will face former Republican Congressman, current Florida homeowner, Mike Rogers. On one hand, Poles had Evduel ahead of Hailey by anywhere between 10 to 19 points. And his team's confidence heading into Tuesday certainly matched that margin. On the other, we have a very progressive Muslim candidate who took on the entire Democratic establishment in DC and Michigan was outspent 11 to 1 by $60 million in outside spending, including a $32 million APAC spend that's more than any group has spent in any Democratic primary this cycle and Evduel still won. Hailey Stevens very graciously conceded and Mallory McMorrow, who had also been in the race, actually introduced Evduel at his victory event Wednesday morning where he previewed his argument against Mike Rogers. Mike Rogers is a guy who will do anything Blue Cross Blue Shield wants him to do, including raise your rates. Mike Rogers is a guy who introduced legislation to increase the flow of opioid. He did that while I was in high school. Mike Rogers is a guy whose politics and vision and perspective are old. Mike Rogers is a guy who has never shot away from a corporation he could do a favor for. Mike Rogers is a guy who, believe it or not, went back to Florida so he can lick every single boot Donald Trump owns to beg for his endorsement. I'm so sorry if you want a Senator who's going to lick some boots. Fine, go vote for Mike Rogers. But if you want a Senator who's going to stand up to Donald Trump, then you've got your option right here. Michigan is our sick and tired of BS politics coming into divide us when there's so much more we can unite to actually guarantee if we're willing to come together around it. So if all Mike Rogers got is that his name is Evduel. And my name is Mike, you're going to be surprised how many people are going to be like, yeah, but that's the Evduel who wants to bring down the price of my groceries and gas and stop us sending money abroad and make sure that I got health care. So yeah, I like that Evduel over your Mike from Florida. All right, we'll get to that message in a bit. But let's start with the closer than expected results. What do you make of that? And what happened with the polling? What happened with the polling? That's a great question. And a very hard one to answer because we don't have exit polls in this race. So it's hard to measure what the pollster is expected in terms of primary composition to what actually happened. But I will say that Michigan is a very hard state to poll. It always has been. It doesn't have an in-state pollster that is incredibly well regarded. And it doesn't. And in the most well-regarded one, the epic poll, which came out a few weeks ago that had, hey, it was even up 10. So no one seems to know what no one really knew what the selector was going to look like. Best guess is it people oversampled, highly engaged college educated voters who overwhelmingly voted for Evduel, hence the margin, undersampled. Taylor's the only one. Was, yeah, we've seen it happen nationally. We're now having it happen in democratic politics. And I was talking about this on Polar Coaster that's just coming out on Thursday. It was everyone's to check out. But it's actually the opposite polling error that happened in the 2025 gubernatorial races. Were they undersampled? Highly engaged voters? Well, I mean, it's-- Oh, yeah, that's right. So it's all very confusing. Let's put all the polling stuff aside. Because the polling stuff only really matters here in one regard, which is it has everyone-- and mess with everyone's expectations. If the polls have been tied or had shown Haley Stevens up a few points going into election day and Abdul one by one, this would be the shot heard around the world. It would be, as you point out, this incredible victory of a Muslim man named Abdul El Sayyid beating the entire democratic machine, beating APEC, beating Chuck Schumer, beating Gretchen Whitmer, and winning. And it would be this incredible victory. But because our expectation was he was going by a lot, and that expectation was magnified by the fact that the first counties that came in showed him dramatically outperforming what people expected as margins to be. The expectation has got messed up. And so the reason this race probably ended up playing out the way it was always going to play out, what ended up happening here is that Abdul had the typical coalition of a very progressive candidate in Michigan and nationally, which is a lot of-- young voters and a lot of college educated voters. And struggled with the rest of the coalition. And Haley Stevens maximized the rest of it and you ended up with a very, very close race. Yeah. Someone pointed out that Hillary Shulton, who's the representative of Western Michigan District, was a big Haley Stevens supporter of Abdul one heard district. But Haley Stevens won Rashida Taleeb's district. Yep. And they're like, what's going on there? It's like, well, Hillary Shulton's district is a suburban district, heavily white, college educated, and lefty progressive candidates do well with those voters. And Rashida Taleeb's district is much more diverse, black voters, especially. And that's how more moderate Democratic candidates tend to do well in those places. I think in a place like Michigan, yeah. Combining college-educated white voters, Arab-American voters, Muslim voters, which there's obviously a bigger portion in Michigan than any other state. And younger voters, and all the colleges around Michigan, I would guess that's the coalition that Abdul assembled to get him over the top. Yeah, that's right. That's exactly right. And you can't understate the importance of the Muslim population, particularly in Dearborn, which Abdul won essentially 80-22, yeah. And that makes you sure. And just to your point on college-educated voters voting for Abdul, is that, Haley Stevens only won her own district by four points? Yeah. I love for someone to do some analysis of-- because there's no, like you said, there's no exit polls, just some county-by-county analysis. Because Haley Stevens did really well in a lot of rural counties, smaller towns, medium-sized towns, which is not unexpected. But then like, Abdul did well in some northern rural counties in other places. So we're sort of over-generalizing just based on certain counties here and there. But I'd love to see a more detailed analysis. Let's just talk about APEC for a second. Do you think, in the end, APEC spending was a net positive or negative for Haley Stevens? Because I went into the race when the expectations were that Abdul win by a lot, saying that it is clearly a negative, because not only did they not help her win the race, but also they provided maybe the most effective argument for her opponents. Now, you could argue with the other way now that it was only a one-point race. But I don't know, what do you think? Yeah, it's a somewhat complicated argument because being associated with APEC, being the APEC candidate was bad for Haley Stevens. APEC has a negative 37% favorability rating among Democrats in Michigan. It also made her the candidate of big money in politics, because the APEC ads were so ubiquitous. APEC spent north of-- $30 million in this race, and so in that sense, it definitely what hurt her and made her an establishment candidate in an anti-establishment environment. However, Heli Stevens was not a great fundraiser, you know, according to ad impact adf, of the $60 million it was spent on her behalf, 97% of the ads were paid for by someone other than the Heli Stevens campaign. So absent that financial support, it's hard to see how she is this competitive. Conversely, a candidate who did not have that, I think, net negative impromotor of being the APAC establishment candidate might have fared better than Stevens did in a one-on-one race with Edel. Yeah, I was trying to, like, do a thought experiment, because I think other Democrats who were more pro-Israel have to contend with this at some point, which is what if Heyes Stevens had said, "No, I don't want, I don't want APAC's endorsement, I don't want the outside spending." My views on Israel are what they are. I'm not going to change those views, but I just don't think this outside money is worth it. We shouldn't have outside money in politics, and I don't want APAC's endorsement, because I disagree with the Netanyahu regime, whatever it may be, whatever she could say without completely flip-lopping, which is, you know. I think she could have, I mean, her best move would have been a completely flip-flop, or at least have a more nuanced position to put her on a Israel with conditions, perhaps, that put her more in the mainstream of the current Democratic Party. But the cost of that would be $30 million of APAC money, but she also got north of $10 million in spending by another super PAC that was essentially, I think, a vessel for DSCC donors and people and the establishment of the Schumer world who wanted Heyes Stevens, similar to the spending that happened on Josh Turks behalf in Iowa. Yeah, I was thinking about that because I listened to Sarah Longwell's focus group podcast with Jonathan Cohn, who knows Michigan really well, and they talked to Michigan Democrats, and I was surprised by, I mean, first of all, you know, it's always good to listen to voters, because the way they viewed this primary was so different than the national discourse and what you see online. Like, a lot of those Democrats, like, they liked both Stevens and Abdul, and to the extent that there were negative things that about Heyes Stevens, so many of these voters brought up APAC and outside spending and money and politics, and it's just, you know, it really broke through not only her ads that, you know, APAC ran on her behalf, but the idea that she was a candidate that was taking all this outside money. And one of the polls that came out from, I can't remember which one it was, that was not the Emerson poll, but one of the polls in the final stretch did a word cloud. Now, this is obviously overly poor Abdul polls, so take them with a grain of salt, many rains of salt, but they did a word cloud of things associated with Heyes Stevens and APAC as like giant in the middle of that and money and like money, I think is the other very big word in that word cloud. So it definitely impacted her candidacy. It's just it's very, it's just very hard to say how she could she have raised the money absent all this work from APAC, enough to compete with Abdul, who's an excellent grassroots fundraiser. Could she have, was there a way in which Schumer at all could have funneled more money to her through a non-APAC vehicle? Hope in question. But I think you generally, I cannot see based on these results, a 2020 candidate, accepted soliciting, accepting or courting APAC to either endorse them or run ads on their behalf. And if you are a more pro-Israel candidate in 2028 on the scale, you're like on whatever the scale is for 2028 candidates. And APAC starts running the United Democracy Project, whatever it's called, or one of their shadow PACs starts to be asked, do you have a good, like, to hold a press conference in front of APAC demanding they take it down? That's sort of what it'll hurt you. Yeah, okay. That was my thought too, but wanted to see what you thought. 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You know, Abdul has a lot of work to do and the whole Democratic Party does just sort of bridge the divides from this pretty bruising primary. I think they were off to a really good start. Yeah. Haley Stevens graciously conceited, had a nice post and Mallory McMorrow. She introduced Abdul and Abdul was saying all the right things. So everyone, everyone seems to be saying all the right things this morning as of Wednesday morning, which is great. But how big of a challenge do you think it will be for Abdul to unite the rest of the party? It does not appear like it's going to be a challenge to unite the political establishment nationally and in Michigan. Everyone seems to understand the urgency of the task. I have really, you know, I've been pretty critical of how Abdul has talked about his opponents in this race, especially when it appeared. And he certainly believed he was winning. It was not always the most gracious. But he did the exact right thing here. I think his tone was right both last night when he went on spoke to voters before we knew the results. And then this morning he responded to Haley Stevens' tweet, supporting Abdul in a very gracious way. Kretcher Whitmer immediately endorsed Abdul this morning. He sent a majority pack, which has been rooting pretty extensively. I imagine it's a Chuck Schumer vehicle for Haley Stevens to win had a video out this morning supporting Abdul. So I think that part is going exactly as planned. This is a conversation that you've been to the general is it's just can the voters in the coalitions come together? I think the activists, even the people who have been the biggest people fighting against Abdul on Twitter, national democratic activist types, this morning were like, Abdul is our nominee. Go support Abdul. Here's how you give to Abdul. I was in Ali McMoro supporter throughout this race. I donated to Abdul this morning, encourage everyone my newsletter to do it. I think people are doing the right thing here, but can you get the voters who just heard 60 million dollars of arguments against Abdul to come and support him? And that's that is the challenge in the general election. Okay, so let's get to the general. Earlier we heard a preview of Abdul's general election message against Mike Rogers. Here's the first ad from the Republican Senate committee. Doormon Muhammad El Sayyed, the most radical Senate candidate in America. El Sayyed pledged support for the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, a designated foreign terrorist group. He wants to hike taxes on Michigan waitresses, delivery drivers and seniors on social security, going to sex offender and a murderer to demand the mass release of dangerous prisoners. And when his ally claimed America deserved 9/11. America deserved 9/11 doing El Sayyed refused to disavow it. I'm not here to disavow people's movies. Abdul El Sayyed, two radical, two dangerous wrong for Michigan. Welcome to the general. Thoughts on kicking the teeth this morning. I'll tell you that. Yeah, I liked that they combined. I liked I really liked the mix of dangerous scary Muslim extremist with and Hill raised taxes. It's not as dumb as it sounds. No, I know, but it's just like it's it's not as dumb as it sounds. And I will say Democrats do the exact same thing, but it is the the consultant polster admaker brain, which is like this is tests on popular, this test on popular. Let's jam them together. It doesn't matter if they're jammed together in a in a committee. and pilling way or not. - I think this is, we can, I don't know if you want to talk about Abdul's argument about Mike Rogers first and then get to this, but I think this ad is better than a lot of people online think. And I think the combining of it actually makes sense. - Yeah. - Why do you think that? - Because when you say that someone wants to like raise taxes on seniors, that is a very hard thing for anyone to imagine. So you have to prove that they are so radical that they'll be willing to do that. And by all the other stuff leads to the idea that he is someone so radical that he would do that. And so I do think they, like this is the argument. It's he is this incredible radical that he will do these other things that affects you. 'Cause a person who cares about affordability, if they believe, if 2024 example, if they believe that Abdul, I mean, they're gonna discount a lot of this stuff 'cause of political, but they think that he's a little too extreme. Maybe he says some things in the past, but they think he's actually gonna lower his cost. Donald Trump's election proves people will tolerate a lot for someone who will lower their costs. You have to make them believe that he will not lower your costs and the way to do that is to make him seem so radical he's going to do that. It's not the best version of that, but I understand the argument. - I think you got to pick one. I think if you are, like if I was going to try to persuade people that he's too extreme and he's so extreme that he would raise seniors taxes, you would say he wants to spend this amount of, he or all his plans, he wants to spend this amount of money, he needs this much taxes, he loves government controlled health care, like I would go out, like if he's going to be a socialist who's going to raise your taxes, you got to make them left on that, which I'm sure that will be coming. And then they'll of course have another track that is the scary Muslim extremist. - I guess the way I would think about this ad is, it is a preview of an asignal to donors of what the larger argument will be. This will all over the course of the campaign, manifest itself in some ads that are only about Hassan Piker and things he has said in the past, darkening his skin, using his full name, and there will be ads about affordability. My argument would just be, is those things are more connected than I think a lot of Democrats naturally assume we are a, our ad making is very siloed and there is an economic argument and there's a radical argument and I think in voters minds, you are softening the ground for the economic argument by showing someone to be extreme. And the candidate who is viewed as more as less extreme tends to win elections in these last few elections. And Donald Trump being seen as less extreme than Kamala Harris was a real warning sign that he was gonna win that race. - Well, so then let's talk about Abdul versus Mike Rogers because I do not think personally, he's going to be able to make voters believe that Mike Rogers is extreme, but it sounded like from his opening message there and what he's been saying about Mike Rogers that he is going to try to convince voters that it's not about who's the more extreme candidate but who's fighting for you and who's corrupt and that he's gonna make Mike Rogers the more corrupt candidate. - Yes, I think his argument there too was also his, let's just unload the full clip and see what sticks because there is a, there's a combination of he's corrupt, there's a combination of he's pro data center, there's a combination that he is pro-corporation then there is he is a bootlicker for Trump. I think all of those individually are good arguments and I think that they can go together. We can discuss the, whether that's the, whether he's doing that the right way or not, but I think this is a state that is a 50/50 state in 2024, it's a plus six and a half to eight point democratic state this time around depending on exactly how the generic ballot looks and Donald Trump's approval rating is under 40 and some polls in Michigan. So it's like sometimes we overcomplicate the fucking simple around here, a vote for Mike Rogers, a vote for Donald Trump and Donald Trump to control the Senate is the, and underneath that is a vote for higher costs for you, a vote for more powerful corporations, a vote for tax cuts for billionaires all of that as part of it, but that I don't think convincing people that Mike Rogers himself is corrupt is gonna be the argument this is necessarily gonna play. - I think this is what he's contending with and this is a Mike Rogers specific problem is Mike Rogers has been representing Michigan for a long time or he's been in Michigan politics for a long time, I think that a lot of voters have the extent that they know who Mike Rogers is, probably remember him as a more moderate Republican who there's plenty of clips of him speaking out against Donald Trump. And I think a dual has to make people realize before he just says that Mike Rogers is gonna be a vote for Donald Trump that Mike Rogers has changed. Because otherwise, I don't think you can go right to a Mike Rogers, like I know everyone wants to do when we talked about this in the main Senate race too everyone wants to just do like nationalize the race, make it about the Senate, make it about control the Senate. Yeah, I agree with that to an extent, except when you have candidates like Susan Collins, like Mike Rogers, who the voters in that state know and think of as more moderate and more willing to buck Trump than your typical Republican. And I think in those instances, you've got to do some work on their character to like persuade people that something has changed about them, that they have either like they've been there too long, they've become corrupt, they only care about themselves and their money, they're now willing to do whatever Trump says just so they can keep their jobs and keep their money and all that kind of shit. Like you still have to have Trump be part of it, but you have to do some work on the person's character. This Mike Rogers thing is interesting 'cause I have been arguing for a long time that this is a very hard race because Mike Rogers is not a mega buff in the eyes of the voters, right? A mega buffoon like a Dr. Oz or a Herschel Walker or some of these, although the candidates, the Democrats benefit them in 2022. There's also no evidence that he is Susan Collins. He underperformed Trump in 2022. I'm sorry, he underperformed Trump in 2024. - 24. - And I think that is just, he did not, if he were a candidate who was seen as more, I think let me put this way. We all know, the people in Mike Rogers district know Mike Rogers, he was there for 18 years, I think. We know Mike Rogers because we watch CNN in the 2010s and he was always on and he was a very prominent Trump skeptical voice in the 2016 world. I don't know, it's unclear to me how many Michigan voters know that. You absolutely have to do work on this character, for sure, to make people understand why the attacks work, but Susan Collins is a very unique proposition in a way in which Mike Rogers is more like running as the New York Republican. I guess also it's tying Mike Rogers to Donald Trump in the same story, which is, if we were to talk about Donald Trump right now, we'd say in his second term, he's fucking out to lunch corrupt, only cares about himself, it's a smashing grab. He's made everything more expensive while he got rich. And in the primary, the Michigan Democratic Party has a website like pricelikemic.com and they have some great Mike Rogers quotes in there. He talks about coffee prices, he goes, "Oh my gosh, coffee went up, you know, horror like being sarcastic." And on tariffs, he said, "Well, the shoe's gonna pinch "every once in a while." On gas, he said, "We're gonna be fine. "We got plenty of oil on a $50 annual physical." He said, "That's probably okay, right?" And then he said, he said, "Anyone voters "who blame Trump for high prices are nuts." Like, those are the kind of, I think those are the kind of quotes that both link what you're talking about just like, he's just like Trump, but also the guys way out of touch and he like moved to Florida and has no idea what people in Michigan are going through. I agree. (upbeat music) - Podstate America is brought to you by AG1. Summer means enjoying yourself and taking it easy. 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You might as well wake up ready for them. So anything else that a building needs to think about ahead of the general? So much. I know you wrote a message box on this though. I did. 1700 words on no sleep. Abdul's win is incredibly impressive when you put it in the context of everything he was up against, but it is when you look at the coalition that he won with. It is a coalition that does not vote great for the general election. He overperformed with youth. He overperformed with college educated voters. He underperformed in rural areas. He underperformed in most rural areas on all of them, but he underperformed with working class voters. He really got his clock clean with black voters. The electorate, you can survive in a primary like that because it's almost 50/50 college educated and non-college educated voters in a typical primary. We don't have a lot of data on it, but I went back and looked at the 2020 primary between Biden and Bernie because they had exit polls from that. And it was 53 non-college 47 college educated in that primary. And probably in a midterm, it's closer to 50/50 or a majority college educated. In a general election, if you look at 2024 exit poll data, it's more than 60% non-college educated. It is significantly older. The number of percentage of voters over 65 I think goes up nine points. And so all the voters that Abdul struggled most with are disproportionately a larger portion of the electorate in 2020 in the general election. And I think we, you know, he once again, this is another progressive candidate running on a working class agenda who did not win working class voters. And you can't, there's no other way to win Michigan, right? So I think like I wrote a bunch of things for Abdul to do. I'll just give you a couple of of them here. The first one was unify and sort of, you know, win with grace. And he has done that thus far. That all that think that's going in the right direction. The second thing was he has to really think about how to not just do better with black voters, but to make increased turnout with black voters for him. You know, and you can argue that millions and millions of dollars of ads that misleadly suggested that Barack Obama had endorsed Hillary Stevens contributed to this. And I'm sure it did. Yeah. But also historically candidates with Abdul's profile of sort of this progressive candidate do poorly with black voters. And so he's got work to do there. I hope he calls Barack Obama today. Yeah. And starts to think about how he can be helpful in other in other Michigan Democrats and others who can help him in that community. He can be validators in that community. He's got to be, I think the lesson here is he needs to think really hard about how to make himself more broadly appealing. I think his campaign was, I found so much of it inspiring and exciting. And like from the communications and messaging perspective, it was really masterful in a lot of ways. But I really, the vibes you got was a really like my way or the highway. You're with us, you're against us. And he now has to go out and persuade a lot of people, some of them we voted for, Hayley Stevens, some of them who are just middle of the road independent voters who have not thought about politics of once since 2024 to support him. Many of those people are going to disagree with him on Medicare for all on some of the things he said in the past. They're going to disagree with him on Israel. There's real work to do with Jewish Democrats in Michigan. And you have to, you have to be willing to seem like you are open to listening, opening to understanding, opening to agree to disagree and open to compromise. And if you look at the way that his primary, his primary campaign was entirely centered around, and this was an effective strategy because he won, maximizing his base, rallies with Bernie. Many of the final ads had AOC in them. She's a very, very popular Democrat. And they worked. But he did very little to try to show himself to be different than the caricature of himself as this sort of prototypical leftist candidate. But you didn't see he was either unable to get or did not seek out endorsements. They would be counterintuitive, a moderate Democrat who endorsed them, a business leader who would endorse him, a former Republican or something like that, or putting the like, he talks all the time and I know this happens of these triple Trump voters who are going to, who supported have dual in this primary, because Michigan's an open primary. Why are those people in ads? You're going to have to do some things that have a much more broadly appealing. There's more that reaches, you have to actively reach out to people to not agree with you. And the last thing is, we really have to think hard about, we know, he had a very economic centered message, money in your pockets. What is it that did not work with that with working classes of Democrats, let alone working class independence or working class dissolution Trump voters? Is it that it wasn't specific enough? Is it that people, because of the way the race played out, people thought that wasn't as top priority and maybe it was, they thought as top priority was money in the politics or any to Israel? I think this whole conversation about working class voters in the Democratic primary has sort of like gotten out of hand because we did this with the Platinum thing in Maine as well. Just a few, Democrats have been doing poorly with working class voters for a long time, as you know. And that is true of moderate Democratic candidates. It's true of liberal Democratic candidates. It's true of progressive Democratic candidates. We have been losing working class voters to the Republicans under Donald Trump, especially. That is, he has accelerated it. And it used to be just white voters. And now under Trump, it was Latino voters in some black men as well, right? So it is a party wide problem. The left says if you just like, you know, press the economically populist button hard enough, they suddenly you're going to win over the working class voters. That has not, there's not a lot of evidence that that is true. The establishment and center-left Democrats are like, well, the left can't do this and they're not, they say that they're economically populist, but they can't get the working class voters. But it's like, you know what? The establishment candidates aren't really doing that much. There's not a lot of evidence that the establishment candidates are doing that much better with the working class voters that you would actually need to win in a close state. Yes, in a primary, Hayley Stevens coalition is going to look more working class than Abdul's, but like in a general election, it's not like there is any Democrat you can point to in the last 15 fucking years, who's really made inroads to the to the working class in a way that would that would solve this problem, which leads me to believe, which is one thing you could take from this is it is not just about talking up affordability or the right affordability message or the right economic message. Like there are cultural social concerns that the working class has, which is why they have moved away from the Democratic party, that I think we all have to contend with here because it's like, why is Jared Golden winning them in in main two and is like as moderate as they come on a host of issues, but it's not some like economically populist hero. He would not to get into the golden thing because I agree with your I agree with your point here. I think if you're trying to win this race and you just lost in working class voters in a Democratic primary and the core of your message was pro working class is worth taking a step back and trying to figure out what you need to do to at least perform better than Kamala Harris did with those voters in Michigan so you can win. Yeah. I guess the way to think about it is we went through this in '08, right? Like we were in a primary with Hillary that lasted 45 years and every single state she won working class voters and we did not and the reason. She won't working class white voters. That's one giant difference here is the reason why Obama wins and Bernie and Bill Bradley and all these other press can't lose it's because Obama could win college educated voters and black voters at high numbers. Right. The rest of these voters are not doing that. But what we heard incessantly is Barack Obama has been talking about the working class as policies are geared for the working class, but it's just not working. It's just not working. Why isn't it working? And then he was, he still maintained that message through the general and one. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton was like the hero of working class voters in 2008 and then she runs for president again in 2016 and gets her clock clean with working class voters. Well, like these things are always suffer from small sample sizes, but the example for Abdul is Obama, which is we worked really hard to get those voters and we did it in a lot of ways that were counter to what a typical. a typical progressive Democrat would do, based on the playbook. We spent a lot of time talking about the deficit and making sure people's taxpayer money was spent. And we're going to have the guy from Dave. He was going to go through the budget line by line with their, you know, Obama was very, spent a lot of time reaching out to voters who disagreed with him on abortion. This is what I'm getting at. That's what I was getting at. Yes. And I think there's a way in which Israel plays into this, which I get to in a sec. And they're, look, you cannot be used. I don't not want to overlook the fact then, both in Obama's case and Abdul's case race plays a role here. Of course. Right. The fact that he is that Obama was a black man and Abdul is a Muslim American, certainly plays a role. And that then puts a higher burden on you in the general election, because life is not fucking fair to do some things that show, because of the ad we just saw, that show that you can relate to these voters closely, that you're different than the caricature. And you're going to have to find some ways that are to use the favorite term of some of our moderate friends that is heterodox or counterintuitive. And the reason I want to bring Israel up here, because some people will argue that he needs to moderate on Israel and AIDS is real in particular to win. And he has done this. And if you actually really listen to what Abdul says and when he gets asked questions, he is very good at talking about, about reaching out to Jewish Americans who disagree with them. Right. So he has worked to do there, obviously, you know, and all the money spent against him does not, you know, is why he has a little bit of the stuff is it. And some of his supporters, and his most promised supporters are why he has a bit of the stuff set. But independent voters in Michigan and nationally agree with that dual on AIDS Israel. Independents are basically very somewhat of Democrats on this issue. The issue that was once you move to the general election and once you move down scale economically, the salience of the issue goes down. And so I can imagine that if you're a working class voter and you have just paid attention to this race, and you hear what Abdul's talking about, you hear what's great, not just what he says, you should not listen to his full speech, what's breaking through in media coverage or social media conversation, even in some male pieces, is a pack in Israel. And that that, and that these voters who agree with them, dual, but think it is let, but care much, but affordability is a much higher topic for them can believe that in his mind is prior priority, priority wise, that eight to Israel on that basket of issues is higher on his listen affordability. And that hurts you with voters. And it's one of the things reasons Democrats have suffered with these voters is, you know, we saw this in the deciding to win reports that Simon Baselon did last year or whenever that was because time is no meaning. And what voters think Democrats type priorities are is often not the economy, even when it actually is. I think there's a pretty easy way to square this circle. And I could see him moving towards, yes, which is just people are tired of their money going overseas to be spent on stupid wars. Like Israel's part of this, but like we're at war with the round right now that is a fucking disaster that Donald Trump is responsible for. And Mike Rogers is supporting. And Mike Rogers just told Simon for the other day. Oh, when I go around, no one talks about Iran and the war of Obama, but by linking affordability concerns to meanwhile, you've got Republicans. And if you put Mike Rogers in the Senate, they're just going to keep sending all your money overseas to fight stupid wars until like, you know, when it should be here in Michigan helping you afford things. Like I think that's a good message. Yeah, first, that was one of, I meant to bring that brother is that that pivot was notable in his remarks. And it's going to be interesting when you get asked what how it feels about A to Ukraine in this situation. Yeah. Yeah, that is true. Well, we're not providing much anymore. So there's, that's right, we're fortunately there. But yeah, no, that is it. Well, and he's also been because I saw him on a mess now. And someone was like, well, you talk about Israel the time. Well, do you not like Egypt or other ethno nationalist governments? He's like, no, no, I don't. I would not, I would not give aid to them, either. He basically said he would, yeah, he doesn't believe in unconditional aid to any country, right, which is a very good and wise. And I imagine quite popular position. Yes, right. Okay. We should just talk about Michigan Senate was not the only notable primary last night before we go in Michigan seventh house district, which is a top target for Dems to flip. The lefty candidate will Lawrence, who's the sunrise movement co founder, beat two more moderate Democrats who split the vote. In Michigan's 13th house district, DSA candidate, Dunnevin McKinney has defeated incumbent Democrat Sheree Thanadar by three points in Kansas, the more progressive state senator Cindy Holtcher, beat Democratic governor, Laura Kelly's picked to succeed her state senator Ethan Corson. But over in Missouri, incumbent House Democrat Wesley Bell crushed Corey Bush, who was trying to win her old seatback by 59 to 37. We got a moderate Senate Democratic candidate in Kansas, Adam Hamilton, whose primary victory there moves the race from solid R to likely R and elsewhere in Washington, and yeah, I know it's something and elsewhere in Washington and Virginia incumbent moderate, established Democrats all won their races, despite some of them facing challenges from the left. Anything else I missed and any, any takes on the rest of the primaries from last night? No, I mean, this continues a trend we've seen with a handful of exceptions here and there of progressive anti-establishment candidates winning in races. You can overstate these things. Lawrence won a three-way race. So it would be interesting what would happen if he had a one-on-one with either of the two moderates. Maybe he still won up one then two, but the anti-Lorans vote was much larger than Lawrence vote. In the Sheree Thanadar race, he is a particularly unpopular Democrat, but still impressive because incumbents don't get knocked off that much. Then you have the Wesley Bell Cory Bush one, which is the example of this, he was supported heavily by APAC. Wesley Bell was. APAC supported his victory against Cory Bush last time. There's a lot of baggage from why Cory Bush lost the first time, scandal stuff there that affected it, and I think Bell, apparently I guess in the eyes of his condition has been an effective legislator in this time. But what happened last night is I think consistent with the theme we've seen all primary season, which is in races with the right candidates in the right situations, progressive anti-establishment candidates have the advantage in the primary against the more traditional candidates you would expect to win. I do think your point about Michigan seventh where if there had only been one candidate racing William Lawrence instead of two, he very well could have lost. I think for moderate Democrats who are worried about this or worried about this progressive wave, if you don't want a DSA candidate to win, figure out one candidate to take on that person. I mean, this is really hard because I look at that and I'm like, well, most people can be wrong, but this Michigan seventh is a Trump one by one point. It's a list of slackens old district. Democrats should win at this time around. Most of the people whose job it is to try to win the house, believe pretty strongly that either Bridget Brinker, Matt Mazden would be favorites in that race. This is a toss up at best with Lawrence, whether that's correct or fair, I don't know. But so in one sense, you're like, well, why can't these people in Washington figure this should out and get one person on the race for the same thing? We're like, hey, DSEC, stop endorsing in these primaries. Why are you endorsing Hayley Stevens and Janet Mills and all these other people and just let the voters decide? But I think there are some lessons here. Not the people in Washington, but if the folks who really are focused on electing more moderates or more electable or more heterodox Democrats, whatever you else you want, do have to get their shit together. And I think what happened in Michigan 7 and what happened in Michigan Senate where most, there was a strong argument that Abdul was less electable than Hayley Stevens, that's sort of a moot point right now. But is that there are a lot of people in the Democratic Party with the authority and the experience and the trust to tell Democratic primary voters how to think or even to tell candidates which one of them should get out and you end up in situations like these where the candidate who in a normal election year might not have won will win this year because the establishment doesn't have the credibility to tell voters. They're not, if they can say who's more electable, the voters aren't going to believe them. Look, this is their conversation we'll be having for like the next year, two years. So we don't have to do it all now. But yeah, I think it's less, I think the ability of some Democratic establishment to like move pieces on a chess board to get the right people that they want and races is like not the best strategy. But I do think it argues for compelling candidates who break out from the crowd who are also not like, like they don't have to be DSA candidates, but they can at least have, like there's plenty of, I think mainstream Democrats and tough races who I would say the left is probably fine with. John Assoff is an example, right? Like John Assoff has taken some votes that are, you know, pretty moderate votes or things that left left these might be upset about. But like people are generally fine with him because he is a compelling candidate. And now we're looking, you know, you look in Wisconsin right now. It's gone right like in the governor's race. And they had a lieutenant governor who had to drop out because of scandal. Mandela Barnes also drops out partially because of scandal partly because he didn't break through. We got David Crowley who you're going to be talking to on Thursday show, who last minute got Evers endorsement. Now they're trying. It's just like you got to have, you got to run candidates who who can really break through and at least say, have a message and have an agenda that people who would normally vote for some of these DSA progressive candidates would still find appealing. - The model here in the example is Josh Turk, who was a more moderate candidate, believed to be more electable, was supported by Schumer World and benefited benefit from $10 million in super backspending for that, but was able to, in all the other, Schumer's endorsed in three races, his candidate has lost or dropped out in two of the three, Turk's the exception, Turk is a very compelling candidate, who even though he had establishment support, does not read like an establishment candidate. - Yeah. - And now obviously he is a very unique bio, very unique profile, but the way for moderates to win is to find candidates who do not appear to be just like establishment totes. - Right, they have a-- - We've got Diego in Arizona in 2024. - This is another example of that, right? - It looks a fucking honestly. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Different profile, but we're also in a different world now where everyone is going, almost everyone is going to face a primary, and if you think there are a lot of primaries in 2026, win still 2028. - Fun stuff. - Okay, when we come back, I talk to Senator Bernie Sanders. (upbeat music) - Hey, Dan Tabersky here. I'm a podcast host, a journalist, and now with my newest project, the author of my own manifesto. Well, it's a manifesto about manifestos. My search for inspiration in a world that feels more infuriating, more out of its freaking mind with each passing hour. Manifestos are a call to action, an artful scream. They capture our anger and they try to do something with it. This is my attempt to take the manifesto back from mass shooters and nihilists and return it to its rightful place. With the warriors, the visionaries, the regular folks with just the right amount of crazy. I compare notes with radicals, secessionists, internet trolls out for a laugh, and punk singers screaming their guts out, all trying to turn their anger into the world they want to see. Listen to manifesto wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all episodes of manifesto early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts. (upbeat music) - Senator Sanders, welcome back to Paz de America. - Great to be with you. - I saw that you described Abdul's primary win as the most extraordinary victory you can think of in modern American politics. What makes you think that? - I'll tell you why. And you tell me what you think. Here is a guy who took on the entire Democratic establishment in Michigan, okay? Took on the entire national Democratic establishment, okay? And then took on 70 million dollars of Super PAC and outside funding, about 30 million of it coming from APAC. Now help me out here, you know something about these things. Have you ever heard of a candidate in a major race getting outspent nine to one, taken on the entire establishment and winning? - No, not in a primary like that. Now he's gonna win the general though. Then it would really be, then it would really be extraordinary. - All right, but all I'm saying, you ask me, I cannot recall somebody having done that. So it was an extraordinary victory. And in addition in Michigan last night, we won two congressional races as you know, Donovan, McKinney beat an incumbent in Detroit. We'll be the next congressman. Will Lawrence win in Lansing? A strong victory, I think he stands a good chance to win in November as well. - Yeah, it ended up being a really close race. Dual won by about a point. What does the close finish tell you about where Democratic voters are right now, especially, you know, the 720,000 or so who voted for Haley Stevens? - Well, John, it certainly was a close race. I was up to three o'clock, four o'clock in the morning. So if I fall asleep, don't take it for a while. But you have to understand that $70 million was spent against this guy. So I want to rephrase the question and say if it was a fair fight financially, and there was no spending difference, how many points would he have won by 10, 20 points? Maybe, I don't know. But all in all, I think it was an extraordinary victory. I think the message right now, and I think Haley Stevens was very gracious in a concession speech and she was exactly right. We understand that we have the most dangerous president in the modern history, not in the modern in the history of the United States. And we have got to elect Democrats, a Democratic control of the Senate and the House, and we've all got to work together to make that happen. And I think I would suspect that the overwhelming majority of the people who voted for Haley Stevens understand that. - So looking at the map, Abdul dominated in college towns, highly educated areas. He didn't do as well in sort of the working class city and blue collar suburbs. And this has been a pattern with more progressive candidates and Democratic primaries, with I think your presidential races being the notable exception that I can think of. Why do you think more economically populous candidates aren't doing as well with working class voters than more moderate establishment candidates? - I think, and again, let's remember that what last night was a pattern is consistent with what we have seen all over this country, by the way, in the last year for Mondani's victory in New York City through Maylotz, Kiroz's victory in Colorado and a lot in between. Progressives are winning, John. And we're winning for a lot of reasons. We're often winning, as was the case last night, with a huge turnout. I think, correct me if I'm wrong, that was a record-breaking turnout in Michigan Democratic Army. - Yes, yeah, it was. - That didn't happen by accident. It happened because, among other things, Abdul was able to bring out a lot of young people who previously did not get involved in the political process. And a lot of people are kind of given up on politics. But I have absolute confidence that Abdul's message of economic justice, of demanding the billionaires pay their fair share of taxes. And I'll tell you something else, this guy is a doctor. And I desperately need him in the US Senate to help me and others move toward a Medicare for all single pay-up program. I think it's gonna resonate all over Michigan with the Democrat, Republican, or independent. - Do you think it's harder to reach working class voters with that message? Do you think that they just, you know, people are busy and they're not paying as close attention to politics? Like, what do you, how do you think about that? - And you got, you know, you got the internet phenomenon and algorithms of where people see what they want to see and what they have seen yesterday. So it's hard to break through that. But what has excited me about Abdul's campaign, and again, Manani did it, New York, others have done it, is he has, he put thousands and thousands of people out on the street. And one of the differences drawn between our campaigns and establishment democratic campaigns, they always have more money than we do. They hire great consultants, they do with 30 second ads. We put people out on the street knocking on doors. And I think in Abdul's case in Michigan, we're gonna have to have thousands and thousands of people knocking on doors, explaining to Republicans, do you really think it's a good idea? Do you have tax breaks, the billionaires, and cut back on healthcare and education, et cetera, et cetera. So it's an enormous amount of work to be done. It's gonna be done in a grassroots way. I think we win. - So as you look to the fall, what is, you know, Abdul's probably gonna face even more money than he did in the primary. It's obviously a tough for electorate. What's one thing he has to do, and he has campaign has to do that they haven't done yet? - I think we still have more work to be done within the African-American community, maybe the women's community, but there are great leaders in the state of Michigan and all over this country who I think will help us make that happen. - So you endorsed a lot of progressive candidates like Abdul the cycle. You mentioned a few others who won last night. There are also a lot of progressive candidates, DSA candidates running, who you haven't endorsed. How do you decide which progressive candidates get your endorsement and which don't? - Well, you know, we're not, you know, some kind of huge machine here, so we have to be kind of have to pick and choose. One of the things that people don't know is that we have also endorsed dozens and dozens and dozens of what we call down ballot candidates. People are running for school, board, city council, state legislature, mayor, and small towns. And that in a sense becomes, if you like, the farm club, the future leaders of America, some great people in legislature right now that we've helped get elected. And we have trained, by the way, we have programs that say, hey, you wanna run for office? This is how you send that a press release. This is how you do social media, et cetera, et cetera. But we have, you know, limited, limited resources. So what we do is, hey, what are you stand for? What are you stand for? If you are a moderate liberal type Democrat, that's great. There are other people who support you that's on us. Do you support Medicare for Women? Which is more or less what I think. If you would ask me, if there's one, lit mistests, probably Medicare for all would be if I do support attacks on billionaires. Are you prepared to take on the oligarchs? What is your view about the extremist government in Israel? So you need that information, but that's not enough. Then you have to say, look, you can, and I have seen this, I've experienced this, people have really, they're really smart, they have great answers to everything, they can't run a campaign. It's not easy putting together a campaign, and I've told you did it by the way, not everybody can do it. So, you've got to say, alright, what's the nature of your campaign? How many volunteers do you have? Well, we don't have any. You raise in any money? No, we're not. Okay, well, that's nice. Have a nice day. You're a great guy, but we're not going to support you. So those are some of the things that we look at. I noticed you haven't yet endorsed in the Wisconsin governor's race. What's your thinking there and might you endorse, sir? I don't think so. I've met friends, Francesca a couple of years ago, I was in Wisconsin, and she seems very, very nice. This is a race, I just am not that familiar with. We have not gotten involved in many governance races. I think we did one in Maine with Troy Jackson. Obviously, my major concern right now is seeing that we have a Senate and a House that is going to stand up to Trump. That's really where my focus is. So, as of now, we have not been involved in that race. So your brand of progressive politics has always been focused on the material needs of working class people, and I would say that to the extent that you've broken from Democratic Party policy, it's usually around economic issues, healthcare, et cetera. There are some DSA candidates today, including some who won their primaries this cycle, who've also talked about abolishing prisons, defunding, or even abolishing the police, abolishing borders. You've never been for any of that. Are you worried that taking those positions, which are unpopular with most voters and even most Democrats, sort of hurt the movement that you've worked really hard to build? Well, you know, look, people have different views in what you know, as well as I do, that the right wing, that's their job, right? They will take what one person said and put $80 billion of TV ads on it and make it claim every Democrats supports that. I know serious persons that I know who is running for office, believes in quote unquote defunding. The police, I was in May of eight years, I worked very closely with cops, they have a very difficult job. Do we need police reform? Do we need to get rid of racism within police departments? Absolutely. Are there jobs that other people can be doing in terms of mental health, drug addiction and outfalls on a cop's shoulders? Yeah, I think we should look at that. But nobody I know believes in defunding the police in terms of doing away with prisons. I hope the day comes. I hope the day comes when we don't lead the world in the number of people who are in costary. That speaks very poorly about our society. But does that mean that there should not be dangerous people who should be behind bars? Of course, everybody agrees with that. Open borders. No. We all, most of us believe in comprehensive immigration reform, not opening up all the borders. But a lot of this stuff, as you well know, is what the right wing plays on and multiplies on Fox ten times a day and through their ads. But most of the serious candidates that I know and support do not support those things. You have made a really compelling case that the Democratic Party can't just be anti-Trump. We have to be for something. On the other hand, you never want to promise voters things that you can actually get done. And I think about this just in terms of the next two years in this cycle, right? So a bunch of Democrats wouldn't say everything goes well when we take Congress. Trump's still president for two years. What do you think Democratic candidates running today can realistically promise voters in terms of the Democratic Congress the next two years? >> John, I would look at, that's a good question that you've raised. I would look at it a little bit differently. I would not start off by saying, Donald Trump is president. He probably vetoed any serious and good piece of legislation, therefore we can't bring it up. That's not the way I look at it. I look at it from the position of, and let me be very clear, you may agree with me, you may not. I think the system is horrifically broken. In many ways, we're on a Titanic right now. Every place you look, whether it's healthcare, whether it's transportation, whether it's education, whether it's a corrupt campaign finance system, whether it is oligarchy and massive income and wealth inequality, whether it is climate change, I mean, I can go on and on. It's scary stuff. >> Yeah. >> We're living in really crazy times, and then on top of that, you got Donald Trump as president who does everything, you know, does the wrong things every single day. So I think the first thing you do, John, and what my politics is about, is to be honest with people. You say, "I don't stop. What can you do? What are the problems facing?" Are you all right? You're worried that you can't afford to go to college? You're the richest country on earth. What should we do? Did God determine that public education ends at the twelfth grade? Can we make public colleges and universities tuition free? Do you think that zero or four is important for a kid's development? Of course you do. Should we have universal and free childcare so that all families can enjoy? Yeah, you can. Oh, Bernie, that's a great idea. How are you going to pay for it? Well, okay, that's another issue. Maybe we demand that large corporations and the wealthiest people stop paying their fair share of taxes. Maybe we don't spend 1.1 trillion on the military. But this is what I believe, John, and it really is at the heart of my politics. You've got to deal with where people are at. They are hurting. They are giving up on democracy in many cases because they don't see government do anything for them. So what my strategy would be to answer your question is, if I had the power and I have some power, I would say to the Democrats, you gain control of the House, you gain control of the Senate, take what you're going to do. In the first two, three, four months, you're going to pass Medicare for all. And Mr. Trump wants to veto it, let him. And we're going to explain to the American people why he vetoed it. And we're going to lower prescription drug costs to the price that other countries around the world are paying. He's going to veto that fight. We're going to raise the minimum wage. We're going to raise taxes on billionaires. Let Mr. Trump say no. And when he says no, we have transformed politics because the next time around we'll win a landslide victory. That's my view of politics. Well, looking ahead to, to 2028, I mean, you've been so outspoken on AI and it's clearly going to be a huge issue, not just in this election, but again, in 2028 when we actually have a presidential race, what do you hope to hear from Democratic candidates and the Democratic Party in terms of how we handle artificial intelligence? John, there are easy answers and there are hard ones. And I got to tell you, all of the issues out there, this one, you know, how, you know, why you can't sleep at night. This is one of them. No, maybe I'm crazy. And it may well be. Look, I, the app, first of all, we start off with the assumption is nobody knows what's going to happen. Right? Right. You don't, I don't, nobody does. You know, Elon Musk doesn't know, nobody knows. Here is my nightmare. This is what I worry about. Looking what I think we can agree on as the most transformational technology in the history of humanity. Okay, it's going to make the industrial revolution seem like a piece of cake. This stuff is moving quickly in every aspect of our society. How many millions of jobs will be lost? I don't know. What happens to the work is you're a 50 year old truck driver and now you got a driverless vehicle taking your job, what happens to you? You're a key graduating college. There's no entry level job. What happens? Uh, to you, you're a lawyer, you know, firm, no longer need you, what happens to you? So economically, I worry about it. I worry about it also. And I say all these things and the reason I am fighting these fights is I don't have all the answers, but somebody got to start this discussion and talk about it. All right. Democracy. All right. Tomorrow, they will probably be some kind of deep fake of me on your program, uh, saying how much I love Donald Trump and what a great job he is, right? Yeah. Right. All right. So has that happened to you? And not yet. I'm waiting for it. Yeah. It will happen. All right. So you're at a moment where people turn, look at the internet. We don't know truth from fiction. Right? You really don't. Yeah. You've seen those deep fakes, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. All right. So if a day before the elections and you saw what happened to the sky Thomas Massey, uh, where it was alleged, they had a, uh, a video of him walking into a hotel room with two, uh, young congresswoman, right? Uh-huh. Oh, why? Did older people in Kentucky believe it? Some did. All right. How do you deal with that and protect democracy? Uh, how and what worries me very much? Reading scores for our kids is in decline. You know that? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Writing capabilities, cognitive capabilities. Kids are addicted to screens. How do you deal with that? Recently, we've seen instances of AI escaping human control. I talk to a Nobel Prize winner who thinks that as AI becomes smarter than human beings, we could face an existential threat. All right. These are huge issues. We need to have a, we need to slow it down. That's the first thing we need to do. Mr. Musk cannot run the world and his friends. So that's what I worry about. Same. It's one of the things that keeps-- me up at night for sure. And especially having two young boys who go into the education system. You want to make sure they are trained for actual jobs that are going to exist out there and not just looking at their screens. Senator Sanders, thank you as always for joining Podsave America. I really appreciate the time. Well, thank you, John. Keep up the great work. Thanks. You too. Take care. That's our show for today. Thanks to Bernie for coming on. And Dan and I will be back with a new show and your feet on Friday. Bye everyone. Podsave America is a cricket media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Ferris Safari, with Reed Charlene, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Heffcoat, Jordan Canter, Charlotte Landis, Carol Pellevive, David Tolls, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Sengel. Our staff is probably unionized with the writer's guild of America East.