Harry Enten and Julian Borger: Voting with Fear and Loathing

(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to the Bullwark Daily. I'm your host Tim Miller. We got a double header for you today in segment two. We're going to be going to Israel and around the world to be discussing the big elections in Brazil, Serbia, Israel, and what if anything that tells us about what's happening here? But first, we're getting nerdy. We are getting nerdy with American politics. We're getting into the data as we are one week out from the midterm elections. And so we are calling in the Chief Data Analyst for CNN, the sexiest man on the Boca Raton. - Oh, yes, yes. - Harry N10. At Del Bocavista, they voted you sexiest man in their monthly newsletter. - And I wasn't and I wasn't impeached on like, you know, Frank Costansson. So you weren't impeached yet. - Not yet. - All right, Harry. We're gonna go into a couple of races in particular, I'm curious your thoughts on and we're also gonna talk about how Donald Trump's been, you know, kind of turning you into a piece of man meat as well. - He has? - A little bit. We'll talk about that. But first, let's just do a big picture. - Yeah. - And look at the House of Representatives. Just level setting for you listening right now that the Republicans have a four seat majority in the House. I was looking at your analysis and you said the chance for Democrats to get to 230 seats that'd be a 16 seat gain was 69%, which I thought was very nice. - Very nice. - Yeah, so I think we'd start there. - Sure. - Is that kind of what you are seeing as a baseline for the Democrats, a 16 seat pickup? - Yeah, I look, one way to kind of look at this, that was my wonderful YouTube video was this morning, you know, I looked at the race ratings, you know, your cook, your, your saboteaus, et cetera. And right now seats that are at least leaning towards the Democrats as something on average, like 223, which if you know something about the race rateers, they tend to be a little bit more conservative, right? And in fact, you look back at the 2018 midterm, they weren't anywhere close to giving Democrats to 23 in terms of the lean. And in five of the five midterms since 2006, the opposition party in those midterms picked up more seats than were just leaning. - Just in 2018, just to remind us, where did the Democrats end up? - They ended up with 240, they had a decade of 40 seats. And so, you know, to me, I think if Democrats end up south of 230, I would say that, you know, in the grand scheme of things, yes, they would win a majority, but that would definitely be south. I think the question here is, do Democrats get in worth the 235, 240? That may be a little bit much, but I think that could-- - Could you give me 250, could I get you 250? - Could I get you 250, could I get you 250? But, you know, we're here at the price is right, we always try to get the closest to the price without actually going over. So, I think somewhere between 230 and 240, you're probably in pretty safe ground at that point. - You're talking about seats that were, you know, kind of, you know, plus five, plus six, plus seven. - Yeah, I think that's right. I, you know, there's sort of, you know, Sean Trendaid over real clear kind of, you know, points out that, you know, you get to plus nine, plus 10, I think that's the number. Once you get north of there, it's almost like you get this deluge of all these Republican seats. - I mean, I guess that's my question. I'm glad you brought that up because I have been, you know, over the past couple of months been, been positing that I think that the Democrats could crack that deluge. And should just to explain to people just kind of, a little of the basics, basically what happened is there's this handful of seats that are the toss up seats that I think everybody thinks the Democrats are going to win. And then there's another batch of seats that are like, you know, where it's a Republican district, but not by really all that much. And it seems like the Democrats are likely going to win. Then there's kind of this, a little bit of a valley where there aren't a lot of seats, you know, in districts that Trump won by say eight or whatever, seven, eight. And that's a lot due to gerrymandering. And in gerrymandering, I think a lot of the Republicans tried to get, you know, it finagled the seats so that they were, you know, Trump plus 11, Trump plus 12 because they figured those would be safe. And, you know, we've been talking about a lot of those seats here because I, you know, I think that in wave years, you know, in 2006 to 18, a lot of times you see surprises like that happen. Like what, what's your sense of whether the Democrats might be able to crack into that territory at all? - Well, I think it depends which, you know, national house ballot you choose to believe, right? It's sort of choose your own adventure. If it's double digits, which the New York Times and CNN have shown, then there's a real chance that they could crack it. Or does it end up closer to seven or eight, right? I think the Maris Paul had eight among likely voters. Then you kind of fall short. But I think at this point, the way I might just sort of phrase that his Democrats are kind of playing with house money. - Hello. - And they're going to get the majority unless something goes totally awry. And the question is just how high does that quote unquote wave bill? - Total New Jersey or Colorado sweep for you or Virginia, those are my, those are my, those are things I'm watching. - I think that those are sort of, you know, there are two questions that I have, right? Which are, do you get those sweeps in those states? And although we're talking about the house, we'll get to the Senate. I'm sure in a minute, is this going to be the first time? I think ever, at least since the founding of the Republican Party, that New England is completely democratic in terms of its congressional delegations, those I think are kind of the sweep fun questions that we're kind of digging into right now. - That's what I'm going to be looking at early in the house, kind of what's happening in New Jersey. And obviously, this way, is it anything else early you're looking at on election night next week? - I think, you know, Kentucky six, right? I think that's, we've been talking about that. I think that's-- - That's the Lexington District. - Correct, correct, that's the old Ben Chandler seat. And the question is, you know, those post-close at six o'clock, you should get a pretty decent idea fairly early in terms of where the house is going. - We'll be live. The next level will be live on YouTube. So come on, subscribe to us or watch Harry or multi-screen. - You can multi-screen. We're going to be going live at seven o'clock. So, you know, you can start at six, and then on the CNN all access app, and I believe YouTube as well will be going at seven o'clock. So I'll be there and I'll be hyped up on much cream soda. - All right, you love that cream soda. All right, so let's go to the Senate. Right now, 53, 47 to the ours. It looked like, I'm telling you if this is wrong, you know, it seems like you think the mode result, like the most likely result if you ran a bunch of simulations on this would be the Democrats at 52. - Something like that. - Which is a Fatterman proof majority. - That would be if he decided that he wanted to go independent and then dare say caucus with the Republicans. Like he could not change the majority. Obviously, the House, as I said, we know which way is going. The Senate, this is, as you said, it's the modal result, right? It's what we think is the most likely, but there is a margin of error around it. - I mean, that's pretty well just to kind of run through this for people, like what that mean. What a 52 seat majority would mean. Because if I had you on this show October of last year, I think we would have said this is a preposterous thing to even suggest. Because 52 means they'd have to win the main North Carolina, Michigan, Georgia, which are the blue-ish purple states. And then they'd have to win Ohio and two of Iowa, Alaska, Texas. That's how you get to 52. Like anything short of that, you're at 51, you're in Fatterman territory. Or if you don't win any of Iowa, Alaska, Texas, then, or you lose Michigan and trade it or something like that, then you're down at 50. - Yeah, and to me, one poll that just tells you everything you need to know was the New York Times poll that came out that had to race tied in South Carolina, which has not elected a Democratic Center since Fritz Hollings in 1998. What are we talking about here? That's why that's the modal result. I'm not in a million years where I've thought a year ago that this would be the position we're in, but that's what the polling data's telling us. - You're at that aforementioned poll. So here's what we have. This is this morning. Any Anders 48, darling Graham 48. I thought that was significant, because that's, that's significantly different than 45-45. - You got it. That's exactly right. It's one thing to be tied at 45, 45, 10% on the side of the third party. I'd have to go back. I mean, that would also be even if any Andrews lost, that 48% would be the highest share of the vote than a Democrat has gotten for the Senate in South Carolina this century. - Yeah, and then the other two polls they had. Florida has actually been 50, Angie Nixon 44. Florida seems like the toughest one to crack at this point. And Minnesota, Peggy Flanagan 54, Michelle Tafoya 40. Good news for me since I had said that I was gonna fly to Duluth getting down to my boxers and hold a sign that said tamp on Tim with an arrow to me if Michelle Tafoya won. Badness of the people that wanted to see me shirtless, but that seems to have been a Republican pipe dream. So you can just kind of look at those together. And I think the Minnesota thing is telling, because I look at that and obviously they're different dynamics in Minnesota than in Maine, where Susan Collins is an institution for some of Michelle Tafoya, who is a football side by an reporter or Michigan, where there's like kind of these unique things happening with a duel. But it's hard for me to like look at where we're at and see the Republicans cracking Maine or Michigan. Is that, is that crazy? - I'll say two things. First off, you can just go shirtless, regardless of the result in Minnesota. So you know, that's just an excuse from you. - I think we gotta work, people gotta earn it. - Well, you know, that can be like the higher subscription tier. - That's true. - Michigan to me, which has not elected a Republican Senator since what Spencer Abraham in 1994. You know, obviously there are unique things that are going on there, but I do kind of feel like we think Michigan is a state that it no longer is. In some ways, especially, you know, Middle East politics. And so I have been of the belief, you know, there was the initial Fox poll, I think back in August, that had Mike Rogers. ahead by four, but basically since then, most of the reputable polls have had a dual al-Sayedahead. Look, could mic Rogers win absolutely, but that would be surprising to me. It really would be at this point. I kind of put Maine and kind of a separate camp, if only because Susan Collins has defied polling before, and she has been the center now there for 30 years, but if Donald Trump's appropriating is what the polls suggested is, I definitely would rather be Troy Jackson at this point than Susan Collins. You alluded to this, but let's just talk about what your referencing there where you said that people won't be misinterpreting what the Middle East discourse and impact is on the Michigan Senate race. I've been saying this for a while. I think that there is a lot of people in the commentariat who have a lot of folks in their life that are, you know, Democrats who care about Israel or a kind of moderate Democrats for whom Abdul is an exactly their cup of tea and mic Rogers is maybe somewhat appealing. And I just think that that is such a tiny part of the electorate that just self-selects around the people who talk about politics of it. And you were talking about this as well recently where you're like, I think this is Contra Conventional Wisdom, which is like the Israel issue, if you look at the data, is actually helping Abdul not hurting him. Yeah, this is one of these things where why I like polls, right, because you can actually test different hypotheses and what we know is it's not just a national phenomenon. We see it in Michigan as well. We see that views of Israel have significantly deteriorated over the last few years. And I thought the Fox News poll in Michigan was quite telling amongst those voters who said that U.S. policy towards Israel was extremely important to their vote. I'll say it actually did better than he did overall. And I just think that people are kind of stuck in this viewpoint of five, ten years ago. I think as younger people have aged into the electorate as the war in Gaza has taken as Americans have seen what has happened there. Their viewpoints on that conflict and the policy towards Israel have shifted significantly, not just from ten years ago, but from two, three, four years ago. All right, guys, we're back with our friends from Noble Travel. Travel is stressful when you're on a live tour and I get to tell you, do you want me to admit something embarrassing? I ran out of socks and underwear on the live tour. 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Let's do Hopium first, just because I'm a Hopium type of guy in my life. And do you like to leave people with something to breathe into a paper bag about? Yes. Look at the Senate map, extended. When I just laid out that path to 52, I didn't mention Kansas. I did not mention South Carolina, except, you know, we talked about the poll. Did mention Mississippi, Scott Cologne versus Cindy Hyde Smith. Very interesting add up in Mississippi going after Cindy Hyde Smith over allowing, you know, the Chinese to buy land in Mississippi. I mean, like they're playing to win down there, Scott Cologne. There's some independent races that people are eyeing, Osborne, in Nebraska, maybe, maybe Montana, but the Democrats still be on the ballot makes them out of a stretch. If you look at the Hopium states, is there anything where you think, man, if there's a big surprise next Tuesday in the Senate, this would be the one that you think it would be. I don't know if it would be a big surprise at this point, but I think, you know, Kansas, look, I get sort of the skepticism in so far as, you know, 12 years ago. And Greg Orman was running as that independent candidate. There was this idea, you know, that he could win in that race. I think it was against Pat Roberts, if my mind is still working for me. But this to me is different. It's different for any number of reasons. First off, the fundamentals that you're made no sense, right? It was Obama, who was a unpopular Democratic president at the time in a historically deeply red state that, you know, has an elected a Democratic center since 1932. This is different for any number of reasons. First, 1932. 1932, my father, who had me in his 60s, was five years old. That's how long ago it was. And I kind of feel like I take it after him as the elderly Jewish guy anyway. You know, you think about it and you say, okay, but here's the thing about Kansas that has changed significantly during the Trump era. If you kind of look at sort of how Republican the state is versus the nation as a whole, it was, you know, I think it was like the 9th or 10th most Republican state, you know, more than a decade ago. And now it's like the 17th or 18th or 19th most Republicans say, air go. It's been shifting to the left versus what we've seen nationally. Their type of Republicanism is not Donald Trump Republicanism. And you see that. You see how unpopular Trump is in that state. And you go to yourself, you combine that it's been kind of shifted. I mean, Trump did win by 16 points two years ago. He did, but how much did he win by in Texas? He won by 13. Was it 13? Yeah. The two were 12, I guess. Yeah, it's the two are not that far apart. You combine that with the fact that Adam is quite popular and you combine it with the fact that Roger Marshall and the polling isn't, I'm not saying they're going to win there. I'm just saying that the picture, it makes sense to me. Damn it. I shouldn't have challenged you. You were right. 13 was Texas. You know, your numbers. I tried. Let me just go back to Mississippi for a second and see if there's anything there. Sure. Okay. And I have not actually seen the Mississippi early vote data, but, you know, I followed a guy John Colby and he does like the early vote data in Louisiana where I live. Yeah. And he is a Republican. And he's like blown away by the black turnout so far and early vote. And again, sometimes, you know, maybe that ends up being cannibalizing election day. Like we'll see. But like, in a state like Mississippi, where the share of the blacks vote is so high, anything there that you think is. Well, I think the thing that you pointed out is that we are seeing, you know, in the Southern United States that there does seem to be a surge in black turnout. And if you're going to see that affect anywhere in any of the competitive races besides say, you know, what Georgia, which, you know, I think also tells you everything you need to know in terms of this election. I'd just taken off the board in terms of the Senate. You're going to see it in Mississippi. I think the question is that voting in Mississippi is so racially polarized. And you know, what the last Democrat to win a governor's race there was what, 1999 with Ronnie Musgrove, you know, obviously they had some success in the AG races. You saw press Lee come close a few years ago in Mississippi and that governor's race. But getting to that majority is tough there. I'm not saying that it can't happen. That's a state though. I'll believe it when I see it. Let's do hyperventilation. The main hyperventilation is pull air and like, you can look at a couple of ways. There has been an overstating of Democratic vote kind of in October. The last few midterm elections. But like the polls haven't been off by as much as people remember like in 2022, it was like the pundits that were off more than the polls were, you know, kind of similar in 2016. I mean, there was a miss, but it wasn't as big as I think people remember what you're, what do you kind of look at if there is a pull miss? What does that mean for the Democrats? Okay. So I think there are two questions there. First, we should point out that in Maine, each of the last three cycles in which Susan Collins has run, she's outperformed her polls. So that's the, however, look at 2022, look at that midterm election, look at the close Senate races. That is the states that were polling within five points in the final 10 days of that election. You know who is underestimated in the final polls? It was not Republicans, it was Democrats in all of the races and all of them, they were underestimated. So this idea that a poll error will necessarily undercount the Republicans, that doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Not what could happen. We saw it in 2024. We saw obviously in 2020, but in the last midterm election, it didn't happen. And I will also note when it comes to Maine, Susan Collins is more unpopular than she has ever been. That doesn't mean that she won't pull her, you know, a rabbit out of her hat, but the fundamentals here are different than that. And they have been in past years. - And look, a lot of what is underlying, you tell me if this is wrong, how I understand this to work when I talk to my stats nerds, is the misses are driven a lot by the fact that there is a non-response issue among mega voters compared to Democratic voters. Democratic voters just are more likely to respond to these polls. And so what's happening? The pollsters are waiting the numbers to try to make sure they're getting a representative sample of MAGA. And it's like, that mistake could go either way. They might be over-weighting it, you know? Or they might be, again, missing something that's out there because people aren't answering their polls in a systemic way. - 100% correct. I mean, another way to think of it is if you are waiting to pass presidential vote that many of these polls are doing now, and you get a sample that, let's say, is two or three or four points more favorable to Kamal Harris than the result was, you might say, oh, I have to bring that result back and, you know, align it with what the actual vote is. But the truth is, it could be that there's some Trump voters, not MAGA, but perhaps non-MAGA Republicans who have soured on the president who don't want to admit that they voted for president Trump. So it could go either way. There's no way to know it until we obviously, you know, get the results. - If there is a 2020 style poll mess, like what's the low water mark for the Democrats in the Senate, do you think 49? - Oh, I think they could, if you have a low water mark, I think you could go even further south than that. I think you could end up 47. I think you could. I'm not-- - 47? - I think it's possible. I think it's possible. I think-- - I mean, 47.48. - 49, Georgia. - Yeah, 47.48 I should say, yeah. - Okay, now that I have people hyperventing. - All right. - Listen up, fellas. That's right, his address for the fellas. Fall is here, football is back. And that means game day, meal, Sunday hosting, and some man time in the kitchen, whether you're making burgers for kickoff, wings, or getting the family some breakfasts before a full day of sitting on the couch, your cookware. It matters, it matters. Makes a difference. 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Just head to Hexclad.com/thebowlwork. Support our show and check them out at H-E-X-C-L-A-D. dot com slash thebowlwork. Make sure to let them know. We sent you. Two things really quick. Here's what Trump said about you recently. The best person on CNN is Polster Harry Enton because he was willing to show that Donald J. Trump is six times more popular than Abraham Lincoln or any other president. He's got credibility. He has got a wonderful ass. Don't fire him. Yeah. One of those sentences wasn't correct, but the rest of it he did say. Yeah, I can only wonder which one was not true, but not true in terms of said, in terms of truth. I think it's, you know, hope of judgment. Exactly. Look, among Republicans, that was what that poll was. It was among Republicans asking which president that they most admire and Trump ran away with it. Among the electorate overall, in fact, the plurality winner in terms of most of my president is not Trump. It's actually Barack Obama. So you say the president has not been fully contextualizing your reporting when he brings you up. I would say that that slide that I put up was quite clear and he read it in the way that, or interpret it in the way that he wished to interpret it. As mentioned, second to where to go, come around the world and talk about elections. But I watched your Twitter. You were monitoring the Israel election overnight and, you know, votes are still rolling in there, but just wondering what you're seeing in Israel. - BB Netanyahu manages to pull rabbits out of hats. I think the question ultimately is could, you know, his opposition potentially form a minority government, right? That's essentially when you're south of the 61 seats necessary, but somehow you keep the, you know, the Arab parties from, you know, denying you or having a no confidence vote. Or maybe Netanyahu is able to pull off a few people and he's able to form a majority. I think at this point, the most likely outcome, again, the votes are still being counted and you had the initial exit polls that said one thing and then, you know, Netanyahu seemed to do better. Is this just gonna be another case in which we have another election like we did a few years ago where you just had to have these elections over and over again. And the tweet that you're referring to was for a brief period of time in the late 90s in early 2000s. You directly elected the Prime Minister in Israel. And I think, you know, if I were over there and given how unclear these results have been, I wonder if there's going to be a question whether or not Israel might decide. I'm not saying that they will. I'm not saying there's a high percentage chance. But if I were there, over there, I'd be seriously considering perhaps directly electing the Prime Minister again so that, you know, there's actually a clear result because this result has been anything but clear. - I lied. I have one other place that has a weird election system. I wanted to ask you about and then I'll let you go. Not in the lower 48, but Alaska. I skipped this because we do have a big news item this morning. I didn't want to overlook. Lisa Murkowski endorsed Jonathan Grace Tomkins. - Sure, the Democratic candidate for Alaska governor. I haven't covered that race at all. I have covered the House race. And I think that that is one of those stretch races we're talking about. It's kind of just right on the other side of that delta. Could the Democrats get their bill hill? It's a Democratic and a distinct baggage. Then a lot of discussion about Paltola I had her on the show. I'm just wondering if you have any issues. It's just so hard. It's hard to pull and then it's hard to measure. Like what is the rank choice voting situation going to do? I'm just wondering how you assess those really possible. The Democrats could win two or three of those races. I mean, look, Alaska has such a small population. You know, if there haven't been that many polls, it becomes difficult to really know what's going on. I think we'll get a few polls. At least one, you know, in the final week to try and understand what's going on. There are two things I would keep in mind in terms of Alaska, one on the rank choice voting. Even if Patola ends up south of 50% in round one, I still think if she's a clear plurality leader, that is, you know, let's see, she's at 48. And then, you know, you have Sullivan, the incumbent, you know, at like 43, 44. I would still consider Patola a favorite if for no other reason. It's not like he's going to get all of the other votes. There are going to be some that go to Patola. And more than that, there are going to be some people who just bullet hole vote, right? They just vote for one candidate. So I think that's one thing. And then the other thing I should just, on the other end, just sort of make sure people remember, there has been one Democrat elected to the Senate from Alaska this century. And that was Mark Beggage when the incumbent Ted Stevens had literally been convicted in a federal trial. And you combine that with the fact that Dems haven't won a midterm Senate race in Alaska since 1974. And that was Mike Revel, who most of the audience probably knows better for skipping the stones along the pond. Yeah, Mary Patola is being the guy in the debate. He was beaten. That was at DL8 to make. Yeah, that was the only debate that the two great debaters were Grevel and Biden in those debates. Patola, if she wins, is it's much of a statement about how unpopular Donald Trump is, but it is also very much a statement. Patola is potentially unique appeal to win a Senate race in Alaska. Well, try not to eat some Ockowski with the Jonathan Chris Tomkins endorsement. Holy, it'll, we'll be up late. We'll be up late, baby. Alaska. Oh, you know, Alaska. Are you staying up for it? Where else would I rather be than right here right now? And that would be me on election. I put also currently as the dear, great, we should marvel Evie used to do like a 4 a.m. collab. Oh, my God, the Alaska everyone was going on. Has everyone doing? Yeah, you know, I'm on zero hours of sleep. I haven't slept since 2025, but you know what? Cheers. Yeah. But look at what the, look what we got out of the igloo precinct. Yeah, I like it. And now some momentum for Jonathan Chris Tomkins. Very about all that I could do it. She told me that I could do it. She allowed me. All right. There you go. Everybody, that's Harry Enten. I appreciate you very much. Thank you. All right. Thanks so much to Harry Enten. Up next, Julian Bordger. We're going around the world. (upbeat music) And we're back. He's a senior international correspondent for the Guardian based in London. Previously, he was a correspondent in the US, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and the Balkans. So he's got around. He's the author of two books. I seek a kind person and the butcher's trail. And he's coming at us from Nazareth, I think. It's Julian Borger. Yeah. I'm a jealous of him at the moment, but I wasn't as jealous yesterday during the vote. Well, it's good to see you. Thank you for coming on the show. I guess we cover this just a little bit of Harry in segment one, but let's kind of do a baseline of where the Israel election stands. And then I kind of want to broaden it out and talk about Brazil and Serbia as well. Okay. Well, I'm pretty much all the ballots that were cast on on Tuesday have been counted. So that leaves the absentee balance yet to be counted. That should be done by by tomorrow. So the moment we're looking at Netanyahu's block with about 53, Eisenkaught, the Jewish opposition about 48, but the big sub-surgers in this election being the Arab-Israeli parties, which are looking like they've got possibly 19. So that's really the sort of mold breaking factory in all this, but the bottom line is neither of the Jewish blocks government opposition have enough to make a majority and make a majority may involve going to some sort of agreement with the the Arab-Israeli's, the Palestinians of Israeli citizenship. And that would really break the mold if that would happen. But a lot of question might still. What explained a surge of the Arab parties? I think people were frightened. People were frightened about of Ben Gavir Smotrich. They've seen what they've done in the West Bank in terms of driving people out. They fear that Ben Gavir Smotrich were going to come for them and start questioning their right to live in Israel and start really going after them and their citizenship. They felt that they had to come out and try and stop this particular far-right government that is overtly racist before what's happened in Gaza and the West Bank starts to sort of lap up in Arab-Israeli towns. And for people who aren't as familiar with what's happening in the Israel politics, like it doesn't really kind of map on what we're doing here. I mean, the leader of the opposition party, Gadi Eisenkot, I mean, at least before the voting, we'll see what happens now. Sometimes pragmatism has to come in place, but he had balked at forming a governing coalition with the Arab parties, was not running on a major change from BB on treatment of Palestinians in particular, and it was more about corruption, a competence, et cetera. So where does that leave us? Well, I think even if Eisenkot was to form a government, you're absolutely right. The basis of Israeli policy in the West Bank, in Gaza, wouldn't really change. Only at the margins, without Smartrich and without Ben Kavir, you probably have fewer attacks by the hilltop youth in the settlements, all these attacks on ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the West Bank. That's probably where the difference would be. It would be supportive of settlements and the overall project of gradually annexing the West Bank, but it would be done in a more sort of organized, polite way without all these militias roaming around lawlessly, making attacks on our Arab villages across the West Bank. The differences would be, as far as Palestinians would consider, would be very much at the margins. Not sure if I for the economist, it was on X last night, I was talking about this, and basically said that they see that the Netanyahu strategy is going to be to run a delegitimization campaign against any government supported by Arab parties, try to break that opposition, and then maybe even hold another election, which he'd have a better chance of winning. What do you think that looks like? Yeah, that story started. I mean, that was underway during the campaign. His slogan was the right or Palestine, which rhymes in Hebrew, and he had a picture of him with a big Israeli flag on one side, and then the opposition with various Arab-Israeli leaders looking kind of menacing in conjunction with opposition figures like Eisencock. As if you let him go, then suddenly Israel would turn into Palestine. That's very much what he was running on in this election. If the opposition do manage to enter some kind of agreement, maybe a minority government with Palestinian party support, then he could be expected to double down on that and run on it in the next election. Very much so. So Netnet, where do you think the thing lands next by the time next week? I think it's up in the air. There are various possibilities. Talks are going on at the moment between the Eisencock block and the Palestinian parties about focusing first on the Nesset. We forget about the Nesset that it is a far prior to government. It's being very much a rubber stamp. But the idea of the opposition block is that they could start first with the speaker of the Nesset, replace him, and pass some legislation in the meantime that all can agree on. So that would mean that the Palestinian parties would get something out of it for their constituencies and show that turning out to voters they did yesterday makes a difference to their lives. So that is an approach that could lead to the formation of a minority government with Palestinian support. The other option is that Netanyahu is able to peel away members of the Eisencock, the opposition block, and make a new kind of government that would have trumps endorsement and maybe drop the ultra-orthodox, maybe drop Ben Gavir, they can't afford to drop too many in order to bring others in. But that is possible, some kind of more secular right wing government. In the short term, when it comes to choosing a government, obviously it's now the turn of the President, Isaac Herzog, to choose who gets the first go trying to put a meaningful coalition together. And then, do you have any thoughts on any reporting or what you've been hearing about, what this means, about what's next with Iran? I think there's been a lot of reporting out of America that I think Trump plans to at least have some sort of escalation. Maybe it's just a short term kind of shocking on and pull back thing, but there's been a lot of reporting on this. What do you think there's any impact on what happens next in Iran based on last time's results? Well, I think the military action in Iran remains very likely given what you point out by what Trump has said. And of course, Netanyahu, during all these negotiations, will remain in a caretaker government. And the question is, in a caretaker role, what authority does he have? Eisenka's boat reached out to the hierarchy, the brass in the IDF and the Israeli army, say, don't be allow yourself to be, you know, turned into political tools. But if the US was going to relaunch hostilities in Iran, and there was a question of whether Israel would go along, I think the IDF hierarchy is likely to go follow on from the US counterparts and get involved under a caretaker government. So I think the chances of resumed military action against Iran are high. Broadening it out. So your article from earlier this week, 10 days, I can shake the world, Democratic norms at stake in four pivotal elections, recovering what's happening also in Brazil, Serbia, and here in the midterms. I'm interested in your kind of take on sort of broad lessons from what we've learned. Like one thing that struck me, you know, reading about all these elections is that really there was very high voter turnout engagement in the opposition to the authoritarian parties. You just mentioned it. Among the Arab parties in Israel, Lula added 10 million votes between the two rounds of the Brazilian election. That is crazy. I usually, the number goes down and run off elections. And then Serbia, I know the least about it, obviously seems like, you know, huge mobilization efforts there. Like those won't take away from me. Wondering what your thoughts are that and any other kind of thematic observations. Yeah, I think you draw that out that this is the common band of this is the common theme in Brazil, Serbia, and here that it's all about getting out of the vote on the day. And I think suddenly in Brazil, and here to extent, the drive was fear in Brazil, you know, they had the advantage of having two rounds. And so it really concentrated the minds of many people in Brazil, the left liberals, the vulnerable minorities to really mobilise because they stared the prospect of another Bolsonaro regime right in the face. And I think that as it often happened, as happened up to now in in France, we get two rounds. The prospect of a hard right win is a mobilizing factor. And again, as we were talking about earlier, fear was really a factor here with the Arab-Israeli, the Palestinian-Israeli vote. With Serbia, yeah, it was a different story. It's about just the energy of youth, the ability of the studying students. They had this campaign of sending a student to every village, because the rule electorate was the base on which Vurchich as Serbia's former Autocratic leader, that's where he had his hold, his party had a hold in the rule electorate. And I was told when I was there, no one and nothing can mess with that, that's beyond the reach of the students. Obviously it wasn't, students went into the villages, they talked to people, they had a dialogue, some of the students are the sons and daughters of people in the villages, and they broke that mold. And it was an example of how new imaginative forms of direct democracy can break the hold of ultimate Autocratic authoritarian regimes. It's a rare optimistic note for the Borg podcast. I just want to put a finer point on it, because I do mention this a lot, a lot of times not always, obviously, crackdowns on voting rights, can work, they've worked all over the world, but they can also backfire. And we are seeing early signs of it here, I will know for sure next week, but we talked about this a little with Harry in segment one, but the backlash against the Kale decision that got at the Voting Rights Act seems to be leading to a big uptick in turnout among black voters, particularly in the deep south, we're seeing huge turnout numbers in Hispanic counties all across the country, particularly in Texas, we saw it in New Jersey in 2025 here in America. So I do think that sometimes it's later than maybe people would want, but we have seen the limits a little bit of this new, whatever you want to call it, more softer authoritarian model that they were trying in Brazil and Israel and Serbia here, obviously different than the Chinese authoritarian model, or kind of seeing the limits of that a little bit. Also in Hungary, we saw the limits. Yeah, absolutely. And the thing about authoritarian models is I say, stay in government, lose more and more political support and popular support, because they are really usually governing for a small minority, a sort of a clique, then they are faced with a choice of really either doubling down in terms of repression or facing their ouster. And it's certainly in Serbia, voters looked around him and didn't have the support, I think, in the apparatus of state security to crush the students. And so eventually he was destined to lose. I think authoritarian regimes either have to keep on doubling down on finance and use the finance or they're ultimately ousted. If you just kind of look at the trends, and again, they're counter examples of this, but painting with a broad brush, you see places where the right wing authoritarian parties are now in the rise in Latin America, but in France, a lot of times it's places where there have been more stagnant, like center left governments that people have complaints about or unhappiness with, and we are not seeing the staying power. The places where now they're having hiccups or where they're losing or being defeated is places where they've been in power for a minute, whether it be Orban over a decade, Vuchets over a decade, Trump now a decade. And we've seen a weakness and ability to adapt to the governing and being responsive to the people to put them there. Yeah, and also the opposition, the pro-democracy, the democratic left, eventually come up with new ideas about the challenge, the authoritarianist amount of that definitely happened in Serbia, you sort of happened in Israeli towns here, and that's really redrawn the political landscape here. So eventually it does lead to a pushback, new ideas and eventual revitalization of popular democracy. And if the authoritarianists in question don't have it in them to really go out and kill people, then eventually they will fall. Just a little bit more on Serbia, because I think that's the thing we've covered the least and probably a lot of my audience doesn't know a lot about it. I mean, just in your article, you were talking about how the student protest movement had a simple slogan, Serbia or Mafia, also kind of connecting where you are now. Israel to Serbia, there was some evidence that the students were being spied on by the Israeli built Pegasus spyware. You put it on that, there's kind of a global coalition of authoritarianism that is also developing simultaneously, but the thing that surprised me the most was just the scale of the victory in Serbia was pretty significant. And it wasn't really even close. And I don't know, the whole thing is so strange. It's like it was really just random professors that were put on a list and they won to that degree. Yeah, I mean, they were not random in that they were chosen by the students, but they were little known, but there is there is respect for sort of academics in central Europe in a way that probably is hard to imagine in the US. As far as I'm saying, it's crazy. It's like the Serbian legislature has the highest, it's like, I forget what I was saying. They had 24, 250 candidates and had over 160 doctorates among them. Yeah, well, it's like here we've got to make a rapper selling bumper stickers running for Congress in New York, you know? Yeah, it's a political experiment that the students ran a movement based on direct democracy. Every decision had to be made by a plenum. If I wanted to go and interview someone out, you know, out canvassing, the decision was made by a student plenum. And then it led to neighborhoods making their own plenum, sort of people's committees to communicate and to do business with the students. How this is going to work when their candidates, now, these university professors, but they basically chose their favorite university professors with a sprinkling of farmers and retired sports people. All right, now it's sounding American. All right, we've got a farmer. We've got a farmer. But mostly it's professors is, you know, that is going to be if they manage to get their act together, but government together, it'll be a tech and a critic government. And I, their message is we can't even start to talk about policy until this whole political system works like it's supposed to, like it says on the paper, like it says in the constitution, as long as it was a crony regime run by Vodjish and the SNS, then we're never going to be able to make decisions as a society. So they want to reform the structures. So it works, according like it's supposed to work. And then they say, we'll, we'll worry about about policy. Well, this is a good place to leave it because that is maybe a good lesson for the pro-democracy democratic left in America because, you know, sometimes it feels like there is, you know, Trump has two plus years left in power. And there is fights to the death over whether it's going to be Medicare for all or Medicare for all who want it. And it's kind of like, okay, like maybe, you know, having a broad unity around anti-corruption and accountability. And also like engaging people from, you know, the whole swath of society, you know, is a, is a model that is showing some success. You saw that in Hungary too. Absolutely. All right. Thanks so much. That is Julian Borger. 10 days could shake the world democratic norms. It's taking four pivotal elections. Thanks for sharing your expertise. And we'll keep us posted. All right. Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me on. All right. Thanks so much to Julian and to Harry. We'll be back tomorrow with one of your faves. We'll see you all then. Peace. I'm going to walk with you. Too many boys. Too small a town. Feels like I'm always wandering the ground. You call me up. I let it rain. Our break can mean only one thing. Got me again. It's the end of the world. Done with this year a mistrinkled beer. Missing the songs for you. Too slow to hate. Summer came late. Fires on the west side. I'm rolling the waves. Let's miss me. Catch it before it's almost done. Try to pretend it's the end of the world. Some kiss me to death. There's nothing left to decide. Nothing to prove. And nothing that was only told. Go tell me your name. We'll burn our mistakes and just fall to the end of the world. The Bullwork Daily is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Anzali Skipper, and with video editing by Dante DeCicco and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.