Republicans Are Weaponizing Hasan Piker

- The goal is to make him seem extreme in a various homophobic and racist way. - This is like a legitimately good ad. The grandma steals the show. She's so good in this. - Welcome to Policeman's React. Joining me today is the bulwark Sam sign. - Sam, how are you? - I'm good, buddy, how are you? - Good, we got a bunch of ads to watch. It's been a very long week recording this on a Friday after the Michigan primary. I'm sure like me, you stayed up too late, woke up too early on that night. - Literally, I had to do way too early the next morning. - Oh, I'll look at you with your, 345 AM, I was struggling. Hey, Dan, I was a little bit worried about recording at this time, it's Friday 1 p.m. Because the ballroom decision came out two hours ago. I know your big White House ballroom guy and you stayed the construction of it. So if you want to take a beat and do this later. - Yeah, it's gonna be hard for me. So I've been envisioning my first, my first state dinner in the ballroom one day under this Democratic president. - Okay, let's get to business here. Let's start with, as they mentioned recording this, few days after Abdullah Said became the Democratic nominee in Michigan, here is his Republican opponents, Mike Rogers' first ad. - You might hear the disavowable people's views. - America deserved 9/11 dude, fuck it, I'm saying it. - I was in college, I took a terrorism class. You know, there needs to be unrest in the streets for as long as there's unrest in our lives. - I'm not here to disavowable people's views. - You know, I am in support of abolishing ice. - Because we're gonna go in there, we're gonna need to be the (beep) (cheering) - Kill those motherfuckers, murder those motherfuckers in the street. Let the streets soak in their fucking red capitalist bloods dude, the people who listen to Hassan are engaging with faith. They want to, way forward into our politics. - If you were on the El Said campaign or someone who wanted Mike Rogers to lose, how worried would this ad make you? - Not bad, worried, honestly. I mean, it's like basically what you would expect. - In fact, I probably thought it could have gone in a different direction. 'Cause it did barely feature at El Said, right? It's like a bunch of characters who you may not know. I mean, almost no one is there they are. - Yeah, almost no one. - Maybe my daddy. Maybe my daddy they know, but that's it. - Maybe my daddy. If you know who Hassan Piker is, you're voting for El Said anyway. I got me thinking a little bit, maybe you have the historical knowledge to answer this. Has there been like an effective campaign run by just going after a candidate's associations? I mean, obviously Jeremiah Wright is like, comes to mind, but like Obama won, right? So I was struggling to think of like a case where someone got really harmed in a way that cost them the election because of the people they associated with. - Yeah, I've thought about that as well. 'Cause for Obama it was Jeremiah Wright but also Bill Ayers, one of the weatherman bombers. And that was a big push from Sarah Palin in the end of that campaign that did not really work with voters. When there's an association, usually as associations, a consequence of a policy decision, the most successful one is obviously Willie Horton in my whole podcast, but that's different than just you paled around with the person who are, you were a surrogate on your campaign. I mean, this ad presumes a lot of knowledge of who Hassan Piker is because then it says they don't really identify him and then at the end you have this hard to hear a quote from Abdul saying something complimentary about Hassan, right after Hassan Piker, walks about the blood of capitalist in the street which is not a helpful quote, I would say generally. But what makes you say that? But it does where the goal is to make him seem extreme, an extreme and a very islamophobic and racist way and this is a mediocre execution of that strategy. - Yeah, I mean, what I was saying is maybe it's coming but the more effective version of the strategies to actually have El Sayed saying this stuff. As opposed to just sort of insinuating that he has the opinions of the people who have endorsed him and none of whom they will know. But yeah, and also there's like a franticness to the ad where it just jumps around, you have a few f-bombs. It doesn't really say anything about El Sayeda than he says, like you mentioned, that he welcomes Hassan Piker to the political discourse. So as far as like, and I'm not saying scared tactic, guys don't work 'cause they do, obviously. But I didn't think this one actually delivered much of a punch. It seemed kind of forgettable. It just was jumping around as a bunch of random people. If I were doing it, I guess I would have focused maybe just on one as opposed to five. And then been like this guy, El Sayed apologizes for Hassan Piker and then just going to the Sizzle Real. - Yeah, I mean, and even then, Adam Matheson would be effective. There's another version of this ad that is, I can't remember which Republicans are back it's from, but it has, it basically shows these people and then has that, there's a quote of Abdul Seng. I'm dangerous, which is about dangerous to the system and the billionaires and all of that, but using that over and over again, that's a more effective version of this. This strategy they're going to use, which I think this ad is a poor execution of it, is an interesting test of whether that, this sort of post-9/11 scare politics still works in America. - Yeah, how does it work, are they? So they're gonna run this ad and they're gonna see audience reaction to it. And they're gonna ask them, "Does this make you more or less likely to vote for LCED?" And then, is that it? And then you'll figure out if that actually sticky? - Well, they've probably tested beforehand. - They probably tested it beforehand. And ad testing, there's a lot of debate in demographics, circles about the effectiveness of ad testing because you're washing ads in isolation. - Right. - And so if you know, you're seeing, 'cause you see the ad and you react to it, but you're not, that's not a real world simulation of what people are actually seeing, 'cause you're not, if you're actually seeing this on news, you're also gonna see a pro-abdull ad afterwards or you're consuming content in social media or conversations that can be countered to the ad. - So, you know, also open question whether this is a media play and they're actually putting money behind it, which is very useful. - Which the use of a song suggests it might be. - You think so? - It's too long. - It's not like too long for me for that, right? Like if you're gonna do this online, you'd want a little bit of like a 15-second clip or something. - Well, yes, if you were actually putting money behind it, but if you wanna get it, do an ad so that people like us will talk about it and they'll put it on cable news or local news, then it has to look as much. I mean, it's all a fake game that's been coming on for decades, but you just say, it's an ad, you give it to the press, the press won't. - Next dollar is more than that. - Six figures behind this one. - Yes, six figures. - Yes, I mean, decimal points you go out. - If you like this video and you like about Save America, I promise you you'll love Message Box, which is my substack newsletter, where I break down what's happening in politics, give you real analysis based on years of experience and data about what's happening in the midterms and actually help you understand where you can have the greatest impact, what campaigns matter, where to give money, how you can volunteer. If you wanna sign up and I hope you do the links in the description. If you sign up now, you can get 20% off for a year. There's a conversation about how I'll absorb response to this stuff. To initiate that conversation, let's look at an ad that he ran in the primary. - Where did you all say had to come from? - Here, here's where he is. - He helped raise him. - He became a doctor. - He always wanted to help people. - He got all those kids' glasses. - Eliminated medical debt. - Poof! - He buys us groceries every week. He knows what things cost. - Now he's running around with Bernie Sanders trying to change power. - We love him and so will you. - Too much. - I'm Abdul Walsh, and I pooped the heck out of this message. - In language. (laughing) - I died when I saw that. - I mean, look, the grandma steals the show. - Good. - She has a future in acting. I thought it was, honestly, and I know, I know people, I'm like, oh, you're bullworkin' the podcast. This was like a legitimately good ad. It stuck with me. The grandma is a new character who actually, you're like, this person's funny. I will remember that ad. Like, I will remember that ad. And obviously, the point here is to humanize him and to like make fun of him, poke fun of the idea that this is some scary nefarious figure. I really like, maybe it's me, but I really like the use of humor as a way, as a sort of a vehicle for dispensing with the attack ads and sort of preempting them. And I think, you know, I guess let's just be frank about it. You look at the grandpa and you're like, wait a second. They do not look scary or Muslim. They, you know, and so it does, it does sort of use a humorous, poking fun of Republicans' way to get around what an obvious attack line will be. I guess the only critique, but this was done for the primary. If they wanted to recycle this ad or repurpose it, you got to get rid of Bernie. No offense to Bernie people. Yeah, try to protect your actions there. Yeah, 100% agree. I think this is a great ad. The whole point is to sand down the edges to make him seem less scary. You know, Abdul's natural tendency when attacked is to punch back. And he can be very aggressive in doing that. And he's like, tell him like Rodgers to keep his name out of my mouth. And like, I think people on the primary really like that pugnaciousness about him and they're looking for Democrats who fight. But sometimes the best, as you say, the best way is humor. And it's to take a step back and not punch really hard. And I think this, this is a great ad. Obama, we did a lot of ads about Obama's grandparents in the, in a race. There are a lot of very similar dynamics between what Abdul's going through, what Obama went through, how this primary match was similar to 2008 in its dynamics in a lot of ways. But this, I think it's a great ad. And I think it's, as he thinks about how to respond to it, the way to, they're trying to make him scary and not from Michigan and unrelated one extreme in the way to respond to that is, sometimes to just like, take a step back, show the human side of yourself, be funny, be calm, be human, and this Ed does a great job of that. - You know, I hadn't really thought about the parallels with Trinoboneman, I'll see if you've mentioned it, and obviously they're radically different in serious ways. But it is true, like, down to the gender dynamics with the opponent, right? It's like, and the polling miss, right? In New Hampshire, obviously, it was different from a bottle lost in '08, and say it's snuck it out. But there is that element of it. It's a really interesting analogy. - In the last debate, when Hailey Stevens said, he's a celebrity, he's a podcaster, he wants to be famous, it really could have been straight out of a debate in Ohio in 2008 between Hillary and Obama. - Unbelievable. All you missed, all we were missing is Mark Penn insinuating that L.C. did cocaine, and it would have been absolutely perfect analogy. - That's like, what a deep cut for almost no one watching this one now. - All right, Pots of America breaking news is brought to you by Zippercruder. With everyday interactions becoming increasingly impersonal, someone going just one extra step can be huge. Like when my doctor takes the time to call me with test results instead of sending them electronically, they came back positive for gay. It makes me feel like a human being again. If you're hiring, great candidates can also go the extra step and tell you why they're interested in your job on Zippercruder as a way to stand out from others in the pool. And Zippercruder has a new feature showing you the most interested qualified candidates first. So you can meet the right people faster. Zippercruder's powerful matching technology finds qualified candidates quickly. 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A lot of people in that building don't get why it's so hard to get by right now. I'm State Representative Francesca Hong. I'm a service worker, community organizer, and a mom. Five years ago, my community sent me to the Capitol. The system is rigged. I'm running for governor to fix it. For years, we've been told that doing better isn't possible. Well, let me tell you. That's bullshit. All we need to do is fight together. We can fully fund our public schools and have universal childcare. We can guarantee paid leave and have cheaper healthcare. We can fix a rigged system that puts oligarchs over workers and small businesses. We can do better. I'm Francesca Hong, and I'm running for governor. Because I know that together, we make better possible. So as I mentioned, Hong is leading in the polls. She's got a pretty sizable lead. There's a poll out today that has her up 22 points. So even if the polls were as incorrect as they were in Michigan, she'd still win by double digits. There is-- she has been on a media tour. Recently, she was on Pots of America earlier this week. And CNN, other places responding to a bunch of tweets she had in 2020 about canceling Thanksgiving, about defunding the police, about white supremacy, a whole bunch of things. And I think if you watched those interviews she did, you might wonder sort of why she was leading the race by so much. But I think if you see this ad, it kind of makes sense. What do you think? Are you like the ad? Well, I think the ad shows why her message resonates and why people would go to her. Because if you just-- she's not great in contentious 101 interviews. But there is real charisma and a message of hope here that I think helps explain why she's getting in this poll out today. 44% of Wisconsin Democrats. So we'll have a disagreement on this one. But you're obviously right, because she's doing great for the primary. So clearly proof is in the pudding, which she may or may not make at her restaurant. I thought the ad was very frantic. It made me unsettled. It jumped around a lot. I get the idea. And maybe this ad was made because it was more biographical. And she's trying to introduce herself to folks. And so this was sort of one of those early ads where you're like, hey, this is who I am. This is my story. I actually am across from the state capitol. And this is what I believe in. But to me, it left me like a little bit on edge. There's a lot of cuts. That's an aesthetic critique. Another critique I had was that the first 80% of it was just her. And then it kind of did this weird jump cut. And then there's people at the restaurant, but it's still just her. And the message was definitely hopeful. And it was like, let's grasp through its energy. Let's stick it to the man. And I get it. But I felt like the ad didn't actually convey that. It didn't actually feature her with a lot of people or galvanizing the movement. It was just her walking through her restaurant. So to me, it was a little bit jarring almost. Yeah, I don't know that I disagree with the editing critique. OK. It's also, it's two minutes long, so we cut it down to a minute here. So we might have contributed mildly to the round in this. But yeah, I think you could-- I think you could definitely critique the editing. What I'm focused on, I'm going to think of the two things that I think help explain why her message is working, is one, it's her bio. Yeah. People are looking for outsiders, looking for people who seem normal, the fact that she is a chef, highlighting that she's a chef. I think people in Madison where she was selected very much knew her as a chef and someone who worked in a restaurant. I think that's powerful currency in today's politics. And I do believe-- and I think this is going to matter on 2028-- that people want hope. They want the idea that there is something better than what we're doing right now. Now, it's kind of an interesting message in Wisconsin, which has had two terms of a Democratic governor. But Tony Evers is-- he's not unpopular. He's not super popular, and he is dealt with a Republican legislator's the whole time, so he is making small progress on a lot of things from people who want big progress. And now, you could actually get a Democratic legislature in Wisconsin this time around where you would have a chance to do bigger things. But there is something for candidates who were saying, there is something better than what we have. And I'm going to go try to get it. Let me revise my point then, because you jarred something in my mind, which is, the frame of the ad is there is a political class right outside my door. And I'm here hustling trying to just know food on people's tables. That's a very powerful frame. And it does get around the sort of problem of, wait, aren't Democrats in charge in the state? I guess they're a Democratic governor. They're not in charge. There's a Democratic governor. And her message is, in fact, it's a system problem. And I'm outside the system, and I'm barging right through it. And I get that. And there is symbolism to that. And I think her being in that restaurant and the state house being right across the street is actually kind of poignant. This is something we've seen in several of these Democratic primaries where either more progressive or DSA candidates have beat incumbents or establishment candidates. Like, I always go back to this clip from a debate in the Colorado one race between Diana DeGette and Melott Kieros. And DeGette, it's about health care and deGets. Well, you need to get a life, man. How do you remember this clip from this random ass race? OK. This is my job. I try to do a good-- I take it seriously. I try to prepare for the people. And in the clip DeGets, I'm like, well, she's kind of speaking in the language of what is probable in terms of health care. And Kieros is talking in the language of what should be possible. And about Medicare for all and how we can do this. And you can say it-- people can push back and say, well, you're promising all these things. You have no path to actually do that, or they are not achievable. But that's not particularly a Democratic primary. And people feel the way they do. People want to believe that there's something bigger. Was it fair to promise them that if you can't deliver it? No, but maybe, maybe not. But-- Yeah, it's funny you mentioned it. Because when I was watching this ad, the end that I thought of, weirdly enough, that's sort of the platonic ideal of like a hopeful messaging progressive ad was the Bernie Sanders America ad. And I was thinking about it with respect and contrasting it to this ad. Because if you go back and look at that ad, there's almost very little Bernie in it. It's just shots of people in different settings and coming together. And all this sort of-- we are a movement. We are together. The numbers can matter more than the money or whatever. And that's why I didn't like the hog ad. Because it was-- or was critical of it-- is because it starts so much just on her. And literally, the cooks have their backs turned to the camera. And she's just walking through. And it doesn't feel like a movement. It feels like, hey, this is me. Here's what I stand for. Now again, this could be biographical trying to change their self-to-voters. But you raise a good point, which I think is-- and I always sort of have this screen on the show that candidates run lots of ads. And so we take one ad in isolation, and if you're like a good media consultant, you look at the entire menu of what's on the air at one time, because all those photos are seeing all those things. But beyond that, she doesn't have a lot of ads on the air, in fact, most of the ads in support of her are being run by Republican super PACs right now. Didn't you say she wasn't doing TV advertising or something like that? Yeah, I think. I think she spent $300,000 on advertising, which is mostly digital, and the Republicans spent $3,000,000, could be trouble, so it's not great. It's not great how you don't ever want to be the candidates Republicans want, sometimes it could be wrong. But I do, to your point, and we can end here, is I think when you have, if you're making to make really big promises about the things you can achieve, it has to be in the context of building a movement, Bernie did that, Obama did that, you know, a lot of the campaigns that really resonate, do that, and she does have a lot of grassroots support in showing that in the ad, I think is powerful, because it also, there is a wisdom of the crowds effect that people, I always go to people with her, I want to be part of it too, so when it's just the person, this is a mistake Trump always made, was it was always Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. And in 2024, he was kind of faint at language of a bigger movement, but, and he had big rallies, which helped, but if it's like, I alone can fix it, that's less effective than we together can fix it. And yet he's our president. Twice. Yeah, there you go. It's a fucked up system we have. Yeah. Sandstein, great to talk with you, and we'll see you again soon. Hey man, great to see you.