The Global Story: They were loyal Democrats. Then came Gaza

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Hey there, it's Tristan Redman of the Global Story podcast from the BBC, the show where we tell one in-depth story each weekday where the world and America meet. Today, we're taking you to the state of Michigan, a swing state where debates over US foreign policy are reshaping political loyalties at home. For some Arab American and Jewish voters, Israel and Gaza have become defining issues. And for voters who've long considered themselves Democrats, they're raising a difficult question. Does the party still represent them? My co-host Asma Khalid talked to some of those Michigan voters to hear how their loyalties are being tested and what it could mean at the ballot box. We hope you enjoy the episode. And if you'd like to hear more from us, Subscribe to The Global Story wherever you get your podcasts. How did the debate over Israel and Gaza become so critical in the US midterms? Midterm elections are normally about domestic policy questions, like the economy and the cost of living. But with the vote just two weeks away, maybe this time international issues could sway things. Our very own Asma Khalid has a story for us today on the situation in Michigan. It's a crucial swing state and the debate there among Democrats over the conflict in the Middle East has become a touchstone issue, especially among the state's big Arab American and Jewish population. From the BBC, I'm Tristan Redmond in London. Today on The Global Story, why the October 7th attacks and the Gaza war are igniting such passions in Michigan. asma welcome to your own show well thank you for allowing me to bring some of this reporting to our lovely listeners rumor has it asma that there is an important political story happening in the united states at the moment what's going on yeah huge political story we have the upcoming midterms in just a few weeks and i know that many of our loyal listeners know that our show is about where the world and America meet. But as we were thinking about the U.S. elections, I actually think that there is a story this election season that is very much in our wheelhouse. Go ahead. Uh-huh. Well, that is the way that politics has been playing out in Michigan and specifically in the context of the U.S. Senate race. Michigan is my birth state. Yes, it is. Wow. Wait, can you still vote in U.S. elections? I can still vote in U.S. elections. I do still vote in U.S. elections. Wait, where do you vote? I do not vote in Michigan. Maybe if I had to vote in Michigan, I would have to recuse myself from this episode because it's all about Michigan, isn't it? But please go on. I interrupted you. No. Well, I mean, in Michigan, support for Israel has become a flashpoint, particularly among Democrats. And to be clear, we are seeing some debates around this foreign policy that is happening among Republicans. But in survey after survey, the place where most of this debate has been playing out is on the Democratic side when it comes to U.S. support for Israel and for U.S. continued military funding of the country of Israel. Now, I also want to be real and say that I have covered every election for the last decade plus. And foreign policy is not the major issue that you hear about from most voters, especially in the midterm, which is quite domestic. Exactly. The primary concern for most voters, as it traditionally has been, is about affordability. It's about the economy. But what I noticed that felt new this election cycle was the degree to which you are consistently hearing about Israel, about the way in which U.S. support for Israel has bubbled up and in some cases even become kind of a litmus test for voters as they think about which candidate to support. And that feels really unusual, particularly in a midterm election cycle. Okay, so who are the main candidates in Michigan, Nasma? Well, this is a really live debate because of who these two men are in the Senate race there in Michigan. On the Democratic side, you have Abdul Al-Sayed. He's Arab-American and Muslim. And in fact, if he were to win, he'd be the first Muslim ever elected to the U.S. Senate. He's worked in public health and he's been a vocal advocate for universal health care, which here in the U.S. is known as Medicare for all. He has also been a vocal critic of Israel. He has repeatedly referred to his actions in Gaza as a genocide. Now, that is a claim that Israel has repeatedly denied. The International Court of Justice, which is the U.N. court, is considering this claim. it has not yet reached a conclusion. Then on the Republican side, you have Mike Rogers. He is a former congressman. He's been endorsed by President Trump. And he has also lately started to echo some of Trump's claims about voter fraud. When it comes to foreign policy, he has been really leaning into this Israeli-Palestinian divide, trying to court the state's Jewish voters by showing that he is a strong friend of Israel. He opposes cuts to U.S. military aid to Israel and insists that U.S. support for Israel is a matter of American national security. Now, at a recent debate between these two men, you could really hear the tensions over this issue. Al-Sayed was asked this question by a moderator. If there was attack, would you provide defensive weapons for Israel? You're going to hear Al-Sayed in this clip first, But you can hear the two men also talking over one another. I don't want our tax dollars buying weapons for other countries. I don't know what's so hard about that. That's a no. I'll answer the question. Absolutely. He won't. He will not. Matter of fact, he would not even support a foreign government. We wouldn't even support Iron Dome, which helps not only us, but allies. We cannot do this for every question. And this is not just about vibes. Yes, the president of the United States clearly has the most control over foreign policy. But senators here in the U.S. do vote on bills to fund or defund aid to other countries like Israel. And, Tristan, I wanted to understand how this issue has become such a flashpoint, particularly among Democrats. And so I called a bunch of people in Michigan, people who are living in the midst of this tension. And you're going to hear their thinking in their own voices. I wanted to look at this story specifically through the lens of two voting blocs that have personally been at the center of this story, and that is Jewish voters and Arab-American voters, not because they are the only ones talking about Middle East policy, but because I think it's one of the places in which this policy divide has become particularly pronounced. You know, Michigan has the highest percentage of Arab Americans of any state in the country. At the same time, there is also a sizable population of loyal Democratic voters who are Jewish, who have been strong supporters of Israel. And I want us to be careful here and make sure that we are not overly reductive in this conversation. And I say that because I was speaking the other day with the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America. And she reminded me that for plenty of Jewish voters, Israel is not the number one political issue. That being said, in this election cycle, we are seeing it become more of a top priority for some voters. That story and how it is playing out is what I wanted to explore today. OK, well, let's do it. Where does the story start for you, Asma? Really, Tristan, this story began playing out in the 2024 presidential campaign. Joe Biden was running for re-election. You know, you have to remember that that re-election campaign for Biden started, it was in the context of an active war in Gaza. And the way that Biden handled, or some would say mishandled, that war in Gaza was unpopular among some Democrats. As I started reporting this story, one person that I really wanted to hear from was Abbas Alawiyah. He's an Arab American in Michigan who had known that this was an issue frustrating not just him, but he had heard others in the community and felt like there has got to be another way beyond just casting a ballot for Joe Biden during those Democratic primaries. knew, a lot of folks knew, that if we didn't get our own party to change our approach to the Israeli military, then there would be consequences, and it could risk getting us Donald Trump. So the uncommitted movement was a movement of reliable Democratic voters who were saying, this box exists on our ballot here in Michigan that says uncommitted. And so we advocated for peace-loving Michigan voters who wanted to see a stop to endless wars, who wanted to see a stop to the genocide, to check uncommitted in the Democratic primary election. We ended up getting over 100,000 voters in Michigan to vote uncommitted as a pro-peace, anti-war vote. Okay, so this is during the primaries. So the hope is that they make a point during the primaries and that that point is absorbed and acted on by the Democrats in time for the general election. Is that right? Exactly. They were urging people to vote uncommitted in the primaries instead of just checking. That sort of pro forma box for Joe Biden. Unfortunately, what happened was the president and the party leadership decided, oh, these people won't matter in the election. We don't got to listen to them. What does he mean they didn't listen? Well, eventually we get to the Democratic convention in Chicago in August. And at this point, you probably remember Democrats are now nominating Kamala Harris instead of Joe Biden because a lot had happened over the summer. And at that convention, Abbas, along with some others, tried to make the case that there should be a Palestinian American speaker on stage to speak to this issue. And we had been making that ask for months and months and months. But no luck. Trying to be reasonable. We are reasonable. We feel like we're being very reasonable. Just let the Palestinian American speak. What I got to do was sleep outside at the convention, exposing the fact that our own party engaged in a deliberate act of silencing. And exclusion. Intended or not. There is no suppressing this conversation. We will not be silent. If you believe me, say we will not be silent. You know, Tristan, I remember that Democratic convention. I remember Abbas and others speaking outside the convention because they didn't feel welcome. Like they had a platform inside. And he felt really dejected. But, you know, he he also told me he's a Democrat through and through. And when the options were presented that it was Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, he felt like Harris was the better one. And he ended up endorsing Harris in that last presidential election. I knew we had to vote for Kamala. And so I said that publicly. And I was being yelled at routinely as a fellow Arab Americans. Sure. The day before the election, I remember every Arab and Muslim American that I know got a text message to their phone that had an AI-generated Kamala Harris with an AI-generated destroyed Gaza backdrop and my face in the face of a couple of others saying, these are the faces of genocide. Wait, your face was next to Kamala Harris's and the words, this is the face of genocide. Yeah. To a lot of Arab Americans in the state of Michigan, the idea of voting for Harris after Gaza was unthinkable. I spoke to a number of them. Take a listen to this one woman. Her name is Samra Luqman. Frustration is an understatement. We felt betrayed. We looked at Democrats like traitors. I was so mad because I was nothing but a Democrat all my life. And it wasn't just because they didn't say the word ceasefire or try to stop the genocide. It was specifically because they stood firm and said, we did nothing wrong. We're going to continue our policies. And so in the last presidential election, she actually cast her ballot for Donald Trump. Oh, really? I didn't just vote. I campaigned for him. I went all out and told people to vote for him. I was at the mosques. I was on TV. I was telling people to vote for him. Yes, absolutely. Did you think Trump would be better on that issue? No, I wasn't lying to myself. Even if there was a 1% chance that he would be better than Kamala Harris, I would take that 1% chance because Harris was telling us 100% I'm not changing course. I am doing what Biden is doing. And so that 1% was better odds than what I had with the Democrats. I was happy to see in his first couple months that he did call for a couple ceasefires. But yeah, I didn't think he was going to save us or he's going to bring peace to the Middle East. Certainly not. And so, yeah, there are people like Samra Luqman in the Arab American community in Michigan who backed and voted for Donald Trump. But others left their ballots blank or voted for a third party candidate. The Democratic Party doesn't always speak to me and I think doesn't always speak to our community. Zahra told me that in 2020, he voted for Joe Biden, even though he thought he was really bad on Israel policy, which was a priority for him. But that time I said, look, you know, if if you're a Muslim, you can't eat pork. But if you're stuck in the middle of the desert and there's no food and you're starving and the only thing there is a ham sandwich, you know, you're allowed to eat it to stay alive. And so Biden was the ham sandwich in 2020. Joe Biden has been called a lot of things. That's the first time I've heard him described as a ham sandwich. Indeed. But, you know, I will say in the words of Amr Zahra, for him, that ham sandwich was not good enough by the time you got to 2024 with the war in Gaza ravaging on and on. And so he told me that in 2024, he voted for Jill Stein for a third party candidate. Do you consider yourself a single issue voter? Yes, I am a single issue voter. We Arab Americans are definitely, have a top issue. And there's nothing wrong with that. And if a candidate doesn't respond to us on that issue, we can abandon that candidate. And in the two party system, I do believe that Arab American voters, by and large, our home is in the Democratic Party much more than it could ever be at this point in the Republican Party. But in order for us to find a place in the Democratic Party, we had to cause a revolution within the Democratic Party. And that's what we did in 2024. So after that revolution, and the victory of candidates who are good on Palestine, we have much more of a home there. But I believe that if Kamala Harris had won in 2024, we would find ourselves completely politically homeless. There's still a lot of work to do. But we can find ourselves a home in the Democratic Party. All right. So that's back in 2024. Here we are in 2026. And we have these absolutely crucial midterms. Which way did these voters expect to vote this year? They all told me that they intend to vote for al-Sayed for Senate this year. And, you know, as you heard from Amr Zahra a moment ago, he sees a very direct through line from that protest movement in 2024 to where the Democratic Party is today. I mean, this is a group of people who felt really politically homeless a couple of years ago. They feel like they stood up to the Democratic establishment. And without that protest movement, they don't think that there would have been a Zoran Mamdani in New York City or an Abdel al-Sayed in Michigan. They don't think that there would be this huge amount of pressure that we are seeing in some states about candidates taking on AIPAC money, the pro-Israel lobby. You know, they see the Michigan Senate race as a direct result of their efforts to try to widen the terms of the debate on foreign policy. And I want you to take a listen to Samra Luqman again, who does not identify as a Democrat anymore. I'm comfortable saying that I'm Republican. However, that does not mean I'm voting for the Republicans 100 percent of the time. I am most certainly going to be voting for Abdel al-Sayed. Well, tell me more about that. Where do you guys align? Because on some social issues, I can imagine you all might not see totally eye to eye. 100 percent. I don't agree with a lot of his policies. However, my red line has been Gaza. And I think that that 2023 and 2024 have really taught this community a lesson that we are no longer going to be wishy-washy about the issue. It's Gaza or bust. If you're not good on Gaza, on Israel, on Palestine, we don't need your office and we don't need to vote for you no matter what your party affiliation is. OK, so it sounds like for the midterms, the Arab-American community in Michigan is uniting in a bloc behind this one candidate, Abdel al-Sayed. But how significant is that voting bloc? Michigan's a swing state. Do the Arab-Americans in Michigan have the influence and the capacity to actually decide the election? Well, what I can say is the highest percentage of Arab-Americans of any state live in the state of Michigan. And there's a reason why Donald Trump went and actively campaigned to this community ahead of the 2024 election. And promising that he was going to solve the war in Gaza, that he was not going to enter into new wars, because he saw the potential of this group to sway the election. Investing with Schwab is like spending a Saturday at a great farmer's market. You can fill your reusable tote with a bit of everything. Maybe you go for some free-range, self-directed investing. Or perhaps you pick up a few farm-fresh trades while you Peru. You can even get help from a dedicated advisor. That's full-service wealth management. Mix, match and change your mind whenever you want. Because at Schwab, you can invest your way. No matter your goals or appetite for investing, Schwab has everything you need all in one place. Visit schwab.com to learn more. Sometimes we all need an extra helping hand. Especially with a tricky business problem you've been putting off. Claude is the AI for just that. It's the collaborator that understands your entire workflow and thinks with you, not for you. 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With the new Schwab Teen Investor account, teens can gain hands-on investing experience, and build positive money habits. It's an account co-owned by you and your teen, so you can monitor and engage with the account while your teen learns how to invest and manage money. Learn more at schwab.com. So yes, a number of Arab Americans do seem to be backing Abdul El-Sayed, and Arab Americans are a key voting bloc in the state. But Michigan's a diverse state. There are a number of important voting blocs, and as much as Abdul El-Sayed and his foreign policy, seem to energize a number of Arab American voters, he is also worrying other voters in the state, particularly people who see support for Israel as deeply and directly connected to Jewish safety at home here in the United States. So who have you talked to on that front, Asma? Well, I spoke to a number of people, but let me start by telling you about Jordan Acker. He is someone who has known Abdul El-Sayed personally for more than 20 years. I believe it was in the fall or the spring of 2004. We took Arab-Israeli conflict together. It's a huge class. Obviously, the University of Michigan is a big school, but we were in the same discussion group. So I've gotten to know him and see his intellectual growth and political growth. You know, what I've always found so interesting about this is that Abdul and I grew up 15 minutes apart, right? Him in Bloomfield Hills, me in the Berkeley area. And yet it's almost like a. A million miles away. He, in a lot of ways, didn't know the perspectives that I would share, that the Jewish community would share, and me the same, by the way, for the Arab-American community. These days, Jordan's been serving as a regent at that same university, the University of Michigan, where he and Abdul El-Sayed first met. And he told me that in that role, he's been the victim of anti-Semitism. I have faced a brunt of what I would consider some very anti-Semitic, anti-Semitic activities. Not anti-Zionist, there's a difference. And I bring this point up because there are several board members who I serve with who are Zionists, who are not Jewish, who have not faced nearly the level of vitriol and attack that I have. So in the fall of 2024, my office, which is in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood, was spray-painted in the middle of the night. About two months later, a jar full of a. liquid, for lack of a better term, was thrown through the front window of my home. My ex-wife's car was painted with an upside-down triangle and said something like, I think, divest or die was paint, spray-painted on her vehicle at that point. And it was a pretty terrifying incident. Obviously, my children were asleep upstairs. Prior to October 7th, I could never have foreseen a place where Jews were no longer welcome in the United States. Today. Today, I'm no longer in a place where I feel that the Jewish story in the United States is entirely secure. So where does that leave Jordan then politically, Asma? Well, at this point, he told me he's undecided if he will vote for Abdullah Al-Sayed. And that is despite being a lifelong Democrat and despite knowing the candidate personally. That's remarkable. I do not believe, as we sit here today, that Abdul respects the ability of Jews to. to self-determine their own communal structure. What do you mean by that? So I think that in Abdul's worldview, it seems to be that Jews are acceptable as individuals. Jews are not acceptable as a people. And to me, that is extremely troubling. The majority of Jews believe that we are a historic people with roots in the Middle East. And for those people who, again, are the vast majority of Jews, it seems like this movement has utterly rejected that. And that you can only be part of this movement if you reject that part of yourself. I'm a Democrat, but I have to first and foremost believe that the person that I'm voting for respects me and my politics and my existence. And I haven't heard anything yet that would change that mind for me. As these questions about Jewish safety have popped up during the Senate campaign, we have seen Al-Sayed deny the suggestion that he is dismissive of threats against Jews, to all of my sisters and brothers of the Jewish faith or any faith at all or no faith at all. I want you to know that my commitment to your safety, my commitment to Jewish safety is the same commitment that I have to the safety of my own daughters. Well, Jordan's testimony here is notable because he's known Al-Sayed for a long time. What is it specifically about Al-Sayed that's making some Jewish voters in Michigan say that they're concerned? Well, in reporting out this story, everyone we spoke to who is on the pro-Israel side of this issue cited two key incidents that they felt shook their confidence in how Al-Sayed might show up for the Jewish community in a moment of crisis. And I want to let Rabbi Aaron Starr speak to this himself directly. It really began over the last several months, especially since an attack, a terrorist attack on March at Temple Israel, which is a large-scale terrorist attack on Temple Israel. Which is a large synagogue in our community, where we started hearing and seeing Dr. Al-Sayed speak out of both sides of his mouth. So on one hand, right after the terrorist attack, he released what I think was a good letter condemning that act of terrorism. And then within a short period of time, I think it was a few days, he came out and really contextualized, almost justified that attack by claiming hurt people hurt people. Referring to the attacker's family in southern Lebanon, I believe. Is that right? That's right. Trying to justify it. Justifying an attack on preschool children in suburban Detroit. And that really was a punch in the gut. I have heard that he has since apologized specifically to the Jewish Democratic Caucus for those remarks. And what did you make of that apology? He apologized for the timing of his remarks, a little less so for the content of his remarks. Asma, you mentioned two points of concern. What was the second one? The other concern I consistently heard from some within the Jewish community is that Al-Sayed is a terrorist. He's a terrorist. He's a terrorist. He's a terrorist. That Al-Sayed had campaigned with Hassan Piker. He is this left-wing streamer who's been accused of trafficking and anti-Semitism. It is a charge which he denies. Here's Rabbi Starr again. He has said he wants to keep us safe. And at the same time, he platformed someone like Hassan Piker with all of the hateful rhetoric that Mr. Piker has engaged in. You know, Tristan, Rabbi Starr is actually the president of the Michigan Board of Rabbis. You mentioned that because Rabbi Starr, along with a number of other Jewish leaders, issued a letter that does not mention of the Al-Sayed by name, but it calls out Democratic candidates in the state to support a number of what they are describing as non-negotiable demands. The two primary non-negotiables are really Jewish safety and our right to identify as Zionists, which means to express our love and support for Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. The majority of our community has voted Democrat and is now feeling like the language and actions of members of the Democratic Party, not everybody, but of certain candidates within the Democratic Party are putting our safety at risk. All right. So where does that leave him for this election then? He's come out publicly and said he does not intend to vote for Abdul Al-Sayed. I asked him what he intends to do. He didn't elaborate on what he'll do, whether he'll vote for the Republican, leave it blank. But he made it clear he does not intend to vote for the Democratic candidate. I mean, what I find super interesting about this story, Asma, is that in 2024, the war in Gaza was dividing the Democratic Party in that it was making Arab American voters who would naturally be inclined to vote Democrat, but making them unable to feel as though they could do that. And it sounds like from what you're saying that in this election, it's having that on some Jewish American voters in Michigan. So they feel. that their natural political inclination might be to vote Democrat, but they cannot do so now. Is that right? Yes. I mean, if you talk to folks who do surveys on Jewish voters, historically, somewhere between like two thirds and 70 percent of Jewish voters tend to align with the Democratic Party. And that's been the case for decades. And if you take someone like Zach Nessel, another person I spoke with, he is heavily involved in Democratic Party politics. He is, in fact, the son of the attorney general of the state of Michigan. He is on the board of an organization known as the Michigan Jewish Democratic Caucus. And he told me he's not sure he's going to vote for the Democrat this election cycle. Neither candidate makes me want to fill in that bubble at the ballot box. I think nowadays voting for a Republican is voting for Trump. But to vote for Abdul, I'm not so sure that I want to do that either because I fear for the safety of the Jewish community. What do you think about your place in this party? Do you feel welcome in the Democratic Party? I feel like every day that goes by, I feel less welcome. We have people who don't think Zionists should have a place in our party, that they should be removed from the party. And as a proud Zionist, I don't want to be removed from the Democratic coalition over this one issue in the Middle East. I think that there's more to my politics than just Israel. Zach, it sounds like there are a number of issues that you think are important within the political system. You've also talked about the idea that Jewish safety for you is really paramount. Well, Jewish security, I feel like in my heart, that's most important to me because I feel threatened. That's not the issue I was envisioning myself advocating for when I wanted to do political work. I wanted a lower cost for people. I wanted to increase their quality of education. But this was the fight that I was given. And it's really unfortunate to see me having to spend my energy on it. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do it. energy on protecting my community as opposed to advancing the common good for everyone. It's remarkable, Asma, person after person that you've spoken to are being, it sounds like, torn up over this issue. And it's so unusual to see in a midterm election cycle. I think in part it's because, you know, some voters, and I even heard this during the 2024 campaign, saw the issue of Gaza as sometimes a question of authenticity. They felt like they could see images that were coming out of Gaza on social media and wondered why they seemed to be hearing a different narrative from some of their elected lawmakers. And so I do think that that's part of the equation here. You know, I also want to be really clear, Tristan, the Jewish community, like any community, is not a monolith. And so, yes, there are some who are going to be voting for the Republican candidate in this race, Mike Rogers. I spoke to a guy who identifies as a lifelong Democrat who told me that this race, he'll be voting for the Republican. At the same time, there are really prominent folks in the Jewish community who are openly backing al-Sayed. You can take a look at someone like Alyssa Slotkin. She's the other senator representing Michigan. She's a Democrat. She's Jewish. And she's been out there making the case for him. People want to see a Jewish woman and a Muslim man being able to get along, debate, push and pull on each other, and move the state forward. And look, there is also a contingent of Jewish voters, particularly some who are younger, who are not reluctantly backing al-Sayed, but rather enthusiastically backing him because of what he says about Israel. They endorse his views on Middle East policy. And we also talked to someone who has been a staunch backer of al-Sayed's because of his policies in that realm. My name is David Freund. I am Jewish. I voted for Abdul for Senate because I really do feel he represents my values in a very, very strong way. He's running on very much a national sort of campaign, which is the issue of where do our resources go? How are they spent? And who do they help and don't help? There are people without houses. There are people without food. There are people without medical care. And we're spending billions, trillions of dollars maintaining a regime that is doing nothing but committing genocide in Palestine. So I'm fully in line with his position. Safety for all minorities is part about defending all minorities. Jewish safety is not going to be preserved as a separate category called Jewish safety. It's part of the broad question of everybody's democratic rights. The question of whether or not there's a genocide is contested and there are, you know, there are legal investigations being pursued in international courts on that question. But from your reporting, Asma, do you get the sense that this is a blip that these could become hardened divisions within the Democratic Party that continue beyond 2026? You know, I was speaking with a political analyst here in Washington the other day, and she told me that regardless of what the outcome is here, whether Abdullah Syed wins or Mike Rogers wins, that there will be hundreds of hot takes about the future of the Democratic Party and people will try to interpret what this means, not just on foreign policy, but also on this question of someone like Abdullah Syed. Who is running unabashedly on the left flank of the party, whether someone like that, someone with these types of views can win in a purplish state. But, you know, to answer your fundamental question there, Tristan, I think one of the key points of evidence we will see about whether this is a permanent shift in the party is how we see candidates try to navigate this issue during the primaries of the 2028 election cycle, which, as we know, kick off very soon right after the midterms. I mean, it's a sort of permanent election campaign in the United States. And when the rest of us look on aghast as the United States political process unfolds in a kind of permanent maelstrom of campaign and TV ad spending. Proud to be an American. Well, Asma, thank you so much for sharing this. Great to have you back on the show. And on the US campaign trail for us. I know. Thank you. That was my co-host, our very own Asma Khalid. As always, please send us your thoughts and ideas on theglobalstoryatbbc.com. And please rate us wherever you're listening. It helps others to find us. If you want to catch up on the latest news from around the world, then look for the Global News Podcast and their daily headlines wherever you find them. And that's it from us at the Global Story for today. Today's episode was produced by Zandra Ellen and mixed by Travis Evans. Our digital producer was Charlie Firth. Our technical producers were Ricardo McCarthy and Mike Regard. Our executive producer was Martine Powers and our senior news editor is China Collins. And I'm Tristan Redman. We'll be back again tomorrow. Thanks so much for tuning in. We'll see you then. Cheerio. Thank you.