231. The Problem That Could Cost El-Sayed the Senate

No Senate race this mid-term season has been as explosive, bitter, or shocking as Michigan's. Why? Because Firebrand Progressive Abdul Al-Sahid has captured the nation. He's cool, confident, and clear in his message to voters. He's also not afraid of Trump, hitting back at the president's barrage of Islamophobic attacks. But there's one problem. His own ego. Can he shake the perception that he's just a little bit too cocky? Let's dive in. A few months ago, it seemed unthinkable. But can Al-Sahid really win in Michigan? This episode is brought to you by Etoro. A tariff, a spending plan, a regulatory change. It can all start just as the first line of a speech. But it sets in motion things that can reach far beyond Washington and unfold for years to come. That's right, Caddy. Mark has moved on expectations, not just events, investors are constantly weighing. What a decision could mean for companies, sectors, and the wider economy. So Etoro is an investing platform where you can access a wide range of markets and explore how political and economic developments could affect them. You could also learn from the global community of investors and see how people around the world are interpreting the same news. As with all investing, your capital is at risk. Theetoro.com/trippus for full terms. Welcome to the rest is politics, US, I'm Caddy K. And today, Anthony is in Hawaii. I think he is giving therapy to Katie Zacharia, and so is not actually with us because he has been dethroned as the shortest running press secretary at the White House. I am very fortunate to be joined by somebody who knows Michigan better than anybody I can think of. Former White House correspondent Ron Fornier and Ron, you are a longtime Michigander. And I've been living back there for the last 10 years, which is why I really wanted to get you on the show today. So welcome to the rest is politics. Thanks for having me out. This could be great. You could be in Hawaii, like Anthony, regretting that you, you know, had no longer the shortest running White House press secretary or you could be up in Michigan. You have a choice. I'd much rather be here than any place in the world than you. It's great to have you on the program. Thank you. I think it's worth looking at Michigan for lots of reasons. The race is tight. It's obviously a purple state. It is one that the Democrats really do have to hold if they want to have a good chance of winning the Senate in November in the midterm elections. They currently have two Democratic senators. They need to hold the Senate seat that is up for re-election. When I just was up there this weekend campaigning, I met Abdul El-Sayed. I went to a couple of his rallies. I went to some no Kings rallies and met a bunch of Michiganders, people who were trying to get the vote out on the Democratic side. And I came away, Ron, from my time up in Michigan this weekend, thinking that the race is actually tighter than I had thought it was. Anthony and I've been discussing this for a while. We were in Canada recently where they were all talking about tariffs and how they don't want to bat down on tariffs. And I think both of us have been assuming that the tariff situation and particularly the tariff war with Canada is going to hit Michigan so hard, is hitting Michigan so hard, that it was seemed unlikely that it would go to the Republicans. But I don't know. I came away from my trip thinking this is a closer race than I had thought it was and probably than most Democrats thought it was going to be. Is that a kind of fair characterization? Yeah. I think this entire race, all the congressional races are more likely than not to be tighter than we think, because we do have a trend with President Trump and his supporters overperforming in the polls. That trend could reverse itself this year if instead of a quiet Republican surge, we have what Charlie Cook, I think, very accurately calls a red undertow, if a lot of Republicans stay home. I've always been, you know, as you know, I used to call races at the AP and at the Associated Press, one of my places I worked at in Washington. In my view, it was always to assume every race is really close until you're counting to ballots. And I'd probably go to a way to look at the Michigan race. We should talk about, as I said, because he is the Senate nominee, but also because I think he has really made this race about him. So let's dive into what we both think of him as a candidate and then get to kind of what's at stake for the Democrats and the Republicans, perhaps afterwards. He's such an interesting candidate. I've covered American politics for way too long. I am far too old, and I've seen a lot of these candidates out on the stump. And you rarely see somebody who has the natural kind of communication skills in small groups that El Saeed has. I went to one event in Midland, Michigan and another event in Carrow, Michigan. And they were about, let's say, between 200 and 400 people at both events. That's a mega country, as you know, for your viewers. And actually, it's a swing area, isn't it? I think it's an area that voted Trump, Biden, Trump. So it is an area of the country that could go either way. It's my understanding. Am I right? But those are all mega voters, a lot of whom have swung back from Obama to Trump. So yeah, we're saying the same thing. And who probably feel kind of pissed off with gas prices and diesel prices and everything else that we're hearing about around the country. And he kind of bounces onto the stage and he's very good at telling jokes and he jokes about his name and says, you know, somebody like me was never meant to run for politics. I've got 11 letters in my name, Abdul Rahman, and sounds come out of your throat when you say my name that really shouldn't and he gets the crowd into a chart. I mean, he's good, right? You see your laughing. And that's the reaction he gets. He gets a good laugh and he also makes a compelling point about health care and the war in Iran. And he kind of links it all together, saying, we shouldn't be sending our bombs to other people's children while we don't have health care at home. And these audiences, which were almost entirely white, I actually don't think I saw a black person in either of the audiences that I went to. He had them eating out of the palm of his hand. They loved him. They loved his energy. He's got that charisma, what Anthony calls the risk. But there's something else about him that may be a problem for him. And it's not his progressive politics and it's something I heard about his personality from other people that I saw on the campaign trail. He's kind of arrogant and cocky. And I think it's a political weakness because it is preventing him from doing what he needs to reach out to voters who he hasn't persuaded. And I don't know if that's what you hear. You know me so much better than I do how that goes down, whether that might put people off. But tell me what you think of him. No, you've nailed it first. I saw, I've known, I'll say it for several years, but I saw him for the first time on a campaign trail this cycle in the spring. And now Kona County, one of the reddest, deepest mega, poorest counties in the state. And it was the same kind of thing, all white, young, old, middle-aged voters, 50 people packed into a library, 50 Democrats, and there's probably not 50 Democrats in the whole county, exaggerating a little bit. And he walked in and he gave basically the same stump speech he's still giving now, which is a sign of a good candidate. He knew what his message was then and he delivered it really well at the time. I'm old enough that my, the first candidate I covered was a governor in Arkansas named Bill Clinton. I remember him. What happened to him, Ron? I remember him. Yeah, he went on to great things and I language and journalism. I also had, has the same level of humiliation skills as Bill Clinton. He is incredible at framing complicated things in a simple way. His message is I'm going to put money in your pocket. I'm going to take money out of politics and we're going to give health care for all. Medicare for all. That's the chant at all of his events and he has them shouting it back to me. That's good. He can communicate it as well on Fox News as he can on MS now. He can communicate it as well when he has a protester brought in by the Rogers campaign to set him up as he can when he has a fawning left wing and arbor student coming at him. His problem is, and I've talked to him about this is the word I always use as smug. He comes across as a little smug, a little arrogant, a little too cool for school. Now we've seen this before. Bill Clinton didn't have that problem, but I remember another candidate who was young, a great communicator, a change agent who had overcome racism. It was something Obama had to watch out for that he didn't come across as being too arrogant. By the way, a white man can get away with a lot more before he's called arrogant than a black man can and a man can get away with a lot more than a woman can. So Barack Obama had a higher threshold, he couldn't look arrogant, he couldn't look angry. L. Sciad isn't as conscious of that social bias. That's pernicious and horrible, but it's there. And I know it's something he's tried to work on, but it's not something he's mastered. Is he conscious of it? Yes. And thinks the times have changed and I no longer have to change myself to fit in with those biases, because my sense is that there are a whole load of younger voters, and if he wins it will be because younger voters are so excited about his campaign, that actually there's a lot of younger voters all across America at the moment who are like, you know what, we're done playing nice. We actually want somebody who is kind of a pain in the ass and a fighter and can come across as a bit of objectionable. And I, a couple of Democrats in Michigan said to me, he doesn't care that he's unlikable. [BLANK_AUDIO] He doesn't try to be the nice guy who, you know, you want to bring back to your house. He's, he's, and be your friends. And that's the way he is, and he's not really making that much effort to change himself. He's conscious of it. I think he's tried to moderate it a bit, but he doesn't sweat it. Because he does see that the greatest analogy that Michigan has for the rest of American politics isn't so much right versus left and, and immigration and, um, Jewish vote versus the air vote and all the things that are, are important in this election. The biggest thing is change versus status quo that I'll do all side is riding the wave of populism that Obama did in 2008 and Trump did in 2016. He's riding it differently than Obama did and certainly different than Obama did, but it's certainly in the state. It's the same ethic. People are sick and tired of the political system. They hate both parties. They see both parties as two sides of the same ugly corrupt coin. They want change. They want somebody to fight for them. And they're so desperate, Kathy. They're so desperate for change that they voted in Michigan, including a McComb County Michigan. A, as you know, a place they went twice for Trump. Just outside of Detroit. They're so desperate that they voted for an African American whose middle name is, uh, it's us saying who'd been in Congress, been in the Senate for three minutes. And they were so desperate for change. They voted for a guy who's obviously to anybody who's, who's, uh, um, objective is unfit for the presidency and was nothing more than a reality star and a failed businessman voted for him twice. That's how desperate, not just young voters. That's how desperate all voters are for change. And it just like with Obama, there was measurably the associated press to this. There was measurably a seven point deficit that he inherited because of the color of his skin. There was at least seven points baked in against him because of latent racism. And when we put that poll out, everybody said, oh, you're saying he can't win. You're buying the narrative. Well, no, we didn't say he couldn't win. We were saying, like and golf, he had a seven point handicap. He overcame it because of his communication skills and because of the public's craving for change. That's a size challenge. Can his deficits over which include our mainly racism, but also, you know, as deficits as a communicator? Can you overcome it because of his skills as a communicator and the public's desperate craving for change? I think the answer is yes. I think you're right. That Abdul clearly has is up against a certain amount of Islamophobia a lot, a lot. I didn't hear people say it, but I heard specific reports of it just this weekend from forums where people stood up and questioned his religion. I hear it every day, I hear it every day in my neighborhood and my diners and it's a lot of racism. It's deep. Yes. And he knows he has to overcome that. And to that point about how he has changed as a candidate, he ran in 2018 and I got a little bit of time with him, I mean, after these events, it was one of those, I'm now too old to enjoy those media scrums, but it was one of those horrible media scrums with a whole group of journalists and the campaign handlers are saying, you've got three minutes, you've got three minutes, all of you. So you get like quarter of a question each. So I did want to ask him since he ran for governor in 2018 and he lost and he makes a joke about that on the campaign trail saying, I decide I was going to go big or go home and well, Michigan sent me home and he kind of is self-deprecating about it. But I wanted to ask him what he had, how he had changed as a candidate since 2018. Well he had learned about his style since 2018, we can play the clip of it. I don't have the video, it was just me out by myself with my phone so all I have is a voice memory of it, but you can hear the clip of it. You didn't win when you ran for governor. Have you changed or how have you changed since you ran for governor, how have you changed as a candidate? Yeah, I think the bigger question is how has the world changed? Yeah, but how have you changed? I'll talk about that. I just think, you know, it's important to realize that, you know, I said Donald Trump was the symptom of the disease and now we've lived through another eight years of this. I think people are realizing that we really do need to address the disease. Me, I grew up eight years, I had two kids, learned a lot and when it came to just patients and discipline their kids, I'll do that too. I also just, you know, as you spend more time in public service, you deepen in your understanding of things and you know, I think when I ran the first time, I was really, I wanted people to agree with me on the criticism and this time I'm a lot more interested in coming together on the solution. And what was interesting about that is that he does talk about learning patients, but he, he kind of clearly is kind of saying, well, look, I'm more focused on solutions than I am on building coalitions, on trying to persuade people. And after the break, Ron, we're going to talk about the viral moment that came out of this event. The great game, strategic struggle between Britain and Russia. We assess, Prime Minister, with high confidence it was Russian. They took down a British passenger jet, containing 350 people. You're the Prime Minister. We would need to understand the policy context. All the relevant context will be structured as a framework today and disseminated into an operation order, or frago, a frago that says to kill the president of Russia. Yes. New from Gaulhanger. Who is going to be able to pull this off? An audio drama journey like no other. Men like Duffy, they are our most valuable weapons. Devised as a technically rigorous geopolitical action forever. We're Britain, plays its strongest arm against its strongest foe. Bear hunt. I'm available now wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back from the break. I'm here with Ron for you. Ron, let's talk about that moment that went viral over the last day at a Senate event up in Carro, where there was this kind of viral moment where this young guy stood up in the audience, Tommy. It was very clear right from the beginning that he was there with a gotcha question, probably some kind of a Republican, MAGA operative. It turns out that his name is Thomas T. Pell. He's a former operations director for Senator Josh Hawley and he has some ties to the Christian nationalist movement. And he asked this question of Abdul saying, would you disavow the Muslim brotherhood, Abdul? He said he would, yeah, and then he went on for about three minutes dismantling this guy's argument. Have you read the constitution, why are you asking that question? It's a decline that the question was disingenuous. You wouldn't be asking if I wasn't Muslim, are you assuming that I have dual loiterities? We can play that clip too. You assume, Tommy, that because I am Muslim, that somehow I would have some allegiance to something that is not our constitution. That's your assumption, that's implicit in the question. And what's interesting to me is that this is not the first time people have asked those kinds of questions, because you know what John Kennedy is, do you know what he was asked as the first possible Catholic president of the United States, what did they ask him? You don't remember? He should read history. Tommy, when he ran for president, he was asked whether or not he was going to have allegiance to the Pope at the Vatican, because of course he's Catholic. And his answer famously was that he was not running to be a Catholic president, he was running to be president and it happened to be Catholic. And I just wondered what you thought of his reaction to that. The room was cheering Abdul, Tommy walked out afterwards, but I didn't get the impression that this was a candidate who was trying to convert somebody. First of all, he is converting voters and we can get back to that, but you're right. This was a great example of his strengths and his weaknesses as a communicator. First the obvious strengths. You saw it in the room. You heard the people who are already converted cheering for him because he really did, intellectually, like Barack Obama. He was really good at picking a guy's argument, basically saying you would not ask this of anyone else who wasn't Muslim. The only reason you're asking is because you assume any Muslim is a member of the brotherhood you're a racist. He did it very effectively and if you watch it, he let this Tommy character walk into his own trap. What he didn't do is make it very clear because there's a part of him doesn't think he should have to make it clear. that he obviously disavowls to Muslim Brotherhood. He thought it was good enough to say yes, and then move right to his attack. Somebody like Bill Clinton, who again is unburdened of the kind of racism that I can't even imagine, I'll say it has that a go-through and go through and therefore it might even affect the way he communicates. But someone like Bill Clinton would have first paused on the first part and would have very slowly and very defiantly said, I am not a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, I do denounce them. He would have made sure that was a sound bite. But Abdul both wants to rush to the fight and he's such a smart guy that he's one of these guys who talks too fast, that is I'm accused of, although not being smart. And he's rushing to the next point and he rushed past what should have been a little bit more firm and clear denouncement. Now anybody who watched even a clip of that and come away with saying that he did not denounce Muslim Brotherhood, to me is hearing what they want to hear because you didn't have to listen very closely to get it. But he's still, if I was advising him, I would say, hey brother, just slow down a little bit on that and make it more clear and then go in for the kill. But don't assume he's not converting people, Katie. I can tell you, he is. - That's interesting. I was, when I was in the room, I almost wondered not that I am a political strategist and he just occasionally gets me to roleplay one on television whether he wouldn't have been better just to say, yes, I do. And then move on to the next question about gas prices and tariffs and the Iran war. - I would disagree that. In the old days, yes. But look, it's not just about calling your opponent a racist. It's also about showing that you're willing to fight for something and goes back to what this election is really all about. It's populism, right? Whether you're on the right or the left, you've got to show that you're willing to fight for people. And here he's saying, I'm fighting for anybody, black, white, or brown in the state who's had a put up with his nonsense. So no, I think it was important to do what he did. I would just advise him, hey, can you just tweak the front end of that? But he's still, I think he's, one of the generations great communicators. - Well, I think, yeah, I'm also spoken to a couple of Democrats, I've been Michigan yesterday after that event and they had exactly your reaction that he did it right and he made the point of tying it to the American constitution. And this was about not just defending the rights and minorities, it was just about defending the US constitution writ large. And I thought, you know, that was effective. On, let's talk Ron about one of the things that I kept hearing while I was up there and that was about his, the different constituents that he kind of has to run over. 'Cause we know, because the area I went to was very white where you are now very white, more conservative. Then you've got all of Detroit, more African-American. It has a big, the biggest Arab-American population in the country, I think 4% of the voters are Arab-American, but 14% of voters in Michigan are black Americans. What do you think he could be doing better to make sure that he's not alienating? And of course, there is a sizeable Jewish-American population of Jewish voters too that have questioned some of the questions about him. How is he doing in getting those different constituents together, what more could he be doing? Is he doing well, where is he not doing well? - I think he's doing really well in two areas and not as well in another. I think he's doing well with the black vote. Now, the proof of being the pudding, if it pays off, but there is a sizeable divide between the black community and the Arab-American community in the state, just like there's a sizeable divide between blacks and Hispanics and blacks and the homosexual community. The black vote is not as progressive as people assume. It's very traditional. And like every community in this country, there is some racism in the black community. - Do you wanna talk about the car crash? 'Cause I kept hearing about this car crash. The famous car crash in September, and it was a car accident in Detroit between a young Arab-American woman and an older black-American woman, and they had this car accident and within seconds there was a crowd of, or a group of Arab-American men shouting racial slurs at the black women. And this car crash seems to have sort of been, is people keep telling me this story is symptomatic of the tensions between the Arab-American community and the black community. And the question I was asked was, why isn't El Sayed addressing that? Why is Abdull not come out and said something about this? - I don't know that that issue is, that incident itself is big enough for him to comment on. If I was advising him, I wouldn't get involved in that. But what I would do is what he's doing. He's spending a lot of time in Detroit and reminding people that he worked in Detroit. And he was Detroit's fairly successful, a health director working for Mike Duggan, a very successful and very beloved former mayor of Detroit. If you look at his social media, every time he's in Detroit, which is a lot, he's surrounded by African-Americans. He's talking to them. He's not talking down to them. He's talking with them. He's going to their neighborhoods. He's going to their places. He's going to places of worship. He's meeting men in barber shops. You know, he's doing all the things that a traditional candidate would do. But to me, he looks very comfortable. You can tell this is a man who's not uncomfortable in any room and is not new to Detroit. He needs to keep showing up. He needs to show that respect. I think he's going to be do well among the African-American community because they're going to have a choice between him or Donald Trump's guy. And they're also angry at Donald Trump right now. I think he's doing a really good job with a large chunk of voters who most political reporters overlook. And that is the swing voters. That's the people who voted for Obama and then supported Trump twice. There are millions of voters in the state who voted for Obama and voted for Trump. These are your desperately seeking change voters. And the polls show that these voters are either staying home. They're not going to vote for Trump again or they're going to vote for outside. I know a lot of them. I've spent half my year up here in Megacountry. And I know a lot of my neighbors up here who used to like to call me the Democrat. I was the Democrat in this little town. And would love to tell me how great other president was who now when I bring up politics don't want to talk about it. They're not going to run down Trump to me. That would be admitting that they were wrong. But they don't want to talk about it. But they are pissed with what's going on with their gas prices in the war. And I got one neighbor specifically who could not have been more MAGA, 89-year-old former Detroiter, mechanic, blue collar, was a Democrat in the '60s. You're typical, you know, a Reagan Democrat who voted twice for Trump and kept a poster of Trump in his garage. Like I said, he's retired mechanic. He also happens to be a man who can't read very well. So every cycle he has me fill out his ballot, the mail-in ballot, as you can do in this state. I have to sign the outside of the envelope and declare that I'm helping him with it. And of course, he's always voted MAGA. This year he said to me, vote my ballot the way you would yours. And I said, well, Dave, do you really want me to vote free ticket price? Not how elections work. Right, so let's sit down and talk about it. And I said, okay, how about governor? And he said, I don't want to vote for, and he used a terrible epithet for the African-American who's a Republican running for governor. In other words, he wanted to vote for the Democrat Jocelyn Benson. So I marked in that. But he's voting against somebody, not for somebody. Then we get to the Senate race. I don't want to vote for the guy with the yacht. What are you talking about, Dave? You talking about, you know, the Republican with the yacht. You talking about Mike Rogers? Yeah, I don't want to vote for him. Well, Dave, you know, that means you'd be voting for, and I said, I'll name, you know, I'll do well for the yacht. That seems like a young man who's gonna change things. I'm gonna vote for him. - Interesting. That's a very interesting thing. - Yes, there's racism. And yes, there's ignorant people out there who don't follow politics well enough. But the voters know what they want, and they know what they're not getting out of politics. In this cycle, if Democrats win in a big way, it's not gonna be because the Democrats have finally found Jesus in our good party. It's gonna be because they're not Donald Trump's party. And if they don't get their act together, these same voters, the same anti-change populism, is gonna cut against Democrats in 2028? - Yeah, I so agree with you. I mean, it was, I had met a lovely young guy in his kind of mid-twenties at one of the rallies that I went to a guy called Joey, who told me a very sweet story. He said, "My family is mostly voted for Trump, and I've had splits from members of my family." He said, "There's my cousin who I shared a crib with literally when I was a child, and we agree about everything. We agree about the war in Iran. Nobody, he doesn't want another war." We agree that gas prices are too high. There's so much that we agree about, but he is a die-hard Trump voter. But then Joey said to me, "But my mother was a Trump voter, and she died recently." And he said, "One of the last conversations he had with his mother was her saying, 'I think I was deceived.'" And that feeling of being betrayed, particularly I think by the war in Iran, and then the kind of cascading effect of that war. And the corruption, I think, is getting-- And the corruption. option is, this idea of the yacht that Mike Rogers has a yacht, it's the idea of the haves and the haves not, I've forgotten when you drive around Michigan, it's not just that you see the gas prices when you drive past the gas station on the kind of eye level. They have these tall billboards in lights and you can't help but see them, you're driving down the highway and you're seeing both the gas price and the diesel price, which is $2 higher and you can't avoid it. It's a reminder every 10 miles of how high the prices were and Joey said to me, I have to choose between going out with my friends at the weekend to have a drink in the bar or being able to buy groceries and I work a 40-hour week and it shouldn't be that hard and now he said he was excited because it was outside and he was that the only candidate that he could get excited about. But when I asked him how many of your friends are going to vote, he said only about half and that's another area. He has to get El Sayed to win, has to get young voters excited enough to actually turn out and vote. We know that young voters are historically a little. Yeah, but I think the burden is more on Rogers than El Sayed. El Sayed is going to get a young, these folks are going to vote. I'm just convinced that the young vote, the populist vote, the left wing vote, they're very motivated. Not just a mission given everywhere. The burden is really on Republicans and Rogers. Rogers is a problem. How does he get Trump's voters to vote? If my gut is right, millions of them are going to stay home and enough of them are going to stay home that will overcome the issues that El Sayed has. I'm seeing two things in Northern Michigan. I've never seen before, Caddy. One is yard signs for Democrats. El Sayed, yard signs are all over the place up here. Now, I know yard signs don't mean votes. I don't know. I think yard signs are actually a pretty good sense. I remember in 2016, seeing yard signs for Trump and thinking, are we wrong? Are the polls wrong? Actually, is he going to win? And we should have just watched the yard sign not paid a lot of money on pollsters. And the other thing I'm seeing, this is really blowing away, is billboards. You can't drive a Northern Michigan road of any side without seeing a billboard from El Sayed. We're all he's talking about in very brief language because of the billboard is the price of shit. And what he's doing there is not trying to convert people up here as much as he's trying to remind them of why they are so tired of politics that they're not going to vote. So El Sayed has his issues, but I much rather have his issues than Mike Rogers. I'd much rather be an Arab American who sometimes can come off as a little bit arrogant than be Donald Trump's candidate. It's really tough sailing for Rogers here. But let's talk about Mike Rogers a bit, the Republican who he's up against. Mike Rogers, Congressman, somebody that lots of people, Mike Rogers was probably around Ron when you were covering politics down here in Washington for the Associated Press, right? He's somebody all of us have known for a long time. He was a very establishment, very steeped in foreign policy. I was talking to a colleague of mine today who said, you know, he considered himself who's a foreign policy guy, said he considered himself a friend of Mike Rogers. Mike Rogers was a candidate when he was a Congressman who stood up against Donald Trump in 2016. He was kind of anti-Trump. And now has recently become much more pro-Trump, has seen which way kind of the wind is blowing in the Republican Party and has carved out to Donald Trump. He's come out with an ad criticizing the Canadian tariffs. So he's distanced himself a little bit and the tariffs, I think there's some estimate that Michiganders are paying $6,000 per household since the beginning of January solely because of the tariffs. So he was probably smart to do that. He's come out with another ad that I thought was probably quite effective for him too, which just features three African American voters saying why they're voting for Mike Rogers. What's his appeal still in the state? First, you're right. He is an establishment candidate who is really well respected. Not a bad candidate. He almost beat Elise Lackin, who's our other Senator here in Michigan and who, herself, is a generational communicator. She's an incredible candidate. And he almost beat her. So Mike Rogers is no pushover. Mike Rogers problem is one. He is the establishment. We've been through this. People hate the establishment. And two, he did read the winds of the Republican primary and he became a Trumpee. The problem is those winds are not blowing them against them. Donald Trump is now one of the most unpopular presidents we've had this century. And he's lost the support of every Democrat and every independent according to polls. And it's now cutting into even his base. That's Rogers's biggest challenge. So he doesn't have the power of the presidency as an advantage. He doesn't have the policies as an advantage because he was for the war. He was for tariffs before he was against them. He's a globalist on the foreign policy stage. So he can't really distance himself from the war. Always got going for him is Abdul Sayed's name and religion. Race card, which has been effective effectively played in the state. Not always. Obama overcame it. But this is a very lately racist state. That's all Rogers has got going for him. And that's really what he's playing. He knows he's not going to win this on the tariff ad. And frankly, I don't think a republicans ad in Detroit is going to affect how black voters vote. That's Abdul's got to get those folks out. Mike Duggins got to get him out. Barack Obama's got to get African Americans out. All Rogers, his only message is he's the other. He's a terrorist. He doesn't believe in the same God you do. And that can be effective. The question again is the public's desire for change? Does that trump the racist campaign that Mike Rogers has to run? And he has a lot of money. I mean, there is, as El Sayed points out on the campaign trail, there is a ton of money. I think $90 million is coming in from outside money just at this stage of the race. And most of it is going to paint. Abdul El Sayed is too extreme and like you say, other raising questions about his family's associations with the Muslim brotherhood, like that young guy who stood up. So the money, and I don't know, maybe the money will make a difference. It doesn't seem to be moving races around the country very much. The amount of onslaught of money that is coming in. But there is a lot more money coming in from the outside. Okay, we're waking up the day after the midterms, having been up most of the night. I'm sure you and me, Ron. If El Sayed, I'm going to pose it to theories to you. If Abdul El Sayed is the next senator from Michigan, and he would be the first Muslim senator in the history of the United States, we should have probably pointed that out at the beginning of the show, if he is the next senator from Michigan, what will it say to you about the Democratic Party and the direction of the Democratic Party? Nothing. It will say to me. That is the smart political answer. The temptation is to say, oh, it will mean the Democratic Party is moving to the left, but I agree with you. The Democratic Party is going to make the mistake in thinking it's about them, and they're going to set themselves for it up for a trap in 20, 20, 30 and 32. What it would say to me is, again, I'm repeating myself, the public is so desperate for change, they hate the party system so badly, that they'll do some things that seem to be irrational to people like you and I who are rooted in another century and think like establishment thinkers. They'll do something crazy like vote for a junior senator to be president in 2008 and vote for a reality star to be president in 2016 and vote for an Arab American to be a senator out of Michigan. The way to read the selection if he wins is that the country is craving massive disruption, but they want positive disruption. They don't want what has happened to often is they're promised change and they get more of the same. But if somebody can build a coalition that comes into Washington and cleans it out and acts systemic reform that changes the rules of politics so that the public has put a head of profit and corporations and power, big things could happen and we'll reverse the spiral that we've been in since the beginning of the century. But if what Democrats get out of this is voters want leftists and socialists and more Arab American candidates or more people name Abdul or, you know, more good-looking guys who are wear black t-shirts. Superbuff. They're learning the wrong lessons. If he wins, it's going to be because he's an agent of change and if he goes to Washington and changes things, he'll keep winning elections. If he goes to Washington and he's part of the establishment and he all of a sudden he's a multimillionaire, he'll just be part of the toxic culture that the publicates. I think it will mean that if he wins, it's because Democrats absolutely should have won Michigan this cycle. If they don't win Michigan this cycle, they have some serious questions to answer. So let me give you that second question. If we wake up on election the day after the election, an Abdul al-Sahed has not won, what will it tell you about his candidacy? It will tell me that the Democratic Party is so fabulous and weak that it can't beat Trump's candidate in Michigan. It won't tell me that boy, I wish Hayley Stevens had won, she would have won. I think Al Dool-Sahed has a better chance of winning this race than she would have, because I have nothing against her. I think she was a good congresswoman. She's a decent person, but she's just part of the establishment. She's not very well known in the state she's just another cog in a wheel that the public doesn't like. If he doesn't win in the state, it's just, it's another example of the Democrats not being able to be good enough to beat a horrible party. I mean, that was my takeaway from 2016. How can a party possibly lose twice to Donald Trump? That says more about the Democratic Party than it does about Trump or Trump's voters. Yeah, or in that argument, more than it does about the candidates themselves. And it's interesting because I did think that if you, and I have heard this from other people in Michigan, if he doesn't win, it will be a combination of things of his inability to get out black voters, his character, perhaps, and his arrogance, the things that we spoke about at the top of the program, and the Islamophobia that exists throughout the United States. And it could be a combination of those. But what you're saying is actually, no, it's not about him and any weaknesses he may have as a candidate. And in fact, his populism is, is a strength. It's about the machinery of the Democratic Party that they can't get out of the agenda. They're wobbling him because that's an easy thing to do. That's true. But an African-American named Barack Hussein Obama won the state twice. He had overcome racism too. He had overcome a basic smugness and arrogance that he had, because both of them are smart men and smart men tend to come across that way. There's nothing that he has to overcome that can't be overcome that hasn't been overcome. It would help him if he was part of a party that had a decent brand in this country. But he's not. He has to overcome a really crummy brand of his party. He's got to win this on his own. The Democratic Party has no money. It has no soul. It has no standing with the American public. So yeah, the Democratic Party is going to blame him if they lose. But the problem isn't anyone candidate. It's the party. It is so bad that it's lost twice to Donald Trump and still wants to blame everything else. No. Both these parties deserve to get spanked every two years and that's why the voters do it. It's so good. Can I say that as a liberal? I'm just upset with my party. No, you're right. The Democratic brand is in the toilet and they have to do something about that. Can I ask you a question? Go on. Yeah. I'm just so curious. So when you file politics for such a long time and see it from a way that most of us don't because you're a global political expert, I'd just be fascinated and know who you saw and when you came to Michigan the other day. And what surprised you? What was the take away that you had that you would not have gotten if you had stayed in Washington, my suite? It's a great question. I mean, partly we're seeing Abdel Assad on the stump and seeing how good he is and what a good communicator he is. And it was also interesting to see an Arab American with, as he says, an 11-letter first name turning out an exclusively white audience. That was interesting. And yes, that reflects the area of the state. But I'll tell you one other thing that did surprise me a little bit where I was. And that's this, is this bell weather area of the state? Was how few signs there were up? I was wanting to take photos of yard signs and I had to kind of make detours into neighborhoods to go and find them. And I've been hearing a lot about the amount of enthusiasm and very high turnout and we could have very high turnout. But one of the takeaways that I got was that there, I'm not seeing as many signs as you would do in a presidential year, which is what you would expect. I'm seeing the kind of number of signs that you would see that I've seen around the country in previous midterms. So that also makes me wonder how many people are going to stay home in this cycle for whatever reason. In who that helps. And I also saw that Michigan is a very beautiful state. In the fall and the leaves were turning. And I drove past the pumpkin patch. I mean, what's not to like? It's, however many times I do this run, getting out on the road in election season is still the best bit of my job. It was always my pleasure too. Can I ask you a follow-up that's related? Go on. I spent a lot of time in Iowa, New Hampshire, we loved or you still love the early primary states, getting all those states and through them politics and the future leaders. What do you think about Michigan now being an early primary state? Is that a good idea or a bad idea? I think it's a great idea. I mean, it has to be a better idea than Iowa, which has about, you know, five non-white people in the whole state, right? I mean, it never made any sense to have the Iowa caucuses come first. They don't represent America. Michigan does represent at least a big section of that Midwestern area of America and the kind of what was known as the Rust Belt, has a more diverse population, is more representative of a cross section of American voters. So I think it's good. I think you want more representation, not less, from people who have not always been represented. Ron, thank you so much for joining me. And we are very lucky. Ron is also joining us for our members club for our question and answer. We're going to be talking about JD Vance, who gave a town hall and was up in Michigan as well. We'll talk about his town hall and what he had to say about another issue that I heard a lot about. And that was data centers and AI. So join us for that if you'd like to become a member to join us. You can sign up at the rest of his politics, us.com. Ron for now. Thank you so much. There's been so lovely to catch up with you again. It's been great catching up with you. You get it. You take care of yourself. And thank you all for listening. Hello, the rest is football. This is Richard Osman at Marina Hyde from the rest is entertainment. Now, I know you all had your World Cup this summer in America, but for Teddy fans, the new Celebrity Traders series is our World Cup. Yes, every Thursday and Friday, we are reacting to the pop culture phenomenon that is the Celebrity Traders. On YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts, Richard and I will be sharing our opinion on every banishment, murder and insane fan theory. Who do you think out of the three RSS football hosts would last the longest in the Traders' course? Oh, I think it would be Michael. Of course it would be. Yeah. Why are we even asking the question? Who would they vote out Gary immediately? Yeah. Michael would just stay in like all the way to the end, just laughing his head. Laughing is. Yeah. And then right at the last minute goes, I was a traitor. Yeah. So if you're watching the Celebrity Traders, don't forget to tune into our reaction episodes every Thursday and Friday night at 10 p.m. Find us on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.