Speaker 1: Live from the heart of the nation's capital is a
Speaker 1: Jim Acosta Show special report.
Speaker 2: All right, welcome to the Jim Acosta Show.
Speaker 3: We're less than three months, less than ninety days until
Speaker 3: the midterms coming up in November. This this is the
Speaker 3: nitty gritty and I've got a perfect guest to talk
Speaker 3: about it today, Steve Schmidt, our friend from Save America.
Speaker 3: And Steve, you've been in this position before. You've seen
Speaker 3: this movie before, the kind of the home stretch. We're
Speaker 3: not quite to Labor Day, which used to be the
Speaker 3: you know, the traditional kickoff of the campaign, and here
Speaker 3: we are. I think that one of the things we
Speaker 3: should dive into is Trump just did this interview with
Speaker 3: punch Bowl News during which he seemed to ignore the
Speaker 3: fact that he is deeply unpopular in this country. And
Speaker 3: I don't know if we showed this on screen, but
Speaker 3: he said it's congressional Republicans that have the problem right now.
Speaker 3: He says, Trump told us Trump's at GOP voters are
Speaker 3: very angry with congressional Republicans and he declined to back
Speaker 3: John Thune for Senate Majority Leader.
Speaker 2: Your thoughts on all this, Steve, like.
Speaker 4: Much of what Trump says there's an element of truth
Speaker 4: to what he said and a lot of delusion around
Speaker 4: what he said. And this is key if you're sitting
Speaker 4: around a strategy table around the DNC to understand a
Speaker 4: couple of core things about your opponent is number one,
Speaker 4: seventy percent of the country is against Trump. MAGA has
Speaker 4: fallen apart. The political coalition that elected him two years
Speaker 4: ago minus ninety days is gone.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: If you took a glass and threw it against a
Speaker 4: brick wall and shattered it, that's what he did to
Speaker 4: his political coalition, Hispanic voters, Black voters, young men, all
Speaker 4: god ka boom. Now, part of Donald Trump's disease, what's
Speaker 4: wrong with him is that he doesn't understand the word no,
Speaker 4: and he has not heard it from anyone around him ever.
Speaker 4: And so nobody has told Donald Trump that the key
Speaker 4: to surviving the election is less Donald. What they have
Speaker 4: all told him is what the American people want is
Speaker 4: more Donald.
Speaker 5: The more you talk, the more rallies you do, the
Speaker 5: better off you'll be.
Speaker 4: And the reality of that is all it does is
Speaker 4: increase the rate of spin of the proverbial Republican plane
Speaker 4: upon which they are all on, which is auguring into
Speaker 4: the ground at warp Drive.
Speaker 5: Now, put that aside for just a second.
Speaker 4: When when Donald Trump goes out there and he says
Speaker 4: all of the things that he's saying, which is that
Speaker 4: Republicans voters are mad at the Republican leaders, Well, there
Speaker 4: is truth to that, because there is a dynamic of
Speaker 4: imploding political coalitions, of physics to it that is very
Speaker 4: similar to the collapse of a white star. The giant dwarf.
Speaker 4: Is that star collapses right on its way to becoming
Speaker 4: a black hole.
Speaker 5: It gets smaller. But does it get smaller, It.
Speaker 4: Gets denser, Yeah, denser, it gets hotter, it gets heavier.
Speaker 4: So as the party is getting smaller, what's left around
Speaker 4: him are the true fanatics, and every one of them
Speaker 4: his dead enders in that shrinking party, at that white heart,
Speaker 4: hot core, crazy base. Whose fault is it? It's John Thune's fault. Yeah,
Speaker 4: And so that's what he hears in a world where
Speaker 4: the last sycophant who talked to him is the one
Speaker 4: that matters most. And then he'll hear what he hears
Speaker 4: from Fox News, and that is the insanity of his cocoon.
Speaker 3: No, it's it's totally true. I mean, this is a
Speaker 3: Republican Senate this week that was persecuting doctor Fauci while
Speaker 3: advancing Todd Blanche. I mean that that sort of sums
Speaker 3: things up in a nutshell. It seems to me.
Speaker 4: I Todd Blanche is the most corrupt lawyer in American history,
Speaker 4: for none competitors or I suppose Pambondi who's ever held
Speaker 4: a high American government position. And it bears mentioning right
Speaker 4: that all of the top Nazis who planned the Wansea conference,
Speaker 4: who were there at the planning of the Holocaust.
Speaker 5: They were all lawyers.
Speaker 4: And there are a lot of incredible lawyers in America,
Speaker 4: but there are a lot.
Speaker 5: Of unethical lawyers. And the idea.
Speaker 4: Right for lay people like us who are not lawyers,
Speaker 4: who have respect for the bar in the rule of law,
Speaker 4: we have had. I think our delusions broke it. Yeah,
Speaker 4: there's such a thing as legal ethics, and so when
Speaker 4: you look at the repair job that has to be done,
Speaker 4: I don't think there is such a thing as legal ethics.
Speaker 4: I don't think the bar associations enforced legal ethics, and
Speaker 4: I think it's tough to maintain our democracy, our and
Speaker 4: our rule of law. The concept that no one's above
Speaker 4: it or below it unless we have legal ethics. There's
Speaker 4: an enormous societal novel.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think that's a great observation, Steve. I mean, if
Speaker 3: there's one institution, I mean the media, it's they're sort
Speaker 3: of neck and neck the legal profession and the top
Speaker 3: law firms in this country and the corporate media in
Speaker 3: this country in terms of outright cowardice. And you know,
Speaker 3: you do have a couple of Republican senators and Susan Collinson,
Speaker 3: and I guess Lisa Murkowski has come out and said
Speaker 3: she's not going to support Todd Blanche and she said
Speaker 3: something very interesting in her tweet that she put out
Speaker 3: very early Friday morning this morning, in what she said
Speaker 3: that you know, the slush fund could obviously come back
Speaker 3: if he's confirmed. The reason why the slush fund is
Speaker 3: dead right now is, and she says this in her tweet,
Speaker 3: is because the Senate has leverage. And she's absolutely right,
Speaker 3: and that speaks to what you're saying, Steve, that that's
Speaker 3: how thoroughly corrupt this administration and this Justice Department is
Speaker 3: right now and Todd Blanche is right now because you
Speaker 3: have to assume that they are going to do the
Speaker 3: opposite of what they have pledged not to do.
Speaker 4: A few months ago, was hanging out one night and
Speaker 4: looking for something to watch, and I said to my wife,
Speaker 4: I've never watched Judgment at Nuremberg, and so we watched
Speaker 4: it and it was incredible. The final scene of the
Speaker 4: movie is Spencer Tracy is in this fictional account, but
Speaker 4: Spencer Tracy is the American judge. He's the presiding judge
Speaker 4: at the tribunal, and the Bert Lancaster character, if memory served,
Speaker 4: his name is Ernst Yawning, and Ernst Yawning in the
Speaker 4: movie is an esteemed German judge, a lawyer and jurist
Speaker 4: who collaborates with the Nazis, disdains the crudeness of the
Speaker 4: Nazis he's on trial with because he's a learned, areudite
Speaker 4: man who is deeply respected all over the world for
Speaker 4: his commitment to the rule of law and democracy. In
Speaker 4: any way, he's on trial for war crimes, and at
Speaker 4: the end, after he's been sentenced by Spencer Tracy, he
Speaker 4: asked to see him and his jail cell, and the
Speaker 4: American judge goes to see him, and Bert lank Castor
Speaker 4: expresses to Spencer Tracy that he believes that justice is done,
Speaker 4: but he wants to be understood, and he says to
Speaker 4: the Spencer Tracy character, you must understand that we didn't
Speaker 4: know that it would come to this. And the Spencer
Speaker 4: Tracy character responds to him. It says, Harry Yanning, it
Speaker 4: came to this in the first instant, that you sentenced
Speaker 4: an innocent man to death. The Department of Justice, in
Speaker 4: this malignant Trump presidency, under the corrupt administration of corrupt
Speaker 4: lawyers like Janine Piro Todd Blanche Pambondy, and corrupt officials
Speaker 4: like Christy nom who weaponized federal law enforcement agencies against
Speaker 4: the American people, have made it routine to harass, to prosecute,
Speaker 4: and try to lock up innocent people in the United
Speaker 4: States of America in twenty twenty six. It is the
Speaker 4: most fundamentally disqualifying conduct of any person who has ever
Speaker 4: been and associated with the Department of Justice, and that
Speaker 4: it would be tolerated by any United States senator in
Speaker 4: any party for any reason is inexcusable. And when there
Speaker 4: are people like Tom Tillis who says he's going to
Speaker 4: write a book exposing the degeneracy of the magot insiders, maggots.
Speaker 4: He calls them, he's a magot. He's on their team.
Speaker 4: He showers with Steven Miller. What doesn't Tom Tillis understand
Speaker 4: about that? He scratches his back, They share it out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he missed his moment, He missed his chance.
Speaker 5: Are you kidding me?
Speaker 3: Yeah, to stand and deliver and he totally totally, uh
Speaker 3: chickened out.
Speaker 2: It's it's disgraceful.
Speaker 4: It's you had a you had a German general named
Speaker 4: Charlteats refused Hitler's order to burn Paris down, and charlt
Speaker 4: Eats it was no hero.
Speaker 5: He was a committed Nazi. Uh. In the end Uh.
Speaker 4: He he denounced the Nazis, talked about how they hypnotized
Speaker 4: everybody he went along.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 4: And he was no hero. And so there are some
Speaker 4: people that are not going to be heroes in this,
Speaker 4: but are going to make it stop, right Tom Tom
Speaker 4: Tillis is not one of those people. He'll never be
Speaker 4: a general Charlteats he is.
Speaker 5: He is a.
Speaker 4: First order collaborator in a poisonous, fruscistic political movement that
Speaker 4: is the singular gravest threat to the American Constitution into
Speaker 4: our liberty since the Confederate States of America on the
Speaker 4: second day of the Battle of Gettysburg.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, this is no profile encourage moment,
Speaker 3: There's no question about it. But let me ask you
Speaker 3: about how this campaign is shaping up right now, Steve,
Speaker 3: because you're you're accustomed to these tactics and messaging and
Speaker 3: so on. Trump is this was a headline on the
Speaker 3: Telegraph the other day. Trump is resurrecting the Red scare.
Speaker 3: He's tweeting that the Democrats are communists and all this stuff.
Speaker 3: And you know, he's going off on Abdul Ilsa yet
Speaker 3: and so on as being a communist and so on,
Speaker 3: and obviously he's not.
Speaker 2: That's not the case.
Speaker 3: And I would say ninety nine point nine nine percent
Speaker 3: of Democrats are not communists. It feels a little well,
Speaker 3: I don't know, like he's watched too many Arnold Schwarzenegger
Speaker 3: and Sylvester Stallone movies like or even predating that. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's just I don't see how this tactic works. What
Speaker 3: do you think?
Speaker 5: Well, so let's break it up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is going to be a banner year for
Speaker 4: democratic governors. Yeah, it's going to be a banner year
Speaker 4: for democratic congress people, House members. The Senate map under
Speaker 4: Schumer's leadership is much more complicated, and the reality is
Speaker 4: that there's a cost to the incompetence.
Speaker 2: And the.
Speaker 4: Senate majority was Democrats for the taking, but it looks
Speaker 4: increasingly like they're on a track to not get it,
Speaker 4: so they have to do some things differently. David Pluff
Speaker 4: in eight was running the McCain campaign. He said something
Speaker 4: that was deeply true, as you're coming down the stretch
Speaker 4: when you put all the bullshit aside, and he said,
Speaker 4: every day when we get up, I have more and
Speaker 4: more ways to win, and they have less. Our map
Speaker 4: is expanding and theirs is collapsing. What he was trying
Speaker 4: to say is that in a game where you're trying
Speaker 4: to throw a football through the tire, they were getting
Speaker 4: closer to the tire every day, and we were getting
Speaker 4: further from the tire every day. And on the last
Speaker 4: day they had to throw at six inches through the tire,
Speaker 4: and we had to throw at eighty yards through the tire,
Speaker 4: which was which was near, which was near impossible to do.
Speaker 4: Whatever you say about Abdul Elsayada, I'm going to try
Speaker 4: to take people through some of the discussions that take
Speaker 4: in the room that most people are ever able to
Speaker 4: be in about politics and what the calculus is. One
Speaker 4: of my favorite baseball players, Kevin Gossman of the Toronto
Speaker 4: Blue Jays, really a legend in the city, a great guy,
Speaker 4: you know, the type of character that you want to
Speaker 4: have right on any type of team. This is a
Speaker 4: guy who found out he was traded on the plane
Speaker 4: and rude to a city on the team that he's
Speaker 4: been on for five years. Right, So it's in that sense, Yeah,
Speaker 4: old analytical, I'm going to go through some of this stuff.
Speaker 4: The Susan Collins was a beatable candidate. I don't think
Speaker 4: the Democrats have a winning candidate in me. I think
Speaker 4: Maine is a disaster. It is a disaster that is
Speaker 4: not the Republican's fault. It's the Democrats fault. Main Democrats fault,
Speaker 4: It's Washington Democrats fault. So I don't think Republican I
Speaker 4: don't think Democrats are going to win there in Michigan.
Speaker 4: And you saw this phenomenon with Republicans in the early
Speaker 4: Key Party days where you had a candidate famously in
Speaker 4: twenty ten, Sharon Angle, the very.
Speaker 2: First person that was right. Yeah, I remember that to.
Speaker 5: Say that.
Speaker 4: Nine to eleven was an inside job, which was shocking
Speaker 4: at the time that I was aware of. Ever, with
Speaker 4: Sharon Angle, she lost in Michigan. You have the weakest
Speaker 4: of the three Democrats won in terms of a general election.
Speaker 4: But the reason he won is because the other candidate
Speaker 4: in the race was a Schumer Democrat.
Speaker 6: He was not.
Speaker 4: And had she said I'd cut my hand off before
Speaker 4: I made him leader again, then she would have won.
Speaker 5: Now you look then at how.
Speaker 3: So I think some people might disagree with Hailey Stevens.
Speaker 3: I mean she might have been they did.
Speaker 4: She was a weak candidate. And however on the polling, Yeah,
Speaker 4: the polling ran. He doesn't mean he can't win. Everything
Speaker 4: like in baseball, has a number. He was the weakest
Speaker 4: of the nominees in a general election, and he's behind
Speaker 4: in the race in a state with a Democratic senator
Speaker 4: that a Republican could win. Okay, now you look at
Speaker 4: the Montana Senate race, which is really now a four
Speaker 4: person race. The Democratic candidate is a life coach who
Speaker 4: promises eleven thousand percent returns on investments. With twenty three
Speaker 4: thousand dollars in the bank, I'm going to say something.
Speaker 4: I've never been wrong about this in my entire political career.
Speaker 4: I'm looking at her statements about her military record. She's
Speaker 4: exaggerating over and over again her record of military service.
Speaker 4: On the campaign trail. She claims to do things that
Speaker 4: she did not do. And I'm just very sensitive to
Speaker 4: that language of exaggeration and resume, embellishment and enhancement.
Speaker 5: You have an independent candidate who most of the.
Speaker 4: Democratic former governors and senators is behind, Guy Bodner, first
Speaker 4: in his class at West Point, Rhodes scholar, green Beret.
Speaker 5: All right, he can win that race.
Speaker 2: I bet him. Yeah.
Speaker 5: You have strong two.
Speaker 4: Democrats in in in UH the Deep South, black prosecutor
Speaker 4: Scott Colum and Mississippi.
Speaker 5: This matters in the state.
Speaker 4: Medde Evers and Fannie lou Hamer are from great candidate Louisiana.
Speaker 4: Jamie Davis, a a African American, a farmer. You look
Speaker 4: at the South Carolina race, Annie Andrews. You look at
Speaker 4: the Iowa race. You look at the Alaska race.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Josh Turik and Iowa absolutely. Mary.
Speaker 4: Look at you look at the nominee a Democratic pastor
Speaker 4: in Kansas, Tela Rico is running strong right now. But
Speaker 4: Democrats are going to have to expand the map.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, the Republicans to spend the Money's another.
Speaker 4: Because what I think is going to happen is I
Speaker 4: think MAGA and Republican turnout is going to collapse, and
Speaker 4: I think Hispanic and Black turnout is going to be
Speaker 4: at a record high everywhere in the country, and Democratic
Speaker 4: turnout is going to be at a record high. So
Speaker 4: I think the combination of the collapse of MAGA turnout,
Speaker 4: a surge of Democratic turnout there's nothing to do with
Speaker 4: the Democratic Party, and a surge of black turnout in
Speaker 4: the Deep South, and of Hispanic turnout, including in Iowa,
Speaker 4: is going to be determinative in a number of these
Speaker 4: different different states. But the strategy by Team Schumer is
Speaker 4: right at the Iceberg.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And so the Senate is.
Speaker 4: Vastly underperforming where they should be in these national in
Speaker 4: these national rings.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, we'll see.
Speaker 3: I mean we were getting contacted by the Halle Schoffner campaign.
Speaker 3: She is a Democrat running for the Senate in Arkansas
Speaker 3: against Tom Cotton. They have an internal poll that shows
Speaker 3: that she's pretty tight with Tom Cotton. Who knows whether
Speaker 3: or not that actually pans out. But I think that
Speaker 3: this big term cycle is going to be extremely hard
Speaker 3: to predict. And I think that there are a number
Speaker 3: of Senate seats. I mean you mentioned Maine where yes,
Speaker 3: they obviously they don't have the best situation going in
Speaker 3: Maine right now, that there's no question about it, but
Speaker 3: they may pick up seats in places that we Democrats
Speaker 3: weren't dreaming about six months ago, places like Iowa, Alaska,
Speaker 3: you mentioned Mississippi. I think it's very possible that this
Speaker 3: is going to shake out a lot, a lot differently
Speaker 3: than maybe we think right now. But Steve, great to
Speaker 3: see my man, Jim as always, and we'll do this.
Speaker 2: Again, hopefully next Friday. You got it all right?
Speaker 3: It's oh shpitt, it's for thanks, Steve, appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Good to see man. All right.
Speaker 3: Let's I want to get, you know, a slightly more
Speaker 3: youthful perspective than myself and Steve. We've had Adam on before.
Speaker 3: Let's bring him back in. He has some thoughts, Adam,
Speaker 3: how are you good to see you?
Speaker 6: I'm doing well?
Speaker 2: Can you hear me?
Speaker 5: All right?
Speaker 3: You sound good? Yeah, Well, we might need to turn
Speaker 3: you up a little bit slightly.
Speaker 2: Is a possible, am my closer.
Speaker 7: I'm on the last day of my vacation, finally took
Speaker 7: a week off, and I'm really happy to be here.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me on. How have you been doing.
Speaker 3: I've been doing great. It's good to see you. It's
Speaker 3: good to see you.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: I say youthful to kidding Lee a little bit, just
Speaker 3: to poke fun at me and Steve for being old guys.
Speaker 3: But but Adam, you saw what took place in Michigan.
Speaker 3: You know, Steve and others in the pro democracy movement
Speaker 3: I think have concerns as to whether you know this
Speaker 3: candidate here, this candidate there is going to perform as
Speaker 3: well as perhaps people hope. You know, I will say
Speaker 3: that I think a lot of people were making these
Speaker 3: kinds of predictions and statements about abdulah Sayed, and then
Speaker 3: I saw the way he performed out on the campaign trail.
Speaker 3: He beat the Schumer machine in Michigan. And yes, the
Speaker 3: race was a little tighter than maybe the polls were showing.
Speaker 3: But he's a pretty dynamic candidate and I think he's
Speaker 3: got a real strong chance of holding onto that seat.
Speaker 3: And that's not to mention all of the other Senate
Speaker 3: seats that are suddenly now in play.
Speaker 2: How do you see this, Shagana? What did you think
Speaker 2: of Michigan?
Speaker 7: I thought that the Michigan race was a really good
Speaker 7: microcosm of the way the Democratic Party has been feeling lately.
Speaker 7: So you're right to point out that the race was
Speaker 7: a lot closer than many people online predicted. But I
Speaker 7: think that a candidate like abdual Lsied winning really shows
Speaker 7: how hungry people are for change, not just young people, well,
Speaker 7: people across the Democratic base. They want a candidate who
Speaker 7: is pushing for real change. I mean, it's the same
Speaker 7: thing that Trump was able to capitalize off of being
Speaker 7: a change agent. There's a lot of reductive analysis saying
Speaker 7: that the Democratic Party is moving far left and voting
Speaker 7: for the far left candidates. First of all, Abdul Lsayed
Speaker 7: is a capitalist. He is a self described capitalist who
Speaker 7: is more progressive than many elected Democrats, but he is
Speaker 7: by no means a DSA socialist or communist. Secondly, it's
Speaker 7: reductive to say that the party is moving just left
Speaker 7: or left or because it's not happening. Are candidates that
Speaker 7: are rising to power, people like Abigail Spanberger and people
Speaker 7: like Andy Basher, and people like Zobron Mamdannie and people
Speaker 7: like Abdul Lsayed. We are expanding the tent and we
Speaker 7: are making sure that Americans are heard. I mean, young
Speaker 7: people in particular are growing up in institutions where they're
Speaker 7: just not really working for us. At times, a lot
Speaker 7: of young people are getting farther and farther away from
Speaker 7: buying a house. They're accumulating more and more medical debt,
Speaker 7: more and more healthcareacter. So when we're accumulating this debt
Speaker 7: and we're not capital positive, then why would be Why
Speaker 7: would young people be loyal to a system that is
Speaker 7: very much reliant on capital I describe myself as a capitalist.
Speaker 7: I think capitalism is the best system. I think there
Speaker 7: needs to be some sort of checks on at times
Speaker 7: that should not be unfettered. However, you can't expect young
Speaker 7: people well to be infinitely loyal to a system that
Speaker 7: hasn't been loyal to them. So when people are gravitating
Speaker 7: towards Zoron Mamdani or more DSA candidates, we have to
Speaker 7: analyze this through the actual lens of what's happening. And
Speaker 7: it's not as reductive as oh, young people are radical.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I hear you, and I will say, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm the son of a human refugee. And so, you know,
Speaker 3: there's the old expression about socialism that you know, it
Speaker 3: spreads the money around until there isn't money anymore. And
Speaker 3: you know, I suppose that applies more to communism. But
Speaker 3: the way I look at some of these DSA candidates
Speaker 3: is that they sort of are are interested in a system,
Speaker 3: an economic system that's closer to what we see in Scandinavia,
Speaker 3: where you have national health care, where you have a
Speaker 3: better you know, social safety net, retirement system, that kind
Speaker 3: of thing, which I don't think is all together terrible.
Speaker 2: I mean, we spend a.
Speaker 3: Trillion dollars or more on national defense, and we don't
Speaker 3: have national health care in this country, and you have
Speaker 3: people going broke with medical bills. Even with Obamacare. It's
Speaker 3: still a totally screwed up systems. And so I can
Speaker 3: understand why. And young people. You know, the average age
Speaker 3: of first time home buyer now is forty years old.
Speaker 3: You're absolutely right at him. It's people are pissed about
Speaker 3: how this economy is shaking out.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and it's manifesting and people wanting new types of
Speaker 7: candidates change agents, and Abdulla Laed seemed to be the
Speaker 7: change agent.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 7: Haley Stevens ran a really good campaign as well, but
Speaker 7: there is becoming, you know, a burden in the Democratic
Speaker 7: Party where if you're taking money from special interest groups,
Speaker 7: it actually hurts your campaign now, and APAC is the
Speaker 7: biggest one. There's of course many other special interest groups.
Speaker 7: But I believe the dollars a pack, sixty million dollars
Speaker 7: a pack put into this race, and it seemed to
Speaker 7: at some point just be like an anchor on Hailey Stevens.
Speaker 7: People would constantly bring up that she was that she
Speaker 7: was taking this money. And it's not even just about
Speaker 7: a pack. I think it's more of a litmus test
Speaker 7: for will you, as a candidate take money from special
Speaker 7: interest groups that distort the actual will of voters? Many
Speaker 7: voters are becoming its real knducting this war taking money
Speaker 7: from a pack is at odds with that. Abdul said
Speaker 7: showed that he won't be taking all of this money
Speaker 7: and we'd beholden to separate special interest groups. And I
Speaker 7: think that candidates who are willing to take a lot
Speaker 7: of that money are just frowned upon by the Democratic base.
Speaker 7: I think it's becoming more and more unpopular.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 7: I will point out it was like a what thirty
Speaker 7: thousand vote race. It's not like it was an absolute
Speaker 7: blowout in either direction. It was a very close race.
Speaker 7: But the fact that Abduel was able to climb the
Speaker 7: uphill battle of being a no name outsider to beating
Speaker 7: the tumor machine as you called it, to beating like
Speaker 7: tens of millions of dollars in APAC money. The base
Speaker 7: really does want change. We want change in any way possible,
Speaker 7: and honestly, I think a Duel is a really good
Speaker 7: candidate to do it. He's not some DSA. He's not
Speaker 7: some far left communist. He's a capitalist who's very educated
Speaker 7: and is seems like he has an aggression to him
Speaker 7: that will be good in Congress.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, And that's been a a common misnomer about ab Do.
Speaker 2: I'll say that, is that he's a DSA Kendy. He's not.
Speaker 3: He's a progressive Democrat who was a healthcare official in
Speaker 3: Wayne County.
Speaker 2: Mission.
Speaker 3: Again, I believe, and you know, we'll be talking to him,
Speaker 3: I think in just a little bit here, and I'm
Speaker 3: anxious to talk to him about what was done to
Speaker 3: doctor Fauci this week, and Adam, I guess you know,
Speaker 3: I'm curious what you think.
Speaker 2: I mean, I do, I do see shades of Barack
Speaker 2: Obama with Abdul al say Ed. I don't know.
Speaker 3: If you show a little bit of this video of
Speaker 3: I'll say that on Instagram. We can't play the music,
Speaker 3: but he's dancing, he's having a good time. I wanted
Speaker 3: to show this because yeah, I'll get dinged on YouTube
Speaker 3: or I mean, we play like copyrighted music or whatever,
Speaker 3: so we can't play. But he's I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: the guy looks like he's having a good time and
Speaker 3: everybody is so friggin depressed and pissed off these days.
Speaker 3: I do think it's healthy just to see somebody having
Speaker 3: a good time running for the running for Congress.
Speaker 7: It's very healthy. He's also running a very accessible campaign,
Speaker 7: Like at a time when the Democratic Party has been
Speaker 7: alienating and isolating a lot of independent voters or even
Speaker 7: like young men voters who are a little bit confused
Speaker 7: on the direction of the party, he's making it very accessible.
Speaker 7: I think there's a prototype of a candidate that does
Speaker 7: really well in American politics at this point, and it's
Speaker 7: being an outsider, a populist, somebody who is going up
Speaker 7: against the machine, and somebody who has big, bold ideas.
Speaker 7: So that was Obama at one point, that was Trump
Speaker 7: at one point. He was the outsider who was challenging
Speaker 7: the system with these big, bold ideas. That describes Zorn,
Speaker 7: even though he was an assemblyman, he was basically an
Speaker 7: outsider to the machine. And that describes Abdul al sayed.
Speaker 7: His campaign slogan was money out of politics, money in
Speaker 7: your pocket, and Medicare for all. It's very simple and
Speaker 7: accessible and every American can hear that, and nobody's talking
Speaker 7: about And then you add on top of that that
Speaker 7: he seems like a welcoming, affable, chill dude that goes
Speaker 7: a long way in politics. I think we've kind of
Speaker 7: lost that. I'd have a beer with him in a
Speaker 7: bar type of thing, because a lots of Democrats do
Speaker 7: feel a bit finger waggy, but Abdul is cool. I
Speaker 7: had him in my HQ in Chicago when he was visiting,
Speaker 7: and we did a fifteen minute interview, and what struck
Speaker 7: me is just how candid he was. He was saying
Speaker 7: about Elon Musk. He's like, Yeah, this guy has too
Speaker 7: much fucking money. He was just cussing about Elon Musk.
Speaker 7: He's talking to me like I talked to my friends,
Speaker 7: and I was like, this is somebody that I want
Speaker 7: in the Senate representing me. And he's very well educated.
Speaker 2: Of course, yeah, he's very well educated. It's true.
Speaker 3: And the other thing too, is I mean, people are
Speaker 3: pissed off about the war and getting back to you know,
Speaker 3: your demographic, Adam. There are worries and I don't know
Speaker 3: how founded they are. I don't think they're well founded,
Speaker 3: but who the fuck knows. With Donald Trump, people are
Speaker 3: worried about the draft coming back and the way I mean,
Speaker 3: we show this head we can show this headline of
Speaker 3: Trump and Pete Hegseth. Apparently Trump is pissed at Hegsath.
Speaker 2: They clashed at.
Speaker 3: Camp David over Iran missile depletion concerns. Apparently we've we've
Speaker 3: bombed the shit out of Iran so much, we're running
Speaker 3: out of missiles. And we have a trillion dollar defense budget,
Speaker 3: but we're running out of missiles, and so that's raising fears.
Speaker 3: I think with a lot of young people that you know,
Speaker 3: at some point, Trump's gonna be like, screw it. Let's
Speaker 3: just start invading and sending in young people to die,
Speaker 3: and who the who wants?
Speaker 2: Nobody wants to This is the stupidest war. It was
Speaker 2: made up.
Speaker 3: He could completely did this on his own without any
Speaker 3: you know, kind of expertise behind it or any kind
Speaker 3: any forethought behind it.
Speaker 2: And I assume, Adam, a lot.
Speaker 3: Of guys your age are completely I don't want to
Speaker 3: say completely freaked out about it, but very concerned.
Speaker 7: Very concerned. And it's it's just it's funny to me
Speaker 7: because Trump is now asking for one point six trillion
Speaker 7: for the next military budget in order to replenish the
Speaker 7: missiles that he wasted on the failed war with Iran.
Speaker 7: The CSIS says that we've used I think one third
Speaker 7: to one half of our stockpiles of interceptor missiles and
Speaker 7: FAD missiles, so we are depleting our stockpiles. Every missile
Speaker 7: that we use on this failing war is one less
Speaker 7: missile that Russia has to worry about, one less missile
Speaker 7: that China has to worry about if they want freedom
Speaker 7: of military action in regards to Taiwan or whatever they're planning.
Speaker 7: We want to have a safe America. And he's making
Speaker 7: America weaker, so as young people like we were promised
Speaker 7: no new wars. I didn't vote for Trump, obviously, but
Speaker 7: many young people were promised no new war, better economy,
Speaker 7: and none of that is manifesting right now.
Speaker 6: And I think the.
Speaker 7: Scariest part of it all is seeing the same people
Speaker 7: go on television lie about this war that lied about
Speaker 7: prior wars twenty years ago. Because we've always been told
Speaker 7: that if you go to war in the Middle East,
Speaker 7: it's going to make us safer, and we've always seen
Speaker 7: that fail with Afghanistan, with Iraq, it turned into these
Speaker 7: like grinding counter insurgencies where we paid trillions of dollars
Speaker 7: to get nothing out of it. Now we're seeing that
Speaker 7: same thing repeat, and they're even floating the idea of
Speaker 7: a draft for young people. I find it hard to
Speaker 7: believe that Republicans would do something so politically suicidal, but
Speaker 7: I mean, you don't know they've been doing politically suicidal
Speaker 7: things this entire time. I think the real scary thing
Speaker 7: is Number One, we're losing lives and the Pentagon seems
Speaker 7: to be covering it up. Number Two, we already pay
Speaker 7: a trillion dollars per year on the interest of our
Speaker 7: debt just to service our national debt, adding to that
Speaker 7: even more as it compounds and accumulates, and this war
Speaker 7: continues to fail, and then on top of that, the
Speaker 7: Strait of Hormuz not being under our control is like
Speaker 7: the largest failure ever. So from a young person's point
Speaker 7: of view, I mean, I remember my parents are young too,
Speaker 7: so I remember we would always talk about our action
Speaker 7: in the Middle East. My dad is from Syria, So
Speaker 7: my dad, right, he's well, he was born in the US,
Speaker 7: but he grew up in Syria. So he's always told
Speaker 7: me the US medaling in the Middle East in this way,
Speaker 7: and this way has blown back.
Speaker 2: In x and y Wa.
Speaker 7: And now in real time, I feel like I'm seeing
Speaker 7: this failed war being endlessly justified. I just want to say, like,
Speaker 7: I don't want Iron to have a nuclear weapon. That's
Speaker 7: not something that I want. I think it's really rational
Speaker 7: to be worried about that. But also we're not achieving
Speaker 7: that right now.
Speaker 3: Right And you mentioned the economy, and it just came
Speaker 3: out today that the economy lost jobs last month. You know,
Speaker 3: they were saying, oh, the World Cup's going to create
Speaker 3: all these jobs, and that.
Speaker 2: Didn't do shit.
Speaker 3: And the economy lost jobs, and they had to revise
Speaker 3: downward the previous two months by some one hundred thousand
Speaker 3: job I think we could show that headline.
Speaker 2: Let's show for a second there but twenty.
Speaker 3: Three thousand jobs down in July, and then they had
Speaker 3: to revise down the prietory months by combined one hundred
Speaker 3: and three thousand.
Speaker 2: So I mean the economy is not to either. And
Speaker 2: so I you know.
Speaker 3: People in your age demographic, they're sort of like, yeah,
Speaker 3: of course I'm going to listen to people like Abdul.
Speaker 3: I'll say, yeah, of course, I'm going to gravitate towards
Speaker 3: newer voices and not people backed by Chuck Schumer. I mean,
Speaker 3: I don't know why people find that mysterious.
Speaker 7: Yeah, And look like my audience spans across many generations,
Speaker 7: so I'm never trying to frame it as a generational battle.
Speaker 7: But there is this sort of broken generational compact that
Speaker 7: currently exists where many young people were told if they
Speaker 7: go to college, they are going to experience upward mobility,
Speaker 7: get a higher paying job, get more and more accolades,
Speaker 7: and more and more jobs, and more and more career stability.
Speaker 7: And we're seeing the opposite of that. Right now, a
Speaker 7: lot of young people are going to college and accumulating
Speaker 7: this debt, and then that debt is stopping them from
Speaker 7: actually getting an apartment or a house. And then it's
Speaker 7: interesting if you look at the stats, young people who
Speaker 7: go to college right now and young people who don't
Speaker 7: go to college right now are getting paid like basically
Speaker 7: the same amount. So you're taking out this debt and
Speaker 7: you're entering the workforce at the same place that people
Speaker 7: who didn't go to college rendering.
Speaker 2: It's an absolute mess.
Speaker 7: And yeah, people are looking for a change agent. Again,
Speaker 7: Like people like to paint young people as radical, but
Speaker 7: what I think is radical right now is the system
Speaker 7: that is kind of crushing young people. The healthcare system,
Speaker 7: the student debt system. What did our presidents say he
Speaker 7: wants housing to be higher. He doesn't want housing to
Speaker 7: be cheaper, he wants housing to be higher. He literally
Speaker 7: said that on camera and then he shot down or like, no,
Speaker 7: he didn't shot that. He failed to sign the housing
Speaker 7: bill that was by right pass but doing both sides,
Speaker 7: Democrats and Republicans in a bipartisan fashion, try to pass
Speaker 7: a housing bill to deregulate certain sectors that would help me,
Speaker 7: help you help anyone who wants to buy a home.
Speaker 7: Trump refused to sign that shit.
Speaker 5: He said, I'm not going to sign it.
Speaker 7: I want housing prices to go higher. So I'm sitting
Speaker 7: here as a young person with a bunch of other
Speaker 7: young people, and it feels like the system is right
Speaker 7: now built for older generations. Which is fine. It's not fine,
Speaker 7: but it's how it's been for a while. But here's
Speaker 7: what's really happening. It feels like older people are the
Speaker 7: main voting block in all of these areas. Because people
Speaker 7: who already own a home, who already are settled down
Speaker 7: in an area, and who are already kind of set,
Speaker 7: we'll have more time to vote and pay attention to politics.
Speaker 7: Young people are moving around a lot, go to different colleges,
Speaker 7: go to different classes, don't really have investment in certain
Speaker 7: communities yet, so young people vote less. Now, when politicians
Speaker 7: are elected, they look at the incentives created by who's
Speaker 7: voting for them. If a bunch of older generational folks
Speaker 7: are voting for these politicians and young people are failing
Speaker 7: to vote, then of course politicians are going to play
Speaker 7: to the older voting base and say we're not going
Speaker 7: to make your housing more expensive. We're not going to
Speaker 7: make housing more expensive or anything. We're not going to
Speaker 7: make housing cheaper. Sorry, We're not going to make your
Speaker 7: own housing cheaper for you and burn your asset. So
Speaker 7: I think we need to get more young people voting,
Speaker 7: more young people engaged. And that's happening with people like
Speaker 7: Zoe around and people like Abdul Lsayed. So we have
Speaker 7: all these problems with our institutions.
Speaker 2: A big thing.
Speaker 7: The big way to fix it is to get young
Speaker 7: people voting, millennials voting, and finally we have candidates that
Speaker 7: excite them, and a lot of democratic establishment people are
Speaker 7: pushing back at that.
Speaker 3: It feels like, yeah, there's a sort of you know,
Speaker 3: get off my lawn, you know, Grandpa Simpson shaking his
Speaker 3: fist of the clouds and that sort of thing. I
Speaker 3: will tell you, Adam, I remember covering the Obama campaign
Speaker 3: in two thousand and eight, and there was a lot
Speaker 3: of the same dynamic going on. I was talking to Dan
Speaker 3: Pfeiffer the other day, and he was Obama's communications director
Speaker 3: at the White House, and he agreed, you know, you know,
Speaker 3: Obama and Hillary, they fought to the finish. Obama won
Speaker 3: in two thousand and eight, a lot of the Hillary
Speaker 3: people were really pissed for a long time and they
Speaker 3: you know, some of them were vowing to sit out.
Speaker 3: They weren't going to back Barack Obama and all this
Speaker 3: kind of stuff. And then Obama slily but surely won
Speaker 3: a lot of them back. And I think some of
Speaker 3: it is just going to be, you know, incumbent upon
Speaker 3: progressives to sort of, you know, bring people back into
Speaker 3: the tent if they get a little pissed and go
Speaker 3: out for a smoke or something, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's basically how it's going to have to work.
Speaker 3: And Obama made Hillary Clinton the Secretary of State and
Speaker 3: that definitely healed a lot of the wounds in the party.
Speaker 3: But those wounds have popped back open again. But to me,
Speaker 3: that the rallying cry for Democrats. I mean, I do
Speaker 3: think it's a little self destructive of some of this
Speaker 3: deviceisness because the person that you really want to be
Speaker 3: focused on, it seems to me, if you're a Democrat
Speaker 3: is Donald Trump, and we should play he's sounding more
Speaker 3: and more like out of completely unhinged and just out
Speaker 3: in outer space.
Speaker 2: There's a SoundBite we should play. I don't know.
Speaker 3: I was going to wait until the end of the show,
Speaker 3: but I'll play for you because I just think it's
Speaker 3: so I sort of want a young person's to take
Speaker 3: on this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was at this event at the White House.
Speaker 3: He was talking about how a judge has made sports unconstitutional?
Speaker 8: Did you getting right from the beginning? And already we've
Speaker 8: done a lot to help save women's sports, and we're
Speaker 8: also saving college sports who're in the process of working
Speaker 8: very hard. We had a bad judge's decision hair there,
Speaker 8: and uh, a judge it knew nothing about sports, declared
Speaker 8: sports unconstitutional. Can you believe it? And we had to
Speaker 8: come and put something together. And we had the help
Speaker 8: of so many great people. They all came together and
Speaker 8: we have a bit now.
Speaker 2: That was he says that the judge declared sports on constant.
Speaker 2: That did not happen.
Speaker 3: By the way, we still have sports in this country.
Speaker 3: You can still play sports. But he did this with
Speaker 3: the Olympic athletes. And I think he was saying weird
Speaker 3: stuff to the speed skater who won the gold medals,
Speaker 3: where he was saying that he liked his legs or
Speaker 3: so wish he had legs, Like there's just and he's
Speaker 3: got the weird hair right now.
Speaker 2: And I've been having a lot of fun with the
Speaker 2: hair jokes lately.
Speaker 3: But somebody put out a meme that's a quiet wiggie
Speaker 3: or something, but go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 7: The hair should be unconstitutional, if anything.
Speaker 2: That's kind of freaking weird.
Speaker 7: Second of all, I saw this tweet that was like,
Speaker 7: here's how Trump's going to react to Abdual. I'll say
Speaker 7: ed and he's going to call him a scumbag and
Speaker 7: then hours later make a weird comment about how handsome
Speaker 7: he is, because does that to.
Speaker 2: So many people.
Speaker 7: He'll call him a scumbag and he'll be like, but
Speaker 7: he's a really good looking guy.
Speaker 2: You can't take that away.
Speaker 7: It's like, why are we saying this right now? But
Speaker 7: on top of that, something that I've been talking about
Speaker 7: on my show lately I kind of derived from Game
Speaker 7: of Thrones. I call it Matt King theory. It's then
Speaker 7: a position or a leader that's in a position to
Speaker 7: power becomes so delusional and paranoid that they lose all
Speaker 7: touch with reality and are more focused on the aesthetics
Speaker 7: around them. In this weird stuff that's all a non sequitor,
Speaker 7: and that's what Donald Trump seems to be falling for
Speaker 7: right now. I mean, if you look at the reflecting pool,
Speaker 7: the ballroom, his hair, he's focused on these aesthetics and
Speaker 7: what scares me, and he's trying to deflect all the
Speaker 7: failures onto the other side. When there was a water
Speaker 7: treatment hack done by Iran, Trump literally blamed it on
Speaker 7: Tim Walls because it happened in Minnesota, like all of
Speaker 7: our intelligence agencies were saying this was hacked by Iranian hackers.
Speaker 7: Trump blamed it on the Democrats when he failed to
Speaker 7: hire competent contractors and they effed up the reflecting pool.
Speaker 7: He blamed on Democratic vandals. Like we are seeing somebody
Speaker 7: who was so paranoid and like manic that he's constantly
Speaker 7: blaming everything on the other side. And that's probably one
Speaker 7: of them. What like, yes, there were court cases over
Speaker 7: sports and trans people and sports. Nobody said sports were unconstitutional.
Speaker 7: That awful, insane bs And I'm pretty sure it's just
Speaker 7: part of him beingcoming like a mad king. He wants
Speaker 7: to act like everyone's attacking him. He's the one as
Speaker 7: a beacon defending reality. And yeah, one more time, the
Speaker 7: hairpiece should be unconstitutional.
Speaker 3: The hair piece should be unconstitutional. The hair is, the
Speaker 3: hair has got to go. It's very strange, and I
Speaker 3: but it is. You're absolutely right. It is kind of
Speaker 3: this mad king thing. And I've been talking about this
Speaker 3: sort of like the end days of Saddam Hussein or
Speaker 3: moonmarket off here or something like that. And you know,
Speaker 3: I do every once in a while because I've I've
Speaker 3: done a lot on the reflecting pool in the Kennedy
Speaker 3: Center and these weird projects that he has around DC.
Speaker 3: And I see comments from time to time, Oh, come on, Jim,
Speaker 3: focus on the big things. Focus, you know, But to me,
Speaker 3: taking the mental temperature of the president of the United
Speaker 3: States is one of the big things. And if he's
Speaker 3: acting insane like that is really fucking important.
Speaker 2: I think it is. I think it is relevant, highly relevant.
Speaker 7: It's very relevant. And you've been doing great work there
Speaker 7: by the way. I've been using it a lot on
Speaker 7: my show, showing you're on.
Speaker 2: The ground work.
Speaker 3: Also.
Speaker 7: Just think it's like it is important because it's indicative
Speaker 7: of how Donald Trump plays this game. His whole game
Speaker 7: is to cut corners, not have competitive bids for how
Speaker 7: we're going to contract these things out, give the contracts
Speaker 7: to his friends in a corrupt manner in those contracts
Speaker 7: and end up harming American people or the people who
Speaker 7: are supposed to benefit from this. Yes, it's not as
Speaker 7: important when it's the reflecting Pool, but the same thing
Speaker 7: is happening at the Pentagon. There are reports that we
Speaker 7: are having non competitive bids. And the reason why you
Speaker 7: want to have a bid that's competitive is because you
Speaker 7: want the best contractor supplying the best equipment for our soldiers.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 7: But he's just reportedly giving these corrupt contracts off to
Speaker 7: his allies, and the same way that he did with
Speaker 7: America two fifty Your Freedom two fifty, the same way
Speaker 7: that he's doing with the reflecting Pool in the ballroom.
Speaker 7: And when we're living with this level of delusion in
Speaker 7: paranoia at the highest levels of the White House, I
Speaker 7: think we need to call it out.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 7: We have space to talk about many things, the Iran
Speaker 7: war or the Pentagon, the corruption, but calling out his
Speaker 7: failed monuments. I mean, dude, imagine if Obama had been
Speaker 7: going manic over the reflecting Pool, Fox News would be
Speaker 7: talking about it a decade later, like they would never.
Speaker 3: End it, it would never stop. And the way he
Speaker 3: keeps saying, oh no, it was vandals. It was vandals.
Speaker 3: And he's got you know, Doug Bergham, who I thought
Speaker 3: was a normal, serious politician.
Speaker 2: He was like one of the normies. He was built
Speaker 2: as one of the normies, and he is.
Speaker 3: He seems crazier than Janine Piro, which I didn't fucking
Speaker 3: think was possible. And you know, it's kind of amazing
Speaker 3: what Donald Trump does to people. He does sort of
Speaker 3: bring them down to his level, no matter what kind
Speaker 3: of stature they might have had previously before working with him.
Speaker 3: But the other thing, Adam is, in addition to the
Speaker 3: incompetence you mentioned, the corruption. I've been talking about this
Speaker 3: on my show. We're drowning in an ocean of corruption
Speaker 3: in this country right now. He's not only doing these
Speaker 3: no big contracts and handing him out to his buddies.
Speaker 3: And that's where his own family, his sons are getting,
Speaker 3: you know, firms that are connected to his sons are
Speaker 3: getting these kinds.
Speaker 2: Of deals, and you know, it really is astonishing.
Speaker 7: It's it's not just a stop. It's like it's like
Speaker 7: mind boggling the level of double standards that we see
Speaker 7: at play right here. Hunter Biden sold some paintings if
Speaker 7: I'm going to conceive for maybe like three thousand dollars
Speaker 7: more than he should have. We are currently seeing the
Speaker 7: Trump kids acquiring islands right now after the country literally
Speaker 7: tries to not make it a protected coastal land. We
Speaker 7: are seeing Don Junior and Eric Trump directly benefiting from
Speaker 7: the Pentagon contracts that Donald Trump is cutting. And I mean,
Speaker 7: we have a whole document about this at Maclarmedia called
Speaker 7: Trump's Second Term Corruption, and it talks about the part
Speaker 7: in economy Trump has created a pay for play part
Speaker 7: in economy. Right, you give him a bunch of money,
Speaker 7: he will pardon you no matter what you did, no
Speaker 7: matter how many Americans you scammed. We should also talk
Speaker 7: more about Trump's crypto coin that he launched right before
Speaker 7: his inauguration in order to leverage the hype of his inauguration,
Speaker 7: called trump Coin. Then he launched Malania Coin. Of course,
Speaker 7: the Trump family has like eighty percent ownership of that
Speaker 7: and they can liquidate it at any moment.
Speaker 2: So he's rug.
Speaker 7: Pulling as fans, He's hurting Americans by giving shitty contracts,
Speaker 7: and on top of all of that, there is just
Speaker 7: a level of It's like Trump is trying to return
Speaker 7: us to this pre constitutional order where the president can
Speaker 7: give and receive gifts from other countries with no repercussions. Yeah,
Speaker 7: Trump pardoned CZ, the founder of Finance, because CZ helps
Speaker 7: Trump build a crypto platform, and then CZ helped facilitate
Speaker 7: a two billion dollar investment from the United Arab Emirates.
Speaker 7: In return, Donald Trump pardoned CZ, the founder of Binance,
Speaker 7: who helped fund Moss helped you all this, and in turn,
Speaker 7: Trump gave the UAE a bunch of these chips, very
Speaker 7: special chips that we were trying to keep, and it
Speaker 7: doesn't benefit us at all. It doesn't benefit us at all.
Speaker 7: So we are currently in a situation where Trump is
Speaker 7: like a mad king, turning us to a pre constitutional order,
Speaker 7: trying to give and receive these gifts.
Speaker 2: And it's just despicable to see.
Speaker 7: All the while, by the way, the war is raging on,
Speaker 7: the economy is generaling down the toilet.
Speaker 2: It sucks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's a lot, a lot is sucking right now,
Speaker 3: there's no question about it. Adam, great to see you,
Speaker 3: my man. Let's do it again soon. Really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Thanks for spending some time with us.
Speaker 7: We'll do it again very soon.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Jim, all right, good to see you. All right, well,
Speaker 3: let's not waste any time. Turning to our next guest.
Speaker 3: It is doctor Abdul al sayeh. He is the Democratic
Speaker 3: nominee for the US Senate in Michigan. I don't know
Speaker 3: should I call you? Can I call you Doc? Can
Speaker 3: I call you Abdul Abdul? Okay, all right, I heard
Speaker 3: you were relatable. That's the thing, that's what you're doing.
Speaker 9: I mean, look, it's the name, well, it's the name
Speaker 9: walking into kindergarten that I quickly got in nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 9: kid named Abdrahman Levin letter name that folks can't really pronounce.
Speaker 9: We realized that, at least my parents realized that, given
Speaker 9: Kareem Abdul Jabbar had just retired and Paula Abdul was
Speaker 9: topping the charts, that Abdul was what it was going
Speaker 9: to be.
Speaker 6: And so I've been Abdula ever since.
Speaker 2: Very cool.
Speaker 3: Okay, I can relate to this because I go by Jim,
Speaker 3: but my name is Abelio James Acosta. My dad is
Speaker 3: a Cuban refugee, and so nobody could say a Billia
Speaker 3: growing up.
Speaker 2: It was absolutely possible.
Speaker 3: I grew up in Virginia in the seventies and the eighties,
Speaker 3: let me tell you, nobody could say that, And so
Speaker 3: my mom just said, just you'll be Jimmy. So I've
Speaker 3: been that ever since. But it's great to have you
Speaker 3: on the show. Congratulations on your big win the other night.
Speaker 3: What do you think it's said to not just people
Speaker 3: in Michigan but all around the country.
Speaker 9: Well, first of all, I'm so grateful for the seven
Speaker 9: hundred fifty thousand folks who gave me their stake in democracy.
Speaker 9: I couldn't be more honored and grateful, and I hope
Speaker 9: that I can carry that forward and do the work
Speaker 9: that is befitting of that trust that they gave me in.
Speaker 6: The US Senate.
Speaker 9: But I also think it's important for us to realize
Speaker 9: my goal here is to get money out of politics,
Speaker 9: put money in your pocket, past medical care for all.
Speaker 6: And because the I stand opposed.
Speaker 9: To corporate money and special interest money in politics, you
Speaker 9: can imagine the corporations of the special interests got real
Speaker 9: pissed off about it and decided to set a record
Speaker 9: of spending in a democratic primary seventy million dollars total,
Speaker 9: eleven to one spending differential thirty two of that I
Speaker 9: think came from APAC and they spent their money, and
Speaker 9: in the end, what we were able to do was
Speaker 9: to inspire a campaign of buy and for the people
Speaker 9: coming together to take that money on and build something that.
Speaker 6: Was truly beautiful to be a part of.
Speaker 9: And so I'm just really really grateful for that. And
Speaker 9: the key goal here is not to just defeat that
Speaker 9: money in a primary. The key goal here is to
Speaker 9: serve in the US Senate. And so we've got thirteen
Speaker 9: weeks left to go against a guy who's the worst
Speaker 9: of both eras of the Republican Party. This was a
Speaker 9: guy who was in in Congress between twenty and twenty fifteen,
Speaker 9: spent his time there doing favors for big Pharma, took
Speaker 9: over a million dollars from them, voted to raise prescription
Speaker 9: drug prices nineteen times, and then helped the architect the
Speaker 9: legislation that kicked off the opioid epidemic. And now he's
Speaker 9: a bootleger for Donald Trump. He's going to do exactly
Speaker 9: what Trump says. He is going to rubber stamp anything
Speaker 9: Trump wants because he understands that his ticket in is
Speaker 9: for Trump, and the ticket out for him is to
Speaker 9: be able to trade on the relationships he builds while
Speaker 9: he's in Congress, to do exactly what he did last time,
Speaker 9: which is leave to make fourteen million dollars as some
Speaker 9: advisor for these corporations and by mcmanson in Florida, I
Speaker 9: guess fourteen million wasn't enough, so he's back for more.
Speaker 9: But wor sick and tired of being monetized, and we're
Speaker 9: going to kick them back to Florida by November.
Speaker 3: And I'm dull, I guess, I mean we do have
Speaker 3: There's a video that Mike Rogers put out. He's trying
Speaker 3: to bring in Democrats and he's got this personal message
Speaker 3: to Democrats at Michigan. We should play a little bit.
Speaker 3: I'll get you to respond to it, and then I'll
Speaker 3: get you to respond to Donald Trump too, because he
Speaker 3: has had some choice words for you that are slightly
Speaker 3: more unhinged as you might.
Speaker 1: You're among the majority of Democratic voters that woke up
Speaker 1: on Wednesday feeling well hopeless because the person who won
Speaker 1: does not represent your values.
Speaker 2: Well, just no, there is still hope.
Speaker 1: Michigan deserves a senator who is ready to sit with you.
Speaker 1: Hear from you and represent you the parents across Michigan
Speaker 1: who won an education system that sets up their kids
Speaker 1: for six Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think it's the sort of the beginning of that,
Speaker 3: Abdul that you should respond to. He basically says, in
Speaker 3: a not so subtle way, that you don't represent people's
Speaker 3: values in Michigan.
Speaker 2: What did you think of that?
Speaker 9: Well, it's ironic, right. He goes on to talk about
Speaker 9: you have a home with us? Is that his home
Speaker 9: in Florida because most of us want to stay in Michigan.
Speaker 9: And the second part of it is he's talking about
Speaker 9: with us, but he's the only one doing the talking.
Speaker 9: It's interesting, how you know the person next to him,
Speaker 9: I presume that's his spouse doesn't say anything. So if
Speaker 9: you want to just sit there and have no voice
Speaker 9: in your politics, you can do exactly what it is
Speaker 9: that he's expecting of you. That's Mike Rogers in a nutshell,
Speaker 9: talks a lot, does so much for the corporations that
Speaker 9: have ruined your life, and now expects that you're just
Speaker 9: going to come along because well, I don't know. He
Speaker 9: thinks that that's the brand of politics people really want.
Speaker 6: And what's funny about.
Speaker 9: It is you know, this is a guy who's had
Speaker 9: a long history in Congress. He retired to go to Florida.
Speaker 9: I presume to play golf, which is what people like
Speaker 9: him tend I guess to do. But the question is
Speaker 9: what do you actually have to offer? Notice how he
Speaker 9: doesn't talk about that. There's a question of oh, well,
Speaker 9: you know, doesn't represent your valuealues, we had a very
Speaker 9: contentious primary and a lot of the question was about electability,
Speaker 9: and electability was.
Speaker 6: About who can beat Mike Rogers.
Speaker 9: So there's no world in which people were like, yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 9: Mike Rodgers is exactly what we want, and he represents
Speaker 9: our values. He hasn't represented values in Michigan for a
Speaker 9: very long time, and we're going to invite him to
Speaker 9: move back to Florida and he can have a home
Speaker 9: over there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, what's your what's your response? I guess
Speaker 3: to some of the polling that showed, and polls, you know,
Speaker 3: sometimes they're not worth the paper they're printed on.
Speaker 2: Or or whatever.
Speaker 3: But that showed that Hailey Stevens might have been the
Speaker 3: stronger candidate, or might have shown that Mallory mcmorra might
Speaker 3: have been the stronger candidate going into the general. I mean,
Speaker 3: I know that a lot can change between now and November.
Speaker 3: What what what do you say to the swipe that
Speaker 3: you were you were the least electable at the.
Speaker 9: Three Well polls are mixed, and we had several polls
Speaker 9: showing that I was the most electable.
Speaker 6: But poles don't vote. People do.
Speaker 9: And we have our work cut out from us for
Speaker 9: the next thirteen weeks to go and continue to build
Speaker 9: the indelible relationship that we want to build with Michigan voters.
Speaker 6: You know, in the end, for me, it's not just
Speaker 6: about winning a race. It's about serving well.
Speaker 9: And campaigns are about how you build that relationship so
Speaker 9: that you understand what it is that people need and deserve.
Speaker 9: Across the fifteen months that we ran, fifteen months, I'd
Speaker 9: gone to one hundred and ten different cities, four hundred
Speaker 9: and seventy five public events. I think by the end
Speaker 9: of it we cross five hundred public events. We go everywhere,
Speaker 9: we talk to everybody, and no matter where I go,
Speaker 9: people tell me the same things. It just shouldn't be
Speaker 9: this hard to afford your groceries, or to pay your rent,
Speaker 9: or believe you could ever own a home or see
Speaker 9: a doctor in the richest, most powerful country in the world.
Speaker 9: So we're going to continue to have those conversations up
Speaker 9: and down my state. It was a hard fought primary,
Speaker 9: and despite the fact that they spent what seventy million
Speaker 9: dollars to try to beat me, lying about me and
Speaker 9: my character, lying about records and endorsements, we still came
Speaker 9: through it. Michigan nitors got the opportunity to vote, and
Speaker 9: we still came through it. Now the question for us
Speaker 9: is this, can we continue to build that relationship and
Speaker 9: we continue to demonstrate what we can do to get
Speaker 9: money out of politics, put money in our pocket past
Speaker 9: Medicare for all. I'm looking forward to that thirteen week conversation.
Speaker 9: But the contrast couldn't be more clear. Mike Rodgers is
Speaker 9: a guy who spent his time as an elected official
Speaker 9: corrupting his public office for private gain. That he made
Speaker 9: fourteen million dollars on the back end of his congressional
Speaker 9: service doing what I don't know, but we probably should
Speaker 9: find out. And while he was congress he took so
Speaker 9: much money from the corporations that make your life worse,
Speaker 9: to raise your prescription drug prices, to.
Speaker 6: Do the bidding of big tech and big pharma.
Speaker 9: So we can do a lot better than that, and
Speaker 9: we believe that as this happens. Starting our last campaign,
Speaker 9: we were down, people said we couldn't win, but we
Speaker 9: built those relationships and we're going to continue to do
Speaker 9: that now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you had a lot of mud thrown at
Speaker 3: you during that primary battle. Apak, as you said, spent
Speaker 3: millions of dollars trying to defeat you. They've now pledged
Speaker 3: that they're going to back Mike Rogers. I guess they're
Speaker 3: not even going to take the time to listen to
Speaker 3: you and Mike Rodgers have a debate.
Speaker 2: They're just they're all in.
Speaker 3: But I mean, a lot of this is obviously steeped
Speaker 3: in Islamophobia, which is obviously horrible. But Donald Trump is
Speaker 3: all in on this, and he I mean, I'm sure
Speaker 3: you're seeing some of these comments. We should show I
Speaker 3: don't want to play the whole thing because it's it's
Speaker 3: pretty repugnant, but he really is kind of painting you
Speaker 3: as somebody who is just anti Israel and antis.
Speaker 2: Amitica and so on. We should play a little bit
Speaker 2: of that and listen.
Speaker 8: Then the American dream for you and your children. The
Speaker 8: radical left the maniacs are trying to destroy it with
Speaker 8: the disaster known as not socialism, communism.
Speaker 2: It's communism.
Speaker 8: He's a communism. Wrong again last night when they thought
Speaker 8: it would be a landslide victory for a hater of
Speaker 8: Jews and a hater of Israel, this is this guy
Speaker 8: hates Jews. Somebody said, oh, that's a little strong.
Speaker 5: Now he hates Jews and he hates Israel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, what do you say to that.
Speaker 3: Obviously it's not true, and it's it's ugly and disgusting
Speaker 3: and it's what he but it's what he does and
Speaker 3: it riles people up, and how do you respond.
Speaker 9: Look, people in Michigan can't afford their groceries. People in
Speaker 9: Michigan are paying five dollars for gas. People in Michigan
Speaker 9: are struggling to pay their rent. And this man he
Speaker 9: got elected to office saying he was going to fix
Speaker 9: all that, but instead he kicked off a war to
Speaker 9: raise our grass prices even higher. He's busy trying to
Speaker 9: figure out the colors on the drapes or fix the
Speaker 9: reflecting pool, which he can't even do. And so yeah,
Speaker 9: he's going to try and fear monger about me. But
Speaker 9: the question really is about him. Every single day he
Speaker 9: talks about me, We're winning because at the end of
Speaker 9: the day, I am everything he fears. So we are
Speaker 9: going to stand up to him. We are going to
Speaker 9: take him on. We are going to subpoena all of
Speaker 9: his officials. We are going to fight for the affordability
Speaker 9: that he doesn't even care to fight for. We're going
Speaker 9: to get money out of politics, so we're going to
Speaker 9: put money in your pocket. We're gonna pass Medicare for all,
Speaker 9: and we're going to beat his handpicked Republican Mike Rodgers.
Speaker 9: So thank you Donald Trump for continuing to talk about me,
Speaker 9: for keeping me at the top of your mind. I
Speaker 9: hope that you learn how to say my name appropriately.
Speaker 9: And the one thing he did say is he called
Speaker 9: me a lovely gentleman, which is kind of weird. It's
Speaker 9: keeping with how he feels about Mom, Donnie and others.
Speaker 9: I don't really know what his fetish is, but I'll
Speaker 9: have to figure it out.
Speaker 3: Maybe you should go visit him in the Oval office
Speaker 3: and find out, or talk to Mom Donnie.
Speaker 2: You know gets.
Speaker 9: I think what he's afraid of is that I'm not
Speaker 9: afraid of him, and he knows him. So you know,
Speaker 9: people like that have a sense of people who are
Speaker 9: willing to stand up to him, which is why he's
Speaker 9: trying to preempt to Now, So Donnie, if you're watching,
Speaker 9: I've got bigger hands than you.
Speaker 6: I've got a better agenda than you. I'm going to
Speaker 6: beat your guy.
Speaker 9: And I'm looking forward to reminding you of that for
Speaker 9: two years when I'm in the US.
Speaker 3: Senate, and I you know, I saw that obviously. One
Speaker 3: of the I think very interesting things about your background
Speaker 3: is your public health official. And I think you led
Speaker 3: the Wayne County Public Health Office for several years. And
Speaker 3: I'm sure you saw this week the way they were
Speaker 3: going after doctor Anthony Fauci and you know, holding in
Speaker 3: contempt of Congress, and they're referring the case to the
Speaker 3: DOJ despite the fact that he has a party in
Speaker 3: pardon from Joe Biden, from President Biden. What did you
Speaker 3: make of that whole thing? And how would you tackle
Speaker 3: this in the Senate? Fighting against disinformation about vaccines, what
Speaker 3: RFK Junior has done with HHS, the fact that we
Speaker 3: have a measles out, you know, we have measles on
Speaker 3: the rise in this country, and so I mean, there's
Speaker 3: a lot to tackle from a public health standpoint, it would.
Speaker 9: Seem, you know, Jim, all of this is in the
Speaker 9: in keeping with the distraction politics that Republicans want to
Speaker 9: engage in, because let's just talk about public health right now.
Speaker 9: In the last month, we had to dodge Lettuce here
Speaker 9: in Michigan because we have a historical cyclost Barias's outbreak.
Speaker 9: We're worried about the air quality that we breathe. Those
Speaker 9: are the public health concerns that people are facing right now.
Speaker 9: All of that is a function of choices that have
Speaker 9: been made by Republican government for a very long time.
Speaker 9: You think about the dozing of the FDA, the dozing
Speaker 9: of the CDC. Now you think about the fact that
Speaker 9: we can't contact trace cyclists biases and people are getting sick.
Speaker 9: It took us how long to try and figure out
Speaker 9: And then you have the corporation that's responsible for the
Speaker 9: Leduce situation, buying off Trump officials trying to get the
Speaker 9: conclusions of a scientific analysis overturned. This is exactly the
Speaker 9: kind of corruption that ends up killing a lot of people,
Speaker 9: and thankfully now with cyclosporiasis, which is not all that deadly,
Speaker 9: but imagine what happened.
Speaker 6: If we had a very very serious disease.
Speaker 9: So in the US Senate, as the first ever public
Speaker 9: health official to be elected to the US Senate, I'm
Speaker 9: looking forward to holding Trump and his officials accountable. I'm
Speaker 9: looking forward to hauling up RFK Junior and asking him
Speaker 9: about the commitments that he said he was going to
Speaker 9: make to try and fix our food supply. Our food
Speaker 9: is not any healthier because of him. If anything, you
Speaker 9: think about the reduction of the of the kind of
Speaker 9: accountability we should have seen on the purveyors of all
Speaker 9: of these additives and all of these sprays that they
Speaker 9: use in our food supply, all because corporations want to
Speaker 9: make a little bit more money off of all of us.
Speaker 9: So look, I'm looking forward to having the conversation about health,
Speaker 9: about what it looks like to have healthier food, what
Speaker 9: it looks like to hold a lot of these polluters accountable,
Speaker 9: the conversation that RFK Junior is too cowardly to have,
Speaker 9: but these wore up and down that he would have.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and how have you been making the case on
Speaker 3: Medicare for all? Because you know, this is one of
Speaker 3: the things that I like to talk about on my show.
Speaker 3: I mean, I do think that we should have national
Speaker 3: health care in this country. I covered the passage of Obamacare,
Speaker 3: and it did expand healthcare through a lot of people
Speaker 3: in this country. But people still get extremely painful medical
Speaker 3: bills and the mail, I mean that has not gone away,
Speaker 3: and it really cuts into what people can afford in
Speaker 3: terms of grocery. It can be crushing for a lot
Speaker 3: of families in this country. And yet, you know, once
Speaker 3: you start talking about Medicare for all, then you get
Speaker 3: the attacks on socialism and that you're trying to bring
Speaker 3: socialism in this country and so on. How do you
Speaker 3: respond to that and how have you been making the
Speaker 3: case on Medicare for all?
Speaker 9: Well, Jim, I'll just tell you this, no matter where
Speaker 9: I go, I talk to folks who share the most
Speaker 9: heart wrenching stories about them. More family member are getting
Speaker 9: sick in America, where we always add insult to injury
Speaker 9: by hitting you with debt, by hitting you with bills
Speaker 9: you can't pay even if you're insured. Right, the median
Speaker 9: deductible for a family of four is about five thousand
Speaker 9: dollars now, five thousand dollars on top of what you
Speaker 9: already paid every month to provide your family health insurance.
Speaker 9: You just didn't realize that you're going to have to
Speaker 9: pay out a pocket again to the tune of five thousand.
Speaker 9: I mean, we carry two hundred twenty five billion dollars
Speaker 9: in medical debt in this country, a third of all families.
Speaker 9: So we have a choice about whether or not we
Speaker 9: want to continue to live like this so that a
Speaker 9: CEO of a health insurance company can make eighteen twenty
Speaker 9: million dollars a year, or we want to be able
Speaker 9: to hold them accountable and guarantee every single person in
Speaker 9: this country cradle to grave coverage without premiums, co pays
Speaker 9: or deductibles. I think the freedom of that, the economic
Speaker 9: value of that. Think about how many small businesses never
Speaker 9: get built simply because people are worried about losing their
Speaker 9: insurance in the interim. Think about how many people stay
Speaker 9: in marriages that they don't need to stay in. How
Speaker 9: many people are stifle in circumstances that they don't want
Speaker 9: to be stuck in economically simply because of the way
Speaker 9: we do healthcare.
Speaker 6: In this country.
Speaker 9: We are the richest, most powerful country in the world.
Speaker 9: There is no reason we can't guarantee high quality healthcare
Speaker 9: to anybody. Everybody asked me, all, well, what country do
Speaker 9: you want to emilate. I'm like, we're America. We don't
Speaker 9: emulate other countries.
Speaker 6: We lead.
Speaker 9: So how about we lead for the goal of figuring
Speaker 9: out how to provide health care in this country rather
Speaker 9: than figuring out how to allow people to monetize you
Speaker 9: simply because you get sick.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And Abdulla, getting back to Israel, what would you
Speaker 3: do about aid to Israel? Would there just be no
Speaker 3: aid to Israel? How would you handle that? And how
Speaker 3: do you explain that to voters in Michigan who might say, Aha,
Speaker 3: I told you I knew that about this guy. He's
Speaker 3: anti Israel, He's anti this, he's anti that.
Speaker 2: What would you do with aid Israel?
Speaker 9: I'm pro international law, and I'm pro equal rights to peace, dignity,
Speaker 9: and self determination for all people that's Jewish, Israeli and
Speaker 9: Palestinian people. And most of all, I'm pro our kids
Speaker 9: having good schools. I'm pro good roads, and I'm pro
Speaker 9: good infrastructure. And I'm pro keeping our tax dollars here
Speaker 9: in the United State to solve our problems rather than
Speaker 9: to ship them overseas to make other people's problems worse.
Speaker 9: I am against unconditional foreign military aid to any country
Speaker 9: that is Israel, yes, but that's also Egypt, where my
Speaker 9: family comes from and immigrated from, a country that is
Speaker 9: the second largest recipient of unconditional foreign military aid. And
Speaker 9: when it comes to international law, I believe that we
Speaker 9: need to condition our support on international law. Israel committed genocide,
Speaker 9: they commit apartheid. They are taking or leading the effort
Speaker 9: for a war that we have no business fighting, so
Speaker 9: that they could annex the southern part of a neighboring country.
Speaker 9: We could do a lot better with our money than that,
Speaker 9: and so I just believe that international law ought to abide.
Speaker 9: I believe that we owe our own people that we
Speaker 9: use our tax dollars here to provide healthcare and schools
Speaker 9: and infrastructure here rather than send it abroad. And too
Speaker 9: often people say, well, you know that you must be
Speaker 9: against a two state solution. I'm I'm against hypocrisy. And
Speaker 9: too many of the same people who say that they'refore
Speaker 9: a two state solution are also for sending our taxpayer
Speaker 9: dollars to the of billions to a foreign government that
Speaker 9: is dead set on foreclosing on the possibility of a
Speaker 9: second state. You can't say your for a two state
Speaker 9: solution when you're supporting the people who only want one state.
Speaker 9: So I just think that we in this country have
Speaker 9: had an inconsistent approach to this for a very long time.
Speaker 9: And my responsibility as a senator from Michigan is the
Speaker 9: people of Michigan, not the people of Israel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and your thoughts on net and Yahoo.
Speaker 9: Obviously he's a war criminal. He ought to be prosecuted
Speaker 9: to the full extent of the law.
Speaker 6: You know, the Israeli.
Speaker 9: People will get to decide his political future, but it's
Speaker 9: not you know, you shouldn't be surprised that, you know,
Speaker 9: he's under indictment in his own country for crimes and
Speaker 9: he has also committed war crimes. That it tends to
Speaker 9: be that people who do heinous things do very, very
Speaker 9: heinous things. But I also want to be clear right
Speaker 9: that we've got a responsibility in the United States to
Speaker 9: be holding countries accountable. Like if any other country behaved
Speaker 9: the way that is real behaved, we would treat them
Speaker 9: in a very different way, and we don't. And I
Speaker 9: think we have to be really considerate about why, well
Speaker 9: it's the same experience I just had, which is that
Speaker 9: you have one organization, a super pac, committed to our
Speaker 9: foreign policy backstopping the foreign government or a different foreign government
Speaker 9: that is going to spend tens of millions of dollars
Speaker 9: to beat you if you're willing to speak about Palestinian
Speaker 9: rights to peace, dignity, and self determination. And you know,
Speaker 9: we came through it. They're coming back in the general
Speaker 9: were going to spend another thirty million dollars to try
Speaker 9: to beat me. You failed last time, so good luck
Speaker 9: with that. But I think the American public is starting
Speaker 9: to realize that we owe our own people to use
Speaker 9: our tax dollars here rather than to send our tax
Speaker 9: dollars abroad to drop bombs and on other people and
Speaker 9: their kids.
Speaker 3: And I do if people hear you say, nenya, who's
Speaker 3: a work criminal? And listen, I'm not going to quibble
Speaker 3: with you on that. I mean, but they might respond
Speaker 3: with the question, well, what about Hamas?
Speaker 2: Does he condemn? Hammas? Does he condemned? I mean about Hamas.
Speaker 9: It's funny because people always they always assume that there's
Speaker 9: like that, not not that you're saying this, but that
Speaker 9: there's a gotcha. Like, I'm not a tribalist about this.
Speaker 9: I believe in principles, So yes, I condemned us on
Speaker 9: day one, right, I think they're wrong. I think they
Speaker 9: committed war crimes. That's not hard to say. I just
Speaker 9: don't know why. It's also not hard to say that
Speaker 9: in response, the Israeli government also committed war crimes, including genocide.
Speaker 9: So you know, the question for us is ultimately about
Speaker 9: where we use our tax dollars. That is the political question.
Speaker 9: I think people like to get involved in this big,
Speaker 9: long question of what's good for Israel, or what's good
Speaker 9: or how we ought to be engaged in a conflict.
Speaker 9: My point is that our job is not to give
Speaker 9: money to make the conflict worse. Our job is to
Speaker 9: use our money here, and I believe that it is
Speaker 9: up to a free Palestinian people and free Jewish Israeli
Speaker 9: people to decide what the ultimate piece ought to look like.
Speaker 9: I just know that right now our tax dollars are
Speaker 9: making it far worse. And I don't want our money
Speaker 9: that could be used to make education and opportunity better
Speaker 9: for our people to be used to make life force
Speaker 9: for other people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I mean I will say you know, you
Speaker 3: have really galvanized young voters during this campaign.
Speaker 2: They have.
Speaker 3: I just had Adam macleron and he was talking about
Speaker 3: this enthusiasm that people are feeling about progressive candidates, Folks
Speaker 3: like yourself, folks like mom, Donnie. I mean, across the board,
Speaker 3: there's there's a whole slew of progressive candidates that have
Speaker 3: younger people more excited in the Democratic Party. And obviously
Speaker 3: that's that's going to be a good thing for Democrats.
Speaker 3: And I'm just curious about campaign tactics on your part
Speaker 3: and so on. I mean, I noticed I was looking
Speaker 3: at your Instagram. There's a whole lot of booty shaking
Speaker 3: going on. I hope you don't mind me describing it
Speaker 3: that way. I was saying, you know, it looks like
Speaker 3: he's trying to shake his booty all the way to
Speaker 3: the Senate.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: We can play some of this Instagram video here, but
Speaker 3: and I can't play the audio or else we'll get
Speaker 3: dinged by YouTube. They get they get annoyed with copyright stuff.
Speaker 3: But there you are, and you're not wearing a black
Speaker 3: T shirt there by the way, You're wearing a nice
Speaker 3: collared shirt there. But I mean, what's going on here, Abdul?
Speaker 3: Were you at Chipmandale's Dancer? What's happening here?
Speaker 6: We're having fun?
Speaker 9: And I think part of what people are frustrated about
Speaker 9: in our politics is it just feels so mean and
Speaker 9: so angry. I think sometimes people have to believe in
Speaker 9: a hope of something that we actually can have a
Speaker 9: good time trying to solve problems for everyday people.
Speaker 6: And the song I was dancing to there was R.
Speaker 2: S P E C T.
Speaker 6: A classic out of Motown.
Speaker 9: In Motown, right, So I just think that it's okay
Speaker 9: to have some fun while you're doing this. You can
Speaker 9: both be serious and be having a good time, and
Speaker 9: I think we need more of that in our politics.
Speaker 6: I also just say that.
Speaker 9: When you run for office, you are asking people to
Speaker 9: give you one of the most important things that they
Speaker 9: have to give, which is their stake in our democracy.
Speaker 9: And you're building a relationship with people that starts with
Speaker 9: listening and learning. And we started this camp PA going
Speaker 9: out to community after community, sometimes with five people or
Speaker 9: ten people who show up all over our state, building
Speaker 9: the conversation about who we are and who we want
Speaker 9: to be, and you know, towards the end of the campaign,
Speaker 9: you see that flower and it really is a beautiful thing.
Speaker 9: But for the next thirteen weeks, we're going to go
Speaker 9: and have those conversations, because that's what democracy is supposed
Speaker 9: to be about. And when you put out a video
Speaker 9: or you engage in in digital media, what you're trying
Speaker 9: to remind people of is that actually the feeling of
Speaker 9: our politics can be a lot more hopeful and a
Speaker 9: lot more joyful than the one we have right now.
Speaker 9: And I think for the folks who gave us their
Speaker 9: stake in democracy, they were also voting for a more hopeful,
Speaker 9: more joyful kind of politics, one where we're not so
Speaker 9: focused on what they're going to take away from us,
Speaker 9: but one where we're focused on what we actually can
Speaker 9: provide if we get money out of politics, put money
Speaker 9: in pockets and past medicare for all.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, doctor abdiels I'll say ed, thank you very
Speaker 3: much for spending some time with us. I had not
Speaker 3: interviewed you up until this point, and so forgive me
Speaker 3: for asking twenty or thirty questions there, but appreciate the time.
Speaker 3: And and if you do get an oval office, meaning
Speaker 3: we please give us heads up on that.
Speaker 2: We would appreciate it.
Speaker 6: I absolutely will.
Speaker 3: All right, good to see it. Thanks doctor, really appreciate
Speaker 3: your time. Thank you, doctor Abdul. I'll say, ed running
Speaker 3: for the Senate in the state of Michigan, and this
Speaker 3: is going to be probably the most visible campaign of
Speaker 3: the cycle and we'll have to see all all of that
Speaker 3: plays out. But you know, it sounds as though he's
Speaker 3: had to overcome a lot of doubts from the Democratic establishment.
Speaker 2: He's going to have to continue to do that.
Speaker 3: But a very interesting interview and I think a very
Speaker 3: thoughtful candidate and somebody who is exciting a lot of
Speaker 3: young progressive Democrats right now and the party that is
Speaker 3: where the party is right now, in part because they
Speaker 3: see what's taking place in Washington right now, where the
Speaker 3: Republican Party has just they've just sold their souls to
Speaker 3: Donald Trump. And you know, as we were taping today's show,
Speaker 3: a very key vote was announced Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana,
Speaker 3: who is being run out of Washington d C. Currently
Speaker 3: by Donald Trump. Trump did not go with Cassidy in
Speaker 3: his Senate primary earlier this year. Donald Trump got behind
Speaker 3: his challenger and booted Bill Cassidy out of the United
Speaker 3: States Senate. He Cassidy is still there, and he has
Speaker 3: announced that he is going to vote yes to confirm
Speaker 3: Todd Blanche as permanent Attorney General of the United States.
Speaker 3: This is the same Bill Cassidy who voted for RFK
Speaker 3: Junior for Health and Human Services. Despite the fact that
Speaker 3: Bill Cassidy himself is a doctor and so you know this.
Speaker 3: He is sort of the poster child. You're seeing him
Speaker 3: speak now. He's doing some grand standing. Just announced that
Speaker 3: you're voting for the guy in leave honestly, but he
Speaker 3: is doctor Bill Cassidy center. Bill Cassidy has become the
Speaker 3: poster child of what is broken in Washington, d C.
Speaker 2: Right now.
Speaker 3: You can have debates, you can have arguments, you can
Speaker 3: have discussions about the Democrats going this way, the establishments
Speaker 3: and Chuck Schume, Progressives and DSA and so on. But
Speaker 3: make no mistake, the prevailing tide here in Washington flows
Speaker 3: from Donald Trump through the Republican Party and then it
Speaker 3: rolls on top of the rest of US Americans across
Speaker 3: this country. The Republicans control the House, Republicans control the Senate,
Speaker 3: they control the White House, they control the Supreme Court.
Speaker 3: And it's people like doctor Bill Cassidy, that have gotten
Speaker 3: us into the jam that we are in as a
Speaker 3: country right now. When Donald Trump puts up somebody as
Speaker 3: ridiculously irresponsible as Todd Blanche for Attorney General of the
Speaker 3: United States, and you can't find more than two Republican
Speaker 3: Senators to vote against Todd Blanche, who is going to
Speaker 3: act as Donald Trump's personal defense attorney. Just make no mistake,
Speaker 3: that is what's going to happen. That's what he's been
Speaker 3: doing on the Epstein files, that is what he's going
Speaker 3: to continue to do for the next couple of years
Speaker 3: while Donald Trump is in office. And as Donald Trump
Speaker 3: likes to say, and who knows after that, I mean,
Speaker 3: is a wretch at all to imagine that Todd Blanche
Speaker 3: would go right along with Donald Trump attempting to get
Speaker 3: a third term, or overturning the results of the midterm elections,
Speaker 3: or over trying to overturn the results of the next
Speaker 3: presidential election. Don't we all think that Todd Blanche would
Speaker 3: do all of those things? Yes, absolutely, because he is
Speaker 3: acting as Donald Trump's mob lawyer. And yet Bill Cassidy
Speaker 3: puts out this tweet this morning saying, I have a
Speaker 3: dramatic announcement to make tune in as I announce how
Speaker 3: I'm going to roll over for Donald Trump again, just
Speaker 3: as He's rolled over again and again. And Bill Cassidy
Speaker 3: is the guy who voted to impeach and convict Donald
Speaker 3: Trump after January sixth, He actually, he actually had a
Speaker 3: profile encouraged moment back in twenty twenty one, and since
Speaker 3: then has given his spine and his balls to Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: And they sit on they sit on a shelf in
Speaker 3: the Oval Office, next to all the gold shit Donald
Speaker 3: Trump has.
Speaker 2: Put all over the Oval Office.
Speaker 3: But Senator Bill Cassidy, you had a chance here to
Speaker 3: block the confirmation of a thoroughly unqualified attorney general, and.
Speaker 2: You blew it, and you absolutely blew it.
Speaker 3: And so I you know, this is where I have
Speaker 3: a little bit of a problem with the discourse in
Speaker 3: Washington right now as it relates to the Democratic Party.
Speaker 2: Yes you can you can have.
Speaker 3: A heated argument over Israel, and yes you can have
Speaker 3: a heated argument over there, whether there should be national healthcare,
Speaker 3: whether things are moving too far to the left or
Speaker 3: too far to the right, or Chuck Schumer and Hakeem
Speaker 3: Jeffries and all of that's so, and you can have
Speaker 3: all of those debates in those discussions, but if you're
Speaker 3: frothing at the mouth over that kind of stuff, I
Speaker 3: gotta be I gotta be honest with you. I think
Speaker 3: you need to go get your head examined, because what
Speaker 3: is happening in Washington right now is we have a
Speaker 3: mobbed up, corrupt Republican Party that has basically sold it sold.
Speaker 3: There is no Republican Party. It has sold it so
Speaker 3: to Donald Trump. And Donald Trump can't even get words
Speaker 3: out of his mouth these days. I've been thinking about it.
Speaker 3: You should call it. We should think of it as
Speaker 3: a new game show. What is Donald Trump talking about?
Speaker 3: What in the world is he talking about? And on
Speaker 3: a daily basis, he gives us a fresh category of
Speaker 3: what the fuck is Donald Trump talking about? And the
Speaker 3: latest I brought this up early, I'll bring it up again,
Speaker 3: just in case folks are tuning in a little late.
Speaker 3: He was talking about sports, and he said that a
Speaker 3: judge had declared sports on constitution.
Speaker 2: I just want to play.
Speaker 3: I just want to play one more time before I go,
Speaker 3: because it is a thoroughly ridiculous, crazy ass.
Speaker 2: Thing to say played. If we can't play it again,
Speaker 2: played against Sam from.
Speaker 8: The beginning, right from the beginning, and already we've done
Speaker 8: a lot to help save women's sports, and we're also
Speaker 8: saving college sports who are in the process of working
Speaker 8: very hard. We had a bad judge's decision, and I judge,
Speaker 8: you knew nothing about sports. Declared sports unconstitutional? Can you
Speaker 8: believe it?
Speaker 2: And we had.
Speaker 3: The judge was ever declared sports on constitutional. Donald Trump
Speaker 3: does not know what he's talking about.
Speaker 2: His crazy hair.
Speaker 3: Whatever they're doing to his crazy hair is obviously seeped
Speaker 3: down into his brain. And you know, I was talking
Speaker 3: about this with my friend Molly John FASc the other day.
Speaker 3: You know, the whole comparison of Earth one versus Earth two.
Speaker 3: Earth one is the normal, non upside down Earth that
Speaker 3: we used to live in, whether he had a Democrat
Speaker 3: or Republic in the White House. We've been transported to
Speaker 3: Earth two, where truth is lies and lies of truth.
Speaker 3: And that's the world of Donald Trump that we're all
Speaker 3: inhabiting right now. But I would argue that there is
Speaker 3: an Earth three that we've landed on. There's an Earth
Speaker 3: three that we've landed on, and Earth three is a
Speaker 3: world in which the president of the United States has
Speaker 3: lost his goddamn mine, has lost his marbles. And every day,
Speaker 3: just look at it. Every day Donald Trump says something
Speaker 3: that doesn't make sense, and it is not good for
Speaker 3: America or the world where our children or grandchildren, people
Speaker 3: we deem as precious in our lives, are loved ones.
Speaker 3: It is not good for any of them when the
Speaker 3: President of the United States has lost his mind, has
Speaker 3: lost his marbles, and he's saying that on a regular basis.
Speaker 3: And I for one, I know on the corporate evening
Speaker 3: news and on the legacy media and so on, they
Speaker 3: don't want to touch it. And maybe every once in
Speaker 3: a while, the New York Times will churn out an article.
Speaker 3: Once every three or four months, they'll churn out an
Speaker 3: article about Trump losing his mind. Thank god, at least
Speaker 3: there's that. But I'm not going to stop talking about
Speaker 3: how on a regular basis he does not make any sense.
Speaker 3: And we're going to have somebody like Todd blanche as
Speaker 3: the Attorney General of the United States where a president
Speaker 3: who doesn't make any sense, so Trump can just throw
Speaker 3: out all of these crazy ideas. I want to jail
Speaker 3: this person over there. I want to jail that person
Speaker 3: over there, and Todd Blanche is just going to go
Speaker 3: along with it. That's what we're going to do in
Speaker 3: this country for the next two years. And doctor Bill Cassidy,
Speaker 3: a doctor who I guess was educated in some way,
Speaker 3: he's okay with that, and he's going to vote for
Speaker 3: Todd Blanche as the attorney general. What is wrong with you?
Speaker 3: What is wrong with the Republicans in the Senate? No balls,
Speaker 3: no courage, no spine, no nothing there, They're just empty
Speaker 3: vessels and it's it's totally ridiculous and out of control.
Speaker 3: And you know that's why I you know, I appreciate
Speaker 3: Abdulahlsa yet coming on. I'm going to try to talk
Speaker 3: to as many Democratic candidates as I can between now
Speaker 3: and the midterm. Of the Republican candidate wants to, I'll
Speaker 3: entertain that. But if a Republican candidate comes on the show,
Speaker 3: one of the very first questions I'm going to ask
Speaker 3: is do you still have a soul? Where did you
Speaker 3: go to get it removed from your body? And can
Speaker 3: we somehow put it back in? Because that is what
Speaker 3: has happened to Tom Tillis and John corn In and
Speaker 3: Bill Cassidy and the whole lot of them. And so
Speaker 3: you can have debates about Democrats and whether they're going
Speaker 3: this way or that way, or what's happening with this
Speaker 3: issue or that issue, but the prevailing dark cloud hanging
Speaker 3: over all of us, it's the President of the United
Speaker 3: States has now taken us to Earth three. He's out
Speaker 3: of his mind, and we're all trapped in this roller
Speaker 3: coaster into the twilight zone until something changes where somebody
Speaker 3: in the Republican Party finds some courage to keep this
Speaker 3: from sliding into the abyss. It is just getting worse
Speaker 3: and worse every day, and the president just does not
Speaker 3: make any sense anymore. He just doesn't on a regular basis,
Speaker 3: does not make any sense anymore. And I don't know
Speaker 3: why the athletes behind him didn't just say, quiet Wiggy,
Speaker 3: can we show that before we go?
Speaker 2: Quiet Wiggy?
Speaker 5: There?
Speaker 6: It is.
Speaker 3: Quiet Wiggy, you know, and he's getting weird and he's
Speaker 3: talking about the male athletes and he was doing that.
Speaker 3: But I would have paid good money if one of
Speaker 3: those athletes had just said, quiet Wiggy.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 3: I want to thank Steve Schmidt for joining me today.
Speaker 3: Slightly longer show today. Adam Mockler and doctor Abdul al Sayed,
Speaker 3: and keep an eye on that campaign. That is gonna
Speaker 3: be a fascinating one to watch. But in the meantime,
Speaker 3: still reporting from Washington. I'm Jim Acosta. I'll see you
Speaker 3: next time. Guys, passsssssssssssssssssssssss.