Trump's Explosive Diarrhea of the Mouth

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I'm John Favre. I'm Jan Favre. - On today's show, Donald Trump unloads recycled election conspiracies in an impossible to follow primetime address. His teleprompter operator was apparently making money

betting on his speeches. His media company is selling Wall Street access to his truths. And his vice president is demanding taxpayer funded helicopter rides for his kids golf lesson. We'll dig into those stories plus JD advances attempt

to win back Joe Rogan and Pete Higgs-Sets obsession with testosterone. Then Alex Wagner talks to Michigan Senate candidate Abdul Elsaid about the intense primary in that state that's heading into the final home stretch.

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All right, let's get to Trump's big prime time address, which he built as really big news. Really big news, it doesn't get bigger. It's so big that we are recording this at 7 p.m. on Thursday night, because we wanted to bring you

our analysis of this speech, which is why we're here late, because it was so big. Just like a table of nine people at CNN. (laughs) It doesn'ts of 2020 election deniers

got called to the White House for a top secret preview. Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno said it would be

the most important presidential address

since the Cuban missile crisis. And at 9 p.m. Eastern on Thursday night, this is what we got, though this might be news to you unless you're a Fox or CBS viewer, since those are the only networks

that carried it live, CBS really only did like half the speech, and then they sort of like gave context around it. But anyway, here's what you missed. Tonight, I'm announcing the immediate declassification

and release of critical intelligence, revealing shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure. This evidence shows that the election system we have dangerously exposes, and really exposes, like levels never thought possible,

to hack in exploitation and far and interference, just as disturbingly this vital information has for many years been covered up and hidden from you. They wanted to just make use sound. Like your president was in so hot.

When actually your president has done a great job. Recently, we found significant numbers of burn bags, members of the deep state, very, very famous group of people, many cases, they did not want. And they just didn't want it.

They thought like hell not to have a Donald Trump

and ABC fake news are both said

that they would not cover this speech. They knew what it was about. They and others in the media, part of a plot, they want to continue this fraud for whatever reason. They want to keep it going, addressing this crisis

of election security demands that Congress, mass, pass, the safe America act. Wow. So that was something. You know, in our meeting before the speech earlier this week, you said it would probably just be a bunch of rambling,

nothing that no one would pay attention to, and think about more than 24, 48 hours afterwards. And I kind of think you nailed it down. Well, I had to get one right eventually. Let's get to Trump's actual claims,

“which honestly, I mean, we played that super cup,”

but it was hard to follow. And we, who's in follow this stuff for like 10 years. And also, like before the speech, while we were waiting around in the office to record tonight, I was like going back and reading things about the 2020 election

and what had been debunked just like a prepare for this, and still it was hard to follow. That and that stuff wasn't even really helpful. You didn't even have being an expert in the conspiracy theories up to this point, was that helpful?

'Cause these were new, ish conspiracy theories? Let's go through his actual claims. Starting in 2020, China allegedly acquired

220 million U.S. voter files,

and the deep state hid this from Trump. Now, all the documents that the White House released also confirmed what the intelligence agencies in the government found back in 2020 when Trump was president, that not a single vote was changed.

And also the voter files, voter information,

“voter registration information is public.”

In most states, you can just get the information. So, anyone get it? The other that are names and addresses or somewhere sitting in China, they're also sitting out there on the internet.

- Anyone can get it, every campaign has it. It didn't require any hacking or an inferiorist moves to get it. What do they want to do with it, where their intentions good? Probably not, but it would try to make it sound much scarier

than it actually was. - Our voting machines are vulnerable. It didn't really give a lot of evidence for that. That was all recycled stuff that the intelligence agency had said.

There's potential for vulnerabilities in some electronic voting machines, but nothing has happened and other nefarious actors and other countries may have been looking at ways to hack into or interfere with voting machines, but no one has done it.

So, there's no news there.

“There was a random episode in Michigan in 2020”

where a bunch of suspicious voter registration forms were flagged to the police and then nothing happened and no votes were changed and no people were registered

and I guess it was never prosecuted

and now Trump blunts that prosecuted. - Yeah, and the thing about that is this has happened in the past that actually happened on a race I worked on many, many years ago where people were doing what a registration drive

and they just filled out the forms in order to get paid. Which is fraud, but it's not voter fraud because the people who got registered, if they either don't exist or if they do exist they don't know their registered so they don't vote.

- Yeah, so that's an old one. It's been public, it's not that was anything new. DHS apparently found a bunch of non-citizens registered to vote but didn't find any non-citizens who did vote also can't really be verified who knows

what the non-citizens registering to vote are, we haven't seen those documents yet. And then, big one, there was some election meddling. There were some votes changed in Venezuela by Nicholas Maduro.

- Someone's got to get that Maduro guy. - That guy should be served in time. - One of the revelations tonight was that Nicholas Maduro meddled in Venezuela's election and somehow that ended up in Donald Trump's prime time

address at a time when we are at war with Iran, the straightest closed inflation is high. People are struggling, there's wildfire smoke that is making some half the cities in the Northeast in the Midwest, unburied the Bulletin in the outside.

But you can't wait to start getting explosive diarrhea. - That's forgot about that, right? There's a lot of explosive diarrhea. And yet, the president went out tonight to talk about random, recycled voter conspiracy

election fraud, conspiracy theories and let us know that Nicholas Maduro meddled in his own elections and that the Chinese have access to the voter file data that we do do. - I mean, a couple of just key points here

- Okay. - First, you said it.

“I'm gonna say it again, it's very important.”

No one has presented any evidence that votes were changed. - Including the Trump administration this time around. - They could not find that, they would-- - They could not find that. - Last time we're out in the town.

- That too, this time we're out as well, yeah. - They cannot do it. The second thing here is that they China apparently acquired public information. Don't love it, but nothing you can really do about it

when you make a public. Next, the idea to the extent that there's allegations, although this is very much a speed by the Delta community, that China was going to be involved in some sort of misinformation campaign

they're gonna try to get involved with like higher journalists or media influencers or build bots or all of that. All of the things that Russia did all Trump's behalf in 2016 to be noted.

Not some evidence that they actually did it but that they thought about doing it. But we also know that in every election foreign intelligence agencies try to interfere in our elections.

Russia tries it, Iran has tried it. The Chinese have apparently tried it. Nothing new there. No evidence that actually changed any about this.

“I think the most important thing here is,”

if there were huge gaps in our election security infrastructure with the old loud China to penetrate, to do these things that Trump claims they did do. The person who was in charge at that time should be held accountable.

And that was some Donald Trump. No, careful on that because he got ahead of that tonight by basically saying that everyone that this was all uncovered and the Zoll known in 2020 but it was all the deep state and the deep state hit it for me.

So this is like, there's gonna go after him. That's my next, that's my next point. His big complaint recently has been a lot of time here is that the people who work for him didn't tell him things. It seems like a management problem.

And I would also point out that the guy who is the director of national intelligence who would have been overseeing the people who are hiding things from Donald Trump as a main name John Radcliffe.

It's John Radcliffe in jail, has he been, has he been like shamed out of public life? No, he's Donald Trump picking to be his director of the CIA. Look, these people, these are not incompetent public servants. These are victims of a deep state plot damn.

No matter who you're talking about,

there's always a deep state operative responsible

for pulling the wool over their eyes. And then also, if you were someone who is deeply concerned about our election security going forward, would you have gutted many of the agencies and eliminate much of the funding that goes towards election security?

Because that's what Donald Trump and Elon Musk did do. One thing that's funny is, as everyone is reading, all you can go to whitehouse.gov to look at all these docs that they're really, but they declassified and released, is everyone's looking at the docs.

They're not really matching the president's claims and the speech is on his own. His own documents, his own documents, Sam Stein picked up this one here. Docs released by Trump tonight confirmed Russia,

tried to spread claims Biden was engaged in criminal activity vis-a-vis Burisma in that it advanced those narratives with U.S. officials and planned a high profile corruption scandal at the peak of the 2020 presidential campaign.

“You might remember that that scandal turned out”

to be the subject of Donald Trump's first impeachment.

- Yeah, this perfect phone call to Zelensky. So that stuff's out there now. There was a lot of stuff just about Russia in the docs that Russia tried to interfere on behalf of Donald Trump.

So they put all that out there, too. Fucking idiots, man. - Yeah, it's so stupid. - And apparently like there was an administration official told MSNow before the speech,

'cause this was a speech that was cooked up by the way by John Solomon, the pretend journalist who has become a special government employee and also pill-pulti. And at a administration official told MSNow

flatly that the intelligence doesn't show what Pulti and Solomon claim, quote, the intelligence just doesn't say what you wanted to say. I'm sorry. (laughs) So they just, they cooked up some stuff

for the president to say in his speech and get all mad and please him, please grandpa who's getting old and, you know, grumpy and wants to talk about election conspiracies and then they just threw that in the speech

and then they put it a bunch of dogs that don't really say any of that. - Cool. What a great use of everyone's time. - What a great use of everyone's time.

What's your level of alarm after listening? 'Cause, you know, on one hand, it's all stupid and they didn't really prove anything and they didn't even make up any good story. (laughs)

Even, they didn't even put it a good lie. On the other hand, it's clear that his intention is to so doubt among Americans and are in the sanctity of our elections and clearly is sure as the sun comes up

is going to cry foul if Republicans lose the midterms. - I mean, this is a man who cried foul at an election he won in 2016. - Right. - So it's like, you didn't need a speech

- I think we should be very vigilant

because Donald Trump is going to try to interfere in these elections. Like, we know that, that is obvious.

“I think he has less power to do so than he believes”

and we'll have Democrats fear. These elections are run by the states, states aside. How they're run, how the votes are counted, how they're certified those things are written and law. The courts, today, have been very skeptical

of any of these Trump efforts across the board from 2020 all the way through here, but he's gonna try and we should be vigilant. I am no more worried after this speech I was before. This was just stupid, this doesn't,

I think people thought he was going to, you know, there was reporting early on they was just going to declare that John Osoth and Rafael Warnock were illegitimate centers. I don't know what power he has to do that,

but or that he would call for the seizing of something or the communication of this thing. He did none of that. He just vomited a bunch of things. It did make a lot of sense in a very tired

monotone voice that was felt and grieved the whole time and then moved back. - Burn bags, burn bags. - Yeah, I mean, we can get into the performance level of this, but it was, I would actually,

you may need to talk to Pete Hex at talking to some of that T. - Yelling about the burn, I couldn't follow that one either. Something about Obama and burn bags. - We knew about these burn bags was the thing. I was trying to remember this

'cause we've actually talked about it because this is the cash-picked health thing.

“- I think these are the cash-picked health burn bags.”

- I so hard to keep all these episodes. - I know, it's our literally our job is to keep these things straight. And we can understand what the fuck he was saying. Like what would a normal American think of this?

- Before, I mean, we should talk about the FCC threat. The networks who didn't cover my speech, my election fraud speech where I spout conspiracies are now gonna lose their license. They should lose their license.

Is that a real threat? - I mean, I think it's a thing that Trump really would like to see happen, and I'm sure Brendan Carr will try to do. Some things I don't think he really has the ability to do that. Just to make this very clear,

it is not unusual for networks not to air speeches. If the topic of the nationalized address is not sufficiently newsworthy, this happened with Obama. None of the networks covered Obama's 2014 speech

about immigration, where he's gonna ask immigration, and the executive action was actually was news and they all thought it was too political to cover. In 2022, you remember the Joe Biden speech on democracy.

He gave none of the networks covered that one either, 'cause they thought it was too political.

“And newsworthy, this was very political.”

And not newsworthy, and then when you add on top of it, and it was funny to watching Fox's coverage, because Fox is so afraid of getting

another three quarters of a billion dollar lawsuit,

like they did in the dominion suit. And so they were just so, they promoted the speech a lot, every time I was in the speech, and then after the speech,

they had to repeatedly say, "Fox can't verify these claims." Like the lawyers were really all up in Brett Bear's ass, which was amusing to watch. So it's not like they can,

that works out well within the rights to not cover this, and it's not unusual, and it's not Trump's arrangement syndrome or anything. Like this is a speech that was not, did not merit that level of coverage.

Even if the things he were gonna say, were not possibly the digits wise. (upbeat music) This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace is the only one website platform

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That's zipper Kruder.com/cricket. Meet your match on Zipper Kruder. (upbeat music) - So, Republicans had some thoughts on this whole thing before the speech.

Politico, hopefully captures three different outlooks here. First, the Doomers, like the anonymous former Trump administration official who said quote, "The people I talk to are scared, shitless." This is about what it will do to their midterm chances.

Next is the, what can I do? I'm just a simple member of Congress cohort represented here by Senator John Kennedy. Quote, "When moms and dads lie down to sleep at night in can't, what are they mostly worried about?

I would say cost of living, but he's the president and he can talk about whatever he wants." Finally, freaks like Steve Bannon said that the quote, "Revelations in the speech quote, "will be the exact tonic, the mega grassroots base need to fire them up

"to remind them of what they're really fighting for

"in these crucial November elections."

Dan, who's right? - I don't think Steve Bannon is right. Like, picture this. Is there a group of January, sixers who live in swing districts who are just, are like tapped out on Trump

or just waiting for this way to recall the arms to go vote, for Mike Lawler in New York? I don't think so. - Yeah, that is from Steve Bannon. But all the blood has been squeezed from this stone.

There is just nothing, there's nothing. Like, I totally agree. Like, I just don't understand how this gets anyone motivated. Especially since it's so hard to fucking follow. - It's just, yeah, it's so stupid.

And the bigger political issue here, and the reason why that first group of scary channels people are correct is, it's not just the crazy things he said. It's what he chose to talk about. We are in a world where this is an election

entirely about a photo building. Large majoris of people, including Trump voters, and people thinking about voting for Republicans in this midterm, think that Trump is not spending enough time focusing on learned people's costs.

So what does he do? He has a nationally televised address to talk about declassified intelligence that's unintelligible, about a six-year-old election. - Yeah.

- Like, it's just your waving assign that says, "I do not care about you. "I do not care about your problems. "I care about me and my problems." And that is bad for Republicans.

- Yeah, I don't think it's gonna, I don't think it's gonna fly. I mean, unless they can buy, you know, as we get closer to the election, the he'll probably do a, you know, the communist and socialists

are trying to steal the election to take over America. So they can, you know, so there can be sharia law and, you know, they can take all your property. And, you know, it'll be something like that,

like the leftist-- - Yeah, that'll happen. - The leftist's scary and the leftist's scary and the way they're gonna win is to steal the election.

“And so that's why you have to be vigilant.”

- That wasn't even the gist of this-- - No, no, that wasn't-- - This is-- - Which was, from what I can tell that was, China tried to steal an election in the past and then a bunch of people in the government

didn't tell me about it. Vote for a Republican, like it's not a good message. - Yeah, that's about right. All right, well, that's enough of that. Trump had the added challenge of delivering that speech

tonight with a, with a new teleprompter operator. And that's because his former Promptor guy, Gabrielle Perez, was placed on unpaid leave Thursday morning after it was reported that Perez made more than $100,000 on Calshy,

placing bets on words that would appear in the president's speeches. Calshy, apparently flagged Perez's trade back in March, the same month, the White House published a memo, warning staffers against trading on prediction markets,

and eventually referred his case to the commodity futures trading commission, which is conducting an investigation. Think of how rich we could have gotten. If Calshy was around 20 years ago.

- Is that your first take away on this?

- Missed opportunity. - I mean, we're talking about a teleprompter and knowing about a speech.

“- Yeah, of course, that's what I'm gonna think about.”

- I mean, that was your chance. - Perez who often makes, this is from the ABC story that broke the news. Perez who often makes final edits to Trump's speeches, including changes from Trump himself.

Oh my God, I killed a teleprompter operator who was making the final changes to the speech. (laughing) That's terrifying to me. Backed out of bets mid-speech, when Trump went off script,

he was live-enching me out this. (laughing) - This is very inside baseball, but the thing that was most stunning about this is the teleprompter operator has the rank

of Deputy Assistant to the President. - I know, I saw you. - Which makes sense essentially the diplomatic rank of an ambassador and one of the highest paid

- Yeah, that's a lot of money. - Yeah, usually, think about this way.

“The deputy director of the NEC has that same rank.”

The deputy communications director may have that rank,

doesn't always have that rank.

The, you know, just very, very high-level people make huge decisions, have the same rank as Trump's favorite teleprompter guy. And that's your taxpayer money going to pay this guy. And that wasn't enough for him,

'cause he was making $100,000 extra off-calshi. - I have a question. Why only $100,000? (laughing) - Yeah, I mean, this guy, he had all the goods.

This guy could have just, maybe it's just Trump went out of script so much that he couldn't, he was, he was, - And what are he, how many do you think he knew? - I mean, it's also, it's like,

talking about the multitasking. You're operating the prompter, you're doing that, you're watching that, but also, now he's going off script. So now you get on with your other, you have your phone and your other hand,

you're on calcium, you're trying to change the bet. - No, you're not changing the bet, you're changing the speech. - Right, this will be, oh, that's true. (laughing)

“- Oh my god, ahead of tonight's address,”

calcium traders, it's just a little fun fact to the side note here. Already wagered more than the earlier today, they had already wagered more than $800,000 on whether Trump says words like,

"Hormuz or riged election." - He did, he did a, he did an accomplishments top her. - Boy, did he? - It's about how horrible everything was before. He became president, now a wonderful everything is

and go to Trump RX and here's your Trump account. - He gave three websites, the best part was his website. - This is so funny, he says, and if you want to read the documents, you can go to WhiteHouse.gov.

- Again, that's a WhiteHouse.gov.

- It's like, yeah, you never heard of that one.

- I mean, this is very, I mean this obviously, he's a boomer, but this is a pre, essentially pre Google way of doing this, which is people just Google it. Now you don't really have to do the website,

but, you know, his accomplishments list was part, like he likes to show that he's a winner and take everything, but you could have told us also like the consultants

“and the political people or the Suzy Wilds,”

wherever it is like, you gotta talk about this, this polls well, you gotta talk about this, you gotta talk about this and you know, you can talk about all your election conspiracies, as long as you do this list at the top, you know?

- Well, this is the third website he did. WhiteHouse.gov, Trump Rx, and you think he did one other one, didn't know the Trump accounts, the Trump accounts. - Trump accounts, yes. - Yeah, Trump accounts for all your kids.

So, believe it or not, the telepromptr operator, that's just one of three corrupt dates we have for you from the last four to the hours. - Only we could ever get that corrupt date staying, we've been asking it for three years,

whatever, someday. On Thursday, the Trump media and technology group, the company that owns true social, announced that it will sell Wall Street banks and investors quote a direct licensed real-time feed

of the platforms of most market-moving truths, including, of course, Donald Trump's. In other words, the president's family company is now charging Wall Street for early-ish access to the market-moving statements of the president,

who will then profit. Why don't they just start asking the treasury to print money for the Trump's? That is (laughs) I don't know why we're going through

all of these schemes in this and that, and everything's so complicated, just go to Scott Bessant and ask him to start printing money, put in your pocket, walk away. - This is truly one of the most wildly corrupt things

that has ever happened. And that's saying a lot, I don't know, that's saying a lot, but I just think about this. A truth is a presidential statement. We laugh about it 'cause they go out on this stupid fucking platform

that no one pays any attention to. - Well, I was gonna say, it's funny because the platform is so bad. And it's such a poor product and badly designed

that it's so slow that basically the fixed

to make it like Twitter is something that Wall Street has to pay for. - Well, they basically, they're going, they're going, they give it this way. This is, I'm gonna dumb this down for people.

This would be like if Wall Street was paying the president to get a presidential statement before the rest of the people. So that they could make instantaneous trades off of that information. The example, president announces a new ceasefire with Iran. You can use that to buy oil features.

He says the end of the ceasefire, you can sell your oil features faster than anyone else 'cause you have paid money to the president to get access to that market moving information before everyone else in this country.

And it's not like, it's not like it's a paid-a-play thing where it's open to everyone. - No. - It's not like Twitter, Pro, versus Twitter, or whatever the fuck it is,

where you can just pay more and now your tweets will come faster. It's only available to banks and investors. - Yes, yes. This basis, you're getting information on your terminal before the public.

And in this day and age with the way trades are made, as five seconds is worth millions of millions of dollars. - A second is worth millions of dollars. - I was trying to think, is there a law? What is it just a thing that presidents shouldn't be doing?

I mean, I don't know. - Yeah, it's the abuse of power. - I guess, yeah, it's a high crime and a misdemeanor. - I was gonna say that the core of the problem lies in the fact that the president's market moving statements

aren't first released by the White House,

but by the president on his own private media platform. - Yes, that is the core of the issue. - Yes, that it goes out on true social first and then the federal government, which is supposed to be responsive to the people,

then they put the truth out a couple seconds after Trump does it on Trump bleeds. - There's some obvious things the founders missed. This was one that I understand why they didn't foresee happening.

“- Finally, last one, the secret service is apparently”

fed up with the vice president's travel demands, which last week included a request to fly his son to a golf lesson aboard Marine II, that is the VP's military helicopter, which would have caused taxpayers up to $25,000 per hour

around that, though the trip was scrapped due to high winds, but such requests have become so common that the vice president's security detail are reportedly now exchanging stickers and challenge coins among themselves

that read Bobcat OTR's Survivors Club,

Bobcat being Vance's Secret Service code name,

OTR is an off the record, so it's a movement that's not planned in advance or that's not announced to the public in advance. Fun update to this, after MSNL broke the story, Vance canceled another planned helicopter ride

for his son's golf lesson. - John, where are his son's golf lessons? Are they in Philadelphia? - Yeah. How did he get the other side of town?

- You remember when Marine One used to take Mulliet in Sasha to school every day, right? - Yes. - Yes, yes. - That was the thing that happened.

“They just, they'd hop on the helicopter.”

- That is, what the fuck? (laughing) - I've said this before, but I worked for politician one so it did something that was so fucking stupid that one of our advisors said,

that is an A+ answer to the, the policy, one of my questions how does the presidential election? This is that. You were getting taxpayer funded helicopter lessons

for your son's golf lessons? Not even like baseball game, boy, scouts, charity work, it's fucking golf lessons. - Boy, are we a long way away from my hillbilly energy, huh? (laughing)

- What would Mima and Papa say about this? (laughing) - Off from your bootstraps, right into the helicopter. (laughing) I mean, it is like he is so fucking lucky

that that trip was canceled by the wind. But then he just, it was canceled by the wind, but then he planned another one and then canceled another one because of the story. - I feel it's, it is.

- It is, you know, wasn't like, oh, close call. It was a little, let's charge ahead. - It's stunning in it. And just beyond just a specific one. He would imagine, the secret services in charge

are the Trumps and the Vances. That's their job. And out of that, the biggest asshole is J.D. Vance. (laughing) - You're a more demanding, worse boss than Donald Trump.

- How fucking high in mighty is J.D. Vance gonna get when someone asks me about this and what kind, he's gonna do some kind of how dare you talk about my chill.

“Like he's gonna, I just, I imagine that's what we're gonna get”

from him. - I know, I know. - I know. - I know where he is. - I'm gonna have someone to fucking say about it.

It's gonna be so bad. He's gonna, he is right now watching, footage, Richard Nixon's checker speech to try to do this and he's gonna fucking out. - I'm, I'm even too, too young to,

- I mean, obviously, I am too young to stand there. - I mean, I am too young to stand there. - I mean, I am too young to stand there. - I mean, I am too young to stand there. - I mean, I am too young to stand there.

- I am too young to stand there. - I am too young to stand there. - I am too young to stand there. - I am too young to stand there. - I am too young to stand there.

- I am too young to stand there. - I am too young to stand there. - I am too young to stand there. - I am too young to stand there. - I am too young to stand there.

- I am too young to stand there. (suspenseful music) - I'm not leaving the house. I got no plans. - Nothing, Willie.

- Willie, see you and Willie. - I am spending my day night with Willie Nelson at the V-Tore household. I'm gonna put Willie next to me on the couch at the little bottle.

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With a 100 day trial, you can try it completely risk-free. - Speaking of JD Vance's travel, he did make the trip to Austin this week to sit down with Joe Rogan for nearly three hours.

'Cause nothing else is going on. It was pure awkwardness sprinkled with occasional attempts at political maneuvering here are some of the highlights. - If people wanna say we miss handled the Epstein release, guilty, we didn't just handle,

especially the communications of it. - What do you think should have been done?

“- I think that we should have just dropped everything”

at the very beginning. - So what is going on with Iran where it seems like the president keeps saying that a deal's been reached negotiations have been successful. And then it all falls apart and we start bombing it again.

- Yeah, so how long do we have here? 'Cause it's like that as much time as you need. - If it was your call, would you have done exactly the same thing? - Well, what did the president said publicly that J.D. was less enthusiastic about it?

I think it was the exact phrase that he used. I mean, my attitude towards this man, as you know, is the vice president, I'm not a public commentator. Like my job is to give the best advice I can to the president of the United States.

Republicans still fundamentally have a cool problem. The thing I could get over Biden is, is just bad staff or a man, the way that he ate ice cream. I mean, it's like, you know, we could bring some of the stuff up, but it's like they would get him eating ice cream

in the most ridiculous, suggestive way imaginable. - What, suggesting what? - I, it's very clear. - What does he think? - A lot about when he sees Joe Biden eating ice cream.

- Sex, he thinks about sex. - He thinks about sex. - It's a cardinal rule of this podcast that we do in our Kingshame.

We've always believed that.

No bullshit. No cake shaming. But I would say, it's weird that J.D. Vance watches Joe Biden eat ice cream. And he thinks it's suggestive.

- That's weird. - We can bring this up. We can bring this up. - What are you talking about? - He's so awkward.

- So here's one review from the Daily Wires Ben Shapiro. I tuned into Joe Rogan yesterday and heard Bernie Sanders' economics, Barack Obama's foreign policy and Rokan is conspiracy theories. And then I realized J.D. Vance was talking.

I want to candidate in 2028 who doesn't mirror the Democrats and who can win. Mr. VP, this is not the way. So Vance tried to tiptoe away from Trump on Epstein and Iran.

He also did the Jeffrey Epstein had connections to Masad and the highest levels of intelligence, CIA, Masad, all that kind of stuff. So do you think it worked?

“And what does it tell you about how Vance sees the 28 race?”

- It did not work. Also, how excited as Rokan would be on that list. - Definitely tweeted that out. - Definitely. - Huge win for him.

Also sounds like a pretty good candidate to me. Obama's foreign policy, Bernie's economics and it was taken on the Epstein files. - Well, he's taken on the Epstein files are pretty good.

- It's not going great for him.

“And he is trying to tiptoe through a minefield”

but he is very clumsy and he's not very good at it. And that is his problem. I hear to give Jayney Vance political advice, but you really have to pick aside. And he's trying to be all things to all people.

He's trying to be Trump's loyal soldier to the Maga people. He's trying to be Joe, he's supposed to get it with Joe Rokan about Epstein and he wants to be the anti-work at any work you can't do all those things without-- - And even if you could, he's not clever enough to pull it off.

- Yeah, maybe some political genius could pull that off but he is not that. He is not deaf enough to do that. He is awkward, he is uncomfortable, he doesn't, he can't really do it.

Like even in this, when you watch all of this obviously because I have self respect but I have watched a lot of the Rokan Manson interview, throughout the whole thing, he's trying to be like, you know, Joe, I get you get it. And so he goes to this thing where he brings up

the MMA fighter at the White House, say the Michelle Obama's a man. And he thinks your Rokan is going to be on a side because what he wants to say to appeal to Rokan is, these fucking woke liberals trying to cancel jokes,

they don't even get comedy, he's just a laugh and move on. And even Dr. Vargue was like, I don't know man, I would say not, the White House wasn't a great idea. It's the White House, like I don't know why you'd make that joke.

He's just like he just can never get there.

He just can't, he's not doing it. - He can't read other people. - Yeah, he's very low he killed her, Paula. - Yeah, you can tell with interviews because he doesn't know he's always uncomfortable

with the audience with the interviewer because he's trying to read what's going to make them laugh or not or whatever and he doesn't know. - He is a little bit of Al Gore running for president in 2000. - You're like overthinking everything you're doing

and you're missing the connection people. You see it with crowds too. - Well, the other parallel there is gonna be like Gore's relationship to Clinton and how Gore tried to separate himself a little bit

from Clinton and that was a hard thing to do. - Yeah, this is, and Bill Clinton is not Donald Trump. - And Bill Clinton did not take that well either, he did not. But it was also in despite his scandal at the time, still popular and Donald Trump's not completely.

- Yeah, I don't think Donald Trump's appropriate to me in the '60s like Bill Clinton's was. - Not gonna be popular, but also not gonna be like,

“"Hey, JD, if you need to criticize me, don't worry, go for it."”

- Yeah, yeah, no, I suspect not. So that's gonna be tricky for him. - All right, last thing before we get to Alex's conversation with Abdul, it's been an extremely busy week in politics, so you could be forgiven if you missed this major announcement

from Secretary of War, Pete Hegza. - Today, I'm authorizing a new screening program for testosterone deficiency for our service members. Ensuring you have the right testosterone levels to operate at your absolute best,

because it's well established science that as we age, testosterone levels often naturally drop. - This is an initiative, it's not about artificial enhancement. It's about restoring and optimizing your natural capabilities, protecting your longevity,

and ensuring you have the biological foundation required to sustain the fight. - So if you visit hietydepartmentofwar.com, you can get 20% off your next testosterone treatment by using the code Pete, and check out.

(laughs) - We are like three minutes away from Pete Hegza, offering penis enhancements to true service members. (laughs) - It's so, what, that was fucking nuts.

He's so down some weird rabbit hole born if his own insecurities. I was looking into this, 'cause I was a weird of this company. - 'Cause you're aging, 'cause you're aging, 'cause I'm aging, no, my, my T is fine, don't worry.

(laughs) That's what everyone says. - It's like a racie, five castor. - Until it's too late. (laughs)

“- Like, I was like, is this just a random Mahah thing?”

And it is. But like, there was some report a couple years ago, and this was a thing in Congress where like, long deployments can sometimes reduce testosterone levels in military.

But like, so you take as usual, like a kernel of something. And then you turn it into this like, like, all these doctors are like, no, of course you don't. You don't screen for this, unless someone's having symptoms, and then you look at it,

and then also test out, and like the idea that you're just gonna test everyone once a year, test testosterone levels, like, can jump just based on the hour of the day and age. And so it's like, it's a weird thing to do.

And also if you do have, if you do have lower testosterone

apparently, like, the first move isn't always just

hormonal replacement therapy, which is what Pedex said is offering like there's, some doctor was like, you could just go to a better earlier and drink less 'cause apparently excessive alcohol consumption can reduce testosterone, so I don't know if I could make

- Yeah, I think, I think Pete, maybe,

was doing a little of his own research.

“Thought what was good for his goose was good for the gander.”

- So testosterone testing is now mandatory, if you're over 30 in the military, but the flu shot is optional. - Did they bring the flu shot back? - It's optional.

- It's optional. - It's optional. - Yeah, who's to say, if you want the flu shot great, if not, whatever. - Well, you're getting your tea screen.

- It's important on the flu shot because it's not like the largest flu pandemic in world history started at a military base. - Wow. - Just like, it's another reminder

that hiring the weekend anchor from Fox News to run the military was a suboptimal choice. - Gender affirming care. - We're running the military. - Gender affirming care for us.

- Troops, great job, Pete. - Who would have thought from Pedex that? - Well, it comes for them all, eventually. (laughing) - All right, Dan, that's all for the news.

When we come back, at Duel, I'll say it. (upbeat music)

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Go today, save 25% with code Cricket. (upbeat music) Hi everyone, Alex Wagner here. I just wrapped up a great conversation with Michigan Senate candidate, Dr. Abdul Alsaid.

A couple things I just wanted to know. We were originally going to host a debate with all three Senate candidates, but we ran into last-minute scheduling issues, not surprising, and then Mallory MacMoro dropped out

of the race. So with the August 4th primary, less than TikTok three weeks away, we decided to proceed with individual conversations and interviews. We have of course invited Abdul's opponent,

Congresswoman Haley Stevens, to come on the show. And we are hoping that she will say yes, once again, please come on the show, Congresswoman Haley Stevens. We'd love to have a conversation. Also, as many of you know,

Abdul used to host a podcast here on Cricket and John John and Tommy are supporting him in the race and have contributed to his campaign. Dan was supporting Mallory MacMoro. Everybody had a dog in that fight, but me, I'm Switzerland.

I'm neutral territory, which is why I had the pleasure of doing the interview with Abdul and you can see I did not pull any punches. Nor did he, not that it was bloody. So with all of that, throughout clearing

and housekeeping out of the way, give it a listen. Here's my conversation with Michigan Senate candidate, Dr. Abdul Elsayad. Joining me now is Dr. Abdul Elsayad.

I started this conversation offline saying, I wanted to call you doc, but I'll just call you Abdul because you've given me permission. Thanks for joining me today. Honored to be here, as you know,

there is a live conversation about whether or not I am actually a doctor, despite having spent a lot of time in grad school, earning both a PhD and MD. So I just prefer Abdul, it's unambiguous. But then even then, people are probably like,

but his whole name is Abdul Ahmed. So I don't know. All right, no, fine. What can we even say? I mean, just casually dropping PhD and doctor in there

is something my mother wishes that I could have done.

I never will, so thanks for doing the work for both of us.

Well, hey, you know, for children of immigrants everywhere. Also, all that means is like, I will-- Are you ruining it for the rest of us? Well, no, I wasted away my 20s. And here's the other side of it.

Like, I'm unemployed and I ask everybody I know for money. So like, look how that's enough on it. Just trying to get a job here folks. OK, I just want to caveat this. I want to timestamp our conversation

because we leave in news hurricane hell. We are recording this on Wednesday when you had a very rare open slot in your campaign. So thank you for doing that. And just go forth with that knowledge.

Everybody who's listening and watching to this. Our chummy, late-hearted conversation is now going to take a pivot for the very serious, because, well, we live in 2026.

Yeah, right, real talk.

I want to start with ice.

On Monday, ice officer shot and killed

“a 25-year-old legal resident of this country,”

Johan Sebastian Guerrero. They shot him in front of his wife and daughter. That was about a week after killing 52-year-old father of three Lorenzo Salgado Arajo in Houston. You are running on a ball of Shanghai.

And on one hand, the polling shows that public opinion is moved pretty dramatically on this issue. It is a strong one for Democrats. On the other hand, it is about 50/50 overall. And we really just haven't seen

continued national outcry and protest in mobilizations after the murders of Alex, Pretty, and Renee Nicole Good. Ice is still capturing 2,000 people a day. What is your message to the other 50 out there

who might be a little redicent/hesitant about abolishing ice? We can have a safe and secure border.

We can enforce immigration policy,

but we don't have to do it while shredding our constitution to the interests of Stephen Miller and Donald Trump. And maybe it's just that I ran government agencies. There are not that many people who run for Senate who've actually worked in the bowels of government.

And anybody who's ever run a government agency will tell you that once you have a culture of impunity set in, it's almost impossible to take that out. You can't reform it, you can't retrain it. And for most of our existence as a country,

we've been able to enforce immigration policy without having to have ice. Ice is what 25 years old, not even. We don't have to have this. And let's also understand what ice has become.

Ice is not about immigration. Ice is not about the Southern border. Think about the places where ice has been the loudest. You're talking about Chicago in Minneapolis. Ice is about normalizing paramilitary force

in contra position to the constitutional order itself. So I think we can win a future where we have a coherent, thoughtful, peaceful immigration approach. But that doesn't start with ice.

That starts with a pathway to citizenship and protecting our Southern border and enforcing policy without tearing apart the basic constitutional rights that people are losing left and right. When they're shooting people in the streets,

it should tell you that this is not about the thing they tell you it's about, it hasn't been under Donald Trump. And frankly, we should have known that

after the first Trump administration.

But the last point I'll make on this Alex is that as Democrats, we have to decide that we actually want to be in the business of persuasion.

“And I think too often we're afraid of issues”

that they tell us we're going to lose on. And we don't do the work of actually having the conversation that's persuasive. They tell us the same thing about health care. They tell us this about immigration.

They tell us this about so many issues that we could win the argument on if we had the courage to have it. And I'm just not willing to do this without having the courage to have it.

Help me understand, oh, practically what that means. So you're talking about peaceful immigration policy. Is there immigration enforcement? And who does it if it's honest? Yes.

I mean, before we ever had ice, we had INS. But the point here is that you can't enforce immigration policy to the breaking of all of the other laws, including our Constitution itself. Like when they're trying to pursue warrantless policy

where they don't actually have to get a warrant to enter your home to pursue immigration detention, what that tells you is that this is actually about lawlessness, not law enforcement. And so there's an approach here where you abolish ice.

You fire the people who've been hired without the right vetting or training. You start again with a very particular kind of force with high training, where you are enforcing at the edge of cases that really are about somebody who

has come and broken our actual laws, rather than blanket enforcement that is supposed to be loud and in your face, specifically to weaponize the idea of immigration against a political party or political movement. Like that really is what this is about.

If you think about Donald Trump, you think about Stephen Miller, you think about JD Vance, the thing that they want to tell you is that immigrants are bad. It's the same reason that they are trying to get people to move abroad when they're applying

for permanent residency in a green card. This is not about immigration enforcement. This is about immigration itself. And I'm so sorry, I happened to believe that immigration has been a very, very good thing for this country,

not just because it's been a good thing for people like me. It's been a good thing for this country. We in this country, we're struggling to build public policy that gets people to want to have kids.

“And if you believe in capitalism, then you should know”

that capitalism only works because they economy grows. And part of the reason they economy grows is because we've immigrated our way out of this problem. But the problem here, though, is that these same people who are trying to weaponize ICE against the idea of immigration

itself don't also want to pass policies like, I don't know, paid family leave in free childcare and free health care and investing in housing. So people could actually imagine having kids. So all of that is to say, we actually

have to win the fight around immigration itself. The immigration is a good thing. And that ICE is against the Constitution itself. We have to go and have that conversation.

thought from scratch about what the immigration system is supposed to look like.

“But again, we're not willing to have nuanced conversations”

because we're so afraid of our own shadows. Yeah, I mean, reaffirming that immigration is a good thing seems like the big work ahead of us given how vilified immigrants have been. And then making the case our permanent residency

for people who've been here illegally for sometimes decades. That's a big shift in sort of the way America writ large thinks about immigrants and immigration. But Alex, I'll tell you this, right? I've been up and down my state now.

And I live in one of those states that everybody says, well, you can't possibly win the state of Michigan talking about immigration. I'm sorry. But like, you know, Michiganers are open-minded

and they're good-hearted. Donald Trump sold this lie to us. The reason that the economy's not working is because an immigrant took your job. The reason that your out-of-health care is because an immigrant

took your healthcare. The reason you're out-of-home is because an immigrant's living in your home.

“That was the whole, they're eating the cats, they're eating the dogs.”

And the problem with it is that we're so busy running away, that we forget that we too have mouths, that we can use, to be talking about what the real problem is. If you're out of a job, it's 'cause some corporations trying to figure out how to automate your job right now.

If you're out of a home, it's because we have not invested in housing for a very long time because the banking industry ran a muck and then collapsed the entire housing infrastructure and then we stopped the building housing. If you're out of healthcare, well, it's 'cause a huge corporation

is figured out how to buy up all the hospitals in your location and then squeeze the money out of them and then shut down the ones that are not making them money. Like, these all have answers. And if you're not advancing the answers

to the actual problems and you have nothing to say

about those actual problems, what you're basically saying

is, well, his answers are the best available one. And then we wonder why we're losing. Why are we not talking about corporations? Why are we not talking about how unlivable it is? Well, it's because too often Democrats take money

from the exact same corporations that are part of the problem. And so like, we've got to get serious about actually thinking about how we advance an argument about what's wrong and how we fix it. And when we do that, I actually think we can have

winning arguments about immigration too. But you can't leave his arguments sitting there without advancing an alternative argument that's not a Trump bad. Yes, of course, Trump bad, Trump heinous.

But like, why are you good? That really is the question we have to answer. OK, on that same topic, areas where Democrats have-- it feels like the rug pulled out from under them by Republicans.

I want to talk about police and law enforcement. There's a whole lot of back and forth. And without getting into the minutia, the idea of defunding the police.

You told the Detroit news that you never

ever called for defunding CNN, then, uncovered old statements from, I think, 2021 and 2020, 2020, where you did affirmatively say, we do need to defund the police, though you were clear that you didn't mean completely defund. Then you also deleted a lot of old posts

and old tweets, maybe old news. But it does beg the question, what is your actual position

“on whether or not police departments get too much funding?”

So look, I've in the interim worked in Wayne County. In that role, I worked very closely with law enforcement. And of course, when you get life experience, you get a lot more nuance about how things actually work. I'm going to venture this idea that it shouldn't really

be that controversial, that everybody really just wants to get home safe at night and stay safe at home. And the question we should ask is, how do we design a system that does that? Right now, our current system is, anytime there is any sort of

social unrest, we answer that question with somebody with a gun. And that has led to a lot of harmful circumstances.

And it isn't always efficient to stopping the thing

that we actually want. So what I think is that we need more investment in recruitment, retention, and retirement for law enforcement. We need those things. Why?

Because to often, the people who work in law enforcement in urban communities don't come from those communities. And that's partly because the people in those communities don't believe that they can have a good life in those jobs. And so I would rather have people from those communities

who say, hey, I'm here to keep my neighbor safe, rather than I'm policing against this whole community. But on the other side, we need a lot more investment in the things that actually keep people safe. It's not always a person with a gun.

It might also be behavioral health response. It might be preventing violence through community violence intervention programs. And I think we need those things too. And then there's the question of the poverty that tends

to drive all of it, how are we investing in public services, public schools, public wellness? Those are things that we need too. So rather than start with this one question about defund or not defund and play into, again,

the same unnewant cynical approach to politics that Republicans want to play. How about we talk about what we want to build? So look, I get why now everybody's sort of dragging this out. But I've tried to be nuanced about what I mean,

even when I use that word. But I do think it's important for us again to go and win the argument.

You go to communities in the rural parts of my state. And you say those things, most heads are like, yeah, actually, that's kind of what we want. So let's do that. You know, in the context of a podcast interview, right?

There's space and time and bandwidth to talk about the nuances. But unfortunately, politics right now is a caricature of itself, but also makes a caricature out of candidates.

And the reality is that Donald Trump won your state

by, I believe, a point and a half at the same time that elicis law can won her seat by about a third of a point. And I sort of wonder, you know, extrapolating from your complex answers to issues that I think really trigger the right and are easily packaged to stoke fear among swing voters

“and independence, are you of the mindset that you need to win over”

people who voted for Trump? And more broadly, folks in the middle, or for you, is this a turnout election? I think there's a third way here. He's using that word.

Yeah, be careful, dude. You're running his dinner party. Let's step back for a second, right? I want us to think about what Donald Trump teaches us if there's anything to learn from his experience.

You're right, politics turns people into a character. Donald Trump and theory should be the easiest person to character and yet he won elections. But you know what he did, he went everywhere and said the same things everywhere.

And Democrats play this defensive style of politics. We're so concerned about what they're going to say about us that we forget the fact that we two have mouths and voices and ideas that we could be advancing anywhere and everywhere. And I think if we do those things and we're faster

about defining ourselves and defining others that we can win both the kinds of voters who voted for people like Donald Trump and also those folks who have sat out for a very long time.

“And the reason I believe that is because our internal polling”

shows me up pretty substantially despite the fact

that outside spending has hit $50 million in my race,

$50 million dollars. Now, if it was all about what people are going to say about you or what they're going to say about your opponent, I shouldn't have a prayer and hell in this race and yet. What we've done is politics the old fashioned way.

I go everywhere I talk to everyone. I do not shy away from booking these conversations or any conversation because I know what I believe and I'm willing to talk about it. And when people actually you give them the opportunity

to listen and nuance, people are really smart. And so I just reject the idea that I'm going to be turned into a character and the way that I reject it is to make sure that you have heard me and that I've put myself anywhere, whether that's a town hall

in your local community or on the radio or on a TV spot or campaigning with a songpiker or God forbid or listen and talking to you here on Potsay, America. And the last thing I'll tell you is this, right? So I'm proving out that this tactic can work

just like Donald Trump did, ironically. But also the last thing I'll tell you is this. The real divide in our politics is not around some left-right spectrum. Like are you a Democrat or a Republican or right-wing

or left-wing or blue or red? And that there are these people in the middle who walk around wondering where they sit on a left-right spectrum. Most of the time, people are like, yo, I can't afford my healthcare and stake is so goddamn expensive

and I'm really, really worried about the quality of my kid's school, what are you going to do about that? And so I don't play the game where I huge or particular set of talking points.

“I try to talk out what I think we need to do”

and be completely honest. And I stand up around these third rails you're not allowed to touch in politics. Every time I and we haven't got into it, I'm sure it's on your question set.

But like Israel, I'm like, look, the question about Israel isn't about the theoretical right to exist of a country that exists. The question about Israel is, do they have a right to our tax dollars?

Because I live in a community here in Michigan where there are places not too far from where I live, where the median income is $14,000 a year. And those people send their kids to schools that haven't changed for 50 years.

They can't afford basic infrastructure. Like it's like you're traveling on gravel roads in the middle of a city. And then you want to tell me that the best use of my tax dollars is to send them somewhere else.

And you know when you say that and then people hit you on it, people are just like, yeah, not actually agree with what he's saying. And I'm not so interested in the theoretical question about the right of a country to exist.

I'm wondering what you're going to do with my tax dollars and why you're sending them there when I could be using them here. With all due respect, I mean, the question of whether Israel

should exist or not is essential when you're answering

whether a US tax dollars should go towards protecting that right to exist. And it sort of raised, let me just ask you the question. Because I mean, I think you've made it a zero-some game between like funding for, for example, schools and a

to Israel, the US budget is large. And there's a question about, you know, to what degree Congress should prioritize spending on Israel, which gets at the central question for I think a lot of Jews in this country and a lot of Jews in your state is, you know,

the Jewish identity and the Jewish statehood is essential to them. And they may think the war is a genocide in Gaza and they may completely disagree with BB Netanyahu,

as their American identity.

So I wonder when you are thinking about those people, and they may support you. How do you help them understand where Israel exists on your list of priorities? Is it immoral to support Israel at this point?

“Or, is there some other, is there some other avenue?”

Look, I grew up, I was really grateful to grow up in a community with a large Jewish community, about 40% Jewish. I had the privilege of being welcomed to school and being welcomed to satire and going to bar and botmits for growing up.

I learned a lot about the Jewish faith. I learned so much about the Jewish contribution to American culture and society. And I will do everything I can to protect Jewish Americans in this country for anti-Semitism.

I also, in this much as I love the Jewish people and Jewish culture, I love and revere, Palestinians and Palestinian culture. And most importantly, I love and revere

the people I am running to serve here in Michigan.

So the idea that Michigan tax dollars should be sent to a foreign government that wants to foreclose on Palestinian rights to peace, dignity, and self-determination, which I hold equal to Jewish rights to peace, dignity,

and self-determination. But the idea that our money is being sent to a government that wants to foreclose on one community's right to self-determination. And being misused away from solving the needs of the people

I'm actually serving is a pretty crazy thing. And in setting up this question about, about Israel's right to exist, you rightly point to the idea of whether or not there is American intervention that ought to be spent

to enforce that. And I think the vast majority of Americans would say, whatever you think about Israel's right to exist, our tax dollars should not be used for the interests of a foreign government

when they need to be used for the interests of the people living in our community on its own. So I believe in equal rights to peace, dignity, and self-determination for Palestinians, and Jewish Israelis alike.

But I also understand that in an era where people ask you, how you going to pay for that, when you want to give people health care, or how you going to pay for that, when you want to give people good schools, it's pretty crazy.

To be sending our money over there, when it could be used over here. - So no funding to ensure the survival or future of the Jewish state. - I turn that back around on you, Alex, and say, why is it our responsibility to ensure that?

- I'm just asking, because I think-- - No, I mean, but like, but why is it understanding? - I think that's the idea. - Here we go.

“Why is that the essential frame from which we work?”

Like, why is it assumed that the United States ought to be in the business of backstopping a foreign government? Like, I'm just saying, like, I don't want ill will for Jewish is really people at all.

I really don't. I just want equal rights to peace dignity, self-determination for all people. But the notion that somehow our tax dollars ought to secure the interests of a foreign government.

Like, this is the United States and our own kids don't have good schools, and you're telling me that that should be a primary concern over there. Like, imagine we said the same thing about any other country, any other one.

My family's from Egypt, okay? Like, would it be crazy if somebody was asking me like, "Hey, do you think Egypt has the right to exist?" People like Egypt exist. I'm like, "Well, if somebody wanted to change the nature

of Egypt, do you think the United States should be spending all of its money to make sure or any of its money to make sure that that happens?" People like, I don't know what that seems like a different country's issue.

But like, I'm just saying that, like, you can both say that Israel exists, but it doesn't have a right to my tax dollars. And it is not our responsibility as American taxpayers to take money away from kids who don't have good schools

and give it to a country to buy bombs and tanks. Like, the idea that our conversation even questions that is itself a big question we should be asking like, "Why is this the frame of the debate?"

“- I think APAC affiliated super PACs have spent”

about $15 million so far to defeat you 30. Okay, I'm wrong, sorry, updated stats. And your opponent, Haley Stevens, is their preferred candidate. You've called her a sort of trojan horse for the pro Israel agenda.

You've accused her of failing the moral, rorschach test by not calling what's happening in Gaza, the atrocities agenda side. Here's my question. There's only one Democrat that's gonna win this.

If she wins, are you in a campaign for her? - I'm gonna make sure that my garage

is never season inside of the US Senate.

But like, here is a good question. Here's that one question. I'm gonna campaign against my garage for sure. And look, I've already said that I'm committed to making sure Democrats win in Republicans lose.

- Do you want her campaigning for you? - Well, if you're the nominee. - But here's the bigger question. I just want to go back to this point that you made, because it's just a really, really important one.

You rightly pointed to the reason why the frame of the debate is always about the theoretical right to exist of a country and where we put our money because if you say what I just said,

which I think the vast majority of Americans, I'd be like, yeah, that's just conventional wisdom that we should be more worried about people in our own country than the existence of another country.

there is one super PAC that's gonna spend tens of millions of dollars to annihilate your political existence. I mean, that's why most politicians sit in this political consensus

that says that you cannot touch the third rail of Israel. Meanwhile, people in their own communities are like, why not when my own kid goes to a school that looks like it did 50 years ago? And so that exactly is it,

is that you have a particular super PAC that has become the biggest spender in our whole race,

30 million dollars to try to put my head on a pike

to show every Democrat that that shall not say the conventional wisdom that maybe the interests of kids in our own country matters more than whether or not we think about the theoretical right to exist of another country.

- Do you feel like there's some opportunity to work with Trump on this? I know, I just bear, bear (laughs) before you respond, let me just remind people, I mean, it's Donald Trump, right?

But this is someone who is increasingly at odds with Prime Minister Netanyahu, even though he also bear hugs him from time to time and is effectively fought a war with him for him. But they now have divergent interests

in terms of the war in Iran.

“And I'm old enough to remember when Donald Trump called”

BB Netanyahu fucking crazy, that's a quote. - I've like four weeks ago. - Exactly. - So is there, I mean, is there an opportunity for Democrats to try and take advantage of that opportunity

and move the needle using Trump on Israel? - So I'll tell you this, I'm less concerned about Trump in himself and more concerned about voters in Michigan who Trump lied to. And I can't tell you the number of people

who've come up to me at town halls and been like, I voted for Trump three times and I'm voting for you. I've been like, why?

And the answer is usually two things.

Number one, you really want me to have health care. I really want you to have health care. Number two, it's, you really want to keep my money here. So we're running a pretty simple campaign. Money, out of politics, money in your pocket, Medicare for all.

And the thing about democracy is if you can win the debate, you can win voters over, you can win the conversation, you can start to change public policy.

“So look, I think Donald Trump has been burnt”

by the Israeli government and he's feeling the burn right now. He got duped into fighting a war that, frankly, BB and Netanyahu has been trying to find an idiot big enough to fight for the better part of 40 years. He finally found the dumbass who would do it.

And now, Trump's in the situation where he's like, damn, I'm trapped. All for what?

So Israel could try to annex Southern Lebanon.

You know, who wins out of this war? And certainly not the American public. Not even Donald Trump. I mean, maybe the Iranian regime who now figured out how to control the flow of the world's energy supply

and certainly BB Netanyahu who is annihilated Southern Lebanon. So I think there's an opportunity here to prove out that people in this country are sick and tired of being told what we can do from a foreign policy standpoint by a foreign government and to point to the obvious policy failure

that has this paying $5 gas here in Michigan to get to a point in our politics that actually says, look, maybe this is not the right approach here and maybe we could actually have a politics for our people, by our people and in the interest of our people.

- Right, but you are not running to be, you know, the mayor, right? You're not running to be an executive. You are running to be in the Senate which is an increasingly dysfunctional body

where the term is six years and if you have the majority, it's gonna be a slim one. And you're gonna have to work with people like Mary Paltola and Ray Cooper, who were backed by Chuck Schumer and are much more in the centrist wing

of Democratic politics.

“How do you think about making common cause with them?”

If it's, you know, if it's a new Democratic majority, how are you gonna work with the people that come from a pretty different ideology than you? - Yeah, you know, I think part of the reason there's so much attention being paid

to this particular race is because Michigan is unique, not only is it the greatest state in the country, hands it down, way better than Ohio, who produced from Swami and JD events, like bad record for Ohio. God bless you, shared ground, but you're doing the Lord's work.

- Okay. - Ohio digs, I'm not involved in this. I just wanna say for everybody in Ohio that's listening, that's all on dock. - So all on me, I'll take it, I can't stand Ohio.

But I'll tell you this, the reason people are paying attention is because a lot of folks have often said that a politics that really centers in on the needs of everyday people can't win outside of, you know, these democratic bastions like New York.

And the point that I'm often making to folks is that people need the same things wherever you are in this country

so that we can finally put money back in people's pockets by like standing with unions and keeping our money here and taxing billionaires their wealth and standing up to big corporate monopolies and all the monopolies that kind of politics, it can win anywhere.

And so in winning the race itself, we are shifting the conversation about the kind of politics we can have nationwide. And so look, I'm looking forward to working with folks like Roy Cooper and Mary Peltola

and building strong relationships. But I also think that they operate from a standpoint based on a flawed set of assumptions that I'm trying to upend in this race. I know that we can deliver for Michiganers

if we actually get corporations out of our politics and start standing with the people. I know that Medicare for all is broadly popular if you're willing to reject the influence of big pharma and big insurance corporations in trying to dominate

what we can possibly talk about. I know that keeping money here rather than supporting a foreign government over there is broadly popular and I want to prove it out. And when we do in this race,

I want to be able to have conversations with folks and think, "Hey, look, we did this in Michigan. I think you can do it too."

“And I think we can actually build a politics”

that actually gets stuff done because here's the problem with it. Look at my own race. DTE are local utility. Blue Cross Blue Shield are local health insure.

Big tech, a pack. They're funding both my democratic opponent and my Republican one. So if either of them win, guess who wins? Big tech wins.

Blue Cross Blue Shield wins. A pack wins. DTE wins. And we're all out here being like, "Well, the body is so dysfunctional.

We never get stuff done."

Well, because we never really have a contrast, that's about getting stuff done because guess what? Either way, the corporate lobbyists are showing up with the same bill and then and then they tell you, "Oh, look, you have a bipartisan opportunity

to get legislation done." It bipartisan because corporations are bottom off both parties and then you patch yourself on the back for being a bipartisan to do the thing that helps the corporation and not the people

you got elected to serve. And I think we have an opportunity here to actually win the debate and then actually start doing things that deliver for people because none of us got into this work. Like, this is a shit job.

I just want to be clear, right? It's just a shit way to live your life. None of us got into this because, you know, you don't want to deliver for people. And the hardest part for me is like,

"I carry people's stories with me." I mean, I trained as a doctor and I learned how to listen to people in pain. But people bring you their stories, hoping that you can help.

And I know, I know, I know, I know. For every single person in public service, like you're doing this because you really want to help those people. But the system has rigged it. So it's almost impossible to do.

What if we actually took it on in one? So that's a conversation I'm hoping to have with the 99 other senators in the country.

“I think some of them will go better than others.”

But I think we can prove out that we can actually win on our morals if we can do that here in Michigan. Now here's the hard part. They're spending a shit ton of money, right?

To stop it's $50 million already come in 50 million.

We're being out spent eight to one. And yet, we're still leading the conversation. So it's got to be people coming together around a politics that is of the people by the people and for the people standing up

to the power of the corporations who are keeping us from having the things that we need and deserve. I have two quick questions. You can make a long questions if you want. OK.

You talk about taking power. You talk about democratic control. The president this week is focused on election interference. Not his own, which is measurable, but on alleged intellectual election interference.

All this is a bid to distort, if not steal, the results of the 2026 midterms. Are you worried about a peaceful transfer of power? Is there something Democrats should be doing that they're not doing?

If, in fact, they win the both thousands, one or both thousands of Congress,

“are you worried about a peaceful transfer of power?”

And is there something Democrats should be doing that they're not doing? I am. I'm really worried about it. Donald Trump understands the stakes of this.

And he basically told the Republicans as much he said, if they win, I'm going to be impeached. And there is nothing about that man that is about the dignity of his office. It is entirely about self-appropriation and self-enrichment.

And that's how he's used to the office. Now, he understands that our winning is this single biggest threat. And he's acting accordingly. Not a problem that we so often has have is that we don't actually meet the demand

with the right level of urgency. So I think it's incumbent on all of us to be narrating exactly what's happening.

Look, here's what he's doing.

Here's why he's mobilizing ICE. Here's where they're buying detention facilities. Here's what he said he wants to do. Here's where he's sending election interferes. And here's what they say they're going to do.

We need to be very, very clear about that. And then we need to mobilize people past it. The way to make the elections unrigible is to overwhelm them with the power of a message that gets people out to actually win.

We can't keep winning these razor-thin elections anymore

are way easier to steal. And so people talk about that. You're going to win the middle, or you're going to bring people out. We don't have a choice, but they do both. We've got to win people who are disaffected by him.

And we've got to win the people who've been disaffected by the political process itself. We've got to win in massive waves. That is the way we protect our democracy. That is the way we take back power, hold him accountable.

And finally, finally, get the kind of democratic process back

that allows people's actual will to reflect in government. When you talk about people's will being reflected in the government, I would assume that means also having people that represent different generations of people, different generations of Americans.

There's been a lot of criticism about the gerontocracy, the age-ed seniority in democratic and republican ranks, but especially in Republican-- well, I won't even say, especially in democratic and republican ranks. Do you think Mitch McConnell was alive?

“I mean, do you think he owes the public, do you think he owes voters a billion?”

The question that I don't have the data to be able to answer-- Do you think he owes voters a video? Do you think the photo of a-- I'll just say that photo is convincing. But let's step back.

The idea that politicians should die in office is crazy. And let's not be the pot calling the kettle black. We had our whole Dianne-Findstein situation, too.

I just think that it's important to have--

Well, I would think people would say, Joe Bidenists, in case number one of someone perhaps being too old for others. But they don't have to die in plastic. But I mean, we're just this week. We're dealing with one person who passed away

and another who, like, we don't know if he passed away. And so I just think that we do need to reinvigorate our politics. I think that that's going to naturally happen with time, but I also think that part of the problem right now is that the way that we do politics makes it--

so that it is too easy to accumulate and hold power once you've already gotten it. And part of that is a filibuster. Part of that is campaign finance law.

“Part of that is the role that's played by television and media.”

I just think we're not actually having a robust debate about who we are and who we want to be that reflects the whole half of the voters. And so part of what we've tried to do in our campaign is rather than talk down to young people.

I'm 41, so I don't even know what that means. Like I'm particularly young. We're going to count you as young. But Alex, I'm the oldest I've ever been. So all of that is to say that part of the way

that you engage young people to bring them back to the process is to actually ask them what they want for the future that they have the highest taken. And to center them in the campaign and to make policy around what it is that they say they want.

So when we focus in on affordability of housing, when we focus in on education, affordability, when we focus in on AI, this is about reflecting the need and the urgent fears of young people in our society who are saying, look, I just took a $60,000-plus dollar loan

for the opportunity to have a job that an AI looks like it's about to take what the fuck do I do? And if we don't have an answer for them, then we're not serious about governing. It's interesting, I was talking to some folks

and they're like, well, this AI thing, I think it's overblown. I'm like, not if you're under 30.

And this is the first era in which you have the people

who are the most afraid of a new technology, are the youngest people. Most of the time the people who are the earliest adopters who like it the most are young. But it's because young people both use AI

and understand the danger of AI. And so we've put AI front in center. We have an AI for democracy plan, which is about putting democracy ahead of AI, and making sure that at least 50% of the board representation

of every AI hyperscaler is democratically selected. And we're doing that because I take seriously that young people are going to have to live in the world that we legislate in. And that means centering them in these campaigns.

And I think what's we do that? And young people make a habit of it,

“I think we're going to start to see a lot more turnover.”

Will there be a day when the 41-year-old actually feels old in the US Senate? TBD on that one. I'll be 42 by that point, but I'll let you know. Oh, OK.

Keep us posted, Doc. I will. I will. Dr. Abdul Alsaid, it is a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you for entertaining my numerous questions.

We will be following the race very, very, very carefully. Good luck out there. Thank you. And look, if for folks who want to get involved, go to AbdulFers Senate.com.

I'll be able to chip us off five bucks or 10 bucks. Or we're phone making. This is an opportunity. It's literally the money versus the money in this race. So I hope that folks will listen.

We'll get involved. Alex, thank you for a really thoughtful conversation. I'm really grateful for it. And I'm looking forward to the next one, OK? Definitely.

[MUSIC PLAYING] That's our show for today. Thanks to Abdul for coming on. Dan will be back in the feed on Sunday with a conversation

Dan, what you guys talk about?

“I made it and I had a great conversation”

about what's happening to Democratic Party right now.

Where are the party can go from here?

And the really inspiring story she's hearing from the 100,000 people who have signed up

to run for office since Trump was elected in 2024.

“Do you want to be inspired to just talk to Amanda Lipman?”

Works every time. All right, everyone. Have a good weekend. Bye, everyone.

“Positive America is a crooked media production.”

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