3/18/26: Trump Says He Will Take Cuba, Ro Khanna VS ADL, Aipac Loses Key Elections, Dem Party Attack On Platner

24:28Learning happens naturally in the moment. Parents can set limits, see spending in real time, and guide better habits along the way, all in one place, without constant check-ins or cash runs. Don't wait. Try Greenlight risk-free today at greenlight.com slash trygreenlight. Ro Khanna versus APAC and the ADL.

24:50Emily Jashinsky:Usually when Ro is on the screen, it means we have him in studio. We don't have him in studio today. Just Ro. He's here in spirit. We're going to talk now about E1. Put this up on the screen. headline from, well, this is actually the tweet from the Jewish Insider writer in the story, who says, Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the ADL, called out two Democratic lawmakers, Chris Van Hollen and Ro Khanna from the main stage of the organization's Never Is Now conference in Manhattan, accusing them of perpetuating anti-Semitism. Ryan, if you could tell us about, so Greenblatt, it's not a surprise in any way whatsoever that these criticisms are being leveled.

25:26Emily Jashinsky:It's apparently over disagreement over Roe saying that Israel pushed the United States into war, unclear into war in Iran, that Israel pushed the U.S. into war with Iran. It's unclear whether Jonathan Greenblatt has made similar criticisms of Marco Rubio, Speaker Mike Johnson, or perhaps Donald Trump himself. But we could put the next elements up on the screen here. This became an all out Twitter war yesterday. Ro Khanna a week ago posted the assaults on Israeli Americans in San Jose while speaking Hebrew is horrific. This kind of anti-Semitism has no place in our community. I unequivocally condemn these attacks.

26:04Emily Jashinsky:The assailants must be held accountable and prosecuted. Someone posted on X literally a week ago. This is what Ro Khanna said. We can move on to the next element. Ro replied, facts don't matter to Greenblatt. He He is a Trump apologist who attacked Obama's nuclear deal, defends Elon, and is basically a show for the Trump administration and Netanyahu. Sad to see he has zero respect among any House Democrats anymore. Ryan, you've covered these types of disputes for many years. What do you make of it? But Ro Khanna is really taking the fight, you know, directly to AIPAC in a way that, you know, nobody other than, say, Rashida Tlaib or Ilhan Omar has been willing to do.

26:52And they did it because, you know, AIPAC took the fight to them. You know, when they were like they were elected to Congress in 2018 and AIPAC literally spun off the organization DMFI explicitly to like just go after Tlaib and Omar. Right. So like they the fight came to them, whereas Congress and Kana is like taking it taking it to them. And he's and he's what he's and he's linking the ADL and AIPAC together. If you put up E4, AIPAC, you know, hit back at him saying, you know, they said, facts like you applauding a group that is trying to drive pro-Israel Democrats out of politics or you sitting with a podcast or designers.

27:34They're laying out all the things there that they're upset with him about. And he responds, when will AIPAC and ADL be merging? Greenblatt, you've sucked up enough to the Trump administration. You can probably get the merger approved in this administration. Top rope. Yeah. Top rope. That is, yeah, so because the antitrust division at the DOJ has become a complete kind of pay-to-play operation with just a shakedown, a corporate shakedown. You want to merger, you know, you got to, you know, pay. Unfortunately. Pay the piper at DOJ. The judge in the Live Nation Ticketmaster, Casey, seems to think that that's the case and recently told DOJ, hold on to all of your communications because I might be looking into this.

28:20So that's what Ro Khanna is referring to there, that if ADL and AIPAC want to merge and stop the pretense anymore that there's a difference between them, they should do that. Because Greenblatt is the Anti-Defamation League. He's supposed to be combating anti-Semitism. That's not what he does. Like, he does basically what AIPAC does, which AIPAC, fine. Like you want to be, you know, you want to support the U.S.-Israel relationship and get fun, you know, and spend money in elections. Like that's legal. You can do that. Like that's your goal. But that's not what Greenblatt is doing. Like Greenblatt is not doing the assembly.

29:02He's doing what AIPAC is doing.

29:04Emily Jashinsky:Yeah, I see what you're saying. And I was saying this on Afro Party the other day, but like there are two things that need to be balanced. One is the reasonable, two reasonable concerns that need to be balanced. One is the reasonable concern of Jews, given that, as Roe pointed out the other day, anti-Semitism exists. Given that the industrial scale genocide of Jewish people existed in living memory. Like it exists in living memory of people who are still here on this earth today. Just like Jim Crow is living memory of people who are still in America today. On the other hand, there's the concern for suppression of speech, which this country has a history of.

29:51Emily Jashinsky:And especially younger Americans are very sensitive to. And that's reasonable as well, because censorship and suppression are also things that have happened. And so when you balance both of those things, Greenblatt is happy to inflate the definition of anti-Semitism as a cudgel against political enemies to the point that you were just making about acting basically in lockstep with groups that advance the cause of the Israeli government. And that's where you've blown up anti-Semitism to the point, the label anti-Semitism to the point where it includes people who are just saying what the Secretary of State said about the war.

30:31Emily Jashinsky:That's really, really not helpful. It's completely counterproductive. And if you actually believe that Ro Khanna is anti-Semitic, you are welcome to that belief. you should not be the head of an organization that is policing the definition of anti-Semitism because that's first of all offensive but second of all counterproductive because by a matter of fact he is not an anti-Semite right and it's happening over and over again with people constantly um and the right is is learning what the left has learned for a long time that you were called anti-Semitic if you're critical of the Israeli government um people on the right Robert Novak experienced that.

31:09Emily Jashinsky:Pat Buchanan experienced that for a long time too. But to actually say that somebody has bigotry in their heart is a serious and stigmatized charge in the United States of America, as it should be, because we have spilled a lot of blood, sweat, and tears for victories like Lovie v. Virginia. And to have the multiculturalism that actually exists in the United States is historically crazy. We take it for granted how amazing it is sometimes and how quickly, so much bigotry fell away over the course of the 20th century. It's not to say it doesn't still exist. Of course it still exists. But to actually insult somebody and say that they believe somebody is lesser than because of their immutable characteristics, because of their race, because their ethnicity is a really serious thing.

31:53Emily Jashinsky:And Ro Khanna's opinions on the Likud party do not reflect him thinking that anybody is lesser than because of their immutable characteristics. Yeah, and this new thing that Greenblatt's doing where he is saying that if you say that Israel drove the U.S. to war with Iran, that is anti-Semitic. Even after Marco Rubio himself said that at least the timing was driven by Israel, people are just not going to tolerate that. We did this polling at DropSite last week that found a majority of people believe that, or I think it was 47 % or something believe that Israel drove the decision making. Israel drove Trump's decision making.

32:46And like 10 % believed it would make their life better. So you can't, maybe the ADL can claim that 47 % of the public is just driven by an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.

32:59Emily Jashinsky:Yes, they will. But I don't know how that's helpful to them. Yeah. You can't tell people that they're not allowed to see what they see with their own eyes. Before Charlie Kirk died, he did a focus group at one of the Turning Point USA conferences that people should absolutely go back and watch, especially people on the right, who I think, by the way, as somebody on the right who was subject to this messaging, bludgeoned by this messaging for years.

33:30Emily Jashinsky:the way it's used to dismiss the left as like cranks and crazy people as obviously started we were just talking about this obviously started being used on the right and what's particularly kind of productive on the right at this moment was on full display in that turning point focus group where everyone said listen we like Charlie Kirk he went to the opening of the embassy in Jerusalem. This guy was not anti-Israel. He became increasingly skeptical of the Israeli government. And when he was talking to these students at the conference, they were saying a lot of their more, their increasing skepticism of Israel was coming from feeling like they're being told what they can and cannot say.

34:10Emily Jashinsky:Why might that be? Well, young Americans just went through like a 10-year period where they were constantly being told, if you say X, Y, or Z, you're bigoted. And a lot of that was coming from the left. And so if you're Jonathan Greenblatt, and you're looking at this number among even young conservatives who should be pro-Israel, because historically that's been the case for the last several decades, and you're panicking about that, and you're reacting by calling more and more people anti-Semitic and broadening the definition further, and being even more intense about those arguments, again, is totally counterproductive.

34:43Emily Jashinsky:Because the thing that people are blanching at and that is making them skeptical of that position is literally what you continue to do at an even faster pace. Right. And so AIPAC just spent more than$20 million in these Illinois elections, which we'll talk about in a moment, put up E5, which will lead us into that. This is a tweet from Shane Goldmark, a New Times reporter, says, Jan Schakowsky, who is a retiring member of Congress, pulls Donna Miller endorsement in second congressional district over APAC support. This is back in February. And APAC then, you know, quote tweets last night, and then what happened?

35:24And what's notable about this is that APAC hit its involvement in its support for Donna Miller. They created this, you know, Lex Chicago Women Super PAC because they know that using their name, APAC or United Democracy Project, which is their their branded super PAC is super damaging to candidates that they support. And then when shows like this or at Dropside, we do the reporting that says, oh, actually we've pieced it together. This is APAC money that is being funneled into the campaign. APAC responds that that's anti-Semitic conspiracy theorizing that you're doing. How dare you suggest that.

36:09And then after their candidate wins, they publicly take support for the thing that a day before they were saying was a conspiracy theory. Anyway, so let's move to...

36:20Emily Jashinsky:Well, on that, producer Mac sent a funny tweet that I want to read on that point. This is from DEI Speedwagon. Shout out to you on X. We're a couple cycles away from AIPAC spending ad money accusing pro-Palestine candidates of getting money from AIPAC. Yeah, probably a couple weeks away. Yeah. The good one. We're laughing, but not out of the realm of possibility. This is Ashley Akinetti from the Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous podcast. iVeam is built for losing weight and moving forward. iVeam is built for feeling your best and seeing real results. iVeam is a medical weight loss program built for you.

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37:45Prescription medication may carry risks and should be used only as directed by your provider. Wait, this is a soda? Yeah. And it has protein? 10 grams. No sugar? Zero. And it actually tastes good? It's Sky Pop. Sky Pop Protein Soda delivers the refreshing taste you want from a real soda. Crisp and delicious with 10 grams of complete protein, zero sugar, and just 45 calories. So you're not choosing between great taste and real benefits. You're getting both in every sip. Sky Pop Protein Soda. Reach for the sky. Get your Sky Pop Protein Soda now at Target. Taco Bell is rolling out the new Chicken Bacon Ranch Street Chalupas.

38:25And here's the thing, you literally can't just get one. They come in twos, and thank goodness they do, because these toasted cheddar street chalupas filled with slow-roasted chicken, crispy bacon, and avocado ranch are stacked with bold flavor that keeps you going back for more. Chicken Bacon Ranch Street Chalupas, only at Taco Bell. Get yours today. At participating U.S. Taco Bell locations for a limited time only while supplies last. We'd start with F4 here. APAC spent at least$22 million in four Illinois congressional races that were very closely watched because there was only one race in which they spent openly and acknowledged that they were spending in the race.

39:06The other three, they funneled through kind of made-up super PACs, one called Affordable Chicago Now, another one called Elect Chicago Women. When those got outed as APAC super PACs, they created a new one called Progressive Funds or something like that that they started funneling money through. So let's go through these four races. Let's start with the one that everybody cares about the most, even though arguably it wasn't the most important one when it comes to the kind of gradients of ideological difference between the candidates. That's District 9, which was Laura Fine, who was the APAC candidate.

39:45We knew it. It was clear, even though they were using kind of fake super PACs. Kat Abu-Gazela and Daniel Biss, Evanston mayor. And then you had Bushra Amiwala, who was a local elected official who was running kind of to Kat and Daniel's left. And people kept pushing to kind of drop out and endorse Kat. That was probably never going to happen. So Daniel Biss won and won by about 4 ,500 votes.

40:16Emily Jashinsky:Four points. Yeah. One thing I think the left should take away from all of these races is that there should be a deep stigma on candidates who cannot win and refuse to drop out. And I'm not just talking about Bush or I'm talking about across the board. There was a failure to consolidate. And when you combine a failure to consolidate behind a single candidate with millions of dollars in spending for the other candidate, it's very difficult to win. And you let then APAC candidates, you know, win with like 30 % of the vote. Fine only got 20%, which is pretty interesting. So fine, just 20 % with millions spent on her behalf.

40:57Emily Jashinsky:I just have to pause for a moment to just think about how completely ridiculous it is that the people of Illinois' 9th District, suburban Chicago, had their race hijacked into a mandate on Middle Eastern foreign policy. Right, except none of the actual ads talked about foreign policy. Right, but that's crazy. Yeah, and also, and I kept telling you all this, now you can believe me, Bushra finished sixth. So like people were like, no, no, she has a shot, she has a shot, no. So AIPAC put money behind Bushra Amiwala's campaign. trying to peel votes away from Kat and from Biss to try to boost Laura Fine.

41:48She finished behind multiple candidates that you've never even heard of. She got a total of 6 ,000 votes, 5%. Every single one of her votes would have had to go to Kat in order for Kat to win. There's just no world in which 100 % of votes go from one candidate to another.

42:09Emily Jashinsky:Yeah, a lot of them are protest votes anyway. Yeah, and a lot of her supporters did not like Kat. Her support was concentrated among South Asian population, which also had problems with Kat for other kind of optical reasons. so Biss who had the support of J Street and had millions spent against him by AIPAC or hundreds of thousands at least I don't know if it climbed millions against but millions in total spent by AIPAC to try to win this race so Biss ends up winning Biss had kind of an Elizabeth Warren Democrat he had Elizabeth Warren's endorsement like on day one of the campaign and this is kind of an Elizabeth Warren district it's kind of surprising urban district.

42:58So ended up, so he ends up winning. He'll win, he'll win in the, he'll win the general. It's not even close. In his victory speech last night, you know, he mentioned J Street and APAC. Let's, let's roll, let's roll that. Let me end this simply by saying, APAC found out the hard one.

43:21Emily Jashinsky:The left district is not for sale.

43:30So when I'm cutting it back, may tonight be the last time I utter their name. This victory belongs to J Street. And they've been a friend of J Street to try to nail against unspeakable odds for that point of view that represents the mainstream in this district and the mainstream of the Jewish community. Yeah! So the question now, Emily, for the left will be, I think, around organizing this and putting pressure on this. There is an argument that and this this unfolded in the Molinowski district in New Jersey 11, where Annalilia Mejia ended up winning thanks to APAC, you know, smashing Molinowski.

44:16So Malinowski had been an elected Democrat before. He had worked at the State Department. He had a lot of credibility among Democrats in the House when it came to foreign policy. And so what AIPAC said publicly was that even though Malinowski was much milder in his criticism of Israel, his mild criticism was more of a threat to them than Mejia's strong criticism because they think they can marginalize Mejia and say, well, you don't need to listen to her. She's a crazy squad radical. But Malinowski is harder for them to marginalize. marginalized. And so that was their, either cope or their rationale for why they were actually okay, that their preferred candidate lost and they accidentally boosted this squad-like candidate.

45:09Now, I think they miscalculated. I think Annalilia is going to have a lot more power in the House than they expected, but that was their rationale. That was the same rationale they used to spend millions to defeat Andy Levin in Michigan. Levin was a synagogue president and part of the Levin family dynasty, member of Congress, he was redistricted into a race with Haley Stevens, and AIPAC spent millions to back Stevens over Levin. And they publicly made this argument that it was dangerous to have a guy who called himself a liberal Zionist, who was a synagogue president, who was criticizing Israel, who was casting votes against Israel, and was supporting Rashida Tlaib but Ilhan Omar, when they were being called anti-Semitic, he would show up with them and say, they are not, they are my friends, they have legitimate criticisms of Israel, and you cannot

46:07weaponize anti-Semitism against them because you disagree with them politically. And the fact that he was a synagogue president made that punch from him land much harder. And so they said, we need to get him out of office. And they spent and they got him out of office. And a similar thing is unfolding with BIS. BIS's mom was Israeli. He's got lots of connections to Israel. He has the support of J Street, which calls itself liberal Zionist. And so to have BIS out there attacking AIPAC and criticizing Israel and supporting Block the Bombs, which doesn't go far enough, but it is considered to be existential to Israel and AIPAC, the Block the Bombs Act, they feel like BIS is a significant threat to them.

46:53Emily Jashinsky:You can see how that would make sense. Yeah. And so for them, they're now doing this cope like, ah, we beat Kat and we beat Bushra. We should finish six. Get out of here. You spent money to support her. You're going to get 21 % of the vote. Yeah. And collectively, BIS and Abu Ghazala got well over a majority and their candidate got 20%. Yeah. So they got washed. So now what people have to do is organize around BIS. Yeah. I saw somebody saying yesterday that the kind of anti-Zionist movement needs to have more space for these, quote unquote, liberal Zionist critics of Israel because their argument was in the journey from, you know, full on AIPAC level support of Israel to becoming anti-Zionist.

47:44it's actually a bigger leap to go from APAC, hardcore right-wing Zionism to liberal Zionism. Like that is a harder move to make and more dramatic than it is to go from liberal Zionism to anti-Zionism. Because once you've, once you're in the liberal Zionist space and you're starting, you're starting to talk about apartheid and occupation and genocide, the rationale and the logic just pushes you to anti-Zionism eventually. It's just a question of how long it takes you to move from there to there. So the argument would be the goal now of Katz supporters and Bushra supporters needs to be to pressure BIS to go further.

48:32And I think there's also opportunities to do that in the two other districts where AIPAC won. But let's do District 7 next, where AIPAC caught just a brutal L. The only race where they spent money with their chests and admitted that they were the ones doing the spending, it was like$4 to$5 million they put behind Melissa Conyers Irvin, who is the comptroller of Chicago, currently under investigation for corruption. like just like comically corrupt um that there was this was a massively divided field and according to uh all of the kind of prognosticators them putting this many millions in the race behind her um was going to be enough to just push her over the top that you just couldn't compete with that avalanche of money.

49:28She lost. She finished with 20.5%, almost exactly what Laura Fine got. Apex, many millions of dollars, got her 19 ,000 votes, which is 3 ,000 less than LaShawn Ford.

49:42Emily Jashinsky:I wonder how much money that was per vote. And that's only the money we know about. That doesn't count mailers and C4 and all the off the books kind of spending. Incredible. Like you could have gone around and paid a thousand dollars to every person, like old school Chicago. Literally you could have done that. You could have paid$2 ,000. We'll give you two grand. Please just show up. Oh my gosh. Instead, they gave it to consultants who were going to buy a boat and lost. Now the races they won, we saw that they were bragging about Donna Miller. So in district two, Jan Schakowsky endorsed Donna Miller.

50:23And then they and then APAC started doing this, you know, fake these fake super PACs to support her. And when it was exposed that it was APAC money, Schakowsky withdrew her her endorsement. AIPAC now boasting, ha ha, we won anyway. As we talked about in the last segment, they sort of deny and call it a conspiracy theory that they're the ones behind these super PACs. But then when their candidate wins, they take credit for the victory, which is, there's just, do you get to do that? I don't think you get to do that. So Donna Miller did win with 40 % of the vote. And this is where we need to stigmatize the lack of consolidation.

51:10So 60 % of people voted against her, but she still won. So Jesse Jackson Jr. and Robert Peters split their vote. Jesse Jackson Jr. trying to make a comeback. Peters was kind of like the progressive real hope in that race. but Jesse Jackson Jr. has such a name and a reputation there that he was always going to do quite well. He got almost 30%. Was it Yvette Brown with 10 % pulling another? So those three candidates, one of them needed to, the left needs some mechanism to say, no, this is who we're getting behind. Because if it's just...

51:52Emily Jashinsky:This was a typical Tea Party conundrum. It's tough. Them Tea Party hitting the same snag. Yeah. It's tough. The left is not organized enough or ruthless enough to be able to pull this off. And so the same problem hit them in District 8. Melissa Bean, another former member of Congress, before that she was a top J.P. Morgan banker. I covered her when she was in Congress last time around. They put her on the Financial Services Committee where she played a very unhelpful role when it came to banking reform. Now she's coming back. AIPAC spent heavily. And she finished with almost 32 % of the vote. Very narrowly beat Junaid Ahmed, who had 27 % of the vote.

52:44So very close race. Ahmed had the support of Justice Democrats. He was the kind of left-wing candidate. Now, there's a group called American Priorities. This is the anti-genocide PAC, that pro-Palestine PAC that's spent heavily for NIDA alum in North Carolina. They've raised like$10 plus million and they've pledged that they're going to take on AIPAC. there was a lot of pressure among progressive electoral folks for them to get into this race and get behind Ahmed. And the argument was like, he can do this. Like he's a serious candidate. What I was told is that they have a poll from like January that showed that they didn't think he could win.

53:23And so they didn't, they, and so they refused to get in the race. They resisted this pressure. APEC spent heavily. And what I think what these results show is that they could have made up 2 ,500 votes, 30, what is it? 3 ,500 votes. Maybe not. No, maybe a million dollars from them doesn't push Ahmed over the top, but I think it does. Like if the race is that close. Then you've got a couple, multiple other candidates had 6 % or more. Morrison at nine, Banco at nine, Tully at 12.7, like no consolidation plus the refusal to get behind. The folks behind this new PAC are similar to a lot of people who get into politics who are like, people before us haven't figured out how to do it, but we figured it out.

54:19It's mathematical, it's quantitative. We're going to follow the data.

54:23Emily Jashinsky:We're going to moneyball it. We're going to moneyball it. Yeah. And it's not quite that simple. Yep. But also emotion ends up playing a role in it. I wonder if, you know, they were outspent by AI and APAC in the Nid Alam race and lost this like brutal, very, very close race, a thousand votes or something. And so I bet that emotion ended up playing a role that they were burned and like on their heels coming into Illinois. So they lacked the confidence to get in for Junaid. So that's a missed opportunity for them. Just to be a little ruthless. Love them, but that's a miss. Yeah, that is a miss. But now there are two opportunities here.

55:11Donna Miller and Melissa Bean. I think Miller represents a stronger opportunity.

55:16Emily Jashinsky:Why is that? So she won with AIPAC support, but it was the secret AIPAC support. But she knows she only got 40 % of the vote. Does she want to face a primary challenger in two years that has consolidated support from the left? Right. Or does she want to publicly announce tomorrow that she will not take AIPAC money, that she rejects their, she's angry about their support. She wishes they hadn't, you know. Stay away from me. Do not ever elect me to Congress again. How dare you? Do not come. That's what Valerie Fouché did. And she's headed back to Congress. And it may have been just enough to keep enough support.

56:00So what I would say to activists in her district, Miller represents an opportunity to basically snatch, um, victory from defeat that if APAC secretly goes around and spends millions of dollars to elect a candidate and then you come in and lobby them and turn them into your ally, that strips away that tactic from APAC. Because once I look at Max Frost, like in down in Orlando, So, AIPAC and DMFI basically made a deal where they would allow, they wouldn't spend against Max Frost if he would back off some of his, you know, criticism of Israel. Once he was in office, he has been a strident critic of Israel.

56:53And AIPAC is now kind of screwed because he's popular in the district.

56:56Emily Jashinsky:Yeah. Yeah, okay. I see what you're saying. They can replicate that. So maybe Donna Miller, if she's watching, look at Max Frost. You could tell APAC, I'm not taking your super PAC support ever again. Thank you for helping me get here now. I'm done. But then she has to do what Fouché did, which is demonstrate it, sign all the letters that the activists ask you to sign. Vote the way that they want you to vote on these issues. Yeah. And then you'll win enough of them that it drains support for a primary challenge in two years. Because like it doesn't matter who's in office really. It's what they do in office that matters to people.

57:43So if an initially APAC back candidate turns on them, maybe take that win.

57:51Emily Jashinsky:Interesting. So hey, just something to think about. Very interesting. and then we've got the I don't know if you can do that with Melissa Bean the JP Morgan banker she's a pretty right wing democrat but hey that one you probably want to start organizing for Junaid Ahmed like today to challenge her in two years and this time consolidate around a single candidate so and next time the super PAC American priorities might not make the same mistake They will see that perhaps Bean is more vulnerable. So much going on yesterday, in Illinois particularly. Yeah. And then we've got this wild Illinois Senate race.

58:36You put up F3 here. So this hit Raja Krashnamoorthy, a congressman who raised insane amounts of money from crypto.

58:51Emily Jashinsky:Millions. Tens of millions. Yeah, like 20 million. It was like crazy number. Like ungodly amounts of money. Yeah. Against Juliana Stratton, who was, is J.B. Pritzker's lieutenant governor. And she had the support of kind of progressives in the state. She heavily won black voters in the state. She did not really have much vocal support from the Congressional Black Caucus, which is, you know, which they should be criticized for. and maybe related to the amount of crypto and corporate money that was being spent against her. But Pritzker went in heavy for her and made this kind of a referendum on his own popularity.

59:34And she ended up beating him by, what, seven points? So fairly convincing victory there.

59:43Emily Jashinsky:Very convincing. When you have that level of money flooding into the race and you have a seven point win, that's... And they spent, like, the corporate and crypto money went in heavily to support Robin Kelly, who finished third as another black woman running. And their cynical idea was, we're going to split the black vote. Right. And it didn't work. You may have seen Julianna Stratton. She was the one who did the... She had a lot of money too. F Trump. Remember that ad? Yes. Yeah. So clearly F Trump works in Illinois. Well, Abu Ghazale was doing that, but I guess maybe this, I don't know. But so the amount of crypto money here, this is the political group Fair Shake.

1:00:37Emily Jashinsky:They spent about$9 million on ads for Christian Murthy's opponents. So they were trying to have some fun with that. It's nice to see him. Trying to boost him by just smearing. Yeah, nice to see the crypto guys lose. That's something. Yeah. We can take that, right? Yeah, so they were spending for Kelly against Stratton in the race. Right, they're cynically trying to lift Kelly. to pull votes away from Stratton. There's just a crazy amount of money on this. I mean, yeah. Yeah. And to make an obvious point, whatever this was on display yesterday in Illinois, it's not democracy. Like all of these pro-Israel and corporate and crypto and AI just dumping money in, but not running on their issues.

1:01:34It'd be one thing if it's like crypto rules like we should all like and and you ran your campaign on that but they're not like right like you said they're doing this cynical stuff of like oh we actually support robin kelly she's wonderful no you don't right right you you're just trying to trick people right who otherwise would vote for stratton to vote for kelly so that raja wins right that's like that it's just so gross yeah Bring back the Tammany Hall, Chicago machine stuff. Like that was much cleaner than this system.

1:02:10Emily Jashinsky:You have more agency in the Tammany Hall system. But actually, no, I mean, I think there's glass half empty. You just laid that up very well. Glass half full. Voters said no to the crypto. That's true. And to AIPAC. Voters saw through it in several of these races. Yeah. iVeam is built for losing weight and moving forward. iVeam is built for feeling your best and seeing results. iVeam is a medical weight loss program built for you. Their approach is individualized, virtual, integrative medicine. 99.2 % of patients who completed the iVeam weight loss protocol achieved meaningful change, dropping an average of 45 pounds.

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1:04:28Emily Jashinsky:We got to play this Plattner ad. We got to play this anti-Plattner ad from Janet Mills. This dropped the last couple days. Janet Mills, governor of Maine, is trailing Oysterman and Plattner in every public poll for months now. Governor of Maine with a lot of support from the leadership of the Democratic Party. Yes, from the chairs of the party to the vice chairs of the party. Her support is very deep. We'll get into that in a second. Let's roll this ad, F7. Did you know Graham Plattner wrote that women worried about rape need to quote, Not get so f***ed up they wind up having sex with someone they don't mean to.

1:05:07It's disgusting. Plattner wrote to avoid rape, women should quote, Act like an adult for f***ing sake. Graham Plattner, seriously. We blame the victim. That's a horrible thing to say. Disqualify. I have not seen this. He's a bully. This guy gives off a vibe. Just no way I could vote for you. No. Graham Plattner, the closer you look, the worse it gets. I'm Janet Mills, and I approve this message. And so if people are new to that, I highly doubt they are. This was a scandal that emerged many months ago when Plattner first ran, where some opposition research uncovered his Reddit posts from years ago.

1:05:47He was a bartender to tune in, and then there he is.

1:05:52Emily Jashinsky:Recovering veteran, struggling with PTSD. Yeah, and those were his observations at the time as a bartender. Anonymous observations. Which he has, people can find the video he posted about it. He has said, like, he's embarrassed by them. He distances himself from them now. It's not how he feels today. And he has said that, you know, if you're held to the standard of the worst things you've ever said on the Internet, then nobody real can ever run for office, which nobody real gets us to our next element and put up this from the main wire. The conservative main publication. It looked like this one out.

1:06:35You know, it looked like Janet Mills had found, you know, regular main women who were appalled by these comments. The Maine Wire, news outlet that you can brief us on in a moment, finds that it's Peggy Schaefer, who's a former Maine Democratic vice chair, Lynn Bromley, former Democratic state senator, Jill Barkley-Roy is director of Emerge Action Fund, a Democratic Aligned group, and Brenda Garand is a consultant and a former longtime member of the Maine Public Board. Mills couldn't even find actors, I guess.

1:07:08Emily Jashinsky:Incredible. Incredible. So just getting pure kind of a democratic establishment figures to say they don't like the guy who's challenging the democratic establishment. Interesting also that they went with this rather than the like skull and bones Nazi linked tattoo or some of the other stuff. I mean, because it's maybe they've got more in the canon. I'm sure they do, but it's falling flat on its face because all of the polling coming from this race is showing double digit. Even Mills is polling, if I'm remembering correctly, is showing double-digit margins right now for Graham Platt. Some are single-digit, to give her credit.

1:07:45Emily Jashinsky:But significant single digits, I'm assuming, like upwards towards double digits. Because this is falling on its face. And it's falling on its face for a reason that they're struggling to make an argument against, which is he's trying to say, you know, I have all kinds of quibbles with this argument about identity politics. But he's trying to say that is the wedge that elites are using to divide us. he's correct on that point. He's saying this is a class question. He's not even talking about affordability in the kind of cringe sense. He's talking about actual nuts and bolts, democratic socialism, and what he thinks.

1:08:22Emily Jashinsky:He has a pretty coherent vision of what he wants the government to look like, the economy to look like. And Janet Mills is just talking about identity politics as he's running the smartest campaign against identity politics, which is this ad where you have a bunch of politically connected women reading his old Reddit posts. She's not even attacking him at, she could argue that she thinks democratic socialism is bad for reason X, Y, and Z. She could, she's welcome to do that. And there's an argument that if, let's say if he survives this, that he comes out of it a much stronger general election candidate because A, it shows the Maine public that he's not the choice of the Democratic Party establishment, which being the choice of the Democratic Party establishment in any state, and in particular in Maine, is something you have to overcome rather than something that benefits you.

1:09:18But also there's this interesting dynamic that I'm pretty convinced unfolded in 2015 and 2016 during the Bernie Hillary campaign, which is that when centrist Democrats attack a candidate, whether it's Graham Plattner or Bernie Sanders as being racist and sexist, what it ends up coding to some moderate or conservative voters is that, oh, maybe they're not as left wing as I thought they were. So I think that Bernie actually ended up getting some conservative Democratic votes because they understood this identity politics charge from Hillary as deeply left-wing coded, left-wing culturally coded, and it made Hillary look left-wing.

1:10:12And it made Sanders look more moderate. Totally. And so to the extent that Plattner has problems in the general election, it's probably more connected to him calling himself a communist and like training like paramilitary gun groups, which is hard for the Republicans to hit him on. Well, no. It's kind of cool to train paramilitary, but there's a trans connection.

1:10:37Emily Jashinsky:I was going to say, it's the trans stuff that's going to be. This is a problem for Mills too, because Mills has been. The whole thing is the trans question, I'll see you in court. Yeah, exactly. Mills has staked kind of her political career in this moment against Trump, fighting the Trump administration on bans and like trans athletes and bathrooms and that sort of thing. And so, I mean, that will be a hurdle for Plattner to overcome because it's not popular. But my argument is that this actually, in a way, helps him overcome that hurdle. Totally agree. No, I totally agree. Because the more linked you are to identity politics right now, the more an independent voter thinks you are a far leftist.

1:11:16Emily Jashinsky:100%. Rather than being, you know, a communist and like wanting to like seize the means of production and raise taxes on the rich. Like that's, left wing has become code for, you know, lean in 2020 identity politics stuff. Yep, yep. And so having him attacked from the lane of identity politics codes him as more independent, centrist, and moderate in an unexpected and I think way that most Democratic establishment consultants don't understand. Right. But out of this like mishmash, that's what will reach a lot of voters. Totally agree. We're like, oh, I guess he's not that radical. No, I think that's right.

1:12:01Emily Jashinsky:I think that's right. And just playing straight into his hands. Keep it up, Mills. Incredible. Do the Nazi one. Because if you do the Nazi one, people are going to be like, oh, well, he can't be a communist and a Nazi. And he's obviously not a Nazi. Communists have their own problems. But it undercuts the communist charge if you're calling him a Nazi. It brings up different mass murder questions. Right. If they want to accuse him of being a Stalinist or something. We're thinking of. Go ahead. That's what's on the table. Collins can try to warn that he's going to create gulags in Maine. That also might not be super successful.

1:12:37Emily Jashinsky:But yeah, the Mills campaign, it's incredible to watch them play directly into Platner's hands because it's all they have. I mean, it doesn't have to be all they have. She could actually make an argument. She could actually lead. Or she could be like, I'm losing badly and I'm like 78, I should just retire. Yeah, you can't really like it. Maine's beautiful. Just go do something else. Enjoy it. Have some oysters. She knows a guy who can get some fresh ones. He'll give you a deal. Oh, my goodness. All right. Well, that's probably enough for us today. Yeah, I think that should do it. Okay. Well, thanks, everyone, for tuning in.

1:13:13Emily Jashinsky:Premium subscriptions you can get over at breakingpoints.com. We appreciate it. Ryan's going to be in Cuba. We look forward to a dispatch. Actually, you'll probably be back in studio Wednesday, right? Yes. And we didn't get to cover the micropenis debate that I that I triggered. That's right. That was you. That's right. So I was telling Emily, a high school friend posted to a little group chat. Brian is now involved in a national micropenis debate. He is. Look that one up. Just Google Ryan Grimm micropenis. We're not going to talk about it here, but you can go you can go search that. Yeah, just type that in.

1:13:53Emily Jashinsky:You know, we could have talked about it in the Greenblatt segment, though, because it's the same. It is, yes. It's the same concept, just attacking people for retweeting Ryan, which, listen, when Ryan and I first started hosting together, I got it all the time. I'm sure you got it, too, from me. Indeed. So if you are doing the guilt by association thing when people share legitimate facts, which is all Ryan did. It's all I do. In this tweet. It's all I ever do. If it's all he ever does, then you're losing the argument. Okay. That does it for us today. Maybe we'll cover it. Have fun Googling. We could cover it Friday, but you won't be on Friday.

1:14:29I don't think so.

1:14:30Emily Jashinsky:All right. Well, thanks, everyone, for tuning in. Appreciate it. We'll see you on Fridays. Well, Ryan, we're just going in circles here. Yeah. Ryan won't see you on Friday. I'll see you Friday. Yeah. We'll see you next Wednesday. Bye.

1:14:58This is Ashley Akinetti from the Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous podcast. iVeam is built for losing weight and moving forward. iVeam is built for feeling your best and seeing real results. iVeam is a medical weight loss program built for you. Their approach is individualized, virtual, integrative medicine. 99.2 % of patients who've completed the IVIM weight loss protocol achieved meaningful change, dropping an average of 45 pounds. IVIM, built for your wellness journey. IVIM, built for real life. When you sign up right now, you can get a one month free trial. Start your personalized plan in minutes by visiting IVIMHealth.com.

1:15:46That is IVIMHealth.com. Subscription required, medication, labs, and supplements not included. Results based on patients who completed the full IVIM protocol over 68 weeks. Individual results may vary. Not all patients are eligible. Prescription medication may carry risks and should be used only as directed by your provider. What if your soda actually did something for you? Introducing Sky Pop Protein Soda. Sky Pop Protein Soda has 10 grams of complete protein, zero sugar, and real delicious soda taste. Sky Pop Protein Soda. Reach for the sky. Get your Sky Pop Protein Soda now at Target. It's tax season, and by now we're all a bit tired of numbers.

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