7/28/26: Trump Admits Weapons Shortage, Americans Cut Back On Groceries, Abdul Vs Haley Debate

20:34Yeah. I mean, if you think about the theoretical goals that have been floated at different times, I mean, the most preposterous one was always like, oh, we care about the human rights and the dignity of the protesters, please. But if your goal is, you know, we're going to weaken the government and foment some sort of regime change, government appears to be stronger than ever. I believe, Shane Smith, I think it makes sense that they are probably making a lot of money because when you increase the black market, yes, those are the sorts of people that are going to ultimately benefit. So you've strengthened the government.

21:02If your goal is to deter them from seeking a nuclear weapon, you've made it much more likely they're going to pursue a nuclear weapon, both by killing, murdering the previous Supreme Leader who had issued a fatwa against a nuclear weapon, and also just through the logic of the state looking at an existential threat and saying, OK, well, how can we deter that? Let me look around the world. Looks like people are leaving North Korea alone. Maybe that's the model to go with. So on that front, you've been incredibly counterproductive. If you wanted to weaken their economy, well, now they've been able to assert control over the Strait of Hormuz, very likely guaranteeing themselves a sort of endless stream of revenue from cargo ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz.

21:39So on any of the levels that you could imagine of what the goals theoretically could be, even though we've never really gotten a straight, consistent answer about what those goals are. We've set ourselves back on every single one of those goals. We were in a better place, closer to the achievement of those theoretical goals before we ever launched these attacks. Yeah.

21:59Emily Jashinsky:I mean, that's a fact pattern at this point, like incontrovertible, unless you buy into some of the deeper conspiracy theories of the Ron Hawk world. So absolute mess. And we keep seeing why every single day in like Renaissance portrait form, flamboyantly wrong every single day. All right, let's go ahead and turn now from the impact on Iran to the impact on our own economy. Apple Vacations, where your story starts. The Summer Savings Event is here at Apple Vacations. It's the perfect time to bring everyone together for the getaway you've been dreaming about. Book between July 24th and August 27th and enjoy up to 55 % instant savings.

22:41Emily Jashinsky:From relaxing beach days to unforgettable moments with the people who matter most your next vacation starts here travel through july 31st 2027 start your vacation today at apple vacations.com or through your travel advisor valvoline instant oil change presents wisdom from the road summer means wide open spaces and a whole lot of extra miles the last place you want your engine to give out is halfway to nowhere. Out here, low oil or a weak battery is just an ambush waiting to happen. That's why every oil change at Valvoline Instant Oil Change includes an 18-point maintenance check. These checks are trained to help spot issues early and keep you riding easy.

23:22Emily Jashinsky:Valvoline Instant Oil Change. Change wisely. Some people like working twice as hard just to stay right where they are. And in Ohio, we really don't get it. Because to us, owning a home in your 30s, working in tech without the traffic and still being able to make it to your kid's soccer game sounds pretty good. In fact, Ohio is the second most affordable state to buy a home. Your move. Learn more at yourmoveohio.com.

23:58Emily Jashinsky:President Trump flew to Michigan yesterday to deliver an economic speech. And the news is good, folks. Don't worry. You're pretty much doing as well as you ever have. Let's take a listen. We're having the single greatest year we've ever had as a country. We're not going to let these people destroy it. We're delivering the largest prescription drug price cuts in the history of our country, by far, with differences of 400, 500, and even 600 percent. Nobody can believe it. We will pass the Great Health Care Plan. That's what is called the Great Health Care Plan to stop all payments to big insurance companies and give the money directly to you, the people, so that they can buy their own health care, which will be much less expensive and be a much better health care.

24:51Emily Jashinsky:Meanwhile, let's put this Washington Post headline up on the screen. Republicans see, quote, scary lack of enthusiasm among core voters ahead of midterms. A little bit from the piece here, quote, Republican pollsters and political groups are raising the alarm. Their party faces a listless and demotivated base ahead of November's midterm elections. A raft of discouraging data from polling, door knocking and focus groups is unsettling Republicans as their party heads into a midterm election season. And that would be challenging no matter what, given President Trump's low standing in polls and the fact that the party control in Washington almost always loses seats, which, by the way, is something that Trump was saying ahead of the Iran war.

25:31Emily Jashinsky:He was saying he gave a speech in Iowa, I think it was back in January, Crystal, where he was talking about how, you know, it's not a big deal. He probably won't. Republicans probably won't win the midterms. Now, not only is that historical precedent still salient, but he also has, let's just check the AAA gas price. The national average today is about$4.01. That is within 100 days of the midterm election. I think we just passed the 100-day benchmark, what, two days ago? So no wonder, no wonder they're seeing signs, quote, of listlessness among the base. And I'm curious, Crystal, for your take on his messaging.

26:11Emily Jashinsky:of the economy being, he's doing a little bit of blaming Biden, but then also saying it's great. It's a total mixed message, but he doesn't have much to work with at this point, of course, when he's trying to tell voters everything is just fine. And in fact, it's actually better than ever. Many a president has crashed into the rocks trying to convince voters that the economy is good when the economy is not in fact good. I think it's one of the hardest things to bullshit on, even for the most effective bullshit artist, perhaps of all time in American political history, Donald Trump. because people have their own individual experience with the economy.

26:45It's numbers. It's math at the end of the day. Am I able to afford what I used to be able to afford at the grocery store? Am I able to make rent at the end of the month? Am I able to even conceive of the possibility of ever becoming a homeowner? Am I able to afford my health insurance premiums? And so you can't, there's very few people, there may be a few, but there's very few people that you're going to be able to rhetorically persuade that their economic situation is different than their actual experience of it. So when he says America's having the best year of all time, there are going to be very few people who are going to be persuaded by that.

27:20And all of those people were going to be diehard Trump fans. The latest Gallup poll has only 22 % of Americans who say the economy is either good or excellent. That is absolutely dismal. That piece in the Washington Post is really quite dire because you have them saying, you know, one in five Republican voters, so 20 percent of the Republican base is at risk of either staying home or voting for Democrats. That is an extraordinarily high number. I think, you know, when we're looking at the generic ballot and, OK, theoretically, Democrat versus Republican, et cetera, it's very hard to actually capture.

27:52But who is going to show up? And midterms are 100 percent a game of who is actually going to show up. And I think that lack of enthusiasm is the biggest problem for Republicans. It's not necessarily that diehard MAGA voters are in large numbers going to flip to Democrats, although I think some of them will. It's that many of them will be demobilized and simply stay home. They interviewed some Trump voters in Iowa, which Iowa's a state that, you know, Barack Obama won it, but that feels like a million years ago at this point. It shifted hard to the right, very rural. You know, this is the type of place that has increasingly moved against Democrats.

28:27You got both a governor candidate, Democratic candidate, and a Senate candidate who have been pretty consistently up in the polls, including in a recent Fox News poll, Democrats winning both of those seats. So they interviewed this guy, three-time Trump voter in Western Iowa, which is very rural, Lance Salentick, resident of Iowa's rural Harrison County, described the past three presidential elections as, quote, the worst three mistakes I've ever made in my life, saying the president had failed to fulfill Bill, his campaign promises higher gas prices have been costing his family an extra$300 to$500 every month for their motorcycle and for cars.

29:04He said, quote, we voted for Trump. He did the opposite of what he said he was going to do. Gas prices were going to be$2. Food was going to be cheaper. Energy prices were going to be in half. We were going to get two rebate checks to the American people. We weren't going to have any new wars. And we're going to build a wall and deport 30 million illegal aliens. Interesting that he's also disappointed on that front. And he did none of it. So this man, you think he's going to, Trump is going to come out and say, oh, but it's the best year of your life, sir. Don't worry. I don't think that's going to be very persuasive for him, Emily.

29:38Emily Jashinsky:No, of course not. And one of the things we should mention about the analysis that you brought up from the Washington Post piece is that it was done by Americans for Prosperity. So that's a party ground game, but it's still here in 2026. And they were out making this analysis based on door knocking and actually talking to voters. So it's not even just like a cold statistical analysis. It's a lot of it is qualitative having these conversations. And we should also mention from the Post piece, the latest Washington Post and Ipsos polling on this shows that, quote, Democrats have a 10 percentage point advantage over Republicans among voters who say they're absolutely certain to vote in November.

30:21Emily Jashinsky:Now, that is huge. Ryan and I covered last week the generic congressional ballot differences between now 2006 and 2018. Democrats, and Harry Enten, who we're going to hear from in just a moment, has pointed this out. And if you look at RealClear for those years too, it's pretty obvious. Democrats are lagging. They're up in the generic congressional ballot. I think it's five points last time I checked on RCP last week. They should be up higher if they're looking at like a blue tsunami year from the same points in 2006 and 2018. That doesn't necessarily mean they won't have a blue tsunami or that those numbers won't change and be even more lopsided in their favor by the time Election Day rolls around.

31:06Emily Jashinsky:But as of right now, there's still work for Democrats to do to capitalize on the fact that Republican voters are possibly considering pulling the lever for some Democrats or staying home altogether. So a fascinating dynamic. Let's put the CNBC headline up. U.S. grocery slowdown deepens as shoppers buy fewer items, raising pressure on food companies. Shoppers are buying fewer items than a year ago, and grocery sales are declining as weakening unit sales are now outweighing rising prices. CNBC reports this is according to a new analysis from Bain. using Nielsen IQ grocery data shared exclusively with CNBC.

31:44Emily Jashinsky:Grocery units, which refer to individual items or products sold, fell 1.8 % in June from a year earlier, a sharp reversal from the 0.1 % year-over-year growth recorded in June 2025. While prices continue to rise about 2 % to 3 % year-over-year, that inflation cushion for the industry is no longer enough to keep overall sales growing. So Trump went from recording a 0.1 % growth year-over-year, his economy, went from recording 0.1 % growth year over year after Liberation Day, by the way, which is somewhat interesting. Obviously, these adjustments can take a long time to trickle into all parts of the economy.

32:20Emily Jashinsky:But in the midst of the Iran war to a dip of 1.8 % from June to June. So the way that Democrats are going to get Republican voters either to stay home, Those one in five by November to stay home or vote Democrat. I mean, this is such a gift politically. It's a tragedy for the country, but a gift politically, Crystal. Yeah. And Emily, I know we talked a lot before about how Republicans were pinning a lot of hopes on the big, beautiful bill and the tax savings that Americans were going to be feeling in their bank accounts and the Trump baby accounts and these sorts of things. There was a recent poll, and I don't have the numbers in front of me, that unsurprisingly, way.

33:01American voters are very like, meh, on the tax savings because they're immediately— They don't know what it is. Right. Number one, they don't know what it is. Number two, whatever savings they may have achieved is being instantly eaten up the very next time they go to fill up their gas tank. So, you know, you talked about we're 100 days away from the midterms, more or less. We're six months into the Iran war. There's no end in sight. And those economic indicators are just going to continue to decline. You know, we're going to have higher, even higher grocery price. If you look at a chart at the cost of groceries over, let's say, the past six years, the way it's skyrocketed, it is truly jaw-dropping how much more people are having to spend for the same items.

33:39I'm sure you've seen these viral TikToks where people will pull out their receipts, their Target receipts or their Walmart receipts from 2019 and just be in shock at how much more they're paying for the exact same items. So yeah, you're not going to be able to talk that away. That is one area where people really have a very fine-tuned sense of what is actually happening, much more so, I think, than is even captured in the top-line numbers, which, you know, unemployment's low. It's not like things, if you just look at these certain macroeconomic indicators, look that disastrous. But the, you know, your average American is really feeling a lot of pain and a lot of despair about the direction that the country is going in and what the prospects are for them and their children.

34:22And that is the reason why, if we put B4 up on the screen, Trump is seeing his lowest approval rating, or I'm sorry, this is actually a SOT, a Harry Enten SOT, talking about some of these poll numbers of how Americans feel about the economy and how just dismally they're rating Trump's performance here.

34:38Emily Jashinsky:Promises made, promises broken in the minds of the American public. 44%, 38 % said they make them worse off back in October of 2020. Look at these numbers now. Oh, my goodness. John's shaking his head off on the side. Now, 58 percent, nearly three in five voters say that Trump is making them financially worse off. That's up like a rocket. The better off down to the floor. Back when Trump was reelected, November of 2024. Look at that. 42 percent of Americans, less than 50, said that, in fact, the economy was getting worse. Look at that now. 59 percent, 59 percent say the U.S. economy is getting worse.

35:18Emily Jashinsky:I don't know how this works for Republicans come to midterm elections when the economy is the number one issue with inflation. And three in five say it's getting worse off and just about one in five saying that it's getting better. That's an equation that does not work out. And Emily, I saw Trump going back to the well and that Michigan speech was supposed to be all about the economy, about like transports and utilizing kids and these sorts of culture war issues that, you know, he believes will help to rev up the base. And, you know, for some, sure. But I think when you're dealing with this, you know, pessimistic of an outlook on the economy and pessimistic view of Trump's own handling of the economy, because let's be clear, these are all complete own goals, you know, manufactured crises of his own making.

36:02I don't think the culture war red meat is going to be enough to rescue him.

36:06Emily Jashinsky:Well, he was talking also about prescription drug prices. And the fact of the matter is health care premiums, early data for the year shows that they're likely to be increasing again this year. So he can talk about prescription drug prices that he's been able to, via executive order and deals with some of these individual companies, muscle down. And in some cases, I think that's good. But the overall picture is not a rosy one. And so calling attention to this kind of hodgepodge quilt of executive order accomplishments only goes so far when the big picture for people is not, but it doesn't reflect the optimism that he's trying to project.

36:50Emily Jashinsky:And that brings us full circle to the point you made initially. It's a classic pitfall for precedents. He's not on the ballot, which is another problem. From the Washington Post article, it raised one of the experts saying we have a high propensity voter problem. that is from, again, one of the right-leaning experts who say, listen, Trump's not on the ballot. So not only do we not have the voters who turn out for Trump, that Trump coalition that does have more Hispanics, more men in particular, you don't have that coalition. And a lot of polling suggests it's already fractured anyway because of the war and prices and the like.

37:28Emily Jashinsky:But on top of that your high propensity voters that used to make up the Republican Party base are less energized and interested now, too. So they're in an absolute mess right now. Yeah. And even on that prescription drug price thing, he just announced they just announced that they're slapping tariffs on generic drug imports, which is going to increase the logically increase the cost of those generic drugs, which are the less expensive alternatives to brand names here in the U.S. So, you know, even on this one area that he's trying to claim some progress at the same time, he is undercutting his own progress on that, um, that same issue.

38:04And then I don't even know what he's talking about with this healthcare plan because we've never heard anything else about it. At least I haven't, maybe you have, I guess this is the next phase of the concept of a healthcare plan that we were promised in the presidential election, but I don't think anyone's holding their breath for that one.

38:17Emily Jashinsky:No, I don't think so either. I mean, maybe they're trying to squeeze something into reconciliation. I have no idea. It seems unlikely to happen, but, uh, good luck to Donald Trump trying to convince people that it's all not just fine, but better than ever. That's right.

38:56Emily Jashinsky:Or through your travel advisor.

39:26Emily Jashinsky:oil change that starts with Valvoline. Valvoline instant oil change. Change wisely. Ask yourself, what are your best people spending their time on right now? Expense reports, receipt chasing, month-end close that takes weeks. You become what you spend on, and that's not what you're building toward. Brex is the intelligent finance platform that eliminates that work before it starts. AI agents that handle the manual stuff automatically, so your team can spend their time on what actually compounds. It's time to get Brex AF. Learn more at brex.com slash AF. Well, a marquee race in Michigan, that being the Senate Democratic primary, is coming down to the wire.

40:11Election day is next week on Tuesday. Abdul Al-Sayed and Haley Stevens faced off last night in a very interesting debate. Let's start with a little bit of Abdul criticizing Haley Stevens for the money that she's been taking. This was a primary line of attack against her throughout this entire debate night. He tied a lot of his answers back to her APAC funding and other corporate funding coming into her campaign. Let's go ahead and listen to that.

40:36Emily Jashinsky:What are you doing? That's something that perhaps we haven't heard before in Washington that's different to keep the cost of living down. So let's just tell you, for me, it's I don't take money from the corporations who are jacking up your prices in the first place. When you're bought off by DTE and Blue Cross and big pharma and big tech and APAC, don't be surprised that there's a pro quo that comes with that quid. That money doesn't just fall off trees. $60 million from outside organizations in this race. They just come from nowhere. It's because those exact same organizations expect something on the other side.

41:08Emily Jashinsky:And that's that they get to expect to own your next US senator. So it starts with being able to say, I'm the only candidate in this race who doesn't take any money from corporations. Never have, never will. So I just want to say the difference between us is$46 million of AIPAC spending. They've set a record in this race to help elect my opponent because they know that she'll be a reliable vote, just like she took last week to send your tax dollars to a foreign government that is aiding, arming, and abetting the very people who want to foreclose on the possibility of Palestinian self-determination.

41:41Emily Jashinsky:Look, at the end of the day, my job is to take care of you here. I want to be your U.S. senator. I want your tax dollars spent in Michigan to provide schools in Michigan, to build health care in Michigan, to build roads in Michigan. And I think that money sent over there to kill kids and women is the worst use of our tax dollars. And yet that's exactly what 46 million dollars in spending will buy you. And Emily, he really hit this theme again and again. You know, it's really interesting and a little bit risky because I'm not sure I've ever seen campaign finance be this prominently featured in any election.

42:20You know, a lot of times both sides are taking a lot of money and it kind of gets lost in the sauce of who's taking what from whom. But it's a sign of the times because AIPAC has become so incredibly toxic and such an important litmus test in terms of the credibility of Democratic candidates in these primaries. I think it probably packs a punch. He also did a thing I thought was very clever where he'd say, hey, they're going to go to commercial break. You're probably going to see two, three ads funded by APAC for my opponent. And let me tell you what the problem is with that and what they're saying, et cetera.

42:50So I thought it was a very interesting strategy from him.

42:53Emily Jashinsky:Yeah, it is interesting. And also, I think for the kind of normal Michigan voter, what makes it less of a risky strategy when you think about it in the context of 2026 is that people are, people's frustrations with money and politics are boiling over because of obviously the war, because of the Gaza war. Yes. But it's, I think also just a proxy crystal for people's frustration with money and politics in general and with the system. So if people on the right or in the center are saying he keeps bringing up AIPAC because of Israel, I think actually it's more than that. I mean, just as we followed this issue really closely, you see people around the country reacting to AIPAC, not even necessarily always with a foreign policy aversion to it, but just saying what happened to Thomas Massey, for example, was gross.

43:46Emily Jashinsky:It was just an example of everything they don't like and don't trust about the American political system. It's a catch-all for a lot of different themes. I mean, between AIPAC, data centers, which we'll talk about later in today's episode, and flock cameras. Like, these are big—what's the best way to put it? They're sort of touchstones. They're things that represent what people hate about politics right now, and they're unifying in a weird way. Yeah, no, I think that's absolutely right. Haley Stevens, for her part, her attacks on Abdul were, number one, she's been trying to make a big deal about how he hadn't released his financial disclosure.

44:25That didn't land as hard because he did release his financial disclosure yesterday, and there wasn't anything that was particularly scandalous there, but she was trying to still launch that attack, I think as a way to kind of muddy the waters, where he's saying her, like, she's basically corrupt. And she's saying, well, he's corrupt because he's not disclosing everything about his finances. That was one of her attacks. Another one was to try to frame him. This is a way to kind of jujitsu the fact that he's much more camera ready, much more charismatic and intelligente in front of a camera than she is.

44:54How dare you? How dare you? Sorry. First of all, how dare you? For all the Steven stans out there. I know, deeply sexist commentary on my part. In any case, she tried to flip that around and say, well, we don't need. Yeah, he can go on all these podcasts. We don't need a celebrity senator. I'm the one who's in the trenches getting the work done, et cetera. In any case, let's take a listen to the way that she attempted to attack Abdul over his lack of financial transparency.

45:19Emily Jashinsky:Not released your full tax returns. $300 ,000 in other income. while you sat in the podcast chair and you hawked junk health care cures that RFK Jr. would thumbs up. You talk about getting money out of politics and putting money in people's pockets, but still no one knows who's putting the money in your pocket. You know, I have been transparent and I am offering, you know, real plans to address the cost of living. Well, we want to be able to tackle Donald. And what you're talking about, what you did, but you also made some accusations here. Dr. Al-Sayed, that is a question that some people may have that Congresswoman's talking about.

45:56Emily Jashinsky:Talk about the money and the financial disclosures. You were going to release some today. We released all of our financial disclosures. Again, this is a distraction from the issues in your life. I'd love to talk about transparency. I really would. Because I want you to ask yourself, there is this group called the Center for Democratic Priorities. They didn't exist until they popped up and started running ads for my opponent. And then there's this other group called Center Forward that paid for a flight for the congresswoman and her mother to go to Portugal. And they just released their donors.

46:24Emily Jashinsky:And then it's a whole bunch of shell 501c4 organizations. They're the folks who are literally putting money in our pockets right now to try and miss and disinform us about this race. No concern about the 46 million plus dollars spent on the behalf of AIPAC that should worry people about perhaps you doing their bidding should you win the seat. Well, I don't think there's much difference between super PACs going in for Abdul or super PACs going in for me. We have a problem with campaign finance reform. You didn't call me an ogre. No. Again, for the record, it was Mr. Fetterman that was apparently called an ogre in the call, not you.

47:00That last part. Oh, my God. To even get started with this. We got that cleared up. Yeah. Put C4 up on the screen. So Politico had this whole piece about how there was leaked audio of Abdul talking about John Fetterman, not Haley Stevens, saying, I have no problem primaring people like John Fetterman. I have no problem to do that. Ideally, you put one ogre on a pike and then everyone else gets the message and all of a sudden starts to sound a lot different. Haley Stevens and Neera Tanden tried to turn this around like he was talking about Haley Stevens being the ogre on a pike, which is what she said there.

47:33She gets fact-checked in real time by the moderator. I think probably highlighting the fact that Abdul Al-Sayed, like the entire rest of the Democratic base, absolutely despises John Fetterman and thinks that he's an ogre who should be taken out. It's probably not the win, the propaganda win that they were hoping for.

47:50Emily Jashinsky:Well, she couldn't even land the plane on the financial disclosures. I mean, just sometimes it's frustrating. Chris, I don't know if you ever experienced this as somebody who covers these races to watch the candidates, even when they're so bad. like Haley Stevens flustered. Because look right into the camera and say, this is your working class champion. His wife has$100 ,000 rental property in Dubai. Like she couldn't even land an effective punch on that. Do I think it's a huge issue for Michigan voters? No, but it gave her something to work with. Yeah, at least to like kind of muddy the water.

48:24Emily Jashinsky:And she couldn't even do it, right? Yeah. She couldn't even do it. She couldn't even do it. And you could hear her trying to like interrupt and then deciding that she probably shouldn't interrupt Like she just lacks a, I mean, it's not just Riz, but like she kind of lacks like a convincing self-confidence in that setting, at least. Well, this is the hard thing about standing for nothing. It makes it much harder to have a convincing self to put forward. I mean, genuinely, I think about Kamala Harris suffering from this. You know, we talked about Kamala Harris as untalented. It's not really true.

48:56It's very hard to not really know where you stand and have to answer all these questions about where you stand. That's really difficult. It's much easier if you have an ideology and you can just take the question in and respond with what you actually think based on a well thought out ideology and some sort of principle. And so I think there's no surprise that you have this big gap in the capability and the charisma of the lefty candidates versus the centrist because the lefties, whether you like them or you don't agree with their worldview, they have a worldview. And they're not afraid of putting it out there and they're not running away from it.

49:29And they, you know, so it gives them a real leg up when you're in a situation like this and you're just having to respond to, okay, well, what is the question? What do I actually think about this? Rather than what did my briefing book say? What's the clever retort that my campaign team came up with when we were workshopping this in practice? So I think that's part of what's going on here as well.

49:51Emily Jashinsky:Apple Vacations, where your story starts. The Summer Savings Event is here at Apple Vacations. It's the perfect time to bring everyone together for the getaway you've been dreaming about. Book between July 24th and August 27th and enjoy up to 55 % instant savings. From relaxing beach days to unforgettable moments with the people who matter most, your next vacation starts here. Travel through July 31st, 2027. Start your vacation today at applevacations.com or through your travel advisor.

50:21Emily Jashinsky:Valvoline Instant Oil Change presents Wisdom from the Road. Summer means wide open spaces and a whole lot of extra miles. The last place you want your engine to give out is halfway to nowhere. Out here, low oil or a weak battery is just an ambush waiting to happen. That's why every oil change at Valvoline Instant Oil Change includes an 18-point maintenance check. These checks are trained to help spot issues early and keep you riding easy. Bound to lead. Instant oil change. Change wisely. Ask yourself, what are your best people spending their time on right now? Expense reports? Receipt chasing?

50:58Emily Jashinsky:Month-end close that takes weeks? You become what you spend on, and that's not what you're building toward. Brex is the intelligent finance platform that eliminates that work before it starts. AI agents that handle the manual stuff automatically, so your team can spend their time on what actually compounds. It's time to get Brex AF. Learn more at brex.com slash AF. We have another Haley Stevens moment that we wanted to highlight here and shout out to Sam Robinson, who is a journalist in Michigan. He's actually going to join us on Friday to give us a breakdown of the race. He's just been following the candidates around and talking to them, talking to the voters who are interacting with both Abdul and Haley, getting their sense of things.

51:44And he captured a pretty extraordinary moment here where Haley Stevens was meeting with a constituent who was a community leader. He expressed his concern over her support for the slaughter in Gaza and in a very compelling and personal way. And she really was sort of uncomfortable in the exchange. And it was a very telling moment, I think, in terms of how voters are processing their choices here. Let's go ahead and take a look at that. That's awesome.

52:12Emily Jashinsky:I did already vote, early voted. Somebody is going to win. I do not want Mike Rogers to win. And whoever it is, like I said, it's not an issue. It's not a candidate issue. It's a human rights issue. Yeah, right. What's your full name? Jai, J-A-I. Thank you. I know I sound like a broken record. Those six-year-olds that I coach here, they're just as precious as the six year olds in Palestine and it just absolutely breaks my heart when I see limbs missing, children they're having to play soccer on crutches with no legs, having to live lives and I feel like my country is directly responsible for those actions and needs to stop.

52:52Emily Jashinsky:What do you make of this interaction that you just had? What do I make of it? I mean again she's not a devil with me. She's somebody that could potentially win this seat. And I wanted an opportunity to speak with somebody about an issue. And I have no Palestinian blood in me. It's just, I have to believe what I see. I have to believe what I see. So about the interaction, it was fine. It was cordial. We got to talk about both. I tried my best to talk about both sides of what I care about in my professional work, but also as a person. So you see there, he says, you know, it's not a a candidate issue, it's a human rights issue.

53:31And she says, yeah, okay. And she walks out and then reporters are left there to ask him more about, okay, well, who are you voting for? Who did you vote for? And tell us a little bit more, put a little more texture behind why you hold these views. I think his views are entirely common within the Democratic base. And the question is not whether his view or Haley Stevens' view is more popular. It is undoubtedly the case that the Democratic base is more aligned with Abdul Asiyah and with this gentleman who was speaking here. It's a question of whether that$50 million that has come into this race is going to be enough to confuse people about Haley Stevens, about Abdul Al-Sayed.

54:08And you have to take that seriously. You really do. I've seen pictures of people's doors just stuffed full of mailers, many of them from AIPAC, backed by this flood of money that has come into this race. And that's what they're hoping. They're hoping to make an example of Abdul and show that if you're on the wrong side from their perspective of Israel-Palestine, that they will come in, they will spend whatever it takes, and they will make you pay. Because right now, Emily, the political incentives are shifting very rapidly in the other direction, where Democrats for the first time are having to worry that if they are too pro-Israel, they are going to be primary and they're going to suffer electoral consequences.

54:48AIPAC is trying to even the score so that they have to consider, OK, but then am I going to draw the ire of AIPAC and have$50 million spent against me in my primary?

54:57Emily Jashinsky:My Bluetooth speaker just went off as you were being very eloquent, Crystal. But yeah, it's like the the turnout problem for Republicans is also a big problem for Haley Stevens, because the voter that we just heard from in Michigan represents the type of person that you can pretty much be sure is going to turn out on primary day. That is somebody who is highly motivated by something they see as a fundamental human rights question, a fundamental American values question. And they see somebody who they think is just flagrantly on the wrong side of it. And so that is the person who's going to turn out.

55:35Emily Jashinsky:So it's a real problem for Haley Stevens that this is the issue that has motivated Democratic voters in a way that let's juxtapose it with the Massey primary. Republican voters are not right now having this reckoning at large, right? Younger Republican voters absolutely are, but younger Republican voters are not the majority of voters in a primary. And they're not even the majority of like the grassroots on the right. And that's one of the big differences, I think, between the left and the right is you have more young people involved in the grassroots level on the left. And so if you juxtapose Massey and Kentucky Four with this Michigan primary, it's not the same dynamic at all because Democratic voters right now see this as a litmus test for everything else, for authenticity, for corruption, and of course for foreign policy and humanity and decency as well.

56:26Emily Jashinsky:So this is the type of person that's highly motivated to come out on primary election day. And I don't know that Haley Stevens has a comparable kind of cohort on her side. I saw someone talking. I wish I could remember who right now. But I saw someone speaking in terms of what we did in Gaza with our taxpayer dollars is a moral injury to the American people. And so separate and apart from the horror that most Americans feel at the genocide being committed in Gaza with our funding and our support. It also, I think, is experienced deeply personally. I mean, this is shameful. It's horrifying that to have any sense that we were involved with this, that our money that we sent into our federal government went to these horrific crimes.

57:11And so I think that's an important lens for understanding the depth of healing around this, too. You know, that man said, look, I'm not Palestinian. I don't have any Palestinian. I don't know anybody there. But when I look at these kids that I coach, I see them as exactly the same as these kids who are having their limbs blown off. And that's unacceptable to me. So, you know, I see a lot of like, why do you people care so much about this? And I think it's very easy to understand the depth of feeling around that, the level of shame that comes from having been complicit. And as you're pointing out, Emily, the way that that maps onto a whole host of political issues and how politicians are going to conduct themselves in office.

57:49On the other side of the ledger, Haley Stevens has gotten some really, I think, important endorsements. Gretchen Whitmer, who is the governor of the state, endorsed her. You know, we'll see that may be really impactful for some of the people who were undecided, who aren't following terribly closely, who, you know, I think she's generally well-liked within the Democratic base. So she's got that going for her. Gary Peters, the current senator, also came out. Both of these people, by the way, had said they weren't going to get involved in the race. But then when I was like, oh, Abdul's going to win, they're like, I guess we have to decide.

58:19You know, they were like, oh, we're not going to insert ourselves. We're going to let the people decide. But then when it started going in the direction they didn't like, they changed their mind about just letting the people decide, I guess. Zooming out from the Michigan race, we were talking earlier about the broader Democratic landscape and how, you know, a lot of things are going poorly for Republicans, but it's not all rosy on the Democratic side. You can put this tear sheet up on the screen. Ken Martin, who's the head of the DNC, apparently things are not going well there. They're broke. They said to spend a lot of money helping Kamala Harris pay off her debts.

58:51Fundraising is not going all that great. There's a lot of drama and infighting. There was some phone throwing incident that occurred where Ken Martin threw his phone either at the desk or, you know, I guess it's in dispute how close it came to an aid. It led to an HR complaint. There was a lot of talk about this. Anyway, it's just a sign that things are not going particularly well there for the DNC. And, you know, you've got all this, you got plenty of money washing into these primaries, but people are so dispeared and disgusted with the overall party apparatus. There's not exactly an exciting thing for anyone, whether a larger or smaller donor, to want to pony up money to this dysfunctional institution.

59:34Yeah.

59:35Emily Jashinsky:And this is definitely why, and it's a, it's a double problem for Haley Stevens, by the way, but other candidates like her. This is definitely why we were talking about Dems lagging in the generic congressional ballot based on their own performance at this exact same part of the cycle, this point in the cycle, 2006 and 2018, both big blue wave years, I think because there is such disillusionment among people, particularly. You see how motivating this is in primary elections. The question of AIPAC, the question of Israel, it is a central motivator. It is what is fueling the Democratic Party's grassroots right now.

1:00:09Emily Jashinsky:So if you're a Democratic voter that doesn't have one of these upstart anti-establishment candidates in your area, would you vote? You actually might not at all. Even if you're a generally motivated Democratic Party voter, you usually show up in primaries. You can understand why there would be a lag in the generic ballot because there's such disillusionment with the way the National Party is being run, which Ken Martin, by the way, was elected specifically to fix. And there was a lot of dubiousness about whether he'd be able to do it at the time. But that was what he was supposed to do. Seems like it's only getting worse.

1:00:49Yeah. And lastly, in this, the DNC came together and set some of the primary calendar for 2028 with the mind to trying to thwart the rapidly rising leftist part of the party. They've been very successful at doing that in the past, but they are losing their grip simply because the left has won the argument with the base of the Democratic Party. And so even if you may be able to, and I think this is very much in doubt, rescue, let's say, a Haley Stevens, the winds are shifting and the credibility that the Democratic elite previously had with the base is completely shot. Their electability arguments are completely shot after handing the White House back to Donald Trump.

1:01:29Their media landscape is profoundly different from how it was even in 2020 when they were able to thwart the rise of Bernie Sanders, both with media sort of marching in lockstep for Joe Biden and also some behind the scenes maneuvering from Barack Obama and an endorsement, by the way, from Jim Clyburn that was very consequential for Joe Biden in South Carolina. So now the move is, OK, we're not going to wait for South Carolina to go because this is the most establishment friendly and conservative primary electorate almost in the country for Democrats. So they've decided to move South Carolina up to be first in the nation with their primary.

1:02:08And, you know, I understand what they're trying to do. I'm not sure, Emily, that it honestly serves their purposes that well, because the previous position of South Carolina was you'd already had a few states that went. You had Iowa, New Hampshire, and then Nevada that had gone before South Carolina in the past. And then you come to South Carolina, it's this sort of like marquee consequential moment. And they were able to use that as like, okay, now black voters have had their say. Everybody else has to get on the race. That worked. If you have South Carolina fill in the space that Iowa previously did, like Iowa's role is not I'm going to crown the victor.

1:02:43Iowa's role is, okay, the people who just aren't going to be able to compete at all. It's going to winnow the field somewhat. So it served a different role. So I think maybe this doesn't work out for them the way that they're thinking it ultimately will to put South Carolina first. And rather than having it serve as the kingmaker that it has in the past, having it serve as like the initial culling the way that Iowa used to. Right.

1:03:07Emily Jashinsky:And their argument is purely on the grounds that South Carolina is more representative, but they are doing it now for a reason, more representative of the broader population. That argument has basically always existed, but they're doing it right now because they're actually scared that they've lost control right now, which might have something to do with refusing basically to allow Joe Biden to run in a serious contested primary election and then foisting Kamala Harris on everyone. So no surprise that they feel like their control is slipping. But yeah, that's a really interesting perspective on whether it even backfires on them because they don't necessarily I mean, they don't have control over the grassroots in general right now.

1:03:50Emily Jashinsky:It doesn't matter whether it's in Iowa or South Carolina. By the way, latest poll has AOC doing very well with black voters. So, you know, I don't know that this is going to be the stumbling block, they think. Put this quote up on the screen to your point about why South Carolina, because you have the party chairwoman of South Carolina weighing in with this quite telling quote. If Nevada gets elevated over South Carolina, it would be because of their Latino vote. So you'd then be telling black voters you matter less than brown voters. And I refuse to believe our party wants to send any type of message like that.

1:04:22So are you because South Carolina's first, are we now saying that black voters matter more than brown voters? Is that the message that's being sent here?

1:04:29Emily Jashinsky:Or the white voters in Iowa? I mean, like, it's just such an icky way to divide people. Completely. This disgusting racial resentment politics is so, and it is always weaponized to try to thwart the left. They're doing the same thing to Abdul in Michigan, by the way, who, by the way, is the person of color who was running in this race versus this white woman. And they're still trying to play this like, oh, his base is not the way, you know, it doesn't have enough of this, doesn't have enough of that, et cetera. Jim Clyburn coming in to make these allegations, et cetera. So in any case, they made it pretty plain what was going on here.

1:05:04And it has all to do. They don't care about black voters in particular. They just think that those would be the voters in South Carolina. It's not just black voters. It's older black voters who are more conservative, more likely to back the establishment candidates. That has been the track record. And so that is the reason why they're elevating South Carolina. I think anyone who is looking at this with any sort of rational view can see what's going on.

1:05:42The Hulu original series Furious is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+. Starring Emmy Rossum as Alice Black, Furious follows a rookie FBI agent on the hunt for Catherine, played by Lola Petticrew, a mysterious and calculating female serial killer. While Alice upholds justice, Catherine kills for it, terrorizing the rich and powerful men of New York in her pursuit of vengeance. With secrets that change everything, Alice discovers there's a thin line between Hunter and Prey. Watch the Hulu original series, Furious. Now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.

1:06:20Emily Jashinsky:Apple Vacations, where your story starts. The Summer Savings Event is here at Apple Vacations. It's the perfect time to bring everyone together for the getaway you've been dreaming about. Book between July 24th and August 27th and enjoy up to 55 % instant savings. From relaxing beach days to unforgettable moments with the people who matter most, your next vacation starts here. Travel through July 31st, 2027. Start your vacation today at AppleVacations.com or through your travel advisor. Apple Vacations, where your story starts. This is Tony Ayo from The Real Report with Tony Ayo and Uncle Murda.

1:06:53Emily Jashinsky:You ever notice how everything keeps going up? rent, streaming, even extra salsa at your favorite burrito spot. But with Boost Mobile, you don't have to play the Will It's Go Up Soon game. Boost Mobile offers an unlimited talk, text, and data plan at a price that'll never go up. It's the same price you'll pay for life. Switch now for unlimited wireless at a price that'll never go up, only at Boost Mobile. After 30 gigabytes, customers may experience slower speeds. Customers will pay$25 a month as long as they remain active on the Boost Unlimited plan. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.

1:07:25Thank you.