8/6/26: Trump Rages Over Iran Shortages, Trump Attacks El-Sayed, Jon Stewart Vs Fetterman

25:07Property values in Northern Virginia. Doing fantastically. In McLean, Virginia, there are mansions that are going up everywhere. So yeah, that's working. That is, it is working for somebody. That's where things stand with Iran. Now let's get to Michigan. I'm Munga Shatikular and I'm back with a new season of the podcast Skyline Drive. This time I'm diving into a rabbit hole of peptides, organoids, blood boys, blue zones, and brain replacement to try to understand what this longevity obsession is all about and what it really means to live forever for all of us. I learned about some rad science.

25:41I can make a brain for you, and then we can test what draw is the best for your brain, as opposed to his brain. Here are some hard truths. I would expect Indians to age faster, but I did not expect it to be almost a four to five year acceleration. And get myself into a world of trouble. I'd say probably start bone smashing. That doesn't work. Make it look more defined. They say it works. I don't know. Listen to Skyline Drive, How to Live Forever on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

26:41is as good as Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury, and it's as good as Timothee Chalamet as Bob Dylan. And I say that with love and respect for both of those actors. And I don't know how many Oscar nominations they give out. I don't know if it's five, six for Best Actor. 150 % this kid Jafar Jackson should absolutely, positively get nominated for his portrayal as Michael Jackson. Listen to I Am Rappaport on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I Am Rappaport Podcast. Bill, why is my eye twitching? Does this mean I'm in perimenopause? Maybe I have adult ADHD. I need to look this up.

27:27Where's my phone? Juliana, your phone is hot to the touch. I think it's asking you for a break. You know what? Maybe I should just ask ChatGPT. Or maybe we can ask an actual human. Yes, like a couple sex therapist. Whoa, that escalated quickly, but okay. Because I have questions. We have questions. And I bet everyone has questions. Like, is it normal to sleep in separate bedrooms? We do that. How about this one? Is bribing your kids bad parenting or just negotiating? Oh, and I still do need to know, why was my poop green that one time? Hypothetically, right? Okay, well, instead of letting the internet guess, we've got actual people answering these exact questions.

28:04And laughing with us has got to be better than spending three hours down a rabbit hole online. Listen to Bill and Juliana, the podcast, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

28:21President Donald J. Trump weighing in on the Michigan Senate results. Let's put up his truth social here. Donald Trump, great news for the Republican Party. El-Sayed, a communist loser who hates Jews and Israel, is the projected winner in his race with the socialists, who presumably is Haley Stevens in reference there. As usual, the polls were way off on this one. She was not expected to do nearly as well as she did. Now the Democrats' crazy policies will only get worse. So President Trump, very, very excited to see El-Sayed. J.D. Vance also weighing in. Let's roll B2 here. We don't want the next administration, whoever, you know, God forbid you're going to have President El-Sayed in three years.

29:11We don't want him to undo all the incredible work that we've been doing when we've been taking out the fraudsters and saving the American people money. This White House saying that they've taken out fraudsters while also being the most corrupt administration in the history of American presidencies is quite rich. But let's get back to that in a moment. AIPAC, too, not missing a beat. So AIPAC spent at least$32 million that we know of in this primary backing Haley Stevens, attacking Abdul El-Sayed. They failed. They now say, and we put up B3, that they're coming in hard for Mike Rogers. And the New York Times is also reporting that there are major ongoing discussions with leading Jewish Democrats in the state of Michigan to organize with AIPAC to put in God only knows how much money is going to be unloaded between August and November.

30:11Remember, this has resulted in a bunch of I told you so's from kind of the Democratic left flank saying, like, we told you that AIPAC was not on the up and up here and really cared about Haley Stevens. But I don't think Haley Stevens or anybody else ever believed that. The best that she could probably hope for if she had won was that they would mostly just stay out of the race rather than they certainly weren't going to continue supporting Haley Stevens. Right, because then they win either way. They don't care. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, can you talk a little bit about this New York Times story? I mean, it's pretty crazy in terms of what they're weighing in.

30:44We're talking about an organization that already spent, what was it,$32 million just directly, them, in addition to many of their own proxies. But to come in for Rogers like this, it looks like it might be unprecedented in terms of the amount of money that will eventually be spent against El-Sayed. Yeah, the Times is reporting they're talking about tens of millions of dollars to boost Mike Rogers. And I think what they see, people are like, they already tried this and they lost. I don't think that's right. There's still an avenue for them. And in particular, it's in the fact that Stevens won Detroit by not a ton, but won Detroit.

31:25And we've talked about this a bunch. There is some real tension, racial tension and religious tension in Michigan. And it's between kind of the growing Arab American population, the long existing black population and some of the rural white population. Like these are real tensions. AIPAC has for many decades been cultivating allies in Detroit among kind of the leading black establishment. And so right now they're going to test whether or not the alliances that they've built there are enough to overcome that establishment's hostility to Trump and what it would cost to kind of come in and get 50 ,000 votes for Mike Rogers in Detroit.

32:21Like, what do we need to do to turn out some senior senators, some churches? Now, that voting population is so loyal to Democrats, it's going to be difficult. That's a tough sell. That is a hard sell. But maybe they don't come out to vote. Or they stay home. Exactly. Because if they stay home, Rogers, okay, great. But if they stay home, fine. And also, if you have endless money, just try it. Well, what's interesting, and I saw this happen as well. most of the AIPAC money, correct me if I'm wrong, had nothing to do with Israel in this race. It had all about Obama, El-Saya, he insulted women, he's a podcast bro, even in terms of like he's too radical.

33:04They didn't even really go with that. It was not economic. It was almost all cultural. He was sexist. He called Michelle Obama's program ineffective. Right, which is true empirically. I mean, he was very polite about it too. It's like empirically true. You know, what was it called? Let's move or something like that. It seems so antiquated now. But it's Maha. It's like it's basically proto-Maha. It was proto-Maha. Just people didn't want her to be the one telling them that. I do think, you know, we didn't spend enough time on this Trump thing. A communist loser who hates Jews in Israel. That's all he's got.

33:37That to me really showed, man, they've lost the juice. Like they just don't have the attacks that they used to. The communist socialist thing, yeah, he always knew that was going to happen. There's nothing about defund the police. There's nothing about being radical. There's nothing about – I mean there's really nothing that he had except for Jews and Israel. It might sound strange, but it's like disappointing to actually see the initial attack just purely be about Israel and Jews. As if Trump himself and the people around him, are they so ensconced in a bubble that they think that this is an effective attack to try and link these two things together?

34:11But if this is all they've got, it's going to be a very uphill battle for them. I mean, Trump, his own advisors, I know them. You do too, Ryan. What did they very effectively do to win the state of Michigan? Kamala is going to—Kamala is a genocide supporter. We're a different way. It's a gamble. What do you have to lose? They suppress the vote by trying to get Green Party votes in—where was it? In Dearborn and elsewhere. Trump ekes out a win. Slotkin's still able to win. But Trump very narrowly is able to beat Biden. or to beat Kamala almost entirely, I think, because of what happened with God.

34:46And he would be doing that if Haley Stevens won. And exactly, they would be doing that if Haley Stevens won. And, you know, I think back to our coverage at the DNC, and it ends up being so dramatic, that entire showdown where they don't allow a Palestinian speaker. If they had just done that, I could be wrong, but they've just done that and done like a little bit more in terms of throwing some meat about like, yeah, we're going to get a ceasefire, we're going to treat things a little bit differently. I think she could have won Michigan. I really do. And I'm not talking about Pennsylvania. I'm definitely not talking about Wisconsin or Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, any of those.

35:20But Michigan very specifically, which Trump barely wins by 10 ,000 votes in 2016, not that many votes. He loses in 2020, doesn't win by a percent or so. I actually think if you had just had rough turnout and normal numbers amongst Democrats, he loses Michigan in 2024 as evidenced by the fact that Slotkin is able to win. So in this case, yeah, exactly. And so when I look then at what's happening now with Trump just embracing this Jews and Israel attack, I'm like, they've lost the sauce completely. They have nothing there. This also connects to Burrito Gate, where they also have nothing to say about inflation and about affordability.

35:58I think cooked beyond the board. But I don't want to underestimate AIPAC shenanigans because it is genuinely shocking, the polling mess. I know you guys talked a lot about this, but the fact that the guy's only going to win by a percent or so, that's a big, that's a problem, I think, for DSA. No, let's not overstate it. They still won. Right. So it's like a win is a win. And we'll get to some interesting parts of that in a second. Oh, and by the way, the uncommitted leaders were making the same point that you did. The man who, the activist who led the uncommitted charge and led that sit-in, Abbas Alawi, was just elected to the state senate to represent Dearborn.

36:37I remember him. Yeah. He's a very interesting guy. Yeah, he's a very cool guy. So we put up before, so Mike Rogers, we can see what his line of attack is going to be here. So they had spent months working on all of this, months if not years. So we went through the process and then we went through the pictures. And do you think that's Osama bin Laden or not? Remember, they weren't clear at that time. You know, you look at it and you go, OK, his gait is the same. I mean, it was pretty detailed discussions about every aspect of it. Because he had a pattern that he would go out walking about the same time every day in this yard.

37:15Because he was cooped up, too. Remember, the whole world was looking for him. Get a call like two days later. Only thing he said, we got him. That's all he said on the phone. We got him. And I knew exactly what he was talking about. It was an incredible feeling. So that's the video that he posted. Along with it, he tweeted, and we can put this up, too. He said, I spent my life hunting terrorists. I never in a million years thought I'd hear the words America deserved 9-11. But here we are. Michigan, we've got a state to save. So he's clever wording there. Never did I, in a passive way, he's kind of implying that Abdel al-Sayed said it.

37:54Even though it was Hassan Fiker, but whatever. um so so he is going to lean all the way into it's it's me the terrorist hunter against abdul al-sayed yeah it's very lore loomer have you seen what happened recently in michigan did you guys talk about this yesterday the amir hussein uh situation i mean this is bonkers and and look this is where i don't want to underestimate rogers's ability because not ability but in terms of at least with the gop where because everybody who is still a self-identified republican at this point is a Fox News boomer, like through and through their Loomer pilled. They're not Tucker.

38:32But like they are fully on board the Randy Fine, Laura Loomer Islamophobia. Right. And so you had this guy, Amir, I think his name is Amir Hussain, who was the Trump endorsed candidate in a district who literally lost to a guy who had dropped out of the race because his, I mean, there does not seem to be another explanation. His name was like Tom Smith. Yeah, his name is like Thomas or something like that. And he's now the nominee. And even though he dropped out of the race, he won more votes. He wrote a handwritten note to the FEC saying, I filed my thing late. I'm actually withdrawing. Apologies for filing late.

39:05I don't want to be in this race anymore. Just a handwritten note to the FEC. In June, like a long time ago. But his name was still on the ballot. Yeah, and his name was on the ballot and he won. And he won the nominee, even though Trump endorsed this guy. He was like, I think he's a black Muslim and converted Christian, something like that. But my point is just that his name being Islamic seems to have what killed him on the ballot. You got a bunch of elder white boomers in the state of Michigan who are mainlining this Fox News stuff all day long. All those young people and potential Arabs for Trump, Hamitrack, remember the mayor, endorsed Trump.

39:39That shit's all gone now, right? So this is all who's left within the GOP base. So I'm not going to say that this won't work in terms of potentially getting the base people out to vote. However, as I just said, the hamatrack mayor, I remember endorsing Trump. That was a big deal. The Dearborn people who were sitting it out and going green, that was a big deal as well. A lot of the younger people, he had some younger black people also that voted for Trump. This stuff is not going to land whatsoever. But what I do think that shows is that this will be enough to draw the money in to create this APAC, you know, Republican Jewish coalition type money into the race where Rogers basically has an unlimited budget.

40:23But ultimately, this guy's a weak candidate, and this is just empirically. I mean, we know that in the strongest time of all to be able to win in Michigan, Donald Trump, who wins the state, you lose by 19 ,000 votes to Alyssa Slotkin, who, look, I think we know what we think about Slotkin here on the show. And so Alyssa Slotkin is able to beat you for some reason. In a bad year. In a bad year for a Democrat. And so then you're running now against El-Sayed in maybe not a wave year as evidenced by his showing ultimately in the primary. He's got his own problems for sure in terms of the coalition.

41:01But ultimately, would you rather have a D next to your name or would you rather have an R running in the same mesh again? And one effect that going this racist could possibly have is putting like a lot of centrist Democrats who are kind of uncomfortable with Abdul Al-Sahid and don't like him and are angry about the way that the primary unfolded. You polarize them. OK, are you really going to go with the guy who's calling the Democrat a terrorist? Right. And that for many Democrats, that's that's too much. And it worked in 05. Right. It's not going to work today. Apparently there's an apocryphal story.

41:36I didn't even know this, that al-Sayed gave a speech in 07 that Bill Clinton attended. I think it's true. No, no, I know about this part, where Clinton said that that young man has a future in politics, and he said, I have 11 letters in my name, implying that because he's Muslim, he could never run for office. Kind of a great story, actually. Dan reported that. Yeah, he reported that. So I was like, wow, I had no idea that this was apparently presage. But so, yeah, I think al-Sayed was not wrong in 07, but it's not 07. And Mike Rogers keeps calling him Abdul Rahman. Really? Is that his middle name?

42:05No, that's his full first name. It's Abdul Rahman. Abdul Rahman. I think it's Abdul Rahman Mohammed Al-Sayed. So that's what Mike Rogers keeps using, yes. The one time I went to Egypt, we met a whole bunch of kids, and we're like, what's your name? There were like 11 kids. There were 10 Mohammeds. So let's put up B5, which is how Al-Sayed is launching kind of his framing of who he is. When we launched this campaign, the political establishment never imagined that we could win. They said we couldn't build a movement of Michiganders united by all that we share instead of divided by all that we don't.

42:44They were wrong. Everywhere I go, I hear the same thing. It shouldn't be this hard. People are working harder and falling further behind. Politicians like Mike Rogers, they want us divided, convinced that we have more to fear from each other than the people rigging the system against us. But our campaign has never been about Democrats or Republicans. It's about people who believe our tax dollars should be invested here, not in endless war. And health care should be for all. The government should work for us. The power belongs to the people. Michigan, this land was made for you and me. So pretty much literally draping himself in the American flag.

43:21But with a lefty, this land is your land. And I think you're going to see a lot of his messaging being the kind of thing we'll be talking about. Tucker Carlson's 10 point plan for America that will kind of resonate with those types of both conservatives and liberals who are saying, you know, we need to focus on Michigan. We need to focus on the United States. He has said that he's going to hammer Mike Rogers for caring first and foremost about Israel, which will be a case he'll be able to make because of the tens of millions of dollars coming in from AIPAC. And he's also going to highlight the fact that Mike Rogers voted when he was in the House to allow the DEA to increase the amount of opioids.

44:07There was this scandal. The Washington Post broke it open, if you remember. I'm trying to remember. It's been a while. So he took this vote. He said basically I'm going to tie him to fentanyl. And Mike Rogers does have some very bad votes as do a lot of members of the House at that time where this bizarre situation where the DEA was like asking for more opioids to be allowed to flood into rural areas. It's a very, very weird situation. and he said he's going to hit him for that. He's going to hit him on gas prices, Israel, and fentanyl, basically. Well, I think what... And the fact that he sold out and moved to Florida after leaving the house.

44:50Oh, he did? Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's pretty bad. He keeps saying, I'm going to send you back to Florida. I feel like in Michigan, that's pretty bad. Well, what I find fascinating about the Abdull thing, and I've always thought that one of the primary things that really turned people off around a lot of the DSA left was it didn't feel American. A lot of it was like worship. It was like third worldist or it was like worship of like a Nordic system. Cancel Thanksgiving. Cancel Thanksgiving. Francesca Hong, who Bernie, by the way, says he won't endorse. Love him for that. He's got the best instincts.

45:25Sorry. But what Abdul is doing here is he calls himself America first. He's standing in front of an American flag. He's basically connecting his own campaign to the values of the founding of the nation. This is very unique in democratic politics. Have not really seen a Democrat try to do that. Biden, obviously, he's of a bygone age, but of a more modern politician, it reminds me of Obama 08 or Bernie 16. Remember the America ad, which was very popular. It's one of the reasons why it won in Michigan, of course. And then Clinton, one of the more successful politicians of his day. This type of connection of the social politics, to actual like the founding, like we're American, we're doing policies that prioritize our citizens over other, this is very, very potent, I think, which is going to be very difficult for the Rogers and the AIPAC crowd to be able to come against him.

46:16I do think though, what we saw, and we're going to talk about this in a bit, clearly there was a weakness enough for El Syed and we can't just blame money because it's not enough, you know, to just say, oh, he threw all this money against him. There was enough to get, I mean, what, three quarters of a million people who call themselves Democrats to come or voted in a Democratic primary, to show you, to come to vote ultimately against him. And I do think that that's going to have to examine, that's going to have to create some soul searching for the way that he ran his campaign, even though I do think he ran a very good campaign.

46:46The question is how many of those are guaranteed Mike Rogers voters who just happen to vote in the Democratic primary. And that's something that data analysts, I think we'll know more in the next couple of days as people really sift through the numbers, but let's put up B6 just to do a little, you know, preliminary review of this. Patrick Ruffini is a well-respected conservative polling analyst. He writes, controlling for 2024, the results kind of suggest Stevens was buoyed by crossover Republican votes, especially in Metro Detroit, where primary composition swung 30 points towards Democrats. What he means there is that in 2024, compared to 2026, 2026, you had 30 percent higher composition of Democrats versus Republicans voting.

47:34And the he's saying the implication there is that you do not magically all of a sudden have that many more Democrats. That's the only logical explanation. And there were, I think, less than 200 ,000 people, fewer than 200 ,000 people voted in 2024 in the Wayne County primary. It might be over 300 ,000 by the time we're done counting. 50 % increase. His point here is that a lot of those are because there was also a massive collapse in Republican turnout, out, which means that because there were not competitive races on the ballot for Republicans, when they showed up to vote, they were like, let me have the Democratic ballot.

48:18I want to vote in that one because it matters. And now the way that Washington people think, oh, then they're going to vote for El-Sayed or something just to screw with the Republicans. But that's not how normal people really think. These Republicans are like, between El-Sayed and Haley Stevens, I'm scared of al-sayed he's a socialist socialist islamist takeover so i'm gonna vote for hailey stevens and then hopefully mike rogers beats hailey stevens but you know we've survived alissa slotkin and gary peters yeah we can survive hailey stevens they're like we live under whitmer it's probably the type of voter who's like i don't love whitmer but she's all right you know they're not deeply afraid of her they don't like her but they're not deeply afraid of her they're like afraid of al-Syad yes um and so the same thing appears to have happened numerically uh in a lot in some of the rural areas also where if you either you had some explosion in support for Haley Stevens that just broke out in places where she never campaigned but did run television ads, and then a collapse in Republican support or Republican voting, or those two things are related.

49:30People showed up and instead of voting in the Republican primary, they voted in the Democratic primary. And so that would suggest that on some level, the polling miss comes about because they didn't factor in Republicans who are going to jump over into the Democratic primary, because also al-Syed's going to wind up with substantially more votes than Alyssa Slotkin. And think about this. Slotkin won like 73 % of the Democratic primary vote. This is guy Hill Harper. Yet only about 700 ,000 votes. So he's going to wind up exceeding that total while only getting roughly 50%. Right. So then where did those people come from?

50:13It's a good point. It is a good point. I mean, it's a little wonky. It's a wave year. There's a lot of highly engaged people. We could have Republicans in there. But I do think your ultimate point is really important, which is a lot of these Republicans are not thinking rationally, per se, like in terms of, oh, well, let's vote for Stevens because she'll be easier to beat. They're just afraid. And so they're probably going to come out and vote for Rogers anyways. We'll see, obviously, how that all works out. But ultimately, I mean, we'll talk about this now in our next block. So why don't we just get to it about that breakdown in the coalition and where the warning signs do remain, not even just for El Sayed, but for I mean, the reason why this race to me is so fascinating is not just that it is obviously Abdul wins huge.

50:53Right. But it does show, you know, the big difference in running a DSA candidate in New York City versus Michigan. And like the fractures, more cushion in New York City, there's a lot more cushion in New York City than what it looks like and where the problems are and what a potential future presidential run, you know, could eventually spell out in terms of your general issues. I think for that and are also big warning signs for Republicans as well. OK, let's get to that. I'm Mungus Shatikula and I'm back with a new season of the podcast Skyline Drive. This time I'm diving into a rabbit hole of peptides, organoids, blood boys, blue zones, and brain replacement to try to understand what this longevity obsession is all about and what it really means to live forever for all of us.

51:41I learned about some rad science. I can make a brain for you and then we can test what draw is the best for your brain as opposed to his brain. Here's some hard truths. I would expect Indians to age faster, but I did not expect it to be almost a four to five year acceleration. And get myself into a world of trouble. I'd say probably start bone smashing. That doesn't work. Make it look more defined. They say it works. I don't know. Listen to Skyline Drive, How to Live Forever on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Michael Rappaport and my podcast, the I Am Rappaport Stereo Podcast, is unlike anyone you've ever heard.

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53:16I Am Rapaport.

53:21Bill, why is my eye twitching? Does this mean I'm in perimenopause? Maybe I have adult ADHD. I need to look this up. Where's my phone? Juliana, your phone is hot to the touch. I think it's asking you for a break. You know what? Maybe I should just ask ChatGPT. Or maybe we can ask an actual human. Yes, like a couple sex therapist. Whoa, that escalated quickly, but okay. Because I have questions. We have questions. And I bet everyone has questions. Like, is it normal to sleep in separate bedrooms? We do that. How about this one? Is bribing your kids bad parenting or just negotiating? Oh, and I still do need to know, why was my poop green that one time?

53:58Hypothetically, right? Okay, well, instead of letting the internet guess, we've got actual people answering these exact questions. And laughing with us has got to be better than spending three hours down a rabbit hole online. Listen to Bill and Juliana. The podcast. On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

54:23So much of what Senator John Fetterman does is against his better judgment. Among those things was going on the Jon Stewart Show. And here's why. So for you, you could agree with them 90 percent, but Israel is the red line. Absolutely. Israel for me. Like I can't ever turn my back to Israel after where it's at. So, and I mean no disrespect on this, but that is not our country. You're saying that these candidates may have great ideas for our economy. They may want to do the exact same thing you want to do in terms of getting money out of politics. They may want to increase the social safety net.

54:59They may want to change the balance of power from capital back to labor. But if they don't agree with you on Israel, you don't want them in your party. Well, I don't know who you're referencing to specifically. No, I'm referencing what you just said. Name one. So in other words, Syed or AOC or Bernie Sanders, I assume you agree with a lot of what they say economically. And what I'm saying is like, if you are a DSA member, if you are a member of a specific political party, run under your own banner. Mamdani in New York is DSA, but there are things in the DSA platform that he disagrees with. And I'm assuming there's probably things in the Democratic platform that you might disagree with, but you don't disavow the entire thing.

55:50you're literally saying it's all, we can all have discussions except when it comes to Israel, which is not America. It seems like a weird line to draw. Well, so then, well, I don't think that's weird. I think what history demonstrates is that when people or government or people turn their back to the Jewish community, things end really badly and it's a dangerous community in israel are not the same thing brother man and so sager i think one of the problems here is that fetterman has well one he had a stroke and has difficulty with kind of auditory processing and so oftentimes you're like wait i don't think you really understood the question i think that's cope i think he was like this before the stroke you think so as an original fetterman hater so the other problem is that he spends all his time getting glazed on Fox News or Bill Maher or on Twitter where he and getting gassed up in whatever group chats he's in with these like pro-Israel folks and he cannot articulate in a reasonable way what his actual policy is which because it will because it's not reasonable he straight up says to John Stewart before that clip it's even it's even clearer if I agree with my party on everything except for Israel, I will leave the party.

57:15Like that's the line he's drawing. Which means that it's his most important issue. Yeah. As in, I could disagree with you on childcare. I could disagree with you on X number of domestic. But if you depart on Israel, that's my red line. I mean, he said it himself. He said, it's a red line. I mean, I do think it's crazy. There's a lot of reasons to wonder as to how exactly one got here. You know, we can leave the psychoanalysis to other people. But I do think at a baseline point, you're pointing out his inability to articulate it well just is the problem with the entire pro-Israel position at this point, which is basically if you disagree with us, you hate Jews.

57:54I mean, I get it constantly. Whenever I find my own Israel critics out in the wild, they're like, why do you hate Jews so much? I'm like, first of all, how fucking dare you? Second of all, it's one of those where why do you conflate Israel with the Jewish people in America? And he just does it in such a straightforward way there. It's just such a straightforward way. It's just constant. And it's like it's one of those things where no matter how much you genuflect about, like, I don't have a problem with Jews. I have, you know, what did Syed say? He said, you know, I'm going to look out for my – for Jewish citizens the way I would look out for my own daughters.

58:27You know, even that I see the pro-Israel community be like, oh, well, you know, Muslims rape. I'm like, oh, my God. Like, what is wrong with you? You know, it's like nothing is enough because the conflation, I think, is the last thing that they have to protect, you know, any criticism of Israel, which we don't care if it's a Jew. We would say all the same things no matter what kind of state that it is. But that's the ultimate problem. They need that special protection kind of, you know, halo around them to protect themselves from any criticism, which John very expertly points – John Stewart points out.

58:59But Fetterman, he can't process it at all. Like it has to come back to that over and over and over again. Yeah. And one of the people, one of the types of people gassing up is Van Jones. Van Jones has been on a bit of a spiral. Let's roll. This is some of his response to Abdul El-Sayed's win. People are looking at people and they're saying, you've been telling us the same thing for a long time and our lives are not even better. We got Donald Trump twice. There's also an innovation gap. Why can you spend$60 million and get whooped like this? Because the old model was you get the donors to get the consultants to buy a bunch of ads and you win.

59:39That's how you get attention. This movement says, I don't need donors, ads, I don't need consultants. I'm going right to the people with TikTok and grassroots. And they've disintermediated the entire donor class, disintermediated the entire consultant class. And this is a revolution. And so this is going to happen again and again. The Democratic Party is now blockbuster. These kids are Netflix. Look, I mean, look at these numbers. If you are an Arab kid in America right now, if you're a Muslim kid in America right now, and you're looking at this, this is one of the biggest nights of your life.

1:00:13This is Barack Obama. This is Hillary Clinton. So, you know, whenever there's a first, you have real hopes and you have real fears. There's real fears in some Jewish homes tonight. But this is a big deal. And I think he's he's he's no Muslim has gotten this far in American politics. He should speak to that and not any of the divisions in our party. I mean, to be a healing force and put those kids first. And to the extent, even in that patronizing way, trying to praise. He's like, there's still real fear in Jewish homes tonight. I'm like, come on. Yeah. And to the extent that there's any truth to that statement, that there's real genuine fear in some Jewish homes about Abdul El-Sayed, I feel like a deep sense of pity.

1:00:53I agree. If that's true, like you, you really in the United States should not be afraid of Abdul al-Sayed, no matter who you are. There's, there's nobody in the United States that you want to disagree with him about his tax policy. I'll take it even further. He shouldn't be afraid, period. Like you have equal protection under the law. We don't have a huge antisemitism problem in this country, no matter what, you know, you want to say, uh, Europe is far time, you know, 10 times more actually anti-Semitic has been for years. There's no historical basis of like mass anti-Semitism in the United States.

1:01:28Most anti-Semitism in the U.S. did not come from the lower classes. It all came from the elites who were upset about Jews competing for their spots at Harvard. I mean, it's just, it's preposterous. Ultimately, people are upset about Israel. Okay, that's true. If you go through the Anti-Defamation League's list of like thousands of anti-Semitic events over the last year, almost all of them are Israel-related. We played many of them. Emily did a great job, I remember, of going through and just finding the random ones, every single one. And then, you know, Crystal's made this point many times, and I do think it's true, to the extent that there is rising, not again, I don't think there is mass anti-Semitism, but to the extent that there's, quote, rising anti-Semitism, it is because of people who are constantly telling them, if you conflate criticism of Israel with Jews, then some people are going to be like, okay, fine, you know, fine.

1:02:14They're going to go in that direction. That's obviously an abhorrent in a bad direction, but that's ultimately where that's going to go if that's what you're going to perpetuate in mass culture like what Van Jones and all of that are saying. And this is where – like with Jones, I do think it's important to bring it back to what you were saying earlier because I've always been mystified by this. Like the Congressional Black Caucus, super pro-Israel. Like there's this very strange alliance between these old school black Democrats, especially people like Jim Clyburn, the Congressional Black Caucus, even on the Republican side.

1:02:46People like the anti-Semitism czar or whatever in the Trump administration is Leo Terrell, like one of those classic Fox News black talking heads. And he is the one who's most virulently pro-Israel. And there seems to have been some like bargain struck back, you know, a long time ago, I guess, between like you guys pro-Israel and we'll back you on, you know, certain things. I don't know. It could be a woke industrial complex, the ADA, something, you know, like that. But there's that alliance. I think it might be a problem in Michigan, you know, not with younger voters. Again, not younger voters.

1:03:21But, you know, the numbers speak for themselves in Detroit and elsewhere. And the irony is that AIPAC and its allies very much exploit the legacy of Jewish civil rights, Jewish activist participation in the civil rights movement in order to say, like, remember, like, we were there for you. You've got to be here for us now. And then enormous amounts of money and funding for trips to Israel. And the irony, just real quickly, in that conflation there is that kind of post-World War II, you probably know this history, within the Jewish community post-Holocaust, there were those who said never again means never again for anyone.

1:03:59And we need to put our bodies on the line to create a world of social justice so that nobody— That was like 1990s liberalism. But also 1960s. That's true. 1950s and 60s, the top allies of Martin Luther King and others were Jewish activists. And some of them were killed in the South, you know, fighting for voting rights. And the argument was their fight is our fight. We can't, there's no world in which if other people aren't safe, that we're safe. then there was a separate wing which said no we need to establish the state of israel and never again means never again for us and these were often in conflict these ideas were clashing with each other and so now that the group that said no no no we shouldn't participate in the civil rights movement we should just go ahead and build a fortress in israel they are using the valor that came from Jewish participation in the civil rights movement to say, you have to support us over here now.

1:05:12It's like, no, you guys were different wings and you guys did not like each other. Like you were in real conflict with each other. Um, but AIPAC, there's also a real financial gap. Um, and Jamal Bowman has talked a lot about this, like that, that a lot of the black churches, there's like AIPAC will come in and take people to Israel and support a playground support. Like they're there supporting that community. It's very religious too. A lot of black people are very religious as well. So there's the tie-in with evangelical Christianity. We shouldn't dispel that either. Yeah. I mean, it is kind of fascinating, but that's where the breakdown in the future comes from.

1:05:55And let's put C3 up here on the screen. This is kind of interesting. I actually, I'll just say at the top, I disagree with the way that they frame it. They say, we're seeing a class divide in Michigan Senate results. But actually what we're watching is that Haley Stevens is doing better in places with lower average incomes and where fewer voters have college degrees. As I have said on the show now for years, the number one predictor of how you're going to vote is whether you have a bachelor's degree or not. And as they point out, El-Sayed is winning 58.4 % of the vote in counties where at least 30 % of adults have a bachelor's degree.

1:06:31On the flip side, Stevens is winning 51.4 % of the vote in counties where less than 30 % are college educated. El-Sayed similarly leading Stevens in counties with higher median income so far, while Stevens leads in lower income counties. But, and this is where I always find the breakdown, is people try to point to it at income-based. That's foolish. As we have seen many times, like with the Republicans, you are more likely to have like a horseshoe voter who's a Republican, as in somebody who is quite poor, but working class white, or somebody who is like a black business owner, but makes like$300 ,000 a year, small business plumber, somebody like that without a college degree.

1:07:10Those two people are, you know, socially in a different class than somebody who makes$60 ,000 and is like downwardly mobile, but has a bachelor's degree in college education. But the reason why I thought that this was interesting, and again, just to connect it to the Fetterman stuff, and even Israel to a certain extent, I have found, especially here with like what Van Jones and all of that is saying, is that this has become a major battle for information. And Richard Hanania has written about this, and I do think it's a very astute observation, is that Democrats read and Republicans watch TV. If you just look at the base, the fact is it's like Democrats, people who vote Democratic, especially the more – they are much more likely to engage with the news, to read the New York Times.

1:07:56It even comes down to like reading books, whereas a Republican mean voter is much more likely to be watching and consuming television. And so the breakdown in those two things, and this is really where the Israel stuff comes in, is if you're getting all of your news on Israel, let's say in particular, from TV, we know what's on TV. the most moderate criticism of Israel on MSNBC is like shocking, right? That's where they would even press El Syed. That's where that reporter, she's pressing El Syed. You're against ethnostates? She's like, why are you against ethnostates? You know, I was like, what the fuck?

1:08:28I'm watching MSNBC right now? But then, you know, if you were reading Times or any of these, you know, whatever. I'm not some huge fan of the New York Times. You're reading drop site, anything. Your information on environment in Israel is totally different. And that's where you can pick up, I think, some of the nuance and the other things. That's where the class breakdown comes down to. But it also comes down to DSA. And this is why even saying class is kind of stupid because to me it's all about social class. It has nothing to do really with earnings. When you really look at it, the DSA base appears to be people who are well-educated but more downwardly mobile, who I have a lot of sympathy with.

1:09:03They have a shitload of debt. We're promised a dream, and that dream isn't working out. That seems to be where things are. Whereas people without the college degree are much more likely, especially in a state like Michigan, where probably disproportionately have a lot more people who are elderly and black. Those people are going to have much more trusting of the party establishment. So this is where the DSA fracture is going to run into a wall with some of these primaries where El-Sayed only being able to win by a percent or so, that's a problem. I remember before the election, what we were saying, Crystal was pointing out, is what would really be a sea change if some of these elder black people voted for El-Sayed.

1:09:41like if they were to abandon the party establishment. And we didn't see a lot of that. We still saw a significant part of some of these more traditional Democrats kind of trusting the party establishment. So that's the big line, I think, right now, which is interesting. Yeah, and it's also a structural component of American politics, that without a college degree is more likely to tend towards the party establishment. That's where we've been. no single campaign, no matter how well run, how class focused. Mamdani, I think, was the first to put a huge dent in that. Right. But even him, you know, Cuomo, look, he didn't win, but he got a decent number of votes.

1:10:25He got a lot of those elder black community, but more traditional, same system, exactly. We saw where, you know, if you're a college educated in Manhattan or in New York, you're much more likely to vote Mamdani. If you're not, you're much more likely to vote Cuomo. And this is where the breakdown in policy and this is where the DSA people I see are starting to adopt sometimes the old language a lot of the Democrats like the what's the matter with Kansas where – and what's the matter – I think it might be back here somewhere. It used to be back behind our shelves, Thomas Franks, where his entire thesis of his book is basically like why do all of these people vote against their own economic interests?

1:10:59I'm like, well, they don't see it that way. They rank their own interests differently. They look at it culturally. It's not a psyop that they're being they're not being controlled to told that way. Oh, there's some of that. But, you know, you should give people some agency. They decide how they vote. Yes. But also in the reason AIPAC spent 30 million dollars telling people that Obama and basically endorsed Haley Stevens, which was not true, which was not true, is because if you tell people that it works like they're not just burning money. That's true. So it is structural. Al-Sai was pushing against it.

1:11:31Mom, Donnie's efforts are pushing against it. And it'll be very interesting to see four years, you know, when Mamdani runs for reelection, if he if his class first focus, working class focus can actually tilt that and he can and he can win over the working class as much as he's winning over the college educated class. But working against that is 30 million dollars of telling people he supported Obama, Obama's with Haley Stevens. Oh, OK, then I'm with Haley Stevens. No, you're absolutely right. And I think this is where the breakdown is. We are going to continue to see this in politics. The Republican Party is the party generally right now of downwardly mobile cultural.

1:12:12Like you just see that empirically. It's the party of like rich, upper middle or richer, more conservative white people who have been Republicans their whole lives as a traditional base of the GOP. But also Trump won, I think for the first time ever, was the first Republican to ever win households who are making less than$100 ,000. Some of that was an economic message, a lot actually when it comes to inflation. We'll talk about Burrito Gate in a second. But I think a huge part of it, and the data bears this out, a lot of it was immigration and a lot of it was cultural issues as well. That seems to be where things continue to trend, although that's up for grabs in terms of the$100 ,000 coalition or so.

1:12:52The big question mark for the Democrats is not just can you win in the midterms, can you carry that when the stakes are high nationally? And this is where the Francesca Hong Thanksgiving thing comes into play. You can think it's dumb all you want. You can think why would anyone care about that in the age where groceries are up 43 percent year over year? But how much electoral evidence do you need to say a lot of people care about that? They do. Because I have no trust with you whatsoever. And Hasan Piker said it well. He's like, I love Fran, but the answer here is no, I don't think we should cancel Thanksgiving.

1:13:28And more importantly, people can't afford Thanksgiving dinner. That's the Momdani pivot. Yeah. And she didn't do that. And the other thing you see from Momdani, which I think is very intelligent, is you occasionally see some transgender visibilities to whatever, okay? Which is, to me, nauseating. But the thing which you see more is here's all these new trash cans. Here is how we're doing. I'm like, yeah, I mean, look, there's no denying. Like, this works. And this is somebody who is trying to create a way where you look past, let's say, if you're culturally conservative. And you just say, look, at the end of the day, it doesn't smell anymore.

1:14:06And I'm getting my trash picked up. And cars are getting towed. I like that. I think it's a matter of emphasis. I think most people are cool with Trans Visibility Day. if that's not the only thing that you seem to be running on. I think the problem people had with Democrats is they were like, that's all you care about. Right, that's correct. But if Momdani is like, no, no, no, I'm picking up the trash, I'm fixing the potholes, I'm going to get these grocery stores going, they're going to give you cheaper grass, and you're going to do a little... Yeah, the grocery store thing is still strange. We'll see.

1:14:34We'll get to that. Eventually we'll do a segment about it. Hey, Portlandia fans. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen here. The dream of the 90s is alive in podcast form. We're launching Podlandia, AO Rewatch, our brand new podcast where we revisit every episode of Portlandia together, breaking down sketches, going deep on our iconic characters, and pulling back the curtain on how it all got made. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Kreisel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more.

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1:15:27Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clemens. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook. Every episode, we're trying to help our guests improve their careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us improve our careers. The show's famously super accessible, so you can easily jump into any of our 650 episodes and understand what's going on. We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stiller, Danny McBride, Riz Ahmed, and Mary Steenburgen. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. Every week, the news gets worse, the world gets crazier, and Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible you're the problem.

1:16:04Do you know I just found out who Sidney Sweeney was? If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of men. Do better or do less so I don't have to do so much. I'm Yamanika and I'm out. Listen to You're the Problem with Yamanika on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.