Trump Plays Crime Card in NC 

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1:00Distributor Is President Trump trying to take the 2026 midterms back to 1988? I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines and inside politics.

1:18There are 47 days until the election and we are tracking the races, candidates and stories that could shift the balance of power here in Washington and across the country. Here's what's on our midterm radar. President Trump took his midterm push to North Carolina, rallying for Senate candidate Michael Watley and signaling the issue he really wants to be at the center of that 2026 fight. Pro-crime politicians like Roy Cooper have tried to bully you into silence while they turned your cities into blood-soaked killing fields, flooded your communities with migrant criminals, destroyed your schools with gangs and drugs and filled your streets with lawlessness, filth and squalor.

2:04He mentioned crime at least 16 times during that speech. More on that in a bit. Now to Michigan, where a group of Jewish community leaders are rallying behind Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed. In a letter obtained by The New York Times reads in part, Some of us are enthusiastic supporters of El-Sayed. Some of us have reservations. There are disagreements with El Syed and important issues, including aspects of his approach to Israel and the language used by some of his allies. These concerns remain serious for many of us, and we will vote for El Syed. And we understand that a vote is not a valentine.

2:41It is a strategic chess move. This comes a week after a coalition of Michigan rabbis and Jewish leaders threaten to withhold support for El Syed unless he changes his rhetoric on Israel. Let's go over to Florida. A Republican just released a blistering ad taking direct aim at President Trump. This is from Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar. That's the president. Some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far. In July, 50 % of the 50 ,000 people that were detained had no criminal record. The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today. This from an incumbent who the Cook Political Report rates as in a race that is likely Republican.

3:28And one of the most famous Republican operatives plans to vote for a Democrat for only the second time in his life. Karl Rove, a Texas voter, says he will not vote for Texas Republican Beau French for Texas Railroad Commissioner. or French is a Republican who posted racist comments on X about South Asian and Hispanic students attending a University of Texas football game. In a new Wall Street Journal op-ed, Rove writes in part, the GOP has a growing number of Beau Frenches. These people are diminishing the Republican Party, not building it. I'll have no part of it. The GOP's stables need a cleaning.

4:10This is a good place to start. I'm joined here by a terrific group of reporters at the table. Okay, so Nia, you're South Carolina, but not North Carolina, but close enough for these conversations. I know you don't agree with that. But I do want to go back to the president and this message that he has in North Carolina, which is, and we've been reporting on this the entire midterm season, that this is the most likely Democratic pickup right now because Roy Cooper, the governor, is popular and he is running against Michael Watley, the Republican the president went to campaign for. We have known, and Manu Raju did a terrific piece earlier this week, that the Republicans are focusing on crime.

4:56We heard it from the president at the beginning of the show. But the president was very explicit in the strategy that they're using, hearkening back to 1988 and what Republicans did against Michael Dukakis.

5:15Michael Dukakis, you remember? Who had a very substantial lead for president. He was going to win easily. But he allowed a man named Willie Horton out of jail. Well, overnight, Dukakis took a rousing lead of 15 points and lost the election in a landslide because of that one advertisement. They put it on just like we're putting this on because we have to make sure that Michael Watley gets into office, not this guy. He's just saying the strategy out loud. And by the way, a strategy that is widely considered to have been very racist. We'll put on just at least some video for the youngs who watch our show and don't remember this strategy.

6:00Willie Horton was somebody who Michael Dukakis, when he was governor, was let out of jail. And then Willie Horton committed a crime. What's going on in North Carolina is that there was a court order for Governor Cooper to release a bunch of inmates. He didn't want to, but he was ordered to release them. And so the tough on crime argument that Republicans are pushing against him now that he's running for Senate is it's his fault if those released inmates committed other crimes. Yeah, listen, you know, I think it's basically all that Republicans have, right? There is this attempt to make Democrats out to be the soft on crime party.

6:41And this is something that Republicans have run on for years. Yeah, Nixon. To Willie Horton. Exactly. And so it's a familiar hit. It is a bit surprising that he's being so explicit about it. This ad that, as you said, was denounced as racist. So, yeah, so we have the president. Fear often works in campaigns like this, sort of racialized fear sometimes works even better. I think the real problem for Republicans in this race is Michael Watley is a lackluster candidate. He's kind of a lazy candidate in terms of his approach. He's not very dynamic. And so you have the president in there essentially throwing a sort of bomb and chum into the water with this issue of crime.

7:28And listen, there'll be crime. It'll be sort of xenophobia will be in there and sort of immigration and this idea that Democrats are the party of socialists. They're going to take your country away from you. They're going to give all the power to the brown people and the brown people are going to maybe kill you. I mean, that's essentially what it is if you listen to what the president is saying. Yeah. And once again, he's just boggles the mind in that he just says it out loud. He reads the stage direction like we're doing Willie Horton. Everybody watch this. And this is up against polling. This is national polling, not in North Carolina, but it's pretty stark, Aaron, about what people really care about.

8:10The economy and cost of living, duh, you all know that, 48%. But where is crime? Two percent, and even among Republicans. Yeah, crime is a much bigger issue when the other side is actually in power, which is why they're going back to something that happened a few years ago with Roy Cooper in North Carolina, which, by the way, the ads that they're actually running aren't about an inmate that was released in North Carolina. It was an ad about somebody who was released in South Carolina, so not even somebody he's responsible for. But it is more difficult to make this issue salient, just like it's more difficult to make immigration salient right now because these issues aren't top of mind.

8:46The administration will talk at other points about how much they've reduced crime and how great that situation is. Immigration is not as much of an issue because the border has been largely shut down over the last couple of years. So they can talk about that as a success story, about how they've driven down crime, how they've secured the border. But it's not necessarily motivating for people because it's not as much of a fear factor at this given moment in time. And going back to the ad that we played at the beginning of the show with Maria Salazar in Florida to camera saying, Mr. President, your immigration policy has gone too far.

9:21The idea that this is a Republican who, on paper, at least what we're seeing, doesn't look like she should be in trouble signaling perhaps she is in trouble to the point where she's willing to go out there on this issue. If you combine that with the votes, the two extra votes from Republicans in Iowa this week against the president on Iran and several other issues, is this now a story that is becoming more clear? Yes. And I think it relates back to North Carolina because the problem is that Democrats have made themselves more robust against these sort of attacks that worked in 2024 over the last two years.

10:01They've had stops and starts and mistakes, but they got Roy Cooper in the race because it's been very hard to convince people that this governor, as you said, who had to settle with the NAACP, did not want to release these criminals, that he is the new Michael Dukakis. It's hard for them to convince Iowans that Josh Turek is going to put, as he put it, biological boys in girls sports. He said he won't. And I did notice that after Tara clarified, she put that out as she put the ad out about her bipartisanship because Democrats realize why they lost in 2024. And a lot of Republican themes I've seen this year have been, let's pretend it's 2024 again.

10:37We're going to snap right back to that if we lose this election. Yeah, I hear you. I think that is definitely one of the dynamics. But the other is this. It's not certainly not a race away from Donald Trump. It's like you can sort of see the backpedaling slowly. That's starting to get faster. Yes. And that was a theme of the convention from these Republicans. They're all on stage, shared by Trump, both nights. They are comfortable saying that he has achieved things on tax cuts and he's achieved the border. And this happens to every party that's in power. It succeeds on something. saying it because the border is sealed to use their terms.

11:16It is not salient. And so what is it that Trump is doing now? They can right now in September that they can run on. It's very tough. You find this when you talk. How much was Iran mentioned at the convention? Not at all until Trump said it was about to end. But it seems as though they've been so they've stuck to him like like Velcro and they're not. And I think they are mirroring Republican voters. That's what I'm trying to get at. You know, backpedaling and a splintering at least around the edges for these voters. Before we go to break, I just want to take a moment to go back to North Carolina, not the president.

11:49The attorney general of the United States, this was a political rally. The attorney general of the United States was there and spoke. You're doing better, too. Blue collar wages saw their largest growth in nearly 60 years. Real earnings rose. The stock market has hit more highs since President Trump took office. Every day is a new high, and that's not going to stop. Why? Why? I mean, we know why. But, like, there's norms that have been busted. And, you know, that happened, that train left the station a long time ago. But, like, this is not normal. Yeah. And what's really striking here is that Todd Blanche is not a particularly compelling surrogate.

12:36How many voters in North Carolina are looking at that speech and saying, oh, Todd Blanch is for Michael Watley. Like, I really need to get on board with this guy. There was reportedly a competition among members of Trump's cabinet and his high-level staff about who could get out to as many swing states as possible. People who are supposed to have day jobs that they're doing, and Todd Blanch is pretty high on that list. But again, attorneys general generally stay away from politics. This is like diving from the high dive into the deep end. Up next, far left streamer Hassan Piker just said something so stunning, even by his standards.

13:17Did he just write the Republicans' next attack ad for them? That's a rhetorical question. And speaking of ads, a Democrat is already turning this week's AI debate into a campaign message. We're going to look at some of the new campaign ads. Stay with us.

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13:54A lot of Democrats are hoping far-left streamer Hassan Piker will just stay quiet. Much to the delight of Republicans, he's not. And he's giving those Republicans, especially in Michigan, a lot to work with. The latest example, what he said in an interview with Alex Thompson at Axios. Do you think America then is worse than Al Qaeda? Pound for pound, as far as the number of deaths, yes, we have caused tremendous terror all around the world. One clear example of this is what we did in Min-Up, right? There's no distinction between blowing up a school, triple tapping it with Tomahawk missiles. If you're killing 140 schoolgirls, that is an act of terror.

14:34This doesn't mean that all Americans are terrorists, but the reality of the matter is we have to create an environment of accountability to ensure things like that never happen again. Dave Weigel, I know you've spoken to Hassan Piker as well. I should just say that al-Sayed's campaign did put out a statement saying that he doesn't agree with his sentiment on al-Qaeda, probably because he's running in a democracy to be part of a democratically elected government other than as opposed to al-Qaeda, which is an actual terrorist organization. And this is a landmine that al-Sayed set for himself because he decided to bring Piker to Michigan.

15:13And that's one thing I talked to Piker about. A lot of candidates have been inviting in. And those candidates have mostly been in plus 30 Democratic seats, plus 40 Democratic seats. El-Sayed, and you can go back and watch the clips of their tour, said, I'm not interested in denouncing people. He kind of bundled it together with cancel culture. I'm not going to denounce everything somebody says just the way that Republicans don't denounce everything Trump says. And these are different. Just this. These come from a different place. Piker's views are that America is an evil empire that does a lot of damage around the world, especially when it's in concert with Israel.

15:41That's not something that really any Democrat is running on. It's not something that El Sayed wants to run on. And he does talk in the way a lot of young left-wing people talk. Look at polls and look at what people think of American foreign policy in Israel if they're under 30. That's not where most voters are, though. Look at the same polls of people over 60. That is the risk that El Sayed created for himself. You've seen he's tried to dismiss him as a Twitch streamer, and Republicans just keep going back to that clip when he was much more confident of his ability to say, I'm willing to campaign with controversial people.

16:12What's wrong with that? Here's what, Aaron, what El-Sayed told Manu yesterday when he was in Washington. The reason I talked to Hassan isn't because of Hassan. It's because of the three million people who pay attention to what he has to say. And I think it's important to be able to offer those folks a pathway back into our politics. I understand that that's exciting conversation in D.C., but I would encourage you to come to places like Michigan and have conversations with people. I promise you they don't think that a streamer in California is raising the price of their gas or their groceries. You know who's doing that?

16:42The guy right down there who lives in the White House, he's doing it. I mean, I don't disagree that people are more concerned about affordability than Hassan Piker. But as Dave noted, this is a person who he chose to campaign with. You make that decision, even if it's during the primary, you think it's going to help you in the primary, maybe not so much in the general election. And you're going to own that decision moving forward. And I think that as we move forward in this campaign, we're seeing some polling that suggests that El-Sayed might be OK in Michigan. Some of the early polling was a little bit concerning for Democrats.

17:13It's gotten better since then. I think the decision to campaign with him in the primary could be one that we ultimately look back on as pretty pivotal, not just for the general election, but because maybe it helped him get over the line in the primary, which wound up being very close. So I don't think this story is going away by any means. Yeah. And listen, I think he has some decisions to make. Right. You had Debbie Dingell say she hopes that she doesn't see Hassan Piker campaigning in Michigan. You obviously hear El-Sayed saying, listen, I'm talking to the three million people that listen to him on Twitch or whatever.

17:47How many of you of those people are in Michigan? And how many of those people are the sort of independent, older white voters that he needs to actually win? So I think you're right. I mean, to the extent that he's lagging some of the other Democrats on the ballot, it's partly because of his association with Piker. I mean, listen, it's also partly because he's Muslim. Right. And he has to do some work, some sort of cross-cultural work because of that. Well, I said right to that because we have new data about that that I do want to get to. First, let's just look at the overall polling that, Aaron, you were talking about.

18:19There is a brand new poll out from The Washington Post this morning that shows El-Sayed at 48, Rogers at 45. With the margin error, it's a statistical dead heat. And then the question which kind of goes to the strategy here, perhaps by some voters who are thinking about the balance of power in Washington, what is your preference for party control in the U.S. Senate? Democratic, 53. Republican, 45. Now let's get to what you were just talking about, Nia. Would not consider voting for a presidential candidate who is atheist, 46 percent, Muslim, 45 percent, Jewish, 20 percent, Christian, 7 percent.

19:03These are Michigan voters, the people who are going to go to the polls to decide between Rogers and El-Sayed. 45 percent? Yeah. I mean, listen, Barack Obama had to deal with this, right? I mean, he had to deal with the reality that some people in 2008 were not comfortable voting for a black man for president, a black man that people thought was Muslim and all, you know, all that, all that kind of stuff. So, you know, if you listen to Abdul El-Sayed, he says, oh, there are many Abdulls in Michigan and take my name out your mouth if you can't say it correctly. But the reality is there are biases out there and he's got to figure out a way to address them.

19:42It doesn't help that he is essentially campaigning with Piker. Well, yeah, I mean, he did. One time now he's trying to distance himself-ish. It's one thing to sort of suggest that. It's another thing to say or to have respondents from this poll. Forty-five percent say they would not consider voting for a Muslim. First of all, it's just gross. Right, right. And what was the Jewish factor? I mean, the Jewish number was... It's 20%. I mean, it's gross, but that is what he's contending with. And let's also say that a lot of what Mike Rogers is campaigning on, yes, is the economy, but he's also not so subtly talking about issues that Hasan Piker talked about, about 9-11 and so forth.

20:34I mean, right after the primary ended, you saw a whole bunch of Republicans come out and basically, you know, say, Muslim, Muslim, pointing their finger at him. They were using his full first name, Abdul Rahman. Senator Tommy Tuberville called him a terrorist on X. It's not very subtle. And I would add on that poll, by the way, you make a very good point, which is that 45 % is the number of people, the percentage of people who are willing to tell a pollster that this is a problem for them. How many more people could this maybe not be a complete deal breaker with? But it's kind of in the back of their heads.

21:05And I think that's where the Piker thing comes in, because they're basically saying, look at the people he associates with. Maybe that's who he really is. All right. Coming up, Kamala Harris has the field of Democratic presidential hopefuls waiting and seeing. That's the mode they're in. Wait and see. New reporting about Harris's thinking on 2028 after a quick break.

21:33Just days after potential presidential candidate, Governor Gavin Newsom, said he wouldn't run in 2028 if Kamala Harris runs again. Harris is keeping him and the rest of the hopeful Democrats waiting. Our colleague Isaac Devere has brand new reporting, which you have to check out. In it, he says,

22:12Aaron Blake, what are you hearing from your sources about the Kamala factor? I think the Gavin Newsom comments to Jake were very interesting because I don't think a whole lot of other Democrats are necessarily going to defer to her. You know, she she was the nominee, but it's not necessarily a situation where she's kind of the 800 pound gorilla that's going to scare everybody off. And I think there's going to be some real consternation within the party about whether she should be the nominee. I think there will be some encouragement for other people to step forward and maybe even some strategizing about who is best to prevent her from becoming the nominee.

22:48So it's a very interesting balancing act for the party that we don't see a whole lot just because she was the nominee for a couple of months late in that campaign. See, I think he said he's deferring to her, but he said it because he doesn't think she's going to run. Yeah, I think that's definitely right. And if so, then it's smart. Yeah, right. So he, you know, is a gracious person. And they did come up together and they know all the same people. They have the same donors. Just a little bit more from Isaac's story. This is a quote from a major donor to him on Harris making calls. Nobody who is a serious donor looking for their presidential candidate is waiting to get a phone call from Kamala saying, I'm running.

23:29She's not in the conversation at all. Yeah, you know, anytime I see a story about Kamala Harris in 2028, I feel like she should have run for California governor, you know, to the extent that she still wants to have a political future, you know, sort of. And then she would have to be California governor. She'd have to be California governor. I think that's right, which was probably her thinking. But it would at least give her sort of a new look and a chance to reset herself because she is so tied to Biden, so tied to what Democrats want to move away from. I mean, and some of that is the fact that she's a black woman.

24:02Right. I mean, I think there is a sort of quiet consensus among Democrats that in 2028, go with the straight white guy, that Trump lost two or Trump beat two women. Right. In both of his in both of his campaigns and wasn't ever able to meet beat a man. And so I think that's where you are. There's sort of this sense that let's go with a centrist. Let's stay away from what doomed us in 2024. And she obviously is the face of that. She is being invited on the campaign trail, especially in places where she is incredibly popular still with black women. It's just one of the examples. She's going to go campaign with El Syed.

24:45That is a state where obviously he believes she can help. I believe also going to campaign with Ossoff, John Ossoff in Georgia, also a place where the black vote and others who still very much still like Kamala Harris will come out and think twice about the candidate on the ballot if they hear from her. Yes. So that's that's what you hear from other other Democrats is that they do not want to do anything that looks like they're insulting the first black female presidential nominee, who is very popular, who is. I remember going to Al Sharpton's conference months ago. The line to see her speak started hours before she spoke when she said she was running for president.

25:22There was an ovation. There are a lot of people who think that she was wronged, but they're not they're not afraid of pointing out negative things about her. not just to that she lost, but for example, a number of people who might work for 2028 Democrats have pointed out, did you notice her 2024 platform included a tax break for data centers? Did you notice that? Just as a preview of ways they might try to undermine her. And so they have South Carolina in their mind, first primary state will be again, and they don't want to look like they're insulting her. None are afraid they would be able to beat her.

25:51They just have a lot of confidence in her skills. And they think that those black voters, it's not just that she's not a white guy. It's that she is, as again, first black female candidate for president, underperformed Joe Biden with black voters, underperformed Joe Biden with Asian voters, underperformed Joe Biden with Hispanic voters. They just don't think she has the political skill to get through a primary. Yeah. I mean, the economy didn't help, which the president is seeing right now. We'll see how that plays out. Up next, after 40 years in office, Nancy Pelosi will be leaving Washington, D.C.

26:23in January. But will the candidate she endorsed to win her seat win in her campaign to replace Pelosi? She's here next.

26:40In January, for the first time in nearly 40 years, San Francisco will not be represented by Nancy Pelosi. The first female Speaker of the House announced she would retire at the end of this term, setting off a fierce primary to take her seat. Now two Democrats will compete to succeed Pelosi in November. Connie Chan, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, won the Speaker's endorsement. Supervisor Chan joins me now. Thank you so much for being here, especially here in Washington. As I mentioned, you have the strong support of former Speaker Pelosi. That support wasn't enough to help you finish first in what is effectively a ranked choice or jungle primary during the primary season in California, State Senator Scott Wiener led you by 11 points.

27:30Why will November be different? Well, Diana, thank you so much for having me. It is great to be here. Let me just say this as a working mom, first generation immigrant, I know what it takes to make sure that families and working people can have a break and can get a break because we absolutely need it right now and it's what San Franciscans are looking for as many know that San Francisco has been a very expensive city. Many people are now trying to figure out how to pay rent, how to pay utility bills and grocery spills, but I'm sure that you know there's actually a very same issue and challenge that face across the nation and that's the difference of what we're facing right now as a candidate running for general election that many people, once they hear about us and who we are and what we're about and really our working people's plan, they said they're on board.

28:26But how is that different from Scott Wiener, who's also a Democrat? Yeah, I mean, I think that many knows that we, where I'm not a corporate Democrat, we do not take any corporate PAC. We are really a labor Democrat and in San Francisco, endorsed by the San Francisco Labor Council and the only candidate in this race endorsed by teachers, nurses, and firefighters because we know in San Francisco at this moment we've got to make sure that working people can actually make a living and thrive. They cannot just work two jobs and still cannot make the ends meet. When they hear about us, we have a poll actually also showing how we actually are closing that gap as soon as they hear about us.

29:10As I mentioned, the former speaker is very much supporting you. How much are you, frankly, relying on her support to get over the finish line? Oh, I mean, absolutely her endorsement has changed the tie. She's amazing. I mean, she's the legend of not just in San Francisco, but also, I believe, across the nation and the influence that she has. But I think at the end of the day, it is actually about San Franciscans. This is about what they are looking for in the next generation of representatives. Okay, so currently you are, as I mentioned,

29:44a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, which for people who don't know has a lot of power over what happens in San Francisco. Housing is a huge issue in San Francisco. It's nearly impossible for working families to be there. I personally have friends who had to move out of the city starting a young family because they couldn't afford a place to live. you were against a proposition to expedite new housing development. Some of your critics say that you're the most reliable no on housing. I know you support housing preservation to help keep existing San Francisco's in their homes, but why not new housing?

30:21Oh, we absolutely need more new housing, and we need to build housing that people can actually afford. But at this moment, too, though, we actually, what we're seeing is people say, how can I stay housed? How can I stay in the city that I love? But why not both? We can absolutely do both. And we've been doing both. And we also see that it is so much more than just building new housing. We have to make sure that people actually have living wage. Healthcare has been the most burdensome cause of every single household that I know. It's the reason why, as a budget committee chair, we put$1.3 billion on reserve to safeguard cuts that Trump actually put in place for healthcare.

31:01We make sure that we have affordable child care. We are funding that. It's one of the most burdensome costs, too, for a lot of families. Why did you vote no against the proposition to expedite new housing? Well, the reality is that very law does not actually allow us to protect the tenants and small business that's already there. And I think that we can actually do both. We can actually protect the tenants and small business and build new housing. I think that they're not mutually exclusive. Before I let you go, if you do win and become a representative in Congress, will you vote for Hakeem Jeffries for speaker if you take control?

31:38Well, actually, not only Hakeem Jeffries, any candidate for the speakership will have to earn my vote because I represent San Francisco. I need to make sure that my votes reflect the San Francisco value. That's not a yes. Yeah. I mean, I think that is to be a conversation. You know, I think that I'm open-minded and I certainly hope... What's your reservation? You know, I think that, again, it's really about San Francisco. And they really want to see that Democrats have a strategy to not only fight Trump, but also deliver for the working people. And I think that they deserve to know, before ICASA votes for speakership, that they deserve to know, I deserve to know, that there's a plan in place.

32:20Connie Chan, thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Appreciate it. And we have invited California State Senator Scott Wiener to come on Inside Politics. We hope he does soon. Up next, why is a Trump-tied Super PAC spending big in a district that a Democrat has never won? Wait until you see what the ad is about.

32:47There is one certainty with just 47 days until the midterms. Political ads are everywhere. So let's talk about a few that stuck out to us this week. First, it was only a matter of time before we started to see ads like this one. This is from Democratic Senator Mark Warner. I helped launch the cell phone revolution, but AI is bigger. Yes, it can help cure disease and create new industries, but it also means security risks, job loss, and new threats for kids. My plan? Require AI models are safe before they're deployed. Demand these trillion-dollar companies help workers train and transition to new jobs.

33:26Aaron? It's very interesting because I've been kind of asking myself over the last couple of weeks whether Democrats would really go hard on this issue. There is a lane open for a very populist campaign, especially in light of President Trump just bear-hugging these AI companies and basically saying, we're not going to regulate that. We need to let these companies run wild and do what they need to do to compete with China. If you look at the polling, the American people are quite concerned about the rise of AI. They're getting more concerned, especially when they hear things like we heard this last week about the people at these companies worrying about this, you know, killing off humanity.

34:07So there is an issue there for Democrats. It doesn't seem like they really want to go full AI doomerism right now. But I think you're going to start seeing ads like that one from Mark Warner, where they're really emphasizing regulation in a way that the Trump administration just is not right now. So that's that part of the AI debate. Then, of course, there's data centers. This one stuck out to us because it is a Trump linked Republican super PAC running an ad against a Democrat in a district that the Republican who's running won by 14 percentage points two years ago. Watch this. Jessica Killen is profiting off companies pushing for data centers, the ones sucking up water and driving up electric bills, paying a firm run by Killen's husband, hundreds of thousands.

34:54Liberal lobbyist Jessica Killen. Wrong for Colorado. So two issues here. One is just the substance of this ad. And second is the existence of this ad, that the Trump-backed super PAC is spending money in a place that should be reliably read. Right. And the issue that they're doing on being data centers, because they are seeing the same data that we're all seeing, which this is a bipartisan angst that voters have about data centers. And you see some of these shifts happening among Republican politicians. Greg Abbott all of a sudden saying, oh, what about these data centers? maybe it isn't such a great idea.

35:34A similar kind of thing is going on in Wisconsin with sort of the Republicans there running anti-data center ads against the Democratic there. So this is just a fast-moving political dynamic that's shifting and is bipartisan. And there's some lane that's open for the populist approach. What does it say to you that Republicans are spending money? I mean, we've talked this week about Kansas. We've talked this week about Nebraska. These are not places where Republicans wanted to use a very large war chest. I guess they've got it. Yeah, listen, this is a very, very difficult environment for Republicans because of the economy, because of Donald Trump's approach to almost everything, right?

36:13That he isn't really focused on what Americans want him to focus on. He's more focused on the Kennedy Center. He's sort of ignoring the soaring gas prices. I think he was in North Carolina essentially saying, oh, you know, you can handle it. And guess what? Americans can't handle it. And if you look in these different states where these Republicans powered him to office, these coalitions are framed. There's not enough of the sort of enthusiasm. And Donald Trump isn't on the ballot at this point. Talk about somebody who has gobs of money to spend and then there'll be gobs left forever. Elon Musk, who said he was leaving the White House doing doge and he's done with politics and now he's back in politics a little bit.

36:54He's got to pack. And the ads that he's running are familiar to you probably because it's the theme, the culture war issue that he pushed two years ago. Brown put the trans agenda ahead of Ohio's values. Sherrod Brown voted to let biological men play women's sports. He supported legislation to allow biological men to enter women's locker rooms and bathrooms. God is non-binary. James Tallarico believes there are six genders. Tallarico voted to let men play women's sports and for taxpayer funded sex changes on kids. We know that this is a personal issue for Elon Musk. He's very clear about it. But the question is whether this is still an issue with the economic anxiety that so many people have for people enough that they'll go to the polls for a Republican on this versus how they're feeling about their bank account.

37:50Yes. And these are both states where Republicans passed the gender legislation they went to several years ago. So the situations they're talking about in these ads are not happening. And they don't have what everyone will tell you, the connective tissue of the they them ad that the Trump campaign ran in 2024 against Kamala Harris was she's so focused on them. She's not focused on your pocketbook, et cetera. What is the Republican answer on the pocketbook? But what is the connectivity? So in Ohio, not Brown so much, but the Democrat nominee for governor has said she is not going to overturn the state's gender law.

38:21You saw Gina Hinoosa in Texas say the same thing. And Tallarico has backed up a little. I think it's interesting that the groups that are working on these issues have also not jumped and demanded that they change their positions back to what they were saying in 2020. It might be less effective because the environment's changed. One Democrat I was talking to yesterday said it's usually our party that fights the last campaign and gets it wrong. And it seems like they're doing it now. Well, at least Elon Musk is. Thank you all so much. Learned a lot from you. Thank you for joining Inside Politics.

38:52CNN News Central starts after a quick break.

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